So today was the Scratch-n-Dent sale at the REI. Started at 9am, but the flyer says "Come early & form a line". Unfortunately, I couldn't find a photo of the Albuquerque REI that fully shows the layout. I got there at 8:55, and there was a line all the way around the building and down the sidewalk outside. They opened the sale at 9, and it probably took 10 minutes for my spot in line to wind into the sale. When I got in, I descended into a pit of anger, sweat, and mistrust. I was in the sale for half an hour wandering around, and bought four things: a folding table that was missing a pretty integral part, some gaiters from Outdoor Research that are missing a metal hook, a pair of socks that are too small, and a pair of pretty well-used trekking poles from REI that had a strap broken; that one I fixed. Ended up costing me $40.
It was a really strange experience. There must have been a couple hundred people in there, in a real small area. They had bins of stuff that you couldn't even get to because there were so many people crowded around. And there were a lot of people who seemed to be buying several of something; four thermarests, five pairs of shoes, etc. Pretty sure those'll be up on E-bay soon.
There's more sale tomorrow, but I've got the big wedding to go to tomorrow, which should be really exciting. I'll give a report.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
Article 5, more
A new article is out by the wife. Go here to check it out. I just noticed that (at least online) they've got her in the classified section. Go read the article, and you will see why this is a terrible place to put this article. Who is more likely to troll the classifieds? ATVers, or environmentalists? I say the former.
Also, I found at least part of a good quote from Vladimir Putin. I don't like Putin, I believe that he has had critics killed, and that he's actively pursuing a renewal of cold war conditions. But he said the following (translated of course): "Anyway we didn’t drop nuclear weapons on a civil population and didn’t drop chemicals over thousands of square kilometres as happened in Vietnam." I agree that it's hypocritical for Bush to pull some kind of "holier than thou" stance toward Russia. The international community should put the pressure on; I wish that the UN were stronger so it could pressure us and them into shutting the hell up.
Also, I found at least part of a good quote from Vladimir Putin. I don't like Putin, I believe that he has had critics killed, and that he's actively pursuing a renewal of cold war conditions. But he said the following (translated of course): "Anyway we didn’t drop nuclear weapons on a civil population and didn’t drop chemicals over thousands of square kilometres as happened in Vietnam." I agree that it's hypocritical for Bush to pull some kind of "holier than thou" stance toward Russia. The international community should put the pressure on; I wish that the UN were stronger so it could pressure us and them into shutting the hell up.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
You, sir, are a racist.
If you're like most Americans, you don't really care what goes on in DC. So you may not know that the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, limited school districts' ability to use race as a factor in school admission. Why should you care? I mean, you're (probably) white so this (probably) actually makes things easier for you. I'm white, so this would make things easier for me if I ever actually needed to apply to a school ever again (which I don't) (although there are woefully few american-born minorities in hydrology anyway). You should care because we it is unjust, and I believe it is at heart a racist view.
Just consider this view, from one Roger Clegg, who appeared on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer this evening. Go here to check out the transcript of the conversation. But I want to point you toward a particular passage from the interview:
JUDY WOODRUFF: Just quickly, are you trying to pretend that racism doesn't exist?
ROGER CLEGG: Absolutely not. Racism does exist. We've made enormous progress, and I think that anybody who thinks that we haven't is delusional, but racism still exists.
Define "enormous." A member of the Ku Klux Klan made a run for president in 1988 and 1992, and held several offices in Louisiana. One of the most popular radio hosts in America believes that black people shouldn't get to swim. In one poll, 49% of black people said that racism is "a serious problem." But I guess it's a hell of a lot easier to say that we've made great strides if you're a successful, middle-aged white man.
But the best way to fight discrimination is not by piling more discrimination on top of it, not by creating new victims of racial discrimination.
