Monastic

Ran (separately) into a couple of people who are not speaking to each other.  Coincidence.  

Happy New Year.

Happenstance

So in the Jon Carroll Christmas Quiz, there was a question about Delaney and Bonnie, "a reasonably well-known rock group" from the early '70s.

So it transpires that Delaney Bramlett died Saturday.  (That would be 12/27.)

Huh.

SFX, part 2

Ba-dum-bum!

In memoriam

Eartha Kitt died today.

Performance in Kaskad (?), 1962.

(Also Harold Pinter.)

ETA:  Afronerd's tribute, which contains a clip of Ms. Kitt as Catwoman.

A joyous celebration-of-your-choice!

Links

From Better than salt money, a few sparks of hope.

Hermitting

Solitary.

Information You Did Not Know

A feature story on communion wafers.

Breaking News!

Glasses all smeary.  Where the hell do they go while I'm asleep?

By the Way

That swan is still in town; I thought it had moved on, but it was gliding on the lake yesterday afternoon.

Hermitting

Stylite.

Hermitting

Marabout.

Swan (from November) Doing Betty Grable

I printed this shot of that swan, and decided that you should suffer, too.

Santa Claus Explains It All For You

Right here.

Example:  

We also have a number of requests for exorbitant gifts. More often than not, the folks that make those requests are on the "Naughty" list. But for those that are on the "Nice" list, we do have a few rules. We do not deliver gifts over US$25,000 in value unless there is a special exemption granted by our independent auditors. Granting requests over US$25,000 usually requires a pretty extensive background check and involves someone with a life-long tenure on the "Nice" list. Gifts between US$1,000 and US$24,999 also require a minimum of 2 consecutive years on the "Nice" list.

Hermitting

Howard Hughes.

Hermitting

Eremite.

Educational Post

Via Arthur Hlavaty, from the LJ of Paft:  Bestiary of [Online] Debate-derailers.  More light!

Hermitting

Anchorite.

Hermitting

Hermit.

Class Warfare Primer

Republicans hate the middle class. [ETA:]Seriously. (Thanks to Mahablog and Brilliant at Breakfast, respectively.)

(As do some members of the extreme "left" wing, many intellectuals, and teenaged middle-class offspring.  But I digress.)

Bill of Rights, US Constitution, ratified on this date in 1791.

Hermitting

Recluse.

A Thought

You know, I don't think somehow that a pink Hello Kitty guitar exactly says Joan Jett to the aspiring young female guitarist.

Cerebral Tickle

Hmmm; is it too late to start collecting model trains?

Well, very small model trains.

Yeah, probably...

Hmmmmmmmm...

Three cop cars.

One making with the blinky but not the screechy.

In single file, approaching an official-looking golf cart.

A bust?  Ya think?

Two Things

1. The unions didn't cause the problems in the auto industry; the execs and decision-makers of the auto industry did.
2. William S. Stevens, who wrote:  

   “The dynamics of the common law and the development of one of the most important technical rules of baseball, although on the surface almost completely different in outlook and philosophy, share significant elements.”

   about the relation between common law and the infield fly rule, has died.

Improvization

I was supposed to make Red Sauce for friends who have newborn twins and not much time or energy to cook (because it's tasty and you can use it in interesting ways) but time kept sneaking away from me and it got to be six pm.

Red sauce needs time to cook.  Marriage and swyving of flavors and all that.

So.  Larder.  Odds and ends of various pastas but not enough for diners > 1.  Garlic.  A portabella mushroom.  I'd eaten the bell pepper a couple of days ago.

But I'd promised.  And you can't go too wrong with pasta.

Off to chain supermarket, where I explained, telephonically, that there'd been a change in menu.

Then I bought 2 12-oz boxes of similar-cooking-time pasta, 2 bell peppers, a container of grape tomatoes, and a pint of low-fat ricotta, and got to work.

Ingredients (additional possibilities in brackets):

• Enough olive oil.
  
• (ETA) Garlic.
• Any two pasta shapes that take approximately the same time to cook.  Capellini and fettucine, for example, will not work.
• Portabella mushroom[s].
• 2 Bell peppers, preferably contrasting.
• 1 pint low-fat ricotta.  Probably high-fat ricotta also works.
• Grape tomatoes.
• [ETA:  Capers and/or olives, if sodium content is not an issue; I'm working the low sodium line here.]

Preparation:

• Cut up:
• Portabella mushroom[s] into cubes
• Bell peppers
• [Onion]
• [Ginger.  Not a whole lot.]
• [Chicken or cold cuts]
• [Broccoli or something]
• Bring water to boil and stir in the pastas.
• Crush, chop, or otherwise render [onions, ginger, and] garlic cloves and saute in large frying pan.  Add the mushrooms, cook them down, add the bell peppers.  [Add other bracketed ingredients.]
• When pasta is done, drain, rinse in cold water, decant into large container, using two tablespoons of olive oil to prevent clumping.  Empty sauteed ingredients into pasta, stirring to distribute well.  Stir in ricotta cheese, being sure to coat all elements.  Top with the grape tomatoes.

Eat, dolling, eat.

On-going Struggle

Link-rich posting by Ilyka, referencing anonymity, institutional history, appropriation, silencing,  and intersectionality, and reminding me that I have to write a modern-day version of "The Emperor's New Clothes."  (Which has probably Been Done.)

So when you recall things that happened to you online, things that actually hurt you and hurt others–when you allow for the possibility that the internet is a real place inhabited by real people–you’re breaking all their nice toys. And that’s kind of a repeating theme, if I understand correctly, in interactions between white women and women of color, regardless of the internet: Your hurt scarcely merits acknowledgement, let alone apology, but break a white girl’s toy and OH THAT’S IT. The internet is just a relatively newer and faster way to perpetuate it–and also to dispose of the evidence afterwards.

I recommend following all the links.

The Cost of Truth

Remembering Gary Webb.

(via Consortiumnews, via The Sideshow; see also comments)

Musical Interlude

Oh, no.  Not me.

Maybe I'll take the bus.

RIP

One Elmer Valentine.  He brought back this kind of funny club from France...

(Some obits get posted for what I have to call "quirk" value.  Jim Morrison's father also died recently.)

Reasons to be Cheerful

Why I'm blowing off Joe the Plumber's book.  Yes, without reading it.

Best sentence:  

There was a time when I wanted to be like Sting, the singer, belting out, “Roxanne ...” I guess that’s why we have karaoke, for fantasy night. If only there was such a thing for failed plumbers, politicians or celebrities who think they can write.

(Also, in the tradition of Stan "The Man" Musial and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, shouldn't it be Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher?  It is a self-chosen nickname.)

(Also:  What is the weird Republican thing for plumbers?)

Snow Like Millions of Pulverized Mirrors

Fafnir!  

I escape in the middle of the night with the help of an unfrozen caveman, an animatronic dinosaur and the robotic head of Alexander Hamilton.

Edited to Add

All day.  Whatever comes into my head.

