Just Because I Don't Say Anything, It Doesn't Mean I Don't Love You

A general notice to my blog-pals: for the last, oh, two months or so, my back has been against the proverbial wall, time-wise. I'm astonished that I've posted anything here at all, but in each case it was something I could spit out in 10 minutes or so. Lately that's been me: the 10-Minute Blogger.

I've also been visiting my favorite haunts, but not always commenting. That's been the compromise. I allow myself the time to read, but mostly I nod and move on.

This behavior will continue for at least another two to three weeks, when my back should be released from the proverbial wall, and I will return to my normal level of over-stress.

I just wanted to let you know, if I haven't been commenting on your blog, that I'm still reading in fits and starts, and I'll be back. Please don't forget about me.

And now, to make sure this post doesn't go over my 10-minute time limit, I'll sign off and see you in a few weeks. Or sooner. Maybe.

We Wouldn't Want to Offend the Dead

Opposed to gay marriage? Then don't marry someone who's the same sex as you -- problem solved. That stale joke is my credo.

I absolutely do not get why some people think they get to be the boss of other people. It's not just the gay marriage issue, of course. For instance, my neighbor is a real alpha dog and tries to run all sorts of things on our street that are none of his damned business.

Anyway, some people in California are upset because Ellen and Portia got married and others like them have and will.

But one man there offers the most illogical reason for opposing gay marriage yet:

"I've never stumped before, but I want to be a part of this [campaign supporting a ban]," Bumgarner said. The retired insurance executive and devout Mormon said his late mother would "turn over in her grave" if she knew that gays and lesbians could marry.

Well, that's different, isn't it? Ban gay marriage immediately! We wouldn't want to offend the dead, now would we?

Coupon Applications Facilitated Here

Here, to be precise.

Applying for a government coupon to buy a TV converter box is something I've been meaning to do. I don't, under normal circumstances, need one. I have cable. But I'd been thinking about getting the coupon (and the box it purchases) anyway, because what if financial times get Really Bad? The first thing I'd give up would be the cable, even before the cell phone.

Then came Fay.



My cable hasn't gone out (and in fact my total trouble thus far has been lots o' rain and lots o' wind, although the news is reporting a tornado very near me...), but it could have. And Fay will hardly be the last storm to ever come visit. And sometimes the cable goes out just because.

So I moved "ordering coupon" up from the someday list to the right-now list, and it took all of about 25 seconds. Maybe 35.

You can order your coupon in less time than it took to read this post, so once again: click here to order your coupon.

Impressed Beyond Words

One of my recent students just completed his first day of play in the U.S. Amateur Championship in Pinehurst, NC. He's holding his own -- nowhere near the bottom -- and I can't wait to see how he does tomorrow.

I'd love to print his name, but I choose to stay anonymous and all, so no.

Still, go student, go!

Update: He made the cut, and again, was nowhere near the bottom of the cut. Cool as all get out.

Bernie Mac -- Read

I was looking through merchandise offered by the American Library Association, and I saw that one of its iconic "Read" posters features Bernie Mac:



Dang. Sorry to see one more reader gone.

RIP, Bernie.

When They Make the Movie about "Clark Rockefeller," and They Will...

...the obvious choice to play "Rockefeller"

















...is Kevin Spacey.

Goodbye, Boys. Goodbye, Summer.

I've seen my daughter's sons more this summer than I ever have before in their short little lives. Circumstances brought us together for a week in May, two weeks in June, and two weeks in July/August. I've become used to having them around, but today they climbed in the mini-van and went home to North Carolina.

I'll miss them more than I can say.

T and W, playing with a Nintendo DS in the motel in Maryland where we stayed for a week while visiting family. Good times.

Customer Service

The following is a true story, although I've had to recreate the dialogue since at the time it was happening I didn't realize I had to memorize it for archival purposes.

I have a rather inexpensive cell phone account with a minimal number of "peak" minutes: 300. Usually this is plenty for me. I'm not much of a phone person.

However, my July bill was more than double its usual amount because, due to making family plans and a long talk with a boss, I ran over about 45 minutes and was charged about $40 for them. Ouch. (And I am making some plans to leave my current service, but right now I have no time to breathe...)

Anyway, since then I've been in the habit of calling at off-peak hours to confirm the number of minutes used. With my carrier, that involves calling 611. Here's how it went this morning:

Mechanical phone voice: Thank you for calling Your Phone Service. For balance due, payment options, or minutes of use, press or say "1."

Me: 1

Mechanical phone voice: Following this call, we'd like to ask you six questions about your customer service experience. To take the survey, press or say "1." To decline, "2."

Me (not in a mood to be surveyed): 2

Mechanical phone voice: I'm sorry, but I didn't understand your answer. To take the survey, press or say "1." To decline, "2."

Me (louder): 2!

Mechanical phone voice: I'm sorry, but I still didn't understand your answer. Please hold for the next available operator. (The sound of ringing.)

Whereupon I decided I didn't need to know my minutes used all that desperately and hung up.

Paper Checks Officially Declared Dead

I received an email from Amazon.com yesterday, which reads in part:

Greetings from Amazon.com. We're contacting you because you've previously paid for orders with a paper check or money order. We wanted to let you know that we will no longer be accepting paper checks or money orders beginning September 8, 2008.

If you still have check or money order funds remaining in your account on September 8, the funds will be transferred to an Amazon.com Gift Card balance. The Gift Card balance will be automatically applied to the next order you place on Amazon.com. These funds will never expire and can be used to purchase millions of items from Amazon.com as well as other sellers on our website.

Now, it's true that I've not used a paper check to pay for almost any purchase in a long, long time. (I used one to order a death certificate copy recently -- does that count?) But this email reads as much like an obituary as any we're going to get for the late, lamented paper check.

I'm rather sad to see them go. When I remortgage my home to make improvements, what will I burn in celebration when it eventually pays off? My computer monitor?

RIP, my pretty kitty checks.

New Perspectives

There's nothing like interacting with others to see the world in a slightly different way. As old as I am, that happens now and then. This week it happened twice.

Girl Next Door is my daughter's best friend, dating back to their nine-year-old days. She actually lives behind me (back home with her own daughter while she finishes nursing school and re-establishes herself), and I know her much better than I do her parents or any of her other family members. Relatively early in the Iraq misadventure, Girl Next Door's brother was essentially handicapped for life when the jeep he was driving (chauffering a major) was hit by a mortar and his knee was turned into something resembling raw steak on broken pottery. At first, the Army wanted to patch him up and send him back, but when it became obvious that he was crippled, they put him on 100% disability.

Here's the catch: as a 100% disabled vet, he's severely limited to the amount he can work. A certain number of hours a week (a month?) and that's it. He's in the ugliest of Catch-22s; damaged serving his country, he has two choices: live on the inadequate military pension or forego it and hope to earn more money otherwise, despite his disability. In other words, he's almost forced to remain in poverty. I realize there's a good reason for limits -- some would try to cheat the system otherwise. If a man or woman can hold down a job, perhaps he or she doesn't need a full disability pension. But apparently this young man's problems are sporadic. Sometimes he's well enough, out of pain and mobile enough to work. Other times he's not. Bureaucracy isn't flexible enough to handle these fluctuations. He's in his thirties with no real aboveboard hope for financial improvement. He tries to work a little under the table to help care for his family.

