The damage that the Boy Emperor is doing to the nation is largely incalculable, and much of it secret, as the mainstream media is slowly and finally beginning to point out.

Says « the Washington Post »:

’ Tuberculosis had sneaked up again, reappearing with alarming frequency across the United States. The government began writing rules to protect 5 million people whose jobs put them in special danger. Hospitals and homeless shelters, prisons and drug treatment centers—all would be required to test their employees for TB, hand out breathing masks and quarantine those with the disease. These steps, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration predicted, could prevent 25,000 infections a year and 135 deaths. By the time … Bush moved into the White House, the tuberculosis rules, first envisioned in 1993, were nearly complete. But the new administration did nothing on the issue for the next three years. Then, on the last day of 2003, in an action so obscure it was not mentioned in any major newspaper in the country, the administration canceled the rules. Voluntary measures, federal officials said, were effective enough to make regulation unnecessary. … The demise of the decade-old plan of defense against tuberculosis reflects the way OSHA has altered its regulatory mission to embrace a more business-friendly posture. In the past 3 1/2 years, OSHA, the branch of the Labor Department in charge of workers’ well-being, has eliminated nearly five times as many pending standards as it has completed. It has not started any major new health or safety rules, setting Bush apart from the previous three presidents, including Ronald Reagan.’

Adds « the New York Times »:

‘April 21 was an unusually violent day in Iraq; 68 people died in a car bombing in Basra, among them 23 children. As the news went from bad to worse, President Bush took a tough line, vowing to a group of journalists, “We’re not going to cut and run while I’m in the Oval Office.” On the same day, deep within the turgid pages of the Federal Register, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a regulation that would forbid the public release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles, saying that publicizing the information would cause “substantial competitive harm” to manufacturers. As soon as the rule was published, consumer groups yelped in complaint, while the government responded that it was trying to balance the interests of consumers with the competitive needs of business. But hardly anyone else noticed, and that was hardly an isolated case.’

Nothing to see here, move along … Of course they know that if they did this stuff in the light of day, it would never fly. As Ted Rall’s new book spells out, most Americans are liberals; this corporatist/fascist claptrap has to be done out of sight out of mind or it would never happen.

Time for the Boy Emperor to retire to clearing brush in Crawford … permanently. The damage to the country may not be repaired in my lifetime, particularly the increased threat from terror thanks to his Iraq adventure.

You’d think AirBeagle was moribund since there hasn’t been a post here in over two weeks … but you’d be wrong.

I’m simply suffering through a period of forced inactivity thanks to the onset of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which began in May, reached its peak as I tried to start grad school the first of July (and knocked me out of aforementioned grad school for a year to boot) and is now kind of like World War I—it’s settled down into a war of attrition and trench warfare, with pre-dawn raids, the taking of prisoners and plenty of fighting hard for 150 yards of mud followed by a retreat back to original positions by the end of the day.

In plain English, I’m in a period of six weeks of enforced inactivity, barely able to spend much time maintaining other pieces of AirBeagle and do a little work here and there for a client. I’ve had to turn over housework to Frank and he even has to fetch the buckets of hot and cold water I need each night to soak the hands according to the physical therapist’s orders.

I go back to the surgeon on 3-Sep for more assessment; possibilities are an MRI and surgery or yet another six weeks of enforced inactivity, which would drive me further crazy. It’s bad enough sitting around being unable to take care of things I always take care of. The wearing of splints at night in bed is just beyond frustrating.

I finally remembered that the therapist said that if wearing both splints was driving me nuts that I could at least alternate them. So I wore the left one last night and will wear the right one tonight, and so on.

In the meantime, I’m afraid posting will be pretty few and far-between until at least 3-Sep … and if I have to have the dreaded surgery, then probably longer than that.

And yes, I’ve been trying some yoga and exercises, vitamins (magnesium, B6 and B12), special gel rests for computer usage, the splints, water baths and inactivity. While things are better than they were the first of July, I’m a very long way from getting true relief.

Ah well. Onward and upward. Thanks, as always, for stopping by and having patience during my summer ordeal. I’ll be back to rippin’ the Boy Emperor a new one as soon as I can …

Good night, y’all.

Unpleasant critters who leave unpleasant calling cards on your arms and ankles, and I’d never encountered them (to my memory) before moving here. Steve had to explain to me what they are. Guess I’m going to have to stop letting the beagle wander off into the bushes behind the house.

I thought the lavender wildflowers that have popped up in almost every unoccpied spot of grass in Frisinger Park were a nice addition of color (they’re deceptively gorgeous) until I read a little column in the Ann Arbor News yesterday that fingered them as spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculosa), a pernicious invasive weed. Originally a native of central and Eastern Europe and Russia, it has no natural predators in the Western Hemisphere and can grow at will and choke out native plants. They can’t really be rooted out, more’s the shame for our native flora, but now I haven’t got much compunction about stomping on them as I walk through the park.

