It's Been Awhile Since They Sent Me A Poem

I really like. I really like this one. I know, it's crazy.

Q & A
by Terence Winch

Q. How important is theory in this poem? It seems as though
it just starts, goes nowhere, tells us nothing we need to know.

A. The concern here is with necessity, not fact. The poem could tell
you everything you wanted to know, but doesn't.
Some poems begin in the rinse cycle. This one goes right to spin.

Q. We noticed how marvelous the upper strata of the poem is. It suggests
the appeal of authoritarian faith in the old-fashioned
middle class. Did you write it on a train?

A. One day I heard laughter coming from some mysterious source. First
I thought
it came from several people who were stuck at the bottom of a well.
Then I speculated it could be a group of teenagers on the level right above me.
After a while, however, I wondered if it might actually be weeping.
I got out my address book and started calling around. In fact, people
were crying when I managed to get in touch with them. Where are
your social contracts now, I snarled, your precious theses on the absolute?
I averted my gaze as their beliefs unraveled.

Q. We can't help but notice how you seem to be suppressing what you
really mean. Are you naked in this poem?

A. I have these pastes and mud packs that I smear all over me, so I'm
never really naked, even when I have no clothes on.
The same thing goes for this poem.
It's beautiful, stark, totally blank, yet colorful, like a sin
you're considering but haven't yet committed.

Because I Can

Some of these are not funny. Oh, wait, yes they are.

I Want To Believe

That when guys like this start pumping for a big stimulus (see Summers earlier, but primarily about payroll), there's some behind-the-scenes Kabuki at work, a build-up that eventually will turn into enough of a consensus to turn the economy around before it's too late.
Spoke to a knowledgeable woman yesterday still in her 40s who believes she will not have Medicare at retirement. She probably believes she won't have Social Security either.
In other words, I want to believe there's a long game.

Science Humor Is Not An Oxymoron

Spongiforum squarepantsii, for instance.

There apparently are some slime-mold beetles named

• Agathidium bushi
• Agathidium cheneyi
• Agathidium rumsfeldi
• They, however, have never held public office.
• More at Mefi.

Spanish Grrrls!

Carving the Mountains from Juan Rayos on Vimeo.

Note: I have found the load slow and frustrating on Vimeo, but worth it. Just click to start, then pause. It continues to load. Just put your cursor back on the video to check progress, then play when fully loaded. Maybe there's an easier way. And maybe I'll try to find it some day.

I Would Like To Go Somewhere Foreign And Tropical

before I die of this fungal infection we're calling summer. Sullivan featured Maputo, Mozambique on his View today. It looks nice. Sigh.

When I'm Desperate For More Distraction

I also read these. I'm not saying they're always great, but they tend to calm anxieties.
1. http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/

2. http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/

3. http://www.metafilter.com/

4. http://www.aldaily.com/

UPDATE: Oh, hell, I forgot to link. Guess I got rusty. Just go to the (Mostly) Daily Reads at right. Sorry.

If You Missed The Tony's

Links to most of it is here along with discussion.
I am totally impressed with the talent, starting — and ending — with Neil Patrick Harris.
I wish I could see every show.
Just try a little taste, I guarantee you'll like it.

Hi

I've been away awhile. Well, not away, just otherwise occupied although not productively unless you count twisting my foot while mowing the lawn and diddling in the garden productive. I count it as entertainment.
So I too often put things I think are cool on my FB page, but few of my friends read Contrarienne and few of you are on FB so I will try to crosspost more often because I don't want to let Connie die just yet.
Anyhoo, everybody's saying Larry Summers is for more stimulus but that isn't really what he said apparently. I tried to link to his new Financial Times column in which he supposedly said it but FT doesn't like me. It says I'm registered and then it says I'm not and I'm too cranky to resolve it.
Now Summers is what Krugman calls a Very Serious Person (VSP) and he's partly to blame for this economic mess, so I gotta figure he's putting one up the flag pole or throwing some at the wall to see if it's sticky and if there's real Kabuki here, then we'll see some more stimulus at some point because even Cantor is backtracking on the debt ceiling now and I'd love to be a mouse in Obama's golf bag when he's out on the course with Boehner, because I don't think that insta-tan holds up well when your blood pressure suddenly falls into anaphalactic shock territory. At least I'm hoping Obama will just make a threat that can't be ignored and even help Johnno cover his ass during the retreat, because that's what it will have to be. I should have gone into politics. It all seems so clear to me.
But out of the TPM discussion I got this great Comment O' Teh Day:

The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is.

Later today I will post two cool new web sites you should know about, but I hafta go graduate from respiratory therapy. Let's see, shall I wear the crown or the purple graduation cap. Maybe both.
Cheers, Cnne

Viral Today

 

From Michael Ferry at First Draft. Krugman posted it today, maybe because it linked to his pessimistic post yesterday.

