A Very Sad Note

I hate to get maudlin, but this makes me very sad:

Phil Frank, whose cartoons graced the pages of The Chronicle and other newspapers for more than 30 years, died Wednesday only a few days after he announced his retirement because of illness.

Phil Frank and his characters have been an important part of my life for a long time, and I will miss his work. I first became away of Frank and his character Farley back in the 1980s, when his comic strip, Travels with Farley, was nationally syndicated. I loved the way Farley could leave his regular job as a reporter to work for the summer as a ranger at Asphalt State Park. The wonderful bears he introduced at the park, always scheming ways to get food from the tourists, are among my favorite cartoon characters ever. Think Yogi Bear, but with much more complex characters.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that the bears are die-hard San Francisco Giants fans, like yours truly.

Years ago, a couple of his bears were made into plush toys. I have a doll of Alphonse, wearing antlers and a t-shirt depicting one of his classic moments, standing next to a "Do Not Feed the Bears" sign in the park, holding a sign of his own that reads, "I am not a bear." My daughter still loves this joke. So do I. (And here is one such bear that recently sold on eBay.)

And no mention of Phil Frank and his work would be complete without a mention of his puns. Between the last frames of his comics, he always put some kind of appropriate pun, and many of his comics featured them, too. One of his books of collected comics, for example, was titled "Fur and Loafing in Yosemite." And once when a guest chef (a vulture from Death Valley, I believe) was coming to work at the bears' restaurant, the Fog City Dumpster, he was unable to bring his own ingredients on the plane, because of the limit of "two pieces of carrion per passenger."

I always respected Phil Frank's decision to stop drawing a syndicated comic because he wanted to be more spontaneous. He could deliver strips to the Chronicle a day before printing, rather than a couple of weeks before printing for the syndicate. This allowed him to produce very timely, local comics, even though it put him on a very tight work schedule.

Although I am deeply saddened by his passing, my life is much richer for having known the work of Phil Frank. I will miss him, but will always cherish the memories he provided.

I must also note that Mr. Frank died of a brain tumor, and chalk this up as yet another of the ways cancer has affected my life. Please, let's all take care of ourselves, and try to wipe out cancer.

This Explains a LOT

Picture taken last month at the World Famous San Diego Zoo:

All I can say is, now I know why they're going extinct!

Nerds!

Goodness. A couple of my friends have done this, so now I guess I have to, too.



So for those keeping score at home, I'm cooler than Rod, but nerdier than Laura. So proud....

Stars, Salmon, and Fruit Pies

Got back from dinner tonight before the moon rose, and the stars were just stunning. That's another of those things we tend to forget about, living in the city. There are so many beautiful stars! The other night we sat out and watched the moon come up over the mountain range, then took a walk and admired our moon shadows. Tonight we marveled as the rising moon washed so many of the stars out of view.

And we heard a bat flutter by. Very cool.

This afternoon, on our last full day in town, we biked over to the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery. They had spawned the last of their adult salmon earlier in the week, so all we could see was juvenile salmon in the outdoor ponds.

It's quite a process, hatching and growing salmon. Rather daunting to see how much humans have impacted the fishes' world over the last century or two. Fish populations are way down (from an estimated 6 million salmon in 1800 and 1900 to only about 1 million in 2000), while human population has dramatically increased.

The hatchery has some really interesting and thought-provoking displays about the differences between hatched and wild salmon, and how fish raised at the hatchery are at a competitive disadvantage once they get out in the wild, and might possibly dilute the gene pool by breeding with wild salmon. On the flip side, if it weren't for hatched salmon, there might not be significant numbers of salmon in Washington at all. That's a daunting thought to those of us who love to eat salmon.

Dams, development, erosion. All bad for the fish. It's tough out there for a salmon.

They also had an excellent display commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rachel Carson (who once worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries--now the Fish and Wildlife Service that manages the hatchery). Most people know her as the author of Silent Spring (which is still excellent, 45 years after its original publication). But she wrote about many other things, especially the relationship of humans to nature. I have one of her books on the ocean working its way to the top of my reading queue at the moment, and want to find one she wrote about the sense of wonder that we should be fostering in children (and adults).

And finally, on a lighter note, last night we finished off an excellent marionberry pie. We had gone into a local bakery looking for a berry pie, and found that. My wife always reminisces about childhood visits up here, and remembers picking berries and eating berry pies. Berry pies hold a special place in her heart.

Earlier in the day, while sharing a delicious local nectarine, we wondered as a group why we never see nectarine pies, when there are peach pies galore. Well, lo and behold, the bakery had a nectarine-blueberry pie, so we had to get that, too.

Turned out the nectarine pie wasn't so great. Didn't seem to have been cooked thoroughly, so it really wasn't all that appealing. The marionberry pie, on the other hand, was wonderful, and we thought seriously about going back for another, but there wasn't time. Alas; vacations are so fleeting. Although my wife pointed out that we can probably get tasty berry pies at home, too.

[Side note: Having lived in the District of Columbia in the 1980s, it is still a little hard for me to take seriously the fruit called the marionberry. Maybe that's just me. But the pie was really great.]

The Creek

[Details largely dictated by my daughter]

One of the nicest things about this house in the country is that it is near the end of a road, and the road ends at Icicle Creek (which flows into the Wenatchee River, which in turn flows into the Columbia River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean. Salmon use all those paths to get back here to the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery, which is on Icicle Creek, up the river from here.

Nearly every day, some or all of us venture down to have adventures of one sort or another at the creek.

Before we got up here, Grandma and my daughter were spending a good portion of each day down at the creek. When we arrived, they had caught and brought home a good-sized bucket full of minnows, who seemed happy enough to be living in the living room, but the first evening we were here, we took them back to live in the creek.

At this point in the year, Icicle Creek is pretty small and quiet. You can pretty much walk across it, even if you're about 3-and-a-half feet tall, like my daughter (if you pick your route carefully). One of the joys of a low river filled with sand bars and things is the way you can poke around and dig and make channels and bays and all sorts of water works. We've had a great time digging with sticks and hands and things to make extensive works. And every day, we get to do some more.

And there are things living in the creek. On one of her trips down there this visit, my wife saw a log in the creek. Except the log started swimming. Apparently this log was actually a fish. We suppose a fish of that size in this creek must be a salmon, but we're not entirely sure. In any case, a chase ensued, with the salmon swimming into shallower and shallower parts of the creek, but the people kept digging channels for it to swim through into the deeper parts, and blocked behind it with a log and pushed with hands to make sure the salmon would make it farther along.

That evening, there was no sign of the salmon, so we hope it had continued up the creek to the hatchery via the deeper water where it could swim.

Grandma and my daughter have also fashioned pens for the minnows, using sand to create channels, walls, and pens. Water can flow in to nourish the minnows, but we hope the minnows have swum out into the creek by now.

Bees, Wasps and Hornets

Ever since we arrived here last weekend, we've seen a LOT of bees around. Actually, they are what I've always called Yellow Jackets, and it makes me curious about the distinctions among bees, wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets. But since I don't have reliable access to the Internet here, I will have to wait until we get to the library again.

