Nuggets from the current issue of « Harper’s »:

‘The phrase “national security” undoubtedly will make numerous appearances in the campaign speeches between now and the November election, and if the ritual holds true to form it will add to the country’s inventories of fear instead of increasing its store of courage. To define the national security as a wonder of aircraft carriers or a marvel of surveillance cameras is to mistake the lesser for the greater instruments of American power, to miss the point, made by the signatories to both the Constitution and the report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, that the republic’s best and only chance for survival rests on its freedom of thought and force of mind.’
—Lewis Lapham

And in the Sanctity of Marriage Department:

‘Percentage of the 958 same-sex unions granted to Vermont residents since July 2000 that have since been dissolved: 3
‘Percentage of U.S. heterosexual marriages that are dissolved within five years: 20’

Nice comparison, but a better one is:
Vermont gay marriages ending in divorce: 3 percent.
Oklahoma straight marriages ending in divorce: 60 percent.

Here’s a head-scratcher:

‘From the Frequently Asked Questions page of the U.S. government’s Hurricane Research Division website.
Why don’t we try to destroy tropical cyclones by nuking them?
During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms …’

The Amurrican Empire. Whatta country.

Perhaps I’m doing something right in the classroom … As I arrived at a northeast Ann Arbor high school this morning, I met a student who was in a history class I guest taught over a month ago. He stopped me and asked me if I was going be in that class again today and said, ‘Oh, man! I so wish you were, dude!’ when I told him I was headed somewhere else.

And later, a sophomore in one of my English classes pronounced me, ‘Best. Sub. Ever.’ Another said she ‘hearted’ me.

It ain’t Teacher of the Year, but I’ll take it.

But I wonder if it had something to do with me allowing a sixth-hour student to practice skateboard tricks in the middle of the room during free reading time?

And Sunday’s “move-out today,” or so goes the scuttlebutt (heard as I walked by a couple of people sitting out in front of Ambrosia this morning, one of whom was talking about how much she was looking forward to the atmosphere of the town once all the students are gone).

Helicopters circling over central campus, lots of clueless out-of-towners wandering around, lots of ties and shirts and trousers as opposed to jeans and shorts, people scrambling around to assemble poses for video cameras, the worst traffic on State and South U that I’ve seen in weeks if not months ….. yep, today must be graduation day.

I’m done. The end of the year has come for me, and I seem to have survived. (The true test will come when grades get posted, but I’ll assume for now that I did okay.)

Damn. One year under the belt, one to go. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet.

Today’s Duke Ellington’s birthday. A tip of the hat to the incomparable Sir Duke.

One of the north-south streets through East Pasadena is Michillinda—it starts up in Sierra Madre, near where my sister lives, and descends into San Marino.

Something I never knew (I always assumed it was just a corruption of an Indian or Spanish name) was that Michillinda was named by the original families that settled in the area in 1873-1874—some of whom were from Indiana, but others of whom were from Illinois and Michigan. (Mich ….. Ill ….. Ind[ian]a.)

Probably inspired by Charles Nordhoff’s accounts of the curative powers of Southern California’s dry climate (not the same Charles Nordhoff who co-wrote Mutiny on the Bounty, but an earlier one), all of the “Indiana Colony” families had fled from those three states to Southern California and the San Gabriel Valley to escape the harsh Midwestern winters.

Things are beginning to look up; I should be able to get back to posting soon … and lord knows there’s plenty to post about.

Unfortunately, LunarPages has officially trashed my MovableType installation and it’s all dead. The other sections of this site which I controlled with MT are temporarily dead until I get TextPattern installations up and running for them.

I hereby officially withdraw any recommendations I made for LunarPages. Their actions and lack of communication are bad business. Too bad. Things had been going very well.

In the meantime, enjoy the new Dayley Bayley section. And thanks for stopping by. We appreciate your bidness.

I had no earthly idea that I was living with a closeted “Love Will Keep Us Together” fan. Good lord, you think you know someone …

But having said that, I suppose I am forced to disclose myself. I’m more comfortable, as mentioned before, with movies; I’m a real Homer Simpson when it comes to music (“We Built This City” is kinda catchy) and I know next to nothing about it. But oh well …

• ABBA “When I Kissed the Teacher”
• Ace of Base “Beautiful Life”
• Bananarama “Cruel Summer”
• Bette Midler “From a Distance”
• Blue Oyster Cult “Don’t Fear the Reaper”
• Bread “Everything I Own”
• Charlene “I’ve Never Been To Me”
• Dexy’s Midnight Runners “Come On Eileen”
• Harry Chapin “Cat’s in the Cradle”
• Men Without Hats “Safety Dance”
• Mr. Mister “Kyrie”
• Partridge Family “Come On Get Happy”
• Paul McCartney and Wings “Live and Let Die”
• Police “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”
• Robert John “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”
• Scott McKenzie “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)”
• Terry Jacks “Seasons in the Sun”
• Toto “Africa”

Also, some old Southern Gospel standards. And that “Tarzan” song. And the one where the guys sings “I Wanna Be A Cowboy.” And one to drive Frank really nuts:

• Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds “Don’t Give Your Love Up On Me Baby”

I’m such a music idiot, I don’t even really know if any of the above are cool or not. I just plead guilty to having them in my iTunes library.

