A thought on lapsed relationships

I've a feeling the only reason this blog has not been removed from a particular list is that person can't be bothered to mess with their template.

At some point, this person will decide they are bored with their template and remove the link and then, well.

It's sad, but it's also weird, as I'm not sure. And I really can't bring myself to ask. I should just ask, honestly. I guess I don't because I just don't need that, too, to add to the total list of things which make me very sad right now.

I could be just jumping to conclusions, but I've had a sneaking suspicion for a long time now. I'm such a coward with this stuff.

Also, when I do this sort of thing to other people, I tend to, you know, write letters that are held on to for years due to the bitterness they inspire. Or whatever. I don't know why he held on to that letter so long. God, I hope he doesn't still have it. That would be pathetic beyond words, and give me way too much significance in his life. I am anything but significant.

Still, it's depressing, as I rather admire this person. But, I'm not admirable, so I don't see reciprocation. And, I'm annoying. So there's that.

C'est la vie, ne?

S.O.U.S.es

I have weird facinations. One is with WWII movies. I don't know why, as I'm not all, "Woo! Greatest war ever!" as I'm not particularly fond of war. Not to say we should have capitulated to the facist forces (for longer than we did, at any rate, which was for a really fricking long time, considering), but war bugs me. Still, WWII movies are the bee's knees. Even crappy ones.

Then I took a course on WWII through Japanese literature, pre-Pearl Harbor, during WWII, and during the occupation. I've read pieces that most Japanese don't even know were ever written. (The Japanese denial of much of what happened just before and during WWII is the subject of a long, exhausting essay for which I haven't the mental energy right now.)

So, when NOVA has a program about the famed Battleship Yamato, it's like ...well, not mental chocolate, but definitely crystal-methish.

Naturally, when you're dealing with the Pacific front, with the Japanese navy's successes shortly after Pearl Harbor, with the American aircraft carriers, with the freakin' Yamato, largest battleship ever created, you're going to get tons of superlatives. Still, "ships of unusual size" tickled me in a movie/book-geek-slash-WWII-geek mash-up.

Side Note
An interesting story which I vaguely remember getting some coverage nationally, about the grandson of an American WWII Navy vet returning the personal effects of a kamikaze pilot to his family. The last sentence, included in an article written a little over five months before the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, is somewhat bittersweet a read.

Also of note is that the kamikaze volunteers were nearly all university students, "though science students were deemed too valuable to sacrifice."

happy chocolate bunny day

If I can't have a flying car, I want a supertrain, damn it

From The Pinstriped Bible:

Parenthetically, it's amazing that we live in the greatest country in the world, but our high-speed trains between New York and Boston putter along like a toddler's wind-up toy. Why is it that France, Germany, and Japan get the cool transportation toys? Okay, part of the answer is because we spend all our money protecting those countries and freeing them up to buy choo-choos. Still, it's frustrating.

The poor quality of our rail and commuter systems in this country drive me absolutely bonkers. There's no reason why the greatest country in the world (yes, as an American, I am biased, but still) should not have kick-ass train systems equivalent to those in Japan, Germany and France. France! France beats us out! That's just wrong, America!

If I ever hit the jackpot in some way or form, after paying off my debts and the rest of Mom's mortgage, I will start a campaign to get a decent commuter rail system set up here in the Capital Region. There is no reason on God's little green Earth that the commute from Saratoga to Albany should take over an hour. That's just retarded. (No, not mentally or physically disabled, retarded. There's a difference.) Once I succeed there, I will move on to doing something about our interstate rail system. ...and then pigs will fly out from my tuchus and soar through the sky. ::sigh::

Update: April 3, 2007, 13:37 GMT

From BBC News | Europe | French set new rail speed record:

A French high-speed train (TGV) has smashed the world record for a train on conventional rails by a big margin, reaching 574.8km/h (356mph).

...

The absolute train speed record was set by a Japanese magnetic levitation train - Maglev - in 2003. It reached a top speed of 581km/h (361mph).

...

After the record was broken, President Jacques Chirac conveyed his congratulations on "this new proof of the excellence of the French rail industry."

::crickets::

AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!

::head goes 'splodey::

Awesome!

Ancient, giant things are, by their very nature, awesome. #54398 in the series of Things I've Learned About By Watching Nova: Glacial Lake Missoula and the Ice Age Floods.

A note on grammar

I've been thinking for years now that I ought to start up a blog where my mom gives daily or weekly grammatical tips for English writers. Honestly, interweb. Your English blows. Even the better-written posts have sucktacular English. Mom's busy with her divorce, and I'm busy with my crappy-ass temp job, so, instead of the new blog, I bring you the

ENGLISH LANGUAGE GRAMMATICAL TIP OF THE DAY:

There is a difference between "fewer" and "less." Here's the way you can remember it. Say some lucky schmuck is walking down the beach, ducks down and scoops up a handful of sand. Not paying attention, the schmuck opens his and a little, allowing some of the sand to slip between his fingers. You can now either say that lucky schmuck has LESS sand in his hand or FEWER grains of sand.

"Less" applies to overall amount, or a mass which cannot be divided so that you can count it (sand, water, control...). "Fewer" applies to things you would count individually (grains of sand, raisins, controls...). If you pour water out of a glass, you have less water in the glass, as you can't count a mass such as water individually. (Granted, if you're an asshole, you could say you have fewer drops of water, but then, again, that'd make you an asshole.) If you poured peanuts out of a bowl, you would have fewer peanuts in that bowl, as you could, technically, count the number of peanuts which you poured out.

Less is for mass, fewer is for items. Capice?

... WTUF?

Holy crap. Further proof of the end of civilization. For some reason, the part which stuck out like a purple-clad dancing cat was the following:

Speaking at news conference last week, a Montgomery County coroner's office spokesman said the investigation had been complicated by the lack of research on the effect of microwaves on human beings.

Like my deeply troubled mother said when I told her about a mother who possibly nuked her own baby girl (for God's sake, WTUH?!), not too many bodies fit into a standard microwave oven, so it wouold be difficult to gather data on that sort of thing.

One, if she did it, it's simply yet more fuel for a sneaking suspicion I have that we need to start up some sort of law which requires that people get thoroughly vetted before they're permitted to breed. Completely fucking wrong, I know, but, for Christ's sake! Nuked babies! Come on!

Two, if she didn't do it, if it was the babysitter or someone, that poor, poor woman, going through this hell and being accused of committing such a completely fucked up and evil act.

I'm too tired to deal with this. I'm going to go watch this week's Scrubs on the DVR again.

Wow. That looks positively shitacular.

I'm a dork. I saw the trailers for The Lord of the Rings movies and I squeed. I was even excited to see a dragon fly back when the exceedingly disappointing Dragonheart came out.

Eragon is a derivative piece of shit. I shudder at the thought of kids reading it and thinking that's what good writing is. And, judging by the trailer over at Moviefone, it looks like the film based upon it is just as crappy: see for yourself.

Bad costuming, bad magical animal design, cruddy effects, misuse of good actors, shitty actors in central roles. Yup, all the marks of a decidedly mediocre fantasy flick. It's like Peter Jackson never happened. Then again, reading Eragon, it's like high school English never happened. Oh, wait. He was home-schooled, wasn't he? Guess it didn't happen.

Go work in comics!

I know way too many English majors who grew up reading X-Men et al not to post this here.

Go work for Marvel! They're looking for an Associate Editor at Marvel Entertainment in NYC. Job details behind the link. I can't imagine I don't have at least one geeky and über-intelligent friend (and this describes pretty much all of you) who could manage to fit the bill. Okay, yeah, comics ain't what they used to be, but comics! Squee! You'd be working for Marvel Comics! Home of Spiderman and Wolverine and Nightcrawler! Dude! Nightcrawler! Go apply! I know you could do this job.

I'm not applying 'cause I'm not qualified. I've work experience, but not appropriate work experience. I have this growing, creeping, chilling fear I'm going to be an admin for the rest of my days. My life is going to continue to be teh suck of suck for the forseeable future. How the hell do people start proper careers without internships?

They can't, can they? ... Crap.

an empty sky

*headdesk*

All right. This is just driving me buggy.

