Better Blogs Than This One

SOMEHOW or other, Winston Smith's Philosoraptor disappeared from our blogroll undetected. Corrected.

Comments, We Occasionally Read Our Get Comments

arghous said...
That should be Sora Aoi, or if you want to be pedantic (like for Asashōryū Akinori), Aoi Sora.

First, haven't you've read this blog enough not to ask if I want to be pedantic? I took the misspelling from the photo tag, and on top of that, thought I remembered that "Sora Aoi" was correct and "Aoi Sora" was romanized. Which just shows you that I'm not as big a fan of Japanese porn as I pretend to be; in fact, my collection still only numbers in double digits. "Asashōryū Akinori" I got right only because I had to look it up, as a congenital defect prevents me from spelling Asashoryu correctly, let alone remembering where the diacriticals go. I can't figure out the international date line either; today or tomorrow is the final day of the Kyushu basho, the last one of 2008, which means it's either yesterday here or two days from tomorrow. Asashōryū withdrew before the tournament, making three straight he's dropped out of. Reportedly, the Japanese press is hyperventilating about this, and if you have any familiarity at all with the Japanese press you know that's saying something. This has nothing whatsoever to do with racism; it's just a coincidence that when Takanohana sat out more than a year no one said a word. Anyway, it's still all about the Mongolians, with the other yokozuna, Hakuho, tied at 12-2 with Ama, who defeated him on day 12 and is now certain to be promoted to ozeki, the second-highest sumo rank. Meanwhile the Bulgarian ozeki Kotooshu, the David Beckham of Sumo* and the first European ever to win a tournament, is 7-7 and playing hurt.

And here's the deal: I get fifteen different feeds from ESPN and none of them carry Sumo any more; how bad could the ratings be? If I want to avoid watching streaming video on the execrable Windows Media, which, frankly, rates a tossup with Blinding Myself, I have to subscribe to Japan TV, which is an a la carte selection from U-Verse. I'm not sure what the thing costs, but I suspect I'd have to add alimony in on top of it.

And, for chrissakes, American football purists are all about the line play; these guys are the greatest linemen in the world. C'mon, ESPN. You sold America NASCAR. That's proof in my book that you're capable of anything.

anonymous said...
I was reading Nixonland recently, and he mentioned Vance Hartke as a liberal senator from Indiana in the 60's. Was that the take the locals had? Just curious about what the Indiana view was.

Good question! And great screen name!

Hartke was the first (and one of the few) politicians I ever volunteered for, stuffing envelopes for his 1970 race against Richard Roudebush, who was a wingnut jingoist even by Indiana standards, or maybe I should say by 1970 standards. It's remembered as one of the slimiest campaigns in Indiana history, though for the life of me I can't really remember any details at this point.

Indiana had two of the most liberal Senators in Washington through the Sixties: Hartke and Birch "Why Did I Have Children?" Bayh. And yes, we noticed, but we also had a strong trades union, auto- and steel-manufacturing population in those days which hadn't yet abandoned the Democratic party. Hartke lost in '76 to Dick Lugar, Nixon's Favorite Mayor; Bayh lasted until 1980, losing to Pulliam family scion and war hero James Danforth Quayle.

All of which is instructive, I think, of where the real "partisan gridlock" comes from: it comes from Nixon's "Silent Majority" speech. I'm not saying there wasn't partisan opposition in Indiana in them days, but it seemed to me at the time (i.e., as a dewy-limbed yout) that there was a basic sense that even opposition politicians voted their conscience, or followed the polls, but were not thought of as mere automatons for party. That changed after Nixon's speech, and Hartke managed to squeak by just before it steamrolled.

Oh...

Steve said...
Speaking as a Bats Left fan who likes to use windows less than full screen, the hall of fame on the top is too wide.

