Mr. Spicy Mustard

Look, I really, really like Obama. But this is politics, folks, and it's dirtaaay, dirty I say. We all know that even though we like to be fooled into believing we don't have to worry, don't have to be vigilant any longer because the good guys are in charge now.
And much as I hate the major media (Sean Hannity yesterday made fun of Obama for asking for mustard on his burger and that's news today because, basically, there isn't any) even my gods let me down.
Today some NPR reporter was obviously just phoning it in on her report of singe-payer advocates protesting at in-the-pocket-of-insurance-companies Max Baucus' health care hearings.
Similarly, nowhere in Talking Points Memo's brief update that Rove will testify next month does it mention that he's protected to the gills. So don't get too excited as the date draws near because you will hear...crickets.
It was only in the comments section that I learned Rove will be behind closed doors, not under oath and all kinds of other caveats so you know nothing will come of the AG firing scandal. At least not yet. It's not only dirty, it's Kabuki.
In the meantime, another "citizen journalist" tells me more than I wanted to know about South Carolina lion Jim Clyburn's daughter. South Carolina. South Carolina. Chew on it.
I love Clyburn, I really do. I will never forget the TV interview in which he asked a few years back if Obama might be the first black president. "Well, maybe not the first," he joked.
(What was he thinking, Jesse Jackson, Jr.? Nah, he was just fucking with 'em.)
Anyway, the FCC seems to have a deliberately designated spot for adult children of people to whom political debt is owed. Think former chair Michael Powell. Yeah, that Powell.
Anyway, along comes Mignon Clyburn, in all her glory.
This is just a blog, but I will caution you that net neutrality is a very big deal that anyone who uses the intertubes needs to be aware of. I'll leave it to you to Google it.

Quote O' Teh Day

It's not fair to quote people out of context, but Contrarienne has never promised to be fair. Even if she had, she would have been lying.
Anyway, up pops the email awhile back and I am transported to another planet or plane of existence or something because it's as if it's written in Greek.
Here it is:

Have you tried the frozen kong treat? Stuff it with canned pumpkin and freeze it. Yummy goodness that takes some time to lick clean. For a special one, use a pupperoni like a little fuse in the small end of the kong - intermittant reinforcement keeps Bella occupied for a long time.

Blogspot people get copies of all comments via email, so just sit back and consider what you would have thought. Another plane of existence, right? I mean, frozen pumpkin? Kong treat? Pupperoni like a little fuse? At first, I thought it was some intertube porn sent to me by mistake.

But no, it's actually Mardie telling me how to deal with Shorty's personality under restriction, which I actually wrote about more than a day ago and have completely forgotten.
Or maybe it's because I just finished watching Lost, which is as undeciferable as ever and therefore very enjoyable.
Thanks, Mardie.

Desi at Don's

The lunch counter at Don's Pharmacy in Port Townsend, WA, is one of the last of its type. I can get a chocolate malt there made the old-fashioned was with real malt powder and spun in one of those old green mixers. And the cook actually makes her own soup and stuff.
But there's no guarantee Desiree will be there.
I took more and better pictures of her with her parents' permission, but my camera is being weird. I think it's the batteries.

Gens X And Y Opting Out On Organized Religion

What Andrew Sullivan calls the Christianists seem to have screwed themselves.

  Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the "nones") has been very small -- hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent. However, Putnam says the percentage of "nones" has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans.

Yesterday I listened carefully to Michael Chabon's wife describe to Terri Gross in detail her agonized choice to abort a wanted child (would have been No.3) after learning the high risk of severe damage, and her account of her first abortion as a young woman who basically saw no other choice.
To the Christianists, she is a murderer.
Gens X and Y don't see it that way. Neither do they regard same-sex marriage as a direct threat to their way of life. And their racial sensibilities are definitely not Nixonland.
And then, there's always this:

POTUSburgers: Day II

I do this because I can. Dopamine and opioids, mmm. Thanks, YouTube.
Biden had Swiss cheese and...wait for it...jalapeno PEPPERS!
Obama, ever the pragmatist, took a plain cheddar burger, lettuce and tomato. But spicy mustard.



UPDATE: Krugman and Stiglitz got roast beef prepared by White House chefs. Mmmm, I loves me some dopamine and opioids.

Foodie Alert: Dopamine And Opioids, Mmmm

Yeah, your mom put sugar in the peas to get you to eat them. And butter. Stuff not available to our ancestors in caves.
So how do we control this brain chemistry? Read the book, I guess.

You have to take the power out of the food by changing how you view the stimulus. It's food rehab. It's new learning on top of old learning—you never get rid of that old learning, those old neural circuits.

Never? Wait a minute.

Fingerpointing 101: Top 25 Sub Prime Culprits

Center for Public Integrity, taking journalism where it's supposed to go.
Money quote:

The banks that funded the subprime industry were not victims of an unforeseen financial collapse, as they have sometimes portrayed themselves, but enablers that bankrolled the type of lending threatening the financial system...U.S. and European banks poured huge sums into the subprime lending market due to unceasing demand for high-yield, high-risk bonds backed by home mortgages...

Oh, and 21 of them are out of business while we bail out their sugar daddies.

Headline O' Teh Day

Afghanistan's Only Known Pig Quaranteed

Afghanistan's only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats, because people are worried it could infect them with the virus popularly known as swine flu.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/05/afghanistans_only_pig_quarantined_in_flu_fear.php 

Mystery Mormon Baptizes Obama Mom

A sincere act of charity, no doubt.
The LDS officially looks down on the practice, and have no idea how this could have happened. Unlike the Proposition 8 matter.

At the same time that Barack Obama sealed the Democratic nomination for president last year, someone in the Provo LDS Church temple was performing a baptism and temple rites for his dead mother.
The move is a serious breach of protocol for church members, who in the past have been criticized for performing such proxy baptisms for victims of the Holocaust.

Genius, Pure Genius

After reviewing Talking Points Memo's readers casting for the Jack Abramoff movie, I'm wishing for a mini-series instead. We already know Kevin Spacy will do Jack, but Chris Conner as Tom DeLay? And, and, and John Goodman and Laura Linney and, and, Aaron Ekhart...I'm breathless. A mere movie couldn't do justice to this cast — or this plot. My fave, Phillip Seymour H. as Grover Norquist.
They call it the Dream Team. Heh.

Honorary Contrarienne

How could I have forgotten Eurotrash after discovering her last year? And why isn't she on one of the blogrolls?
Because she hardly ever writes, that's why. But when she does, I hide in shame.
Sample:

...and I couldn't find anyone to give me a lift and I was going to be terribly late, and I was very stressed out, so I stole a bicycle. But at least all my teeth didn't drop out, which is usually what happens at the end of my stress dreams.

Anyway, the president of Contrarienne — me — has nominated her for her wit, wisdom and anger.
The board — me — has met and unanimously approved.
Any nominations for similar positions will be gladly considered. Just remember, they must match Eurotrash's (punc?) class.
BTW, smashing recipe, too.