I Thought The Weekend Was Going Well

too. Then the weedeater broke. And the dryer. And my glasses fell apart.
I tried the internet, but there is no consolation apparently.
Thanks, Andrew Sullivan, you brighten my day.
Remember, I read it (once in a while) so you don't have to.
Oh, and Palin's not running. So there's that.
Just stay away from TV news.
Thanks, Lawrence O'Donnell (MSNBC) and Jonathan Miller (Politico, it's not what he said, but what he didn't say.)


'Too Big to Fail' in 80 Seconds from Joe Mande on Vimeo.

Climate change, you know you want it.

Honorary Contrarienne

My fitness mentor, Hilary Metzger, celebrates Rhody Fest each year by walking in the 7.5-mile marathon.
This year, she won the coveted "Words Per Mile" trophy, an honor she devised and awarded to herself. I believe the established record is something in the neighborhood of 7,000 words total.

Inspired, I attempted to top my personal best record of most baby carrots miniature Tootsie Rolls consumed on the 4-mile drive home from the grocery store and, of course, beat myself. As usual.

DNA

UPDATE: Apparantly I left out the links when I originally posted. They're added now, and worth following.

Some folks over at MeFi really miss Douglas Adams, whose initials are DNA and who was born in Cambridge the same year ... well, you know the rest.

Anyway, this is the anniversary of one of the Adams accomplishments, his death or the publication of one of the books or somethings and someone found one of his speeches that was, like him, a lot of fun, and this quote popped out. For your entertainment and enrichment.

There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions. Curiously enough, quite a lot of these have come from sand, so let's talk about the four ages of sand.

The Trouble With Psychopaths

is that they can gang up on you. I say that in all seriousness. I believed then and I believe now that I once worked for two psychopaths at the same time. How did I survive?
They don't cooperate well with others, even others like themselves.
That should be question #21 on the test.

Jane Mayer vs. The World

Mayer may be the best journalist working today. One of her highest skills is good sourcing, which means she's trusted by people who probably don't trust anyone.
She's trusted because she has not only good intentions, but good judgment. I love that. In my silly, small way, it was also my professional goal.
This story on an N.S.A. renegade is such good leg work it seems almost mundane.

Binney says that an N.S.A. e-mail database can be searched with “dictionary selection,” in the manner of Google. After 9/11, he says, “General Hayden reassured everyone that the N.S.A. didn’t put out dragnets, and that was true. It had no need—it was getting every fish in the sea.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer#ixzz1N0fhwkmn

Newt Gingrich Is Crazy

And we've known that since at least 1997. Here's the proof.

Do No Harm

Someone I admire, respect and love angered and disappointed me today.
But I had to go to the library. Not only did I find all the poetry books I've been craving, the Montaigne biography I'd ordered, but...Also. Life is good.

I'm Starting A File Tagged Presidential Election 2012

Item #1

Comment O' Teh Day

Over at a fairly technical discussion of type face criticism on MeFi, is a good example why I love MeFi. (That and the enlightening discussion of iconic font designer Eric Gill, who had an incestuous relationship with his sister, sexuallyy abused his children and had "an experimental connection to his dog.")

On a rainy day, what could be better?

This is probably the whitest thing I've seen in years. Talk about your first-world problems.

(I actually found the article reasonably interesting, but then I fit the criteria given above)
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:04 PM on May 15 [1 favorite]

A Worthy Goal

I am trying to get at something so simple
that I have to talk plainly
so the words don't disfigure it
and if it turns out that what I say is untrue
then at least let it be harmless
like a leaky boat in the reeds
that is bothering no one.

This is from a poet named David Berman, who Andrew Sullivan cited today with a different but equally worthy quote.
It's from 2003 and there are no comments on the site.
Can't help but wonder what became of Berman.
I would post the entire thing, but it's long. And very good.

Ingrid Bergmanngr

Saw this yesterday and it stayed with me. The barely restrained passion is breathtaking. Forgot what a good actress she was.

Another Silly Time-Wasting Thing

to do on the internet.
Look in on Andrew Sullivan's View From Your Window Feature every Saturday (I love Saturdays although I missed This American Life Today and, wait, I have to turn on Radiolab), recognize nothing (okay, I got Paris once) and read all the selected answers on Tuesdays. People really get into it and it's sort of a mental puzzle for world travelers. I don't mind being an armchair traveler at all. Who wants to go on an airplane anyway?
I think today's is Cannes for no other reason than that I want to go to there and the film festival is there this week and one of my young FB friends who wisely left off newspapering and took up publicity is there and sending pictures of her breakfast. She likes the new Jack Sparrow movie, by the way, but then, she's young.

DNA

(Note: I have gone to some trouble — some, not a lot — to reconstruct a post that strangely and inexplicably disappeared just as it was being saved on Wednesday. Blogger went down and stayed that way much of yesterday. They called it maintenance problems. I call it uncanny.)

