Well, the weather’s been fabulous (if a bit chilly) the past few days. I think we’ve seen the last of the snow. I could be proven wrong, but I doubt it. It’s very pleasant here in the spring — in the Bay Area, the only birds you see much of are pigeons and seagulls, so it’s great to have the return of the aviary here. They make a lot of noise in the morning, battling over turf and building nests and engaging in all of those other bird activities. It’s nice.

We went through the first instance of the term-end ritual of professor evaluations this morning in my Preserving Information class, filling in circles on Scantron forms with stubby pencils to register our feelings about the course. That is the real signal that the finish line is fast approaching. Up till now it had all been rumor and speculation and calendar-watching. But tomorrow it will be just two weeks until my final final exam as a Michigan student.

I’ve been increasingly longing for it all to be over, which when I really think about it is somewhat strange, since when the structure of school is gone it’s going to be hard to adjust. But I’ve felt overtaxed and stressed in a way this term that I haven’t felt any of the other terms. Part of it may be that I’m not completely gaga about my coursework this term; I’m learning quite a lot, as always, but I have moments of heavy indifference about it all, as I’m sure most of my SI colleagues do sometimes. Part of it may be that the pile-on of coursework demands at the end seems more brutal and relentless this term. Part of it may also be the knowledge that it’s almost over, which is surreal — grad school has so completely dominated my life for the past two years that it’s kind of like getting out of boot camp. And part of it may be just lack of sleep — I stumbled around campus like a zombie all day yesterday and came close to keeling over two or three times.

I recall avidly following an SI student’s blog the spring before I moved here, hoping to glean bits of insight about how to deal with what was coming. She dropped off the face of the earth in the last few months of her time at SI, not blogging more than two or three entries for months on end, and I wondered what had happened to her.

This is what happened to her.

More unpredictable Michigan weather, though I have the impression that this is about the end of it for a few months. Yesterday it got up to 77 degrees and was warm and even muggy. Today it was overcast, chilly, and not much over 60. Of course I overdressed yesterday and underdressed today. But it’s supposed to be clear and sunny the rest of the week.

There’s a blog called «Overheard in New York ». If Ann Arbor had a similar blog, it would be somewhat more boring. Or maybe somewhat more pedantic.

Intellectual Lecturer Type: “Maurizio’s introduction to Marx Beyond Marx is the only thing I’ve read that tries to bring together all of those threads.” [Cafe Ambrosia]

I discovered the « Scissor Sisters » last night. Got their album via iTunes today and burned it onto a CD for my road trip next week. Ooooo that Jake Shears!!!! Oooooo lala!

I’m feeling tres gay. [Except, of course, that real-er and hip-er gay boys discovered them way a year ago and have now moved on. But I never claimed to be hip. Just gay. Sue me.]

Then:

‘Corporate Legal Times, September, 2004; LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. 10

‘Boy Scout Pride

‘Dear Editor:
‘Bruce Collins is mistaken when he calls Boy Scouts a “fundamentally different” organization from the one he joined 40 years ago. [“An Eagle Scout Takes Issue With Group’s Politics” July, p. 7]. Boy Scouts is the same organization with the same values and goals. What is fundamentally different, however, is our times.

‘Some intolerant elements in our society want to force scouting to abandon its values and to become fundamentally different. They want scouting to forego its constitutional rights, affirmed in 2000 by the Supreme Court in BSA v. Dale, and adopt fundamentally different values from the ones that helped shape the character of Mr. Collins and 106 million other young men over the past 94 years.

‘It bothers Mr. Collins that scouting is defending itself, even though he acknowledged that it has been “dragged into” the “culture war.” He says the tone of our legal-issues web site, bsalegal.org, is defensive. The site does seek to defend our values and to inform the public about the three-decade-long legal assault on scouting. That we need a legal-issues web site is testament to the fact that our constitutional rights are under attack.

‘Clearly, Mr. Collins longs for a time when the Boy Scout organization could give its undivided attention to the “good stuff” of Scouting: “camping and life skills …” So do we. Mr. Collins would do well to communicate his displeasure to those directing their discriminatory assault against his beloved Boy Scouts—the ACLU.

‘Douglas S. Smith Jr.
‘National Director of Program
‘Boy Scouts of America’

—Via « Towleroad »

« Now »:

‘A former official of the Boy Scouts of America is facing up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to charges of possession and distribution of child pornography. Douglas Sovereign Smith Jr., 61, was accused of receiving images over the Internet of children engaging in sex acts. Smith who lives in Colleyville, near Fort Worth, remains free until sentencing July 12. In addition to prison time he could be fined up to $250,000. Smith was a national program director and had been with the Boy Scouts for 39 years. One of his duties was leading a task force protecting youth from sexual abuse. … Smith has been an ardent supporter of the BSA’s ban on gays serving as scout leaders. … Smith was honored by the BSA last year with a Distinguished Service Award. His nomination read in part, “His visionary support to the National OA Committee has allowed our Order to move to new levels.”

—365Gay.com

Hypocrisy. It’ll bite ya on the ass every time.

