Women among girls

Scoreline - September 11, 2007
Japan: 2
Miyama 55', 95'
England: 2
Smith 81', 83'

In the battle for who gets to finish behind the Germans in group A, England and Japan managed a tie. Fitting, since each played lousy as a team - and each laid claim to a standout individual performance.

While it would be fair to say Japan is an excellent defensive team - someone needs to remind them that in soccer - offense isn't optional. Japan's strategy seems to be "defend until a goal is gifted to you by God Almighty, then defend." Attacking in force (hell attacking at all) never seems to occur to them. Good passing, fabulous coordination in defense but hey - send a few players into the box once in awhile, eh?

Both goals were scored on free kicks by Aya Miyama- and they were sparkling examples of precision placement. This lady has talent, but she can't substitute for attackers in the box. No way she carries this team forward.

By contrast - England is aware of the need for offense, they just don't do it very well. Eniola Aluko, their inexperienced forward, demonstrated this until even her coach got sick of her and subbed her out. Shooting from impossible angles, not shooting with a clear path to net, missing sitters, and (my pet peeve) giving away possession on something fancy - when she could have simply waited for help. England's defense was hardly challenged by Japan's "hope for a foul" offense, so there's little good news there.

England has one thing that should propel them into the knockout rounds: Kelly Smith
Down 1-0 and in the last 15 minutes of regulation, England benched the neophyte, Aluko. This meant Kelly Smith became the main attacker - and she went flat out. For soccer forwards, as it is for venture capitalists, greed is good. She stopped looking to pass, started demanding the ball and scored two goals in a span of two minutes. Both were individual efforts, bursting through defenders and slamming home quality shots. Like Miyama, she was her team's offensive effort. Unlike Miyama, Smith's kind of offense will win games in the long run.

Killer instinct and lots of ability. England will go as far as Kelly Smith takes them. It's just a damn shame she's 28 - It looks like England will need her to carry the team in the next World Cup as well.

Head wound

Match result below picture. You were warned.Abby Wambach doing her best impression of Brian McBride.

What is it with the US and World Cup head injuries, anyway? Yeesh.

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Scoreline – September 11, 2007
USA: 2
Wambach 50'; O’Reilly 69'
North Korea: 2
Kil 58'; Kim 62'

The North Koreans have yet again arrived from their training base on Mars to show us they can play soccer when they really want to.

This latest crop fields two fifteen-year olds and a number of veterans from the same team that won the U-20 World Cup by thumping China 5 to nothing.

They are bizarre and secretive to be sure, but they are plenty talented and the US was lucky to get out of there with a draw.

Wambach was her usual damn-the-torpedoes self, bashing in a goal using her injured foot and celebrating like a maniac - but her aggressive tactics also netted her the aforementioned head wound. Our coaches’ devotion to having her on the field for the duration cost us six minutes without her while they stitched her up. Playing ten on eleven is never good – and I’m sure I was not alone in wondering how long it takes to slap on an ugly bandage and get back on the field.

Wambach’s absence was a possible factor in the North Koreans banging in two goals, but I would put the blame squarely on Hope Solo for the first goal. She totally had blocked the shot – until she let it go through her hands.

Could happen to anyone, and she’s a solid player- but Foudy was right: at this level, a goalkeeper in wet conditions knows to take extra care to be behind the shot, instead of under it. Solo had the time to be either, and she let in a ball that should have been a routine save.

The second goal was a lot more troubling. Our defense is usually so organized at the back, but prior to Kim’s goal we were positively flailing. Scrambles in the box can be pretty cruel but watching the replay of Shannon Boxx’s abysmal non-clearance made me think I was watching Argentina again. Don’t think, flail – and she did. The ball landing nicely in front of DPK’s Kim, who smashed it past the hopeless Solo.

The real problem was that we didn’t own the midfield like we usually do. I’m not expert enough to know for certain – but it looks like we’ve been expecting our three midfielders to carry the day and they just weren’t. The historically vast gulf between our talent and the world’s talent has made this easy in the past – but North Korea’s four midfielders were more than able to smash through at will.

North Korea was all attack, all the time and there were times the US was simply getting shelled, flailing out a wild clearance, and then losing possession.

Not a disaster by any means, and the US hung in there to tie – but I’m really curious why you would have Lilly up front with the strikers, when (and all props to Lilly) she’s 36 years old. Attackers should be blindingly fast, physically imposing, or (like Abby) both.

Our combinations going into the box were wild and wasted too many times and with Sweden coming up this is no time to start missing crosses.

Sweden and Nigeria have managed to keep the group level, so the next match is pretty much it for us – go high or go home. The DPK will crush Nigeria, so they’re sure to have four points moving into the Sweden match.

The US has snagged the group of death – AGAIN. And the possibility that our team, the team with a holy terror like Abby Wambach, going home in the first round should be unthinkable.

It is, however, still not impossible.

Arrrgh.

Oh the humanity…

One of the more foolish sports traditions has been the quadrennial attempt to read the future of a particular World Cup based on the first match. As the first match goes, so goes the tournament. Sports promoters cross their fingers at kickoff, hoping for a quality match. Each team’s nationalists brace for prophetic signs hidden in the scoreline.

Well, the Women’s World Cup kicked off today with German vs. Argentina. If the first match is any kind of oracle, the tournament will do well, Argentina is about to fall into the sea, and everyone should begin learning to speak German – right Goddamned now.

Scoreline - September 10, 2007
Argentina: 0
Germany: 11
Garefrekes 17'; Behringer 24'; Prinz 29', 46'+, 59'; Lingor 51'; Smisek 57', 70', 79';
Correa 12' OG, 91' OG

Argentina was always going to be the underdog, but DEAR GOD, what an unrelenting rout. It will be pointed out that mismatches like this one can only occur this far into a World Cup because the women’s game is still maturing, but even so – sometimes a rout is great entertainment.

On second thought, rout doesn’t seem to be the right word. This American Life did a marvelous show about what this game actually was: a fiasco.

A fiasco is when things are going so badly that all sympathy has left the audience. Your average 4-nil drubbing in soccer will leave even the winning fans a bit somber. “Hate to be them,” they say. Not so the audience of a fiasco. They have seen losses before, even big losses – but once they realize what they're seeing could go down in history, they'll bay like hyenas.

To paraphrase Jack Hitt – at that point, they want blood.

The commentators were charitable, far too charitable, to the Argies – who began playing a dainty kind of quick passing game and soaked up a good bit of early possession. Germany was still trying to find themselves, like they were saying…”Hmm, who are we?”

This lasted between 6 and 8 minutes. At that point, some switch was tripped in the German team’s collective mind that informed them –

You are a collection of two-meter Teutonic women with killer instincts, gobs of technical skill, and the endurance of a herd of Clydesdales.

“Oh, that’s right!” they say – and proceed to plow over Argentina like they were the 1990 US mens team.

After the first goal, they combined to average one goal every seven minutes.

If you read that scoreline, you’ll note that the first goal wasn’t scored by a German. No, that honor goes to Vanina Correa of Argentina. She's their goalkeeper.

It’s a rare goalkeeper who scores a goal. It’s an even rarer goalkeeper who scores a goal for the opposition –

but Ms. Correa now has the singular honor of being the only goalkeeper to have scored not one, but TWO own goals in a World Cup match.

This was to be one of numerous records set in this game. Highest score, first World Cup match with two hat-tricks on the same team. Prinz tying Michelle Akers' scoring record (not even God can stop Prinz from beating it this tournament).

The after action reports will be all over Correa, but she had plenty of help. Her defenders were worse than useless - they didn’t trust her at all. Defenders who don’t trust their keeper do stupid things – like clearing the ball when they don’t have to (giving away corners that result in own goals), to name one. Sometimes they even poke the ball away from their own diving keeper and plop it in front of one of the best forwards in the game (Shot – Gol!).