Douglas Adams, whose initials are DNA and who was born in Cambridge in 1952, the same day as...well, you know the rest, is receiving another periodic revivals over at MeFi. I guess May 11 was the 10th anniversary of his death, but book publishing anniversaries are also popular.
In the comment thread to the post calling attention to this piece was a cite to a speech of his I plan to keep in reserve. Because I will need it.

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions. Curiously enough, quite a lot of these have come from sand, so let's talk about the four ages of sand.

Josh Marshall Hearts Newt Gingrich

There are a lot of right-wing performance artists now, but Newt invented the genre. Sort of like the let's-look-back at the first rappers.

And that's Gingrich, not a politician or even a mere huckster, but something much more than that, a right-wing performance artist who for a critical decade or so overlapped with the real world of electoral politics and ascended to the highest echelons of power. The almost appealing slasher barging in on the carefree picnic day of our political life.

Web Site O' Teh Day

The Library of Congress now has its full archive of historical sound recordings available online.
It's called the National Jukebox and this is Arthur Prior's band playing Temptation Rag.

Graphic Proof

I'm tempted to make a bunch of posters of this and slap them up everywhere. Maybe I will.
Sorry I can't make images fit, but click through at bottom or the link above.

Via: Medical Billing And Coding

Just Sayin'

A harmonic oscillator in classical mechanics (A-B) and quantum mechanics (C-H). In (A-B), a ball, attached to a spring (gray line), oscillates back and forth. In (C-H), wavefunction solutions to the Time-Dependent Schrodinger Equation are shown for the same potential. The horizontal axis is position, the vertical axis is the real part (blue) or imaginary part (red) of the wavefunction. (C,D,E,F) are stationary states (energy eigenstates), which come from solutions to the Time-Independent Schrodinger Equation. (G-H) are non-stationary states, solutions to the Time-Dependent but not Time-Independent Schrodinger Equation. (G) is a randomly-generated superposition of the four states (C-F). H is a "coherent state" ("Glauber state") which somewhat resembles the classical state B.

Some generous guy named Steve Byrnes contributed this gif to Wikipedia's entry on quantum physics, which I finally looked up today and, sure enough, it's all about math. Except when it's not.

...according to the theory of quantum decoherence, the parallel universes will never be accessible to us. This inaccessibility can be understood as follows: Once a measurement is done, the measured system becomes entangled with both the physicist who measured it and a huge number of other particles, some of which are photons flying away towards the other end of the universe; in order to prove that the wave function did not collapse one would have to bring all these particles back and measure them again, together with the system that was measured originally. This is completely impractical, but even if one could theoretically do this, it would destroy any evidence that the original measurement took place (including the physicist's memory).

Good Poem Today

I intended to stop republishing whole poems in a nod to copyright and all that. But then I realized hardly anybody but you — and you, and you — reads this blog so if they find me and tell me to desist, I will. If they threaten to sue, I will desist and laugh.

Blue Dementia

by Yusef Komunyakaa

In the days when a man

would hold a swarm of words

inside his belly, nestled

against his spleen, singing.

In the days of night riders

when life tongued a reed

till blues & sorrow song

called out of the deep night:

Another man done gone.

Another man done gone.

In the days when one could lose oneself

all up inside love that way,

& then moan on the bone

till the gods cried out in someone's sleep.

Today,

already I've seen three dark-skinned men

discussing the weather with demons

& angels, gazing up at the clouds

& squinting down into iron grates

along the fast streets of luminous encounters.

I double-check my reflection in plate glass

& wonder, Am I passing another

Lucky Thompson or Marion Brown

cornered by a blue dementia,

another dark-skinned man

who woke up dreaming one morning

& then walked out of himself

dreaming? Did this one dare

to step on a crack in the sidewalk,

to turn a midnight corner & never come back

whole, or did he try to stare down a look

that shoved a blade into his heart?

I mean, I also know something

about night riders & catgut. Yeah,

honey, I know something about talking with ghosts.

Viral Dog Video O' Teh Week

I have never had so many friends share one of my found videos before. Of course, it is raining really hard, not much to do.

Before The Internet

There was the Whole Earth Catalogue.
Diry hippies.

Introducing Hahn-Bin

Should have put this up weeks ago, but sometimes I forget about Contrarienne. And you.

There Are Good Poets And There Are Better Poets

And then there's Pinsky, always with the jokes.

Need is my tactic. Detachment

is my strategy.

I Was Told There Were 18

Some Corgis were mated with dachsunds (most notably Pipkin, who belonged to Princess Margaret) to create ‘Dorgis’.
At present, The Queen owns four Corgis: Linnet, Monty, Willow and Holly and three Dorgis: Cider, Candy and Vulcan.

