Stuck

I don't get this wacky story about the woman who got stuck to the toilet seat - after sitting on it for way too long.

One account said she had a phobia about leaving the bathroom. But that doesn't explain it. It's not just that she didn't leave the bathroom. The issue is that after a while she didn't even leave the seat.

Finally, what is up with the boyfriend?

Kory McFarren pleaded no contest last month to a misdemeanor count of mistreatment of a dependent adult. The woman wrote a letter to the judge asking for leniency for McFarren.

He's been sentenced to 6 months probation for this vague misdemeanor. How did he mistreat her? By bringing her food?

But what makes her "a dependent adult?" Is she "developmentally challenged" or something? Note that:

She is now under the protection of a guardian who was appointed through the legal department at the hospital where she received treatment.

I really get the sense this is one of those stories that would make a little more sense if they stopped protecting someone's privacy.

Of course I
would rather not pry...
but I'd like to know what's behind
these stories that blow my mind.

Oh Baby

Just yesterday I was challenging a certain tabloid to reveal a certain baby's gender. I really thought I had it over them.

But sure enough, today they claimed
to know just what the baby was named
and the gender, too.

I think they're reading my blog, don't you?

As for the love child's sex,
the chromosomes are XX.

Love Child

If the Enquirer knows so much about this bundle of joy,
why haven't they said whether it's a girl or a boy?

The New Engagement Ring

NPR had a piece entitled "Sex Without Condoms Is The New Engagement Ring".

I guess that depends.
Can she show it to her friends?

Hold On Tight

Yesterday, Obama was up some percentage points.

Today, McCain.

That's the way the poller-coaster rolls.
It's sort of bipolar - who's got the controls?

Scanning Grief

Newsweek has an interesting article on grief and brain research, where they stuck grieving people into functional MRI machines.

So they found that when grieving people think about the dead, they experience both pleasure and pain. That's actually a familiar paradox, rather than much of a discovery.

Somebody sensationalized it like this: They're addicted to the pleasure of remembering the dead!

Eventually, everything enjoyable turns out to be an addiction. I, for example, am addicted to breathing.

The psychiatrists seem to be working on a DSM entry for cases where grief is an enduring problem. They want to call their new diagnosis "complicated grief." With a diagnosis like that, it'll be easier to get the insurance companies to pay for treatment.

But I do wonder what's left in "simple grief".

Grief without complication,
with speedy recuperation,
without need for fond recall,
is barely grief at all.

Flip Flops - Not Just For Democrats

Poor John McCain. He was in favor of immigration before he was against it.

While McCain’s support of the immigration bill — which was eventually voted down — appealed to many Hispanics, it infuriated some conservatives. McCain, his campaign then floundering, promised primary voters that he had “got the message,” vowed to prioritize enforcement and even claimed he wouldn’t have voted for his own bill it if was to have come up again.

He succumbed to conservative panic
about a flood of Hispanics.

Now he contemplates voters of Latin descent
and wonders where their support for him went.

Market Opportunity

As a "weird traffic fact", the Sun-Times reports:

Car drivers drive closer to helmeted cyclists (and further from cyclists who appear to be women).

I detect a market opportunity.

I'm going to make money, and make it real big.
I'll make special helmets that look like blonde wigs
with long curly tresses and maybe a bow.

He who cross-dresses is safer, you know.

Zooming up on Ruminants

I was bicycling today, on forest preserve trails.

It appears there's a bumper crop of deer
who calmly stare and show no fear
when cyclists pedal near.

Audacity of Hopelessness

"We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right." That was McCain today, talking about the surge. I think that's a pretty good line.

Part of the trouble in running against Obama is that a lot of his proposals are on the vague side, and he doesn't have much legislative record to pick apart. But he came out strongly against the surge, and has recently declared that even in hindsight he would oppose it. That's doubling down!

So it's a good point to criticize Obama on, since most people now see the surge as a stunning success.

Obama might be better off admitting he was wrong.
For now he keeps on trying to move the discussion along
to topics that diverge
from the issue of the surge.

Reading Up On New Formalism

I was reading at the library about New Formalism today. It's a contemporary movement in American poetry. They're in favor of Formal Verse Being Okay.

Why is it an American movement? Because Formal Verse always remained Okay in the UK. Probably it was Okay in the whole Commonwealth, for all I know. But in the US there was a stretch of time where it was Free Verse Or Nothing!

(Yes, there were some dinosaur-like exceptions, but they were frowned upon.)

So, why were the English different than us? I don't know.

For some reason they thought of Formal
as still being perfectly normal,
rather than treason to the cause
of flouting outmoded laws.

Geiger Counters for Kitchen Counters

Granite countertops in the kitchen may be radioactive and hence a threat to your health.

Government buildings in Washington are often built of granite and may be a threat to your wealth.

Hunchback Set To Music

With a bunch of friends, we saw a fabulous musical version of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

The music, book, and lyrics are all by Dennis DeYoung, formerly of Styx. He wrote the pop hits, "Lady" and "Come Sail Away".

Hunchback has been a hit here in Chicago. Its original booking has been extended, which required replacing some cast members. Tonight was the first night on stage with the new cast members. They sang great, projecting full quantities of excitement, love, and sorrow.

The show had a production back in the late 90's, in Nashville. I suspect, from reading an old review, that the show has been re-tooled to maintain emotional flow and tension, which it does very well.

Quasimodo looks scary,
but offers true sanctuary.

Have Gun, Will Travel

Stephen Scherer grew up in an anti-gun household. His mother banned even toy guns in the house, at first. But after a while she broke down and bought him and his sister some cute elephant-shaped squirt guns.

But Stephen wanted more. He made complicated pistols with Legos. He played endlessly with a BB gun inherited from a friend. Talking about his early interest in shooting, Stephen now says, "It's sort of like, if it's wrong, you want to do it more."

