The Last Few Days...

... have been interesting.

Friday night ended up with a mentally disturbed guy threatening to flip out, a relationship ending in screams, and two people dead.

None of which had anything to do with me.

I've never watched the television program ER. But a night sitting in the waiting room at our nearby hospital's Emergency Room provided ample demonstration that an ER is a goldmine for dramatic situations: People under stress, people in pain, people in fear, people dying and people having to watch other people (family, friends) die.

One man had just had his wife die in a traffic accident. He almost made it outside before breaking down completely in long, extended, wordless howls of grief.

The night's other death was a child, with the ER nurses and doctor's scrambling as "Pediatric Code Blue" was announced on the intercom, a few moments before the ambulance arrived. A large Hispanic family arrived shortly after the ambulance, apprehension deep on their faces, and were escorted thru a door into the back room where the child had been taken; thru the door, I could see a minister arriving, Bible in hand. About a quarter of an hour later, the family came back out, moving slowly, some leaning on each other, most crying.

The young couple, the woman emotionally distraught, screaming "LEAVE ME! JUST FUCKING LEAVE ME! THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT!" at her boyfriend. (Husband?) Shortly after, they both left, without seeing a doctor.

And the young guy who had passed out at a dance, was cheerful and friendly most of the night, but became loud and belligerent after he'd seen the doctor, threatening to "flip out" if the ER staff didn't arrange a ride for him back to his halfway house. (Bipolar? Perhaps.)

What I Was Doing There

I'd woken up feeling yucky and out-of-sorts Friday morning, schlepped off to work anyway, and plodded thru the workday feeling bloated and slightly nauseated and wondering if I'd picked up a bug. Didn't think too much of it, other than wishing I'd stayed home, until late afternoon, when I realized that I had not taken a piss all day, in spite of drinking my usual -- fairly large -- amount of liquids.

Kidneys not working? That seemed a little more serious than just a bug, so after getting home from work, I hied off to the local Urgent Care facility. From my symptoms, the doctor there expected to find signs of a kidney infection, but the blood and urine samples (I was able to squeeze out a small sample; the doctor mentioning the word "catherization" was, ummm, motivating) came back negative. So he sent me off the the hospital ER for further, more extensive tests.

There, after more blood tests, an ultrasound, x-rays and eight hours of waiting (not a particular surprise; I wasn't having chest pains, wasn't bleeding, wasn't having problems breathing, could move all my fingers and toes, and wasn't on fire, so I knew I'd be pretty low on the triage list and would have been surprised if I'd been there less than four hours), I finally got into an actual examination room for a doctor to see me.

By this time, early Saturday morning, two things had happened: 1) I'd started feeling considerably less yucky than I had all day Friday, and 2) about five a.m., I was able to take a good long piss. So whatever the problem was, it appeared to have started to rectify itself. Which, since the doctor said all the tests had come up with nothing conclusive -- kidneys, gall bladder, pancreas, etc., all looked okay -- was a good thing. He wanted another blood test, to compare with the one from when I'd first arrived at the ER, so I ended up staying another few hours for that to be taken and processed.

I still wasn't feeling great, just not as bad, and having only had about an hour's worth of catnaps in the waiting room and examination room, I called work and took some sick leave for Saturday. Finally got home about ten a.m. and went to bed. (Hilde had stayed up all night waiting for me. Silly woman. I'd scared her.)

But Wait! There's More!

Sunday night, as I was preparing to take our Corgi, Madame Mim, around the block for her nightly walk, I noticed my left hip was starting to ache. Hadn't strained it, hadn't bumped it, wasn't sure why it was aching. It was worse by the time we got back to the house, and continued to grow worse as Hilde and I got ready to go to bed. Took several extra-strength Tylenol, and hoped it'd be better by morning.

Nope. Worse. Considerably worse. It wasn't just "aching", it hurt.

(I draw a distinction between "discomfort" and "pain": "Discomfort" is something you can focus away from, shove into the background, ignore by force of will and appropriate concentration on something else. "Pain" is a wet blanket over your brain, nails on the chalkboard, speaker feedback at high volume, a car alarm that you cannot stop, fogging your thoughts and throwing sand into your decision-making gears. This was pain.)

It hurt badly enough to call work and report in sick again, then call my doctor and get an afternoon appointment. (Thank you, whoever had just cancelled their own appointment at that time.)

Every Step An Adventure: Thoughts And Notes On Becoming A Crippled Old Fart:

By mid-day, trying to walk on that leg was a process of lurch and gasp, lurch and gasp, pause for a moment to catch breath, repeat until you reach a chair to sit in, or a bed to lie down on, or a wall to lean against.

When you're in pain, your "to-do" list shrinks dramatically, whether you want it to or not.

Even your "have-to-do" list shrinks dramatically.

When you're in pain, you realize just how much of your normal life was spent moving.

Pain makes you taller, because anything on the floor is a lot further away.

Pain makes you shorter, because anything on a high shelf gets further away, too.

Steps that used to be a handy way to change elevation turn into an obstacles.

Putting on a pair of pants becomes very interesting. Shoes, even more so.

"30-Minute Meal" cookbooks become a good thing. Microwavable entrees even better. Pizza delivery is Nobel-Prize worthy.

The dog will not understand why you can't take her for a walk tonight.

Realizing you can write a blog post about it is not adequate recompense for the experience.

The Pros Poke & Prod

So I see my doctor Monday afternoon:

"Does it hurt when I move your leg this way?" "Aieee! Yes!" "How about this direction?" "Aieeee!" "And this?" "Aieeee! Yes! Yes! I confess! I took the Lindbergh baby!"

His preliminary diagnosis is bursitis of the hip, and refers me to an orthopedic specialist. Until I see the ortho doc on Wednesday, treatment is pain pills. (There are some unused Tylenol #2 pills in the medicine cabinet at home, so I strike up a friendship with a really nice guy named Cody Deane for a while.)

So I see the ortho doc, who takes x-rays and gives me an examination. ("Does it hurt when I--" "Aieeee!")

He shows me the x-rays and confirms my GP's diagnosis. On the x-rays, the left hip socket has a small nodule that shouldn't be there, which he tells me is a lump of calciifcation caused by the bursitis. It's located deeper into the socket than most such lumps occur, where he can't get at it with a long needle to give it a direct shot of cortisone. So his prescribed treatment is an oral course of cortisone pills, starting with a heavy dose on the first day and tapering off over a week's time.

Began the course of pills this morning. I am pleased -- nay, relieved -- nay, ecstatic -- to be able to say that the cortisone is already starting to give some relief. The hip is still sore, still tender, still doesn't have a full range of motion, but I'm lurching less now and enjoying it more. Walking on that leg is just a bother now, rather than an adventure. I should be able to go back to work sometime next week.

Let's wrap this up with an appropriate image:

Chester

(written 5/1--5/3/07)

Last Minute Note, and credit where due: The "Lindbergh baby" joke comes from one of Jim Varney's "Ernest" movies. Ummmm... so I'm told. Because, like, you know, a sauve, sophisticated guy like me would never admit to watching ERNEST GOES TO CAMP or ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS, or any of the other Ernest films. No. Not me. No, no, no, no.

J.M.W. Turner Is Painting Nebulae In The Afterlife

The Bug Nebula, from Astronomy Picture of the Day:



Which irresistibly brought to mind the works of J.M.W. Turner:

If Captain America Wasn't Dead, This Would Kill Him

This is just so, so wrong:

Captain America Arrested With Burrito In Pants

MELBOURNE, Fla. --
A Brevard County doctor dressed up in a Captain America outfit was arrested with a burrito in his tights. What he allegedly did at the police station got him into more trouble.

Doctor Raymond Adamcik, 54, would probably rather forget about the weekend when he was arrested on charges of battery, disorderly conduct, drug possession and trying to destroy evidence. It's not what you would expect from a doctor or Captain America.

The Palm Bay family physician was at On Tap bar as part of a pub-crawl with other medical professionals. It was a sort of costume party on a bus that would take them around from bar to bar.

Everything was fine until, witnesses said, Captain America started getting too forward with a burrito he kept tucked inside his blue tights, a burrito that ultimately landed him in jail.

It's certainly not the Captain America from the comic books. This one is accused of sinister deeds more fitting of a villain than a superhero.

On Saturday night, when a costume party full of medical professionals stopped at On Tap Cafe, police said Adamcik had a burrito stuffed below the waistband of his costume and was asking women if they want to touch it. When one refused, he allegedly took out the burrito and groped her.

The woman called police and, when they arrived, the officers wrote in their report "there were so many cartoon characters in the bar at the time, all Captain America's were asked to go outside for a possible identification."

The woman pointed out Adamcik and the burrito was found in his boot. He was taken to the police station. There, while in a holding cell, police said, he asked to use the bathroom and tried to flush a joint, also hidden in his blue tights, down the toilet.

"The officer observed him try to flush something into the toilet. He tried to flush it. The officer was able to reach inside and grab part of what he tried to flush," said Jill Frederiksen, Melbourne Police Department.

The doctor wasn't in when Eyewitness News went by and didn't return calls. He may now have to rely on a lawyer instead of his superpowers to get him out of the jam.

"This is definitely an unusual situation. We don't usually arrest people in costume," Frederiksen said.