It's whatever width the (imported) layout called for, which is equal to the three columns plus their gutters, I think. I am working on making the whole thing, or else just the post column, whatcha call "floating", but,  y'know, it's leaf fall/winterizing season in the Heartland, and I try to get things that can be done before it turns -10 F done before it turns -10F, and leave the stuff I can do in the relative warmth, once my wife lets me move up from the basement again, for then. Plus there're no guarantees. Thanks for your patience.

dr

I Labor To Be Obscure, Vol. LXXI

OKAY, so, first, the "What's the difference between x and y?" "Lipstick." is, you may recall, "Sarah Palin's" "joke", which led to a minor tussle last week. It was, of course, written for her, and was, I was later informed, the reworking of a PMS joke. I don't recall ever engaging in the form, but I'm not censorious where humor's concerned; I just think caution ought to be applied in consideration of the fact that what people find funny often reveals more about them that they might wish. To me the sum total of the joke there, whether in praise of Councilwoman Palin's surgically-enhanced reputation for "toughness", or in comic exaggeration of someone else's medical affliction, is the fleeting image of a beast indulging in cosmetics. About as funny as you'd imagine it to be, and as long-lasting. It is, I think, a cautionary tale about working such things like a rawhide chew toy, or concerning oneself overly with swarming gnats. It's a minor objection, if that, that her ventriloquists would put a PMS joke into her mouth. It's a far greater one that a woman must be portrayed as a critter-pated pugilist in order to deserve political respect, and by far the worst thing is that Commander Palin and her party could be perfectly presumed to think that way without the matter ever being raised.  Except, of course, that it was necessary to paint her that way to allay the fears of the conservers of Neanderthal values, or, as they're also known, the Party.  Fight the real enemy, a wise woman once said.  Palin's the (typical Republican) defender of the Traditional Family who personally focuses on her own career, with the tenaciousness of a bull terrier, but who would prevent other women from terminating pregnancies that would interfere with theirs. Fight the real enemy.

And, since I thought I was just setting up a gag, it didn't occur to me to explain the dietary business further, but I don't add salt to anything and haven't for years; maybe potatoes in a casserole, certainly in baked goods where it's required, but not much more. My Poor Wife's difficulties with sodium, as she'll admit, comes from her own reliance on too many processed foods, generally not of my choosing, though, as usual, when one begins to rely on nutritional information one is quickly shocked to the core about such things.  My own cooking is unapologetically rich judged by the standards of contemporary fadishness, but never incontinently salted, though you'll be offered salt to your heart's content if you join me at table. The recipe-hunting process was an effort to get her to choose some healthier alternatives, out of my concern; I'm not a food fascist. As for "adding flavor" I basically reject the notion of excessive herbalization as I do the application of hops to beer governed, apparently, only by toxicity studies. I've spent years in kitchens pursuing both Italio-French and Chinese regional cooking, and despite the diametrically opposed approaches--melding vs. accumulation of flavors--the signal idea with each is to make ingredients taste like themselves, not like whatever you dumped on them.

Also, since I never get to cook that vegetable stew--I rarely make much of an effort if I'm just feeding myself--I pulled the recipe card rather than type from memory. The card excludes garlic, but julia's right; 2 cloves, to taste, minced and added when the onions are nearly cooked, not before. Alternately one might fry whole cloves in the oil before the onions go in.

Fun With Monogamy, Vol. CCCIX

MY Poor Wife, informed Thursday that her blood pressure was elevated, and I were going over low-sodium  menus.

PW: There's the vegetable stew* you make. I like that.

DR (who couldn't possibly be a source of hypertension): You never eat it! I don't make it anymore, because you never eat any! You won't eat summer squash.

PW: I'll eat squash. It's one of the other ingredients. What's in it?

DR: squash, zucchini, turnip, onions, tomatoes...

PW: Zucchini. I don't like zucchini.

DR (who might be mistaken for flabbergasted at this point, if you didn't know him): Zucchini! What's the difference between summer squash and zucchini?

PW: Lipstick.


___________
* Heat 2 T. olive oil in heavy-bottomed casserole
Saute 2-1/2 cup coarsely cubed onions until soft
Add 1c. vegetable stock, aromatic spices (say 1 tsp each ginger, chili, coriander, 1/4 t. cardamon, cinnamon, allspice, plus cayenne to taste), 1-1/2 cups chopped peeled Roma tomatoes,
Bring to boil
Add 1-1/2 cups sliced carrots, cover, reduce heat to low, cook 10 min.
Add 2 sliced summer squash, 2 sliced zucchini, 1 medium turnip, coarsely cubed, 1 cup chick peas, 1/2 cup raisins which have been plumped in hot water
Cover, simmer 30 minutes Serve over cous-cous.

Frontier House

WELL, it is a little disappointing to discover the internets could do without me for 72 hours, which is why I decided to return early.  That, and the fact that I now have actual internet service again, and phone service, and U-Verse Teevee, whose simultaneous disappearance Tuesday afternoon qualify, in AT&T servicespeak, as Issues, and which they had pledged to Resolve only by tomorrow.  