Now he's going to Beijing, to compete for the U.S. in shooting sports. He's 19. He wasn't favored to win in the Olympic trials.

"I probably surprised myself more than anybody else there," says Scherer. "Shooting is a very mental sport. A lot of times, it doesn't sink in that you've won until after, because you're so concentrated on the shooting."

Kid, I bet you'll do great.

Just wait,
concentrate,
and shoot straight.

Pragmatism 101

For today's assignment:
write upon the board:
Flip-flops are refinement
and ought to be ignored.

Following the Money

Investor's Business Daily reports that media folks give lots more money to one party than the other.

Who could that be?
The Democrats? Yes!
Funny that didn't
get more press.

But their standards are the highest
so they try to mask their bias
by writing extra sly
to help their guy.

Live from Wherever

It's being reported, in the mainstream press, that Obama is getting more press coverage than that other guy.

But does this give him an advantage? Or is there a risk here?

You don't want folks to get tired of your face
till after you've won the race.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Algorithms

An industrial mathematician is upset about the way math is being taught:

The claim that schools that have done away with traditional mathematics instruction have done so because they want "to prepare kids for a new world" is ridiculous for many reasons. The most important is that the job of math educators is to get students to understand math, and the best way to understand math is to master the traditional algorithms.

There are a lot of ways to teach algorithms... but... not to teach them at all?

There are no rules
in schools for fools.

Lunch with Borges

I was reading Borges at lunch. He has an interest in labyrinths. Somehow I started thinking about the limitations of our knowledge of neurology. We cannot trace the path of a single line of thought with anything like assurance.

The labyrinth is in the brain.

The twisting turning strands defy
easy mapping of the chains
of logic that from deep inside
seem clear as crystal, plain as rain.

Classical Music Outdoors

We enjoyed the summer breeze
while someone named Lang Lang
bang-banged
on the keys.

Okay, just to be fair,
the CSO was also there.

The Scoop on Barack

The Sun-Times has an exclusive story on the jobs Obama held as a student. Here's the one that gave me another reason to support him:

As a high school student, Obama's first job was at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store.

Hey - I worked for a Baskin-Robbins too! We're fellow former employees!

So that's the scoop - we both were scoopers,
dedicated ice cream troopers!

But he turned his back on Chocolate Fudge,
he gave up Pralines & Cream,
so he could have a chance to trudge
the Rocky Road in pursuit of his dream.

You Didn't Need That Laptop, Did You?

The Chicago Tribune reports on the trouble people have taking their laptops out of their cases for TSA searches:

More than 12,000 laptops are lost each week at U.S. airports, according to a study conducted for Dell by the Ponemon Institute, a research think tank. Only one-third of laptops lost and found in airports are reclaimed, the study said.

Wait. So if 12,000 are lost and one-third are returned that's 8,000 lost permanently each week.

That's 416,000 laptops down the drain per year?

No wonder people are nervous
about the TSA's service.

Good News

Angelina Jolie and her twins have left the hospital.

Now, get back to work on Atlas Shrugged.
The lack of progress has me bugged.

I'll even accept, since I'm such a fan,
a Lollywood version from Pakistan.

Defenses of the Senses

I've retrieved, from our bookshelves, 2 books: David Kelley's The Evidence of the Senses: A Realist Theory of Perception and Quee Nelson's The Slightest Philosophy. I'm thinking of doing a detailed comparison.

For one thing, is Kelley's "reductive focus" really the same as Nelson's "inviddying of scene-images"? Maybe I need a translation table! (Update: In both cases the idea refers to the kind of seeing we do when we see that a circular coin "looks elliptical" at an angle.)

Nelson's book is funnier, and easier to read for most people. Kelley's book is addressed to those trained in contemporary philosophy, and is more academic in style.

Both authors are out to rescue the idea that our senses are really in touch with reality. Of course, most people do think this, but many philosophers have thought otherwise!

Quee Nelson has a lot of examples of this skeptical philosophical tradition in her book's appendix. I like this one:

A. J. Ayer: “From our resources of sense-data, we ‘construct’ the world of material things.”

I often get tired constructing the world of matter.
Ideas are so light. You can toss them around with mere chatter.

Material things have such weight. They're so hard to build with.
But nice fluffy sense-data - that is something I'm skilled with.

A Fine Whine

Phil Gramm "resigned" today from the McCain campaign.

Gramm is the guy who called us "a nation of whiners" a few days ago.

He hurt my feelings.
My heart was reeling.
So I complained.
I wrote to McCain
and his whole campaign:

"I never whine!
Make him resign!
Toss him off that plane
and under the train."

And surely then
I'll be happy again.

Obama Humor Shortage?

Q: How many Obama supporters does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Just one, and it's not funny!

All of a sudden people are complaining about a national deficit - of Obama jokes. I think it got noticed when the New Yorker cover elicited few chuckles.

We're in for some serious years.
Maybe we'll get some yucks from his ears.

Brain Plaque

They thought it was the plaque in the brain that caused Alzheimer's. They invented a vaccine to get rid of the plaque. They used it on people who already had dementia. It got rid of the plaque. But the patients still had dementia.

But... maybe the vaccine could work preventively? So they aren't giving up on the vaccine yet.

What's clear is that they're making progress but that they don't really understand this disease very well yet.

At least they have a way to stop plaque.
Two steps forward, one step back.

Borges' Sonnet, "Spinoza"

I was looking at this lovely sonnet by Jorge Luis Borges today, and I felt like trying a translation, even though I will fail to completely capture it. What is really hard to do, of course, is convey the simplicity and straightforward nature while trying to do something along the lines of his sound. And yes, here and there I have added some things and deleted some things. Also, I suppose I should mention that Spinoza, while now famous as a philosopher, made his living as a maker of lenses. Finally, I apologize to the ghost of Borges!