Germany's first goal by a German player was scored by Kerstin Garefrekes, who - were I writing this script - would be scoring all of Germany's goals. Garefrekes! What a great Goddamned name! C'mon, say it with me!

Garefrekes! Garefrekes! Garefrekes!

The Argie defense was never on the same page, and worse – they were comically inattentive. Prinz’s second goal was her walking into a gaping hole and rocketing the ball into the net like “ya se me now?”

Whatever attack the Argies might have offered was completely gutted after they went down 4-nil in less than thirty minutes. Any defensive work in the midfield followed the painful pattern of; Argie gets ball, German tackles Argie, German takes ball, six Germans storm the Argie net.

Take nothing away from the Germans – they rocked the house, Foudy was saying she didn’t see them miss the net once - and I believe her. Cross, header, goal. Cross, shot, goal. Over and over.

Prinz was supposed to break Akers' record in the knockout rounds, she almost did it in one game. If she were a little less of a team player, she would have.

An 11 goal differential on day one??? Print the tee-shirts now. Germany Advances Out of Group Play.

God, but I love the World Cup.

Garefrekes!

The Empire of Corn

I’m pretty late to the party on this one, but I’ve finally started reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

My initial reaction can be summed up as:

Quietly, inexorably, corn is trying to kill you.

Seriously.

Mr. Pollan points out that modern agribusiness in America has labored mightily to increase crop yields of corn, and they’ve succeeded beyond our ancestor’s wildest imaginings. The result is a massive glut of corn that exceeds what people and livestock could normally eat.

The solution? Agribusiness proposes that people and livestock begin to eat abnormally.

What is surprising to me is how totally they have succeeded.

As was pointed out to me by my brother in law not too long ago: “Go ahead, try and avoid consuming a corn based product. It’s practically impossible in this country.”

The really jarring observation in the book (so far, I’m barely halfway through it) is the way Mr. Pollan turns the notion of the “French Paradox” upside down.

As in, “the French eat fatty food all the time, why are their rates for obesity and heart disease not on par with ours?”

Pollan points out that plenty of other countries illustrate this same characteristic, and pointedly says: “What is happening is more of an American paradox.”

Something is wrong with the way food is made in America. The idea that beef cattle are made to eat an unnatural diet of corn isn’t all that alarming – until you realize what this diet is doing to them, and that we are eating meat from these animals. BSE never made me very nervous, but Mr. Pollan definitely got my attention.

There is more of the book to go, and there is still room for Mr. Pollan to turn out to be another well-intended alarmist who is missing key facts, but I’m serious – if you haven’t read this book – go to a bookstore and read the first few chapters or download the free sample (PDF) and skip to the section on Industrial Corn.

You’ll freak. It’s The Jungle for our times.

Fly the geek flag high!

The following is a geek test (specifically a board game geek test):

Fantasy Flight Games will publish Cosmic Encounter® in the Summer of 2008.

Scoring:

1 point for - "Who's doing what?"
2 points for - "Is that a book?"
3 points for - "New game?"
5 points for - "It's been done."
10 points for - "Whoo hoo! Hot damn-a-licous!"

Well.....?


(Whoo Hoo!)

What she said...

Madeleine Albright hits one out of the park:

How To Change Iraq

The threshold question in any war is: What are we fighting for? Our troops, especially, deserve a convincing answer.

In Iraq, the list of missions that were tried on but didn't fit includes: protection from weapons of mass destruction, creating a model democracy in the Arab world, punishing those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and stopping terrorists from catching the next plane to New York. The latest mission, linked to the "surge" of troops this year, was to give Iraqi leaders the security and maneuvering room needed to make stabilizing political arrangements -- which they have thus far shown little interest in doing.

A cynic might suggest that the military's real mission is to enable President Bush to continue denying that his invasion has evolved into disaster. A less jaded view might identify three goals: to prevent Iraq from becoming a haven for al-Qaeda, a client state of Iran or a spark that inflames regionwide war. These goals respond not to dangers that prompted the invasion but to those that resulted from it.

She's exactly right - and she's put it so well.

I've been saying for years that a single rationale for something can stand or fall on its merits, but a series of different rationales can only demonstrate that the real reason hasn't yet shown its face.

It's high time the administration fess up and ask for assistance in getting this country out of their mess. It's a weak person who values appearing right over actually doing right.

Okay, so I'm obsolete again...

I realize it's silly to chase the bleeding edge of technology, but having gotten an iPod only last year - it's a bit of a jolt to realize that it is now an antique.

Witness the iPod touch.

After the iPhone, you knew this was coming.

The answer to [hate] speech is speech...

...and in case you needed proof, this is it:

From asheville.indymedia.org by way of digby:

Clowns KKKick KKK ass!

Saturday May 26th the VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK group attempted to host a hate rally to try to take advantage of the brutal murder of a white couple for media and recruitment purposes. http://www.volunteertv.com/special

Unfortunately for them the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.
...
“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.

At this point several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White Power!”

The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”
...
After the [Nazi's] left in their shiny SUVs to go back to Alabama and all the other states that they were from the clowns and counter demonstrators began to march out of the area chanting ‘WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!”

They have a picture, too - kinda makes ya feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

In defense of the family honor

What is this object?
Is it-

A) a heap of discarded packing material
B) a modern art masterpiece; or
C) my first naval command

The answer (of course) is all three. At the all too recent family reunion someone had the brilliant idea of having a cardboard boat regatta – and this was my family’s effort.

Yes, I know – it looks like total crap. It does, but only because our assumptions about the competition were miles away from everyone else’s.

To put you in the proper frame of mind – Assume you are one of just under a dozen factions of the family that are expected to compete. You are given oral instructions that there is a stack of cardboard and a roll of duct tape for every team. You are told to use them to make a boat by Saturday at 1pm.

If you are like me – this sounds like an immense amount of fun. Light-hearted and goofy. Everybody will slap on some tape and look silly in front of everyone.

Now, ordinarily this task wouldn’t even fall to me at all. My dad would do it, or one of my crazy uncles – and I’d be happy to step aside. This time around, dad’s gone and none of his siblings came to the reunion. That leaves Mom, Gramma, Jen’s family and mine.

Not exactly a brain trust of naval science.

Still, we have a sheet of rules and my brother in law, D-bil steps up and hauls the materials to their hotel room. I join the party late. D-bil has hit the Internet to look up boat designs. The Internet informs us that a floating rectangle with horizontal braces is the way to go.

The rules require that the boat hold one family member under thirty and one member over thirty. We hem and haw and eventually settle on my nephew as the under and D-bil and I vacillate over which of us is going to be the over.

Once we both start taping in earnest, we learn that the cardboard we’ve been given is torn in numerous places, undersized, and requires more tape than we currently possess. However, a reading of the rules informs us that packing tape is also allowed, and as they have provided none – we felt justified in trying to obtain some on our own.

This required a visit to town – which took way longer than expected since “town” didn’t actually have a hardware store and local residents directed us to some other town in order to find one. I mean, what self-respecting town doesn’t sell packing tape somewhere?

So, we’re back in the room with roll after roll of tape. The rules do not allow us to cover the entire bottom of the boat with tape, but it is obvious that in order to have any hope of staying above water, we going to tape every square inch but one. Aside from the exposed edges, there are jagged tears, gaps in corners, and an ‘S’ shaped seam running the length of the bottom.

On top of that, we’re afraid that the mostly flat boat will simply fold in half as soon as some weight gets put on it – so we wrap an inordinate amount of tape around the entire boat in the hopes that this monstrosity will hold together long enough to make a good showing.

The rules appear to have been drafted for some other kind of cardboard boat competition, they prohibit pontoons, outriggers, and a host of designs that are completely impossible given the amount of cardboard we’ve been given. They tell us we need to fly a flag using the materials provided, but no materials have been provided. I’m starting to believe I’m overthinking this whole thing.