• I haven't heard the word "crest-fallen" in ages.
• I got to pontificate at the local Drinking Liberally (thanks Cyril, Igor, Robert, Rashid).
• Leave it to Atrios to earworm me with "Total Eclipse of the Heart."  Which was bad enough (ancient associations, let us say), but that video...  (No, I'm not linking to it; it's beyond baroque and brain bleach would not do the job.)
• A "defense of teasing."
• Avedon Carol reminds us that the media is not biased in the direction they're presumed to be.
• I got to see a large piece of Breakfast at Tiffany's in November.  What an...interesting...artifact of its time and attitudes.  

I need a walk now.  And heavy-duty brain bleach.

4E is Dead

Forrest J. Ackerman has died.  (Link is to File 770.)

French Lesson of the Day

I got it from Echidne: Ne me quitte pas.

Season's Greetings

Minstrel Boy at Group News Blog hits one out of the park:

While we're waiting in the checkout line, just ahead of us is a archetypal Snowbird. He's wearing the uniform so identification is a snap. Shorts and windbreaker, Costco sandals with sock, shocking alabaster white skin. Most of the locals here at least end up with "farmer" tans, even if they get their farmer tan on the golf course.

All is well and proceeding nicely until the checkout lady finishes up his transaction and hands him his receipt. She says "Happy Holidays."

You would have thought she said "Allah bless Osama bin Laden, and all gay marriages," Because the snowbird guy puffs himself all up and puts on his best Bill O'Reilly look of extreme indignation. He gives her what I expect he imagines as his best imperious and withering gaze and says:

"In MY house we say MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

Usually I have my normal brought up on the rez type of reserve. I'm not known for being chatty or even saying all that much. Usually I just would have stood there and let things shake out the way that they will. It might have been the creeping pain that I was starting to feel in my jaw as the novocaine began to subside. It might also have been the two Vicodin that the oral surgeon gave me before I left his office. It might have been my extreme feduppitude with the whole bullshit "WAR ON CHRISTMAS" fiction that is so beloved of the social conservative crowd. It might even have been some residual resentment of out of state folks who spent bazillions of dollars in the last election to amend the California State Constitution for the first time in history with the express purpose of denying rights to a whole class of our citizens, including my cousin, with their odious Proposition (h)8.

Go read the whole thing.

In memoriam

Odetta died.

She was a fine folk singer and many of the songs she sang were anthems of freedom.  She was the "Voice of the Civil Rights Movement."

"House of the Rising Sun," 2005.  (Thanks to Avedon, although she posted a different video.)

It's Official

We're in a recession.

<  obGomerPyle  >  Surprise, surprise, surprise! < / Gomer >

So…

why does it take so long to resort to Apple Support search when something drives me up a wall?

Memories

For whatever peculiar reason, I was remembering the Hudson Tubes (the old name for the PATH trains onaccountabecause the tunnels beneath the Hudson were cylindrical sections of cast iron bolted together.  Still are, come to think of it) this morning.  Mostly I was envisioning the time after the demolition of Hudson Terminal and the surrounding neighborhood (which I learned later had been known as Radio Row) and the excavation of what became known as "the bathtub" (the slurry wall) at World Trade Center (designed to keep at bay all the little underground streams running through the area), when the tunnels in and out of the old Hudson Terminal were visible, looking something like a pair of snakes that had swallowed rods.  

(Passengers used the platforms at Hudson Terminal until the World Trade Center station was built, about two stories deeper and a block closer to the river, with the approach angle of the track softened so that the mighty whine of trains entering Hudson Terminal became the muted howls of trains entering World Trade Center.)

I only saw Hudson Terminal at street level from outside once, when my friend C. and her mother dropped me off there.  It was past twilight, so all I saw was a dark building.  Mostly I took subways to get there, and the subways had underground connections to the old station (Cortlandt Street BMT had several arches leading to the HT concourse, which had to be bricked up when it closed).

ETA:  More information with pictures (I have changed some of the text above to reflect this).

The Mythical Superwoman

Or:  Why I read Echidne of the Snakes.

Happy Thanksgiving Day

I have a lot to be thankful for, probably too much to list in detail, for which I thank God and people.  In that order.

We bought a turkey dinner from Pathmark.  We still cooked.  But at least we used disposable plates this year, so the cleanup was less onerous.

Dreaming

Driving around with Janis Joplin, who began to weep, and I was nattering on about drug rehabs and interventions, and she said, "Don't you know where we are?"  So then I held her.

I don't think it was really Janis Joplin.

Yoda, Off My Sentence Structure Lay, Please

Is Live Journal an outage having today?

Manufacture

Via Bitch Ph.D., via Brilliant at Breakfast; a Sweet Juniper! piece about the U.S. auto industry's crossroads, abandoned Detroit schools, and what constructing things means to people.

One thing I do like about GM, Ford, and Chrysler is that they are companies that still make something. What do the vast majority of the Fortune 500 companies even do? What does Goldman Sachs do? What do all those companies in Silicon Valley make? They shuffle paper, sure, transmit blips of binary code, attend important meetings, and make "deals." Maybe brown people somewhere across an ocean will make whatever it is they're selling or shuffling on paper or e-mailing each other about. But in Detroit, and in plenty of other industrial cities across this country there are still people making things without exploited labor, and believe it or not that still means something.

When researching my family's history when we were considering buying the old homestead, I found the story of when my ancestors moved from upstate New York to eastern Michigan. There were pages of details describing the difficulties of the journey and the work of building the farm once they arrived, long lists of the things they built with their hands. When I read that, I thought, God, I can't even install ceramic tile. I can't help but believe that if most of our ancestors could see us whining about "these tough economic times" they'd say, "Forsooth, what a bunch of pussies."

More on the Prop. H8 Fight, a Week Late

Many Catholics (in the S. F. Bay Area) opposed Proposition 8 [California].

ETA 11/27:  The New Yorker (Hendrik Hertzberg) weighs in.

Oh, That's Where I Parked It!

An ancient chariot unearthed in Bulgaria.

A Spot of Sanity

Some African American perspective on the passing of Prop 8 [California].

Note some of the comments.

I wonder "What would Bayard Rustin have supported here?" but that's not exactly a question.

We do know what Wanda Sykes said.

Good grief, I missed the 200th post.

Throwing It Back

Via Brilliant at Breakfast, a serious pro-life statement.

Classic

Four Lines

Hope-with-feathers cannot soar;

caught in nets of twisting doubt,

expectations soar no more

than algebras of puissant clout.

Joe Miller the Plagiarist

Joke book compiled from various ancient translated fragments.   (The publisher's link provides 30 free pages before you have to log in.)  Such news calls for jokes about comics who shamelessly use old material, but most comics do observational humor nowadays, so the gag will have to be something on the order of "Mr. Berle?  It's the Big Guy.  Says your fake book's been found, and He didn't know your jokes were that old."

Also, Croatia's cancelled Christmas.  Where's all that dextrous outrage?  (Parties and gifts, as opposed to the holiday, but I can hear the department stores all shuddering right now.)

