Perception, etc.

Perception, that melodrama of the Internet. It's replaced "Gone with the Wind" and "Days of our (endless) lives" with instant gratification, justification, money-making and general all-round mayhem. Contemplation takes too long. Instant reaction? That'll do. Next blog?

But the Serious Blog Writer has a problem with all this. They're serious, you see. They demand you take the time to understand their point, ala William Saroyan or Ernest Hemingway (odd how you never had to spend much time thinking about the points Mr Saroyan and Mr Hemmingway were making). Why does no one write in the style of Franz Kafka or Milan Kundera? (Not that I'm complaining, mind you...) These intense bloggers all pick intense, obscure or obscurely-worded writers, and... Totally miss the point.

But that's serious blogging for you.

It's a bit like serious photographers. They spend a fortune on camera gear, and take snapshots. A very intelligent chap (he's a doctor, currently specializing in Retirement) I know switched from a multi-thousand dollar camera to a multi-hundreds compact. His pictures are actually better. I think the flash on his old camera cost more than the camera he currently uses.

Once upon a time I knew a lot of Jimmy Page wannabes. The best of them, he died from a heroin overdose, used a moderately priced Spanish guitar. I'll never forget walking into the kitchen of his shared bedsit, as he sat on the counter, waiting for the tea kettle to boil, playing Purple Haze on his old, beat up, classical guitar. It was one of those moments that could never be captured on YouTube. He was never intense. His playing was languid. He was brilliant! The intense ones would sit in front of my (gas) fire, smoking joints and debating the merits of this or that guitar, this or that guitarist, or this or that style. I put up with them because they supplied the joints. (Oddly, joints were cheaper than booze. I can't recall any of them supplying anything like a bottle of booze to the ongoing debates.) Mind you, there was a time when Saturday afternoons would find me at a friend's downtown rental, smoking joints, drinking beer (that I, as the almost sole money-earner, supplied) and pretending to understand Frank Zappa and Leonard Cohen.

I also remember the "owner" of the flat deriding me for not supplying the beer, because it was the mortgage was due. I never went back.

I once won a fairly large joint simply by watching Frank Zappa's "200 Motels", unaided by illegal pharmaceuticals. All of it. I needed a beer when it finally got to the credits. (If I'd known about Andy Warhol's impossible movie ... The one where he simple read the overheard remarks of teenagers, I think I would have demanded my challengers watch that instead of supplying a largish mellow-filled cigar. I have never had the courage to discuss what I saw in that movie. And now I can't remember. Blessings do come in a variety of forms.

I'm not sure I can follow on from that. And the Mrs is making a pesto pizza, which will be ready in about 5 minutes. And Mike Holmes is on the telly in 12.

Night, night. :-)

Carolyn Ann

So... What prompted that?

Sorry for not writing this, sooner. I was out of town, so to speak, yesterday. (More on that, later.) So what did Ms Penny write that so inflamed me? And why did it annoy me so?

I know I have a quick temper. Always have had. It's gotten me into trouble once or twice, so it might be easy to dismiss this as a simple case of me losing my temper, again. But my anger at her hasn't gone away. I've not had the usual "oops, I overstepped, didn't think, and so on" remorse. I'm still angry at, and disappointed with, her.

Ms Penny, one of the leading left-wing and feminist bloggers in Britain, sometimes comes out with canards so rich, they beg challenge. Other times she writes about the poverty she dwells in. What I hadn't realized, until Saturday morning, was that she chose to live in poverty. She has an out. She elects, on a continuous basis, not to exit her self-appointed plight.

Okay, it's a strange decision, but it's her life. What she doesn't seem to grasp is that as she refuses to improve her lot, she loses the right to complain about how others keep her in it. It's debatable whether she loses the right to complain about poverty; she could use it as a vehicle to describe how others fair in such conditions, but she doesn't. Instead, she complains about how "they keep you down". That wonderful, mysterious "they", beloved by all whom seek to blame others for their plight.

Ms Penny has never, as far as I know, written about why she has chosen poverty over a more affluent start to her life. We do know she wants to be a professional writer, because she said so. I don't know how that plays into her desire to reside in squalor. She's far left in her political views. But deliberately being destitute is not in accordance with that; Karl Marx was relatively wealthy. As was Lenin, who was a lawyer. No one could ever accuse F Scott Fitzgerald of starting his writing career while in abject poverty, either. Ms Penny is probably the only writer in history who wants to remain in poverty.

This begs the question: does she want to accomplish her success by her own hand? I don't believe that. If she did, she'd be industriously selling herself and her (considerable) talent. That's not "prostituting" oneself, it's simply becoming a success. New magazine writers, for instance, are frequently told to get in touch with every editor they can. You can't get work unless they know you're out there. Once you've become known, and a known quantity, and have a superb reputation, editors might invite you to write for them. At best, Ms Penny is mismanaging her career; at worst, she's trying to exploit her squalor and those around her.

Perhaps she wants to be able to talk about her poverty-ridden past? Like J. K. Rowling's presumed, and fictional, past? But her actions don't indicate this; indeed, she seems to desire the wretchedness. She deigns to be with the less well-off; she celebrates her foul living conditions, even as she pities those whom have no option, or will, to get out of it. She seems to think they are urban cowboys, rebels who dismiss a cause, and that a life in poverty is a noble one. But she pities her neighbors. I have never needed such pity, nor any one else I know. She can keep her damned, and damnable, pity to, and for, herself.

(Interestingly, I discovered, through her own writing, that she hasn't told her parents she lives in vileness. This, more than anything, tells about her honesty, and motives.

Considering the huge numbers of people who have been forced into poverty, it seems pathetic that Ms Penny would want to stay in such an economic state. I'm quite sure that the newly poverty-ridden neither desire nor want her pitying "solidarity".)

She's intelligent. Sometimes her logical arguments make no sense, but this one isn't too difficult to figure out: she can get out of poverty. Either by working harder, or with a phone call. She's not stuck in her life. Some people are stuck in poverty, for whatever reason. She's not.

I feel betrayed by her. I supported her. I thought she was someone worth watching, because she has a bright future ahead of her. Her logic is often a bit shaky, but such skills can be improved. What kept her interesting was her superb conviction in her causes, even if she isn't entirely sure what those are. How do you trust someone who pities so blatantly? She doesn't write, ala Barbara Ehrenreich, about her experiences in poverty. She doesn't use her writing as a vehicle to try to bring about change, ala Charles Dickens. She writes about how she's oppressed by some mysterious Kafka-esque "they". She angrily writes about issues of the day, but from the safety of the abstract. She argues ideas, but with a less than formidable grasp of logic. She thinks that being honest about her ability to escape poverty makes her intellectually honest. And she proclaims herself hurt by those who point out that she's a charlatan. She doesn't seem to consider that she hurts others with her pity, her pitiful disdain and her arrogance. For someone as able and talented as Ms Penny, her only oppressor is herself.

Carolyn Ann

EDIT: I should note that Ms Penny often describes events with poignancy and accuracy. She can define abstract concepts with accuracy and sensitivity. Those qualities make her a good writer.

Laurie, you break my heart, you do.

Ms Laurie Penny, of whom I was a fan, wrote a piece that was a little more apocryphal than she might have realized, or wanted. Personally, I feel deeply betrayed. Here was a young lass, who felt strongly about feminism and socialism. I didn't agree with a lot of what she wrote, but I do recall feeling the same as her, years ago.

And now she inadvertently(?) reveals that she was all but a fraud, all along. So, in keeping with my policy of publishing comments I don't think others will publish, here is my comment:

You lost me at "that's how they get you". You freely acknowledge that you are the master of your own fate, and then seek to blame others? Numerous, anonymous masters of the universe others? I am disappointed. Deeply disappointed. You are naught but a charlatan, young lass. You might think you know deprivation, but you play at it, knowing you could exit, stage left, any time you pleased.

Sell your soul to be comfortable? You insult those who have nowhere to turn. You have someplace to go to. Plenty don't. And you call yourself a socialist. I'm disgusted, appalled and ashamed to have been a fan of yours.

You know what it takes to be a "professional writer"? You don't even know what it means to be honest. You complain of not being able to afford cigs and food, eating in rat infested abodes? Why should I read you, when I know you can make a call, and all will be well? My niece lives in a rat-infested flat. She can't make a call to Daddy. She can't make a call to anyone who might be able to offer help. (Believe you me, if I could get her to the States, I'd do it. Any of my nieces and nephews. They have far, far tougher lives than you - you damnable charlatan! )

That's "how they get you"? That's how you get yourself. Go ahead: delete your old posts. Make sure they're the ones that admit you have an out. Make sure they are the ones that might give a hint to your duplicity.

You're nothing but an obtuse cameraman, trying to shine a light on those you pity. I don't need your pity, and those around you don't, either. "Professional writer"? I doubt you can even begin to know what it takes to be a "professional writer". Believe me, I sodding well do. I've lived with it these last 46 years. You insult the entire concept.

Don't you dare lecture me about poverty. I know it too damned well. You play at it. You damned fool, you.

Carolyn Ann

(The edits might not reflect the exact paragraphs.)

Midnight mutterings

Not done one of these for a long time. At least a week. :-\

I have, in my immediate possession, a bottle of Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, a (generous) finger of The Macallan, 12 year, and an Apple MacBook Pro. Licentiousness and idiocy will, obviously, ensue.

I was thinking about the craft of writing. I know it's dangerous, but I can't help it. Thinking is something one simply does on a long bike ride. Not that I've had a chance at a long bike ride, lately. I also do it when I sit in a pretty dress, when I have little else to do put sit and think. I can put on all the dresses I like, but they ain't no replacement for sittin' and ponderin'.

Personally I prefer one dress at a time. But perhaps that's just me?

(If I could fit any more distractions into that, please let me know how.)

Writing. There's some, he says in good old fashioned western vernacular, there's some that fancies themselves as writers. They ain't got nothin' published, lest they published it themselves in a vanity press, but they'se do consider themselves a writer. Not that they is a writer, they just consider themselves such a thing.

[Edit: I was going to insert something here... Oh, yes! :-) Blogger is a vanity press.)

