Pitchers and Catchers Report

9 days, 23 hours.

(No, I won't be updating that hour by hour.  Deal.)

Irrational Exuberance

That would be me.

(An older woman, a perfect stranger, came up to me and said that I was beautiful, that God was smiling upon me.  Something like that.  I should have written it down.  It was a particular moment of grace and I wasn't expecting it.  I fumbled the return compliment and then had a conversation about orchids with two young people whom no one would expect to have orchids.  Stereotypes are stupid.  Especially the ones in my brain that I haven't noticed moving in.)

Another Joke Getting Out of Hand

King of Wallachia deposed.  No, I'm not making that up.

Eating at Jacque's

From Jesse Taylor at Pandagon, because it happens, y'know?

If you said, “Put it as close to the man as possible, and then when returning the bank card with the name ‘Girly Von Girlerson, Professional Female’, again placing it as close to the man as possible,” then you could have a job as a server waiting for you at any number of fine chain restaurants. Double bonus if the female diner actually hands you the payment, and you still return it to the male, like it was some sort of patronizing social experiment designed to make the woman feel like she could actually pay for things - next, she’s going to go home and wonder what it would be like if she could pay Social Security taxes, that ambitious little scamp.

The correct answer, by the way, is putting the goddamn check about halfway between the two people in a neutral spot.

I’ve stopped going to restaurants where this is a recurring theme, in no small part because it serves as an awkward and offputting end to any meal (to be fair, a much larger rationale is that the correlation of this behavior to mediocre or overpriced food is also very high).

And a Cartoon Shall Show the Way

Apt analogy.  From Politics after 50, via Brilliant at Breakfast.  Because I should be doing something else.  Anything else.

Fafnir Strikes Again

Rough beast.  Slouching.  Mere anarchy.  That trick never works.

B.A.D. Girls

I lost track of Margaret and Helen in the fall, which was a shame because Helen is a hoot and you know Margaret is making cutting remarks out of earshot and then guffawing.

Thinking Liberally

Got to the local Drinking Liberally (all right, actually Brunching Liberally since it wasn't evening, and I just remembered I forgot to ask about the cutback schedule, but dinner wants to be made.  Now) and exchanged intelligent conversation about the state of education and the Palestinian/Israeli mess, some of which on both sides seems to be self-inflicted.  

Present:  Christina, Judy, Michael, Karita, Paul, Raphael, Nicholas, Margaret, Ellen, and Aaron.

And yes, I am ignoring the Super Bowl.

A Little Night Salmonella

Update on the peanut recall front.

For the Inner Geek

A little bit of ur-computer history, with a picture.

B.A.D. to the Bone

[ETA:  Which I need to retitle, because Jurassicpork beat me to it.]

I'm looking forward to passing this on to Skippy as part of [drumroll] *Blogroll Amnesty Weekend Day* [/drumroll].  Links following.

So far:  Noli Irritare Leones; Kindly Póg Mo Thóin; Maple Leaf Rag; Opopanox; Carrie's Nation; Carnival of the Elitist Bastards; Off Our Pedestals; Margaret and Helen.

Since I don't know whether these are smaller than this blog, I'll just say that they are blogs I have enjoyed and not necessarily gotten around to entering on the sidebar but will as soon as I announce pitchers and catchers report in 13 days!!!.  (Confidential to J:  The next time photographers catch you looking as though you were just rousted by mean-faced cops from a half-hour nap after 5 days of insomnia fueled by Serious Drugs?  Make them wait at least until you've washed your face.  I half-expected height marks on the backdrop.  Dude.)

Speaking of Enclaves

Here's a respectful article about radical separatists, which touches on one of their points of privilege while ignoring others.  

Also, corn fritters would be tasty right about now...

Warning Note 3

From A. Silber:

This is not to say that the system cannot ever be altered, but it is crucial to appreciate just how changes occur and their severe limitations. In general, and in every case I can think of, the elective branches of government were the last to respond to the demand for change, and they responded then only after demands for change were made known on a scale that proved overwhelming, and only after many people had paid what was often a terrifying price. The civil rights movement is a notable example of this dynamic.

 Read the whole thing.

Access

Stevie Wonder talks about technology and accessibility.

No.

No.

Vocal Mannerism in Cinema

Accents, or lack of same, in the movies.

Musical Interlude

Since older embedded videos have been taken down:

By Neddie Jingo! hosts a video of "Hey Bulldog."

Another Observation

Listening to the local radio station on its dot-com feed in the morning, when the listeners get to call in and bloviate discuss and share their opinions.  The topic was Facebook.

Facebook has been a bit in the air for the last couple of days.  Friends of mine have accounts, it's the "fashionable" social networking site, and people are retreating there in light of the recent kerfuffle.  (No!)  What with the possible (layoffs!) shakiness of Live Journal (and after a couple of kerfuffles with that platform), migration may be necessary.  So I had a quick look, and...

