Yuri Kochiyama

Google's doodle today honored Yuri Kochiyama.

First link today is to the Wikipedia article, which was good, because I hadn't heard of her:

'Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese American human rights activist'

'Kochiyama was an outspoken admirer of Mao Zedong.'

In 2003: "I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire."'

Human rights?
By my lights
she labored in favor of those who slaughter -
men who let blood flood like water.

Denise Smolarek to Direct

It looks like I've got Denise Smolarek signed up to direct my new play, All Mixed Up. Had a great first meeting. Looking at opening in October.

Very happy to have Denise signed up. 

Now I need to get some space lined up. 

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From The Atlantic:

"The happy, hopeful stage of Venezuela’s experiment with Chavez’s 21st-century socialism is a fading memory."

Forcible human experiment
does not end in merriment.

Water From Above

I went into a downtown CVS today, planning to make a purchase and to use the Higi station, which is a brand of those free-to-use blood-pressure monitors. My son-in-law works at Higi, so I like to use his product, as a proud and supportive father-in-law.

But my trip was cut short. First of all, the carpet in the CVS, near the Higi station, near the pharmacy desk, had a big puddle. I looked around, and could see the puddle was caused not by a spill but by a leak from overhead - there was water coming down from the drop ceiling panels.

I stepped around the puddle, figuring I could use the machine safely as long as I kept my feet out of the water. I was starting to sign in when I heard a sort of muffled crash. An acoustic ceiling panel had fallen about 10 feet away. Well, that was disheartening. I heard a pharmacist telling a customer to be careful, and then I heard another muffled crash. Sure enough, another panel had dropped.

I studied the ceiling more carefully. There were a bunch of wet panels still up there. Dripping water. So I decided to leave... without successfully measuring my blood pressure at the higi machine. Maybe tomorrow.

I did complete my purchase.

I don't know about you,
but it's my personal feeling,
that it's bad luck
to get hit by a falling ceiling.

Can You Hear It?

During yesterday's marathon, I chatted with a lady volunteer at one of the aid stations. I asked her about the loud cracking sound, and she confirmed it was gun fire.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

I answered: "Chicago. Can you hear it?"

She repeated that to her friends, she thought that was so funny. Of course she could hear it! Ottawa is only an hour and 16 minutes from my house, but it is not a suburb. You're into "downstate" as we call it, even though, if you look at a map, Ottawa is well into the northern region of the state.

New Yorkers do the same thing with "upstate".

Most of the people are here,
clustered around the big city.
Most of the land is out there,
scenery spread green and pretty.

Starved Rock Country Marathon

I ran the Starved Rock Country Marathon yesterday, which took me through Starved Rock Park. It's a lovely run if you like country scenery. It doesn't afford the most spectacular views of the park, but it does take you over the Illinois River twice. Also, you get a lot of countryside and a little bit of small town industrial infrastructure, such as a transformer station. For music, for some miles, there was the resounding shooting of firearms, at either a gun club or a trap shooting event or something.



Overhead, there were large birds of prey. The area is home to American eagles, but I'm not sure if that's what I saw. Whatever they were, they were dark against the sky. Fortunately, I was not a fieldmouse.

It was chilly, in the forties, with a stiff wind. The wind felt tough against your front, and pleasant against your back.

Once again, I was threatened with quad cramps toward the end of the race, a very annoying threat, forcing me to slow down quite a bit. Statistically, these are more likely to come to older, well-trained runners. So I am a statistical fit. After doing some more reading on the topic, I am going to try doing hip extension drills as my new attempted remedy. We shall see.

You're more likely to get quadriceps cramps
When you're a well-trained jogging gramps.

A Price That's Low For A Buffalo

A family in Texas wants to sell its pet American Buffalo for 6 thousand dollars, on the condition that the animal should continue to be able to socialize with people.

Probably it thinks it's a person now. A big, shaggy, half-ton person.

It is described as "housebroken", but...

"Schoeve says Bullet is used to being around people but warns that the big animal should never be left alone inside a house or with children."

This bison
is a nice one,
and the price on it seems fair.

But allow it to roam
all alone in your home...
and your walls may soon not be there.



Film here.

Illegal Primes

Of course it has to do with primes that are used to encrypt stuff:

"The possession of certain prime numbers is illegal in the US. For instance, one of these primes can be used to break a DVD's copyright encryption."

Basically, it's because a particular (very large) prime number can be used as a password to unlock stuff that someone intended to keep locked. Of course, you don't just need the number, you need to know what it unlocks, and how to do it.

If someone just sends you a big prime, and tells you there's something valuable you could get with it, it's a bit like someone sending you a safety deposit box key - with no indication of what bank you need to visit.