Now I am better informed. I notice she allows them to jump up. Encourages them even. I am doing the right thing.

Jack Bauer, Inc.

Kept hearing the talking heads tell me last night how we'd be hearing a lot more about J-SOC  in the coming days.
The day came and Spencer Ackerman came through. Have admired his reporting since earlier days at TPM. Journalism is not dead.
Ed. "Hey, Spence, we need 50 inches on JSOC toot sweet."
SA. Here.
Silent squirrels, indeed. McCrystal. Extreme rendition.
So far no one has plugged in the Panetta/Petraeus thingie in light of what we now know was going on.
Hey, Spence.

My New Motto

You cannot make the dead man write what you want.

Rec'd this morning from my daily poetry service, a quite lovely piece — featuring chocolate — by Marvin Bell who, I believe, is indeed a dead man. still lives part-time in Port Townsend.
Live as if you were already dead indeed.

FOX News: African American Man Kills Elderly White Man

Because Of Roger Ebert

I was motivated to learn how to get my computer to speak to me in the morning.
I wanted Vicki to greet me when I turned the computer on, but that's a little down the road. But all I have to do is highlight a piece of text I keep on my desktop, press the selected keys and I get the greeting I composed.
I love it. he makes me feel good.
Why have I lost the ability to use cap s? Vicki?

OMG, Aparagus Pesto!

 And 12 other things.
I love Mark Bittman.

Quote O' Teh Day

All a person is in the end is a story you tell yourself.

Possibly Charles Fernyhough, a developmental psychologist

I heard it on Radiolab today but missed the reference. Am thinking about making Radiolab my daily meditation. Using Beulahland didn't work, it always made me cry.

I Do This Because I Can

And for science.

Oh, THAT Wedding

The hats because, why not?
So what if they're never worn again, the museums will appreciate a chance to do a fun show.
Now, on to the gown.

What Wedding?

Hi, I'm back. Was worried for awhile that I was't worried. Hope you're still out there.
You owe it to our neighbors to read something about Canadian politics every few years.
Here it is. Uh, because there's an election going on that could change things radically.
Then again, maybe not. It's Canada.

Oh, All Right, I'll Read Infinite Jest

guess I'll have to buy it after this.

Tina Fey, Honorary Contrarienne

Janet Is-She-Still-Alive? Maslin does a nice profile, er, book review.

“Only in comedy,” she writes, about interviewing for a writing job on “Saturday Night Live” in 1997, “does an obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity.”

Here, Have A Death Cookie

Possibly the most engaging thing I have read in months. And I read a lot.

“The risk you take has a feedback effect on the unconscious,” he says. “The unconscious will give you ideas and it wants you to act on them. The more courage you have when you act, the more ideas it will give you.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/03/21/110321fa_fact_goodyear#ixzz1IMDNIfZd

The reason it is so engaging is that I recognize my own experience.

Malcolm X Redux

There's a new book I'd really like to read, but the author's story is remarkable as well.

As Promised

VR I think I should go to Brazil. Then maybe Argentina.

Lost Love

I have cleaned up all the family photos and the CDs and put  Zap Mama back into my life. Next up, Virginia Rodriguez.

Should We Read Susan Sontag?

Maybe not. Maybe read about her instead.

“She had the death that somewhere she must have come to believe that other people had from cancer,” Rieff writes, “the death where knowledge meant nothing, the will to fight meant nothing, the skill of the doctors meant nothing.”

For A Good Read, Try NYT

while it's still free.
But I digress.
My mouth is watering over this.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/nyregion/20turanos.html?_r=1

Like many classic New York tales, the story of Mr. Kruger and his shadow family involves love, money, conflict and real estate.

It is a story of an internecine political world of favor-trading and access-peddling.

It is a story of an obscure waterfront expanse of garish mansions and decadent cars, a pocket of wealth unreachable by buses and subways and unseen by most city residents.

And, now, it is a story of unwanted attention.

Beulah Land

Takes me to my knees. Every time.

I'll Be Bouba, You Be Kiki

Tried to read all this review of the hot new brain book but, I'll be honest, it was long. So I skimmed. Basically I wanted more summary, less discursive analysis. But, as always, a lot to ponder.

Do Not

tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing.

Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda

Here's the list of things I knew I should buy. But what did I do? Oh, probably blew it on new clothes or something.
1. Netflix
2. Apple
3. Google
4. Amazon
5. Starbucks

February's Over, Time To Pull Up My Palin Pants

After the nationally recognized Palin-free month, the LA Times gives me reason to be grateful for good journalism again.
And one of Andrew Sullivan's readers comes through with some enriching info.
So also grateful for the internet.
All of which gets me to thinking about the NYT's new paywall, which goes into effect for people like me on March 28. Already there's a Twitter account to help us circumvent it.
I wouldn't have known about the LA Times piece without Sullivan who, among other things, is what is known as an aggregator. He and his staff find stuff, then pass it along.
Which means the LAT got a whole lot of new eyeballs on that one story at least.
So, how do they monetize it? I don't think the paywall is the answer. I think, just as advertisers pay for hits, so should readers.
It's an idea that's been kicked around, don't know the ins and outs of it, although the technology is probably there.
But I'll admit it, I'd pay a couple bucks a month for what I read now, which they would automatically deduct. But not $15 a month for the NYT.
Some will, though. But probably not enough. Felix Salmon, a much-quoted financial analyst was headlined somewhere recently claiming he's done the math, and it ain't gonna work.
Maybe he's wrong and the NYT is right. Or maybe, as I suspect, the "passive-aggressive white males" in charge got hold of an idea, liked it a lot, and couldn't let go of it even when they knew it was a loser. Or maybe, more likely, they have a power structure designed to help them suppress any information that runs counter to their egos. Egoes? Can't remember.
This is how I believe the world operates.
I don't like it, but I must accept it.
Or go crazy.

Just In Case You Were Wondering

Krugman isn't worried about the economic impact. I notice he didn't mention the nukes.

So, back to Japan: I’m terrified about the possible loss of life; nervous about the disruption of world production; not worried at all about the impact of Japanese borrowing on world bond markets.

Grim

The truth begins to trickle in.

The police chief of Miyagi prefecture, or state, told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths was more than 10,000, police spokesman Go Sugawara told The Associated Press. Miyagi has a population of 2.3 million and is one of the three prefectures hardest hit in Friday's disaster. Only 379 people have officially been confirmed as dead in Miyagi.

You might recognize it.

UPDATE: The Gray Lady weighs in, three days later.

...as the death toll from Friday’s earthquake and tsunami climbed astronomically

Julimac, 67, Does Not Die

Today at least.
Here's a little fun for Friviality Friday.

Turned this

Into this

And you can too.

Re: Japan And What Passes For News

 As a news person and just an ordinary person, I am unbelievably frustrated by the lack of coordinated, comprehensive and credible information out of Japan. I was up until 2 a.m. being mezmerized by the film and appalled by the MSNBC anchorette — yes, I said that, she's just a hired bimbo and never did figure out the time zone differential between New York and Hawaii — and thinking, well, there are probably tens of thousands dead.
This morning Andrea Mitchell — Andrea Mitchell! — asked an expert what "seismic predictions" he could make based upon what happened in Japan, trying to escalate the fear factor no doubt.
Yet no one's saying the obvious. Were all those buildings and vehicles empty when the tsunami swept them away? Yeah, right. Only 300 dead or missing? I don't think so.
It's probably policy somewhere to rely entirely upon official casualty statements and so, if the gubmint ain't saying it, it ain't happening. Then, of course, you have your lying eyes.

UPDATE: Or you can start doing the math, like the BBC.

The only "oh, the humanity" I heard was from one news anchor at KOMO, who apparently didn't read the memo.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention, somebody needs to do the math. I haven't seen a timeline of any kind so far, not even at NYT.
What time did that wall of water hit those farmlands anyway? We saw moving vehicles, so not everyone got warned in time to evacuate.
But I did learn from their one timed item that the 6m tsunami did hit Kamaishi Port at 3:21, 35 minutes after the quake. Those are the films of the boats being swept under the bridge — I assume it's a bridge — one mast snapping as the boat goes through. Yet there were people on that bridge, apparently unafraid to be there, which kind of makes me think there was room for the water roughly where there was a channel and it wasn't tumbling any vulnerable buildings, etc.

UPDATE II: Okay, somebody asked about time. Somebody at the NYT.

Vasily Titov, director of the Center for Tsunami Research, said that coastal areas closest to the center of the earthquake probably had about 15 to 30 minutes before the first wave of the tsunami struck. "It’s not very much time. In Japan, the public is among the best educated in the world about earthquakes and tsunamis. But it’s still not enough time.”

UPDATE III: Or you can wait for the BBC to do the math.
ne of the worst-hit areas was the port city of Sendai, in Miyagi prefecture, where up to 300 bodies have been found in one ward alone.

Continue reading the main story

• Japan quake: video reports
• Quake: Wave forecast map

Japan Railways said it could not trace four trains along the north-eastern coast. A ship carrying 100 people was also reported missing.

Nightmare In Japan

Can barely believe the tsunami film coming in, showing cars speeding along as the wash of trash approaches.
Ten minutes later, the second wave.

Basic Cooking For $600

Well, there are worse things to do with your Microsoft gazillions.
I have a lot of other reading to do, though, so I don't think I'll be indulging in this.
Pictures are fabulous.

Soup: Gonna Make Some More

With Bittman's help and inspiration.
Warning: I thought his time on the bean types was way off and someone in comments caught it, too. So follow the directions on the package, Bittman erred I think.

