e-cards

I must recommend cyranet cards. What they lack in aesthetic beauty, they more than make for in text. Choose from messages like

Congratulations on selling out. They say you can actually see the moment when the soul leaves the body.

It's not a commitment thing, I just like to be able to pick up and emigrate whenever I please.

Thinking of you. Not all the time, but you're in the rotation.

Your ability to find a Simpsons quote for every situation is very endearing. Someday, you might find the same enthusiasm for something I want to talk about.

I really love this site.

The coolest thing I've seen in a long time

Did you know that you can turn your own photos into legal postage stamps? Well, you can. The Fixer says he's going to have his wife take a picture of his ass and use it to pay all of his bills. Myself, I need to mull the possibilities. I'm thinking I may have to start complaining to my representatives via post rather than email. Perhaps a Munch-inspired interpretation of the Scream...

You've got to admire...

...the ability to pun in the face of everything.



You know some NYPost writer is pretty pleased with him/herself today.

Some things they shouldn't need words for

Another fine item from ResourceShelf: The New Oxford American Dictionary's list of newly added words. I know it is an indicator of my excessive geekiness but I do love things like this. In my very quick scan of these newly added lovelies, I was surprised to find that "vaginoplasty" has nineteenth-century origins. Who knew? I myself had never heard of such a thing before I moved to Los Angeles, the would-you-like-fries-with your-apocalypse? capital of the world. (The LA Weekly being replete with plastic surgery ads, including a host of possible places to get your next vaginoplasty. Ew)

Other fabulous additions:

af·flu·en·za • n. a psychological malaise supposedly affecting wealthy young people, symptoms of which include a lack of motivation, feelings of guilt, and a sense of isolation.
ORIGIN: 1970s: blend of affluent and influenza.

ge·net·ic pol·lu·tion • n. the spread of altered genes from genetically engineered organisms to other, nonengineered organisms, especially by cross-pollination.

per·ma·temp • another term for permalancer.
ORIGIN: a blend of permanent and temporary.

sec·ond·hand speech • n. conversation on a cellular phone that is overheard by people nearby: I was alternately amused and annoyed by the secondhand speech in the waiting room.

start·er mar·riage • n. a short-lived first marriage between young people that produces no offspring.

sym·pa·thet·ic smok·er • n. a person who smokes only in the company of another smoker

And so on.

We don't need no stinking textbooks!

Forgive me, but does it not figure that Texas is home to the cutting edge decision to eliminate books from the undergraduate library (at U Texas Austin). Have I mentioned how grateful I am that I no longer teach? (Thanks to ResourceShelf for the link.)

Self-government for dummies

Recently a friend of mine was complaining about the "For Dummies" books. "I don't get it," he said, "Why are they so popular. Why can't they come out with a 'for regular people' series or something." I'm sure you can guess my reply--that in fact, the dummies series was for regular people, the problem being, not the book series but the population at large.

Now it seems Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt has published his tacit agreement. Boldtype's review of Frankfurt's On Bullshit includes this:

According to Frankfurt, bullshit is more potentially treacherous than its closest relative, the lie. While the lie necessarily gives a nod to the truth in the very act of denying it, bullshit doesn't bother with the truth at all. It's beside the bullshitter's point whether her statements are true or false. It is this "indifference to how things really are" that defines bullshit, making its prevalence in popular and political arenas so very frightening.

At the top of Frankfurt's bullshit list is American-style democracy. In a system that proclaims it is the duty of every citizen to vote, uninformed constituents resort to haphazard, eeny-meeny-miney-mo decisions--in other words, they bullshit their way through. And the politicians they elect, in turn, appear on television spewing political quackery and vague platitudes, feeding the entire nation with heaps of baloney.

The "book," which is little more than a glorified pamphlet is selling something like 50 copies a day and has been reprinted 10 times in a few months. The Guardian has this from Frankfurt:

"I was surprised when they said they wanted to publish it as a book because I didn't think there was enough there for a book. But my editor said: "You can do a lot with page sizes and margins."

The irony just kills me.

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." James Bovard

Hard work

From Cindy Sheehan's November 4 letter to the president:

George, let me tell you what "hard work" really is.

Hard work is seeing your oldest son, your brave and honorable man-child go off to a war that had, and still has, no basis in reality. Hard work is worrying yourself gray and not being able to sleep for 2 weeks because you don’t know if your child is safe.

Hard work is seeing your son’s murder on CNN one Sunday evening while you’re enjoying the last supper you'll ever truly enjoy again.

Hard work is having three military officers come to your house a few hours later to confirm the aforementioned murder of your son…your first born…your kind and gentle sweet baby.

Hard work is burying your child 46 days before his 25th birthday. Hard work is holding your other three children as they lower the body of their big “baba” into the ground. Hard work is not jumping in the grave with him and having the earth cover you both.

But, Dear George, do you know what the hardest work of all is? Trying to digest the fact that the leader of the country that your family has fought for and died for, for generations, lied to you and betrayed your dear boy’s sense of honor and exploited his courage and exploited his loyalty to his buddies. Hard work is having your country abandon you after they killed your son. Hard work is coming to the realization that your son had his future robbed from him and that you have had your son's future and future grand-children stolen from you. Hard work is knowing that there are so many people in this world that have prospered handsomely from your son's death.

I don't know how he sleeps at night. I really don't.

Thanks to the Alternate Brain for the post.

Saturday night

Rook asks:

Black coffee, The Beatles and Blogging. Could there be a better way to spend Saturday evening? If there is, do not tell me, I am enjoying this moment and do not want it spoiled

Since it's now Monday, I don't feel like I'm spoiling anything by saying...yeah.

I spent Saturday night watching Treasure of the Sierra Madre at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which screens classic films summer Saturday nights against the side of the mausoleum. Picnic dinner of humus, fresh pita, sugar snap peas, strawberries, Danish feta, and homemade chocolate chip cookies followed by this.

You know, the worst ain't so bad when it finally happens. Not half as bad as you figure it will be before it's happened.

And happy birthday, Rook.

Could it be gloomier today?

I don't think so.

It feels like quadruple Monday. I am grateful I work in a lowrise building with windows that don't open--that's the kind of day it feels like.

And can we talk for just a minute about the Ministry of Truth's complaints against Newsweek? For those of you who have been on a news blackout, Newsweek has apologized for errors in a story about Guantanamo Bay, a story which included the now-disputed allegation that Gitmo torture staff flushed a Koran down the toilet. Now the Pentagon and White House are demanding a retraction of the entire story:

In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the original story was "demonstrably false" and "irresponsible," and "had significant consequences that reverberated throughout Muslim communities around the world."

"Newsweek hid behind anonymous sources, which by their own admission do not withstand scrutiny," Whitman said. "Unfortunately, they cannot retract the damage they have done to this nation or those that were viciously attacked by those false allegations."

Um....hello!!!! HELLO OUT THERE?! Information from anonymous sources that doesn't withstand scrutiny? Resulting carnage? Massive disruption of Muslim communities? Is this ringing a bell for anyone?

This is like Gaslight on a national scale. I really sometimes think I'm going insane when I listen to NPR.

Update: See Corrente for the eight zillion other press citings of the unconfirmed facts in the Newsweek story. For fuck's sake, the whole thing is so disgusting words cannot even form an effective commentary. Damaging our reputation abroad and harming our efforts to improve our image indeed. The mind fucking boggles; it really does.

Quote of the week

After School Snack has been rocking lately. First there was the post about Russ Meyer movies that could make government budget processes more exciting, then this weekend we have Chris's rant:

One troglodytic Mtkan gets two choice quotes. First, he asks, "Our education system is the envy of the world... Why would we want to subordinate that to some organization connected with the United Nations?" One might ask who exactly envies our high schools, which consistently rank outside the upper tier of industrialized nations, but never mind - the real issue emerges with his statement that "my fear is that my kids are going to be taught America isn't better than any other country in the world."

Oh. My. God. I feel like cutting my frontal lobe out and spelling "cui bono" in brain splatter. Better how? Better for whom? Better at what? Perish those questions.

I'm sure it's not a sign of anything good inside me that the idea of verbalizing my disgust with frontal lobe brain splatter seems really appealing.