I've been reading juvvie books, trying to see if there's something I'd like to get for my bookwormish nephew, and have discovered 1) The Secret Country trilogy is all right, though missing a certain something (perhaps its dose of reality in terms of relationships between kids and their parents), 2) Diana Wynne Jones books MUST be bought from the UK as the US versions are but pale, heavily-edited shadows, 2a) I must buy lots of DWJ for the bookworm, and 3) Jane Yolen has no fucking clue how to you thou/thee in a sentence.

The Third is the subject of this post, as, for pity's sake! English is her first language and she's not a moron. So why does she write like one?

Thou and thee are, of course, older forms of you, no longer in use. Still, it's somewhat easy for anyone who studied Elizabethan and Jacobean literature in college (and for whom English is the primary language) to pick up the rules. Thou is used when the you is subject, thee when it's direct object, like the difference between he and him or she and her. The possessive, thy, changes form to thine when the noun is defines is plural. Per the following:

"Thou art a great beauty."

"T'would go better for thee if thou wouldst not lie so."

"Ah! Thou art a true Venus! Thine eyes, thy skin, thy mouth...!"

"Ach! Go to, go to! I'll no more of thee."

All right. Not the best dialogue, but I think you can probably pick up the use of thou/thee/thy/thine from it. Yes? It's not that hard.

So why does Jane frickin' Yolen screw it up? Why? At first, I hought she was simply illustrating the ignorance of a poor boy who lives thousands of years in the future when she used thee where thou should be, and thy in thine's place in The Dragon Pit trilogy (now, apparently, a series of four or summat). Now I'm reading The Young Merlin trilogy, and it's wrong again. Why? Why, why why?

Augh. It's so frustrating, it makes me want to go read some more DWJ. I swear, reading Diana Wynne Jones's ficture for preteens-and-up is like taking a lovely cool bath after a long hot day. Too bad I can't buy any more books until next month. Poop.

The Smithy Code

You've probably heard of this already, but how fabulous is it that a London judge has put a code into his ruling?

You don't know about this? Um, well, there's a New York Times article about it here.

I know that American rulings are available on the web, but are British? Does anyone know how I can find the Baigent v. Random House ruling? I'd love to read it, though I should imagine it can't be half as fun a read as the Mattel v. MCA (over Aqua's "Barbie Girl" song) ruling.

Yakitate!! Sugar Kat-pan

I'm all in love with the Yakitate!! Japan scanlations I've been reading, so I poked around the interweb a bit, and have discovered that the super-awesome, mega-good "solar hands" that the better bakers in the series have...I have them, too! Turns out "solar hands" means you have naturally warm hands. I'd always thought it was freaky that I had such good circulation, considering how much I loathe to exercise (ew! sweat! ugh!) and how much time I've spent over my lifetime just sitting on my arse, reading or watching TV or mucking about on the internet. Turns out, if I felt like it, I could be a naturally kick-ass breadmaker thanks to my freakishly warm hands. My freakishly warm hands about which my very own mother teases me.

I should make bread this weekend and test my "solar hands"-ness. See if it's all they're cracked up to be in the (very silly) manga.

I refuse to grow a 'fro if they don't work, though.

By the way, "yakitate" means "freshly baked." Don't you love Jim Breen?

This made my brain hurt

A link sent to me by my dear younger brother: Suri Cruise Explained.

Not all people from Syracuse are this insane. Honestly. My elder sister is very, very normal.

Gary is awesome!

Of course, those of you who know Gary already know this.

But why is this Gary of whom I speak so awesome at this particular time that I feel the need to post about his awesomeness on my publically-available blog?

Because Gary sent me a huge-ass box of Pocky, that's why. Not just chocolate Pocky, but Kurogoma Pocky, and Chocolat Chaud Mousse Pocky, and all sorts of other Pocky varieties. Even two big boxes of chocolate Pocky multipacks, with lots and lots of minipacks of chocolate Pocky inside.

I was bitten by a charity bug today (gave a bunch of donations to the groups you see listed above), and somehow this led to my giving away Pocky packets from one of these boxes. (One jerk gave his away instead of returning it to me, which is so jerky! No more treats for the jerk! He doesn't deserve the goodness that is Pocky.) The upshot of this is that I've now about three coworkers who, after one small pack, are totally addicted to Pocky and are attempting to come up with ways to get their own supply. Which is good, 'cause then I can mooch off of their Pocky supply, as, though Gary sent me what seems like half a metric ton of Pocky, I just might get through the delicious, delicious Pocky by the close of the weekend at the latest.

THANK YOU, GARY! YOU TOTALLY ROCK!

Wherefore Rabbit?

From yesterday's The Writer's Almanac.

The word "Easter" comes from an ancient pagan goddess worshipped by Anglo Saxons named Eostre. According to legend, Eostre once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning the bird into a rabbit. Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs, and that rabbit became our Easter Bunny.

Holy shit!

NYTimes.com today: Cheney's Aide Says President Approved Leak

The testimony by the former official, I. Lewis Libby Jr., cited in a court filing by the government made late Wednesday, provides an indication that Mr. Bush, who has long criticized leaks of secret information as a threat to national security, may have played a direct role in authorizing disclosure of the intelligence report on Iraq.

You know they're still going to get away with it, though, don't you? Bush and Cheney could step out onto the White House lawn and shoot target practice at passing citizens and they'd still be sitting pretty. They could toss incendiaries into random in-session courtrooms and still be praised to high heaven by Republicans. They've done nearly entirely nothing but wrong since they came into power, and yet they can still do no wrong.

On volcanoes and colds

Vesuvius Due For Giant Eruption

"There was this Bronze-Age eruption about 4,000 years ago, and then 2,000 years ago there was the A.D. 79 event. It seems that just about every 2,000 years, there's been a major eruption of this scale at Vesuvius," said Sheridan.

I don't know why I think this is cool. I just do. As cool as the potential for life on Europa? No. But still, cool. In an opposite way, I guess, as Vesuvius is about geological activity killing life, but Europa's all about the cultivating of life. Alien life forms. Sucre, they're just bateria, but... Dude. Millions of years ago, so were we.

Speaking of single-celled life forms, I have myself a very nasty cold. Everyone else has a cold, too, so I guess I'm just being fashionable, in a sincerely lemming-like way.

Today's a day of baking banana bread (we have about forty-five frozen bananas sitting in our freezer, waiting to be turned into a baked good) and figuring out my personal finances and being sick. I wish it were a day of chocolate, laughter, and very good sex, but it's not. I'd even go for a day of laughter and good movies. Actually, that'd probably lead to a lot less chaffing. Yes, I would rather today were a day of laughter and good movies than of banana bread baking, balancing personal finances, and coming down with a horrible cold.

I'm going to go lie down now. Go read about Vesuvius. Learning things is groovy.

GSB: All Braff, all the time!

Holy crap! Zach Braff has a blog! He started it up when he was working on Garden State, apparently, but has very awesomely decided to keep it going. And he makes his own posts! Not an assistant, or a publicity wonk, but young Master Zach himself, posting!

...I don't know why I'm so tickled by this. But I am. Hear that? That's me, squeeing.

*squee!*

Also, he makes an awesome reference to Shotgate, or whatever the hell they're calling it now, in his most recent post.

Awesome!

*squee!!*

Score!

I just went through a bag I haven't used since early December and discovered a packet of Kurogoma (black sesame) Pocky! \/\/007! I am l33t sp34king with joy!

Mmmmmmmm. Pockypockypockypockypockypockypockypockypockypockypockypockypockypocky. *Cookie-Monster-style munch*

Crap. Now it's all gone. *wah*

...Hey! Melty Kiss! Three Melty Kisses! *squee!*

...

Two Melty Kisses!

Ow. My back hurts.

God, what was I going to say? I can't remember. I purposely opened up Manage Posts in order to write something, but I'm so freakin' distracted by this back pain that I can't think straight.

Fudgemonkey.

I have a house to catalogue. I don't have time to sit here, typing pointless crap into a computer in order to post it for all to see upon the interwebs.

Oh! This is completely unrelated to the original purpose to this post, but I thought I'd remind folks that those people who suffered through Hurricane Katrina who were without housing and living in government-subsidized hotel rooms have been kicked out of their rooms and are now homeless. PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN TO THE CHARITIES ABOVE. These folks still need our individual help and the help of reputable charities, as our government is too busy misusing its funds (tax cuts for the rich and corporations, corporate welfare, paychecks for Tom Delay and Karl Rove) to help the neediest.