We Are Not Broke, We Are Not Going Broke

Thank you, Michael Bloomberg, for starting something that employs this reporter, who, for my money, has produced perhaps the best, most comprehensive, most understandable piece on our economy since, since...since I can't remember another.
No blah-blah filler, no "on the other hand," false balance from the crazies and the frauds who get paid big bucks to lie to me, just dig-down real journalism for the average guy.
This is about as technical as I can bear, yet is hardly technical at all.
I want to quote every paragraph.
I think I'll email it, too.

Simple Dog and Helper Dog

A nice place to visit. In fact, I wouldn't mind living there.

We were beginning to think that our dogs were permanently broken

Human 3.0

To go where no man has gone before. But it must look familiar. Hmm.
Just recycle a few billion neurons and, voila!, you have speech, writing, music.

After all, the change from Human 1.0 to 2.0 is nothing short of universe-rattling: It transformed a clever ape into a world-ruling technological philosopher.

What will we make of ourselves in the future? Logically, it must be argued, it is already happening because it comes from culture. Or something like that.

Somebody Doesn't Like David Brooks

His name is PZ Myers and he's my hero of the day.

This:

it's like watching a creepy middle-aged man fuss over his Barbie and Ken dolls, posing them in their expensive accessories and cars and houses and occasionally wiggling them in simulated carnal relations

is priceless.

For the record, I loathe David Brooks. He is the reason I don't watch the PBS News Hour more often and avoid Friday afternoons on NPR because God knows when he'll pop up with some inane, inaccurate and pompous commentary.
And don't get me started on Tom Freidman, although NPR doesn't tag him. But Charlie Rose does. I love the way he spent a week commenting about the Egyptian thing from the safety of Jordan (or was it Israel, I forget) then popped into Egypt to give us his take on what the man in the street was saying once things had calmed down, all while wearing the most ridiculously age — and fashion — inappropriate black leather jacket I have ever seen. Ever.
Oh, God, just be glad I keep track of this stuff so you don't have to. I don't think I can keep it up much longer.
No, I know I can't.

I Wish I Had A Cat

to scan.

Probably The Most Impressive Part Of A Sentence

I can remember reading, written expressly for me. Thank you DFW.

believed in the interpenetrating dance of spine, nervous system, spirit, and cosmos as totality—in the universe as an infinite system of neural connections that had evolved, at its highest point, an organism that could sustain consciousness of both itself and the universe at the same time, such that the human nervous system became the universe’s way of being aware of and thus “accessible [to]” itself

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2011/03/07/110307fi_fiction_wallace#ixzz1FZ9k0VII

It's part of a short story of his that is inexplicably published in this month's New Yorker, and I am tempted to conclude his widow is releasing unpublished manuscripts at intervals. It's actually the first thing of his that I've managed to read, although I began the big novel with no hope of finishing it before it was due back at the library.
I resolved to buy it at the used book store. Today, I re-resolve.
I now realize that throughout my life, I have expected things to be solved at some point, to have myself achieved enough knowledge to conclude certain things beyond the platitude "uncertainty is the only certainty."
Seems fruitless, I know.

And that's what the story is about, it turns out. I should mark this date on my calendar.

He did not yet know how, but he believed, as he approached pubescence, that his head would be his. He would find a way to access all of himself. He possessed nothing that anyone could ever call doubt, inside

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2011/03/07/110307fi_fiction_wallace#ixzz1FZDt6DR2

Thank You, Dr. Krugman

(I wouldn't call him Dr. just because of his Ph.D. But he has a Nobel.)

after a long hard day of reading student applications. (My suggestion that we reject all applicants claiming to be “passionate” about their plans was rejected, but with obvious reluctance.)

Anyway, thanks for reminding me the word "passionate"/passion needs to go on the list.

So, to rehash:
awesome
amazing
lifechanging
passionate

Awesome Is So 2009, Amazing So Yesterday

so everything became amazing, which still seems to be in fashion judging by last night's red carpet interviews and commentary. (Did Tim Gunn say amazing? Not once, but, like, every five seconds.)
But I predict that the next word to go to the top of my list-of-words-I-never-want-to-hear-again is...wait for it...lifechanging.
You heard it here first. I don't remember where I first heard it. I only know I don't ever want to hear it again.

The Old Is Dying

and the new cannot be born. In this interrugnum there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms."

 Jon Taplin, long may he live and prosper even though he's deserted one of my favorite bogs for a better job that precludes sudden-opinion syndrome, (Oh, look, I coined a new word!) shows up at TPM today with something to say.
It's the word morbid that bothers me.

Two Moon Poems

arrived today from poets.org.
The one from David Rivard, roughly a contemporary, made me want to argue with some of his word/metaphor choices. I wouldn't put a frisbee in a poem. And I don't think of a banjo when I see a moon. But I persisted to the end and was rewarded.