No super powers got Adamcik out of jail. He needed $2,000 cash bail and then, once he got out of jail, he still stopped to pose for pictures on the way out. It is unclear right now whether the doctor could lose his medical license if he's convicted.

This is the sort of thing I tend to call "secular blasphemy". With great costumes come great responsibility; if you dress up as Captain America, then damn it, you need to act like Captain America.

He should have dressed up as, oh, maybe Lobo.

IPSTP Day: A Message From The Man In The Moon

I tend to press deadlines to the last moment (I got my taxes done in time last week, but it meant I went to work on three hours sleep), and posting something for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is no exception.

Without further ado:

A Message From The Man In The Moon

Luna's far side is covered
with boundless forests of trees,
immense and towering, tall.
Redolent with usefulness.

Wood, easily cut and shaped,
hardens to stonelike toughness.
Sweet fruit, zero calories,
antivenom to cancer.

I am chainsawing them all,
and burning the logs and limbs
to open the space required
to begin the strip-mining.

For fist-sized nuggets of gold,
head-sized flawless white diamonds,
boat-sized caches of amber.
And did I mention the oil?

Earthside's secret caverns
cloak shadowed lands and oceans,
brimming with fauna thought lost
in your own prehistory.

Sabertooth and giant sloth,
plesiosaur and T. Rex,
trilobites and armored worms,
and gasping mud-crawling fish.

The slaughterhouses open
the beginning of next month,
staffed with abducted children
wielding the keen-edged knives.

(Sixteen-hour shifts should leave
the kiddies worn and sexless.
But abortionists stand by,
if procreation proceeds.)

Hey, the topside slaves must eat
while they etch Nazca lines
of vilest pornography
on Tranquility's broad plain.

And by the way, one more thing
you all should probably know:
I am -- I am -- stockpiling
weapons of mass destruction.

If any of this upsets you,
if any of this angers you,
if any of this alarms you,
why don't you just come on up here

and stop me?


A list of other participants in IPST Day (plus a long list of additions in comments) can be found on Jo Walton's LJ site here. And still more listings at the International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Live Journal site. (Thanks to John Scalzi at Whatever for the links.)

A Few Links

Some links of interest:

LowerManhattanite opens a can of whup-ass on the Keyboard Commandos who think Virginia Tech students should have disarmed the man shooting bullets into them with their bare hands.

Via The Inferior 4, a moving message from Michael Bishop on viewing the body of his son Jamie (one of the VT shooting victims).

On a lighter note, Jennifer Crusie passes along the secret of The Glittery Hoo-Ha.

And over at Angel Station, Walter Jon Williams discusses various "Robins Hood" he has known. (Speaking of which, the first 13 episodes of the 1980's Robin of Sherwood tv series he mentions is now available on DVD; I recommend it very, very, very highly, even if it didn't catch Walter's interest.)

Snarkaption Nation #3

"Researchers announced today that with the

proper application of electroshock, drugs, and

waterboarding, even the most diehard Bush

supporter can be converted into a relatively

benign Chicago Bears fan."

The entire Chicago Tribune photo-series of Bears fans can be found here. Well worth a look.

This Is Just To Plausibly Deny

If you're going to commit parody, parodize the best:



This Is Just to Plausibly Deny
by William Karl Williams

I have deleted
the emails
that were in
the server

and which
you were probably
subpoenaing
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were dangerous
so sweet
and so cold

Topic I

Because there just hasn't been enough talk and discussion about Don Imus lately.

Background, if you've been living under a rock: Last week Imus, on his talk show, referred to the Rutgers University womens basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's". Much upset resulted. Once it was realized how much upset, Imus apologized, and his parent company suspended his show for two weeks.

The sincerity of Imus' apology is suspect. His career has been mostly built around being rude, insulting, in-your-face offensive.

But what made Imus famous wasn't that. It was something called "1,200 Hamburgers To Go." 1200HTG was a classic prank phone call Imus made from his radio show way back around 1970. At the time, there were numerous university and college student demonstrations against the Vietnam War, not always peaceful; in a number of instances, National Guard units were called out to preserve order on campuses (not always successfully; see Kent State).

One such NG unit was called out for such purpose in Imus' home city. Imus called a local MacDonald's burger joint, and pretended to be the National Guard commander, who explained to a hapless clerk that arrangements for feeding the NG members had fallen through, and that he needed to order twelve hundred hamburgers to go. An extended conversation later, roping the MacDonald's manager in, and the MacDonald's had agreed to provide the twelve hundred hamburgers.

"Okay," Imus said, "We'll need two of those with pickle and ketchup, no, make it three with pickle and ketchup, and---" At which point the MacDonald's manager finally realized he was being put on and hung up the phone.

It was funny. It was classic. And... it was benign. It didn't put anyone down, or belittle them, or insult them. It just played a joke, and a good joke. It got airplay everywhere, and repeatedly. It made a local radio host into Don Imus, National Celebrity.

Flash forward a few years, to 1978, when a fellow named Dave Klause was staying with Hilde and me for several months following the Phoenix Worldcon.

Dave was a big fan of 1200HTG, and somewhere he came across a tape of Don Imus performing as a standup comic at a private club. He brought it back to our place, and eagerly popped it into our tape player for a listen.

It was... ugly. Imus' performance was racist, vulgar, scatological, way way over the edge of acceptability. And none of it, none, was even the least bit funny. It was just ugly, and hateful, and... literally... disgusting. After listening to about ten minutes worth, Dave turned off the tape player, a shocked look on his face, and said "Uhh, I guess we won't listen to any more of that."

You see, when Imus is on the public airwaves, no matter how much you think he's rude or offensive, he's actually behaving himself.

Because the real Don Imus is the man who slipped and called a group of black women athletes "nappy-headed ho's", the real Dom Imus is the man we heard on that tape from 1978.

Imus has described himself as "an equal-opportunity bigot"; he hates everybody. I don't think that's a joke. I think Imus is a man deeply poisoned by hatred and anger and bigotry; he just (usually) keeps himself (barely) on the acceptable side of behavior. I think he is a deeply ugly, bone-ugly, soul-ugly individual.

I said above that 1200HTG is a "classic" piece of comedy. It is. I wish it had been the product of someone who deserved the credit.

[02/29/2012 -- A rude, petty, and irrelevant endnote removed.  My apologies, Dave.]

Snarkaption Nation #2

"What? What is it? Why are you all laughing? C'mon, guys, let me in on the joke."

Add your own caption in comments.

Easter...

... the one day of the year when tentacled monsters from outer space suck the brains out of your pet dog:

Original here.

Snarkaption Nation #1

Roxanne over at Rox Populi decided to close up shop there (she's now a contributor to Pandagon) a few months ago, which meant my favorite source of "Write Your Own Caption" contests dried up and blew away.

As the saying goes, when your supplier vanishes, you have to become a dealer yourself.

So I'm going to try posting occasional news photos here (I'll try for about weekly), with my own snarky, mean-tempered captions attached, along with an invitation for readers to contribute their own captions in comments. Like so:















"This is my personal suicide vest. Political suicide."



Add your own caption in comments.

Co-In-See-Deenk?

In the news recently has been the story of Matthew Dowd, political advisor to the White House, a VIP in the election campaigns of 2000 and 2004, who in an interview with the New York Times, announced his deep disaffection and disappointment with the Bush administration.

There was one section of the NYT article, written by Jim Rutenberg, that I particularly noted:

"In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. " [emphasis added]

Hmmm. Does this sound like what I think it sounds like?

That, in short, if you have children in the military, as long as you're a "loyal Bushie", they won't be sent to a combat zone? (Dowd's son joined the Army in late 2004, two-and-a-half years ago.)

Mea Cuppa

Over at Whatever, John Scalzi recently explained why he doesn't drink coffee:

"Coffee tastes like ass."

For most of the subset of caffeinated beverages known as coffee, Scalzi's correct. Most coffee, especially black, unsweetened coffee, doesn't taste good.

Some coffee's are spectacularly bad. There's a local deli chain, Miracle Mile, that makes one of the best Ruebens sandwiches in town. But their coffee is bad. Bad, bad, bad. Harsh, bitter and burnt. It is so bad that every time I go to Miracle Mile, I order another cup, because traumatic amnesia has wiped the last experience from my mind. (And, perhaps, I'm living proof that hope springs eternal, for surely MM's coffee must have improved since my last visit. Sadly, no.)

But there's a lot of coffee that's merely bad. Coffee shop coffee, usually, for some reason or another. Hotel coffee shop coffee is almost invariably bad.

Nonetheless, I've been a regular coffee drinker since 1981. Didn't like coffee before that. But then I had some home-brewed coffee while Hilde and I were visiting Diana Paxson and the other folk at Greyhaven... and it actually tasted... good.

Here's my secret method to making coffee palatable:

Use HALF the amount of ground coffee called for in the brewing instructions.

Some people have called my coffee "wussy-ass-wimpy". Yeh, yeh; these are the same type of people who drink Everclear straight.

You can make it stronger if you want, but don't use more than 2/3rds of the recommended grounds. Past that, and you get too high a concentration of the bitter oils that Scalzi so evocatively describes.

(Why do makers' coffee instructions invariably call for a larger amount? Gee, could it possibly be that using a larger amount of coffee means that you'll BUY MORE COFFEE, MORE FREQUENTLY?)

There's also light roast vs. medium roast vs. dark roast. I use the light or medium. The dark roast coffees have a burnt taste to me. If I wanted that, I could suck on a charcoal briquet.

