Rain

Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain.

Not wimpy, drizzly, meltaway rain but serious, no-holds-barred, your-city-is-sliding-into-the-ocean rain.

The whole "we have angered god" theory of weather patterns is beginning to resonate with yours truly.

AP reports about the hail, mudslides, deaths, freeway closings, and--so sad--the forced cancellation of INXS's rooftop concert for the new Virgin Megastore opening.

Myself, I am instituting a weather meme: favorite songs about the weather. I'd have to name
"About the Weather"--Magazine
"Have You Ever Seen the Rain"--Creedence
"Heat Wave"--Martha and the Vandellas
(Famous Blue Raincoat doesn't count, right? If it does, that goes in here too.)
Anyone else?

Jesus Darwin smackdown

I have already expressed my skepticism about the whole intelligent design theory here at NMTE. I've written about my own theory that Earth is, in fact, a beta-test and God went on to create other, more successful worlds where people don't have free will and do have one detachable arm to make it easier to spoon with their lovers.

So of course, these are the thoughts that are going through my head when I'm reading today about "intelligent design advocate," Michael Behe, testifying in Pennsylvania court. Behe apparently achieved fame among the flat earth proponents intelligent design people by making "a scientific argument that blood-clotting is poorly explained by Darwinian processes but well explained by design."

Blood clotting. Yeah.

My personal favorite line in the article is this: "The intelligent design concept does not name the designer, although Behe, a Roman Catholic, testified he personally believes it to be God." Right, but it could be what--space aliens? Buddha? a distant relative of Frank Lloyd Wright? Spare me, really.

If that makes you ask all of those "what about dinosaurs walking the earth--how did everything fit in the ark" kinds of questions, those fish-bumpered hoodoo people have answers to that as well. (Thanks to A Civil Tongue for the link.)

And let's not forget the tee-shirts. All good movements need tee-shirts.

Hee hee

From Knight Ridder reporting on Pew's latest Bush numbers:

-38 percent of Americans approve of how Bush is handling his job, down from 50 percent at his inauguration in January;

-29 percent are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, down from 40 percent in January;

-Americans believe it was wrong to invade Iraq by a margin of 50 percent to 44 percent, a reverse from the January margin of 51-44 that thought it was the right decision.

The public is also skeptical about whether Bush had made most things better or worse. By a margin of 66-6, they think he's made the federal budget deficit worse. By 40-12, they think he made Social Security worse. By 57-19, they think he's made the economy worse. By 35-25, they think he's weakened morality in the country.

Flailing

From yesterday's White House press briefing:

MR. McCLELLAN: Steve said "thank you" a second time. I think the first time -- the first time --

Q I know, but my question is --

MR. McCLELLAN: The first time, we probably should have stopped it at that.

Q Right. I know. Aren't you sad that you didn't go for -- that you went past, "thank you"?

MR. McCLELLAN: No. Actually, I'm not. I'm glad we had this discussion, John.

Q Okay, good. But my only question was, the very last thing that you said there, why didn't you just say that in response to my question instead of attacking me and getting into this whole brouhaha?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I was trying to, but some people kept jumping in, including yourself when I was responding to your question.

Q Well, excuse me, you attacked me. I just wasn't going to let it sit.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm not attacking. I'm just pointing out that a lot of the coverage is not focused on the record and the qualifications and the philosophy -

Q I'll bring you transcripts after the briefing.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and that's where it should. Did it focus on it last night? Let's look at the transcripts.

Q You spoke about a dignified process, do you think it's dignified to --

Q Are you -- let's talk about truth and honesty. Are you trying to say that the White House has not talked to conservatives and pointed them to the church that she goes to, and to her religion --

MR. McCLELLAN: I answered all those questions yesterday.

Q -- to show that she has religion -- but you're just saying right now that we're making an issue of it. You're making an issue of it by having White House officials --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm saying --

Q -- tell conservatives that that's a reason they should trust her. Then they tell us that --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm not saying that. You're putting words --

Q -- that that's what's happening.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- in my mouth. I'm saying the focus ought to be on records and qualification and philosophy.

Q I'm not putting any words in your mouth.

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, you are.

A stunning reversal of the usual pattern

I've been pretty damn blue these past couple of days. The whole becoming a nasty and stupid person upon quitting smoking thing is really, really getting to me.

So I'm talking to Becky last night and she is mystified about how I can be in a bad mood when the right is so totally disintegrating--elbowing each other out of the way to fall on their swords. And so this morning I determined to take Becky's advice, that has fallen on my deaf ears for so long, and listen to Stephanie Miller. Oh my god. What was I thinking to wait so long?

I love this woman!!! If anyone else out there is feeling a little blue, give her a listen. I am here in my office with my headphones on, listening to this morning's archived broadcast laughing out loud somewhat hysterically. First there was Scott McClellan's new nickname--Chummy McSharkbait, the President's Spokesliar--and then there's the riff on the new reality TV show "Barbara Bush on Negro Island."

"In what universe do you look at a 2% approval rating among blacks and say 'it's not so bad?' I mean, there's one digit before you get to...zero."

"Yeah, and there's a three percent margin for error, so it could be as much as 5%...Or -1%."

So yes, it's one of those rare moments in history where listen to the news can actually act to cheer you up if you're left of center. I'm soaking it in. This is my new quitting smoking strategy--I'm just going to immerse myself in the news as much as possible.

Oddly satisfying

This is.

(And you can click and drag him too.)

Quote of the day

Free-roaming, managed cheetahs in the south-western United States could save the fastest carnivore from extinction...

Pleistocene re-wilding is an optimistic alternative.

(Pleistocene re-wilding sounds to me either like a band name or a bad crafting trend. Like: "Did you see her bathroom? It's frightful. She got into that pleistocene re-wilding and now all of the grout is chartreuse."

I'm so restless; I'm bored as a cat...

Chris just reminded me of the excellence of Postsecret. I hadn't been there in a long time, and they've gotten better.

This one's for Portia:
I am almost done with the first draft of this "blood from a stone" report. (My lord the smoke bone is connected to the writing bone!)

I know the nicotine is pretty much out of my system but I still have these almost hallucinatory moments. This morning, passing the church next to my building, this flock of church ladies came clustering into the street in their weird tan skirted, white shirted church lady auxiliary outfits. It was highly surreal and I am just out of it enough that I almost turned several of them into hood ornaments as I was absorbing what was happening. Be careful church ladies!!! You're not made of titanium. And I shouldn't be operating heavy machinery.

Since I'm in a quoting mode

I love this from Yelladog:

Standing over finished work and musing is a great and honorable passtime in the South, and there are certain protocols that must be followed. Someone has to say "Yep," and the other party has to say "Glad that's done." What follows is situationally dependent. If it's a fresh engine rebuild, someone has to say "Purring like a kitten!" even if the engine is thumping like a disco and belching blue smoke. If it's a freshly painted barn or a rebuilt well house, someone is supposed to say "Damn, looks like new, doesn't it?" Digging up a clothesline pole is kind of unusual, so we were in virgin territory. Andy broke with protocol and said "You're never going to bust that ball of concrete."

Well, never say never to a redneck. Especially, never say never to a redneck with a sledgehammer.

Patrick writes so well--he is a regular renaissance redneck, I tell you. In fact, we "met" over this post-election post that someone forwarded me in email and I googled to track down. Almost a year later and still a brilliant post.

