Doctored Story

We have a bizarre story developing here:

A University of Iowa medical professor was ordered held in lieu of $25,000 bail today for allegedly lying to Chicago police officers, telling them he was stabbed while jogging on the Riverwalk when he actually knifed himself and fabricated the incident, authorities said.

He reportedly went to the hospital in critical condition after stabbing himself. You would think a medical professor would know how to stab himself so that he wasn't injured too badly.

Just to add to the bizarreness, the professor was already on leave from the U of Iowa pending some kind of investigation at the school.

The deceptive "rob & stab" story was notable partly because it happened in an unlikely area - a nice, shiny, touristy area.

If you want to meet a robber,
and then get stabbed or clobbered,
I'll gladly give you directions
to some of our rougher sections.

Dollars Per Barrel Vs. Dollars Per Ounce

People like to describe oil as immensely valuable, as if it were "black gold".

But if there were gold coins floating in the Gulf of Mexico, you can bet they wouldn't be there for long.

There'd be a flotilla
the size of Godzilla
the young and the old
scooping up gold.

Rajskub

I was amused by this quote from Mary Lynn Rajskub, who plays Chloe on 24. Apparently she used to do poetry slams:

When I first started performing, I was very uncomfortable. One night I got a few laughs when I wasn’t trying to be funny. That set me on a mission to see the humor in myself and follow a path to getting more laughs, often along with being uncomfortable. One of the very serious poets was upset because he felt he had lost me to comedy. “Really, Mary Lynn? Comedy?” And I never turned back.

My mind goes to Shakespeare, author of both comedies and tragedies.

Or was he 2 authors, one for each type -
one full of funny and one full of gripe?

Legacy

A mother leaves her mark,
encouraging the spark.

Bare Branches

Matt Welch claims:

We Are Out of Money: American governance won’t begin to inch forward until the political class faces basic facts.

What? No. It couldn't be.
Go pick some more from the money tree!

Run Down

Philip Pagano was run down by a train today. 

In his pocket was the official procedure which train crews are supposed to follow in case of a suicide.

You see, he was the head of the commuter train system in the Chicago area. And he was being investigated for financial irregularities, including giving himself an unauthorized bonus.

He was under a lot of strain,
probably eating away at his brain,
so he stepped in front of a train.

It's a rude thing to do,
traumatizing the crew,
delaying the passengers too.

Stars and Stripes for Sometimes

Cinco de Mayo fashion faux pas:

Five students at a California high school were forced to leave school and then face disciplinary action yesterday for the crime of wearing clothing printed with American flag designs.

It reminds me of this case from a few years ago, where a kid got in trouble for wearing a shirt that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus":

A divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that schools can punish a student -- without violating his First Amendment rights -- when he promotes illegal drug use at a school event.

After all, isn't patriotism addictive? Sure, you start with an occasional item of clothing. Before you know it, you're wearing a flag pin every day. You even start to contemplate getting a tattoo of Old Glory on some body part.

All I can say is: check the calendar before decking yourself out in red, white, and blue!

Whether printed on your shirt,
or inked upon your knee,
speech that might hurt
should not be free.

(Important alert:
that was irony.)

Hybrid

Stephen Hicks notes:

The modern West is hybrid civilization, drawing upon competing ethical traditions from Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian religion.

This put me in mind of an idea from biology, "hybrid vigor":

The term heterosis, also known as hybrid vigor or outbreeding enhancement, describes the increased strength of different characteristics in hybrids; the possibility to obtain a genetically superior individual by combining the virtues of its parents.

Greco-Roman culture was itself a kind of hybrid, between the Greeks and the Romans, obviously.

Christianity itself sprung to life in an interaction between Judaic culture and Greco-Roman culture. Jesus spoke a Semitic language, Aramaic, but the New Testament survived in Greek.

And there's a case to be made that the Judeo-Christian tradition includes elements absorbed from both Egyptian beliefs (you will be judged in the afterlife) and Zoroastrian beliefs (the world embodies a cosmic struggle between good and evil).

Here in America, just to complicate things, we now seem to be in the middle of an attempt to come to terms with some Eastern belief systems.

With logic from the Greeks
we sort through diverse convictions.

The mind painstakingly seeks
belief without contradictions.

Note to Self

When pursued by the FBI
you can blow the whole game
if you try to fly
under your own name.

Before Da Vinci's Helicopter

Unlike the acorn, the maple seed can fall pretty far from the tree.

High-speed video reveals that maple seed pods remain airborne for miles by harnessing the power of tornado-like vortexes generated as they spin.

The flat, elongated pods are densest at their seed-containing ends, a configuration that causes them to rotate while falling.

Rotation produces the pods’ nickname — whirlybirds — and creates tiny vortexes above their leading edges. By pulling in air, a vortex lowers air pressure above a pod’s surface, effectively sucking it upwards.

It's the season here. Walking home, I had to make my way through a storm of the things.

With whirling grace
they go,
seeking a place
to grow.

What Counts As Conspiracy

The judge has ordered the Hutaree "militia" members free on bond, and she seems doubtful about the evidence presented to her:

"Discussions about killing local law enforcement officers -- and even discussions about killing members of the judicial branch of government -- do not translate to conspiring to overthrow, or levy war against, the United States government," Roberts said in her order.

I knew a lot of people who discussed killing Bush. None of them were charged. And the reason is precisely that they didn't take steps toward action.

You can't keep creeps in jail

just for their idle chat.

The judge has granted bail,

and the case looks strangely flat.

And Now It's A Remake

Mary Catelli linked to a humorous essay, How 'The Karate Kid' Ruined The Modern World:

You know what I'm talking about; the main character is very bad at something, then there is a sequence in the middle of the film set to upbeat music that shows him practicing. When it's done, he's an expert.