At this point I should mention we have no idea what to expect. Given the constraints of the swimming area and the number of boats, I’m thinking a silly parade, or a contest of ‘who can float the longest?’ would make the most sense.

I’m also thinking that if everybody’s cardboard was like ours, this is going to be a very short competition. It’ll be fun, though – we just need to show the flag, and honor will have been served.

We tape and tape and tape until we have that masterwork you saw in the picture – an abomination in any category: hydrodynamics, buoyancy, aesthetics. You name a quality – our boat doesn’t have it.

But again – this for fun, and this is family – and it’s for damn sure that nobody’s going to be winning any design contests.

---

Race day arrives – we’re doing some last minute taping and I have moments of guilt about buying the packing tape – I mean it is defensible according to the rule sheet, but my cousin, BD, who announced this whole thing sure made it sound like you had one roll of duct tape and that was it. I’m readying my defense of our design, in case we are questioned. I consider offering our extra tape to the less fortunate teams – but really, I’m being silly. This is a fun race at a family reunion – it’s not like anyone’s taking this seriously.

D-bil and I get there with our boat, mere minutes before the 1pm deadline. We legged it over, afraid we’d miss the start.

I seem to have forgotten two things about my extended family:

1) Most of them believe that schedules are for other people; and
2) They are competitive as all hell.

We drop our boat by the swimming area and it becomes obvious that we are the first to arrive. Far from missing the show, there’s no one here at all. We start wondering if we’re in the right place.

Then we see another team hauling a cardboard box across the grass. Hark! The regatta approacheth!

As this team gets closer, my rules lawyer mind starts analyzing their boat. The entire underside is covered with duct tape – silver duct tape (the roll we’d been given was blue). Also, their boat was a similar design, but a whole lot deeper. Smooth sides, no seams – I’m thinking “where was that cardboard hiding when we selected ours?”

Another team shows up – their boat has a clipper bow, a printed name AND a flag.

Over my shoulder I see a team standing in front of an open van. Behind them is a stack of cardboard pontoons.

I’m like – WTH?

Still another boat shows up – the Queen of Sweden. This one has footwells for two crewmembers, a flag and a rudimentary paint job. This team has actual paddles.

D-bil and I have stopped worrying about our extra packing tape. We start feeling like the people who showed up at a state dinner wearing boxers and a gold chain.

Boat after boat arrives, each themed and clearly ocean-ready. I comfort myself in the knowledge that we’re all family.

“Pitiful”

I look back to my boat. My uncle L has decided to offer his opinion of our boat. I know he’s pulling my leg, so I grin and say “Yeah, it’s ugly, but at least when it sinks you won’t have to look at it.”

He squints at me. “You know what your dad would say if he saw this boat?”

My grin starts to melt a bit. “I imagine he’d think it was pretty silly.”

L keeps slagging on the boat until it’s clear that he’s not being funny. He really thinks that our boat is crap, and felt obliged to tell us at length.

Well… thanks.

Schedules being alien to their way of thinking, my family begins a series of water competitions that last over an hour. It’s closer to 2:30 before we get the word that the race will start.

And that’s the first indication that we have that it will, in fact, be a race.

We haul our tattered craft over to the starting line. For some reason, I've been elected the over thirty crewman. Our boat will have to carry my sprightly nephew and my own ponderous bulk. I'm looking at our boat's braces - this is not looking good.

We're on the end and I get the full vista of the family armada.

With the exception of the Queen of Sweden, all the other boats have been named after their faction's patriarch or matriarch. I hadn't bothered to name our ship, it really didn't seem to merit a name. Cousin T is MC'ing the event and is rattling off the names of the boats one by one, we're last in the order.

Gotta think.

On the other side of the Queen is the team with pontoons. These folks went minimalist; low drag and a lightweight crew- a young mother and her baby in a harness. Half my body weighs more than both of them put together.

It's really starting to get to me. These people aren't out for a lark, these people are serious! I don't know most of these people, and they'll be introduced to me by watching me come in dead last.

"Who's that?" they'll ask, and my grandmother will hang her head in disgust.

"My... grandson."

They'll look at the boat again and say without thinking, "That's RD's boy? oh.. oh, that's... that's a shame." In the back of my head, I'm envisioning my dad pacing and incredulous:

You didn't think to scrounge more cardboard? I mean, c'mon!

Cousin T finally reaches our boat. "What's it called?"

"S.S. Race to the Bottom," I reply.

---

The race is to paddle out to the buoys and back. First one to hit the beach wins. We'll be allowed to wade out to our knees to board up. Cousin T grins, "In the event your boat sinks, you are allowed to push your boat along the course and still finish."

I file that away. My nephew has his life preserver on and D-bil's holding the S.S. RttB steady for us. My nephew gets in. The boat rocks, but holds steady. I'm scanning the corners for leaks, thinking if the leak rate isn't too bad, maybe we could bail as we go-

Cheering starts, the race has started - Moment of truth. I climb in.

The boat sinks. Immediately and completely.

When a cardboard boat goes under, it's not a boat anymore - it's a balled up wad of wet garbage. This particular wad has my nephew clinging to it.

Family honor.

I put one arm on my nephew, one arm on the boat and charge out to sea. It's ridiculous, but there's no way I'm going out right here. I have no idea what is going on in the race, but it's clear that some boats are cruising and some are tanking hard.

By a quirk of physics - pushing a wrecked boat while standing on the bottom is actually faster than trying to paddle one of these things.

I'm making time. The gamer in me is looking for the straightest shot. Unlike the floaters, I can actually turn. Mid-way to the buoys it's clear that about a third of the field is underwater. The Queen is almost to the halfway point. There's no way to win this.

The good news is behind me. At least two teams are swamped and struggling to save their boats. As there was never a question of saving our boat - my going right to leg power has opened up a good gap.

The lakefloor drops away, I start the sidestroke. My nephew looks at me, says something about the boat sinking. I say (with perhaps a little more venom than warranted):

We are NOT going to be last!

We hit the buoy and turn for the return leg. I can see the breakaway leader, the boat with the deep sides and all tape bottom. The Queen is sinking, and the pontoon boat with the mom and baby has turned into a wet wad. Matriarch and Patriarchs are going down everywhere.

It's total madness. I kick away from the buoy line hard until I hit bottom and practically run up onto the shore.

We weren't last, we might have managed to be fourth from last. Cousin T announces each arrival with his bullhorn. He misses us in the order, but somebody points us out.

S.S. Race to the Bottom!

We caught a few cheers and piled up the remains of the boat.

Say what you will, the ship lived up to its name and still avoided finishing last. We didn't have much to begin with, but what little we had was served.

Family honor, that is.

Broadband envy

Here are some encouraging graphics, courtesy of the Washington Post:

Feeling ripped off yet?

It gets better, one of the reasons Japan's broadband is blazingly fast has to do with aggressive government regulation and (you guessed it) Net Neutrality.

Japan's Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future

TOKYO -- Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it.

Once again corporate America is protesting laws that will lead to a better, cheaper product.

Nice.

Moment of silence

Anyone who knows me knows that I have never had much love for the south. Aside from the food - there's hardly anything about the place that agrees with me.

The climate, the culture, you name it - it rubs me the wrong way.

But I swear, seeing how the region is today just makes me cry.

This is a video taken of the lower 9th ward in New Orleans. It was taken two months ago.



There are other videos like this. Videos that without a caption could easily be sold as having been filmed months after Katrina.

But you know they weren't.

I am sure there are areas of the city that are vibrant and alive - areas where brave and determined people are fighting back from having lost everything.

Yet here is this film. A car still in a tree, rubble and ruin all around - and the storm is two years gone.