Utter submission

From this month's Los Angeles magazine:

The brilliant ad line "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" understands that the vast majority of people who come to Vegas won't really have wild affairs or run off with showgirls or indulge in anything more than the garden-variety debauchery of a few too many White Russians at the roulette wheel. The allure of "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" isn’t what happens in Vegas but the unfulfilled possibility of what might have happened the last time and what might happen the next, even as nothing is likely to ever happen. Vegas is a Sodom of the mind, the City of the Free Pass that you never use, and that it's not free at all is beside the point, because the other thing that Vegas shares with LA is the utter submission of reason to hope. In fact, your chance of winning an Academy Award outdistances any chance of ever winning "big" in Vegas. Every intelligent person understands this and it doesn't matter; once again unfulfilled possibility overpowers comprehension.

Taking my tongue back from the cat

I am still alive out here. And still a non-smoker (day 12 thank you very much). The combination of being half crazy from desire to smoke and a mongo project at work have me silent, but tonight I hope to crawl out from under the writing rock.

Writing without smoking has been humbling at best. It is getting better, but thank heavens this is not the final draft, is what I'm saying.

In other news, I am very excited to have bought Gang of Four tickets today. Thank you Yelladog and Eponymous for the heads-up. Ep has pix from the Athens show.

Just now on the phone

Me: I ate an entire bag of red vines yesterday.

Andrea: You mean the ones you said weren't very satisfying.

Me: Yeah.

Andrea: snicker

Me: If they'd been satisfying I wouldn't have had to eat the whole bag.

I really don't understand men

It's official. I really don't get them--this sudden realization brought on by the announcement of this year's Ig Nobel winner: Gregg Miller, the creator of Neuticals, testical implants for dogs who've gone under the knife.

I know it's tiresome....

...and for that I apologize. I do get that there are about a zillion more important things to be talking about (DeLay, Miers, the NY subway...) than my addiction to the demon weed. But hey. It's day seven.

I am actually in my office here at work--rather than working from home as I have been most of the week. I have a big writing project that I am behind on, but plugging away at. X Unclogged is playing, I am chewing away on my polar ice gum, thinking fondly about the past when I used to be a smart person.

Yeah. I think I'm leaving here soon to go home and work from there some more. That way when I really start to lose my shit I can blast the music and dance through my apartment.

This link from Conor pretty well captures how I am feeling today.

If I were a farmer...

...waking up at four a.m. would make sense. It was like this actually. "Yikes, what time is it? I'm wide awake!!!....look at clock...Oh, it's four a.m. Go back to bed, Travis......Yikes, what time is it? I'm wide awake....Oh, it's four o three...." Repeat until 4:24 at which point you surrender and get out of bed.

I think we should get RJ Reynolds to run for president. Because surely with that level of evil genius in the White House we can both win the war on terror and regain our rightful place as world dominating superpower.

Soothing the savage beast

So I am working from home on a big writing project. Chewing tea tree toothpicks until they transform into a wood pulp substance and listening to Sigur-Rós' Takk, which I just bought yesterday on Eponymous' recommendation. It's a fantastic CD. At the risk of being misunderstood as someone who listens to way too much music described as "ethereal" (first Dead Can Dance, now this) I really cannot recommend it enough. Thank heavens I don't have a roommate because I'm just going to listen to this over and over today while I write and turn tea tree toothpicks into wood pulp.

(And I'll confess that no matter how many times I play this, I will remain completely clueless as to the different titles of their songs as I do whenever I like a band like this--witness my relationship to the Cocteau Twins, for example and their song titles are in English not Icelandic.)

You can hear sound clips on Amazon, of course; though you really should buy from someone with better labor practices.

So far I haven't killed anyone

Hell, I haven't even punched anyone in the face, and I'd say that's damn good.

So this morning they kept me waiting an hour for the fasting blood test. Have I mentioned that patience is the personal quality most severely depleted by not smoking? Well, so it seems for me. And so I'm waiting there an hour. Hungry. Daytime TV is on--The View, which is apparently four women spouting off about things they don't know much about ("Well, if I had to nominate a supreme court justice, I'd nominate someone I know who shares my views"). Bad enough, right? Well then on comes Air Supply to do a medley of their "greatest hits." That was the point I realized god was mocking me and it was going to be alright.

Once again

Conor recommends the finest:
OK Go's A Million Ways video. He's calling it "possibly the best heavily-choreographed-bad-dancing-in-the-back-garden music video ever" and I have to concur.

Happy New Year

Mazel Tov everyone. So far day four is beginning fabulously. DeLay has been indicted on more charges. Two of my best friends called me already to wish me a happy anniversary. My in box is filled with well wishes and I'm on my way to get a fasting blood test taken (which I've been putting off for a week).

More soon. Thank you to all for the non-smoking encouragement. Believe me it helps and I need it. I told Andrea I felt like I was in Lamaze classes. I'd get this wave of compulsion and just need to breathe--it does feel like the addiction equivalent of labor. She says I'm going to give birth to a camel.

I know I should say something about Miers

But I'm not going to. What I'm going to say is simply day three of not smoking is drawing to a close. It was, in fact, harder than day one or two. I'm not sure I can really stand it if day four gets any harder. I don't think I will smoke but I do think my head may explode like in Scanners. I don't think I can become much more of a misanthrope without representing an immediate threat to myself or others.

In other news, if nothing extraordinary happens in the next hour and half, tomorrow will mark twenty years since I've used drugs, including alcohol. I'm going to have to start telling people I got clean at eight to be sure. If I have time and enough functioning brain cells I may post something a little more about this tomorrow. For now, I'm going to bed.

Just for today

So I didn't smoke a cigarette today.

That's all I really wanted to say--that for the first time in oh, maybe 18 years, I went a whole day without smoking.

That and I really feel like chewing my arm off.

I'm thinking if I did it today, I can probably do it tomorrow.

Brilliant

This is really funny.

I love my city

The front page of today's LA Times:

If you've gotta have a birth defect...

I think I'm with this kid--twelve fingers might not be so bad. Frankly anything that could help me type faster at this point would be welcome.

Wow

Bill Bennett Wednesday on Morning in America:

But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.

You know, my first reaction is just "wow." And I was going to leave it simply at that. But then I thought, in fairness to Bennett, I should explain that he claims he was merely giving an example of a bad argument for abortion and being quoted out of context, as I have above, makes it seem as though he supports such a "morally reprehensible" idea.

And so, in the interests of balanced reporting, I'd like to just make it clear that Bill Bennett is not a racist. From his own lips on yesterday's Hannity and Colmes:

I'll not take instruction from Teddy Kennedy. A young woman likely drowned because of his negligence. I'll take no moral instruction with him. That's much worse than legal gambling what Teddy Kennedy did....

When I was drug czar, you bet, we were working on the issue of black crime, Alan and Sean, because there was a lot of crime in the black community.... We got the bad guys. And drug use went down. And we raised the price and lowered the purity of cocaine.... [W]hen we went into the inner city black community, the people said to me, Mr. Czar, or Czar, or Mr. Bennett, you get those people off the street and protect us. And we did our best to do it.

. . .

my wife's program, best friends, has kept more young women from having abortions...than the entire black caucus. She has done more for inner city black girls than the entire black caucus. So I will not bow my head to any of these people. I will not give up the ground of compassion and sympathy.

. . .

All day I've been reading reports and statements by people about me, Sean, and it's interesting, some use the whole quote and are fair, some don't. And that tells you something. But the problem, I think, on the liberal side, the democratic side is they attitudinize

Far be it for me to attitudinize, Bill. For a minute there I thought you might be racist but that was before I read that your wife has done more for urban black girls than the whole black caucus. I stand corrected.

(Our younger readers may not recognize Bennett as Reagan's Ed Secretary and Bush Sr.'s Director of Drug Control Policy--aka Drug Czar.)

A new friend

So I had a new commenter opine about my tone below, and so I took a look at his page (which has an ad from Fox News Gear btw), and what do I see, but this. Gosh that sort of thing so totally makes my day. I can't tell you.