I initially considered that the comment on "photography is oppressing me" (or whatever heck I called it) to be Queen Emily. I wished the commenter was. She would have demonstrated an acute sense of her claimed craft. Alas, I was disappointed. Either she hid herself well, or it was someone who had recently visited a transsexual hooker, probably in the Meat District or just outside the Lincoln Tunnel (I have a feeling I'm a little behind the times in those designations), and is rebelling against themselves.

Hookers. An interesting topic for a young man, and a diabolical one for one who is no longer young. (Objective thinking: you must be old!) I'm not sure I should say this, but perhaps one hasn't truly enjoyed experienced life until you've engaged the services of a professional?

When I pretended to engage mind and body in the service of British Telephony in the dominion of Londinium, we would sometimes, for amusement, perchance happen upon the conversations of certain professionals within our geographic domain. Such tête-à-têtes were, of course, never listened to. Even as they provided amusement for such peabody's as I. (I rue the day I switched to Google's DNS service. Lest you be worried about such things, let me tell you: Google's DNS service would be described as pathetic if it were any better.)

Why is Google's DNS service so important? Because I don't write anything unless I can verify it. Personal opinion excepted. Of course. Google's steam powered DNS service is, should I be so coarse to use such words, as awful as a the carnal knowledge of a roadside hooker who was underpaid if she worked an hourly schedule. And was paid on a daily basis.

Speaking of which (not the carnal knowledge, nor the frequency of payment, nor anything actually connected to the last paragraph or two), I've been giving more than a modicum of thought to this newfangled "citizen journalism" thing. I got into a bit of a quarrel with Valeria over such matters, and I ended up apologizing. I usually do when it comes to Valeria.

But these days I'm not so sure. I was listening to Bob Woodward chatting with Frank Sesno about the future of investigative journalism. I know a little of the investigative arts: I've hunted Internet hackers, and corporate hackers alike. I have a deep respect for the law, even as I distrust those responsible for enforcing it. That's healthy, I think. Disdain, as so many young people and fanatics have, is, frankly, unconscionable. Those who stockpile guns and ammunition against the UN helicopters or Obama's takeover are, to be honest, deluded. The "birthers" think they engage in "investigative journalism". They don't. They ply conspiracy theories, innuendo and proof must be damned in their eyes. After all - they have proof Mr Obama is American, they just don't want to acknowledge such. They are mindless buffoons.

So when I hear "citizen journalist", I am apt to think "idiot".

True investigative journalism must be arduous, difficult and uncertain. Do you have a story, or not? The recent NY Times revelations about New York Governor Patterson fall into the realm of investigative journalism. Mr Patterson knew a story about him was coming out. He had some lackey contact the Times and demand the story, issuing a plaintive "we need to know where you're going to head you off!" It was a journalistic coup! A wonderful example of the power of a free press. Heaven forbid Fox News ever engage in such delicious journalism. (Heaven doesn't exist, so... :-) Ooo. I'm the very devil, ain't I? :-) )

No citizen journalist is going to make the inroads that the Times journalists did. No Huffington Post memo writer, or even their high fallutin' bloggers are going to make the effort, gain the credibility to do the next Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

(Edit: I still recall having a beer with the (ex) political editor of Newsweek, in City Crab, in NYC. One pint in, he knew who I was, where I lived, my family history and the entire story of the "job from hell". It truly was a job from hell. I was seven or eight sheets to the wind when the client called and said "I forgot my car, please drive it home for me". But I recall the moment of wonder when I thought he might actually get me to admit to being a carpenter. I circumvented it. I admitted it. That man could get a stone to confess to a crime it didn't know existed. He was good.)

It's sad. Our news is delivered in a format that entertains. Arianna Huffington knows how to deliver the news in a format that entertains. She keeps expanding the channels, segregating content (nothing new there), and she keeps appearing on TV. Is she (ready to be) the next Katharine Graham? Ready to fund a couple of journalists, and provide their Ben Bradlee?

Considering her record so far - I think not.

Will Fox News take up the mantle? Not on your life. Rupert Murdoch does not want the establishment investigated. He prefers it to be agitated, irritated, and ultimately cow-towed to. How else do you explain Rush, Glenn, Sarah and Sean? A man that flies in his own luxury jet (he has to employ pilots because he doesn't actually fly, himself) provides us with the voice of a common man? A woman that quits tells us how to prevail? Someone who can't put two continuous ideas in the same paragraph tells us the virtues of continuing to a conclusion? And someone who is as frankly partisan as a shark is supposed to be "fair and balanced"? That's not news - it's not even entertainment. It's propaganda. Goebbels said the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. We have that epitome in Fox News.

Oddly enough - not so much in Sky News, which Mr Murdoch also owns.

I wonder why?

Market rules, perhaps?

I have to admit, I do prefer the environment that allows Fox News to go on its merry way to the European one of regulation. While the European rules provide a better background for informing you of what's going on, the American system is better able to reflect the desire to speak freely. If inaccurately. I prefer a system that forces accuracy to be informative.

It's all a bit odd, really.

I'm supposed to be riding a very long way, tomorrow. If the measure of single malt in my glass is any indicator, that vast distance won't actually be very far. The end of the driveway, perhaps? What, you might wonder, gives rise to a ride of such notable distance? Well, nothing really. I wanted to visited New Bedford, Massachusetts. I think it's socked in with snow. Not that I actually care about that. I was going to take the Ducati, which would mean a motel or hotel stay. I really did want to see it in the winter. Perhaps next year.

Mind you, the Ducati has developed a bit of a temperament, of late. She refuses to go far when cold, and upon warming up, refuses to go below about three thousand, idling, without hiccoughs. her exhaust is staccato, and I can't seem to get her to three grand in 5th. She's poorly. And I don't have the money to get her well.

Where is that damnable health care bill?!? :-)

(I wonder if it will cover motorcycles that seem to be alive when they're going like the clappers? Probably not. :-( )

She cut out on me, the other day. Here are we, noodling along at about 35, and ... Silence. Not a good sound when there should be gently aggressive (?) burble. I got her started, and we limped home. She is not a happy motorciccle.

Where was I? Oh yes. Writing. Some claim to be writers. Heck, some claim to be poets, too. I wonder if they are. When I read someone's words, I often can't help but think "writer?" "poet"? They display an arrogance of thought that is stupendous, a command of the language that is as equally underwhelming and a knowledge of grammar that is, well, lacking. Never mind their logic (you can be a good writer with an awful understanding of logic). So many of these self-proclaimed writers do have a grasp of logic that is best described as "circumspect". Some are more "peripheral". Others have no acquaintance with the subject whatsoever, but they don't see that as any impediment. Those writers tend to be awfully popular.

(They make #1 on Top 100 charts, for instance.)

I'm running out of beer. I'm not running out of single malt, but I fear that this will be my last "wee dram" for the night.

Writers and bloggers. Never the twain shall meet. A writer can be a blogger. A blogger can be a writer. But writing a blog does not make you a writer. I'm a pontificating fool, but I sure ain't no writer. I put lines together that seem to rhyme, but I'd make no claim to being a poet. I can put a decent picture together, but I ain't no artist, no ph-o-t-o-gr-aph-er.

When we claim that which we are not, we diminish what we claim, and ourselves.

Long live the Queen. :-)

Carolyn Ann

Justifying the means by supposing the end is what you want

Marc Thiessen, one of George Bush's speechwriters, is trying to justify waterboarding. He invokes his faith to help in that effort. Namely: if you can kill to prevent your own death, then surely it's okay to cause harm to prevent a multitude of deaths? He adds a bit of spice (so to speak) by claiming that if others want to indulge in something, then it can't be torture. Soldiers don't shy away from being waterboarded as part of their training, so, therefore, it must not be torture.

I'm not sure where to start with that one. If something is bad, but you do it, then it can't be bad. Smoking is bad for you, but people do it, anyway. (I quit about 12 or 13 years ago.) Soldiers get trained in things like waterboarding simply because they are torture. Once you've been through something like that, you know what to expect if it happens to you. Which might be a good thing, or might not be. Christopher Hitchins certainly didn't like it when he volunteered to be waterboarded for The Atlantic. He concluded it was torture.

But what of the argument that the end justifies the means? I don't think any reasonable would agree with that. If America had to nuke Saigon to prevent it being captured, the goal of not letting it fall into Vietcong hands would have been accomplished, but the cost in lives would have been impossible to justify. Besides the "practical" morality, you also have the ethical question to consider: if the means is to cause harm, would you do it?

You're standing on a railway bridge, and you see some people tied to track below; you also see a train coming. Your companion is a large man; if you pushed him over the edge, in front of the train, the driver might see him and stop in time to save the people in the group. Your friend would, however, not be quite as lucky. Would you do it? By Thiessen's logic: yes. Because the harm caused to one individual outweighs the harm that would otherwise be caused. But what if you saw a way where you could both push your friend in front of the train, and not kill him? Even though he might suffer from the loss of a limb or two? Or become paralyzed?

The more extreme example of this is the classic "alien and little boy". You are captured by aliens, along with a little boy from the other side of the world. You don't know who he is, who his parents are, or anything about him. The alien tells you "shoot the little boy, or I'll blow up your planet." Do you shoot the kid? He's innocent. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As were you. According to Mr Thiessen, you have to shoot him.

Well, if Mr Thiessen were on that spaceship, the alien is more likely to demand that Mr Thiessen cause the unfortunate boy considerable pain. The moment the pain was diminished, the world would blow up. I suspect Mr Thiessen would have an issue with that; although it's less certain if others were to administer the pain, whether Mr Thiessen would take his turn, or simply write a speech justifying the inflicting of pain upon the lad.

Aside of the morality, there's the practical issue of not doing to others what you would rather they didn't do to you. It's why we no longer kill prisoners of war, or let them starve to death. The fact that it happens in all wars is contained by its small scale. The west does not indulge in the systematic murder of its prisoners. Many eastern armies, and terrorists, have no such qualms, and readily, even eagerly, do great harm to those they capture. Because they do it does not provide license for us to do it. The Communist and Fascist armies of WW2 also committed atrocities and massacres for no reason other than they could. There are instances where British and American troops massacred prisoners, but there is no record of it happening on the same scale. While tragic, it was contained as much as it could be, later in the war. That's not to excuse the soldiers who killed their defeated enemy; it is to acknowledge that such things do occur in war.

