Nic, Bupkis and Nichevo

And now a few words on job hunting.

2005-07-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

I fucking hate it.

Thank god I can temp or else my unemployment would ahve run out months ago and I'd be living in my car, feeding my cats off the leftovers salvaged from my job at McDonald's. See, I'm a damn good secretary but no one wants to hire me. Oh, they'll interview me to be a receptionist or an entry-level admin assitant, but then in the interview they find out that I'm vastly overqualified, would be bored out of my skull, and refuse to believe my insistence that I'm "willing to help all departments" (gotta make my time in HD useful for something) and never call me back. The jobs I *am* qualified for never even call me for interviews because I don't have a traditional secretary-track resume (my main secretarial experience was in retail environments, and no one seems to read past the word retail).

Fucking A.

So I'm hereby giving up and applying back in retail. I have an interview at 5:00 tomorrow at Von Maur, a local snooty department store, for their Customer Service manager position. I hate retail. I hate it with a passion. But I'm good at it and I know I can do it and I can probably get someone to pay me to do it again. If I can find the *right* retail they'll have tuition reimbursement and I can get a Business Admin degree on their dime.

Heavens, but I hate retail. Time to go home, do my nails, press one of my suits.

2005-07-27T15:51:00.000-05:00

::cue the crickets::

Geez, has it been a month?

2005-04-26T12:18:00.000-05:00

I'd worry more about the lack of updates if anyone actually read this thing besides The World's Greatest Ex©. But I have a fresh, shiny new rant, so here goes. Anyone who knows me knows I love smelly burning things - candles, incense, whatevuh. Candles have to be the jar kind, because they have more oils and smell better than votives or tapers. I always liked Yankee Candles in particular because they usually burned evenly and didn't leave you with a whole lotta wasted wax.

Well, I liked them until Saturday, when I got a Buy 1, Get 1 50% Off for Mother's Day coupon in the mail. For once I read the fine print: "Offer valid in all Yankee Candle Company stores or participating retailers (excluding outlet stores and military exchanges)." [emphasis theirs]

ExCUSE ME?

Just how fargin' greedy IS this company that some scrawny little 3rd class can't save an extra couple bucks on a candle for his mom at the exchange? Here's the email I just fired off to the company:

This is the email I just sent them:

I just wanted to write and tell you that I will no longer be purchasing your product. In fact, I will be encouraging everyone I know, including via my blog, to stop purchasing your product. I spent thirteen years as a proud Navy wife, and before that I did my own tour in the uniform of the United States Army. And for several of those years I was a happy consumer of a product manufactured by a company apparently so greedy that they would begrudge military shopper the few cents per candle they would save if Yankee Candle allowed them to use the company's coupons in the exchanges.

How low and greedy can you get? Yes, I understand your product is already being sold at a considerable markdown. You know what? So is Keds and Liz Claiborne, Rowenta Irons and Godiva Chocolates. But I have never once seen any of their promotional discounts excluded from the exchanges (in fact, those manufacturers whose coupons are used in the commissaries allow their coupons to be honored six months after expiration overseas). I will be sure to spread the word at the USO where I volunteer, the military spouse electronic communities I belong to, and the stores (not just exchanges) where I shop that carry your product about your execrable corporate greed.

I wish you much failure in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

XXXXXXX

UPDATE on the UPDATE:

Their response (that was fast!) -

Thank you for being a valued Yankee Candle guest and for taking the time to write to us with your comments. We appreciate your feedback.

We certainly understand how frustrating it can be to not be able to redeem your coupons at all locations that carry our products, in this case Military Exchanges. However, this was a condition the exchanges knowingly agreed to, because we had already discounted the candles significantly. Our coupon policy does not allow for discounts to be used simultaneously. For instance, you would not be able to use your coupon on the Fragrance of the Month.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this has caused you. If we can be of any further assistance, please let us know.

Sincerely,
Sarah D

Yankee Candle Customer Loyalty Team
The Yankee Candle Company, Inc.
www.yankeecandle.com
877-803-6890

I have to admit...

2005-03-24T08:15:00.000-05:00

...I rather miss the ABA. Today's Indy Star has an article on Pacer brawls of yore, including interviews with a couple of ABA legends.

The Pacers were playing the Virginia Squires on Dec. 23, 1970, at what is now the Pepsi Coliseum when a fight broke out with 2:06 left in the second quarter. That was hardly an uncommon experience in those days of the American Basketball Association, but this one went well beyond the norm. The Indianapolis Star's account the next morning described it as a "riot," and estimated its length at five minutes.

"Players hit players, players hit fans, players hit policemen, fans hit players, policemen hit players," the story read.

Who needs hockey? Just bring back the red, white and blue basketball.

We can negotiate the size of the Afros. :D

Followup

2005-03-24T07:54:00.000-05:00

The state AG is finally talking about the lawsuit by the ICLU regarding the his intention to examine 73 Planned Parenthood records of girls under 14.

"When we have indications that children 12 and 13 years old have had sexual relations, which is a criminal activity in Indiana, then we are obviously concerned about those activities and the proper reporting of child abuse to authorities," Carter answered Wednesday.

He was talking about news that has gone national and resulted in a lawsuit, filed by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Planned Parenthood -- and is only just warming up.

As the column (and it is a column, not an article) goes on to point out, in this state children under the age of 14 are considered victims of sex abuse. If there is evidence that Planned Parenthood has not been turning this information over to the state - and there some (if somewhat questionable) evidence that they are, then the state AG is perfectly within the bounds of law to investigate.

Hrm.

2005-03-22T13:07:00.000-05:00

Over at Apocalyptic Hystorian They're challenging Meme: The Strange Career of a Concept.

This should instantly vaporize easily 50% of Live Journal (including a not insignificant portion of my own). Do *you* feel over-extended - or just your journal/blog?

Maybe we've been here too long?

2005-03-21T11:45:00.000-05:00

One of the more interesting results of my return to Indiana as an adult is the discovery of just how tightly woven my family is into the fabric of Indianapolis and its history. This is primarily my father’s side we’re talking about here; my mother’s family has been historically dirt poor and in the tradition of such groups left little record of itself – or much desire to learn more about its own history. Everywhere I go in this city I see some landmark that has an H. family connection somewhere, some passing bit of history that ties us that much tighter to Naptown (a name I hate, by the way, because I don’t buy it for a second and only the ignorant could think it accurate).

Over there is the (now) little-known Atheneum gym annex, desperately rundown and home to little more than a dive bar and a gym used for youth pickup basketball. Back in the day Papa (my grandfather) would walk there from his job at Pittman-Moore, put in some time in the beautiful gym and facilities, take a shower and head over to his favorite neighborhood ~~dive~~ restaurant for lunch. The joint’s still there, and still serves braunschweiger sandwiches with lots of mayonnaise, and the required Indiana tenderloin the size of a child’s head.

If you head down Bluff you’ll find a salvage yard that sits on top of a former transfer point and holding area for German prisoners-of-war passing through the Indianapolis railroad hubs. When Dad was young, Papa would take him down there as he spoke to the prisoners through the fence, telling Dad (the family all called him Skip) that he just may have cousins in there. The family’s been in this state since at *least* the 1830’s, making us one of the older Hoosier families around. Until WWII, though, every generation we – like a lot of families of a certain time and place – had people just off the boat marrying in; Dad’s is the last remotely bilingual generation.

Speaking of Papa and Dad and expeditions to strange places, the office park where I currently work sits on top of the old Pittman-Moore testing farm. Way back when Papa would bring my city kid father up here to pet and play with the barnyard animals P-M tested its veterinary medicines on. Legend has it that when the various office buildings that sit here now were built, the excavators would occasionally turn up massive pits full of animal bones.

There’s the massive community center where Dad works now; back when he was being taken to interview POWs it was his elementary school. Little connections everywhere.

The local bus service, IndyGo, has a bus barn near Washington and Harding. If you look closely in the brick façade you’ll see faded lettering that reads (you gotta squint) “Duesenberg Racing”. My great-grandfather was a mechanic and test-driver for Fred and Ira; the Speedway Museum has a picture of him posing on the high banked fourth turn with a couple of other drivers and the semi-bare chasses that the brothers built and tested before adding the custom coaches. Dad’s working with IndyGo to try and get the façade preserved and restored, and a historical marker put up on the outside (instead of just on the inside where it doesn’t accomplish a whole lot).

As an aside, my great-grandfather is firmly embedded in the family lore as one of those completely anal German stereotypes. He wore *white* coveralls at work, and kept them as spotless as his tools and garage floor. He was also known for his massive strength, right up until he dropped dead of a heart attack trying to lift one too many engines all by himself. He was quite young, his oldest son (my Papa) only 12 years old. Papa dropped out of school to take care of his four brothers and sisters. When he in turn died of his own (second) heart attack, everyone just seemed to automatically put Dad in Papa’s place as the paterfamilias. But anyway.

Friday Dad had to give me a ride home from work, due to migraine-induced semi-blindness and an Imitrex-induced fuzzy head. Dad being Dad we took surface streets all the way from Zionsville to Greenwood, and I got yet another history lesson along the way. At one (very extensive) point we passed Crown Hill Cemetery, *the* burial ground for anyone who is Anyone in Indianapolis (James Whitcomb Riley, John Dillinger, and more mayors and governors than you can shake a stick at are all buried there). I’m not terribly sure how I ever forgot this, but until Papa died we were buried there, too. Dad was quite careful to point out that we were always buried on the *right* side of 38th Street. Great-great-aunt Lena Mae was the last one buried there (I was quite young; couldn’t have been more than five).

Oh, Lena Mae. One of the Great Beauties of Indianapolis, her every movement and fashion choice and whim avidly described in the social pages for years, she’s the reason one branch of our family got kicked out of Saxony. Apparently the Duke, Albert, decided to use the lovely Lena Mae to make and advantageous political marriage (not to the duke; we’re still trying to find out who). She would have none of it. Albert told her father to make her comply, and he also refused. Albert then told her father to force her Or Else. We have the Or Else, a huge piece of parchment stripping the family – you might have heard the name, Daimler – of all lands, titles and citizenship. They soon settled in Indianapolis, Lena Mae married my great-grandfather’s younger brother, and ever since we’ve all done a mental “D’oh!” whenever the name Mercedes Benz came up. She stayed a Beauty until she died, though she got a bit confuzzled in her later years. After the last of Great-Great-Grandpa David’s money ran out and the mansion had to be sold in the 1950’s, she moved into an apartment and was given her first TV, The family still talks about how Lena Mae refused to believe that the people in the TV weren’t really there in her apartment, and how she would dress up and set out the tea service whenever she would watch.