Still burning

The view from my balcony

More roosting chickens

It seems like harvest time for the crop of greed and barbarism the Repubs have been sowing. Frist, DeLay, the fabulous showing the administration gave during Katrina and now today's ruling that more Abu Ghraib photos and videos must be released (link via AMERICAblog):

[R]eporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: "Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men.... The women were passing messages saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.'

"Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out."

They ought to be in terror. Do I dare to hope that this repulsive administration is finally being brought down and that my country will finally wake up to the atrocities being conducted in the name of liberty?

Front seats to the apocalypse

From Mark (one of our New Zealand correspondents) come pics of the fire from the roof of the Woodland Hills Marriott.

So cute it makes my teeth hurt

We're having a sort of Tale of Two Cities image day here at NMTE. Pictures from the fires to follow, but in the meantime, here are Tom and his grandkids, who are so cute it's almost painful ("it was the most adorable of times; it was the most apocalyptic of times..."). He bought them those unicorn outfits that slip over their shoulders as if they needed any help looking ungodly sweet.


Does this family look Irish or what??

Who to thank

So we have a new Supreme Court Justice. I for one, plan to write Boxer and Feinstein to thank them for volleying their dissent into the abyss. Here's the vote and the 22 nays:
Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Dayton (D-MN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)

Okay, maybe I was wrong

Maybe there aren't militarized dolphins roaming the high seas. That's what I get for trusting the Observer.

Tis the season

Fire season, that is.

The view from my office window today:




The view from the parking lot at work:

Beautiful

My hat is off to Shakespeare's Sister for what I'm calling the post of the month.

And congrats to Sis for being (according to PubSub) one of "the most consistently influential sites that publish feeds." (Maybe you should buy that lottery ticket, huh?)

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy

Good news at last.

I was so cheered today to hear that DeLay was indicted. Between Brown's finger pointing yesterday and DeLay's insistence that he's innocent, the Repubs, to my ears, just sound more and more pathetic. In fact, reading DeLay's apologist spokesman's quote, "This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat," reminded me of nothing so much as Marion Barry's cry upon arrest: "The bitch set me up!"

At the time, I was living in DC and "The bitch set me up" tee-shirts were the tourist item of the season. I'm thinking we ought to resurrect them. Maybe a little cartoon elephant with a "the bitch set me up" talk bubble over top. Stupid fucking criminals.

Plus ça change

So Sunday night I went to the Hollywood Bowl for the first time to see Dead Can Dance. It was an amazing performance, one of those concerts where you literally feel transported. I wouldn't have been surprised to leave the bowl and encounter Stonehenge right outside (instead of traffic).

And here's one thing about being 40, when you're cool, you're really so much cooler than, say, a 25-year-old. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. Because when you're 40, you've got a track record of coolness. I first saw Dead Can Dance 15 years ago at Georgetown University's Gaston Hall (capacity 750). I'm just sayin'... Don't get me wrong; I'm glad when a band I like becomes popular. I do not think artists have to languish in obscurity to be authentic in some way. But I'm also glad I got to see them in a more close up and personal sort of way. And Gaston Hall is the perfect setting for a goth concert, given the stained glass and all that.

I was pretty much the only woman there who didn't look like she was part of Morticia Addams' wedding party.


So it was a strange sort of thing to be 15 years and 3000 miles from there seeing the same band. Talk about worlds apart.


Continuing in the "the more things change" theme, Nouvelle Vague opened for DCD. Let me take this moment to give my unequivocal hearty endorsement. If you haven't heard them, click the link above and give a listen. Nouvelle Vague means "new wave" in French and "bossanova" in Brazilian. And so the band takes punk and new wave classics and performs them in a bossanova style. Sublime really. How can you not love a band that rocks out on a kazoo solo during a cover of "Human Fly" at the Hollywood Bowl, I ask you?

Final observation: During the "please give an encore" applause at the end (they gave two), all of these folks held up their illuminated cell phones, lighter-style. Please tell me this is just an LA thing. People don't do this in other places, do they?

David Foster Wallace for AP

Apparently 36 "militarized dolphins" (as Becky calls them) have gone missing following Katrina:

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

"My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire," he said. "The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?"

Frankly, I can't think of a story that better epitomizes the incompetence and perversity of this administration. Let's arm Flipper with poisonous dart guns and then fail to rescue him during a hurricane so that what was previously a sweet animal, loved by almost everyone can be transformed into a potentially life threatening out of control menace. What a great idea.

After School Snack calls it Hitchhikers' Guide meets Austin Powers, but I'm really thinking Don Delillo meets Tom Clancy. Two great novelists together at last.

Intermission

We interrupt today's program of depressing news to bring you Cows with Guns.

Unhappy juxtaposition

These headlines from Yahoo!News' politics section:

Senators Cast an Eye Toward Next Nominee

The Senate on Tuesday concentrated on who will be President Bush's next pick for the Supreme Court, signifying just how much of a lock chief justice nominee John Roberts has on the job.

Supreme Court May Hear Abortion Case

The Bush administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a national ban on a type of late-term abortion, a case that could thrust the president's first court picks into an early tie-breaking role on a divisive and emotional issue.

I know this isn't a shocker or anything. I just find it depressing that's all. So many people wandering around who are pro-war and anti-abortion. And they vote.

Fox nominated for hen house post

In his latest "like a parody only not funny" nomination, Bush has fingered Edwin Foulke for OSHA's Assistant Secretary of Labor. Foulke is a partner in Jackson Lewis, a major union busting law firm. But fear not, his practice area isn't union busting; it's workplace safety compliance:

When a business is subjected to an OSHA inspection, Jackson Lewis provides the necessary representation to ensure the rights of the client are fully protected. In cases where an employer is subject to criminal or civil legal action based on alleged violations, we provide the expertise to defend the allegations.

We have extensive agency experience at the national and regional levels to enter into settlement negotiations, and the expertise to contest citations before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, all state safety and health commissions, and in federal and state court review proceedings.

You can't make this shit up really. The guy Bush is nominating for an OSHA spot has dedicated his career to battling OSHA. I can only shake my head and sigh. Molly Ivins has more on Bush's "petulant pique appointments" and Confined Space, a fine blog on labor issues, has more on Foulke himself.

Sharon Olds

I've never been a big fan of Sharon Olds--in fact, she really gets under my skin--but her letter to Laura Bush turning down an invitation to the National Book Festival is quite eloquent.

I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. . . . I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.

The Nation has it online.

Get your war on

New strips about Katrina.

Is everybody happy?

Never mind the fact that our government's delayed response to Katrina resulted in carnage and destruction, never mind the fact that poverty is increasing (though more on this soon), never mind Roberts, I am here to bring you the really important news.

To wit: Viennese art group Gelatin has installed a gargantuan stuffed pink rabbit on a mountain in Italy. From the press release:

The toilet-paper-pink creature lies on its back: a rabbit-mountain like Gulliver in Lilliput. Happy you feel as you climb up along its ears, almost falling into its cavernous mouth, to the belly-summit and look out over the pink woolen landscape of the rabbit's body, a country dropped from the sky; ears and limbs sneaking into the distance; from its side flowing heart, liver and intestines.

Happily in love you step down the decaying corpse, through the wound, now small like a maggot, over woolen kidney and bowel.

Happy you leave like the larva that gets its wings from an innocent carcass at the roadside.

Such is the happiness which made this rabbit.