No need to see my life as a story the world
has to read, no need for sentimental
mooning & nostalgia—blessed with a bit
of amnesia anyway, I don't recall much
of what went down. I know that it's engraved
there on some cellular level,  that I can't
command the consequences. Like a spider
who has climbed atop a survey stake in a bull-
dozed field, I feel slightly truer in any case.

The other poem was the one a friend got, and when she put it up in her status on Facebook, I did a double take. That isn't the poem I got, I thought, and went to check.
The picture in John Haines's profile on the Web site, he is so handsome. I wanted to throw myself at his feet. And he's still alive, and was born the same year as my father. You don't see portrait photos like that anymore.
Each of the moon poems is listed on the other's page. I don't know if they're related as containing moons or as containing wisdom.

Over and out.

I Didn't Know That Dept.

Who needs a job, I learn something new every day on the intertubes.
Case in point, reading about Anonymous' recently announced plan to attack the Koch brothers, I am led from the subject of DoSs (denial of service attacks, which is how Anonymous retaliated against the credit card companies that had refused to handle money for Wikileaks) to black faxes to lace cards, the earliest form of computer sabotage, not outmoded of course.
Reminds me of the girl, physics major, who rigged all the phones in the dorm to ring at 4 a.m.
Wonder where she is now. Her mistake was in not remaining anonymous.
I've been fascinated by the idea of cyberterrorism ever since I saw Richard Clarke, the former White House cyber security expert, discuss it on Frontline following 9/11.
There is now credible evidence that we did, indeed, fuck with Iran's nuclear program.
But from what I remember reading at the time, we had to have a real person or persons able to physically implant something inside something, so not totally cyber.
And we have pilots flying cyberdrones against AQ in Afghanistan.
Wonders.

Stagecoach Mary

Where would Contrarienne be without MetaFilter? Nowhere, that's where.

"Mary Fields was born in 1832, into slavery in Tennessee, where she was friends with the farm owner's daughter. She was taught to read and write while a slave, and stayed on Judge Dunn's farm for some while following emancipation. Her childhood friend, Dolly Dunn, went on to become a Ursiline nun. Dolly Dunn, then known as Sister Amadeus, invited Mary Fields to join her at the Ursuline convent in Toledo, Ohio. Sister Amadeus was soon assigned to become the headmistress at a convent in Montana, where she fell ill with pneumonia. Mary Fields hadn't first traveled out with Sister Amadeus, but now went to help her sick friend recover. After her friend, now Mother Amadeus, was better, Mary decided to stay on and help the nuns repair the building. Unfortunately, Mary was too hot-tempered, and thought to set a bad example for the children (or maybe the men in town were tired of her out-earning them, and maybe she shot a man in self defense), but she was sent away from the mission, with some financial backing from Mother Amadeus. Mary started a cafe, but was a poor cook with a big heart, and the restaurant ran out of money in short order. She was given a mail route that she ran for eight years, where it was her toughness and reliability that earned her the nickname Stagecoach Mary. She also earned her reputation for being tougher than most any man, out-shooting, out-drinking and out-working them all. After her stagecoach days, Mary was in her 70s, so she took it easy and opened a laundry service, though it's said she spent more time at the saloon than at the laundry shop. She also spent time in her garden, where she'd collect flowers to present to the local baseball team. For every game, she would fix buttonhole bouquet for the members of each team and five large bouquets for each of those who made home runs. She also offered her services as a babysitter for $1.50 a day, which she'd then spend on the little ones."

A New Species

Pre-adults. I'd like to see some numbers about this social phenom and I hope the book has them. But, yeah, from what I can see of pop culture and the youngers in my vicinity, it's true. And troubling. And a function of our (false) prosperity. So about to go down the toilet anyway.

Snow Makes A Guy Hungry

It Is Not Snowing Today. Yet.

I Can't Help It

I have a new toy.

I CAN HAZ U TUBES?

YAZ U KAN

I Didn't Know That Dept.

While you might think of coffee as merely a good caffeinated drink, the seeds of the Coffea plant represent the second most important legally traded commodity, following oil, in terms of dollar value, writes Mark Pendergast in Uncommon Grounds.

Stephen Pinker Explains Egypt

at about 8:40. Also, why things went the way they did at that meeting with my bosses. Although I guess I kinda knew it, it's nice to have it explained to me.
Hint: You can't take it back, it's out there.

Ziggy! Ziggy! Up You Lazy

OOh, whoozamamababywhooza.

Winston! Still now, Winston. Whoozawoozaaw.http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/16/sports/20110216-westminster-dog-show-parade.html?src=me&ref=general#/0_90

Kabuki, Long Game, Whatever

Andrew links to Ezra on this and, frankly, it's about as much as I want to know or think about this. If you want more, you can always click the link.

