Me? I’m good. Survived the first two weeks of grad school, albeit with plenty of pain. Looks like I’ll survive the rest too, so it’s not been a bad week.

Today:

Hail.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been trying out a different bus route home — the 14, which runs from Blake Transit Center to Pioneer High by what is probably the most circuitous and esoteric route imaginable. Unlike most AATA buses, the 14 doesn’t run directly through the center of town (State, Packard, Main, etc.). Instead it goes up Fourth, down Huron to the University of Michigan Hospital complex, where it makes a circuit through the parking lot next to the main hospital building, the Taubman Health Center, and then heads back the way it came and turns onto Observatory. It then turns left on Geddes and heads at least a half mile out, making a surprising right onto Arlington (surprising because it’s hard to imagine the well-heeled homewoners along this road allowing a bus route on their thoroughfare without a huge fight).

After a leisurely crawl through this district of tree-fronted manses, the bus turns and heads across Stadium, circles around some of the Arbor Village and Ann Arbor Woods apartment complexes on Medford and Manchester, and turns back onto Stadium near Tappan Middle School, where it travels until hitting Pioneer High. All told, it’s about a 20-minute trip from Blake Transit Center to Stadium and Packard, but it’s worth the extra time.

There are never very many people on the bus — I don’t usually see more than a half dozen in all on any one night, though one night this week the bus I rode had almost all of its seats filled — and you get to see parts of town that you can’t get a look at when you’re driving or walking, not to mention the somewhat felicitous weirdness of being able to gawk at the ostentatious plots of land in the stretch along Arlington, most of which, even with the carefully tended and impossibly huge expanses of grass (these aren’t yards, they’re football fields) and the occasional open garage, never look as if anyone lives on them (I wonder idly when the houses on them were built and how much they would list for if they were put on the market). An elderly couple got off the bus in the Arlington neighborhood one night last week, but otherwise I’ve seen only one or two people ever disembark there.

The Fourth was relatively quiet until about an hour or so ago, when some neighbors started off a round of fireworks (I’ll never understand what makes people with half a brain think that it’s okay to light off explosives around foliage, but I guess that’s just me). The town was almost eerily deserted the whole three-day weekend, with a lot of people, I imagine, taking extended trips out of town. From the looks of the 917.1 section at the main branch of the AADL, the destination of choice was Ontario and/or Quebec … all of the books about the eastern region of Canada were checked out when I looked on Friday evening. We took the beagle on walks on Saturday and Sunday and the schoolyards we went to were as quiet as cemeteries. It was kind of nice — the lull before the storm that will be the Art Fair in a matter of two weeks.

The weather was kind of mild compared with the heat we had during the majority of June. The Detroit News ran an article today that said that June 2005 was the hottest June on record in southeast Michigan, with the only hotter June having been in 1933. It sure felt that way. This weekend, though, was not as humid as many recent days have been, and the temps were in the 70s and 80s. The exception was today, when the temperature got back into the 90s, but a fairly strong storm barreled in from Lake Michigan late this afternoon and drenched the area for an hour or so. I walked to the supermarket around five — our block doesn’t have a lot of tree cover, so you can see the horizon to the west with a relatively unimpeded view. The sky to the west was an amazing shade of slate as the thunderheads made their way east. You could even smell the storm coming — I can’t describe the smell, really, except to say that it definitely smelled like Lake Michigan.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

—John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

I had a better afternoon yesterday with anxiety, probably because I took a nap at lunch in an empty classroom. It helped a great deal.

But the bigger issue that is emerging is the one that has been my prime concern: my physical capacity to deal with the pain, nausea and fatigue and keep up with the demands of the grad program. I can’t write to take notes and spending all day in class on the keyboard and then going home and doing homework all evening is putting me in pain. The nausea is getting worse as I take more and more methotrexate and so is the fatigue, which will be compounded by the demands of the program.

Worst case: I’m thinking of trying to hold on for the summer term, after which I would have 11 grad credits, which could be transferred to a program that I could via distance learning over a longer period of time. It would allow me to pace myself.

In the meantime, I’m in pain and I’m sick and I’m tired of it. But all I can do is hang on.

Today’s posts are simply going to be whining sessions. Forgive me, but this is all the therapy I can get while I’m sitting in class and keep my cool.