I ventured over to Fourth this morning and tried the fare at Eastern Accents. Not bad. They have really good buns. But their tea is expensive. You get a teensy little espresso-type glass and a French press pot, which is a nice touch, but I’d rather have the pint glass and refills (you have to pay a whopping $2.10 for this little faux-espresso set-up). Still, the buns are excellent and come in a multiplicity of appealing flavors — chicken, pineapple, chocolate, you name it, and they have great turnovers, too — so I may go back again, just for the baked goods. (The baked goods at Ambrosia, sad to say, aren’t anything to write home about.)

Yes, it’s spring, all right. The temperature hit 69 degrees this morning — I felt overdressed all day in a coat that I’d stupidly brought along — and the predicted thundershowers that were supposed to take place this afternoon never came close to materializing. They’re still predicting a 40% chance of snow for Friday night. I’ll believe that when I see it.

I was thinking of writing a diatribe to the Daily about yesterday’s article on commencement speakers (a bunch of whiny, childish undergrads boo-hooed about the lack of big name speakers for their ceremony) but someone (an undergrad) beat me to it in today’s edition:

The truth is I would be proud if anyone agreed to speak when I graduate next year, but I won’t be surprised if no one comes. After all, who wants to deal with a bunch of spoiled children who do nothing but whine and throw tantrums without all the facts?

Way to go!

Well, it looks like there may be rain and even some snow (!) later in the week, but today was undeniably spring. After a chilly, drab Easter Sunday, today dawned sunny and the sun stayed out all day long — the first all-sunshine day we’ve had here in, what, an eternity? Probably my favorite thing about Ann Arbor is that you know it when the seasons change. I saw my first robin of the year tonight at 5.30. There were innumerable starlings and other warblers out everywhere you looked. I saw more joggers out on the sidewalks of Tree Town this afternoon than I’ve seen in the whole past three months. Undergrads were out throwing Frisbees, the area around campus was packed with students and tourists, it took the bus over five minutes to traverse the block between William and South U, that huge mound of dirty snow outside our house is finally almost gone … yep, it’s spring again.

News

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AirBeagle is the ‘net pseudonym of Steve Pollock, who lives in Ann Arbor, MI. He is 40 years old (gasp) and was born in Roswell, NM, (yes, THAT Roswell, NM – and no, he’s not an alien). He’s also lived in Clovis, NM; Duncan, OK; Plano and Dallas, TX; Pleasant Hill, CA; Highlands Ranch, CO; San Francisco, CA; and Ann Arbor, MI. He currently lives on Wisteria Drive, but does NOT know any Desperate Housewives, so quit asking that question, thank you very much.

AirBeagle the website consists of several domains: « AirBeagle.net », which is about life in Michigan; « AirBeagle.org », which currently contains casualty listings; « AirBeagle.com » and « AirBeagle.biz », with resumes and communications consulting for clients; « AirBeagle.US », a collection of ‘blogs; and laquo; AntiFascist.US », which has links to articles about the NeoFascist American Empire and world in which we live. AirBeagle has been clogging up the bandwidth pipe since 17-Mar-99.

Steve is an accomplished communications professional with over 18 years experience in a wide variety of areas. He has provided communications and web consulting to a variety of clients for over 10 years and is available to serve your needs in these areas.

The beagle in ‘AirBeagle’ is Bayley Murphy Beagle, who is the pooch-on-the-porch, the sultan-of-the-sofa, the dog who has the art of looking subservient but actually completely dictating the agenda of any one who veers into his sphere of influence. Liposuction on this animal would be extremely expensive. The AirBeagle photo galleries are filled with WAY too many digital captures of His Laziness. His bio is only marginally more interesting than AirBeagle’s.

Thanks for stopping by!

This week saw (along with the unionized graduate student instructors going on a one-day walkout) undergrads tossing Frisbees out on the grass, warblers chirping in the trees, Canadian geese making their whooping noises … it must be spring again, or what’ll pass for spring in southeast Michigan until the thaw really hits. Whatever it is, I have a feeling we won’t be seeing much more snow.

Somebody is getting nostalgic for Ann Arbor’s ‘way cool skate and music scene’ in the ‘80s as embodied in a ‘zine called « Local Chaos » [via « MetaFilter ».]

Has anyone alerted « AAIO » yet?

Now, let’s see. The murderer of 100,000+ Iraqis and 1,600+ American troops and 140+ Texas inmates wants to save this brain-damaged vegetable lady … no, that can’t be right. Ummmm, how ‘bout: the man who signed a Texas law giving hospitals the okay to kill terminally ill patients who can’t afford their services wants to promote a ‘Culture of Life’ … hmmm, that doesn’t sound right, either. How ‘bout … the people who voted to slash and burn Medicaid funding which pays for such things as feeding tubes for persistent vegetative state people are about to have an apopleptic fit that one of the patients they screwed is about to die. Er, no. Yeah. The regime which has now committed more homicides of prisoners of war in just two years than the North Vietnamese did in over 13 is calling Michael Schiavo a murderer. Can that be the way it is?