The Jew's translucent hands take hold,
scrubbing the crystal in the gathering gloom.
The dying evening fades to fear and cold.
(Evenings after equal evenings loom.)

His hands and this space of hyacinth,
grow pallid behind the Ghetto walls.
For this quiet man they barely exist at all.
He dreams his way through a clear labyrinth.

He isn't disturbed by fame, that collection
of dreams in the dream of another reflection,
nor by young ladies' timorous love.

Free from metaphor and myth,
he scrubs the crystal: the infinite
map of That which is all the stars above.

UPDATE... I keep fiddling with this.

Do As I Say, But Don't Say As I Say

Jesse Jackson used the N-word somehow when he was fantasizing sotto voce about detesticulating Obama. At least that's what Fox news says, and they've got the tape.

Flashback to November 27, 2006:

Rev. Jesse Jackson is calling for entertainers to stop using the N-word.

Speaking as his defender,
I say it's a no-brainer:
he should simply mention
that he's not an entertainer.

Serenity Now

I first saw the serenity prayer in elementary school. A nun had it pinned up by her desk in the front of the classroom. I believe we were driving her nuts.

My next encounter was when Ayn Rand wrote about it. She mentioned it was attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, and she commented that she hardly ever agreed with him about anything.

Well, now some librarian at Yale has established that very close versions of it were showing up in print, before the time when Niebuhr was thought to have created it. Each time it appears before Niebuhr, it appears with a different author.

Kind of spooky.

We were talking about The Selfish Gene in book club, so I have an idea about the serenity prayer - could it be a meme?

Nobody wrote it. It just appeared,
a random mutation, a brand new strain
that rang so true it simply seared
itself into the collective brain.

Or else it's possibly by
the mysterious, frightfully shy
A. Nonymous, whose game
is never to leave his or her name.

Bollywood Fountainhead?

After I posted a humorous poem about Dagny-as-portrayed-by-Bollywood, Bill Nevin wrote me about a serious reported proposal to remake The Fountainhead in Bollywood:

Stephen Alter is an American writer who was raised in India in a missionary family. He has many contacts in the Hindi film industry, in part through his cousin, Tom Alter, who acts professionally in India. Stephen Alter became fascinated with the industry itself and with one of its signature features - the "love thief", a character who steals girls' hearts. This character type has deep roots in both the Islamic and the Hindu literary traditions. So he wrote a book called Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief (Harcourt, 2007.) In it, he captures a flavor of what it is like to work in the industry, relating telling details from interviews with many of the prominent personalities of Hindi cinema, asking them about their professional lives and concerns.

Much of Alter's work is devoted to documenting the making of Omkara, Bhardwaj's hip screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello, which debuted in 2006. Instead of Renaissance Venice, however, Omkara is set in the present day, amid the dusty plains, teeming cities, criminal gangs, and dirty politicians of western Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, as well as one of its most notoriously corrupt. Writer-director-composer Bhardwaj gave Alter complete access to the
creative team throughout the writing, pre-production, and filming.

In between a brief biographical note on Satyajit Chourasia, the physical fitness expert, Schwartzennegger fan, and entrepreneur who revolutionized the look of Bombay's leading men with his chain of "Barbarian Power Gyms", and a description of the courtly manners of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh's heavily Islamic state capital, is sandwiched this exchange, which took place during Omkara's production:

After a full day on location our hair and clothes are thick with dust and ash... Though Vishal has been on location since seven this morning, he is still running on adrenalin and has a tennis game scheduled in the evening. Pleased with the progress of the film, he is already thinking about his
next project.

Rekha [Bhardwaj, the director's wife] suggests adapting Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Immediately, Vishal agrees, excited by the idea.

"The Fountainhead is one of my favorite novels," he says. "The main character is an architect. The way he approaches his work, as a perfectionist, you can never look at a building the same way again."

Entering the outskirts of Lucknow, the traffic grows thicker, swarms of bicycles weaving through a blue haze of smog. Vishal takes out his phone and calls Ronnie Screwvala, head of [Indian entertainment conglomerate] UTV, which produced [Bhardwaj's third film] The Blue Umbrella.

"Ronnie, I want to make The Fountainhead... "

Ten minutes later, when the conversation ends, Vishal tells us that Ronnie has read the novel three times. He too thinks it will make a terrific film. As we reach the heart of Lucknow, circling a roundabout and passing through the historic bazaar of Hazrat Ganj, we discuss how the main
character in The Fountainhead could be a filmmaker instead of an architect. His movies will reflect his own highly individualistic vision. Teasing Vishal, I say he should be careful not to turn it into an autobiographical film.

"But I'm not a perfectionist," he protests.

from Stephen Alter, Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief, pp. 143-4.

As for me,
I'll wait and see!

Lucky

This cuddly-looking koala bear
got hit by a car, but hung on there
with his head stuck in the grill.

After 2 hours of zoo clinic care,
he felt much better and ate his fill
of leafy eucalyptus fare.

* * *

Zoologists, yes, I am aware
of a truth that's clear and indubitable:
the koala isn't really a bear -
but rather a marsupitable.

Cartoon Reflections

Speaking of the New Yorker Obama cartoon... Some say it's funny. Some say it's offensive. But those 2 possibilities aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they often arrive together in one bundle.

Funny and offensive
are sometimes coextensive.

The flashing bite of wit
can be unamusing to those who get bit.

Oval Office Cartoon

The New Yorker has a satirical cover with Barack and Michelle in the Oval Office. A flag is burning in the fireplace. Osama's portrait hangs on the wall. Barack wears a turban and sandals. Michelle has an afro, camo pants, and assault rifle. They are doing a fist bump.

The idea, the editors say, is to make fun of people's irrational fears.

The featured story, inside the magazine, is about Obama's career in Chicago. In the story, apparently, he comes across as an ambitious politician, not a real revolutionary.

Ann Althouse thinks the cover is hilariously funny.