Serve your country and be rewarded with a lifetime of poverty. That's somehow a new perspective for me, even though I've heard stories before. I guess it's different when you know the name, face, voice, of he who has been sentenced to poverty.

The other example, short version: my niece was the victim of a home invasion this past week. Signs indicate that her attackers had watched the family closely and knew their routine. Her family lives in a townhouse development laid out in a square. It's lovely, but this means that about 30 homes are visible from any one home. It never occurred to me before how vulnerable this layout makes a family. I thought being so visible would make one safer. Before, I thought my cul-de-sac was vulnerable (and maybe it still is) because we have only seven homes and where I sit is NOT easily seen, providing happy cover for anyone who might want to burgle. However, precisely because it's relatively private, anyone who wants to observe my home can't just blend in. The nosy neighbors would see the outsider and betcha by golly wow would be out asking questions or calling the cops.

I wonder what else hasn't occurred to me before? I look forward to paying attention and learning some more lessons in the coming week.

Student Update, or, You've Got Mail

I haven't been teaching this summer because I've been working on another project for My School. So I haven't been thinking about students, individually, just students, unknown-to-me group that I'll meet in a few weeks.

However, today my work email included a link to an online list of people who graduated from My School last Friday.

I recognized five students on that list. Not bad. Some of the more common names could have been past students as well: Ashley Williams, for instance. Or she might have been some other Ashley Williams. As for the five students, I am not one iota surprised that these five made it past the finish line, and I wish them well.

While I was reading the list, my work email made its little "you have mail" doinky-sound.

I received an email from a past student dated February 9, 2007, telling me about a problem she had with a class/job conflict.

Has that mail really been surfing in cyberspace for almost a year and a half?

And worse, am I eventually going to get all that mail that students claim they sent me but I never received?

Economic Observations from Someone Who Has Never Taken an Economics Class

I'd like to take out a smallish loan to finish all the small-to-medium nuisance projects around the house. I can afford to pay it back since, probably unlike most, I don't have a mortgage (nanny nanny boo boo!). But I fear losing my job, even though that fear is probably pretty irrational. Or maybe not.

Since I'm not taking out the loan, I'm not buying the materials or hiring the craftsmen.

Since I'm not buying the materials or hiring the craftsmen, HD and Lowe's aren't getting my money, and the craftsmen aren't getting hired to do my projects. Therefore, they don't get my money.

Since no one's getting my money, the economy is that much worse because the sales at HD & Lowes are down, and they have to lay off someone. And the craftsmen can't make their truck payments, so their trucks get repo'd and now they can't work.

And because the HD employees and the craftsmen can't run around and spend money, thereby paying taxes into the state coffers, funding at My School is cut even more drastically and enrollment dips even more.

And then maybe I don't have a job any more.

Clearly the only way to save my job is to take out a loan.

(And I say this in only partial jest...)

Potpourri

Representatives Barney Frank and Ron Paul (and I'm not even going to remark on these two otherwise, although it's tempting to) are co-sponsoring a bill to modify the illegal status of pot, to make it not illegal to use, only to abuse. Just like booze. (Didja like my rhyme?) You all probably know this by now.

For the sake of full disclosure, I'm probably the only surviving member of the 60s generation who has never tried the stuff. When I was in high school, it still had an aura of "badness" around it. That is, those who smoked were hardcore. I was anything but hardcore, and frankly no one ever offered. I don't know what my answer might have been if they had.

I married extremely young, and while I was a wife, again the offers never came. I didn't travel in those circles -- or perhaps I simply had the aura of a goody two-shoes. In any event, the first time anyone ever offered me weed, I was 36. And not particularly interested.

Nevertheless, I am in full agreement with the proposed law, although it probably doesn't go far enough. It ought to also allow for a modest garden for those wanting to grow for personal use. You know, just like tomatoes.

Even if the law is enacted, don't look for a big run on pot sales. This would only affect federal laws, not state laws. I don't see most states rushing to change their laws -- although they should. In my state, the current budget deficit is extreme. Potential students are being shut out of college because the state can't afford to educate them. But it will pay to incarcerate them if they run afoul of locoweed laws.

Proof positive that those who champion these laws are kidding themselves appears on the DEA's site (I'm not linking -- see the article):

Legalization of marijuana, no matter how it begins, will come at the expense of our children and public safety. It will create dependency and treatment issues, and open the door to use of other drugs, impaired health, delinquent behavior, and drugged drivers.

Got that? Now substitute "alcohol" for "marijuana" in that sentence. As the relative of too darn many alcoholics, I can attest to the truth of every syllable of that modified statement.

Yet the DEA is not going after drinkers.

Leave the responsible pot smokers alone. We have more important things to do.

Lament

I'm squinting and doing my best to see the changes at work as a half-full glass.

Rather than a half-empty one.

It's hard and it's giving me a headache.

Service is Key

Just yesterday, my daughter called me to ask exactly what laptop I owned because she was on her way to Wal-Mart to buy one.

"Do you have a special reason for going to Wal-Mart?" I asked, thinking that maybe she was going to buy it with a WM credit card.

"No..." she said slowly. "Why?"

"Go to Best Buy," I said. "They can actually answer your questions there."

Recently Tall Son bought a laptop at Wal-Mart. But Tall Son knows a lot about computers and can understand those info little cards that they stick on the shelf that offers all the specs. Tall Son is the kind of person who can effectively buy a computer at Wal-Mart. He knows what he wants and doesn't need help.

Last month, I bought a computer at Best Buy. I had an ad in hand and a mission. I "knew" what I wanted. However, when the sales person asked me why I wanted that particular one and exactly what I do on a computer, he pointed out that the computer of my choice might not have sufficient memory. He could sell me more memory for $100, or he could sell me a computer that cost $100 more that already had that memory installed (same kind of computer, different model). (Lest you think that he was trying to beef up his commission, I quickly discovered he wasn't. I went to apply for credit so I could get the "6 months no interest" deal, and I told him I'd come back to see him when I was finished. He told me I could get the computer from anyone available because they didn't work on commission.)

So I paid $550 for my little computer instead of $450, and we're living happily ever after.

Today I came across an article that says my take on Best Buy was accurate. It's thriving despite the economic downturn precisely because it offers service.

Some things, like toothpaste, customers can find on their own. More complicated purchases often require the help of knowledgeable staff(and plenty of it to go around, not one expert with four people lined up to talk to her). And the company who provides that knowledgeable staff wins, period.

Someone should forward this article to Home Depot.

Some Days You Can Find What You Want on the Intertubes

And then you decide maybe you wish you hadn't.

I've been looking at old photos, and among them were some photos of friends of my grandmother. I don't know how intimate a relationship this was, but these people showed up several times. In one photo, infant me was sitting on the lap of their son, a boy about 10 years older than me.

I went looking for these people out of nothing but curiosity -- and found the obituary for the boy on whose knee I sat (who was, in fact, 11 years older than me).

How very, very strange.

I don't know how I feel about this.

One of the Many Reasons I Hate to See the "Ugly" Comments Thrown at Maggie Gyllenhaal

Because she's the one famous person ever whom I think I resemble. I won't post a current photo of me, but I will post a childhood photo.

Here's Maggie:

And me at about 10:



(There's another reason, too: she's not ugly.)

There's a Word for That

And it's mondegreen.