For the Octopuses

I take it you all have already seen this, but, just in case, Pharyngula has a post about an octopus attacking an ROV. An epic battle between monster and machine! Epic!

That all said, my cat, Lucy, is going insane. In a cute way, but, man. Weird.

Also, I'm looking for housing in the City and my mom might be, too, as it looks like she might lose the house and everything she owns.

One of my favorite (true) stories

I haven't updated, for real, in forever. I've been spending my sporadic time online either looking for a job or downloading manga scanlations. I haven't checked my e-mail accounts with regularity in ages, except for the account where the job search results from various websites are sent.

So, I update now, sitting at the desk I set up in September or so for my monitor and keyboard and mouse. The computer I prefer to use while sitting on the sofa, but the internet connection, crappy as it is, doesn't go that far. It should, the router thing should work that far and further, but it barely works here, in the same room. I sit at my desk, trying to sit up straight and hold my hands in a position which would do least damage.

The window above my desk is high and wide, and has two laminated construction paper cutouts taped to it which my eldest nephew, S--, made while in preschool: one a basic shape of a person, with dot eyes and nose and line smile, the other an outline of his hand at that age, both with his name written on them in the teacher's neat pen. They are there to ward off the birds which had flown into the window, slammed against it, and fallen into the bush below. They have all, so far, recovered after a few moments' rest, but I didn't like being surprised by the sudden slam or the thought that, one day, one of the birds would not shake itself together and fly off. Also, I miss the kid, and the laminated cutouts have nostalgic value. The window is black behind the cutouts, the ceiling fan and the ceiling tiles casting pale reflections in the lower half, and the bright, dime-sized moon glowing past black silohoutte branches beyond.

I have little to do, beyond the job search and house cleaning. I try to read, but I'm too often distracted by dark thoughts of debt and bills to focus on what's in front of me. I cannot bring myself to read fiction for some reason, so I take in small bits of a biography on William Shakespeare and a biography of Benjamin Franklin, depending on where I left which book and where I am at hat moment. I haven't updated the reading list on this site in forever. I can't be bothered to go in and correct the template, especially when I'm not sure for how long the router will work.

I finally checked my AOL account today, to which I have a lot of mass e-mail sent. Going through the Writer's Almanac e-mail, I found in the December, 24, 2005, e-mail, this story from WWI, which I haven't heard in ages but have loved since I first heard about it when I was in elementary school:

It's Christmas Eve, and it was on this day in 1914 that the last known Christmas truce occurred, during World War I. German troops fighting in Belgium began decorating their trenches and singing Christmas carols. Their enemy, the British, soon joined in the caroling. The war was put on hold, and the soldiers greeted each other in "No Man's Land," exchanging gifts of whiskey and cigars. In many areas, the truce held until Christmas night, while in other places the truce did not end until New Year's Day. In one area, the opposing sides played a soccer match together.

British commanders Sir John French and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien disapproved of the truce, and they ordered artillery bombardments on Christmas Eve in the remaining years of the war. Troops were also rotated with regularity to keep them from growing too familiar with the enemy troops in the close quarters of trench warfare. The Christmas truce was a war tradition of the 19th century, and its disappearance marked the end of wartime protocols of that time.

I wasn't aware before of the commanders ordering the end of the truce tradition. Makes me dislike them even more than I did before. When I first heard the story, it was as the origin of the English version of "Silent Night" and "O Tannenbaum," both of which were sung by German troops. The British troops returned their own traditional carols, and a bugler played. Or something. I can't remember exactly. It's possible that both sides knew "Silent Night" and sang it to each other in their native tongues. I should read the link The Writer's Almanac set up.

I like the idea of a truce on holy days. There are a lot of them, minor ones, mostly, on the Catholic calendar. I'm sure there are plenty in the Muslim and Jewish calendars, too. Maybe if we could all just hold truces on these various holy days, we could keep our war-mongering, pugnacious natures to just a few days of the year. All I know is, I'm exhausted. I'm tired of the fighting. I don't know why we can't just stop, all of us, every side. Just stop.

*pop* goes the champagne*crack* goes my spine, three days into my new year resolutions

Happy Thanksgiving!...I'm bored

I am waiting for dinner to be ready and my brother to arrive. I am sitting on my behind, half-watching some cartoon with pseudo-Asian characters in it. Mostly, I'm wasting time by, yes, making more Gaia Dream Creator mascots.

I'm on my sister's computer, so I can't save the pictures. So, I'm posting even more mascots here. Tra la.

Oh, man, this is addictive

I should be in bed, as I have to get up early to catch the train to Boston, but I simply cannot stop making little dudes and dudettes at Gaia Dream Creator. An example of the strange products of my mind is below:

Crap! Once more, FOX cancels shows I really like.

I went to IMDB, just futzing around as I wait for dinner time to roll around, when I see something about Arrested Development getting canned. "No way! Crap!" I shouted, but I couldn't get into the piece, as IMDB's gotten retarded about access. So, USA Today had to tell me the news. Something about 7th Heaven getting dropped, which is good, as it sucked ass, but...Shit! Two of the funniest shows currently on television, AD and Kitchn Confidential, are the latest victims of FOX executives' asshattedry:

It looks like curtains, too, for Fox's comedy Arrested Development, which never translated its Emmy Award and critical raves into a broader popularity.

Fox didn't announce the end of the show, but said it wouldn't order a full season's worth of 22 episodes. Barring a miraculous turnaround, that usually means a series is kaput.

Critics loved the quirky comedy starring Jason Bateman, and it won the Emmy for best comedy last year. But its already paltry ratings dropped precipitously this season, averaging 4.3 million viewers on Monday nights.

Fox also decided against a full season order for Kitchen Confidential.

Two of my favorite authors when I was 22

From The Writer's Almanac from American Public Media, October 15, 2005:

It's the birthday of the novelist P.G. Wodehouse, (Pelham Grenville Wodehouse), born in Guildford, England (1881). His father was a magistrate in Hong Kong. His mother traveled back and forth between England and Hong Kong, so Wodehouse was raised by a series of aunts. He wanted desperately to go to college, but his father went bankrupt and couldn't pay for his education. Wodehouse got a job as a bank clerk instead and started writing humorous stories and poems on the side.

It was as a journalist that Wodehouse first came to the United States—to cover a boxing match—and he fell in love with America right away. He said, "Being [in America] was like being in heaven without going to all the bother and expense of dying."

He moved to Greenwich Village in 1909 and started to write stories for the Saturday Evening Post about an imaginary cartoonish England, full of very polite but brain-dead aristocrats such as Bertie Wooster, who was looked after by his butler Jeeves. The first Jeeves book, My Man Jeeves, came out in 1919, and it was followed by many others.

People who knew P.G. Wodehouse said that he was incredibly dull in person, not a funny man at all, and did not seem to have any emotions. But he authored some of the funniest books in the English language.

P.G. Wodehouse wrote, "It was a onfusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A.B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't."

It's the birthday of the novelist Italo Calvino, born in Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba (1923), who edited the anthology Italian Folktales.

Celluloid adventures of Little Trooper Sugar Kat

Sugar Kat in Bad Blood Loss

In this fully-fledged masterpiece, Sugar Kat (Jennifer Aniston) is a retired prisoner with a terrible past. She is forced to interrogate Angry Rabbit (Sarah Michelle Gellar) before her closest friend, SheepBoy (Pierce Brosnan), captures her. Predictably, she charges into a secret submarine with no thought to her own personal safety. See it because all of your friends will.

Produced by ianiceboy

I laughed so hard, I nearly peed myself

Yeah, yeah. I'll get to the serious post about Mississippi in a moment. Or something, First, I want to send you to this site, which you've probably already seen, as you're a LotR fan, too, and win at the internets, like, ALL THE TIME, whereas I am the PERENIAL LOSER. Still, it is sehr amusing, Dear Reader. Click-click!

It's Banned Book Week

Go read something that would piss someone in authority off. I suggest something from the list of banned books which can be found at this site.

Attention, Octopuses

You've seen and are fully aware of this, correct? No, it is not an octopus, but I do believe giant squid is on your list of demigods, neh?

"Two Americas" by John Edwards

Um, before I get to the post on the 1927 flood, I wanted to post this, which was in an e-mail I received on the second of this month. I wanted to post it then, but I kept getting distracted.

