As of 4:30 pm mountain daylight time yesterday, I have a Ph.D. It's amazing enough that an accredited institution of higher learning decided to grant me such a degree. What's even more remarkable is that I earned it with distinction, which I think is essentially meaningless but is an honor that my chair has only seen once before since her arrival here in the early 90s.
So there you go. It only took 8 years.
In addition to my impending move to New York, my parents are also leaving the house they've lived in for 14 years, so I am forced to sort out the few valuable things I might have and throw out the rest of the majority, which can politely be called "junk." As part of this process, I've been forced to go through all the baseball cards I bought between 1987 and 1991-ish. During the time it has taken to do this, I've had plenty of time to reflect on several facts.
-As a kid, I heard the horror stories of people who lost really really valuable baseball cards, and as a 7-year old, in all of my infinite wisdom, I swore I'd never ever ever throw my cards out, because they could be worth something. But now that I'm facing a major move and being forced to toss some stuff out, I realize that throwing out baseball cards is something of a necessity. And while I am trying to keep whichever cards might have value (I'll be holding on to my 1989 Upper Deck Inaugural year Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie card, thank you very much), in every handful I toss out, I wonder if I'm throwing away a card like Billy Ripken's, or some other major error.
-Looking at the cards from the 80s, one thing has become patently clear: the porn-stache was a fixture to all baseball players, regardless of nation, creed, or race, in the 1980s.
-Seattle's uniforms were pretty bad in the 80s.
-I remember a lot of my childhood heroes from the Cleveland Indians, but I've had a bunch of "who?" moments when I see the cards, including Jon Perlman, Frank Wells, Tom Waddell, Ken Schrom, and Junior Noboa.
-There are great "irony" moments when you look back at baseball cards that are 20 years old, including seeing things like "Joey" (AKA "Albert") Belle, or a card celebrating Mark McGwire setting a record for rookie home-runs.
-Among my few football cards, I found a John Elway from about 1988. I'm debating whether or not to chew it up and crap it out, use it as toilet paper, piss on it, or sell it to Lyrad. It's a tough choice...
In my study of natural disasters, I've rarely come across something as odd (and personally disturbing) as this.
The provinces of India near Myanmar are suffering through a huge explosion in the rat population. Every 48 years or so a particular kind of bamboo goes crazy with its flowering. It deposits tons of seeds that rats love. Their populations go through the roof. Then, with no more bamboo seeds to eat, they invade farmers' fields. This has led to severe famines in 1862, 1911, and 1958-59. The article does not much explore the possible human impact in making these famines worse, though if Mike Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts is any guide, the colonial famines were due as much to colonial neglect as the rats. It does however note that the 1959 famine was laughed off by the Indian government and led to a local guerrilla movement, which is certainly interesting.
We can therefore expect a likely famine this summer in India. Hopefully disaster relief can be prepared ahead of time.
In any case, tonight I will have nightmares of hordes of rats running over me. Great.
Really? Is it really going to be another year where you do this at least 8 times? Is it really going to be another year where whenever you enter a game with a 3-run lead, I wonder if you're going to blow it again? Is it really going to be another year of innings with 2 walks, 2 hits, and a run or two scored, even when you get the save? Is it really going to be another year of people saying, "well, he did lead the league in saves," ignoring an ERA of 5.00?
If it is, just let me know, and I'll go ahead and register the web domain "www.dearericwedgepleasedontputjoeborowskionthemoundwithanythinglessthana6runlead.com".
Cheers,
Mr. Trend
Today, the Times ran this story by Adam Liptak about how the government has ridden roughshod across the Constitution to build the border fence. To their credit, the Times has run a pretty long series of stories now on the awfulness of this idea.
Liptak shows how the government, and especially Michael Chertoff, has basically used the Constitution as toilet paper. By waiving whatever laws get in the way of the fence, Chertoff and Bush are setting the dangerous precedent that the rule of law is irrelevant whenever the government chooses.