One of the ways I judge a pot of coffee is by holding the glass pot up to a light and checking the color. The ideal pot, with the light shining thru, should have a dark red color like a good piece of cherry amber.

Also, clean the pot occasionally, wiping out any accumulated oils on the inside of the pot. Otherwise, you can end up with something like the break room at my postal station, Home of the World's Filthiest Coffeepots. (I'm not kidding about those coffeepots; we should open up a sideshow and charge the public to look at them.) ("Small children and pregnant women are advised against seeing this show.")

Yes, I use sugar and creamer. Yes, I'm not a Real Man. Tough.

How Do YOU Spell R-E-L-I-E-F?

Been meaning to post this since last week:

When I was sick with a respiratory crud back in January, my doctor ran some bloodwork on me. It showed some unexpected results:

I was anemic, several points below the minimum normal range. [mild alarm] So my doctor had me do a stool sample card.

Which tested positive for blood. [moderate alarm]

So I got scheduled for a colonoscopy and endoscopy at the Scottsdale branch of the Mayo Clinic. (I'd had both procedures previously in 2004, with negative results, but had been figuring it would be 2009 before I was due for a repeat exam.)

Two polyps were found in the large intestine, snipped, and sent for biopsy.

The good news: The polyps were benign.

The bad news: They were the type of polyps that can turn cancerous if left alone for five or ten years. The endoscopy of the esophagus also showed a small patch of Barrett's Esophagus tissue, which can also turn cancerous over time, at the entrance to my stomach.

So: Relief that my anemia wasn't from cancer. (Best guess is that the anemia was caused by irritation from the aspirin and ibuprofen I'd been taking fairly regularly; I've switched to Tylenol, and the bloodwork readings have improved, though not quite to normal range yet.)

But a certain measure of annoyance that, damn, something else to have to keep an eye on. (The doctors recommended a fresh endoscopy every 2-3 years, and colonoscopy every 5 years.) After having fretted most of my life about my family's wretched history of cardiac problems, now I have to keep a cancer-watch too? Damn.

Dead President Walking?

I was listening to Air America Radio this afternoon while driving around on errands, and a clip was played from a recent speech by George Bush.

It wasn't remarked on by the radio host, but I was struck by how dead Bush's voice was. He was clearly reading words off a paper given to him. His voice was flat and effectless. He paused, inappropriately, numerous times, as if having to re-focus on the words he was reading.

It was the voice of a man tired. Exhausted. On the point of collapse. A man who has lost hope. A walking dead man.

Earlier in the week, Bush had given his "angry" speech, accusing Democrats of partisan politics in their investigation of the DoJ/US-attorneys-firings scandal. I put "angry" in quotes, because my reaction to that speech was that it wasn't an angry man making an angry speech, it was a man acting, or trying to act, like an angry man. It was blustering, not anger; it was bad acting, and horribly, horribly unconvincing.

And it didn't work. The investigation continues; subpoenas for White House insiders are looking more and more certain. Damaging emails, and more evidence of systemic White House dishonesty, keep coming forth. Bush's administration seems, finally, to be beginning an accelerating slide to public disgrace and repudiation.

It's always been pretty clear that one of the main psychological dynamics driving George Bush has been the drive to out-do his father.

And it's pretty clear now that he's failed in that drive. He won't be remembered as a great President. He won't be regarded as a great warrior, or a great diplomat, or a great leader.

That's been clear to a LOT of people, for a LONG time. And now, maybe, it's become clear to George Bush too.

People have an amazing capacity for denial, for rationalization, for self-justification. Alcoholics, drug addicts, abusers, all can deny the wreckage they've made of their lives and the lives of people around them, for years and for decades. A lot of them go to their graves never admitting their own weaknesses and failings.

But maybe George Bush is reaching his own personal "tipping point". Maybe it's finally become undeniable, UN-deniable, that he is a failure as a President, as a leader, as a human being. Maybe he's looked into mirrors one too many times, and is finally starting to see a true image of the man he's become, and the legacy and reputation he will leave behind him.

It's not a pretty sight. It's the face of failure.

Everything he wanted, he will not have. Everything he hoped for -- fame, adulation, success -- he will not get. And he is only now truly beginning to realize this, only now beginning to KNOW this, to know it within his mind, and his heart, and his soul. The denial no longer works, the rationalizations no longer work, the self-justifications no longer work.

This is a very uncertain period. If my speculations above are anywhere close to reality, there are several ways events might proceed from here, all of them with a certain amount of danger attached. But if my reading of Bush's voice during that speech is accurate...

...then I think we may actually see a President leaving office via suicide -- Bush reportedly keeps Saddam Hussein's gun in his Oval Office desk -- in the next few weeks or months.

King & Kin

For about the last year, I've been hearing buzz about a new writer named Joe Hill in the dark fantasy/horror field. He's been getting awards nominations for his shorter work, and his new novel, Heart-Shaped Box, has gotten onto bestseller lists (and onto the book tables at CostCo, which is an even surer sign of success). I haven't read any of his work yet, but I've been wondering about this hot new writer with the same name as the famous union organizer.

Turns out "Joe Hill" is, sort of, a pen name.

Recent news has included articles on the forthcoming comics adapatation of Stephen King's Dark Tower saga. An excerpt:

King, 59, lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, Tabitha. He has three grown children: Oldest Naomi King is a Unitarian minister and is working on a nonfiction project; Joseph Hillstrom King recently wrote "Heart Shaped Box," under the pen name Joe Hill; and youngest son Owen King published a novella in 2005 entitled "We're All in this Together."

I suppose this bit of information might have been mentioned before, but I hadn't encountered it until now.

The most likely reason a famous writer's son might decide to write under a pen name is to show that he can do it independent of his parent's celebrity. But in the case of Stephen King, if it were me in Joe Hill's position, I'd make the same decision for a different reason:

His monstrous bevy of fans, however, are unfazed by literary criticism. At the release of the first "Dark Tower" book, thousands poured into a conference room at the Comic-Con summit to hear him speak. After a lengthy standing ovation, they stood in awe, photographing King and repeating over and over, in a tone much too casual for someone they've never met: "You are a genius," and "You are my hero."

I first saw Stephen King in 1981, at the World Fantasy Convention in Orlando, California. Now, WFC is a convention oriented towards professionals, so the majority of the attendees tend to be writers and editors themselves. People who, you'd think, would be pretty blase' about another writer, even one famous, sucessful, and at the top of the bestseller lists.

Not with Stephen King. Virtually every time King showed himself in public, he'd be surrounded by other WFC attendees holding out books for him to sign.

That is not a lifestyle I would like to live. I'd like to be a more productive writer, a more successful writer, a more widely-read writer.

But, man, I would not want that level of success, where fame and celebrity become dominant elements in one's life. And I wonder if Joe Hill didn't have some thoughts in that same direction when he chose his pen name.

LowerManhattanite Updates The Classics

Over at The News Blog, guest posters are filling the gap while host Steve Gilliard is recovering from major surgery. (Get well, Gilliard!)

Among the guest writers is LowerManhattanite, a frequent commenter on TNB who's garnered a reputation for a savage wit, a "ripping yarn" style, and a general regard as The Non-Blogger People Most Want To Have His Own Blog.

In one of his recent guest posts, LM updates a classic comedy routine for modern times.

If you can read it and not laugh out loud, you're unhinged!

Bro Ken Cur Ses

I just wanted to note for the record that my oldest brother, Gary, had his 60th birthday a few weeks ago.

Why is this particularly notable? Because he reached that milestone without having had a major heart attack, or dying from one.

In my paternal family line, no male has reached the age of 60, going back to at least before WWII (when my dad's father died at the age of 41), without a major heart attack. In fact, only one of my uncles lived to age 61, and that was only after several bypass surgeries.

How did the family curse finally get broken? I think mostly because of 1) recognition among family members that cardiac problems really ARE a chronic and major menace to males in our line, and 2) that medicine has progressed to where early warning signs can be detected and steps taken for prevention and treatment. (I think all four of us brothers are taking Lipitor daily.)

It's nice to think that when I retire (current plans are aiming at early 2010, when I'll be 57), I might actually have more than just a couple of years to enjoy retirement. (Considering how many books I've bought over the years, and never found the time to actually read, I'll need every moment I can get.)

Traffic Grumping

On my way home from work earlier this week, I'm passed on the road by a group of three motorcyclists riding shiny, new-looking, colorful (red, blue and yellow) Suzuki sport motorcycles.

They get ahead of me, and we're all toodling down the road, when the guy on the yellow motorcycle puts his left foot out and lets it drag along the asphalt. Great way to destroy an expensive pair of boots, I think.

And then... he swings his right leg over the bike, and he's standing/sliding/surfing on the asphalt as he's dragged along by the motorbike, holding on by the handlebars. After about five or ten seconds, he swings the right leg back up onto the bike, then picks up the left and resumes riding normally.

Watching this was terrifying. One ripple or dip in the asphalt, a bit of road debris, and I'd have had a human being bouncing and tumbling along the road in front of me.

This kind of stunt riding is something that, if it needs to be done at all, should be done (like the fine print on auto commercial stunts says) on a closed track by experienced drivers, where the road conditions have been pre-checked carefully.

If the rider's intention was to make the white-bearded geezer in the minivan driving behind crap his pants... well, it came pretty damn close.