The incompetance of the DNC in forcing this man to the sidelines and shutting him up during the campaign was unbelievable. I'm really hoping that Dean can scour out the nimrods who keep good men like Edwards from speaking their minds in order to become more like the Republicans in power.

At any rate, on to the e-mail, which is eloquent. Please do read.

Dear [Sugar Kat],

During the campaign of 2004, I spoke often of the two Americas: the America of the privileged and the wealthy, and the America of those who lived from paycheck to paycheck. I spoke of the difference in the schools, the difference in the loan rates, the difference in opportunity. All of that pales today. Today - and for many days and weeks and months to follow - we see a harsher example of two Americas. We see the poor and working class of New Orleans who don't own a car and couldn't evacuate to hotels or families far from the target of Katrina. We see the suffering of families who lived from paycheck to paycheck and who followed the advice of officials and went to shelters at the Civic Center or the Superdome or stayed home to protect their possessions.

Now every single resident of New Orleans, regardless of their wealth or status, will have terrible losses and life-altering experiences. Every single resident will know and care about someone who was lost to this hurricane. But some, ranging from the very poorest to the working class unable to accumulate a cushion of assets to rely upon on a very, very rainy day, will suffer the most because they simply didn't have the means to evacuate. They suffered the most from Katrina because they always suffer the most.

These are Americans some of whom who left everything they possessed behind in order to save those they loved. These are Americans huddled with their children or pushing a wheelchair between rows of those too beaten or weak to stand. In this moment, we have to remember they are part of us, Americans who love their country and are part of our national community. In this moment, it is hard because our hair is clean and our clothes are washed and our eyes are not glazed with hopelessness. But these are our brothers and sisters, and we have to remember this not just for them, but for us. We must finally recognize that when any of us suffer, we are all weaker; it affects us all.

Commentators on television have expressed surprise, saying they think that most people didn't know there was such poverty in America. Thirty-seven million Americans live in poverty, most of them are the working poor, but it is clear that they have been invisible. But if these commentators are right, this tragedy can have a great influence, if we listen to its message.

The people most devastated have always lived on a razor blade, afraid of any setback, any illness, any job loss that could disrupt the fragile balance they achieved paycheck to paycheck. They didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. Some didn't leave their homes because they wanted to protect the hard-won possessions that made their lives a little easier.

The government released new poverty statistics this week. The number of Americans living in poverty rose again last year. Thirteen million children -- nearly one in every five -- lives in poverty. Close to 25 percent of all African Americans live in poverty. Twenty-three percent of the population in New Orleans lives in poverty. Those are chilling numbers. Because of Katrina, we have now seen many of the faces behind those numbers.

Poverty exists everywhere in America. It is in Detroit and El Paso. It is in Omaha, Nebraska and Stockton, California. It is in rural towns like Chillicothe, Ohio and Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Nearly half of the children in Detroit, Atlanta and Long Beach, California live in poverty. It doesn't have to be this way. We can begin embracing policies that offer opportunity, reward responsibility, and assume the dignity of each American.

There are immediate needs in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and the first priority is meeting those, but after that, we need to think about the American community, about the one America we think we are, the one we talk about. We need people to feel more than sympathy with the victims, we need them to feel empathy with our national community that includes the poor. We have missed opportunities to make certain that all Americans would be more than huddled masses. We have been too slow to act in the face in the misery of our brothers and sisters. This is an ugly and horrifying wake-up call to America. Let us pray we answer this call. Now is the time to act.

- John

Look it up in your Funk & Wagnall's

Generally, when my grevious ignorance of legal terms and concepts raises its ugly head, I was able to send off an e-mail to my brother, who would send back a pithy and helpful response. Unfortunately for me, my brother was promoted and moved to civil law from habeas corpus, so he has absolutely no time to repair my faulty education. This is not good, as there are some points I'm a little fuzzy on which were discussed during the Roberts hearings. Rather, they were raised by the senators of the committee and Roberts dodged and weaved like a legal Casius Clay, only without the punching. Ah! I thought. I shall have to look it up in my Funk & Wagnall's! Unfortunately, I don't have my own copy of the venerable dictionary and I don't know where Mom put hers, so, off to Wikipedia! I post the following to help those who may not have a law degree and were also listening to the hearings.

Stare decisis: Stare decisis (Latin:[?stare? ?dekisis], Anglicisation:[?sta??i d??sa?s?s], 'to stand by things decided') is a Latin legal term, used in common law to express the notion that prior court decisions must be recognized as precedents, according to case law.

This doctrine is not held within most civil law jurisdictions as it is argued that this principle interferes with the right of judges to interpret law and the right of the legislature to make law. Most such systems, however, recognize the concept of jurisprudence constante, which argues that even though judges are independent, they should rule in a predictable and non-chaotic manner. Therefore, judges' right to interpret law does not preclude the adoption of a small number of selected binding case laws."

Habeas corpus: "In English Common Law habeas corpus is the name of several writs which may be issued by a judge ordering a prisoner to be brought before the court. More commonly, the name refers to a specific writ known in full as habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, a prerogative writ ordering that a prisoner be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not he is being imprisoned lawfully.

The words habeas corpus ad subjiciendum are Latin for 'You (shall) have/hold the body to be subjected to (examination)', and are taken from the opening words of the writ in medieval times. Other habeas corpus writs also existed, e.g. habeas corpus ad testificandum ('You (shall) have/hold the body to bear witness', for the production of a prisoner to give evidence in court.

Known as the 'Great Writ', the writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum could formerly be used not only in criminal cases, but in cases of imprisonment for private debt. In many jurisdictions today the writ can also be issued against private individuals."

Other Latin legal terms can be found here, which is a useful resource for the lay person trying to follow some of the denser discussion at the hearings. It's your country, it's your laws, it's your Constitution. You should be able to understand what the people who represent you are saying when they discuss them.

Coming Up Next... A posting on the Mississippi flood of 1927 which you may find certain events during the aftermath to be eerily familiar.

Whee!

I believe, on the internet, this is called sporking. I may be wrong. But it's awesome, truly, whatever it may be.

Mark Twain: Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses

Friedman is pissed off

As well he should be. He's been more than a bit of an ass for the last few years, but it's good to see him rant at the right people for once. (Article requires free registration at The New York Times.)

Osama and Katrina - New York Times:

[...] An administration whose tax policy has been dominated by the toweringly selfish Grover Norquist - who has been quoted as saying: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" - doesn't have the instincts for this moment. Mr. Norquist is the only person about whom I would say this: I hope he owns property around the New Orleans levee that was never properly finished because of a lack of tax dollars. I hope his basement got flooded. And I hope that he was busy drowning government in his bathtub when the levee broke and that he had to wait for a U.S. Army helicopter to get out of town. [...]

Editorial by The New Republic

The New Republic Online: Katrina:

[...]

But this is America. The words were not a protest only against the flood. They were a protest also against the aftermath of the flood, which was not a natural catastrophe but a human one. Americanism is also the conviction that the wretchedness of large numbers of Americans is unacceptable, an offense to the American idea, a spur to American action. We take care of our own, and our efficiency is a measure of our decency. But when our efficiency fails us, we must conclude that our decency failed us, too. "No insignificant person was ever born," Bush unforgettably declared in his first inaugural address. How significant, exactly, were the persons who waited for days for relief and rescue from the Superdome and the Convention Center and the other makeshift purgatories, while the rest of the country watched their dehumanization on television? We did not take care of our own, not swiftly, not fiercely, not as if nothing in the world was more important to us. The natural fury that caused this misery should have been met with a human fury to alleviate it. It was not.

More, the American belief in American decency is, to a large extent, a belief in American government. For all the suspicion of power upon which this country was founded, the view of government as a force for ill has never really prevailed in America, because it would have defeated the American hunger for justice. American history over the last hundred years is a stirring tale of government in the proud and largely effective service of compassion. Consider also the ironic history of the Bush administration, the many times that human need, real and imagined, at home and abroad, has required it to betray its philosophy of small and limited government. Sometimes "we" cannot take care of our own; only our government can. In times of emergency, the power of the federal government may be a beautiful thing. When Bush finally flew to the devastation, he said: "In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in our hour of need. And the federal government will do its part." Its part? But this is America. Sometimes the federal government's part is the whole, or most of it. This should have been so in the early hours, when the local and state authorities showed their fecklessness. [...]