Oh, and the family mansion? It currently sits under the track at IUPUI. Two years ago, when I volunteered one day with the IUPUI field school dig site, I got into it with the professor conducting the dig. He insisted that the documentary record showed the neighborhood was filled with Factory workers, nothing but shotgun houses. I finally just handed him over to Dad, who sent the poor guy every scrap of family documentation about that mansion and every record of the family in the area at the time – and his own memories of the neighborhood growing up. Yes, it did eventually devolve into that sort of lower-class neighborhood, but not in the period the professor was focusing on. Hmph.

Great-Great-Grandpa David leads me to another bit of family history in Indy: the Gymnasium, or Athenaeum as it’s now called. Best German food this side of Klemm’s Meat Market, by the way. David was one of those who contributed to the building of the place; we don’t know if he contributed money (he had it), but we do know he helped literally build it. David was a Master Carpenter in addition to being a land speculator (we figured out last year finally that that’s how he made his money), and in the grand tradition of German woodcarvers he worked on the facility. While we don’t have documentation to prove exactly where, there is a massive grand staircase leading to the ballroom’s ticket window, carved with the same trim and molding decorations as a library table Dad has that we know David made. Dad’s on the Athenaeum’s board now, and they’re after him to loan David’s woodcarving tools to the museum they’re trying to put together. One hundred years later, and we're back where we started.

Heh. Dad just sent me an email to follow up on my question about Barringer’s (couldn’t remember the name): “And of course the Athenaeum would have to head that list as well as the German American Klub, the Melody Inn (for us Butler folks and the Red Key Tavern for the same reason), and for your Papa, don't forget Vollrath's on the south side.

Oy, Butler and David’s money and David’s father George are enough for a whole nuther too-long post. More later.

Unconscionably overdue.

2005-03-17T07:31:00.000-05:00

It is INEXCUSABLE that this hasn't happened sooner.

One day after former Crispus Attucks High School basketball players publicly questioned why they weren't given the same treatment as the 1954 Milan state champions, the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame executive committee announced Wednesday that the 1955 state champions would be inducted at a March 23 ceremony.

"There is no question the Crispus Attucks team of 1954-55 that won its first state title deserves to be inducted," said Roger Dickinson, executive director of the Hall of Fame. "What that team accomplished had national and social significance."

If you're not from Indiana and/or not a basketball junkie, please let me explain a few things. If you've ever seen the movie "Hoosiers", you've seen a movie based on that 1954 Milan championship - and the man who played the South Bend coach was in real life the coach of Crispus Attucks.

Crispus Attucks High School, the home of the legendary Oscar Robertson.

Crispus Attucks High School, the first team of color to win the state championship in a sport that was a state obsession, and in a state that was only one generation removed at the time from Klan control.

Crispus Attucks, the team that brought national attention to the amazing basketball being played in the African-American community and helped pave the way for future NBA greats as George McGinnis, Julius Irving and Wilt Chamberlain.

Milan was famous for being the tiny school who could. Crispus Attucks rewrote basketball history.

From New Sisyphus

2005-03-15T10:54:00.000-05:00

Insert the words "politicians and activists" every time he says "liberal", and I think he and PJ O'Rourke aren't that far off.

O’Rourke concluded that the night he spoke this words, Kerry had, in effect, gone beyond the pale in what is acceptable in American political discourse:

"It's hard for an American politician to come up with an ideological position that is permanently unforgivable. Henry Wallace never quite managed, or George Wallace either. But Kerry's done it. American free speech needs to be submitted to arbitration because Americans aren't smart enough to have a First Amendment, and you can tell this is so, because Americans weren't smart enough to vote for John Kerry."

Make sure to read the whole article by O'Rourke. It's really quite sad and telling when Ted Kennedy can't even be bothered to show up to give you an award named after his own brother.

Memo to John kerry: Those of us who did not vote you are not stupid people*. Please quit treating us and addressing us as if we are. You are helping no one's cause every time you and your peers do so. We can tell when we are being patronized and condescended to, and we do not care for it. Thank you.

*Well, we're not stupid solely because we chose not to vote for Kerry. Some of us are in other ways quite freakin' nuts, as as some who did vote for Kerry. Wingnuts vs Moonbats, anyone?

Heh.

2005-03-14T15:48:00.000-05:00

You know, some of the things posted by Project Gutenberg have to be seen to be believed...

From the Indy Star

2005-03-14T14:55:00.000-05:00

Michele McNeil at the Indianapolis Star just posted a short article in the ongoing investigation into activities at Planned parenthood centers across the state, excerpted here:

Planned Parenthood of Indiana is suing Attorney General Steve Carter to stop his office from seizing the medical records of 73 low-income Medicaid patients who have sought reproductive services. None of the records involves abortions.
The Attorney General's office, in a letter presented at three Planned Parenthood health centers earlier this month, stated that its Medicaid Fraud Control Unit was investigating an incident report or complaint alleging patient abuse or neglect.

Federal health privacy laws don't apply for Medicaid fraud or abuse investigations, and facilities can risk losing Medicaid funding if they don't comply with investigators and turn over patient records...The eight records already turned over are of 12- and 13-year-old patients. In Indiana, anyone under age 14 who is sexually active is considered to be a victim of rape. Cockrum said Planned Parenthood personnel follow the law and report those patients to child protective services for further review.

She called this unprecedented -- that patient records have never been demanded like this in Indiana from her health centers.

Ken Falk, an attorney with the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood, said Carter's office was "going way beyond its power" and invading Hoosiers' privacy. He said he found no similar cases like this in the nation.

While this *is* an unprecedented move on the part of of a SAG, the fact that none of these cases involve abortion but all seem to focus on the extremely young give me some concern about the ACLU's privacy complaint. If it is about Medicaid fraud, I am a bit supicious about the very specific age group targeted - why not a much broader spectrum? if instead these records are being requested into a statewide investigation of stat rape and child abuse, is this really the jurisdiction of the state and not the counties? I realize Indiana is socially the Deep South in everything but geography, and early teen pregnancies are not unexpected (a local morning radio show recently held a contest for the youngest batural - in other words, biological - grandmother in their audience; they were squicked at 32 and tried to end the contest, but not before a woman could call in and recommend her 28-year-old sister), but again, is this an issue for the SAG to pursue? I'd really, really like to hear more from Carter on his reasons.

Round up the usual suspects.

2005-03-14T13:29:00.000-05:00

Michelle Malkin, once again riding her illegal immigration hobbyhorse, really nails it this time (make sure to turn down your sarcasm-meters so they don't overload):

ILLEGALS? WORKING IN SENSITIVE AREAS? NO! REALLY?

Make sure to follow all the links.

Get out your Ray-Bans and autograph books!

2005-03-14T13:20:00.000-05:00

From the Indy Star, via AP:

MADISON, Ind. -- Hollywood and some of its stars were expected to come to the city for a long-awaited debut of a movie partly shot in the Ohio River community six years ago.

After a string of expected openings, the independent film "Madison," shot in 1999, should premiere in the community on April 16, The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., reported.

Indiana native Bill Bindley wrote and directed the movie, which was set in 1971 and resembled "Hoosiers" in that it was about small-town values and an underdog. It stars Jim Caviezel -- "The Passion of the Christ" star -- and focused on a community-owned powerboat, Miss Madison, and its push to defy the odds to earn top prize during the city's annual powerboat regatta on the Ohio River.

Caviezel, co-star Jake Lloyd -- Anakin Skywalker in "The Phantom Menace" Star Wars film -- and Bruce Dern were expected to attend the opening, officials said.

Linda Lytle, executive director of the area's convention and visitors bureau, said the city would host the premiere.

"We're trying to make it as nice as we can," she said

The last time Hollywood came to the city was 1958 to film "Some Came Running," starring Frank Sinatra.

Lessee....we've got "Breaking Away", "Hoosiers", "Rudy" and now "Madison". Gotta be something in the corn. I went to IU and grew up not far from Bloomington, so of course "Breaking Away" is a favorite film. My father went to Butler University and both of my parents were at the *real* game depicted in "Hoosiers" (never watch this film with my parents, for you will spend the entire movie deluged in Hoosier basketball arcana and fact-checking, and yes, that bloody well IS Ray Crowe playing the coach of the South Bend team). Notre Dame is Hoosier by geography rather than personality, I'm afraid. We'll have to see how this film visit to Kentuckiana goes. Must, must see.

Cue the Shirley Bassey theme song!

2005-03-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

Via Laurence Jarvik and the Washington Post, a tale of spies, poison and secret medical derring-do that would make Ian Fleming proud:

A team of U.S. doctors, headed by a University of Virginia professor, secretly flew to Vienna in mid-December to assist in the treatment of then-Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, according to U.S. officials, two of the doctors and the head of the Austrian clinic visited by Yushchenko.

The team's role in Yushchenko's recovery from an apparently deliberate case of massive dioxin poisoning has been undisclosed until now, largely because U.S. officials and the doctors did not want to appear to interfere in the political drama of the Ukrainian elections.

Jarvik's right: this should be a movie. Now, who can we cast as Yushchenko?

The Return of Arleigh Burke

2005-03-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

Incredible article over in the Proceedings of the Naval Institute about the absolute failure of the TQL movement within the Navy. The military is *not* a corporation, and applying a business management model to an organization that must function as if every day is a world-threatening emergency will not serve. I can remember when the World's Greatest Ex had to sit through class after class on the theory of this nonsense, and what a colossal waste of time it was. Teach your NCOs to be combat leaders, not business managers. While no one can afford to be frivoulous with scarce defense dollars, DoD budgets cannot be written against some sort of "productivity" goal as if the Pentagon was IBM or Microsoft.

Just how far can you suspend disbelief?

2005-03-08T10:39:00.000-05:00

Bingo.

400+ rounds from an armored vehicle into an unarmored car, and only one person dies and a second person gets winged? Wow, doesn't say much for our firepower, does it? ::cue eye roll::

Right now I'm more interested in finding out:

A) Did the Italians not bother to tell the Americans that this hostage would be on the road?

B) Why was this vehicle speeding almost out of control (by Sgrena's own description) down this of all roads at that hour? Common sense alert!

C) How many more western hostages are going to be grabbed now that Berlusconi's government has caved?

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Commander

2005-03-07T15:01:00.000-05:00

Proceedings of the Naval Institute discovers military blogging.

Registration required.

UPDATE: And now so does the Army Times.

Ooo...that's GOTTA hurt.