- - - - -

The above is the post I meant to write Tuesday evening right after it occurred. Stuff happened, and I put off writing the post.

Friday afternoon, I'm on my way to the grocery store, and see that the traffic in the opposing lanes is restricted to one lane as police direct traffic around an accident site. Fire engines, ambulance, flashing red & blue police lights.

And, laying in the road on its side...

Oh, yeh. You got it. I don't really need to say it, do I?

...a bright yellow Suzuki motorcycle.

The cynic in me wants to say "Evolution in action." But the better part of me is wondering if there's a family doing a hospital-bedside vigil, or having to make funeral arrangements.

How I Spent My Evening

My brother-in-law and his wife are off camping at tyhe SCA's Estrella War this week, so they asked me to stop by and feed their dogs each day while they were gone. They have five large dogs and about four four-or-five-month old puppies from a recent litter.

So I get to the house this afternoon and go through the side gate into the back yard, and find...

...that the heavy unused metal-barred room divider that had been leaning up against the storage shed had been pulled over (presumably by one of the larger dogs) and had fallen on top of one of the puppies.

The pup was pinned tightly across its hindquarters, and it was crying and struggling to get out. It had also crapped itself, spectacularly, probably from a combination of pain and terror.

I lift the gate off the pup (trying to ward off half a dozen dogs and pups trying to jump on me and lick me), and it crawls under a nearby old car, dragging one leg like it's broken. Aw shit, and I realize I need to take the pup in to the vet.

So I find an old empty planter large enough to hold the pup, get it out from under the car and put it into the planter; it doesn't cry out when I move it, which is encouraging -- maybe the leg isn't broken after all -- but it's still shaking and trembling, and I'm worried about shock, so it's off to the vet's anyway.

Which, between drive time, waiting room time, and exam room time, takes up the next several hours. The doctor finds nothing broken, though the pup is limping fairly strongly and probably had some deep bruises under its fur. But no apparent permanent damage. They take the pup into the back room and give it a bath to wash the puppy crap off, for which I'm quite grateful. (Sorta like the old gas station offer, I guess: Fill up your tank and get a free car wash.)

So I take the pup back to its home and put it back with the other dogs. By this time, it's fully dark, so the next half-hour spent trying to find my cell phone is fruitless. (I'd called home from the backyard after finding the trapped pup, to tell them I'd be late getting back, then realized on the way to the vet's that my cell phone was no longer on its belt clip. Somewhere between the back yard and the car, it had come off, possibly when one or more of the large dogs was trying to jump up on me. I'll go back in the morning, when it's light, and try to find the phone again. Hopefully it hasn't been used as a chew toy.)

I don't know if my in-laws have named the pups yet, but I think if ti was up to me, I'd name that puppy "Panini".

And that's how I spent my evening.

A Reader's Moral Quandary

Over at Duchy of Burgundy Carrots, hostess Queen of Carrots fights temptation:

This week I had a library book that was so absolutely and forlornly lost, even after six weeks of searching, that I simply had to up and pay for it. Fortunately, it was only four dollars. Unfortunately, it wasn't one I particularly would be thrilled to own, if it ever does turn up. But the occurence did put a thought in my head. Suppose I find a book at the library that I really, really want to own. Suppose further that this book is rare or out of print, and even further that it looks like something the library is going to ditch soon in favor of more shelf space. Of course, the chances of me happening across it at just the right library sale are very slim indeed. How evil would it be to, ah, "lose" the book and pay for it, and then "find" it again but decide not to bother about getting my money back? Evil, evil, evil. I blot the thought from my mind.

Let's recast this scenario into science-fictional terms:

If you had a time machine and could go back to the Library of Alexandria just before it was destroyed, would it be wrong to grab as many texts as you could and jump back into the present with them?

Would that be "stealing"? Or would that be "preemptive salvage"?

(That very old, very decrepit, one-return-away-from-discard former library copy of an UNKNOWN collection sitting on one of our shelves has nothing to do with this discussion. Nothing, I say.)

Bananas Foster Bread Pudding

I had some whole-wheat rolls that had been in the freezer too long, and figured a bread pudding would be a good way to use some of them up.

I found a recipe for a whole-wheat bread pudding at the Land O' Lakes Butter website, and decided to do some fiddling around with it. (Original recipe here.) Another recipe I'd browsed had used bananas as an ingredient, and when I combined that thought with the melted butter in the LOL recipe, my mind immediately thought, "*ding!-ding!-ding!* Bananas Foster!"

So I substituted brown sugar for white, and cinnamon for nutmeg, added bananas and some rum (I kept the original raisins; it's not a bread pudding without raisins), and increased the proportion of eggs and milk. (Hilde likes an eggier bread pudding, one with a custard kicking and screaming to get out.)

Hulk say, "Puny human do good":

Bananas Foster Bread Pudding

1/4 C. butter
4 C. cubed whole-wheat bread or rolls
1/2 c. raisins
1+1/2 ripe bananas, cut into small chunks
3 eggs
2+3/4 C. nonfat milk
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
2 Tbsp. rum (I use Myer's)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a 2-quart casserole, melt butter. Add cubed bread, raisins and bananas to butter; toss to coat.
3. Combine and beat other ingredients. Pour mixture over bread & fruit; stir to coat evenly.
4. Bake 45-55 minutes, until knife comes clean.

Can be eaten straight, or -- for that extra measure of decadence -- top warm pudding with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

cautionary note: This recipe is a dietkiller. It is a stone cold dietkiller with a dead man's eyes. You will want seconds. And thirds. Eat responsibly.

Invitation To A Dance

When you're a writer, there are certain milestones that help to reassue you that you really are a really-real for real writer:

When you're first sending out manuscripts, one of those milestones is a personal rejection note from an editor, rather than a form letter.

Your first story sale is a big milestone.

But your second sale is almost as important, or maybe even more so, because it tells you that first sale wasn't just a fluke.

And another milestone is when you've established enough of a reputation, that an editor will actually invite you (yes, YOU, you writer, you) to contribute something to his or her project.

So I opened up a recent email to find that that last had finally happened to me.

Well, sort of....

International Conference on
COMPUTATIONAL METHODS IN SYSTEMS BIOLOGY

20th and 21st September 2007
Edinburgh, Scotland
http://conferences.inf.ed.ac.uk/cmsb07/

The CMSB (Computational Methods in Systems Biology) conference series was established in 2003 to help catalyze the convergence of modellers, physicists, mathematicians, and theoretical computer scientists from fields such as language design, concurrency theory, program verification, and molecular biologists, physicians, neuroscientists interested in a systems-level understanding of cellular physiology and
pathology.

CMSB'07 solicits original research articles (including significant works-in-progress), surveys of current research and posters. These may cover theoretical or applied contributions that are motivated by a biological question and can demonstrate either actual or potential usefulness towards answering that question. They may also cover models of computation inspired by biological processes; the motivation may be as much computational as biological. Particularly relevant case studies and open issues from the biological side that demands modeling of systems are of interest as well. The introduction of formal models should be supported by theoretical arguments about the model and/or on the analyses that they enable, by comparisons with other network models, and/or by examples of representation and analysis of a biological system.


Topics of interest include, among others:

1. Biological systems and networks: inference, properties, modeling, dynamics, simulation and reverse engineering
2. Formal methods for drug discovery and design
3. Methods to predict biological network behavior from incomplete information
4. Models including symbolic evolution and learning
5. Models of self-assembly
6. Detailed case-studies on how a biological question was successfully addressed using formal models
7. Emergence of properties in complex biological systems
8. Theoretical comparisons between different formal models of cellular processes
9. Differential, discrete and/or stochastic modeling-language frameworks
10. Quantitative formal languages
11. Biologically-inspired extensions to concurrency theory, constraint programming, logical methods or language equivalences
12. Computer models in nano-sciences applied to biological domains
13. Definition and study of theoretical properties of biologically-inspired formal languages
14. Biological data bases and exchange formats for biological data and standards


Paper and poster submission guidelines

Authors are invited to submit original research papers or survey papers of no more than 15 pages in PDF format using the LNCS templates, available at the url below

http://www.springer.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-164-2-72376-0,00.html

Hoo, boy, how did I (who had less than two years of college, almost all in Humanities type courses) end up on a mailing list inviting papers for a scientific conference?

(Some of the subjects of the conference sound like they might be interesting, though I'd probably need to have a translator at hand who spoke both Academic and Tech.)

I'm wondering if there's some other Bruce Arthurs with a background in biology and/or mathematics who should have received this email. I know there's a standup comic in Canada and a long-distance runner in Australia who share my name, so why not a Bruce Arthurs who's actually a hard-science geek somewhere too?

(What? Google my own name? Why, no, I'd never be that vain. Never. I have no idea why that guy in the ski mask breaks into the house every year or so, holds a gun to my head, and forces me to Google "Bruce Arthurs". Yeh, yeh, that sounds good. That's what happened. I swear it, I swear to God.)

Knockoff Cuisine: Starbucks' Bananas & Creme

It's been a while since I've done a food post:

The last few months, Hilde has picked up a jones for Starbucks' "Bananas & Creme", one of their cold blended non-coffee drinks.

Whoops, they're discontinuing that particular choice; it's dropped off the menu boards, and while sometimes you can make a special request, the last few times the local Starbucks haven't had any of the banana puree they used to make the drink. (I figure they've probably used up leftover supplies of the puree.)