Political Action

I went to the local rally against Prop. H8 (there were rallies nationwide) and got interviewed by one of the local stations, but since I insisted on being discursive (complete with mild pun), I doubt it'll get broadcast, which is a good thing.  This was a "good" rally, in that the speakers kept speeches short and pertinent, with audience participation, but I had another 2 miles to walk.  The counterdemonstration was three people, entirely surrounded by police.

I should have brought my camera.

Late

November 10, 1975: The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Pat Kight (a fellow former denizen of alt.callahans) wrote up her recollections as a young reporter.

Quiche Clique

November 8, I Like Pie, Spot!.  Note the label.

November 12, Fafblog!  Note the walrus.

November 14.  Note the subtle interplay and tuskiness.

Send a Postcard to Obama

Reminding him of what we stand for and what we'd like to see.  (See the top two articles at this Sideshow link.)

Regular sized postcard postage is $0.27; a five-pack of plain regular postcards costs $1.35.  A postcard's size constraint requires getting and sticking to your point, which in political contexts is Not Bad.  And postcards hide nothing.

I'm going to do it myself, and I am the world's worst correspondent.  Let alone initiating contact.

Yes, It's a "Meme." Deal.

D.'s Dewey Decimal Section:

478 Classical Latin usage

D. = 4650058 = 465+005+8 = 478


Class:
400 Language


Contains:
Linguistics and language books.



What it says about you:
You value communication, even with people who are different from you. You like trying new things and don't mind being exposed to unfamiliar territory. You get bored with routines that never change.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Remember the realization about "nobis" being the dative case?  That's the extent of my Latin scholarship. (Yes, I corrected that sentence.)(Further added:  I saw 3 of these before clicking on Spacefem, but I'm only certain about Better than salt money.)

Now Pitching for Heaven...Number iπ...

Herb Score (Indians) and Preacher Roe (Dodgers) died within two days of each other.

Adventures in Coincidence

(The Swan, photographed [finally!] November 10, around 4:00 pm.)

So after church Sunday morning I went to photograph the swan (on my way to the lunch date for which I was only late 5 minutes) and lo! the batteries, freshly charged, were quite, quite dead.  Not that the swan was there, but there was a pelican on the water, quite majestic, and two egrets.

Later that same afternoon, I decided enough was enough, and hied myself to a Radio Shack for batteries, explaining that the super-duper rechargeables I got three years ago did not work and that although the batteries in question look like AAs, they aren't really.  Radio Shack only has various strengths of AA and the super-duper rechargeables.  Which do not work.  The frustrated clerk sent me to the camera store around the corner.

Behind the counter in the camera store around the corner--

--I have to explain here that I am very much a New Yorker in that I do not pester total strangers even though I see them several times a week for several years.  That is, I do not presume acquaintance based on seeing someone more than twice.  I am pretty sure that I now know most of my neighbors on sight.  This was not always the case.--

--was someone I had seen almost every morning (when I wasn't running late) for several years.  Huh.  It turns out that I need Nickel Metal Hydride (yes, the secret of NiMH) batteries, and his name is Bill (cue The Crystals singing "Da Doo Ron Ron").  (Beautiful music is not in the cards.)

He hadn't seen swans on the lake in ages, either.

Veterans Day II

Two more links for Armistice Day.  (Linked from Better than salt money.)

[ETA:  May be triggering.  Violence.]  The death of Taslim Solangi and why it matters.  (Linked from Off Our Pedestals.)

Veterans Day

Veterans/Armistice/Remembrance Day.

Honor to our soldiers and veterans.  (Links thanks to Making Light.)

And I want particularly to honor those men and women who served their country when their country did not quite consider them human beings.  

(I would not expect, say, conservatives to understand that.)

Let the Record Show That:

• Eggnog season has already begun; and 
• There are flavored eggnogs.

Had lunch yesterday with Mary Kay (and thank you so much!), which was marvelous fun; we talked about everything! and then I bought beads for my mother.  The rest of the day is tomorrow's story.  Heh.

In memoriam

Miriam Makeba has died.

I had the pleasure of seeing her perform in 1994 at World Financial Center--and the displeasure of sitting behind people who needed to inform the entire segment of audience that they'd had difficulties on the subway in Brooklyn.

She was better.

Unanswerable Question

Why has Tom Cruise turned up in my dreams?

Yes, he was in an Obama ad (that I saw once), but there is no reason he should appear as a bus driver of a loop route while I'm floundering in some kind of advanced math class.

Realizations

Looks like I won't be doing NaNoWriMo this year either.  Although I'll be writing, of course.  Just nothing sustained.

Also, I had a spiritual journey thought a couple of days ago, but I've forgotten it, although it may have to do with love.

Why You Shouldn't Leave Home without a Camera

1. A swan (!) on the lake.
2. A Christmas tree being trimmed (yes, before Veterans Day.  Yes, the lighting ceremony is three weeks from today.  Yes, they decorate from the top down, using the large and probably fragile glass globes).
3. A beautiful, broad-brimmed brown hat on a beautiful brown woman.
4. Sunset.

OK, We're Calm Now

Next week is Armistice Day, what Americans call Veterans Day and Canadians call Remembrance Day, marking the end of World War I (which didn't get that designation until World War II; it was called the World War or the Great War); the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Some of the battlefields, 90 years on.

One of the last living veterans has died.

I'm not going to do a comprehensive essay, but annually Making Light does a Remembering the Great War compilation of links and history which always fills me with awe, pity, and horror; this link is to last year's posting.

The weekend may be spent rereading The Guns of August and The Proud Tower.

Penny for the Guy

And today being the 5th of November, the British get to celebrate the event that poisoned their politics and lives for 200 years.

Skippy has the Right Music

Right here.

But my soul is still singing Lennon/McCartney.

Congratulations and Mazel Tov

President-Elect Obama!!!!!!

Unsurprisingly

Fafblog!'s Fafnir on Global Warming and Swing States.

My heart is beginning to sing, and the songs are Lennon/McCartney.

Got Vote?

VOTE!

(If you've already voted absentee, or already been to the polls, please disregard this message.)

Sad News

Senator Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died.

Miscellany

Because "miscellaneous" is a word my father taught me to spell, long years ago.

A possible consideration of the "traditional marriage" proponents.  (From Lady-Jem of LJ, via Better than salt money.)

Architecture, ownership, non-ownership, and micro-territoriality, or why urban design matters, even though it is unglamourous, heavily political, and heartbreaking.  (By way of Phila at Echidne of the Snakes.)

Shelleybear over on LJ reminded me about Z, the Costa-Gavras movie from 1969.  (The YouTube clip posted and the associated clips are in French.)  I wonder if it's on DVD...

Pam's House Blend calls Eve Harrington on Sarah Palin.  Fasten your seat belts...

Voter Alert

Avedon Carol at The Sideshow on election hijacking.  (Our thanks to her.)

Excerpt:

The perception that voter registration fraud is the problem is itself a problem, and people on our side who refuse to discuss the questions about voting machines and disenfranchisement (and actual stolen elections) while treating the voter fraud and registration fraud issue seriously only make the problem worse. We have real election fraud doing serious damage to us, and we should be screaming that Republicans are distracting us with their phony voter and registration fraud stories.