Black people have had a terrible time for the past couple centuries, and, as white people, it is our fault. The Native Americans are having an even worse time, and, yes, that is also our fault. We did terrible, unconscionable things. Human rights violations on scales rarely seen. I don't understand why we don't consider it our duty to make things right for these people. Instead, we complain about bullshit like reverse racism, ignoring the fact that, if another group had done these terrible things to us, we would probably be pretty angry at them, and wary as to their intentions toward us. We once officially (and then unofficially) considered black people "less than." Now we expect them, despite extreme issues of poverty, incarceration rates, job discrimination, and political underrepresentation, to get themselves up to our economic, economic, and social level without help. I watched the All-American Presidential Forum on PBS tonight, and Dennis Kucinich said something that gave me a laugh: "They tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, then they steal your boots." You hold a person's head underwater until they're too tired to get back out, then you expect them to save themselves. What have we done for them to give them the skills to get out of their situation? Nothing. The best way to fight discrimination is to give people the tools to improve their situation, and that includes giving them priority for schools admissions, as well as giving the poor free health care, improving job placement and prison rehabilityation, and reforming our drug policies. My favorite thing that Clegg says in that last line is that giving minorities entrance priority is equivalent to "piling [on] more discrimination" because we all know that the only people being descriminated against are white people. He actually believes that white people are in danger of becoming less dominant because WE ARE BEING DESCRIMINATED AGAINST.
The best way to fight discrimination is by enforcing the laws that we have on the books against discrimination and by helping impoverished people, who come in all colors, but regardless of their skin color.
No, the best way to fight discrimination is to make all the racist people non-racist, but that ain't never going to happen because people are people. If blacks are at a greater disadvantage due to "unofficial" discrimination, should we not try to counteract that to make life fair and just?
If there are poor kids or kids who are not getting a good education, help them improve their schools, but it should be done for all of them, regardless of their skin color, whether they're white or black or brown or yellow.
Yes I agree. But you are deluding yourself if you actually believe that wealth and race do not go hand-in-hand. I bet that middle class and rich people would also be upset if you started changing your admissions requirements to give poor people preference. Justice is facing the consequences of your past actions; in our case, it is holding people down because of their race, and justice (and ethics, and morals) dictates that we do what we can to help them out.
Just consider this view, from one Roger Clegg, who appeared on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer this evening. Go here to check out the transcript of the conversation. But I want to point you toward a particular passage from the interview:
JUDY WOODRUFF: Just quickly, are you trying to pretend that racism doesn't exist?
ROGER CLEGG: Absolutely not. Racism does exist. We've made enormous progress, and I think that anybody who thinks that we haven't is delusional, but racism still exists.
Define "enormous." A member of the Ku Klux Klan made a run for president in 1988 and 1992, and held several offices in Louisiana. One of the most popular radio hosts in America believes that black people shouldn't get to swim. In one poll, 49% of black people said that racism is "a serious problem." But I guess it's a hell of a lot easier to say that we've made great strides if you're a successful, middle-aged white man.
But the best way to fight discrimination is not by piling more discrimination on top of it, not by creating new victims of racial discrimination.
Black people have had a terrible time for the past couple centuries, and, as white people, it is our fault. The Native Americans are having an even worse time, and, yes, that is also our fault. We did terrible, unconscionable things. Human rights violations on scales rarely seen. I don't understand why we don't consider it our duty to make things right for these people. Instead, we complain about bullshit like reverse racism, ignoring the fact that, if another group had done these terrible things to us, we would probably be pretty angry at them, and wary as to their intentions toward us. We once officially (and then unofficially) considered black people "less than." Now we expect them, despite extreme issues of poverty, incarceration rates, job discrimination, and political underrepresentation, to get themselves up to our economic, economic, and social level without help. I watched the All-American Presidential Forum on PBS tonight, and Dennis Kucinich said something that gave me a laugh: "They tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, then they steal your boots." You hold a person's head underwater until they're too tired to get back out, then you expect them to save themselves. What have we done for them to give them the skills to get out of their situation? Nothing. The best way to fight discrimination is to give people the tools to improve their situation, and that includes giving them priority for schools admissions, as well as giving the poor free health care, improving job placement and prison rehabilityation, and reforming our drug policies. My favorite thing that Clegg says in that last line is that giving minorities entrance priority is equivalent to "piling [on] more discrimination" because we all know that the only people being descriminated against are white people. He actually believes that white people are in danger of becoming less dominant because WE ARE BEING DESCRIMINATED AGAINST.