In their lawsuit challenging Chertoff waiving environmental law, the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife said
“It is only happenchance that the secretary’s waiver in this case involved laws protecting the environment and historic resources,” the groups told Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of Federal District Court in Washington. “He could equally have waived the requirements of the Fair Labor Relations Act to halt a strike, or the provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in order to force workers to endure unsafe working conditions.”Precisely. This is a slippery slope. Guantanamo was the first step, but many Americans ignored it because it was far away and the victims were terrorists or something. But this administration, as seen in the work of John Yoo and others, believes that they can ignore the Constitution whenever they want and they intend on doing so to build this pointless wall.
Wounded soldiers after Battle of Chancellorsville, outside Fredericksburg, Virginia, May 2, 1863
Again, the border fence is a terrible idea.
This story discusses how the Sabal Palm Audubon Center in Brownsville is basically going to end up in Mexico since the wall will be built north of it. Let me reiterate, this wall is going to do NOTHING to stop illegal immigration. And yet again, I'll say that most people on the border oppose the wall because they know that it is completely worthless. By all accounts, this is a very neat place in a very poor area. I will be visiting this area on Memorial Day weekend and I plan on going to Sabal Palm. I might as well see it while it is of value for conservation.
It's also worth noting that poor people in this country have almost no access to natural places. This border fence is not only an environmental disaster, but of course, it is also a structure of racism. Moreover, it is an example of environmental injustice, as it clearly prioritizes the desire of white people in Nebraska to feel that this is still a white country over the actual needs of local residents to experience something other than a degraded urban nature.
To top it off, it's not even necessary to build a fence in this area. As the article states:
A decade ago, he says, federal agents intercepted hundreds of illegal immigrants a month on Sabal Palm grounds. But as border security increased, and as patterns changed, the number of interceptions dropped dramatically. Now, he says, not even 20 a month are caught, with very few carrying contraband like marijuana.
It is incidents like this that make it hard for me to believe that the Democrats will lose the presidential election:
Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.
Anti-Freedman's Bureau poster, Reconstruction Era, probably 1866 or 1867.
When Patterson Hood from the Drive-By Truckers talks about "the duality of the southern thing," what precisely do you think he is talking about? What exactly is this duality? Can it be defined? Hood doesn't really define it. I think I know what he's talking about but I'm not sure I could define it either.
Of all the European countries that built successful film industries, I know least about East German film. It had never really crossed my mind at all that there was an industry there at all but, of course, considering the Soviet influence this should have been obvious to me. Clearly, few of these films were ever seen in
The Rabbit Is Me is a great film, plain and simple. I came into it with an open mind, wanting to like it, but I had no idea what I was in for. Stylistically reminiscent of the French New Wave, Maetzig uses internal monologue and a palpable realism to tell its relatively simple story. Maria (Angelika Waller) is a simple orphan set to enter college. She is blackballed from attending, however, when her brother is arrested for ambiguous subversive activity. She doesn’t believe that he would do such a thing and is vigilant in filing appeals for a retrial. After filing one of these appeals, a man stops her outside the courthouse and asks her out. When he introduces himself, though, Maria realizes that this is the judge who convicted her brother. Now, with self-interest and her sense of justice in mind, Maria becomes his mistress and, unfortunately for her, they fall in love. Through this love, though, she pries into the inner workings of the justice system and realizes the corruption and utter dismissal of justice in
All of this is beautifully rendered in repeating motifs and musical cues. The audience is lulled to sleep to be shocked when the pattern changes. It’s an effective structure that works wonders with Angelika Walter’s steely, intelligent performance. She is a rock of a person, ready to act at a moment’s notice in her brother’s defense. But, in the end, her real aim is to attend university, and all her machinations in her brother’s name are toward her own ends. This doesn’t make her dishonorable; she is honest with herself in a society where nobody else is. When everything comes down and I sat alone watching the final images roll, I couldn’t help myself from cheering and clapping at the outcome.
On a side note, the title of the film comes from an altercation in which Maria meets the judge’s wife. In an internal monologue, Maria prepares to die. In a stylistic shocker, the actors all stop in their tracks. This is not a still picture, but all the actors in the scene are still. Wind blows and hair moves in the breeze, but the surreal positions of the actors remain. And it holds. And it holds. And then everything returns to normal and life resumes as new. It is a shocking scene in its unexpectedness and in its beauty. This scene drives the remainder of the film and is, simply, amazing.