Mr Thiessen, along with Dick Cheney and so many others, justifies torture by saying it could prevent another terrorist attack. But the problem is that you don't know, at the start of the torture, what the torture will provide. It might provide useful information, it might also provide a lot of useless information. Germany's Gestapo seemed to be keen users of torture; does Mr Thiessen (and Mr Cheney, et al) want to be lumped in with those guys? Or is it oaky because the people doing the torture represent the Land of the Free? How free is a society that condones torture?

But to justify the use of torture on the specious grounds that you're preventing further death is not just self-serving. It's deplorable. Not to mention hideous. How can anyone claim to the moral and ethical high ground when they are at the bottom of moral cliff?

Carolyn Ann

In perpetuity?

An article in last week's Economist implies an end to (most) death. Literally.

A company in San Diego, and some researchers in Melbourne, Australia, are working on a machine that can print body parts. Think about that for a moment. The process is a little convoluted - what new technological process isn't? - but it seems possible to streamline it. What these guys do is take some cells from a part you want replaced, put them into their machine, which is kept at body temperature, and then the cells grow into the bit that needs replacing. They can do small bits at the moment, but I'm sure it won't be that long before they can do bigger bits.

One of the problems with the human body is that it needs oxygen, that highly reactive gas that is about 20% of the atmosphere. We need it to live, even as it destroys the cells it feeds. But what if you could replace bits of yourself? For instance, you could replace your heart, your lungs, your skin. Muscles could be replaced. Apparently it takes about 6 to 8 weeks to get the new bit.

It all sounds a bit science-fiction, but the machine exists. In fact, it's going into medical trials in the not-distant future. I'm quite sure there are innumerable issues to be solved when it comes to replacing larger bits (like lungs), but it strikes me that this is a problem of scale, not absolute difficulty.

The ethical questions are boundless, so are the implications. If you can develop a brain, what are the implications for individuality? If we can replace bits before they become worn out, can we, eventually, live forever? After all, once you've had one heart replaced, it's probably easier to have another put in. (I'm sure someone will come up with the technology to make it almost a plug-in operation!) The social and economic issues are also boundless - does this get restricted to only those who can afford it? (As the Republicans seem to be shaping the health debate; if you can afford to stay alive, you're fine. If not: tough tiddlywinks.) If so, I can see a lot of migration to nations with national health systems.

Interestingly, it also makes a theoretical case for developing the bits needed for a true gender transformation. If there's a market, someone will figure out how to use this machine to create the items that are needed; after that, it's a matter of figuring out to put them in. That really does turn the notion of gender on its head! Can you imagine the personal misery that could be alleviated?

Cancer wouldn't be cured by this, neither would AIDS be. But it might be possible to replace the cancerous organs, and prolong a life. Maybe even save one? The potential endless!

It's all quite exciting. I sincerely hope it works.

Carolyn Ann

A misunderstanding?

Someone anonymous loves how I "slam these uppity tranny bitches. fuckin selfish, going on hormones and pretending to be women. my WIFE looks like a woman in a photo, unlike a deluded tranny slut in a miniskirt."

They were upset when I disagreed, pointing out that "I was agreein with you. that was what you said, they're selfish, hurt their families and lie about being women." They also suggested I hate the sin, and hate the sinner even more.

Ridiculous.

One person is being selfish means nothing to an entire group. I happen (via personal interaction) to know that the individual in question lies by omission, and is not as honorable (or as honest) as she might like to think she is; this implies nothing about the rest of the transgender community.

Some transgendered individuals hurt their families. So what? They do, but that's mostly between them and their families. When someone writes about it in a public forum, the topic becomes available for public comment. I try to refrain from direct personal criticism in such cases, but the general principles can be examined, and nattered about.

I don't think any transgendered individual lies about being a woman. I merely consider the claim in need of clarification. I also think the implications are willfully ignored.

In a later comment, anonymous claims something about objective thinking. Objective thinking is "if you support "x", you must be against "y". It comes in many forms, for example "if you support health care reform, you must be a liberal" (in this case "liberal" becomes a pejorative). Another might be "if you dispute the claim that I am a woman, you must be asserting that I am a man", the usual follow up is "you are transphobic". Objective thinking is quite limiting.

I like to question claims made by some bloggers, some of whom are transgendered. And some people I know are selfish. I'm quite sure many people, transgendered or not, have some interesting observations about myself. One or two might even have flattering things to say about me. But just because I say something about one person means nothing to the larger groups they belong to. And simply because I disagree with a claim doesn't mean the claim is not honestly made.

What else is there to say?

Carolyn Ann

Bake sale rules. (Seriously.)

New York City's farsighted, amazingly on-the-moment Department of Education has decided to issue rules about... Bake sales. A new set of rules says what can be sold at bake sales, and what can't.

More accurately it was some entity called the "Panel for Educational Policy" that issued the ruling. I couldn't find out what they actually do. Besides make idiotic rulings, that is. They do have a lot of power over the vending machines in schools.

So kids in NYC can now sell Doritos and Pop-Tarts, but not home made cookies or muffins.

Sometimes you have to wonder. You really do.

Carolyn Ann

Help! My camera is oppressing me!

I couldn't make this up.

Apparently, within the various annals of transgender activism, is a futile fertile stupid idea that photographs of the transgendered are oppressive.

...

...

Really.

Seriously. I'm not making this up.

Here's the "reasoning": the not-transgendered use photographs to affix gender. (D'ya think?) Because a photograph reflects reality. Some serious stuff here. Oh, here's the humdinger: if we compare the family snapshot to a professionally manipulated magazine image, then of course we can perceive that the snapshot is something or other.

Here's the gist of it all. Someone is upset because her parents have pictures of the person as a boy. She was desperately unhappy, and doesn't want to be reminded of that. That's fair. I don't see anything particularly wrong about that. What I do see is a failure to see what her parents might want: to remember someone they no longer have. Her mother gave birth to a biological boy. How was she to know that her boy wasn't psychologically a boy? Jump forward a few years, and we have a situation where this lass is basically arguing that because it was not a happy time for her, her parents shouldn't display pictures of her. (It's okay to write about this, as the person in question has written about it. I just won't link to it.) So she wants to deny her parents a memory, because she doesn't like it. The person her parents thought they knew is not there, any more. They have a right to remember that child, and the happy moments of raising him. (That's not mis-gendering, by the way.) I wonder if she can spell "selfish"?

Somehow this has gotten turned into a general diatribe about how photography is a means to oppress, and affix, someone's gender. I did try to follow the reasoning, but as it was accompanied by lots of long words used in strange ways, I got lost. There might have been a continuous idea in there, but if there was, it got bludgeoned pretty quickly.

But I don't agree with the sweeping statements about transgendered individuals being forced into a gender role via photography. As I mentioned the other day, take a look at the transgendered folk over on Flickr. If anyone is trying to fasten a gender label onto themselves, it's the people who turn themselves into sex objects, or put up endless "look at me!" images.

A family snapshot is a reflection of a moment in time. It's not judgmental. We apply our memories to a snapshot, turning it into something more than a simple image. Look at old snapshots, with no context - they're snapshots. They become icons of a moment. Nothing more, nothing less. When we decide that a photograph is a symbol for oppression, we're not making a point. We're denying one. We are denying that a photograph is a framed, limited, reflection of a moment. We're denying that a snapshot is a simple record of an event.

Sometimes a photograph is nothing more than a picture, a visual reminder. Surely it's not too much to ask that others remember us how they want to remember our history?

Carolyn Ann

It's good to chat...

So the Grand Standoff, the Showdown at the Washington Corral, the Battle of Blair House, etcetera, has been had. Policy positions were nailed to the wall, congressional rules violently discarded, Congressmen and women and Senators strafed with clever innuendo and straightforward refutations and... I think John Boehner will, in the near future, be wondering why "his" people aren't quite as enthusiastic about him as he wants them to be.

I think John McCain suddenly realized why Barack Obama won the election. I think Mitch McConnell was trying to figure out how to ditch John Boehner (he didn't want to bring John as a date, but John apparently insisted) and the Democrats finally realized that they have this wonderful thing called a "Senate majority". (Amazing, huh?) Nancy Pelosi proved why she's the Speaker of the House (cross that lady at your peril!) and Barack Obama gave many of the Republicans a demonstration of this thing called "critical thinking". It's different to "mindless criticism", which is what they prefer.

(My wife didn't know what John Boehner looked like. "Who's that man who looks like the devil?" she asked, as she walked in the door. "John Boehner, House Republican Leader", I answered, laughing. He did, too!)

Not much progress was made. The Republicans want to start over; this is translated to "we want to change nothing". They favor an incremental approach, too. Sure, once you incrementally change something you can say it doesn't work, and go on obstructing. The Dems kept emphasizing how close they all were. The Republicans weren't ready for a debate that was a continual exchange of anything but campaign slogans and verbatim talking points. And someone managed to keep Joe Biden from his usual week-long natters.

Overall, I'd say the Republicans came out of the debate worse for wear. John Boehner should have used the opportunity to shine. Instead he used it to demonstrate that he's a plodding nitwit. And none of them could match Barack's magnetic smile. As one of the guys on that "The Buried Life" said: Mister Perfect Smile. The format was perfect for Mr Obama, and it did become a bit of a quagmire for the Republicans. Especially when John McCain didn't think through what he was about to say, and didn't have anything ready when the President agreed with him. (First rule of politics: no plan survives contact with the enemy. He should have remembered that.)

I think Mr Obama pointed out what comes next: this is not something he's going to walk away from. I don't think he's bluffing. More importantly, the Republicans can't assume he is.

So let's see what happens, next. It ain't over 'til we have health care reform. That's a fact the President made explicitly clear.

Carolyn Ann

So far...

The GOP are parroting, and nit-picking. The Dems are muttering and not really saying much.