Gee, it’s easy to get all confused by the current higgledy-piggledy-ness. Does somebody have a scorecard so I can keep track of the flip-flopping here? I mean, we’ve moved way beyond hypocrisy here, into something that is simply inconceivable by my poor little brain.

After all, I see tonight that none other than « Pat Buchanan » wants the Emperor to send in the Federales to ‘rescue’ Mrs. Schiavo (and be careful clicking on the link; it’s a transcript of a recent session of one of the many vacuous cable teewee stinkfests, this one known as Hardball [snicker, guffaw].):

‘PAT BUCHANAN: What George Bush ought to do right now is send federal marshals in and pick up Terri Schiavo and put that breathing tube back into her—excuse me, the food and hydration tube back into her, as this is taken up to the United States Supreme Court. He took an oath, Chris, to defend the Constitution of the United States. He has got an obligation, as well as these judges do, to defend that Constitution. And that means to protect this woman‘s life.

‘MATTHEWS: What happened to the 10th Amendment?

‘BUCHANAN: Look, the 10th Amendment has been dead as a door nail, Chris.’

Finally, one of the Fascists owns up to reality. (By the way, Fascist News Network’s John Gibson is calling for Jeb Bush to send in state troopers to force feed the poor woman. I’m sensing a trend in tonight’s Fascist Party Talking Points memo.)

Oh well. At least it conforms to #11 on the list of Elements of Fascism: ‘Abandonment of any consistent ideology in a drive for state power.’

As for Buchanan’s statement, well, he’s right. Much of the Constitution no longer is operational. I personally don’t think that we need to keep up the pretense any longer that this is a Constitutional Republic. Call it like it is and be done with it. The only question now is how do we slide through like Teflon and avoid poor Winston’s fate in 1984?

« Brilliant », as always.

Funny how deafening the silence is from Fascist Party politicians about « the majority ruling and politicians being out of touch with mainstream ‘Murricans » where Terry Schiavo is concerned:

’• 70% of Americans say it is inappropriate for Congress to involve itself in the Schiavo case.
• 67% of Americans “think the elected officials trying to keep Schiavo alive are doing so more for political advantage than out of concern for her or for the principles involved.” (Just 19% believe the elected officials are acting out of concern for her or their principles.)
• 58% of Republicans, 61% of independents and 63% of Democrats oppose federal government intervention in the case.
• 50% of evangelicals oppose federal government intervention in the case, just 44% approve of the intervention.
• 63% of Catholics and a plurality of evangelicals believe Schiavo’s feeding tube should be removed.’

— ABCNews Poll

Well, ain’t that just a kick in the pants?

My calendar says that today is the Vernal Equinox. Or, put another way, frickin’ Spring is finally here.

Of course, there’s still dirty white stuff on the ground and it’s so gray outside that I must invoke the infamous quote about Ann Arbor: ‘A sunless horror, devoid of joy and hope.’ And there’s a chance of snow later in the week.

But.

It’s frickin’ spring, people. Finally.

I’m two days late in noting it, but Happy Birthday, AirBeagle!

AirBeagle the website was born on 17-Mar-99 in San Francisco. Six years later, I still don’t know what I’m doing or why.

But we’re havin’ fun!

A big, hearty « Screw You, Michigan! », and especially Mike Cox … Love, Steve, future ex-Michigan resident:

‘Michigan’s attorney general issued an opinion Wednesday saying cities and other government entities won’t be able to provide benefits for same-sex partners of employees in future contracts because that would violate Proposal 2 – the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Attorney General Mike Cox wrote that the city of Kalamazoo’s policy of offering health and retirement benefits to same-sex partners is banned now that voters have approved a constitutional amendment that states the union between a man and woman is the only agreement recognized as a marriage or “similar union for any purpose.”’

Religiously insane twits.

There’s been a change in URL around here, so prepare to update your bookmarks and RSS feed.

Asquared will now (for reasons I won’t totally bore you with) be located at just

http://airbeagle.net/

If you continue to try asquared.airbeagle.net, you’ll get automatically forwarded to airbeagle.net, so no worries there.

As always, thanks for stopping by and we appreciate your support.

My dream early this morning was about a device called an Orgasmotron. It was a real dream; I am not making this up.

I was still in San Francisco and, inexplicably, went to someone’s house to get a demonstration of the Orgasmotron. It was a wand-like vibrator (like you see in Brookstone or Sharper Image) and it had a smaller wand sticking out of the side for clitoral stimulation.

The demonstrator was … an old lady. Again, inexplicably. She showed how to use the thing, noting that it kept track of how many orgasms you had via a digital readout on top.

Very weirdly, the thing also recorded voices … in her case, it had the voice of her dog and cat on it. (Don’t ask for explanations, I didn’t make this shit up.) The dog was an old Airedale and he and the cat were curled up on a doggy bed.

