Tug of War

Mr. Croc, do you know what you've chomped?
If you don't let go you may get stomped!

UPDATE: It's a baby elephant, and it got away.

Shades of Gray

That's the president on Wednesday and the president on Saturday. Go back to the videos (here & here) if you want.

Ann Althouse writes:

Gray for the memorial, signifying the wise elder, the father figure. Back to dark hair to signify the vigorous young man, ready to forge ahead, solving problems, and restoring his party's electoral fortunes.

Hey, it's his business if he wants to color his hair. I'm just going to use this opportunity to parody Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that grim gray,
Wage open war, by dyeing it away!

Price-Fixer in Private Education?

The Wall St. Journal recently ran a defense of for-profit colleges in its opinion section. The article, by Donald E. Graham, included this claim:

There is a price-fixer in private education—it's called the U.S. government. Long-existing regulations all but eliminate price competition. We are willing to cut prices on some programs and keep them low for years in return for relief from regulations that mandate our tuitions.

What regulations is he referring to? He doesn't say!

I wonder if it has to do with strings attached to the federal student loan program. Most of the students at these schools take federal loans to pay a big chunk of their tuitions.

Hillsdale College famously does not accept federal aid for its students, in order to avoid the attendant federal regulatory intrusion.

Who pays the piper
call the tune,
as colleges learned
all too soon.

Gadsden Reimagined

It's time to erase
that serpent's head
and place instead
a smiley face!

(From Chip Ahoy at Althouse's request)

Matrimonium Economicus

In today's Wall St. Journal there was an interesting review of The Price of Everything. The author of this book has an economic theory to explain the increased prevalence of monogamy over the past 2000 years. But the reviewer demurs:

There was, however, an important noneconomic event 2,000 years ago that spread the Jewish view—unusual at the time—of marriage as a monogamous institution: the birth of Christianity.

This gave me pause, for 2 reasons.

1) Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations viewed marriage as a monogamous institution.

2) Biblical Jewish civilization allowed for multiple wives.

It is even reported that:

Jewish polygamy clashed with Roman monogamy at the time of the early church

Thus, the idea that monogamy came into Western culture from Jewish civilization seems just wrong.

So is marriage a matter of body or spirit or economics? Yes!

Two shall become one flesh,
and their pocketbooks shall mesh.

Wild Flowers Reading

We're having a free reading of my new full-length play on February 1, at 7:30 pm, at Dream Theatre. It's called Wild Flowers, and it's about a young woman who finds out that she may not be an American citizen - that she may be deported shortly to Russia. As the play opens, she's doing yoga on her patio, trying to clear her mind, and a young man walks up, offering to help.

We're planning on a July 2011 production. Last time around, with Ready Or Not, I made some changes to the script, based on a reading or two. So I want to hear how it sounds. There will be some audience discussion afterwards.



This cartoon (which you can get on a shirt) isn't based on the play, but somehow it goes well with the play.

Wild flowers
have the power
to succeed
as weeds.

Pay Up Or Put Down

The town clerk of Reconvilier, Switzerland is threatening to kill dogs whose owners don't cough up the 50 buck annual dog tax.

Town clerk Pierre-Alain Nemitz has received death threats over the new approach to tax collection.

I think the clerk
sounds like a jerk.

He shouldn't make threats
against people's pets.

On Their Hands

I'm really not a Palin fan, but after this current attack on her I'm almost ready to give her a sympathy vote.

The claim that she has "blood on her hands" over the Arizona shooting is deeply disconnected from reality.

The people who spread it, for sure,
have stuff on their hands - manure.

There's a famous philosophy article by Harry Frankfurt, provocatively titled: "On Bullshit".

While liars need to know the truth to better conceal it, bullshitters, interested solely in advancing their own agendas, have no use for the truth. Thus, Frankfurt claims, "...bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are"

They claim to have the scoop
but all they give you is poop.

Glass on a Hot Tin Roof

In our production of Cat, we use a fair amount of real glassware on stage. The script calls for the male lead - who always has a drink in his hand - to fall to the floor a couple of times. Tonight he broke a glass on the floor, for real.

He walks about on stage with one foot bare. So he cut his foot. Enough to make him limp.

And "Big Daddy" cut his hand, slightly.

And "Maggie" cut her leg when she knelt to the floor to admire Big Daddy's slippers.

Bloody hell!
Otherwise the show went well.

Scooby Did

A 14 year old Chicago girl was attacked by a man twice her age, in her own front yard:

He threw her down and tried pulling off her clothing. She struggled and screamed.

That's when a Great Dane named Scooby showed up. With owner in tow. No word on whether he declared "Ruh roh!"

Scooby and his owner chased the attacker into an alley - and cornered him until the cops showed up.

No word on whether Scooby was rewarded for this good deed with special snacks.

A dog who foils this sort of attack
always deserves a special snack.

Facial Expression Question

What is this facial expression? It strikes me as emotionally charged, oddly haunting. The lips are turning down a little. The eyes are wide. Is it controlled fear? That would make sense, given why her picture was taken. Is there something defiant about her expression?

Is her mug
somehow smug?

Arizona Monster

I see the murderous Arizona rampager was rambling on about "conscience dreaming". What? Did he dream that he had a conscience? Because he doesn't seem to have much of one. Or did he mean "conscious dreaming"? That would be kind of funny since he also was rambling on about people not being good at English grammar, and here he is getting his spelling wrong.

Meanwhile, there has been an eruption of ridiculous political blame-gaming. Have you ever noticed how crazed assassins usually fall outside the normal political party lines? There's a reason for that. It's because they're crazed.

