Apparently, « Imperial troops are putting wounded Iraqis out of their misery by shooting them in the head », kind of like you’d put down a horse: ‘A U.S. soldier pleaded guilty at his court-martial Friday to killing a severely wounded 16-year-old Iraqi, the military said. Staff Sgt. Johnny M. Horne Jr., 30, of Winston-Salem, N.C., was…

What did I hear this afternoon wafting from a window of a classroom in Mason Hall but Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” not as the soundtrack to an anti-war protest in the Diag as it probably was on this campus almost 40 years ago, but as the soundtrack to what was probably…

Ah, yes. Today it was back to the Ann Arbor I know and love. I was on the bus coming home tonight, sitting next to the window. A woman on a cell phone sat down next to me and started yacking. This went on for five minutes. I pulled the cord to ring the bell…

As often as I complain about etiquette and rudeness, it would be downright impolite of me not to include acknowledgment when a day happens like today, in which not only was the town of Ann Arbor socked in with fog (!!!), but several random episodes of politeness occurred as I made my way through the…

Looks like the « ‘how I love the smell of Napalm in the morning’ boys are firmly in control » of the Imperial military: ‘The US has already admitted that it used napalm during the siege of Baghdad. The truth was reluctantly confirmed by the Pentagon after news reports corroborated the evidence. The military has tried to…

An excellent commentary from a reader of the Los Angeles Times named G. Llloyd Helm appeared in today’s edition: The other day I was in Barnes & Noble and an ugly fact came home to me. I can’t afford to buy books anymore. I used to pick up a book every week or two and…

Thieves steal DVDs from public libraries in Macomb County and sell them to pawn shops. A candidate for a spot on the Lapeer District Library Board was denied a spot even though he was the only candidate running. He also not coincidentally happens to be gay. One of the county commissioners, a Democrat from Columbiaville,…

Not to beat a dead horse. But I will anyway. On September 13, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 2208 into law. The law in California now requires insurers doing business in California to treat domestic partners the same as married partners for purposes of coverage on home, health, life, auto, and renters’ policies. The insurance code…

Thanks for checking back in with me; I’ve been sick for two weeks (I won’t bore you with the details). I hope to start gearing up the postings back to a more readable level soon.

Some fascinating reading is to be found in « The Assassination of Danilo Anderson » ‘I remember on September 21, 1976 the FBI vacuuming the broken glass on Embassy Row’s Sheridan Circle, after the bomb ripped through Letelier’s car. “These people are pros,” an FBI agent commented. The FBI arrested two of the Letelier-Moffitt killers,…

« Molly Ivins is freaked out ». It’s a great column, but the ending is … a tad naive, I’m afraid. ‘In the name of Jesus Christ Almighty, why are people representing our government, paid by us, writing filth on the Korans of helpless prisoners? Is this American? Is it Christian? What are our moral…

‘Where one burns books, one will soon burn people.’ —Heinrich Heine « Alabama Fascist calls for ‘gay’ book purge » ‘A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for “the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle.” Allen said he filed…

Bill Moyers, « in a speech to People for the American Way »: ‘Of this, I am sure, you can be fearful or free, but you cannot be both. If you are fearful, you put yourself at the mercy of priests and princes and accept their conceits and usurpations as the health of the state…

The clever and — you have to give this to them, tactically and strategically brilliant — proponents of Amendment 2 spent hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars in the months leading up to the election insisting that the amendment was all about “protecting marriage.” On the rare (very rare) occasions when the media…

Q. Who would you rather be run over by? (a) A driver behind the wheel of a Cadillac Escalade sporting a “KEEP HONKING WHILE I RELOAD” bumper sticker. (b) A bicyclist with a gray crate tied by bungee cord to the back of her bike, the crate sporting a peeling, faded bumper sticker bearing the…

So, « this forum pretty much addresses my whole ‘Isn’t it sort of a girly car?’ » problem. One example: ‘I am 32, male, living in the city of Chicago. I used to be a VW Jetta driver, but traded it off for a new 2002 Red Liberty a couple of years ago. … I…

If I go with a new Liberty, here’s what I want and what it would cost: 2005 LIBERTY RENEGADE 4X4 D Pkg . . . $23,560.00 » Primary: Dark Khaki Pearl Coat . . . $150.00 » Interior: Dark Khaki/Light Graystone . . . Included » 3.7L Power Tech V6 Engine . . . Included » Command-Trac HD Part-Time 4WD System . . . Included » Corporate 8.25 Rear Axle . . . Included » 3.55 Axle Ratio . . . Included » 4-Speed Automatic Transmission . . . $825.00 » Premium Leather-Trimmed Bucket Seats . . . Included…