Moral values

Okay, let me make sure I'm getting this. It seems that Hager sodomized his narcoleptic wife repeatedly over a period of years. Bolton forced his wife to get gang banged. And Tom DeLay says the Democrats have "no class."

Um okay.

Go read Shakespeare's Sister, from whom all of the above information comes. She's on a roll.

Me, I'm crawling back under my rock.

Never mind "cross-cultural +panties +knickers"

My new favorite search term via which someone found NMTE is "sacco and vanzetti's pet dog," which Andrea and I both agree sounds like a forthcoming Michael Chabon novel. Andrea, by the way, has determined that Sacco and Vanzetti need to be the names of her next pair of cats, which is as good as Becky's cats' names, Terence and Phillip, if in a different way.

And then I am wondering if there's some relationship between Schroedinger's cat and Sacco and Vanzetti's pet dog.

Why it is risky to be friends with photographers

WaPo tells the tale of Diane Arbus' subjects lo these many years later:

"We thought it was the worst likeness of the twins we'd ever seen," whispers Bob Wade, the girls' father. He and his daughters are visiting the Met exhibit one recent afternoon and at the moment are standing a few feet from "Identical twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967," the image that is clearly the star of this show. It's featured on the publicity photo and there's a bench nearby so visitors can sit and stare.



"I mean it resembles them," Wade continues. "But we've always been baffled that she made them look ghostly. None of the other pictures we have of them looks anything like this."

Link courtesy of Chris, who has immortalized my own 21-year-old self.

Quote of the day

Via Bitch. Ph.D. comes this gem from the president of CNN, Jonathan Klein.

Brooke Gladstone's interview with Klein focuses on the question of the "runaway bride" story and what happened to CNN's promise of more rigorous journalism after Klein assumed the role of president.

Klein: If you were listening to me, Brooke, you would have heard me say that on some days, that story that we decide to focus on will be the runaway bride. On other days, the story will be the spread of democracy in Lebanon.

Well, that clarifies things a lot for me, Jon. More rigorous journalism--sometimes. And I love his attempted smear: "Who are you to argue with 'the people...'"

Argh.

Things that make your whole morning better

Was greeted this morning by an unexpected gift from a friend propped on my keyboard: a copy of William Hazlitt's On the Pleasure of Hating:

The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to rankling spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness, and narrow, jealous, inquisitorial watchfulness over the actions and motives of others. What have the different sects, creeds, doctrines in religion been but so many pretexts set up for men to wrangle, to quarrel, to tear one another in pieces about, like a target as a mark to shoot at? Does any one suppose that the love of country in an Englishman implies any friendly feeling or disposition to serve another, bearing the same name? No, it means only hatred to the French, or the inhabitants of any other country that we happen to be at war with for the time.

And so, I really think it will be a good day today.

Getting things under control

From the latest issue of ACLU online. You can read more about their appearance before the House Intelligence Committee here.

Playing with your food

So today I had planned to post about all sorts of things, including but not limited to the extraordinarily disturbing Force Ministries that Yelladog called my attention to, the fact that the Santa Anas make me feel like total kaka, and Working Families information about CAFTA. But here it is 5:00 and I am leaving to go to the Farmers Market with nary a word on any of the above. It's been a busy day.

Never mind free trade agreements and the fact that people think the word of god is best delivered from the barrel of a gun, what I do want to take a moment and say is that I find the avant-garde foodie movement really silly. I posted a few months ago about how silly I find inkjet maki, but apparently that's only the tip of the absurd food iceberg. Today's NYT has the story on a host of restaurants that are "deconstructing" food, turning bacon into sculpture, deep frying mayonnaise, and liquefying olives:

Mr. Bowles has been known to serve crushed Altoids instead of mint jelly with lamb and to present diners with lollipops of foie gras encrusted with Pop Rocks. His cooking typifies another facet of this cuisine: the way it recruits junk food into the service of fancier dishes or creates highbrow versions of lowbrow classics.

"Why not go to the store and get the curiously strong mint?" Mr. Bowles said in a telephone interview, going on to reject "that horribly boring quote, 'I love to use farm-fresh products and local ingredients and European technique.'"

On the opening night of Alinea, the name of which refers to a symbol for a fresh train of thought, the first course was a visually nifty riff on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich: a peeled, heated grape, still on a sprig, that had been dipped in a peanut purée and encased in a thin layer of brioche.

. . .

There was some harmless fun at Moto, where a dish called McSweetbreads presented three pieces of sweetbreads impaled on plastic pipettes that squirted versions of dipping sauces for Chicken McNuggets.

It's wrong, people; it's really just wrong. If you're going to obsess over food, please do so properly. This is like saying you're obsessed with sex but preferring an anatomy textbook to the Kama Sutra.

There is no excuse to ever eat something called "McSweetbreads." Ever.

Almost makes up for some of the other stuff

Someone found my blog by searching for "cross-cultural+panties+knickers," which almost makes up for some of the truly disgusting searches for which I seem to rank high in the returns. Note to pedophiles: if you found my blog by searching for anything related to 11-year-old virgins, do yourself a favor, log off the Internet, call your healthcare provider and find out how you can get some help for yourself.

Redistribution of wealth

I am often asked, by my less politically minded acquaintances, what I mean when I say "I'm a leftist; not a liberal." One of my oversimplified, in-a-nutshell explanations is that I am in favor of an income ceiling and a complete redistribution of wealth.

Krugman's Monday column makes it clear that Bush, too, is in favor of redistributing wealth:

Let's consider the Bush tax cuts and the Bush benefit cuts as a package. Who gains? Who loses?

Suppose you're a full-time Wal-Mart employee, earning $17,000 a year. You probably didn't get any tax cut. But Mr. Bush says, generously, that he won't cut your Social Security benefits.

Suppose you're earning $60,000 a year. On average, Mr. Bush cut taxes for workers like you by about $1,000 per year. But by 2045 the Bush Social Security plan would cut benefits for workers like you by about $6,500 per year. Not a very good deal.

Suppose, finally, that you're making $1 million a year. You received a tax cut worth about $50,000 per year. By 2045 the Bush plan would reduce benefits for people like you by about $9,400 per year. We have a winner!

I'm not being unfair. In fact, I've weighted the scales heavily in Mr. Bush's favor, because the tax cuts will cost much more than the benefit cuts would save. Repealing Mr. Bush's tax cuts would yield enough revenue to call off his proposed benefit cuts, and still leave $8 trillion in change.

I think I'm going to have to work on nuancing my explanations a bit.

From the mouths' of pastors

The Smoking Gun has posted a selection of the 1000 letters sent to Duluth, GA administrators concerning the runaway bride case: What to do? Charge her? Forgive her? Fine her? Most of them are the sort of fare you would expect.

But, to my own surprise, Pastor Mick Murphy captures some of my thoughts pretty well:

As a pastor with almost 30 years of experience, I want to suggest something: I'm surprised this woman didn't run away earlier. From what I understand, six hundred people were going to be packed into a church to see a small circus. Over ten bridesmaids were going to troop up and down and this after, what was it? eight showers in one week. Not to mention flowers, DJ's, video people, cheap-skate uncles and aunts in bad hats dripping with fake Dogwood blossoms.

. . .

Look, welcome her home, wish her well, and get over it. Read the paper, Bubbas. We have people trying to kill us. Your neighboring state of Florida has declared hunting season on women and children. From what I understand of Georgia, your racial tension still simmers beneath the surface. The nation's economy is in the toilet and an idiot is in the White House writing jokes for his wife, a woman whose distant relative slammed into the Titanic and sank it. You people have better things to do with your time than get even with a girl who, in the long run, might have done us all a favor by making us see what an idiotic past time a formal wedding really is. The vows, the preacher, the license are all important. The rest is just marshmallow fluff. Which goes great on sweet tater's but that's about it.

Okay, I'm not really down with the preacher and license being all that important, but I'm on board for the marshmallow fluff.

The email forward we'd like to get

Thanks to S for the heads-up on this week's New Yorker column listing fun hoaxes:

Go to a frozen-yogurt shop, order a medium cup of vanilla, and then punch your index finger through the bottom of the cup so there appears to be a human finger in the yogurt. After demanding to see the manager, threaten to sue the yogurt chain for ten million dollars, making sure to tell him that you know Larry King. Note: Keep your finger very still during all of this, because if it wiggles even slightly this hoax has no chance whatsoever.