...

Although I'm impressed with Mr Obama's handling of it all.

...

A little dig at Mitch McConnell, Republican leader, about his time-keeping! LOL!

...

Just listened to Pres. chide Sen. McCain. (I just fed the chicken; I'm trying to figure out the difference between the chicken and John McCain.)

...

He's just slapped down wotsiname (Republican)

...

The Buried Life & Obama

I'd seen the ads for "The Buried Life", and while I thought the idea appealing, I'd never taken the time to watch the MTV show. The basic premise is 4 guys, traveling around America, doing things on a kind of 'bucket list", and helping others do something on their bucket list. Anyway, I was flipping through the channels, during a commercial break on Top Gear (yeah, I've become a fan), and noticed they were trying to play basketball with President Obama.

They didn't succeed because the President's staff didn't understand what those guys were doing.

The refusal to let the guys in, and let them play some basketball was not annoying - it spoke of arrogance.

Sure, they went about figuring how to do it all wrong. What were they supposed to do - hire a lobbyist? An insider?

Can you imagine how it would have played [sic] if those guys had gotten footage of themselves playing basketball with the President? It was important enough that they went to DC. It wasn't important to a White House that has isolated the President. Oh, the President is too important to shoot some hoops with a few guys trying to make a difference, and doing it on one of the most watched TV channels among young Americans. They put themselves out. The White House didn't. Reggie Love gets special mention in the "didn't try hard enough" department.

Sure, I know the President can't do every request. But this was one that went out on national TV. I wonder if they can spell "stupid" over in the White House?

The guys are sincere in their efforts. They tried. The White House didn't. The White House now looks arrogant and stupid. Mr Obama's "protectors" make him look aloof, disconnected and uninterested. Their arrogance prevented those guys getting some great footage, and helped the President seem disconnected.

Great work, guys.

Carolyn Ann

Tea Party Fascists

The Tea Party crowd are mad at Scott Brown. He voted for the Jobs Bill.

One thing about those Tea Partiers: they're definitely inconsistent, arbitrary, capricious and witless. They support Mr Brown because he's independent of Washington. And then they get mad at him when he proves to be, erm, independent.

They don't want anyone who's independent - they want someone who will carry out their demands. In their efforts to bring "freedom" back to America, they are willing to impose extreme thought control. The freedom they seek is not actually freedom - it's authoritarianism. You know: fascism.

I don't know how else to describe it. Not communism - their one almost-consistent idea is the rejection of anything that seems community-based. Okay, they're wildly inconsistent with that one, too. (Glenn Beck urging people to go to the (community-funded) library is a perfect example.) They are knee-jerk reactionaries, who want to grant large corporations the power to do whatever they want. They replace intellectual thought with emotion-filled rages, sobbed appeals, conspiracy theories and a sense of victimhood that is as appalling as it freakish.

They're fascists.

Carolyn Ann

The End of YouTube?

An Italian judge has now proclaimed that Google executives are responsible for the content of 20 hours of video, uploaded worldwide, every minute. The Guardian wonders if the ruling will mean the end of YouTube.

Let me see: the ruling, which was brought about because someone put up a video of a kid, in Italy, with Down's Syndrome being bullied, has the implication that the Google executives, in America, are responsible for the video.

Europe is also launching anti-monopoly investigations into Google. Leaving aside the outrageous flaws of Europe's anti-monopoly system (a single department is the investigator, the prosecutor and the judge), this promises to be interesting. Italian newspapers are complaining that Google unfairly inhibits their ability to earn money with online advertising.

And then we have the whole Google book thing. And the Google Streetview issues.

Seems like Google is coming in for some criticism. Some of it justified, some of it specious.

But the YouTube thing... Will this ruling mean the end of YouTube? Or could it lead to YouTube being denied to Italy? Well, I don't think Google is going to get rid of one of its star products. So Italians might not get YouTube.

The ruling, which defies logic, sense, and legal precedent and agreements, is beyond strange. It's entered a world where censorship becomes the responsibility of large, anonymous corporations. It's creating Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and all that entails.

Carolyn Ann

Panic! Panic! The Idiots Are Out!

And they're in charge!

A spat of idiocy seems to have taken hold, the world over. An Italian judge convicts 3 Google executives of crimes they're not even aware they've committed. In the US, states are passing laws that promote gun ownership to counter all that gun-control legislation Mr Obama hasn't proposed. Britain is telling religious schools that they as long as they provide sex and relationship education, it can also reflect what that religion believes. (And Zoe Margolis tells us that it's an enlightened government that takes such fundamental matters as telling your kids about sex, out of the hands of parents.)

Coupled with all that, we have the United States Supreme Court is having a hard time with the 1st Amendment. GOP Congressman Steve King made some amazingly stupid and callous remarks about the IRS after that terrorist flew into the Federal Building in Texas. And... The Tea Partiers are upset because they wanted someone independent (ie right wing) in Congress (Scott brown), who turns out be a bit of an independent thinker.

What is it with "thinking", these days? Probably it's the same thing that has affected it since ancient times (The Reagan Years): there are some who don't want to do much of it.

At least that whole Mossad misadventure is fading.

Carolyn Ann

Durned liberals

Rupert Murdoch's News of the World has been unfairly blasted by a Parliamentary committee. Of course, the accused deny everything. We should believe them when they claim they didn't (illegally) eavesdrop on hundreds of people, but only on a few. And it's not at all implausible that they can't quite remember who.

That damned British liberal media (The Guardian) broke the story about it all. It comes to a pretty penny when you can't trust the media to keep a secret, doesn't it!

I mean, it's not like Mr Murdoch is at all powerful.

Carolyn Ann

Objectifying trannys

Needing a break, I decided to go look at some tranny-oriented photography over on Flickr. I started with the beautiful Tiffany Michelle's latest photos. I then looked at who'd "Favorite'd" a photo, and went and looked at their photos. And so on. In an hour I'd look at dozens of photographs of transgendered individuals.

What can I say?

A few years ago, perhaps a decade, maybe a bit more - Keith Haring was still alive, and the old bathhouses of NYC were reported to be on their last legs - there was a small debate over gay politics and overt gay sex. It made the NY Times (and the Village Voice, when it was a good newspaper) which is how I came to be aware of it. The discussion was over the impact promiscuous gay sex had on the gay rights political movement. If memory serves, Mr Haring said something about the promiscuity as being part of his own sexuality.

I was reminded of that debate, this morning.

Leaving aside the millions of "look at me" images out there, there were more than a few that can only be called "soft porn". While I don't give a hoot how someone wants to depict themselves, I couldn't help but also think of the feminist argument that pornography debases and objectifies women. And here we have more than one or two transgendered individuals who are objectifying themselves! And women. Simultaneously.

Here's the thing: they are presenting themselves as fetishistic objects. Their poses don't evoke anything but porn magazines. But by presenting themselves as women, too - they objectify women. Oddly, they are not objectifying men. Just themselves and women. The images contain the (simplistic) subtext "I am available. I want you to perceive me as an available woman. Women are sex toys! Fantasize about me. Fantasize about me as a woman, or as a sex toy, or something!" Yeah, it makes as much sense as a Glenn Beck rant, but it's there.

Like all pornography, the images aren't about the person - they're about power. Porn isn't about sex, it's about power. Some pictures can be erotic without being pornographic. (Robert Mapplethorpe comes to mind.) Some nudes can be extremely interesting - Annie Leibovitz's various nudes, and semi-nudes, are immediate examples. It's difficult to fetishize her nudes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, taken in South Africa three (!) decades ago. (Although I'm sure some will try.) (Google "Schwarzenegger, Liebovitz", see for yourself.) But the photographers I was looking at this morning weren't after artistic expression - they were seeking to portray themselves as objects to be desired, to be lusted after.

One thing I noticed was that a lot of people, in their profiles, had bans on "friending" people who had photos of their genitalia, or were only interested in sexual photographs/pornography. My guess is that this is a big "problem" within the transgender community on Flickr. It's not helped by the large number of people, and groups, that are interested in pornographic transgender photography.

I can't help but think that the transgendered porn on Flickr is not helping the political cause of the transgender activists. Nothing anyone can do about it, of course. Nothing I'd ever want to do about it - how people want to depict themselves is their business. If they want to be perceived as sex objects, who cares? A few prudes in the mid-West? (Or entire groups of people who do have an issue with porn, especially pornography their children can easily find.)

It does, of course, have some interesting repercussions for the transgender community. If you want to claim you're a woman, and the perception is that the TG community perceives women as objects - your claim is not likely to be taken seriously. I don't know for sure, but I would imagine it's one of the roots behind the objections to the trans-woman, of Julie Bindel or Germaine Greer. It's a logical consequence: the TG community puts the concept of "woman" on a pedestal; there's no conceptual barrier to fetishizing the concept, and the people. Indeed, it can be argued that the sexual fetishization of women (as depicted by those TG-pornographers), and the TG community as a whole, is one and the same. I'm not saying it's accurate (it isn't), but I do see how a strong case can be made for that argument.

Some feminists argue that women need their own pornography, to counter that produced by men. The gay porn industry is obviously large and lucrative (visit any newsstand in Greenwich Village for proof). And some could argue, if they weren't too busy turning themselves into sex objects, that there's a place for transgender porn. I'm sure there is; I don't happen to be interested in it! But that doesn't mean I'll make any effort to regulate, or censor, it. (Anything suggestive of child-porn, on the other hand, I will report to the FBI.)

Interestingly, transgender porn is men trying to be feminine, and producing distinctly male imagery. It has no femininity in it, whatsoever. (No, folks. Heels and frillies (or lack thereof) are not "feminine" when they're used to make yourself the hopeful object of male desire.)

There are some erotic transgender pictures on Flickr; they don't objectify the model. Not many, but I did see some. Most of those were interesting, even if they're not especially safe for work. Or for kids to see. Unfortunately, the viewer does have to rely on Supreme Court Brandeis' description: you know porn when you see it. So what I see as erotic, someone else might see as pornographic. Mostly, however, it's not so ambiguous: the image is pornographic. Mostly soft porn (I did make an effort to avoid overt, or hard-core, pornographic imagery. Some people have mislabeled their content as "safe", when it clearly isn't! In some cases I couldn't help but think the mislabeling was deliberate. I did nothing about those; perhaps I should have, but I'm not about to, as I said, start playing the prudish TG censor.)