Meanwhile, we've had the Pump Guy help out by shooting Magic Poison from a Can into a big nest in the back yard, and Grandma has taken care of some of the critters on the porch by spraying Wasp Stuff at their known nests after they go to bed for the night. I even located a small but growing nest under one of the chairs on the porch. Man, they're everywhere!

So of course, today, after we rode our inner tubes down the Wenatchee River for a couple of hours (a very pleasant float we've done before), we were relaxing and waiting for Grandma to pick us up after taking Sugar (the very old, very sweet Samoyed) to the vet for her checkup. Sipping cold drinks and munching popcorn is very pleasant when you're still soaked with cold river water, but sitting out on a warm afternoon.

So my wife kicked off her sandals and was swinging her feet in a relaxed, summer afternoon sort of way, when she suddenly winced in pain. Well, "wince" doesn't really cover it. I'm not sure there is a word that describes someone's entire body wincing, but that's what she did. Eventually we were able to get her to speak, and tell us she thought she had been stung, and please go inside the snack bar for some ice.

I ran (as best I could in the borrowed water shoes that don't quite fit) back into the shop, asked for a cup of ice for a sting. As the young man scooped some ice into a cup for me, he said he had something to help take the pain out of the sting, and returned quickly with a little glass capsule thing. Running back, I quickly read the directions on the sting-out thing, crushed the little capsule, and gave it to my wife to help with the sting. It seemed to relieve the pain a bit, as did the ice. We then noticed that another bee (I'll just call it a bee for now) seemed to be hanging around the sandal that was still off her foot. We theorize that there's something sweet smelling on the sandal, which attracted a bee, which happened to be in an inopportune spot when a foot came swinging by.

A helpful nurse sitting on a nearby bench offered some advice about hydrocortisone and such, after receiving reassurances that none of us are terribly allergic to stings. We elected to move back indoors, however; in spite of the cool air conditioning and general noise level, we deemed it preferable to sitting out with more bees.

As we're waiting for dinner (local pizza parlor delivers out here--yay!), my wife calls the local medical facility to discuss the intense pain that keeps coming in waves. She's taken ibuprofen and antihistamine and put some salve on the toe to draw out the poison, but wonders if there's more she could or should do. The guy helpfully says no, that she should just expect it to hurt like the dickens for another 2-3 days. How very reassuring. Pretty good pizza, though.

Now it's a number of hours later. Several doses of ibuprofen and some other medications have relieved some of the pain, and I'm hoping my wife is already asleep when I join her in a few minutes.

In the mean time, I'm still wondering about whether we're talking about bees, wasps, hornets, or yellow jackets. Or whether there is a meaningful distinction among all of those. Definite research topic for our next visit to the library.

Rube Goldberg Lives in Rural America

Living in the country for a bit brings home just what a complex web of services we take for granted in the city.

For example, late Saturday night I went to turn on a faucet, and found there was no water. OK, I know we're on a well, and sometimes the pump goes out or something. We suspect maybe a breaker has gone out on the pump. Find the breaker box. Find breaker(s) loosely labeled "Pump" (as in, there is a sticker that says "Pump" somewhere near a couple of the breakers). Feel brave, bite the bullet, and flip the breakers. Reward is the click of a relay back in the pump closet. Water flows from the tap. All is well.

Until the breaker blows again in the morning (now it's Sunday). And again. And again. And (you get the idea: it's pointless).... Helpful neighbor who actually understands pumps and such comes over to help. Concludes that it's really something wrong. Better call the Pump People on Monday morning.

In the mean time, we can hook up a hose from the irrigation system to feed back into the house system; can't drink it, but it's fine for toilets and showers and such. [Rant for later on what a waste it is for the rest of us to use potable water for such things.] In the short run, we decide that running a hose from the irrigation system into the main bathroom of the house so we can refill the toilet tank is the easiest solution. Of course, that means running the irrigation system all the time we want to use any running water. But we can try it for a bit.

Come back from dinner to find a note saying the irrigation system had to be turned off because earlier in the day when the Helpful Neighbor (see above) took down a dead tree, it seems to have broken a pipe in the irrigation system, which is now pumping water into the air and flooding another neighbor's yard. Right.

Fill enough buckets to use for flushing purposes overnight. Make sure we have water for washing hands and such. Make a note to deal with the irrigation system on Monday, too.

Monday morning, the pump guy shows up bright and early (well, that is certainly something different from city life!). He's even familiar with the property, having grown up in the neighborhood; he used to mow the lawn years ago. [Future thought, on how Grandma seems to know people all over town, even though she hasn't really lived her for ~50 years.] As he heads back to the pump house, he notices a BIG nest of "meat bees" in the ground, says he has something to handle it in the truck, and he actually does, which is cool. Fewer bees is good, because there are a LOT of them around here this summer.

He determines that the problem is that there is air in the pump, mainly because we've been drawing too much water from the system. We're not used to a well/pump system, so we've been doing things like taking back-to-back showers, which really need some time to recover from. Oops!

OK, so suitably chastened, we now have water for the house. Cousin who lives in the basement has looked at the irrigation issue. Her dad was a pipe fitter, and has taught her about the irrigation system (which is good, because she lives here all the time, and needs to take care of it, which she does, very well). She is able to patch the pipe back together (not actually broken, just pulled apart at a point where she can patch it back easily), so we have a full irrigation system again, too.

Wow. Lots of action for a weekend in the country, and all for stuff we totally take for granted back home. I now have a greater appreciation for both the level of care people have to take for their own operations here, and also for the care people take for each other.

Somewhere in the course of all this, it turns out that the flush mechanism in one of the toilets is running and wasting water (which we clearly don't want, given how precious the pumped well water is!). At last! Something I actually know how to fix. Quick stop at the hardware store (run by people who live down the street, of course, and who know Grandma when she walks in...see above) gets me a set of replacement parts, and in the next day or so, my daughter and I will fix it.

Whew! That's a lot of water issues for just a couple of days. Makes me want to go back to the fair and watch the bunnies.

A Few Vacation Notes

I'm largely disconnected while off on vacation this week, but I thought I'd provide a few little slices of life here in North Central Washington.

We arrived at Pangborn Memorial Airport in Wenatchee the other day, and found that the little cafe in the airport has free wireless Internet, so we got a few last e-mails read before heading off into Rural America.

On the drive over to Leavenworth, where the family has property, we spotted several promising spots for later visits, including Tom, Dick and Harry's Fabulous Burgers (on Easy Street in Monitor), which promises "Durn Good Burgers" on the sign over the door. More on that later. And of course, the tour of the Aplets and Cotlets Factory in Cashmere.

As it turns out, we've done both of those, and we've even been to the burger place twice, because it was...well...durn good! And Boswell's Furniture across Easy Street is a really good store, too.

But mostly we've been relaxing, playing games, reading books, and riding bikes (rented from Das Rad Haus...did I mention that Leavenworth styles itself a Bavarian village?). Tonight we'll be going to see the local theater company's production of Camelot (The Sound of Music, staged outdoors at the ski hill, is sold out).