When we hear Jimi Hendrix sing, "'scuse me while I kiss this guy," or John Fogarty croon, "there's a bathroom on the right," we're creating a mondegreen: "a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung."

Mondegreen was first coined by author Sylvia Wright in 1954 in Atlantic magazine, when she confessed to a childhood misinterpretation of the Scottish ballad 'The Bonny Earl of Moray.' When she first heard the lyric "they had slain the Earl of Moray and had laid him on the green," she felt terribly sorry for the "poor Lady Mondegreen."

Mondegreen made MW's new words for 2008, and to celebrate, it's collecting mondegreens through July 25, after which time it will publish the best of them.

The only one that occurs to me offhand is the one that puzzled me for years (until the internet cleared it up), part of the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light" as performed by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, which sounded to me like "wrapped up like a douche in the middle of the night."

The real lyrics, apparently, are "cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night."

I'm not sure that I'm any less puzzled by the real lyrics.

What's your mondegreen?

The Girl of My Dreams

After more than a decade and a half, it has finally happened: I've found the girl of my dreams.

That is, Tall Son has finally brought home the woman I've been waiting for him to bring home.

She's phenomenal. I liked her instantly. I mean, instantly.

Her kids are phenomenal, especially her clever, smart, articulate 11-year-old son.

But every silver lining apparently must have a dark cloud wrapped around it: in this case, an ex-husband who makes the husband in Sleeping With the Enemy look somewhat normal.

But she has a restraining order (for what that's worth), he lives in another state, and there is past evidence that he's actually a coward when any third parties are around.

My mood: worried, but hopeful.

Just Like Crack

...looking stuff up in the public records.

In comments just below, I discussed how Tall Son and I were checking out local criminal records last night.

Then, because one of my neighbors told me yesterday that he was probably going to sell, I decided to look at his property records.

Which led me to looking at the records of all my neighbors on this 7-house cul-de-sac. Upon reflection, I don't think anything I learned surprised me.

You know about me and Neighbor Guy. On the corner next to Neighbor Guy, the couple, who have been there since 1997, have only their original mortgage and a second, signed the same day, to the county, for $5000 with 0% interest. Must have been one of those incentive programs we hear about now and again.

On the other corner, Lawnmower Man and his wife have refinanced several times, but always modest amounts. I think they did it the first time to finance their addition, but after that, it's always been for about $50,000. I think they've just been shopping interest rates. Who knows?

Then, oh dear, the neighbor who says he'd like to move. He and his wife also have refinanced a number of times, each time pulling out more equity so that their most recent mortgage is nearly $120,000. In this modest neighborhood and knowing the condition of their house, I suspect that's over its value. And I suspect they used a subprime lender.

Next to them are the people directly across from me, and their story is also quite similar. They've only been with us for five years and have refi'd three times. Again, I suspect that if they're not over value, they're kissing it with that last mortgage. This time I'm almost certain their loan is subprime: it's with Countrywide.

Finally, my neighbors to the left quietly paid off their only mortgage two years ago, right on time at 30 years old. And that's it for them.

***************

While I was busy on the court records, I found a link to the property appraiser's office. Like the court's, the appraiser's website is far more fun and useful than it used to be. I can literally check out the whole neighborhood by clicking on each lot on a plat map. The map is color-coded: if the house sold in 08, 07, or 06, the lot has a corresponding color. If the last sale was older, it's white. Very few houses have turned over in my neighborhood in the past three years. I suspect that's because the neighborhood is modest, but also reasonably well-kept. In the old market, who could afford to move out? And what would have been the incentive?

****************

In the last election cycle, "we" the voters approved a real-estate tax "relief" measure. The good news is that according to the appraiser's office, my taxable value is now only $34,000.00. Except, because the county is having desperate trouble making ends meet, that's really also the bad news. But what do I know? I'm a tax-and-spend liberal.

Fun With the Public Records (Shame on Me!)

So that I could prepare the satisfaction of mortgage for Mrs. P's signature (I used to be a real estate secretary, so this is something I can do with confidence), I puttered around on the Clerk of the Court's site, looking at all of my real estate docs, making sure I had all the right numbers and dates, as well as looking to be sure all the other, old stuff has been satisfactorily recorded.

I was about to log out when I got curious about my ex. The kids have told me that he and his wife own several rental properties, in addition to their half-mil* (value before the bust, anyway) personal residence. A search says this is true, but only two additional properties, and no foreclosures, despite the fact that both of them make their living by selling real estate. Good on them.

Then I looked up Neighbor Guy and his wife. It's always been clear that they're on firmer footing than most of the rest of us. Check this out: back in '84 when they bought their house, they only mortgaged $4000.00, and they paid that off 19 years ago. Apparently they were able to cover the rest in cash. Now remember that I only paid $29,200 for mine; theirs probably was a bit more. And it's very possible that they'd owned and sold another home before they bought this one. Still.

At that, I decided I knew quite enough about the people around me for one day. Maybe more snooping in what is, after all, public records another day.




*Jealous? No. Grateful I don't have to make the payments.

And Just Like That, It's Over

When my phone rings at 10:30 pm, I assume it's one of my children, who know about my nightowlish ways.

Instead, it was Mrs. P, the holder of what used to be my second mortgage. A little over two years ago, I paid off the original mortgage, the one my ex and I took out to buy this little house on the peninsula in 1976 for $29,200. Upon satisfaction of that mortgage, Mrs. P became my first mortgage holder.

She was calling because she'd received my July payment, and she was about to deposit it when she decided to consult her amortization schedule.

According to her records, which were compiled by her late husband, a CPA, I owe her a partial payment for July, and then I'm done. She's tearing up the old check, I'm issuing a new one, and after 20 years we're going our separate ways.

(According to my records, payoff should be in September, but who am I to argue with a deceased CPA???)

Although I was having some YouTube trouble on the 4th of July, I figured out today how to sweet-talk the "embed" feature, so let the fireworks begin:

Musical Metaphors Two, Or, Blogger Is Being a Pain

In my post below, I asked for more suggestions, but for some reason, comments aren't working, just for this latest post. I got them going by disallowing and then reallowing, but when I surfed out and in again, comments were once again gone. I did a test (now deleted) that allowed comments.

I have no idea what's up and I don't have time for this.

Consider this to be the comments section for the post below. I really do want some suggestions!!!!

Musical Metaphors

Because some plans changed along the way, when it was time to come home from vacation, my daughter couldn't bring me. We decided I would drive her husband's truck home and work out a plan later for returning it. She also supplied me with a dozen CDs to entertain me on the 9-1/2 hour trip.

Yesterday I drove the truck to work to give it a little outing and keep its juices flowing. In the CD player was Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. The stereo system is quite a good one, and while "Bridge over Troubled Water" was playing, I got goosebumps, and said -- maybe out loud -- that that had to be one of the greatest musical metaphors ever.



"Yeah, that and 'The Long and Winding Road,'" I said, continuing the conversation with myself.



I'm afraid that from there my mind wandered to The Commodores's "Brick House." Oh dear.



Sing it, Lionel.

From there, "Like a Rolling Stone."



All these show my age, for sure. And now I'm stuck. Help! What do the rest of you have?