(I'm going to ignore the very complex issue of pornography and its place, obviously popular place, within society. Likewise, the conundrum posed by the porn star outside of the pornographic movie or picture.)

Overall, all this porn is probably not a good thing for the TG community. Pornography has a way of debasing whatever it touches. Objectifying people, and sexes, isn't a way of persuading others that you perceive them as people, as individuals. You know: to be respected for who they are. If people want to argue that they are who they say they are (whew...) it's probably not helping their case when some wanna-be TG porn photographer puts themselves on display. Like so much produce. Still, it was interesting thinking, for a moment or two, about the quandary these individuals pose: by objectifying themselves, they're also objectifying women. Indeed, they rely on the objectification of women. Without it, they can't justify their own imagery. Or their own objectification!

Funny old world, ain't it?

Carolyn Ann

An odious photograph

I decided, this morning, to report a photograph that a transgendered person had put on Flickr. It juxtaposed an obviously surreptitious photograph of teenage boys (14 year olds, I'd guess), with a soft-porn, quite stupid, posture of the aforementioned individual. Though the actual photos did not have much in common, they were placed side by side in a way that had obvious sexual overtones.

So I decided to let Flickr know. I couldn't figure out how to let the FBI know, but when I can - I will.

Carolyn Ann

Republicans on Health Care

The NY Times asked 5 Republicans, Dr Bill Frist, Newt Gingrich, Mark McLellan, James Pinkerton and Charles Kolb to give their take on health care. They wrote a lot of words. Politicians do like to use words to obscure their meaning. As a public service, I've translated their words, so we can truly understand what they're saying:

Dr Bill Frist: Democrats are Communists! The insurance market works. We don't need to change a thing. We can fiddle with the edges, make it look like we're doing something.

Mark McLellan: The Republicans should oppose the Democrats for no real reason, except to oppose the Democrats. And we should make sure that Medicare pays out more to the health industry, not reform it!

James Pinkerton: I have no idea what to say. But I'll issue some platitudes.

Charles Kolb: No back-room deals with industry (the Republicans want to keep that to themselves). No on single-payer systems. No on being obstructionist. Existing system is clearly not viable in the long term. Dems and GOP being too simplistic. Drop the tax break employers get for providing health insurance. (Lots of interesting ideas.)

Newt Gingrich: Tort reform! Protect insurance company profits from malpractice suits! Nothing else is needed.

---

Mr Kolb, unsurprisingly, has the most interesting statement. The rest just parrot out party lines, or tea party lines. Or no lines.

It does not bode well for the Thursday's debate. (Of course, the Republicans are still mad at Mr Obama for taking them up on their offer to hold televised debates.)

Carolyn Ann

Oops.

Speaking of guns...

Carolyn Ann

So why is a gun better than a knife?

The violent efforts of Sage Fallon, as she describes on her blog, include the offensive use of a knife. She doesn't really describe the knife (or if she does, I have no desire to go back to her blog to read it), but I can surmise it's probably not something I'd like to have pointed at me.

In my gossipy post, I added that she would be on firmer ground if she had employed a gun in her efforts at intimidation.

You might be wondering why.

A knife is an offensive weapon. It can't be used for defense. A gun is both offensive, and defensive. You can wave a gun at someone, and get them to back off. You can use a gun to defend yourself. A knife can be used as a defensive weapon, but its employment has to be offensive to be effective.

In short, you have to actively strike at someone with a knife. It's purely offensive in use. A gun, you can back off, wave it around, and not shoot. It's probably more intimidating, too.

Besides the obvious issue of skill at knife-fighting (not something I've ever wanted to engage in), a gun is a stand-off weapon. You can defend yourself without getting in close to your protagonist. It's probably easier to explain to a cop why you shot some poor sod than elucidate why the dead guy has 5 or more stab wounds. "Oh, I felt in fear of my life" is easy to explain if there's one or two bullets lodged in someone. It becomes increasingly more difficult when more than one or two stab wounds are seen.

Knives also have the problem that they're often used in violent rages. So are guns, but knives are a very personal weapon - a gun, as I've said, is a stand-off weapon. With a knife, you have to be up-close, and very personal, with the person you're stabbing. Ever wonder why cops back up, leaving at least 6 to 10 feet between themselves and anyone with a personal weapon? That's why. It takes a lot of training to disarm someone with a gun; it takes even more to disarm someone with a knife. It's considerably more dangerous: someone can reach into you faster than you can react when they have a weapon like a knife. But if they have to take a step to assault you, you have a brief moment for reaction.

Personal weapons are deadly in the hands of the angry, regardless of type. When someone is angry enough to get real close, and put a knife blade under your chin - the situation has passed anger. We're now into primeval reactions; uncertainty can be your friend, but not one I'd count on. We're also in the territory of serious anger, where the unthinkable can become, in a flash, a reasonable course of action. A knife under the chin is not merely intimidating - it's promising murder. The person holding the knife has gone way beyond the reasonable, and reasoning. A gun can be (and is) employed by the angry, but a knife makes the violence so much more personal. And as a result, infinitely more dangerous.

Not that encouraging someone so obviously violent as Ms Fallon is a good idea. I just thought it a good idea to explain my earlier statement.

Carolyn Ann

He tripped...

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist, writes about the causes, implications, affects and potential results of the Great Recession, in his latest book, Freefall. He traces its foundations to the Reagan/Thatcher years, skips over the Clinton years (no recession), and brings in other influences such as the East Asia recession of 1997/98. Bankers, consumers and government officials of high rank all get equally blasted. It's quite a compelling tale.

But I just couldn't bring myself to buy the book. At $27, it's a purchase that I have to seriously want. Something I'll put on my bookshelf and refer to, or value for years to come. (I seriously miss the days when I'd buy four or five books that I'd looked at over a cup of coffee. But having carted, in the last 5 years, about 20 to 30 boxes of books to various libraries and prisons - being circumspect about book purchases is not just prudent economically, but also in terms of effort and storage.)

I avidly read a good bit of Mr Stiglitz's book over a cup of coffee, this afternoon. And I just couldn't bring myself to like the thing. If you've not read anything serious about the Great Recession, this would be a decent place to start. So would David Wessel's "In Fed We Trust".

Actually, I'd go with Mr Wessel's work first; this would, unfortunately, remove the need to read Mr Stiglitz's book. If you're an unconvertible Keynesian, Mr Stiglitz is the way to go. If you want to solely blame American consumers, and ignore British, Icelandic and Irish consumers - Mr Stiglitz is the book to pick. Basically it's quite a lengthy rant. I expected nuanced and comprehensive explanations, extrapolations that make sense and need Mr Stiglitz's obvious genius to see, and (better) explanations of the more subtle undercurrents that helped create the perfect financial storm of 2008.

I really wanted to like this book. I walked into Barnes & Noble fully intending to buy a copy, to be eagerly read with a glass of wine and a hot bath. Sadly, I have to give any purchase of this sort a thorough perusal, first. And I just couldn't bring myself to like it. I tried. I was so disappointed. I might change my mind when I get it from the local library, and give it a thorough reading, but as it stands, I felt let down.

Sorry, Mr Stiglitz. (I wonder if he will read this?)

Carolyn Ann

Free speech wins out. Once.

Two significant challenges to free speech, two different official conclusions.

In Singapore, an Evangelist minister was told to tone it down when he critiqued other religions. It seems that it's against the law to disparage religion, in Singapore. (Why am I not surprised?) All are considered sacred, and you can't say that the other guy is a country bumpkin who knows not of what he speaks. Christians can't criticize Hindu's, Mulsim's can't speak against Jews, and atheists, apparently, can't criticize any of them.

So while I consider Evangelist Christianity to be a stupid, and limiting, laws that ban criticism of religions fall into the "extremely dangerous" category. No one should be officially prevented from being stupid.

The other one is in England. The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) issued its verdict on the Jan Moir case. She wrote, disparagingly, about the death of a popular singer who happened to be gay. Calls for her head were popular for a time.

Fortunately, the PCC upheld the traditions and standards of free expression.

Predictably, there are some who are a bit upset about this. They would rather limit speech to avoid providing offense to some group or other. (What is most striking is how they tell us they're for free-speech. They're not. They're for fettered speech, which is the same as restricted speech.) The usual denunciations have been made, everything from the PCC proving itself irrelevant, to calls for the heads of the PCC board. (I heard Tower Bridge is unavailable for the display of such items. Sorry.)

I wasn't surprised when I read the Singapore thing - the tiny city-nation has a long-standing problem with unfettered free speech. Or allowing its citizens the ability to really think. It strikes me as strange mix of the authoritarian and the republican; one day, I'd like to visit the place.

I was mildly surprised when the PCC issued its verdict. The gist of Ms Moir's op-ed was "uncomfortable", but it didn't achieve the required level of reprehensibility to be condemned. Personally, I thought it disgraceful. But that doesn't mean it was unpublishable. Or that the writer should be tarred and feathered. Her words were vindictive, horrible and bigoted. But all that is trumped by the need to maintain free expression. Sure Ms Moir deserved the rhetorical pummeling she got. But she does not warrant censorship.

The ridiculous calls for censorship are just that: ridiculous. Those who support silencing Ms Moir would soon yelp if they found themselves being silenced for giving voice to offensive opinion. (Oh, that's right. I forgot. They don't hold offensive opinions. Only correct ones.)

Chalk it all up as a win for free speech. Singapore doesn't count when it comes to such weighty topics.

Carolyn Ann

Dallas Transit, legalizing bigotry

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit system now has a well-deserved reputation for transphobia and bigotry.

Here's what happened: a transgendered employee sought a court order telling the various agencies to change their records for her. She got it. The transit authority decided to object. And the judge reversed her ruling. So now the poor lass has the privilege of having her employer determine everything about her life.

