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July 11th, 2009
 | 12:14 pm
I have several invite codes for free accounts on Dreamwidth, if anyone is interested. Please comment with the email address to which you would like to have the code sent. All comments will be screened.
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April 12th, 2009
 | 12:07 pm - last post as a post
As of now, I will be posting only at Dreamwidth, as twistedchick.dreamwidth.org. If someone wants to make a RSS feed of that journal, you're welcome to -- leave a comment with the name of it, please. I suspect Dreamwidth may have its own RSS feeds when it goes out of beta and becomes official on April 30 -- I don't know for sure, as I'm not one of the brains on the development team. You will probably not be missing much between now and then, as I'm importing everything from past journals to Dreamwidth, and will be busy organizing it. I am deleting a lot of the old newsblogs, btw, because they are timely and topical for when they're written and not too relevant now -- so if you think you may want to find some of the links, do your searching here.
If you're moving to Dreamwidth, let me know; I'm trying not to let people slip through the cracks during changeover.
Thanks for reading me, all these years. I hope to see you at the new place, where I hope to post more artwork, essays and poetry than news.
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 | 12:54 am - I can has Dreamwidth!
Still getting set up and organized, since finding the code in my email (thank you!) Probably will still be setting up shop tomorrow, arranging the books and putting the dishes away.
::checking out the new place::
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April 10th, 2009
 | 03:03 pm
I've longed for the spent sigh, the brush of wind
dancing through high branch-tips, sun-dappled grass,
waves rippling to shore, daytime moon high-pinned
elusive silent spirit making its faint pass
above the whispering world, deaf to song
or cries or jubilant shouts, ancient stone
signpost on the way to beyond, first along
the unseen paths to myriad worlds unknown.
But now the wisdom of shadow, night's gift,
grants far more ease, more comfort in her train
than daybright vistas. The bright cold moon shifts
as if to draw close enough to know pain.
My comfort comes in following the trail
of moonlit snow until my senses fail.
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April 9th, 2009
| 09:29 am
This is a concern.
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April 7th, 2009
 | 08:16 pm - dreamwidth?
If anyone has an invite code to spare, I'd very much appreciate one.
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March 21st, 2009
 | 08:34 pm
.
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March 18th, 2009
| 12:33 pm - stupidity
The US government"banning" children's books.
ETA: Snopes and commenters to the rescue. The situation is not as dire as expected.
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March 12th, 2009
 | 12:16 pm
I am stepping back from writing for a while. ( it's time. )
Current Music: Gabrielli's Ricercari for solo cello
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March 11th, 2009
| 04:25 pm - an answer, maybe not the answer
I've been wondering why Bernard Madoff would so calmly plead guilty to so many counts of securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering and accept the possibility of several consecutive life sentences.
This Vanity Fair article gives me a lot of ideas why he'd want to be somewhere behind a lot of concrete, where the people he defrauded couldn't get to him. He didn't just lose the money of rich people who could afford it -- he looted and lost *all* the money of people who had trusted him enough to invest everything they had. And he defrauded a huge number of charitable foundations that supported hospitals and a lot of other "good works" organizations. The story is incredible. Read it.
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 | 11:46 am - two thoughts that nobody but me cares about
1. In Andre Norton's novel Beastmaster, the main character was Navajo. It's spelled out very clearly in the text. When this was made into a movie, he was played by Marc Singer, who is tall and blond. Andre Norton was not credited in the movie as having created the character [or the story, or the book. Or anything. She wasn't mentioned, either as Andre Norton or as Alice Norton. ::headshake and loud muttering::] The movie is an interesting (for some values of interesting) mixture of typecasting for appearance vs. capable acting by good actors. Tanya Roberts is the female lead (she may have learned acting since this movie but she didn't do any of it here); John Amos is doing a creditable job as an ally and Rip Torn is the villain. The animals include a tiger (wearing black food coloring to hide his stripes as he was supposed to be a black jaguar), two ferrets (playing meercats) and a golden eagle (playing an eagle.) They are awesome.
2. There is talk about Wiscon attendance among people discussing racism and SF in the RaceFail links on rydra-wong's LJ. Wiscon, like most other SF cons, is run by fans from local science fiction organizations/clubs/associations/gatherings that meet once or twice a month. (I said nearly to separate it from the pro-run show-related cons that cost much more, where it costs money to get autographs from guests of honor, instead of being places where anyone attending can go talk to a GOA for free.) There are science fiction fan clubs in nearly every major city and many minor cities. If the discussions take place only at the major conventions -- or online -- I doubt much will change overall in SF. If discussions take place within local SF fan communities -- or if more chromatic folk who enjoy SF decide to attend local meetings -- there may be more of a chance for greater change to occur and for it to happen sooner.
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March 10th, 2009
 | 10:13 am -
The Supreme Court has reinterpreted the Voting Rights Act so that special crossover voting districts can be set up to help elect minority candidates only if there's 50% or more minority voters in a district. This is a far narrower interpretation than was prevalent before; it matters because voting districts will be redrawn after the 2010 Census. This Reuters article wth Attorney General Holder was written before the decision; haven't found a response article.
Obama rebukes Bush on signing statements.
Science above politics: Obama lifts the ban on stem cell research.