And I’m sorry, but I have to be unrepentent about Madonna “Ray of Light”—’Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder …’

(In my defense, I usually have XM Radio tuned to the Blues, Traditional Jazz, 40s or Classical stations, and my iTunes is full of kd lang, Harry Connick Jr., Ottmar Liebert, Miss Ella Fitzgerald and Doris Day, so I’m not a total music lackwit/philistine.)

Now can we talk about movies?

Meanwhile, record-breaking temperatures back on the left coast. Pasadena, my hometown, hit 99 degrees (breaking a record set in 1992 by 7 degrees). The weather station at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, near where my friends Kit and Erin now live, recorded a temperature of 103. Normally temperate Santa Barbara hit an intemperate high of 98.

Up north, San Francisco hit a high of 82, Oakland hit 84, and the nasty, unfriendly, xenophobic town of Livermore, probably the single most scary place in the nine-county region (and that includes the East Oakland flatlands, Cloverdale, North Fair Oaks, and the outskirts of Novato), became even nastier at a temperature of 92.

srah said it was snowing this morning ….. and sure enough, when I took the dog out, there were unmistakable flakes in the air. I never thought I’d see the stuff this late. Amazing.

In the interest of full self-disclosure (to a point), people in glass houses, etc., I hereby present a brief (and by no means exhaustive) list of songs that I love that would probably be highly likely to appear on a 50 worst list somewhere, and probably, in fact, do appear on such a list (double points if you can ascertain which one actually does appear on the worst recommendations over at Stereogum):

• Jellybean Benitez/Madonna “Sidewalk Talk”
• Howard Jones “Pearl in the Shell” (and almost any other HJ song from about 1983-1984)
• Ambrosia “Biggest Part of Me”
• Garth Brooks “Friends in Low Places”
• Pat Benatar “Ooh Ooh Song”
• Fifth Dimension “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”
• Sheena Easton “Morning Train (Nine to Five)”
• America “Ventura Highway”
• Captain & Tennille “Love Will Keep Us Together”
• Spandau Ballet “Gold”

Oh, yeah, and one of these lists I’ve linked to places Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” on the list of worst. Sacrilege!!!

Says the National Weather Service:

‘Tuesday Night: Patchy frost. Otherwise, increasing clouds, with a low around 34.’

Oh, c’mon now, people, it’s pretty much frickin’ May already. This southern boy shouldn’t be seein’ ‘patchy frost and 34’ forecasts in the weather … Lord, will I make it another year amongst the yankees and eskimos? (No offense, y’all, and don’t mind me … just a wee bit homesick for Nuevo Mexico right now.)

More candidates that I hadn’t thought of for 50 worst songs (from Stereogum):

• Chris De Burgh “Lady in Red” (truly horrific)
• Patrick Swayze “She’s Like the Wind” (ditto)
• Don Johnson “Heartbeat” (tritto)

However, Swing Out Sister should not be on the list. “Breakout” is cheesy in retrospect but no other song screams 1987 quite so well as that one.

An amazing quote from a new biography of King James I by Alan Stewart that I’m saving to read until after the end of schoolwork (the quote is from a memoir by the seventeenth-century writer John Oglander):

“If he had but the power, spirit and resolution to have acted that which he spoke, or done as well as he knew how to do, Solomon had been short of him.”

I went to work around 9.00 this morning and the campus seemed blessedly deserted. I saw maybe five people cross my path as I walked from the corner of State and South University to the Undergrad Library.

By the time I got off work at 12.15, though, the campus was exploding with people. The fourth floor of the undergrad was packed with studying students. Almost every table and carrel was occupied. The center of campus was a boom town. Ambrosia was more packed than I’ve seen it in a long time. Everyone’s getting in their last push before the end.

I was disappointed, having expected this to be the start of the clearing-out and mass exodus, especially after Friday night, when everything around the Diag as I left work seemed so sunbathed, idyllic, and laid-back it could have been a scene from the video for Sheryl Crow’s “Soak up the Sun” or an advertisement for “The O.C.” But I guess the real exodus won’t really occur till this coming weekend, based on the conjecture at work and the above observational evidence. I admit that I’m looking forward to the quiet, in more ways than one.