The 9th ward is just one part of a city, and New Orleans is just part of a larger disaster.

One of the sore points in my mother's part of the coast is that New Orleans garnered the lion's share of attention - despite the fact that the coastline east of the city was arguably much harder hit. The random fact that fewer people lived on that coastline is the only reason the death toll along Mississippi's I-90 wasn't many times higher.

My point is, those who dismiss this video as just a highlight reel should really look at the current state of communities like Waveland or Long Beach. ABC news had aerial shots of the coastline and those were no less astonishing.

Sure people live there, and new construction abounds - but there are still entire neighborhoods with empty slabs where houses used to be.

This is America. As a little kid I was raised on the limitless industry and power of this country. We could do anything. Obviously, as an adult - I know there are limits. But it still just breaks my heart.

The Christmas of 2005 there were still tent cities out by Pass Christian and Gulfport. There were shrimp boats laying all over the shores of Back Bay, because there just hadn't been time to get to them yet.

This was four months later. It was shocking, but you could almost accept it given the scope of the whole thing. There were still highways shut down because there were casinos straddling the lanes.

But it's been two years. Two years of "makin' progress" and "workin' hard," and we still have an American city with an entire district rotting in the sun.

And that's just one damn video of one damn neighborhood of one city that was on the weak side of the storm.

Slam on the brakes

This morning I heard the President say the following:

"The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities."

President Bush - 08/29/2007

Jesus.

I mean - what exactly does he mean by saying he's authorized our military to "confront" Tehran?

Glenn Greenwald (of course) has the details, but as soon as I heard this - I just about flipped.

I hope there are people beating the bushes on this one to find whatever Executive Order the president is referring to. Reporters should ask him in press conferences - what order was that? Was it run by the gang of eight?

I mean, what the freaking hell, people?

Does this fool think he's going to get us into yet another war?

Throwing money at the problem

The Biloxi Sun Herald's special report is worth a read, if only to keep it in mind anytime a talking head blithely asserts that "X billion dollars" was spent on hurricane relief - as if the dollar figure itself was proof of an adequate response.

Where did the money go?

It's hard for the average working stiff to contemplate a number as vast as the $23.5 billion the federal government has allocated to Mississippi for Katrina recovery.

Think of it this way:

It's enough money to buy two average-sized houses for each of the 65,000 families in Mississippi who lost their homes.

Despite that, we still have people living in FEMA trailers.

In any relief operation of this size - things are going to go wrong. Money will be wasted. But that shouldn't allow us to shrug our shoulders and keep doing the same thing.

At a minimum, we should stay informed about what has truly happened and demand that our leaders (and those who would be our leaders) do the same.

Brownie's law looks like a good idea, although it's sad to think this would be what passes for innovation these days.

My family's limited experience with FEMA spans the spectrum.

Being able to apply for aid on the phone was very encouraging - however my mom's neighborhood was without phones for six weeks.

The bureaucratic hurdles were so much that many people simply gave up. I know for a fact that in one family the mother quit trying after repeated attempts. Her daughter called FEMA, posed as her mother, and completed the application. It was technically fraud, but they got their money.

Mom's neighbor applied for a trailer and waited the expected three months for his trailer. When none arrived, he was told he wasn't on the list, but they would be happy to sign him up.

And there was this one lady I didn't know at all. She's stuck in my head even though I'd only seen her for a few minutes. We'd gone to the post office to pick up her mail. Everything was held at the central post office, and there was no delivery anywhere.

Mom knew what to do, so I just waited in the car for her to come back. A woman in a beater car pulled in next to me and went in. A few minutes later, she came out with a bundle of mail.

She piled into her car and just sat there for awhile. That's what got my attention. She looked beat. She had her mail in her lap and just sat there. After a while, she slowly picked up a letter from the top of the stack and tore it open. It was very clearly a letter from FEMA.

She read her letter for a few moments and then slumped forward and burst into sobs. I'm sitting three feet from her and our windows are down - I'm doing my best not to be invisible so she won't feel embarrassed. In my rear view mirror, I could see mom was coming back, carrying the last month and a half of mail. She walked between this woman's car and ours and got in.
Mom started talking about what letters we'd need to get to first.

I started the car and we pulled out. The woman next to us never even looked up. Letter in hand, she just sat there quietly going to pieces.

I have no idea what this person's situation was, but it was clear that FEMA hadn't helped any. This woman did not get aid, and my own family (whose living conditions were considerably better than most in the neighborhood) did. Ours took six months, but more deserving people are still waiting.

It may be typical, but it sure as hell shouldn't be.

There are comfy chairs in the lobby

I call it Headless Chicken Syndrome: A condition that occurs during a crisis when everyone is in charge at the same time. This is actually worse than nobody being in charge, because in the total absence of leadership you are free to look out for yourself.

When everybody is in charge at once, you are expected to follow a series of leaders who are not on the same page and whose instructions frequently contradict one another.

CorpWorld is currently suffering from a raging case of HCS right now – precipitated by a malfunction in the fire suppression systems.

The first indication of this was an announcement over the loudspeakers telling us that there was a possible fire event and that we should “gather our belongings” in preparation to evacuate the building.

This is stupid for many reasons. First off, this gets everybody alarmed – because everyone hears two words “Fire” and “evacuate” and everything else goes out the other side of their head.

With belligerents like me, these kinds of messages are taken literally. I get my stuff together, and I keep working at my desk. I’m ready to bail, but I haven’t been told to bail yet.

The herds of people who are fixated on the word “evacuate” rustle around uncomfortably, suggesting that we should probably get moving. Being me, I say we weren’t told to leave, and there is no alarm going off.

The simple fact that discussion of this issue is taking place erodes the resolve of others who were thinking of staying. “Hmm," they think – "might as well go…”

So, now the message has fractured the response of the staff. We are of two minds, both perfectly defensible.

People start asking about how they should get out, should the alarm happen to go off. People begin smelling something “is that smoke? Is something burning?” This gets communicated through the grapevine at the speed of panic.

Then, the sprinkler system goes off in the unit next to mine. There is no alarm.

This settles it. The sound of spraying water and pissed off staff is the final straw. Everybody bails. Early suggestions are to go down to the cafeteria.

I’m like, “there are comfy chairs in the lobby.” And – oh by the way – going to the cafeteria would mean going through the sprinklers. My immediate group is won over by this, but the bulk of the floor appears to be heading straight towards the part of the building that is rapidly getting soaked.

The desire to get out of the building as quick as possible overrides any idea of the lobby (which is in a separate building, connected by an enclosed causeway). We go out, and stand outside waiting for instructions.

None arrive. Walking around to the cafeteria side of the building, we see a huge number of people similarly milling about.

Movement.

We see a group of people filing back into the building through the cafeteria doors.

At this point, we’re not technically in headless chicken mode – since nobody’s running the show. I’m basing my movements on what I can see, and so are the people around me. The flow into the building gets to a tipping point and we decide to go in, too.

On the way in we can see waterfalls coming from the floor above the cafeteria. The water is coming from our floor. Judging from the amount of water, the unit next to ours got hit pretty good.

People are setting up buckets, blowers have been set up. “There was no fire,” sayeth the grapevine.

With that, I decide to go back to my desk. Unless and until I’m told to go home, I’m getting some work done today, dammit.

Our area is fine, but there is a powerfully bad smell that is either deep-fried electrical, or backed up sewer. I boot up and get back to work. The bustle and excitement starts up and it’s pretty clear that work is going to get sidelined while everybody deconstructs what just happened.

So be it. Earbuds in. I start typing.

Word arrives from nowhere that the power is going to be shut off. Shortly after this happens – my computer switches off – but the lights stay on.

Ok. I can take a hint. I undock the laptop, stuff it in a bag- and get ready to roll.