Order a bowl of chili at a fast-food restaurant. When the chili arrives, angrily complain that there is no human finger in the chili, despite the fact that you specifically ordered one. In the ensuing argument with the manager, shout the words "chili" and "human finger" for all in the store to hear. You will probably not get ten million dollars this time, but if you play your cards right the manager may pay you a little something just to get you to leave.

. . .

Convince the leaders of the world’s only superpower that a Middle Eastern nation is loaded to the gills with weapons of mass destruction. Tell them that some broken-down old vans there are "mobile weapons labs," and persuade them to spend billions of dollars on an invasion and an occupation. After they scour the country for the weapons and come up empty, shrug your shoulders sympathetically and take over the oil ministry.

Good stuff.

Today's news

So I was thinking about what a frivolous blogger I've become lately. I seem to be eschewing most political commentary in favor of insights that amount to "neat-o, huh?" Then, listening to the radio this morning, it occurred to me that it really could have been a rebroadcast of last week's news or last month's and I wouldn't be the wiser:

Car bombs kill lots of people in Iraq

Bush is still pushing to decimate Social Security despite the fact that most people think that's a horrible idea.

The Republicans are trying to change Congress' rules and accusing the Democrats of being partisan for objecting.

Religious fanatics are taking away my rights.

And so on. I think the lack of novelty is wearing on me. I'm running out of ways to say "I hate Bush and the radical right for trying to destroy so much of what I value in my country and government." I mean there are only so many synonyms for "fuck you."

Some things are just not a good idea

Here's a really bad idea, courtesy of WaPo's recent story about my last "hometown," Madison, WI:

On this day, blind people representing various organizations are spread in a circle at tables beneath the Capitol dome. I approach Ralph Barten of Ladysmith, Wis., who is representing the Wisconsin Coalition of Blind Hunters. Sure, people who are blind can hunt in Wisconsin, Barten tells me. In fact, he says, last year the state legalized the use of laser pointers on guns and bows for blind hunters.

What you do is take a sighted companion, who describes where the animal is, and you shoot it. With a laser, it's a lot easier for the sighted person to know when you've got your shot lined up right.

"Some companions just say, 'There's a deer to the right,'" says Barten. "But good companions can make it really exciting, with great descriptions of what's happening."

When I lived in Wisconsin, every year a smattering of people would die from shooting each other in the woods during hunting season and from driving their ATVs across thawing ice after last call. I'm not much of a social Darwinist, but I'm really thinking "natural selection."

Here's another great bit from the article:

The magazines and trade associations that rank cities for one thing or another constantly mention Madison, Wis. A visitors bureau handout lists 65 accolades from recent years, including "Best Places to Live in America" (Money magazine), "Best Walking Cities" (Prevention) and "Best College Sports Town" (Sports Illustrated).

According to America's list makers, Madison is also one of the friendliest, best-designed, healthiest, most literate, best-wired little cities in the country, with the best biking, canoeing and hotel rooms under $125.

It takes Michael Feldman, who hosts the public radio show "Whad'Ya Know?" from Madison's convention center, to put the boosterism into perspective.

"If you don't factor in the weather, Madison is number one for everything," says Feldman. "If you do consider weather, it's 159th."

Have I mentioned how much I love LA?

Geekier than thou

Okay, despite being at least as geeky as Yelladog and Norbizness, Yella tagged me for this one. (By way of explanation, Yelladog's post starts: "Norbizness does what the geeky guys like us who always get picked last for kickball do. We just say 'Fuck it, no one has to tap me for this quiz. I tap myself.'")

A. Top Five Lyrics that Move Your Heart:

1. Famous Blue Raincoat--Leonard Cohen
It's four in the morning, the end of december
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
New york is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on clinton street all through the evening.

I hear that you’re building your little house deep in the desert
You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record.

2. Don't Go Back to Rockville--REM (A natural for anyone who grew up in Rockville)
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend
I don’t care if you’re not here with me
'Cause it's so much easier to handle
All my problems if I'm too far out to sea

3. Fourth of July--X
On the lost side of town
in a dark apartment
we gave up trying so long ago

4. Just Like Anyone--Aimee Mann (the whole damn album has great lyrics really)
So maybe I wasn't
that good a friend
but you were one of us
and I will wonder
just like anyone
if there was something
else I could've done

So maybe it's true that
your cry for help
was oh, so very faint
but still I heard
and knew something was wrong
just nothing you could put your finger on
and I will wonder
just like anyone
just like anyone

5. Wish You Were Here--Pink Floyd
And did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

B. Top 5 Instrumentals:

Oy, I can't even really answer this one. How lame is that. I like the Cocteau Twins and Killing Joke and some other bands that are more music than words (Felt, etc.). I love the soundtrack to Betty Blue. But you know, for the most part I'm a rock and roll kind of gal. And a word person.

C. Top 5 Live Musical Experiences:

1. The show that most changed my life was my first real punk show in a club: the Dead Kennedies and Half Japanese at the 9:30 club in Washington, DC, December 1980 (or thereabouts). That was when I realized "hey, I'm not depressed--I'm angry!" Within a month I had a skinhead girl hairdo and was wearing private schoolgirl kilts, combat boots, and homemade band tees all the time.

2. Sharing a joint with Ranking Roger at the English Beat show at the Ontario (1981? 82? somewhere in there).

3. Seeing Iggy Pop at Hammerjacks in Baltimore (a club immortalized in John Waters' Serial Mom where L7 played as the fictitious band Camel Lips). Hammerjacks is a total Baltimore heavy metal club and the women's room at the Iggy show was astonishing to me--a sort of anthropological experience. More aquanet (and vinyl hipboots) than you can imagine. If you'd lit a cigarette in there, the whole place would have gone up in flames.

4. Hunters and Collectors at the 9:30 club. I don't remember when this was--maybe 1984. They were a huge band playing in a club with a tiny stage--horns, more than one percussionist and a found object "drum" set that included an automobile exhaust system.

5. Okay, I know this is the one that's going to make all of the hipsters stop talking to me. But I admit seeing Hole, Veruca Salt, and Mazzy Star (sometime in the late 90s in Madison, WI) was one of the most notable shows I've been to. Watching Courtney Love punch a fan in the eye and then bring him on stage to apologize for grabbing her tit--what can I say--it was memorable. As a runner-up I offer the 1980 or 81 punk rock show at Arlington's Branding Iron Beef House (the bands I remember are Madhouse and No Trend, but there were others). This one was notable because they called the cops on us--I think because it was a straight edge show and they weren't making alcohol money. Multiple cop cars, a paddy wagon and a K9 car all came to break up a show that was only one step up from a party in someone's parents' house basement. Pretty funny.

D. Top Five Artists You Think More People Should Listen To:
Yes, I know--I am old. These are pretty much all defunct bands. What can I say? They are still worth listening to.

1. Scrawl. Three women from Ohio. I like 'em a lot. They just aren't well known.

2. Hunters and Collectors

3. Unrest

4. The Go-Betweens (who are the one band actually in existence on this list). What can I say--I love pop music. Anyway, I didn't realize they were touring until finding their link. Come to realize they're coming to the Troubadour next month. Fun.

5. X-Ray Spex. Okay, I know a lot of people do listen to them, but more people should. How can you not love little Polystyrene singing "Oh Bondage, Up Yours" with braces on her teeth.

E. Top Five Albums You Must Hear From Start to Finish:

1. Okay, I know this one will probably surprise some of you, but Quadrophenia is definitely one of the five.

2. Faith--The Cure (music to slit your wrists by, I know)

3. Closer--Joy Division

4. White Light/White Heat--Velvet Underground

5. The Fan and the Bellows--The Chameleons

F. Top Five Musical Heroes:

1. David Bowie. Anyone who can inspire my ardor/crush consistently over a 25-year period deserves hero status.

2. Lou Reed. I just love him, okay?

3. Iggy Pop. He wins my survivor award. That he could still have so much energy and be so buff after living the life he's lived is pretty incredible.

4. Ian MacKaye. What can I say--I'm from DC.

5. Exene. Because she's just so fucking cool.

I'm tagging Prof. B and Elise and Chris--that is unless they've already been tagged--an unfortunate possibility when you are the last kid to get picked for the softball team.