Saw this today on Metafilter—a nice place to compare statistics and see photos of cities all over the country. I pulled up the stats for all the place I’ve lived in over the last 40 years to see how they stacked up against each other and my current residence, AA, MI. Sorta kinda interesting. (All stats from 2000):

Roswell, Chaves County, NM (Dec-63—Jun-71)

28.9 square miles

Pop: 45,293 (Male/Female: 48.2%/51.8%)

50.9% white/non-hispanic

10.8% foreign-born

Median Resident Age (MRA): 35.2 years

Median Household Income (MHI): $27,252

Median House Value (MHV): $60,100

HS Grads: 73.8%

College Grads (BS/BA): 16.9%

Graduate Degrees: 6.8%

Unemployed: 9.7%

Married: 52.7%

Never Married: 24.1%

Divorced: 11.8%

Widowed: 9.1%

Commute: 16.2 minutes

Clovis, Curry County, NM (Jun-71—Jun-74)

22.4 square miles

Pop: 32,667 (M/F: 48.0%/52.0%)

55.6% white/non-hispanic

5.5% foreign-born

MRA: 33.1 years

MHI: $28,878

MHV: $64,500

HS Grads: 77.5%

BS/BA: 15.7%

Grad: 5.9%

Unemployed: 6.9%

Married: 54.8%

Never Married: 22.9%

Divorced: 12.6%

Widowed: 7.6%

Commute: 15.3 minutes

Duncan, Stephens County, OK (Jun-74—Apr-94)

38.8 square miles

Pop: 22,505 (M/F: 47.3%/52.7%)

83.3% white/non-hispanic

2.6% foreign-born

MRA: 40.3 years

MHI: $30,373

MHV: $59,000

HS Grads: 76.8%

BS/BA: 19.7%

Grad: 5.8%

Unemployed: 7.2%

Married: 61.7%

Never Married: 16.5%

Divorced: 10.1%

Widowed: 9.6%

Commute: 18.7 minutes

Plano, Collin County, TX(Apr-94—Sep-96)

71.6 square miles

Pop: 222,030 (M/F: 49.8%/50.2%)

72.8% white/non-hispanic

17.1% foreign-born

MRA: 34.1 years

MHI: $78,722

MHV: $162,300

HS Grads: 93.9%

BS/BA: 53.3%

Grad: 17.6%

Unemployed: 3.1%

Married: 66.5%

Never Married: 21.1%

Divorced: 8.4%

Widowed: 2.7%

Commute: 27.5 minutes

Pleasant Hill, Contra Costa County, CA (Sep-96—Feb-98)

7.1 square miles

Pop: 32,837 (M/F: 48.5/51.5%)

76.6% white/non-hispanic

14% foreign-born

MRA: 39.0 years

MHI: $67,489

MHV: $294,000

HS Grads: 93.1%

BS/BA: 42.5%

Grad: 13.1%

Unemployed: 3.7%

Married: 53.3%

Never Married: 26%

Divorced: 12.7%

Widowed: 6.9%

Commute: 30.3 minutes

Highlands Ranch, Douglas County, CO (Feb-98—Nov-98)

23.5 square miles

Pop: 70,931 (M/F: 49.5%/50.5%)

6.7% foreign-born

MRA: 32.2 years

MHI: $86,792

MHV: $235,100

HS Grads: 97.8%

BS/BA: 59%

Grad: 17.2%

Unemployed: 1.8%

Married: 73.1%

Never Married: 17.6%

Divorced: 6.9%

Widowed: 1.8%

Commute: 27.5 minutes

San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA (Nov-98—Aug-03)

46.7 square miles

Pop: 776,733 (M/F: 50.8%/49.2%)

43.6% white/non-hispanic

36.8% foreign-born

MRA: 36.5 years

MHI: $55,221

MHV: $396,400

HS Grads: 81.2%

BS/BA: 45.0%

Grad: 16.4%

Unemployed: 4.6%

Married: 38.7%

Never Married: 44.8%

Divorced: 8.6%

Widowed: 6.1%

Commute: 30.7 minutes

Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, MI (Aug-03— )

27.0 square miles

Pop: 114,024 (M/F: 49.4%/50.6%)

72.8% white/non-hispanic

16.6% foreign-born

MRA: 28.1 years

MHI: $46,299

MHV: $181,400

HS Grads: 95.7%

BS/BA: 69.3%

Grad: 39.4%

Unemployed: 4.2%

Married: 38.5%

Never Married: 50.3%

Divorced: 7.1%

Widowed: 3.2%

Commute: 18.8 minutes

Even though AA is a place that prides itself on its ‘diversity,’ seems to me that there’s far greater diversity in my birthplace, Roswell. Heck, we even got aliens there …

There’s a seven-minute (or so) segment in the bonus features on the DVD of Jeffrey Blitz’s 2002 documentary “Spellbound” that features a semifinalist from Ann Arbor. There are a few seconds of footage of the town at the beginning of the segment, with interesting choices for shots—the Greyhound bus depot on Huron and the bridge (Ann Arbor Railroad?) that Jackson goes underneath as it turns into Huron—but no obvious Chamber of Commerce shots (the central campus, Michigan Union, the Huron River, etc.).