His thesis is that rather than just being a transparent storytelling device, this sort of sequence is seriously misleading to people, who then get disappointed when they find out that achievement generally requires lots of effort.

When you seem to be lacking in speed
sometimes patience is all you need.

What A Joker

The North Star, madly delirious,
asked the Dog Star, "Why so Sirius?"

Slick

As the oil slick spread last weekend, Obama took a vacation weekend in North Carolina.

Some people, like the NY Times, are now complaining that he has not done enough fast enough.

But I say the blame must be shared with other world leaders. This was BRITISH Petroleum, in the Gulf of MEXICO.

Who cares that Obama left town?
I blame Gordon Brown!

And I call upon all undocumented speakers of Spanish,
to help us make the oil slick vanish.

Running On Empty

A mystery of the East:

Indian doctors are studying an 83-year-old holy man who claims to have spent the last seven decades without food and water.

I guess he could be lying. Or... a friend suggested this syndrome as an explanation:

Nocturnal eating syndrome is often associated with somnambulism. People get up and eat, or even prepare meals, while asleep.

Do you wake from your sleep
to find crumbs getting deep
near the head
of your bed?

That's one of the clues
that you dine while you snooze.

Rielle Explains to Oprah

Oprah interviewed Rielle Hunter, John Edwards' inamorata.

[She] told Oprah Winfrey in a program broadcast on Thursday that John Edwards had a secret affair with her because “he wanted to live a life of truth,”

I don't watch Oprah much, but she does get people to say the darnedest things.

He wanted a truthful life
so he had to lie to his wife
and the public as well,
but hey - what the hell -
he was "keeping it real" with Rielle.

Concrete Evidence

The life of this leaf
was brief,
but there's no question:
it left an impression.

Blank Out

"Focusing", when used about mental attention, is a metaphor, taken from the way lenses work.

Camera lenses are "out of focus" only in the context of something you want to photograph. Lenses always focused on some spot in space. There may not be anything at that spot. But if you put something there, that's what the camera is focused on.

But what would "blank out" refer to in regards to a camera? I guess to the shutting of the aperture. The apparent correspondence, as regards mental attention, is becoming unconscious. This isn't something you have direct control over, as many an insomniac has learned.

I think that when people refuse to attend to an unwelcome fact, they don't do it by truly shutting down their consciousness. Rather, they do it by shifting their consciousness to something more immediately acceptable.

If you're telling somebody something unpleasant,
and they cover their ears and chant "Om",
in fact they're aware that you are still present
they're just hoping that you will go home.

The Case For Comedy

Science, at last, comes through -

laughing is good for you:

CURLING up with laughter has similar effects on the body as pumping iron in the gym, a study has shown.

Sessions of mirthful laughter – dubbed "laughercise" by researchers – enhance mood, reduce stress hormones, boost the immune system and lower blood pressure and levels of "bad" cholesterol, researchers have found.

Being jolly

isn't folly.

The Right To Assemble Happily

Only non-angry protests should be allowed!

Think of how much more pleasant that would make the evening news,
encouraging the populace to take a soothing snooze.

Seismic

Behold the power:

As women around the world bared their cleavage Monday in an event dubbed ‘Boobquake,’ a strong earthquake measuring 6.9 struck southeast of Taiwan.

That’s exactly what Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi warned would happen, when he recently blamed earthquakes on immodest female clothing.

I tried to observe this holiday. Observe, not participate. But downtown Chicago didn't seem to be involved in this celebration.

Women made a show of cleavage,
and the earth performed some heavage.

Preservation

One of the problems with the preservationist movement is that it can sometimes threaten the economic health of the area.

Tyler Cowen quotes Ed Glaeser on New York's historic districts:

It’s hard to fault the Landmarks Preservation Commission for stopping development in historic districts. That’s its job: to “safeguard the city’s historic, aesthetic and cultural heritage,” as the city’s administrative code puts it. The real question is whether these vast districts should ever have been created and whether they should remain protected ground in the years ahead. No living city’s future should become a prisoner to its past.

You don't want your city preserved in formaldehyde,
like something that died.

Understanding Irrationality

We had a lively discussion tonight on the topic of Understanding Irrationality. I talked for 10 minutes or so, and then we opened it to group discussion.

There's a technical philosophy book on the subject that I like, by Alfred Mele: Irrationality: an essay on akrasia, self-deception, self-control. 

But it's very dry. Akrasia, by the way, is an ancient Greek term, translated as  "lack self-control" or "weakness of will".

I think understanding irrationality is easy in some ways. But understanding irrational people is hard - partly because they don't understand themselves very well - and partly because they resist giving you the means to understand them.

Of course, no one is irrational all the time. At least, not for long.

If the laws of aeronautics are something you deny
and you jump off a cliff, hoping to fly
you die.

Tetzlaff

Saw some German dude, Christian Tetzlaff, play a violin concerto by some other German dude named Brahms.

He played that fiddle
like grease on a griddle
slick and hot.

So how did he build all that talent he's got?
I pondered that as a riddle.

Just Say No To Helium

I'm wondering how well this judge did in chemistry:

A recent case reported by the New York Law Journal upholds charges against helium balloon sellers for "unlawfully possessing or selling noxious material" on the grounds that helium is a "noxious substance." Apparently, the arresting police saw two men filling balloons and selling them to customers who then inhaled the gas.

You were a "noble gas",
but someone took a huff.

Now, in New York, alas,
you're known as noxious stuff.

I'm Recycling Electrons

Earth day is just about over.

We should really work through ALL the planets in order. We don't want the other planets to be jealous.

Tomorrow we celebrate Mars!
I'm breaking out the Snickers bars.

Hawthorne's Style

From Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

Assuredly, Zenobia could not have intended it;-the fault must have been entirely in my imagination. But these last words, together with something in her manner, irresistibly brought up a picture of that fine, perfectly developed figure, in Eve's earliest garment.