Suddenly, things shifted. I was in the same house and everything, but for some reason I wasn’t wearing shoes or socks and the old lady had morphed into a thirty-something gay boy who was asking if I was okay and didn’t I love the Orgasmotron. I said I did and started looking for my socks and shoes. As I put them on, I saw another couch underneath the front window of the room and, wrapped up in a blanket with just some blond hair and a blue eye and a nose sticking out was the gay boy’s partner, just lying there looking at me.

At that moment, the phone rang and woke me up.

Freaky-deaky.

We just took the long processional around the complex. It’s sunny and beautiful, but still quite chilly. NOAA says it’s 42. The high was supposed to be ‘near 39,’ so I guess I’ll take it.

Beagles needed lots of pooping, pottying and sniffing stops. He seems very perky and happy on the walk. As I’ve said many times over the last 10 years, we need to do it more often.

He’s now had a carob-dipped rollover and is getting up on the couch to take a nap. He’s all worned out …

From yesterday’s Ann Arbor News:

Ann Arbor has received 70.3 inches of snow so far this winter, compared with 36.8 by this time last year and 40 inches in an average season. The record is 75 inches in the 1981-82 winter season.

The exclamation above is what some undergrad was screeching into her cellphone when I was walking across campus this afternoon. Well, yes, I can sympathize, despite my vaunted fondness for winter. I spent much of the weekend in pain due to an injury induced by slipping in ice caused by the winter weather, so I should be just as pissed off at winter as that undergrad was. And damn was it ever cold today, all day. It seemed somehow even more piercingly and bitterly cold on March 8 than it did in January when the temps were at zero and below and you couldn’t walk anywhere without nearly freezing your sinuses.

It’ll all be over soon, or so we keep telling ourselves. Right? We’d like to think so — even I wouldn’t mind a change in scenery on a day like this — but as long as that “polar vortex” that the weather-head was pointing to on the map on the news tonight is spinning up there in Ontario and shoveling that Arctic air down in our direction, well…..

2005-03-07 14:39:00

« Boy George doesn’t have kind words for Kabbalah faddist Madonna Louise Ciccone »:

‘Gay pop star Boy George has slammed Madonna for embracing the Kabbalah, the mystical offshoot of Judaism which preaches homosexuality is a disease. … “I have a problem with Madonna’s devotion to Kabbalah, because I watched a documentary that said that Kabbalah believes that gay people are diseased and can be cured. She’s such a hypocrite. This is the woman who has embraced homosexuality and used it to her advantage.”

— Irish Examiner

Ouch.

Scandalous times at Boeing continue; this time, the company « fired its CEO over a sex affair with an executive »:

‘Boeing Co. on Monday said its board forced out president and chief executive officer Harry Stonecipher because of a relationship the married, 68-year-old Stonecipher had with a female executive at the company. The unexpected ouster makes Stonecipher, who spent just 15 months in the top job, the second consecutive CEO to depart the Chicago-based airplane maker and defense contractor in disgrace. His predecessor, Phil Condit, resigned Dec. 1, 2003, as a result of the defense contracting scandals that ultimately sent two Boeing executives — ex-Air Force procurement official Darleen Druyun and chief financial officer Mike Sears — to jail.’

— SF Chronicle

Oh, my. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

Apparently, sending your sixth-grade, 11-year-old daughter to school wearing low, hip-hugging jeans with the Playboy logo on the ass is acceptable practice in Ann Arbor.

Or was that too Puritan of me?

There was a vote last week in my home state’s legislature that « gives a glimmer of hope for civility, sanity and intelligence »:

‘The state House on Monday voted to abolish the death penalty in New Mexico and replace it with a sentence of life in prison without parole. The repeal bill passed on a vote of 38-31 and went to the Senate. “We believe that the time has come for New Mexico to take this thoughtful and practical step,” said the measure’s sponsor, Rep. Gail Beam, D-Albuquerque. Death penalty opponents have tried to get the law repealed for about eight years; it was the first time during that effort the full House had voted on it. Opponents of capital punishment said it does not deter murder, it’s expensive for the state, and there is a risk of executing innocent people.’

— Santa Fe New Mexican

The « Death Penalty Information Center » has facts debunking the old deterrence myth.

Asi es Nuevo Mexico … and I’m proud of it.

Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris, writing in the Washingotn Monthly, « make a compelling case for an Imperial draft of sorts » summed up by the following passage:

‘In short, America’s all-volunteer military simply cannot deploy and sustain enough troops to succeed in places like Iraq while still deterring threats elsewhere in the world. Simply adding more soldiers to the active duty force, as some in Washington are now suggesting, may sound like a good solution. But it’s not, for sound operational and pragmatic reasons. America doesn’t need a bigger standing army; it needs a deep bench of trained soldiers held in reserve who can be mobilized to handle the unpredictable but inevitable wars and humanitarian interventions of the future. And while there are several ways the all-volunteer force can create some extra surge capacity, all of them are limited.

‘The only effective solution to the manpower crunch is the one America has turned to again and again in its history: the draft. Not the mass combat mobilizations of World War II, nor the inequitable conscription of Vietnam — for just as threats change and war-fighting advances, so too must the draft. A modernized draft would demand that the privileged participate. It would give all who serve a choice over how they serve. And it would provide the military, on a “just in time” basis, large numbers of deployable ground troops, particularly the peacekeepers we’ll need to meet the security challenges of the 21st century.