In the 30s, there were Hoovervilles all over the place outside the cities, tent cities and shanty towns where people who had no money and nowhere else to live created a place for themselves. Now, it's Bushvilles, and this makes a lot more sense of that link from a few days ago where Sacramento criminalized any sort of scavenging from recycling or trash. And, also from Sacramento, a story looking at the most invisible part of the homeless population: children, in and out of school, sleeping in shelters, with no real home.
In the Philippines, questioning the taboo on birth control.
The Purpose-Driven Wife. Betty Friedan, where are you when we need you?
NYTimes: Neoliberalism and higher education. Sounds more libertarian than liberal to me, monetizing everything and discarding stuff because it doesn't "cost enough". Not everything can or should be evaluated in terms of its monetary "value".
US Customs, aka Homeland Security at the border, is getting more in your face as you come here from Canada. Examples: seizing laptops and cellphones, documents and books; Google-searching your name online (you have no privacy); wanting more information on Canadian citizens regardless of privacy concerns.
It's politics. That's the only reason why environmental scientists are opposed to other environmental scientists seeding the ocean with iron to capture greenhouse gases.
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March 9th, 2009
| 12:26 pm - books, sf, and more
Some books:
Keri Hulme, who wrote the bone people, also writes poetry; she is a New Zealand writer of Maori heritage, and the bone people won the Booker Prize in 1985. Strands [ISBN 0-86806-475] is her second book of poetry. She has also written a lot of other books, some of which I have read but none of which I have on hand so I can't offer you the ISBN numbers. The Bone People may be the only one that's currently in Books In Print (which notoriously only lists books published in the US), but her work is listed on Amazon here.
Witi Ihimaera, another New Zealand and Maori author, is someone you may have heard of in passing, because he wrote a story for children that was made into a movie, Whale Rider. He has written a series of novels about Maori families, starting with The Matriarch [ISBN 0- 7900-0513-1]; his Amazon page is here.
Amazon doesn't have everything; if you want to read more of Ihimaera's books that you can't find, consider contacting a New Zealand bookstore and ordering from them online. The people at Arts Centre Bookshop have been very helpful to me. There is also Scorpio Books. Consider, also, that these bookshops may be able to help you find other books published outside the US that are not easily available through Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc.
[I have no patience with ordering books through B&N, et al, that are published outside the US since the debacle that occurred when a cousin wrote and illustrated a couple of children's picture books in Toronto, back in the days before Amazon. Since I wanted to help his sales numbers, I did the official thing and ordered through a bookstore; after three weeks they got back to me and said the books didn't exist. I got tired of this and wrote him, and he mailed them to me.]
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( personal )
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March 8th, 2009
 | 05:35 pm
Re the current Racefail:
Reading. Thinking. Attempting to learn. Not talking, because I think I have no light to shed that others aren't shining much better than I could, and more words don't always improve anything.
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March 4th, 2009
| 09:27 pm
NYTimes: Geography of a recession -- a map of how bad it is and where.
Also NYTimes: Bush Administration terrorism memos, all 160 pages of them. Facsimile.
The AFL-CIO supports nationalizing the banks.
Obama wants changes in how government contracts are awarded\ -- about time! And the Pentagon may get a new director of independent cost assessments, who could pull the plug on projects that run over budget for no good reason.
The International Criminal Court orders the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir for genocide and war crimes. It's the first time any sitting government leader has been ordered arrested.
In California, considering legalizing pot as a cash crop, licensed, to bail the state out financially. And Attorney General Eric Holder says no more raids on medical marijuana users.
In Sacramento, CA, criminalizing removing anything from a waste or recycling bin, thus criminalizing homeless people getting returnable bottles to sell for food money.
In Vancouver, yarn graffiti.
In Hungary, preparing to take one or two former Gitmo prisoners.
Bank of America curtails lending to coal companies that remove the tops of mountains.
When an Amazon supplier drops the lease on a warehouse, it's free books for anyone who wants them.
Ladies, have that glass of wine or two.
Without the makeup, behind the scenes: Kate Winslet, Robert Downey Jr, Kat Dennings, Penelope Cruz, Frank Langella, Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke, Brad Pitt. Multimedia.
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March 3rd, 2009
 | 10:25 am
By all means, Congress, do investigate the CIA, who destroyed 92 tapes of harsh interrogations of Al-Qaeda suspects to hide evidence of their own wrongdoing. Harpers spells it out: CIA in mass destruction of torture evidence. You should know that Attorney General Eric Holder has said waterboarding is not going to be done under Obama.
The Washington Post says Bush Administration legal memos from after 9/11 show a lot of legal errors. That's being charitable. ( errors or purposeful misstatements? )
However, the NY Times says the memos include "assertions that the president could use the nation’s military within the United States to combat terrorism suspects and to conduct raids without obtaining search warrants." That's not a legal error; that's martial law. ( more detail )
And here are the links to the Justice Department, if you want to read the memos for yourself.