The scene tonight

In the checkout line at Follow Your Heart. The cashier says to the guy in front of me, "So do you get recognized often?" The guy in front of me says, "All the time." The cashier says, "Yeah, I was going to go up to you when you were in the store, but then I figured I'd just wait until you came up here."

Myself, I restrained the urge to say, "Who the fuck are you? I have no earthly idea."

I did ask the cashier after he left. Apparently he's some Fear Factor guy (his name already escapes me). I suspect I am turning into my dad, who had a studied ignorance about pop culture ("The Beatles...who are they" kind of thing). I was better at recognizing politicians when I was in DC than I am at recognizing stars in LA. I only ever know I've had a star sighting because someone else tells me so. On the other hand, when I ran into Russ Feingold in DC National Airport, I had to go up to him and tell him how much I admired him. Pretty funny.

Amityville Horror

Okay, I know that it's symptomatic of something really wrong with me that I am compelled to mention this rotten movie in two separate posts, but I forgot to note below the one semi-interesting thing about the movie. I didn't notice when the first version came out lo' those many years ago, what a critique of the American dream the movie is. It's pretty funny. They buy this house because it's a bargain and it's their dream house. Then they can't move because "everything we have is in this house." Mr. Family Man goes nuts and becomes increasingly psychotic and scary and whenever Mrs. Family Woman tries to talk to him he rolls his eyes around like a spooked horse and says things like, "This is the life we've dreamed of."

Me? I'm a renter, thank you very much.

Hot off the Internets

What do Mike Nichols, Walter Cronkite, John Cusack, Tina Brown, and David Mamet have in common? They all have posts on the new Huffington Post. Interesting...

Botero does Abu Ghraib

Art for a Change has the story of Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib series. The fifty paintings were inspired more by the written descriptions of the torture than the images. The exhibit opens in Rome, travels to Germany and then will come to the United States wherever someone is brave enough to host it.


(Thanks to Chris for the link)

And now for something completely different

It's raining today. I'm thinking that puts us less than an inch from breaking the all-time record. It feels very much like a rainy Monday here at work--the kind of day that makes you think: Is something retrograde or what?

I have a couple of posts coming down the chute today at last. In the meantime, let me confess that I went to see Amityville Horror last night (it seemed like a reasonable way to commemorate Mothers Day). In the theater was an entire family including small children and baby. Truly an amazing choice for a family film, I need to say. B and I marveled at why on earth you would want to take small children to a movie in which the entire dramatic action is motivated by a demonically possessed stepfather who wants to murder the children. Pretty incredible.

Solitude

My houseguest is gone and I have spent the day reading, eating strawberries with brown sugar, napping, and tidying my apartment. I don't know when I became a person who needs so much solitude--I grew up in a family. I had brothers and sisters. I shared a bedroom and liked it. I have lived with roommates and lovers, and yet, here I am--someone who needs so much quiet and who starts to feel like the oxygen has been sucked out of the room after too many days in a row with people.

I had a dream while I was napping that while I slept men moved into my apartment. I woke up and my things were all scrambled around the apartment, broken and shoved into heaps (oddly, there was a Christmas tree, askew in the corner weeping tinsel all over the floor). At first I thought there had been an earthquake, and I marveled that I could have slept through it. But then the men returned, hefting their own furniture. One of them started unpacking his clothes into a dresser drawer. "What are you doing here?" I asked him, "I live here."

"Oh no," he shook his head at me with a menacing smile, "They found out about you. They know about the research with the praying mantises."

I protested that I had never done research on any sort of insect--my degree is in the humanities--but they wouldn't listen. "Have you ever been engaged?" one of them asked. I told him that, in fact, I'd been married. "We might be able to work out a way for you to stay," he said.

This was the point when I left the apartment and subsequently woke up.

Yeah. Do I find it notable that female praying mantises are known for killing their mates by biting their heads off after sex? Sure I do. My subconscious has a wicked sense of humor, I'm thinking.

All of which is to say I feel like I won the lottery just to be able to sit quietly in my place and putter around with only Nic the cat for company. P, I and I are going dancing tonight and that should satisfy any need for human contact.

As an aside, I finally finished Middlesex, which I cannot recommend highly enough. It was so good. I have Saturday, the latest Ian McEwan, on deck, but I'm worried it will be a disappointment.

I'm also really excited that Jeanette Winterson has a new novel, (Lighthousekeeping). There are a couple of extracts on her site:

Chapter 1--Two Atlantics

My mother called me Silver. I was born part precious metal part pirate.

I have no father. There's nothing unusual about that--even children who do have fathers are often surprised to see them. My own father came out of the sea and went back that way. He was crew on a fishing boat that harboured with us one night when the waves were crashing like dark glass.
His splintered hull shored him for long enough to drop anchor inside my mother.
Shoals of babies vied for life.
I won.

I lived in a house cut steep into the bank. The chairs had to be nailed to the floor, and we were never allowed to eat spaghetti. We ate food that stuck to the plate--Shepherd's Pie, Goulash, Risotto, scrambled egg. We tried peas once--what a disaster--and sometimes we still find them, dusty and green in the corners of the room.
Some people are raised on a hill, others in the valley. Most of us are brought up on the flat. I came at life at an angle, and that's how I've lived ever since.

And so on. I'm hoping maybe it's a return to the sort of novel The Passion is and away from some of her more recent books, which, slave to narrative that I am, I haven't enjoyed as much.

A new PR guy may be in order

Via Oliver Willis comes this graph that charts public approval of Bush's social security plan alongside his "where are the tee-shirts" US tour. Let's just hope he determines to take all of his bright ideas on the road.

BBs

Remember the oreo clip that dramatized the absurd nature of the US budget using oreo cookies to represent dollars? Well True Majority has a new one about our nuclear arsenal. Making the world safe for mankind is a tough job--it's expensive and it requires a lot of weapons.

Nick the cat

I have finally figured out what is wrong with Nick the cat. Once upon a time, when he was a wee kitten, he was sweet and sassy and well adjusted, but over the years he has become obese, asthmatic, and at once depressed and hostile. I had always chalked this up to his dysfunctional family dynamic. His parents are divorced, for some years things were pretty rocky and overly dramatic. I thought he needed Catanon. Andrea, on the other hand, says he's my familiar and he manifests all of the emotions/stresses I don't let myself express. So when I moved to LA I had a seamless transition, while Nick had to be put on tranquilizers.

This week I have had a houseguest, which anyone who knows me understands is challenging for me. I have only had to apologize for being a bitch once. Nick, on the other hand, has attacked said guest twice and drawn blood. This would lend credence to the "Nick as familiar" theory.

But, thanks to the link C sent me this morning, I can say with some confidence that Andrea and I were both wrong. It seems clear that Nick is possessed.

It's official

After three and half years, I think I am now officially a Los Angeleno. For the first time since I've lived here, I found myself happy that it was cloudy and rainy today. The thing about the upper midwest, where I was living before I moved to LA, is that it's the seasonal affective disorder capital of the United States. I thought I'd had a lifetime's supply of overcast days. Of course, it's not often rainy at sunny at the same time in Wisconsin, as it has been here today. In any case, I'm hoping the rain will clear some of the smog out of the sky.

My sister had a British friend who lived here for years. When she moved back to DC, she explained that she just couldn't take it anymore. She woke up one morning and thought to herself, "Not another goddamned beautiful day."

In other California news, the Senate is moving to ban online hunting. I confess I didn't even know there was such a pastime. I find it bizarre in the extreme that once a person tires of downloading porn and playing poker, you can kill things from your desk. From the bill:

For the purposes of this section, "computer-assisted remote hunting" means the use of a computer or any other device, equipment, software, or technology, to remotely control the aiming and discharge of any weapon, including, but not limited to, any firearm, bow and arrow, spear, slingshot, harpoon, or any other projectile device, to hunt any bird or mammal.

Strange times indeed.

Headline of the day

First Lady's Comedy Skill Well-Kept Secret

Yeah

Ew

I know it is terribly hypocritical of me to be blogging this after complaining below about the dearth of "real" news in Yahoo's "popular stories" category, but I feel compelled to comment that finding a severed finger in a freshly purchased pint of ice cream is really, really gross:

Clarence Stowers said he bought a pint of frozen custard at the Kohl's Frozen Custard shop on Sunday and opened it at home. He saw an object in the custard and put it in his mouth, thinking it was a piece of candy, a Wilmington television station reported Monday.