My fatigue level is high suddenly. Nauseated. Fatigued. Anxiety-ridden. I’m a mess and I need to whine about it. Nothing wrong with that. Everybody needs to whine.

The main fear I had when considering whether to attempt to restart grad school was, ironically, not the anxiety; I expected that and it will go away. The big fear is physical … fatigue and arthritis and the side effects from the chemotherapy I’m taking for the arthritis, which induces more fatigue and nausea. Can I keep up with the pace? I have to pace myself and get plenty of rest. There will be times when I have to be less than perfect. And I’ll have to accept that and forgive myself.

And that will be hard; I’m pretty angry with myself right now.

I’m trying to relax. I’m trying to breathe. I’m trying not to lose it. But it’s hard. Nausea is increasing this morning.

The silly little games we do increase my problem. I understand the purpose, but here at the beginning, they are trying to break through my castle walls that have been erected in my heart to help stop the hurt. When these anxiety attacks happen, I want to shut down and shut out the outside world, which is the source of the hurt. While I’m adjusting, the walls are high and thick and I don’t like to be cooperative … that would mean collaborating with what is hurting me.

It’s self-protection while I adjust. I understand the process, but it is really agonizing to go through. The flight mechanism kicks in and I want to flee back home. It’s been the same way for over 36 years; I don’t like to be forced to do things away from home.

It would be nice to be normal …

Not as unpleasant, though, as that afternoon a week or so after I’d first moved here and got lost walking down Madison trying to find the main branch of the Ann Arbor District Library. Which tells me that either (a) that afternoon was unusually humid or (b) I’ve finally acclimated to the muggy summers. We’ll see — many more hot and muggy days to come to test out the hypothesis.

« Truly hilarious ».

‘Did you guys catch Tom Cruise on the Today Show this morning? I did. It was va-gynius. Watching Tom Cruise blabber on and on about the ills of medicine was mesmerizing. I’m a Matt Lauer fan, and I thought he handled himself smartly and gentlemanly. As far as Tom’s movie goes, it’s clearly gonna tank. Here’s the transcript of the segment … along with some visual annotations by yours truly.’

Brilliant.

The temps are supposed to be 14 degrees above normal here later today … yikes. The only possible relief may be a few scattered thunderstorms during the afternoon. It won’t get below 80, apparently, until next Friday.

I was eating breakfast in Frank’s Diner this morning and overheard one of the customers complaining about the weather to the waitress. She said, “It’s days like these when I ask myself, ‘When’s winter coming?’” I guess I’m not the only person in southern Michigan who misses milder temperatures.

Summer is here in a big way this week, despite the storm interlude on Tuesday. The past few days have been hot and almost cloudless, and the humidity is starting to creep upward. The weather has not been all that oppressive (although a friend of mine points out that that perception may be due to the fact that I’ve acclimated, not because of the weather itself), but that’s bound to change in the next several days when the temps start to rise into the 90s. There’s supposedly a cold front on the way but the National Weather Service seems to doubt that it will make it this far south. As the long-range forecast on the National Weather Service page says:

The theme for the long term weather pattern is consistency …. The consistency from run to run supports a good degree of confidence that the long wave pattern affecting our weather will change very little if hardly at all.

On my way home Tuesday night, a brief but intense deluge came down from the sky—a ripping thunderstorm on the first day of summer. I was unprepared, having forgotten to check the National Weather Service on the way out the door in the morning and consequently having also forgotten my umbrella. I was soaked through by the time I got home (a walk of seven minutes or so), but it wasn’t necessarily unpleasant—the temperature was still fairly high so the rain was, instead of cold and miserable, almost refreshing.

« This » is how the Empire supports the troops these days apparently:

‘John Tod of Mesa had been prepared to face Father’s Day worrying about his son’s pending date with the war in Iraq. Then Uncle Sam stepped in with more disappointing developments. Marine Pfc. Jeremy Tod called home with news that his superiors were urging him and fellow Marines to buy special military equipment, including flak jackets with armor plating, to enhance the prospects of their survival. The message was that such purchases were to be made by Marines with their own money. “He said they strongly suggested he get this equipment because when they get to Iraq they will wish they had,” Tod said. Total estimated cost: $600.’