The Republican Party appears to be imploding a bit. Let me see if I can track it: Party chair Michael Steele called Rush Limbaugh an entertainer, said he wasn't that important and his material was ugly. Limbaugh slaps back, and Steele blames the mess on Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats (instead of his own open mouth, which is now chewing on his foot up to the knee.) And now Steele has apologized for calling Limbaugh an entertainer. Who's leading the Republican Party now? Personally, I don't find Limbaugh at all entertaining, and Steele was a horrible lieutenant governor; it's interesting, however, to see David Duke et alia gritting their teeth at Steele's truthtelling.
In California, the Legislature declared that voters alone didn't have the right to bar same-sex marriages, because Prop. 8 revised the state constitution and did so without going through proper channels. Such changes have to originate in the Legislaure, get two-thirds approval there and then go to the voters. The resolution said Prop. 8 also oversteps the authority of the courts to enforce equal protection and prevent government discrimination.
India declares traditional herbs and yoga postures cannot be patented.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority comes up with a daring plan: divert Mississippi floodwater and put it into the Central Plains aquifer from which western water is drawn.
Slate reads the entire Bible and learns a lot about American culture. No intellectual assent or belief necessary.
If you ride Ryanair planes, cross your legs. Or carry a lot of change -- because it's pay as you go.
14 outrageous guitars.
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March 2nd, 2009
 | 11:39 am - consider how many newspapers I've linked here, or quoted...
It's no secret to anyone who's awake that newspapers in the US are in trouble. Too many of them have been treated as cash cows for too long, with the organization run more by the advertising side than the editorial, with the content quality ignored as long as the ads are there. Never mind that people who buy the paper want the news and put up with the majority of the ads; they will want the coupon sections, which are pure cash for the paper, but they also want to know what happened at the city council meeting and whether the zoning on Prospect Street is changing and what that means for kids walking to school.
This Post article looks at the way the businesses have been run. ( and a way of life is ending )
Thing is, newspapers do make money. They just don't do it the way money managers think they should. Considering the current performance of money managers in other areas, why are newspapers even listening to them?
Hearst is choosing now to launch an e-reader for newspapers. Nice idea, but can you use it to do the crossword puzzle? Can you read it in the bathtub safely? And, the biggest question, will it keep newspapers alive and reporters and editors working and news covered as it should be covered?
Imagine for a moment, if you will, a world without newspapers.( an exercise in the future )
A Senate panel is going to investigate the CIA, and not a moment too soon. And someone official should investigate FEMA-New Orleans as well.
Why is Republican Sen. Jim DeMint so afraid of the Fairness Doctrine?
The Wyoming state Senate killed a bill that would have benefitted small businesses with fewer than 100 employees -- which is nearly all the small businesses in rural Wyoming. This is short-term short-sightedness; successful businesses pay far more taxes than unsuccessful ones, and giving small businesses a little help now would have resulted in much more profit in the future.
Will we get a White House farm?
Bush's standards for air pollutants are found 'contrary to law'.
Nine justices, seven aphorisms, five opinions in a case that could be seen as concerning either public forums or government speech.
Ocean circulation is changing; what does that mean? Along with the changes mentioned here, there's another that is of interest. Since Greenland is melting, and the glaciers there are decreasing in size, that will result in less cold water moving south along the east cost of the US in the future to be warmed along the equator and move back up past Africa to warm Europe and keep Britain and Ireland temperate. With that belt of moderate water slowing down, it may be likely that the British Isles, Ireland, and western Europe are in for much longer and more severe winters; I have no idea what may happen in the summers. But this doesn't just affect our weather; it affects the fish stocks as well, since for a while there will be more freshwater mixing with the salt. I have no idea how this will change things.
A computer the size you could plug into a wall. Wave-powered electricity in the UK and Ireland.
Homophobic and ignorantly prudish censorship in Kansas. Or, more precisely, restriction of reading material in such a way as to make it difficult for people to exercise their freedom to read what they want at the public library. If you're a kid and you think you might be gay, and you want to learn more, are you really going to walk up in front of God and everyone and ask at the desk for The Joy of Gay Sex? If it were on the shelves, you might flip through, learn something, put it back, and be able to be subtle about it, but not if it's something you have to ask for.
Nationalization isn't scary; we already have it for utilities, for instance.
Harvard's transformer houses made of cloth.
Plantcare.com. Indoor household plant online encyclopedia, and more.
Cleaning supplies made from salt.
Watching 'Watchmen'. I've seen a lot of nasty comments online from Watchmen fans dissing reviewers of the movie; such comments are not terribly bright. A movie this big has to make its box office from a much wider group of people than just graphic novel fans; if it is unable to stand on its own, it will be considered a flop, regardless of how accurate it may be to the original version. It has to be able to make sense to the person who walks into the theatre thinking, "hmm, I liked Batman, maybe I'll go to see it" -- and it has to be able to get good reviews from people seeing the movie who have absolutely no interest in the graphic novel world at all. Batman and other more conventional superhero movies stand because you don't have to have read 50 years of comics to understand them; they're part of the mental background in the culture. If Watchmen-the-movie is to stand, it will have to do so on its own merits, away from the graphic novel, and those merits have to be cinematic and accessible to the ordinary viewer.
Imagining the tenth dimension. Infinitely cool.
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February 24th, 2009
 | 10:35 pm - Obama's speech
I cannot begin to tell you how delightful it is to have a president who speaks in complete declarative sentences with active verbs -- in everyday English.