"I thought it was candy because they put candy in your ice cream ... to make it a treat," Stowers told WWAY. Stowers said he spit the object out, but still couldn't identify it. He went to his kitchen, rinsed it off with water--and "just started screaming."

I really hate that--when what you think is candy turns out to be a severed body part.

Presents for mom

I love this one

...Someone waits for me...

US News has a story this week on low income college students (thank you Susan for the link)--a "rare and invisible minority" they call them, which I think speaks volumes in and of itself. The article ends with two tables--one on Pell Grants per college and one on universities that are replacing loans with grants. The section title? "Where the Poor Are."

INSTITUTION (STATE) PELL GRANT RECIPIENTS PCT. OF TOTAL UNDERGRAD ENROLLMENT

Univ. of Calif.-Los Angeles 35.1
Univ. of Calif.-Berkeley 32.4
Amherst College (MA) 15.8
Columbia Univ.(NY) 14.9
Univ. of N.C.-Chapel Hill 13.2
Univ. of Mich.-Ann Arbor 12.5
Yale University (CT) 10.1
Williams College (MA) 9.4
Princeton University (NJ) 7.4
Harvard University (MA) 6.8

Source: Century Foundation, figures from the 2001-2002 academic year

DEBT RELIEF
These schools have replaced loans with grants in their neediest students' financial aid packages. Princeton has done so for all students receiving aid.

INSTITUTION
Dartmouth College
Harvard University
Princeton University
Rice University
University of Maryland-College Park
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Virginia
Yale University

More on the wild pigs

In mid-April, I wrote a post about the wild pig hunt on Santa Cruz Island and what a potent metaphor it is for those fatal missteps that start a chain reaction of destruction. Well, the pig hunt continues and AP has the continuing story. They expect it will take two years (using marksmen, trained dogs, infrared sensing devices and GPS systems) to kill off the island's wild pig population. To refresh your memory, the pigs are being killed in the name of the fox population. The fox population is threatened because they are preyed upon by the golden eagles. The golden eagles were initially attracted by the feral pigs (which had once been regular old Wilbur-type pigs but had gotten loose and gone wild). The golden eagles would have been the natural prey of the bald eagles, but the bald eagle population was eradicated by DDT.

Got all that? Well, here's a little slice from today's story about the whole clusterfuck:

Federal and state law prohibits relocating the pigs, which may have pseudorabies and cholera, to the mainland. For the same reason, the carcasses of the dead pigs will be left on the island to rot. Sterilization and contraception aren't practical because the plan would fail if biologists miss only a few pigs--the fast-breeding pigs can rebound from a 70 percent population reduction in just one year, according to Galipeau.

"I'm trying to protect the natural system--not what humans handed us, but what nature handed us," he says. "Sometimes you have to do the same amount of disruption that damaged a place in order to restore it."

Critics have argued that, after so long on the island, the pigs belong as much as the foxes.

One group, the Channel Islands Animal Protection Association, was formed in the mid-1990s after the National Park Service poisoned nonnative rats that were damaging vegetation on nearby on Anacapa Island.

In the current case, the association believes the golden eagles were attracted not by pigs but by the rotting carcasses of feral sheep from an earlier eradication program in the 1980s. They believe the golden eagles discovered the 4-pound foxes--not the pigs--and stayed.

And here I am struck by three things. Of course, there is the continuing epic absurdity of humankind's outstanding ability to really mess things up. And then there's the whole prospect of contraception for wild pigs, which conjures a host of disturbing questions and images for me. And finally, there's the feral sheep phenomenon. I don't know why that makes me think of a Monty Python skit, but it really does. I can just see John Cleese in a kilt fleeing from a herd of wild sheep.

Changing genres

So I've been thinking I've been trapped in a bad indy movie lately--one of those ones with smart looking folks dressed well in relationships that are, by turns, exhilarating and agonizing, and in either instance, carried out in very clever dialogue.

Today, we changed genres. M, G, L and I went to Gladstones for lunch. Looking smart, sounding clever, and feeling exhilarated and agonized. We ate mountains of food that still too closely resembled the living sea creature donors (lobster heads and oysters and such) in a table overlooking the beach. On the beach, happened to be Riordan's birthday party. Which meant we were overlooking not only bright tables of elbow rubbers but also the entertainment which consisted of trapeze artists and aerialists in all sorts of costumes.

I have often asked lately: who's writing this script, and now I know: Greenaway and Fellini.

If I believed in god, I would really have to hand it to him. He's a pretty funny guy.

What's wrong with the Yahoo! News redesign

It's the juxtaposition of the "Most Popular" category with the "World" category. And so you get this:

Most Popular

'Soup Nazi' to Launch Takeout Chain AP - Fri Apr 29, 7:57 PM ET
School Mistakes Huge Burrito for a Weapon AP - Fri Apr 29, 4:08 PM ET
Genetic Mingling Mixes Human, Animal Cells AP - Fri Apr 29, 8:44 PM ET
'Mermaid' Baby Turns 1, Awaits Surgery AP - Fri Apr 29, 8:13 PM ET
Study Links Middle Age Obesity to Dementia AP - Fri Apr 29, 8:12 PM ET

Followed by this:

World

Insurgents Strike Across Iraq, Killing 50 AP - 2 hours, 53 minutes ago
Alleged Zarqawi Tape Threatens New Attacks AP - Fri Apr 29,10:03 PM ET
Putin to Help With Palestinian Security AP - Fri Apr 29,10:04 PM ET
Vietnam Fetes 30 Years Since War's End AP - 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
Italy, U.S. Disagree on Agent's Iraq Death AP - 2 hours, 57 minutes ago

I find it extraordinarily depressing that in the face of insurgent attacks, Palestinian security issues, and the like, the world is, in fact, focused on burritos of mass destruction and mermaid babies. I just really don't want to know what's popular. It's right up there with those USA Today public opinion polls that are always graphically displayed on their front page as pie charts or the like. I mean, I just don't want to know. Which existentialist said, "Hell is other people"? That's pretty much where I'm at with the general public most of the time.

Maybe it's better that way

Via After School Snack comes the news that constant emailing and text messaging result in a 10 point drop in IQ. Among the interesting findings was the discovery that women only decline 5 IQ points, compared to 15 for men, who appear to be not so good at multitasking.

The story puts the decline in perspective by reporting that missing a night's sleep yields a 10 point loss and smoking pot, a 4 point loss. I'm thinking were I not an information junky insomniac who smoked pot daily for years, I'd probably be so god damned smart I'd be unable to function in the world.

Something there is that does not love a wall

Okay, I haven't fallen off the face of the planet. I've been too busy and, frankly, a bit emotionally under the weather. I will spare everyone the details. You can read the memoir when it's written. My insight for the week: love is like crime--you need both motive and opportunity. Sigh.

And changing the subject...

Has everyone seen Heavy Trash's guerrilla art? I love it. They are installing viewing stations outside LA's gated communities (Brentwood, Park La Brea, etc.). I'm thinking this may call for a field trip; though god knows, they're probably gone by now.

Reuters has the story.

There goes the neighborhood

Drivers in Pikesville, Maryland were disrupted this morning as a herd of buffalo meandered onto the road. If I was driving at seven in the morning and a bunch of buffalo wandered into the street, it would really mess with me. My first assumption would not be "oh, a herd of buffalo escaped from a nearby farm," it would be much more related to my own loose grip on reality.

Here are the buffalo, having been corralled. Extreme tennis, I'm thinking:







In other "real" news, it makes me very happy that Bush is getting continued flack on the rape of social security and the Bolton nomination. Though the Repubs' call for "bipartisanship" pisses me off more than I can say. It feels very much like calling a woman a "bitch" or a "cunt" because she objects to you grabbing her tit, you know? And in my present mood that's about the most in depth political commentary I can offer.

Happy Earth Day

From NASA's Visible Earth, we bring you proof of our progress in paving the planet. The pic below shows the extent we have managed to cover the Baltimore/Washington area with asphalt.