Very good editorial, explaining the American reaction to what happened. You may or may not agree with what The New Republic has to say, but you might recognize yourself in sections, if not all, of this piece. (Site requires free registration.)

Molly Ivins talks about the aftermath of politics and lack of responsibility

Molly Ivins - Molly Ivins: Events in New Orleans are a reminder of why government matters - sacbee.com:

This is not "just politics" or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those policies.

Jimmy Breslin tells it like it is

Black and white and wet all over
BY JIMMY BRESLIN

September 4, 2005

This is a review of the performance of George W. Bush in tight times in this nation. It might explain the single solitary most catastrophic collapse of American government in all of our times. [...]

[...]

He barely seemed to understand there was a hurricane for the first three days. He was in Coronado, outside San Diego, and in his speech, he managed to mention New Orleans, by saying that people should not return to their homes until rescue crews could do their work.

Nobody had to be told not to return to their homes because they don't have homes to return to, and no bus fare to go anywhere.

He then told Americans to send donations to the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. How marvelous! His administration sends billions and billions of tax money to his personal war in Iraq to shoot up Fallujah for the third or fourth time since he started the war with his lies, and now he wants everybody to go out on the street and give forty dollars to hurricane charity.

[...]

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

I can't find the Newsday article, or else I'd just quote and direct you there. If anyone can find it for me, please post the link in comments, and I'll edit this down to a reasonable size and set up a link. Thanks. And thank you, Mr. Breslin, for speaking the truth.

EDIT 9/8: Found the article. Please read it in full over at the linked site.

Senator from Louisiana calls bullshit

Nice to see her grow a bit of a spine since the Anderson interview.

From The Roots :: Pulling the Bush Out:
Sat Sep 3rd, 2005 at 07:05:42 PM EST

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., issued the following statement this afternoon regarding her call yesterday for President Bush to appoint a cabinet-level official to oversee Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts within 24 hours.

[...]

“I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered rains to evacuate significant numbers of victims – far more efficiently than buses – FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

“But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government."

[...]

(emphasis mine)

Oh, perfect

This is just... really fucking brilliant. Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food. Who wants to set up a pool on how soon Brown gets a medal for his severe incompetance from Georgie-boy?

Great oogley moogley

I nearly titled this post "Holy crap," but that's giving this trinket more importance than it deserves.

Apple - iTunes - Harry Potter:

A Broomstick-worthy iPod

Of course, you’ll want to take your Harry Potter audiobooks everywhere on an iPod. Why not make it an official Hogwarts iPod? For a very limited time, you can purchase The Complete Harry Potter audiobook box set bundled with a collector’s iPod from the online Apple Store.

You’ll be the envy of wizard and muggle alike with this color-display, 20GB iPod emblazoned with the Hogwarts crest. Designed by author J.K. Rowling herself, the crest illustrates the four houses that make up Hogwarts — Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw — and the Latin motto “Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.” (“Never tickle a sleeping dragon.”) This magical iPod lets you sync all six Harry Potter books and still have plenty of room left over for your favorite tunes.

I love the Harry Potter series to the point of fanaticism, but, honestly, this is ridiculous. Stoopidly ridiculous. Even rat creatures wouldn't buy this. No, not even if you offered them quiche.

Also, the U.S. audio books aren't half as good as the U.K. ones. Stephen Fry roundly kicks Jim Dale's narrating ass.

Barbara Bush: First Lady of Sympathy and Tact

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out "Very Well" for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans:

Accompanying her husband, former President George
H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in
Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the
poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them."

Why the NAACP button above?

New Orleans Left to the Dead and Dying - Yahoo! News:

The overwhelming majority of those stranded in the post-Katrina chaos were those without the resources to escape — and, overwhelmingly, they were black.

Oh, shit

Supreme Court Full Coverage on Yahoo! News

My condolences to his family (as if they'll ever read this).

But I'm afraid I'm going to be selfish here and think about my future as a citizen of this country and of the future of my country. And my thoughts are best summed up by the subject line of this post.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Reporters' log: Katrina's aftermath

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Reporters' log: Katrina's aftermath - Jon Sopel, reporting from Gulfport, MI:

...

President Bush spoke about not allowing bureaucracy to get in the way of saving lives.

Dealing with bureaucracy as countries effected by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean found, can be absolutely critical so that the people who need aid most, get it first.

Why couldn't he have said this days ago?At least he's saying it nowToo little, too late?

President Addresses Nation, Discusses Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts:

...the magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Reporters' Log: Katrina's aftermath

BBC NEWS | Americas | Reporters' Log: Katrina's aftermath - Adam Brookes, reporting from New Orleans:

I went to the Superdome and there are about 15,000-20,000 people. The pace of evacuation there is unbelievably slow. We seem to see columns of buses going in but the number of people going out does not seem to change. There are helicopters which throw food and water out and men fight over the relief aid. So the elderly and mums and pregnant women don't get anything. It's an extraordinary situation.

At either end of the centre are armed troops and police but nobody is walking up and down the crowd that are outside. They are not trying to figure out who to give water to, baby formula, or antibiotics. We discovered this morning that a number of children are starting to go down with diarrhoea which I think may be the most serious development overnight.

Elsewhere at the Convention Centre, there isn't a bus in sight. The only thing you see out of 2,000-3,000 people is police cars going through pointing shotguns. These are unbelievable conditions. Words begin to fail me.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Reporters' Log: Katrina's aftermath

BBC NEWS | Americas | Reporters' Log: Katrina's aftermath - Daniel Lak, reporting from Biloxi, MS:

...

It is total mayhem. I have been to many disaster zones in Asia and a few in Africa and I must say considering the resources available here and all the rhetoric we've heard from Washington the situation here is much worse than comparable situations for these sort of crises in the Third world. It is quite frankly an indictment.

Sometimes, I ♥ Texasa break for humor

Found by Angry Rabbit:

Zombies descend upon Erwin Center - The Daily Texan - Top Stories

Thursday outside the Frank Erwin Center, a horde of zombies attacked the 'American Idol' auditions. No one was hurt.

The zombies, 15 fake-bloodied actors in all, lurched out from under the IH-35 overpass and shuffled toward the Erwin Center, where they encountered the pop-star hopefuls.

Most of the 100 or so young people gathered outside had just been rejected by the 'American Idol' review board, and they were talking, singing and waiting for rides home when the zombies arrived. 'Braaaaaaains!' the zombies said. Nick Muntean, a UT radio-television-film graduate student who organized and participated in the zombie horde, added, 'Television rots your braaaaaaains!'

There's even video of the incident, though, unfortunately, the talentless idiots the zombies attacked did not scurry away/die in fear, nor did they get mauled/have their skulls chewed open.

I generally have a strict no-cannibalism rule, with a subclause against zombies, but I think, in this case, zombies were a good idea. Unfortunately, the zombies pussied out, even to the point of signing release forms to allow themselves to be shown on the craptacular American Idol.

"We've turned into prostitutes for 'American Idol,'" Ferstenfeld said.

Damned straight.

One nice thing is the useful tip on how to fake-zombify oneself by smearing the following on one's face to represent gore:

make-up, a gelatin mix, liquid latex and fake blood made from corn syrup, chocolate syrup and food coloring

My favorite quote in the entire article:

Zombies are not real.

This is why I ♥ Texas: a portion of the population gathers, fake-zombifies itself, then "attacks" the dweebs at American Idol, while the paper needs to post a disclaimer in an article about zombies regarding the fictional nature of zombies just so the rest of the population won't become frightened and shoot the fuck out of any person walking in their front yard (um, actually, I think that's considered an acceptable hobby in some parts of Texas). That's just damned funny. Also, admittedly, the disclaimer would be necessary in most if not all of the rest of the country. That's also funny, but a sad funny.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Reporters' Log: Katrina's aftermath

Site to watch: BBC NEWS | Americas | Reporters' Log: Katrina's aftermath

Holy shit

I'd read about it at Talking Points Memo, but had to read the official transcript at the White House site to believe it.

President Arrives in Alabama, Briefed on Hurricane Katrina:

PRESIDENT BUSH: We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

GOVERNOR RILEY: He'll be glad to have you.

(Bold-text emphasis mine.) How is something like that appropriate in that situation? How far up his ass does Dubyah have his head? Where the hell were his handlers at that moment? Why didn't someone "accidentally" knock out his mike before he got that far? And why the hell did Governor Riley encourage him? Is everyone now on crack?