So I figured I'd try and whip up a home-made substitute, and came up with this:

Knockoff Bananas & Creme

1/3 C. vanilla-flavored liquid coffee creamer
1/3 C. egg whites (I use the packaged egg whites in cardboard cartons)*
1 ripe banana
10-12 ice cubes

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend at high speed approximately 1 minute, or until smooth. (Depending on the size of the ice cubes, you might need to add a few teaspoons of water.)


*No, I don't know how they manage to pasteurize the egg whites and still keep them liquid.

Pretty close imitation, I think. Makes a 16-oz drink, about 300 calories if I've figured it right.

Back To Work

I've finally recovered enough from the respiratory crud I've had for the last two weeks to go back to work tomorrow. I'm not used to feeling this crappy for this long; usually, when I've been sick, it's been something that I recover from in two or three days. This may be part of getting older.

("Golden Years", my ass.)

Why Not To "How Not To Get Laid"

A friend sent me a link to How Not To Get Laid, a website by one "Stewart Fox" devoted to readers' stories of near-misses, last-minute fumbles, and fast-trains-to-Loserville in trying to have sex with another person.

A horrible confession: I like the "Cosmo Confessions" and similar features in COSMOPOLITAN magazine. I sneak looks at other people's copies ('cause you know that, like, guys don't read COSMO) when I get a chance. These are collections of anecdotes from readers telling about spectacularly bad or inappropriate sex, and/or of being caught having bad or inappropriate sex. (The type of story like having hot, noisy office sex while not realizing the intercom is on.)

So How Not To Get Laid is sort of the geeky kid brother of "Cosmo Confessions". I took a look, and some of the stories were pretty amusing, in a horrifying deja vu kind of way.

The friend who sent me the link added a note asking if I wanted to contribute a story of my own to the website.

Back when I was young, my most common method of not getting laid was, like most guys, being too scared to even try. But there were a few times when I made some motions in that direction, with, umm, less than positive results. Once, not getting laid actually turned out to be one of the most pleasant, memorable and fun evenings I've ever had. But for full dramatic effect, that story needs to be told along with its Evil Twin, an occasion so spectacular and emotionally painful that if it were filmed, it would be a wide-screen epic with an all-star cast and a red carpet premiere. And that story is one I will probably never, ever tell in public.

But I did think of another not-getting-laid story that would have been appropriate for the HNTGL website. So I clicked on the "Submit A Story" button, and saw...

...this, in the middle of the submission instructions:

By submitting a story in the box below or to the e-mail address below, you grant How Not To Get Laid an unlimited, exclusive worldwide right to republish the story online, in print, or in any form of media. How Not To Get Laid reserves the right to fully edit submissions. By submitting a story, you assert that the story you are submitting is one of your own creation and does not infringe on any existing copyright. Submitting a story does not guarantee that your story will be posted or used by How Not To Get Laid‘.

Hmmmph.

So, if you post a story to HNTGL, you also assign all rights to further use of that story to "Steven Fox". All rights, forever.

What this suggests to me is that "Fox" is using the website to accumulate material for a book. Material that the actual authors will get no recompense, at all, for.

Nope. Uh-uh. Not acceptable.

If Fox had stated up front that HNTGL might eventually be used as the basis for a book or other projects, I might have respected that honesty enough to submit a post regardless. But there's no reason for that paragraph to be there unless he is thinking of using the material from HNTGL for future (presumably commercial) projects. (His bio describes him as a writer and screenwriter.)

So, nope, you won't read my story of long-ago humiliation on How Not To Get Laid.

You're going to read it here instead:


Back in the early 70's, I was catching a flight home to Arizona. I boarded the plane and found my seat.

And noticed that the passenger sitting next to me was a nice-looking young woman of about my own age. A very nice-looking young woman.

So as the plane takes off and starts flying westwards, I'm stealing sidelong glances at this lovely young woman, and thinking, "Wow. What could I say to start a conversation with her?"

I think along these lines for fifteen or twenty minutes, trying to screw up my courage to actually speak to her. And I'm getting close, pretty close, to actually turning and saying something...

... when I feel... something.

Something... in my stomach.

Something... roiling. Something... churning. Something... taking on a life of its own. Something... taking on its own inhuman form of sentience. Something... that wants to escape.

And I feel a surge of vomit racing up from my stomach, through the esophagus, towards my mouth, and I clamp! a hand over my mouth and lurch forward in my seat, reaching with the other hand for the air sickness bag in the seatback pocket in front of me.

The air sickness bag... that is NOT there.

And the vomit reaches my mouth, and I'm struggling mightily to keep it in, but it's spurting out between my lips, between my fingers, and, oh god Jeezus, it's coming out my NOSE...

... and the passenger across the aisle sees my distress and, as quickly as possible, hands the bag that IS in HIS seatback pocket, and I'm able to release most of the vomit into the bag, gasping for breath and wishing that a trapdoor would open in the floor of the plane and just drop me out into mid-air.

For the entire rest of that flight, I didn't even glance towards that nice-looking young woman seated next to me. (It was a long flight. A long, long flight.)

But wait, there's more!

This was back during my military service, and regulations at the time required us to travel in uniform, and I was wearing a freshly starched, spotless set of khakis for travelling. So not only did I suffer an utterly ghastly personal humiliation, but I totally trashed the strong, manly, macho image of the entire United States Army.

Oh yeh, the good old days. Like Hell.

*hack* *cough* *wheeze*

I'm recovering from a bad bug that started last week, starting with stuffy sinuses Saturday afternoon, developing into headache, sore throat, cough, wheezing, and deep fatigue within a few hours. Spent virtually all day Sunday in bed, utterly miserable. A lot of the syptoms improved within a few days, but the lung congestion, coughing, and fatigue are not going away. So I've seen my doctor a second time, had a chest x-ray and bloodwork, and am awaiting the results of that.

This is really annoying. I tend to be obsessive about Getting Stuff Done, and it's frustrating to try and do something that ought to be simple and effortless (loading the dishwasher, for example) and end up gasping for breath and having to (having to, dammit) sit down and rest.

At this point, I'd be glad to be able to go back to work. If I had the energy and stamina to do a day at work, I'd be well enough to get more done at home after work than I'm able to do right now, staying home all day.

A Few Reminders, And A Word, For George

Hey, George,

Remember when you invaded Iraq in 2003, after we'd pretty much whupped the Iraqi Army and it was time to hold and secure our gains, your top priority for assigning troops to guard and protect was... the headquarters of the Iraq Oil Ministry?

What you didn't guard and protect... what you barely attempted to guard and protect... were the military weapon and supply dumps scattered across Iraq.

Tons... hundreds of tons... of weapons, ammo, explosives and other supplies of war... simply vanished from those dumps within a few days and weeks, stolen, gone, to be used... against who?

Against US troops.

Remember how, after Iraq's defeat, you had hundreds of thousands of members of the Iraqi Army left without a leader? Hundreds of thousands of men, wondering what would happen to them. They could have been told to turn in their weapons, or lock them away, and then been used as a massive reconstruction team for Iraq, rebuilding war damage, rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, restoring electricity and clean water, rebuilding roads and bridges and hospitals, and, oh yeh, maybe paint a few schools too.

You fired them, George. You fired them all. "Army's disbanded. You're unemployed. Go home."

And they went home. Most of them took their weapons and went home. To watch as the work they might have done, for their own country, for their own people, be turned over to your mega-corporate friends like Halliburton and Bechtel with no-bid contracts and grotesque amounts... billions of dollars worth... of graft, corruption, fraud and outright theft.

And they thought about this a while, and then maybe they got their old weapons out of the closet and thought some more while they cleaned them, and maybe they talked with other Iraqis about this, and maybe they talked about the hundreds of tons of weapons and explosives and ammo secreted away after being taken from the unguarded ammo dumps, and maybe some of them decided that their old Army weapons, and those hundreds of tons of weapons and explosives and ammo, might still have a useful purpose.

Against US troops.

And all of sudden there were "insurgents" attacking US troops, with rifles and RPGs and IEDs and truck bombs. And then more. And more. And more. And still more, every month.

And all of that was made possible because of you, George. Because of you.

But all of that might have been chalked up to bad decision-making, incompetence, or that handy excuse "poor intelligence".

Except for one thing. Except for the three words you said, said in public, said before television cameras, three words that went around the world within hours. Three words:

"Bring it on."

You asked our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers. You dared our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers. You wanted our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers.

And they did. And they have. And they do, to this day. Every day.

To the cost of over three thousand American lives. So far. To the cost of ten times that, thirty thousand Americans, wounded, and maimed, and crippled, who've left arms, legs, chunks of their brains behind them, laying in the streets of Iraqi cities.

You armed our enemies, George.

You motivated our enemies, George.

You asked our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers.

What's the name for that behavior, George? What do you call that?

You said those words over three years ago, George. I had a word to describe what you'd done, a word I sent to my Senators and Congressmen. I thought it was an appropriate word then, and I think it's still an appropriate word now.

You should have been removed from office right then, in 2003. But you weren't. You got what you asked for, you got what you wanted: the death and maiming of thousands of Americans.

And now you want more. You want to increase the violence, you want to increase the bloodshed, you want to expand the war. In your speech a few days ago, you gave clear indications that your goal isn't merely to expand the US military presence in Iraq, but to provoke a war with additional nations, with Syria and Iran.