The Obama campaign claims it's tasteless and offensive. And the McCain campaign agrees!

When you make fun of fears, by naming them,
sometimes you just end up inflaming them.

Lots of Hope

After hearing Christopher Robinson talk about hope, I've been wondering why the Democrats have been leaning so heavily on "hope". Clinton was "the man from Hope," and Obama has "the audacity of hope."

I mean, Republicans presumably have hopes too. Bush seems to have hoped, originally, that the Iraqis would all unite behind us once we overthrew Saddam.

Hope is an expectation of good things happening. But the good things can fail to happen. They may have been impossible.

And sometimes the things you hoped for turn out to be no so good after all. Communist revolutions come to mind, but the list is long and varied.

Sometimes your hopes
are slippery slopes
which sadly divert you
and finally hurt you.

Don't despair.
But choose hopes with care.

Long Day

What a long day! I got up around 5 am to do a triathlon in Valparaiso, and now it's 2 am the next day. We just got back from a fun time in Rockford, getting a detailed China travelogue from kraorh.

I did sneak in an afternoon nap,
but now I'm ready to collapse.

Foiled

So these 6 people arrange to kidnap the fiance of a bank teller.

To get her fiance back, the bank teller was supposed to get the bad guys some money. But she went to the FBI instead.

I love this sentence from the story:

Hoisington told agents the group was counting the money in the home when they discovered the tracking device, according to an FBI affidavit.

You think
you have it made,
then your stomach sinks
and you know you've been played.

"Technically Insolvent"

Just whose brilliant idea was it for the government to create and back
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Savor the Flavor of the Day

I always resist the phrase, seize the day. It sounds to me like a non-idiomatic translation of Horace's carpe diem. But is there a good substitute?

We do have one strongly parallel construction - we speak of snatching moments.

But... moments are so much smaller than days!

Snatch enough moments
along the way
and maybe you'll end up
seizing a day.

Where Have All The Stoics Gone?

Phil Gramm, PhD, economic adviser to John McCain:

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline," said the former Texas senator. "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession."

Are we in decline,
or do we just like to whine?

As for me, I plan to complain
endlessly, like a song's refrain.

Hablo Inglés

Obama says all our children need to learn Spanish. He doesn't speak it himself. But that's not an inconsistency. It's just our kids who need to learn. Maybe that's why he decided to not let his little girls be interviewed anymore. Maybe their shameful monolingualism would be revealed!

I wish I knew more Spanish.
I knew some once. It vanished.

I think it would be sensationally nice
if they would get around to inventing a universal translation device.

Apology Time

As for Jesse Jackson, let's cut him some slack.
Obama would be nuts not to welcome him back.

The Hitopadesa

I've been reading The Hitopadesa, by Narayana, a book of guidance in the form of animal fables and proverbial verses, a collection of traditional tidbits, arranged within an overarching framework. I've been reading this translation from the Sanskrit by A.N.D. Haksar.

Here's an example of the sort of verse that appears:

Danger one should always dread
As long as it is far away.
But once it is upon your head,
Then face it in the proper way.

Featuring tricky tales of bird and beast,
it seems aimed at the warrior, not the priest.

Not on the Map

It feels like a "here", even though
it's a once-a-year traveling show.

UPDATE: Oops. Sorry, I was hopelessly cryptic. I must have had a bad case of brain fade or jet lag not to attach an explanatory preface, along these lines:

At conference, we were talking about the way people say "Were you here last year?" It's a funny use of the word "here" because "last year" was always at a different place. I suppose this happens with traveling trade shows too.

I.D. Manufacture

Elias Munoz of Chicago pleaded guilty today to being part of a conspiracy to make fake i.d.s.

He is the father of one of our aldermen.

His position was that he wasn't doing anything illegal. He was just taking photos. But he did know that most of his photos were going onto fake i.d.s.

If you know about an illegal plot
and help it along
it's hard to say you're not
doing something wrong.

Revelation

While living out of the hotel room, I read through Revelation, which was available as the last book of the Bible, courtesy of the Gideons. Growing up Catholic, we called it the Apocalypse, which I think is more colorful, not to mention closer to the Greek title. But, really, apocalypse just means "unveiling," which is pretty much a synonym for revelation.

I had often looked at the work, but I had never quite gotten through it. It's so... wacky. In the past my brain rebelled against its vague symbolism. But this time I was able to just go with it as a mysterious vision whose cognitive meaning is opaque, but whose emotional meaning is clear.

It really seems to simmer with anger and the desire to see the wealthy of the world brought down.

It's so opaque
no one can make
complete sense
of its why and whence.

Epistemuffinology

I've been thinking about Heidegger's claim that "Nothing Noughts" and I'm wondering if that's a proper translation or if he maybe meant to say that "Muffins are Naughty." I'm not sure how this could be reconciled with the axiom of epistemuffinology.

Did Heidegger, in his haughtiness,
think muffins suffered from naughtiness?

Or was his love of muffins bent,
after dating Hannah Arendt?

Mountaintop Vision

At the conference, Bill Nevin often plays a Bollywood movie. He's a big fan of these mostly musical films from India, and quite knowledgeable about them.

Meanwhile, a lot of attendees wanted updates on the Atlas Shrugged movie. Angelina Jolie is lined up to play Dagny, but the deal hasn't quite come together yet. Now there are concerns about an actors' strike.

With that set-up, here is the last of my humorous banquet verses.

I had a vision late last night
about the Atlas movie.
Dagny danced – a lovely sight
to music wild and groovy.
At first I thought, “Now this is strange.
Why is Dagny singing
In this high soprano range
that sets my ears a-ringing?”

But then it slowly dawned on me:
I couldn't understand
the words she sang so beautifully.
Had this stuff come from Rand?
She sang upon a mountaintop
cool and clear and windy.
Then I hollered: “Hold on, stop!
Dagny's singing Hindi!”