Hopefully, John Tod won’t have to « feel the same pain as Celeste Zappala »:

’”This war was based on lies and deception,” said Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia, whose soldier son was killed while providing security for investigators searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Zappala said, “The only way we can understand how we’ve come to this disastrous position is to find out what the truth is.” Zappala’s unsettling words appeared even more striking considering the newspaper in which they appeared: Her quoted remarks were included in a news story in Stars & Stripes, a Department of Defense-authorized newspaper distributed at U.S. military facilities. Knocking some of the shine off the tabloid’s usual cheerleading tone about U.S. foreign policy and the military, its obligatory news article about parents who have demanded that Bush come clean about his actions in the run-up to the war seemed uncharacteristically somber. The newspaper also quoted Dianne Davis, a mother from Pennsylvania whose son was killed last August. “I envy the parents who support this war, because if I did I’d sleep better,” Davis said. She added, “But I don’t sleep well. My son died for a lie.”’

Which is as good a summation of things as I’ve seen yet.

Well, my words about the hammer of summer weren’t quite on target. The past week has seen a few days of temps in the high 70s, but mostly it’s been overcast, even drizzly and thunderstormy some days, with highs in the upper 60s and low 70s. Some of it has been remnants of Tropical Storm Arlene, which hit the Gulf of Mexico late last week, and some of it has just been persistent low pressure systems. The trend is for some higher temps this weekend, but the National Weather Service is predicting more low pressure systems for early next week, so it looks as if summer is just sort of going to continue limping along.

Gosh, it’s been hot.

So how’s everybody been? We’re still here, just a bit overwhelmed. I start grad school in two weeks and the allergy assault on Frank continues unabated.

The beagle is on a new diet and we have a houseguest for an extended stay.

The last day of school for Ann Arbor PS is tomorrow; I plan to go spend an hour or so in the morning with my favorite class of autistic students at a northeast AA elementary school. It’s been quite a year taking care of them; I’ve learned so much and had such a great time.

And there’s a new Mac under my fingertips; for grad school notetaking and so on, it was necessary. It’s a new 15-inch Powerbook G4 and it’s totally fabulous. It came with OS 10.4 Tiger, which is pretty indescribably awesome. It continues to prove that WinDuhze is truly primitive. The difference between Tiger and WinDuhze is like the difference between flying London-New York first class on Concorde and rowing a leaky bathtub.

Enough product placement for now. Back to pre-reading for grad school.

Oh, that « Gore Vidal », rehashing old, long-forgotten battles:

‘Asked to predict who would win in ‘04, I said that, again, Bush would lose, but I was confident that in the four years between 2000 and 2004 creative propaganda and the fixing of election officials might very well be so perfected as to insure an official victory for Mr. Bush. As Representative Conyers’s report, Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio (www.house.gov/conyers), shows in great detail, the swing state of Ohio was carefully set up to deliver an apparent victory for Bush even though Kerry appears to have been the popular winner as well as the valedictorian-that-never-was of the Electoral College.

‘I urge would-be reformers of our politics as well as of such anachronisms as the Electoral College to read Conyers’s valuable guide on how to steal an election once you have in place the supervisor of the state’s electoral process: In this case, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who orchestrated a famous victory for those who hate democracy (a permanent but passionate minority). The Conyers Report states categorically, “With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State Kenneth J. Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.” In other words, the Florida 2000 scenario redux, when the chair for Bush/Cheney was also the Secretary of State. Lesson? Always plan ahead for at least four more years.’

Wonder who the 2008 Heir Apparent will be? And which state will the fix be in this time?

Today, somehow, seemed appropriately the start of summer (though summer doesn’t officially start for another week and a half). Yesterday, the heat was hot, but it didn’t feel oppressive and exhausting. Today, it felt that way — I left the house at 9.30 and the heat and humidity were already stifling, and there wasn’t the slightest breeze. It’s not quite as humid yet as I remember my first summer days in Ann Arbor in 2003 being, but maybe that’s just a function of having accliimated to the weather of southeast Michigan.

Someone told me today that we’ve had more days in the high 80s and low 90s in the past two weeks than we had the entire summer of 2004. I don’t know if that’s true, but it does feel as though the weather now is somehow (over)compensating for the unusually long winter. Still, it would have been nice to have had a few weeks of spring before slamming into the heaviness of Michigan summer.

It’s great how «this list» equates John Dewey, Betty Friedan, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Maynard Keynes, Mao Zedong, and Adolf Hitler. Such heartwarming catholicity is a rare find these days.