About This New Media Thingie

Contrarienne was absolutely flabbergasted to get 186 hits in one day after posting the vulva dress a few weeks ago.
But today has its own sweetness.
Of course, thanks to Stumbledupon, the vulva fans are still out there and trickling in.
But today we're also
hearing from Italy because of sculptor Kelly Bersheim's stunning photo of Santa Croce (and from Kelly herself, that lucky American living and working in Florence) and some of Mardie's Twitter buddies responding to her tweet about our posting of NPR's Mom Music. Most surprising are the people coming from viralvideos because apparently the video of American troops in Afghanistan plotting to pass out Bibles in direct contradiction of military policy against evangelizing is hitting the charts.
Contrarienne learned about it from Huffington Post and has since seen a headline referencing a Pentagon claim that the Bibles, produced in Afghani languages, were confiscated.
And it's only 6:21 p.m. on Tuesday. What will the rest of the week bring? Mother's Day, baby, Mother's Day, which Contrarienne will celebrate by attending a production of Gypsy at Port Townsend High School. And eating a hot dog from Dogs-A-Foot downtown.

Can't Make It Up

Who are the resident Republican fiction writers, anyway? I mean now that Updike's passed.
Oh, Bruce Willis. Right.
No, wait, Condi Rice.
Only in America Dept.

The Candies Foundation announced Tuesday it has appointed teen mom Bristol Palin as its new ambassador. The foundation, which encourages abstinence to prevent pregnancy among teenage girls, has chosen Palin to help promote National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy on May 6.

Oh, The Horror, The Horror

He takes Michelle to Citronelle. Joe gets a Ray's Hell burger. 
On the other hand, they're 10 oz. puddles of good. Wait, Joe, a heartbeat away? Did Nancy suggest this?
But seriously, folks, did W actually ever go out to eat after he became president?

Art: Port Townsend, WA

Public, but not publicly funded. Just anon gift to the passerby.

Tossup

Who will go crazy sooner, Shorty, whose carefree puppy life has been temporarily interrupted by recovery from surgery (female, e.g. fertility elimination) or her person.
We took off the collar, meant to prevent her from licking and damaging her "wound" almost immediately, convinced that a few judidicious "no" commands would prevent it. So far so good.
But a bored puppy is a wonder to behold. Her appetite for "soft," read canned, food is prodigious. And so far this morning, she has made short shrift of one brand new hardcover book and one DVD cover, dismissed all old toys as "old toys" and reverted to barking at me for attention, something that ended weeks ago.
She must not be allowed to run or play or get wet or lick herself for two weeks. I do not see this happening.
Also this morning, she used her paws to splash all the water out of her bowl, then dragged it across the rug to a spot where she could attempt to eat it. Fortunately, it is ceramic.
Oiy!

First Day In Florence, May 1995

I was walking along the Arno on a street lined with expensive shops and hotels when I glanced casually to my left down a short, narrow passage that wasn't even a street. There at the end were huge naked men, the marble statue reproductions in front of the Uffizi.
I was shocked.
It was the lunch hour and I was waiting for things to open up again to secure the rental car I had ordered, and the "opera' tickets for a little theater piece that turned out to have only one song, lots of artistic agonizing in Italian and an audience of Italians dressed to the nines. I remember one bella figura wearing matching turquoise leather dress and coat.
I also discoverd Santa Croce that day and returned to it again and again. Dante is buried there. But it was a painting of perhaps the Madonna or Magdelene, dressed in red with a blue mantle from which her unruly black hair seemed to billow before the turbulent winds in the hills that drew me, a spriritual experience that remains with me to this day.
She was wild with something. An untamed woman. Rapture probably.
In that spirit, as I hunt for her online, I give you Kelly Bersheim's Santa Croce. I don't think she would mind.

Mom Music

I thought it would never happen.
P.S. NPR, in my opinion one of the best Web sites on the intertubes, won 7 Webbys this week.
Maybe because they're good writers up there. Worth a bookmark.
Sample:

She might be a benevolent and nurturing giver of kisses, or a coldly manipulative taskmaster, or even a clump of wire onto which you clung helplessly as part of a twisted social experiment. But chances are good that you still feel the pull of guilt and social obligation surrounding Mother's Day.So why not tell Mom you love her — without doing so directly, of course — and send her a link to this page? These four hours of motherhood-themed songs (from Smokey Robinson to Dvorak, from The Pretenders to Lucinda Williams) will give her something to listen to while she waits in vain for your phone call.

Wait, Laurie Anderson's Oh, Superman, possibly my favorite "song" of all time, is on the play list. Huh? Guess I'll have to listen now.

UPDATE: My pathetic browser, Camino, kept quitting on me on this. But it was quitting yesterday, too. Fair warning, maybe too much traffic?

UPDATE II: Yes, my browser cooperated and I'm listening. Surprise winner so far, John Lennon's Mother.

Momma, don't go. Daddy, come home

And Then There's Black Carbon

How's that wood-burning thing working out for you, huh?
And Surprise O' Teh Week (it's only Tuesday), Inhofe want's to know more.

Shoppie Alert: Filene's Basement Bankrupt

Never been to any one of them myself, but even a thrift store advocate has heard of Filene's. Sign of the times.

Why We Are In Afghanistan

Something the major media are unlikely to cover.

Quote O' Teh Day

In the end,
we will conserve only what we love,
we will love only what we understand,
we will understand only what we are taught.

-Baba Dioum

Posted at the Bronx Zoo and quoted in a blog entry at Daily Kos today lamenting the closing of the nocturnal animal exhibit and the plans to ship the animals to other zoos.
Me, I hate zoos. But I understand the necessity.

Why Women Love Oxytocin

It's the orgasm, honey, it's the orgasm.
I say let's hear it for the bonobos, so sexual that their organs actually drag on the ground.
Anyway, Andrew Sullivan found this incredibly boring, highly speculative and ultimately unsatisfying academic discussion on why women have orgasms.
I read the whole thing, but do not recommend it.
Conclusion:

Whatever the reality, it seems clear that without postulating “stories” of one sort of another, we’ll never know the truth. As it is, someday we will.

Time will tell. News at 11. Stay tuned. Or not.

R.I.P. Newspapers

Andrew Sullivan titles this post "Dreaming of Blogging."

"Before this century shall run out, Journalism will be the whole press - the whole human thought. Through that prodigious multiplication which art has given to speech - multiplication to be multiplied a thousand-fold yet - mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page. Thought will spread abroad in the world with the rapidity of light; instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood, at the extremities of earth, it will spread from pole to pole.
Sudden, instant, burning with the fervor of soul which made it burst forth, it will be the reign of the human soul in all its plenitude. It will not have time to ripen, to accumulate into the form of a book - the book will arrive too late. The only book possible from today is a Newspaper," - Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine, 1861.

Still doesn't get the city council covered, though.

Shameless Self-Promotion Part II

I write it and I'll steal it.