Random observations

I was searching the web just now for the origins of the expression "like a bad penny--it keeps turning up" and I ran across a page titled American Cultural Knowledge for Confused New Zealanders. Most of the page consists of American phrases and their NZ equivalents and vice-versa, but I loved the opening collection of observations so much that I am reproducing it all here:

Twinkies Are cylindrical sponge cakes filled with an extremely sugary white paste (I hesitate to use the word cream or even creme to describe the substance, but, be warned, it's usually what's in things described as "creme filled" in the US). Popular belief is that they have a shelf life of around 40 years. In fact, it's about a week, but I don't have the reference, and anyway, noone will believe you.

In American gay slang, a "twinkie" or a "twink" is a term used to describe a deliberately empty headed and usually white young gay man who is obsessed with appearance, fashion, and other things that the users of the term would probably be obsessed with too, if they had the physical attributes which support such interests.

Pop tarts These are flat pastry pockets filled with a substance like jam but with more sugar and less flavour. For good measure, they are coated with extremely sweet icing. Sounds reasonable enough so far, doesn't it but ... get this... they are actually designed to be heated in a toaster and eaten for breakfast. I sent some of these to my sister in NZ. She wrote back saying "these explain a lot about Americans". And so they do.

Fruit Roll up rochberg@cs.cmu.edu: A fruit roll up is coagulated sugary fruit pulp on a wax-paper backing, rolled up. I would like to point out that even though I am an native of this country, I am not responsible. (Though I will admit to a slight guilty enjoyment of them)

Graham crackers are digestive biscuits.

Chemists aren't called chemists. They are called drugstores. This is, no doubt, because they sell cigarettes. Have they no shame?

The term "Doofus" is pejorative, meaning, approximately, "idiot". It is in the register used by impolite children. (this is to explain some useage on S.C.NZ). The adjective is "doofy" e.g. "My friend is a doofus. He wears a doofy tie." (thanks to pelms@canterbury).

The term "Cooties" refers to an unspecified disease, somewhat like "the dreaded lurgy" in NZ English. Its most common usage however, is to denote the "boy germs" or "girl germs" that children expect to get off each other. Given the countervailing trend on US sitcoms, to insist on an active (sexual) interest in children of the other sex from children as young as 7 or 8, belief in cooties could do with some encouragement.

Turkey Butterball is a large manufacturer of poultry. Their toll free number is 1-800-323-4848. They will tell you that you should get a pound to a pound and half or turkey per person.

Attitude, when used as a noun describing a quality possesed or projected by someone, means something akin to "arrogance". Examples "He's got attitude". "He was throwing attitude". Being described as having attitude is not a compliment.
Mr. Bubble is a brand of bubble bath.

The Lucille Ball show, and all other of her performances are held in high esteem (or at least remembered fondly). Mock them at your peril.

People from New York generally regard people from Los Angeles with distain, which is reciprocated.

You are supposed to hate the telephone company. This is for historical reasons which ceased to be as valid after the forced breakup of the Bell System Monopoly.

Ralston Purina makes dog food. (this is to explain a post on soc.culture.new-zealand).

Clearly there was some inspiration from a newsgroup I've never visited, nonetheless, what a funny and random collection. (This one goes out special for Janny and Lib.)

Remind me not to marry a broker

Much as I hate to post one of Yahoo!news' most forwarded stories, I cannot resist this one:

Psychopaths could be best financial traders?

A team of U.S. scientists has found the emotionally impaired are more willing to gamble for high stakes and that people with brain damage may make good financial decisions, the Times newspaper reported Monday.

In a study of investors' behavior 41 people with normal IQs were asked to play a simple investment game. Fifteen of the group had suffered lesions on the areas of the brain that affect emotions.

The result was those with brain damage outperformed those without.

The scientists found emotions led some of the group to avoid risks even when the potential benefits far outweighed the losses, a phenomenon known as myopic loss aversion.

One of the researchers, Antione Bechara, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Iowa, said the best stock market investors might plausibly be called "functional psychopaths."

I'm thinking this also explains that old expression "lucky at cards, unlucky at love." I was just mulling that aphorism over the other day and thinking, "You know--I really should visit my Vegas friends and try my hand at the poker or blackjack tables. I believe there is money to be made." And then I started wondering about that expression and what it was really saying. But this article about traders brings it home to me. Normal people have "loss aversion," myopic or not. They never really cash in on the big jackpots for the same reason they run out of the burning building or determine not to become a lion tamer. People like me, on the other hand, view romance like this: wouldn't it be really cool if the whole building burned down and somehow I escaped unscathed?

In my defense, I look at it this way: success in love seems like such a longshot that it feels like winning Powerball. Once every blue moon I buy a ticket, but I never buy more than one because buying a ticket to begin with is such a ridiculous act of optimism that I always figure if it's my time, it's my time. There is no real way to make the odds anything other than astro-fucking-nomical so why try. This is the attitude with which I make my dating decisions as well. Okay, maybe he's a little unstable and has a history of this or that. But what the hey--if it's my time, it's my time.

I'm thinking I really should try my hand at investing.

You tell me

Does John Roberts look frighteningly like the Autopilot from Airplane or is it just me (and Becky).

Not angry enough yet?

Check out Independent Media TV's 25 Mind-Numbingly Stupid Quotes about Hurricane Katrina. My personal favorite comes from Rick Santorum (who you just know I adore):

I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), Sept. 6, 2005

My head is exploding

Okay, so the abuse of language--the reduction of words to meaningless sounds--about which I complained below is splashed all over the front pages of newspapers around the country. Not critically, mind you--not with any sort of analysis--just parroted by something like half the news organs in the nation it seems from a cursory glance at Newseum's front pages site.

Remember that scene in Life of Brian?
Brian: "You don't need to follow me. You're all individuals."
Crowd, in unison: "Yes, we're all individuals!"
That's what I'm thinking here. Liberal media indeed. Moo.

It's all about me

So I am finally shedding my signature dinosaur cell phone. The Kyocera Luddite. Tonight I bought a pda/phone. I'm very excited to join this century. It's charging right now or I would be calling everyone I know simply to celebrate the fact that I can get cell reception in my home at last (I also changed providers). Anyway, it will take me a few days to get it all loaded up and fully operational but it is already functioning as a stupendous piece of retail therapy. (Was I depressed yesterday? Gee, I don't remember...maybe.)

And while we're talking about me, here is the picture Chris shot of me at the end of the hell week that is working a convention (Hawaii TKO or something).

Not to be missed

Okay, I have been living in a cultural vacuum, I know, but I just found out Roman Polanski has a version of Oliver Twist coming out at the end of the month. I find this fucking hilarious.

I am having one of those "I love LA" weeks. Tomorrow I'm seeing Dead Man and Friday I'm going to Paul Weller. Am also vaguely contemplating weekend goodies like Exene's art show or the LA County Fair (I love county fairs--there's something extremely satisfying about eating food on a stick while watching missing chromosome people win large stuffed animals--maybe it's because I'm an Americanist, I dunno. And this year has the added draw of a KC and the Sunshine Band/Village People show). Realistically I will probably end up sluggishly doing not much this weekend given how running-on-empty I've been. But the choices--that's the point. I lived for 11 years in the upper midwest where I admit I went bowling, attended fish fries, and even went to a monster truck rally as part of the if-you-can't-beat-them strategy of surviving. I am so grateful to be back near an ocean again in a city that understands that Cows on the Concourse does not qualify as a cultural event worthy of an above-the-fold picture in the paper.

Who needs Derrida?

Our Commander in Chief was apparently handed a leadership script during today's news conference:

Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government.

To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility.

Here's my question: Just what the fuck does that mean? "I take responsibility?" Can someone translate that for me in terms of actual things that go on in the world? The more analytical side of me thinks of Derrida and his "language has lost its ability to mean" (or however that goes). I know I pick on Bush and his grotesque jingoism of hate (for example, from this same press conference, "the enemies of freedom remain brutal and determined"), but this is even more than that; this is not even language--it conveys no meaning whatsoever.

