Almost a month later and still no cicadas ….. A quick check of Cicada Mania shows there have been sightings in Cincinnati and southern Indiana, but nothing here yet.

There is a moderately amusing photo at Cicada Mania of a cicada chasing George W. Bush, though.

Question of the Day while subbing at one of Ann Arbor’s two high schools:

‘Hey, Mr. Sub Man, Sir? What’s a Baroness?’

A story on Michigan Radio a few minutes ago mentioned that this past month was the rainiest May in southeast Michigan on record—8.6 inches (the previous record was apparently 8.4 back in 1943).

It’s sure sunny today, though.

For the time being, anyway. (Always have to throw that disclaimer in.)

Update: According to the Ann Arbor News, May was actually the third-rainiest May in Ann Arbor, based on weather measurements at the North Campus observation site. The record was 10.49 inches in 1943. This May was 7.78. The “rainiest on record” statistic applies to Detroit and Wayne County.

As Steve mentioned, XM Radio had a Memorial Day special on one of its channels in which they played all 253 #1 songs from 1970-1979. It was cheesy, nostalgic fun, a nice escape. Some of the songs I hadn’t heard in years and years and years. We turned on the radio a little late—we came in at late 1972, when Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” was on—but, except for a few breaks here and there, we kept the station tuned to the 1970s all day long, all the way through Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).”

Of course, some songs that you don’t want to get stuck in your head inevitably get lodged there in the process of engaging in an activity like listening to an all-1970s song marathon, and in my case, the horror has been having endless loops of Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died” and the Bee Gees’ “Love You Inside Out” running through my head. Someone please end the agony.

XM also had a special on its “traditional jazz” channel (I love these absurd labels, but that’s a subject for another post) the other day in which they played and dissected Miles Davis’ classic album Kind of Blue. I loved hearing the album, but I think the best tribute would have been to play the CD from end to end—”So What” to “Flamenco Sketches”—without all of the interrupting chatter. Miles’ music speaks for itself. There’s no need to dissect it.

Ann Arbor blogger Edgewise has an interesting self-debate over what is possibly the ultimate bugaboo of politics these days, abortion. He brings up some very good points. My own position has been, as usual, to straddle the fence in the middle. Abortions should be safe and very, very rare, but legal. Alternatives should be easily available, especially easier adoption. (Want to reduce the number of abortions? Let gay and lesbian couples adopt, for example.)

Statistics seem to bear out that the safe, legal and very rare thing works; abortions fell every year in the 1990s under Clinton/Gore and are on the rise again thanks to the Fascist FunDumbMentalists in power now. And there is also statistical evidence from another place, as noted by Edgewise—The Netherlands:

‘Contrary to common belief, legalization of abortion does not necessarily increase abortion rates. The Netherlands, for example, has a non-restrictive abortion law, widely accessible contraceptives and free abortion services, and the lowest abortion rate in the world: 5.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year. Barbados, Canada, Tunisia and Turkey have all changed abortion laws to allow for greater access to legal abortion without increasing abortion rates.’

Again, safe, legal and rare = lowest abortion rates in the world. But there’s more to it than that, of course, as he notes:

‘By the way, the Netherlands has universal free prenatal, birthing, and child health care, along with subsidized daycare and a few others measures to increase the viability of alternatives to abortion.’

As usual, human issues are rarely black-and-white, cut-and-dried. Life is simply more complex that ‘Just Say No.’