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 | 12:33 pm - FYI
Bankruptcies reported:
Let's start with the ones nearest my heart -- newspapers.
Philadelphia Inquirer.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
The Journal Register Company, publisher of the New Haven (CT) Register, 19 other daily papers and 159 "other" (probably weekly) newspapers. More info on their Michigan papers And more here on their New York papers.
An overview here on what's left of the newspaper industry. ( it doesn't look good )
SFCG Co., a Japanese lender whose creditors include Citigroup Inc.
The German state of Schleswig-Holstein faces bankruptcy because of the public bank HSH Nordbank AG.
Delphi Corp., in Michigan, wants to stop paying salaried retirees' health and life insurance benefits.
Dynogen Pharma will liquidate. It was owned by a group of venture capital firms.
More info on Ritz Camera's filing.
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| 10:38 am
70 students arrested in protests in Tehran.
The intellectual underpinnings of the Obama code.
No wonder the DC Metro board makes lousy decisions about service -- they don't ride the trains. Shouldn't that be a *requirement* for serving on the board?
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is trying to get GOP attention by opposing Obama, but he's managing to grandstand against the stimulus and still get most of the money. It's one thing to start double talking, but this is a bit more than two faces he's showing here. Why am I thinking of Ethan and Janus from Buffy? Which ancient deities were represented as having several faces? Wasn't Hermes, god of thieves and tricksters, one of them?
A Field Guide to Military Urbanism looks at the reuse of prisons as residences for foreign contract labor in Britain.
Sean Penn's next movie may be about Valerie Plame and Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whom Penn resembles.
Transgender living in Santa Barbara.
Ritz Camera files for bankruptcy. And Circuit City's liquidator is pulling a scam.
Antibodies, possibly a new weapon against the flu. More from the NYTimes.
When the government doesn't respond, you do it yourself. Local Newfoundlanders free dolphins trapped by ice; one man gets into the water so the weakest dolphin can lean on him to breathe.
Is your drywall from China?
Buy a t-shirt, and a tree is planted.
Hmm. Growing teeth in a laboratory? Why isn't this already done?
First look at an endangered cheetah.
Very nice. No emissions, good brakes -- but no shelter from the sun, and no trunk for luggage or groceries. I think this needs more thinking before it's practical for people.
Margaret and Helen take down Bush, no holds barred.
Planes, trains and recycled hotels.
What's the true cost of chocolate? The museum of old techniques. 10 steps for sustainable design.
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February 22nd, 2009
 | 02:22 pm
Some governors are Just Saying No to the stimulus package, mostly Republicans, mostly in the South where people will be hurting.
Big Brother is... us? Republicans want you to have to keep internet access logs to aid police investigations. More links here, here, here, here, here and here.
Brother, can you spare a can of soup?
The case against homework may go to Congress.
The Rude Pundit wants misbehaving Republicans to be punished.
In 2001, when Chandra Levy disappeared, police with trained cadaver dogs combed Rock Creek Park within DC, walking less than three feet apart over rugged landscape. No sign of her was found. She was assumed to have gone running when she disappeared. Her body was found, in 2002, badly decomposed in an area that the police had already covered several times; as far as I know, the only way she could have gotten to where she was found (and not be discovered until then) was to have been dumped there after being killed elsewheree. All of this -- and other details of the case -- make me a bit inclined to think that there's more to the story than the expected arrest of a man (now in high-security prison in California) who had a record of attacking women in Rock Creek Park. Among the other details that haven't been explained or correlated from various accounts: whether she was doing laundry when she vanished, how she traveled the four miles or so from her apartment to the nearest section of the park, and why, if she was going running or walking over the rough trails in Rock Creek, she was wearing the equivalent of Keds, instead of actual running shoes. There's a bit more in the Guardian UK, but nothing that answers these questions.
Jackson Browne continues to sue McCain over illegal and unpermitted use of his music by the McCain campaign.
Because of "Milk", perhaps a bit more kindness and consciousness-raising about gay rights.
We're going to get to know a bit more about the sting operation that brought down NY governor Eliot Spitzer, now that the sealed documents are going to be released.
Where's the gayness in Galactica? Pretty hard to see.
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February 21st, 2009
 | 09:55 am
From msbstone, a meme: comment on this post and I'll tell you five subjects/things I associate with you. Then you post them in your lj and elaborate. ( and here are my five things )
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February 20th, 2009
 | 10:12 pm
If you live in California, you might want to think about water. A lot. Or, rather, the lack of it. And how the prices of vegetables, fruit, nuts and other things grown by California farmers to go up, while the amount of produce available declines this year. Details here, here and here, as well as from the NYTimes.. And, since California is the number one agricultural area in the country for several kinds of produce (oranges, almonds and strawberries, to start with) everyone should expect to see rising prices in the produce aisle, no matter where you shop.
I have not seen anything on how dairy farms will be affected, but I suspect happy cows will not live in California, despite what you might see on cheese commercials.
Also, for the moment, you might want to avoid the water in San Francisco Bay.
And, from Mother Jones, nobody knows how dry we are -- which is about all of us, not just California.
Obama's closing Gitmo, but he says the prisoners at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan do not have rights. Say what?