This is a pretty pivotal election.  Make your choice known.  If you could stand on line to see a movie or buy a Wii or an iPhone, you can stand on line to vote.  Seriously.  

(ETA:  What the guy in the video said.)

(EFTA:  The guy in the video is Sean Combs, and this is one of a series.)

In memoriam

Studs Terkel has died.

(Edited to add:  Roger Ebert reposted the article he'd done on the occasion of Studs's 95th birthday and also has up a memory.) 

P.S.

Phillies won the Series.

What'd I tell you?

Space Oddity

Hullabaloo's Tristero spots funny business at A.I.G.

You betcha.

(I'm getting too terse for my own good.)

References for "Nostalgia"

As I said, research.  First, of course, the Wikipedia article on Stan Freberg.  Then Radio Hall of Fame.  A 1995 column by Mark Evanier.  Some samples of the work.

Yup.

I Googled, and Wowwwweeeee!

When Radio Was, by the way, went off in 2006.  Oh, well...

Nostalgia

This morning I got up with a powerful urge to hear Stan Freberg, who I last heard doing a show called When Radio Was on a radio station whose call letters I have totally forgotten.  

Probably because I saw a couple of YouTube videos  that bore the hallmarks of extensive seminars with Freberg the Ad Man.  And because in childhood, I heard a lot of Freberg the Funny Radio Guy.

Research time!

Roosting Chickens Redux

Lower Manhattanite puts Ashley Todd into historical perspective and drops her hoax at the feet of Sen. McCain.

Oh, Well

I was going to link to Feministing's Samhita's essay, Ten Things I Absolutely Hate About Heteronormative Dating, but got hijacked by Robin Hood:  Men in Tights.  (Tight tights.)

And The Angels High-Five

Shakesville has posted this inspirational story.  (Original in Austin American-Statesman; link from Shakesville.)

Silliness

Presumably for the week, Live Journal is Undead Journal.

It's Too Early for Football Metaphors!

Avedon gets the touchdown.

A taste:

"What the last eight years have taught us is that when wealthy oligarchs and corporations have too much power, they pull the strings on an increasingly authoritarian government, and thus we have neither equality nor liberty - only the Malefactors of Great Wealth have liberty, and they detest the very idea of equality with the masses. Thus we have seen decreasing economic freedom, limited upward mobility and increasing downward mobility, and the imposition of the laws of a police state overwhelming our country at the hands of the patrician and corporate elite."

(Found my Harper's, which has a chewy review of books on the blues and blues masters.)

All Right, Then

Too much politics.  Not enough opera.

This must change.

Remember

Ilyka of Off Our Pedestals with a little historical perspective on conservatism.  And a dance video.  

Because the rot didn't begin with Ronald Reagan.  A brief excerpt:

"What was missing from Nixon’s populism, of course, were all the regular ordinary average American Joes and Janes who didn’t look like Nixon. It was the same thing missing from Ronald Reagan’s populism and the same thing that is missing now from Sarah Palin’s populism.

So when I write things like this, I am not saying, “Democrats, you need to talk lots more dumberer and speak to the very real and pressing needs of Joe the Plumber.” I am saying that for over fifty years now–really quite a lot longer than that, but let’s keep things manageable–conservatives have left a vacuum in their pseudopopulism, and there are times I grow impatient with the reluctance of Democrats to fill it by speaking to people who are eager, able, and committed to change–to fixing what’s broken instead of tantrumming like a Buckley. Only, whoops!–They don’t consider their lives and their work an academic aside or an elective course. They think that they matter. They are right."

The new Harper's is in here somewhere...

"I'm Just a Singer in a Rock & Roll Band"

My, that old stock market is bouncing around a lot, isn't it?  (But still above 8300.  I'll give it that.)

Grump

Via Skippy, this letter to the editors at Time from which I'm exhibiting 2 sentences:

Thanks for letting me know that you feel women are incapable of forming opinions about candidates based on their positions and public behavior rather than how they wear their hair. Were I to continue to read your magazine, I'd look forward to the follow-up article opining that men who vote against Obama are just jealous of his adorable ears.

Because lazy journalism and/or editing at organs of the Mainstream Media?  Does. Not. Help.

I love Jon Carroll.

A taste:

So I need to ask you: Can you help? Do you have an opinion lying around the house that you're not using, perhaps one that you used to believe but no longer have faith in? At this point, no one is even paying attention. The opinion should contain phrases like "potentially" or "if current trends continue." And, if possible, it should be contrarian. 

Only you can prevent an opinion shortage.

Ah-Hah Moment

"Nobis" is the dative case!

(No, I never studied Latin.  Why?)

Minus 514

Time to dust off those Thirties musicals.  And King Kong.  The real one.

Oh, Well

Hairspray and Spamalot are closing.

"I deeply resent..."

"...the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist." 

--Teresa Nielsen Hayden

You might try reading this.  Because Teresa Nielsen Hayden is usually right.

Money shot quote:

"I find it offensive that Alexander Bolton is equating potential voter protests with fans being upset over a lost football game. I likewise find it offensive that he dismisses that potential reaction “taking the loss badly.” We’re talking about people protesting the abrogation of their most basic political rights."

Seriously.

Illustration of Today's Lesson

Lifted from Whatever, the sort of respectful discourse that goes on in Richmond, Virginia.

I doubt Christ would have any trouble recognizing the Christian in this story.

Today's Lesson

Karma-wise, it doesn't matter what the other guy would do to you, given a chance;  it matters what you do.

World Series

It's Tampa Bay v. Philadelphia.

No particular rooting interest.  Lenny Dykstra is long retired, and the ex-A's (Joe Blanton--remember Joe Blanton?--and Carlos Peña are the ones I know about) balance each other out.

ETA:  How did I forget Matt Stairs?  Now I'll have to research ex-Mets.  At this late date, only the coaches would have played on championship teams, but last time the Phils were in it, the ex-Met, ex-Athletic, extra-points-for-championship-teams factor came down to the Blue Jays' coach Galen Cisco. 

Probable incomplete list:

1. Cliff Floyd, ex-Met
   
2. Steve Henderson, ex-Met and ex-A (coach)
   
3. Chad Bradford, ex-A
   
4. Davey Lopes, ex-A (coach)
5. Milt Thompson (coach) was on the '93 Phillies
   

6 ex-As.  2 ex-Mets.  3 with the Rays.  4 with the Phils.  Oh, well.

By Labyrinthine Means

As a side note:  I have the occasional quirk of randomly clicking on a link in somebody else's blogroll and seeing where it takes me. (This used to be more common back in the previous century.)  Sometimes I end up four or five links away from the originating site, with no idea how I got there and no way to find it again.  I pretty much have to bookmark it then and there.  So it is that years later, I am croggled by old bookmarks I don't remember saving and don't know why ever I thought that was funny or insightful.