Life in the woods just isn't the same with indoor plumbing and heat

Wednesday, December 4, 1996

SOMEWHERE IN THE WOODS, JEFFERSON COUNTY — When last my words graced this space on an irregular basis, I was an entirely different person.
I lived with a teenage girl whose opinions, habits and activities provided enough amusing material for daily commentary, had that been needed.
I also lived with an adult male whose nickname I have been forbidden to use again in print. (Nothing personal, his co-workers are relentless teases and read The Sun.)
When at a loss, I could always wrap some wry comment around his unassuming mechanical expertise compared to my technophobia.
We were homesteaders, sort of, sheltered in a tiny two-room cabin, half-finished and unconnected to either a power or water utility.
We owned a big, old, grimy, single-purpose Dodge truck. It held a big, blue plastic tank, which we took weekly to the county park or our friendly Cenex store to refill.
We drank that water, cooked with it, sponged ourselves off with it and took our showers in town at the marina.
After surviving the first winter on wood heat, I swore I'd never take my life in my hands that way again.
Survival had come down to trudging out onto our 3.4 acres to seek and fell likely alders, totally ignorant of chain saw etiquette and very lucky.
After that, we relied on propane and I don't plan to ever make a fire with wood again no matter how cozy it sounds to those who've never risen in the icy dark and tried to start green alder in a woodstove.
There were real three-dog nights. I jostled for position on the futon with Bill, Ajax and Pedal.
We owned a precious electric generator that kept the TV and lights running for five years before finally dying of fatigue.
It had been such a good friend that we considered burying it alongside first Pedal, then Bill. All three of us held a queer pride about our lifestyle, not exactly chosen, but the result, I used to joke, of bad luck, bad timing and bad judgment.
And, of course, all of it made great column material.
But I'm a different person now.
The former teenager, distressed and imagining wrinkles, pronounced herself "a quarter of a century old!" this year, and plans to drive to Alaska with her two new dogs as soon as she finishes college.
She lives in another city and another world.
I have reached a friendly agreement with the person-whose-nickname-I-am-forbidden-to-use, and he has the cabin all to himself.
For more than a year, I have inhabited — still stunned by the luxury — a brand new bungalow about 100 yards away.
We are "on the grid" for power and water.
When I come home, I do not have to fill a generator or kerosene lantern for light.
When Chew Doggie Dog, the Rappa Snappa, rolls in horse manure, I do not hope for rain to wash her off.
All I have to do is drag her into one of the two — count them, two — bathrooms, and let her have it.
For the first time in 12 years, I have a lawn to mow.
Some closets and cupboards still are empty because I haven't owned enough stuff to fill them with for so long.
It is all so mundane, so civilized.
Whatever am I going to do for column material now?

Sometime soon, maybe I'll think about new stuff longer than 140 characters.

Just Cool

Big O takes a little time with the U of Conn championship women's basketball team.
Somehow I can't get the image out of my head of W out there with the American beach volleyball beauties, awkward and clownish.

News O' Teh Week

It was swine flu all the time and while I was impatient with the skeptics and the alarmists at the same time, I was also bored. Tell me something I don't know, I thought.
So this morning "they" did.
Flu may have origins in California, which should make the border police happy. And no matter if it's a relatively mild strain and doesn't mutate in six months into something more virulent, it's still very disruptive (think of all the parents of the kids whose schools are closed but on a larger scale. I mean Mexico is shutting down business, for Gawd's sake.)
Feds reportedly ready to drop case against the AIPAC Two, the civilians who apparently trafficked in U.S. secrets to benefit Israel, because court cases in which no harm can be proven don't fare well. Hum. All that and Jane Harman, too.
Oh, and Souter of all people, is divorcing the Supremes. Souter of all people, not Stevens, not Ginsburg (sp?). Thank you NPR for being journalists. Well, Nina T, anyway.
Comment O' Teh Day: To Boost His Chances of Succeeding Souter, Arlen Specter to Switch Gender
Biden said something the airlines didn't like. Okay, I knew that. For airlines substitute anything. Could be a good drinking game.

For more, drop in on the front page of Talking Points Memo.

What Twitter Is For

You thought maybe flu tracking or something?
Try txts frm lst night.

Chill, Please

Even though I'm guilty of getting on the flu pandemic bandwagon early on, I had good reason.
But the story has deteriorated. Look, it's the lead story tonight that there are six cases in Washington.
Every year 35,000 Americans die of the effects of the ordinary, yearly flu. Most are old feebs like me who get complications — pneumonia — because they're feebs and their immune systems are compromised.
What they need to tell us over and over is what pandemic means, the history of such viruses and the potential for either fizzling out, staying the same, or skyrocketing into a global threat.
Instead we get this horse race thingie going. I admit it, I would be reporting the first case in Kitsap County, too. But I'd get that other stuff into the second paragraph.
I'm looking for the AP story on this, just to see who's going for the throat.

Mark This Date

Today is the day Twitter died because....She's on it.
Link is to Mudflats, by the way, a highly respected Alaskan political blog.
And no, her spokesman wouldn't say if she is still getting per diem to work from home. Heh.

Future Of Journalism

Google.
A former colleague thinks so anyway. Yeah, but who keeps the city council honest? Not that we actually do all that often, but you know.

Hunched Over, Snarling Bitterly

Who, me? No, FOX News, I guess.
A reader at TPM made me laugh.

We may not get one good vote out of Arlen we weren't gonna get anyway, but today has already been worth it to watch GOP commentators take on that hunched over bitter snarl they all have now.

Hope Against Hope, UPDATED

Taplin hates Krugman, but I forgive him. Actually, I kinda hate Krugman once in a while, too. But not since the primaries.

...it’s a mission that will fail and within a year we will see Mr. Cheney reluctantly raising his right hand and swearing to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”  

I'm looking to see if there's anything we can do to support Leahy's quest for a Truth Commission.

UDPATE: Here's the petition.

This Just In

Arlen Specter will no longer be doing the balancing act between party and conscience. He's facing almost certain defeat in the Pennsylvania primary, and is switching parties.
A commenter points out that when Franken gets seated, the Dems will have a safe if narrow majority in the Senate.
I've had a soft spot for Specter ever since the anti-choice people went after him — he's pro-choice — and he barely survived.
Now they wingnuts are out in force to get him again, more proof that the R's are trapped and chewing off their own feet.

UDATE: Universal health, here we come. Climate change bill?

Besides, It Doesn't Work

I always found that argument especially offensive to my intelligence and what remains of my heart.
It's wrong on the face of it, period. There are few absolutes, but the destructive nature of torture goes far beyond the object of torture, the perpetrator. It rots everything.
Andrew Sullivan writes well on this:

Torture, when used, is like Tolkien's ring, when slipped on. It becomes its own power and its own rationale because it can coerce its own results. This is why civilized societies have placed the torture option off limits - way off limits with a wide berth in law and custom. Because it destroys the core elements of truth, freedom and fairness that are foundational for Western civilization.

Tweet, Anyone? Anyone? Crickets.

I went out on a limb last week and jeopardized my always shaky credibility by issuing the opinion that Twitter was a flash in the pan. Now Neilsen backs that up. People aren't staying with it, something I didn't know for sure, but suspected was the case.
Once again, Julimac was right. Or maybe not, whatever.