2005-03-07T13:36:00.000-05:00

Did anyone happen to catch 60 Minutes' story on Sunday night about Tom Delay? At one point Lesley Stahl was stalking Delay in the halls of Congress because he wouldn't return her calls. While I didn't catch enough of the story to argue the merits of the charges they were trying to lay at DeLay's feet, the comment of his legal representative at the time was certainly an eye-popper and led to much cheering and scaring of cats (and apologies for paraphrasing): "I understand that when CBS can't find news it makes it up..."

Taking Care of Our Own

2005-03-07T09:50:00.000-05:00

FABULOUS article in the LA Times on a combat unit in Iraq:

"A Death in the Family"

Something to help counteract the conspiracy theories coming out of Italy this morning.

More from Senator Robert "How Did Those Holes Get In My Pillowcases?" Byrd

2005-03-07T08:50:00.000-05:00

Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit points to two things: Byrd's "column" at the Washington Post, and an excellent rebuttal from Brendan Nyhan of Duke. Nyhan whomps on Byrd far more precisely and intelligently than I ever could, so I won't even make the attempt. It saddens me, though, to see Byrd in the Senate, fighting for a style of government that has gone the way of the dodo. Byrd represents the last of the smoke-filled-room politicians, people like Tip O'Neill and Sam Rayburn, who thought that a handshake in a back room was what everything came down to. I know Byrd gets blasted quite a bit for all of the money and projects he brings home to WV, but that's the one thing I cannot fault him for; that's his job, and he does that part of it admirably.

From Qando.Net, via Instapundit:

2005-03-01T08:05:00.000-05:00

Finally, the NYT is on board with Democracy promotion in the Mideast. Glad to have you aboard, guys.

They are certainly hedging on the side of pessimism, and only giving grudging credit to the Bush administration, but it seems to be getting into their heads that they may have been on the wrong side here, it seems to me.

And that bit about the Bush Administration taking a "healthy" share of the credit? Nice understatement. Without the Bush Administration, none of this would be happening. They deserve the primary share of the credit, along with the governments of Tony Blair, John Howard, Alexander Kwasniewski and others.

What is happening reminds me of that heady year of 1989. For those of us who wee in Europe then, especially those of us who were serving there in active duty, it was an amazing time. Almost without warning, peaceful revolution swept across the continent, washing away the Soviet tyranny against which we had striven for decades.

When we look back on the 1980s now, it's not remembered as a decade in which a dim cowboy president courted global thermonuclear war, but as the decade when the USSR was brought down, the Warsaw Pact eliminated, and democratic governance came to Eastern Europe.

And if you still don't get it, may I suggest today's "Day by Day"?

See, I *do* remember 1989 - and this *does* feel a helluva lot like it. In the mid 1980s, when I was on active duty, it really was all about the Evil Empire. I get the same vibes today about terrorism and the non-democratic ME as we got then about Communism and the Warsaw Pact. I can remember lighting a candle in the window for the Polish shipyard workers of Solidarity. I remember studying Czech and wondering when - not if - the time would come I'd be using it. And I remember staring incredulously as thousands of Germans, East and West, scrambled over that awful, awful wall. I even remember breaking down in tears as the President finally ordered Looking Glass to stand down. That more than anything told me that it was finally all over, and that we'd won.

And I've no doubt we're going to win here. Election, after election after election...we're going to win. Afghanistan, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and now Lebanon, we're going to win. Continue to hate the President with a viper's personal poison all you want, but I don't care. We're going to win. We, the free peoples of the world, are ALL of us going to win, and our numbers will grow.

We're going to win.

And another one bites the dust!

2005-02-28T12:45:00.000-05:00

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Lebanon's pro-Syrian prime minister has announced his resignation and that of his government amid protests over the assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri, who criticized Syria's presence in the country.

Now, let's see how long it takes to schedule elections. Yo, Assad's Baby Boy, you payin' attention over there???

I made less than $20,000 last year. Gee, I don't have a digital camera...

2005-02-27T09:31:00.000-05:00

Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine posts a group of lists of what he and others consider "vanishing Americana". Setting aside the snotty insults he tossed around in his own comments section (normally beneath him), I think these lists serve far better as examples of class and money differences than "disappearing Americana". As I responded to his post,

"And now a comment on the list from the rest of us who aren't fortunate enough to have a bazillion gadgets (people who make less than $25,000/yr) and/or work in a corporate office that does (you know, those of us who work for smaller manufacturers, in the service industry, etc):

Newspapers and magazines on paper? Great if you're lucky enough to afford a high speed connection and not be stuck on dialup. The vast majority of us down here on earth, however, still get ink on our fingers, and while magazines dedicated to news and politics might be just as easily read online, everything else (food and hobby magazines spring readily to mind) are so far better available and more easily read in paper format.

USPS is still cheaper than UPS and FedEx. To those of us in the groundlings corps, such things matter.

Switching to all-DVD music is great - if you can find it, and you can afford to make the transition (again, there's that pesky money issue).

Yeah, those of us who can't afford TiVO usually have remotes, but flicking channells during commercials is a bit too ADD for most of us.

Floppy disks vs online backup? Great, if you've got a place to do the backup, can afford it, have the connection, etc. Again, it's a money issue.

"Water cooler" shows go in cycles. Don't write them off yet because there'll be another one coming down the pike soon enough (if "Desperate Housewives" already hasn't).

So many of these things you and your commenters are slamming as obsolete (Christmas cards, knobs on washroom sinks, ice cube trays, cameras that use film, 411, etc) come down to $$$$. Those of you who have it (or work someplace that does), great. But those of us out here in the Great Unwashed won't be giving these things up anytime soon. You've hit on a class issue, Mr. Jarvis, and I really think it should be acknowledged as such. I am appalled to read that you and some of your commenters seem to think that because things are changing for *you* up on the financial Mt Olympus, it must be for the rest of us. Come down and hang on the broke side of town for a while."

Cross-posted to my LJ because yes, I am that cranky about it.

The Establishment has discovered the existence of Emo!

2005-02-23T11:01:00.000-05:00

Michelle Malkin, in a remarkably out-of-step post, sounds an alarm over a "new" youth craze called - brace yourself - cutting.

Wow...didn't know cutting was so shocking and so new. Oh, and apparently Emo helps encourage it. Next thing you know those crazy kids with their jazz will turn into hopheads and race their jalopies to Hell!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

But seriously, folks, cutting's been around for decades, primarily in the mental illness "community" as a form of externally focusing internal pain. With the rise of the Goth scene, the fascination with blood (especially one's own) moved out of the realm of the bipolar and borderline and into the more general young adult population. Now it's being done by teenagers and pre-teens as a matter of course. Malkin quotes actress Christina Ricci's bubblehead reasons for self-mutilation, but if you parse the airhead babble it comes down to the same thing: externalization of internal discomfort and pain. The thing I find most striking in the last few years with the "growth" (I don't think it's grown, but instead become more open thanks to the Internet - as have so many other things) of cutting is the shift from a purely private form of coping on the part of the truly mentally ill to an apparently very public show of attention demands on those far less clinical. Using it as a form of self-punishment, as I unfortunately have done on occasion, is common to both groups. I've even used it as a way to stave off further self harm, such as a suicide attempt (not always successfully).

If Malkin really wants to know what cutting's really all about, she should take a stroll through any of the mental health communities over on Live Journal (I personally recommend the borderline personality disorder communities, as flashes of rage and psychosis so common with the disorder frequently result in cutting). Earlier this year I spent three days in the Wacky Ward, my roommate a painfully young college sophomore who had committed herself after her first act of cutting. She had become so overwhelmed by all of her responsibilities that she lashed out at the one thing she thought she could control: herself. And I really think this is far more typical of most non-psychotic cutters that you'll see.

All the subject lines I come up with are obscene.

2005-02-22T12:58:00.000-05:00

Yoo-hoo! Admiral Milllller!

[And on a personal note, how did I not know the current Navy Chief of Staff was a crippie?]

Listening for Crickets

2005-02-22T10:28:00.000-05:00

We could realistically find ourselves looking at a free Iraq and Lebanon and a reforming Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia not by the end of Bush’s second term but by the end of this year. A newly independent Lebanon, with its Western and Christian links, could become a cornerstone of a reforming Middle East. Perhaps Beirut once again will be the “Paris of the East.”

New Sisyphus has an extensive post about the President's speech in Brussels and his interpretation of each passage. Painfully conservative politics aside, he does have some excellent points (skip the "nanny-nanny-boo-boo" we-told-you-so-bits), including the too-short section on Lebanon and Syria. I can remember in high school watching Lebanon implode in a civil war so ugly and brutal that no one much thought it would ever come to an end. I even remember a short story (unfortunately I don't remember by who) based on the idea that Beirut eventually is taken over by the UN and turned into basically a giant playground for terrorists and other aggressors, the only place in the world where political violence still occured (mostly because no one could figure out a way to end it there, so it was co-opted). And I can most certainly remember with aching clarity the bombing of the Marine barracks in our misguided attempt to intervene.

But, lo and behold, the Druze and the Christians and the Muslims figured it out; if they kept fighting each other there would be nothing left to win (wish Israel and Palestine could have this same epiphany, but that's covered in a different portion of the President's speech). Despite Syria, despite Hezbollah, they were well on the way to reclaiming their beautiful country. And now Assad's baby boy decides he needs to prove his balls are as big as his daddy's. Baaaaaad move, buddy. May I kindly bring your attention to Kabul? Baghdad? Tripoli? Tripoli is my favorite warning, since we didn't have to do a damn thing to make Qaddafi figure out which way the wind was blowing. No, I don't think you'll see an Abrams rolling down Main Street, Damascus anytime soon; I don't think we'll need to. I *do* think that speeches such as the one in Brussels by the President (and hell, even Chirac's putting his two francs in) and anti-Syria demonstrations such as the one a few days ago attended by thousands in Beirut will bring Syria's leadership to the realization that maybe, just maybe, they done screwed the heck up.

And if that doesn't work, I'm sure we wouldn't object if the democratically-elected government of Lebanon (elections in just a few months, folks) asked us politely to drop a few Cruise missiles on the ~~occupiers~~ invaders of their country.

Nice choice there, Idjit.

2005-02-22T06:06:00.000-05:00

Because what's important here isn't the fact that we're talking about FUCKING TERRORISTS TRYING TO OVERTHROW A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY but that they're just two happy gay men who want to get married.

CAN WE "BIG PICTURE" HERE, PEOPLE?

When playing the "everyone should just marry whoever they want*" game, a pair of terrorists is probably not the demo card you want to play, mkay?

*Something I agree with whole-heartedly. But then, I think *everyone* should be required to have a civil ceremony, and then a religious one if they want. Either the State's going to be completely in charge of this marriage business, or it's going to be completely out.

Claude Rains would be so proud...