Responsibility.

Whatever.

The less analytical side of me just wants to set myself on fire.

What it really means to be decadent

Here's a few right wing responses to Katrina:

Rep. Richard H. Baker, a 10-term Republican from Baton Rouge (according to WSJ):

We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did.

Tom DeLay to children living in the Astrodome (comparing their stay to being at camp):

Now, tell me the truth, boys, is this kind of fun?

Rush Limbaugh:

But if your city believes that it's entitled, if that's, if that's the worldview of the leaders of a community, then I don't care what their race is -- if their worldview is that this is a welfare state -- "the government needs to protect us. The government needs to feed us. The government needs to transport us. The government" -- well, guess what? The government needs to build the levees. The government needs to make sure the levees are -- the government. You're passing the buck all over the place and accepting all the money that the government's sending in to you, ah, and then something like this happens and then you start, you know, wringing your hands.

"Oh, look how poor the population --" Well, what do you expect when you have a welfare state mentality as your city government? I mean, I'm not even being critical. I'm just trying to point out something obvious here! That -- talking about this for 18 years, folks -- socialism versus capitalism; entrepreneurialism and self-reliance versus the entitlement mentality -- so much on display here. That's what nobody's got the guts to say.

Originally I had titled this post "Satirists out of work," but then Andrea reminded me of this Jacques Barzun quote:

When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label. A decadent culture offers opportunities chiefly to the satirist.

Let them eat jambalaya, I say.

Oh how the mighty have fallen

So I'm here in ABQ visiting my best and oldest friend, and what do I discover? A Rockin' Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters CD in her collection. I'm really worried. (And I got her an Ipod for her birthday--I fear to think.)

Just say no

To p-meds that use these sorts of images in their advertisements. This from a Japanese ad for Serenace. There's plenty more where that came from at the Japanese Gallery of Psychiatric Art (link courtesy of Chris)

Back and leaving

So I got back from Honolulu yesterday morning and I'm leaving for Albuquerque tomorrow. I expect to blog more from NM than I did from HA since I'm there visiting Andrea rather than in a bootcamp-like work setting. Nick the cat is very, very pissed off. He was already in no mood but when the luggage got emptied into the washer and then repacked, well... If he had fingers I'm sure he'd be phoning animal rights groups.

Sunday I return to LA and I hope to remain grounded for at least a little while. We'll see.

Let them eat barbecue

Barbara Bush on American Public Media's "Marketplace" Monday:

Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston.

What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.

It defies comment really.

Resort life

I've decided this place is like a giant veal fattening pen except they make the veal pay for their food.

As for myself, I do not feel I'm being softened up for the slaughter, though I have started mumbling to myself--what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Fifteen hour day today. Very tired now. My feet feel like two hamburger patties someone attached to the ends of my ankles. I brought four pairs of sensible shoes with me and everyone of them feels like a medieval torture device.

That said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with beginning the day staring at the Pacific and drinking Kona.

Two things I hate

1. When you pay for someone's dinner because they're a starving young person type and then you run into them at a function at a Hawaiian resort.

2. People who take their off road vehicles down to 7 mph to go over a speed bump.

If I make it through the week without becoming a complete and total misanthrope it will be a minor miracle.

Mahalo, the matrix has you

So I am apparently staying at the most profitable hotel in the world (who knew?). When we arrived here (after 4pm), one of our two rooms was not ready. They told us to come back in two hours. We said that was not okay. So they found another room. (After some considerable delay, I might add.) My traveling buddy went to check into that room, but she needed a king bed and they'd given her a room with two doubles. So then we switched rooms. (And let me add here that one of the rooms was charged at the wrong rate and the other had the wrong check out date.)

Then, of course, I went to set up my computer. We'd asked at the desk about high speed access and they gave us a cable. Thing is--the room is set up for wireless. So I get my wireless card and try to connect. One bar. One of those "the gerbils are running as fast as they can" connections. I can't even connect well enough to pay for connection. So I call the 800 number and talk to the guy who tells me I can get a wireless bridge--that he'll call the front desk and have them send one up.

A little while later I get a call from the hotel. There will be a one dollar fee, the woman tells me, to bring the wireless bridge to my room. Otherwise I can come get it at the front desk.

And here, I need to cut in and underscore that I am here, not for a vacation, but as staff on an event that is filling thousands of rooms here this weekend. Whatever. The lesson we learned today is that one doesn't get to be the most profitable through great customer service or even common sense.

This place is totally like biosphere for the cruise class. It's vast--a compound, you could say. I'm trying not to have Logan's Run anxiety, but I fully expect to wake to find a crystal in the palm of my hand that's gone black.

Today's riddle:
Q: When does "high speed" mean "super slow"?
A: When when you're connecting to the Internet on island time.

Swatting flies with hammers

The latest strategy in combating illegal immigration appears to be simply obliterating border towns so reports AP, in a story titled "N.M., Mexico Agree to Raze Lawless Town" about Bill Richardson's agreement with Chihuahua's governor to level the buildings in Las Chepas (population approx. 35) where immigrants could hide.

You know, I lived through the 80s in DC and the battles to maintain the gentrified atmosphere of some city neighborhoods in the face of a growing population of have-nots. I remember at one point, they tired of the homeless people sleeping on the benches in front of my neighborhood laundromat, so they removed all of the benches. This accomplished two things: first, everyone had to stand while they were waiting for the bus; second, the homeless people slept inside the laundromat. Which is to say, good luck Bill.

Spam of the month

This from A's in box--a personal testimonial in a spam ad for an energy pill:

"I wake up at 6am to make breakfast and help my husband get out the door for work. I drive my daughter to kindergarten and son to his junior high, then the grocery shopping, laundry, house cleaning, my girl scout troop, perhaps a soccer game, cook dinner, help the kids with their homework, and hopefully squeeze in some quality time with my husband. I wake up at 6am the next morning and do an almost identical day. I don't know what I would do without Excell."
– Noel Dawson, Super Mom, Ramona, California

I mean fuck, right? Is it an ad for an energy pill or for hollowpoint bullets that's what I want to know.

Innovation ≠ improvement

BBC reports on animatronic squirrels that will supposedly be an improvement over ringing cell phones. Myself, I fail to see how seeing the hamster dance a dozen times a day rather than hearing a ring tone is a quality of life improvement. Take this, for example:

[F]uture technology needs to "have a deeper understanding of how humans like to interact, what humans want, and eventually what humanity stands for," he said.

"This includes our immediate context, our thinking and our goals, but also our morals and ethics."

. . .

But there are still technologies, he argues, which just do not need to be improved, such as the lift or elevator.

"Although we have had speech recognition for some time now, elevators still have push buttons. It just doesn't make any sense to introduce a more complex interface when what we have is already completely appropriate."

. . .

"For some tasks, though, pressing a button to initiate a certain procedure is better than getting involved in a philosophical discussion with a wise-ass elevator about who is most important in the lift and needs to get where first."

I fear to think, really. Here's the thing--given the state of the nation, the results of the last presidential election, the popularity of talk radio and reality TV and so on, how much can we really expect from artificial intelligence. I'd be satisfied with some real intelligence, myself. If we can teach machines to understand what humanity is and how to make an ethical decision, I vote we turn over the running of the country to them. They'd be way ahead of our current leaders.

Word of the day

The latest in our continuing series of gender-related posts...

Got this last week via email:

Thelyphthoric (adjective)

Pronunciation: [the-lêf-'tho-rik or thee-] Listen

Definition: (Obsolete) Corruptive of the morals of women.