Today, a first: a trio of homeless people kicking back with their cadged shopping carts in Frisinger Park. They must have been there because the police rousted them from the center of town for the Book Fair. I was surprised to see them—the homeless in Ann Arbor are virtually invisible, unlike in San Francisco, where they are virtually a city unto themselves. I almost experienced a double take.

I don’t know what tactics Ann Arbor uses to “control” (i.e., get rid of) the homeless population here, or what other factors (other than the weather, which is not exactly friendly most of the year to the “residentially challenged”) militate against their presence here, but they are effectively absent, unless you count the handful who use the Downtown branch of Ann Arbor District Library as a rest stop, or the few who stop and rest at the North University entrance to central campus, or the man (or different men taking shifts) who doggedly sits and panhandles every day between White Market and the GNC outlet on William.

It’s Ella Fitzgerald’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Lady Ella, wherever you are.

Strange how you can have two very different experiences at two not-all-that-dissimilar chain restaurants. We had dinner at Macaroni Grill on Thursday night, and that was fine. The food was great, and although the restaurant was somewhat crowded, all we had to contend with was a loud cell-phone chatterer at a table behind us (and an annoying conversation at the table next to us about Biblical “textual deconstructionism,” whatever that means). Tonight we had dinner at nearby Bennigan’s, where an ill-behaved toddler at the table across from us whined loudly through the second half of the meal and where an indescribably boorish jerk stopped to jawbone a busboy and stood with his Neanderthal rear end not five inches from my face. Should I have made a scene? I felt like it, but where would it have gotten me? Oh, well, at least our server was the height of solicitousness.

Pickerel Lake is hardly a unique appellation. Turns out there’s at least 22 other lakes in Michigan with exactly the same name.

We drove past campus today and saw undergrads dutifully trundling their belongings out to sidewalks and cars, along with a few half-hearted, exhausted lawn parties sputtering along and a ton of “For Rent” signs all the way from the center of campus out to past Zeeb Road as we drove out to Dexter-Huron Metro Park for another beagle excursion (this one much shorter than the epic Pickerel Lake trek last weekend, because we were all kind of groggy and tired, including our friend David, who’s been visiting this week from San Francisco).

Wow. It’s kind of astonishing, actually, having been in the Academic Time-Space Continuum for (seemingly) so long and all of a sudden being dumped back unceremoniously into everyday existence. It’s hard to believe, but the end of the year is here (if you can call eight months a year). Now if I can just get this last paper written …..

Maybe we didn’t give it enough of a chance, but I was kind of underwhelmed by the Ann Arbor Book Festival today. (It fills a portion of North University for a couple of days every year around this time.) There were a sizable number of people there, but nowhere near as many as I expected, and nobody seemed thrilled to be there; there was a lot of milling, very little excitement.

Of course, if you’ve seen one book fair, you’ve seen them all, I suppose. They’re mostly booths full of T-shirts and merchandising opportunities (as opposed to books). But is there some magic that this fair has that we were not plugged into? Or is this another case of the notorious Ann Arbor über-hype at work? I don’t know.

Update: Bentley points out that this is actually the first time the Book Festival (as an outdoor, pavilion-type event) has been held. The Ann Arbor Antiquarian Book Fair (which is held in Michigan Union on Sunday) is actually the event that’s been around for 26 years. This would explain much. Thanks for the clarification.

I’m really, really going to have to take (and see through) 502 next winter. Damn.

Having said that, I know (especially now that the term’s essentially over) that there’s no way on God’s green earth I could have taken it this year (along with my other courses and my job and my DFE) and survived. That is the simple truth.

Can’t recall the last time I slept for 10 hours straight, but that’s what I did last night. It felt great.

I was on the bus this afternoon and passed through Party House Row on South State. One of the roofs had about fifteen subscriber newspapers, still in their wrappers, scattered all over it. I wonder what that was all about.

Sometimes I wonder where the hell I’m living. It seems that the Michigan House has just passed a bill that, if it gets approved by the Senate, will permit doctors and other health care providers to refuse to treat a patient on “moral, ethical, or religious grounds” (with the exception of emergency treatment). Those grounds would include sexual orientation. Of course, I would not want to be treated by any physician who had any objection to my being who I am, or who thought it was any of his or her damn business, but I can envision any number of circumstances in which I might not have any choice in the matter.

I suppose the fine, decent, thoughtful people who pushed this piece of legislative garbage have never heard of Hippocrates, or if they have, think he was just another ancient Greek pederast. Two other bills passed that would provide similar opt-out passes for insurers and “health facilities.” I sure hope I never have the misfortune of needing major medical attention in the next 15 months. This is not exactly the kind of development that motivates me to want to stay put in the Wolverine State.