In other matters, the EPA has been ordered to determine whether carbon dioxide is officially a pollutant -- which would make it liable to regulation under the Clean Air Act.
However, a US Circuit Court in Virginia (not the most liberal or forwardthinking state) has overturned a ban on mountaintop removal coal mining. Start waving farewell to any parts of the Blue Ridge that aren't parkland.
Why we immunize.
Whose military is it, anyway?
I do like the idea of a high-speed railroad as opposed to more planes -- railroads are far more energy efficient.
Where is your money going in the recovery?
The economic troubles aren't ignoring Dubai.
How Obama's plans for doubling alternative energy will work. Meanwhile, some Alaskan villages are using wind energy.
A history of cookbooks.
The world's most innovative companies, according to Fast Company Magazine. Since the list includes WalMart, take it with a few dozen grains of salt.
The dying art of the crime blotter -- which I well remember from several stints as a police reporter at very small and small newspapers.
Detentionslip.org -- the site for news about schools.
Why pop music sounds "perfect". And let me say, as a musician, that I'm disgusted.
The secrets behind place names.
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February 19th, 2009
February 18th, 2009
| 03:00 pm
Anyone got expertise with Brother printers? We have a new one, just arrived yesterday, and it wakes not, neither doth it print. Well, it will print for Steve's computer but it is ignoring mine despite the proper drivers being installed. Where my computer is concerned, it won't wake up from "sleep", and the error code says something about "opening raster file failed".
This definitely isn't my area of knowledge. Anyone got ideas? It's really frustrating not being able to get even one page to print.
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February 17th, 2009
| 12:39 pm - hopscotch
The leftover-from-Bush-era-no-matter-what-the-Post-says Justice Department is defending Bush's liberalization of law that allows concealed firearms in national parks. Mind you, I have no problem with unconcealed firearms in western National Parks, where shooting off a gun if you are injured may be the fastest way to help someone find you, since cell phones don't generally work in places like Big Bend and the Grand Canyon and some of the other enormous tracts of land. I'm just not fond of concealed firearms; I tend not to like nasty surprises.
Senate Democrats are checking the ethics of legal opinions in the Bush era that okayed waterboarding prisoners. And a line in an internal Justice Department memo is connecting Bush's support for waterboarding with political influence. USAToday finds that a majority of people (roughly 2/3 of those surveyed) want a criminal investigation or an independent panel to investigate the Bush Administration's torture tactics.
Does anyone but me remember that old ShakeNBake commercial with the little girl who said, "and I halped" ? Well, in the case of the Maryland State Police spying on peacemongering antiwar Maryland citizens innocent of any crime, the Pentagon 'halped'. It should be noted that the spying was inept enough that the cops did not realize at times that they were spying on DC residents (in Takoma Park, one of the roads is the boundary line for the District, and they were on the wrong side of it) and therefore operating outside their jurisdiction.
The Army wants more immigrants. I am very wary of this. It works against people who believe in peacemaking more than in the military, and is a throwback of sorts to the Civil War, in which Northerners hired poor immigrant Irish to fight in their place.
The Pentagon is rethinking its ban on photos of coffins of military personnel killed in war.
Blackwater is being banned by Iraq. So they changed their name to Xe.
Federal authorities are investigating graft in the actions of US officers in Iraq.
If you want a prosecution commision to investigate Bush and Cheney, you may want to look at this link.
Poverty in Upstate New York. You may be surprised; I am not. This is where I grew up, went to university and lived for many years. ( what you didn't know about my home state )
Some journalists are trying to be creative in their newsgathering and publishing. Well, God knows we could *use* some straight talk about the Fairness Doctrine, but I'm not seeing a lot of it here. Still, it could come back, requiring broadcasters to air both sides of every issue -- and wouldn't that have been worth the price of admission for the last eight years, to see FauxNews actually having to air competing opinions? Meanwhile, there's no progressive radio within Washington DC, and we have one newspaper whose formerly excellent non-ideological reporting has slid inexorably to the right (Katherine Graham is rotating in her grave at a high speed, I have no doubt) and one that is owned and operated by a far-right-wing Korean ideologue who acts as the mouthpiece for the radical Republicans even in its news coverage.
Which means that the ultra-radical Republicans now in Congress won't be seen in a neutral light.
What does it really mean when the Saudi king appoints a woman to a high government position?
Forgotten books. An online catalog with links to downloads in some cases. Some of the titles are amazing.
I appear to be intermittently offline; if you are not hearing back from me, try again. The Ethernet is working, but nothing is coming in at times.
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February 14th, 2009
 | 01:14 pm
The way the Pentagon edits the video it sends out influences the way you see the war.
I'm grieved by the plane crash in Buffalo yesterday; among those who were aboard was Gerry Niewood, who played sax in Chuck Mangione's various bands for upward of 40 years. I met him during an interview with Chuck Mangione during the 80s, and had such a wonderful time talking with them about music and touring. (One of my favorite vinyl albums is a Mangione concert album from about 1970; the version of Hill Where The Lord Hides that has the two of them trading off on the main theme against a barely rhythm-punctuated silence at the beginning still puts shivers down my spine. The album, unfortunately, has never made it to commercial CDs, and the versions of the songs on it that are recorded elsewhere do not have the same energy.) Here, a pilot has thoughts on exactly what happened to the plane and why.