‘America has a choice. It can be the world’s superpower, or it can maintain the current all-volunteer military, but it probably can’t do both.’

— Washington Monthly

Gonna be an interesting four years.

Ruh-roh … « a Fascist nerd-twit on the Federal Elections Commission just made a shot across bloggers’ collective bows » in what is probably a typically nasty campaign by the Fascists to destroy McCain-Feingold:

‘Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over. In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign’s Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate’s press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines. Smith should know. He’s one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet. In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. “The commission’s exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines” the campaign finance law’s purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.’

— News.com

‘Bradley’ … sounds like a brat/twit, doesn’t he? (Just look at his picture on the article.)

Oh well. I don’t really link much to campaign sites here; I can’t think of any that I did in campaign ‘04 (although I could be wrong). And I have very mixed feelings about McCain-Feingold. This will also bear close watching.

Folks are a bit up in arms because « British Airways flew a 747 on two long trips with just three operating engines » [gasp]:

‘A British Airways jet that continued on an 11-hour flight from Los Angeles to London after one of its four engines lost power also flew on three engines on a later flight from Singapore to London, the airline said Friday. The Boeing 747 left Singapore on February 25 and landed at London’s Heathrow Airport the next day, arriving only 15 minutes behind schedule, BA spokesman Jay Marritt said. Three hours into the 14-hour flight, an oil pressure indicator showed there was a problem with one of the engines, which the captain shut down as a precaution, Marritt said. It was the captain’s decision to continue with Flight 18, which was carrying 356 passengers, he added. “It’s still very safe to fly a 747 on three engines,” Marritt said. “It is certified to do so.”

— CNN

Well, it’s certified to finish a flight on less than four engines if it’s in the middle of nowhere with no landing strip in sight (as opposed to, say, a few miles from KLAX), but sure, we could quibble over that small detail.

Those evil gentlemen in the so-called liberal media are trying to draw a connection between these two incidents and a new comma-nistic, anti-bidness European Union regulation dictating fair compensation for inconvenienced passengers:

‘The decision not to return that flight after the engine lost power raised concerns about a new European Union law which requires European carriers to reimburse passengers for substantial delays. U.S. officials said they have no evidence the airline’s decision to continue on was influenced by the regulation. “We would never compromise the safety of our passengers,” said British Airways spokeswoman Diane Fung on Monday. “The plane is certified to fly on three engines. It is perfectly safe to do so. The pilots are trained for such situations.’

Right. You flew a 747 from KLAX to KLHR and again from KSIN to KLHR on three engines because it’s such a bitchin’ fine airplane (and hey, not operating that fourth engine saves expensive fuel!) and not because you’d have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars in compensation to 100+ inconvencied passengers.

Hmmmmmm.

Well, I’m an unrepentent old socialist; I love the new regulation. It would have been wonderful if it had existed back in April of 2000 when I was stuck for nine hours in the Venice, Italy, airport by Air France and just got a voucher for a $4.50 slice of cold pizza for lunch. The worst pizza I’ve ever eaten was in Italy. But I digress.

This one bears more watching.

Now, here’s yet another reason to consider Canadian citizenship: « somebody above the 49th has a spine and knows how to stand up to the Fascists »:

‘Dear Condi,

‘I’m glad you’ve decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It’s a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more. I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.’

— Winnipeg Free Press

Great stuff, eh? O, Canada! Thanks, Lloyd!

« Further proof that Lincoln was gay », by Paul Rudnick:

‘The first draft of the Gettysburg Address began, “Four score and seven years ago-ish …”

… ‘Lincoln urged Congress to bind the nation’s wounds “with malice toward none, with charity for all,” although under his breath he murmured, “except for a certain red-headed lieutenant, and he knows why.”

… ‘Another friend, Billy Greene, said that Lincoln’s thighs were “as perfect as a human being’s could be.” Lincoln was said to have responded, “It’s called Pilates.”

… ‘When Lincoln was told that Lee had surrendered, he gasped and exclaimed, “Oh no she didn’t!”’

— The New Yorker

And so on …

Shhhhhh. Don’t let the Fascists know it, but one of the Empire’s favorite uber-patriotic songs is actually all about [gasp] faggotry! Ahhhhhh! « The horror »:

‘A macaroni, was a fop or dandy with an extravagant hairstyle and affected mannerisms. More literally, a macaroni was a small tricorn hat placed on top of a high wig. Hence, when Yankee Doodle ‘stuck a feather in his cap, and called it macaroni’, it was the entire cap, not just the feather, that constituted a macaroni, and which symbolized him as a Dandy and a bit of a buffoon.’

— Rictor Norton, “The Macaroni Club: Homosexual Scandals in 1772”, Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 19-Dec-2004, updated 1-Mar-2005

Ooopsy! We already know that The Star-Spangled Banner tune is actually a tavern drunken drinking song … what’s next? America the Beautiful is actually a coded homage to the beauty show circuit?