By these delicate phrases, the narrator says he couldn't help thinking of Zenobia naked. And that she was hot.

And the word "assuredly" seems likely to be ironic in context. The careful reader will suspect that Zenobia did intend for him to picture her without clothing.

Hawthorne had skill enough,

but in those days it was tough,

due to bare-skin-phobia

to write of buxom Zenobia

imagined in the buff.

Catastrophic Testing

The other day I wrote about this train accident where a crew had accidentally turned off the warning signals.

I wondered why they hadn't tested it.

Well, they WERE testing it, when the accident occurred.

Their final test was to let a train come through at 79 mph, and see if the signals worked okay.

Test result: Signals failed. Woman killed.

So the fatal mistake was not a failure to test. It was a failure to build extra safety features into the test - like having someone standing by the track to manually signal people to stop, just in case the signals failed.

There was a crew. Didn't any of them imagine what would happen if the test failed? Isn't there some kind of standard procedure for this sort of thing?

They didn't plan ahead.
Katie Lunn is dead.

Car Care Bill

I'm proposing a Car Care bill. Everyone has a right to transportation.

Under my bill, you will be required to purchase a GM or Chrysler car, which you won't get for a few years.

I stay up nights
protecting your rights.

Why doesn't your attitude
show me more gratitude?

Did The Earth Move Because Of You?

An alert friend found this:

Muslim cleric joins Rev. Pat Robertson blaming quakes on sinners

I immediately wondered if I could find a rabbi with a similar theory. Sure enough:

RABBI BLAMES GAYS FOR EARTHQUAKE

Most clerics would disagree, of course,
but are you a sinner, without remorse?
Then you may be blamed as the true causal source
for why God unleashed his tectonic force.

Dear Lord

The governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, has the TEA-somethings mad at him.

A head honcho TEA-something sent out an email in the form of a prayer:

"Dear lord,' this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor."

An assault upon democracy!

Borderline sedition!

No, wait, it was TEA-CHERS, not TEA-PARTIERS,

so it was just our free speech tradition.

Deactivated

On Friday an Amtrak train, traveling at 79 mph, killed a 26 year old woman in the Chicago area. The train plowed into her car.

There was no crossing signal. Crews had been working on the signal equipment, and messed it up:

Canadian National crews tried to resolve the problem and thought they had remedied it, officials said. But the workers actually deactivated the warning system, creating an unprotected crossing that provided motorists no indication of oncoming trains, officials said.

They thought they had remedied it. Okay. But did they test it?

To be sure of saving lives

before the train arrives

a test

is best.

Infiltrate to Eliminate Paranoia

Cass Sunstein, the United States' "regulatory czar", co-authored a paper in 2008 entitled "Conspiracy Theories":

Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups.

That's from the abstract. From the body:

We suggest a role for government efforts, and agents, in introducing such diversity. Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.

If your epistemology

seems crippled

your federal facebook friends

will be tripled!

Repressive Tolerance

Some people champion tolerance, loudly, as a major virtue, but then do everything they can to stifle others with whom they disagree.

It seems gigantically hypocritical. Because it is.

However, it's worth noting that there's a philosopher who offered a defense of this approach, namely Herbert Marcuse, in his influential 1965 essay, Repressive Tolerance.

He's against the old-fashioned ideal of tolerance. He says it's repressive. But he's in favor of a more advanced kind of tolerance, that is liberating:

Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.

You may choose

to block opposite views.

But this is liberation

from toleration.

Counter-Protest

The young woman above was a counter-protester at the Chicago tea party festivities at Daley plaza the other day. In the photo it appears she is pleading her case to a couple of skeptics.

The ICE referred to in her sign is Immigration and Customs Enforcement - the people who round up illegal immigrants.

I'm sympathetic to her cause. Most of these people came here to work. It's true they broke some laws doing so. But I see most of them as refugees, fleeing from economically oppressive regimes.

If they came here to work,

not shirk,

letting them in

is win-win.

All Natural

WHO says this volcano in Iceland may cause health hazards:

The agency said that people with chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma, emphysema or bronchitis may be more susceptible to irritation if ash is in the lower atmosphere in high concentrations.

Not to be a bureaucratic fuddy-duddy,

but did Gaia file an environmental impact study

before this distribution

of pollution?

Groupthink

Vikram Karve writes:

In the absence of conflicting opinions, harmonious tranquil work groups are prone to becoming static, apathetic and unresponsive to pressures for change and innovation. They also risk the danger of becoming so self-satisfied, that dissenting views – which may offer important alternative information – are totally shut out. In short, they fall victims to a syndrome called “GROUPTHINK”

Of course, glorifying dissent is not the solution, either. The trick is for the leaders to listen judiciously. Which, in a way, is what they get paid to do.

Sometimes someone else can spot

something you did not.

Scheie on Shunning

Eric Scheie recently wrote about the way that "Social Shunning Promotes Self-Censorship". He describes an incident that happened when he was 8, when a neighbor woman issued an ultimatum to his mother:

She laid down the law with my mom, and told her that she should get rid of the toy guns (my toy guns!), and that until she did, she would not allow her son to come over to our house and play with me!

His mother was intimidated, but his father was dismissive. So little Eric kept his toy guns but lost his playmate.

I remember how stressed my mom was. She was a people-pleaser, and feared social disapproval. Hardly an irrational fear, for social disapproval can have consequences. Not only might you not get invited to the "in" parties, but you might not get to join that country club to which you aspire, and in some cases, you might not get that promotion!

When someone shuns

should you bend to their will

or stick to your guns

and put up with the chill?

Sprung

Water's burbling in the pool,
and people sitting near it,
swear that they can hear it
whisper: "Just skip school."