"You know this really can't be right
I shouted up to heaven.
This is a bootleg – played tonight
probably by Bill Nevin."
I got the movie stopped, of course.
The philosophy may be open,
but Atlas isn't open source
so we must go on hopin' --

Hopin' someday Hollywood
will make this gosh darn flick.
And though I trust it will be good,
I fear it it won't be quick.
Great things take time. Wait patiently.
And Dagny, as she oughter
will be played most wonderfully
by Angelina's daughter.

Where Ancient History Is Alive

Today we discovered that you're not allowed to pump your own gas here. That's right, self-serve is illegal.

You dare not pump your own
here in the Oregon zone.

Unmournful Terrapin

Here's a limerick from the banquet speech, about a local bar - the Cheerful Tortoise - that was popular with many attendees. But sometimes their rowdy loudness kept other people awake in the dorms.

There once was a tortoise so cheerful,
He never was fearful or tearful.
He danced hokey pokey,
And sang karaoke,
And gave all his buddies an earful.

Banquet

I gave a humorous speech at last night's closing dinner.

It was a fun week. We had a bunch of students from Universidad Francisco Marroquin, a notable free-market-oriented college in Guatemala.

We also had a visit from Bob Barr, the former Georgia congressman who is now running for President on the Libertarian ticket. He spoke about the right to privacy, but did not campaign at the conference.

With that set-up, here is a poem I wrote for the occasion:

We've got a big election.
It's coming up real quick
but let's not talk about it
it makes me kind of sick.

Besides this organization
is a 501-c3.
They can't endorse anybody
and still remain tax-free.

So even though Bob Barr
came to give a speech,
he couldn't ask for votes
or ask us all to reach

our hands into our pockets
for wads of campaign cash,
even though love of money
is a love we never bash.

So I shall say no more
about the coming drama.
I get a headache when I think
about McCain and Obama.

Of course they're both fine gentlemen
generous, open-handed,
but as for full-fledged freedom,
I'm not sure they understand it.

Yes, the race is quite exciting
with all its hoot and holler
but as for me I'm thinking
of moving to Guatemala.

Cowboy Poetry

Joe Duarte did a wonderful job with the topic of Cowboy Poetry.

Joe, steady and self-possessed,
read from the poetry of the West.

Free day

We kayaked the Columbia River. Well, not the whole length of it. But far enough to reach an island beach.

Then we ascended Mount Hood. Well, not the whole height of it. But high enough to pack a snowball.

When you go high
there's snow in July.

Rights and Space

Will Thomas argued that limited government didn't necessarily mean small government.

It isn't the size as such,
not truly an issue of just how much,
but more a matter of whether rights
are carefully cherished,
or whether by a thousand bites
they are allowed to perish.

Linda Tania Abrams talked about the stunning progress on the Private Space Ventures front.

What was unthinkable
will soon be unsinkable.

Figure the Future

Michael Newberry ran through a brief history of the nude and its significance.

Nudes
can be viewed
as universals imbued
with individual attitudes.

How Much Is The Bottled Water, Please?

No wonder the water here tastes funny:

Two people caught skinny dipping in a Portland reservoir that is a main source of water for the city nearly caused officials to dump millions of gallons of water and close the facility.

They were skinny dipping
in what I've been sipping.

Somehow Arising From Descartes' Meditations

Hard to say how this came up, but...

Fred Seddon boldly stated
we're a lot more complicated
than the pond scum
we evolved from.

Hope and Rights

Christopher Robinson spoke/meditated on recent research relevant to hope. He also delved into the psychological lessons of The Book Of Job.

All the troubles of the globe
visit Job
but while he grieves
he still believes
the Satanic assault
is not his fault.

Next up, a certain magazine editor spoke on Platonic Politics.

Robert Bidinotto
introduced this motto:
"I'm a movement fossil."

Then he took on the colossal
freedom movement fights
over "what are rights?"

Atheism and Light Music

This morning Ed Hudgins talked about "the new atheism." It was a good talk about contemporary writers.

In the atheism of old
God got black-holed.
In the atheism of new
it's still true.

This evening Jesse Knight spoke on "light music" with lots of educational examples. As he mentioned, it's a modern movement, and I took away the impression it was a kind of reaction to the anti-melodic and anti-happy tendencies in 20th century "serious music."

Suppress a demand
and one thing is clear:
what is banned
will reappear.

Triple Digits on the Fahrenheit

Portland, Oregon is sizzling. Hot weather seems to follow this Objectivist conference around.

Tomorrow morning 3 of us are doing the "Reach the Bridge" race. Our great fear is that we may not have time to shower before the first lecture.

I'd like to tell you that I don't sweat,
that I really don't even perspire.

But that might make me a liar,
since I do become oddly wet.

The Appeal of Repeal

The Chicago Tribune came out with an editorial today that was headlined: "Repeal the 2nd Amendment."

The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is evidence that, while the founding fathers were brilliant men, they could have used an editor. (Link fixed.)

And, yes, the Trib editors are ready, red pencils in hand. The Trib's editorials have been fiercely anti-gun for a long as I can remember. What's interesting, to me, is that gun control is clearly a failed experiment. We tried it in Chicago. How's the murder rate here? Don't ask.

Meanwhile, other states have instituted concealed-carry laws. Dire consequences were predicted, but never materialized. It turns out that armed people are still fairly reasonable people.

Having a gun
doesn't cause one
to start shooting
or looting.

Vexed by the Text

Here in Chicago, the mayor is mad.
He thinks the Heller decision was bad.

For the force of the 2nd amendment
is once again ascendant.

8 Year Old, Part 2

Yesterday I was upset with the unknown gangbanger who accidentally shot an 8 year old kid.

Today our police superintendent was upset with the kid's parents.