Still to come, inner tubing on the river, and probably some other stuff I've forgotten.

I'm writing this in the library, which turns out to have free wireless Internet (yay!), while the rest of the family plays in the public pool.

Nothing weighty on my mind right now. Just ready to sign off, ride home, and maybe take a nap before the show....

Oh, wait! How did I forget to mention the North Central Washington District Fair? Best. Corndogs. Ever. Actually, the Lions Club calls them Pronto Pups, but they're really, really good. They make the batter right there. And where else can you watch angora yarn being spun right off the bunny? It was a lovely, if windy, day in Waterville, WA.

And a Quick E-Voting Note

A friend pointed me to this article, in which Diebold, a leading purveyor of electronic voting systems, is sort of, almost, spinning off its elections unit. Buried in the story is this gem:

Voting technology updates were encouraged by $3.9 billion of funding for the Help America Vote Act of 2002, following the disputed presidential election in 2000 that came down to a highly scrutinized recount of punch-card ballots in Florida.

Not that I'm suggesting that anyone would rush to market a product that didn't work very well, just because there was a lot of money available for such products.... Well, yes I am. $3.9B is a lot of reasons to sell junk. Of course, there is also this:

Diebold has often defended its voting machines and its own business intentions, even after its former chairman and chief executive, Wally O'Dell, sought with little success to convince critics his Republican politics and fundraising for President Bush were not the motive for the company's involvement in elections.

Political motivations can be almost as strong as financial ones.

Theme Park Overload

I'm still recovering from a family trip to San Diego two weeks ago. It was our first attempt at doing a home exchange, and it seems to have gone well. We got to stay in a very nice house, visit friends, and go to far too many tourist attractions.

San Diego is a lovely place, with great weather and many fun things to do. We didn't even scratch the surface, but we managed to fill far too much time with stimulating activity.

We had taken our daughter to San Diego a few years ago when she was fanatical about pandas, because the San Diego Zoo had a new panda cub on display, and we thought it might be her only chance to see a live baby panda. She has since seen a newborn cub at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, so I guess it wasn't a one-time thing. And much to our surprise, the day we arrived in San Diego, the Zoo announced the birth of yet another cub, although it won't be on display for many months. So I guess we have good cub karma or something.

During our brief visit, we managed to hit Coronado Beach, get ice cream at the Hotel Del Coronado, spend a day at Legoland, another full day at the Zoo, and a very full day at SeaWorld.

Legoland was actually the key reason for this trip. The last time we'd gone, our daughter was a bit too small (i.e., too short) to do a lot of the rides and things. This time, she was just tall enough to be able to do anything in the park, at least with someone along. (The Volvo Driving School was a big hit.) So we pretty much did it all. Legoland is impressive in that it manages to be really fun for small kids, but has enough to hold the interest of adults, too. The Lego sculptures are very impressive: I love their little scale model of Washington, DC.

The last thing we did at SeaWorld was probably the most impressive, a ride called Journey to Atlantis. At the start of our visit, we agreed that each member of the party (there were six of us) would get to choose the thing they most wanted to do, and the group would do it. My daughter chose the Atlantis ride, but the first couple of times we went by, the lines were incredibly long. Later we got into the queue, but they shut down the ride for a while, and we bailed. Finally, we came back in the evening, the line wasn't too long, and we got to ride. And man, was it impressive! It is both a water-splash ride and a roller coaster, and both very good. You start out going up, then dropping down into a big splash pool, then circle around and get elevated again, and this time you go around a pretty good roller coaster. So it's like two rides for the price of standing in line once, and so much fun that we had to ride it twice in a row.

I had somewhat hoped to take in a baseball game at the new ballpark, but it didn't fit into our schedule. On Saturday evening, however, I was in a store picking up some beer, just in time to hear Barry Bonds hit his 755th home run on the radio. That was weird. (And of course, I was at the park when he hit 756 a few days later.)

All in all, a very exhausting trip. One needs to get back to work to get some rest!

Poor Little Rich Kids

I found this article from the New York Times by a link at Infoworld. The gist of the article is that a lot of the millionaires in Silicon Valley (and there are a lot of them) don't feel rich enough. Here's one of the people quoted:

“I know people looking in from the outside will ask why someone like me keeps working so hard,” Mr. Steger says. “But a few million doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe in the ’70s, a few million bucks meant ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. But not anymore.”

Now, look. I know it's expensive to live in the Valley. But really. It's hard to get worked up about this when there are plenty of people living in (absolute or relative) poverty in the same area. The people who clean their offices and collect their trash and such have it a lot harder.

I did find some interesting discussion at Infoworld, too. It goes in a couple of different directions. On one hand there's some feeling that the attitudes of the subjects of the article are misrepresented (which is, in my experience, quite possible), and on another that a lot of these folks are supported by programmers who make nothing off their efforts (open source projects).

In a sense, those both hit the same ethic: some people work because they like to, or at least work on some projects because they like to. I certainly know a lot of programmers who program for money, but also do projects for fun, and often make those available freely. [For a discussion of that phenomenon, the best book I recall is Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, by Steven Levy. It's a bit dated, though I see there's been an updated edition. Another terrific book that touches on the motivations of engineers is Tracy Kidder's wonderful The Soul of a New Machine.]

[Grrr. Blogger posted this before I was ready!] Update:

The point I mean to make here is that the Times article hits some nerves around here (the greater Silicon Valley). There are clearly a lot of folks who don't know what "enough" is, but there are also plenty of people who are driven by desires other than wealth (and who consequently have plenty of it). It ain't all cut and dried.

E-Voting update

My sister points out that I haven't written about the latest flurry of bad news on the electronic voting front. Good point. And yes, I know that all those links come from one source, but that's kind of the point.

Basically, we've gotten confirmation that the machines don't work (right), but we still have to use them. Terrific:

[UC Davis computer science professor Matt] Bishop, however, said he was surprised by the weakness of the security measures, both physical and electronic, protecting the voting systems. His team of hackers found ways to get into the systems not only through the high-tech equipment in election headquarters but also through the machines in the polling places.

If the testers had had more time, they would have found more flaws, he added.

BTW, Dan Rather has done a bit of investigative reporting, and his report airs tonight. Unfortunately, it's on HDnet, which my cable company (Comcast) declines to include HDnet on its systems. I imagine some or all of it will turn up online shortly.

The machine makers and the county voting officials are upset with the Secretary of State (who oversees elections, statewide), thinking she's out to get the machine makers:

During her election campaign last year, Bowen made it clear she had little confidence in the security of electronic voting machines and vowed to review their use in the state.

"Voting systems are tools of our democracy,'' she said Friday. "We want to ensure that the voting systems used in the state are secure, accurate, reliable and accessible to all. This (study result) is not a big deal to me. It's a big deal for everyone in the country.''

And that's pretty much what I've been saying all along: Voting is too important to leave it to inadequate systems.

History and Choices

History is a funny thing. I was at the ballpark Tuesday when Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run (and again Wednesday, when he hit number 757), breaking the former record set by Hank Aaron.