I know why I have CBC.ca.  I don't really remember latching on to "The Sith Explained."

That said:  This is way too much fun.  It is Not Safe For Work, not for nudity, language, or adult concepts, but because one can spend a lot of time teasing out the little gags, some of which only work once.  (Some things you mouse over.  Some you click.)

Found via Just An Earth-Bound Misfit, which was, so to speak, a random hit on the roll at Brilliant At Breakfast, which I discovered early last year? via either The Sideshow or The News Blog.  I think.

Levi Stubbs has died.

With The Four Tops:

And, of course, as Audrey II...

Saying

There is no occasion so arcane that a reference to Edgar Allan Poe cannot be teased out.

October 16 is...

Oscar Wilde's birthday.

Drop a well-honed epigram on your friends in his honor today.

Oddity

I keep finding that my soul, in the gradual finding my way to God, does better with poetry.  That is, it translates the search for the Divine into fragments of verse.

Giblets This Time

...on Barack Obama!

And saved the best for last, too!

Musical Obit

So Neal Hefti died, and they list him as being famous for the Batman theme, and I said, I distinctly remember he composed lots of stuff, so I looked it up.

The Odd Couple theme.  I think I hum that more.

Falsch

I loathe and despise the mindset which declares that marketing (the art of, because it's no science) has anything to say to me.  That "Survey Says" is the only criterion of something's value.  That only people in the desired demographic of the product are allowed to consume it.  And that goods and services must be marketed to specific groups, as determined by fitting questionnaire data into "appropriate" stereotypes.

Rant elicited by two different blogs today.

In other news, can I assume that GoldenAgeStories dot com is a Bridge Publications front?  There's advertising on buses, but there appears to be only one author...

Congratulations and Mazel Tov

Paul Krugman was awarded the The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, what we call the economics Nobel.  (There are other celebrations of this event on the Web, citing specifically his work.  Google away.)

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Addendum

Fafnir pretty much at a loss for words.

Saturday Morning, for a change

Linky-loos, because it's Eleanor Roosevelt's birthday and I need to go out and not get pictures:

Avedon Carol reminds us why many people don't know their history.  Anna Granfors, in a comment to this post at The Sideshow, explains why we haven't seen Brownshirts or goosestepping.   

From Brilliant at Breakfast, the plague of misinformation.

Speaking of misinformation, "Lies the 'Yes on 8' Campaign has Told You" (in California) from shelleybear on Live Journal.  (Full Disclosure:  the "Yes on 8" campaign would have to wait until I had finished laughing at them to try to lie at me.)

Group News Blog links to a Donna Brazile video that speaks volumes.

OK.  Time to be unproductive elsewhere.  Josh Beckett's pitching tonight!

The Finding

Troopergate:  The Report.  (ETA:  this is the New York Times article.  The actual report is available as a 263-page .pdf.  Because source is important.)

(Why yes, "report" is "trooper" in reverse, without that pesky extra o.)

“Such impermissible and repeated contacts,” the report states, “create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior’s displeasure and the possible consequences of that displeasure.” The report concludes that the action was a violation of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.
What now lies ahead is not fully known at this point. Ms. Palin could be censured by the Legislature, but that is unlikely.

On a note as unrelated as possible, how many versions of "Little Wing" are there?

Talking Baseball

Serious fans and not-exactly final resting places.

Yakety-Shmackety

DJI = 8050 @ 2 PM EDT (jumped to 8199 five minutes later).  ETA:  Closed at 8451.

Earlier, I was perusing Obsidian Wings during which I was reminded (by the comments) that people who hate people make stuff up to justify it.  And have no grasp of history before 1975.  (And try to be subtle with clown shoes emitting honks at every step, but that goes without saying.)

A couple of days ago, I wandered into the local library and picked up what looked like an interesting book (it wasn't and I've forgotten the title) and read maybe half of it.  I left it on the table, mostly because when one's interaction with a book is largely "This isn't true" and "The history on this goes back a lot further than you state," ultimately it gets too exhausting to read further without annoying the other library patrons.  (The author did cite books which backed his points, but it takes more than one source to prove conspiracy, and his sources sounded, quite frankly, silly.)

That should not provide anyone with Googlejuice.

When He's 68

Happy birthday, Mr. Lennon et M. Saint-Saens.

Dow closed below 9,000 (at 8579), having lost 679 points.  Hoobert Heever is laughing in his grave.

Also, it's Yom Kippur.

Wisdom

Via Arthur Hlavaty, a sharp woman analyzes Sarah Palin.  (Current batch of red sauce loves fettucine, by the way.)

More Ideas

Toward sanity on the economic front.

As for me, there is music to be heard.

Norwegian Wood

A nice story.  (Because helping a stranger is so un-Christian and elitist.)

Down 508 and No Baseball to Distract

Remember when one of the key American strengths was that after an election, life puttered on as before?  No purges, pogroms, or riots in the streets?  (Real riots, not guys in Brooks Brothers suits.)

Random Data

1. Condescending speech may kill.
2. Guess what's coming back from the dead?

Not Illinois' Year

Baseball-wise, that is.

(Which is to say the White Sox, alas, have washed out.)

A Juxtaposition

"Rules and regulations, who needs them" --Graham Nash, "Chicago"

Naomi Klein with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! talking about the economy.  Money (you should excuse the expression) quote:

And I think that the Chicago School of Economics is properly understood as a counterrevolution against the New Deal, against regulations like Glass-Steagall, that was put in place in 1934 after having seen people lose their life savings to the market crash, and it was a firewall, a very simple, sensible law that said if you want to be an investment bank, if you want to gamble, gamble with your investors’ money, but the government isn’t going to help you because it’s your own risk. You can fail. And if you want to be a commercial bank, then we will help you. We will offer insurance to make sure that those savings are safe, but you have to restrict the risks that you take. You cannot gamble. You cannot be an investment bank. And a firewall was put up between investment banks and consumer banks. 

Link originally found on The Sideshow.

"To Wound the Autumnal City"

Leaves crisp and golden 

as pastry hurrying past 

the sidewalk cafés. 

Discrete on This Date

In 1957, Sputnik went up.  In 1970, Janis Joplin overdosed.  Today is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi.  None of these statements connects.

Also, Why Some People Distrust "Intellectuals"

Ilyka of Off Our Pedestals rails against the condescension of [some] liberal chatterers.

ETA:  Linked from a comment at La Alma de Fuego (brownfemipower), Mia Nutick guest-posting on "Joe Sixpack."  (Original post here.)

Serendipity

is everywhere; her feathers

discovered on trails.

Have a Brain

Those who have had to listen to me not ranting about the anti-intellectual strand in American public life (and it isn't just anti-intellectualism; it's anti-intelligence and sometimes veneration of stupidity and exaltation of ignorance) should get an eyeful of Group News Blog.

Lower Manhattanite hits one out of the park.  Money quote:

The problem is that there is a generation of Republican politicians for whom the very idea of broader knowledge is anathema. For whom a discerning, analytical brain is seen as a hinderance . For whom smart is dumb, and dumb is smart. Give the devil that is Richard M. Nixon and his generation their due—for all their perfidy and damage, you can't say that they weren't at the very least...intelligent.