Why was no one there?

The Capital Times

The advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by Witt. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Soon FEMA was being absorbed into the 'homeland security borg.'This year it was announced that FEMA is to 'officially' lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.

First, the administration sent the very troops who are supposed to remain State-side to protect and aid the states in times of need, the National Guard, overseas, where they do not belong, no matter what B.S. the administration tries to feed us. Then we find out they'd dismantled the organization created to respond to disasters of this nature. I've read of it before; one of the justifications I read was private organizations, such as the Red Cross, would pick up the slack. However, there is no private organization which could respond the way a government group could, which would have access to local law enforcement and emergency aid services. And, please note, that the Red Cross cannot get to areas a government group, well, technically should be able to. So, we have nothing. People are stranded on highway meridians, no food, no water, no medical help, waiting for someone, anyone, to show up. Would FEMA have completely alleviated the problems? No. But they sure as hell would have made a difference.

From my friend, D--, who walks dogs for a living instead of selling screenplays

Pets Are a Part of Katrina Story: How To Help
By Steve Dale

The loss of human life and property as a result of Katrina is unspeakable. But at least one survivor still had something to hold onto, quite literally. On camera, as she held her soggy kitten close to her chest, she said, "No, I did not lose everything. I thank God for what is sparred," as she petted her cat, as tears streamed from her eyes.

The good news is that the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (LA SPCA) was smart enough to heed the warning, evacuating their 263 animals to Houston before the hurricane hit. (Houston proceeded to disperse the animals they couldn't handle to San Antonio and other nearby cities).

In New Orleans, the bad news is that thousands who evacuated leaving their pets behind, assuming they would return in a day or two. Those animals who did not drown are either now starving to death, or have escaped to try and scavenge for food. Prospects of reuniting to ever see their people appear grim. But humane organizations are hoping beyond hope to have the opportunity to get into the
city.

As one humane society spokesperson told me, "If we have the opportunity, dealing with pets will be easy compared to what officials have had to confront with at least some people."

The news isn't quite as dismal elsewhere in Louisiana, or in Mississippi or Alabama where there's a greater ability to find lost pets; and make-shift shelters and veterinary care through the American Veterinary Medical Association VMAT Team and volunteers from various other groups are gradually getting organized.

Many facilities sheltering people don't allow animals, quite literally forcing people to give up their animals. In fact, often times this is exactly why some people may not evacuate to a shelter in the first place - they don't want to leave their animals.

People need your help, and the following listing is most certainly is not meant to imply you shouldn't contribute to the Red Cross or other legitimate organizations which fund human assistance. But humane assistance is important too. Companion animals are family to many; entire families require assistance. If you are so inclined here are some verified and legitimate options:

American Kennel Club Canine Support and Relief Fund
www.akc.org/news/hurricane_katrina.cfm, or mail a donation to AKC Companion Animal Recovery Canine Support and Relief Fund, c/o American Kennel Club, 5580 Centerview Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 27606. You may also call 800-252-7894.

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (2005 Disaster Relief Fund)
www.aspca.org/disaster, or call 212-876-7700, ext. 4516.

American Veterinary Medical Association Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams
www.avmf.org, or call (847) 925-8070. AVMF supports state and Veterinary Medical Assistance Team (VMAT) training and equipment for deployment in times of disaster. Make donation to AVMF AVMA Medical Assistance Team, 1931 N. Meacham Rd., Suite 100, Schaumburg, IL 60173

Cat Fanciers' Association
(Disaster Relief Fund and the newly formed CFA Gulf Sore Fund) www.cfainc.org, 732-528-7391. The Cat Fanciers' Association, Inc., P.O. Box 1005, Manasquan, NJ 08736-0805.

Code 3 Associates
(Code 3 Associates, Inc., is dedicated to both professional disaster response for animal rescue operations and to training individuals working in animal related law enforcement throughout the country. Also works with EARS - Emergency Animal Rescue Service - from the United Nations) www.code3associates.org, 303-772-7724; Code 3 Associates, P.O. Box 1128, Erie, CO 80516.

EARS
www.ears.org

Humane Society of the United States
www.hsus.org, or call 800-HUMANE-1. Or send check to, HSUS Disaster Relief Fund, 2100 L Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037.

Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association
http://www.lvma.org, or call 800- 524-2996. Make donations to the Dr. Walter J. Ernst Jr. Memorial Foundation, 8550 United Plaza Boulevard, Suite 1001, Baton Rouge, LA 70809, Make note on your check that the contribution is for "Hurricane Katrina Relief."

Noah's Wish
(an animal welfare organization dedicated exclusively to rescuing following disasters). http://www.noahswish.org/, or call
530-622-9313, or send a donation to Noah's Wish, P.O. Box 997 Placerville, CA 95667

North Shore Animal League
http://www.nsalamerica.org, or call 877-4SAVEPET.

Perhaps the organization most in need will be the Louisiana SPCA. It's likely their building has been destroyed - though this is unconfirmed. Their website has not been updated; their New Orleans address and phone no longer exist. It's unclear how to help them today. But at some juncture, there will be directives available through their website: www.la-spca.org/ Other affected city shelters will require help as well. A Mobile, AL, shelter site is at www.mobilespca.org

Marcella Durand contributed

==========

American Humane's Animal Emergency Services helping in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. http://www.americanhumane.org/disaster

Somebody actually made it funny

Check out this map to see why you are safe in about three square miles of the continental U.S.

What to do

I've had some issues with the way Red Cross runs its organization in the past and have done my best to avoid giving them donations as I do not trust them to use them appropriately. The list of suggested donation sites at FEMA is, apparently, almost entirely religious organizations (the only non-religious organization being the Corporation for National & Community Service), with Pat Robertson's group being among the top three. As you can imagine, I don't particularly trust that group, either.

However, I've been looking around and have read many good things about MercyCorps. If you've read otherwise, let me know. But I thought I'd forward that group on, as Oxfam, the organization to which I donated after the Asian tsunami this past winter, does not appear to be involved in this particular natural disaster. (Perhaps because it took place in one of the wealthiest nations in the world?)

I've wanted to help, but can't. I figured the half-a-reader I have might be in the same boat. I'm not telling you to give, but giving you an option which appears preferable to the Red Cross, which refuses homosexuals and has had major issues in overpaying its executives. Oh, and let donated blood rot. Nice one.

EDIT 9/3, 1:38A:
My mom pointed out the section of the Oxfam America which is set up specifically to help the victims of the hurricane. I've set up a link button for the site. Oxfam is a wonderful organization and I trust them thoroughly. I wish I had the funds to help, but I'm comforted to know that my mom had given, even though we're in the middle of ...well, those of you who know me know, or can e-mail and ask. I'm also comforted to know that my friends are as generous as my mother and are doing all they can do to help, too. (You guys are super-awesome. I know it's cheesey to say, but I'm proud to know you.)

[SNIPPED due to my inability to find the (reputable) sites with the supporting data and statistics and my being too lazy to look up the poverty numbers on government websites. Also, don't want to deal with the racist bullshit. Tra la!]

Fuck

Scientific American, October 2001, courtesy of Pharyngula:

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh--an area the size of Manhattan--will have vanished. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities. Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldn't go very far.

I've read this over and over again. Why didn't anyone do anything? They knew what was going to happen, but did nothing. Why? Why? How can you be human and think something like this is permissible?

Fats Domino Found in New Orleans - Yahoo! News

I read this and started to cry. I cried a little when I saw the video from Louisiana on CBS this afternoon, realized I wouldn't stop if I kept watching, and proceeded to try and clean up the living room. Giving myself something pointless to do is nice and distracting, as I'm far away and have the luxury of straightening piles of books I'm reading, have read, and will read.

I can't do anything to help. I can do absolutely nothing but be angry and horrified and feel sympathy, all of which is entirely useless. And I read about Fats Domino being found and I cry. I hate being so useless. I'm sorry I'm so fucking useless, New Orleans. I'm sorry I can't help you, Louisiana. I'm sorry I can't do anything, Texas. I'm sorry all I've done is make a slightly neater mess of my living room and write this, Mississippi. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, New Orleans. I'm so sorry.

Humor for you!

Click here for the funniest blonde joke ever.

Yay! Yay!