Facebook is a gated community.

No, not in that sense.  Yet.  But you have to sign up (i.e. register) with your name, gender, date of birth, and whether you are in higher ed, lower ed, working for a company, or "none of the above".  And unless you're signed up, you can't read postings there.  At all.

Now, I am a little funny about "gated communities" even though I spent time growing up in one.  That community was called a "military base" and military bases have history going back to prehistoric times of being a clump of "us" in a sea of "them" and "not-us."  Mostly I remember I had to show ID to go onto the main base as a child.  Our school bus only carried kids from the base, and if you missed it, you were in trouble.  On the other hand, we knew that what was off-post was not contaminating, just off-post.  As kids we were pretty insulated (the nearest towns were about a mile away, so what happened in bars was not on the radar).

And I do understand enclaves.  I think they're dumb, but I get needing to band together to reduce the stress that other people are just by existing (I'm from New York, in case you haven't guessed by now).  Once in a while.  Enclaves mostly make me deeply uncomfortable, mostly because they are more about keeping people out than keeping people in.  That exclusionary thing.  Ick.

But, you know?  I don't want to register with Facebook.  I don't particularly want to hand out my birthday or my "none-of-the-above" status ( isn't that special? < / violin >) or my gender.  Live Journal, for all its faults, and no, I'm not signing up for that either, only wants an email address and a password; they ask for a birth date, and presumably if you don't enter that, they assume you're a child and won't let you at "adult" designated posts, but it isn't mandatory, as it is with Facebook.  Live Journal is also not interested in what you do with your life, which is fine by me.   Live Journal also has the friends-locked option, which is, how you say, the users' prerogative.

Facebook feels like a friends-locked house party at the moment.

End rant.

Pitchers and catchers report 16 days from today!

Observation

We all try to reduce God to our own pettinesses.

God is bigger than that.

Via skippy:  Why is the Army still dealing with KBR?  Why are the chiefs and management of KBR not in prison?

The reason DCBureau keeps pounding away at KBR is because we can’t get the remnants of the major media off the Tiger Woods story long enough to focus on a company that was given preferential treatment in Army contracting only to use it to harvest huge profits while it injured and killed our troops. Oh, one more thing. Despite all this, KBR has yet to be debarred from doing business with the Pentagon.

Because Eternal Truths Need Highlighting

From Shakesville:

Here’s the take-home message: when someone calls your gender conformity into question it is always about control. That person is trying to control you or to feel more in control hirself. I am trying to think of an exception from my experience, and I can’t come up with one. So, while it’s easy to laugh at Dr. S. and his sissy-yogurt nonsense, it’s important to remember that nobody who makes this kind of “joke” is ever really “just” joking.

Emphasis in original.  But making it the link reinforces the message.

Gung Hey Fat Choy!

And long may you live!

Polityx with the Gears Exposed

Textbook anatomization of Caroline Kennedy's curtailed Senate non-appointment.  Noteworthy for the following sentence:  

See, that there is so delightfully full of a dazzling array of fervent and authoritative totally fucking wrong that it's hard to know where to begin, but I think I'll go with how someone at the National Journal's Hotline thinks New York is a "solidly blue state" (although it's possible that opinion is being attributed to "many liberal bloggers," in which case someone at the National Journal's Hotline really should straighten out that sentence some)[.]

Heh.

Via Sisyphus Shrugged, via The Sideshow.

Thermopylae

(I usually explain the movie title 300 as "Nobody in Hollywood can spell 'Thermopylae'.")

This was going to be a post of taking stock, but has been derailed by spiritual journey stuff and this posting by Nextian, which informs parts of the spiritual journey stuff.  [ETA:  via Arthur Hlavaty]

God is calling, and I need to dig more deeply into the whole spiritual tradition I'm trying to follow.  (Also, it interested but didn't surprise me that Rev. Lowrey and Rt. Rev. Robinson got it and Pastor Warren didn't.)

So, no essay yet.

Three hundred posts.  Yow.  What was I thinking?

Buster Keaton Lessons

I think this is #299 in this series of blitherings, and I want to write a real essay for #300, but meanwhile:  Jesus' General explains the opposition to Eric Holder as Attorney General.

I'd quote, but I don't want to spoil it for you.

Before I Forget

The quick and dirty history of marijuana prohibition.  From The Sideshow.

In memoriam

David "Fathead" Newman, sax-man extraordinary.

Qaddafi the Peacemaker

Seriously.  New York Times Op-Ed article.  I doubt either side would accept the conclusions, but it's refreshing to have the situation laid out concisely for a change.

Question

I trust women; why don't you?

So now we get to work.