NOTE: I have no idea why I can't get comments to work for this post, but I can't and I'm done dealing with it. I suspect I might even have a comment on this one because in the "Post Options" section, I'm offered the options or showing or hiding my existing comments. Comments I can't see. I give up. Please comment in the post directly above.

NOTE TWO: Or, you might see comments after all. There one minute, gone the next. Comment wherever Blogger will let you.

Happy Fourth!

I must be the only soul in Bloggerland who can't easily embed YouTube videos. I can never copy and paste the whole URL and I don't have the patience today to do it in pieces. So although I found a grand fireworks video, never mind.

I've been working today. That might be occasion for me to feel sorry for myself, but not really. Not today. I'm grateful for the opportunity to actually get ahead of my boss on the editing project I'm doing this summer. She has family in town this weekend, so my little fingers are stiff from trying to catch up. I had my fun times last month, and I have no regrets.

But it's time for a food break, and to give the fingers a rest.

Imagine popping sounds, and lights in motion, and oohs and aahhs. Happy Fourth of July!

Please Watch This Show!

Aliens in America. You'll be glad you did.

It's been cancelled, so this isn't a save-this-show effort. But over the past year, I've had three favorite shows: Lost and Mad Men, tied for first place. (Not a competition because they don't run at the same time of year.) Number three (or two, depending on how you count) was Aliens in America. It's like The Wonder Years, Freaks and Geeks, and Arrested Development all rolled into one. It's funny, poignant, smart, sweet, clever, and cancelled.

It's not too late to watch: episodes are still rerunning on the CW on Sundays at 8:30 pm EST, but full episodes are also online here.

I think I got them all recorded and saved to the DVR, awaiting my finding time to rename them and burn them. That's the only thing about all this that makes me happy. The CW can cancel all it likes, but I'll have the 18 little gems of Season Only as long as DVD technology is still playable.

Fox News: Fun With Photoshop

Submitted for your review with minimum editorializing because words fail me. Summary is about all I can pull off:

First, New York Times writer Jacques Steinberg writes an article claiming that Fox News' ratings are declining.

Then, Fox responds in a mature manner. See the video at the link.

However, the nyah, nyah tone of the on-air "personalities" is not the point here. The point is that they projected highly photoshopped photos of Steinberg and his editor, to-wit:

Steinberg:

















His editor, Steven Reddicliffe:


















Remember those fun pictures from childhood, where you look closely to see the differences in the two pictures? Have at it, friends.

Fair and balanced, my foot.

If you can't stand behind our troops, do us all a favor and stand in front of them

While I was on vacation, I met an in-law of one of my many sisters, and very, very early in the conversation, while we were very much strangers, he made reference to "the idiot Bush." As the conversation went on, I told him how amused I was that he got into the politics so easily and vehemently, because where I live, Super Dooper Red State, liberals tend to test the waters very carefully before launching into political invective. (Turns out he was from upstate New York.) For instance, at a party my son threw several years ago (Alanna, you may remember this), someone we didn't know well said something political, but very carefully (no longer remember what), upon which one of us said that it was ok, we were all liberals here. The group laughed, visibly relaxed, and then began chatting in earnest about politics.

Anyway.

Today I was proud to come across, on CNN, a nationwide broadcast of an example of the prevailing mindset of my region. Here's a link to the video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/07/03/dnt.tshirt.controversy.wjxt

(If it's possible to embed CNN videos, I don't know how.)

In brief for those disinclined to watch the video, an antiwar activist who attended some kind of local veterans event won a gift bag --

and I'll stop here for a moment and point out that if the woman won a gift bag, she obviously came not as rabble-rouser but as supporter. She must have behaved in a friendly way at the meeting or they'd have escorted her out. It is, surprise, surprise, possible to not support the war but support the troops and the veterans. (Some people, however, see it as all about Love Me, Love My Boss's War.) My son is a Marine and not until we invaded Iraq did I ever strongly feel that he and his colleagues were being misused by our government. Anyway, back to our story.

When she opened the gift bag at home, she was horrified to find a t-shirt with a graphic of a sharpshooter on the front and this friendly message on the back: If you can't stand behind our troops, do us all a favor and stand in front of them.

The anti-war grab-bag winner was further horrified to discover that the shirts were donated by the county sheriff (using his own money) and she believed that this sent a message that the sheriff condones violence against anti-war protestors.

You misunderstand, says the sheriff's spokesman (and I am reminded again why I didn't major in communications...), emphasis mine:

The sheriff purchased the shirts with his own money to support local vets …

It’s simply this: the sheriff bought the shirts, he didn’t design the shirts, he hasn’t done anything to promote the shirts, he just handed a few out after he purchased them to help them raise money to support our local families.

In other words, handing the shirts out is not the same as promoting their message, and he takes no responsibility whatsoever for his actions.

The message on the shirts is not neutral. What if, for instance, a sheriff were asked to buy some t-shirts to support a successful after-school teen program, one that is proven to divert teens away from criminal activity, but the shirts contained a message promoting the legalization of marijuana? (Of course, this is not likely, but the point here is cause good, message on shirts more dicey, at least for a law enforcement officer.) Of course he would distance himself, and fast, even if the after-school program was highly effective and award-winning. In other words, there'd never be a moment when a spokesman would have to say that the sheriff bought the shirts, didn't design them, isn't promoting them, etc. The sheriff would be very careful not to be associated with that message in the first place.

People are like that, after all, all about CYA.

It's safe to say that the sheriff is not that naive, probably sees nothing wrong with the message -- after all, the spokesman doesn't appear to have denounced it -- and is probably very proud of disseminating these shirts.

And this is the red world in which I live, one that my New York friend couldn't wrap his mind around.

Arresting News!

Jeffrey Tambor, a/k/a George Bluth, Sr. and Oscar Bluth, has announced that Arrested Development the movie is on.

I was skeptical -- Tambor would hardly be the official mouthpiece -- so I went to IMDB.com, where I found a fleshed-out page for the film, including an "announced" status, although it's not clear what all that's based on.

I'm sure this is especially good news for Ron Howard, who served as the show's narrator and who could surely use the work.

We can hope, anyway.

In other happy viewing news, I look for Mad Men season 1 in the mail this week.

Back from Vacation

And of course, I'm now sick. Just the garden-variety body aches, sore throat, cough, etc. Not the more unpleasant symptoms that sometimes accompany minor illnesses.

Fortunately.

And while I read blogs on the new laptop while I was gone, I didn't have time to post on my own blog. I was having too much fun.

This too-much-fun thing is quite unusual. I enjoyed it while I could.

Tomorrow I hope to feel better and get some work done for my employer.

Then back to blogging. :)

This Is a Criminal Intent

Law & Order: Criminal Intent's Chris Noth is moving on. While I like Noth well enough on the show, I can live with that. The one constant in the L&O family is change, after all, just like in "real" life.

What's criminal, however, is that his replacement is Jeff Goldblum.

Goldblum did an entirely too good job of being a Big Jerk in The Big Chill, and I've never found him anything but annoying.

Either I can live with it, or tune out every other episode. Or maybe Goldblum will surprise me and be, at worst, someone I love to hate.

Whatever.

One Upside to Laptop Ownership

It serves as a nice alarm clock.

If the battery threatens to run out, clearly I've been on the computer too long.

It's good to have boundaries.

Blogging Has Just Cost Me $600

And counting.

Last night I bought a low-end laptop, even though I already have a perfectly good desktop.