Cool. Yankee Doodle Dandy is now AirBeagle’s theme song.

Yes, I suppose we have been blogging less lately. I confess to a lot of blogging fatigue, brought on mostly by a heavy final term at SI. Still a hell of a lot to work to do before it’s all over, seven weeks and change until my final final, graduation a week later, then …..

No more school. Strange to think about.

The weather hasn’t bothered me a lot, although I have taken some unfortunate spills in patches of ice in the past month or so (falling flat on my rear end both times, the second time more severely). I have accommodated to the snow and the cold far better than I thought I ever would. But I do understand why most people wouldn’t agree with me in my equanimity toward the prolonged winter, and I told a friend of mine the other day that if this had been three months straight of rain rather than snow, I would be in serious grouch mode myself about now. I am getting kind of tired of trudging through the snow and dealing with the dry-air-induced asthma, come to think of it. My spine isn’t too happy, either.

We do, perhaps, have a bit of blogging fatigue around these parts.

For myself, spring is just a mere, what, 17 days away. Oh yeah. Can’t wait. Get this ugly, dirty snow outta here.

Frank will be going into mourning then, pining away for the melted snow.

I shouldn’t speak for him, but I think there’s less than two months until graduation and last-term fatigue has set in; hence, the light blogging.

Cabin fever/graduation fever. Yeesh. The only content one around here is the beagle.

An acerbic columnist at The Guardian has a brilliant op-ed up which asserts that « death is no big deal »:

‘I lost a friend last week. These things happen — I’m bad at people, after all — but I can’t say I’m not pissed off. Last week I also talked to a nice lady who was great at describing loss, the details of loss, the amputated future, the lack of company. Because I’m bad at people it took me a long time to remember she was so well-informed because her husband died a while ago. I mean, ages ago, but she hasn’t forgotten him. Which is odd, isn’t it ? She wants to be able to talk to her husband, I want to be able to talk to my friend — but we shouldn’t. We should be over it. How do I know? Because I should be caring about how a bony tart and a petulant clothes horse choose to christen their spawn. I should be fretting over whether a lack of established royal precedent at Windsor register office will cause Camilla to spontaneously combust. I should want to see more and more and more of Jimmy Carr. Then I would be part of the real world, the things that matter, the questions that deserve every scrap of media attention they get.

‘Particularly, I should keep away from anything to do with unpleasantness, injury, or loss — they have no place in a modern media environment. Take Lance Corporal Andres Raya. I shouldn’t think about him. He’s dead now. He made it through Iraq, went home to California and couldn’t take it. He committed suicide by cop in a three-hour gun fight. But he doesn’t matter. Or Baha Mousa, he’s never going to get the kind of headlines he might if he’d shagged Jordan, or shat himself in a celebrity detox special. He’s dead now. Our troops killed him. But if that matters at all it’s as an indication of how stressed war can make the modern soldier. His brother Ala’a misses him, but he probably lacks perspective.’

— The Guardian

Like I said, brilliant.

The news report provides murky details, but apparently a « vicious homophobic beating in Santa Fe has sent a gay man to intensive care and his attackers to jail »;

‘A man remained hospitalized in intensive care Tuesday morning after he and another man were beaten in what Santa Fe police said was a hate crime sparked because the men are gay. According to a report in Tuesday’s edition of the Albuquerque Journal, police said James Maestas, 21, and another man were leaving the Denny’s Restaurant on Cerrillos with several friends early Sunday morning when they were approached by a group of five males who were throwing rocks at their car and challenging them to a fight. … According to the newspaper report, a police officer’s statement said that the attackers followed Maestas and his friend to the La Quinta Inn, where the friend was staying. That was when the group began beating up the Maestas and his friend, according to the officer’s statement. During the beating outside La Quinta Inn, the attackers were yelling, “Let’s (mess) these faggots up,” the officer’s statement said.’

— The New Mexico Channel

I’ve stayed in that La Quinta Inn and probably eaten at that Denny’s. When Frank and I were moving from SF to Ann Arbor a year-and-a-half ago, we ate dinner at a restaurant on Cerillos pretty close by; Frank got some intensely negative, uncomfortable vibes from some macho dipshit and his girlfriend who were sitting nearby. Santa Fe may be an allegedly ‘liberal’ town, but this kind of thing isn’t exactly new.

And the social climate that the Emperor and the Fascist Party have created will only make things worse, of course. Hate Crimes legislation, civil rights, civil protections are all being opposed by so-called Christians.

Tonight, I’m a little less inclined to want to move to Santa Fe after I graduate; a little more inclined to move to Canada.