Demi-Monde

New York magazine ran a big investigation about the sort of woman that Tiger Woods was hanging out with in the VIP areas:

Most of his mistresses lived in a nebulous in-between world. Not prostitutes, no, but just about halfway there. As surely as he has changed the game of golf, so too has Woods exposed the grazing ground of the halfway-hooker, and her natural habitat, the nightclub.

Tracy Quan doesn't think it's really news:

Ever since the first self-important cavedude boasted that he "never pays for it," there have been "lite-hooks," "models," party wenches and so on who "don't charge for sex." But sex does happen, the rent gets paid -- and 21st-century bottle clubs are part of an ancient tradition.

I guess I would say that the transaction is ancient, but that the social customs surrounding it are always changing. That why I enjoyed the New York magazine piece, even though it was less than appetizing - it filled me in on a social scene I didn't know about.

There's supply, and demands,
and gifts changing hands,
but no prices are heard.
That line is left blurred.

Who Needs More Hospitals, Anyway?

The new Health Care law singles out a particular kind of hospital to punish:

While the new health reform law may seem threatening to many Americans, it is pure poison for physician-owned hospitals, which are being forced to drop plans for new hospitals and immediately halt expansion projects.
...
Provisions of the law "virtually destroy many of the hospitals that are currently under development, and leave little room for the future growth of the industry," Ms. Sandvig said.

I wonder if the non-profit hospitals were behind this. I wouldn't be surprised. "They have an unfair advantage," would be the story. "We need to level the playing field," would be the mantra.

They say they want to "level the playing field."
But they take up the law as the handiest weapon to wield
to crush competition while keeping their motives concealed.

They Didn't Start Out As Nonprofits

News-gathering businesses are in terrible financial shape in the U.S., and I've seen speculation that a Federal bailout may be in the works.

Some say it might take the form of NPR-izing everything - making all these news agencies into nonprofits with government funding. Like National Public Radio! Or the Public Broadcasting Service!

Why not have an American Newspaper Bureau?

But in a recent survey, news executives are not yet biting at the bait:

The survey found that 75 percent of all news executives, and 88 percent of newspaper executives, have “serious reservations” about direct government subsidies. Nearly half (46 percent) are even concerned with the idea of tax credits for news organizations, and only 19 percent support that idea despite ongoing industry woes.

My favorite quote from the story:

“If the government becomes the ‘money bags’ for journalism, journalism will become the ‘bag man’ for the government,” wrote a member of RTDNA. “This would be an assault to the First Amendment of the Constitution.”

Subsidies are a fine way to finesse
freedom of the press.

You only pay for acceptable views,
and you get less offensive news.

Nothing is actually banned
but it all turns terribly bland.

The Polish Tragedy

Reportedly it was an experienced pair of pilots who crashed that plane with the Polish president and cabinet:

Both Captain Protasiuk and his second officer, Major Robert Grzywna, were experienced pilots with more than 5,000 hours of flying experience between them.

I did hear someone express the opinion that experienced pilots were more likely to attempt risky landings.

I suppose that makes sense. They feel more in control. They have survived previous dangerous situations.

Thinking you are danger's master
sometimes leads to disaster.

Can of Worms

Autoimmune diseases, such as asthma and allergies, present many puzzles.

But how about this for creepy:

...people infected with parasitic worms suffer less from allergies and other immune diseases,

Must we re-invite
the parasite?

Or can we please invent a med with a fancy name
that works the same?

But Are They Illegal?

They walk among us:

One in five adults believe aliens are on earth, disguised as humans...

The poll questioned 23,000 adults in 22 countries and found that more than 40 per cent of people from India and China believe that alien life exists with a human facade on this planet.

I must say I find it spooky,
that here on this planet we share
theories incredibly kooky
are simply everywhere.

Somewhere Over The Foodchain

Zebricorns gallop on black and white rainbows
whinnying high in the African sky
laughing at lions who gaze up with longing
hungry for mouthfuls of zebricorn pie.

Arthur

Why was he able
to draw the sword from the stone?
It was sort of a knack
or something like luck.

At any rate, it came unstuck,
and he stood alone,
no going back,
holding a blade,
knowing some men would bow
and others attack.

So he had to figure out how
these warring knights could be made
to let the feuding cease
so they could sit in peace
around a table.

The Knife Man

We read The Knife Man, by Wendy Moore, for book club. Good review by Jim Henderson here. It's about John Hunter (1728-1793), who is considered the father of modern surgery.

It's not often you read a book where a body snatcher proves to be a true hero.

Of course, dissecting the dead is still a key feature of medical education.

To know where to cut
you need to know what
is under the skin
your patient is in.

John Lennon Would Be Larfing

Strange days indeed:

Two women tried to board an easyJet flight with a dead relative strapped into a wheelchair, saying that he was disabled, frail and “always likes to sleep like that”.

The widow and stepdaughter of Curt Willi Jarant, 91, insist that he was moving and breathing on the way to Liverpool John Lennon airport. But staff called a medical team after noticing that he was cold and motionless.

It was a flight to Germany, where the three were from. Maybe they meant to bury him there. But there are rules:

Bodies being repatriated across international boundaries are required to have the necessary paperwork and be contained inside hermetically sealed, zinc-lined coffins in the cargo hold.

Sounds like that would be costly, in time and money.

It's extra expensive to travel when dead.
It's cheaper to be a "sleeper", instead.

But though he had a valid ticket,
authorities said it wasn't cricket.

Quake Quack

Deepak Chopra has accepted responsibility for creating that earthquake the other day:

"Had a powerful meditation just now -- caused an earthquake in Southern California," Chopra wrote to his nearly 179,000 Twitter followers shortly after the quake.

And then, to clarify: "Was meditating on Shiva mantra & earth began to shake," he tweeted. "Sorry about that."

Please, everybody, as a public service, if you're in California, lay off the Shiva mantra!