"I hate to say it, but the parents are to blame for that 8-year-old being shot. They choose to engage in this activity. Now we have an innocent 8-year-old who is shot," Police Supt. Jody Weis said Tuesday at an unrelated news conference, in some of his harshest words yet about the wave of child shootings.

They seem to be working on the theory that the dad was involved in rough business dealings.

Well, it was 10 at night, on a school night, and this family had all 5 of their kids in a van, parked on the street, in a tough neighborhood. The mom was sitting in the front seat, and the dad was out on the street talking to another man.

What were they talking about?

Possibly he was asking the other man
how to get all the kids in his clan
to do their homework while riding around in a van.

Looking for America

The continent rolls out before you.
Walk its width unimpeded.
No passport needed.

If you want everyone to ignore you,
that can be arranged:
just don't act too strange.

But if you're in need of a chat,
if you want to know
how their lives go,

There are plenty of folks up for that.
They'll talk off your ear
till you no longer hear.

And you'll find the range of views
truly complex
with balances and checks,

Beyond what you see on the news,
as each sifts and sounds
the facts on the ground.

"I'm Going To Miss You"

Josue Torres, age 8, was critically wounded in a drive-by shooting yesterday in a Chicago neighborhood.

As [he] was being wheeled into an operating room at Stroger Hospital late Monday, he turned to the doctors and nurses and said, "You guys have been so nice to me. When I die, I'm going to miss you," according to a hospital official.

He's not going to miss them. They saved his life. He's still in the pediatric ICU, but his prognosis is reportedly positive.

Damn you, thugs - learn to shoot straight.
Thank you, docs - your work is great.

UPDATE:

Perhaps I need to elaborate my meaning.

We've got too many innocent bystanders taking bullets because the thugs, who usually mean to shoot each other, do not take the time to acquire their intended targets. Perhaps they are bad shots, perhaps they are too scared to take their time aiming, or perhaps they just don't care. Probably all 3.

They spray an area with lead
and extra people wind up dead.

Too Bad The Arrows Missed

Did you happen to see that news story a while back about a newly discovered "uncontacted" Brazilian tribe? It featured a great photo of naked men, painted in red, aiming arrows at the photographer's plane.

But now it turns out... that it was a hoax. The tribe was not newly discovered. They had been known about for a century.

The photographer and the agency that released the pictures wanted to make it seem like they were members of a lost tribe in order to call attention to the dangers the logging industry may have on the group.

They wanted to "call attention",
using a bit of invention.

It generated a lot of buzz,
but was it a lie? You bet it was!

The Case of the Clever Hiker

Jessica Bruinsma was hiking in the Alps when she took a bad fall and got stuck on a rocky ledge.

As luck would have it, she could reach a metal cable - for a cable-car used by lumberjacks. She took off her bra and attached it to the cable.

Rasp said the cable was only within reach because the timber transport system was out of service. When a repairman restored the line on Thursday, the cable car started moving up the mountain and Bruinsma's bra reached the worker at the base.

Lingerie
saved the day.

Hurrah
for her bra.

I would have died
on the mountainside -

lacking the proper article of dress
to signal my distress.

Doing the Du

I did the MetLife Duathlon this morning. You run 2 miles, you cycle 11, you run 2.

As I was closing in on the finish line, I started thinking: it's safe to slow down, since it's very unlikely that anyone in your age group is right behind you.

That was fatigue talking. My critical brain was still functioning, slightly, and it countered: you know no such thing!

So I managed to crank it up a little.

It turns out there were 2 guys in my age group, breathing down my neck. Our finishing times were:

6 John Enright     55 M-55-59  1:12:21 
7 Chuck Wolske     55 M-55-59  1:12:27        
8 Randall Thomure  59 M-55-59  1:12:30

We had a competitive race
for the honor of 6th place.

Summer Party

Purpurachicago has a picture of me grilling for the NIF party. The party was tonight, but the pic is from about 3 years ago. It shows me, literally, fanning the flames.

We played charades. At one point, I was trying to communicate a certain song, and I had them to "sounds like": must stink / sale ee. And they knew it had something to do with a horse. But no one on my team knew the song.

I chased "Mustang Sally"
down a blind alley.

Birds Behaving Badly

There's a charming old Beatles' song, Blackbird, that makes the species sound so nice:

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life,
you were only waiting for this moment to arise

But in real life they can get territorial,
diving down from perches arboreal,
terrorizing cyclists. Here's a pictorial.

The Candidatal Seal

When I first saw Vero Possumus.
I thought: wow, that's the awesomest.

Sadly my knowledge of Latin was unclear.
I expected a Virile Possum to appear!

The Creature from Bubbly Creek

You expect it in Key Largo,
but up here in Chicago,
there's really no excuse
for a gator on the loose.

One showed up in our river today:

The alligator has teeth, but is not an adult. It is about 4 or 5-years-old and is about 4 feet long. They eat fish [but] are unpredictable around humans. The alligator was found in an area called Bubbly Creek where large carp were also swimming nearby.

There's a nice pic at the link. It's sooo cute. Just a little baby. With adorably sharp teeth.

Go home! Head for points due south!
My toes don't want to meet your mouth.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Public Financing

He whose-middle-name-shall-not-be-said has broken a pledge:

The Democrat once made a conditional agreement to accept taxpayer money from the public financing system, and accompanying spending limits, if his Republican opponent did, too.

But he's saying "Never mind!"

I'm glad. I don't want him taking taxpayer money for his campaign. Let him raise his own darn money. Which he is, by the boatload. Apparently it's being piped in through the internet.

I believe McCain is trying to figure out how to duplicate that feat. But he still thinks PayPal is just a nickname to use for your big contributors.

Please don't dredge up that pledge.
It was good when he first said it.

But now his stash of cash
is bigger... so forget it!

Bailout

Senator Dodd, head of the Senate Banking Committee, was the number one recipient of campaign contributions from Countrywide Financial.