After all, the Amurrican empire is now a place where « gay and lesbian are naughty words, but Hitler, Nazi, terrorist and bin Laden aren’t »:

‘To the NFL it’s naughty to be “GAY” but OK to be “BIN LADEN.” You can be a “NAZI” but not a “LESBIAN.” Even a gay man with the last name Gay can’t buy a jersey. This rather bizarre conclusion is reached when trying to order a personalized jersey from the NFL Shop, the online merchandise site run by the league. Anyone trying to buy a jersey with the single word “GAY” or “LESBIAN” or “GAY PRIDE” on the back gets a rejection message that states: “This field should not contain a naughty word.” The wording was changed in the hours since this article first appeared and the NFL contacted. Now when you enter “GAY” and try to checkout you get the following: “The personalization entered cannot be accepted.” This wording is no less offensive than “naughty” and doesn’t change the issue. Especially when you can buy jerseys with “FAG” or “HITLER” on them. Someone running the NFL’s website decided certain terms were “naughty,” including a declaration of sexual orientation. But “BIN LADEN,” “TERRORIST,” or “AL QAEDA” are all accepted; just have your credit card handy (personalized jerseys start at $79.99).’

« Godwin » be damned. Folks, look, it’s 1935, this is the Third Reich, we gay and lesbian citizens have just been banned from getting married and are about to lose even more hard-won civil rights and there are folks connected to the halls of power calling for our further demonization, marginalization, branding and out-and-out execution.

May God harshly judge, condemn and punish America’s Fascist Emperor, Party and supporters and its so-called Christian extremists.

And may God bless and heal Mr. Maestas, fighting for his life in that Santa Fe hospital.

Thanks to quite a few problems, some internal and some external, the folks over at « TextDrive », which is where all the AirBeagle sites reside, have had some problems the last couple of weeks.

So if you’ve been getting a series of errors while trying to access any part of AirBeagle, you can blame, mostly, the evil, dirty, smelly, rat bastard comment and e-mail spammers who flood servers with their foul stench and cause pain to website owners and, especially, techno-geeks at webhosting providers.

The other problem has been those techno-geeks; they did a very special offer for lifetime hosting for $400 and don’t seem to have been very prepared for the rush of new orders that they got. They’ve been overwhelmed, victims of their own success.

However, response time seems to be better this evening and the ‘internal errors’ seem to have stopped, so maybe we’re rounding a corner.

Unfortunately, individual entries don’t seem to be working right, nor do categories. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on there. You can still live comments via the popup windows.

And part of the mess is of my own making; I’m moving all sections and folding airbeagle.net and airbeagle.org into airbeagle.us. It may be a week or two, but we’ll get back to normal soon.

Thanks for hanging in there with us.

The « AARP » has its own « Typepad » blog out; it’s dedicated to fighting the « disgusting and reprehensible Fascist campaign to discredit AARP and elderly supporters of Social Security ». What a sad statement about American today that it’s even necessary.

Why is the blog necessary? Consider:

’… with GOP support and the plan’s arithmetic looking equally shaky, Bush’s allies aren’t taking chances. A well-funded conservative group called USA Next posted a Web page with two pictures: a camouflage-clad American GI with an X painted on him; two men in tuxedos kissing, with a checkmark on them. The caption: “The REAL AARP Agenda.” The ad was justified, the group argued, because the Ohio branch of AARP had opposed an anti-gay-marriage referendum in the state. (The national body has taken no position on that or other cultural issues.) But the real reason, said USA Next’s CEO, was pure political provocation. The ad was a “test,” Charlie Jarvis said, to see whether “left-wing bloggers” would “focus entirely on one image and explode about it. My guess was right.”

— Newsweek

The real reason rears its ugly head. Like gays, seniors are perfectly acceptable cannon fodder in the Great American Culture War, according to the Fascist stormtroopers.

Doesn’t matter that the Brown Shirts are lying. These amoral people will do anything to score points.

The AARP’s position is clear. As the blog itself notes:

‘Marie Smith, AARP President, in a February 25 speech to the City Club of Cleveland said: “AARP’s opposition to private accounts funded by Social Security is not a liberal position, or a conservative position, or a Republican position, or a Democrat position — it’s a common-sense position that can and should be supported by people of all political persuasions and ideologies who care about the future retirement security of our children and grandchildren.”’

Amen, Marie. Don’t let the Fascist Party smear campaign get you down. Fight the pigs!

« Our Life in Michigan – Miscellaneous Beagle Pics »

In which Beagle gets some Salon Treatment and takes a snowy walk in Winchell Park:

« Our Life in Michigan – Miscellaneous Beagle Pics »

Then:

‘They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary
security, deserve neither liberty or security.’

— Benjamin Franklin

Now:

‘Protecting national security must take precedence over civil liberties because Britain faces the prospect of “terrorism without limit” that could result in “thousands” being killed.’

— Tony Blair

Here’s how AirBeagle works:

There are six domains in the AirBeagle family, AB.US, AB.org, AB.com, AB.biz, AB.net and AntiFascist.US, but only two are really used — .US and .biz. AntiFascist.US automatically forwards to AB.US, as does AB.net and AB.org. AB.com automatically forwards to AB.biz.