The best way to fight discrimination is by enforcing the laws that we have on the books against discrimination and by helping impoverished people, who come in all colors, but regardless of their skin color.
No, the best way to fight discrimination is to make all the racist people non-racist, but that ain't never going to happen because people are people. If blacks are at a greater disadvantage due to "unofficial" discrimination, should we not try to counteract that to make life fair and just?
If there are poor kids or kids who are not getting a good education, help them improve their schools, but it should be done for all of them, regardless of their skin color, whether they're white or black or brown or yellow.
Yes I agree. But you are deluding yourself if you actually believe that wealth and race do not go hand-in-hand. I bet that middle class and rich people would also be upset if you started changing your admissions requirements to give poor people preference. Justice is facing the consequences of your past actions; in our case, it is holding people down because of their race, and justice (and ethics, and morals) dictates that we do what we can to help them out.
Alison sticks it to the Man
New article up today about Army plans to expand a proving grounds in southwest Arizona by annexing adjacent BLM land; to read, go here. I will monitor the link to make sure it doesn't break.
Also, I finished my collection of Philip K. Dick short stories last night, and have started on Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Yeah that's right, I never read it before. 11 books left in the stack.
Also, I finished my collection of Philip K. Dick short stories last night, and have started on Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Yeah that's right, I never read it before. 11 books left in the stack.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Valles Caldera
Gather 'round, children, and I will rap at you about my field area (provided my research ever gets off the ground). Most of you have never been there, but it is like hella beautiful. I'll stick a bunch of pictures at the end for your ocular pleasure. The Valles Caldera National Preserve was formerly a ranch held by the ubiquitous (in New Mexico anyway) Baca family. In 2000 the gummint bought it, and it is now semi-open public land.
The Valles is a caldera that formed 1.5-1.1 million years ago as the result of massive eruptions (600 cubic kilometers) from the magma chamber beneath. See below for an aerial photograph (hard to decipher, I know) of the caldera. The roundish feature is the rim of the caldera, and all the flat-looking areas within are meadows. The mountains in the middle of the caldera are the resurgent dome, which the link above talks about.
I've now been here a number of times, and I just can't get over how beautiful it is, especially with a little snow blanket on it. Enjoy some pictures below; hopefully, I'll soon have some more current ones from the upcoming months!
Oh, I have more at home from non-winter. Maybe I'll put some up later.
The Valles is a caldera that formed 1.5-1.1 million years ago as the result of massive eruptions (600 cubic kilometers) from the magma chamber beneath. See below for an aerial photograph (hard to decipher, I know) of the caldera. The roundish feature is the rim of the caldera, and all the flat-looking areas within are meadows. The mountains in the middle of the caldera are the resurgent dome, which the link above talks about.
I've now been here a number of times, and I just can't get over how beautiful it is, especially with a little snow blanket on it. Enjoy some pictures below; hopefully, I'll soon have some more current ones from the upcoming months!
Oh, I have more at home from non-winter. Maybe I'll put some up later.
Article 3, more
Alison's third article is out at the times. Go here to check it out. I have determined that the Times is schizophrenic about when it will let you look at a particular article without being registered, so I will post a link to another website when somebody else reprints it.
I just noticed that the only thing I blog about anymore is Alison's journalistic endeavor. That's because I've done nothing latewwwly with my life, other than work. My current schedule has me waking up at 5:45 am (alarm starts at 5:30, although since I am always freaked out about missing the alarm, I tend to wake up several times to check to see what time it is...this morning, at 1am and 4am at least), eating breakfast and fixing lunch, leaving at 6:15-6:20, biking 15 minutes to the van stop, waiting for the van to get there at 6:45, then riding to Socorro, where we arrive around 7:55 (although the driver today was a speed demon and we were here by 7:45). I then get hungry by 9am, snack at 10, and graze for the rest of the day. Back on the van at 5:05 or 5:10, and get back to the van stop around 6:20 to 6:30. Hope that my bike is still there. So far it has. Bike home, get there around 6:45-ish. This schedule makes me tired; mornings are my natural enemy. Also, I think my plants resent being in the house by themselves all day with no cooling; thank goodness for adobe, at least. Bike lanes are short to nonexistant here; at least I miss rush hour as it stands. Downtown is strangely deserted both when I bike to the van, and when I bike back. I've never been in a city that was like that.