It's not clear to me, anyway, that anyone has been sent to jail just for possessing one of these numbers. But I've heard some of these laws are written broadly.

If I had an illegal prime,
I'd try my best to make it rhyme,
but that I fear might make it worse -
since that would be illegal verse.

Tonight's Lesson

Do not change the bulb until,
you've verify the lamp is still,
plugged into a power source.

I learned this the hard way, of course.

Budweiser Becomes America

So weird:

'The brewer said on Tuesday it will rename its eponymous Budweiser brew as "America" from May 23 through to the Nov. 8 presidential election to "inspire drinkers to celebrate America."'

America, America, this beer's named after thee.
Up until the election.
Maybe they think we'll need a drink
when making our selection?

Identity Politics

I'm seeing arguments that try to link Trump to white identity politics of the European variety. I guess it's another way to go Godwin and call him a Nazi.

I'm not one of his fans. But this seems like a smear.
People are scared of him, that much is clear.

As for the idea, pushed by many academics, that identity politics can be virtuous for one group of people, and evil for another group... that idea, however argued for, is implausible at first glance, and does not improve with careful scrutiny. It is based on false premises, leads to bad practices, and ultimately, if accepted widely, leads to a tyranny of the majority "identity".

I will not say it can't happen here,
but I don't get the sense it's near.

Mitotic

Amoebas have no mothers.

They are not even "born".

And so on every Mothers' Day,

Amoebas feel forlorn. 

Neanderthal, Etc.

I reportedly have about 4% Neanderthal genes. That's just a little more than the mean for European ancestry.

Which is, roughly, the kind of percentage you would get from having a great great great grandparent who is a fullblooded Neanderthal.

The percentages of average shared DNA lay out like this:

3.125% great great great grandparent
6.25% great great grandparent
12.5% great grandparent
25% grandparent
50% parent

Troglodytes in the family tree,
And back, before that, a chimpanzee!

Such descriptions are inexact,
But rhyme exactly - that's a fact!

Not a Good Way to Pick

Not much rhymes with Clinton. 

That doesn't mean I'm hintin'

She shouldn't be your choice. 

But so much rhymes with Trump...

Including dump and chump...

So if he wins, the rhymers will rejoice. 

As The Parties Shudder

A few weeks ago, Jon Rappoport wrote a proposal for a combined left/right populism ticket:

"Trump plus Bernie? Horrible? Unthinkable?"

Can a "Trump/Bernie" ticket win?
It seems the chances are thin.
But given how the year has gone...
I'll see that sign on someone's lawn.

Wrong Again

You know, well, you might remember, that I was guessing we would see a contested Republican convention. I imagined that things would sort of continue, with Trump not winning majorities, only pluralities. Wrong!

So what happens now on the GOP side? Are they just going to solidify around Trump?

I have a lot of friends who are now planning to vote for Johnson on the Libertarian ticket. They don't expect Johnson to win. But they can't quite vote for either HRC or DT.

As for me, I'm officially undecided,
even though that group is often derided,
I've decided to join their ranks
so the candidates aim their planks
at my array of political beliefs -
and if that happened - that would be a relief!

Cyborg in Training

"When Smartphones Become Too Addictive, Stylish Dumb Phones Offer a Respite"

The MIT review,
says: lower your phone's IQ!
But that's a very hard sell,
since I would get dumber as well.
Most of what I nowadays know,
emerges from my phone's bright glow.

Arsenic and the Elderly Audience

We did our matinee performance of Arsenic & Old Lace yesterday, and as expected we had a lot of older people in the audience, including at least one 90 year old who was celebrating his birthday. And, I must add, he had a very firm handshake.

Unexpectedly, it was a supremely appreciative audience. They laughed a lot. We got laughs on lines that we didn't get laughs on before. There was a big laugh on the line, early on, "This may not be very charitable of me, but I'm beginning to think that Mr. Hitler is not a Christian!"

Of course, a lot of people in this age group actually remember World War II, which is the era in which the play is set. The play's cultural milieu is the one a lot of them grew up in.

A lot of the play's humor has to do with old-fashioned respectability. They remember that. Many of the young have little grasp of it.

The past is an alien land
peculiarly distant
loaded with very firm laws
that are now non-existent.

Directionally Challenged

I sometimes go astray
using GPS apps.
But I went even astrayer
in the days of paper maps.

The Video from Kitties in Space

That's the official video of Kitties in Space, from the Doing Drugs And Dying In Space (DDADIS) festival put on by the fabulous Runaways Lab.

Felines seeking felicity,
encounter rodent duplicity.