Suggested Usage: There are obvious religious applications of today's word: "The parson warned the congregation of the thelyphthoric effects of Britney Spears' new video." But the layman will find uses for it, too: "Finding it less time-consuming than plying the young ladies with libation, Giuseppe soon learned that paying them gratuitous compliments was more efficient for swaying them to his thelyphthoric ends."

Etymology: Today's word was the creation of Martin Madan, who wrote in 1780 "Thelyphthora or, A treatise on female ruin: in its causes, effects, consequences, prevention, and remedy." Madan put this word together from Greek thelus "woman" + phthora "destruction, ruin." Both Greek words have resisted efforts of etymologists to dissipate their mystery.

Ungrounded

So it occurred to me this week that the reason I've been feeling pretty ungrounded lately is, in fact, because I have spent way too much time in the air recently. I leave tomorrow for Hawaii. (Before anyone gets too envious let me add that this is a work trip and, as anyone who's traveled for work knows, the inside of one convention center/Hilton seems much the same as another regardless of where in the world you are.) I get back from Honolulu Tuesday morning and then Thursday morning I leave for Albuquerque. I return from there Sunday and I'm very much looking forward to trying to make it a whole month without leaving California. Though that's still in question as there is a prospect of a cross-country road trip with A (ABQ-DC) sometime late September/October-ish, with a short DC visit and then a flight back. We'll see.

The good news in all of this is that I have enough miles for a trip to Europe. Still mulling over whether to keep saving for New Zealand or just spend them in the spring going back to A-dam or somewhere.

What all of that amounts to is that there will be no blogging next week. If I get any time to do something besides work 17 hour days I will not be spending them posting things. In the meantime--as in right now--I will try to catch up a little. I have a bunch of choice tidbits in the in box sent from various sources.

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up

Via the Bitch comes the news that men are, in fact, more intelligent than women. So says science. This from The Australian:

Men are more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average, making them better suited for tasks of high complexity, according to the authors of a paper due to be published in the British Journal of Psychology.

Genetic differences in intelligence between the sexes helped explain why many more men than women won Nobel Prizes or became chess grandmasters, the study by Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn concludes.

They showed that men outnumbered women in increasing numbers as intelligence levels rose. There were twice as many with IQ scores of 125, typical for people with first-class degrees.

When scores rose to 155, associated with genius, there were 5.5 men for every woman.

Lucky thing I left academia, that's what I'm thinking. Those tasks of high complexity...they're just so hard!

I think my favorite part of the article is the lead-in: "HALF the population will dismiss this story--but..." The assumption being, of course, that all of the men reading this will agree with it. Yeah.

I guess I need to go over and apologize to the trolls on Eponymous' blog.

Brain food

I am such a sucker for this kind of thing:


Sushi flash drives courtesy of Popgadget.

Oh dear

AP sez:

A new Washington University study shows the part of the brain used to daydream is the same where Alzheimer's disease develops — in some people — later in life. It suggests the normal brain activity of daydreaming fuels the sequence of events leading to Alzheimer's.

I'm so fucked.

Career opportunities

Silly me. I spent so many years aquiring a PhD, when I could have just gone this route.

The historical roots of local fetish

I've often said that LA distinguishes itself from, say, an east coast city by its relationship to transportation:

In LA, cars are extensions of bodies and feet are objects of art.

Well, Andrea just sent evidence that there are longstanding historical roots to this phenomenon. From the BBC news story "Bones reveal first shoe-wearers":

"The oldest shoes in the world are about 9,000 years old, and they're from California," said Professor Trinkaus, of Washington University in St Louis, US.

More on pots and kettles

From Bush's speech in Idaho today:

In the end, the terrorists will fail because they have nothing positive to offer. The terrorist Zarqawi sums up their appeal this way: Anyone who stands in the way of our struggle is our enemy and target of the swords. That's the sum of his grim vision. They're brutal, but nothing more. They seek to exploit a great religion, but in truth, they are animated by nothing but their own lust for power and their desire for dominion over others. And while they may sow death and destruction for a time, the history of the last half-century is clear -- the will to power cannot withstand the will to live in freedom. (Applause.)

What to say really?

Birthday pics

More substantive blogging will resume later today. In the meantime, this one's just for Rook by request.


M, A, J, and me in Santa Monica Sunday



Banana cream birthday pie

Comment of the month

Amber wins the blog commenter of the month award. And I credit this not because she was kind enough to give me kudos over on her blog, but just because it's so damn quotable:

Me: . . . Seriously though, has anyone else noticed that the thing that really gets long comments strings on Ep's blog tends to be debates among men (and Amber--I'm not ignoring you) over feminism?

Eponymous: Well, I'd prefer it if we had plenty of women here discussing this, but my most verbose posters tend to be male. Sorry.

Amber's comment: I know enough to duck and cover when I'm about to be beaten about the head and shoulders with 20 angry penises.

The only one in the country

My present from Andrea. I'm thinking I need to start inviting dates over for dinner more.

Metaphor

The whole "your body is a temple" thing? It's a metaphor, folks. It doesn't mean you should go adorning yourself like you're the Sistine Chapel or something. (Who even knew there was a Christian Tattoo Association?)

Though I'll admit, I do like some of them.

1,100

That's how many dead bodies were brought to the Baghdad morgue last month, according to Truthout. Before we rescued the country from senseless violence, the total for the month was generally fewer than 200. (For more on the carnage levels, see Iraq Body Count.)

Truthout also reports on an Afghan detainee who was beaten so badly his muscles split apart. Thank heavens the reservist being tried was just acting on his own volition and this isn't part of a pattern of abuse, huh?

And then there's shrub and his Parisian vacation and refusal to meet with C.S. I mean, for fuck's sake. I read in today's story about "the protest mom" (this particular positioning really does make my head explode--hello nineteenth century):

Some critics say Sheehan is exploiting her son's death to promote a left-wing agenda supported by her and groups with which she associates.

I'm not even going to get into the latest truly loony editorial from Ann Coulter in which she counters Sheehan's accusations by waving the 9/11 card. (Um, and this has exactly what to do with any of this, Ann?) But I will ask: since when is it a "left-wing agenda" to object to thousands of dead and countless more torture victims? If there are any right-wingers out there reading this, I want to say I pity you if this is now a "left-wing agenda." I really do. May god, or whatever, have mercy on your pathetic souls.

Humor or prophesy?

You make the call.

When the history of bad smells is written

There will be an entire chapter titled "The Elevator in Travis' Building."

The building is only three stories tall--truly I am mystified at how the smell of fish could get embedded into the elevator at a molecular level in what could have only been a short journey. It's like some fish crawled into the wall and died there.

40 is the new 30

Yeah.

My birthday is Sunday. I haven't really been relishing the approach of this one. My sisters both tell me life begins at 40, and god knows, Travis got her groove back this year. Nonetheless, I've been in cringe mode.



So yesterday I got carded for cigarettes. I wanted to lunge across the counter and give the clerk a big sloppy wet kiss.

Then at the Dinosaur Jr. show last night, P scored us prime backstage viewing spots. We're waiting for the band to go on, and this guy is sort of skulking around giving me and P the eye. Wouldn't you know he's the bassist.

Maybe it's not so bad afterall. That's where I'm at today.

Keeping the skies safe

I don't know about anyone else, but I sure am glad those homeland security folks are on the case. Just because a passenger on a flight may be too young to have mastered language and still drinking breast milk, doesn't mean he or she should expect to just roll by with no questions asked if their name is on a list. I've seen Family Guy; I know what those babies are capable of.

The rush to the bottom

Remember that remark by Vicente Fox that Mexicans take American jobs that even blacks don't want? Remember the outraged reaction from some folks? Well, Farrakhan seems to have realized the wisdom in ceding the bottom of the food chain spot.