In other news, I will be out in LA visiting Alison the weekend of July 8th. This will entail getting to the Greyhound station on the afternoon-evening of July 5 (Thursday), bussing overnight to arrive noonish in LA, then leaving LA on the evening of July 9 to arrive back in Abq on July 10. This will be my first >1 hour experience on a Greyhound, and should be a thrilling adventure. I'll be sure to post all details.
I just noticed that the only thing I blog about anymore is Alison's journalistic endeavor. That's because I've done nothing latewwwly with my life, other than work. My current schedule has me waking up at 5:45 am (alarm starts at 5:30, although since I am always freaked out about missing the alarm, I tend to wake up several times to check to see what time it is...this morning, at 1am and 4am at least), eating breakfast and fixing lunch, leaving at 6:15-6:20, biking 15 minutes to the van stop, waiting for the van to get there at 6:45, then riding to Socorro, where we arrive around 7:55 (although the driver today was a speed demon and we were here by 7:45). I then get hungry by 9am, snack at 10, and graze for the rest of the day. Back on the van at 5:05 or 5:10, and get back to the van stop around 6:20 to 6:30. Hope that my bike is still there. So far it has. Bike home, get there around 6:45-ish. This schedule makes me tired; mornings are my natural enemy. Also, I think my plants resent being in the house by themselves all day with no cooling; thank goodness for adobe, at least. Bike lanes are short to nonexistant here; at least I miss rush hour as it stands. Downtown is strangely deserted both when I bike to the van, and when I bike back. I've never been in a city that was like that.
In other news, I will be out in LA visiting Alison the weekend of July 8th. This will entail getting to the Greyhound station on the afternoon-evening of July 5 (Thursday), bussing overnight to arrive noonish in LA, then leaving LA on the evening of July 9 to arrive back in Abq on July 10. This will be my first >1 hour experience on a Greyhound, and should be a thrilling adventure. I'll be sure to post all details.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Article 2
Alison's gotten a second article out at the times. Go here to check it out. Hopefully the link lasts. Alison is embarassed by this one because of its brevity. A little bird tells me, however, that there may be another article coming out very soon that makes up for the shortness of this one in spades.
Edit: It's 4p.m. in New Mexico and I already can't get to the article. Here is another link to it, that hopefully will last longer. I can only trust that topix.net was faithful in its reproduction.
Edit: It's 4p.m. in New Mexico and I already can't get to the article. Here is another link to it, that hopefully will last longer. I can only trust that topix.net was faithful in its reproduction.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Hoo boy.
So I'm currently watching Frontline on PBS. The episode tonight is titled Endgame. It's about the steps we took that got us into the mess we're in now. Now, I started writing this because I heard a great quote by dubya that I wanted to get right, but I can't find it anywhere. This was a quote from early in the was, something to the effect of the life of the people of Iraq is an example to the other peoples of the Middle East of what it is like to live in a free country. That considered, I'm sure that nobody will ever want to live in a free country again, what with conditions there being what they are.
Here's a pretty apt quote:
Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.
George W. Bush
Fact: The United States has more than an order of magnitude more active nuclear warheads than any other country on Earth other than Russia.
Here's a pretty apt quote:
Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.
George W. Bush
Fact: The United States has more than an order of magnitude more active nuclear warheads than any other country on Earth other than Russia.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Book Report
So I finished Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick last Friday on the van ride up to the Burque. It was a very impressive book, and only the second novel I've ever read by him (the first being Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the book on which the great movie Blade Runner is loosely based). By far the majority of stuff I've read by him consists of short stories (a book of which I have started next). It's interesting to see the contrast between his short fiction, which does not need to carry a focus for very long, and his novels, which suffer a little from his inability to do so. Part of the problem may also be that he was such a prolific writer that he could never spend much time on anything. Just speculation. Great book, and I would highly recommend it. Very trippy.