"Chasing Rainbows" is back! "Chasing Rainbows" is back! More Jinkies! Yay! *does little dance of webcomic fan-geekness*

P.S. Past pages are subscription-only, though. I pity you!

Leave sugar alone, you bastards

[BEGIN RANT/]
This is driving me crazy. I keep hearing people complain about "sugar content" of menu items. It's not the "sugar" content, folks. We hardly use actual cane sugar anymore. It's corn syrup. Corn syrup, which is cheap due to ridiculous farm subsidies which don't help actual farmers.

Go poke around on the web for a while, and you can see how the farm subsidies are helping corporate, and not family, farming. The cheap corn hurts family farms as it helps giant corporate farms. It also leads to foods which formally had no sugar content or actual cane sugar content to have the ingredients switched, so that cheap corn syrup is used. (I really wish the subsidies actually helped real farmers, as it's terrifically depressing to watch farming families up here struggle the way they do, and the farm stands are the only place up here to get decent vegetables.)

Ever had Coca-Cola outside of the States? You have it in France, and it's so much better. It's not as sticky-sweet and it's fizzier. Okay, so ET would hate it, as she prefers her soda, if she has to drink it, flattish and basically like swilling dark Karo Syrup. (;p) But I think most people who like the occasonal bottle of Coke would prefer to drink what they serve in Japan. Why do they use sugar in Japan and France? Because they don't have the corn (syrup) subsidies. (Unless, of course, they've changed the way Coke's made abroad, too. Which would suck. But then, I can still get my yummy-yummy peach water in Japan and Badoit in France, so, screw 'em.)

Then again, I'm big on tea. Darjeeling, lemon with one sugar. Other black teas, a splash of milk, one sugar. Green, ooloong, or white teas, a bit of honey. Or, if chilled, just the tea. I'm also fond of drinking cold water with a splash of pink grapefruit juice (the actual stuff, not the watered down crap with the--your guessed it!--corn syrup). And cranberry juice, 'cause I'm a crazy Yankee girl. But if I'm eating something like pizza, Coke's the only thing that keeps me from feeling sickish (I've a crazy-sensitive stomach but I love food...and hate Pepto-Abysmal, so I go with my great-grandmother's tummy cure of Coca-Cola). I just wish that Coke, and other beverage companies and food companies, offered the option of buying versions without corn syrup but instead using cane sugar. I'd definitely pay more for that option.

So, please, keep the corn syrup to the delicious, delicious pecan pie and fake blood, and stop yelling at sugar. We weren't so damned fat as a nation before, when we ate sugary foods instead of corn-syrupy foods. Go ask Bill Maher. He bitches about the same thing on his show, too.
[/END RANT]

All right. Comment about my freakish ignorance and horrendous grammar/spelling below. No, I didn't put in any links. You can Google for actual information as well as I can, I'm betting.

Please read this Op Ed

This Op Ed at The New York Times will require you to register (it's free) with the Times in order for you to read it, and the article will become unavaialble except for a fee in about a week's time, but I really think it's worth you reading it now. By "you," I mean people who are educated enough to understand scientific principles. It's also good for the "you"s who want to stand up to the growing, intellectually gangrenous concept of "intelligent design." Here's a little sample:

Grasping the Depth of Time as a First Step in Understanding Evolution - New York Times:

Evolution is a robust theory, in the scientific sense, that has been tested and confirmed again and again. Intelligent design is not a theory at all, as scientists understand the word, but a well-financed political and religious campaign to muddy science. Its basic proposition - the intervention of a designer, a k a God - cannot be tested. It has no evidence to offer, and its assumptions that humans were divinely created are the same as its conclusions. Its objections to evolution are based on syllogistic reasoning and a highly selective treatment of the physical evidence.

Accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God. But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a triumph of faith. It's a failure of education.

The purpose of the campaign for intelligent design is to deepen that failure. To present the arguments of intelligent design as part of a debate over evolution is nonsense. From the scientific perspective, there is no debate. But even the illusion of a debate is a sorry victory for antievolutionists, a public relations victory based, as so many have been in recent years, on ignorance and obfuscation.

The essential, but often well-disguised, purpose of intelligent design, is to preserve the myth of a separate, divine creation for humans in the belief that only that can explain who we are. But there is a destructive hubris, a fearful arrogance, in that myth.

Reasons I wish I were living closer to New York City

You know, other than the obvious, like the majority of my friends being there and the superiority of the food.

• Film Forum's Summer Samurai Festival
  August 19th through September 15
  You lucky bastards. I mean, samurai! The only thing cooler would be a ninja film festival, but I don't know if there are that many watchable films featuring ninjas.




• New York International Fringe Festival
  August 12th through 28th
  The next coolest fringe festival after the one in Edinburgh, which you can't afford to get to 'cause you're American and underpaid and overworked and your holidays are used up so you can go to the doctor or prep for Maggie's wedding. You poor, poor bastard. Except that you can still go to the New York Fringe Festival, which is more than I or a great number of your fellow North Americans can say, so stop yer whinging and go shell out the miniscule amount of cash which allows you to go attend the cool freak that is the fringe.

All that having been said, and on a completely different note, I cannot get Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" out of my head. You know, the song that Wayne and Garth lip-synched while driving the Gremlin along the main strip in the first Wayne's World movie. I can't tell if this is a result of the fever which came out of nowhere or if the fever is a result of this "ear worm," as the Germans call it. In any event, it's freaking me out. I fear my hair will start feathing itself soon.

Diagnosis

After making a request for people to comment to let me know if they're reading this blog, I've heard from ONE (1) reader. I've waited over a week and no one else has added anything.

This blog is officially in the critical ward. I.V. and such hooked up. Prognosis is poor.

My mother's childhood memory

My mother's earliest memories are of rationing. The little coupons you had to have in order to get gas, butter, sugar. The crushing and collection of steel cans. She remembers her uncles returning from the war. No one in her family died. Surprising, considering how many brothers my grandmother and grandfather each had. Both of my grandparents were air wardens. They lived near the Saint Lawrence, and a major river route like that was considered a vulnerability, so citizens were selected to keep watch at home.

My mother remembers these things like I remember holding Beatrix Potter books in my lap and trying to read them (in spite of being just a little too young to read) while sitting in the branches of a weeping willow. There was a time when every citizen made sacrifices when our nation was at war, when every citizen was involved. When a grandmother collected steel cans from the neighborhood with the help of her tiny granddaughter.

I heard on NPR that one planned anniversary in New York City was to be kissing, hundreds of people gathered together to kiss at the same time to celebrate the announcement of the end of the last world war. I really liked that.

The Writer's Almanac - August 14, 2005:

Today is the 60th anniversary of the day on which President Harry Truman announced that the Second World War had come to an end. You might argue that more human beings were happy on this day in 1945 than on any other day in history.

It was the worst war in history. An estimated 60 million people died; about two-thirds of them were civilians. In the United States, the war had been going on for three years and eight months. About one in every eight Americans served in the war—more than 16 million American soldiers. Virtually every American family had at least one member overseas. With 400,000 Americans killed, most families knew somebody who had died in the war, and the most American casualties had come in the last year of the war.

Most Americans had believed that the war was far from over. The first few battles on Japanese islands had been some of the bloodiest battles of the war. Military analysts were projecting horrific losses, casualty estimates in the hundreds of thousands. But after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese suddenly accepted terms of complete surrender. And the announcement was made on this day at about 7:00 p.m. The newswires carried the headline, "Japan Surrenders."

There were spontaneous celebrations and parades in every major city in America. In New York City, more than a million people filled the street, overflowing Times Square, the crowd stretching from 40th all the way up to 52nd streets. Factories blew their whistles. Air raid sirens went off. Ships and trains and cars honked their horns. Churches tolled their bells.

Americans had been living under strict food and gas rationing, and once the news arrived, people went to the gas stations, filled up their cars and went riding around for the fun of it. Throughout the war, people had tried to keep their lights off after dark to save energy, but on this night, people turned on their lights and left them on all night. Some children who'd grown up during the war saw the streets lit up with lights for the first time.

And one thing that commentators noticed at the time was that nobody shouted, "We've won the war!" or anything about triumph. They simply shouted, "The war is over!"

The most famous photograph of that day in 1945 showed a sailor in Times Square kissing a nurse in a white uniform. The nurse's name was Edith Shain. She later said, "When I was kissed, I closed my eyes. I didn't look at him. It was a startling thing. But I thought, this man had fought the war for all of us." The photograph of the sailor and the nurse was the cover of LIFE magazine that next week and that photo has been reprinted thousands of times.