« AirBeagle.US » contains the following ‘blogs:

« Ask »: Here’s where you find out all you want to know about AirBeagle.
« Bike »: A chronicle of my efforts to ride a bike and get some regular exercise.
« Contact »: How to reach out and touch us.
« Drive »: I just leased a new Jeep, my fourth. This is where we do a Car and Driver bit, keeping a record of expenses and other things that happen over the course of the lease.
« Fly »: In which I indulge a major passion: airliners. I love ‘em. I write about the industry and post some pictures.
« The AntiFascist ». While similar in tone to AB.US, except it only contains links to news articles which highlight current affairs in five areas, News, Politics, Culture, Fundamentalism and Corporatism, both Imperially and Internationally. Read ‘em and weep.
« Live »: This is the joint blog which I and my partner Frank write … it’s all about our grad school experiences while attending UM in Ann Arbor. This is where all the good stuff is, with lots of variety.
« Print »: Life with literature, also a passion. Not as frequently updated, but mainly where I keep a list of books I’ve read or am reading.
« Read »: Totally random, personal stuff which doesn’t fit anywhere else. It’s the most personally revealing section.
« Remember »: Another major passion: history. Primarily, you’ll find me writing about the history of Europe between 1815 and 1945, but there are other bits and pieces here too.
« Screen »: All about film. Movies I’m watching or have just seen, stuff I’ve rented from the library and an up-to-date listing of my 500-disc DVD library.
« Slaughter » contains a list honoring all the men and women who have lost their lives since the Boy Emperor George II seized the throne of the ‘Murrican Empire in 2001. I update as often as I can, but the deaths are getting too numerous and it’s getting hard to keep up.
« Snork »: The Dayley Bayley is where you’ll find a recent picture of my dog, Bayley, the Beagle in AirBeagle, updated every day. Or as often as I get a chance.
« Think »: All about my adventures in teaching and in grad school at UM’s School of Education, where I’ll be getting my master’s degree. I keep it fairly generic; don’t need to get dooced.
« View »: All photos, all the time. Here’s the repository of all our photos that we take over time. They cover some five years, but I hope to add more soon.
« Watch »: Here’s where you can watch the beagle live. It’s the place to get voyeuristic and spy on us via our webcam. If you see a graphic that says we’re offline, it means the camera is off and we’re looking for some privacy.
« Write »: The final AB.US section is where I keep longer writings and essays that don’t fit on the main blogs.

The main page of « AirBeagle.US » is the oldest section of AirBeagle and where I blow off the most steam. Here’s where I fight the good fight, mostly against the self-righteous, hypocritical and evil Fascists and Fascist FunDumbMentalists that would turn the American Republic into the Fascist Theocracy of ‘Murrica. I don’t pull punches here. If you don’t like in-your-face progressive politics and activism, and/or you think George W. is akin to God, then you won’t like what you see here.

Then there is « AirBeagle.biz » which is used to deliver information about my education communications consulting and my personal resume.

A better site map will be coming when I get a chance.

Welcome.

There’’s been a very curious transaction this week; « a Canadian company bought three Boeing plants in Kansas and Oklahoma »

‘Toronto-based conglomerate Onex Corp. is heading for the potentially turbulent skies of the aviation industry with a $1.2 billion (U.S.) purchase of three Boeing Co. commercial aircraft plants in Kansas and Oklahoma. “We have come together around a vision, to build a stand-alone competitive business with customers from around the world,” Nigel Wright, an Onex managing director, said in a conference call to announce the deal for the three plants yesterday. The deal includes $900 million in cash and assumption of about $300 million in existing debt, according to Onex managing director Seth Mersky. It’’s worth about $1.47 billion (Canadian). “Onex is awfully happy to begin this process. We share a common goal to build a strong, stable, world-class aerospace supplier,” Mersky said. The plants provide Boeing with fuselage and other components for 737, 747, 767 and 777 planes and is a supplier for the 787 Dreamliner.’‘

— Toronto Star

What’’s curious is that Onex has no aerospace experience at all. Boeing says the transaction is intended to increase competition. Says Onex’’s chief: ‘’This could have been very advantageous for an aerospace buyer because they could have eliminated cost from administration or engineering functions, but Boeing decided to take a different tack … They decided that the opportunity to build a stand-alone business, and having more suppliers in the market would be better in the long run.

Sounds to me more like an identity crisis in the face of slipping market share thanks to Airbus, but that’’s just my opinion. Boeing Commercial appears to be shrinking and becoming strictly just a designer of airplanes. You have to wonder if it’’s a viable strategy over the long run, but then I’‘m far from being an expert on big bidness.

Naturally, the employees, as usual, may get the shaft. Onex claims that they will be hiring, but two passages in the article stand out. Onex, however, avoided commenting on whether the new company, to be formed to run the plants, will have jobs for all the plants’’ employees.

’”The 9,000 employees of the old plants will have to apply to the new company for jobs. Onex says it intends to hold meetings with employees over the next several days.’

Which is to say here’s an opportunity to weed out ‘undesirables’ and take advantage of Oklahoma and Kansas laws which are hostile to unions.

Regardless of the true intent, forcing an employee to ‘re-apply’ for the job he or she currently holds is insulting and demeaning. Way to get off on the right foot, Onex.

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Steve Pollock
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