I do have a question. This was in Arizona. Which, according to some, is full of gun-toters. Where were they? Why didn't anyone shoot this guy? Is the prevalence of gun-toters in AZ exaggerated? Was the Congresswoman's meeting a gun-free zone for some reason? Someone finally tackled the guy, but I'm guessing that was after he ran out of bullets in his 9mm pistol.

I suppose this case will be forgotten in a few years, except among the people who knew the victims, including the family of the 9 year old girl that this monster shot.

For them the pain will persist
as long as they exist.

Limerick for the Birds

There was a girl parrot so glamorous,
all the boy parrots grew clamorous.
She gave each a turn.
None did she spurn.
Her name was, of course, Polly Amorous.

Constitutional "Fetish"

I've been grimly amused by all the complaining about the reading of the Constitution in the House of Representatives.

As Paul at PowerLine wrote:

...instead of good naturedly going along with the exercise, or suffering in silence, a number of leftists publicly displayed their lack of comfort with, if not contempt for, the Constitution. Thus, the public received its clearest indication to date that the left regards the words of the Constitution as an impediment to its agenda.

The left, under the Bush administration, actually took the opposite tack. They were always complaining that the Republican administration was violating the Constitution.

Of course, hypocrisy is nothing new in politics. But the philosophies of pragmatism and post-modernism both provide increased support to "saying what works" and not worrying about consistency or truth.

Under the system proposed in Plato's Republic, at least the rulers knew they were lying. They had to justify it as noble lying. But under some modern philosophies, there's no such thing as lying, because there's no such thing as unyielding truth.

American popular culture has long held a special place in its heart for our Constitution. It's not viewed simply as a legal document. It is revered as a sacred gift from inspired (though fallible) founders. This is a peculiarly American attitude. In terms of the postmodern left, we "fetishize" the document.

This special reverence for the Constitution was a major feature of the Tea Party phenomenon, and now it has leaked into the Republican Party.

Time magazine chirps in with an article on "the Cult of the Constitution" by Alex Altman, which includes this complaint:

But the notion that our governing document should never evolve has always struck me as mildly insane.

I suppose "evolve" is the key word. The document itself includes a process for amending the document. This process has been used. We're up to 27 amendments. We even have one amendment that specifically cancels out a previous amendment. But this isn't the kind of evolving he has in mind. He has in mind evolving understanding of what was already written. He has in mind reinterpretation.

Reinterpretation is the "fetish" of the post-modernists.

Every text
is seen as vexed -
in need of being re-read
until the meaning is dead.

It's their core trick,
and it makes me sick.

Cat Opens

We did Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to an audience tonight. The show seemed to go well, with a few kinks which the audience probably did not detect. Here's a picture... I think from one of the dress rehearsals:



This is the beginning of the big moment for my part, where I deliver the really bad news.

One thing that's very clever about the play is that Brick has broken his leg the night before - which justifies all the play's action taking place in Brick and Maggie's bedroom, because Brick is confined to his room so Big Daddy's whole birthday party comes upstairs to the bedroom.

Brick being temporarily crippled - and dependent upon a crutch - is probably also a visual metaphor for his wretched alcohol dependence.

So his broken leg doubles as a symbol and a "keep it all in one room" staging gimmick.

Williams gives you a well-written earful
of frustrated souls who aren't very cheerful.

Oopsies

Oopsie 1:

A pilot's spilled coffee accidentally triggered a hijacking alert and caused a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, to make an unscheduled stop in Canada.

Let's give him a sippy cup
before he takes his next plane up.

Oopsie 2:

In a spectacular misunderstanding sparked by an accidental cell phone call, a worried wife caused SWAT teams to swarm the Winnetka school where her husband works, officials said Tuesday.

He was listening to a gangsta song,
but his wife thought something was really wrong.

Fortunately, these false alarms
led to no lasting harms.

Pointing a Finger at Feline Malingerers

It's an old argument. Which are smarter - dogs or cats? Lately, I had seen some articles trumpeting dogs' understanding of humans. But along comes a cat article that makes those mischievous kitties look pretty devious:

They don't talk, but when cats are upset about a change in their environment they let you know by acting sick – refusing to eat and vomiting excessively, even if they're healthy, a new study finds.

In other words, these kitties call in sick, and vomit like they've got it, even though they're fine.

That's not just smart,
that's almost art.

Nativity Scene, Bagged

In the building where I work, which is owned and partly occupied by a Catholic University, they have a nativity scene every Christmas in the ground floor hallway.

For the past week or so, the nativity scene figures - which are good-sized - have been wrapped up in dark plastic bags. Just sitting there. Awaiting pick-up for storage, I assume.

But it's a bit macabre, because it looks sort of like the wise men and the shepherds and the holy family are all in body bags.

It's gone from cheer
to drear.

If you must bag them all,
please take them out of the hall!

Crossed Lines

Many actors have a facility for making up lines that sound a lot like the playwright's lines - but aren't. It's a valuable skill.

When you're rehearsing
and someone forgets a line
you can't just start cursing.
You have to go on like it's fine.

Sometimes you even have to make something up. Suppose the dialog is like this:

A: Did you shoot him?
B: No.

Suppose A forgets his line. What is B to do? Probably something like this:

A: (uncomfortable pause)
B: I suppose you're wondering if I shot him. No!

It pays to be glib
when you need to ad lib.

The King's Speech

We went to see The King's Speech. I had no idea what the film was about, going in, except that it had something to do with British royalty in the 20th century, a subject that doesn't usually fascinate me.

But the film was fascinating after all, because it was about a man's struggle with a speech impediment.

He is helped - almost against his will - by a self-taught Australian speech therapist - played by Geoffrey Rush.