NASA explains:

These space-based maps of buildings and paved surfaces, such as roads and parking lots, which are impervious to water, can indicate where large amounts of storm water runs off. Concentrated runoff leads to erosion and elevated discharge of soil and chemicals into rivers, streams, and ground water.

The image above shows the extent of impervious surfaces in and around Washington and Baltimore. Red represents high concentrations of impervious surfaces. Blue represents moderate concentrations and green represents low concentrations of impervious surfaces.

If you're feeling too chipper today, visit the site and browse the gallery of smog, deforestation, and urbanization. Viva la apocalypse.

Pesach

Of course, we have to have a Passover post since it is my favorite holiday. It's probably too late to order any of ChosenCouture's fine gear in time for seder tomorrow night, but it was worth sharing nonetheless.




And for your holiday entertainment, we bring you 50 cent doing the plagues and Jib Jab's hiphop homage to Matzah.

What's in a name?

I'd be laughing too

Bush ordering lunch during the South Carolina leg of his social security tour

Wrong

New CafePress merchandise. It's just wrong, I tell you.

The party of the financiers

Despite ongoing efforts by my friends and family to school me in the more sinister aspects of our government, I find at times I am still too naive to predict the level of venality. Take Bush's comment on the forthcoming bankruptcy laws for instance. This past weekend one of my friends was commenting that credit card companies would now be granting cards to more and more folks who probably shouldn't have them. While I am as disgusted as anyone over this latest "reform," I thought at the time that was perhaps a bit paranoid. And yet...today I read this from Bush:

These commonsense reforms will make the system stronger and better so that more Americans--especially lower-income Americans--have greater access to credit

Interpretation: Now that we've taken away their safety net, we can help scads of the have-nots further impoverish themselves. Sigh.

Okay, I'm going to hide from the world in my all-day meeting now.

Why I don't live in New York

It's too late to enter, but the pictures from Apartment Therapy's Smallest, Coolest Apartment Contest are pretty interesting. The rules: you have to live in NYC (any borough) and your place has to be smaller than 500 square feet.

Let me say if I had to share a 500 square foot place with another person, someone would end up in prison (or in plastic garbage bags stashed under bridges)...it would be a really bad thing....




(Link via Things Magazine)

Heroes of the day

Senators Hagel (Nebraska) and Voinovich (Ohio) for speaking up to delay the Bolton hearing today in the Foreign Relations Committee. I'll applaud any Republican who breaks out of his party's goosestep even for a moment.

True Majority has a petition against Bolton and a very brief media clip (Realmedia and Quicktime) that, for all its brevity I think pretty well captures why this man should not be Ambassador to the UN.

Really Bush's appointees are like some sort of parody aren't they? Ghengis Kahn as Attorney General, Simon Legree as Labor Secretary and so on...

All pope radio, all the time

So apparently all news in the world has ceased save the election of a new pope. This morning, on my way in to work, the entire airwaves had seemingly been hijacked by the Catholics and wanna be's. "New pope...(click)...black smoke...(click)...string the ballots together...(click)...vatican..."

I am clearly the only person on the planet who doesn't really care very much. I mean, it would have been nice to have a liberal pope, in the same sort of way it would be nice to have a benevolent dictator. Yeah, I'm oversimplifying. So sue me.

On a related note, it is reported that John Paul is finding the eternal reward a bit disappointing:

The soul of Pope John Paul, which entered heaven last week following a long illness, expressed confusion and disappointment Saturday, upon learning that the Celestial Kingdom of God to which the departed faithful ascend in the afterlife is significantly less luxurious than the Vatican's Papal Palace, in which the pope spent the past 26 years of his earthly life.

. . .

"Up here, everyone is equal," John Paul II said. "No one has to go through an elaborate bowing ritual when they greet me. And do you know how many times my ring has been kissed since I arrived? None. Up here, I'm mingling with tax collectors, fishermen, and whores. It's just going to take a little getting used to, is all."

Policy by Swift

As usual when I am so busy for several days that I lose track of the world, today when reading the news I had the sad realization that things did not magically improve while I was out of the loop. There's always a small part of me that expects to open the paper and be greeted with a giant "April Fools!" headline topping a story that says--just kidding; we haven't decided torture is okay, we don't really want old people to starve to death, we aren't really bending over all the way for the credit card companies, and so on. Of course, instead I got the news as you know it.

Among the articles from yesterday's paper that I am just reading today were one talking about logging as a possible solution to drought (because those pesky trees drink up so much of the water) and toll roads as a solution to freeway congestion (there was also a suggestion that employers who provide parking for free allow employees to "cash out" that benefit and a suggestion that we privatize public transportation).

Am I the only one who thinks this is an "old lady who swallowed a fly" kind of mentality here? Good god.

Happily beginning tomorrow I go back to a slavish existence for most of the rest of the week. I look forward to reading the newest modest proposals when I rejoin the human race at some point on Saturday. Yeesh.

Signs that I am more stressed out than I think

1. I locked myself out of my apartment last night while shuttling to and from the laundry room.

2. I dreamed that I went down on one knee, marriage proposal-style, to ask George Bush, "Will there ever be a time when we are not at war again?" To which he responded, what-me-worry grin in place, "Not while I'm president."

Yeah.

(As an aside, let me say, as someone in recovery from addiction, it was a real "oh how the mighty have fallen" moment last night when I had to pay someone to help me break into my own apartment.)

And I suppose that all leads me to explain that posting will be sparse for the next week or so. I have a weekend long work event, followed by a week that will have me in meetings most of the day. It's a full-on work period for me. I'll post when I can, but I'm not too optimistic.

Signs you live in a cultural wasteland

When the email from Borders highlighting local events is pro-mo-ing up-coming book signings by both Cheryl Ladd and Brooke Shields.

Let me say that reading Brooke Shields' story of her recovery from postpartum depression ranks right up there with sticking pins in my eyes for ways I am eager to spend my time.

It must be spring...

...because we have been much given to poetry posting here at NMTE lately. Here is one sent to me by a friend that I think is quite lovely.

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Jack Gilbert

It's not just for supremacists anymore

From the inestimable yelladog comes the link to Idaho's Resolution 29:

Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Idaho:

WHEREAS, the State of Idaho recognizes the vision, talent and creativity of Jared and Jerusha Hess in the writing and production of "Napoleon Dynamite"; and

. . .

WHEREAS, the Preston High School administration and staff, particularly the cafeteria staff, have enjoyed notoriety and worldwide attention; and
WHEREAS, tater tots figure prominently in this film thus promoting Idaho's most famous export; and
WHEREAS, the friendship between Napoleon and Pedro has furthered multiethnic relationships; and
WHEREAS, Uncle Rico's football skills are a testament to Idaho athletics; and
WHEREAS, Napoleon's bicycle and Kip's skateboard promote better air quality and carpooling as alternatives to fuel-dependent methods of transportation; and
WHEREAS, Rico and Kip's Tupperware sales and Deb's keychains and glamour shots promote entrepreneurism and self-sufficiency in Idaho's small towns; and

. . .

WHEREAS, Napoleon's tetherball dexterity emphasizes the importance of physical education in Idaho public schools; and
WHEREAS, Tina the llama, the chickens with large talons, the 4-H milk cows, and the Honeymoon Stallion showcase Idaho's animal husbandry; and

. . .

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the members of the First Regular Session of the Fifty-eighth Idaho Legislature, the House of Representatives and the Senate concurring therein, that we commend Jared and Jerusha Hess and the City of Preston for showcasing the positive aspects of Idaho's youth, rural culture, education system, athletics, economic prosperity and diversity. . . .

While I have always been a bit frightened of places like Idaho, you've got to hand it to any legislature that applauds Napoleon Dynamite for featuring "chickens with large talons."

Happy Beckett's birthday

In honor of Samuel Beckett's birth 99 years ago today, I pass along Waiting for Godot in various modes:

Christian:
Let us turn to the play, Waiting For Godot, which has an important message for us. Who is this Godot that these people are waiting for? Is it not clearly God? What this is play is showing us is that people who only wait for God, who do not welcome Him into their hearts, lead meaningless lives of quiet desperation.

Marxist:
Waiting For Godot is an essential parable of the class struggle. On one side we have the ultimate capitalist, Godot, remote, invisible, powerful, whose caprices dictate trivia in the lives of the working class. On the other hand we have representatives of the working class, alienated, leading meaningless lives at the behest and convenience of the Capitalist class. This play shows what happens when the working class does not unite.