Done, done, done ….. up till hours I’m ashamed to divulge finishing it, but it’s done ….. don’t know how coherent the product is, but it’s done. Hallelujah.

Now, the CS 810 paper awaits. But that will actually be fun to write (I tell myself).

The beagle is once again in his customary final exam support role, next to me down here in the basement as the wind from the approaching thunderstorm howls outside.

Superstitious though it may seem, I know I’ll make it through as long as he’s around.

Well, ugh. That’s my reaction after completing the first three assignments for the first of four undergrad courses the University of Michigan is forcing me to take before I will be permitted to join that exclusive club, grad school, on 29-June.

UM’s School of Ed pointed me to, of all places, Brigham Friggin’ Young University’s online independent study department to pick up two geographies, one political science and one economics class in the next eight weeks. I didn’t know it was possible.

But for a mere $1,380 plus the cost of books, you too can get 12 hours of undergrad college credit from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And believe me, the course materials let you know that little fact.

Other than the rather obvious evangelistic efforts, it actually is pretty slick. After you register and pay online, they send you CD-ROMs with Quicktime movies and an access code. You can order your books directly from them or, as I did, cheap online from half.com. (Geography120: $93 at BYU; less than $10 online.)

I received the first CDs last week, and the book for the first geography course today. I went online, entered the access code, enjoyed the presentation from BYU’s president extolling the virtues of education to Godly young men and women, and then started the course.

You are given supplemental text lessons and you read the textbook, then are given opportunities to write short-answer essays and practice the true/false and multiple choice assignment. Once you feel you’ve mastered the text and the practice sessions, you do what is called a ‘Speedback Assignment,’ which is 25 multiple choice and true/false questions. It is open book. Once you’re satisfied with your answers, you hit submit and the assignment is graded instantly.

For my first geography course, there are 13 lessons, a ‘mid-term’ and a final exam. Only about half of the lessons have graded Speedback Assignments, but each of those are worth 5% of your final grade.

The mid-term and final must be proctored by a qualified person. BYU sends the exam materials to the proctor, who administers the test and sends it back (you pay postage). Two weeks after you complete the final, you get a final grade and an official BYU transcript showing completion. Since that will satisfy the state of Michigan that I meet their higher-than-Oklahoma standards for an elementary education social studies minor, it works and I can recommend it … so far. After two graded lessons, I have a 94 average.

Still, I’m having flashbacks to the ‘80s, especially since the middle school class I ‘guest taught’ today spent an hour watching The Goonies. A college boy once more. I’ll have to try better this time around; not cutting classes to go watch bad ‘80s movies like, well, The Goonies should help.

Y’all excuse me now, though. I have a headache brought on by contemplating the peripheral distribution of the populations of Mediterranean Europe, Jefferson’s theories on principal cities and whether Belarus or the Czech Republic is a better source for computer programmers and whether the latter will be able to successfully deal with 100,000 historically repressed Romany.

Ah the halls of ivy.

Between converting this site to Textpattern—since LunarPages is no longer interested in helping resurrect MovableType (if they ever were)—and starting my 12 hours of undergrad courses in preparation for grad school 29-June and substitute teaching, I’ve had very little time for updates here, sorry.

But let’s take a quick look at how the Boy War Emperor is making us ‘Murricans safer, shall we? First up, « when Mubarak talks, perhaps we’d better listen »:

‘Arabs in the Middle East hate the United States more than ever following the invasion of Iraq and Israel’s assassination of two Hamas leaders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in comments published Tuesday. Mubarak, who visited the United States last week, told French newspaper Le Monde that Washington’s actions had caused despair, frustration and a sense of injustice in the Arab world. “Today there is hatred of the Americans like never before in the region,” he said in an interview given during a stay in France, where he met President Jacques Chirac Monday.’
—News.MyWay.com

Ooops.

‘He blamed the hostility partly on U.S. support for Israel, which assassinated Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in a missile strike in the Gaza Strip Saturday weeks after killing his predecessor, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. “At the start some considered the Americans were helping them. There was no hatred of the Americans. After what has happened in Iraq, there is unprecedented hatred and the Americans know it,” Mubarak said. “People have a feeling of injustice. What’s more, they see (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon acting as he pleases, without the Americans saying anything. He assassinates people who don’t have the planes and helicopters that he has.”’

‘Unprecedented hatred?’ Ruh-roh. Not even precedented on 11-Sep?

‘Israel says such killings are self-defense. But Mubarak said the assassination of Rantissi could have “serious consequences” and that instability in Gaza and Iraq would not serve U.S. or Israeli interests. “The despair and feeling of injustice are not going to be limited to our region alone. American and Israeli interests will not be safe, not only in our region but anywhere in the world,” he said.’