Although Fox was sharply criticized for his remarks by some black leaders, Farrakhan said Sunday that blacks do not want to go to farms and pick fruit because they already "picked enough cotton."

Really, it's almost beyond salvation through irony.

Friday dementia blogging

Appropos of nothing except I came across it again just now, here is a gem of a passage from Jonathan Franzen from The Corrections:

Alfred was standing in the master bedroom wondering why the drawers of his dresser were open, who had opened them, whether he had opened them himself. He couldn't help blaming Enid for his confusion. For witnessing it into existence. For existing, herself, as a person who could have opened these drawers.

"Al? What are you doing?"

He turned to the doorway where she'd appeared. He began a sentence: "I am --" but when he was taken by surprise, every sentence became an adventure in the woods; as soon as he could no longer see the light of the clearing from which he'd entered, he would realize that the crumbs he'd dropped for bearings had been eaten by birds, silent deft darting things which he couldn't quite see in the darkness but which were so numerous and swarming in their hunger that it seemed as if they were the darkness, as if the darkness weren't uniform, weren't an absence of light but a teeming and corpuscular thing, and indeed when as a studious teenager he'd encountered the word "crepuscular" in McKay's Treasury of English Verse, the corpuscles of biology had bled into his understanding of the word, so that for his entire adult life he'd seen in twilight a corpuscularity, as of the graininess of the high-speed film necessary for photography under conditions of low ambient light, as of a kind of sinister decay; and hence the panic of a man betrayed deep in the woods whose darkness was the darkness of starlings blotting out the sunset or black ants storming a dead opossum, a darkness that didn't just exist but actively consumed the bearings that he'd sensibly established for himself, lest he be lost; but in the instant of realizing he was lost, time became marvelously slow and he discovered hitherto unguessed eternities in the space between one word and the next, or rather he became trapped in that space between words and could only stand and watch as time sped on without him, the thoughtless boyish part of him crashing on out of sight blindly through the woods while he, trapped, the grownup Al, watched in oddly impersonal suspense to see if the panic-stricken little boy might, despite no longer knowing where he was or at what point he'd entered the woods of this sentence, still manage to blunder into the clearing where Enid was waiting for him, unaware of any woods -- "packing my suitcase," he heard himself say. This sounded right. Verb, possessive, noun. Here was a suitcase in front of him, an important confirmation. He'd betrayed nothing.

I know people razz Franzen for turning up his nose at Oprah, but the man can write, okay? That's really all I ask of an author. If you're going to be a literary snob, at least be a literary snob who writes well.

When is a bargain not such a good deal?

This from AP yesterday:

A rush to purchase $50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede Tuesday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far as to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line.

This is what we've come to. Not Pete Townsend and the Who--Steve Wozniak and Apple. Sigh.

The woman wet herself. Once again, I'm thinking can we just hurry up and blow ourselves to kingdom come? Please. I think we're ready really.

(As an aside, in searching for an article about the Who show, I ran across this AP short list of stampede deaths for the more morbid trivia buff among us.)

I was wrong...

Maybe there are good reasons to get an SUV afterall.

From yesterday's BBC News:

Confused lions 'hunt' small cars

Small cars driving through a safari park in Merseyside have been chased by confused lions who think they are prey.

Staff at Knowsley Safari Park are monitoring smaller vehicles, including Smart cars and Mini Coopers, after the lions started paying special interest.

David Ross, park manager, told the BBC News website that a group of lionesses chased after one Smart car after being confused by its compact appearance.

What god would make this?

Alongside today's stories about teaching intelligent design in the classroom is the news that South Carolina is trying, in essence, to eliminate Medicaid. Instead of guaranteed health services for the poor, SC wants to create private accounts where some sum of money (determined by age, sex, and physical health) would be deposited and the recipients can use the money for insurance or to pay for health care directly. If they use it up, that's that. AP reports:

South Carolina's request is based on the belief that Medicaid has created little incentive for frugality. Rather, it has created incentives for beneficiaries to seek health care services without regard for the costs.

. . .

[C]onservative think tank analysts applaud the South Carolina plan. Devon Herrick, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, said the plan promotes personal responsibility.

"If they've made wise choices, they might have money left over," Herrick said. "If they've made poor choices, it might take some money out of their pockets."

You hear that all you South Carolina poor people? You're going to have to stop being so frivolous and thoughtless about your health care choices. I mean, that chemo treatment you're getting--did you even shop around? I'll bet you didn't. I'll bet you just accepted the first offer that came your way. I hear Wal-mart is cutting back prices on cancer treatments. And those emergency room visits. A bit excessive don't you think? Every time there's a serious injury, you just rush into the hospital without stopping to think first whether you could staunch the flow of blood with some household item.

You better wise up.

Sheesh, those poor people act like everyone's got the right to life or something. Only fetuses (feti?) get it for free, folks; you've got to earn it. Make some better choices, will you? Contracting diabetes? Hep? Cancer? Bad choices. Really bad.

News like this makes me wonder how anyone can believe in intelligent design. If the theory holds that the world is too complex a place to have happened by accident/evolution, what about the obvious conclusion that the world is too venal and repulsive to have been the masterwork of an omnipotent being?

I've said it before, and I'm saying it again now: if there were such a thing as intelligent design, I am certain we are the beta-test. A failed experiment at best. You've got to know that god rejected the whole free-will thing after building Earth. It seemed like a good idea on paper, but in its execution it just didn't work out.

Like a hole in the head

If you want to learn how to build a house, build a house. Don't ask anybody, just build a house.

Christopher Walken (from Walken for President 2008)

From the Press Release:

Said the Queens native, "I have always been a follower of politics. My father was friends with the mayor of Schodack (NY) back in the 1940's. We would walk the streets of Schodack and the people, they would wave to him. The children adored him. That is what I love to be, a man of respect and love."

Cosmic tea leaves

I am one of those people at once excessively rational and extremely superstitious. I am someone who never, ever says out loud "Well, things couldn't possibly get worse," because I am certain that the god I don't believe in is listening and will immediately step in to prove me wrong.

So this morning I am grumpy. It's overcast and gloomy. I didn't get enough sleep. Monday seems to have come way too quickly. I'm making my grumpy way through the courtyard in my building and I see a hummingbird. This I take as a good sign--like a shooting star. Maybe the day won't be so bad after all.

Then, I get this link via email from Andrea, who doesn't even know about my hummingbird emissary.

Not buying a lottery ticket today.

A bunch of geniuses, I tell you

So for whatever reason, I haven't had much taste for blogging these past few days. I think the preponderance of news stories about Cindy Sheehan has actually depressed me a little. Don't get me wrong; I admire her and I'm really glad that she's caught the media's eye and managed to infuse news coverage with an antiwar and antiBush sentiment, but it discourages me that only human interest stories seem to garner this sort of attention. And there's a way in which some of the coverage does seem to translate the problems of this war and this administration into a human interest story.

But that's my dark way of seeing things.

Regardless, despite my amotivational blogging syndrome, I did want to pass along the "no shit, Sherlock" headline of the day: "Vehicle Armor Saving Lives in Iraq." It's hard to even know what to say. That together with "Bush Motorcade Passes War Protesters" give today's AP headlines the feel of The Onion on an off day to me. Not gonna be giving out a lot of Pulitzers based on this week's reporting, I'm guessing.

Night of the falling stars

The Perseids are tonight and tomorrow night (the peak being actually during the day tomorrow). Just FYI in case anyone else is a meteor shower fan. Of course, I am superstitious enough that I think of it as good luck when I see a shooting star/meteor, and so a good meteor shower can feel almost like too much of a good thing (like that "may you live in interesting times" curse).