You are drunk on blood and power, and your words and actions are those of an enemy of America, not a leader.

You armed our enemies, you motivated our enemies, you asked our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers.

And the word for that is... treason.

BANG!

So I've had like half a dozen posts in mind to make here, including several with photos, and Gerald Ford is kind enough to die and give me an unexpected day off on January 2nd, which meant that I actually had the spare time to sit down to write and post some of them.

But first I decide to install the new keyboard I was given for Christmas (nothing wrong with the old keyboard, as long as you didn't want to use any vowels). And just as I'm in the middle of the software installation...

BANG! The friggin' computer's friggin' power supply explodes.

Really. A loud bang, a burning smell, and a quick dash to unplug the power cord before I start seeing, like, smoke and flames. One dead computer.

I'm assuming that the timing was sheerly coincidental, and that Logitech's software isn't that incompatible.

We're past due for an upgrade (128k RAM was a lot when we bought the machine), so we've decided to shop for a newer computer. Then we'll have to take the old hard drive from the dead machine and transfer the data to the new. It may take a week or two to get things back together where they were.

In the meantime, I'm using Michelle's computer in the living room to do things like check email and write this post. But I don't like to use other people's machines unless I have to.

Regular (i.e., semi-regular) posting will resume as soon as possible.

Geekmas

Over in a post at Will Shetterly's It's All One Thing, I posted a comment that there had been enough Star Wars Christmas ornaments issued over the years to decorate a good-sized tree without using any duplicates. And that someone had almost certainly done so.

I was right: The Geek Tree (with Star Wars, plus Star Trek, LOTR, Harry Potter, and Batman)

The Geek Tree's Flickr photoset

I Am Not Scotty

Remember all the episodes of Classic Trek where you had a scene like:

KIRK: Scotty, give me more power!

SCOTTY: Cap'n, the engines canna' take the strain!

KIRK: Scotty, I need that power!

And about four minutes later, after Scotty applies his Manly Scottish Mojo, the warp engines are running at 180% and the Enterprise's butt is saved again. Remember those episodes?

What brings this to mind is the situation at work.

I don't want to say too much about this. But consider the words "dysfunctional management" and "Toxic Boss" and "delusional thinking". Those are the polite words; the ones I'm trying to keep strictly in my head are words that would probably get me an unpaid involuntary vacation.

The Postal Service has always had a reputation for being one of the worst-managed organizations around. Mostly, if you're a long-time employee, you get used to it, you learn to deal with it, you do your job as best you can in spite of it.

But in just the last week, things have changed for the worse. They haven't just gtten worse, they've gotten exponentially worse. Management is demanding a performance level from employees that is impossible to attain. Literally (and I'm not *pet peeve here* misusing the word "literally") impossible. And when we say that we can't achieve those impossible goals, and then we don't achive those impossible goals, we're treated like lying sacks of shit.

The last time stress levels at work got this bad, in 1995, I ended up in the hospital (and off work for three months) with what felt like a heart attack. I don't want that to happen again. For one thing, I'm eleven years older, and that much more likely to have a genuine heart attack next time. (In my paternal family line, no male has gotten to age 60 without a major heart attack.)

Short version: I've seen my doctor, and am having to go back on an anti-depressant again (Lexapro), backed up with an anti-anxiety pill (Xanax), plus a recommendation for a shrink for stress-management counseling.

I don't like being on anti-depressants. I had to do that in 1995, after my stint in the hospital, and one of the side-effects of the med (Paxil) I was taking then was that my urge to sit down at the keyboard and write... vanished. Gone. On the Paxil, I'd look at the keyboard and feel... nothing. Just an empty spot there.

Considering that I've been writing at least occasionally since age 14, and how much of my self-identity is contained in the word "writer", that was not a happy time. (If I hadn't been taking anti-depressants, I would have been really miserable.) I'm hoping, with fingers crossed and crossed again, that the Lexapro won't have the same effect.

But right now, I'm feeling very close to the edge, that same edge I crossed in 1995, so the meds seem to be necessary.

Damn it. Damn them.

Star Trek was fiction. Scotty was fiction. And this is what you would have seen on STAR TREK: THE REALITY SERIES:

KIRK: Scotty, I need more power.

SCOTTY: Cap'n, the engines canna take the strain!

KIRK: Scotty, I need that power!

SCOTTY: Uh, cap'n, did you hear what I said? The engines canna take the strain.

KIRK: Scotty, give me that power, damn it!

SCOTTY: [smacks forehead] Dude, listen up. The engines are maxxed out. They are redlined. There isn't any more power to give. It can't be done, dude.

KIRK: I'm giving you an order, Scotty! We're surrounded by hostile Romulan ships! Give me that power, NOW!

SCOTTY: And just who flew us into the middle of the friggin' Romulan Zone in the first place? It's my ass being snapped at by alligators, too. If I could do anything, I would!

KIRK: Damn it, Scotty, if you don't give me that power, we're all going to DIE!

SCOTTY: No fucking shit, Sherlo---

[Enterprise explodes]

Those Who Fail To Remember History Class, Are Doomed To Repeat It

CostCo's monthly in-house magazine, COSTCO CONNECTION, has a regular feature titled "Informed Debate", where guest writers give opposing opinions n various issues of the day. The following issue will generally include letters from readers, giving their own opinions on the issues raised.

The November debate question was: "Should airport security procedures include ethnic and religious profiling?"

This produced the following reader's response:

YES. It's unfortunate that it has come down to this, but people of certain ethnic and religious backgrounds have a much higher probability to commit terrorist acts against the U.S. at this time. Anyone acting suspiciously also has to be checked." ---Bruce Shimizu, Kaneohe, Hawaii

Ummmm... excuse me, Bruce (do you mind if I call you Bruce? Cause us "Bruce" guys, we're all supposed to be cool and smart, right?), but that last name of yours, "Shimizu", isn't that like... Japanese?

And would that make you a... Japanese-American? Or at least of Japanese-American ancestry?

And wouldn't you think that that heritage of yours might behoove you to be a little bit aware of Japanese-American history? Like, say, the forced internment of thousands of Japanese-Americans during WWII on racial and ethnic grounds?

Wouldn't you think that that cultural background, that history, would make you just a bit hesitant to endorse profiling of "people of certain ethnic and religious backgrounds"?

Wouldn't you think?

A Small, Inconsequential Death

Yesterday, I was driving Hilde to a doctor's appointment across town, taking the 101 freeway, in the middle lane, when I glance over, and I see...

Oh, jeezus, there's a kitten in the right-hand lane!

And I'm just starting to think, Can I pull over? Can I stop and run back and...? and we're already past the kitten and I look at the right-hand sideview mirror and I see the kitten vanish underneath the wheel ("OH SHIT! JEEZUS!") of another car. Gone, in a split second.

I drove on, shaken, knowing that I had just watched something die.

This is a bad story, isn't it? No happy ending. But these things happen. Animals, pets, stray onto roads all the time. These things happen.

These things happen.

Wait. I haven't told you everything.

When I first saw the kitten, in the traffic lane, it wasn't trying to cross the road, and it wasn't standing still, paralyzed with fear.

The kitten was sliding and spinning across the asphalt, scrabbling desperately for footing.

I think...

...I think it had, just a second before, fallen out of someone's car.

These things, these things, DON'T have to happen. If you're carrying a pet in your car, you DON'T let it run loose inside. You DON'T leave windows open enough for your pet to squeeze out. You DON'T. You DON'T do that, you stupid, careless, senseless fucker, whoever you were.

(link to a short guide on transporting pets: Carrying Pets Safely)

Since The Election...

...I've been:

a) working. More 12-hour days at the Postal Service. They suck.

b) at TusCon. TusCon is an annual relaxacon in Tucson, that we try to make it to every year. A chance to catch up with some old friends, meet new or online people (waves to Will & Emma), usually eat out once or twice (discovered, close to the hotel, the Mei Mei, with very good walnut shrimp and curried chicken), browse books and the art show (got some very nice Leslie D'ellesandro-Hawes colored pencils of young foxes, plus a few other pieces for gifts), and participate in the annual chili-tasting at the Dead Dog party.

c) sick. A few days after TusCon, I came down with what may have been post-con crud, with nausea, chills and headache. Recovered quickly enough to go back to work after one day off, but Hilde came down with a stronger case of it this morning, so I've been plying her with ginger ale and TLC.

d) dealing with an incredibly dumb cat, which I'll tell you all about in a separate post.

Some Links

Some interesting sites:

Mona Lisa On The Web Galleries, resources, and links to hundreds of versions of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Some of the links to versions I particularly liked were:

Robot Mona
Devil Mona
Mona Lisa Simpson

Harold McGee, author of the fabulous food-tech resource On Food and Cooking has a blog, The Curious Cook. Postings aren't that frequent (about once or twice a month), but they're always interesting.


Jason Hill Design Hill is a local artist/designer whose work has been labeled as "Retro-Futuristic", with influences from Pop Art, 1930's travel posters, and The Jetsons. Groovy, man. He's best known for his series of paintings of architectural landmarks; his depiction of the Phoenix Financial Center (aka "The Punch-Card Building") has been gaining ground as a well-known icon for the city of Phoenix.