It's all good. Particularly the updates.

Birds

Pelican pair, brown on streaky sky,

tandem wingspans' graceful gyres,

silhouettes above the water.

Mating flight or flying lesson

Swoop and beat against fading light, 

gliding above the flickering surface

to land on the lake.

Notable Birthdays

Mohandas Gandhi was born on this day in 1869.

It is also the Feast of the Gaurdian Angles (the typist of that calendar got into the sacramental wine and became vershnicket, as Mel Brooks's Rabbi Tuckman would say).

Also, the DJI closed down 348.  Famous robbers.  Some analysis of party politics and dog whistles giving me a headache.  Finally finished the Frank Sinatra stamps!

Humor

There are two sets of Sox in the playoffs.  And Red runs.

Oh, And...

L'shana tova!

Talking More Baseball

Twins and White Sox tied for first.

You realize of course that this means ... one game playoff.

Those fingers drumming on the bench are:  Tampa Bay (East, and I still call them the Devil Rays); Angels (West, and no, the whole Losangelesangelsofanaheim thing is Their Problem); and Boston (Wild Card).

Both Minnesota and Chicago have won Series in the last 20 years, and neither has had to sacrifice a goat.

Smoke, Mirrors, and Sawn Lady

The stock market is down 700+ points at closing.

Chicago White Sox are down to their very last chance to tie and force a playoff with the Twins for AL Central.  And it's raining.

The Mets...

As something of a jinx, I avoided so much as reading Metsgrrl, who's a pretty fair wordslinger, and the standings (the baseball widget uses red type for eliminated teams, and I avoided looking at anything still in white), and any conversation that veered in that direction.  In short, I did my part.

Still, I had something like a lump in my throat.  William A. Shea Stadium, to give it its formal name, has always been something like my home in Queens, unlike my actual home in Queens or the school I attended for a year.  When we got back, the Mets were still playing in the storied Polo Grounds, but Shea was ready for 1964, same time as the World's Fair on the other side of the railyards and tracks (the signs in the station blared "World's Fair - Shea Stadium."  The  "Willets Pt. Blvd." designation was always "Oh, right.").  It was decorated, if you want to call it that, with orange and blue corrugated steel rectangles suspended on cabling.  I think that was supposed to suggest confetti.  It certainly looked wonderfully festive.  My (then) beloved Mets played there, and I thought of it as a shrine.

Although the first time I got to visit the shrine, it was not for a baseball game.

It was to see (what felt like) 70 one-hit wonders opening for The Beatles.  

I think I got to my first game in '67.  I think my uncle was supposed to have taken me, but I never found him, and I had four dollars.  Heh.

Up until then, I'd never seen a live baseball game.  Isn't that weird?  I watched games on TV or listened to them on the radio (Bob Murphy, Lindsay Nelson, Ralph Kiner--how's that for Tinker to Evers to Chance?).  So I spent the whole afternoon not being able to tell what was an actual hit and what was just a long fly ball because wherever I was sitting hid the left(?) fielder, and I didn't know how to follow the ball.

In '69, I vocally rooted on the Cubs.  That's right.  It was my fault.  Neener neener.  After the miraculous victory, I walked all the way around Shea with the sort of feeling that normal people take alcohol to attain.

I remember noticing that the colors on the confetti squares were fading, but it was still a shock whatever year it was when I took the 7 and discovered them gone.

This really wants to be an essay about baseball's loss of soul, but I'm not ready to go there yet, and besides, that probably happened back in the 1800s; baseball has never been particularly pure.  But, y'know, I'd enjoy going to Seaver Park or Metropolitan Stadium or Hodges Field (hell, or even Strawberry Field, although that really is not an option.  Really!); thinking of going to Citi Field feels like visiting a cousin to whom you owe money.

Talking Baseball

The National League is set:

• Eastern Division--Phillies
  
• Central Division--Cubs
  
• Western Division--Dodgers
  
• Wild Card--Brewers
  

(Growls being suppressed.)

AL results tomorrow.

Much too nice a day for this.

Much too nice a day for this.

Tales of the Economists

From Anglachel's Journal.  Because, yum, maple yoghurt with fresh blueberries.

One By One

Philadelphia stands alone in the NL East.

The NL Wild Card is tied.

Irrelevant Factoid #2

• Since 1908, the names of 6 presidents end with an "n."  


• Only two end in a vowel.
  

Paul Newman

1925-2008.  Actor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and racer.

ETA philanthropist.  Forgot the word.

Quit Spit-Shining That Grass

Tampa Bay is AL East Champ.  (Boston has the Wild Card.)  The days dwindle down to a precious few, and only NL East and AL Central are still undecided.  (Minnesota may steal it.)

Schedule of playoffs is probably out there somewhere.

25 Years Ago

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov saved your life.  (See also here.)  From Charlie Stross, by way of Making Light.

Nosh from All Over

Linked from a link at Shakesville: A report on gay Republicans just before the realization that the cliff's edge is Back There.

Pilots flying out of LaGuardia eulogize ballpark as landmark.

Nort Spews

1. Arizona has been eliminated; the Dodgers are N.L. West Champeens.  The Twins are keeping it close, however.
2. The hockey season is getting under way.

A Fable

Once upon a time, there was a sly fox.  This fox went skulking around rural areas periodically eating poultry and the occasional egg (to keep its pelt sleek and shiny, of course).

Over time, the farmers in the region developed security for the barnyards, including dogs, passwords, and serious agricultural architecture, including a henhouse with penthouse scratching area and a guarded entrance.  

Eventually, the fox found itself craving the taste of chicken.

So first, the fox went to university and majored in poultry management, minoring in architecture.

Then the fox started telling anyone who would listen that the henhouses as built were bad for the chickens, removing them from the sea-level gravel that their talons craved.  The fox produced studies demonstrating that birds kept more than 20 feet above the ground were scrawnier and therefore less valuable at the poultry market.  The fox touted the superior nutritional value and flavor of the totally free-range bird.

To oblige the farmers, periodically the fox would cull out smaller, weaker, unmarketable chickens and cracked eggs.

Eventually the farmers made the fox commissioner of poultry.

And they were very surprised to discover one day that there were no more chickens or eggs, and that the fox had a pelt like a shampoo model.

;)

Oh, And...

Boston clinches the AL Wild Card.

Getting There from Here

Several of the transit systems I have known:

Got at b3co.com!

No New Jersey Transit, sorry.

Like Some Pommes Frites with that?

Jon Carroll, a San Francisco treasure.  Bonus:  Quotation from Cities in Flight.  (You can stop scratching your head now.)

Talking Baseball

Florida will not be in the playoffs (sorry, but that list was getting long) this year.