Not safe anywhere in the world. Thank you, George W. Bush.

But don’t worry. Our Imperial Senate is on the job, as « a leading senate fascist says the ‘D’ word »:

‘A senior Republican lawmaker said that deteriorating security in Iraq may force the United States to reintroduce the military draft. “There’s not an American … that doesn’t understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future,” Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq. “Why shouldn’t we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?” Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force “our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face.” The Nebraska Republican added that a draft, which was ended in the early 1970s, would spread the burden of military service in Iraq more equitably among various social strata. “Those who are serving today and dying today are the middle class and lower middle class,” he observed. The call to consider a imposing a draft comes just days after the Pentagon moved to extend the missions of some 20,000 of the 135,000 US troops in Iraq.’
—Yahoo News

And just what provoked said ‘intensity and depth of challenges we face,’ eh, Chuckie? I’ll answer the question for you: the Boy Emperor’s Divine Providence hubris, his Cabal’s incredible criminal negligence and ignorance, the complete dereliction of duty by the Congress, talk radio screaming bloody murder and, as a victim of the vast right-wing conspiracy told editors today, « the timidity and cowardice of the fourth estate »:

‘Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) told newspapers editors gathered here this afternoon that they had to be “more vigilant” and act with “more tenacity” to combat the failures of the Bush administration to provide “vital information” to the public. Interviewed by Marvin Kalb on the opening day of the annual American Society of Newspaper Editors convention, Sen. Clinton said: “It’s difficult for editors and publishers here to get to the bottom of stories. This administration, to an extent I haven’t seen before, tells the press to go away—and they do, like most people do when told that more than once. … Many in this administration are quite expert at saying nothing despite your best efforts to get them to say something.” She reminded the editors that “so much is at stake now and the public needs more information.” She also warned that “the echo chamber of talk radio can drown out a three-part series any of you write.”’
—Editor and Publisher

Amazing that she of all people would cut them a break with moderate language. Until these people get their heads shaken so hard their pea brains rattle, they will continue to be steamrolled by the Imperial Cabal. Bet on it.

Blender and VH1 have teamed up to list the 50 worst songs of all time. I would agree that Starship’s “We Built This City” is a plenty bad song, but the worst? The worst? Have these people never heard Bryan Adams’ ”(Everything I Do) I Do It for You?” Michael Bolton’s “How Am I Supposed to Live without You”? Kenny G’s “Songbird”? Anyway, I may be old and irrelevant, but any magazine that splatters photos of Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera all over its website will have a lot to answer for in 10 or 15 years.

Also, it says everything that none of their top 10 picks is older than 1982, which means none of the Blender crowd is older than, say, 28. That means not old enough to have ever suffered through the sheer torture of Mary MacGregor’s “Torn between Two Lovers,” David Soul’s “Don’t Give up on Us,” and Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun.” What punishment is it to have gotten through Wang Chung and Bobby McFerrin intact and relatively sane? You can only say you’ve lived if you’ve survived Dan Hill and Barry Manilow. And Morris Albert. Now those are battle scars.

How long will it be before all the ash trees in southeastern Michigan die out? I heard a figure on the radio just now of 6 million ash decimated by the emerald ash borer and almost did a double take. Unbelievable.

A howling wind tore through the boulevards of the southeastern Michigan town, stirring up dust motes, leaves, beetles, and memories of regret, pathos, and anomie.

This year’s Lyttle Lytton Prizes (a spinoff from the better-known Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, sponsored every year by San Jose State University) have been announced. The winner:

This is the story of your mom’s life.

Runners-up:

I am pleased to announce that, although attitudes have improved immensely, the beatings will continue.

And:

While a hellish yowl tore my throat, the panicked kitten—in fact me—leapt crying for the throat of Julia, there seeking comfort—and revenge.

And:

Juicy, their love was like forbidden fruit: tasty.

My favorite, though, is this one:

I know who the murderer is, Kevin blogged.

[Link courtesy Metafilter.]

Tornado weather, says Hillary ….. great!

The one that passed through the day we arrived last August was enough for me, but I suppose that’s wishful thinking.

(On another subject, Hillary has a great post about John Negroponte, Bush’s new “ambassador” to Iraq.)

Let’s see. Prediction from the National Weather Service: possibility of thunderstorms 20%; temperature will rise to 76 by noon then fall to 67; and the winds will be between 25-30 mph, with gusts as high as 49 mph.

Great. I don’t know whether to dress for wind and rain or for a luau.

This weather is almost astonishing in its California-ness. Blue skies, sunlight for most of the daylight hours, temperatures in the high 70s, and lots of dry wind. I suppose, on second thought, it’s more like a typical spring day in Merced, but that’s neither here nor there.