The Arizona Opera has some particular striking publicity art for its 2006-2007 season. (The link goes to a page showing the art for all five shows; clicking on a particular piece will take you to a page with a larger version.) I particularly like the art for MacBeth and Madama Butterfly; either would not be at all out of place if they appeared in the annual Spectrum best-of-year compendium of sf/fantasy art.

The Day After

Elections are over. A solid shift to the Democrats in the House of Representatives, numerous other Democratic wins in state-level races.

Democrats may have a 49-49 vote split in the Senate (the Virginia race, between Webb and Allen, is narrow and certain to be recounted, with Republicans pulling out all the stops to win; it will be ugly, probably with things like the mob of Republican operatives that near-rioted to stop the Florida recount in the 2000 election, or worse).

Two "independents" (Sanders and Lieberman) were elected, but they probably will effectively cancel each other out. Senate votes along party lines will end up 50-50, with VP Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaker vote. At least this will mean that, unlike the past few years, Cheney will be spending a lot of his time in a disclosed location.

Here's a question:

What do you think Dem-primary-loser Joe Lieberman secretly promised to Karl Rove and the Republican Party in exchange for having Republican support and Republican votes channeled toward his "independent" run?

1) A kidney.
2) A lung.
3) His spine.
4) His soul.
5) All of the above.

Still and all, yesterday's elections seemed like a good smackdown to not just the Republican party in general, but to the Bush administration and to the neocon/fundamentalist extremists behind it.

But a smackdown is only the start to a fight. This isn't a staged, pre-planned WWF wrestling match, where the participants get up at the end, wipe off the sweat and makeup, and go home to the wife and kids. This is a street fight for the soul of our country, and we need to finish the fight.

We've knocked the Republican Party into a gutter. Letting them get back up and start swinging again is not the way to win this fight. While they're in that gutter, kick them in the head.

I want to see facts revealed, and truth spoken. I want to see subpoenas, investigations, public hearings, criminal charges and impeachments.

I want to have pride in my country again.

- - - - -

Here in Arizona...

Jon Kyl retained his Senate seat, but it took an expensive and nasty campaign against Jim Pederson to do so.

The good news, though, is that Congressman J.D. Hayworth was defeated by Harry Mitchell. So long, you cretinous embarassment; maybe you can get your old job as a television sportscaster back.

Nut Jan Brewer (hmm, I meant to type "But", but that's too good a typo to correct) got reelected as Secretary of State. Fout. Frack. Dammit.

There was a long list of voter-initiated propositions on the ballot:

Arizona voted against the so-called "Protect Marriage" act. I was surprised, but pleased.

Before assuming that Arizona has become a left-wing hotbed of Frenchified liberalness, though, a number of anti-illegal-immigrant measures on the ballot DID pass, by nearly 3-1 margins. These included measures to deny bail to illegal immigrants charged with crimes, deny punitive damages in lawsuits filed by illegal immigrants, to deny state educational programs, grants, tuition waivers, and child-care assistance to illegal immigrants.

(Y'know, if you really wanted to reduce illegal immigration, the answer isn't to make life here as miserable as possible for them, it's to arrest and jail the scofflaws who keep hiring them. Put enough businessmen in pink underwear, and there will be laws passed to legitimatize hiring "guest workers", with actual decent wages, working conditions, and *gasp* maybe even some benefits.)

And of course, as always, a new ('cause the ones passed previously were declared unconstitutional) "Official English" amendment passed. Or, as I tend to call it, the "We White People Are Too Dumb And Lazy To Learn A Second Language, But You Brown People Shouldn't Have A Problem With That" measure.

(One bright spot is that State Representative Russell Pearce -- he who sent out links to a White Supremacist website in email to his supporters, and who authored or supported all of the anti-immigrant measures -- was defeated in his reelection bid.)

Update, 2/4/07:In comments, "MB" questioned Pearce's defeat, since he was still listed as a member in the current legislative roster.

I double-checked, and found MB was correct. I hadn't realized, when reviewing the election numbers back in November, that the race for District 18 was to elect two representatives to the state legislature, rather than the one I had assumed. Pearce came in second out of three, so yes, alas, he retained his seat in the State House. Damn. Apologies for the error.

Blogger "Feature" of the Week

I did a first draft of "The Worst Job In The World", which you'll find down below the next post, back on October 27th, and got around to finishing and posting today. . .

. . . to find that it posted under that first draft's date, after the 10/29 "Republican Kool-Aid" post, rather than the completion and posting date.

Blogger used to have an option at the bottom of the editing screen to change the date and time of a post. It seems to have vanished. I'm not sure when, or why.

*grumph* Annoying. Looks like I'll have to kluge in future such instances, by copying a completed draft into an empty fresh "New Post" screen.

Thanks, Blogger!

Republican Kool-Aid, Arizona Style

Sweetened with rattlesnake venom.

The Republican mayors of three Arizona cities have been asked to resign by the Arizona Republican Party's District 4 committee.

3 GOP mayors asked to quit
Backing of Napolitano brings heat from party

Scott Wong
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 28, 2006 12:00 AM


Arizona Republicans have begun to turn on some of their own for not marching in lock step with their party, and it all may have started because of a miscommunication.

GOP leaders from Legislative District 4 on Friday called for the resignations of three West Valley mayors, all registered Republicans, because of their endorsement of Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat.

Other current and former Republican officeholders also have crossed party lines with endorsements this election season in local and state contests as well as in an East Valley congressional race.

Friday's move by GOP activists underscores deep fissures in the Republican Party, political observers said. Conservative members hope to pressure those holding more moderate views to remain silent in deference to Len Munsil, Napolitano's Republican challenger.

City council, school board and other local elected offices traditionally are nonpartisan. But District 4 party leaders said they followed orders from Arizona Republican Party Chairman Matt Salmon in demanding the resignation of any GOP elected official who endorsed a candidate from another party.

On Friday, District 4 GOP leaders hand-delivered letters to the offices of Mayors Elaine Scruggs of Glendale, Joan Shafer of Surprise and Ron Badowski of Wickenburg, demanding that they step down for publicly supporting Napolitano.

"We're letting the public know that if you are a Republican, you should stand by your party or remain silent," said Lyle Tuttle, chairman of the Republican Party of District 4, which includes parts of Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria and Surprise. "It's fine if they want to vote for someone else, but for them to endorse a non-Republican is not following the party line."

However, a spokesman for the state Republican Party clarified that while Salmon issued a directive, it applied only to precinct committee members. He added that the "grass-roots activists" from District 4 acted without consent of state party leadership.

"The chairman appreciates these Republicans' enthusiasm and loyalty to their party, but Matt Salmon would not have personally recommended this call for the mayors' resignations," spokesman Garrick Taylor said.

Glendale's Scruggs, who also has endorsed Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, called the letter insulting and an example of "precinct committeemen gone wild."

She said certain members of her party are more interested in "mind control" than in a person's right to back a candidate based on qualifications, integrity and track record.

"This reminds me of Reverend Jim Jones saying, 'Stand in line and drink the Kool-Aid,' " Scruggs said, referring to the cult leader responsible for the 1978 Jonestown, Guyana, mass suicide. "That's how this message comes across to me. What this says is, we are not to think; we are not to make decisions."

That some Republicans would try to impose party discipline on their local elected officials was an unusual tactic, said Marilyn Dantico, associate professor of political science at Arizona State University.

"The Republican Party has started to lack discipline," Dantico said, adding that she sees major divisions within the party. "There is a lot of pressure to hold the line, but it surprises me that it's taken this form."

Dantico said local races became nonpartisan in response to disillusionment with political machines operating in places such as Chicago and New York. Many believed that in local elections, citizens should vote for individual candidates rather than along party lines when it came to community interests.

The three mayors are not the only Republican officials who have crossed party lines.

Arizona House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, endorsed state Rep. Leah Landrum Taylor, a Phoenix Democrat who is running for a state Senate seat.

Former state Attorney General Grant Woods has thrown his support behind Napolitano, as have Mesa Mayor Keno Hawker and Phoenix Councilman Tom Simplot.

And at least three sitting Republican Tempe council members have endorsed Democrat Harry Mitchell over incumbent J.D. Hayworth for the 5th Congressional District seat. So did the president of the Kyrene Elementary district school board.

On the flip side, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, a Democrat, has endorsed Weiers.

To get a better understanding of why the mayors would endorse a candidate from the other party, you need to know that Janet Napolitano's opponent in the gubernatorial race is Len Munsil. Munsil can't properly be called "conservative"; he's a far-far-right fundamentalist, and "radical" would be a much more accurate description. He's probably the most extremist candidate the Republican Party has run for governor in Arizona since Evan Mecham.

I'm also dubious about the claim that the decision to demand the resignations did NOT come from Matt Salmon's office. This strikes me as the handy-dandy "overenthusiastic Republican aide" excuse trotted out again. Particularly when you remember that Matt Salmon was Janet Napolitano's opponent in the last Arizona gubernatorial race, and that he was skunked fairly handily by her. No personal issues to see here, move along, move along....

I sent personal emails to Scruggs and Shafer (Badowski doesn't have an email address listed on Wickenburg's website), saying:

Tell them to go to hell. And to take a copy of the
Bill of Rights with them to study.

Do you really feel comfortable belonging to a
political party that only believes in freedom of
speech when that speech is in their favor? Give it
some thought.