I actually have a number of reasons for wanting one, several of them work-related, but no, I didn't really need a laptop. Except for one thing.

I'm about to go away for two weeks. I don't like to go a'blogging on others' computers, leaving behind my pinko liberal traitor browsing history (related post below).

Faced with two weeks away from reading blog posts, not to mention writing them, the stress pushed me over the edge and off I went to Best Buy with a store ad in hand.

I didn't buy the store ad on-sale laptop, but I didn't pay too much more for the one I got, and the helpful young man who answered my questions, including some I didn't know to ask, wasn't even working on commission, so there was nothing in it for him.

I'm not a big fan of the built-in computer mouse, but I got an optical wireless mouse. Yet I haven't even bothered to break it out.

Once I got home, I decided I really needed to set up wireless in my house. It was too late to go back to BB, so I went to WalMart. To shorten the story, I bought a router that I know I connected correctly, but that won't complete the set up. (Yes, I have an adapter for the desktop and a built-in in the laptop.) I went to the router's online support (connecting the conventional way), and found a chat area about my router, where I learned that many, many people have experienced exactly the problem I am having. With no resolution.

So I'm boxing the thing up and returning it today.

If anyone has any advice on an easy-to-use, reliable router, I'm hungry to hear it. I won't deal with this any more until I return from my trip, but other than going to Best Buy for advice, I really don't know what else to do.

Boogity, Boogity, Boogity!!! Or, Something Else I Saw Today

Exiting a stone store (as in pavers), I almost ran into a man wearing a t-shirt that read, "Beware Liberals Posing as Americans."

I wish I had run into him -- hard.

This equation is a big frame around my parts:

conservatives = Americans
non-conservatives = non-Americans

There's a bumper sticker on every fifth car with a flag graphic and the words, "Stand up for America. Be an American!"

Logic is totally missing from these slogans. If a person is an American, she's an American. Period. This isn't a recruiting bumper sticker, as in "come be a naturalized citizen!" Of that I am quite sure.

And as for Mr. T-shirt, he's up to here, literally, in scare tactics, either/or fallacies, strawman-baiting, etc. Another argument without evidence.

Boogity, boogity! Beware the liberal traitor! She might be buying stakes for her paver edging at a store near you, plotting the downfall of the greatest nation on the planet while making sure her pavers don't shift.

Or something like that.

Right Outside the Front Door of Best Buy

Not the place I would expect to see a stretch limousine idling, with four adult couples in formal wear standing beside it and laughing and hugging.

But that's what I saw.

I Can Go Home Again

On Monday, I begin a two-week trip that will take me to my daughter's home and then take her, her boys, and me to spend a week in Maryland, where my mother and most of my other relatives live.

This trip almost didn't happen, and then it was only going to be a few days in Maryland, but now, now it's a full week.

I haven't allowed myself to get excited. Until today.

And some of these guys will be meeting their fate when they meet me:



and I'll have some of this:



And I'll see my mother, my seven sisters, two brothers, six nieces and nephews (yes, among all those siblings, they could only manage six kids -- I contributed three to the pool all by myself! [well, I had a little help...]), a great-niece and great-nephew, my ex's mother and some of her relatives...

Women in Film

As we continue this Week of Wonder, in which a film about women actually made a lot of money, Shakesville's Question of the Day is generating quite a list of films carried by female leads here.

(The link to the NY Times article includes an hour-long video interview with Sarah Jessica Parker. I haven't had time to watch it all yet.)

Calling Norma Rae...

Ugly things happening at work. Betrayal-level things.

Since I will only talk about work in generalties, I'll just say that this reminds me that the powerful always have power over the powerless, no matter what reassurances the powerful might make.

And management always assumes that there's more and better where you came from.

(Don't fret -- I am not on the verge of losing my job. At least I don't think I am. Metaphorically, however, perhaps I am. Because it's never going to be the same again.)

A Teachable Moment

Although I'm not sure that I want to think of the study of poetry literally as punishment, one prosecutor and one teacher seem to have found just the right occasion to sentence vandals to two nights of poetry:

Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost's former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment.

Using "The Road Not Taken" and another poem as jumping-off points, Frost biographer Jay Parini hopes to show the vandals the error of their ways -- and the redemptive power of poetry.

"I guess I was thinking that if these teens had a better understanding of who Robert Frost was and his contribution to our society, that they would be more respectful of other people's property in the future and would also learn something from the experience," said prosecutor John Quinn.

The vandalism occurred at the Homer Noble Farm in Ripton, where Frost spent more than 20 summers before his death in 1963. Now owned by Middlebury College, the unheated farmhouse on a dead-end road is used occasionally by the college and is open in the warmer months.

[...]

Parini, 60, a Middlebury College professor who has stayed at the house before, was eager to oblige when Quinn asked him to teach the classes. He donated his time for the two sessions.

On Wednesday, 11 turned out for the first, with Parini giving line-by-line interpretations of "The Road Not Taken" and "Out, Out-," seizing on parts with particular relevance to draw parallels to their case.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," he thundered, reciting the opening line of the first poem, which he called symbolic of the need to make choices in life.

"This is where Frost is relevant. This is the irony of this whole thing. You come to a path in the woods where you can say, `Shall I go to this party and get drunk out of my mind?"' he said. "Everything in life is choices."

Even the setting had parallels, he said: "Believe me, if you're a teenager, you're always in the damned woods. Literally, you're in the woods -- probably too much you're in the woods. And metaphorically you're in the woods, in your life. Look at you here, in court diversion! If that isn't `in the woods,' what the hell is `in the woods'? You're in the woods!"

Although some vandals were quoted making statements that suggested they got it,

[w]hen the session ended, the vandals were offered snacks -- apple cider, muffins, sliced fruit -- but none partook. They went straight for the door, several declining comment as they walked out of the building.

What's in a Name?

Or, a Muttering on Why I Really, Really, Really Hope That My DIL, Indian Princess, Doesn't Get Her Way about Naming Their Coming Baby, Should That Baby Be a Girl.

Based on what Indian Princess said to me recently about Marine Son suggesting other names, I dearly hope this is not a done deal. IP has had her heart set on a certain girl's name forever apparently, but you know what? Teenage dreams don't always go so well with adult realities. The only person I've ever heard of with IP's preferred name has had a tough, tough life, and as such, I'd hate to see a newborn baby be associated in any way with someone who's essentially famous for being, heartbreakingly, a walking disaster.

And she's made the news again.

Names should be a gift, not a burden.

(Grandmotherly rant over and out.)


Hat tip to Petulant at Shakesville.

Edit: On the same topic, what mother names her precious newborn Craphonso???

I Told You So

Women pump up 'Sex and the City' to $55.7 million opening

("Pump up." Get it? Ha-ha.)

The women have spoken — with their designer wallets.

Female moviegoers, many of them decked out as their favorite Sex and the City character, helped drive the adaptation of the popular HBO show to a stunning $55.7 million this weekend, according to studio estimates from box office tracking firm Nielsen EDI.

The debut is nearly twice the projections of many analysts, who assumed the movie's R rating and cable TV fan base would limit it to a $30 million opening.

'Sex and City' beats 'Indy' for top box-office draw

"Sex and the City," a release from Time Warner Inc.'s New Line unit, not only prompted thousands of Cosmopolitan-fueled cocktail parties focused on its Friday debut, it also made nearly $27 million in its first day in theaters, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.