Colin Firth transformed himself for the role of George VI. I believed he had a speech impediment. It was painful to watch him in the early parts of the film.

It's a hard thing
to try to be king
when normal speech
is out of reach.

I'll Be Awake

Some choose to sleep through the arrival of the new year.

And why not slumber?
It's only a number.

"Weird Perversion"

Matthew Yglesias, prominent liberal blogger, tweets:

I know they see it the other way, but I see myself as a liberal and "libertarianism" is a weird perversion of the idea.

You don't hear liberals speak publicly about "perversion" much anymore. We are now officially accepting of most statistical variation in sexual preferences.

Thank goodness there is still one area of life where "perversion" can be applied!

Much that was perverse,
seen as weird or worse,
in matters that were sexual,
now is strictly contextual.

But when it comes to politics,
and what is normal in the mix,
"freedom-fetishists" seem so weird,
wild, wacky, much to be feared.

Costume for Doc

I found a thrift-store summer-weight beige suit, that seems perfect - to me at least - for my role as Doc Baugh.

I found it today through dumb luck.
and it only cost me ten bucks.

We're supposed to bring costumes tonight
to see how they look in the light.

I had a suit of my own that might have been okay, light-weight grey plaid, but when I'm in character I like wearing something that's not really mine.

It may seem a bit of a quirk
but it helps me with this sort of work.

Rollover

For better or worse, 2010
Won't be coming back again.

My mind understands that, but I expect
My fingers will slip when I first sign a check.

Snow Daze in NYC

I was living in Queens when New York City got heavy snows in the late 70s... and it wasn't pretty. Well, like all snow, it was pretty at first. Then it got pretty ugly.

Anyway, I found this video pretty amusing. The commentary involves cursing - from the guy filming it out his window - so be forewarned. The commentary itself asks a classic New York question. "Are you out of your mind?!"



The Explorer may not be totally destroyed,
but if I were the owner, I'd be pretty annoyed.

Blizzard

Snow socked the Eastern U.S. yesterday, but my 2 children waited until today to fly out of the frigid sunny skies of Chicago.

The East was submersed
by a wintry burst.

I hope, at least, they missed the worst

Voluntary Advance Care Planning

Lovely:

When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Who needs legislation
when you've got regulation?

Anyway, there won't be death panels. There may be some end-of-life panels, I suppose.

Ann Althouse has a lawyerly analysis here.

Sign the piece of paper,
so when life begins to taper
and you are not thinking straight...
well, you won't have long to wait.

Procrastinator's Perspective

The Trib ran a story about last minute shoppers.

I love this quote:

“I tried to avoid last-minute shopping, but it just crept upon me,” said Homrich, a mother of two who still had another stop to make, at Williams-Sonoma.

Christmas is like that.

It creeps
and it leaps
and it's suddenly HERE!

Then it's gone
again...
until Next Year.

White Christmas, Colorized

Snowy
but glowy.

When the Yuletide rolls around

and even somewhat after,

I hope that you will hear the sound

of warm and loving laughter.

Don We Now Our Darth Apparel

Apparently this item is for sale.

Santa Vader plays in the snow,
taking a break from his work of woe.

Sad Event

Two Chicago firefighters died today when a roof collapsed at a fire. I know a few firefighters but I didn't know these guys.

Generally, it's a safer job than it used to be. But, as today's disaster proves, it's still hazardous duty. It's not for the faint of heart.

Walking into a fire, when all are running out,
that's the kind of job we're talking about.

A Test Too Far

I'm glad I wasn't on this trip:

An acclaimed outdoorsman who wrote movingly about testing himself against nature is presumed dead after a crocodile snatched him from his kayak while he led an American expedition from the source of the White Nile into the heart of Congo.

Beware the teeth
that lurk
beneath
the water's murk.

Solstice Beagle Searches For Answers

 
Solstice Beagle prepares to probe
where exactly on the globe
all the global warming went.

"I need it now!" is his lament.

The Day of Living Dangerously

Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, tries to reassure us:

What I say to the American people is that… thousands of people are working 24/7, 364 days a year to keep the American people safe.

Don't scoff.
Everyone deserves a day off.

Which day did they decide?
Hopefully that's classified.

Christmas Platypus

The Christmas Platypus
says be of good cheer,
but something funny
is going on here.

His fur and his bill
made me a believer,
but he's really a duck
combined with a beaver.

(Sewing and design, courtesy of Anna Weiler Menekseoglu.)

Icicle Salutation

I went to my yoga class this morning. It was a beautiful sunny day, but with a temperature well under freezing.

Alas, the yoga center's heat was out, so I had to turn around and head home.

It's hard to get in the pose
when your body is froze.

L.A. Tan Hero

The excitement starts at 3:40, when an actual customer walks in the door. Within a minute he has taken the robber's gun, and soon after that he shoots and kills the robber. The shooting takes place off camera.

You have to watch closely, but the robber puts his gun down on the counter, gets a piece of rope to tie up the customer, drops something on the floor, goes to pick it up... and the customer makes his move.

The robber turns out to be a very bad dude known as the honeybee killer.

The civilian who killed the killer was a 29 year old man named Jason McDaniel, who says he doesn't want to be thought of as a hero:

"A hero is a police officer, a fireman, the troops that do this every day. Me, I'm just a father. A new father, wanting to come home to his child," McDaniel said.

You hear stuff like that from heroes. A lot.

You and I may think he was brave
to grab away the robber's gun
but he just sees it as
doing what had to be done.

Chicago Crawlspace

The strange case of Rahm Emanuel's Residency drags on, with today's hearing focused on... crawlspace.