They were, by the way, absolutely convinced that the problem was Ours, even though I tried to explain that someone at the newly refurbished mall Town Center Experience two blocks over had somehow blown up its electrical grid, causing all the stores to close for the day and browning us (in the neighboring grid) out for roughly one minute.  This, I felt, may have had something to do with it, even though our own failure occurred roughly five hours later, but also roughly at the exact moment the power company guys showed up to work on the transformer at the end of the next block.  (I was, it should be noted, trying to make myself understood over a pay phone situated on a median strip in the middle of 62nd Street, at 5:30 PM, which did seem to affect communications somewhat, from my perspective.  That made two people in a single afternoon who expressed utter disbelief when I informed them there was no cell phone number where I could be reached as there is no cell phone in my possession, nor has their ever been.)

In their defense, we were the only house so affected, so far as I've been able to tell.  Still, I suspect that the It Sounds Like A Household Wiring problem was just an excuse to bump us to the end of the repair line, and they somehow managed to solve the problem without ever coming within sight of our house.  AT&T and I are going to have a detailed discussion about this just as soon as my Poor Wife catches up on her phone calls.

Doing without all this stuff was surprisingly easy, except for missing The Daily Show and relying on non-internet sources for news.  It was actually much easier than kicking heroin (either time), except that coming off of the Boy you aren't forced to watch Meridith Viera.  And therein hangs a tale I suppose you'll be hearing shortly.

Don't Go In The Basement

IN case you were wondering where I'd got to, it's Day Two of Big Basement De-Hydrolizing II: The Re-Wettening, which means it's the fifth straight day of clean-up, or the second since the first one was almost but not quite completed, or the one that Just Might Kill Me. The storms that rolled in around 2:30 in the AM Wednesday were the strongest sustained (five hours) ones I can remember, but then my memory isn't what it used to be. Decent road-show Lear straight through to morning, though. Through Herculean efforts (which have left me, today, walking like Vulcan) measurable standing water has been corralled into two areas; the rest is just wet. We've gone from twenty-second fill time on an unassisted Shop-Vac (12 gal.) nozzle dunk up to nearly three minutes. I time them on occasion. Really. I am the J. Alfred Prufrock of nozzle dunks.

Honorable mention in all this goes--don't get ahead of me--to local media coverage, which began Monday evening with wall-to-wall carpet narration of a storm system, or Possible Tornadic Event Horizon to the incontinent argotizer, which barely brushed the northern edge of their Viewing Area. (Here is all you'll ever need to know about Local Teevee News: they solved any potential problem about interrupting Jeopardy! so that some maroon who pays $200 for a haircut that looks like he slept on it could, basically, narrate himself watching the thing move across his computer screen, by splitting the screen, and showing Alex on one-half. I highly recommend you try it some time: watch Jeopardy! with the sound off. See if you can spot anything vital that's missing. If you can, you're unfit to be a modern teevee producer.)

Now, there's a short span here where I'm unclear about what went on over the air, because I went out to mow the lawn before the predicted Tuesday rains, and when I got back in my Poor Wife was still watching the goddam radar, only now it was showing a monster fucking Highly Probable Tornadic Event Potential whose Horizon was about fifteen miles west and aimed right at our heads. ("It just popped up," she said. "While they were speculating about how much rain Chicago was getting, I'm guessing," I muttered.) We sat mesmerized as the thing moved--more slowly than anticipated, if by "anticipated" you mean "occurring every two minutes as a part of the incontinent, brain-damaging chatter kept up by profession nincompoops"--slowly over us, manhandling people to the south and north but merely tearing major limbs off our trees and depositing them where they did no damage, and as the American Meteorological Society Approved Mouthpieces followed the damn thing to the outskirts of Dayton, name-checking every town in between. It was only the next morning we were to learn that a category 2 tornado had ripped a mile-long swath through a neighborhood two miles from where these jokers sat, warning Snack's Crossing and West Muckville of the exact moment they were scheduled to join in the festivities, just in case any viewers out there couldn't read the graphic in the fifteen minutes allotted.  

My wife says that the next morning they offered up some excuse as to why they knew just what radar code meant a possible tornado possibly developing, but had no idea for several hours that one had smashed down within earshot. This is, of course, the major accomplishment of the age: better explanations.