See The Rabbit Is Me, and see it as soon as you can. This is a forgotten masterpiece, not just of Communist film, but of world film in general. See this movie!
The premier edition of Lyrad's Occasional Image, which is a much more realistic title for me than any "...of the day."
Chairs designed by H.R. Geiger...comfy
CNN and Sunset magainze offers us 10 "earth-friendly spring flings." Uh, there's no such thing. Flying to California or Hawaii is incredibly damaging to the environment.
Now, that doesn't mean I'm not going to do it. I will sacrifice a hell of a lot. It will take a lot though for me not to travel. But can we at least be honest. Flying to California and then renting a car to drive around is not earth friendly, even the wines are organic. Really, the organic thing is far less important than the fuel consumption.
Meanwhile, the trip to Park City is green because you can take the shuttle up there from Salt Lake City. Big whoopdie do.
Heston is dead.
Hard to know what to make of Heston the actor. Certainly his politics can be easily dismissed. Like many of the uber-masculine stars of post-war cinema, most of his work didn't age well. Heston really couldn't act, but he sure as hell could overact. I can't think of a single film of his that I really want to see, or see again. "Major Dundee" is about as close as it gets, but that's for Peckinpah, not Heston. Yet many people seem to respect his work. I'm not sure why.
However, he did play Andrew Jackson twice in movies, in "The President's Lady" and "The Buccaneer," neither of which I have ever heard of before.
Heston should have been on my death list.
Last May, a tornado completely destroyed the town of Greensburg, Kansas. One known for having the world's largest hand-dug well, it briefly became known for being a site of utter chaos. Last June, I was driving from Denver to Texas on back roads. By sheer coincidence I drove through Greensburg. It was one of the most shocking things I had ever seen. The city was gone. A few of the old brick Victorian Era buildings were sort of standing. Then, like a line was drawn through the eastern side of the town, everything was standing, as if nothing had ever happened. Remarkable. I thought about taking pictures but I felt it was immoral to be a tourist in someone's space of suffering.
I did have to wonder about the future of a destroyed town in western Kansas. The western Plains have been losing population for 90 years now. Greensburg isn't on the interstate. There's no real reason for people to move back there. It's a county seat but that's about the biggest economic engine in the area from what I can tell.
But Greensburg is rebuilding. What's more, it is doing so in an environmentally friendly way. I'm surprised that a small Kansas town is taking such a radical step, but as the linked article suggests, this is an opportunity to rejuvenate the town based upon the independence that locally created wind energy can provide. That they are moving into LEED certified buildings and connecting the region's farms to an environmentally based economy is even more surprising and suggests that forced into a crisis, even leaders in the nation's most conservative areas can think creatively about environmental issues.
It's a fascinating story and perhaps a model for keeping people on the Plains.
This story on the Navajo nation losing their internet service is another sad reminder about just how awful conditions are on many of the nation's reservations.
Indian reservations have mostly chosen one of two paths in the last 20 years--gaming or not. For those who have taken up gaming, they are bringing in serious money for the first time ever. But it is often at the cost of radically changing their culture. You don't see nations giving up gaming after embracing it, so these are changes that as a whole, many peoples are willing to make. But the success of the casinos tends to rely on two things--population and geography. Smaller tribes have done better than the larger nations. The money is split up among far fewer people for one thing. But the smaller peoples, who were mostly more sedentary to being with, tend to live in places near large American cities. So the New England and Puget Sound tribes have become incredibly rich. There aren't that many people to begin with and an insatiable demand for gambling among millions of local whites. Within New Mexico, Sandia and Isleta Pueblos have done outstanding because they are right outside of Albuquerque. The Jicarilla Apache reservation, in northwestern New Mexico, not so much. They have a casino, but it is so far out of the way that almost no one goes there.