He's running for mayor of Chicago. Illinois law requires that he be a Chicago resident during the year before the election.

His position is that he was a Chicago resident all along, even when he was living in Washington.

He filed Illinois tax returns, even if he mistakenly described himself on one as part-time resident. He voted here, even if he used an absentee ballot. He had a house here, even if it was rented out.

And... he left boxes of valuable stuff in his Chicago basement.

But... one of the current tenants testified that she had never seen these boxes.

So lawyers with cameras were sent to the house, and photos were introduced into evidence. The boxes were in a locked basement crawlspace... that the tenant didn't know about.

So the crawlspace mystery, at least, was cracked.

But was he, legally, a local resident
while in DC, working for the president?

Soon the hearing officer's decision will be revealed,
and then, by the loser, appealed.

Whatever!

How did this happen?

For the second consecutive year "whatever' topped a Marist poll as the most annoying word or phrase in the English language.

Actually, it was a perfectly useful and innocuous adjective. And then it morphed into an interjection... and swept the nation as a short form of "I couldn't care less about what you are saying".

So never
say "Whatever!"
unless you enjoy
your power to annoy.

Labyrinths

Caught in a maze
of his own design
he wandered its ways
awaiting a sign.

Update: I was thinking about Borges, and the way his tendency to Berkeleyan subjectivism cuts him off from feeling in touch with reality. At least, that's how I read the collection called Labyrinths.

Tannenbaum in Progress

I put the lights up, so my work here is almost done. Marsha usually does the ornaments - except for one.

The ornament on top of the tree
gets placed by me.

Chips Ahoy

A crime both spectacular and poorly thought out:

An armed bandit escaped Tuesday on a motorcycle after stealing at least $1.5 million in casino chips from the posh Bellagio resort...

Some of the chips are worth 25 thousand each.

The number one problem is that those chips are only good at the Bellagio.

He stole a stash
and gave them the slip
but can he safely cash
a 25k chip?

Non Equivalence

The First Lady:

Childhood obesity isn’t just a public health issue, it’s not just an economic threat, it’s a national security threat as well.

A national security threat! Really?

Let's not involve the NSA
in what American children weigh.

Waxing Poetic

A haiku, not a rhyme, about something I saw / imagined in the sky recently:

Lowering its horns,
charging the dark horizon,
untamed crescent moon.

Dome Deflation

A lot of snow came down in Minnesota, and something else came down with it:

In Minneapolis, the roof of the city's 64,000-seat football stadium caved in, its iconic dome no longer visible after more than 17 inches of snow blanketed the Twin Cities since Friday.

Of course the people who designed and built this stadium must have know that it snows a lot in Minneapolis. But something went wrong. Maybe it will turn out to be a maintenance problem. The roof is covered with Teflon. Was that to make the snow slide off? Maybe it needed a new coat of Teflon!

It's a sorry tale.
The snow exceeded its quota,
leading to Metrodome Fail
in Minnesota.

Update: The roof, which is inflated to stay up, has collapsed before. Kevin Seifert of ESPN writes:

For those who are interested, the roof is kept inflated by fans at the top of the structure. When it snows, Metrodome operators heat the building to more than 80 degrees to melt away any accumulation. In extreme situations, workers are stationed on the roof to remove snow with fire hoses and hot water. (I’m not making this up.)

Maybe they simply blundered
by not cranking the heat to one hundred.

Update: Video of collapse from inside here.

In The Headlines

William Zinsser has an amusing but depressing piece on the tendency of the New York Times to feature headlines of the "Yes, But" format.

The pattern is:

Positive Trend
Faces Unhappy End

You see it all over the press, but I suspect the Times does it the most. He has lots of real examples.

But then he imagines how the Times would have spun the events of 1776:

JEFFERSON WRITES ‘DECLARATION,’
BUT BRITISH VOW ARMS BUILD-UP

Are their headline writers simply hedging their bets?
Must every announcement come with regrets?

Extreme Language Games

Roll Call describes a raucous Democratic Caucus:

One unidentified lawmaker went so far as to mutter “f--- the president” while Rep. Shelley Berkley was defending the package the president negotiated with Republicans.

Since it was a Democrat,
perhaps there's nothing wrong with that.

If a Republican had said it,
I think the press would make him regret it.

Re-Enter the Dragon

Human space travel news:

For the first time, a commercial spacecraft gently returned to Earth from orbit on Wednesday.

There wasn't anyone inside. It was a test. NASA wants someone to build a way for their astronauts to visit the Space Station, and this is one of the entries. The cabin was pressurized, and everything went well.

“If there were people sitting in the Dragon capsule today, they would have had a very nice ride,” Mr. Musk said.

Very sweet.
Save me a seat.

How Convenient

Ted Turner is calling for the entire world to implement China's one-child policy.

Even though he has 5 kids.

But he's got a way to justify that:

Turner went on to suggest that fertility rights could be sold so that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce.

Ted's loaded. He can purchase from the poor
the rights to have another four.

Altruism as Appeasement, Revisited

Social scientists keep trying to devise experiments to prove things many of us already thought we knew.

In situations where people were given awards they did nothing to earn the sense of getting an unjustified advantage caused people to act more altruistic. They probably wanted to dampen down the feeling of malicious envy in others.

The article distinguishes 2 types of envy. Malicious envy motivates you to attack the recipient of an unearned award. Benign envy motivates you to emulate someone who has earned their award.

Those who feel their prizes were unearned
fear being envy-burned
and try more to please
as a way to appease.

Those who feel their victory was fair,
don't so much care.

Doc on a Hot Tin Roof

I've been studying my part - the doctor in Cat.