It went on to rake in more than $17 million on Saturday and is expected to make more than $11 million on Sunday, Dergarabedian said. That's a surprise, considering the movie was expected to make somewhere around $35 million to $40 million for the entire weekend. "Sex and the City went off the air in 2004.

"We should never underestimate the clout of the female audience and the power of 'Sex and the City,'" Dergarabedian said. "This is the first real surprise of the summer."

Only to you and your ilk, sir.

Prior to Friday, [online ticket seller] Fandango reported that a survey of "Sex and the City" ticket buyers showed that 80% of all purchasers planned to attend a party devoted to the movie, and two-thirds planned to have Cosmopolitans, the signature drink of the television series' characters.

There's your financial stimulus. On Tuesday, Alanna and I will see the film and will also add to the economy by having a fabulous meal, but I'm not so sure about the Cosmos. (Well, I can only speak for myself.)

'Sex and the City': A Big Box Office Win

[T]hat $55.7 mil premiere is one for the history books. It is by far the best of all time for a romantic comedy, and it's also tops for a TV adaptation. It ranks as the No. 5 opening for an R-rated film (following those for a bunch of man-baiting movies like 300 and Hannibal). And when final weekend figures come out on Monday, it could be the fifth-top debut ever for New Line...

I told you so. Not that anyone who hangs around here was questioning my powers of observation. But it still feels really, really good to say.

Simple Math

I received by email a horribly offensive cartoon from my neighbor, one that hits on every big lie that's been spread about Barack Obama thus far (muslim extremist, Black Panther, anti-pledge of allegiance, etc.), and it occurs to me that in November we're going to raise our hands not to the question, "Who do you want for President?" but "How many of you are prejudiced and proud of it?"

And I'm afraid to know the answer to that question.

Let it Rain Down on Me

Two years ago just about right now, I was somewhere in the midst of a cross-country trip with my daughter, son-in-law, and their two little boys. SIL is in the Navy and had just finished a year of schooling in San Diego. They had two vehicles to get back to the East coast, and I was along partly to keep daughter company, partly to help with the boys, partly to vacation. (We saw the Grand Canyon, the Garden of the Gods (wowee!), the St. Louis arch -- all the wonders left of the Mississippi. ;) )

Outside Albuquerque, we stayed in our one and only Holiday Inn Express. To set itself apart from the rest, HIE has bumped up its amenities, and indeed it was the nicest place we stayed. The soft, thick towels were nice, the snow-white textured shower curtain was nice, that curved shower curtain rod that allowed plenty of move-around room in the shower/tub area was nice, etc. etc.

But the spray that came out of the shower head was heavenly.

A card in the HIE room indicated that all the luxuries in its Stay Smart collection -- including the shower head -- were for sale, and when I got home, I found the shower head and bookmarked it.

Two years later I still think of that shower, like a fondly remembered night of mysterious romance carried close to the heart for decades.

The only thing that stopped me from ordering the Holiday Inn Express shower head the moment I got home was that it was a stationary fixture. I like my shower heads detachable, on long hoses. This preference goes back to the days of having to shampoo small, wiggly heads, but the detachable heads also make spraying down the shower area a lot easier at cleaning time. I also like to rinse my hair with the spray right next to my scalp, and...

Enough about my showering habits.

Two years later I still pine for the HIE shower head, but we remain apart.

Now I need a new shower head. It's no longer a mere desire, and it'll be a critical need before too much longer. So I went shopping, and last night on a modest end display, I found my beloved, in hand-held form, waiting for me in Home Depot. (Compare the photos, the specs, etc. of the HIE shower head and the Forte. They're the same. The same!!! This Home Depot internet link shows the stationary head, but the brick and mortar store had the detachable version.)

Still, I didn't buy it just then, and I wasn't sure until this morning, when I came online and compared the Kohler Forte:



to the Holiday Inn Express Kohler Stay Smart:



Except for the hunky man having the shower of his life, the two photos look the same to me.

Time to go shopping!

Sometimes a Scarf is Just a Scarf, or Sorry, the Hoi Polloi Isn't Buying the Rachael Ray, Terrorist Spin

If you haven't heard this story, it goes like this:

1. Rachael Ray has an ongoing gig hawking Dunkin Donuts.
2. A stylist dressed her in a fringey scarf for a commercial.
3. Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin (and others) claim that Ray is wearing a "jihadi chic keffiyeh." (No linkee to Malkin. Not gonna do it.)

In other words, Ray is adorned in unpatriotic terrorist garb, etc. and so forth. In response to the criticism, DD pulled the ad.

When these things happen -- and by the way, nothing much did happen except a well-known woman did a donut ad in a scarf until Malkin put her special spin on it -- what the right will say is predictable. So too with the left.

What's not so predictable is what people who aren't looking at the donut ad from a political angle will say.

I stumbled on a Donutgate article while looking for Lost articles, and what interested me -- I'm a sucker for news story comments -- is that in comments almost everyone decried the Rachael-Ray-dressed-as-terrorist spin as the pure and total nonsense it is, and they criticize Dunkin Donuts for overreacting, allowing themselves to be manipulated, etc.

During moments like this I have hope that our country's critical thinking skills haven't left us completely.

Mad for Mad Men and More

To stave off my Lost withdrawal, I found a killer article on Mad Men on EW. (This is for Alanna and Bee!) The Golden Globe-winning show returns July 27 and I can barely wait.

If you're not watching this show, you should be. You have been admonished.

The article contained another gem: series star and Golden Globe winner Jon Hamm spent his off-time filming a movie. I'm happy for Hamm, but not sure how I feel about this. The inevitable has happened (and this is for Phil): The Day the Earth Stood Still has been remade, with a December release date. And it stars...Keanu Reeves as Klaatu.

Well, I guess Reeves knows how to act like someone from outer space...

It's Lostday!!!

Good news: Two-hour Lost finale at 9:00
Bad news: Beginning of long Lost drought at 11:00

Guardian Columnist Unsuccessfully Attempts Citizen's Arrest of John Bolton

Guardian columnist George Monbiot unsuccessfully tried arresting John Bolton at a literary festival in England:

Security guards blocked the path of columnist and activist George Monbiot, who tried to make the arrest as Mr Bolton left the stage.

The former ambassador - a key advisor to President George W Bush who argued strongly in favour of invading Iraq - had been giving a talk on international relations to more than 600 people at the literary festival.

Mr Monbiot was blocked by two heavily-built security guards at the end of the one-and-a-half hour appearance, before he could serve a "charge sheet" on him.

[...]

Mr Monbiot said moments later he was "disappointed" that he had been blocked from making the citizen's arrest.

"This was a serious attempt to bring one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war to justice, for what is described under the Nuremberg Principles as an international crime," he said.

[...]

A citizen's arrest can be carried out under certain circumstances by a member of the public, if they believe a person had carried out a crime, under the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.

We're All Samuel Pepys Now

We’re all Samuel Pepys now.

I’ve had that thought dozens of times, but I never wrote it down until today, in response to Brave Sir Robin's prodding that we go read a post on his friend’s site, about knitting. And other important things. Then my comments on his blog blossomed into this post.