A lady in grey I’ve never seen before shows up at our aisle “They want everyone down in the cafeteria.”

This makes no sense at all. The cafeteria has wet floors and dripping ceilings. The grapevine’s saying that parts of the ceiling are falling down.

I look again at Grey Lady. She’s not in a uniform, she doesn’t have a radio, it’s pretty obvious she’s just like us – another clueless office worker.

Again I point out – there are comfy chairs in the lobby, and there’s no water either.

This wins converts in my unit. We used to have regular meetings in the lobby, so this is an easy location for people to comprehend and locate.

We pirouette awhile, looking for stragglers – the boss is out, our team leader is out. Nobody has any idea how much latitude they have to decide what to do next. The usual backup people are unavailable. I try to get a head count of the people in my area, but it’s pretty clear there is no real danger, and I just want to get out. The lobby is nice, but it only has a few chairs.

We go. Plenty of other people have the same idea, and we’re in a sea of people swapping theories on what happened and what should happen next.

I boot up. Screw it. I have a full battery, wireless and a comfy chair. I’m good.

Headless chicken syndrome now begins. A woman I don’t know suggests that we go downstairs.

Now, again - If you are in charge or taking charge – you should not equivocate. “I need your attention! Everyone follow me downstairs!”

This would have been acceptable. Blue Lady does not do this. She suggests we go downstairs, and then appears miffed when I ask her if we have to, or if this really is a suggestion.
“Well, the directors are going to give you more information downstairs, so I suggest you get moving.”

The name dropping does the trick, but again – just say “The directors want everyone downstairs,” and to hell with this passive aggressive crap. You wanna run things? Then run things, fer crissake.

Down we go. We leave the sofas and cushy chairs and go into a stuffy, cramped room with wooden tables and chairs. All of which are occupied.

We stand.

I watch Blue Lady realize that she’s lead three roomfuls of people into a single room and she starts gesturing for people to follow her out. We do. The next room is essentially the same, but has room to sit down.

I do, boot up and get back to work.

People start scrounging for network connections and power outlets, but again: battery is at 79% and I have wireless. I have a crappy chair, but I can work.

Awhile later our boss’s boss shows up. BB does not know most of us and sees us only en mass. They check in, and leave.

Man in White appears and informs us that the sprinklers went off in our building and that we should sit tight until there is more information.

Presumably, this man is in charge of something. I hope it isn’t something important.

I get some things done and go to lunch – maybe the dust will have settled by the time I get back. I wander aimlessly through the wasteland around work and settle on something so forgettable that I honestly can’t remember what it was.

I get back and on my way through the lobby, I see most of my unit. They’re in the comfy chairs and I pull up, boot up and get busy.

Word is, in about twenty minutes we’ll be allowed to visit our desks and get our belongings and stuff we need for work. Having already done that, I’m wondering if I need to go back to my desk.

We are then told by Helpful Person that we need to go downstairs again. Downstairs is cramped, uncomfortable, and further away from our desks (that we about to visit) but we comply. After all, Helpful Person said we should.

Downstairs again – we reunite with members of the unit and wait for our “turn” to be escorted back to our desks. I opt to say at the damn table. My battery’s still good and all my documents I can get through wireless.

Forty minutes later, we are asked to go up to a room that has been prepared for us. How nice, but I’m already working and unless there’s a reason why I can’t stay-

There is – Guy in Black would like us to go upstairs. “The lobby has-“ oh, skip it.

The upstairs room has desks all along the outside walls, each with a desktop computer on them. My entire unit has their laptops with them. As we like our laptops, we fish out our network cables, push aside the desktop’s keyboard, and set up.

Work begins to happen. We are in a room with other units and they are loud and annoying. Earbuds in. Work.

This is a partial solution; it blunts the sound, but doesn’t keep it out. I deal.

About an hour later, I hear the following over the din:

“Oh, you guys have laptops? We got guys upstairs looking for PCs.”

I laugh out loud. Next to me, BB hears this, too. “If they need desktops, we should probably move upstairs.” It makes sense, of course, but now we will move again.

That’s it. I’ve had it. I fold up, bag up and leave the room.

And here I sit, battery at 49% and wireless strength excellent – in the lobby.

Incredibly, I’m the only one here.

They can dish it out, but they can't take it.

Buh-
Buh-
Buh-Gawk!

Not that this is a surprise or anything, but the White House has a manual that details exactly how its staffers are to quash opposing viewpoints at presidential appearances.

White House Manual Details How to Deal With Protesters

...Among other things, any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by "rally squads" stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they should be thrown out.

...
The manual offers advance staffers and volunteers who help set up presidential events guidelines for assembling crowds. Those invited into a VIP section on or near the stage, for instance, must be " extremely supportive of the Administration," it says. While the Secret Service screens audiences only for possible threats, the manual says, volunteers should examine people before they reach security checkpoints and look out for signs. Make sure to look for "folded cloth signs," it advises.

To counter any demonstrators who do get in, advance teams are told to create "rally squads" of volunteers with large hand-held signs, placards or banners with "favorable messages." Squads should be placed in strategic locations and "at least one squad should be 'roaming' throughout the perimeter of the event to look for potential problems," the manual says.

"These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators," it says. "The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site."

Of course, anytime this administration actually exposes its people to the American public, they get treatment like this. Or this. (Headphones required)

Pretty sad state of affairs.

Even sadder than the guys who wrote this manual would be the volunteers actually in the "rally squads." I ask you, how pathetic are these guys?

"Yeah, um - I was tasked with protecting the president's from learning what people think of him."

Weak.

Bow before the Oracle...

Moment of silence, please.

The Oracle of Cheese has decided to stop blogging.

Totally understand. The blog is a time eating beast, and sometimes while you write about life - you're taking time away from actually living.

I would not have thought that C would be the blogging type - but damn he did good work. Informed, critical and always entertaining.

Thanks, man - it was great reading you.

P.S. They blocked the punt!!!

Pulling our chain

Well, that was fun.

After all the drama involved in preparing for the home inspection - it would appear that we needn't have bothered.

The home inspection came back with thirty pages of items they would like fixed in three weeks, or they won't buy.

In other words, they want out.

They've listed items like re-grading our yard and driveway, installing drywall in the basement, and raising our cabinetry so that it is the required eighteen inches over the stove burners (they are currently 16 and 1/2 inches above them).

It could obviously have been worse - we could have put offers out there ourselves, could have booked the movers, could have started the cash burn that all moves turn out to be, but it's still a major pain in the butt.

Square one.

What she said...

Digby pretty much nails the issue of the Dems offering the 4th amendment up to the president on a silver platter.

Worth a read, but don't read it while doing anything more than light activity or your heart will explode.

Arrgh! Curse you, New England!

I only got 46.

How many states can you list in ten minutes?

Sans map, that is.

(Found on Sivacracy.net)

Imagine you are…

..a rain gutter downspout. No, really.

Like all downspouts, you are a complete bastard.

Despite or perhaps because of the fact that your job is intermittent and unchallenging – (all you do is route water from the roof of the house down to the ground) you have lots of time to focus on your bastard-ness.

Okay, focus– you’re a downspout. You can fail at any time. You learn that your owners are selling the house.

Do you fail:

• Immediately?
  No. This would be tipping your hand too soon. Your owners would simply fix before the house ever hit the market.
• When there's buttloads of rain pouring down for a week?
  Oh, please. Show some imagination. This is a given.
  
• after the house is for sale?
  No. Again, far too soon.
• After the house has an accepted offer?
  Better, but remember – you’re a downspout. You have to raise the bar of bastardry.
• One day before the house inspection (that the sale is contingent upon)?
  Yes! (and well played, my good and faithful bastard) You can move to the front of the class.

If you said you would also get your fellow downspouts to fail with you, you've just won our grand prize.