Congress went beyond Obama's views in limiting CEOs' bonuses -- but remember, the recent flurry of government funding to stimulate the economy was pushed entirely by the Democratic party, so some of this may be seen as a slapdown to fatcat Republicans who profited during recent bad economic times. But some is certainly in answer to questions about what, exactly, was done with your money.
Three years ago, Republicans all but lynched Democrats over the possibility of filibustering their bills. Now, the same twofaced Republicans think of the filibuster as their dearest friend.
In term of religion, Alabama = Iran.
In Kansas, Shawnee Mission High School kids turn a Fred Phelps protest into a money-raiser for AIDS research.
In Arkansas, some people will be out of electric power for weeks. Sunfell suggests donating to the Arkansas Rice Depot, or buying one of their gift baskets or soup kits (which are yummy.)
How is the brushfire recovery going in Victoria, Australia? This article mentions places donations may be sent to help with wildlife and humans.
In France, in 1999, civil unions were made available for same-sex unions; now, 92% of straight couples use them as well. But more than a sixth of them end their civil unions in order to get married.
In Utah, of all places, an interesting move: the governor is supporting civil unions.
Free speech on campuses? Not so much these days, to the detriment of both thinking and education. If you only listen to those who agree with you, what do you really learn? If you have only a thesis, and no antithesis, where is your synthesis?
How are the pension funds doing? (Bear in mind, this is from a fairly free-market/Republican viewpoint.)
The Wilson Quarterly considers McCulture -- do Americans really have a taste for things that are completely foreign? If we do, why are so few books translated? I'd also like to ask -- why does the ISBN system only catalogue books published in the US, not all books in English? [Correction: I said ISBN, but I was thinking of Books In Print, the reference used by all US booksellers, which doesn't go outside US borders.] I have done a considerable amount of business with British, Canadian and New Zealand online bookstores over the year, simply because the books I wanted (not even translations) were unavailable in the US and nobody here would order them for me at all. It's possible that the reason I keep trying to learn other languages was that my father purposely forgot the Italian he learned, growing up, because the anti-Italian prejudice was such that he could not be hired in his chosen profession at the time, and my mother refused to learn it when she came to the US which put her at a disadvantage when dealing with critical inlaws. Whereas I would rather attempt to learn the language and argue back.
I'm glad I'm allergic to peanuts, though. They're looking increasingly dangerous.
How an Italian town rescued a priceless film collection.
A thought on last night's Battlestar Galactica: ( the symbolism is hitting me like a frying pan to the head )
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February 9th, 2009
| 12:05 pm
Who spent money to support Proposition 8? You could look it up.
As you might expect, the Republicans are turning their backs on the people who have played by the rules. If things go true to form, the Republicans will now complain that Social Security, unemployment and Medicare are funded only by the wealthy (them) and thus those who use our social safety net are "stealing from the rich." Lies, all lies. You and I pay for the social safety net through our taxes, and in fact those of us who don't make as much pay a far higher proportion than those who can light their cigars with rolled-up hundred-dollar bills.
Department of righting past wrongs:
-- The DOJ has rehired an attorney fired for allegedly "being a lesbian".
-- Our new Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, has cancelled scores of oil and gas leases that the Bush Adminstration okayed for drilling in Utah's Red Rock country. Get this: the leases would have brought in $6 million. That's chump change. Congress goes to lunch for more than that. Instead, the matchless beauty of that countryside is preserved for a while longer, near near Arches and Canyonlands national parks, Dinosaur National Monument and Nine Mile Canyon.
Budapest and Washington are talking about where the Guantanamo prisoners can go.
Cracking the case of the poisoned processed peanuts. This reminds me of the process that was used decades ago to find who was poisoning Tylenol, which is the case that brought about tamper-proof and individualized packaging for certain kinds of medicines.
The rise and fall of handwriting: a review.
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February 5th, 2009
 | 09:52 am
A 10-year-old divorcee is starting a new life. Not ten years divorced. Ten years old. And she is braver than you know. But selling children into marriage isn't confined to Yemen. It happens on this side of the pond as well, in Mexico where girls are sold as brides.
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February 4th, 2009
| 10:09 am
Obama wants executive pay limited to $500,000 a year for companies receiving federal bailout money. I could live on that; how about you?
Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago is burning. More here, with a photo. I feel very sorry for the firemen in this; battling a fire in sub-freezing weather is a horrible job, when the water can freeze before it hits the fire. Video here.
Public opinion is leading to concerns about ethics and breaches of medical guidelines in the case of the woman who had octuplets after having six other children. And yes, she's single and unemployed and, by many accounts, could certainly use some counseling time.
The Vatican has ordered ultratraditionalist bishop Richard Williamson to publicly recant his stated opinion that deny the Holocaust.
Are you SURE you still want to eat anything containing peanuts? Absolutely everything you ever wanted to know about carrots which are not processed in plants with mice running around.
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February 3rd, 2009
February 2nd, 2009
 | 06:52 pm
I will be away Thursday through Sunday. Be kind to one another, please.