There don’t seem to be very many pigeons in Ann Arbor (or what pigeons there are have been cruelly maimed in glue traps, as a story in today’s Ann Arbor News reports; why didn’t the pig who dreamed up the glue traps just get out his rifle and shoot the things instead of torturing them?). In the Bay Area they are as common as rats and ants. However, what seems to be the pigeon’s counterpart in AA are starlings. They seem to be everywhere lately. I saw dozens of them on my way to the bus stop this afternoon, all gathered in little groups (actually, the plural term for starlings is a “murmuration”—a nice little nugget of librarian trivia) on the grass looking for grubs or worms or whatever it is they eat. They are quiet and unobtrusive and interesting to watch, though (unlike pigeons).

What I don’t like as much is the bird that has a nest in one of the nearby bushes and that wakes me up every morning when the window’s open with its shrill caw. Is it a blue jay of some kind? It sure sounds as obnoxious as one.

[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

Boppin’ through New Mexico with some tunes …

Soundtrack, day three

Ella Fitzgerald: The Best of the Song Books and Windham Hill Sampler ‘84. And Sixteen Horsepower’s Olden. Also Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline. And more in-and-out radio stations. Lots of evangelical programming.

—Posted by Frank at 23:59:01 | 16-Aug-03

Also, here is the photo gallery of Day Three of the trip:

« Our Move to Michigan – Day Three »

[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

I think that Day Three was my favorite part of our trip. The weather was gorgeous with curtains of rain over I-40; the temperatures were great for August and I was able to step foot back on the soil of my native New Mexico for the first time in over two years. Plus, we were able to spend two nights in Santa Fe. It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful (at least in my memory) …

Day Three

Day Three — Flagstaff, AZ, to Santa Fe, NM

Today’s statistics:

We travelled 391 miles from Flagstaff, AZ, to Santa Fe, NM.. Spent $16 on gas, $52.25 on food, and $0 on a hotel (the bill comes due Monday morning), the Best Western Inn Santa Fe on Cerrillos Road, not far from Beautiful Downtown Santa Fe.

Here once again: All the boring, exhausting details, almost as they happened:

—I-40E, Exit 89 east of Grants, NM, 15:33 MST | 16-Aug-03

New Mexico at last … I’m finally home. It feels wonderful to return to my native state, as it always does. We’re about 60 miles from Albuquerque, and Frank is driving. I’ll take over in ABQ and drive us to Santa Fe and I can hardly wait to get there. The day began as usual with an alarm clock at 8:30, followed by the discovery by Frank that there was no hot water for the shower. He took a cold one anyway. He’s far braver than I. I called the front desk and they said it would be back in an hour, so we went to eat and managed to find the Galaxy Diner, a ‘50’s/Route 66 place with an Elvis Wurlitzer in the corner and about the best breakfast we’ve had in a long time. We returned to find some hot water running, so I showered and packed everything, including a rather hacked-off beagle back in the Jeep. Was not a happy camper to discover that we’re doing this a third day in a row. Haven’t the heart to tell him that there are basically six more days of it all that he has to endure.

Arizona and New Mexico are beautiful, with the obvious exception of what the damage that humans can inflict on them … junked cars and houses, trash blowing around, etc. But for mid August, the landscape is breathtaking and the off-and-on rainy weather is an added bonus that I wasn’t expecting out here in the desert.

We’ve seen some old Route 66 icons, such as Twin Arrows, JackRabbit and Meteor City. They’re all in various phases of dereliction; Twin Arrows is boarded up and the other two are mere shadows of their former glory. Ever since we hit the Mother Road at Kingman, I’ve been wondering just exactly what the fascination with Route 66 is for many people. There was a reason I-40 was built folks; Route 66 was narrow, curvy, and as dangerous as Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor of California. Route 66 killed probably uncountable thousands of people and I-40 wasn’t built quick enough. Yes, yes, yes, I know, it represents a slice of mid-20th-century America that is lost forever and that we all miss. And yaddah-yaddah-yaddah. But right now, I’m sorry, I miss the 40’s and enjoy the nostalgia and the mystique of the Mother Road as much as the next guy, and I hate the blandness and sameness that Corporate Amurrica has wrought on the culture, but I’m also extremely thankful for a wide, four-lane highway with adequate shoulders, reasonably straight and far safer. The speed limits in Arizona and New Mexico are 75 mph; this is a major improvement over what it would have been like on Route 66.

I drove from Flagstaff to the New Mexico state line, where we had the unfortunate opportunity to visit Navajoland, Mother of All Skanky Rubber Tomahawk Shops. Let’s not dwell on it here; Just avoid Exit 359 on I-40 just across the state line of Arizona. The beagle did share an interesting moment with a Jack Russell Terrier, who was behind the glass door of a concrete house next door. They stared at each other and did some posturing and heavy breathing, but I think that both of them were glad there was a door between them and they didn’t have to back up the charade with action. Frank took over and drove us to Gallup, where we had the opportunity to gas up and get a snack at a Love’s Country Store; this one was the Mother of All Skanky Love’s Country Stores.