This story of knitting and crisis and love is just one example of why I love blogging. We're all Samuel Pepys now, all working to make sense of our individual corners of the world, documenting those thoughts, and enriching each others' lives in the process.

The art of letter writing may be dying as people e-mail one another instead, and then delete rather than put the precious words in a shoebox or a file cabinet drawer. We’re losing the intimacy of our correspondents’ handwriting, the fragrance of the scented stationery, the little oil stains from the lunch carelessly eaten above the note – perhaps by both writer and reader.

But what we lose when we lose that old way of doing things, we gain tenfold through blogging. Not only can we continue to connect with our friends, we form new friendships with people we’d never meet otherwise, even though we may never “meet” them face-to-face (in some cases we may never even know their “real” names or faces). These are friendships just the same, and I cherish mine. We know they love cats, or their favorite foods, or why it’s bliss for them to get out of town on the weekend. We worry about their health crises. We revel in their zany, lovable way with words. We live abroad with them vicariously. Or in the big city. We watch them manage their money with panache. We hear their powerful voices and see through their eyes the beauty in the smallest things (really, you should sample this blog!). Other times we just peek in once or twice on people who remain strangers, but who still allow us and anyone else who cares to drop by a casual intimacy that we simply couldn’t get in the face-to-face world where in a crowd we’re mostly a little stand-offish, fiercely maintaining our personal space.

Pepys didn’t aspire to be a writer of importance for centuries. He was simply observing, just as we bloggers are. I sometimes wonder where our blogs will be in 10, 20, 100 years. Somewhere still archived, I hope. Here lie riches for the sociologists, folklorists, anthropologists, and historians of the future, those scholars who will want to know how people lived their lives in the early 21st century.

Because we’re all Samuel Pepys now.

I'm Wearing This

(Not actually Bitty, unfortunately.)

When Alanna and I go to see Sex and the City next week, I'll be wearing this, although I won't look quite so fabulous in it.


Just so you all know.

Oh, Noes! A Girly Film!!

"There's no getting around that this is a film oriented to women and gay men...It will be very hard to get past that, especially with a lot of testosterone-driven films out there this summer."

Earlier today I wrote this post, put it up for about 10 minutes, and pulled it down. My original discussion MIGHT have been a little unkind to he who uttered those words, one movie analyst named Jeff Bock of Reel Source (for which I can find no website), because I rained all my sarcasm down on his head. Bock's words appear in an AP article that asks the musical question, "Can women alone make 'Sex and the City' a hit?" Bock didn't write the piece, doesn't deserve all the blame, and may well have been taken out of context. (Setting the piece's title and Bock's quote aside, the article seems to be suggesting that interest in the film is wide and deep. In other words, here we seem to have another media-created controversy where none otherwise exists.) Regardless of where or how the idea originated, the suggestion offered in Bock's words set me off. So here I go, slightly revised:

Understandably, Sex and the City is not a film that will appeal to most men. And while Bock didn't write the whole piece and may well have been quoted out of context, he seems to be suggesting that a film that doesn't appeal to men (he oddly calls this film a "paternity test") couldn't possibly make money.

If Bock has not been taken out of context, I'm not sure what, exactly, it is we need to "get around" or "get past" besides nineteenth-century notions about women and agency. Bock appears not to offer his analysis based on anything particularly concrete, such as the enormous following the HBO series had in its original run and continues to have on TBS even in its eviscerated (cleaned up) state, or the clamor for this film that began before the series even ended, or the DVD sales -- currently the 6-season box set (not the "luxury package") is #26 in DVD on Amazon, an interestingly high stat considering that many fans bought the series long ago. The point Bock seems to be making is based on the faulty premise that without men in the seats, movies can't make money. Yet the series has been hand-over-fisting it for years, despite its girly nature.

Anyway, any Hollywood accountant worth her billing hours knows that the box office, which yes, may fall off after the first weeks as is true of many films, is only a small part of the story: it's a film's afterlife that often brings the windfall, and the Sex DVD, which I predict will be released just in time for holiday gift-giving, will bring that windfall.

I think that Bock is equating "hit" with "competition," as in "who makes the most money?" not "who makes money?" (What a testosterone-driven idea!) However, my analysis, based on the excitement I know exists around the film is this: the backers of this film will not regret their investment.

Here's an idea that Bock apparently hasn't factored in: Sex and the City will appeal to many people who have no interest whatsoever in "testosterone-driven films," people whose money would otherwise remain tucked away in their checking accounts. People who are women.

I know two of those people well, and we've already made our girly-date to go see the film on June 3.

(For another take-down on this article, see Melissa at Shakesville.)

(Another SATC analysis, although not based on this article, comes from Philosophy Factory, who is currently vacationing in a different city, Sin City.)

I'm Not an Attorney, But I Played One on TV

...and that lack of real-life experience isn't stopping Dylan McDermott, formerly attorney Bobby Donnell on The Practice, from serving as his own divorce lawyer.

I've Got a Secret

It occurs to me that it's really quite unethical to tell someone something -- and then AFTER the fact say that it's a secret and not to tell.

The person who does this essentially asks the receiver of the message to lie, and this without giving her the opportunity to refuse to hear the secret.

This has just happened to me, and while in the end, the person being kept out of the loop is eventually going to be told the secret, my job (my lie) is to remember that I didn't know it first, even though I did.

I don't like being asked to lie, and upon reflection, it occurs to me that this person, who shall remain even pseudonymously nameless, frequently says, "don't tell So and So" when little (usually dumb, insignificant) things happen that she'd rather he not know.

Am I right, or am I overly sensitive?

One Week Later

I was gone a week and a day. In that week:

My cat, Baby, decided that, with spoilsport me out of the way, the dining table is now his domain. I have no idea how I'm going to keep him off it.

Baby shedded about 1/4 of a cat's worth of fur.

My outdoor potted plants did not die, although the Weather Channel told me every day that it was very dry here.

Apparently we had quite a windstorm at least once because said potted plants are blown all over the place and I need to go out and find where my Sirius antenna went.

A mystery and why I'm really posting on this topic: my neighbors, whose mailbox has been in one position the 32 years they've occupied their home, have planted a second mailbox (apparently not a replacement) five feet away from the old one, and rather low to the ground.

I Don't Play Favorites

I just searched my own blog and can't believe I've never ranted about this:

SECURITY QUESTIONS.

I despise them to the core of my being (the one rare exception: the website that allows you to ask and answer your own questions). Why do I hate them?

They rarely ask answerable questions.

For instance, I had to set up three security questions to get into my bank account. I did NOT get to choose these questions. They were:

Favorite restaurant?
Favorite drink?
Favorite person?

I have no single, favorite restaurant, nor do I usually have an answer for the questions like them: favorite TV show? movie? song? actor? etc? etc? (I actually do have a favorite drink: diet Pepsi. But rarely do I have a single answer to a question like this.)

The third question is the worst. It reminds me of the old "philosophical" question: your child and your spouse are drowning. You can only save one. Which one will you save and why?

Cookies, I don't have a favorite person. The people in my life bring me joy in different ways. I'd like to think they feel the same way about me in relationship to the other people in their lives.

