Axis Of Evil Breaking Down?

Or is it Lucy with the football again?:

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday she expects North Korea to provide a long-overdue declaration of its nuclear activities as promised under a six-party deal and that if that materializes, the United States will move to remove Pyongyang from its list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

"North Korea will soon give its declaration of nuclear programs to China," she said in a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington. "And President (George W.) Bush would then notify Congress of our intention to remove North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and to cease the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act."

Field Of Geeks

Carve it, and they will come (via Wicked Thoughts):

CARVED out in a Wiltshire field, a 46m-wide pattern is said to represent the first 10 digits of pi, one of the most fundamental symbols in mathematics. ... But whatever its origins, the experts say it is the most complex crop circle ever seen in Britain.

The pattern appeared earlier this month near Barbury Castle, above the village of Wroughton in Wiltshire. ... [R]etired astrophysicist Mike Reed saw a photograph of it and made the mathematical link. He said the crop pattern "clearly shows" the first 10 digits of pi, which is used to calculate the area of a circle. The image is a fractal, or geometric pattern.

Fractals have been a staple of crop circle designs. The most famous, the Mandelbrot Set or the Julia Set, appeared 12 years ago in Avebury Trusloe, Wiltshire.

A Bit Bewildered

Paul Krugman of the NY Times is startled by all the conservative accusations that speculation is to blame for the run-up in oil prices (Krugman and others are more inclined to blame surging consumption in India and China):

Aren’t conservatives supposed to believe in efficient markets, where competition is good for everyone?

But McCain is following the likes of Steve Forbes and many articles in places like the National Review, all claiming that oil prices are a bubble, soon to disappear — a claim they’ve been making for at least three years.

What’s going on?

I think that conservative belief that the market is always right is colliding with another, even more deeply held belief — that there are no limits, except for those imposed by tree-huggers.The idea that oil might really be getting hard to find, in spite of the magic of capitalism, is just unacceptable; so they insist that it’s all craziness in the futures markets.

It’s not just conservatives who are into blame-the-speculators mode, of course; but they’re the loudest voices. It’s really weird.

And now Joseph Lieberman wants to remove CalPERS from the commodity markets. I thought the reason conservatives encouraged pension funds to place their money in the markets was to reduce the potential for governmental support down the road. So, if pension funds make a killing in the markets that's a good thing. Right? Right?

Bad Air In El Paso Today

Range fires in the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico are largely to blame.

One fire in the vicinity of Las Cruces could possibly have been started by a meteorite.

Yet Water Didn't Show Up In The Chemical Test

Mars must be an unusual place. The topsoil must be nearly-impermeable, in order to keep the surface dessicated in the presence of ground ice:

June 19, 2008 -- Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

Trying To Find The Meaning In An Alien Artifact

Or so it must seem to the Karl sisters as they try to puzzle out the Integratron:

The crowds are drawn in part by the perceived healing, but largely by the site's zany history, which starts with its architect, an iconoclast named George Van Tassel.

In the midst of a career in aerospace, Van Tassel effectively dropped out. In 1947, he leased four square miles of desert from the federal government and built an "Interplanetary Airport" and a tiny restaurant, famous for his wife's apple pie, near fabled Giant Rock, a seven-story-high boulder that has since split in two.

Van Tassel claimed to have been visited by aliens in 1952, and thousands began making pilgrimages to his "Spacecraft Conventions" in the desert. He said the aliens had imparted information regarding time travel and rejuvenation.

Van Tassel began building the Integratron. He never quite finished, however, and died in 1978. Everyone who had worked with him left immediately, Joanne said, and his diagrams and documents vanished. Someone even ripped out the copper coiling that was the heart of the purported time-traveling aspect of the dome.

...Since then, the sisters have learned more about the Integratron, though there is still plenty of mystery. They found an underground bunker, for instance, and old-timers in the area have suggested that there is more below ground on the property than is visible on the surface of the sand and gravel.