Shearing

My friend, I'll call her Shelley, and I were sophisticated jazz fans at 14 because of our fathers. My father had been a Big Band man, Basie and Glenn Miller and the two guys whose names I'll remember in 20 minutes who arranged for Miller before breaking out on their own. I wish I had those records now.
Her father was a jazz DJ at a local Milwaukee station.
We decided we would attend the George Shearing concert when he came to town, get dressed up and take the bus down and back all by ourselves. And we did.
We wore identical pleated white polyester skirts, which were in style at the time. Every girl in our school had one.
Shelley was a cool girl and fat like me, so we had that. And jazz. But for some reason, we did not become close. Maybe it was the year I moved to Omaha and it was cut short. In which case, I was 15.
(Sauter-Finnegan, their names were Sauter and Finnegan and their band was the Sauter-Finnegan band.)
Shearing was great. You could hear him, blind, kind of humming while he played.
I listened to the record we had of him all the time.

Purely Coincidental

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut said better than anyone else.
And so it goes. They leave out the and, so I guess it's my own little Vonnegut mash-up.

Summer Will Come

OMG, I'm Back!

Only a week? Felt like a year.




MeFiers have some interesting discussion of this song, which still gives me chills lo these many years later. Sex on a stick, as they say.
I have no pop music awareness, really, or interest except when they hit on something and then I love to read about it.

A Reagan Primer

In the WaPo of all places.

Frisbee Alternative

I guess I need a tetherball set now. And another corgi.

I Miss Deadwood Because It Was Great Drama

but also this (NSFW)

And They've All Got Facebook Pages

No Comment

anything at all would be superfluous.

A Crocodile
by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Hard by the lilied Nile I saw A duskish river-dragon stretched along, The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl: And on his back there lay a young one sleeping, No bigger than a mouse; with eyes like beads, And a small fragment of its speckled egg Remaining on its harmless, pulpy snout; A thing to laugh at, as it gaped to catch The baulking merry flies. In the iron jaws Of the great devil-beast, like a pale soul Fluttering in rocky hell, lightsomely flew A snowy trochilus, with roseate beak Tearing the hairy leeches from his throat.

The Attorney General of California

looks like a movie star. I had no ideal until Charlie Rose had her on tonight discussing the SOTU speech. Why her? No idea.

Benjamin, One Word

graphene

Ah, Yes. January. Midwest.

In this case, Stow, Ohio.

Tiger Mothers

By now you've heard about the Tiger Mother controversy, right?
No? Okay, well there was this Chinese American Harvard Yale law prof who wrote this NYT WSJ op-ed piece about how she drove her two daughters to specified goals, wouldn't let them have sleepovers even, and threatened all sorts of wildly lunatic reprisals just because she loved them and wanted them to succeed and by the way, please buy the book about it.
So after that it was a long, is she right, is she wrong debate, mostly among men but some women, too, including at least one Chinese American daughter of a lunatic mother who begged to differ about the approach.
Me, I pretty much got over wondering if I was some sort of a monster because I took a more laisse faire approach, since it's fairly clear I am a monster, but not necessarily because of that. But who knows?
Anyhoo, the debate is still going on and I found this great quote:

It’s just way better to be the world’s best acrobatic kite-surfer than the third best pianist in Cleveland. Also, the ethos of hyper-individuation is about activity/personality search and matching. It’s better to be happily mediocre at something you love than miserably amazing at something that never quite felt right.

I'm not sure it's right, but then I'm not sure of much. Although I can talk a good game.

Quote O' Teh Day

Thank you, Andrew Sullivan. Thank you for saying this. It's about the torture, of course, which Bush has gladly, proudly admitted to.
I used to read Scott Horton every day. Then I couldn't stand it anymore.

Under international law, George W. Bush is a war criminal. There is no dispute about that outside a tiny coterie of legal mediocrities and political hacks and a general public as yet unable to grasp that their ex-president should be in jail.)

Which gets me to thinking, how many known, living war criminals do we have, the U.S. and Britain. Is is agreed Kissinger is a war criminal? McNamara and minions, I guess, can't remember if he's still alive. Sullivan says the jury's still out on Blair.

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

"...a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls."

 Orwell on Dickens. This is from a piece Andrew Sullivan is pondering as he ponders the call for civility following Tucson. Me, I learn where I can.
Smelly little orthodoxies. Love that. 

The Dowager Dutchess

"One can't got to pieces over the death of every foreigner. We'd all collapse the minute we opened a newspaper."

I love Maggie Smith and I love Downton Abbey.

That is all.

Previously.
"What is a weekend." (accent on the second syllable, can you hear it?)

Quote O' Teh Day

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." - Voltaire

From this, which came from this, which came from this.
It started here.

It's all in the oneness, right? Is the internet God?