Month: May 2005

I love Molly Ivins always and I especially love her today for turning over her column completely to the blazing and brave words spoken in the Texas lege by « Houston Rep. Senfronia Thompson » … a speech which should be printed on placards and given to every American citizen: ‘I have been a member of this…

It doesn’t fit with the cherished fascist myth of the ‘liberal’ media so it’s being ignored in favor of Newsweek bashing, but documents the ACLU obtained show that the FBI knew about « desecrations of the Koran at Guantanamo Gulag as early as 2002 »: ‘New documents released by the FBI include previously undisclosed interviews in which…

May 24 and the weather today alternated between overcast, drizzly, and chilly, with a few moments of interspersed sunlight. It’s been this way all month, except for a few days earlier in the month when summery weather was threatening to bust out. Even I am somewhat surprised by this spate of what the cliché calls…

In the What the ? Department … Who won? Who lost? « Who knows »? ‘The Senate is to vote Tuesday to end debate on Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, clearing the way for her to gain a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans. With the threat of a…

Here’s something fun: free expression and religion « collide on the Delta Shuttle »: ‘Dear Ignorant Wench … ‘When you walked toward me smiling and stopped in front of my seat (I had just collapsed in a heap), I thought you were going to offer me a word of encouragement, you had a very kind face and…

Back in February, there was an article about millionaire « John Gilmore, who was making a point about privacy » in a world where the Constitution doesn’t apply on airport property: ‘In post 9/11 America, asking “Why?” when someone from an airline asks for identification can start some interesting arguments. Gilmore, who learned to argue on the…

Lordy, I’m tired. I just finished a week of full days of subbing, including two days with my favorite autistic kids. I’m also dealing with the increasingly … awful effect of the chemotherapy drug the docs in their infinite wisdom have decided will help my arthritis (the story is just too long and exhausting and…

Oh, it’s ugly, « ever so ugly out there »: ‘Discount airline carrier Jetsgo, which stopped flying in March, announced Friday that it is bankrupt. Jetsgo founder Michel Leblanc had hoped to have the carrier operating again by late June but he was unable to persuade some of the airline’s creditors to agree to his restructuring plan….

Apparently (judging from a photo caption in today’s Ann Arbor News) the trees I’ve been confusing with cherry trees are actually crab apple trees. I stand corrected.

First real humidity of the year today … though it wasn’t blazing wiith sunlight today, it got up into the high 70s, and the weather was definitely balmy. The trees are in full bloom — magnolias, cherry, etc. Haven’t seen all that many squirrels around the house lately, for whatever reason, though they seem to…

For various reasons I won’t bore you with, I haven’t posted here much. And so I missed marking the occasion as it happened. But the big behemoth got off the ground at last and had, « by all accounts », a very successful first four hours of flight: ‘The long-awaited test lasted almost four hours, with the…

Here on the 60th anniversary of VE Day, I’m watching two films, Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des Willens and the Criterion version of the French film Nacht und Nebel. The first is the face that the Germans wanted to present to the world, the second is of the reality. Both are quite shattering, especially Nacht und…

I upgraded to the latest version of Textpattern and now subsections (like fly.airbeagle.us) are not working. Oy, what a pain. I hope to get them back soon.

Yes, it’s finally over. I still haven’t seen one of my final grades, but barring some unforeseen disaster, I think I can safely say it’s over – grad school, that is. What a strange feeling not to have constant overlapping and infinite looming deadlines, ill-defined professorial expectations, nausea-inducing pressure, and a calendar packed with meetings,…

Graduation pictures are forthcoming, I promise … we’re still a bit shell-shocked around here. But things are settling down …