He meditates,
and tectonic plates
begin to shake,
and soon a quake
disturbs the earth.

So he says, for what it's worth.

Birth Trend

American births are down. It's the recession!

But births to women in their early 40s... are up.

Is it because they have more cash
to pay for the cost of an OB doc?

Or are they simply making a dash
to beat the biological clock?

Sex Guru

India - it's a lot like America!

A Hindu holy man with thousands of followers across India resigned as head of a religious organization on Tuesday after police began investigating his role in a sex scandal, officials said.

He says the tapes are fake,
but is going to take a break.

The Shock Of Being In Hock

Now they tell us:

Lost amid last month's passage of the new health care law, the Congressional Budget Office issued a report showing that within this decade, President Obama's own budget sends the U.S. government to a potential tipping point where the debt reaches 90 percent of gross domestic product.

National debt -
how much worse can it get?

We may find out yet.

Hoppy Easter

The Easter Bunny's legs
are surely extra fast,
hiding all those eggs
before the night is past.

7.7 Miles

My seasonal running habits, a sonnet:

Because I run one marathon a year,
some people think I must run every day.
Not true. And in the colder months, I fear
it's more like once a week - the treadmill way.

But then I'll say "I do run to the train,"
and people smile, thinking that's just a joke,
although, in fact, I've spoken true and plain.
In the morning I often go for broke,

galloping at high speed to catch the choo-choo,
taking the quarter mile at high speed.
Perhaps such running's something you would pooh-pooh;
it does, however, fill a functional need.

Today - warm weekend weather! So I ran
more than I have since all that snow began.

Amusements of Catdom

When I came home from work yesterday, my wife told me that one of the cats was missing, for a couple of hours already

When last seen, the cat had been out with Marsha in the yard when she was gardening. Had she wandered away?

I volunteered to go on a cat-hunt by bicycle. But when I opened the garden shed to get my bike, out came the cat!

Silly cat, don't go sneaking in the shed
when your mistress turns her head!

Orpheus Unplugged

The legend, redone for fun:

Orpheus was a god who strummed
the ancient lyre, and he was bummed.

The woman he loved above all ladies
got bit by a snake and sent to Hades.

Therefore he chased her down to hell
and played a concert there so well,
they said she could follow him home, if he
never looked over his shoulder to see
just where she was.

                    But sad to say,
he did look back, and she *poofed* away.

Day of the Fool

We come to the end of April Fool.
I hope the pranks you played weren't cruel.

Humor can heal
or sting like steel.

Primate Pioneers

As you may know, there are 2 kinds of monkeys: "Old World" (Africa and Asia) and "New World" (Central & South America).

Scientists think that monkeys originated in the Old World, and then rode rafts to the New World.

All the other monkeys laughed
when I said: Look at my raft!

I ignored them, and, what a thrill,
I'm cruising to Brazil!

Okay, that's not the theory. The theory is that they were sitting on big coastal masses of vegetation, on the shores of the Paleo-Atlantic. Then the vegetation broke away.

The voyage occurred by error,
and they floated away in terror.

But the Atlantic wasn't so wide
and they reached the other side.

In Geneva It's A Go

In today's really big news, or rather small news, the Large Hadron Collider finally starting smacking protons together today.

Two beams of protons were sent hurtling in opposite directions toward each other in a 17-mile tunnel below the Swiss-French border — the coldest place in the universe at slightly above absolute zero.

"Coldest place in the universe"? Please. And how would we know that, Mr. Journalist?

This is a 10 billion dollar project. No one's really sure what will come out of it. They will tell you that they are testing hypotheses, and that's true, but what they are mainly doing is setting up a whole new class of high-energy observations.

Every time we smash tiny things together faster, we are hugely surprised by what happens.

Some of the stuff you hear in learned lectures
turns out to be the thinnest of conjectures.

Go Ahead

I'm thinking of organizing the Doormat Party.

Revolted by revolution?
Submission is the solution!

The Devil's Pool

Victoria Falls, in Africa, is twice as high as Niagara falls. At the top it, right at the edge, is a swimming hole:

A famous feature is a naturally formed pool known as the Devil's Pool, near the edge of the falls, accessed via Livingstone Island. When the river flow is at a safe level, usually during the months of September and December, people can swim as close as possible to the edge of the falls within the pool without continuing over the edge and falling into the gorge; this is possible due to a natural rock wall just below the water and at the very edge of the falls that stops their progress despite the current.

Video:


Great still shots here.

I think I might be too chicken to try this.

It's a great sight,
but - oh - the height!

Have Our Money Ready!

A couple of would-be Connecticut bank robbers decided it was best to call ahead.

So they picked up the phone and told the bank they were on their way - and to have the money ready! Unfortunately, the bank called the cops.

Instead of getting the cash
they had requested,
all their hopes were dashed
and they got arrested.

Circles

I didn't see this stone circle personally, but I saw another like it in Ireland. They are feats of stone age engineering.

They piled huge stones upon the hill
and to this day they stand
in perfect circles arranged
mysteriously planned
and minimally changed
since the old days when
those very ancient men
worked their determined will
upon the waiting land.

Wonderful New Product

Picture worth a thousand words:


Yes, it's a back flap for cats & dogs:

Is your pet feeling left in the dirt because of his/her unsightly rear? I’ve got them covered... Rear Gear is handmade in Portland, OR and offers a cheerful solution to be-rid your favorite pet’s un-manicured back side.

We have more than one pet
so I should buy a batch,
however I haven't yet
figured out how they attach.

I Hope PETA Comes To His Defense

Today's sad story comes from Pennsylvania, where a man tried to breathe new life into a dead possum:

Trooper Jamie Levier of the Punxsutawney barracks said witnesses saw Wolfe, 55, locking lips with the lifeless marsupial about 3 p.m. in a remote area about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

After receiving several calls, troopers arrested Wolfe along an isolated stretch of the highway and charged him with public drunkenness.