2005-02-21T13:14:00.000-05:00

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative in Congo, William Lucy Swing, said when the abuse reports surfaced: "We are shocked, we are outraged, we are sickened by it."

Mr Annan has acknowledged that "acts of gross misconduct have taken place". Yet he seems immune to the outrage. In response on Wednesday to questions in New York about the scandal, he urged UN troops "to be careful" not to "fraternise" with these "vulnerable people".

Mr Annan previously headed the UN's peacekeeping force. Asked whether he could have done more to prevent the abuse in Congo, he said: "You never know when you send that many people out. There may be one or two bad apples."

Congolese Defence Minister Jean Pierre Ondekane has said all the UN would be remembered for in his country was "running after little girls".

I'm sorry, but this filth has been reported for months - and the UN is only NOW "shocked...outraged...sickened"? WTF? "One or two bad apples"? This is systemic, not one or two baby rapists, but an entire force willing to pay for child sex.

I need a long, hot shower.

Annan's gotta go. Bring in Havel, PLEASE!!

Service vs Greed

2005-02-21T11:12:00.000-05:00

Citizen Smash, the Indepundit, links to a post over at Froggy Ruminations about the current standing of a lawsuit filed by seventeen Gulf War POWs filed against Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government. I don't know what else to say except to jump up and down and yell "Yeah, what he said!"

Yes, these guys went through hell. Yes, their benefits sucketh the big one*. But dear gods, what happened to honor?

One quibble: McCain has never dwelled on his POW experiences outside of his book, but I do argue with the notion that he never drew attention to them. Der. And yes, please read the book.

* While I have a problem giving these guys a billion bucks, surely some money can be coughed up from SOMEWHERE to pay for more treatment.

Susmaryjosep, or something to that effect...

2005-02-21T10:40:00.000-05:00

So Belmont Club, one of my favorite blogs, continues to follow the story of jihadism in SE Asia (and if you think this is something relatively new, you don't know much about The Phillipines).

http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2005/02/response-to-cardozo.html

Waiting for my personal Tagalog expert to get back to me with his opinion. In the meantime, follow Belmont's links for more.

UPDATE: From Himself, said expert -

Short language lesson:
Kayo - you plural
Ka - you singular
So:
Hindi kayo nag-iisa - You (plural) are not alone.
Hindi ka nag-iisa - You (singular) are not alone.
Kayo is 2nd person plural, and like in a lot of other languages, can be
aimed at a single person to show respect.

Kumusta ka - Taxi driver
Kumusta kayo - Doctor
Kumusta po kayo - The mayor
Kumusta - Close friend

Hideous weekend...

2005-02-21T09:20:00.000-05:00

Sandra Dee, Dan O'Herlihy, Hunter S. Thompson, John Raitt, Sammi Smith...

If the Rule of Three is to be followed, we "need" one more. I'd really prefer this weekend not get any worse, thanks.

In other news, my utter inability to sleep more than a couple of hours at a time continues unabated. Nothing much is getting accomplished because my concentration is so shot. I try to get caught up on my reading, my stitching, my sewing, but my attention wanders after a few minutes. I tried taking melatonin on Firday and Saturday nights, thinking that if they really knocked me out it'd be for mornings that I wouldn't have to crawl out of bed to an alarm. No such luck, of course. I'm reasonably sure that part of it is an ongoing bout with deep depression over my other complete failure: finding a permanent job. I found out that I can get a month's worth of my Prozac for $32 or so (at 20 mg a day - though withought the mood stabilizer for the borderline personality disorder I'd likely need to go to 40 mg to keep me zonked). The trick, of course, is finding - and affording - a GP who will cut a scrip based on my word and not caring that I'm not in counselling.

Takový je život; život je pes, á jsem hydrant.

The cats are doing well. Magic is as Velcro as ever, and takes it very personally when I close the bedroom door at night to keep him from his nocturnal rounds across my pillows. Elvis is Elvis, and continues to get *very* upset when I won't immediately jump up from the computer chair to go over to the easy chair so he can sit beside me and snuggle. Elvis isn't a lap cat; he's a nex-to-your-lap cat. Considering his girth, that's probably a good thing.

In case you missed it...

2005-02-14T15:03:00.000-05:00

Tim Blair gives a pretty good outline (complete with links) of the Eason Jordan scandal and resignation. Who is Eason Jordan? He was the head of CNN, and in front of an international audience in Davos, Switzerland (including several a US Congressman and Senator) that the US military was targetting journalists in Iraq for death.

Why might you have missed this huge story? Because unless you caught Kurtz's apologia in the Washington Post or the NYT article today blasting bloggers, no one in the mainstream media bothered to cover the story until it was over. Don't believe me? Take a look.

Oh, and before you start jumping to conclusions about this being another case of trumped-up right wing outrage, I should point out that Representative Barney Frank was present at the meeting where Jordan made his remarks, and it was Frank who pressed Jordan the hardest for clarification and evidence to back up his claims.

You can find more here at Power Line.

EDIT: Iowahawk discovered the unreleased transcript.

Who gets to decide what "marriage" is, and why?

2005-02-14T13:38:00.000-05:00

It is time to privatize marriage. If the institution is really so sacred, it should lie beyond the withering hands of politicians and policy makers in Washington D.C. There should be no federal or state license that grants validity to love. There should be no state-run
office that peers into our bedrooms and honeymoon suites. If the church thinks divorce and homosexuality are problematic, it should initiate the real dialogue to address these problems in-house rather than relying on state-sponsored coercion to affirm doctrinal beliefs. And if tax-codes and guardianships need some classification for couples, let's revise civil union standards to reflect those needs.

My mother and I have gone 'round about this. She's an intelligent woman, wise and no-nonsense and a woman of deep faith. But there's a serious contradiction in what consitutes a true "marriage" in her eyes. When Himself and I were going to be married, we moved in together for a few months before the ceremony so that we could actually afford to be in the same state. This caused great distress on the part of the family, as we were - you guessed it - "living in sin." It got to the point that I wouldn't allow my parents to speak to Himself, because i knew they'd lay that all down on him, too, and there's no way in hell he'd have the patience for it. On 2/1/91 we married in the county courthouse in Annapolis, and so the heat was finally off. The State said we were married, so we were. No minister, no religious vows, but we were somehow no longer "in sin." Fast forward 14 years, and two pagan friends of mine are choosing to handfast. These vows are very, very serious, made before what one would think the three most important participants in any religious wedding: the couple and their Deity.

Mom doesn't see these two as married - and not just because it's a Wiccan priest they're standing before rather than a Presbyterian pastor. There's no certificate with the State's blessing, so no legal marriage. Doesn't matter that they have made soul-deep religious vows to each other; with no State-mandated ties the union of these two doesn't count. So where's the sin, Mom? Isn't a vow before God more important in terms of a sin than a vow before the State? Himself and I had no religious component in our wedding. We made no promises to God. How is the sin removed fromn that union by the State?

I'll give her credit; she's thinking about it.

The Last Night at Morton's, via Ben Stein

2005-02-09T16:00:00.000-05:00

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq.
How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model?

Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails. They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer.

A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

Read the whole thing.

Bless 'im.

Dis, Dat, Dese, Dem and Dose

2005-02-08T10:33:00.000-05:00

Sein oder nicht sein,
Das is hier die Frage...

I've absolutely no idea why this is going through my head, but it is. For those of you who don't have any German, it's the first lines of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech. I had to memorize the speech in German for a declamation contest in high school (along with Göthe's "Der Erlkönig"), and that's pretty much all I remember. I know I don't have OCD, but once in a while - like today - I manifest OCD-like symptoms (in this case, an obsessive need to write - by hand - one phrase over and over). Yeesh...you'd think the least my brain could do would be to focus on something a lot less full of, well, angst than that annoying Danish Prince.

Speaking of annoying, unless you are British (and I mean native, not just by descent) or are living there currently and have lived there for more than five minutes, the use of the word "whinging" rather than "whining" is nothing more than an ungodly annoying snobbish affectation on your part. STOP IT. You're impressing no one and annoying me. Yes, I'm impressed that you watch BBCA and read Harry Potter. Now take your sorry, overly-affected ass back to your child-porn-fanfic-writing corner and just stop talking, mkay?

Kthx.

Yeah.

OK, here's a new one...

2005-02-07T16:22:00.000-05:00

Huh?

So, if I (heaven forfend) get knocked up and discover my child is, say, developing without a brain or has Tay-Sachs or some other devastating disability, the UN wants to dictate that I have to bring that life to term and force it to suffer (nevermind the emotional and financial drain on me and my family)?

While I can see a slippery slope argument here - if the above examples are ok, what about being born without legs, say, or without eyes - I believe that's for individual nations (and in our country, states0 to decide, not some colossal failure of a pseudo-international organization.

Flames about Republican administrations barring federal aid to international organizations that promote birth control and abortion are not welcome, as they are a separate issue.

Squid joke from Himself

2005-01-29T17:16:00.000-05:00

In the Blue Ridge Mountains, there was a retired sailor who was reputed to have the best hunting dog ever,a dog by the name of "Chief". Three Admirals went-up into the mountains and wanted to rent him. The old sailor said "good hunting dog, gonna cost ya $50.00 a day." They agreed and three days later came back with the limit. The next year they came back. "Chief" got better, "gonna cost you $75.00 a day." Again they agreed, and 2 days later they came back with the limit.

The third year they came back and told the old sailor they had to have "Chief",even if it cost $100.00 a day. "You can have the worthless mutt for $5.00 a day, and I'm overcharging you. Make it $4.00."

"But we don't understand, what happened to him?"

'Well a crew from the Navy base in Norfolk came up and rented him. One of the idiots called him Master Chief , and he's just been sitting on his ass barkin' ever since."

Welcome Aboard, Ma'am

2005-01-28T12:04:00.000-05:00

Citizen Smash has Madame Secretary's first speech to her new department over at State.

Good luck, ma'am, and as everyone is quoting Lileks I'll add to the chorus: please go to Saudia Arabia and give, as your first words off the plane, "I'll drive."

::wince::

2005-01-28T07:58:00.000-05:00

The Navy has released the first pictures of the damage to the USS SAN FRANCISCO now that she's in port in Guam. As you may recall, she ran aground on an undersea mountain apparently not listed on any charts. One sailor died and sixty more were injured in the accident. Looking at the damage, I think it says great things about that boat's crew that they were able to bring her home (and about her construction that with even so much of the boat either gone or closed off behind watertight doors she could still be functional).

Update on "Blue Hat" charity from the Lincoln

2005-01-27T13:14:00.000-05:00

Blackfive has posted a rebuttal from an officer on board the Lincoln to the charges made earlier by pseudonymous officer Ed Stanton.