In reading the various farewell-to Yankee-Stadium essays (Paul Simon wrote one, of course), I was reminded that, though I am not a Yankee fan (1961-2 doesn't really count; I had rooted for the Buffalo Bisons and the Milwaukee Braves previously, and went on to root for other teams), I have seen a couple of games in the House that Ruth Built.  After the mid-'70s renovation, unfortunately, so I missed out on the 79,000 capacity and the gingerbread facade.  The grass was green, I'll say that for them.

The Seven Reasons

Seven reasons to refuse to bail.  Via the Group News Blog.

Minus 372 Today

When my language cools off, there will be email to my Congressperson, not that I don't trust her to do the right thing, but it never hurts to manifest public pressure.

At the beginning of October 2007, the DJI was around 14000.  Today it closed at 11015.  Just so you know.

During the Fafblog interregnum (July 2006-April 2008), there arose a blog which attempted to step into the breach.

It's still around.

It is now called "I Like Pie, Spot," and last week (I just found it today) MarkC invoked the spirit of Zombie Eugene V. Debs.

I don't endorse socialism, but the analysis is right on the money (ouch).

As Siegfried Would Say...

"Prepare to panic!"

In the morning.  FDR, people.

Musical Pennant

Cleveland, New York (Yankees), Milwaukee, Toronto, Houston, Colorado, San Francisco, Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City, Texas, San Diego, Atlanta, Baltimore, Oakland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington and Seattle all go home in October.

Bad News. Bears.

Arthur Silber lays it on the line:

The frantic activity in Washington is the hysterical scrambling of terrified and not very bright people faced with unavoidable disaster, still trying to convince themselves and everyone else that "something" can be done to avert catastrophe. This isn't a plan, or even hoping against hope: it's panic, pure and simple.

Read the rest.  Then read his blog.

Excuse me, I need to go into headless chicken mode now.

Cubs Clinch

Chicago Cubs are National League Central Division Champions.

(Milwaukee joins the eliminated.)

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Toronto joins Houston, Colorado, San Francisco, Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City, Texas, San Diego, Atlanta, Baltimore, Oakland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington, and Seattle in the "Let's Preheat the Hot Stove" League.

Dose of truth

Avedon Carol tells it like it is.

Because Good Old American Historical Amnesia is not your friend.  To put it mildly.

Talking Baseball

Houston, Colorado, and San Francisco have joined Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City, Texas, San Diego, Atlanta, Baltimore, Oakland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington, and Seattle in calls to "Wait Till Next Year!"  I am expecting the Yankees and the Blue Jays to fall later today.

(Because someday, this will be an educational children's chant. Heh.)

(ETA:  And in case you were wondering, yes, I finally noticed that I'd forgotten Texas.)

Also, there is a 25% chance that the World Series will be played in either Chicago or Los Angeles.

Honoring Radical Ancestors

1. One hundred twenty-one years ago today, the U. S. Constitution was signed.
2. I have many radical ancestors (and sometimes they scare me, and sometimes I catch why, and sometimes I can hear that 1950s horror of non-conformity in my head), some of whom probably didn't think themselves radical.  I (for suitable values of "I") am where I am (wherever that is) because many people refused to bend to the status quo.
3. Today I honor my Radical Ancestors (religion, class, gender, race, sexual orientation, genetics, education, and previous condition of servitude).  (Thanks are due to Portly Dyke.)

Rolled Eyes

The quote currently under the current photo is taken from a comment made by Sastra in reference to the original posting at Pharyngula (page up), which Tristero at Hullaballoo, er, amplifies.

Traditionalism has a bad enough name.

Mad Tea Party

St. Louis, meet Detroit.  Detroit, meet St. Louis.  Detroit and St. Louis, meet Kansas City, Texas, San Diego, Atlanta, Baltimore, Oakland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington and Seattle.

Now everybody play nice...

An Observation

Pelicans hold up their wings as though airing out their wingpits.

The Hundredth Post

In the extremely unlikely event that anyone reading this is an American living abroad and wants to register to vote and to request an absentee ballot, the website with instructions for doing so is www.VoteFromAbroad.org.  Deadline for doing so is September 27, 2008 (that is, your request should be in the mail no later than that, given that it is a three-stage process).

I like to help the Group News Blog now and again.

Yahrzeit.

Yes, Married.

 Felicitations to George Takei and Brad Altman.

Maxim for Today

Drink beer with smarter people.

On Cynicism

Coffeeem speaks for me.

Which is tough, because I am cynical.  Just mostly not that style of cynical.

Phototropic

I have a lot of trouble trying to describe my spiritual journey, not because I don't have the vocabulary, but because I don't know how to arrange it.

(Once I described it working backwards, and it hung together verbally, but when I went to write it down, mucho baggage appeared and kept getting in the way.)

I will, though.

Four Items

1.   A liberal Christian looks at "Christianists" via Arthur Hlavaty.  Money quote:

"When we prey on people's fears and bring out the worst in them so they'll vote for us, then we've succumbed to lust for power and lost touch with what's essential. We diminish ourselves and our faith."

2.  Reading one's 8-year-old on-line maunderings can be very...instructive.

3.  Kansas City joins Texas, San Diego, Atlanta, Baltimore, Oakland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington, and Seattle in Playoff Exile.  

4.  Most of my output these days is labored snark.

Seven years.

Welcome, San Diego

Which joins Atlanta, Baltimore, Oakland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington, and Seattle on the Mathematical Elimination Island.  (Like a football [feh] pool, but in reverse.)

ETA:  And Texas.  Which means the Angels have clinched (the division) by default.

Got Chops?

Atlanta is eliminated.

Probably the Braves' earliest elimination since the glory days of the '80s.

Garlic Challah and

Fafblog.  Because only Giblets would write "And with the help of God and millions of dollars in energy industry donations, Sarah Palin will give us that dysentery again!"

In This Curious Rhythm

Happy birthday, Mr. Dvořák!

(Interestingly, the Czech-language Wikipedia had the Hubble Space Telescope as the featured article of the day; the English version has the Yellowstone fires of 1988.)

(ETA:  I seem to have gotten the diacriticals misplaced in previous post.)

Yeah, I Know, But...Astroland

Astroland (yeah yeah)

Astroland on Coney Island

Astroland (yeah yeah)

(Yeah yeah yeah)

Ave atque vale, requiescat in pace.

Enough Already

Blah blah blah.

Mr. Silber Hits One Out of the Park

As Theodore Sturgeon once said, "He could not do this to anything he loved."  

(I would cite the source, but I've only the vaguest idea of where I saw it, and several of my Sturgeon collections are missing.  The link goes to an informative post by Arthur Silber.  Good luck.)

The Room was Humming Harder

Baltimore and Oakland joined Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington, and Seattle as Officially Out of Contention.

Somewhere, sportswriters are crafting postmortems and resigning themselves to the Playing Out of the String.

You know, I haven't checked the Wild Card races.  [Later] OK, Boston and Milwaukee, but not by huge margins.  

*Ahem*

Irontongue on the Cost of Not Regulating.

Because it has to be said.

Nota Bene

Blog 'n' Roll is a work in progress.  Blogs will get added and subtracted at random.

When I set up the third blogroll (reference/data), life will get interesting.