An overdose of alcohol would never
lure me into such a bold endeavor.

Serious Monkey Business

Do you have a service monkey?

Not the old-fashioned organ grinder kind...

...the serious modern kind who help people with disabilities, from agoraphobia to devastating spinal cord injuries.

You may have been wondering what the TSA procedures were for searching your monkey.



Wonder no more!

# Security Officers have been trained to not touch the service monkey during the screening process.

# Security Officers will conduct a visual inspection on the service monkey and will coach the handler on how to hold the monkey during the visual inspection.

But don't say, "Listen, flunky,
keep your hands off my monkey!"

Perelman Refuses

The Fields Medal is the most prestigious prize for work in Mathematics. It is awarded once ever 4 years.

One man won it and refused it: Grigory Perelman, a Russian, who lives with his mom in St. Petersburg.

Now some U.S. institute wants to give him a million bucks.

Again, he refuses.

The mathematician is reported to have said "I have all I want" when contacted by a reporter this week about the Clay Millennium Prize.

According to the UK's Daily Mail newspaper, he was speaking through the closed door of his flat.

Leave him alone!

Just get out of his path,
and let him work on math.

Gigantic Quantum Computer

Latest wildly speculative physics theory:

In Decoding Reality, Vedral argues that we should regard the entire universe as a gigantic quantum computer. Wacky as that may sound, it is backed up by hard science. The laws of physics show that it is not only possible for electrons to store and flip bits: it is mandatory. For more than a decade, quantum-information scientists have been working to determine just how the universe processes information at the most microscopic scale.

As Tim Shell suggested to me, this sounds like Newton's Clockwork Universe theory, with the technology updated.

Jeffrey Small figures he now has an explanation of the Big Bang - it happens when the computer tries to divide something by zero.

Divide zero in the code,
and existence will explode,
creating an infinity
of stuff in the vicinity.

Cassandra's Chorus

This is who you encounter as you enter Dream Theatre's current show, Agamemnon.

Here's the short video of the preshow.

I've seen it 3 times and I'm going with Marsha the weekend.

Here's a review roundup:

Ian Epstein at Chicago Theatre Blog

Chris Arnold at Steadstyle Chicago

Tony Adler in the Chicago Reader

Me, here

A clever torture, by a god conceived:
she saw the future - but no one believed.

A Failure Of Our Educational System

A young man bungles a burglary:

Investigators said the 17-year-old logged into his MySpace account while at Bella Office Furniture and that made it easy for them to find him. He also spent time looking at pornography and trying to sell stolen items, all while using the business' computer.

They tracked him down, of course.

Why is no one complaining?
Our burglars need more training!

Party Lines

My congressman was the only Illinois Democrat to vote against the big health bill. Maybe he simply followed his judgment. Maybe he followed the will of his constituents.

"Dan has a tremendous amount of resolve," Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) told me when we talked in the Capitol. "And great desire to vote what he considers to be in his district's interests. He often does not waver in his convictions."

One odd thing about this bill was that those in favor were strictly one-party. But the opposition was two-party.

One party domination
can result in abomination.

Historic

The Washington Post has an online headline:

The Take: Historic win or not, Democrats could pay a price

To me the only question is how high that price will be. And I get the impression it will be high.

Also, I'm tired of all this "historic" bluster.

Prohibition was historic.
The fate of booze seemed sealed.
But through public anger,
the damn thing was repealed.

Bad Luck Kitty

Here's an odd entrepreneurial idea, a "stress relieving vending machine":

The “Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine” is a machine that allows you break a dish or two until you feel better. All you have to do is insert a dollar, and a piece of china will slowly move towards you until it falls to the bottom and breaks into a million pieces.

If you track the links back, it seems to be the work of some artists. But I see commercial possibility!

Are you feeling too much stress?
Is your life a steamy mess?
Put some dough in the machine,
smash some china figurines
to smithereens!

Parachuting Pooch

This story features a great photo of a military bomb-sniffing dog jumping out of a plane with his handler:

"They don't perceive height difference the same way humans do, so that doesn't worry them. They're more likely to be bothered by the roar of the engines, but once we're on the way down, that doesn't matter and they just enjoy the view."

I'm skeptical about the height-perception claim. I think they perceive it just like we do - at normal ranges. You don't see dogs jumping off cliffs to their deaths.

I think the issue is that at 10,000 feet you don't really perceive the distance with your eyes. You just conceive of it mathematically with your mind.

The dog has superior power of smell,
but doesn't do math so well.

Direction Selection

We had a lively discussion tonight, which began with Dagny Taggart (from Atlas Shrugged), and the question of how you make moral judgments about other people, and how you communicate such judgments.

One interesting thing about Dagny is that she is exposed to the full set of striker arguments, but still goes back to the world. The strikers don't think she is evading the facts, they just think she has more to learn. This leads to the question, how did the strikers come to this particular conclusion? (It may help that 2 of the leaders of the strike are in love with her... but we didn't go there.)

Somehow we also ended up talking about, of all people, Barack Obama, and the widely varying views people have about who he really is, and what he really stands for.

Toward the end we were focused on globalization, unemployment, and the things the government has done to make hiring more risky and expensive for companies.

The discussion was wide-ranging.
It seemed like the topic kept changing!

Wish I Wasn't Along For The Ride

Half hit the brakes. Half stomp the gas.
Up, ahead, it's Demon Pass.

Teamwork

It's hard being a good dad:

Men involved with child care may hurt women's self-esteem

Should the father be the weak player on the team,
just to boost the mother's self-esteem?

Egri vs. Coward

I've been skimming The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri, first published in 1942, and considered a classic in its field.