Freudian:
Waiting For Godot is a rationalized dream scene which symbolically expresses the fundamental nature of separation anxiety. Off stage we have the absent parent, all powerful, loved and needed, but not present. On stage we have avatars of the essential child, neurotically cycling through different defense mechanisms.
. . .

I must be happy, he said, it is less pleasant than I should have thought.
–Malone Dies

They shoot kitty cats, don't they?

Falling into the category of gratitude fuel is the news that cat hunting may soon become legal in Wisconsin. True, here in California we may hunt feral pigs, but we leave the cats to the coyotes.

I lived in Wisconsin for more than ten years, and at no point did people stop saying, "You're not from here, are you?" And this was the scene in my former "hometown" yesterday:

At a rally in Madison on Monday, scores of cat fans gathered around protest signs. Some featured photographs of kittens and pleas written in blood-red ink: "Please don't kill me!"

At least a thousand men and women — some in camouflage shirts and hunter-orange ball caps, others with "Free the Cats!" T-shirts — crammed into chairs and squeezed onto the carpet inside a meeting hall at the Alliant Energy Center.

For more than an hour, the residents debated. Some people were so upset, they cried. Others left in disgust. Jim White, a hunter from Belleville, Wis., was simply flabbergasted.

"People shoot cats. It's just the way things are out here," said White, who attended the meeting wearing a T-shirt that read "I do what the voices in my tree stand tell me to do."

"Why is this coming as a surprise?" White asked.

Nearby, Carolyn Pagel fiddled with the fabric cat ears perched on the top of her head and listened in horror.

"We're talking about cats," said Pagel, 28. "They purr. They want love. How can you possibly want to hunt a kitty?"

"I do what the voices in my tree stand tell me to do..."

I'm just sayin'...I'm glad I moved.

Good browsing

From the Scout Project (where I worked once upon a time) I learned about Excitement Machine, which could clearly suck up too much of my time.



And from Excitement Machine, comes the Fried Dough Around the World site. I for one, have often noted the Jungian qualities of fried dough--that it's some sort of archetypical food that transcends culture and location. I even commented on it in a short story once that was set in Keenesburg, New Jersey and featured obese Keenesburger extras munching on zeppolis.

One of the best things about the Internet is its capacity to make you say "Gee, I'm not the only one who has thought about this." Of course, that's also one of the worst things about the Internet, depending on what the thought is, I suppose.

For want of a nail

There has been much I've wanted to write about today, but life has intervened. It looks to be an overly full week at work and elsewhere, so posting may be light.

Nonetheless, I needed to make time for the stand-out article from this weekend's news: Saturday's LA Times' piece on the pig hunt on Santa Cruz Island. Really. I am not even being sarcastic here. It's so Oryx and Crake or something that it's an amazing story.

It seems that a team of 10 hunters from New Zealand are being flown in to Santa Cruz Island this week to kill off the feral pigs. Because the Times requires registration, I'll quote most of the story here. It's worth reproducing:

From 1947 to 1971, DDT manufacturer Montrose Co. dumped large quantities of the chemical into the channel.

That weakened the eggs of the bald eagle, which nested in the Channel Islands, resulting in its disappearance from the chain.

Meanwhile, pigs were being raised on the ranches on the island from about the mid-1800s to the 1980s. Pigs that got loose became wild--and began reproducing.

The sins of the pigs are many.

They root through island vegetation, causing erosion and providing fertile ground for nonnative plants, such as fennel. Fennel has spread uncontrollably, in thick pastures smelling of black licorice, and now endangers nine species of native plants.

Pigs eat acorns, preventing the native oak trees from reproducing.

The pigs, moreover, dig up ancient Chumash Indian settlements and gravesites.

And the young pigs are prey for nonnative golden eagles, which found the pickings especially good on Santa Cruz Island. Well-fed and aggressive, golden eagles forced out the bald eagles.

The golden eagles came for the piglets, but they stayed for the island fox, an animal found nowhere in the world but the islands off Southern California. And because of the golden eagles, the island fox hovers near extinction. Last year, the animal, roughly the size of a small cat, was placed on the federal Endangered Species List.

Fixing the man-made chain of events has required a complicated series of ecological surgeries, according to environmentalists and National Parks Service officials.

And the last of these--eradicating the feral pigs--began this week with MacDonald's hunt.

Island foxes, meanwhile, are being bred and readied for release in the wild once the pigs meet their fate. The numbers of golden eagles have already been reduced, and bald eagles were reintroduced a few years ago.

The restoration costs--totaling $5 million--have come from proceeds from a lawsuit against the Montrose Co. that was settled in 2000.

Can you say "massive cluster fuck"?

I know I'm a crazy geek, but what a potent metaphor for that fatal wrong turn that leads to all of those unanticipated consequences. And I'll go so far as to say stories like this really go to prove my beta test theory I talk about below. "They came for the piglets, but they stayed for the island fox" indeed. I think I'm going to have to start using that as my own personal aphorism for some of the ill-advised choices I've made.

Planning for the future

Robert Friedman has a good one on living wills:

Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here's what mine says:

* In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semiexistence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long enough for me.

* I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.

* I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life.

And so on. Pretty funny stuff.

When worlds collide

I need to say I find it pretty damned funny that you can place online bets on the next pope. Do you think those guys log on to check out their odds? (Thanks to eponymous for the tip.)

Generation WTF

So the other day I was driving somewhere--I can't remember where--listening to indy radio (103.1) and Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized" came on, followed by the Buzzcocks' "Orgasm Addict." If you know me, you understand this is enough to make me believe that all of the forces of the universe are aligning just to please me. So I'm driving down the road rocking out to car karaoke and it occurs to me: "Gee, I'm a niche market."

I sort of forgot about the moment until last night when A called to give the latest report in the crisis news ticker that is her life. She explained that she's ready for anything because she went out and bought a case of Pellegrino and case of Red Bull yesterday, and that reminded me.

Here's the thing--all of my life I had obscure-ish tastes. (You know when people seriously ask you if you're undergoing cancer treatment because of your hairstyle that you have an obscure aesthetic.) I cut my own hair for a long time because only the supremely expensive salons would do anything like what I wanted--"short" in my formative years meant "like Dorothy Hamill." I had to make my own band tee-shirts (not that any self-respecting DIY-er would buy a band tee-shirt anyway). My apartment is largely furnished with 50s furniture picked up curbside and at St. Vinnies before they started calling it "mid-century modern." It's like that.

It wasn't until the other day that I realized capitalism has finally caught up with us. And the great thing about getting older is that I'm totally pleased by that now. If I have to live in the world of capitalism, I'm at least happy that it's working for me.

A has dubbed us "generation WTF," and I'm willing to go with that. Let's hear it for commodifying our desires!

James Bond meets the Flying Nun

The Iranian policewomen's graduation ceremony. You must watch this. Go right now. It's clip of the month to be sure. Thanks to Jo for the link.

Fish porn

Via Wendy comes the news that it's rutting season for fish:

Spawning runs typically begin with single fish (usually males) swimming in with a wave and occasionally stranding themselves on the beach. Gradually, more and more fish come in with the waves and by swimming against the outflowing wave strand themselves until the beach is covered by a blanket of grunion. . . .

Females ride a far reaching wave onto the beach accompanied by as many as eight males. If no males are present,a female will return to the ocean with the outflowing wave. In the presence of males, she swims as far up on the beach as possible and literally drills herself into the sand as the wave recedes. This is accomplished by arching her body with the head up, and at the same time vigorously wriggling her tail back and forth. As her tail sinks into the semifluid sand, she twists her body and drills herself downward until she is buried up to the pectoral fins. Occasionally she may bury herself completely. The male (or males) curves around her as he lies on top of the sand, with his vent close to or touching her body. The female continues to twist, emitting her eggs 2 or 3 inches beneath the surface of the sand. Males discharge their milt onto the sand near the female and then immediately start to wriggle towards the water. The milt flows down the body of the female and fertilizes the eggs. The female then frees herself from the sand with a violent jerking motion and returns to the sea with the next wave to reach her.

If you live in So. Cal., the Department of Fish and Game have the schedule for the fish fuck fest. God bless my weird friends.