Based on the play alone, you would guess that Tennessee Williams did not exude trust toward doctors. And his biography suggests reasons why:

Tennessee was close to his sister Rose, a slim beauty who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age... Williams' parents authorized a prefrontal lobotomy. ...the operation incapacitated Rose for the rest of her life.

Her surgery may have contributed to his alcoholism and his dependence on various combinations of amphetamines and barbiturates often prescribed by Dr. Max (Feelgood) Jacobson.

The real life Dr. Feelgood was quite the character:

...Jacobson was known for his "miracle tissue regenerator" shots which consisted of amphetamines, vitamins, painkillers, and human placenta.

One doctor wrecked his sister's brain.
One shot him up with dubious stuff.

If it's distrust that you want to explain,
that's explanation enough.

Mean Misdemeanor

 
Is this the face of a serial baby scratcher?
She did it in front of the parents, which made it easy to catch her.

Her name is Lisa Hench. She's a prominent real-estate agent in La Jolla, CA. But I don't think we can blame this on the housing market.

The parents say Hench would make friends with the mother's of the children at a La Jolla school. They say she then would ask to hold them or play with them. When she got them in her arms, the parents say, she would shake them and scratch them, in front of the parents.

She has plead guilty to 8 misdemeanor counts.

She has 3 children of her own.

Motherhoodness
is no guarantee of goodness.

Unofficial Arrival of Winter

We have fluffy, crystalline H₂O,
otherwise known as snow.

(I added a photo of the first snow-person I've seen this season.)

Tom Swift Jr.

A couple of friends tagged me with a Facebook meme where you're supposed to list 15 fictional characters who will always be with you.

Well, as one friend wrote, "15 is a lot". But one character who affected me deeply, perhaps the first chronologically, was Tom Swift Jr., boy genius-inventor. 

This was when I was in elementary school, when I wanted to be an inventor, before I became deeply intrigued by creative writing.

Sometimes people ask me how I can enjoy computer programming. Wouldn't I rather be writing poems full time, they wonder. But, to me, writing programs feels like inventing things. So, in its way, it feels like the fulfillment of a childhood dream.

I suppose writing poems also feels like inventing things.

There's more than one dimension
to the world of invention.

Interpretation or Bust

In Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams, there's a line about a medicine for heavy drinkers, said to be called "Annie Bust" tablets.

The actual pill is called Antabuse, which was relatively new at the time the play was written.

Why did he include this pun?
Did he do it just for fun?
And was that his whole intent?
Just what was it that he meant?

Kill or Capture

Some CIA guy asks:

"Have we made detention and interrogation so legally difficult and politically risky that our default option is to kill our adversaries rather than capture and interrogate them?"

He neglects to mention that to capture people, you have to get close to them. Which is a physical risk.

I also think that for most Americans it feels cleaner to kill an enemy combatant on the field than to torture him in a room.

We have various rules
against being cruel,
but when you get blown
apart by a drone,
it's common belief
that the pain will be brief.

Berserker Heritage

We watched The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

We watched with subtitles, but it was fun listening to the Swedish. Every sentence or two you heard cognates - words that you recognized as sounding like an English equivalent.

Like when they say God Jul, which sounds like Good Yule, but which was subtitled as Merry Christmas.

The story is gruesome,
portraying Sweden
as very unlike
the Garden of Eden.

Up A Tree

You might think it would be hard to get your pickup truck 30 feet up a tree. But one woman did it without even trying.

It happened in Pennsylvania:

Police said Bowser hit a car, a guardrail and a pole before bouncing over the rail and becoming stuck in a tree over Connoquenessing Creek.

Apparently it was icy. She survived. Just fine. Rescue workers lowered her with ropes.

The cops gave her a ticket for driving too fast for road conditions. That's one of those 20/20 hindsight citations, if you ask me.

If you put your car in a tree, way up high,
and somehow manage not to die
in the process of getting it there...

An exemption from tickets is only fair!

Anticlimax

I googled "Wikileaks anticlimactic", to see if anyone agreed with me. Sure enough. Funniest line from the article:

The best thing about the UN is that it gathers so many international criminals together in one place should we ever want to take them out as a group.

If you've read a few books about World War I - the war where so many of the diplomatic cables have been declassified - you'll get a deep sense of deja vu when you browse through what has been revealed so far.

Of course, letting all this stuff fall into the hands of Leaky Wicks was stone stupid.

Diplomats spy
and write rude posts
about their hosts?
I'm shocked. Oh my.

Dr. Baugh

We ran through my big scene in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a few times tonight..

I jokingly compare the function of Dr. Baugh to a bad-news messenger in a Greek tragedy. But he's obviously something more than that, too.

How much mendacity
is laced in his veracity?

Anyway,
he's fun to play.

Anti-Production Reform

The L.A. Times had a story about the failure of "land reform" in South Africa.

They profiled a black man who used to drive a tractor on a farm owned by a white man. Under apartheid, there were special barriers to blacks owning farm land, a clear injustice.

Under land reform, he got a piece of farm land. But it hasn't worked out so well. His farm has no electricity, no clean water supply, and the phone wire and fences have been stolen from the farm. His farm's chief product is cow manure. He remembers how it used to be:

"I thought I'd be much better off. But I think it was better with Mr. Engelbrecht. We lived high with Mr. Engelbrecht. We got money from him and we could look after our children."

It's a sad story, but an old one. It turns out the people in charge under the old regime, who didn't seem to be contributing labor to the farm enterprise, actually were contributing something. Namely, decisions. Management, whether on a farm or in a factory, is vital. The laborers may not see it, but it remains the case.