Maybe we’re jumping the gun. Twitter is still something of a fledgling, and surely some other sites that eventually lived up to Twitter-like hype suffered from poor retention in the early days. Compare it to the two heavily-touted behemoths of social networking when they were just starting out. Doing so below, we found that even when Facebook and MySpace were emerging networks like Twitter is now, their retention rates were twice as high. When they went through their explosive growth phases, that retention only went up, and both sit at nearly 70 percent today.

Entirely unrelated — or is it? — hits on White House videos have gone through the roof since Obama's tech savvy administration took over and the biggest audience? You, contrariennes, you. Actually, the men first, women second. Another Neilsen gem.

Swine Flu

Besides the three precautions — handwashing, skip crowds, seek treatment — the most important thing to know is that  this is apparently the first wave. It's the second wave, in about six months, that will be fully adapted to its hosts. Supposedly by then there will be a vaccine. Fingers crossed.
I know, I know, I'm old and I scare easily.
BTW, the link is to John Barry's column in the NYT. He wrote the definitive book of the story of 1918. I haven't read it, but I read Gina Kolada's book, a really fun read.
The story is terrific. The mayor of Seattle was run out of town for closing theaters and other public places. To this day, definitive death counts are hard to come by because they were kept secret.

Box Cat Is Back

He even has his own blog.
For previous videos, context if you will, go here.

Susan Collins, You're No. 1!

As of today, she goes to the top of the list of people I love to hate. Punch in the mouth? Not so much. Nothing she does rivals Cheney, Bush et al.

Well, as it turns out, volcano monitoring wasn't the only worthwhile public safety program that was deemed extravagant in the stimulus package, funding for pandemic preparation was axed as well. And playing a critical role was Susan Collins -- for whom the necessity of obtaining her vote is in inverse proportion to the intelligence she shows in policy making:

Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not."
Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate's version of the stimulus measure.

Foodie Alert: Chocolate Cake Anytime You Want

I had mine for breakfast. Thanks, BW.
Oh, and three minutes was a little long in my old microwave.

5  MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG  CAKE




4  tablespoons  flour
4 tablespoons  sugar
2 tablespoons  unsweetened cocoa
1  egg
3 tablespoons  milk
3 tablespoons  oil
3 tablespoons  chocolate chips  (optional)
A small  splash of vanilla  extract
1 large  coffee mug (Microwave  Safe)

Add  dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.  Add  the egg and mix  thoroughly.
 Pour  in the milk and oil and mix  well...
Add  the chocolate chips (if using)  (if  you want “death by chocolate”  J)  and vanilla  extract, and mix  again.
Put your mug  in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000  watts.
The  cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't  be alarmed!
Allow  to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if  desired.
EAT!  (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly  more virtuous).


And  why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the  world?
Because  now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate  cake at any time of the day or  night!

Last Week It Was Secession

This week it's HELP!

Gov. Rick Perry Saturday asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 37,430 courses of antiviral medications from the Strategic National Stockpile as a precaution after three cases of swine flu were confirmed in Texas.

Flu Update

This latest variant is a brand new mixture of human virus, bird virus, and pig viruses from all over the world. Experts say it's particularly worrisome because people are getting sick without any encounters with pigs. Even worse, young, healthy people (ages 20-40) are dying at a striking rate, a telltale sign of the worst flu epidemics.

Ben Sherwood for Huffpo with three key points of advice. Wash your hands. Stay away from groups/crowds. Seek help at onset of symptoms. It is treatable.

Uh, bookmark this. For me, so I don't worry about you. I'm old and I scare easily.

Pandemicville

I've been a little paranoid about earthquakes and flu pandemics ever since I began writing about them. I even went so far as to begin stockpiling a little food in case we're cut off. I know, I'm old, and I scare easily.
But with the Mexican swine thing hitting the news plus the continuing bird flu deaths in exotic locales, it suddenly occurred to me this sunny Sunday morning — what if we got, not pandemics at first, but two epidemics at once? Better ask DemfromCT over at dKos about this, I'm thinking. He's a health professional on the flu beat.
BTW, don't buy the border thing when it comes up. We're a plane ride away now, which is how our state got its first West Nile death a few years back.

What Nasty Side of Pot?

Andrew Sullivan is providing lots of material today.
This from Science Daily:

"The War on Drugs has hit very close to home," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "Last year, scientists found that our skin makes its own marijuana-like substance. Now, we see that our brain has been making proteins that act directly on the marijuana receptors in our head. The next step is for scientists to come up with new medicines that eliminate the nasty side of pot—a better joint, so to speak."

The 4-Minute Book

Yeah, but what about Kindle?
And is this cheaper?

On Demand is releasing a new model of the machine, version 2.0, which will print books faster--roughly four minutes for a 300-page book as opposed to eight minutes--and be offered at a lower price point. Neller added that the Espresso machine can now be leased as well. The 2.0 model will be on display at the London Book Fair.

Eye Candy

I'm going to try to check up on the links to the right this week, clean up what's dead, etc.
The Sartorialist is alive and well, I'm happy to report.

 

This just in from Paris. 

Sunday Bible Studies

Andrew Sullivan turns this up at The New Yorker today, David Plotz, the guy who read the Bible and then wrote about it.
Makes me want to read the book.

The overarching theme of the Bible, particularly of Genesis, is real estate. God is Trump-like, constantly making land deals (and then remaking them, on different terms). When Sarah dies, for example, there are two verses about her death, and a whole chapter about Abraham negotiating to buy a burial site for her in Hebron. It’s not just land that the Bible is obsessed with, but also portable property: gold, silver, livestock.

and...

My own feeling is that the Messy Bible—with its ambiguous (or worse) heroes and its erratic and wrathful God—is a lot more interesting, and more true to our ugly world, than the Sunday School Bible. But the Sunday School Bible is easier to teach.

and..

And one rich vein in the Bible is the tension between church and state, as God and His prophets are arrayed against a series of kings who aggrandize themselves and try to keep God out of the public sphere. The Bible, naturally, comes down on the side of church supremacy. My own sympathies are with the kings, who are always being undermined by meddling prophets. But I didn’t find a Biblical Obama.

Weekend Keeper

h/t Andrew Sullivan
Andrew used to work for this publication, whose unflinching support of the Iraq War angered people like me. But this analysis, in language even a non-wonk like me can understand, is crucial to understanding our present. And past. And President.

... if it works, Obama will have truly found the Third Way Clinton grasped for a decade ago.

...It is essential that we be reminded of the context of this stuff, because most of the daily media says nothing about history. And when they do, it's usually grossly simplified and therefore inaccurate. In the meantime, who was paying attention back then? I need to be reminded.

Before long, the economy was creating jobs at a dizzying clip--ten million between 1993 and 1997, another eight million between 1997 and 2000. Rising productivity was driving up wages across the income spectrum. By some measures, poverty was the lowest since the government had begun keeping track. It really did look like shrinking deficits had triggered lower interest rates and unleashed a wave of private investment that was powering the economy to new heights.
It's what came next that darkens the narrative. Amid all the new economy triumphalism, the Clintonites deregulated the telecommunications industry and repealed New Deal-era restrictions on bank consolidation. In 1997, Clinton even signed a bill lowering the capital-gains tax rate, that perennial GOP fetish. Having begun their administration grudgingly appeasing Greenspan, the Clintonites gradually embraced his view that, in many cases, government could do no better than step aside.