Meanwhile, I should probably do some research on political parties' attempts to use rock music in the wake of the Wilson sisters' refusing Sarah Palin the use of "Barracuda."  (Yeah, Chuck Berry, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Johnny Cash, Chrissie Hynde, and so on.)

Because, you know, research keeps you young.  

Today's Lesson

Even in a space of likeminded people, someone will invariably and unintentionally release a rat.

(Reference:  This comment thread, which is the response to the post linked in the post above it.  And yes, it is a kerfuffle, but it is one I want to be able to point to when I cite the above postulate.)

Jesus Was a Community Organizer; Pilate Was a Governor

Pass it on.

Community Organizers in History

Community Organizers (as "lolcat").

(From Kali921 by way of Arthur Hlavaty.)

Addendum

Cincinnati is out of the pennant race.  (I shouldn't call it the pennant race anymore.  It's the "division championship."  As Nero Wolfe might say, "Pfui.")  Huh.  27% of the teams go to the divisional playoffs, half of those go to the championship playoffs (ie, The Pennant), and the pennant winners go to the World Series where, lately, one team folds.  

Cincinnati hasn't been in contention for years.  

Talking Baseball

Nationals and Pirates eliminated.

Mmmm-hmmmmmm.

I expect another mess of teams will be eliminated by Sunday.

Another Observation

Anglachel brings up one of the reasons the possible Republican VP candidate (Palin) is so reviled.

Hi Hi

I keep forgetting that I've given out the URL to the members of the apa I'm in.

Welcome, fellow members of Intercourse!  Pull up a chair.  Comments are moderated at the moment, but that may change.  

The blogs on the sidebar at the moment are the ones I checked every fifteen minutes, and this way I don't have to do that.  Separate blogroll, consisting of quirky blogs, goes up soon.  Not as long as Making Light's list.  Not as short as 7, though.

Relax.  That's an order.  ;)

Fall is for Jazz

Fall is for jazz.  And blues.

And throat's nostalgia for summer.

And squashes gold baked

with cinnamon dust.

Odds and Ends

Mustang Bobby (of Shakesville) referred to bloviators on the conservative side as "Wormtongues," after the character in Lord of the Rings, and I'm going to adopt that, giving him the credit/blame.

Les chats ne demeurent pas ici.

Why do I think that if I read about Sarah Palin in a Dickens novel, I would think "A little contrived there, isn't it?"

Nothing like a festival on a sunny day!

Happy Labor Day, everyone!

Vomiting and Screaming

Avedon Carol brings attention to the overt attempts to choke off small news sources.

Money quote:

Do the people who created this situation really want to "educate" readers about important social and political matters? No, of course they don't. They want to drive out any information that interferes with their corporate agenda. They want "free speech" to be a protection for them from accountability and competition, but to be too expensive for the rest of us.

Our taxes paid for the development of the internet, and our participation helped it evolve into something that people want to use. We already pay commercially for the equipment to use it, the software, and the bandwidth. Now they want to tax us into silence so that they can monopolize speech here, too. No surprises. And no shame.

Yeah, they think totalitarian/authoritarian censorship is soo good! that they want to bring it back under the cloak of capitalism.

Yeccchh

As what passes for news today has been emetic, I think I will go out.

Rule of War 1

Wars are never "short."

(Someone will eventually bring up wars of conquest, the blitzkrieg, and the Six-Day War.  The Six-Day War, as we know now, was merely a skirmish in the ongoing Arab-Israeli standoff.  The blitzkrieg stalled out in Russia and was followed by resistance, aerial bombing, the Normandy invasion and surrender.  Five or so years, millions of lives.  Wars of conquest are only brief in the histories; they are an eternity to the survivors.)

In fact, a war's length is in inverse proportion to predictions of its brevity.  (If everyone declares that the war will be short, that war will drag on for years.)

This rule has never been learned.

Talking Baseball

Seattle Mariners are mathematically eliminated from the pennant race.  (Not my team, but I respect them.)

Ah, well.

(With the exception of the Senators--I mean the Nationals--the last place teams are 10 games away from elimination.  The miraculous rallies of teams on the brink pretty much have to happen right now.)

Both of Chicago's teams are in first today, although the White Sox lead is precarious.  And they'd still have to get through the play-offs, but...could it be Illinois' year?  

Rest in Peace

Abie Nathan, Israeli peace activist (mentioned by name in "Give Peace a Chance").

The Speeches

Gore's speech.

Obama's speech.

Presented for purely educational purposes.

News Roundup

Your fellow human beings.

Activist Del Martin has died.

Internet Exploder for the 21st Century.

Ooooh, links!  Just like real blogs!

Throwing Smoke

Pitching statistics, for a change.  Because now they'd take Warren Spahn out after seven innings, and he'd've just gotten warmed up.

Also, my team's elimination ("magic") number is below 20 and just above 10.  This does not bode well.

This just in:  Limited instant replay in baseball!  Camel in the tent!  Ai-eeeeeee!

Back! Back, I say!

It's--it's politics! It's coming in through the windows! It's coming up through the floor! NOOO-O-O-O-OOOOOOO!!!!

88 Years Ago Today

The 19th Amendment (to the U.S. Constitution) was proclaimed (it had been ratified on the 18th).  

Attaining suffrage was a long and difficult fight, and afterward apparently everyone wanted to relax (well, no, because there were also a host of social changes in the immediate post-war period that would have distracted saints, plus race riots, fads, the baseball scandal, and movies; the other feminist goals got lost in the noise.  But the "everyone just wanted to relax" theme comes across in most of the histories of the times), so the first wave of women's liberation kind of crashed to shore, spent.

So there were flappers mit da short skirts und da battub gin und da ziggurats und da bopped hair!  Which were a small percentage of women, but created the image of the decade such that one cannot see anyone else.  The power of the stereotype.

So fewer and fewer people can remember the time before.  Few people now alive remember the struggle.  

There are still feminist/womanist battles to be fought.  Fight them.

An Observation

The more "Freedom" becomes an advertising slogan, the less of it we have.

The Clock Ticks

Avedon Carol is on fire.

Read this or make another tinfoil hat.

"Money" quote:

A politics that pretends that racism and sexism are no longer pervasive and crippling is a lie. A politics that pretends that there was something unseemly about a large segment of a generation being outraged at persistent insults to the dignity and the flesh of real people both at home and abroad is soulless. A politics that insists on ignoring real sexism and racism while promoting both is not promising of hopeful change. Martin Luther King's impassioned words against not just racism but of war and poverty - and of how these are inextricably intertwined - are as relevant today as they were when he first spoke them. 

ETA a week later: Added emphasis is mine.

Social Calendar

Everyone scheduled their parties for today.  

See you later...

Because Fafblog is Danger to Humorless

What's fired in the bone.  "...bunny shapes upon command," indeed.

You'd Do It for Randolph Scott

Well, maybe not.

But the Shirelles are playing in San Francisco, and (according to AP) Obama picked Biden for Vice, and "Come eat me!  I'm a delicious pizza!" is inspired.