Because our two front downspouts have tag teamed us. One separated at the joint, so that the water left the elbow going straight down (next to our foundation for easy access).

But that one was merely the copycat.

The instigator and world champeen was the downspout where the last angle was buried under our flowerbed. As you can imagine, this is a bad idea. In order to bury the downspout, the angle had to be flattened so the entire length could be hidden under dirt.

Memo to the idiots who installed this: near-level downspouts clog easily.

I'll shorthand the water in the basement story, but in trying to chase down the root of the problem I found the copycat first and fixed him easily.

But the instigator had to get fixed this morning. The exit was half buried in mud, which meant the water routed around the side of the house. Initially, I thought this was the only problem. Since it was buried I opted to cut the vertical shaft a few feet above the ground. Not having a suitable saw, I opted for a pair of very strong shears.

I made one snip on the corner to get started - and was immediately hit full-on in the face by a jet of water.

I'm like: WTH? It's raining, but no way that...

And then I realize, the bottom is clogged. the entire downspout is full of water- and my first cut is spraying water like a fire hose.

So, I'm already wet - I keep hacking and get four more good cuts on the spout. Each one gushes even more water, and I'm absolutely soaked. It takes a good half a minute for the spout to drain.

After that, fixing it is snack food. Attach elbow, attach new length of ABOVE-ground downspout, and put a landing ramp for the last drop to the lawn.

It's of course, still raining - so I get to see the immediate result is that the water that was turning the raised flowerbed into a bog is now peacefully splashing out onto the front slope of our front yard.

Take that, you bastard.

Whitey

Any time the family gets together – the stories come out. I’m sure you know the drill. Family mythology gets more dramatic with each retelling. The winters get colder, the snow gets deeper, and bears grow to monstrous size and devour men whole.

We accept this because there is a curious pleasure in hearing a story that we remember from childhood. The stories that got a hold of you early, you remember. What’s more, hearing them again you can remember how it felt to hear the story the first time. Like you’re back there.

When everybody in the audience feels the same way, it’s like there’s an electrical charge in the air – everybody’s anticipating the next bit of the story. You smile even before the good part, you laugh even before the punch line.

My family’s mythology centers around two main themes: poverty and logging. My grandmother’s generation grew up during the depression. They and virtually everyone they grew up with were dirt poor. I’m guessing most families with four generations in America can easily come up with stories similar to the ones I grew up with. The depression got everyone, and while the stories are all different – the theme is the same. “We were poor,” your family tells you – and you believe them.

The second theme stemmed from the first – logging. My great-grandfather was a fairly poor businessman and had tried a number of things to bring in more money, one of which was logging. Like many people in those days, he died young. He left bills to pay and contracts for lumber to be filled – and suddenly, the family was in the logging business.

The logging stories I’ll save for another day – but suffice it to say, they too have a certain commonality to them. If you cut down trees, sooner or later – you or someone around you will be hit by one of them. Some are sad, some are funny, and a few are downright heartbreaking.

And then there’s my great-uncle B. He has his own mythology, and the only theme to it is: “Holy crap, this man shouldn’t be alive.”

My great uncle was in World War II, in Italy. You wouldn’t know this from talking to him – like most vets of the era, he doesn’t talk about the experience much. Like most vets, he’s just glad it’s over. Great uncle B has gone by a nickname for so long that my sister and I just assumed that was his real name. Nicknames stick sometimes, but B’s wartime nickname ended with the war. In the war he was known as Whitey.

In the war, Whitey drove a tank.

That alone would make him the coolest relative a kid is likely to know – but there’s so much more to it, and for years – decades, really – I’ve missed it.

Every reunion, the older generation gets together for story telling – and there are some doosies – but when uncle B gets up to speak, the room goes quiet and everyone just stares. I know this secondhand, because for five reunions in a row, I have managed to not be in the room when it happens. I’m off lost on the mountain, or in a boat, or golfing and I’ll get back and everyone will say “Wow, you should have been there! Uncle B told us about the time he drove a tank up and down the steps of the Vatican!”

-and I missed it! I mean, damn!

This year, I finally manage to find out about it, and catch the tail end of a just few of his stories. And it was good.

Like I said, uncle B was a tank driver – 19, skinny as a rail, and perfectly suited for crawling into the coffin-sized compartment where a tank keeps its controls.

It’s a good thing he was skinny – one of his more hair-raising stories involved a time when the tank was on fire and he went to scramble out of his hatch. He flipped open the hatch only to find that the tank’s turret had rotated so that the gun barrel was right over his hatch – partially blocking it. Instead of the incredibly tight opening he usually had to crawl through, he had half of it. As he puts it “The tank was on fire, so I got out of there anyway.”

Close shaves, he would say.

Like the time his tank had been knocked out by a bazooka and he and his crewmates scrambled out to run for it. They’re on one side of the tank; the Germans who just blasted their tank are on the other side, lobbing grenades.

The tank’s burning, there’s no cover other than the tank, and the newly-arrived grenades mean they have to run into the open ground.

Mind you, these are tankers, so they’re lucky if they have pistols on them. Outside of the tank, they’re pretty much civilians.

They run. Into the open. Uncle B describes doing a zig zag, which would be second nature if this was a war movie – but he’s telling you in a way that lets you know: no way this was a movie. He and the rest of the crew fully expected to die.

None of them got hit – and they never knew why. They made it to a ditch, and eventually got back to their unit to get a new tank.

After the war, uncle B was at some festival and he ran into a man he knew from the war – a fellow tanker – and they spent some time catching up. Eventually uncle B mentioned this story, and the other guy just nodded his head.

He was in a tank following uncle B’s tank. He saw it get hit, and then drove his tank into the line of fire to take out the bazooka team. He got them, too – or uncle B and his buddies would have been shot down as they ran.

Uncle B’s got a bunch of stories like this. One after another where he’s the one telling you the story – and while you’re listening, you’re thinking: God, I hope he makes it.

Bombs land next to his tank, so close that the tank slides into the crater. He is ordered to drive another crew’s tank down a narrow mountain road – and a “friendly” truck accidentally pushes him over the edge. The tank rolls down a mountainside and he climbs out looking like somebody poured blood over him. Turns out he’s uninjured; the blood belonged to a butchered sheep that was hanging in the tank.

And just one more and I promise I’ll stop:

He tells the story of a time when his unit was ordered to move across a bridge that was downrange of enemy artillery. The approach to the bridge was terribly exposed; the only thing above ground was a flimsy wire fence alongside the road leading up to the bridge.

B takes his tank down the road, and is hit in the treads right as he’s even with the fence. The tank crabs to the side and plows over the fence, before B straightens it out. At that moment, uncle B is picturing his damaged tank treads. The shear pins that hold it together. Break one, no problem, break a few and the strain of full throttle will tear the rest. The tread falls off, and the tank will be immobile.

Which means that he and his crew will be a sitting duck for the nice men who managed to hit him a second ago when he was moving.

So, he thinks: baby the tread? Or gun it? He pushes the levers forward, and waits for the tread to tear off. There’s a horrible sound of shearing metal, but he realizes that it is the sound of the fence being mowed down by his tank – his moving tank.

With that realization, he floors it and crosses the bridge, trailing wrecked fence behind him.

On the other side is a town, so he ducks into a side street for cover. He gets out to check the damage and just stares. Where the shell hit – there isn’t a single pin in the tread at all. It should have come apart on the bridge – would have come apart, except for one thing: the fence. The fence he’d plowed into had wound itself around the tread like a twist tie, and had kept the tread together.

If he hadn’t hit that fence, at just the right angle… that’d ‘ve been it.

Uncle B’s just the mildest guy you ever saw – but he reminds me of the all the guys you see in the documentaries. The ones who say – “after the war, everything after was just a gift.”