Anybody keeping track might notice that I have now taken seven books off my reading list since its inception a while back, and I'm down to 12. Of course, a bunch of the remaining books are very long, but maybe I'll get through my list this year and not have a stack of books waiting; I can't remember the last time I was in that situation. This will all be complicated by the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which will likely be the greatest book ever written, and after which I can give up reading words rather than be in a constant state of disappointment. Seriously though, I don't know of any other book that could be released that would supersede my list; I will read it as soon as I can get my hothands on it.
Reading another Dick book, aside from allowing for all kinds of Dick jokes shared with a good friend of mine, always gets me thinking about how anonymous this guy is. He wrote more than 45 novels, and about 121 short stories during a writing career that spanned from 1953 to 1982, when he died at age 53. He won the Hugo Award in 1963 for Man in the High Castle, and also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1974 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (which I just read). With the most recent release, 9 of his stories have been turned into movies:
Blade Runner - 1982 - Novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Total Recall - 1990 - Story "We Can Remember it for You Wholesale"
Confessions d'un Barjo - 1992 - Novel Confessions of a Crap Artist
Screamers - 1995 - Story "Second Variety"
Impostor - 2002 - Story "The Impostor"
Minority Report - 2002 - Story "Minority Report"
Paycheck - 2003 - Story "Paycheck"
A Scanner Darkly - 2006 - Novel A Scanner Darkly
Next - 2007 - Story "The Golden Man"
While that's no Stephen King kind of number, it's still pretty impressive. Take a gander at this guy's stuff if you never have.
Internet tomorrow maybe! How exciting!
Edit on 6/19 (yes I have internet now):
Re: comment
Pff, presence in the Library of America catalog doesn't dispel anonymity. I mean, who's ever heard of Samuel Menashe or Abraham Lincoln?
Anybody keeping track might notice that I have now taken seven books off my reading list since its inception a while back, and I'm down to 12. Of course, a bunch of the remaining books are very long, but maybe I'll get through my list this year and not have a stack of books waiting; I can't remember the last time I was in that situation. This will all be complicated by the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which will likely be the greatest book ever written, and after which I can give up reading words rather than be in a constant state of disappointment. Seriously though, I don't know of any other book that could be released that would supersede my list; I will read it as soon as I can get my hothands on it.
Reading another Dick book, aside from allowing for all kinds of Dick jokes shared with a good friend of mine, always gets me thinking about how anonymous this guy is. He wrote more than 45 novels, and about 121 short stories during a writing career that spanned from 1953 to 1982, when he died at age 53. He won the Hugo Award in 1963 for Man in the High Castle, and also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1974 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (which I just read). With the most recent release, 9 of his stories have been turned into movies:
Blade Runner - 1982 - Novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Total Recall - 1990 - Story "We Can Remember it for You Wholesale"
Confessions d'un Barjo - 1992 - Novel Confessions of a Crap Artist
Screamers - 1995 - Story "Second Variety"
Impostor - 2002 - Story "The Impostor"
Minority Report - 2002 - Story "Minority Report"
Paycheck - 2003 - Story "Paycheck"
A Scanner Darkly - 2006 - Novel A Scanner Darkly
Next - 2007 - Story "The Golden Man"
While that's no Stephen King kind of number, it's still pretty impressive. Take a gander at this guy's stuff if you never have.
Internet tomorrow maybe! How exciting!
Edit on 6/19 (yes I have internet now):
Re: comment
Pff, presence in the Library of America catalog doesn't dispel anonymity. I mean, who's ever heard of Samuel Menashe or Abraham Lincoln?
Friday, June 15, 2007
A Socorro kind of day
Today I took the van pool to Socorro, where I am working for the day. I hope to make this a more regular occurrence, as this is only the second time I've come down since we moved to the big ABQ. Turning onto Bullock, I actually missed Socorro a little somehow. Got a glimpse of the old house, so it appears to be still standing (or at least the southwest corner). Missing Socorro is an odd sensation, as most people who have spent time here can attest. I do not in any way regret the move to Albuquerque, where I can take a bus to a Minor League baseball game any time I want to when they're in town, and a place where there are ultimate frisbee leagues and softball leagues and a climbing gym and an REI and more than 3 good restaurants and an organic food delivery service. It's just one of those things where you go back somewhere that you used to be all the time, and that you got used to, and now your life is different from then. Sort of nostalgia, but not the "wish I was there" kind.