And now you know...the REST of the story.

And I feel better about it all now.

Juarez in the Long Dark of the Night

2005-01-27T11:34:00.000-05:00

Via Counterterrorism Blog:

The article that appeared in Today’s Houston Chronicle reported on the fact that on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 the United States Department of State issued a travel advisory to citizens of the United States because of increased violence in the northern regions of Mexico that extends to the border of the United States. The alert stopped short of recommending that Americans not travel to Mexico, but it is certainly incredible that the country that shares our southern border and sends us more illegal aliens than any other country, should be experiencing such extreme levels of violence while the president of that country talks about the need to virtually dismantle the border that separates the United States from Mexico. Additionally, the administration has stated that although Congress has authorized the hiring of an additional 2,000 Border Patrol agents to secure the border, only about 10 percent of that number will be hired. The article can be found at: www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/3011137

So here we are, in a time and place where the only thing between us and a world of ever-growing violence and near anarchy (300 dead women in Juarez, anyone?) is a poorly-patrolled river. How is a group of drug thugs less of a threat to our security than Islamist extremists? How is this violence any less of a concern?

Crunchycons!

2005-01-27T10:46:00.000-05:00

I like that name. Mebbe that's me. :)

From a letter writer to Andrew Sullivan (scroll down to Email of the Day):

I sort of like it. In any event, part of being a conservative is preserving those things in your culture you like. I do not believe in slavishly holding onto the past, as much of the past was nasty. But being a conservative should mean balancing environment and progress. As I look out my window onto Lake Michigan, I realize that an America without open spaces and barren landscapes and dense forests would not be America.

From the UMD ARTIFACT listserv

2005-01-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

The Library of Congress's American Folklife Center announces a new presentation: The September 11, 2001, Documentary Project, available on the Library's American Memory Web site:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/911_archive/.

This presentation captures the heartfelt reactions, eyewitness accounts, and diverse opinions of Americans and others in the months that followed the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93. Patriotism and unity mixed with sadness, anger and insecurity are common themes expressed in the sound and video recordings, written narratives, poetry, photographs and drawings that comprise this online presentation.

The day after the attacks, the American Folklife Center called upon the nation's folklorists and ethnographers to collect, record and document America's reaction. This project is modeled on a similar initiative, conducted sixty years earlier, when folklorist Alan Lomax was serving as "assistant in charge" of the Archive of American Folk Song. On December 8, 1941, Lomax sent a telegram urging folklorists around the United States to collect and record man-on-the-street reactions to the
bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war by the United States. These field recordings were sent to the Library of Congress where they were used in a series of radio programs that were distributed to schools and radio stations around the country. This unique documentary collection is still housed at the American Folklife Center and is featured in the American Memory collection: After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl
Harbor: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afcphhtml/.

The online presentation includes almost 170 audio and video interviews, 41 graphic materials (photographs and drawings), and 21 written narratives and poems. The complete collection, available at the American Folklife Center Reading Room, comprises about 800 audio and video interviews, 421 graphic materials, as well as news clippings, written narratives, and artifacts. The voices of men and women from many cultural, occupational, and ethnic backgrounds are represented. Some of the interviews are from people who were in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon during the attacks. The majority of the interviews, however, are from other parts of the country-from those who first heard the news on television or radio, and from teachers, friends, family, and other members of their communities. In all, materials were received from 27 states and a U.S. military base in Naples, Italy.

The American Folklife Center was created by Congress in 1976 and placed at the Library of Congress to "preserve and present American folklife" through programs of research, documentation, archival presentation, reference service, live performance, exhibition, public programs, and training. The Center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, which was established in 1928 and is now one of the largest collections of
ethnographic material from the United States and around the world.

Please direct any questions you may have using the American Folklife Center Web form available at:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-folklife2.html

Laura Gottesman
Reference Specialist
Digital Reference Team
The Library of Congress

Evolution or Devolution? From Bush to Reagan in the cause of liberation

2005-01-26T15:44:00.000-05:00

Power Line linked to a thoughtful review over at the Claremont Institute, comparing and contrasting the remarkable changes in America foreign policy in regards to regime change as symbolized by the Reagan and Bush doctrines.

By comparison, the Bush Doctrine puts the democratization of once totalitarian, quondam authoritarian, and persistently tribal societies at the center of its objectives. The case of Afghanistan shows, to be sure, that the Reagan Doctrine had its drawbacks. Left to itself, Afghanistan after the Soviets' withdrawal did not resume its former ways, at least not for long, and certainly did not evolve into a democracy. Instead, it succumbed to the Taliban's peculiar Islamic totalitarianism. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration's policy is not merely to expunge the totalitarians there and in Iraq, but to ensure that they never return by reconstructing their societies along democratic lines. Authoritarianism (at least in the Middle East) is no longer acceptable. The U.S. now proposes to liberate these nations from the captivity of their own unhappy traditions.

While I give the current President all the credit in the world for his wish to free the world and bring them around to the democratic way of life (something I think is highly motivated by his deep Christian faith), I worry about the lack of pragmatism highlighted in this article. Even Reagan realized that Winthrop's "shining city" occasionally had to get its hands dirty in the short term in favor of a better long term goal. There's a sense of pragmatism and, yes, compromise that seems entirely missing in Bush's inaugural speech. I wonder if that comes from his evangelical Christianity, too, and worry if our efforts under this goal might send us back to the bad old days of 1960s "innocents abroad", a sort of "Hulk SMASH" approach to foreign policy. And while Secretary Rice is a woman of great intelligence and abilities, I worry that her background in Soviet-era politics will color her approaches to a need for a great deal more subtlety. Waiting for the bad guys to be late to the UN so we can put the photographs of their rockets up in the Security Council isn't going to work anymore.

But read the article and form your own opinion.

Dirndls and other skinny subjects

2005-01-26T08:41:00.000-05:00

I'm celebrating the latest step in my weight loss (I'm down to 210# from 235#) by wearing my favorite dirndl today. I have two, both size 16. It's a very snug fit, but I seem to be managing rather well. Because of the way these things are cut across the bosom, however, let's just say that June is busting out all over. Major spillage. Thank the gods I'm wearing a turtleneck under this thing or we'd all be really embarrassed. Of course, Himself always loved it when I wore snug turtlenecks, because they just made my chest look even bigger. I'm up to a DDD, trembling on the verge of a G thanks to an apparent second round of puberty (and every time I gain weight it goes to my chest, but unlike most women when I lose weight it doesn't leave my chest but just settles in for the duration).

One of my coworkers has announced that I looked very festive and European, very German. I pointed out that given my paternal family background it's appropriate (we've been here since the Revolution, but folks fresh off the boat have been marrying in every generation up to WWI). So now my name today is "Heidi" and I'm supposed to sing "Edelweiss" on demand. :/ You really, really don't want me to sing. If one of our employees who is a man of color decided to wear a dashiki, do you think they'd call him Kunta Kinte and insist he sing "The Lion sleeps Tonight"? Yeesh.

Jeff Jarvis has a potty mouth...

2005-01-25T15:46:00.000-05:00

...and a point. I guess we're still in the days of "I can't tell you what pornography is, but I know it when I see it."

In the first set of rulings, the FCC seems to bravely decides that "dick" in various forms is OK. Ditto ass, penis, vaginal, nutsack, and a three-way. In the second set, they add the words hell and damn -- as if they were ever in contention as indecent and blaspamous -- as well as breast, nipples, can, pissed, crap, bastard, and bitch. It's the liberalization of America, I tell you, it's the second damned sexual revolution!

Woops, not so fast Jarvis, put away the tie-dyes and scented oils. The FCC explains:

A number of complaints cite isolated uses of the word “dick” or variations thereof. In context and as used in the complained of broadcasts, these were epithets intended to denigrate or criticize their subjects. Their use in this context was not sufficiently explicit or graphic and/or sustained to be patently offensive. Although use of such words may, depending on the nature of the broadcast at issue, contribute to a finding of indecency, their use here was not patently offensive and therefore not indecent. Similarly, we find that the fleeting uses of the words “penis,” “testicle,” “vaginal,” “ass,” “bastard” and “bitch,” uttered in the context of the programs cited in the complaints, do not render the material patently offensive under contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.

Ah, so I can call the FCC commissioners a bunch of dicks, asses, bastards, and bitches and get away with it. Get me on the air! But if I use those words in a sustained manner...

2005-01-25T15:27:00.000-05:00

I'm honestly not sure what's worse: that I laughed so hard I set off the pleurisy and now I can't much breathe, or that there are people on my reading list who occasionally write like this in all seriousness.

From Iowahawk:

We are still revolting because we will not allow another election to be stolen. Don't think Karl Rove and Team Repiglican scripted the outcome? Then you tell me: how exactly did Shrubby "win" Oklahoma, despite scientific exit polls there that showed him trailing both Kerry and Nader? Wake up man, our "democracy" was co-opted. Nowhere was this more evident than in Ohio, where widely-reported GOP firehoses and attack dogs kept Cleveland voter turnout to 91%, 15 points below normal and more than 40 points lower than in similar-sized Milwaukee. Ask your stats T.A. to explain that one.

Getting Old

2005-01-25T14:34:00.000-05:00

Glenn Reynolds posted recently about visiting his grandmother in her rehab facility, and one of his readers responded with a story about her own mother's care in such a place. I have two terrors about growing old, neither of which are nearly as warm and fuzzy as Reynold's entry depicts, and they're both wrapped up in growing old alone.

I'm divorced and have no kids. I'm not close to any of the extended family. I've written a very specific living will to cope with my terrors, but unless there's someone around to execute it it's really rather pointless. I am literally shaking-in-my-boots terrified by the idea of aging and/or dying alone. I often joke about being the crazy old lady on the corner with nothing but cats for company, but the truth is that it's not really all that funny. I have visions of turning into lunch meat for the cats until the stench finally drives a neighbor to call the cops. Worse yet is the notion that my already tenuous hold on reality will fail once my family has either died or drifted away. Spending the rest of my days a drooling blob of tissue tied upright in a wheelchair, warehoused, no one giving a damn about "that one over there"...I can't bear the thought. So what do you do if there's no one to protect you? Rely on the state? Yeah, as if.

Need to find something more cheerful to write about. I know, BOOBS!