In the case of land reform, you typically also lose economies of scale that were in place. Compounding it all in South Africa is the breakdown in law and order. This man's fences have been stolen. So much for "Good fences make good neighbors."

Land redistribution:
a recurrent failed solution.

Running in the Cold

This morning I ran one of those ubiquitous "Turkey Trot" 5k races. This one started 3 blocks from my house, so it was almost obligatory.

A number of people wore humorous turkey hats. Like this one:


It was clear and bright as we trotted,
but no actual turkeys were spotted.

Icelandic Mystery

There's a variety of evidence that Vikings came to America before Columbus did. Now this:

Analyzing a type of DNA passed only from mother to child, scientists found more than 80 living Icelanders with a genetic variation similar to one found mostly in Native Americans.

When they say "a type of DNA" they mean mitochondrial DNA.

Researchers are a bit puzzled, because Viking sagas make no mention of ferrying a Pocahontas type back to Iceland.

On the other hand, are we sure they included everything in their sagas?

I guess that if a Viking
found a woman to his liking,
he might ask her on his ship
for a back-to-Iceland trip.

Bored with blondes, I bet,
so he fell for a brunette!

Aftermath

I'm stuffed
just enough.

Fission As Ammunition

It has been 65 years since the only war-time use of the atomic bomb - when the U.S. hit 2 Japanese cities.

Really, that's a remarkable run of not actually using a new weapons technology. A study of history shows humans using whatever weapons they can get their hands on. So this is a case of unusual restraint.

A friend of mine argued that some time in the 21st century, terrorists will set off an a-bomb in an American city.

He was arguing this in the late 20th century. Well... so far, so good.

We've gotten through one tenth of the 21st
without enduring the radioactive worst.

Airport Nonadventure

Here in the States it's the Busiest Travel Day of the Year as people crisscross the country to make Extended Family Turkey Dinners.

I picked up my daughter at Midway Airport here in Chicago. There was a big flow of people, but it seemed more efficient than usual. I suspect they had extra staff on the job. Certainly the place was just crawling with security of various types, including a generous supply of Chicago's finest.

Despite cold rain
my daughter's plane
arrived on land
on time, as planned.

Costume

Costume design credit goes to Rachel Martindale, who personally sewed the furry red robe and hat.

If you haven'st started shopping,
it's almost time to get hopping!

But Santa doesn't do that himself.
He's assigned it to an elf.

Negotiating Nothing

Apparently the U.S. has been engaged in high-level peace talks with a Taliban leader. And we gave him lots of money.

But he was an impostor.

American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership.

Kerplunk.
We got punked.

My Big Drama Day

In the afternoon I attended this event, where 2 of my own plays were included, and performed wonderfully by the students, namely the super-imaginative Hanna Maloney, the lively-but-ghostly Julia Marmo, and the very presidential Greg Doherty. Special thanks to director Heather Kurut, for inviting me to submit the plays.

And in the evening I performed in the final performance of The Devilish Children. Here is the painted Christmas tree at the center of set.

It was the oddest of days.
I got applause for 3 plays,
for acting and for writing.
Exquisitely exciting!

I Bet All Those EU Regulations Don't Help

Newsweek mentions that Europeans have lots more vacation time than Americans do. So they work less per year to start with.

But Newsweek says the real problem is worse:

Even when Europeans do work, they work less productively.

Despite being so well-rested
on average they get bested.

Doubts About China

Megan McArdle writes:

One of the enduring mysteries of the Chinese economy is, well, all the enduring mysteries about the Chinese economy. Which is to say, good statistics are very hard to come by.

She wonders what's really going on, and I wonder too.

Is there lurking trouble -
a soon-to-pop Chinese bubble?

Apotheosis

A god like this, with many arms
is capable of many harms.

Demeter's Lament

Autumn. The Greeks had a myth for it:

During this time Demeter grieves for her daughter, so she takes her gifts away from the world, and brings on the winter when no grain grows. When Persephone returns from the underworld Demeter returns her gifts to the world, and spring comes. This is why Demeter is associated with the change of the seasons.

The wind runs through the grass
on this chilly November day
and I remember the way you smiled.

Shy but full of joy,
sweet but full of sass.
Alas, my darling child.

Dream City

Fishbowl DC characterizes Congress as "Temptation Island" and relays this observation:

"Especially unattractive members of the Congress who have not had women show attention to them maybe since college. They come here. Power is an aphrodisiac. Suddenly they have women who are interested in them. It’s a temptation some can’t withstand.”

Newly elected?
Stay protected!

Even if you're old and droopy,
you'll look hot to a power-groupie.

Bean Beat, Walsh Wins, Barely but Fairly

Another congressional seat changes hands.

All the votes have been counted, and Tea-party / Republican Joe Walsh has unseated Democrat Melissa Bean in the 8th congressional district which includes most of the northwestern suburbs of Chicago.

He won by 290 votes in the end.

That doesn't sound like much of a margin. But I guess it was 289 more than he needed.

In the end, having just one more vote
is all it takes to sink your opponent's boat.

Picture Getting Clearer

This strikes me as the quote of the day:

The good news is that the TSA seems to be doing its best to bring the Left and the Right together.

Just so you know, even if you agree to walk through the naked x-ray, you may still get groped if the picture comes out blurry. As my friend Deb alerted me, that's what happened to Dave Barry:

"Your groin was blurred," he explained.

We went into a little room, where he put on blue gloves and explained that he was going to touch me in various private places.

Not eager for a grope?
In a great big hurry?

Then you'd better hope
your groin's not looking blurry.