It quickly passed when I thought about it.
It quickly passed when I thought about it.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
My wife is the awesomest
Today Alison was published for the first time in the LA Times. Go here to check out the article. It's about the drastically decreased native bird populations in California. Isn't she dreamy? Also, she got internet last night, so a capa blog should be forthcoming (no guarantees).
The electrician is theoretically coming over this afternoon to stick another riser on our house to appease the mighty Qwest gods, after which time maybe we can get ourselves into the Qwest hookup waiting line. We might have internet before our landlady gets back from her 6-week vacation, by which time we will unfortunately no longer be angry about the situation. Today I am trying out the internet at the library, and it is very very slow. I may have to switch back to the Flying Star until I can stay at home and surf.
Last night I and our service project friends attended the Isotopes doubleheader against the Redhawks. The 'Topes got shelled in the first game, losing 11-3 behind an 8-run second inning. In the second game we were losing 2-0 in the bottom of the seventh when we scored 3 runs to win the game. For some reason the other team left in their starter, even though he loaded the bases on no outs. Usually, this happening in the seventh would not be a huge deal. However, this doubleheader was making up the game that was rained out on Monday (and left me with nothing to listen to Monday night on the radio, BTW), and in their wacky setup they played two seven-inning games starting at 5p.m. So that third run scored on a walk-off sacrifice fly. Very exciting. However, it did make for a late night, with the last game finishing nearing 10 p.m.
The electrician is theoretically coming over this afternoon to stick another riser on our house to appease the mighty Qwest gods, after which time maybe we can get ourselves into the Qwest hookup waiting line. We might have internet before our landlady gets back from her 6-week vacation, by which time we will unfortunately no longer be angry about the situation. Today I am trying out the internet at the library, and it is very very slow. I may have to switch back to the Flying Star until I can stay at home and surf.
Last night I and our service project friends attended the Isotopes doubleheader against the Redhawks. The 'Topes got shelled in the first game, losing 11-3 behind an 8-run second inning. In the second game we were losing 2-0 in the bottom of the seventh when we scored 3 runs to win the game. For some reason the other team left in their starter, even though he loaded the bases on no outs. Usually, this happening in the seventh would not be a huge deal. However, this doubleheader was making up the game that was rained out on Monday (and left me with nothing to listen to Monday night on the radio, BTW), and in their wacky setup they played two seven-inning games starting at 5p.m. So that third run scored on a walk-off sacrifice fly. Very exciting. However, it did make for a late night, with the last game finishing nearing 10 p.m.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Alison versus the Internet
K, so for those of you who is wondering why my wife hasn't posted about L.A. or anything else lately, she has arrived there safely, and been again stymied in her attempts to get regular internet. I am again blogging from the local internet cafe, where I am working on scheduling my visits out to that great western water sink. Maybe she'll have internet soon. The photos of the new house are, of course, on her camera, and were not downloaded onto my computer prior to our little mini-party of last Friday (where we had FOUR people over to our house! The place was fulled up!). So still no photos. I would do another mock-up, but I don't want to engender more disappointment in my reader base. Please the readers, get the ratings, save the cheerleader, and what have you.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
EXCLUSIVE (not really)
So this past week or maybe week.5 I got the cd of photos from my best man (via another groomsman), including the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and post-dinner bowling. These are the only pictures we've gotten from the dinner and bowling. I present a few of them now, to whet your appetite for the eventual posting of them on picasa or whatever we are using now.
At the rehearsal. All together now, "awwww".
Rehearsal dinner. At the freakin' Buca!
Crazy bowling action!
Crushing the ball. Plus a bonus sighting of The Wahi!
Somebody's excited about bowling!
This is a great way to get calm pre-ceremony. That and the flask of whiskey.
Finally, here we are practicing the Italian we learned the night before at the Buca. "Strontso!"