Well, that, and the other thing, the development of high-tech gizmos to the point that even their paid apologists can no longer pretend they impart any information at all to someone lacking a lifetime of study.  Potential weather disasters are now your best opportunity to watch some guy playing with a computer, and beyond counting lightning strikes, and putting up little fluorescent graphic mushrooms to indicate hailstones, they've got some dealie that turns clouds into a sort of three-dimensional pie chart that looks like some Lego™ figure out of the old "Money For Nothing" video and is roughly half as informative.  Whatever these people are paid, I suppose the ability--it must be innate; I doubt it could be learned--to avoid saying "What the fuck is this shit?" every time one is required to play with it makes 'em worth it, in some wardrobe-malfunction avoidance sense.

Now, here's the thing: I'm not a gardener who uses chemical controls, at least not unless something catastrophic was occurring, but if I were, and if, say, there was a problem with chafers, or corn smut, or tulip blight, I would respond to every occurrence in the same fashion. Not teevee weather. Faced with the same set of circumstances Wednesday (or worse, if anything) which happened to occur during their regularly scheduled celebration of barely-competent teleprompter following, do they go wall-to-wall to make sure the citizens of Petroleum, Donnybrook, and Mucus Lake are kept fully informed? Do not get ahead of me. No, the weather--though a major story, as it is every single fucking day of the year--is interrupted regularly for the pictures they've finally been able to get of the previous day's weather, plus the standard Health Scene reports on diseases or elective surgeries popular in New York, or wherever the feed they got came from, and the results of their having sent someone around with a microphone, ambushing streetwalkers who looked as though they might have a half-formed opinion on The Historical Candidacy of Barack Obama.

And then, since no amount of whipped cream is ever complete without more whipped cream, came the Wednesday morning storms, almost exactly as predicted, which were thundering like mushroom-mazed Valhalla and dumping inches of rain hourly with no seeming let up. And a throbbing knee had awakened me a half-hour before, and when I first heard the approaching disaster I switched on local news. Don''t get ahead of me. Enjoy your infomercial.

All Is, Well...

"THE war that I prefer."  Also translated into French. There's two lines of Italian at the top, but it's too hard to read the print well enough to stick it in a translator. Like the man said, who'd have suspected that fifty years after the war we'd be buying Japanese electronics, driving German cars, and performing cunnilingus?

Thanks for all the good wishes. I did wake up, though apparently about a half-hour later than they expected. I'm about 50% more hobbled than before, and soreness is starting to set in, making it advisable not to sit or lie in one position for very long, but the doc said I could walk on it as I saw fit. He said that in the presence of my Poor Wife, but it didn't take; she's been on my case every time I get up to do something for myself. I getting around with my cane. The crutches are a bit much for motoring between three rooms. The prep nurse wanted me to get a walker, due to my advancing years. That was probably the worst part of the whole experience.

Even though my relationship with allopathy remains chilly, I must say I marvel every time I come into contact with its workers, who do a difficult job with a near-universal good cheer, and always laugh at my jokes.

Too painful right now to consider sitting long enough to write. Enjoy the weekend.

New 'Puter

A new (actually factory-refurbished) aluminum iMac with a screen bigger than any television I owned before age 30, and which, since Fed-Ex didn't get around to delivering until 7 PM I'll be playing with for the next couple hours before switching on the new OSX.5 backup system, then spending tomorrow hunting down the stuff I would have gotten today (ethernet hub, new desk) if the delivery had been anything approaching timely.  Then it'll be repositioned in the living room so it can act as very large Lava Lamp when not otherwise occupied.  And I'll be back before you can say Centerville, Ottumwa, Fairfield, Mount Pleasant, Fort Madison, Burlington, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Grinnell and West Des Moines. 

A Note On The Type

IT'S Trebuchet, a family of four faces designed by Vincent Connaire (creator of Comic Sans) for Microsoft in 1996. It's clean, modern, and quite legible in block, and superior to Georgia, the Blogger-supplied serif face. And yes, somehow, THE GODDAM THING JUMPED TO DARK GRAY while I was sleeping. Should the reader imagine his eyes are losing the battle of Time and Gravity, consider that I noticed this a couple months ago but never checked on it. I saw Jorge Luis Borges speak when he and the last century were in their 70s, and I have an 81-year-old mother with dementia. I can safely say that if you're going to lose your eyesight or your mind, choose the former. Back to nominal. Thanks for pointing it out, R.