Nice. Real nice.

Apparently, because DART's anti-discrimination policies don't cover gender identity or expression, the transgendered are fair-game. It's alleged that her boss is telling her she can't exercise her 1st Amendment rights. Threats against her pension are being made. Her ability to use the bathroom is not just curtailed - it sounds quite dreadful. And now the transit authority are using a small point of law to justify the authority's mean bigotry.

Texas law, evidently, doesn't allow the changing of birth certificates unless an error was initially made. As in, the doctor probably didn't bother looking before pronouncing the baby a girl or boy. So the lawyers are arguing that this lass has to be put through the wringer because, well, for no real reason whatsoever. Because they can put her through the wringer.

Whatever you think of altering birth certificates (I'm against it), this case has to appall you. The government gets to dictate your life, because of a law that is in need of changing? The transit authority allows discrimination to go ahead because it's not excluded in their policy manuals?

The transit authority is wrong in allowing any discrimination. It is wrong in challenging something that should be routine. It is wrong in dictating what someone can do with their life. And the various managers who are actively harassing this lass need to be fired. There's no place for discrimination, of any sort, in any organization.

The judge received an award from a local LGBT organization last year for her support of the local Stonewall organization. I doubt she'll be getting one, this year.

I'll give an award: to DART for being bigoted, for passively encouraging the bigotry and hatred, and for allowing discrimination and harassment against an employee, simply because they're "different".

Carolyn Ann

The Transsexual Diaries

Curious, I read a bit of "The Transsexual Diaries", a blog by a transgendered lass, Sage Fallon, in Shackleford's, Virginia. I spotted it on T-Central.

Wow. Ms Fallon is quite a violent person.

She actually needs reporting to the police. The whole lot do, to be honest. Someone is going to get seriously hurt in all of this. And it's likely to be the innocent one.

Normally I don't care about individual dramas - they're always tedious, and they're always stupid. But this one has elements of violence that simply can't be ignored. It's a violent soap opera. By publishing the details of her violent, and frankly surreal, weekend, Ms Fallon has made it very gossip-worthy. So I'm going to gossip about it.

Here's the story: Ms Fallon "finally gets a girlfriend". The phrasing makes me think that she got the girlfriend at the store. Apparently getting the girlfriend is "Big News". Unfortunately, the girlfriend, Megan, already has a live-in girlfriend. Who is "upset" when Ms Fallon travels to spend the weekend with Megan. A lot of words later, Ms Fallon is "subtly" hinting something to the ex-girlfriend with a knife. A little later, she's holding the lass at knifepoint.

And Ms Fallon goes on to admit that "I won't even try to justify any of the things I did, I know I could have handled things differently." You don't say!

Let's see if a summary will help: Megan humiliates her current, live-in, girlfriend. Who promptly gets upset. Ms Fallon threatens the ex-girlfriend's life, at knife point. (There's no other way to phrase it - you don't hold a knife to someone in the expectation of giving them a manicure.) I don't see much mention of anyone calling the cops. The downside, as far as Ms Fallon is concerned, is that she would have (deservedly) gone to jail.

(One thing that struck me: if Ms Fallon had thought about her choice of weapon, she'd be on solid legal ground with a gun. Knives aren't quite as Constitutionally protected as guns. Either way, Ms Fallon should be jailed before she actually does hurt or kill someone.)

There are some other aspects to the story, but I'll refrain. Suffice to say, there's a lot of manipulation going on. (If Ms Fallon doesn't want others discussing her life, perhaps she should refrain from publishing the more sordid details of it?)

You couldn't write a soap opera with this plot. That Ms Fallon has, is a mixed blessing.

Carolyn Ann

Aww. Poor diddums

Aww. That nasty President Man wagged his finger at House Minority Leader John Boehner. And now Little Johnnie is all upset, and might cry. Poor little Republican Diddums. All he was doing was scaring people and telling half truths and all sorts of things like that.

There are idiots. And then are Congressional Republicans. Idiots sometimes grow up. I'm beginning to doubt if Congressional Republicans do.

Carolyn Ann

Accent the positive

I was thinking (?), and even mentioned to the wife, that my blog has become far too "negative". Like reporting gloom, doom and disaster (aka the NY Times theater critic, or British socialists of any era), I was choosing easy things to write about.

It's easy to criticize, and sometimes that criticism is warranted. But when it strikes me that I seem to pick things to criticize, I'm not doing anyone any good, whatsoever. Least of all, me.

Now, I'm not about to turn this blog into some stupid "good news" fantasy. But I do need to move away from this cycle of "oh, what idiocy can I call attention to, today?" mode I seem to find myself in.

It was inadvertent, and not in any intended. I really wanted to start the new year, the new decade, off with some fun and hopefully informative posts. I ended up pointing out where individuals have screwed up. To say I'm not proud of this is to understate how I feel about it all. It's too damn easy to criticize.

Like I say, some criticism is warranted. I despise the "pity me" and/or "I'm naught but a victim" attitude of blogs like QT, but their particular brand of stupidity is beyond reproach. Tea Partiers are the same, but they're far too much fun to poke. Christians can always be counted on to say unsupportable things, as can Muslims. I don't have a death wish, so I'll restrict myself to Christians. More than a few atheists make outrageous claims; my intention was to highlight some of those. I failed in that, simply because I just couldn't get myself interested in that subject. Free speech is a favorite topic of mine. I keep meaning to write about the witless and discriminatory attempt at censoring that idiotic evangelist in Singapore (but I keep forgetting to do so).

(Changing the subject...) I understand modern finance; I can build derivative models, I can examine financial documents and comment on them. I can understand some of the motivations of politicians (not all, no one can understand someone like Sarah Palin or what compels someone like Newt Gingrich to lie so obviously). I hate extremes. I'm fairly extreme in that, by the way. I can decipher some transgender bloggers, some right wing bloggers, and I try to understand far-left bloggers. (What keeps getting in the way is the idea that when someone tells me their idea works because it's the best for everyone, I keep thinking "what's in it for you?")

I despise false claims. I value honesty, and I value intellectual honesty above all. Steal your food, but don't claim you're robbing Peter to feed Paul - admit you're doing it because you're starving. I truly despise false claims that have unsupportable "thinking" behind them. When the justification is self-serving, backs up the claim 110% - there's a problem. I will (metaphorically) gnaw at it until I figure out what the problem is. I'm not a bright guy, it might take some time. But I will figure it out. Unless I lose interest. (It happens.)

I have a particular issue with claims that lift someone at the expense of others. I don't give a rats ass for the color of your skin, your political leanings or your "ableness". What I do care about is your deprecation of others to elevate yourself. You demean others, you demean yourself. And, most likely, point and fire a really big howitzer at your own argument.

It's why I go after the claim "I am a woman" so much. If you're a woman, what does it mean to be a man? To be me? You reduce my wife to nothing but a verbiage, you reduce all those women out there - you reduce yourself. You reduce what it means to be a woman to a semantic nothing. You elevate yourself, you place womanhood on a pedestal, and then ensure you occupy that pedestal? And then you get mad when someone asks you about that?

Definition to suit oneself is a "negative". It's a contemporary habit, and an everlasting fallacy.

I should ignore the stupidity of those who try to redefine what a woman is to include those who don't even bother getting surgery. I can't, they warrant criticism. Likewise those who prefer to play the victim card. Woe is me, a transgendered rapist just got denied the chance to be the woman he says is? Excuse the French (for what, I don't know. Perhaps for being French?): fuck that for a game of soldiers.

But I should work at making this blog, which is basically a quick summary of my thinking on a subject, more "positive". I hate these new-world terms; they're so vague as to be useless in communicating anything but a dimly conceived sentiment. They are as stupid as they sound, but I shall try to be more 'positive'.

Simply because all that negativity is making me stupid. Not that I'm not stupid. I just don't like feeling stupid. Even if I am. Did this just get really stupid?

Carolyn Ann

At my funeral...

I know death comes to everyone, but I thought an exception might be made in my case. -- William Saroyan.

I told the Mrs, that if I pop my clogs first, I want a good funeral. I want an open casket (assuming I'm in one piece. Or maybe two easily joined halves), I want to be dressed in my favorite dress and have on my favorite heels. I'd like a bowl on pins by the casket, so that the people I've antagonized over the years can stick me. To prove to themselves I've really kicked the mortal coil, or exact revenge. And the eulogies should contain something about how much idiocy could be contained in one man. It might help to mention how he wasn't shy about displaying it, either.

It can all be done graveside.

After that, toss me in the ground. Perhaps my enemies can put some staples in, to ensure I don't arise even if the Christians are right about Revelations. Or someone builds an apartment block over the cemetery, and a Stephen King novel comes to life. (This has about the same chance of happening as the Christians being right.)

And then go party. Lots of punk rock, heavy metal, classic rock, obscure art-punk bands and a generous quantity of beer, wine, and whisky. Single malt.

The stone can read "Here he lies. We hope." Some of the more droll celebrants mourners can write "Thank God!" on the rest of it, if they wish. It sure sounds like the kind of funeral I'd like to go to... ...

Carolyn Ann

Chinese takeout at the shivas..?

Long day, long drive, shortish funeral. The burial was screwed up. Apparently no one at the Funeral Home noticed that you mourners can't gather around a grave dug in the mud, with mounds of snow around it.

I had visions, fears, of mourners falling onto the coffin as it lay at the bottom of the grave, and they slipped trying to do the whole "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" thing. It had all the potential of a macabre Steve Martin comedy.

The Funeral Procession was one of the most stressful drives I've ever done. I've been driving nigh on 30 years. The person in front was paying attention to everything in her car. She was not paying any attention whatsoever to the road and funeral procession in front of her... When pedestrians were around, I feared additional funerals would be shortly arriving. She was that bad.

Lots of people came, though. Folks flying in from all over, and quite a few just as quickly flying back from whence they came. I'd also like to know how a funeral home gets away with having the restrooms downstairs - with no elevator. It's been that way for every funeral we've been to at that place, and it's never changed. Old folk have old friends. Basically. And who the heck brings Chinese takeout to a shiva? Someone did!