Snerk of the Day

2005-01-25T13:55:00.000-05:00

Tony Blair is being shown around a Scottish hospital. Towards the end of his visit, he is shown into a ward with a number of people with no obvious signs of injury. He goes to speak to the first man he sees and the man pipes up: "Fair fa' yer honest sonsie face, Great chieftain e' the puddin' race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o'a grace as lang's my arm." Tony, being somewhat taken aback goes to the next patient and immediately the patient launches into: "Some hae meat, and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it, But we hae meat and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit." This continues with the next patient: "Wee sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi bickering brattle: I wad be laith to rin and chase thee , wi murdering pattle!" Blair turns to the doctor accompanying him on the visit and asks, 'What is this, the
psychiatric ward?'

"No, no," replies the doctor, "it's the Burns unit."

Critiquing the critics of a Lavender Lincoln

2005-01-25T13:32:00.000-05:00

Alas, both notions—that Lincoln's sexual orientation is unimportant; and that Tripp's book raises powerful circumstantial evidence to support his claims—are wrong. On the one hand, if it could indeed be shown that Lincoln was "predominantly homosexual," as Tripp puts it (after all, Lincoln was married and had four children), this would be significant. No, it wouldn't directly alter our understanding of his political opinions or actions as president. But it would give us a fuller sense of the private man and thus in indirect ways might revise our understanding of his psychology. Tripp, however, doesn't even begin to make a persuasive case in this tendentious, sloppy, and wholly unpersuasive farrago. In more than 300 pages, he gives us no convincing reason to believe his central claim.

Tripp's major pieces of "evidence" are familiar: that Lincoln shared a bed for four years in his youth with his good friend Joshua Speed, and occasionally in 1862 with David V. Derickson, a member of his bodyguard detail. But as many historians have noted, same-sex bed sharing was common at the time and hardly proof of homosexual activities or feelings. As the Princeton historian Christine Stansell notes in her excellent review of The Intimate World, "Travelers piled in with each other at inns; siblings routinely shared beds; women friends often slept with each other as readily on an overnight visit as they took their tea together in the kitchen—and sometimes displaced husbands to do so. Civil War soldiers 'spooned' for comfort and warmth." And in the cases of both Speed and Derickson, there are more compelling reasons than homosexuality to explain why Lincoln slept with them.

I have to admit that it's been fascinating watching this all shake out. I've said before that based on what's presented I'd judge Lincoln a Kinsey 4, but I'm no scholar of the President. I *am* concerned about the more-personal-than-usual nature of attacks within the scholarly community based on this book, especially since the author's not here to defend himself and his one-time collaborator has gone to a great deal of trouble to since distance himself. Stay tuned.

History News Network reviews wartime inaugurations, past and present

2005-01-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

Looking at earlier wartime inaugurations the trend was toward simple ceremonies such as James Madison's in 1813, Abraham Lincoln's in 1865, Woodrow Wilson's in 1917, Franklin Roosevelt's in 1945, and Dwight Eisenhower's in 1953. The simplest of all was Roosevelt's fourth inaugural in 1945 amidst World War II. However, the post World War II era saw inaugural ceremonies becoming increasingly more lavish affairs despite the fact that war or protest was ensuing. Lyndon Johnson's in 1965, and Richard Nixon's two inaugurations in 1969 and 1973 were large showcase affairs. The tradition continues this year with George W. Bush's $40 million inaugural celebration.

If Ike of all people didn't have a problem with big brass in wartime, why do we now? Most of the money for the second Bush inaugural was blown in the balls; Ike spent his parading the troops. What's more appropriate in wartime: tying up needed troops in ceremonial duties, or let them be off fighting the damn war? I suppose Eisenhower could have been making a statement with such a lavish production, about the fact we *could* be so wasteful with uniformed bodies at such a time, but I may just be reading too much into it. I don't know enough about the late general to know just how sneaky he could be. Personally, I've always liked the idea that the inaugurals are *supposed* to be a big party and celebration; especially in wartime, it seems to me, we should be showing the world that "Woo-hoo! We pulled it off again!"

But maybe that's just me.

Well, foo.

2005-01-25T09:23:00.000-05:00

Indepundit says that no, really, we're sorry. How dare we bail anyone out, or even try to? How dare we presume? No, really, we won't do it again.

It's a geezer grump, but he makes a good point. Yes, we've screwed up quite a few of our attempts at intervention (United Fruit, anyone? Chile? Bueller?) but we're trying, and that's a helluva lot more than I can say for most.

Because we just can't get enough from Diplomad...

2005-01-24T16:58:00.000-05:00

The USG, thus far, has provided $33.5 million in direct humanitarian assistance to Indonesia in response to the disaster-- this is in addition to military assistance and support (which is estimated to cost some $5 million/day.) No other country or organization comes anywhere close to this figure of assistance ACTUALLY provided. With USG support, emergency humanitarian services began Sunday (December 26), immediately following the disaster:

He then goes on to list what we've done. He's got a good point; what exactly *has* the Blue Hat Brigade done? Anyone got any data?

Secretary Powell's Farewell

2005-01-24T16:16:00.000-05:00

Every day for the past four years, I have seen you do the hard work of freedom, here in Washington and out on freedom's frontlines across the globe. The lists of honored dead on the memorial plaques in the State Department lobby have grown longer on my watch. Like my predecessors before me, I have had the sad duty of comforting the loved ones of fallen colleagues. I will never truly be able to convey to each of you just how honored I feel to have served as your Secretary.

Posted in its entirety over at Daily Demarche.

I have always found ~~General~~ Secretary Powell to be a man of erudition, grace, and quiet determination. It is not nor has it ever been in his nature or training to publicly air dirty laundry, and he's taken a great deal of criticism for that (as has Ms. Rice, but not any of the white members of the cabinet, hrmmm). I firmly believe it's damn unfair, and I hope that those who snipe at Powell are around in a few years when his reputation is redeemed.

Fair Winds and Following Seas, sir! AIRBORNE!

Er.

Yeah. Old habits die hard.

The View From the Hill

2005-01-24T13:43:00.000-05:00

Belmont Club has a lengthy but fascinating piece on the future of Middle Eastern and Islamic democracy, and what the President's second inaugural address has to say about it and our role in its development:

Gerecht relentlessly points out how Khomeini's Iran eventually became the most pro-American country in the region, free of the anti-Americanism of Cairo simply because the Iranians were left to discover for themselves that the 'Koran did not hold all the answers'; at least, not to fixing potholes or delivering electricity. He constrasts it to the elder Bush's decision to support the military junta in Algeria against fundamentalist Islamists, who would by now be discredited or just another party had they been allowed to take over the reins of government. "Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East Edward Djerejian’s famous defense of the first Bush administration’s fear of Islamic extremism -- 'one man, one vote, one time'-- defined clearly Washington’s discomfort with the possibility that free elections could empower Muslim fundamentalists, who could be zealously anti-American and ultimately antidemocratic." That was a mistake, he believes, which George W. Bush is unlikely to repeat.

I really must get this book.

Blue Hat Sensitivity at its finest

2005-01-24T11:46:00.000-05:00

....from an admittedly not-exactly-impartial observer on the LINCOLN:

As I went through the breakfast line, I overheard one of the U.N. strap-hangers, a longhaired guy with a beard, make a sarcastic comment to one of our food servers. He said something along the lines of “Nice china, really makes me feel special,” in reference to the fact that we were eating off of paper plates that day. It was all I could do to keep from jerking him off his feet and choking him, because I knew that the reason we were eating off paper plates was to save dishwashing water so that we would have more water to send ashore and save lives. That plus the fact that he had no business being there in the first place.

EDIT: Himself pointed out that the subject line could be confusing and misread as as a mis-identified slam on the white hats and bluejackets of the USN. Not a bit. It's all about pointing out the UN [expletive deleted], baby.

2005-01-24T11:41:00.000-05:00

OUCH.

Content, not Color

2005-01-19T13:39:00.000-05:00

More on Madame Secretary, from New Orleans:

In September 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the eulogy for three of the four girls killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. What King could not know was that, within earshot of the blast, just blocks away at her father's church, was another little black girl, a friend of the youngest victim, who 42 years later would be on the verge of becoming America's foremost diplomat.

This year, the Martin Luther King holiday, marking what would have been his 76th birthday, falls on Jan. 17. The next day, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee opens hearings on the nomination of Condoleezza Rice to succeed Colin Powell as secretary of state.

Why the surprise that the most powerful people of color in the history of the federal government are conservative? Did anyone really think that someone of, say, Jesse Jackson's political bent and past radicalism would be entrusted by the American mainstream with such power?

What's next, an Aunt Jemima rag?

2005-01-19T10:12:00.000-05:00

I know Stern can't possibly be THAT clueless. I believe they owe Ms. Rice, the president and every woman of color a profound apology - and should be forced to read Ain't I a Woman. One wonders at a national press that encourages hysteria over one class of racism, but blithely indulges in another.

EDIT: I'm being whomped by all the people who see not Massa and Mammy but RCA and Nipper. I'll concede the point, but I still find it horribly wrong and degrading.

Via Blackfive

2005-01-18T14:16:00.000-05:00

What if domestic news outlets continually fed American readers headlines like: "Bloody Week on U.S. Highways: Some 700 Killed," or "More Than 900 Americans Die Weekly from Obesity-Related Diseases"? Both of these headlines might be true statistically, but do they really represent accurate pictures of the situations? What if you combined all of the negatives to be found in the state of Texas and used them as an indicator of the quality of life for all Texans? Imagine the headlines: "Anti-law Enforcement Elements Spread Robbery, Rape and Murder through Texas Cities." For all intents and purposes, this statement is true for any day of any year in any state. True -- yes, accurate -- yes, but in context with the greater good taking place -- no! After a year or two of headlines like these, more than a few folks back in Texas and the rest of the U.S. probably would be ready to jump off of a building and end it all. So, imagine being an American in Iraq right now.

By LTC Tim Ryan, CO, 2/12 Cav, 1st Cav Div - an excellent essay on the matter I was discussing earlier: selective presentation of someone's truth. Great read.

From Belmont Club

2005-01-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

This process of corruption has pulled a curtain of suspicion over all information products. No longer is it possible to rely on the assurance of a brand name. Each item of news must now be sniffed, examined, poked and weighed to determine its authenticity. Collateral confirmation, once the staple of skeptical intelligence analysts, is now the task of every sophisticated newsreader -- at least those who want to avoid being taken for a ride. Once the media itself became an informational battleground the most natural greeting in the dark became 'who goes there?' That skepticism has in part, empowered the blogosphere, which provides some filtering for readers too busy to do it themselves. Yet the blogosphere is not in principle immune from any of the corroding influences of fear, money or influence, as the readers of Armstrong Williams and the Daily Kos discovered to their disillusionment. We are, in James Jesus Angleton's famous phrase, in a 'Wilderness of Mirrors', though he himself had the idea from T. S. Eliot.