Poem of the day

The Writer's Almanac:
Poem: "Night Flight" by Marjorie Saiser, from Lost in Seward County. c. The Backwaters Press.

Night Flight

From 18F I see only the wing,
see only metal and rivets and painted black arrows
and partially worn-off letters saying things like NO STEP.
From 18F, or anywhere on this plane,
I could see, if I want to, the video.
I could, evidently, watch ads for Buzz Lightyear, the series.
But I am watching us, the community
of 1090 to Denver. We are facing forward
as though in a tunnel or tube,
dots of light in a row above our heads.
We are ranks of readers, sleepers.

or we are the cast of Our Town;
we are cast as the dear departed,
sitting onstage on our chairs-supposed to be graves—
looking straight ahead, talking among ourselves,
never looking at Emily, the living,
when she comes to visit the cemetery.
We are not turning toward Emily;

we are numbers and letters facing forward.
From 18F I see we are regular in our posture,
regular in our habits.

In my row we are raising similar cups from similar trays,
oddly comforting:
now this head, now that one, lowers to drink.
One by one we sip our mutual nectar;
one by one we set it down.

Health check

Okay. Just wondering. Have to make this check every once in a while, just to reassure myself that I'm not just writing to myself here.

Is anyone still reading this blog? By "anyone," I mean my friends. Seeing as the commenting now works (as proved by a complete stranger in the last post), anyone who does read this can, in fact, post a comment to the effect of "I do!" or something equally creative and time-consuming.

Sorry, that was obnoxious. I'm tired and have eaten way, way too many cookies today. Made a batch of chocolate chip cookies (which my mother hated) and a batch of molases drop cookies (which my mother hated).

(My mother is impossible to please if you're not my brother. He uses the exact same recipies, with the exact same results, and she'll praise his mad bakin' skillz to the high heavens. Me? Everything I bake is shit. Unless my nephews or siblings eat them. Then I'm a good baker. ... Okay, enough of this whining.)

Anyway, please post and let me know you're lurking. Someone besides me comes here, 'cause I get a whole 2/10 on the Google bar ranking system.

This reminds me of Mark

From The Writer's Almanac - August 9, 2005:

It was on this day in 378 A.D., the Romans were routed by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople, a victory of barbarian horsemen over Roman infantry. It was one of the most decisive battles in what is now the nation of Turkey. Two-thirds of the Roman army, 40,000 men, including Emperor Valens himself, were overrun and slaughtered by the Visigoths which set the stage for the fall of the Roman Empire.

Once upon a time, little emo, MTV actually played music videosI've got soul, but I'm not a soldier

Remember when MTV showed (uninterrupted) videos all day long, instead of only during the ghettoized hours of something like 3AM-6AM?

I, on a whim, taped one of the buttcrack-of-dawn showings and have spent the week watching a couple videos here, another there.

I have come to the following conclusions upon viewing the Gwen Stefani video for "Cool:"

• her current persona is a cuter version of early-90s Madonna, but differs from early-90s Madonna in that Stefani actually has a singing voice and is, as I mentioned earlier in this run-on sentence, much cuter;


• her music has become very boring since she went solo;


• while very teen-boy-fantasy as a platinum blonde, I think she looks much, much prettier as a brunette.

Also, I finally (finally!) saw a Gorillaz video and have discovered I love their videos as much as I like their music. w007 and so forth for animated videos. (The bassist had me laughing my arse off at the end, and I so love the way the lead gorilla swung his legs while he played guitar.) I didn't even mind that it ran twice in an hour, in spite of what I know are hundreds, if not thousands of other videos I know they could play in that time slot. (I guess MTV's not really into that whole "variety" thing. Many other videos were replayed, ad nauseum.) I want the Gorillaz to be featured in a video game with Donkey Kong and his cohorts. Gorillaz v. DK! of summat like. That would be awesome.

Moving on, MTV's programmers appear to be in love with My Chemical Romance's "Helena" video, which is actually rather boring, considering what they could have done with the song. It has its moments, but it looks like it was scripted/choreographed by the angsty emo teens who make up a large portion of My Chemical Romance's listening audience. That said, I want one of those nifty black umbrellas with the red interior. So emo/goth! Hee!

"Pretty" emo boys make me wish I could point a wand at the screen and say, "Dance, little emo boy, dance!" and shoot nasty curses at their feet. "Dance for me! muhahahahaha!" They're hysterical, honestly. *laughs at the emo/angst* ... This is completely hypocritical of me, as I was the emo-est of all throughout my teen years and for a goodly portion of my life after that. (I wish I were as good at applying eyeliner as emo boys are.)

I'm completely sick of the "cute/sexy" girl/boy bands where they think they can get away with boring-ass music because the performers are "teh sexx!1!!" Ugh. Enough already. There's enough shitty music out there. Just have them do Playboy/-girl spreads and the pay-per-view porn videos and leave the music alone.

Jessica Simpson is now channeling Britney Spears's unmarried, thin self in her new video. The untalented attempting to show talent by mimicking the untalented. Fascinating. Furthermore, as of this video, it's official that Willie Nelson has not even one proton of self-respect left. Seriously. Someone should have shot him in the head long before he reached this nadir in his "career."

In an entirely different genre, Missy Elliot kicks ass. Holy crap, I so very wish I could dance like that. (I'm so fecking white. *sobs*) The choreographer for her video "Lose Control" needs to take the My Chemical Romance choreographer aside and give the emo some pointers re: rhythm. If Shakira's fucktard greased-up boobie-pop "dancing" wins out over "Loser Control" for best dancing at the VMAs, I'll know Shakira really has turned tricks to make her way to the "top." (However, I can't figure out the why for the last minute or so of Missy Elliot's video. Maybe it's 'cause I'm suburban white girl?)

And, HOLY FUCK! BOYZ N DA HOOD! GAH! *has fallen into timewarp and iz ded* (I can't help but snicker at "P Diddy." That's one man who is secure in his masculinity if he's willing to own up to that nickname.) ... Oh, wait. No, it's some sort of bullshit, "gangsta" BNDH, not the real one. How... um, sad?

Finally, remember when male rappers had a sense of humor about themselves, could rap in actual English, and didn't have to feature themselves on the street corner holding scantily-clad "'hos" and large wads of cash in their videos in order to be considered legitimate rappers? When their political rants were actual cogent and firey and topical? Well, I do. *sighs and lights a candle for the (degenerated state of) rap* It's all the fault of asshat, suburban white boys. Those are the ones who are buying "gangsta" rap, goddamit. They've fucked up rap for the rest of us. Grr!

BWA-fuckin'-HA HA HA

Yeah, yeah, old news. But, still, quoth the immortal Homer Simpson: "Mmm, sacrilicious!"

YOUR OWN PERSONAL JESUS TOAST.

The paraphrasing of an old Depeche Mode song title warmed the cockles of my heart.

EDIT: 2:09PM
I didn't think it could get better...

...and yet, it can. Also, this article features my new favorite fake word, crapitalism. Yay!

Admin 1, Executive 0

I enjoyed this little article so much, I felt the need to share it with you, my dear readers, even though it is nealy two months old.

CNN.com - Ketchup stain sparks e-mail flurry

"I apologize again for accidentally getting a few splashes of ketchup on your trousers. Obviously your financial need as a senior associate is greater than mine as a mere secretary."

She wrote that she had told various partners, lawyers and trainees about his e-mail and they had offered to "do a collection" to raise the cash.

"I however declined their kind offer but should you feel the urgent need for the £4, it will be on my desk this afternoon."

Hockey is the devil's sport

I was slowly making my way through the Sports section of Monday's New York Times when I came across the last section of sports-related headlines on the last page, in a little ghetto-for-off-season-sports-reporting box.

HOCKEY
Devils Keep 10 Players

[three paragraphs about one team which I didn't read because the following lead to a tiny paragraph about another team was in all-caps and bold]

SATAN BECOMES FREE AGENT

Honestly. I shit you not. I wish ... wait. When Mom's computer is up and running, I'll scan it in and post it here so you can see.

Mom says I should submit it to David Letterman or Jon Stewart. Somehow, I don't think they'll laugh as hard at it as I did.