I’ve had three Jeeps before: a ‘92 Black Cherry Cherokee Sport; a ‘98 Dark Green Cherokee Sport; and an ‘01 Patriot Blue Wrangler Sport (my current vehicle). I love them all, but was especially happy with the Cherokees. Alas, they stopped making them in ‘01 and, while I’d love to have a third one, the…

FYI: Visit the UM Medical Center Emergency Room on a holiday weekend Saturday night and you should feel lucky that you’re only there a mere eight hours for a relatively minor complaint. See, this sulfa drug that my doc prescribed for my reactive arthritis caused a nasty reaction. As in high fever, terrible aching and…

First snowfall of the season Wednesday night when I was at work ….. it was nice walking in the semi-sleet/semi-snow combination from Hatcher to the bus stop, though I admit it was equally nice that the bus showed up a few minutes after I got there. The snow fell steadily the rest of the evening,…

I never write about or identify my family on my website. They absolutely hate that and have raked me over the coals numerous times, pouring out their venom and anxiety if I so much as dare to mention them on AirBeagle. So, of course, being the contrarian that I am, I have to post an…

Lots and lots of dreams lately. Mainly induced by Vicodin, perhaps, or the new Sulfasalazine I’ve been on for just over a week now. The pain still continues. Yesterday was a pretty good day, but today has been awful. I ache like I’ve got the flu, except it’s all in my joints, and some in…

Other than Jack Ruby’s live TV murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, 24-Nov-04 was a pretty boring day in history: 1926 KVI-AM in Seattle WA begins radio transmissions 1947 John Steinbeck’s novel “The Pearl” published 1947 Un-American Activities Committee finds “Hollywood 10” in contempt because of their refusal to reveal whether they were communists 1954 1st…

’[Reinhard] Heydrich reported 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned (with 177 totally destroyed) and 91 Jews murdered during Kristallnacht. Heydrich then requested new decrees forbidding Jews from having any social contact with Germans by excluding them from public transportation, schools, and hospitals, essentially forcing them into ghettos or out of the country. Goebbels said…

I’m watching Shoah again. Haven’t seen it since it aired on PBS in 1986 or so. Just as shattering as I remember. From « Shoah Film Handouts »: ‘Henrik Gawkowski (Malkinia) — heard the screams coming from the cars behind his locomotive. It was distressing to him since he knew the people behind him were human, like…

I’ve been pretty lucky thus far in my largely pedestrian life in Ann Arbor, because I have a vigilant attitude about vehicular traffic, honed over the years as a pedestrian in the notoriously high-traffic Bay Area. I’ve learned how to stay out of the way of vehicles here for the most part, although the layout…

Snow today in Joshua Tree National Park, Twentynine Plams, and Yucca Valley … and up to 12 inches of snow in the San Bernardino Mountains … But it was sunny and mild here today. It’s supposed to be snowing here by Wednesday, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

There’s a big game this weekend. Oh, yeah, then there’s that insignificant UC Berkeley/Stanford “Big Game”. (Believe me, I’m not about to stick my foot in my mouth on this one.) Stanford will likely lose, judging from their abysmal record this year, but then again, pigs could fly. Anyway, SFist links to this hilarious interview…

You mean he’s not just this way on the written page? I took this class because of Prof. Wallace’s reputation as an author. What a mistake! This guy just likes to hear himself talk, and he won’t shut up. He knows how to play the part of a enigmatic “genius” all right … [Link courtesy…

I can see that Ashbery might stake a claim to being the most influential poet since 1955, though, given how many of his poetic descendants fall over themselves to be even more willfully inscrutable and opaque than Ashbery. For instance, there’s Not Even Then, a recent volume by Brian Blanchfield (who teaches at Pratt Institute),…

Harold Bloom calls John Ashbery in the upcoming Poetry Issue of the Sunday New York Times Book Review “our major poet since the death of Wallace Stevens in 1955.” I don’t know where that leaves Allen Ginsberg, for example, but it seems a highly dubious claim, especially given inscrutable, maddening lines like these, from a…