Krugman O' Teh Day

I've given up following the economics of it all, so much like a 10-ring circus.
But Krugman apparently doesn't get dizzy.

So Citigroup is profitable because investors think it’s failing, while Morgan Stanley is losing money because investors think it will survive. I am not making this up.

Women And Art

My friend AB sends tidbits like this along and I pass the pleasure when I can.

NB Link fixed, thanks puzzled.

F**** Copyright

So once in a while I Google myself and every time I'm further and further down the list of fellow julimacs as my former public persona disappears down the rabbit hole of internet history.
First up this time was a pretty good column on my old newspaper's Web site.
Circa 1997. I don't know what a 386 is and don't remember owning one. I remember an old, clunky HP laptop and a newer HP. Oh, maybe that's the dead thing in what I laughingly call my office.
(Nope, that's not it. I bought that with my daughter's help. I remember distinctly.)
Since 2007, I've been out here at the kitchen counter where I can monitor the feeder birds and answer the land line.

Fear of physics, technology and other bloodless, sapless thing s

I am a technophobe.
It's partly because of Crazy Alice, the girls' counselor at Omaha North High School, 1960-1962, not to mention many earlier decades.
I had my junior year all planned out so eighth period was open and I could sign up for gym.
That way, in the spring I could run around in blue shorts in the late afternoon sun and tease the boys' baseball team or sneak out early to sit in a car and smoke cigarettes with my boyfriend, who was a senior and had eighth period free because he didn't play sports.
Crazy Alice signed me up for her health class instead.
I learned how to sing the words deoxyribonucleic acid in order to remember it for the final (What is DNA?). And I think someone in the class did a highly interesting project on venereal disease.
I don't remember learning anything about how my body worked, or why, although I'm sure somewhere in there were the four major food groups, tourniquets and germs.
Senior year I figured I'd get the same perks everybody else did who was heading to college or otherwise favored. I could avoid an eighth-period class altogether, meet my boyfriend and still get to my job at the drugstore a half hour early.
Crazy Alice signed me up for physics instead.
It was taught by Mr. Dally, a pear-shaped innocent with whom she was rumored to have been in love in prehistoric times. Of course he was called Mr. Dillydally.
I sat next to my boyfriend's brother by the window, which in the spring overlooked the boys' baseball team. He got me through experiments intended to demonstrate electricity, radio waves, magnets and other stuff.
Outside of letting Shelley Hessler (who later moved to Portugal and speaks the language fluently) copy off my Spanish exams, physics was the only class in which I ever cheated.
Shamelessly.
I managed to pull a D.
It wasn't that I couldn't learn, I didn't want to learn.
How inanimate things work is of no interest to me, things with no souls, no blood, no sap. Also, theoretical things, invisible things like atoms and quarks and black holes whose existence I don't doubt but whose applications in my life I leave to others.
They're frightening things, when you consider that we have reached the stage of understanding that it's entirely likely there are no laws of nature. You know, the Tao of Physics and all that.
At best, technical knowledge is a tool. I have no quarrel with tools like hammers, saws and egg timers whose use is self-evident in their design.
I have an aversion to tools that require me to concentrate and spend hours learning how they work before I can get something done.
Like computers. They're nice tools. It was no great leap from typewriters for me, and I would never choose to leap back.
But I don't want to know, nor do I see why I should know, what a server is. Or a microchip for that matter. Or how they work, or why.
Some of my interests are literature, gardening, human behavior, truth, justice, beauty, love and Italy.
I can use computers to write about those things, and to learn about them, but I don't need to know DOS to do so.
Which is why the gloriously cheap 386 clone I bought more than a month ago from our presentation desk editor still sits in its box on the floor in my home ""office.""
I will have to spend hours learning how to use it, I just know it.
And thanks to Crazy Alice, I really resent that.

Now, of course, I actually know what a server is. But I wish I didn't.
DOS. Heh.

Hey, I'll Take Some Of That

Lenders offer Chrysler 46% loan reduction.

Susan Boyle, We Hardly Knew Ye

The stereotyped, frowsy "spinster" who caused a world sensation when gems flew out of her singing mouth during a Britain's Got Talent segment has had her hair and eyebrows done, bought a leather jacket and posed in non-spinster attitude. I would, too.
But according to "some," it's all Madonna's fault.
Another Friviality Friday entry.

Before Madonna, you just had to have talent," she said. "Now, it's the whole package."

 

Commenter Anonymous makes a good point:

Go, Susan. It is amazing the difference clothes can make, actually. She shouldn't have to stay the same, as if she were in costume.

Friviality Friday

Why don't I own Ghostbusters and watch it every month? Why hasn't Bill Murray done anything as good since? Writing, that's why.
Reading the script reminds me of the Marx Brothers. Almost as good as the movie.

Personal Finance In Hard Times

I'm an expert at flushing money down the toilet, so take this for what it's worth.
If you're reviewing your expenditures for possible savings, I can declare myself a personally extremely satisfied customer of Vonage, which will get you unlimited long distance calling — and local, of course — for $25 a month ($10 for the first three now that they're trying harder). It's internet service. When I started working from home and needed to give my sources a local number to call, the IT guys set me up with Vonage. I kept it long past my needs (I hardly ever call l.d. and still have 700 minutes on my phone card) because I naively thought I might start a business.
Second, I know one person who is satisfied with the "good guy" cell phone company Credo.
You'll have to do your own research on this because Contrarienne is just a blog, not a salaried employee of the major media.
Just passing it along in the For What It's Worth Dept.

P.S. No, nobody pays me for this. I am paid to be old only.

Comment O' Teh Day

TMP cites reader MM, who says:

Last week, conservatives were complaining Obama was establishing a socialistic fascist dictatorship.
This week, conservatives are complaining Obama does not want to torture his opponents.

R.I.P. Alyssa Peterson

Army interrogator Alyssa Peterson couldn't stomach torture of prisoners. So she killed herself. Another woman, Katya Williams, equally bothered survived, but is "haunted."

"Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed."

BTW, the story was unearhed by a public radio reporter filing FOIAs (Freedom of Information Requests.)

Barbie Turns 50

All That Waterboarding

was about their need to prove a connection between Iraq and AQ. From McClatchy, which will probably go under soon. RIP good journalism.

McClatchy reports that, "for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were...demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq...(former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi" and these techniques were seen as the quickest way to make the connection.

Cow Fart Controversy

You didn't know there was one, right? Hey, I read 'em so you don't have to. But in case you want to.

This Torture Stuff

seems to building momentum for prosecution with a DOJ report pending in a couple of weeks that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says could be "devastating."
So the chatter among lefties is that the attorneys who authored the authorizations will be the ones to pay. Some jump to the conclusion that Bush/Cheney/Addington et al will skate. But Cheney's not acting that way, he's out there being defensive and challenging the administration to release the results of the 183 times one prisoner was waterboarded. Probably because he knows such documents would be saved for a prosecutor's evidence and not released beforehand.

Anyway, I'm kinda hopeful we may actually go after our own bad guys. It's a sunny, warm day after all. Why not take some cheer?

It will be bad, exceedingly bad…worse even than Caligula but they have to have the whole terrible truth about just how bad it can be before they come to their senses. Let all of the poisons that lurk in the mud, hatch out."
i Claudius, Robert Graves

From TPM commenter Johnny2bad

Sullivan uses a photo from Abu Grab to remind us what we're talking about here. (Okay, I haven't seen anybody say the CIA used dogs. Or that they didn't. There were no known images from the CIA's work, they destroyed the video tapes.)

Obama Shakes Hands With Mexican Dog!

And bows down to him, too. Who says he's a Muslim. Clearly, he's an animist.

Little Flap About Israeli Connections

Sometimes the curtain gets blown back a little bit and you get a dim inkling of just how things actually get done. There's a new story about Calif. Rep. Jane Harman's supposed ties to the Israel lobby out in Congressional Quarterly.
(I'm not linking, just sythesizing. If you want the originals, Google is your friend, but I figured it's too trivial in the general scheme of things to bother contrariennes with and, besides, I haven't had my second cuppa yet).
If the term Israel lobby doesn't ring a bell, it basically means AIPAC, the American Israeli blah-blah something, which is purportedly the most powerful lobby in D.C. (Remember Israel gets the largest kick in foreign aid from us, most of it for defense AND AIPAC's job is to keep it coming. You can't get elected in either party without kissing their ass, which Obama and Clinton both did last year.)
Anyway, supposedly Harman was promised some heavy-duty lobbing with Pelosi for her to be made chair of the House Intel or Foreign Relations Committee or something in return for her weighing in with the Department of Justice to try to kill its prosecution of two AIPAC employees for spying. Yes, Israeli agents spying in America. Imagine. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.
Well, supposedly a phone conversation about this little deal between Harman and somebody maybe an Israeli agent was wiretapped by NASA — big issue here re: tapping congressional phones — but Gonzo intervened and she wasn't investigated for it, supposedly because the admin. needed her on their side during the DOJ scandal flap, or maybe the torture. Hard to keep it all straight. No, wait, it was over the authorization for widespread wiretapping of American citizens and the cooperation of most of the major carriers. Who said the age of irony is dead?
Are you with me so far? Who makes this stuff up, anyway?
Anyway, in the end Harman didn't get the job. Speculation at the time was that she and Pelosi hate each other. Harman's husband benefits from a lot of govt programs, maybe defense related, I think. Another thing I can't quite remember and am not looking up. This is a blog, not the New York Times. If it were the New York Times, I would be ignoring the story entirely and having chummy lunches in D.C. on AIPAC's dime.
Oh, the point, the point.
If the "Israeli agent" Harman talked to (she's on tape saying "this conversation never happened") is not a U.S. citizen, she's in legal trouble. If he is a citizen, she's not.
That's how it works. Oh, and coincidentally, this three-year-old story is being rehashed just days before the two Israeli agents are due to go to trial, so the reason for sources bringing it up again are a bit suspicious.
The guy most associated as the likely agent is a Hollywood type and big Israel supporter, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Israel who created the Mighty Morphin Rangers. Honest. Tom Clancy, eat your heart out.
Harman didn't get the job, by the way. Sylvester Reyes from N.M. did. He's a bit of an embarrassment, as are many of our elected officials.
Correction: Wiretapped by NSA, the National Security Agency, not NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Heh.

Women I Love To Hate Dept.

Currently underpopulated. I just don't read Maureen Dowd anymore, Phyllis Schlafly is too old and Monica Goodling and that other DOJ attorney from Minnesota are long gone.
So, Peggy, you're at the top of the list today. If you've never seen Noonan milling about with the other talking heads on Sunday mornings, you may not know that the former Reagan speech writer is considered a moderate. Brian Williams actually said she deserves a Pulitzer. For stuff like this?:

"Some things in life need to be mysterious ... Sometimes you need to just keep walking," - Peggy Noonan on how to respond to incontrovertible evidence that the president of the United States committed war crimes.

Another Myth

down the toilet.
Remember how the talking heads were always announcing the good news of more productivity gains in the good old USA?
Well, not so much.
I've got my toe in the water on this whole financial industry debacle, but I can't bring myself to even go ankle deep. That water's cold, baby!

In short, how much of the apparent US productivity miracle, a miracle not shared by Europe, was a statistical illusion created by our bloated finance industry?
Dean Baker has argued for some time that, properly measured, the productivity gap between America and Europe never happened. I’m becoming more sympathetic to his point of view.

Without Death

there would be no Poetry.
Not sure I like the terms of the bargain, but I was not consulted.

User's Guide to Physical Debilitation
 by Paul Guest

        Should the painful condition of irreversible paralysis
last longer than forever or at least until
your death by bowling ball or illegal lawn dart
or the culture of death, which really has it out
for whoever has seen better days
but still enjoys bruising marathons of bird watching,
you, or your beleaguered caregiver
stirring dark witch's brews of resentment
inside what had been her happy life,
should turn to page seven where you can learn,
assuming higher cognitive functions
were not pureed by your selfish misfortune,
how to leave the house for the first time in two years.
An important first step,
with apologies for the thoughtlessly thoughtless metaphor.
When not an outright impossibility
or form of neurological science fiction,
sexual congress will either be with
tourists in the kingdom of your tragedy,
performing an act of sadistic charity;
with the curious, for whom you will be beguilingly blank canvas;
or with someone blindly feeling their way
through an extended power outage
caused by summer storms you once thought romantic.
Page twelve instructs you how best
to be inspiring to Magnus next door
as he throws old Volkswagens into orbit
above Alberta. And to Betty
in her dark charm confiding a misery,
whatever it is, that to her seems equivalent to yours.
The curl of her hair that her finger knows
better and beyond what you will,
even in the hypothesis of heaven
when you sleep. This guide is intended
to prepare you for falling down
and declaring détente with gravity,
else you reach the inevitable end
of scaring small children by your presence alone.
Someone once said of crushing
helplessness: it is a good idea to avoid that.
We agree with that wisdom
but gleaming motorcycles are hard
to turn down or safely stop
at speeds which melt aluminum. Of special note
are sections regarding faith
healing, self-loathing, abstract hobbies
like theoretical spelunking and extreme atrophy,
and what to say to loved ones
who won't stop shrieking
at Christmas dinner. New to this edition
is an index of important terms
such as catheter, pain, blackout,
pathological deltoid obsession, escort service,
magnetic resonance imaging,
loss of friends due to superstitious fear,
and, of course, amputation
above the knee due to pernicious gangrene.
It is our hope that this guide
will be a valuable resource
during this long stretch of boredom and dread
and that it may be of some help,
however small, to cope with your new life
and the gradual, bittersweet loss
of every God damned thing you ever loved.

       

               
           
           

           
          

Social Networking

I've been on Facebook since January and blogging for 14 months. But really, what does it all mean?
It isn't just Twitter.