Uncle B’s just that kind of guy, too – loves life, lives well – and only when pressed does he blow your mind with some of the incredible crap he had to deal with.

Makes me want to go to the Vatican and look for tank tracks.

God’s country

Every five years, my extended family on my dad’s side gets together for a three day weekend. This, by itself, is no big deal.However, there are almost four hundred of them, and most of them show up.

My dad’s mother came from a family of eleven children, one of whom was named Howard. Howard was the one responsible for organizing the first reunion, one he never lived to see.


If he only knew what he’d gotten us into. Thirty years later, eleven siblings are now the first of four generations on a collision course with each other every five years.


This year was different; every prior event took place at the same backwoods ski resort that happened to take in boarders in the summer. The owner gave us a good rate, but the place definitely had its limitations. There were bats in the halls and we ate in shifts in the cramped chalet. We showed up and made it up as we went along. It was pretty clear that the staff did the same. Staffing hours were a mystery, but when you’d find someone – they’d be flexible. We’d decide to have a music program; the owner would open up his machine shed and set up some chairs. It was primitive, but folksy.


This year we booked a real resort, a Christian retreat, no less. From the beginning, it was clear this would be a different experience. Dial 1-800 for Reservations, and credit card up front, thank you very much. Before we were paying rates you’d see at Motel 6 – now we were shelling out rates you’d see at the Hilton.


To be fair - this place had it all. There was an ultra-modern kid’s playground, an amphitheater, dining hall, and wi-fi internet café. The desk was staffed 24/7 and there was free internet access in the lobby. It had gated security and parking permits. The lawns were manicured and peppered with stone monuments with bible verses etched onto them.

Every item of significance carried a plaque telling you who had donated it and how devoted either they or their loved ones were.

Needless, to say – this was not my usual environment.


But then, the family reunions have always served to emphasize the differences between me and the family. They are largely conservative and devout, I am not. Skits and talent shows are showcases for their talent, for me- they are something that shunts me politely off to the side. Most of my extended family believes that a Christian retreat is ideal for a family gathering, while such a venue wouldn’t even have occurred to me.

Never mind that, though – it was booked, and we went.


There are other posts to be had in the past weekend’s experience (Skit night, the memorials, my FINALLY getting to hear my great uncle's stories from the war, my great aunt and uncle –for the billionth time- breaking into a splendid moment to remind everyone that they have suffered more than anyone else, or how I captained a cardboard boat straight into oblivion) but


-all in all it was an admirable place staffed by admirable people. I would say I was probably keyed up to dislike this gathering since dad died. He’d been part of the organizing committee of the past two reunions and his practical nature and blunt mannerisms had butted heads far too often with the flightier portions of the family. It had turned a thankless job into something worse – so much so that dad had opted to stay out of this one, and it had been taken over by people I was prepared to savage with my criticisms.


Before we went, I had started with “It costs so much that people won’t go.” This was true – there were a not insignificant number of defections, but there was still a very healthy presence this year.


I had expected a host of organizational snafus. A sizeable portion of my family couldn’t organize a trip to the grocery store – but while there were the traditional slow starts to events – and some notable examples of poor attention to detail – for the most part – things happened.


I am sure a lot of the success stems from the fact that you get what you pay for. A portion of the premium we had paid to stay at this place bought competent people who were experienced at handling events. A booked room had everything it needed to host an event. Baked goods did not go missing, coffee appeared at the correct times, and events did not change locations, because you were held to whatever booking you made.


The resort has statues of playing children and a preserved railroad chapel used in days long gone to spread the word to the faithful. Religion was not merely present; it was omnipresent.


And while I have not come to some epiphany of faith, or leapt into the ranks of the converted – I did make a kind of peace with the place.


Whatever else the place was, it was staffed and funded by people who are sincere. All of the things that drive me crazy about organized religion are surely there in some measure – but there was a good amount of just good, honest, decent people trying to make something good in the world. Something that would last. This place was it for them. While we were there, there were other groups cycling through from Korea, Arkansas, and parts unknown – but all of them were there to get away from their normal lives and go somewhere quiet to think about God.


I am sure some of those organizations will espouse social beliefs that would make me scream – but I’m talking about the impulse to get away and work on improving yourself as a person. There is something undeniably good about that, with or without religion. It is easy to get all cynical about religion and its role in the world. But I think it is important to remember that for every Bob Jones zealot using religion as a hammer, there are surely others - mild-mannered and giving - who use religion as a remedy for what the world does to us all. It would be pretty damn petty to hold a grudge against such people.


So,

I didn’t find God, but I found Godly people – and that was good.

…cell without a number

Guantanamo Bay’s prison has been described by Amnesty International as the “Gulag of our times,” but it’s becoming more evident that the US maintained a far worse system of incarceration – so-called “Black Sites,” a euphemism for CIA-operated facilities that operated outside the reach of US law.


Rather than the masters of a single gulag, we appear to hold title to another gulag archipelago. The New Yorker is reporting that black sites have been engaging in conduct similar to that of Abu Ghraib, only much more organized and sophisticated.


Since the operations are highly classified, Jane Mayer’s article approaches the topic from the edges, but it’s abundantly clear that the CIA is attempting to extract intelligence from prisoners using methods that can only be described as torture.


As Abu Ghraib established, this conduct would provoke outrage if conducted in the open.
If this occurred on US soil, this conduct would be illegal.


So it occurs in secret, in other countries.

I am reminded of Jon Ronson’s story on This American Life, where he illustrates an amazingly similar situation from the 1600s.


Following the bloody civil war that led to the ascension of Oliver Cromwell and the execution of Charles I, the monarchy was restored to power. The followers of Charles II were determined that their enemies would never again be in a position to threaten the realm. One of the king’s advisors, Lord Clarendon proposed to suspend the right of habeas corpus and send the enemies of the realm to his own Guantanamo: far away prisons, never again to see the light of day.

Ronson: The exact location of Lord Clarendon’s Guantanamo is lost to history. … But suspending habeas corpus didn’t work out well for Lord Clarendon. He was impeached. At his impeachment trial, he was accused of sending people away to “remote islands, garrisons and other places, thereby to prevent them from the benefit of the law, and to produce precedents for the imprisoning of any other of his majesty’s subjects in like manner.” And remember, democracy as we know it is still centuries away. Innocent until proven guilty, one man one vote – only the most extreme radicals held these views.

These were dark times. There were heads on spikes all over London and still, the people were shocked by Clarendon’s disregard for habeas corpus.


…The one outcome of all of this was the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which specifically forbade what Clarendon had done, and made it illegal to send a prisoner into “Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Tangier or into parts, garrisons, islands or places beyond the seas which are, or at any time hereafter shall be within or without the dominions of His Majesty.” And forbade it has remained for 330 years – in England, anyway.

England figured this out three centuries ago, is there any reason we have to learn it the hard way?

We’re the good guys, we should act like it.

Phoning it in

You just have to throw up your hands in exasperation.

Senate Votes To Expand Warrantless Surveillance
The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.

This, after all the talk, all the puffery.. they knuckle under.

Especially after the revelation that a previously undisclosed reason the administration was asking for these powers was the the courts had declared their little plan illegal.

My rep, my senators did their job, but what the hell, people? Who are these democrats who held press conferences and worked the talk shows - telling us how the president was overreaching - and then sold civil liberties down the river in the middle of the night on a weekend?

How dare they?

Raise the roof

Okay, this is making the rounds - but if you haven't seen it yet - you should.

Setup: The man you are about to see was selling cellphones for a living prior to this moment.




(Sivacracy has it right - the windout is a bit stylized, but still - totally worth seeing)

Kick @ss.

Coda: He no longer sells cell phones.