How you know it will be a good day

Yesterday morning my drive to work was truly the day the music died. I could find nothing on the radio except commercials and insipid djs talking about stupid things. Today, on the other hand, I turned on the radio and the dBs' Amplifier came on. What a great damn song, really. I admit a penchant for pop songs about despair, and it's almost the Platonic ideal of the form. Once, a million years ago, I made a mix tape (before CDs, when dinosaurs roamed the earth) consisting solely of dance music about depressing and desperate things. I may have even been inspired by Amplifier. Songs I can remember on the tape: Trouble Funk--Drop the Bomb, Zounds--More Trouble, Bonzo Goes to Washington--5 Minutes, REM--It's The End Of The World As We Know It, The Jam--Town Called Malice, and so on.

Am I wrong in thinking the 80s was really the best era for club songs about the end of the world?

Further thoughts on the sonic boom

Apparently much of southern California thought this morning's sonic boom was gunshots. Having lived in DC during the 80s I did not make such a mistake (I'm clear on what gunshots sound like). I did, however, think for just a moment that the rapture had come. Imagine my disappointment when I found out it was the shuttle landing. I was so excited about the prospect of a new car.

Retrograde

Some days you just know Mercury is retrograde without even checking.

Today, for instance:

First of all, my allergies are so bad I feel like I have lupus. If I break out in a butterfly rash across my cheeks, I will hardly be surprised.

Second of all, I had an instant where I thought a project I was working on was almost done, but then got new information which meant the text needs revising, and several new images need to be added.

The task is made more difficult by the fact that I have not been trained on the new scanning software, and the folks who can use it are in a meeting.

And even if I could use the scanner, no one can locate the single copy of the text I need to scan--the rest of the copies being in Iran.

All of the above, which is not that unusual really, is brought into relief by the fact that I was awakened by a sonic boom at 5 a.m.

Make self love, not war

In searching for something else entirely I came across this rather unbelievable piece in Harper's Readings. Apparently, a sex toy shop in Edison, NJ opted to send 36 vibrators to Iraqi women "for humanitarian reasons." Harpers has some of the accompanying letters:

Dear Iraqi Woman,

As the bombs and molten death rain unmercifully upon your homeland, know that there are those of us, in various corners of the world, who sympathize with what you are going through.

Although there is very little that I myself can accomplish to stop the invasion of our homeland, know that I am helping to send you various sexual toys and well-wishes in a show of solidarity. The Prophet (just like all religious figures) preaches patience, and I believe that your suffering will be short-lived.

Soon your precious oil reserves will be plundered, and our country will no longer be important. A local despot will gain power, and the great cycle will continue. Enjoy your vibrator while you can. When my fellow Americans leave your country, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to enjoy it much longer.

I admit, I read things like this and I think, "Can we just hurry up and blow ourselves to bits already?" Oy fucking vey.

Headline of the day

Once more, perfectly good grant money goes to prove the obvious.

Why life isn't as good as Star Trek

Life continues apace. My in box is crammed full of bloggable news and tidbits, but sadly I am still seeking the warp in the time-space continuum. (This together with the shoemakers' elves being the two cruelest myths in my adult life--the two things that I fantasize about regularly.) I leave for a work trip to Hawaii in three weeks and all hands are on deck here prepping. It's beginning to feel excessively surreal in my life--an if-it's-Tuesday-this-must-be-Berlin kind of feeling. Two weeks ago Sunday, for instance, I was in Dublin and said to a British friend there, "I'll see you Thursday in LA," which I did. This morning, I emailed a Dubliner friend to see if he'd left for LA yet. Saturday I ran across an old friend visiting from Minneapolis and said to her, "I'll see you in a few weeks in Hawaii."

Last night Andrea and I were talking about her plans to come here (from Albuquerque) in ten days. She said she was leaving for DC as soon as she gets back. "Does that mean you won't be able to go to Greece with me in October?" I whined. "No, I'll just leave from JFK if I need to. We can meet up in NY."

It's like that. Someone, I can't remember who, identified the feeling perfectly for me. She said it feels like you're on Star Trek, coming back to the Enterprise but you're not all the way beamed back. Like you're there, but your particles are still fuzzing around. That's exactly how I feel lately.

(Update: as soon as I wrote this, I sent an email responding to a new Russian friend I met in Dublin last month and ended it with "See you in Hawaii." Life is strange.)

(Update number two: Conor's response to the Star Trek metaphor: "Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly what it's like--walking back from a stroll this evening I thought 'Tomorrow week I'm going to the Aran Islands to finally wind down' and then had the sub-thought 'and between now and then I'll be to LA and back...' at this stage my soul is, I think, rather than traveling at the pace of a walking camel, huddling somewhere near Newfoundland, hoping to find a less ballistic host...")

More from Ireland

The Wilde statue to which I referred below


With one of the accompanying quotes

Oh my god this is cool

Via Conor comes the link to BookCrossing, where you register your books and then leave them in some public place for other people to read and log and so on...I was shocked to see that my own Northridge, California has 16 spots where books have been "released into the wild."

The site is great. There is a link to the most traveled books, one of which is the EuroBookCrossers' Diary #1. What a cool idea is that. It's like some sort of wired exquisite corpse journal.

Call me Ishmael

From Janet comes this NMTE exclusive snap all the way from a Kingsland, New Zealand shopping center.


Note that the Star of David is comprised of toothbrushes.

What she said

Andrea forwarded this paragraph from Danielle Crittenden's post on the Huffington blog, and I thank Danielle for articulating exactly how I've felt this past week:

So I go away on a two-week vacation, and in my absence the second London bombing occurs, a judge is nominated to the Supreme Court, the IRA declares peace, British police subsequently round up all the bombing suspects (including shooting to death a wrong one), the attempt to "impeach" Rove sputters, a goaded Nicole Kidman announces she is giving up acting to find love, and Jane Fonda revives her sell-out Vietcong act of the 1970s in a cross-country bus tour denouncing Iraq. Bush appoints Bolton during the recess, and King Fahd dies. For a blogger it's a little like coming home to a huge pile of laundry.

Strangely enough, she's also returning from a trip to Ireland; though she was biking, and you know I sure wasn't.

One of my fetishes

No, it's nothing titillating--sorry.

I have this thing for those warning signs with the silhouettes of people on orange or yellow backgrounds. You know, like the ones on coke machines that show the little shadow man getting crushed to death because of tilting the machine to get his change, or the ones on electrical equipment that show the lightning bolt frying shadow man.

Well here's a really good one from Ireland


Warning: you may be able to walk on water here.

Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated

Okay, I didn't fall off the face of the planet. It's just been pretty unruly here, trying to live my life lately. Work has been at a break-neck pace and it took me much longer to recover from that stuff combined with the travel/jet lag than I'd anticipated. Everyone in my life is feeling neglected, and I'm still feeling a lot like I'm grinding my gears a good part of the time.

But all of that said, I think it's past time to return to blogging. Folks have been sending me all manner of bloggable items. For now, I will merely call your attention to the recent study that concluded that men who feel like their masculinity is threatened are more likely to support the Iraq war, want to drive an SUV, and be homophobic (okay that's troublesome parallelism, but I don't care). I guess those conclusions pretty fall into the "no duh" category, but it seemed worth sharing nonetheless:

Participants were randomly assigned feedback that indicated their responses were either masculine of feminine.

The women had no discernible reaction to either type of feedback in a follow-up survey.

But the guys's reactions were "strongly affected," Willer said today.

"I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle," said Willer said. "There were no increases [in desire] for other types of cars."

Those who had their masculinity threatened also said they felt more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile than those whose masculinity was confirmed, he said.

A discussion here at work about this article led to this conversation:

"So we all know why men buy big trucks and SUVs, but why do women?"

"Protection. It's like a big egg carton."