His 7th chapter is "Why are some bad plays successful?" and he tackles the problem, as he sees it, of Noel Coward's popularity:

A war-weary audience, surfeited with blood and death, gobbled up his farces. The lines seemed witty because they helped the audience to forget the battering the world had taken. Coward, and many like him, came and lulled the shocked audience into numbed relaxation. His reception today would be tepid.

In retrospect, this is funny, since Coward continues to appear on the stage, often to enthusiastic applause. And somehow his lines still "seem witty".

Egri glowered at Coward,
but Coward has not soured.

Limitations

My dog can look upon a star,
but he will never ask me why
a source of light so incredibly far
can be detected by his eye.

Daring to Compare

German scholars are going to produce a critical study of the text of the Qur'an.

What this means is that the research team is in the process of analysing and transcribing some 12,000 slides of Qur’an mansucripts from the first six centuries of the text’s existence. Once that is complete, the way is open to producing a text that annotates and, presumably, provides some sort of exegesis on the differences found in the early manuscripts.

I'm not sure how much variation there is. I gather there is some. You can see how it might creep in, especially if at first the text was memorized, then written down by different people, and later standardized.

Variations in a sacred text
can leave believers vexed.

Quatrains

This morning I spent a couple of hours talking with elementary school students about poetry. 9-12 year olds. It was great fun.

They had been working on rhyming couplets, so I talked to them about quatrains, close cousins to couplets. We wrote some, too.

Take 2 couplets, and intermix;
a quatrain will come along,
standing like 4 rows of bricks,
symmetrical and strong.

Booted

Desiree Rogers, Obama's social secretary, recently tendered her resignation.

She was frequently blamed in the press for letting those people sneak into a White House party.

A lot of people say she was forced out because of it. The White House says that incident was not her fault, and that she's not leaving because of that incident.

Who to believe?

A well known Chicago columnist has a different and much more gossipy explanation:

Is the real reason White House social secretary Desiree Rogers was stripped of her power and "pushed" to resign that she was stealing the thunder of first lady Michelle Obama and first friend Valerie Jarrett?

You bet.

I can't vouch for the theory, but it paints quite a picture.

You hear it said that men are more competitive than women.

Perhaps it's statistically true.
But women can be competitive too.

Boom

An article in The Weekly Standard begins by quoting the Speaker of the House:

"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."

I guess we need free housing and food, too. Because those needs also force artists into day jobs. But leave that be. What really disturbs me is this comment by the article's author, Mary Katherine Hamm:

If liberal Boomers such as Nancy Pelosi insist on creating government incentives for a generation of people to be unemployed artists who nonetheless have their health care paid for by productive members of society, there will be fewer productive members of society.

Back it up right there. Nancy Pelosi turns 70 this month. She was born in 1940.

A baby boomer is one of the 76 million Americans born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom.

In 1940 World War II wasn't over. For Americans, it hadn't even started yet.

Pelosi may be a late bloomer,
but she's no baby boomer.

Oak Forest 5k

 
A pleasant run in the woods in the rain,
with an Irish theme and medals to gain.

I have often bicycled this route, but running it was new, and I was quited surprised, when we passed the wetland area, to see clear evidence of beaver construction activity. I had never noticed it when zooming by on my bike.

They've built a dam and flooded land - where it was merely muddy.
But did these rodents file their environmental study?

Self Exam

Some thinkers say there is no self.
To me it's clearly there.

Still, when you try to look at it,
it slips away from your stare.

Relax and let it shyly come
to stand before you bare.

Observation

A rhetorical flourish
sounds swell,
as well it ought,
but does not nourish
like careful thought.

Agamemnon

I was blown away tonight. I didn't expect to be. I expected to enjoy a night of theater, in the form of an intimate 2-person play. I expected to be given lots to feel and think about. I had attended a reading of the play, and remembered the high points of the plot.

But I was blown away. The play is Agamemnon, by Jeremy Menekseoglu, which is not much like Agamemnon by Aeschylus. This play is about the relationship between Agamemnon and Cassandra, the prophetess no one ever believes.

I'm not even sure exactly why I was blown away, except that the story is harrowing, the performances were stunning, the set was spectacular, and so on and so on. Everyone who contributed outdid themselves.

The whole play takes place on a ship at sea. Agamemnon, having led the Greeks to victory at Troy, is sailing home with the captive Cassandra. As the story opens, he wants her to be grateful to him, but she is not, and she fears the worst, and she is right to do so, since this is a tragedy. But like some of the great Greek tragedies, the doomed characters transition to a higher plane of understanding, particularly about themselves. That is the actual gift which they give to each other.

Courtney Arnett plays Cassandra with a down-to-earth manner, but she makes Cassandra mysterious nonetheless. You believe she has been touched with a special power. Jeremy Menekseoglu plays Agamemnon, a dangerous and commanding man, with profound restraint. You feel the vulnerability under the bristling ego.

I don't want to call it a love story. That would be wrong. It's a love-hate story. With magnetic performers.

Before the play begins, by the way, you must deal with Cassandra's Chorus, in the lobby and in the aisle. They, too, have lines written by the playwright, so listen to them. Anna Weiler, Alicia Reese, and Molly Gray guide you to your seat for the journey. They tell you that this is Cassandra's play, not Agamemnon's.

I think they have a point.

After all the deeds are done, and all the words are spoken,
hers is the spirit that truly remains unbroken.

Evolutionary Ecology

At book club we discussed The Mind of the Market by Michael Shermer.

He makes the case that our recent evolutionary past as "hunter-gatherers, living in small bands", "created a psychology not always well equipped to understand or life in the modern world."

He is not calling for a return to nature. He just thinks we should understand our own minds better. I liked the book. He makes an interesting attempt to integrate recent psychology research with free market thinking.

Of course, some do call for a complete return to nature:

Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of the division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies.