Trial and Error

The left made a big deal about rejecting those military-commission-trials for terrorists. Those were "kangaroo courts" designed for "show trials"!  

The prez said the organizer of 9/11 would get a regular trial, with regular rules of evidence, in New York City.

But that hasn't worked out:

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, will probably remain in military detention without trial for the foreseeable future, according to Obama administration officials.

Trying to avoid anything that could be called a show trial,
they've decided instead to just give him no trial.

How Did Someone So Smart Go So Wrong?

Noonan ponders presidential implosion:

From the day he was sworn in he seemed to have had no practical or intuitive sense of what was on the American mind.

There's a puzzle here, starting with that first phrase, "from the day he was sworn in".

Up until that day, he was able to sell himself. After that day, the slide began. I don't think it was just that the media turned on him. I would say that the media only began to turn on him very recently.

So here's the puzzle - how was it that he seemed to lose his sense of what Americans wanted?

I think part of the problem was that once he was in office, he had to start making concrete decisions. Up until then he had gotten by with much glorious vagueness which let people project their hopes onto him.

I think he does understand what sorts of glorious vagueness Americans like. But he's weak on what Americans like in the way of actual details. So he fell back on his underlying political philosophy - including the idea that a smart elite should control the great unwashed - to make them better!

But here's a truth that never gets old:
Americans don't like to be controlled.

Our Man In Japan

Reuters asks - in a hopeful voice? - whether Japan will provide Obama with "an upbeat finish to what has been a decidedly choppy tour of Asia."

His tour was unpleasantly choppy.
Perhaps the planning was sloppy.
The South Korean deal fell through.
G20 asked, "Hey, who are you?"

On Stage Next Sunday

The talented drama students at Morgan Park Academy are putting on their "Upper School Fall Play" next weekend, Nov. 19-21, Fri-Sat-Sun.

It's actually a collection of 10-minute plays... of which I wrote two. Of course I wanted to see them in production - especially because one of my plays is brand new - custom written for this event.

I was feeling down because I seemed to have a schedule conflict. I'm performing on stage each of those nights.

Then I realized... their Sunday performance is at 2pm. My acting gig isn't till 7pm. 

So...
I can go
to see their show.

Hurray
for the matinee -
its timing saved the day.

Surveying Philosophers

Here's an interesting survey of philosophers.

I have to admit, I don't even understand what some of the questions are asking.

I mean, what is Newcomb's Problem? Why is the answer one box or two boxes? Oh, here it is.

It's a paradox
about money in a box
or two
and whether you think a prediction
about what you will do
is fiction
or true

The Twinkie Diet

A nutrition professor set out to prove that what mattered for weight loss was not what kind of food you ate - rather it was how many calories you consumed. So he went on a "convenience store" diet for 10 weeks, eating Twinkies and Doritos and all those other "junk foods".

He supplemented the "junk" on a daily basis with a protein shake, a multivitamin and some veggies - such as celery stalks or a can of green beans.

He lost 27 pounds.

I can practically smell a book deal coming his way.

In a crazy Twinkie groove,
he mostly ate junk.

His cholesterol improved
and his waistline shrunk.

Faulty Version Incursion

So far, at least, it hasn't started a war:

A Nicaraguan troop commander blamed bad border denotations on Google Maps for an incursion into Costa Rica last week.

Onward march the troops
carefully following orders,
but due to a Google oops
they cross their neighbor's borders.

In The Wings

I find it very interesting to watch a play's actors when they are not on the stage - when they are in the dim wings, out of the audience's view, waiting for their next cue.

They wait in silence behind the stage,
recalling all they have rehearsed
preparing themselves to suddenly burst
back on the set in joy or rage.

Inviddying Terminology

I've been re-reading Quee Nelson's The Slightest Philosophy.

One of the classic issues that comes up in her book is the case of the circular coin viewed at an angle. If you take a photo from that angle, and trace your finger around the coin's image, your finger will trace an ellipse, not a circle.

So the question arises: What did you really see in the first place?

A) A a circular coin?

B) An elliptical image?

Nelson says we see the circular coin. It's a minority position in post-medieval philosophy. But she has some intelligent company, such as David Kelley, a contemporary philosopher, and Thomas Reid, an 18th Century philosopher.

All 3 deny that we usually see an elliptical image.

But since we are are in fact capable of noticing the ellipse, they need some technical term for that noticing, something other than simple "seeing". But their terminologies diverge:

Reid calls it "attending to the visible figure of bodies".

Kelley calls it "reductive focus".

Nelson, in a humorous coinage, calls it "inviddying".

Divergent technical terms
can be a bucket of worms
that make it hard to see
where thinkers really agree.

Hot Bunny

In Richland, WA, they recently tore down an atomic bomb factory. And, somehow, some cesium-leftovers got consumed by a floppy-eared denizen of the field.

A radioactive rabbit
was hopping about with unseemly haste.

Authorities manage to nab it
and disposed of it as dangerous waste.

Getting Rough With Muffins

It happened in San Antonio, Texas.

An angry dispute that ended with a local man being charged with a felony aggravated assault began when he and the woman he was with threw a muffin at each other...

Muffins tossed.
Tempers lost.
Gun displayed.
Arrest made.

One Acts

In about 3 weeks a local private school, Morgan Park Academy, is putting on a couple of my one-act plays. High-schoolers are putting on an evening of of one-act plays. One of my plays, Second Sunday, was written specifically for this show. The other, Believe In Me, was originally written for Theatre of Women IV. Heather Freer Kurut, the school's drama teacher, is directing. I've seen a show she directed before, and I was impressed.

My son and daughter went to high school there, so I have emotional ties to the place.