At the rehearsal. All together now, "awwww".
Rehearsal dinner. At the freakin' Buca!
Crazy bowling action!
Crushing the ball. Plus a bonus sighting of The Wahi!
Somebody's excited about bowling!
This is a great way to get calm pre-ceremony. That and the flask of whiskey.
Finally, here we are practicing the Italian we learned the night before at the Buca. "Strontso!"
Why politics sucks
The big news of yesterday was that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (Ironic, isn't it, that such a high-ranking conservative is nicknamed for a vehicle that, through its efficiency, threatens the big-oil interests of our government? And the kind of vehicle that mostly only smelly hippies and "look at me" college kids ride?) was sentenced to 30 months in prison for perjury and obstructing justice in the Valerie Plame identity leak case. And of course, he's already trying to delay his prison sentence, hoping that his super-croney Dubya will pardon him toward the end of term #2 (fair-and-square term #1, if you're keeping track).
There are many reasons that Libby should not be pardoned for what he did. Sure, he was just following orders; but somebody's got to pay for his crimes, and I can guaran-goddamn-tee you that it isn't going to be the person (or persons) who is actually responsible; we'd have to install a new Vice President, and that would take a lot more hassle than just replacing his aide, which of course has already been done. No, what is more important in this case is this. This administration somehow got itself into power on the premise that the "Democrat" party could not handle the national security of America. Isn't leaking the identity of secret CIA operatives' identities the very definition of compromising national security? Isn't this pretty much treason? I understand that he has only been sentenced for perjury, but shouldn't he also be tried for the actual identity outing as well?
I say treason. Treason for them all.
Also, there was a very interesting program on Democracy Now yesterday. Amy Goodman interviewed John Perkins, an insider in the secretive world of the worldwide American economic empire, regime overthrowing, etc. Give it a listen, read, or watch here.
There are many reasons that Libby should not be pardoned for what he did. Sure, he was just following orders; but somebody's got to pay for his crimes, and I can guaran-goddamn-tee you that it isn't going to be the person (or persons) who is actually responsible; we'd have to install a new Vice President, and that would take a lot more hassle than just replacing his aide, which of course has already been done. No, what is more important in this case is this. This administration somehow got itself into power on the premise that the "Democrat" party could not handle the national security of America. Isn't leaking the identity of secret CIA operatives' identities the very definition of compromising national security? Isn't this pretty much treason? I understand that he has only been sentenced for perjury, but shouldn't he also be tried for the actual identity outing as well?
I say treason. Treason for them all.
Also, there was a very interesting program on Democracy Now yesterday. Amy Goodman interviewed John Perkins, an insider in the secretive world of the worldwide American economic empire, regime overthrowing, etc. Give it a listen, read, or watch here.
Monday, June 4, 2007
New House
So we moved into a new house this past week. Well, it's a really old house, but new to us. And completely remodeled. It's very very nice. It is also half the size of our Socorro house, or possibly even a little less. To get an idea of how much nicer this house is (despite its advanced age), consider this: the sloping floors in our Socorro house we considered ghetto; the sloping floors in this house we consider quaint.
The new house is made entirely out of adobe, and I haven't yet flipped on the swamp cooler, except once to test it. It's funny for those of us who have lived in Phoenix how people here think that 85 degrees is really hot.
We are having internet issues at the new house, which is why Alison and I haven't updated in a while. She's in DC right now getting orientated to the damn liberal media. I hope to take some pictures of the house soon, and put them up somewhere so you all can see it. Maybe I can have the house organized before Alison gets back. In the meantime, here is a mock-up of the house that I did in powerpoint to whet your appetite.
The new house is made entirely out of adobe, and I haven't yet flipped on the swamp cooler, except once to test it. It's funny for those of us who have lived in Phoenix how people here think that 85 degrees is really hot.
We are having internet issues at the new house, which is why Alison and I haven't updated in a while. She's in DC right now getting orientated to the damn liberal media. I hope to take some pictures of the house soon, and put them up somewhere so you all can see it. Maybe I can have the house organized before Alison gets back. In the meantime, here is a mock-up of the house that I did in powerpoint to whet your appetite.
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