Frank, being the wise man he is, passed on both ‘opportunities’ and can’t share any insights to corroborate that what I saw in the vanilla ice cream bin at ‘Grandpa’s Ice Cream Store’ within the Navajoland store was, indeed, a very much alive, and very frustrated fly of some sort of large variety.

Moving right along. We’ve now entered the Laguna Indian Reservation just east of Acoma Sky City. The mesas are gorgeous, particularly with this storm system overhead providing a light show of high white thunderheads with deep blue bases dumping rain on the desert. We’re 40 miles from Albuquerque. The crosswinds are high, and there are spots of very heavy downpours. There is a big spot of deep blue to the east over Albuquerque [Motto: ‘Home of Ethel Mae Potter, We Never Forgot Her’—and if you don’t know what that refers to, just watch a certain episode of Lucy Goes to California].

We’ve seen a USMail truck with the routing GSO–LAX on it. I usually know my three-letter airport codes, but I really can’t think of what GSO is … Greenville/Spartanburg? Gotta look it up tonight …

Beagle is doing well. curled up and very asleep. I think I’ve finally got the loading-the-Jeep thing down to a science; he has more room and is pretty cushy, lying on a bed consisting of layers of blankets, a goose-down comforter and his own beagle bed. I wish we could trade places and he could drive the 3,053 miles to Ann Arbor while I slept on cushy padding. Ah, well. Such is the life of a human. Dogs have it so great. Dogs rule.

More later … time for me to drive us through ABQ to Santa Fe!! Woo-hoo!!!!!!

—Best Western Inn, room 321, Santa Fe, NM, 23:15 MDT

Let me just say that it is so good to be back home that I cannot express my feelings here. Santa Fe and the weather are perfect and we just ate at Tortilla Flats, an authentic New Mexican cuisine restaurant frequented by locals, not turistas, and which featured the New Mexico Official State Question: ‘Red or green?’ Meaning, do you want red chile sauce or green chile sauce? I took red on my blue corn chicken enchiladas and it was truly, truly wonderful. Steam shot out of my ears, as it should. Frank took green and I’ve never seen his eyes get so big as they did when he took his first bite of real New Mexican chile sauce. I wish I had my camera handy. Alas, I did not.

I took over driving at a Dairy Queen in Laguna, just 9 miles from Albuquerque. I had a Dilly Bar, another throwback to my New Mexico childhood. We drove through ABQ briefly, [and, special note just for Kit: We found the House of Ho-Ho on Central Avenue near Old Town! Dude! Ho-Ho lives!] We then made Bugs Bunny’s famous left turn at Albuquerque and headed up I-25. The mountains are gorgeous, everyone was driving 90 and we hit town in good time. Our hotel is very nice and comfortable, as well as affordable (for Santa Fe). After a brief rest, we went out to eat, then returned and gave Bayley his first authentic New Mexican sopaipilla, which he loved (see links to photos below).

But now it’s time for a bath and bed; I’m worn out, and there’s so much to see and do around town tomorrow, when I play tour guide for Frank’s maiden exposure to The City Different, the oldest and highest state capital in the U.S. We needed to take a day off the road; the beagle is very road-weary, as are we. But he’s being a very good, if slightly confused, dog and hasn’t caused any problems at all. He’ll be very glad this time next week, when he should be finally relaxing on his own couch on Wisteria Drive in beautiful Ann Arbor, MI.

Today’s trip stats:

• 11:33 — Left Flagstaff, AZ — 0 miles | 0902 total

• 11:49 — (Don’t Forget) Winona — 14 | 0915

• 11:56 — Twin Arrows — 22 | 0923

• 12:10 — Meteor City — 43 | 0944

• 12:20 — Winslow — 55 | 0956

• 12:34 — JackRabbit — 73 | 0974

• 12:37 — Joseph City — 85 | 0979

• 12:47 — Holbrook — 97 | 0991

• 12:53 — Sun Valley — 106 | 1000

• 13:15 — Navajo — 135 | 1029

• 13:40 — Lupton — 169 | 1063

• 14:58 — New Mexico State Line (Time Change) — 171 | 1065

• 15:14 — Gallup, NM — 189 | 1083

• 15:46 — McGaffey — 207 | 1101

• 15:58 — Continental Divide — 221 | 1115

• 16:24 — Grants — 253 | 1147

• 17:02 — State Highway 6 — 303 | 1197

• 17:13 — Laguna Dairy Queen — 315 | 1209

• 19:11 — Albuquerque/Central Avenue — 325 | 1219

• 19:16 — Bernalillo — 351 | 1245

• 19:47 — Santa Fe — 391 | 1285

Good night from La Villa Real de Santa Fe de San Francisco de Assis … y’all!

—Posted by Steve at 23:35 | 16-Aug-03

And here are the Bayley-Meets-Sopaipilla shots as noted above:

« Our Move to Michigan – Bayley and the Santa Fe Sopaipilla »