On one hand, it was great to be there amongst the excited throng to see an event of that magnitude. Having been there for many of his other milestone home runs (500, 600, 660 and 661, 700, as well as most of the big ones in his record-breaking single season with 73 homers), it gives me a sense of closure to finally see him atop the career list.

On the other hand, the excitement is dulled somewhat by the controversy over whether Bonds might have enhanced his performance in ways that are neither legal nor within the rules of the game.

I don't intend to rehash the arguments here (or even present my own). That's my point: I'm tired of all the speculation and opining and pontification. It has dulled my appreciation of the most impressive sports performer I have ever seen. Whether fueled by illicit activity or not, Barry Bonds has consistently outperformed my expectations of what is possible.

And really, that's why I watch sports: I want to see people do outstanding things, often things that I can't even remotely imagine doing myself. And Bonds has done more of that, on a consistent basis, than anyone I have ever seen.

A good friend pointed me to this excellent piece from the LA Times the other day. I found this passage particularly pointed (emphasis mine):

As a society, we're way too OK with being users. Abusers even. And our multimillionaire athletes, the ones we -- perhaps foolishly -- hold up as paragons of virtue simply because they can run and throw, are they supposed to be different?

Said Hoberman on the phone the other day: "You can't have an enormous development in performance enhancement in society in general and expect the sports world to be immune to it."

It's not only about pharmacy drugs. We want to be able to bash Bonds and head to a surgeon to get a new chin and new lips, so we can fake everyone into thinking we've slowed the march of time. We want to bash Bonds and then drive to a health-food store and load up on non-prescription pills that have us feeling as if we can walk through walls.

I need to go back and reread a novel on this subject called Achilles' Choice, by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. As I recall (I read it back in the mid-90s), it wasn't a particularly well-written book (especially by their standards; I generally like those guys a lot), but it deals with exactly the dilemma an athlete such as Barry Bonds faces in what is popularly being called the "steroid era": whether to artificially enhance oneself if that is the only way to be competitive. And of course, it's not just in sports. There are plenty of everyday people using chemicals or other substances to help them perform in their jobs.

All of which calls to mind a quotation my mother sent me many years ago, when she was studying at Oxford for a summer, culled from Samuel Butler's novel, The Way of All Flesh:

What, then, it may be asked, is the good of being great? The answer is that you may understand greatness better in others, whether alive or dead, and choose better company from these and enjoy and understand that company better when you have chosen it--also that you may be able to give pleasure to the best people and live in the lives of those who are yet unborn.

As we evaluate the greatness and achievements of others, it would serve us well to examine them in light of our own choices and our own achievements. What lengths are we willing to go ourselves, and at what costs? And what will we tolerate in others in their/our pursuit of excellence?

The ancient Greeks honored the notion of aristos, or superiority, to the point that one who was the best at something could be forgiven shortcomings in other areas. Check out the Illiad, and consider how many characters (including the aforementioned Achilles) are described as being the best at something, yet display their shortcomings in other areas.

Instead of carping at one man's achievements, perhaps we should be having a larger discussion of virtue, how we define it, and what we're willing to tolerate in the pursuit of achievement.

A quick Beer Note

My buddy Joe and I discovered a rather refreshing beer a couple of weeks ago.

Bowing to a bad habit that has occasionally served me well in the wine world, we chose this beer because we liked the label. It's called Great White Beer, from the Lost Coast Brewery in northern California. It's quite light, but flavorful, and really nice on a warm day.

The drawing of the surfer shark on the label is cute. But what really catches the eye is this text:

A crisp beer with a hint of citrus, made with two-row malted barley, unmalted wheat, a secret blend of Humboldt herbs, crystal clear mountain water, and ale yeast.

That highlighted phrase would be code, for those of you not from the area, suggesting some illicit substances reputed to grow in the hills of Humboldt County. I'm sure that's not what's in there, but it amused us enough to buy a six pack. The beer was good enough that I'll probably buy some more.

Um...where was I?

Oh, right: blogging.

I can't believe it's been a month. Much going on. Little family trips. Little family crises. The MLB All-Star Game (which I meant to write about, darn it). Deadlines on two different jobs. Oy.

But I know, that's no excuse.

On the other hand, I am just so glad I don't have to use Windows Vista.

I'll have more to write when I get to the other side of my deadlines, my wedding anniversary, and some record-setting (I hope) baseball games.

Rhetoric and Innocence

I just finished reading this year's commencement address for the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California at Berkeley. [Hat tip to Digby at Hullabaloo for that.] It caught my interest because, as you probably know, I graduated from that same department a number of years ago.

So it was with great fascination that I read what the address to this year's graduates would be. The tone is much more serious and somber than anything I recall from my graduation. Those were very different times. I was part of the group that planned our graduation ceremony, and consulted on inviting a commencement speaker. We chose a graduate of the department, Carrie Snow, as our speaker, and she was quite entertaining. But that was the point. She was working as a stand-up comic, and in the 1980s, there just wasn't a more appealing career.

To be honest, I don't remember a lot about Ms. Snow's address, although I do remember laughing a lot. Those were certainly more innocent times. Many in Berkeley believed that with Ronald Reagan at the helm, the country had reached a nadir. [I vividly recall the campus humor magazine cover with the caption "Reagan Wins" depicting a Berkeley "hippie" with a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head.] Little could they have anticipated how things would devolve over the next decades. We didn't want to think about the cold war or getting jobs, so inviting a comic to make us laugh seemed like a good way to end our time at Cal.

I should point out that the best tradition of the Rhetoric commencement, dating back to the time when it was the Department of Speech, is that each graduate has the opportunity to speak briefly to the assembled group. It's a pretty small department, so it doesn't add a lot of time to the ceremony, but it does bring out a lot of the personality of the department and its students in a way that I've never seen at any other graduation ceremony.

Clever TV Ad

I don't watch all that much TV, but during a baseball game today, I caught this, which I thought was both very clever in general, and very good at using the local backdrops (San Francisco).



Almost makes we want to drink a Pepsi. Almost.

Dinosaurs at a Birthday Party

Forgive a little self-indulgence. Today we had a sixth birthday party for our daughter, and the theme was once again dinosaurs. The location was the wonderful Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley. At least early on, the day was sunny and nice, so the view from the cafeteria was terrific. It got gray later, which was less stunning, but it's still a great overlook.

The highlight of the party was the cake. At the fundraising auction for the school, we'd won a gift certificate from Debbie Does Cakes, so we thought we should use it on a special birthday cake. Wow! Debbie is an Artist. She worked with us to design just the right dinosaur, a fine looking triceratops, and even delivered it herself. You can get an idea of her work by looking at her website, but the little pictures don't do it justice. The cake looked phenomenal, and tasted wonderful, too (devil's food with peanut-butter cream filling and delicious butter cream frosting.

Debbie mentioned that she's going to be part of a cake-baking special on the Food Network this summer. I will definitely tune in so I can see her at work. It should be a real treat to see how she creates her art. Meanwhile, we have leftovers to eat. Yum!

Bobby Kennedy

I just read a very moving post by Christy Hardin Smith over at FireDogLake. I hadn't been aware that this was the anniversary of Bobby Kennedy's death. I was too young to understand what was going on in the summer of 1968 (although I do remember the Olympics that year); my political awakening came with Watergate and the 1972 presidential election.

Anyway, I highly, highly recommend you take the 6 minutes or so to watch the YouTube video clip she includes in that post. It's extremely moving.

Today, it's unimaginable that a candidate for high national office would make such an eloquent, yet restrained speech. Or that they would make a call for unity and calm without an appeal to partisanship. Or quote Greek poetry.

I want to vote for someone like Bobby Kennedy, but I don't see anyone like that entering politics these days. And that is sad.

The Real First Fleet!

I try to stay out of the ongoing battles between the evolutionists and the creationists. I have a firm view on one side, and frankly find the other rather silly.

But as an Australiaphile, I just had to share an item on the subject from the blog Lawyers, Guns and Money (the picture there alone is worth the visit). It in turn references a fine item from the Boston Globe. The key item involves the question of how the original pair of kangaroos got from Noah's Ark to Australia, including speculation that they floated on mats of displaced vegetation.

Clearly, this would upset the whole notion of the settlement of Australia by the so-called First Fleet. It would be a huge change in the narrative if there was an earlier fleet of kangaroos. My own interpretation is that the original 'roos must have been convicts, too, transported by the other animals for some minor transgression.

I'm a Spork!

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter (approaching 6 years old) was making her lunch for school the next day. She wasn't making much progress on her peanut butter sandwich, and I noticed she was having trouble getting the lid off the jam jar (bad design, Smuckers: the big plastic jars from Costco, while cost-effective, are prone to sticky lids, and the jars aren't solid enough to really grab and twist effectively...but I digress).

Eventually she just looks at me and says, "Dad, you're a spork." I am? "Dad, you're a spork!" Apparently she means it, whatever it means. Why do you say that? "I'm trying to do something, and you're not being useful!" [beat...laughter all around the kitchen]

Some months earlier, probably while dining at some fine dining establishment that thinks it can save money by using sporks instead of spoons and forks, I had taught her the expression, "useless as a spork." It appears the lesson was learned and remembered.

Buying an Umbrella

Now and then, you just need some art. Or as Pedro Carmichael, Peter Falk's rather bizarre character in the movie "Tune in Tomorrow" put it: "Life is a shitstorm, and when it's raining shit, the best umbrella you can buy is art."*

Luckily, my wife and I have fairly compatible taste in art, and our favorite artist is Robert Lyn Nelson. He does wonderful paintings of ocean life, and pioneered the "two worlds" style of marine art, where the picture shows both above and below the surface of the water.

We used to really enjoy visiting his gallery in Monterey, but he closed it a number of years ago. So we were quite delighted to learn that he opened an art outlet in nearby Pacific Grove this past weekend. And best of all, when we went in on Monday, the proprietor, Jim, had some spare time to take us for a tour of the warehouse, so we got to see lots of great original art. The scans online don't do justice to the real stuff.

Anyway, we ended up buying a print. Won't say which one. You'll just have to come see for yourself!

*In the book that Tune in Tomorrow was made from, "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" by Mario Vargas Llosa, the quote is "Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." Go figure. Anyway, the book is good, but the movie is very, very silly.

Welcome to the Blogosphere

Just got a note this week that another old friend, Rod Bartlett, has started blogging. This is a good thing. Rod blogs mostly on technical matters, and I've already come across useful stuff there. I've added him to my roll of blogging buddies over on the right. So check out his Bruised Fancy.

Welcome to the monkey house, Rod!

Whale Begone

Apparently the wayward humpback whales have gotten tired of hanging around in fresh/brackish water, and have returned to the ocean, or at least sneaked away to where people can't watch them incessantly.

So I'll give the last word (and picture) on the subject to cartoonist Don Asmussen, of "Bad Reporter" fame.

Rational Discussion of Torture

I just read a very good, reasonable discussion of various positions on torture, and it's well worth reading. It comes from the blog Anonymous Liberal, where the blogger (who is no longer truly anonymous, as I recall) consistently provides clear and readable analyses of complex issues (particularly legal ones).

In particular, he does a great job of debunking the "ticking time-bomb" scenarios that is most often used to justify removing policies that prohibit torture. And he does so on two grounds: 1) The scenario is completely unrealistic, and therefore inappropriate as a basis for policy, and 2) Practically speaking, no policy would apply in such a scenario:

Just because you can construct a hypothetical scenario were shooting a girl in the head is the "right" thing to do, that doesn't mean that we should do away with the legal prohibition against murder. When it comes to acts that are sufficiently bad--such as murder and torture--you need categorical rules.
...
In a true ticking bomb scenario (which I'm convinced is like saying "when you meet a real unicorn"), people will do what they think they have to do, regardless of what the law says. And in that kind of extraordinary situation, no one would be prosecuted for resorting to extreme, even illegal tactics.

But you can't let highly unlikely hypothetical scenarios dictate policy. Regardless of whether there are conceivable situations where torture could be justified, it has to remain illegal.

I recommend reading the whole piece. It's really very clear and well-reasoned. Policies on extraordinary conduct require an extraordinary amount of thought and clarity. Making emotionally-charged decisions based on irrational scenarios is a prescription for bad policy (see USA PATRIOT Act, for example).

Wonderful Human Beings

I was about to turn in for the night, but gagged on this [emphasis mine]:

During tonight’s presidential debates, candidates were asked whether they would support the use of waterboarding — a technique, defined as torture by the Justice Department, that simulates drowning and makes the subject “believe his death is imminent while ideally not causing permanent physical damage.”

Both former mayor Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggested they would support using the technique. ...

The audience applauded loudly after both statements.

Ick. This is what passes for public discourse in what purports to be a civilized society: A debate over who can pander hardest to the basest motives of the voters. I am ashamed.

Torture has no place in my country. It is wrong. It is dangerous. And I'm tired of having to write that.

I almost wrote about this last week after reading this story:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.

It's nice to know that someone in the military has the sense to understand that torture and other abuse of others makes our troops less safe and mocks the values they are supposedly fighting to uphold and defend.

Angry. Really angry. And frustrated. I want my civilization back.

Freshwater Whales

I know I have mentioned my fondness for whales and other marine mammals in the past. And I am eagerly anticipating my next visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see their new exhibit on otters.

But the local news is full of the latest visit from wayward whales to the Sacramento River delta. And really, the coverage is pretty good, at least until I got to this sentence:

They likely got into the north delta area by swimming up the deep and wide Sacramento River from San Pablo Bay.

Ya think?

Now, maybe you need to know a little about the environment to get this, but basically, there's only one way to get to Sacramento from the ocean if you're a whale, and that would be it. In the Golden Gate, around a couple of islands, up through San Pablo Bay, and hey, you're in the delta.

From our friends at the National Park Service:

This Pacific Coast contains the only opening to the interior of the state for nearly 1,000 miles of coastline. The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers drain nearly 40% of the watersheds in California. And all of this flows out of the Golden Gate.

OK, maybe I'm being a little hard on them. After all, the reporters probably read this book. I can see where one might mistake that for a nature documentary.

Anyway, it's not the first time this has happened. Back in 1985, I was working for the congressman who represented the district the whale was swimming through, so needless to say we were paying attention, even from 3,000 miles away. At least they haven't named these whales. Yet. But I fully expect to see our current Lieutenant Governor capitalizing on rescuing these whales any minute now.

More New York Stuff

Just a few more random items about our trip to New York City.

First: the subway. This was one of those things I had some kind of irrational fear of (well, maybe it was rational). I must have seen too many movies and TV shows about bad experiences on the subway. Dirty, noisy, scary. I dunno.

Truth is, it's great! It goes all over town, it's easy to figure out, and it costs $2 to go anywhere. Um, it was also kind of dirty and noisy, but not scary. In fact, I'm really impressed that a system that old is in as good shape as it is. We managed to ride the subway every day, I think, and we only made two mistakes that I'm aware of. The first was catching the wrong train (in the right direction), but we caught that after only one station, and were able to get right back on the right track (so to speak). We also got caught on a local train that "went express" just before our destination, so we ended up taking a quick ride up to Harlem. Not a problem: just got off and took a local train back. Just lost a little time.

I'm a big fan of transit systems, and the New York City subway was great. I wish we had something like it here in the Bay Area. Even the combination of BART (which is really a commuter system) and the San Francisco Muni Metro, which is useful, but not nearly as comprehensive.

Second: Bagels! Right around the block from our hotel was a terrific little bagel shop and deli called Ess-A-Bagel. Terrific place for breakfast: quick and tasty. Very dense bagels in lots of flavors. We particularly enjoyed the pumpernickel and the 9-grain. The chicken curry salad was very good. They also had more flavors of cream cheese (chocolate chip??? cinnamon apple!!!) than I had ever seen. And I had my first potato knish.

Third: tasty food (of the non-bagel variety). After our first night at the theater, we randomly picked a restaurant across the street from Lincoln Center called P.J. Clarke's. That worked out well, as we got a nice Maryland crab salad and a tasty New York strip steak with a nice pinot noir, followed by an apple cobbler for dessert.

One other night we met friends after the show at Mas (Farmhouse) Restaurant in Greenwich Village. Really nice place with good food and wine, and a fine staff. That was a genuinely good meal.

One other night after the show, we strolled down Broadway through Times Square, enjoying the lights and sights. Ended up having a post-midnight light dinner at a bar called Tonic. Good drinks, and tasty bar food (barbecue pulled pork shoulder sandwiches, potstickers).

And on our last evening in town, we took the family to a French restaurant focused on cheese called Artisanal Bistro. Awesome onion soup, and even the split order of mussels was HUGE. We had meant to finish with a cheese course, but we were all too full. We all love cheese, so this is definitely a place we'd go again.

And we finished that last evening at Times Square with a chocolate snack at the Hershey's store (across the street from M&Ms World...really). We discovered several chocolate items we had not anticipated: a mix of little Hershey bars, all made with Special Dark chocolate, either plain or with peanuts or crisped rice; dark chocolate Kissables (basically candy-coated chocolate chips); and chocolate Bubble Yum.

It's late, so I'll have to save the toy store visits for another post.

The History of Nature

So, as noted in the last post, we spent almost a week in New York City. In the evenings, my wife and I went to the theater, and the daytimes were spent with our almost-six-year-old daughter at the American Museum of Natural History.

As I am sure I have mentioned elsewhere, said daughter is dinosaur-obsessed. And ever since seeing a video called Dinosaur Hunters, she has told everyone who will listen that she plans to be a paleontologist, and after she gets her degree in Paleontology (from UC Berkeley, of course!), she plans to work at the Museum of Natural History in New York, although she will spend much of her time in the field in Mongolia, digging for oviraptor fossils.

So going to the museum itself was sort of a pilgrimage for her. Needless to say, after purchasing our membership (given the length of our stay, it was much less expensive than daily tickets), we headed straight to the 4th floor [pdf], home of fossils. We spent much of that first afternoon in the hall of saurischian dinosaurs. Needless to say, the scale of things is daunting. Not only are the dinos BIG, but there are so many, and so much to read. Probably the thing she found most mesmerizing was a little video of a time-lapse view of reposing the big T-Rex skeleton. Scientific consensus about how T-Rex stood and moved necessitated disassembling and reassembling the display that had been there since 1915. It's quite interesting to watch how they managed it.

Subsequently, we managed to wander around to the orientation hall, where they have an excellent video narrated by Meryl Streep that explains they layout of the whole floor, which traces the evolution of vertebrates from the earliest brain case and simple backbone through advanced mammals. There are some truly spectacular items on display, but until we saw the video, we didn't get how brilliantly they have laid out the displays to trace the development of vertebrate life.

Needless to say, our daughter really got it, and thereafter insisted on following the development path in the proper direction only.

One cute note is that she is quite petite for her age, so she had some difficulty using the many computer displays in the different exhibit halls. She would convince various people to lift her up onto the display itself, where she could easily manipulate the controls and work her way through the lessons. Several times we noticed museum staff come over to shoo the little kid sitting on the computer, until they realized she was really studying the material.

We all got a great deal out of the 4th floor. Since we returned, we have gotten daily lectures on various aspects of vertebrate development, such as the fact that we are synapsids. Our plush platypus has been named Amnion, and so on.

Although we collectively spent the bulk of our time at the museum wandering the 4th floor, we managed to sneak off at times to see some of the other exhibits. Of particular interest to those of us who love to dive was the Hall of Ocean Life, which covers all sorts of things, from coral reefs and kelp forests to big marine mammals. We were dubious that a dry exhibit (as opposed to an aquarium) could capture the essence of ocean life, but they've done a really credible job.

All in all, despite the overwhelming amount of stuff, we all came away with both a great appreciation for the museum itself and the lessons it teaches and a desire to go back to explore some more. When we realized that we'd spent a huge amount of time exploring a relatively small percentage of the material on display, we knew we'll be returning to see more.

Truly, the museum is an astounding place, and well worth visiting.

The Coast of Utopia

Just back from a family vacation to...New York City. As I noted last year, I used to have a sort of irrational fear of New York City, probably due to watching too many sensational TV and movie portrayals as a youth.

But that taste last fall made me want to go back and explore a bit, and the planets aligned to make it work out this week.

The main reason to go was theater. My wife and I are both huge fans of Tom Stoppard, and will go to great lengths to see his plays. In this case, it took us to Lincoln Center, where they are currently staging The Coast of Utopia, a sequential trilogy of plays about intellectual radicalism in 19th-century Russia.

And it was great! I have to admit, I was dubious when I first heard about the concept and the viability of three plays in a row. But it really works. Mainly, of course, it's Stoppard, so it's witty and intellectually challenging. But then you add on the difficulty of staging three plays at a time in the same theater, mostly with the same cast (some playing different characters), and a large cast at that, and it's really daunting. Staging any one Stoppard play is challenging, but this is a huge undertaking.

Which explains why it's only been staged twice: initially in London, and now in New York. So it's not the sort of production that's going to go on a national tour, and we figured it might be our only chance to see it, ever.