He got VIP treatment borrowing at Countrywide when he refinanced, but said he didn't know it was because he was head of the Banking Committee.

Now he has introduced a mortgage bailout bill.

The mortgage bill would allow banks such as Bank of America and mortgage lenders like Countrywide, which BofA is in the process of acquiring, to push their worst performing loans onto government agencies.

Don't even dream that the deal is corrupt.
Dodd says it's on the up-and-up.

Politics of Genes

Insightful quote from Matthew Yglesias:

Liberals tend to believe that sexual orientation is determined by genetics but that gender-difference in behavior is not, whereas conservatives tend to believe the reverse.

I, on the other hand, get a little concerned about sweeping claims where genetics is concerned, especially when "determined" gets thrown around so loosely.

Presumably our genes
play a role,
but must that mean
they have total control?

The Remains of the Day

For book club we read The Remains of the Day. It's about an exceedingly proper English butler, who lets professional standards get in the way of the rest of his life.

To love without knowing you love,
to let your love slip away,
without ever clasping her close,
without even grasping in hope,
galls at the end of day.

Reena's Question

Reena Kapoor came to America from India, and on her blog she ponders a big question about life in the U.S:

How do you take a nation of people who have among the most prosperous lives, best chances for survival when diagnosed with deadly diseases AND live among the longest lives in the world with among the cleanest air and water not only in the world but in human history and convince them that they should be scared, really scared of just about everything?

She doesn't actually have an answer. She's looking for one. So if you've got a theory, feel free to leave her a comment.

It's hard to keep your mental function clear
when your emotions are roiled by fear.

Dr. Gorelittle

Gore endorses Obama, and so do our furry friends:

"Even our dogs and cats have learned that elections matter," he said. "This election matters more than ever because America needs change more than ever."

My dogs and cats
may be Democrats,
but the GOP is gloating:
only people will be voting.

The Case of the Floating Feet

Disturbing news from British Columbia:

A fifth foot -- this one a left one -- has washed up on an island in the mouth of B.C.'s Fraser River.

The first 4 feet were all right ones, you see.
So after this left one, we're due another 3.

I'm kind of worried about this. I plan to visit Portland, Oregon, soon, and it's not all that far from British Columbia.

I like my feet.
When they're attached, I feel complete.

If they both were somehow gone,
what would I have to walk upon?

More than Zero

Honda has rolled out a few "zero emission" cars. Actually, they do emit something - water vapor.

Sounds awfully clean. But wait:

Water vapor is a naturally occurring greenhouse gas and accounts for the largest percentage of the greenhouse effect, between 36% and 66%.

So I'm just waiting for the "oh on second thought" articles from environmentalists. It happened with paper bags. It happened with ethanol.

For now the Honda may seem
an ecological dream.

But wait till they notice it's pumping out deadly steam!

June Morning

Cottonwood seeds
blown by the wind
glisten like new falling snow.

Some hit the pool,
deep blue and cool,
spangling the water like stars in the sky.

Historic Undertaking

Mark Horowitz finally got his PhD in history from the U of Chicago, 34 years after starting the process. He got sidetracked, raising kids and starting businesses.

Among history doctoral candidates nationally, 47 percent have not graduated after 10 years. At the U. of C., it takes history students an average of 8.3 years to finish.

By the time you put that diploma on the shelf,
you've lived a lot of history yourself!

I Believe He Can Fly

R. Kelly was found not guilty today on all counts. The mostly female jury took less than 8 hours to decide.

I didn't see the tape, but it sounds like it was too poor in quality.

What's more, the mole on his back seemed to flicker in and out of existence on the tape.

I feel a Johnnie Cochran moment coming on.:

If there's no mole to see,
you must set him free!

Now, once you get off like this, the cops tend to watch you very carefully. So I have advice for him:

If you want to stay free,
first check i.d.!

UPDATE: Jurors, interviewed afterwards, said they were especially uncertain of the identity of the female on the tape.

"Most of us felt that maybe it was Kelly, maybe not," said juror John Petrean, a Romanian immigrant. "But nobody could agree if it was her. We had seen photos of her at other times and she seemed like a young girl. It seemed like the girl on the tape was much more developed."

Sticks and Stones will Break My Bones

The NY Times runs an article on the distinctiveness of the American right to free speech. Not everyone they interviews really likes the way we run things here.

But merely saying hateful things about minorities, even with the intent to cause their members distress and to generate contempt and loathing, is protected by the First Amendment.

So... take men. We're a minority. Just barely, but still. A minority with a lot of decision making power in various spheres, but a minority nonetheless.

Which is good news for anyone writing anti-male material including commercials.

If you use your pen
to say hateful things about men
the first amendment protects
attacks upon our powerful but disrespected sex!

The Gate Escape

Our fence is being replaced. It's at an in-between stage, where the yard is not properly enclosed. So our next door neighbor kindly invited our 2 retrievers over to play in her yard. And play they did!

It turns out they were fond
of her pond,
and jumped right in to splash.

Then they made a dash,
knocking her gate open wide,
and running free outside.

Now they're back at home camp,
still smelly and damp.

Unicorn Deer

From Deb Ross comes word of a unicorn deer - picture at the link of a rare deer with a single horn in the center of its head.

The article speaks of a possible genetic flaw, or possible trauma. But if it can happen once, it may have happened before.

Of course
it's a deer,
not a horse,
that's clear.

But is it the source
of the stories we hear?

Generations Back

One of my noble ancestors
was an insectivore.

(I know from surfing the internet,
not from family lore.)

It's one of those cherished traditions
I'd just as soon ignore.

Bike to Work Week

It's Bike To Work Week in Chicago.

On day 1 of bike to work week:

Someone in a parked SUV opened the door on the street side. Without looking. An oncoming cyclist went flying:

Clinton Miceli, 22, was thrown into the path of oncoming traffic and run over by a passing vehicle after hitting the car door, police said.