Why isn’t Catcher in the Rye on the list? Are the book burners asleep on the job?

[Link courtesy «Bifurcated Rivets».]

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 august body for three decades, and today is one of the all-time low points. We are going in the wrong direction, in the direction of hate and fear and discrimination. Members, we all know what this is about; this is the politics of divisiveness at it’s worst, a wedge issue that is meant to divide.

‘Members, this is a distraction from the real things we need to be working on. At the end of this session, this Legislature, this leadership will not be able to deliver the people of Texas fundamental and fair answers to the pressing issues of our day.

‘Let’s look at what this amendment does not do: It does not give one Texas citizen meaningful tax relief. It does not reform or fully fund our education system. It does not restore one child to CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] who was cut from health insurance last session. It does not put one dime into raising Texas’ Third World access to health care. It does not do one thing to care for or protect one elderly person or one child in this state. In fact, it does not even do anything to protect one marriage.

‘Members, this bill is about hate and fear and discrimination… When I was a small girl, white folks used to talk about ‘protecting the institution of marriage’ as well. What they meant was if people of my color tried to marry people of Mr. Chisum’s color, you’d often find the people of my color hanging from a tree… Fifty years ago, white folks thought interracial marriages were ‘a threat to the institution of marriage.’

‘Members, I’m a Christian and a proud Christian. I read the good book and do my best to live by it. I have never read the verse where it says, ‘Gay people can’t marry.’ I have never read the verse where it says, ‘Thou shalt discriminate against those not like me.’ I have never read the verse where it says, ‘Let’s base our public policy on hate and fear and discrimination.’ Christianity to me is love and hope and faith and forgiveness — not hate and discrimination.

‘I have served in this body a lot of years, and I have seen a lot of promises broken… So… now that blacks and women have equal rights, you turn your hatred to homosexuals, and you still use your misguided reading of the Bible to justify your hatred. You want to pass this ridiculous amendment so you can go home and brag — brag about what? Declare that you saved the people of Texas from what?

‘Persons of the same sex cannot get married in this state now. Texas law does not now recognize same-sex marriages, civil unions, religious unions, domestic partnerships, contractual arrangements or Christian blessings entered into in this state — or anywhere else on this planet Earth.
‘If you want to make your hateful political statements then that is one thing — but the Chisum amendment does real harm. It repeals the contracts that many single people have paid thousands of dollars to purchase to obtain medical powers of attorney, powers of attorney, hospital visitation, joint ownership and support agreements. You have lost your way. This is obscene …

‘I thought we would be debating economic development, property tax relief, protecting seniors’ pensions and stem cell research to save lives of Texans who are waiting for a more abundant life. Instead we are wasting this body’s time with this political stunt that is nothing more than constitutionalizing discrimination. The prejudices exhibited by members of this body disgust me.

‘Last week, Republicans used a political wedge issue to pull kids — sweet little vulnerable kids — out of the homes of loving parents and put them back in a state orphanage just because those parents are gay. That’s disgusting.

‘I have listened to the arguments. I have listened to all of the crap … I want you to know that this amendment [is] blowing smoke to fuel the hell-fire flames of bigotry.’

The amendment passed anyway, but thank you, Ms. Senfronia, God love you and bless you for that. And thank you as always, Miss Molly.

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 prisoners at Guantánamo complain that guards have mistreated the Koran, the American Civil Liberties Union said today. In one 2002 summary, an FBI interrogator notes a prisoner’s allegation that guards flushed a Koran down the toilet. The disclosure comes on the heels of controversy over a Newswee_k report saying that government investigators had corroborated an almost identical incident. _Newsweek ultimately retracted its story because a confidential government source could not be confirmed. … According to the FBI documents, a detainee interviewed in August 2002 said that guards had flushed the Koran in the toilet. Others reported the Koran being kicked, withheld as punishment, and thrown on the floor, and said they were mocked during prayers.

‘The release of the FBI interviews follows the disclosure last week of Defense Department documents regarding other cases in which military personnel mistreated the Koran and used a religious symbol to taunt detainees. In the documents released today, one detainee informs his FBI interviewers that using the Koran “as a reprisal or as an incentive for cooperation has failed,” and that the only result would be “the damage caused to the reputation of the United States once what had occurred was released to the world.” While another detainee acknowledged that there might be “a legitimate need to search the book for hidden items,” he objected to the abusive manner in which the searches were conducted.’

So, just like with the Swifties and the CBS Guard memos, we have, probably, a story that is essentially true, but the reporting of which is discredited on what could be termed a technicality. Follow up reports that the story is essentially true can be ignored, especially since the organization doing the reporting is one of the most hated of institutions by the Fascist right.

I’m sensing a pattern here.

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 “unseasonable” weather. It should be over soon, I keep thinking, but then I look at the NOAA weather forecast page (which has not yet been gutted by Rick Santorum) and there are lines of thunderstroms predcited all through Saturday night. Having not lived through enough Michigan years to know, I wonder if this means that the summer, when it comes, will be a humdinger?

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 filibuster by Democrats removed, she was nearly certain then to get the simple majority vote needed to give her the seat that long has eluded her, perhaps as early as Tuesday. The compromise agreement was hammered out over days of negotiations by a group that included some of the Senate’s most senior and most junior members. It guarantees confirmation of at least three Bush appointees but lets Democrats continue to block two others. The agreement also opens the way for yes-or-no votes on two other of … Bush’s judicial picks who have been in nomination limbo for more than two years — William H. Pryor Jr. for the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It may add pressure on … Bush to take greater note of the preferences of Senate Democrats when he makes his pick to fill the next Supreme Court vacancy. And it removed a Democratic threat to snarl Senate business, which could have doomed Bush proposals on Social Security, immigration and taxes.’

Sad day when ‘moderates’ do a ‘compromise’ which still lands right-wing fascist judges permanent judicial seats.

But I liked the part where Mr. Dr. Bill Jesus Frist snuck out the back way, his press secretary holding the doors of the Capitol closed against the press gaggle following him to allow the getaway. His paymasters in the nation’s churches can’t be pleased today.

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 a nice smile and so I smiled up at you waiting for kind words. That was, until you opened your snatch mouth and forced me to accompany you to the front of the plane while announcing loudly that I would have to remove my t-shirt because it was “offensive.”

‘I am sure that my dopey smile, born from my expectation of kind words from you, must have remained on my face a moment to long for I was in shock. I will never forgive myself for stammering my response “Offensive, to whom?” I WISH I had offered a strong voice as loud and forceful as yours, but my stammer, although not excusable, can be attributed to complete surprise. Your smug response that “It was offensive to Christians and if I didn’t remove the T-Shirt I would be forced to deplane” caused me to stare at you in horror.’

—Boozhy: A Blog

Oh, how fun!

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 debate team in his hometown of Bradford, McKean County, has started an argument that, should it reach its intended target, the U.S. Supreme Court, would turn the rules of national security on end, reach deep into the tug-of-war between private rights and public safety, and play havoc with the Department of Homeland Security. At the heart of Gilmore’s stubbornness is the worry about the thin line between safety and tyranny. “Are they just basically saying we just can’t travel without identity papers? If that’s true, then I’d rather see us go through a real debate that says we want to introduce required identity papers in our society rather than trying to legislate it through the back door through regulations that say there’s not any other way to get around,” Gilmore said. “Basically what they want is a show of obedience.”’

—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The case is still pending and updates are occasionally posted on « his website ».

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 complicated to repeat here). I’ve always had a problem with fatigue and now that problem has been multiplied by 10. I’ve been taking the pills on Monday nights and by Wednesday I am so beyond exhausted I can barely lift my head. More on all that later.

If I owe you an e-mail or something, dear readers, I’m not ignoring you or being a jerk, I’m just barely functioning. There is light at the end of the tunnel, however brief; my substitute teaching is winding down and I’ll get some rest and some things done before grad school starts 28-June. So forgive me. I’ll get caught up soon …

Oh. And I certainly have some choice things to say about the latest Imperial higgledy-piggledy-ness. Choice, I say.

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. Jetsgo had submitted a plan to Transport Canada to resume operations as a radically smaller carrier with eight aircraft. The airline had 29 aircraft before it abruptly shut down two months ago, stranding thousands of passengers during the spring break holiday.’

— SF Chronicle

Question is, who’s next?

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 be fairly active around campus. Have seen and heard tons of birds, mostly robins and starlings, with the occasional woodpecker and cardinal thrown in for measure. I’ve heard some unusual birdsong, but nothing I’ve been able to identify.