Ah well.

Carolyn Ann

A short list of some of my mistakes

It's necessarily short. I presume you don't have the rest of your life to read through a list of my mistakes?

Here are my top "x" mistooks. The one's I can remember to be embarrassed about.

• Getting mad at the Mrs for no particular reason
• Getting annoyed with Valeria, for stupid (and baseless) reasons
• Picking an argument with a Chief of Police (yes, he did have me arrested)
• Picking an argument with the Social Worker when I was in hospital. ... Actually, I'm not sure that was mistake
• Thinking I could fight that bouncer (BIG mistake)
• Picking on a new blogger because I thought she was doing something stupid (she was, but it wasn't mine to question)
• Sending the memo that my boss corrected, back. With corrections. (He was an English Major. Not that you could tell.)
• Getting amazingly drunk with the same boss
• On (much) more than one occasion
• Picking a fight with the Questioning Transphobia folks. How am I to know they're spineless weasels who prefer easily angry rhetoric to actually making sense?
• Picking an argument with that cop in Nottingham. (Don't pick fights with cops in uniform. They have a tendency to arrest you.)
• Telling the cops the devil exists, while high in LSD. Oh, that was a bad trip. (Never did acid again. I think it was the last time I was arrested. [Added: erm, no. It wasn't.])
• Picking a fight with the union leadership (thank you for your services...)
• Firing a guy when we were drunk. Together.
• Threatening to personally sue a vendor. Okay, I promised to sue the pricks. One of the biggest manufacturers of storage systems made some "hurtful", "personal" remarks... (Actually, no, that wasn't a mistake. Not suing them was.)
• Not suing NYC for their paternity suit against me. I'd never even met the woman! (First thing she said was "Your honor, that's not the guy")
• Getting drunk with those soldiers that time (what a hangover)
• Trying to drink some lass under the table. She was high on cocaine, and could basically drink the oceans dry. I've never taken coke.
• Admitting to my "friend" I was a crossdresser. First thing he did, upon swearing his own secrecy (I was young and stupid), was tell his boyfriend. I didn't know he had a boyfriend. Until his boyfriend tried to get me in bed.
• Not reporting the Scandinavian guy who came on at me with all his talk of "little boys and girls" to the cops. I'm sure they could have gotten him on something. (Yeah, have a wild guess what I was wearing)
• Allowing my friends to pull me off that fucking Scottish prick. He needed a beating. (Yeah, I really was young and stupid. Now, I wouldn't trust the guy to tell me the sky was blue on a sunny day.)
• Pulling that U-turn on 23rd St. There was a cop across the way, who let it go when he saw 6 people in skirts get out of the truck...

Oh, too many to list. Fun remembering them all, though. :-)

Now I live a sedate life where my most egregious errors are committed on my blog.

That's frickin' sad.

[Update: What seemed liked an amusing post in the wee hours turns out to be a mistake, in the colder light of morning. C'est la vie.]

Carolyn Ann

How to make a mistake

Oops. I should call this post "how to address a mistake". You can dress a mistake any way you like, it's still a mistake. (What? You expected a different metaphor? :-) )

We all screw up. It's part of being human. I make mistakes - sometimes (?) - but I seem to address somewhat more reasonably than "okay, you think this of me, let's just ignore each other!"

When we make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. It's not even the end of the street. Life continues. What makes the difference is in how we actually handle the screw up. If we insist on being pure, and perfect, we'll end up being viewed as stupid, obstreperous and ungracious. And remembered. If we say "I'm sorry", it's appreciated - and quickly forgotten. Oh, it might become a joke, or a snide reference from the more anti-social, or the creep who needs to be superior, but in general most people will forget what the original fuss was all about.

Mistakes are a learning experience. They're nothing to be ashamed of. Admitting a mistake doesn't make anyone less of a man. (Not to be sexist, of course.) It doesn't reduce us in the eyes of others. Even embarrassing mistakes - goodness knows, I've had enough of them! - once admitted can be easily moved on from. It's when we perceive our critic as being antagonistic, or ourselves through our own rose-colored glasses, that a problem occurs.

When we can't admit we made a mistake, we reduce ourselves. We betray the trust of others in our personal conviction and we let down those who thought us more than we ultimately proved ourselves capable of being.

Politicians are loath to admit mistakes. Especially today's politicians. A mistake might - oh my! - cost them an election. They find ways around admittance, and then shout about others not accepting responsibility for their actions, deeds and words.

I once witnessed a car crash where the person clearly at fault laid the blame on everyone except himself. Despite the inconvenience, I stayed behind to witness against the man. When the cops finally turned up (there'd been a burglary/murder in the neighborhood at the same time, so I was hanging about for over an hour), I firmly laid blame for the crash on the man. A car was written off, and the guy who caused the accident didn't even have insurance. I've had a few car accidents (I'm not exactly a saintly driver, but I am better than I used to be) I always admitted responsibility when it was mine. Race a few buddies, and a Dad who teaches you the virtues of admitting it when you screw up, and you soon learn that admitting that you caused that crash on Turn 3 is a lot easier, and garners a lot more respect, than trying to blame others. So what if Frank was a little too close? He couldn't read my mind, and my car was my responsibility.

I think that was an unnecessary aside... Sorry. :-)

Acknowledging that you might have made a mistake is almost as good as acknowledging a mistake. If you publish something that is patently offensive, with an intent that you have no history in offering, you're making a mistake. Admitting that "okay, I can see how this might be offensive, but here's my intent..." is a lot better than "... you can hardly be expected to know that, in a casual description like the blog entry above." That's a vague nothingness.

Do I pick on Ms Marland? Not especially. She is but the most recent example.

Ms Marland made a mistake. An honest mistake. She clearly didn't realize the offense her post and picture would cause. A simple "Oh dear" would have been perfect. Instead, she did what so many do: got angry and did the blogging equivalent of shouting at the person who pointed out the offense. Shoot the messenger? Not when the suggestion of mutual ignorance is available. We're (allegedly) civilized, you know.

A mistake is forgivable. Admitting we've made one is part of learning to be a better person. It's part and parcel of life, too. We all make mistakes. Being able to formulate a plan to avoid such a mistake in the future is part of what sets us apart from, well, the French. Or the Egyptians. I forget which.

(Was that little condemnation and voicing of privilege and superiority a mistake?)

Carolyn Ann

Goldman Sachs clarifies what a "senior executive" meant

A press release from Goldman Sachs clarifies what "senior executive" Gerald Corrigan meant when he said "I fully and enthusiastically agree that we have to put 'too big to fail' behind us," His remark was quoted in the LA Times.

Apparently what he meant was that other banks should be reduced to rubble. Goldman Sachs prefers to be left alone to screw foreign nations, pension funds and the American taxpayer make money the only way it knows how: by being too big to fail, and by selling unstable and incomprehensible derivatives to any and all.

This sort of necessary correction/clarification is needed every 5 to 7 years and Goldman Sachs apparently regrets any confusion of, or implication of, ethical behavior and attitudes Mr Corrigan statement might have implied. Mr Corrigan has since been promoted to cleanup duties in the Arctic Siberia office of Goldman Sachs. He will begin his new janitorial duties on Monday, or sooner if they can squirrel him out of the country before then.

Carolyn Ann

Another funeral

We've got another funeral, tomorrow. It seems to be never-ending. In a way, it is. As we reach middle-age, those who came before die.

She was 92, so she had a good inning. I've known her for 20 years; I'll miss her at the various family functions. She's the last of that generation in her family.

Carolyn Ann

Toyota bumper-sticker

While driving in central Jersey, yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a Toyota pickup:

I brake for...

Oh S**t! No Brakes!

Carolyn Ann

Goldman Sachs and morality...

So it turns out, surprise, surprise, that Goldman Sachs has the morality of a back-alley rat. JP Morgan, it seems, lives up to the same moral standard.

Of course, derivatives play a role in all of this. Goldman Sachs sold Greece a short-term solution that costs a fortune. The value of JP Morgan's transactions with Italy are, apparently, unknown. Or unknowable. Probably both. Both banks worked hard to allow Greece and Italy to hide their deficits, so they could join the Euro. This, in a remarkable oversight by European regulators, was not illegal.

If you've read anything about the Great Recession, you'll know that derivatives and off-the-books trading of them was one of the major problems. (If you're a simplistic twit, you've joined a Tea Party and Glenn Beck's vilifying and don't want to know what a derivative is.) A derivative is a financial instrument that is reliant on the value of some underlying asset. You make one prediction of the future value of that asset, and someone bets against you. One of you will walk away with a pittance, and the other with significant losses. The bank slinks away with millions in fees. (AIG got into trouble because it insured those possible losses. But it did so in away that made it liable for potential losses as well. (That is, it covered the asset value, not the actual traded (mark to market) value. When the market plummeted, it was liable for the dollars to cover the difference between the projected value and the actual value, which was nothing.) While everyone paid their mortgage, they raked in the insurance premiums. When it was realized that no one knew how many people wouldn't be able to keep paying their mortgage, the system imploded like the stack of illusions it really was.)

One significant issue with derivatives, especially those that rely on a future money-stream: it's a bit like borrowing to bet on the ponies. I know some people do mortgage the house after a trip to Vegas, but imagine doing that to fund the trip? The casino doesn't care how you got the money. Greece and Italy (and Iceland) managed to do the sovereign equivalent. Greece sold the fees from airport landing rights and its lottery. I don't know what Italy sold; I think it just promised payments. They bet the farm, and in return reduced their own liability - but it was a smoke and mirrors effort. If Greece had changed its spending habits, it probably could have (barely) managed, but it didn't have political will or necessary leadership. Under Berlusconi, Italy will never have the will, and any likely opposition candidates are not touting fiscal belt-tightening.

With Goldman and Morgan acting as unscrupulous casino operators, they sold a bill of goods to the governments of Greece and Italy. The fact that they helped conceal the deals makes them immoral. As always, not illegal is not the same as moral. Or ethical.