The great paradox of "social networking" is that it uses narcissism as the glue for "community." Being online means being alone, and being in an online community means being alone together. The community is purely symbolic, a pixellated simulation conjured up by software to feed the modern self's bottomless hunger. Hunger for what? For verification of its existence? No, not even that. For verification that it has a role to play. As I walk down the street with thin white cords hanging from my ears, as I look at the display of khakis in the window of the Gap, as I sit in a Starbucks sipping a chai served up by a barista, I can't quite bring myself to believe that I'm real. But if I send out to a theoretical audience of my peers 140 characters of text saying that I'm walking down the street, looking in a shop window, drinking tea, suddenly I become real. I have a voice. I exist, if only as a symbol speaking of symbols to other symbols.

H/T Andrew Sullivan 

Some Of My Best Friends

Love Leonard Cohen. Guess this is why:

Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering,

There is a crack in everything,

That's how the light gets in.


Thanks, Adele.

Bye, Bye P—I, Gap, Borders...

12 brands down and counting.

Howsee Doon?

Politifact releases report on his progress so far on keeping more than 400 campaign promises during his first 100 days. Notice, there's also an Obameter to your right to plug you in to their main page.

My Hero

If I have one for the last few years, it's not Obama but David Simon, former Baltimore Sun police reporter turned TV icon with the non-fiction book Homicide, shows Homicide, something intervening on HBO, The Wire, Generation Kill and a record of bluntly stating what he thinks about newspapers and the media in general.
Remember at the end of The Wire, we see that the newspaper has missed the best and most important stories in the city — political and police corruption, drug wars, union corruption. The newsroom can't even muster up the energy to respond to a fire they can see from their windows. I know this syndrome. I was this syndrome.
Oh, yeah, Simon's on Bill Moyers tonight, 9:30 p.m.

Friviality Friday

Presidential pets

Pauline Taft

Or the Mexican first lady's smashing shawls.

Thank you, Huffpo.

Banality of Evil

Sullivan sums it up:

Many of the people who did this are mild, kind, courteous, family men and women, who somehow were able to defend slamming human beings against walls in the daytime while watching the Charlie Rose show over a glass of wine at night. We've seen this syndrome before, in other places and at other times...

These legal memos construct a form of torture, through various classic torture techniques, used separately and in combination, that were to be used systematically, by a professional torture team along the lines proposed by Charles Krauthammer, and buttressed by a small army of lawyers, psychologists and doctors - especially doctors - to turn the US into a torture state. The legal limits were designed to maximize the torture while minimizing excessive physical damage, to take prisoners to the edge while making sure, by the use of medical professionals, that they did not die and would not have permanent injuries.
The core point of this, one infers from the memos, is to create a sense among the prisoners that their assumptions about the West, the US, and countries constructed on the rule of law are without any basis whatever. The torture techniques were all the more brutal in order to push back against the reputation of the US even in the minds of Qaeda or alleged Qaeda members. What Mukasey and Hayden are arguing for today is a scheme whereby, in secret, the US government credibly allows captives to believe they are in an endless, bottomless pit of extra-legal terror. This is the state of mind they are trying to construct by torture. That's the point of the sensory deprivation, the disappearances, the sequestering from the Red Cross, the endless solitary confinement, the IRFing, the hoods, the nudity, and all the other sadism. It is precisely to persuade the barbarians that we are as bad as they are and have no limits and no qualms in doing to them whatever we want.
Looked at from a distance, the Bush administration wanted to do two things at once: to declare to the world that freedom is on the march, and huamn rights are coming to the world with American help, while simultaneously declaring to captives that the US has no interest in the law, human rights, accountability, transparency or humanity. They wanted to give hope to all the oppressed of the planet, while surgically banishing all hope from the prisoners they captured and tortured. And the only way they could pull this off is by the total secrecy they constructed and defended. So we had a public government respectful of the rule of law, and a secret government whose main goal was persuading terror suspects that there was no rule of law at all. It is hard to convey just how dangerous this was and is.

Word Twit, er, Twist

What kind of a word game wants four different spelling for schlep (shlep, schlep, schepp) but does'nt recognize satan or santa...or pooper or poopers for that matter? This isn't frustration, it's contempt. Not that I ever did all that well.
Oh, it's on Facebook.

Wow

Death Barged In
 by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno

        In his Russian greatcoat
slamming open the door
with an unpardonable bang,
and he has been here ever since.

He changes everything,
rearranges the furniture,
his hand hovers
by the phone;
he will answer now, he says;
he will be the answer.

Tonight he sits down to dinner
at the head of the table
as we eat, mute;
later, he climbs into bed
between us.

Even as I sit here,
he stands behind me
clamping two
colossal hands on my shoulders
and bends down
and whispers to my neck,
From now on,
you write about me.

       

I Am Juclie Lucca

What's your NPR name?
(Okay, I don't know which foreign town I visited is the smallest. I just guessed.)

Lies, Mark To Market and Orphan Months

I'd seen some discussion about this but was unprepared for NPR to be reporting the Wells Fargo and Golman Sachs alleged profits as cheerful signs of recovery yesterday.
In case you're interested, go here for a start.
Killer quote:

Since this accounting change, we've seen two major institutions prettying up their financial statements. Wells Fargo recorded record profits, and its stock jumped more than 20% in one day on the news. Goldman Sachs also reported tremendous earnings, surprising in these difficult times, and sold $5 billion of stock in the secondary market immediately afterwards
Both banks have used odd accounting tricks designed to obscure the truth of their status to investors. Earnings season just started, so we'll soon see if this is a trend, but so far, I'm not encouraged. Journalist Jonathan Weil, who helped uncover the Enron scandal, pointed out that much of the increase in Wells Fargo's earnings came from a new accounting term called 'Level 3' gains and its application to Wells Fargo's mortgage servicing portfolio. "So what are Level 3 gains?" asks Weil. "Pretty much whatever companies want them to be."
Floyd Norris of the New York Times noted that Goldman Sachs used a more prosaic trick having nothing to do with mark to market accounting - the company moved its fiscal year up a month and simply left out its losses from December, which is now known as an 'orphan month'. Is the rule that says a year has twelve months also open to subjective judgment?

Dylan, As In Bob

Big new album, big new interview. More here.
I never had Dylan crush and couldn't stand is voice, but the songs, the songs. Then a couple documentaries later (one early, one Scorsese a few years back) and I find I have an interest in him not just because he's a cultural icon, but because he's interesting and worth listening to for that alone. So many people just aren't.

Killer quote:

BF: But you've sold over a hundred million records.
BD: Yeah I know. It's a mystery to me too.

Stumbleupon

I feel I owe them a plug, since they apparently picked this up and sent me an unheard of 186 hits last Friday.

It Ain't Jesus, Baby

What do (mostly) Red States and East Coasters have in common? Neurotic as hell, apparently.

Lights In Baskets Dept.

Sullivan's all verklempt. So am I.
"Embedding disabled by request," so ya gotta go here.
Susan Boyle. ( I think with a little work, she could look a lot like Jessica Lange.

What Do Ikea and Google Have In Common?