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| 06:51 pm
Five facts about the new RNC chairman, Michael Steele, who was paid to run for MD lieutenant governor. You think he's harmless? Look at his record. Meanwhile, David Duke -- who *is* a racist and makes no bones about it -- doesn't like Steele's new authority one bit.
Sarah Palin's new website doesn't mention God. Maybe it's merchandising?
The Justice Department gets an overhaul -- and none too soon.
There's gold in that there ... sewage. Yes, I did say that.
Little Brother comes to life in San Francisco, when a driver can rewrite other users' RFID cards.
In Italy, stupidly banning foreign food.
In China, more unrest because of job losses.
In New York City, false arrests of gay men for prostitution in Manhattan; the arrests are reminiscent of the events that caused the Stonewall riots.
In the US, a dozen banks receiving billions in federal bailout money laid off US workers and brought in thousands of foreign "cheap" workers instead.
Obama stalls on don't ask-don't tell.
In Pennsylvania, two senior judges get seven years in prison for getting kickbacks for sending kids to juvenile detention centers. This happened in Luzerne County, PA; more here.
Do we have the right to walk away?
How would the USPS going to 5-day service affect Amazon and Netflix?
More peanut product recalls. Basically -- if you're eating anything containing peanuts right now? Check your sources.
Is that TV watching you?
From the New Yorker online:
-- alternative Eustace Tilleys, 2009 version.
-- The Fade Away, editing John Updike.
-- Beyoncé, the queen at last.
-- an exploration of tinnitus.
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 | 03:50 pm - letter to someone who will not see it
Dear Bruce,
( as if he'd read LJ )
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| 08:41 am
President Obama is working to close Guantanamo and the CIA black sites, where people were held incognito and tortured, but he is not eliminating the possibility of using renditions -- where people are taken to other countries where they may be tortured.
The Mormon church spent $190,000 to pass Proposition 8 in California. And Cleve Jones, who learned about talking to people who don't agree with him or like him from Harvey Milk, is teaching gay rights activists how to do that, so they can go door to door and show voters someone who is being hurt by Prop. 8.
Oh, how convenient. Michael Steele was paid to run for lieutenant governor of Maryland by the Maryland Republican Party. I'm very glad he's out of office now; his term was a waste of a Maryland office chair. He and Ehrlich tried to sell off the state's assests and break the budget. Now he's chairing the Republican National Committee. Maybe he can sell off their assets and break their budget.
The ACLU is asking Obama to release the Bush-era memos that would allow people to track exactly how those secret programs worked.
In Austria, where the Roman Catholic Church is the established state religion and someone who does not belong may be denied some of the same civil rights as members, the pope has named as bishop the ultraconservative priest who called Katrina 'God's punishment' and said Harry Potter books were 'spreading satanism.' And nobody is pleased about this.
Why clone only one ibex? Won't it be lonely?
Farewell, Grannie-for-peace Lillian Willoughby
The presidential desk has been on a longer journey than many presidents.
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February 1st, 2009
 | 09:00 am
Words do not always mean what you think they mean now.
If you doubt that, try reading an unmodernized version of The Pardoner's Tale or the Wife of Bath's Tale.
As the speed of technology changes, social changes occur, and so do alterations in the meanings of words, the way they are used, the way they are understood and the way they are wielded.
One of the things that has troubled me about much of the discussion in LJ recently is the lack of historical context. I've been online for well over 20 years, and I can remember being alive when Eisenhower was president (I can't quite remember the years of Truman as president, but my husband does, a little.) I have watched the way society has changed, and have been involved in some of those changes, but my ability to parse this in suitably formal language acceptable to academics online is limited -- and I have no ambition to be the demo meat for someone else's verbal Ginsu.
Opponents of racism, separated by language is the best writing I've found to explain why the reactions of those of us who are older may not be understood by those who are a bit younger.
I am disabling comments on this post because I would like people to read this link slowly and think about it, rather than gulp it down and immediately write. The world has shifted and two different hemispheres are trying to speak over an online equator that is only becoming wider with misunderstanding. I am tired of seeing one group of people all but lynching another online; I am tired of attempting to say, quietly and offline, that the way some words are being used now would have been unimaginable in 1954, 1966, 1968 -- I know this, I was there, years before some of those arguing now were born -- and the way the words were used then is still valid, still applicable.
It has been a struggle to write this, to attempt to convey in right speech something that is very nearly beyond words to me. In Quakerism, it requires that truth be told, that it be said in ways that are kind to others, and that it be done with respect. I am choosing to do that via email. I ask that any who write also attempt to convey their views in truth, kindness and respect.
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January 31st, 2009
| 11:37 am - oh, simba!
I'm really glad we've gotten the diagnosis for him, because he was starting to drive me crazy this week. ( even more so than usual )
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January 30th, 2009
| 04:25 pm
Two odd things I noticed today: ( perhaps not quite random observations )
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 | 03:35 pm - reading meme from ximeria in lj
Ximeria notes that "The Big Read" assumes the "average adult" has only read six of the top 100 books they've printed.
Here's my list: ( with the rules )
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January 27th, 2009
 | 10:32 am - it's not over till it's over
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has subpoenaed Karl Rove to come before Congress to account for the firing of nine US attorneys, as well as for his involvement in the Plame outing. Rove shouldn't be able to hide behind Bush's coattails any more; but there are some who question how far executive privilege may reach from a preceding administration. One thing's for sure: it's not likely to be pretty.