So who *do* you trust? And how can you know if they're truly trustworthy? Obviously, there's no such thing as purely neutral speech and reportage. Critical theory (ugh, yuck, ptooie) teaches that the very act of selecting which information to report automatically puts a slant or a spin on that information. How do you choose to believe, say, the guys at Powerline over Juan Cole? Or Jeff Jarvis over Blackfive? How much is your gut, and how much is comparing notes with other sources to figure out which version of events, which truth, is more believable? And, once you've made that decision, do you reconcile the idea that the truth you've chosen is the "right" one, the one that means everyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong? What do you read and absorb that makes you look at a set of data and see voter fraud where someone else, looking at the exact same data, sees instead poor planning?

Oh, Screw THAT!

2005-01-18T11:32:00.000-05:00

The officials said the main chart on the submarine, prepared in 1989 and never revised, did not show any potential obstacles within three miles of the crash. They said the incident happened in such a desolate area - 360 miles southeast of Guam - that updating their depiction of the undersea terrain was never considered a priority.

Registration required for the NYT.

The gist of the article is that a sailor lost his life because there wasn't enough money to map effectively, even though the data was available. That's just fargin' wonderful. This Does Not Make Me Happy. Someone very close to me has spent a great deal of time riding subs, and I bloody well am NOT thrilled by the idea that at any time he could have turned into a ketchup smear inside of a wadded-up ball of tinfoil full fathom deep just because someone didn't have the extra $100 to put a mountain on the chart.

Fuck the depth,
Fuck the pressure,
Let's go down
And see the the Thresher!

Gyah.

Ok, a couple of questions: wouldn't passive sonar have picked up something that large in their path (I'm assuming they weren't actively pinging, given their speed)? Or, given their speed, would passive sonar have been deaf, dumb and blind? Also, the captain's being criticized for going that fast in an area with such "spotty" charts. Given a chart that's only 15 years old, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that it's accurate?

From Archaeology Magazine's E-Update -

2005-01-18T10:49:00.000-05:00

January 13, 2005

Welcome to Archaeology's E-update!

New and updated on Archaeology.org:

Seaport Update: No Money for Archaeology
Six months after its board of directors fired seven South Street Seaport Museum employees, the fate of its 2-million-plus artifact collection and its research library and archive remain uncertain.
http://m1e.net/c?2659922-NEAc5JFXrgPAE%40805026-/c9Pyw6RvQ7sI

Interactive Dig: Excavating Hierakonpolis
http://m1e.net/c?2659922-wWfWeSsEkx3tY%40805027-sPbu/2VgEuVgs
Week Two of the stabilization and repair of King Khasekhemwy's Ceremonial Enclosure was recently posted! Stay tuned through February for more reports from the field.
http://m1e.net/c?2659922-igm2XN9q6wj8.%40805028-Mj7j/1JbOaULQ

Museum Review: Great Alexander in New York
Alexander the Great: Treasures from an Epic Era of Hellenism at the Onassis Cultural Center seeks to provide the historical and cultural context of Alexander as established from archaeology.
http://m1e.net/c?2659922-pgBS1A2dEiPHU%40805029-O18GR1tM2Epvs

Television Review: En Route to the Truth
A new archaeological series titled "Digging for the Truth" debuts on the History Channel on January 24. Executive Editor Mark Rose lets you know what he thought of it.
http://m1e.net/c?2659922-l0P3T4zbcS..o%40805030-nVmAU1izJiHGE

Don't forget our archaeological news from around the world, posted by 6pm EST every weekday!
http://m1e.net/c?2659922-l.RVcpczzS/wY%40805031-3/8lfW8/o0HzY

Visit us again at www.archaeology.org.
http://m1e.net/c?2659922-xotYmNaiBeYeo%40805032-msB15Fb.0ZDhA

Amelie Walker
Online Editor/Webmaster
Archaeology.org

Archaeology Magazine
36-36 33rd St., Suite 301
Long Island City, NY 11106

ATTN: EUROPE

2005-01-18T09:40:00.000-05:00

Senator Joe Biden in Committee to "Europe", re the election:

"Get over it. Get over it."

Zorfwaddle

2005-01-16T17:49:00.000-05:00

The World's Greatest Ex just started his own Blogger blog. So far it looks like he'll be using it to keep track of his War in the Pacific campaign. I think he said it'll take him almost two years to get through it...

http://zorfwaddle.blogspot.com/

The Chick in the Grey Flannel Suit

2005-01-16T13:37:00.000-05:00

I signed up for Google Ads, and I have a confession to make about my decision to do so: I've been dying to see what sort of ads would be generated by my content. It's pretty funny that Google's locked on to the military and spook stuff, but nothing else. Makes me feel like my blog needs a clearance.

Power Up

2005-01-16T13:35:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the the World's Greatest Ex-Husband, I now have a new power supply AND CD-burner for the home machine. I'm sure my bosses will be thrilled that I'll be doing more blogging from home and a lot less from my desk.

Hell, I'm just shocked I could swap everything out by myself...

Lingonberries for all!

2005-01-14T15:22:00.000-05:00

Iowahawk has a thoughtful roundup of UN contributions in post-tsunami South Asia.

Complete giggle fit!

2005-01-14T15:09:00.000-05:00

Leave it to Diplomad:

Dear fellow citizens of our Great Republic, please note that we Americans have nothing to lecture the Brits about when it comes to celebrity dopes; all we can do is compare notes.

That said, we wonder how widespread and loud the outrage would have been had Royal Harry worn a Che Guevara sweatshirt? Dressed up in a KGB Colonel's uniform with a red star? Sported a Mao button? How about if that cigarette he's clutching in the photo had been a Cuban cigar whose purchase supports the Castro brothers? Just wondering . . .

Al Qaeda, Quislings and HumInt

2005-01-14T14:35:00.000-05:00

It is difficult to fathom the potentially devastating implications of having Al Qaeda members operating freely in the army of the U.S.' primary ally in Iraq. But America's security is not just threatened by rogue elements in the Pakistani and British armies. America's own military has been penetrated by Islamic extremists.

The Counterterrorism Blog is a daily must read when it comes to the WoT - no matter which side of the fence you sit on. I personally think it performs a national service.

Everybody, lift a Fosters!

2005-01-14T13:50:00.000-05:00

Lying in the serene green waters off Banda Aceh, the vessel's tank deck was crammed with trucks, bulldozers and graders. Also on board were 400 army engineers who aim to rebuild the ruined infrastructure of the city.
HMAS Kanimbla's two heavy-lift Sea King helicopters from 817 Squadron in Nowra, New South Wales, will also be on call to aid three smaller Australian army helicopters already flying relief missions to refugees...

The Australian focus would be on restoration of water and power as well as wreckage clearance from Banda Aceh's ruined coastal zone, Brig. Chalmers said. Two LCM-8 landing craft were immediately offloaded on arrival while navy divers and surveyors scouted the seabed for hazards before they began ferrying vehicles and personnel the short distance to shore.

The engineers would move into an abandoned technical college near the main Banda Aceh hospital where Australian military doctors were working and would fan out from there to begin repairs, Brig. Chalmers said.

From Michelle Malkin.

Pardon while I drool...

2005-01-14T13:26:00.000-05:00

Swiped straight from the Dept of Anth listserv at the University of Maryland, my (sortof) alma mater (in other words, spelling issues are *not* my fault, thankyouverymuch):

The Library of Congress' s Rare Book & Special Collections Division is pleased to announce the release of a new digital collection, The Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake, available on the Library's Global Gateway Web site at: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/drakehtml/.

Sir Francis Drake, English explorer and naval strategist, circumnavigated the globe from 1577-1580. During these travels, Drake visited the Caribbean and the Pacific, claiming a portion of California for Queen Elizabeth and waging battles on the Spanish. His voyages
revealed significant new geographical data about the New World and added greatly to Queen Elizabeth's treasury.

The Kraus Collection comprises important primary and secondary materials about Drake's voyages throughout the then Spanish territory of the Americas. It consists of 60 items--16 manuscripts, 29 books, 8 maps and views, and 7 medals and portraits. The materials range in date
from 1579 to 1765. Texts are in English, Latin, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and French.

Hans Peter Kraus, one of the foremost booksellers of the second half of the twentieth century, and his wife Hanni assembled the collection. Born
in Austria in 1907, Kraus exhibited a love of collecting from an early age. In 1939, during the Nazi Occupation, Kraus and his family fled Austria for the United States. Within two weeks of his arrival in New York, Kraus met Hanni, his future wife and business partner. The couple established an antiquarian bookselling firm, H. P. Kraus, Inc. in the early 1940s and did not close this legendary firm until Hans Peter's death in 1988.

Hans and Hanni Kraus generously donated their collection of Drake materials to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress in 1980. The combination of the Library's rich collections from this period and the resources of the neighboring Folger Shakespeare Library make Washington a preeminent center for the study of the Elizabethan era.

This online presentation of The Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake joins other world history collections available on the Library of Congress's Global Gateway Web site: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/intldlhome.html. The Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake may be found under the heading:
"Individual Digital Collections."

Please direct any questions regarding this collection to the Global Gateway inquiry form at:
http://www.loc.gov/help/contact-international.html.

Laura Gottesman
Reference Specialist
Digital Reference Team
The Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue SE
Washington, DC 20540-4604

From Andrew Sullivan

2005-01-14T12:09:00.000-05:00

EMAIL OF THE DAY II: "I attended a continuing legal education seminar for Army Reserve and National Guard lawyers last weekend. I was struck by one thing: The biggest response from a ballroom full of JAG lawyers was when one dynamic Colonel spoke and said the Army needed to do a better job in handling detainees. He quoted a dispatch from WWII when the commander of a US prisoner of war camp reported back that his camp was under air attack by the German air force, that he could not protect his German prisoners of war, and he had opened the gates and set them all free. This is the standard for the US Army and we need to live up to it. The room cheered. My impression is that the people who have been trained in this stuff (at least the citizen solders) may not be terribly pleased and indeed may be somewhat embarrassed with how this is unfolding. This is also consistent with the JAG lawyers being kept out of the loop." Yep. Good soldiers don't believe in this poison. Alas, their civilian superiors do.

Lord, I wish he'd post the whole thing - and provide a permalink.

My particular research focus in my archaeology is on the WWII PoW camps here in the States, and how the way we treated the prisoners then directly impacted on the relationships we had with Germany, Italy and (to a lesser extent, obviously) Japan after the war. Combine that with my particular military background (Army records in St Louis record me as a 97E1LCZ, or interrogator), and you can understand my horror, repulsion and sense of utter betrayal as all of this unfolds. I cannot, cannot bear it.