We do not live
as we evolved.
Nor would I want to!
We have solved
the limits of
the tribal way
and stepped into
this global day.

If you prefer
to hunt and gather,
be my guest!
But I would rather
keep the gifts
of trade and science
while you starve
in blind defiance.

Tickle Fight

I love this sentence from the NY Times:

Representative Eric J. Massa, who resigned from Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct, vehemently denied any wrongdoing during a television appearance on Tuesday even as he described having tickle fights with staffers in a house they shared.

He didn't grope - at least I hope
he didn't slide down that slippery slope.

All he did was give a tickle!
How could Congress be so fickle?

Oh Deer

It's fairly rare to hear
of an airplane hitting a deer.

It happened at a small Illinois airport - which has no fence around it. John Olson was in a private plane, ferrying 5 family members, including 2 grandchildren. He was coming in for a landing when 3 deer sprinted across the runway.

One deer fell to the ground in his path.

He pulled up and, for a second, thought he had cleared the animal. Then he felt a bump. His daughter saw the back wheel wobble. And he noticed oil on the wing.

"That's when I said this is definitely going to be a problem," Olson said.

He had lost his left landing gear. 

So he flew to a bigger airport nearby, and managed to land safely on one wheel.

Maybe they could put up a warning sign?


You may receive a lovely funeral benison,
if you make the mistake of colliding with venison.

Subtext

"Subtext", as we use it today, started out as a method acting term.

The actor, in his role, says one thing while thinking another. As real life people often do.

Mistakes were made,
but not by me.

(I'm afraid
of responsibility.)

Alpine Innovation

Not all squirrelly ideas come from California:

On Sunday, the Swiss will vote on a referendum that would compel all of Switzerland's cantons to hire animal lawyers. The rationale: If people accused of mistreating animals can hire lawyers, the victims of such abuse are also entitled to representation.

If you have a cockatoo
that's tired of having to bill and coo,
it may think it's time to sue
you.

Neglect

A lot of people we call "bad parents" are people who wound their children's minds. Then there are people like this:

A computer-addicted couple let their real life baby starve to death while they raised a virtual daughter online, police said today.

It happened in South Korea. They were spending their nights - 12 hours at a stretch - at computer cafes. Playing a simulation game.

Where were the grandparents? Well, they made an effort:

Worried about their addiction to the games, Kim's parents had been taking care of the baby - but, tragically, had returned her to her mother and father just two weeks before she died.

Why didn't someone call Child Protective Services? I did come across a study:

Korea has recently begun social intervention in cases of child abuse, but faces many difficulties resulting from cultural dilemmas. In particular, Korean society has the value of corporal punishment and negative attitudes toward social intervention into family issues.

But I'm sure this behavior is revolting by South Korean standards too.

It's five kinds of wrong
served extra strong.

Domestic

You can lobby against domestic violence by day, but you can practice it by night.

She is a registered lobbyist for an anti-domestic-violence outfit. She is charged with killing her husband. She is 45, he was 26.

Witnesses told police that Bridges was wearing a nightgown and a shower cap as she argued with Rankins on the sidewalk on North Avenue near West Peachtree Street around 10:45 p.m. Monday.

And moments later, witnesses said, they heard shots. They said she then "calmly walked away."

They had been married 5 days.

You know the honeymoon's over
when she leaves you pushing up clover.

Jolting Forward

Toyota is getting raked over the coals by the owners of GM and Chrysler.

Their cars "suddenly accelerate" sometimes. I know one way to make that happen. You stomp on the gas pedal.

...anyone who's looked at the problem knows that the vast majority of cases of sudden unintended acceleration are the fault of the driver applying the gas pedal when s/he thinks s/he's pressing the brakes.

Well, that's just a law professor talking. But I suspect he's right.

Why are those 2 pedals next to each other on the floor?

I'm used to that system, so I'm not eager to change it. But when you're driving, you can't actually see what your feet are doing. It seems ripe for error.

And those manual transmissions,
stick another pedal into position,
known as "the clutch".

Isn't that a bit much?

System X

Take the statement, "Social System X is good for everybody."

If true, it's a compelling endorsement for quite different ethical viewpoints.

Egoists will say "I want X because it helps me."

Altruists will say "I want X because it helps others."

Utilitarians will say "I want X because it helps produce the greatest good for the greatest number."

Hardly anyone thinks you should
oppose a universal good.

Nihilists maybe could dissent
and find a reason to lament.

Beached

The Chairman of the House Ways And Means Committee has stepped down, at least temporarily.

Ways And Means is where new federal tax legislation starts in the U.S. system.

Every corporation that wants a tax break wants a chance to whisper in the Chairman's ear.

And then, oddly enough, some corporations helped pay for him to go traveling in the Caribbean.

Charlie Rangel
got caught in a tangle -
taking trips
with corporate sponsorships.

Act One

I just finished Act One, a partial autobiography by Moss Hart, who wrote a lot of hit plays in the thirties, forties, and fifties.

It starts off with him living very poor, with his family, in a New York tenement apartment.

It has a lot of quotable excerpts. Like this:

It is always best if one is about to embark on a wild or reckless venture not to discuss it with anybody beforehand; talk will rob the scheme of its fire and make what seemed...daring merely foolhardy. Present it as an accomplished fact, turn a deaf ear to argument, and go ahead with it.

It ends with his first big Broadway success, Once In A Lifetime, a comedy about Hollywood during its panicky switch from silent movies to "talkies".

Autobiographies often proceed at a pace that's somewhat sickly.
But this one zips along quickly.

Prague Spring

"Prague Spring" was a real historical event:

...a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Slovak Alexander Dubček came to power, and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and members of its Warsaw Pact allies invaded the country to halt the reforms.

As metaphor, a Prague Spring is any temporary thaw in a regime of icy oppression.

Liberty broke through the ranks,
until the Soviets sent in tanks.