Today I had to set up a new charge card for online payment. I had to answer FIVE security questions. They gave me about 20 to choose from, but at least 15 of them were "favorite" questions. Several others were "it depends" questions: e.g., where did you meet your spouse? (Are you asking specifically where we were [in the hallway between the old building and the new], or generally [high school]? Am I going to remember which answer I gave or, more importantly, how I worded it?) I was barely able to find five answerable questions. I already keep a notebook with passwords. I'd hate to have to start another for answers to security questions.

And the bank account problem? I had to solve it just that way: make a decision -- not entirely true because these are not my "favorite" restaurant and person -- and write the answers down.

Which seems to me not so secure after all.

Bugging Out

I'm off to my daughter's in NC for about a week. She just happens to live in my daughter-in-law's hometown. DIL and her (and Marine Son's) son are there, so off I go for a family-fun-filled Mother's Day weekend, complete with a pig pickin'. (I don't quite know what that is, but I can guess, and I'll know for sure soon enough.)

I may or may not get to check in -- everyone have a great Mother's Day!

Bad Career Move

Big drug bust at San Diego State University today.

Ouch:

Those arrested included a student who was about to receive a criminal justice degree and another who was to receive a master's degree in homeland security.

This won't look good on the resumes.

Isn't It Ironic?

Regarding the report that Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds are engaged, CNN reminds us that Reynolds, who formerly -- and relatively recently -- was engaged to Alanis Morissette, "recently starred in 'Definitely, Maybe.'"

Scattergories Meme

Picked up at kona's place.

All questions must be answered by using a word that begins with the same letter as your name. I'm not willing to use my "real" name, so let's go with Bitty, shall we?

1. What is your name? Bitty
2. A four-letter word: both
3. A vehicle: bus
4. A city: Baltimore (near where I grew up)
5. A boy's name: Bobby
6. A girl's name: Barbara
7. Alcoholic drink: beer
8. An occupation: brain surgeon
9. Something you wear: bra
10. A celebrity: Brigitte Bardot
11. A food: bread
12. Something found in a bathroom: bathtub
13. Reason for being late: boredom (ok, so I had to stretch on this one, but if I'm not motivated to go wherever, it might take me a while to get there...)
14. Something you shout: BINGO!!!
15. An animal: badger
16. A body part: brain

More fun (and in a few instances, harder) than I expected.

If you like, have at it.

What I hope to be my one and only post about the sick-o who raped his daughter and imprisoned her and their children for DECADES

The man is pleading insanity. Well, yes. It is "insane" to do what he has done. But that doesn't mean it's unpunishable.

His lawyer, Attorney Rudolf Mayer said he believed 73-year-old Josef Fritzl had a mental disorder, The Associated Press reported.

Mayer said: "I believe that the trigger was a mental disorder, because I can't imagine that someone has sex with his own daughter without having a mental disorder," Mayer said in an interview broadcast late Sunday.

Since his attorney can't imagine it, it must be so.

But that’s not why I’m posting on this. One thing has been bothering me since the beginning. This man imprisoned his family and presumably no one knew of their existence in the cellar.

What would have happened had he died? He is, after all, in his 70s. Had he left papers behind instructing someone to rescue his family? Would his wife have finally gone to the cellar and, finding the strange locked door, asked someone to help her find out what was behind it? Or might she have been so afraid of his insistence that she never go there that she would have left it alone?

In other words, would Elizabeth and the children have simply starved to death, abandoned in their prison?

And if this thought occurs to me, I (having perhaps a little more imagination than Fritzl’s attorney) imagine that it had occurred to Elizabeth. And she had to live with that fear on top of all the others.

Life in that basement was a nightmare in so many more ways than one.

Grades are not Pizzas

A student sent me an e-mail today asking me what his final grade is. He asks, he says (and not nearly as grammatically correctly as I recreate it here), because he needs a 3.0, which he says means he needs a B plus in my class to keep his car insurance discount.

Friends, he has not done B plus work.

The time for students to get the grade they "need" is the 16 weeks of the semester, not final-grading weekend.

This e-mail is typical of the pressure we get from some students who have decided what grade they want or need in our classes and continually push us in that direction, sometimes subtly and sometimes not. Well, I NEED an A, they insist. Despite the fact that I give class instruction in what the elements of an A, B, C, etc. are and I have posted samples of A papers, they think that because writing is (in their eyes) not as cut and dried in its grading as in many classes, where they are often asked multiple-choice questions and are graded by a scantron machine, grades are negotiable, or worse: orderable, like a pepperoni pizza. No anchovies, please.

But grades are not pizzas and are earned, not ordered.

Lost: Something Nice Back Home

Checking in long enough to say...

this was the first Lost episode in ages that provided more answers than questions.

Plenty of questions, too, though.

(Nice way to mislead us in the previews by saying "the island takes one survivor for its own..." Ha! I fell for it.)

National Poetry Month: More Money than Time

And any time I have more money than time, I'm in serious trouble.

Expect much radio silence from these corners for the next 7-10 days. I have a zillion things to grade, many of them poetry explications, 500 jillion calculations to make, and a very fixed deadline.

Enjoy this until I return and think gentle thoughts of me, because this is pretty much what I'll be reading.*

Taylor Mali, take it away...




*In truth, many of my students are excellent writers. But far too many do write exactly like this -- they have no idea that the words they've put on the page are not the words they intend. It's scary, but it's also evidence of just how far we've gone down the road toward once again becoming an oral culture.

Lost: The Shape of Things to Come

...and they won't be pretty.

My unscientific sampling suggests that at 10:58 Eastern Standard Time, millions of Lost fans were moaning the same thing: "Nooooo, not Penny!!!" I base this on the fact that not only is that what I was saying, but several minutes later when I called my daughter, that, not hello, was the first thing she said to me.

It's pretty clear at this point -- to me, anyway -- that time travel (in body and not just mind) from the island is possible, though not easy, and last night Ben pulled it off, jumping from (probably) late 2003 to 2005. Apparently the desert is the arrival point (hence the "ancient" polar bear remains with the Dharma charm previously found in mid-desert).
















One suspects that this is Ben's first such trip. Witness his glee at confirming that yes, of course, it's 2005 (Michael Emerson so rocks):



The big mystery is the nature of the Ben/Widmore rivalry. The game of Risk played by the men in the early scene serves as metaphor for the rest of the episode. But how? When Widmore tells Ben to go ahead and kill him, Ben says, "You know I can't do that." Yet Ben is earlier stunned to find that Widmore has "changed the rules" (NOT "violated" them). That Ben "can't" kill Widmore suggests that there's something going on beyond a pissing match between these two men, some larger force that restrains him.

What?????

Oh, and now we know how Ben manipulated Sayid into being his personal assassin. (This leads us to wonder who really killed Nadia.)

Of late, I've been inclined to believe that Ben was being truthful all those times that he has said, "We're the good guys." Despite the fact that many of his actions have had heinous effects on individuals, he seems to subscribe to utilitarianism as his worldview.

But threatening Penny? That's clearly just personal. And mean.

(The splendid screencaps come from here.)

Lost

lostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlost

Tonight.

National Poetry Month: Sonnet 130

SONNET 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.


Is Will just being sarcastic?
Standing the tired old Italian sonnet on its head?
Or is this a pure and honest expression of love?

(Happy birthday, Will!)

Star and Al: Over

According to the AP:

Three years after tying the knot in a spectacular, over-the-top affair that caused some backlash, Star Jones has decided to end her marriage to banker Al Reynolds.

No one could have predicted this would happen.