WE DON'T DO THIS!! We are better than this! Someone asked me how, as a historian, I could make such a statement and proceeded to trot out a series of examples of times we did. The thing is, those incidents became notorious because they *were* exceptions, not the rule.

I need a shower.

With steel wool and lye.

Hrmmm.

2005-01-14T11:33:00.000-05:00

"I haven't dated in 12 million years," she said drily. "I gave up on dating powerful men because they wanted to date women in the service professions. So I decided to date guys in the service professions. But then I found out that kings want to be treated like kings, and consorts want to be treated like kings, too."

I don't normally read Maureen O'Dowd, but I followed the link from Althouse.

In relationships, shouldn't everyone be treated like royalty?

Getting a bit noisy in here

2005-01-14T11:02:00.000-05:00

I'm hearing the tornado alarm...must be 11:00 AM on a Friday here in byootiful downtown Indianapolis...

A Girl's Gotta Have a Hobby

2005-01-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

Most of my friends* always seem to be surprised when they discover I knit and cross stitch. I'm just one of those people who has to keep my hands busy, even (especially) if I'm watching TV. I like knitting because I can "program" the pattern into my hands and then just let my fingers fly unsupervised; they seem to come to a natural stop the moment there's a mistake. Cross stitching (and yes, I know it's not 'real" embroidery; just ask The G's late great Aunts Weeze and Mudd) appeals to me because of the delicacy of the work and the sheer tactile joy of all that floss, and the visual appeal of all that color.

I had to give up knitting when I developed a repetitive stress injury that made it impossible to keep the grip for long; cross stitching seems to do a lot better in keeping my hands from seizing up. I can tell I've been working pretty hard on a couple of recent projects, though, because I've got pretty consistent pain in the back of my right hand and doing any sort of writing is not exactly comfortable. I suppose this is Himself's way of saying I need to get this last project done (finished last night) and get caught up on the sewing projects pile instead.

I've a pile of clothes I want to make, and a bigger pile that need repair (hems, zippers replaced, dry-rotted polyester lining replaced, etc). The one thing that keeps me plugging away at the needlework instead of the sewing machine is that the way I have to set up my workspace in my shoebox apartment (called the "Arabian" layout by my complex) keeps my back to the TV while I'm working. I have to concentrate too much to, say, play audiobooks in the background, but not enough to keep my brain even remotely solely focused on the task at hand (thus the need for the TV). Hrmf.

Oh, and for the record, the Pattern-a-Day Cross Stitch Desk Calendar suxxorz the Big One. Most of these patterns look like someone let their kid play in Paintbrush and then ran the results through a pattern conversion program with no regard for actual appeal or stitchability. Avoid it at all costs. You Have Been Warned.

*Of course, these are also the same people who were surprised to discover my beloved ex-husband is a quiet, short, geeky guy with a fondness for Brit humor and Neil Young, rather than a Tarzan-type into pickup trucks and Very Large Guns. Not sure where they would get that impression. But then, they also seemed to think I should have a Sex Swing in my bedroom, and if they really knew me they'd know I was WAY too damn klutzy to manage one of those. Also, in The G's defense, he does like Very Large Guns, especially while playing War in the Pacific or DOOM 3. Come to think of it, people who met him first always assumed I should be some little mousy sort who never said "boo". Guess they didn't know him any better than others knew me. :)

Pardon while I drool...

2005-01-14T09:33:00.000-05:00

From the Dept of Anth listserv at the University of Maryland my (sortof) alma mater:

The Library of Congress' s Rare Book & Special Collections Division is pleased to announce the release of a new digital collection, The Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake, available on the Library's Global Gateway Web site at: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/drakehtml/.

Sir Francis Drake, English explorer and naval strategist, circumnavigated the globe from 1577-1580. During these travels, Drake visited the Caribbean and the Pacific, claiming a portion of California for Queen Elizabeth and waging battles on the Spanish. His voyages revealed significant new geographical data about the New World and added greatly to Queen Elizabeth's treasury.

The Kraus Collection comprises important primary and secondary materials about Drake's voyages throughout the then Spanish territory of the Americas. It consists of 60 items--16 manuscripts, 29 books, 8 maps and views, and 7 medals and portraits. The materials range in date
from 1579 to 1765. Texts are in English, Latin, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and French.

Hans Peter Kraus, one of the foremost booksellers of the second half of the twentieth century, and his wife Hanni assembled the collection. Born
in Austria in 1907, Kraus exhibited a love of collecting from an early age. In 1939, during the Nazi Occupation, Kraus and his family fled Austria for the United States. Within two weeks of his arrival in New York, Kraus met Hanni, his future wife and business partner. The couple established an antiquarian bookselling firm, H. P. Kraus, Inc. in the early 1940s and did not close this legendary firm until Hans Peter's death in 1988.

Hans and Hanni Kraus generously donated their collection of Drake materials to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress in 1980. The combination of the Library's rich collections from this period and the resources of the neighboring Folger Shakespeare Library make Washington a preeminent center for the study of the Elizabethan era.

This online presentation of The Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake joins other world history collections available on the Library of Congress's Global Gateway Web site: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/intldlhome.html. The Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake may be found under the heading:
"Individual Digital Collections."

Please direct any questions regarding this collection to the Global Gateway inquiry form at:
http://www.loc.gov/help/contact-international.html.

Laura Gottesman
Reference Specialist
Digital Reference Team
The Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue SE
Washington, DC 20540-4604

From Free Iraqi

2005-01-13T12:43:00.000-05:00

Interesting take on the upcoming elections -
One day and as I was getting back home from work I saw some people gathering on the road. Abu Ahmed (a taxi driver I usually go with. He's an old religious She'at with a scarf on his head all the time) slowed down to see what it was and we saw some guy arguing angrily with a police officer who was apparently issuing a ticket for him. The guy was shouting madly and people were trying to calm him. The poor policeman seemed afraid. Such scenes are not uncommon these days and at certain occasions policemen were actually beaten at the hands of some nasty drivers and they didn't dare to use force! It was an annoying scene to me and to Abu Ahmed who shook his head with an unsatisfied look on his face and said, "When are we going to learn how to live in order?"

Read the whole thing.

Another historian weighs in on "Lavender Lincoln"...

2005-01-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

And this one is a bit more believable than some of the rants (on both sides) on the subject:

Unfortunately, that is merely a way of saying the Gay Lincoln Theory fails any historical test. "Useful history" is always a dubious kind of scholarship. But in its attempt to be useful for gays today, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln reaches far beyond the merely dubious. The book is a hoax and a fraud: a historical hoax, because the inaccurate parts are all shaded toward a predetermined conclusion, and a literary fraud, because significant portions of the accurate parts are plagiarized--from me, as it happens.

Tripp and I intended to be coauthors of the book, laboring together on the project from 1995 to 2000--when our partnership, already fissured by dueling manuscripts, came to a bitter end. We quarreled constantly over evidence: I said the Gay Lincoln Theory was intriguing but impossible to prove; he said it was stone-cold fact.

More advocate than historian, Tripp massaged favorable indicators (Lincoln's early puberty), buried negative ones (Lincoln's flirtations with women), and papered over holes in his story with inventions (Lincoln's law partner and biographer William Herndon never noticed the homosexuality because he was an extreme heterosexual and thus afflicted with "heterosexual bias").

I think the most valid point that Philip Nobile raises is that without the 16th President being caught physically or documentarily (Is that even a word?) in flagrante delicto, all we can do is speculate. Time and again scholars have made the point that in an era where florid declarations of affection between members of the same gender were the norm and non-sexual, it can be impossible to determine if someone truly "loved" (as we know it today) someone of his or her own gender. How do we know what was simple fraternal affection, or a deeper - so to speak - hiding in plain sight?

I know Andrew Sullivan has convinced himself that Lincoln is a Kinseyian 4, essentially gay-identified bi (he could function with women but saved his true affections and physical desires for men). I can understand the need for the American homosexual community to claim such a leading American cultural icon as "one of their own"; but I just don't think we can say 100% yea or nay if it's true. As Nobile says, the evidence is "tantalizing", but insufficient to make an irrefutable case.

Definitely will have to keep an eye out for more reviews on both sides of the debate.

Budeme videt...

Mmm...Sic 'Em, Diplomad!

2005-01-12T14:04:00.000-05:00

Diplomad, one of my all-time favorite blogs, has absolutely had it with the UN and it's so-called relief efforts. Relief for whom? Mercedes dealers and rum distillers?

The UN's performance in this disaster has been a disgrace of epic proportions; it's vastly overfunded and overstaffed agencies, allegedly established to deal with precisely this type of event, are MIA. We are now in day 16 (DAY 16!) of the crisis, and the UN is still not ready to act. It is no wonder affected countries want to deal with the US and not the UN. At a minimum, the UN owes the world an apology; the entire upper echelon of the UN and its bloated agencies should resign.

2005-01-12T13:12:00.000-05:00

On HumInt and Linguists: One of the big complaints about combat actions in the Middle East is the extreme paucity of translators and interpreters in the local languages and dialects. In defense of, well, Defense, it ain't easy to come up with an ArabLing in uniform. Arabic, Farsi and their dialects are considered some of the hardest languages for military linguists to pick up (it's a given that anything with a non-Roman or Cyrillic alphabet falls into that category). this means you have to find:

A) Someone who *wants* to be a linguist
B) Someone who wants to be a linguist and manages to pass the required language proficiency test
C) Someone who wants to be a linguist and manages to not only pass the required language proficiency test but scores high enough to qualify for a Grade 4 language
D) AND someone who not only does all of the above but also survives 60+ weeks of very intense language training (*one* *day* is equivalent to a 2-week college-level course).

And all of THAT is before they even start training for the actual job.

Oh, and then you remove the significant percentage of those shiny new linguists who choose SigInt jobs rather than HumInt.

Yes, we could be doing more to recruit native speakers into the military, both as advisors and actual in-uniform linguists, but frankly the vetting process is already backed up beyond belief and "mistakes" slip through (witness the Marine who keeps getting "lost" somewhere between here and Lebanon). You want us to have adequate linguist staff? Start requiring mandatory language training in elementary, junior high and high schools when the human brain is far more flexible on matters of language. Move us beyond Spanish, French and the occasional German to languages that are actually *needed* and useful, including Arabic, Japanese and Chinese. Where do you get these instructors? Retired military linguists encouraged to move into the extant Troops-to-Teachers program.

The point to all of this is that even if DoD and the other intell services *had* had the foresight to see what was coming and start recruiting and training more linguists, the length of time required for even the most basic language training (and trust me, bub, that 60+ weeks is *barely* adequate for basic instruction) means that the turnout can't happen fast enough to keep up with demand.