I had some time to kill this afternoon, so I did some reading in one of the carrels on the third floor of Hatcher. I turned to look out the window and saw a fascinating display on the radiator below the window. The radiator was one of those old 1960s/1970s models with hundreds of vents,…

I went into Ambrosia twice today, once at 11.30 and once at 3.15, and both times it was too packed to find anywhere to sit down inside. I realized that the place has hit its tipping point of popularity, although Ambrosia has always kind of flown under the radar, never winning (or even placing on)…

Tomorrow is my final registration appointment at the University of Michigan. Hard to believe. Damn, these 15 months have gone by fast! I am pretty sure what I’m going to take, including the dreaded 502 class that I put off last winter and now have no choice (poetic justice, since the title of the course…

I was taken to task (well, gently corrected, truth be told) by a couple of natives for the previous dumb-headed post. I humbly apologize (and also to any other Michiganders I may have teed off). Like I said in the comments, I was not trying to be snarky (I was genuinely more curious than anything…

Weather has been creeping toward winter, but (I could be wrong) less steadily than last November. The evenings and nights have been in the low to upper 20s. But the days are still getting up to the high 50s. Today was thoroughly gloomy, overcast and even drizzly at points, but the temps were still in…

This is the opening of Billy Collins’ “The Long Day” in the November issue of Poetry: In the morning I ate a banana like a young ape and worked on a poem called “Nocturne.” In the afternoon I opened the mail with a short kitchen knife, and when dusk began to fall I took off…

       « Our Life in Michigan – Chick Inn and Cold November Playground »

There are some heartbreaking photos here of the October 30 flash flood that destroyed the ground floor of the Hamilton Library at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, wiping out the library’s map collection (numbering over 230,000 rare maps) and its government documents collection. The library’s acquisitions office and the university’s library science program facility…

David Foster Wallace wrote a long-winded review of a new Jorge Luis Borges biography in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. And it was filled with – what else? – copious, runny, unnecessary, pretentious footnotes! When was the last time the NYTBR published a book review with friggin’ footnotes in it?

Sometimes I wonder who’s living in more of a state of denial, the right or the left. Just two examples from today’s Michigan Daily: One community activist is quoted thusly: “It’s very clear that the real public needs their voice heard. The Democrats do not represent the real people, nor do the Republicans.” Okay, so…

So the backlash mounts in intensity: evangelical Christians in Westland (just 20 miles from Ann Arbor, as the crow flies, which says nothing, really, because evangelicals interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle in Concord said the exact same thing, basically, and Concord is 30 miles from downtown San Francisco) interviewed by the Detroit News saying…

On that same subject, I think the sudden popularity of old pop standards (as in recent albums by Michael McDonald, Rod Stewart, and even Queen Latifah) is an intriguing cultural happening. Why is it, for instance, that people are ready to accept Rod Stewart as an interpreter of Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hammerstein, but…

Supposed to go down to 22 degrees tonight … I definitely felt walking home tonight the fact that I hadn’t brought gloves or cap with me … it was a quiet, beautiful, starlit night, so still you could almost hear the stillness … winter’s coming.

In news from the h.S.S. today, we see that « the first Taser stun guns will be allowed on airliners »: ‘Stun gun maker Taser International Inc. on Monday said it won U.S. government approval to use its products on some commercial airline flights to protect passengers from potential harm. … Taser, based in Scottsdale,…

I dream as much as the dog. And that’s a lot. I hate November. With a passion. I had a hypoglycemic attack yesterday after we got through messing around with the dog at Wines Elementary. Could have been brought on by my spinning around like a crazy person on the tire swing. We had to…

I rode the bike to work at the high school on Friday. It was tough getting up over the railroad pass into a fierce cold wind, but I did it. I was whooped and late when I got there, but I did it and felt better. Now that I’m no longer banned from the bike,…

As seen on « Datalounge », this sums up my feelings today: ‘The speeches are over, The debates are done; Looks like the fellow from Texas has won. Let’s let our differences be a thing of the past, I’ll hug your elephant, If you’ll kiss my ass.’

Yesterday I overheard two people waiting in line at Espresso Royale talking about the defeat of Proposal 2. One was saying to the other that he didn’t understand why the religious right felt compelled to discriminate against “those people.” Well, that’s exactly it. As long as even squishy liberals stand around and talk about gays…

I think « this piece by Garry Wills » is one of the best discussions of the state of the Empire I’ve read this week: ‘America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values – critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed…