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I thought of my grandmother, and my mother, and my great-aunt LaVerne, and all the women I've known and their white-knuckled strength in the face of the unspeakable, when I read this:
When
your daughter is nine months old, a neurosurgeon will say to you, “We
believe resecting the left side of her brain will help control the
seizures.”
The
seizures that she has all day, every day, dozens, hundreds; she was
born with a massively deformed brain, what did you expect?
You
think a minute, and you realize the doctor is saying they are going to
take out half your daughter’s brain, and throw it away, so much trash,
and you’re supposed to sign the consent form for this.
And
after the surgery, when the seizures come back, you will sit across the
table from the man who is now your ex-husband, the man you adored, but
life can kick the ass out of any romance, even yours, and you will
order a very large glass of tequila, and you will say, “What the hell
are we supposed to do now?”
And you hope the answer is going to be about slaying ten men and Satan, because you’re capable of that.Yes. Heroic
action? You are totally down with that. But the answer is, you are
going to go home and do the best you can to make a life out of what
you’ve been given.
Small town newspapers crack me up. In the midst of the BP
oiltastrophe, the Houma, Louisiana paper found time to run a feature
that should have been called Local Woman Has Blog. I
got the link from my friend Kevin and I kept waiting for there to be
some sort of point to the piece but in the end it's about some nice
woman who writes a mommy blog who has fallen behind in her scrap
booking. Bloggers are, apparently, everywhere; perhaps even next door...
That's small town news, Terrebonne Parish style, for today.
A slight variation on one you've been asked before: You're given $10,000, and the only condition is that you HAVE to give it all away. To people, to charity, whatever.
I didn't have any animals growing up. Mostly because my parents were responsible and knew that you get a kid a pet, you're really getting yourself a pet because 9 times out of 10 Mom and Dad end up walking and feeding it. Dad had fish, though, so I pretended his little red-tailed shark was my pet.
No, seriously, I’m asking you for the time
and date at which it will end. I’m looking into having myself
cryogenically frozen until the moment when I don’t have to hear about
whether or not that kid who washes his hair with KFC Double Downs is
still dating Slumpy McDeadeyes.
What one technological trend/toy/behavior do you not get, or not like, or refuse to participate in?
I don't text all that much. Part of the reason is that I have a phone that makes phone calls instead of one that makes movies, so texting is a pain in the ass, but mostly? My thumbs just don't seem to work that way.
Because I know some of you are vets, despite this being a liberal commie God-hating anti-American blog, and because I was too jacked about the pelicans to do a weekend question thread ...
Glenn Elliott, Mike's lone surviving sibling, was glad to see so
many people out to honor the brother he barely knew. He was in grade
school when the telegram came informing his parents of Mike's death.
"I
don't actually remember talking to Mike when he was home on leave
before he went overseas," the silver-haired kid brother said Tuesday
morning.
Elliott came to Mattoon at age 8 with his family from
Kentucky, where he was born. The Elliott family lived on North Fourth
Street in Mattoon and Mike went to school with his brothers and
sisters. Records show he was of slight build, weighing 128 pounds.
With
America's entry into the war, Elliott enlisted at Camp Grant and went
into the Army Air Corps before his assignment to the Mediterranean.
That fatal flight claim his life and the lives of First Lt. Ray F.
Fletcher, Capt. Lewis J. Gerrings, Pvt. Richard H. Loring and Red Cross
nurse Carolyn Chapin. Military data indicates the bomber was on a mail
run and Chapin was en route to assignment for the Red Cross.
Champion said the risk of a crash was always there for aviators, but they tried to block it out.
"When you were on a flight you didn't think about it," he recalled. "It was just a job to do. Whatever happened, happened."
I'm feeling vaguely tree hugger-ish today. If nothing else earth day gives me a pretext to post two early environmental tunes by Paul Kantner and Grace Slick. My understanding (probably feeble) is that these songs were at least partially inspired by the first Earth Day or as a Westwegian Yat would put it "foist oith day."
The first song, Mother Earth, starts off sounding like Matty Groves/Shady Grove. The second, Sunfighter, is vintage Paul Kantner. Great stuff, man. Uh oh I sound like a frakking hippie. Oh well, I used to be one before I went to the snark side...
It is a space designed for care. Medical care, yes—but not just.
When you walk in, you are greeted by a nurse who signs you in and then
directs you to a table with coffee and tea and water, and into the
waiting area, which looks like a living room. There are upholstered
couches and overstuffed chairs, an area rug, and a cherry-finished
armoire and shelving, holding a television tuned not to Fox News, but
the Food Network. In the corner is a game table with a glass chess set.
It is bright and warm and cozy.
It is the opposite of clinical.
[snip]
She explains what she's doing, what each different
angle will capture. "This one will be from your nipples backward." She
talks to me like I'm an intelligent adult woman who is engaged in her
own care. She touches my body, my fat body, with the casual confidence
of someone who is familiar and comfortable with fat bodies, even though
she is thin—I am not an alien, but just another woman with breasts that
need imaging.
She guides me through four images on one side, and five on the
other—because one turned out a bit fuzzy and she is a perfectionist,
she tells me, laughing.
I am so grateful to her for allowing me to just be another human in her
care and not a grotesque monster whose body makes her uncomfortable,
for letting me feel safe and respected in this very vulnerable moment.
While I can't relate specifically to the mammogram experience, I can very seriously relate to the concept of medical professionals who do not seem to get that I am there, sick or scared I might be sick, half- or all-naked, completely in the hands of someone else to fix or save me. Which, I dunno about you, but I'm a major control freak, and that's pretty much my definition of hell. Therefore additional humiliations, particularly if they are unnecessary, are felt much more deeply than they would be ordinarily.
I grew up camping. All over the place. Wisconsin, Wyoming, we'd pile all the cousins in a truck and drive until we found a good spot to pitch a tent and build a fire and catch some fish. Naturally, now, I do not camp. The only outdoors I do is a ride on the bike trail through the park by my home.
Do you like the outdoors, or are you a city mouse?
SAN ANTONIO – The soldiers in standard-issue fatigues and combat boots stood side-by-side repeating their creed: "I am an American soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and live the Army values ...."
Capt.
Tejdeep Singh Rattan was no different except that he wore a full beard
and black turban, the first Sikh in a generation allowed to complete U.S. Army basic officer training
without sacrificing the articles of his faith. He completed the
nine-week training Monday after Army officials made an exemption to a
policy that has effectively prevented Sikhs from enlisting since 1984.
"I'm feeling very humbled. I'm a soldier," said the 31-year-old dentist, smiling after the ceremony at Fort Sam Houston. "This has been my dream."
Kurt Dussander: To the whole world, I am a monster... and
you have known about me. Go ahead, call the police. But just remember this:
when I am caught, when those reporters stick their microphones in my face, it
will be your name I will repeat over and over again. "Todd Bowden... Todd
Bowden. Todd Bowden, yes that was his name. For months, almost a year, he
wanted to know everything. That was how he put it... yes... everything."
Todd Bowden: You're crazy. They'll never believe you.
Kurt Dussander: It doesn't matter. And besides, lying to
judges and reporters isn't as easy as you think. You have to be brilliant! Can
you do that? I know I can. And in any case, do you know what such a scandal can
do? It never goes away.
-Apt Pupil
This week, two fringe candidates in the Georgia governor’s
race had a door to the past opened that I’m sure they would have preferred
remained shut. In unrelated incidents, Ray McBerry Jr. and Carl Camon had been
accused of in appropriate relationships with female students while they were
teachers. In both cases, the men denied wrongdoing and yet resigned shortly
after the allegations surfaced. In Camon’s case, he noted that the girls
involved were concocting stories about him due to bad grades, noting that at
least one had promised to “get you.” McBerry noted that he had been trying to
counsel a student who had substance-abuse issues when the student became
attached to him.
I don’t see enough written about this to make any kind of
intelligent determination as to if either man was guilty. To be fair, anything
is possible and if either of these guys committed these actions, they deserve
what they get from both their employers and the public. However, on the other
hand, most people who get accused of something like this have a track record of
this type of behavior. Thus, when the first person finally breaks the wall of
silence, usually many others follow with similar statements of incidents that
took place over a long period of time (see: Woods, Tiger and Waitresses, Truck
Stops). That didn’t really happen here. In either case, that’s not what concerns
me.
As an educator, I do my best not to think about it, but when
something like this comes up, it freaks me out. A career built over years of
study, work and determination can fall apart in a vengeful instant. A student
who doesn’t like you, a grade someone feels is unfair or more could bring you
crashing down. A student’s Machiavellian maneuver borne of anger, frustration
or some other under-thought reaction can yield a lifetime of misery for the
target of their spite.
We rightfully protect our children, as they are the most
precious things we have. They are also vulnerable and the damage that can be
done to them by vultures, con men and other evil doers can reverberate for
decades. A damaged child is one of the most painful things to see because you
know they hurt and yet there’s nothing you can do about it.
And, yes, there are creepy bastards out there who get an
overdeveloped sense of ego and entitlement. It’s the 30-something, balding, fat
coach (or conversely, the guy who was a “total stud” in high school and now feels
saddled with three kids and a wife who hates him) who is suddenly surrounded by
smoking hot, sexually budding female volleyball players in shorts that are way
too short and tight who usually cracks first. The girls giggle as girls do and
suddenly, well, there’s a hand on an ass and you can figure it out from there… Those
guys? Fry their asses.
However, thanks to jagoffs like that, we’re all on alert. I
never really thought about it all that much until I ended up with a slightly
imbalanced student in my class who kept hanging around after a night class. It
dawned on me that this student was likely to fail the class. It also dawned on
me that she kept sticking around, trying to talk to me about non-school stuff
and we were alone. Nothing happened, but it’s like when you’re suddenly aware
that you’re by yourself on a dark street in a shitty neighborhood without a
cell phone. You don’t like that feeling. The next day, I laid it all out for my
boss and he monitored the situation carefully. (It’s good to have a good boss.)
What makes this worse is that these things never go away.
These two guys will have this tin can tied to their tail for all of eternity.
And it’s like a football player with a blown ACL: Even after it’s fixed, it
doesn’t take much to blow it out again. The next time there’s an accusation,
they’re as good as guilty.
Certain things will fade with time. Steal? Hey, people will
eventually get over that. Lie? Yeah, well, I’m sure there was a good reason. Go
all Bernie Madoff or Jayson Blair? Get a book deal! Not all scumbaggery is
created equal. We even kind of got our minds of the false allegations against
Richard Jewell. However, the things uttered by teenagers regarding who did what
to whom always remain a maddening whisper of suspicion.
This is the most interesting thing I've encountered all week. I'm fascinated by how people have an effect, how they move events and issues toward a discernible goal, how they produce, how they are viable, what lessons they can teach.
It's true: we need all kinds of minds.
Temple Grandin's TED talk:
Because there are no groundhogs in Alaska - yet three other species of marmots call the state home - it makes sense the ground squirrel become Alaska's version of Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog famed for his winter weather forecasts.
"I'm happy to put the spotlight Feb. 2 on our own Alaska marmots that can be seen throughout the state welcoming us to warmer days," Menard added.
Although the bill doesn't give marmots any weather forecasting duties, Menard hopes the state will create educational activities around the animal.
This year, Mat-Su Valley's KMBQ radio station will hold a special event, along with observances in the Mat-Su School District and the Alaska Zoo.
Locally, Menard will incorporate excerpts from the children's book "Gimme, Gimme Moocher Marmots," by 14-year Douglas resident Cindy Burchfield, in her presentation Tuesday to the Senate.
GIMME GIMME MOOCHER MARMOTS.
I don't even know what to do with that, it's so awesome.
What is the thing that frustrates you most about yourself?
Me? Procrastination. God, the amount of productive I could be if I didn't fuck around so much spending twice the amount of time it would take to do the work avoiding the work.
This classic scene from Sorkin’s “American President”
resonated with me today. In the argument between the president and Lewis, you
get the leadership metaphor of people crawling across the desert, looking for
an oasis. When they show up and it’s only a mirage, they’ll drink the sand
anyway. Lewis argues that it’s because they’re thirsty for leadership. The
president says it’s because people don’t know the difference. My take: In some
cases, it doesn’t matter, as long as we realize it and stop drinking the sand.
This amazing piece by Amy Kingsley shows us all what we
already know on this site: when you make journalism about the toys, you will
end up losing. The Las Vegas Sun is only the most recent of those who have
found that at the end of the Internet rainbow, there’s no pot of gold or
anything else of value. The article details the “deal with the Devil” they
found themselves in when the Sun kept sinking and eventually was sucked into a
JOA with the Review-Journal that essentially made the Sun an insert into the
LRJ. However, the Sun took the lemons and made some awesome lemonade. Instead
of simply parroting the news that the LRJ would publish, the Sun decided to
become more investigative and more of a community voice, which won them great
praise and a number of awards.
However, the biggest swing came when Rob Curley (as the
article describes him “a self-described Internet nerd from Kansas”) came in to
recraft the paper’s Web site and boldly strike out in search of profit online. The
mantra in Internet news has been for a while that Curley can conjure gold,
unicorns and Internet win by simply arriving to run your show. He gained fame
in the late 1990s while in Topeka, Kansas by moving from a state-house reporter
to a new media editor. His work on the site of the Topeka Capital-Journal was
radical and amazing, as he focused on things people cared about: local politics
and local sports. His work was a hit and he moved up to the Lawrence
Journal-World, following a similar pattern and saw similar successes.
In a career of any professional on the cusp of greatness,
there is always a defining moment. It’s the moment where you decide if you want
to be the big fish in the small pond or try your luck at surviving life in the
big pond. There are high school basketball coaches who stay in one town for a
lifetime and become a legacy, while others strike out for fame and fortune on a
bigger stage and either make or break it. Athletes take bigger contracts and
either shine or wither under the bright lights of L.A. or New York. Local actors
either make it to Hollywood or land in the Valley. In short, you can stay where
you are comfortable, or you can go for broke. Curley did the latter.
Riding a crest of adulation that cast him as the “next big
thing,” Curley moved to Florida to help the Naples and Bonita Daily News engage
in innovation and convergence. Less than two years later, he moved to
Washington, D.C., where he led the Washington Post into the world of
“hyperlocal” coverage. Again, two years later, he landed in Nevada.
While his act played well in Kansas, it gradually became
more and more threadbare with each move. Friends from Florida who worked in
Naples told me that Curley had become a “big picture guy.” This roughly
translated into “I’ll punch out the ideas, bless them as coming from Rob Curley
and you will love them because they are certified Rob Curley ideas. Then, you
guys go implement them while I head off to something more important.” He wasn’t
a detail guy nor was he around much.
I got a chance to see him at a media convention in D.C. and
I found myself staring at the giant images of high school football and local
restaurants he put up. “We cover every Friday night game like it’s the
Redskins,” he bragged. However, several of us snapped out of the glitz haze and
noticed that this really didn’t have a lot of steak behind the sizzle. It was
great Web, but there wasn’t much journalism there. Once the excitement of
seeing your 15-year-old kid catching a pass on the WaPo Web site wore off, what
else could they do to keep you coming back? The answer was “not much” as the
Post began dismantling the hyperlocal site soon after its launch. Curley was
already cutting a deal to head to the desert.
The Sun’s Web site essentially seceded from the paper under
Curley’s watch, wrapping itself in the trappings of “cool ‘Net folk” such as
video games, nice furniture and more. While the paper journalists bristled when
dealing with the splashy nature of Curley’s dominion, it was clear they
probably wouldn’t have hated him and his folks so much if they actually brought
some serious game to the table. Instead, according to Kingsley, they launched a
failed TV project, crashed out the Web site with coverage that few wanted to
see and was at least partially to blame for massive cutbacks at both operations.
It’s now 2010 and if his pattern holds, there’s probably
another leap coming in Rob Curley’s future. Someone, desperate for an improved
Web world, will pony up big cash and heavy prizes for this messiah of the
Internet. What’s funny about this is that people are looking at Curley like
he’s the answer, just like when we’re fat, we look for a pill or a fad diet to
cure us. The pill won’t make us thinner, but exercise and good nutrition will. Rob Curley isn’t the answer, but at one
point, he did have the answer.
He just forgot it.
As a Kansas kid, he knew Kansas. He went to Emporia State
and then worked as a reporter at the Ottawa Herald in Kansas. He moved to
Topeka and then to Lawrence. He knew what made the people of Kansas pay
attention to something. He understood his folks and their background. Just like
a pastor knows his flock, Curley knew how to reach those people. However, to
borrow a phrase, he’s not in Kansas anymore.
The Internet is about niches. It’s about knowing how to
reach a very specific audience with a very specific message. It’s about
understanding people in a geographical area or an interest area. That’s why
Curley succeeded and that’s why Curley failed. It took him more than half his
life to know what the people of Kansas wanted. He then packed up his “Web in a
box” approach to journalism and peddled it out of the back of his covered
wagon. It wasn’t specialized to their needs and he wasn’t interested in pouring
his soul into learning about Naples or D.C. or Las Vegas. Thus, when he hit
them with local politics and local football, they wondered, “What the hell is
this crap?”
Hiring Rob Curley to run the Web for the L.A. Times or Beaver
County Tidbit in Flea Speck, Washington isn’t going to make that site a winner.
In fact, he’s more likely to kill it than save it. If you want to put together
a site the people want to see and are willing to pay to view (or at least
advertisers are interested in), you have to find out who you are trying to
serve, what they want, how they want it and how best to get it to them.
The All-American Basketball Alliance announced in a news release
Sunday evening that it intends to start its inaugural season in June
and hopes Augusta will be one of 12 cities with a team.
"Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both
parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league," the
statement said. <SNIP>
Don "Moose" Lewis, the commissioner of the AABA, said the reasoning behind the league's roster restrictions is not racism.
"There's nothing hatred about what we're doing," he said. "I don't
hate anyone of color. But people of white, American-born citizens are
in the minority now. Here's a league for white players to play
fundamental basketball, which they like."
Don't you just love it when bigots wave the flag and call themselves All-American? It's a pity that Moose didn't call his league, the NHA, National Honkies Association. He didn't but I will.
I'm guessing the style of play will be pre-1960 so the NHA will feature guys with crew cuts launching two handed set shots and shooting free throws underhand. No dunking, no jump shots, no behind the back passes. It sounds not only bigoted but boring.
The good news is that the NHA seems to be having a hard time thus far finding localities to host its teams. Augusta, Georgia turned them down flat. Maybe Moose Lewis should contact Orly Taitz and see if she's interested in sponsoring a team called the Birthers. I have some other team name ideas too: the Klansmen, the Skinheads, the Dittoheads, the Segregationists and the most obvious one of all, the Hoopleheads.
I have about four chapters of a novel, in bits, and the first eighth of a short story, on my hard drive, sitting there accusingly, asking me why I'm screwing around on Facebook instead of working on them.
These are stills captured from video shot March 2006 in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans specifically the area between N. Claiborne, Florida Ave, Tupelo and Tennessee.
These are photos and stills captured from video taken August 2006 of the Lower 9th Ward specifically the area between N. Claiborne, Florida Ave, Tupelo and Tennessee.