The three parts of the trilogy, although they ostensibly stand alone, really work as three parts of one story. The individual plays are, in order, Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage, which might give you an idea of how things proceed. Voyage introduces the characters in their youth, exploring European philosophies as they make their way into Russia. Shipwreck follows them as they move into middle age, finding their personal and political lives on the rocks. And Salvage shows them aging, watching the baton pass to another generation of revolutionaries.

I should also mention that the New York production attracted a terrific cast. I'm always a little wary when I see actors better known for movies and television work on stage, but in this case, it worked. I was particularly impressed with the work of Ethan Hawke and Billy Crudup, whose work I only knew through film, but they were very charismatic and consistent in their portrayals. Hawke's rendition of Michael Bakunin, in particular, is wonderful.

And we ended up having a terrific time in New York. But more about that later.

"Intellectual Diversity"???

This is too awful for words, but I'll try.

The Missouri House of Representatives has passed a bill promoting "intellectual diversity" in higher learning. Now, being somewhat literal minded, I figured this was some kind of affirmative action program for stupid people. I mean, "ethnic diversity" means including people of different ethnic backgrounds, and "political diversity" means including people of differing political views. So obviously, "intellectual diversity" means including people with differing levels of intellect.

So I'm envisioning the state colleges of Missouri opening their doors to people who were previously excluded because they weren't smart enough. Call me elitist, but this seems like a bad idea to me.

But then I read some of the discussion of the issue (especially good coverage by PZ Myers and Digby), and actually looked at the text of the bill, which says

..."intellectual diversity" is defined as the foundation of a learning environment that exposes students to a variety of political, ideological, religious, and other perspectives, when such perspectives relate to the subject matter being taught or issues being discussed.

So I'm sort of having an Emily Litella moment. Sort of.

But the more I think about it, the less I like the idea. I totally agree with the notion that colleges should be places where one is free to air one's views, and the bill does give at least nominal credence to the notion of free expression. On the other hand, buried deep in the language of the bill is this (right after establishing policies to ensure that heckling doesn't interfere with expression of views):

(e) Include intellectual diversity concerns in the institution's guidelines on teaching and program development and such concerns shall include but not be limited to the protection of religious freedom including the viewpoint that the Bible is inerrant;

So now the intent of the authors becomes clear: they want to ensure that a particular religious view is given special standing, intellectually speaking. I do have issues with singling out particular views as being special, particularly religious views. My guess is that singling out one such viewpoint for special treatment will run afoul of the First Amendment's establishment and free exercise clauses.

But more than that, it worries me that they potentially put certain viewpoints out of the realm of discussion. I don't mind if they want to posit a religious viewpoint in a classroom discussion. But that viewpoint has to be subject to the same level of investigation and scrutiny as any other. I envision every class discussion degenerating into an endless filibuster about religion, and people's feeling being hurt because their "inerrant" source was made subject to scrutiny.

There are certainly valid questions about the role of religious belief in higher education, and questions about the attitude of academia in how it deal with belief and believers. But the answer is definitely not to codify one particular religious belief as being particularly worthy. What seems appropriate is some kind of dialogue about the role of religious beliefs in public education, but not the ramming of a particular religion into the classroom, whether it wants to be there or not.

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

So it goes.

Bummer. Aside from the obvious success of novels such as Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle (my personal favorite), I found a couple of his other works inspirational or eye-opening. I think the first book of his I read was Breakfast of Champions, so I have a soft spot in my heart for it. And the collection of short stories Welcome to the Monkey House has several really good stories. One of them (EPICAC) inspired me as I was writing an oration in high school that ended up being very successful.

Thanks, Kurt. Cruising the blogs tonight, I can see that you inspired a lot of people.

The Dog Ate Their Homework

Oh, please.

I can't say I didn't see it coming, but really, in this day and age, there is no excuse for this.

No win situation here: either these people are hopelessly, ridiculously incompetent or they are hopelessly dishonest. Neither is a pretty picture.

Update: Really good coverage of this by The Anonymous Liberal, who is an attorney:

...if a private entity--particularly one subject to legally mandated record keeping requirements--were to inform government investigators seeking such documents that they had been "mishandled" and were now "lost," that entity would immediately find itself in a world of hurt and would be lucky if it survived the aftermath. No amount of talking would be enough to convince the authorities that there was an innocent explanation for the missing documents. They would be absolutely convinced that the "mishandled" documents were intentionally destroyed in order to cover up wrongdoing.

Further update: Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post explores the matter in depth today:

Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted -- lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas -- due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.

Or maybe not so countless. CREW says its millions of messages destroyed:

Through two confidential sources, CREW learned that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over FIVE MILLION emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005. The White House counsel’s office was advised of these problems in 2005 and CREW has been told that the White House was given a plan of action to recover these emails, but to date nothing has been done to rectify this significant loss of records.

The incompetence defense is seeming less plausible today.

Life Begins Anew

Ah, Spring. Clear skies, sunshine, bird singing, and the start of baseball season.

It doesn't get better than this. Today was just about the perfect Opening Day in San Francisco. Since San Francisco and the Giants will be hosting the annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game this July, the Giants started off the season with a pregame introduction of a bunch of former Giants who were All-Stars. Impressive group, which took me back through my formative years with looks at some of my favorite players, many of whom are considerably different shapes and colors than they used to be (notably, rounder and grayer). Wonderful trip down memory lane to start the season.

The Giants' new manager, Bruce Bochy, summed it up nicely:

"There's nothing like Opening Day. This is what you look forward to from the first day of Spring Training. It doesn't matter how long you've been in this game. This is a huge day," manager Bruce Bochy said before suffering a 7-0 defeat.

Oh, right. It could have been better. Nothing quite like a crushing defeat to get a new season underway. On the plus side, other than the fact that no one on the team seemed particularly inclined to hit, and the relief pitching was atrocious, the team played reasonably well.

And tomorrow is another day and another game. One down, 161 to go!

"Play ball!"

History Will Vindicate Us!

I stumbled onto this comic today. I am amused at the notion of how people from the future will view bloggers.

And although I don't normally wear a red cape, I do know where I can find a red riding hood about the house. Certainly we are having the greatest dialogues of the age.

Right here. Right now. It doesn't get any better than this. Aren't you thrilled to be part of it?

Thought so.

Cancer and Politics

Haven't written about cancer in a while. That's probably a good thing, since after way too much involvement with it last couple of years, we've been blessedly untouched by it for a bit.

Then came the news this week that Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, has had a recurrence of her breast cancer, which has now metastasized and is deemed incurable. And suddenly, cancer and how people deal with it isn't just news, it's a political football. At best, the pundits want to analyze the effect of the announcement on the campaign. At worst, the sleazebags try to capitalize on it, casting aspersions and making accusations.

I find this piece, by Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, quite compelling. It's particularly poignant, given that Hamsher is herself dealing with a recurrence of breast cancer. She does a good job explaining the behavior of Mr. Limbaugh and his ilk that I wouldn't even touch.