Are you now, or have you ever been . . .

. . . a patriot?

As you know if you follow the news, politicians are already stumping to renew the lease on our burgeoning fascism. Which is to say that 15 provisions of the Patriot Act are due for renewal in December. FBI director Robert Mueller is, methinks, more than a bit ominous in his explanation:

"Experience has taught the FBI that there are no neat dividing lines that distinguish criminal, terrorist and foreign intelligence activity," Mueller said in his prepared testimony.

He also asked Congress to expand the FBI's administrative subpoena powers, which allow the bureau to obtain records without approval or a judge or grand jury.

What do you suppose that means--the dividing line between terrorism and foreign intelligence is not clear? I can think of no good action that statement could support in this administration.

In the meantime, sneak and peek searches have doubled in the past two years or so. Those are the searches which take place without notifying the person whose underwear drawer has been rifled through for some delayed period of time after the intrusion. And those searches (of course) are taking place for suspected crimes that far exceed the fears of terrorism that purportedly justified the Patriot Act's rollback of our constitutional liberties:

The Justice Department said yesterday that the power was a valuable law enforcement tool for a "wide spectrum of criminal investigations, including those involving terrorism and drugs." But the American Civil Liberties Union said the release "confirms our worst fears" that the use of the law is expanding beyond terrorism investigations, and called for greater oversight.

The Senate Judiciary Committee today intends to question Gonzales and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III about how the Justice Department has been using its Patriot Act powers, setting the stage for a year of political debate over whether to make the Patriot Act permanent or to scale it back.

Me? I'm keeping my passport updated.

In line to see the corpse

The body can feed the body only.
Thoreau

The Constitution is so last century

Matt at Democrappy is sounding the alarm about the latest frightening piece of proposed legislation to declare the bill of rights obsolete. The astonishingly titled "Constitution Restoration Act" both overturns the First Amendment's separation of church and state and disempowers the court from intervening. Here is a passage Matt quotes:

[T]he Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari, or otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an entity of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer or agent of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official or personal capacity), concerning that entity's, officer's, or agent's acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.

And part of his commentary:

Never mind that the CRA amends existing judicial review laws in a way never intended by the Founding Fathers; or that it does irreparable injury to separation of powers; or that it aims to allow precisely the kind of endorsement of religion by government against which this country was founded.

Those issues, important though they may be, are dwarfed by the fact that the CRA explicitly authorizes government officials to violate the law by preventing citizens from availing themselves of the judiciary - the one mechanism they have to protect them from tyranny of the majority.

More than religiosity run amok, more than a sodomizing of the constitution with a rusty word processor, the CRA is organized thuggery of precisely the sort that characterizes the legislative agenda of every fascist state.

Go read the rest of the post for more information. And contact your representatives to let them know you're a fan of Constitutional democracy.

Merwin

So K and I went to the Merwin reading at the Central Library tonight. It was really wonderful. So here are a couple of the poems he read. Maybe tomorrow I will move off the poetry jag and back to the usual programming of outrage and dismay.

Yesterday
W. S. Merwin

My friend says I was not a good son
you understand
I say yes I understand

he says I did not go
to see my parents very often you know
and I say yes I know

even when I was living in the same city he says
maybe I would go there once
a month or maybe even less
I say oh yes

he says the last time I went to see my father
I say the last time I saw my father

he says the last time I saw my father
he was asking me about my life
how I was making out and he
went into the next room
to get something to give me

oh I say
feeling again the cold
of my father's hand the last time
he says and my father turned
in the doorway and saw me
look at my wristwatch and he
said you know I would like you to stay
and talk with me

oh yes I say

but if you are busy he said
I don't want you to feel that you
have to
just because I'm here

I say nothing

he says my father
said maybe
you have important work you are doing
or maybe you should be seeing
somebody I don't want to keep you

I look out the window
my friend is older than I am
he says and I told my father it was so
and I got up and left him then
you know

though there was nowhere I had to go
and nothing I had to do


from THE RIVER SOUND:
Waves in August

There is a war in the distance
with the distance growing smaller
the field glasses lying at hand
are for keeping it far away

I thought I was getting better
about that returning childish
wish to be living somewhere else
that I knew was impossible
and now I find myself wishing
to be here to be alive here
it is impossible enough
to still be the wish of a child

in youth I hid a boat under
the bushes beside the water
knowing I would want it later
and come back and would find it there
someone else took it and left me
instead the sound of the water
with its whisper of vertigo

terror reassurance an old
old sadness it would seem we knew
enough always about parting
but we have to go on learning
as long as there is anything

Slow news day

I refuse to post anything about the dead pope's body. So there. I'm glad he's dead. End of story.

In other news, the Pulitzers have been announced. The LA Times won in the public service category for their series on King/Drew hospital. Marilynne Robinson's Gilead won her the fiction prize. I've had that on my to-read list for some time. Housekeeping is one of my favorite novels ever. Ted Kooser's Delights and Shadows won for poetry. I admit I didn't know Kooser until he was made Laureate, but then we did a little research, and I like his work a lot.

Tattoo

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

from Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004

Passover approacheth

It's early I know, but I got this today, and had to share it. Happy impending Passover to all.

Blah blah blah

Pope pope pope terri schiavo terri schiavo terri schiavo michael jackson michael jackson

God help me I just don't care right now. It's a beautiful day in LA and I am actively procrastinating. Generally, I procrastinate by cleaning my apartment, playing computer solitaire, and doing other silly inane things that take up all of my time, and feeling guilty the whole while. It's a really dumb way to be because not only does the writing not get done but I don't really enjoy anything else at the same time. This week has been filled with more active procrastination, which means I have had some fine meals, gone to the Rauschenberg exhibit at LACMA (which I highly recommend), done some of my volunteer stuff, taken some scenic drives and am going to Santa Monica tonight. The article is...ahem... gestating you could say. There will be a serious piper's bill for this dance, but wtf.



Rauschenberg's No.4 Los Angeles (1981) [From Art Gallery of New South Wales]

Monday night is WS Merwin night, which promises to be great. I am hoping while I am at the reading, the shoemaker's elves will come and finish my article.

It could happen, right?

What's on my bulletin board

It occurred to me today that the inspirational quotes on my bulletin board may, in fact, be crossing the line from "eclectic" into "borderline personality disorder." In addition to the other detritus up there (photos, "grow-a-gruesome severed limb," souvenirs...), these are the quotes that have found their way into the inspirational-enough-that-they-make-the-board category:

"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Albert Camus

"Spiritual work is not easy. It means the willingness to surrender feelings that seem, while we're in them, like our defense against a greater pain. It means we surrender to God our perceptions of all things." Marianne Williamson

"So many deeds cry out to be done,
And always urgently,
The world rolls on,
Time presses,
Ten thousand years are too long.
Seize the day, seize the hour!

The Four Seas are rising, clouds and waters raging.
The Five Continents are rocking, wind and thunder roaring.
Away with all pests!
Our force is irresistible." Mao Tse-tung

"As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has--or ever will have--something inside us that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression." Mister Rogers

It just struck me today that Camus, Marianne Williamson, Mao, and Mister Rogers were a really bizarre combination of folks to be overlooking my desk every day. For whatever that's worth.

Get one quick before they're all gone!

The DSCC has pocket sized copies of the Constitution you can download that are pretty nifty. I know, I'm a geek--I can't help myself.

People are so weird

Really. I fear to imagine what fate will befall the "plastinated" fetus stolen from the "Body Worlds" exhibit at the California Science Center this weekend. Postmodern nativity scene or what?

Friday Lego blogging

While we're on the subject of religion...

Admittedly, this is not a new site, but I was inspired in a Lego theme today. If you're unfamiliar with the Brick Testament, I offer it to you as a Friday treat. It is one of my favorite sites ever.



And for you godless Lego enthusiasts, I offer the theory.org.uk social theorists site, which admittedly is not nearly the same celebration of unbridled compulsive energy nor is it as entertaining as the trading cards, but it's all about Lego right now, so...

(As an aside, one of the most delightful things about the web, in my book, is the Six Degrees of Michael Berube kind of aspect of it. Which is to say, I'm in on the same email thread today as those fine Minnesotans at After School Snack.)

Finally, some good news for a change

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, that's what I'm saying.