If you are a pacifist and in Israel, you are likely to be treated the way that the first black students and their supporters were treated in the 1960s when they went to desegregate the universities and the schools: with full-blast firehoses.
Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl, who lives where she is not allowed to go to school any more.
Obama continues to roll back Bush's policies; this time it's fuel emissions standards, and he's in for a fight from the auto industry. More in the NYTimes.
This Post article examines how Obama's philosophy of government differs from Bush's.
Is there any doubt that the soon-to-be-former-Illinois-governor, Rod Blagojevich, is doing a good job of inserting his foot into his mouth so far that he's chomping down on his hip socket?
More reviews, if you like, of Kirsten Gillibrand, who is to replace Hillary Clinton as New York's second Senator.
Gwyn-r in LJ asks your help for people taking care of the 600 or so mistreated and pregnant dogs that were rescued from puppy mills in western Washington State. If you're anywhere in that region, please do see what you can do to help. Donations will help a lot; helping find homes for dogs and puppies will help too.
What do women want? Or, rather, how does desire vary by gender?
Are we reaching the end of solitude? What of the still small voice that speaks within?
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January 24th, 2009
 | 02:54 pm
Question for users of Microsoft Word: ( help before I go crazy here )
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 | 01:53 pm
The news re Simba: he's diabetic. We're taking him in on Wednesday for blood tests for other possible things (there are apparently some regional cat illnesses the vet wants to check for) and for him to get his first insulin shot, as well as for us to learn how to give them. Twice a day, for now.
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 | 01:16 pm
Simba ( more )
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January 23rd, 2009
| 08:53 pm - cats continued
As it turned out, my boss had just gotten back from the vet as well, and his sweet girl Fluffy has very bad liver problems. She showed up during the meeting, and acknowledged me but wanted to make sure he knew she would like a little more to eat, please. Which was fine with me.
Since Simba's vet visit this morning, he's eaten close to *three* cans of cat food -- including flavors he ignored before -- and a good handful of treats -- and several pieces of popcorn he begged away from me. And now he's lying on his back with all four feet in the air looking cute. I freely admit I don't understand cat psychology, but I wish he'd decided eating was good before he went to the vet.... but I'm so glad he's feeling a little more himself.
And now I'm watching What's Up Doc, and waiting for Galactica.
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| 09:33 am - keep those good thoughts coming
Simba. ( more )
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January 22nd, 2009
| 04:51 pm
Minor literary note: ( for the hell of it )
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 | 04:06 pm - sun, sun, sun, here we come!
Obama must have come into the White House with an entire suitcase of executive orders, legislation and proposals -- either that or he and his staff work *damn* fast. Today's changes:
-- Ordering Guantanamo Bay detention area and the secret overseas CIA prisons closed within a year; review military war crimes trials and ban harsh interrogation methods. More from NYTimes.
-- Issuing new rules for lobbyists and recordkeepers. White House appointees may not seek lobbying jobs during his presidency and nobody in the Administration may receive gifts from lobbyists. Agencies are to presume that records should be publicly released unless there are compelling reasons not to. More on the policy reviews and other changes here from the Post.
-- Revoking the Bush family's authority over presidential records and replacing that with an order that allows greater access and no veto power to former presidents. One of George W. Bush's first orders was to give himself veto power over access to the presidential records of both his father and himself.
-- More meetings, hitting the ground running.
-- More orders and memoranda, including White House senior staff pay freezes.
Meanwhile:
-- Former Sen. George Mitchell has been asked to be special envoy to the Middle East.
-- The West Wing must contend with eight-year-old Microsoft computers, poor phone connections and moving-in difficulties. One ringy-dingy, anyone?
-- The Obama Administration [how good it feels to type that!] asked for a 120-day continuance to halt trials at Guantanamo so they can be reviewed. This was granted by judges yesterday. More here.
-- Senate Democrats are moving toward seating Al Franken, despite his desperate antagonist's frustrated efforts to overthrow the election.
-- Caroline Kennedy withdrew her name from consideration for Hillary's Senate seat in New York.
And, not satisfied with overhauling government and lobbying and recordkeeping and starting to end the horror of Guantanamo, our President has become an action figure (who really needs a better suit) complete with katana and wakazashi, as well as other accoutrements. I'm really not sure I understand all of the photos on this page, but then it's in Japanese so I don't understand the text, either. When did he feel the need to battle Darth Vader? Isn't Vader already dealt with, now that his helmet adorns National Cathedral?
And: In the First Family, a nation's many faces (NYTimes) has some wonderful photos as well as good writing. And Obama's People (photographs, NYTimes), a who's who of the new crowd.
By the way -- it was Chief Justice Roberts' flub. Not Obama's. And it got fixed. And, historically, this isn't the first time it has happened.
And, for your reference, whorunsgov.com, a new government directory.
Bush spied on all US journalists -- illegally. Elsewhere in the world, journalists are being killed.
Circuit City, Linens 'n Things and Sharper Image are gone. What's next?
Harper's: One good man goes to Gitmo.
Roger Ebert reviews Inkheart and The Secret of the Grain.
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January 21st, 2009
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