If anything, this whole sorry episode shows how urgent the need for (relatively) homogenous and consistent global financial reporting standards is. Governments should not be indulging in off-the-books transactions that help them pay their bills in the short-term. People (Nicolas Sarkozy) complained that Americans (and Britons) were living above their means - no one bothered to figure out if governments that had a (well-deserved) reputation for fiscal imprudence were doing the same!

We need better reporting standards, an eradication of off-the-books trading, the public recording of derivatives and complex financial deals and we need to restore a sense of ethics to Wall St. (And if someone could throw Greece a lifeline, that would be nice, too.)

Carolyn Ann

EU toughens stance on Greece

That's the headline in Guardian.

Basically the EU is throwing a tantrum. They're demanding more cuts, but without the political will to implement them - what happens?

Not a heck of a lot.

Will the EU allow Greece to default? They might not have much choice. (Good grief: government workers get an extra month's pay at Christmas. No doubt to help with the bills. I wonder who helps the Greek taxpayer? Oh, that's right: no one.)

Greece is in a mighty mess. It needs some cold-blooded, American, capitalism to get back on its feet. What it will get will be lukewarm, tepid, and the flailing-arms efforts of Europe. Can't upset those workers, now. Heck, they might start having to earn a living and there would the bosses be?

Flippancy aside, Greece shows the limitations of the Euro. The market has known them for some time (it's why it's much more difficult for the European central bank to issue money than the Fed or the Bank of England, for instance). The Euro is structurally stupid.

Think of it this way: if we implemented Ron Paul's monetary policy, it would closely resemble the worst of the Euro. Each state could issue its own money. But it would have to account for those issuances to all the other states. (That's not in Ron Paul's plan, by the way.) Each state would have to be fiscally responsible. And transparent. (That's not in Ron Paul's plan, by the way.) And someone would have to have the authority to say "What the hell are you doing?!?" That's not even a pipe dream in Ron Paul's plan, by the way.

Alabama would have its dollars pegged to California's woes. Kentucky would on the hook for some of Massachusetts' health care. (Don't believe me? Think: bond markets. And derivatives.)

Don't believe me? Bond markets, meet derivatives. Ron Paul exists in the world both he and Europe wished existed. The rest of us live in the real world where stock markets matter, bond markets are crucial and the value of currencies governs day to day life. (Even if we don't know it.)

Carolyn Ann

I can barely stand the pace...

What a day! What a weekend!

Such is the pace. I could barely keep up with it.

Let me see. Last Friday I suggested we go to Gardens for Sculpture, up near Princeton. "The sculptures will good in the snow!" I said. They didn't. They looked fantastic! (Added: We went up on Saturday.) A gentle night in, some baked swordfish with baked potatoes and snap peas, accompanied by a delightful Cupcake sauvignon blanc. Quite reasonably priced, too.

We stopped at the Barnes & Noble on Meadow Road, Princeton, so I could peruse their interior decorating books. I don't know why - the Mrs designs the rooms, and I supply the labor. Still, we're debating what to do with the bedroom. Initially I was leaning to an "island" feel; ultimately, I figure something we both know and love, Tuscany, is better. I'm not so sure about board/batten/beam roofing, though. Even if (when?) I remove the ceiling in the bedroom, it's still a bit too low for the wood. Visually, that is. So we might go with a false cathedral ceiling, with some of the felled cedar, perhaps pine, (added: we have some cedar and pine trees that have naturally fallen over, in the back woodland) trees as beams. With Tudor-esque drywall between the tree trunks. We have a few red cedar trunks (the cedar you use in closets), so maybe we'll just use those. I could cut one or two down if needed. (Cries of sacrilege will be ignored.)

This morning was a hive of activity. I got up, for a change (added: the Mrs usually gets up, as I am usually oblivious. Some might note that is not different to my being allegedly awake. They will be ignored. :-) ), to feed to beasts and beastlet (Maxine). I then had a cup of yoghurt, peach I think, and then retired back to bed. The Mrs later (11-ish) called me with those words that thrill me: "Your coffee is ready!" Sometimes she says "HU-un" just before; I think she did, this morning. I had a couple of Valentine's cards, and then I sat and read the NY Times online with my coffee, as the Mrs did whatever she did. We had a lox omelette; lox, finely diced onions and some other magic the Mrs applies, with a toasted walnut bread the Mrs made the other day. While we had this culinary delight, we watched Fareed Zakaria interviewing Paul Volcker - oh, the power of those two minds made for a fascinating interview. I read a little of the Kansas Fed's magazine; I'm a little behind on those. Okay, I'm reading 4th Q 2008. Fascinating article about detecting recessions in real-time, written by Troy Davig.

We both felt a little sleepy after the omelette, so we had a nap. I grabbed my cellphone, and set the alarm. Not remembering it's set to vibrate. So our nap was a little longer than intended. We then had a cup of tea. I read a little of John Polkinhorne's "Quantum Theory". After tea, we hung up our Mexican bird pictures. They go in the new corner - it didn't exist before I built it. The grammar is about as good as the corner, but, like the grammar, it suffices.

They look fabulous! We need two medium sized pictures, and couple or three small ones. We'll gather them over the forthcoming years. I should post a picture of the pictures - they are absolutely magnificent, and their placement is like every Mexican place we've seen: not much bare wall. (Oddly, it makes the wall quite important. The bits you see have to be good!)

I then put up the airplane fixture (added: it's a light fixture that looks like a whimsical biplane. It's quite fun and definitely funky) in the back hall. It's too low. If I wear even a slight heel, I'll be bumping my head on the thing. So that will have to come down, and be fixed, during the week. There's no electricity going to the fixture as yet - during my "big rewiring", something got screwed up and I haven't fixed it. Yet. As the screw up didn't pose any danger (cutting the supply to something reduces the chances of electricity flowing through it...), I haven't really thought about it. I guess I will be needing that TurboCAD I've been meaning to install. I could draw the circuit diagram on a piece of paper, but as there are 7 circuits involved, I think a CAD diagram might actually be better. Motivation. So to speak.

Plus, the airplane is so low it obscures the American Eagle I have over my office door. (Me? Fanatical about the nation I live in? Why, yes.)

After that, we hung the World Series Brooklyn Dodgers versus the Yankees poster (September 28th, 1955 at 1:30PM). Yes, it's original. (YouTube, 6½ minutes) Hey - watch the video, it has some wonderful footage! Including some of Jackie Robinson.

And then it was time for a sit down. And a cup of tea.

We decided to forgo the tea. I poured myself a nice hot bath, instead. As I've not been able to fund the required plumbing changes, it takes about an hour to fill the tub. 4 minutes of hot water every 15 minutes. Pour in 13 minutes, and you're looking at an hour and a half. Pour in 16 minutes, and it makes no odds whatsoever.

Fortunately we now have a source of funding for the plumbing. It'll take about 47 years at minimum rates to pay it off, but we'll worry about that later. (It's called a "credit card". And yes, the average single purchase for a credit card does take about 47 years to pay off. Not the 4 or so years they tell you.)

I do think I'll either make some money, or get a job, within that time.

A few beers and an Eric Flint/Jim Baen/David Drake anthology, "The World Turned Upside Down", helped bathtime pass rather too quickly. Just think, 40 years ago I hated baths. Although I remember the one I had to take when I got attacked by red ants. I was 6-ish, and bright red pretty much from head to toe. A lukewarm bath, with some pink stuff my Mom poured into it, eased the excruciating pain. I've always been allergic to insect bites. Still, tonight's bath was a pleasure. :-)

(What can be awful about a nice bubble-bath, hot water, some excellent beer and some good reading?)

I did start the bath by reading "Green Remodeling" by David Johnston. It's a book I've had for years; I finally decided to actually read it. Some good stuff, by tonight I wanted adventure, and Heinlein, Clark, and so on.

Then we had fondue! :-)

We knew about fondue, and had even had it (in a Swiss restaurant in Mexico City), but it wasn't until we had it in a restaurant just by the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, which we reached during a blizzard (it was so cold it froze our camera), that we truly appreciated it. My cold weather gear was on the next flight in. I remember the blizzard was so close, the cab driver was speeding to beat it. I walked around with my wife's Liberty scarf, wrapping my head. Forget any concerns about crossdressing: it was warming!

You know, there are some meals you never forget: the steak and cheese in San Miguel, the filet mignon covered in an apple and walnut sauce in New Orleans, the Philadelphia sushi roll I had in San Francisco. The gnocchi bolognese I had in that little place just below Il Duomo in Florence. (The lobster soup that peered at me on City Island, NYC...) The night I went out with guys in LA, or Atlantic City, or that night at the Capitol Grill in Washington DC, or... Ah, I'm lucky - there are so many. One of those meals was the fondue in that restaurant in Quebec City.

(Seeing a little bit of Geneva in Mexico City was pretty remarkable...)

So, about 5 or 6 years ago, we bought ourselves a fondue set. And tonight we had some. I think it's been used maybe once, maybe twice. Not once in the last 4 years, that I know. We've been in the house 4 years, and it's never been unpacked.

We got some fondue mix from Trader Joe's - it was good, but I'd not call it "exciting" - and we had that for our Valentine's Day. I wore something pretty (never mind what), as did the Mrs, and we shut the doors so the cats couldn't join us. It was a nice, romantic dinner. :-)

The room is quite romantic, as long as you ignore the half-built toy train layout that runs along one side of it... Nice wallpaper, a wall-mounted fireplace, grapevine chandelier, nice art-deco and art-nouveau furniture, a very Roman-looking tile floor, silk curtains that pick up the maroon in the wallpaper.. Sigh. :-)

After that, we I watched Holmes on Homes, and the Mrs did whatever she needs to do. (We both still have to earn a living! Dammit.) I tried watching Dr Who, but the prospect of staying up to 5AM, without any beer or whisky, did not thrill me.

The living room looks great. We moved some pictures, hung the bird pictures and the mask, and rearranged some of the furniture. The back hall looks much better, and the Brooklyn Dodgers poster is so evocative. I still have to put up the subway route sign I got my wife one Christmas (it's from what is now the D/Q line), and an art deco light fixture at the bottom of the stairs.

But what a pace. I could hardly keep up. :-)

Carolyn Ann