Wildflowers are popping out all over the complex. The robins and the starlings, with their shiny-coal feathers and their striking long yellow beaks, were out in force all weekend, poking around the grass for food. The squirrels were not quite as mobilized, but they made their presence known. A black cat from across the fence terrorized the beagle briefly.

The twentysomethings across the “yard” from us played some ball for a while this afternoon, but it was otherwise very quiet this weekend, which is curious considering that they were out almost every night during the week tossing Frisbees or tossing their pigskin. Maybe they work weekends, who knows.

This weather, though undeniably pleasant in a generic sort of way, makes me feel incredibly lethargic and useless. I find it amusing that it has finally been proven beyond a doubt that this so-called native Californian does not really have any deep primordial longing for stereotypical Californian weather conditions. Not that anyplace in California other than San Diego necessarily has those stereotypical conditions (if you think LA does, check out the eternal smog-yellow sky and then get back to me).

Those fanstasies that people are supposed to have about escaping to Tahiti or Maui or some other tropical island with palm trees and piña coladas? I don’t have those.

The one silver lining that I haven’t quite been able to figure out is that my allergies seem to have suddenly dissipated. No clogging or asthma for the past three or four days, at least, and no pharmaceutical adjustments needed. Not sure why, but I’ll take the normalcy wherever I can get it.

The dog was back to his old tricks today, though he seemed to be somewhat more drowsy than usual (which is to say, he spent somewhat more than his usual 22.5 hours a day asleep). He ran without much apparent impairment down the stairs to be let out this morning, darted speedily over to the patio door to make some noise at a visiting squirrel, and whined for treats. All is normal in beagle world.

The nightmare that is the last few weeks of school is almost over ….. yet it seems right now as though it will never be over. April 29 seems very far away.

We no longer have cable, so we’re already unwittingly doing it, but if you have cable and are of a mind to do this, it’s something to consider. [Link courtesy LibraryJuice.]

[First pic: We’re going somewhere? Now? YAHOO!!! Second pic: Ummmm, this is a really long hike, dude. Third pic: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!]

Today, we demanded too much of the geriatric and overweight in our house. And I’m not referring to myself or Frank.

We took the beagle on a very long (too long) hike around Pickerel Lake, north of Chelsea in the Pinckney State Recreation Area.

He’s all worned out.

We drove out to Peach Mountain, which is, allegedly, according to this thing called the internet, a place where you could walk around Stinchfield Woods. But we ran smack-dab (as we say in Oklahoma) into that monolithic institution, the University of Michigan, which owns all of that neck of the woods and has an observatory on Peach ‘Mountain.’ (And I wonder if they also own that strip-mine quarry out there, too?)

The roads have very stern ‘No Parking for Any Reason at Any Time’-type signs every few yards and the trees on the edge of the property have ‘No Access for Any Reason at Any time’-type signs every few yards. I don’t think UM wants anyone to get in there, even though we, the public, supposedly ‘own’ it.

So we pushed on and discovered our second obstacle. The Pinckney State Recreation Area, like the Hudson Mills Metropark nearby, charges admission. We thought $4 for Hudson Mills was a little absurd for a short hike; imagine our surprise when the friendly ranger at PSRA wanted $6.

He leaned towards my driver’s-side window and asked which pass we wanted, the day pass? The beagle answered from the backseat with a very loud ‘Ruff!’ Alas, we didn’t have that much cash with us, not having planned on being charged for touching nature.

We turned around and found the parking area at Pickerel Lake (free!) and had a reasonably enjoyable hike (with the exception of a visit from a very friendly and hyper terrier of some sort named Howard, who was at a loss to understand why Bayley was rather … less-than-happy to see him.

The trail is lovely and even though you have to share the road with mondo-bicyclists who all look the same, since they’re outfitted as if they’re in the Tour de France, they were polite and friendly and it wasn’t too bad.

It was, however, way too long for the old, fat beagle. I ended having to carry him the last quarter-mile or so back to the Jeep. On our last rest stop, he attempted to sit down and ended up falling over. And yes, I should be horsewhipped; I’m feeling majorly guilty this evening for not taking just a little bitty hike with him.

He’s been very quiet this evening, not moving a whole lot because he’s sore. Otherwise, he seems to be fine; he’ll just be grandpa-ish for a couple of days. He did enjoy most of the hike (although he could have done without meeting Howard) and it was a beautiful spring day, so it was a good thing.

And maybe, just maybe, he lost a pound or two of all that winter fat. He turns 10 in August and the Battle of the Bulge is getting ever more crucial in making sure that he matches his great-grandmother’s record of 17+ years of happy beagle life.

The archival permalinks are now working. I missed a step in the Textpattern setup regarding ‘clean URIs’ that I didn’t see the other day. So, we should be back running. No word yet on if or when LunarPages can resurrect Movable Type; the server is scheduled to go down Sunday at 04:00, so even accessing the site might be difficult. But at least I figured out most of the archiving system.