For those who have not embraced gambling, like the Navajo or Lakota, poverty remains deeply entrenched, though with the positive consequence of isolating the many problems with gambling from those peoples. While I believe the Navajo are building a casino on the edge of the reservation, it is unlikely to bring untold riches due to its location. Meanwhile, tribal government is as corrupt as ever, as seen in the bidding for the internet contract. Driving on the Navajo or Pine Ridge reservations is pretty amazing. Not only do you not feel you are in the United States, you don't even feel like you're in Mexico. It feels far poorer than that.
This begs a question--what responsibility do we as a people have to Native Americans? Is giving them the opportunity to open casinos enough? Or should we as a nation provide basic services to these people? For instance, over 1/3 of Navajo homes do not have electricity. Shouldn't the U.S. government simply provide this at no cost. This fact is especially galling considering that a huge amount of electricity is creating on the reservation itself. Shouldn't we also provide them with decent schools, clean water, and internet service?
These questions may not be as easy to answer as you think. We can't overemphasize the problem with corruption. I'm not sure that tribal elites would want all these services provided unless they could control the distribution and profits. I'm not sure how to handle this problem.
But I am convinced that we as a society do owe native peoples some serious recompense for the suffering they received at our hands. This can be done in a smart way too. Think about it as a GI Bill for Native Americans. The GI Bill was transformative because it gave veterans services rather than cash pensions. It changed the structure of society. Providing Native Americans services like the internet seems the least we can do.
There's obviously no reason to explain who Jello Biafra is. If you don't know, you have my sympathies. Anyway, he's no stranger to collaboration. His albums with Al Jorgensen as Lard, "Prairie Home Invasion" with Mojo Nixon, "Tumor Circus" with Steel Pole Bathtub, and "Never Breathe What You Can't See" with The Melvins are all great stuff. This rework of "Kali-Fornia Über Alles" is from the second collaboration with The Melvins, "Seig Howdy!" (great title), a collection of cuts that didn't make the first album and some remixes. The lyrics are reworked to start with the California recall election putting Schwarzenegger into power and moves on from there stream of consciousness. As usual, it's both hilarious and true, though a little bit over the top (and, though I love what he sings, I'm really not much for his voice, but that's not really his point). Some choice lines from the song: "I'm Governor Schwarzeneger/Pretty soon I'll be dictator," "Steroids for the master race," "It's the Homeland Security police/You're a terrorist and so is your niece." Good stuff, plus it has sludgy Melvins business behind it; how could I possibly argue.
1. Jello Biafra w/The Melvins--Kali-Fornia Über Alles 21st Century
2. Kid Ory--Dippermouth Blues
3. Fabio Frizzi--Main Title (from the soundtrack to Zombie)
4. Neurosis--Training
5. Blind Willie Johnson--Church, I'm Fully Saved Today
6. John Jacobsson--Pieces (3) for Clarinet, Viola & Piano; 2. Lyriskt Intermezzo (James M. Hinson, Cl, Christine Hinson, Va, Linda Perry, Pn.)
7. Sergei Prokofiev--Philosophers for Chorus & Orchestra (New Philharmonia Orchestra of St. Petersburg [conductor and choir unknown])
8. T.Rex--All My Love
9. Ween--Hippy Smell
10. Mandrill--Road to Love
Lyrad and I are both huge fans of the Hacienda Brothers. Lyrad's review of their show in Denton last year elicited a comment from one of the band members. I saw them a couple of days later and they were absolutely fantastic.
Sadly, their lead singer, the great Chris Gaffney, has severe liver cancer. He will be on intensive chemo for the rest of the year. I don't know what that means, but I suspect it is pretty grim.
I don't usually do these things, but I want to encourage readers to donate a little bit to Gaffney. He needs about $60,000 to cover what his insurance won't. They have about $20K now, so word is getting out.
Gaffney and the Hacienda Brothers are one of the 5 best bands in America today. Their combination of country and soul is amazing. If you haven't heard them, go to the i-tunes or whatever you use. Buy "Cowboys to Girls" off their latest album, What's Wrong With Right and then buy "Mental Revenge" off their self-titled debut. If you like those songs, buy the albums and then donate a bit of money to Gaffney's cancer treatment. I'm giving $25.
If you don't like those songs, you probably don't have good taste in music.
Georgia Governor Lester Maddox and son "escorting" a black man out of a restaurant.