They're among the world's 99 most ethical companies. And besides, I have a crush on them, as well as Target, Safeway, Trader Joe's, and some others. Okay, I know you're saying, "Starbucks, that behemoth spirit killer?" But I've a sweet spot because it was there I had my first life-chaning latte in 1977.
Time Warner, not so much, thanks to Mr. Mark "Merkin" Halprin.
Anyway, here's the whole list and the methodology.

Culture of Narcissism

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, having encountered a number of people who believe that God takes a personal interest in their lives and steps in to fix things or give them some sign of progress. (I never hear them attribute God's intervention to their bad experiences.)
If it makes them happy and keeps them sober, I'm fine with it. But it's interesting.
And I'm hardly immune to the underlying syndrome.

Studies reveal that most ordinary people secretly think they're better than everyone else: We rate ourselves as more dependable, smarter, friendlier, harder-working, less-prejudiced and even better in the sack than others. "The paradox about narcissism is that we all have this streak of egotism," says Mark Leary, chair of the department of psychology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "Eighty percent of people think they're better than average."

Here's to Ostara

Imagine: a famous monk makes up a weird story about a goddess who never existed who turns a bird into a rabbit that lays colored eggs; and it morphs into a mega-watt holiday celebrated the modern world over.

But nothing about the chocolate.

Viral Performing Sheep

Two people have shared this with me and Andrew Sullivan featured it a few weeks ago. Sorry I didn't get is up sooner, sometimes Contrarienne is late to the party. But she always bring merriment.

Oh Dear

The clam prom dress you've always wanted.

 

this is what happens when the news is dead for two days in a row and The Contraienne is forced to go looking for material. And for my artsy sisters,  Craftastrophe!

Rough Draft

It's not that I can't sleep,
It's that I won't

V.M. Kemrocken

This morning I went to court and sat without pay through the tedious decision making of our local legal system, sleep deprived by not so much design
as fallback habit. Pleas were entered, dates were set.  A waiflike young meth addict decided to reverse her previous decision and signed up for drug court. Maybe she will start eating again.
I used to sit through theses things in rapt attention, taking notes and reading the rhythms. The rhythms are always the same. Even when there's an arson murderer in the dock, like today.

When I was rebounding earlier this week from an entire night without sleep, I had epiphanies of insight.
The brain always makes sure it is first on the list for oxygen.
Uncluttered by normal thought abundance, I figured a few things out, remembered events long forgotten. Pieces fell and found their place.
Sometimes that's the way it comes, deprive the body, starve the brain, and there's a new plane of existence telegraphing its presence — is that the way you spell presence? — by way of the remaining functional synapses. So much has shut down and clarity comes.
That's the thought, anyway. Contrarienne took a day off to play and found upon her return that she had missed little and had nothing to pass along.
So she slept on it for about three hours, then went to court for a friend.
Now, midmorning and not even a first coffee, she opens the daily email from The Poets. I signed up for this. But I never read it. Today I will.

Wayne Miller's last line says it all, as all last lines should.
sleep gives the body back its mouth..

My mouth is full of thought.


Earlier in the week, I  read  a newspaper poetry critic's account of his plan to memorize a few lines a day until he had acquired a ready repertoire to fill such tedious moments. He is often called upon to recite for friends. Maybe I will do the same. Or just read a poem a day.

One of the things they often tell you to do in recovery is make lists. List ten things you're grateful for, they say. It's supposed to make you feel better.

Gratitudes No. 1. Poetry

First line or last line:
It's not that I can't sleep,
It's that I won't

Sometimes a blog is a personal diary. I'll try to minimize that , but from what I've seen so far, nothing much is happening today either.

If you would like to receive a poem a day during April, go here. If you would like to memorize some, I'll certainly ask for a recitation.




 

Tango Correction

The tango was born by the end of the 19th century from a mixture of several rhythms that were danced in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. Originally it was almost exclusively connected to cabarets, a sort of contention house for the predominantly male population that was increasingly immigrating to the country. Since only prostitutes would dare performing this dance, in the beginning most couples were formed by two men.

From a reliable source.

About The Tango

Casual observers may not know that the rough seamen and dock workers who generated the original tango in Argentina used to practice with each other before attending the highly controlled dances where women they wished to impress would be present. (I suppose women must have practiced together also.)

Word O' Teh Day

merkin, as in Mark Halperin Merkin

See  below 

Or, you're nothing but a goddamned merkin. You merkin, you.
 

Business Model, Schmiziness Model

Today is as good as any for a little media bashing.
From today's TPM:

Daphne Merkin took to the Times op-ed page last month to argue Madoff victims are not blameless. But the paper didn't disclose Merkin's brother lost billions of other people's money investing with Madoff -- and an irritated NYT editor says the issue is not "substantive," even though Merkin's brother has now been charged with fraud.

Comment O' Teh Day from Kibo:

A merkin (first use, according to the OED, 1617) is a pubic wig, originally worn by prostitutes after shaving their genitalia to eliminate lice or disguise the marks of syphilis. There are many different ways of wearing a merkin, although most involve placing the merkin on the vulva or the scrotum.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin

I just loves me some intertubes.

For The Joy Of It

FB Down Again

This morning. 200 million users and counting.

Defense Budget

Money shuffling is what it is, not budget reduction, even though the programs being cut may well deserve it. That $513 for fiscal 2008? It's $534 for '09.
Who needs the old media when most of them can't get it right?
Now I know that many journalists would argue that the first stories out after Gates released it all yesterday are bound to be insatisfactory as everyone scrambles to absorb it. But the truth is, with stuff like this, they all got heads up and draft copies and exclusive interviews in time to get it right. TPM says the Wall Street Journal did its due diligence.
But it was the weekend. Most didn't feel like working that hard.
My favorite offender? Mark "Mr. Smirky" Halperin, formerly of ABC News, now at Time. I'l like to see the self-satisfied SOB strung up.
Strong words. Death of democracy in my opinion deserves strong words.

Oldie But Goodie

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Facebook Meltdown?

So, um, Word Challenge was getting sort of sluggish and I rebooted, figuring it was my pathetic browser (Camino), which periodically just quits for no good reason, or my own lack of internal maintenance duties on my Mac laptop, which I've had for two years and managed so far to avoid even reading the instructions, much less take the online course.
But nooo, me and gazillions of other users are told this:

Account Unavailable

Your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Excuse me, a few hours? Guys, this is the internet. If it ain't instant, it's dead to me.
Oh, wait. Maybe it's the increased traffic from the earthquake in Italy. Nah, not big enough news to swamp the world's leading — and so far unprofitable — online whatchamacallit.
Virus? What ever happened to that April Fool's thingie that was supposed to end civilization as we know it.
Whatever. Thing is, how has this affected Wall Street?
Maybe cyberterrorism. North Korea has penetrated the Net, the Web, whatever. Or AQ. I was for years convinced that Richard Clark's account of the weaknesses in the system was an indicator of things to come. But they never came. What terrorist can live without the Net these days?
UPDATE: Okay, it was less than an hour. Still.

Sunday Afternoon Coloring Book: 1,000 Pages!

Dedicated to the creative arts sisters (and those brothers who aren't afraid to tap their inner child.)