I haven't seen the schedule yet, but it sounded like it would overlap completely with my own performance schedule in Devilish Children. Still, I should be able to see some key rehearsals, probably including dress rehearsal, my wife should be able to go to the show to give me a full report, and maybe someone will video it.

I still find it magical to watch someone take my lines and make them come alive in unpredictable ways. The first time I experienced it, I thought of it as a strangely narcissistic pleasure. I mentioned it to the director of the piece, and he laughed and joked that it meant I was born to write plays.

I find it exciting
and so I keep writing.

Results!

Well, it was an electoral bloodbath, more or less according to expectations.

At least it wasn't a *real* bloodbath. Just people losing jobs - people who will be forced to come back as lobbyists or something.

There are those of us who are thankful for the return of gridlock. Well, I don't think of it as gridlock. I think of it as checks and balances.

Neither party has my utter trust.
Either, given free rein, can turn unjust.

Devilish Recommendation

The play I'm in got a favorable "recommended" review from Tony Adler at the Chicago Reader. He kind of wishes that the author had written a different play, but he still enjoyed it, and has kind words for the "sharp cast".

Since he didn't single me out as a dull exception to the sharpness, I'm going to go ahead...

and bask in the rays
of his critical praise.

2 Days Away

A friend of mine sent me P.J. O'Rourke's piece on Tuesday's election. He's a humorist, so he gets to exaggerate and generalize for effect.

His funniest comment is:

This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order.

I do think the Democrats badly mangled their mandate from the last election. Obama ran as a reasonable moderate who wanted to end partisan bickering. I would say this was their actual mandate. But, intoxicated with their majority status, they pivoted left.

If the polls are correct,
they're about to be checked.

Today

Throughout the city one constantly meets
costumed monsters roaming the streets
threatening tricks and demanding treats.

From Struwwelpeter to Devilish Children

We've now done 2 performances of Devilish Children. (That's me behind the scary duck mask.)

I'm in the cast, which is great fun.

The show is an adaptation of rhymed fables (Der Struwwelpeter) by 19th century German psychiatrist, Heinrich Hoffman. These fables take the form of cautionary tales intended for children, in which dire consequences were visited upon misbehaving kids. The tone was humorous, and the whole thing was probably intended partly as a satire of this genre of literature.

There's a nice English version online here, with pictures.

Jeremy Menekseoglu, in adapting the work, made some major architectural changes. He remodeled some of the separate stories and made it one continuous emotional journey. A naughty 3-year old, Karl, is dropped off at an old theater, which is now being run as a sort of boarding school of good manners. But the school is run by devilish children who instruct Karl by graphically staging the scary fables. We also learn that there is more to the school, and the children, than at first meets the eye.

It's not always easy being a kid.
Everyone's always correcting you.
You have to learn to keep a lid
on so many things you'd like to do.

Opening

We opened Devilish Children And The Civilizilng Process last night.

Things seemed to go well
On our fearful and funny trip through child rearing hell.

Mimic Octopus

Tyler Cowen calls this video "1:49 of wow". Presenting the mimic octopus:



Not content to be one shape,
this octopus twists its features
to ape
various creatures.

Unwashed Middle

Katie Couric likes to stay in touch:

That’s why Couric has spent recent weeks in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is touring what she calls “this great unwashed middle of the country” in an effort to divine the mood of the midterms.

Unwashed in Chicago? The funny thing is that she works in New York, which has dirtier streets than Chicago does.

But she's not talking about the streets. She's talking about me, isn't she?

Katie, honest, I took a shower.
And now I smell a fresh as a flower.

Love at First Sight

An Elizabethan poet asked:

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?

But now we can improve upon that estimate:

Researchers also found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.

Exactly how they reckoned
it down to a fifth of a second
I'm really not sure.

Also, no word on a cure.

Distinguishing Forms of Faith

Newsweek has a story warning Left and Right not to confuse Islamism with the Muslim faith:

The left is wrongly defending Islamism—an extremist and at times violent ideology—which it confuses with the common person’s Islam, while the right is often wrongly attacking the Muslim faith, which it confuses with Islamism.

The authors write as if this is merely a failure of "The West" to understand. But the marketing strategy of the Islamists is precisely to brand themselves as the truest Muslims. If it's a failure of understanding, it's a failure that the Islamists are actively provoking.

What's more, the "common person's Islam" has not mounted a consistent counter-branding strategy.

So my request
is don't just criticize the West
for failing to understand
this confusion over the brand.

Perverse Incentives

The Chicago Tribune has a sad story about a family caught up in the housing collapse. They thought they could qualify for a re-setting of their monthly mortgage payment under the terms of the president's Home Affordable Modification Program.

But they made the mistake of being thrifty while they were waiting for approval:

The family's $7,160 in savings, including a $5,218 income tax refund, accumulated during the year it took the bank to review the application, meant they were too well off to qualify.

Too well off to qualify. But not well off enough to keep their house.

In retrospect, they should have blown their money
on... whatever. And no, it's not really funny.

Roles

We had a great rehearsal tonight for Devilish Children And The Civilizing Process at Dream Theatre, which opens Thursday... like 5 days away.

Also, I've been cast for the part of Dr. Baugh in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for a January production by the Munroe Park Theatre Guild.

Have you ever heard of Impostor Syndrome?

Regardless of what level of success they may have achieved in their chosen field of work or study or what external proof they may have of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced internally they do not deserve the success they have achieved and are actually frauds. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they were more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be.

I'm sure actors feel it too, sometimes. Which is ironic. Because the job of an actor is precisely to be an impostor.

Could there be, in fact,
people who only pretend to act?