Now. Can anyone explain what an ‘NAS’ is and why they might want to move the server AirBeagle.com resides on to such an animal (a move which, I might add, resulted in total failure and the necessity to pull it back out and redo the whole thing—ha, ha, Windoze stuff is so funny.)

« Here’s how the Boy Emperor supports our troops ». Dr. Strangerummy made the announcement:

‘The Pentagon formally announced Thursday that it had stopped the planned return from Iraq of some 20,000 American troops, giving commanders the extra firepower they believe necessary to confront an insurgency that is taking a mounting toll on the U.S.-led coalition. The decision, announced by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after first being reported Wednesday, breaks a promise to soldiers who were assured when they arrived in Iraq that they would stay no more than one year. By extending their tours of duty by three months, the Pentagon is acknowledging that the insurgency has ruined its plans to reduce the size of the U.S. military presence this spring. The troops had expected to return home this month after completing 12 months in Iraq.’
—MSNBC

‘A promise made is a promise kept,’ indeed. Shame on them all.

Support our troops. Bring them home.

Proof that Ann Arbor is not always a ‘sunless horror, devoid of joy and hope,’ was provided by a gigantic orange ball in the sky the last couple of days; beagles were especially grateful as they took the opportunity to get in some serious tanning. (No, he’s not mad in that last pic, he’s blinkin’ in the sunlight.)

Thank god for spring.

Weekend Magazine, The Michigan Daily’s, well, weekend magazine, put out its Best of Ann Arbor issue today and a very well-deserved Best Blog award was given to Rob over at Goodspeed Update.

We weren’t even mentioned. Alas. I’m beyond crushed.

The nod to GU is great, but the article’s true genius is the final paragraph, when ‘Arts Writer’ Ruby Robinson pens the following:

‘The future looks bright for blogging to become common practice, especially as bloggers don’t have to follow the rules of newspaper grammar and citing sources and can post articles, opinions and random thoughts with ease and comfort.’

Pardon my very loud guffaws (mixed with a tinge of righteous indignation). But that’s about the smarmiest thing I’ve seen come out of any little local newspaper in quite some time. And believe me, I’ve seen some smarmy out there.

And it comes from a paper that names umich.edu as the Best University Website in Ann Arbor and names whites as the Worst Race, and had staffers call up pizza parlors in town pretending to be drunk and confused Indians with heavy accents, a craving for jalapenos and a spotty phone reception in order to judge the quality of the service.

Isn’t it great, my fellow bloggers, to be looked-down upon by the likes of The Daily? Methinks Ms. Robinson needs to find out that many blogs are not run by 14-year-old girls writing in IM-speak about Justin Timberlake rumors.

Not that all that should take away from Rob at all; congratulations to him for all his very hard work … it’s well-deserved.

Technology is a wonderful thing … until it crashes and burns spectacularly.

We’ve had our own problems (obviously) with technology here around the manse this week; the crash of our Movable Type CMS punted us back into the dark ages of hand-coding web pages (oh the horror!).

But at least we weren’t alone. I went to the Mallett’s Creek branch of the AADL this afternoon and picked out my customary haul of movies (‘cause, after all, it’s my job; around here, Frank’s the Music Nazi, but I’m the Movie Nazi).

But when I went to the self-checkout machines, the screen was filled with an apology notice, ending with ‘See Circulation Staff.’

I went up to the circ desk (fortunately there was no line), where, after 15 tries to make the reader recognize my library card, the librarian was left scrambling for (oh the horror!) a pen and paper. The entire library system was down.

She found a few forms and a pen and wrote down my card number and then had to list the bar codes for all 12 of my movies.

This was followed by the kicker: It took her and another librarian to figure out when the movies were due back. They had difficulty deciding the date one week hence that I am to return the items. Quite a line was beginning to form at this point. Finally, they decided on April 22 as the due date (‘15 plus 7 equals 22, doesn’t it?’).

And then high technology came back to the rescue: She used a ‘Post-It’ note to write the due date and stick it on the movie box (‘Do you want one for each of your 12 movies, sir?’ she asked. ‘No thanks, that’s not necessary,’ I said, my eyes a little wide).

It’s so good to know that some technology is reliable … I simply cannot imagine what would have happened if that sticky note had not worked.

Until I straighten out the fight between Movable Type and Textpattern over my single SQL database, older comments you may have made on posts will not be available, but they are not lost. However, the commenting system is working fine, so feel free to rant away … that is all.

Today really felt like the first day of spring. Classes were sitting out holding their sessions in circles on the grass, there was some massive groovy “Goodness Day” event going on in the Diag, and every available spot on the grass was covered with sunbathers or Frisbee throwers. A lot of out-of-town visitors now too, as one of our readers predicted. It’s supposed to get up into the 70s in the next couple of days. It almost makes you wish there were a beach nearby.