Postscript: For those who know opera, the name of the aria is obvious - but it wasn't for me, so I looked it up. It's Nessun Dorma from Puccini's Turandot, which may not make a difference for people - but I hear this piece everywhere and each time I do, I feel like jumping out of my chair and applauding. I figure, I owe the artist the honor of at least figuring out what the name of their song is.

Mr Fix-It

While I am sure that the professionals have many maxims to live by, when it comes to plumbing for newbies, there’s pretty much only one that matters:

Any idiot can take it apart. Putting it back together is what you need to worry about.

I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not the sewer backup, or yard drainage – this was cosmetics.

The bathroom tap has always annoyed me, and (having purchased a replacement faucet about six months ago) I finally decided to hook the damn thing up. We’re selling the house, I’m not porting the faucet over to a new place – and (damn!) the old one is an eyesore.

It’s an eyesore because of something called galvanic corrosion. Two different metals in contact with each other leading to something called ion migration, which in turn speeds up the rust process of one of the two metals. In the case of my bathroom, the exposed metal of the faucet was the loser.

And it looked like boiled ass.

Changing a faucet is no big deal – it’s like roofing. Mostly grunt work, with a few tricky parts.

I get my stuff. Faucet, instructions, wrench, flashlight, drain pan – check. I remember that the new faucet doesn’t have flex hose, but a quick consult with BIL tells me that there’s no bar on re-using the old ones.

Thus prepared, I start. I have visions of getting all my gear under the sink and getting to work. This goes out the window when I discover that my narrow bathroom makes even getting under the vanity an exercise in contortion.

There’s no room for me, much less the gear – and here’s the thing:

While I am not claustrophobic, (elevators, mummy bags, tunnels and mineshafts don’t bother me in the slightest) I have this problem with being pinned in cramped quarters. I can’t turn around, move my arms, something – a part of my brain starts sounding alarm bells.

In order to reach the narrow gap between the basin and the back wall, I need to be jammed full on into the vanity, on my back, at a diagonal, legs in the tub holding my back off the floor so the edge of the vanity doesn’t score my spine, AND-
I can barely move my arms.

This sucks for lots of reasons besides the fact my mind has an irrational fear of it – I can barely get the damn wrench into position and have about enough room for 1/32 of a turn.

It's slow and painful, but otherwise, getting the sink apart goes well. Hoses drip water on my head, but I get the old faucet out without too much cursing.

The curse count is important – anybody working on a project will tell you. We can all be smiling church folk when the job goes well – but the more things go south, the more we all sound like sailors.

Anyway, not having replaced a faucet in, I dunno, forever. I have my instruction sheet in front of me to make sure I don’t miss anything.

Now, I work in usability, but no matter how bad a piece of software is, the documentation is always worse. Plumbing hardware is no exception – it sucks. Major steps like “cut the pipe above the trap to the desired length” are left out. Instructions like “apply joint compound” are included in the documentation when there are stickers on the hardware telling you “do not use joint compound.” I have no joint compound, but since the parts are telling me specifically not to use it – I think I’m okay.

The book says “put plumbers putty below the faucet,” the faucet says not to. And so on.

Mind screaming, sans circulation in pretty much all extremities, I eventually get the faucet seated, the hoses attached and I put on the trap –

-only to realize that the drain pipe is way the hell too long. I need to take the thing apart so I can cut it.

Now, next time I do this, I’ll likely remember to check this before I start, but I ask you: would it be too hard for them to put this little tidbit in the instructions? How about in the home depot book I shelled out thirty bucks for?

I have no saw to cut the pipe – My only power saw is completely unsuitable and in any event, I have no vice – and holding onto pipe so I can use a saw ill-suited to cut plastic pipe – I score some tin snips and go to town.

It’s almost 9pm and I’m rather keen on getting this done. I hack the pipe down to what looks like the right length. It looks ugly, but what ya gonna do?

I put it in, assemble the collage of co-dependent parts and – it’s too long by about a half a centimeter.

The cursing begins in earnest, now – ten parts are disassembled yet again, and I hack off the offending portion of the pipe.

It goes in, and fits. Back sore, shoulders numb. I clean everything up and turn on the tap.

It works – (of course it works, getting the water to flow is the easy part, stopping it is always the hard part).

I put a tub under it with a paper towel to see how it does over time.

Five minutes later, I realize that

a) it leaks, slowly; and
b) The faucet parts have lied to me. I really should have gotten joint compound.

So now, I’m off to Home Depot – but it’s after 9pm on a Sunday and they are closed and dark.

Frick. It’s bedtime, I put in the basin and hit the sack.

Next day, E finds that the basin under the sink is full to overflowing (another maxim to remember: Slow leaks? They speed up sometimes.)
The water’s switched off, and I go out hunting.

I get my joint compound and crawl back under there. Excruciating moments later, I make another realization:

c) I never should have re-used flex hose that old.

Amazingly, it appears that the all the joints are holding, but the flex hose is failing where the hose meets the top of the fitting.

Water off again, bedtime.

Next day, I go and buy flex hose. That night I put in the flex hose. And it is good. I put the basin and the paper towel under the sink, purely as a formality.

-except that there is a wet spot on it the following morning. WTH?

I scope out the trajectory of the spot to figure out where the hell it’s coming from – it ain’t the flexhose – it’s the drain pipe. Following the water up, it’s the top of the drain pipe.

Half a turn tighter and – bam! No leak.

---

I know, household hero now, right? The new faucet looks good, works a hell of a lot better than the old one. I wonder why I hadn’t done this ages ago.

But that’s not why I’m posting this.

I’m posting this because of the maxim I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Because a few days after doing the faucet, I noticed that the slop sink was draining very slow. I’d bought a snake a few days ago, and I put two and two together:

Wow, that faucet was so easy – I think I’ll take the slop sink trap apart and snake it.

Yeah! Take that house! I own your ass. Boo yah!

So, I crawl under the slop sink in the basement, crack the trap open with brute force and snake away. It’s gratifyingly messy – but I manage to get the snake around all the corners to a length of about six feet.

The drain probably isn’t cured, but it’ll drain better, I think – then I go to put the trap back.

Now, this is a trap joined into a concrete washbasin on one end – and cast iron on the other.

What this means is that if there is any problem with either end – I am totally screwed.

Naturally, there is something wrong with both ends.
The concrete is cracked and leaking around the embedded fitting. The cast iron joint on the other is (thanks to me) completely stripped.

Doubly screwed.

This is the basin that the water softener dumps 20-30 gallons into on a regular basis. This is the basin that the washing machine drains into.

No washing, and I need to switch off the softener.

Oh, and I’m showing the house to prospective buyers tomorrow.

Which is why I’m here at home, blogging – while the plumber (the REAL Mr. Fix-It) is in the other room installing a new trap with all the trimmings.

It’s 2:30pm and the people are coming around 3pm.

Oh how I love today.

Signs of life

Fleeing the carpet bomb coverage of the MN highway disaster - I took some time to actually sit down and read a newspaper.

And whaddaya know? There actually is some good news out there:

From the NYT:

Design Steps Up in Disaster’s Wake
AFTER Hurricane Katrina destroyed Karen Parker’s house on Division Street two summers ago, her first instinct was to leave her storm-ravaged hometown of Biloxi, Miss., behind. But she couldn’t bring herself to abandon two generations of extended family there, any more than she could see living indefinitely with her six children in their 10-foot-wide FEMA trailer. So, a few weeks after the storm, Ms. Parker decided to rebuild on her street.

She struggled for months to navigate the sluggish bureaucracy of government agencies in search of help, but was stymied, she said, until she met with a representative of Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that specializes in post-disaster reconstruction. The group’s approach to her problems was more comprehensive and more personal, Ms. Parker said, than those of other organizations she had spoken with, and for the first time she felt hopeful about building a new house on Division Street.

Well intended people, find people in need - and help them.

(Plus, the house designs are pretty damn cool, too...)

Nice.