The Worst Job In The World

A long time ago (last week), White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was publicly proclaiming that George Bush had only ever used the phrase "stay the course" eight times. This was followed by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's COUNTDOWN (how appropriate) show presenting a video collage of George Bush saying "stay the course" twenty-nine times. When instances in print were added in, there were about one hundred sixty examples.

How does one explain, or understand, people like Tony Snow?

Is he proud of what he’s doing? Does he enjoy lying, repeatedly and publicly?

How does he look at himself in the mirror? How does he look his family in the eye? How does he live with the shame?

I’m not joking with that last question. If someone told me “For this job, you will have to stand up in public and lie, repeatedly, blatantly, and obviously,” I wouldn’t have that job. And if for some unfathomable reason I couldn’t walk away from such a job---

---I would get myself a straight razor and slash my throat. I’m not joking; I would not want to live doing what Tony Snow does everyday.

Watching him, and the other habitual liars in this administration, just creeps me out.

How do they live with themselves?

I've always had a hard time dealing with lies and liars. Lying is a common social skill. Some people are even great at it; they do it well, they do it frequently, and they do it with such charm and brilliance that even after you find out what they've told you is utterly bullshit, you still want to forgive them and like them.

Not me. I suck at lying. It's almost physically impossible for me to tell a flat out untruth; I can think of probably five or six times in my entire life when I've tried telling a direct whopper, and every time has been followed by weeks or months of shame and guilt.

This doesn't necessarily make me honest. (Sometimes I've felt it makes me a cripple.) I've learned to be evasive when occasions warrant. I've learned that sometimes telling all the details, all the truth, isn't the wisest course of action. And I've especially learned that sometimes you just need to keep your damned mouth shut completely.

But goddammit, lying may be common as dirt, it may even be useful in the short term, but in the long term... it makes it so damn much harder to deal with the world. The real world.

Back a ways, there was the piece in a news story about an unnamed White House official who said "We create our own reality." And the context was that the power and influence of the White House/Bush Administration/United States government was so great that whatever they proclaimed would come to be. That if you just proclaim a lie forcefully enough, persistently enough, willfully enough, that lie will come to be fact.

(Iraq. Katrina. North Korea.)

How DO Tony Snow, and company, live with themselves?

The America I Want, Not The America I Get

Over at Political Animal, one of Kevin Drum's posts on Iraq closes with the following passage:

"I wonder how long it will take America to recover from George Bush's uniquely blinkered and self-righteous brand of ineptitude? In the past five years he's demonstrated to the world that we don't know how to win a modern guerrilla war. He's demonstrated that we don't understand even the basics of waging a propaganda war. He's demonstrated that other countries don't need to pay any attention to our threats. He's demonstrated that we're good at talking tough and sending troops into battle, but otherwise clueless about using the levers of statecraft in the service of our own interests. If he had set out to willfully and deliberately expose our weaknesses to the world and undermine our strengths, he couldn't have done more to cripple America's power and influence in the world. Beneath the bluster, he's done more to weaken our national security than any president since World War II.

So how long will it take — after George Bush has left office — for our power and influence on the world stage to return to the level it was at in 2001? When I'm in a good mood, I figure five years. Realistically, ten years is probably more like it. And when I'm in a bad mood? Don't ask. It's really all very depressing."

The comment thread that follows is interesting, and deeply pessimistic; most of the commenters seem to feel that the Iraq war is a tipping point in American (and world) history, and that the American Empire (not only militarily, but culturally and philosophically) will never fully recover from the damage done to that former image of America as the "shining beacon" of the world.

I consider myself deeply cynical and pessimistic, particularly regarding politics, but I find myself in the surprising position of believing (perhaps "hoping" would be a better word to use) that America might someday be that beacon again.

Many things would have to go right for that to happen. *koff*votenovember7th*koff It can be done.

But I think it will take at least two generations, fifty years (yes, fifty), to regain the trust and respect the world held for America a mere five years ago.

Those who have come to hate and fear us in the last five years -- and I think that's probably a majority of the world's population -- will not easily trust us again. We have shown the depths we're capable of sinking to -- torture, invasion, imprisonment without trial, the abandonment of (my God!) our own legal protections and rights -- and forgiveness will not be an easy task.

I don't think the current generation will forgive, or forget. And they will pass on that mistrust, and fear, and hatred of the US to their children. I think it will only be the generation after that, the grandchildren, that will be far enough removed from this dark lustrum to risk giving America (an America that has tried to restore its ideals, and its guiding principles) its trust once more.

I want that to happen. I want it.

Dammit, I want my country back.

We're #50! We're #50!

Arizona is the dumbest state in the USA.

Fie! Fie, I say! We'd have only been #43 if not for Russell Pearce!

And The #1 Idiot In The State of Arizona Is...

...State Representative (R-Mesa) Russell Pearce.

Pearce, already under fire for using the term "Wetback", followed that up the succeeding week by sending out an email to political supporters that included a link to a White Supremacist article and website.

Shit, meet fan. Fan, shit.

Pearce has issued an apology, saying that the article in question had been sent to him by a friend, and that he had read only the first few (relatively innocuous) paragraphs before deciding to include the link in his email to supporters.

Shorter Russell Pearce: I'm not a racist. I'm just an idiot.

The odds of Pearce's returning to the State legislature after next month's elections appear somewhat dimmer. (Assuming he doesn't follow a number of public calls for resignation.)

(And what the heck is it about the city of Mesa? In a state that routinely elects fakes, snakes, rakes and fruitcakes to political office, the fruitcakiest almost invariably seem to hail from Mesa. In a town that seems so incredibly boring on its surface, where do they find these people?)

"Cute"? Or Just Plain Wrong?

Over at Amygdala, Gary Farber posts about the latest "Moron-American" trying to have Harry Potter books banned from school libraries.

Let's take it as granted that book-banning is a bad idea. Nonetheless, sometimes fans of particular books/movies/what-have-you take their enthusiasms just a bit too far. And I think that the limits of Harry Potter fandom are being approached when you see something like this:


Yes, that's a real cat, named Salem, one of the entries on the latest Cat Connection Cat Of The Month Contest. Among all the other photos of entrants clad (mostly) in respectable fur and an occasional collar, Salem's really stood out (as in, I had a genuine "What the...?" moment).

The scariest thing is, Salem doesn't look embarassed.

(Thanks to Talpianna for the link to Cat Connection.)

Defining The Choice

Yes, yes, every blog in the entire world has had something to say about the Mark Foley scandal in Congress. Do you expect me to be any different?

The Republican's early "defense" on the scandal has included trying to claim that the initial set of emails made public was provided to ABC News by Democrat political operatives as an act of political sabotage.

Evidence provided for this claim? None. In fact, ABC News has stated that its source for the emails was... oh, dear... a Republican. Nonetheless, some right-wing figures *koff*Limbaugh*koff* (and a lot of the wingnuttier blogs) are continuing to argue that it's all a sinister Democrat plot.

If I was a honcho for the Democrats, if it weren't that ABC News has already said otherwise, I'd be tempted to go ahead and state, "Yeh, we'll take credit for putting this out in public. We're proud of it. Most people think outing a sex predator who targets teenage boys is a Good Thing; it's a public service, and we're glad to provide it. And it'll probably get us lots of votes, too. So ummm, how come you Republicans are acting like outing a sex predator is a Bad Thing?"

Because if it were true that Democrats were behind the Foley revelations, the choice voters will have next month would become crystal clear:

Democrats brought out the truth about a sex predator in Congress.

Republicans covered up for and protected a sex predator in Congress.

WHO YA GONNA VOTE FOR?

If I was a honcho for the Democrats, I'd be kicking myself right now for not realizing what a defining, positive moment this could have been for Democrats. Instead, it's all negative for Republicans, and nothing positive for Democrats; they're just bystanders at the scene of the train wreck.

An Open Letter To Jan Brewer, Arizona Secretary of State

This is a letter I just sent to Jan Brewer:

Dear Ms. Brewer,

I am writing to express my dismay that you are using public taxpayer funds to generate publicity for your own election campaign.

Saturday, September 30th, I received in the mail the 240-page Publicity Pamphlet for Ballot Propositions & Judicial Performance Review, prepared and issued by you in your job as Arizona Secretary of State. Paging through it, I realized that you had inserted your name on 236 of those 240 pages.

The only 4 pages that did NOT include your name were pages 233-236, the detachable pages that a voter can mark and take into the polling place as a memory guide. Under campaign law, as I recall, it is illegal to take campaign material into a polling place. Clearly, that is why your name was left off of those particular pages.

That omission also makes clear that the insertion of your name onto EACH AND EVERY remaining page of the pamphlet, 236 pages, WAS intended as campaign material, as a way of presenting your name before every registered voter in Arizona, over and over and over, TWO HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX times.

And it cost you, and your campaign, not one penny. Because it was all paid for by my taxes,and my neighbor's taxes, and the taxes of every other Arizona residence and business.

I feel like you have picked my pocket, while simultaneously slapping me across the face. Slapping me across the face two hundred thirty-six times.

This obvious and contemptful violation of ethics and the public trust cost you not a penny, but it has lost you any chance for my vote. And I will express my feelings to my family, and friends, and co-workers, as well.

I will also send copies of this letter to the Arizona Republic and the New Times. And I will reproduce it on my own weblog (http://undulantfever.blogspot.com/) as well.

Best of luck on your upcoming job search.

Sincerely,

Bruce Arthurs