The idea that there is somehow a correct or proper way to deal with cancer in your life or your family is absurd. It is ridiculous to condemn or second-guess anyone for the way they choose to cope with what will potentially be the last years of their lives together. It is particularly irksome to read these hit pieces by people who have no particular knowledge of the people or the situation involved: they just project their opinions, their prejudices, or their political preferences onto people who already have much more than enough to deal with.

Dealing with cancer is not about living up to other expectations. It's about living. And you do it on your terms, as best you can. It's unbelievably hard to do under the best of circumstances, much less under the microscope now applied to those in public life.

I wish nothing but the best to the Edwards family; my heart goes out to them. And I hope some other people will be able to learn a little bit about how life works.

Relatives on the Internet

Here's a link to a lovely picture of a close relative.

For those who need an explanation, try this.

You never know what you'll find on a blog. Small world!

On the Paper, Dammit!

Some good news today on the electronic voting front. Congress is considering legislation to require paper ballots as an official record. California's Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, testified today in favor of the measure, despite having reservations about implementation.

Still a long way to go on this. but at least it's getting serious consideration.

Remember, there is nothing more important in a democratic republic than verifiably fair elections!

Name That Ballpark

Baseball season is in the offing, which means it's time for my mind to wander to important subjects, such as the naming of ballparks.

I saw this encouraging news today:

The Rangers are changing the name of their ballpark from "Ameriquest Field" (Ameriquest is a mortgage company) to yet another corporate moniker. ..."Rangers Ballpark in Arlington." It's the first case I can remember from this callow age of ubiquitous corporate sponsorship that a stadium has been renamed in the right direction.

It seems positive, but my guess is they just haven't found The Right Company willing to shell out the bucks yet. My money is on someone stepping forward to pay for the rights.

Interestingly, this is the second ballpark in Texas to be renamed because of the embarrassment of having a scandalous (and/or bankrupt) sponsor. The Houston Astros changed the name of Enron Field to Minute Maid Park after the Enron implosion.

It's nice to be writing about stuff that really matters again!

Wag More, Bark Less

Since my sister is doing bumper stickers (and such) of late, I thought I should share this one:


I'm not a dog person, but I saw this on a car last week, and the sentiment struck me as simple and useful. Be happier. Be less annoying.

Flags

OK, this is weird. There is clearly some kind of cultural difference here that I don't appreciate. I lived in northern Virginia for a brief period, which I realize isn't the same as living in the deep south, but then, Florida is its own sort of weird "southern" culture.

But it is inexplicably weird to see people displaying a confederate flag with pride. Friends of mine moved out of Georgia in part because they were tired of the debates over whether to keep the confederate flag as part of the state flag.

But this was the most surprising bit to me:

It's interesting that Florida has a law that forbids "public desecration" of the Confederate flag. This is especially interesting given that the American flag is protected by no such law.

Could that be true? Ack! Independent verification from another blog:

What I find infuriating is the Florida statute making it illegal to "deface, defile or contemptuously abuse" the Confederate flag.

Yeah. That's offensive. I like his take on the whole pride thing:

Of course the Sons of the Confederate Veterans are pissed. They see the flag as part of their heritage. That is, they are proud that their ancestors owned people based on the color of their skin, killed and raped them at will, and stole their labor for hundreds of years. The commander of the local there, Robert Hurst, calls the display, "offensive, objectionable and tasteless." I would use those same terms to describe any display of the Confederate flag as a symbol of pride. And I would be right.

Amen.

My thanks to Robert Farley at LGM for pointing this out.

Reading List

Just saw this meme developing over at Pharyngula (a terrific science blog), and thought it would be fun to see how my reading matches up. My guess is I'll be heavier on the SF and lighter on the fantasy, but let's see how it plays out.

Bold means I've read it.

The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Hmmm. Only 27. And more surprising to me is the number of books on the list I've never even heard of. And then there's the number of books on the list I think are horribly overrated. Oh, well. We can't all agree on everything.

It does strike me that I haven't been reading much SF of late. I've been a bit bogged down in a nonfiction book for a while, and need to get to something lighter.

If you feel like playing, the list is at The News Blog.

Penguins in Civil Discourse

And while we're on the theme of civil discourse, let's include the notion of projecting things into people's comments that have nothing to do with the subject at hand.

Witness, for example, this poor, misunderstood penguin.

Just need to give credit to Tom Tomorrow. His comic is consistently clever, witty, and spot-on-the-mark when it comes to characterizing the trends in American society and politics. I've admired his work since I saw a great comic he'd done for independent booksellers many years ago, parodying chain bookstores. I loved the sign about "books by the pound."

Anyway, if you don't read Tom Tomorrow, you should.

Civility and Subtlety

I have written previously about civility and choice of language in blogging. We've discussed "F-Bombs" and "bad words" various other expressions.

But there's another aspect of current discourse (both within and without the blogosphere) that I find much more disturbing. That's the casual use of the unthinkable: saying things we can't possibly mean, but in an uncaring way.

The trigger that got me off my rear and blogging again after a few weeks is the current discussion of some inflammatory rhetoric at a conservative political gathering this week. I won't cover the details, since they're quite well documented. (Good discussions by Digby and Glenn Greenwald and Anonymous Liberal.)

What bothers me is not the name-calling. I don't like that, but you know, "sticks and stones...." More worrisome is the casual use of language suggesting killing, genocide, torture, poison, and so on. Some of it is clearly joking, and hey, there's a long history of it. One of my favorite lines from Shakespeare comes from Henry IV, part 2: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." (some context here (PDF)) I used to love wearing a t-shirt with that quote as I walked past the law school at Berkeley.

But as I get older, I hear words coming from my daughter and her friends, suggesting that one can solve problems just by killing people or locking them up or sending them away. One can understand that kind of simplistic, childish reasoning from actual children. But the fact is, we hear it from adults, too.

And last night, my wife and I attended a play at Berkeley Repertory Theatre called "The Pillowman." This is an award-winning play by Martin McDonagh. The play was well done, though I wouldn't say it's a great play. And many of the things that bother me about it are the same things that annoy me about a lot of modern theater, such as excessive, gratuitous swearing.

But the play also rather casually incorporates torture, police brutality, child abuse, murder, and similar topics. And it tries to be funny. Not that these are inappropriate subjects for theater, or even for humor. But it got me to thinking about how inured society has become to depictions and discussions of subjects that ought to be unthinkable.

In fairness, one of the themes of "The Pillowman" is a discussion of this very tension: the main character is a writer, and the writer has written stories that depict some awful things happening to children. When some of those things really happen, the police have issues with the writer.

But in some ways, I suppose it is the play's self-awareness of the gratuitous violence and incivility that bothers me all the more. Part of what makes art art is an artist's ability to convey something without depicting it. Let's just say there are more artful ways of showing that someone is crude than by having him swear a lot and hit other people. A really good writer can do that with words, with descriptions, with metaphor.

Or maybe that's it...maybe subtlety is dead. It would certainly appear to have died long ago in the major media. Watching television these days is like being hit in the face with a two-by-four, repeatedly. Which is probably why I rarely watch. The "nice" shows are treacly, and the "not nice" shows are vulgar, violent, or insipid. Where is the art???