The driver was ticketed. The cyclist is dead.

On day 2:

A city bus hit another cyclist. The bus driver was ticketed and suspended.

The victim in Tuesday morning's accident was listed in fair condition at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

Tomorrow is day 3. Who knows what it might bring?

What I think I'd like
is an airbag for my bike.

Crosswalk Stings

Chicago police are running crosswalk stings.

Basically, a cop in plainclothes steps into a crosswalk at a busy intersection. If a driver doesn't stop, he or she gets a warning.

Sounds dangerous for the officer, and needlessly complicated.

Why bother with the plainclothes? I bet plenty of people won't even stop for a uniformed police officer who is trying to cross the street!

Some drivers are in such a hurry
pedestrians have to scurry.

5k Day

I got to shake hands with Ronald McDonald today.

I won my age group for a 5k that was raising money ($47,000) for a Ronald McDonald House in Oak Lawn, IL.

A professional photog snapped a shot of me and Ronald - with his shoes big and floppy.
I need to get a copy!

We had a clown-to-clown rapport.
Who could ask for anything more?

I also got to meet my congressman, Dan Lipinski, who ran quite a bit faster than me. He won his own age group. He seemed... perfectly normal. It's always a shock when an elected official comes across that way. Usually they seem to me like they're acting a bit.

I suppose it could be a really good act,
but I felt that's how he was in fact.

Change

When you're in favor of change,
folks shouldn't think it strange
if you modify positions
to suit your high ambitions.

Laurels

John McCain was recently asked if he could name America's poet laureate.

He didn't know it.

There go the votes
of a posse of poets!

But even the guy asking the question didn't know the right answer.

I guess it's nice to be the poet laureate.
But if no one knows your name, where's the glory at?

Holding Tank Blues

Rescue crews in Pennsylvania had to free a naked man from the holding tank of a porta-potty. Somehow he fell in, but was able to use his cell phone to call for help.

What I don't get is why, if he was naked, he still had his cell phone.

Perhaps he was making a call
when he took a mis-step in the stall
and had his unfortunate fall.

Let this be a warning to all!

Overworked Lawyer

He staunchly defended
the young and the poor.

His day never ended,
he worked more and more.

He even worked 40 hours one day.
You don't believe it? What can I say?

Neither does the disbarment committee.
His future is not looking pretty.

We Don't Need No Standards

Our neighbors to the north have tribunals called Human Rights Commissions. They investigate offenses which consist of somebody being offended. They conduct trials which are reportedly unhampered by standard safeguards:

The Commission courts obey no standard rules of evidence nor rules for expert testimony. They presume guilt, and are supervised by political hacks, not real judges. They have powers to seize and search that EXCEED (!) those of the police. They seem accountable to no one. They believe they "know better" than regular people, than elected politicians, than those who disagree with their ideology. This seems to permit them to justify any action, even if ethically questionable or downright illegal, to accomplish their "mission".

If this is true, perhaps they're called "Human Rights Commissions" because they are in the business of cutting back on those pesky rights.

It's an example of the principle that the best way to interfere with real rights is to create false ones.

Whether or not it was intended,
a right not to be offended
will reach
to the heart of free speech.


UPDATE: glowingwhispers lends her expertise on Canadian law, and points out that these proceedings ARE in fact open to judicial review. See her comments here.

Bow Down And Face The Planet!

Apparently three days of debate was enough for what many senators called "the most important issue facing the planet."

Oh, and that bill? They decided to can it.
Which was just as well for the planet.

Born Again

Lot's of folks say they're born again. Usually it's just a metaphor.

But this girl left the womb,
to have an operation,
then re-entered, to resume
her 9 month hibernation.

There Can Be Only One

I was invited to attend a rally today for Chicago's 2016 Olympics bid. But I didn't go.

And who do you think just happened to show up?

"It's a good time to be in Chicago," presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said to the cheering crowd. "The White Sox are winning. The Cubs are winning. And Chicago's going to win the 2016 Olympics."

Obama is stepping onto dangerous ground there, trying to project benevolence to both the Sox and the Cubs. If you live in Chicago you're supposed to pick one of them and stick it to the other!

By birthright, I'm opposed to the Cubs,
in practice and in theory.

But they've suffered through 99 years of flubs,
so just this once I hope they win the Series.

Dedication

My son's dissertation is dedicated to a dying man - the father of a friend - who first got him excited about physics, "who encouraged us to measure gravity in the basement."

Not everyone knows that gravity is measurable.
Even fewer find this activity pleasurable.

Whack-a-Mole

The R. Kelly underage-sex-video trial has taken a strange turn.

Now they're arguing about a mole that's on Kelly's back.

If the guy on the tape is back-mole-free, then it can't be R. Kelly. The state's expert says you can see the mole, now and then, on the grainy old video.

The Kelly expert says it's not
a mole at all, just a shadowy spot
that fades in and out of view
which a big ole mole wouldn't do.

Of course, we're not allowed to see the tape and judge for ourselves - it's child porn! At least, the prosecution claims it is. Anyway, no one can see it. Unless you're sitting in the courtroom. Then it's okay.

I gather that looking at child porn isn't a crime, as such, but that owning some, or copying some, must be against the law. You may have noticed that they always charge people with "downloading" it to their computers. But... technically... every time you "just look" at an image on the internet, it in fact gets "downloaded" to your computer. These laws seem to have been written in the age of online bulletin boards.

Meanwhile, technology marches on, and now teenagers are taking naked photos of themselves with their cell phones and sending the pics along to special friends. Some of these pics end up on the net.

The images are complicating the work of investigators whose job is to find exploited children. Authorities trying to identify youngsters in naked photos are increasingly discovering that the teens themselves took the shots, said John Shehan, a director at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Part of the problem seems to be
that full-blown cases of puberty
arrive before they're legally free
to swim the deep end of the sea.