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 A380 circling the Bay of Biscay before returning to base. … Jacques Rosay, who flew the A380 during take-off, said the plane behaved “immaculately” and that as a pilot “you handle it like you handle a bicycle”.’

Somehow, I don’t think it’s quite the same, Jacques, but we get the idea.

The commercial success of the behemoth is yet to be seen, but IHS aerospace reports that ‘15 customers have announced firm orders and commitments for a total of 154 A380 family aircraft, comprising 127 passenger aircraft from 13 customers and 27 freighters from four customers. The freighter version of the A380, the A380F, will enter into service in 2008.’

Airline service should start in just over a year.

It was an exciting and historic moment. Should be interesting to see what really taking a trip in one is actually like.

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 Nebel, which pulls no punches in its imagery and which is not for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached.

Both documentaries should be viewed by all for purposes of ‘never again!’

But we live in an empire where our fellow citizens are being purged from churches because of political dissent.

Humans never learn. Never again? No.

Inevitably again.

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, appointments, classes, tests, and study groups for the first time in, oh, six months or more. Those who think graduate school is a serene, monastic environment where calm, deliberative intellectual exchange is the highest goal are sadly deluded. I know I myself was afflicted with that delusion not too long ago—until I started grad school, that is.

It didn’t help matters, admittedly, that asthma chose the last six months of my time at SI to really put the boot on my neck. Of course, when you’re a grad student, things like medical appointments seem to become secondary. You keep your calendar (if you have time to keep one) on the basis of the next assignment or paper due, the next study group meeting, the next test, the next presentation. So I let things get somewhat out of hand. Fortunately, I have got the right meds now to deal with the problem, and the asthma is pretty much under control.

So what now? Well, I’m working part-time at the Government Documents Center and the Scholarly Publishing Office this summer and beyond. It’s going to take some time to get used to the new routine, but it’s something I’m looking forward to.

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

Yesterday, Mother Nature was a jerk:

Today, she redeems herself:

You’ve GOT to be $%@*#$@ kidding me …:

‘Today: Occasional snow. Steady temperature around 36. Breezy, with a north northwest wind between 22 and 26 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible.
‘Tonight: Occasional snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 30. Breezy, with a north northwest wind between 18 and 28 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.’

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The Imperial House of Corporate Representatives passed a bill permitting drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge yesterday. « Let’s just see what this little bill does », shall we?

1. Provides $8.1 billion in tax breaks over 10 years, most of it going to promote coal, nuclear, oil and natural gas energy industries.

2. Makes it easier to build liquefied natural gas import terminals, even if states or local communities oppose the project.

3. Requires refiners to use more corn-based ethanol in gasoline.

4. Protects makers of the gasoline additive MTBE from product liability lawsuits stemming from the chemical’s contamination of drinking water by giving them “safe harbor.”

5. Saddles communities and water districts with billions of dollars in MTBE cleanup costs.

6. Provides $2 billion to help MTBE makers, including major oil companies and refiners, to shift away from MTBE production.

7. Extends daylight-saving time by two months to reduce energy use.

Sing along with me … ‘Corporateland, Corporateland, uber alles …’

Meanwhile, an attempt to require automakers to increase fuel economy to a fleet average of 33 miles per gallon over the next decade, saving some two million barrels of oil a day, was defeated, thereby proving the potency of the bribes and payoff from both the energy and automaker industries.

Wonder if we’ll be hearing clamoring from the moral values crowd over this one?

[Crickets chirping]

Quote of the Day:

‘I’m a radical. I’m a real extremist. I don’t want to impeach judges. I want to impale them.’

—Michael Schwartz, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn’s chief of staff, as reported on MSNBC.com

It’s Frank’s final week of Grad School Hell. Four more days, folks, four more days, then it’s ‘free at last, free at last …’ But I should let him speak for himself. Er, maybe next week.

Me? I’ve been in a hell of my own … Hell, AKA Oklahoma. Good lord, there’s a lotta porn palaces and Jesus bilboards in Missouri (or as I refer to it, Misery).

It was a good trip, but there’s really no place like home.

(By the way, I knew I was back in Michigan when I entered a gas station in Coldwater and was almost knocked off my pins by some woman who pushed the door into my face, then gave me a dirty look and didn’t apologize. Yup! Back with the warm, wonderful people of Michigan!)