The big remaining hurdle is figuring out if they can do what Van Tassel never did: turn on the Integratron, spinning a system of spokes circling the dome, generating electricity, capturing it in wiring and -- probably not, but just maybe -- tinkering with time. If they can retrace his steps and rebuild the destroyed copper coil, they'll give it a shot, Joanne said.

Van Tassel claimed that the aliens had told him that humans were "remedial" -- and that the Integratron could extend life, allowing us to become better educated.

"I think we can all embrace that. People are starving. We are at war. We're morons," Joanne said, laughing. "Do I want to live to be 800 years old? Not really. But it would be fun to see what happens if we try."

Avon Walk Breast Cancer Benefit AT WOH

Left: J.P. Villa, and company.


On Thursday evening, J.P. Villa and friends staged monologues at the Woodland Opera House for an audience of about 40 to 50 supporters regarding breast cancer, and the testimonials of those who have lost loved ones to this scourge. My understanding was that this 30-40 minute event was a shortened version of a longer set of monologues.

The fundraiser was done on behalf of the Avon Walk, an annual event to be held on July 12-13th in San Francisco.

Consider making a contribution to this fundraiser, or similar ones to be held throughout the area over the next month.

Purely Word Of Mouth

I understand monologues written by J.P. Villa will be staged tonight at the Woodland Opera House. I'm going to attend, to hoot and holler in support, but beyond that I know nothing: there seems to be no announcement anywhere of the event.

Thong Shrapnel

A "design problem" is alleged:

As she was attempting to put on a Victoria's Secret thong, a Los Angeles woman claims that a decorative metallic piece flew off the garment and struck her in the eye, causing injuries and a new product liability lawsuit against the underwear giant.

Here is a link to a video featuring a drawing of the offending garment.

Various rude comments at the Daily Rotten include:

If you really want to avoid panty-line, go commando.
I wanna see the evidence and the reenactment.
Dental floss is a privilege; not a right

But I say give the woman her day in court. Stranger things have happened. Here at work, one of our employees had to take the day off because of a paper cut to her cornea. She was filling a copy machine with paper and passed the edge of a single piece of paper directly across her eye. (It hurt like the devil for a day and quickly healed.) I don't know how big the piece of metal was that lodged in this woman's eye, but it probably hurt like the devil too and may have healed more slowly. Whether this kind of sporadic accident merits success in a lawsuit depends on the court's findings.

Heavyweight Champion



Sumo image from B3ta.

Between the USA & Australia, similar people, similar lifestyles, similar diets means a real battle for supremacy! The part below about denial of surgery sounds more than a little extreme!:

AUSTRALIA is the heavyweight champion of the world, according to figures showing the nation has a greater proportion of obese citizens than the US.

The latest comprehensive obesity study has shown that 26 per cent of adult Australians almost four million are now obese, one million more than the last calculation in 1999.

The findings give Australia top spot as the world's most overweight nation, ahead of the notoriously super-sized Americans, who have a 25 per cent obesity rate.

"That, unfortunately, makes us the heavyweight champions, a title we don't really want," said Professor Simon Stewart, head of preventative cardiology at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute.

Experts are now calling for extreme measures like gym discounting and denial of surgery based on body mass index (BMI) to rectify the situation.

The report, entitled Australia's Future Fat Bomb, was released ahead of the Federal Government's obesity inquiry.

DANCE WITH ME - Vanessa Williams & Rick Valenzuela



Of course, no mention of the ballroom dance scene in Arizona in the early 80's would be complete without mentioning that ultra-intense Tucson fireball, Rick Valenzuela, who here plays Vanessa Williams' egocentric jerk of a partner.

Ron Montez & Liz Curtis - United States Latin Champions



This video brings back memories of ballroom dancing in New Mexico & Arizona in the late 70's & early 80's. I was on the fringe of all this (met Roy Mavor, Ron Montez, and Liz Curtis just once):

This video contains the 'show' evaluation part of US Latin American dance champions Ron Montez and Liz Curtis during the World Cup Latin 1984 for professionals that was held in Hamburg, Germany.

Ron Montez started dancing and teaching in 1964 at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Tucson, Arizona. He was there for seven years and became a dance director before moving on to Brigham Young University. For two years he was under the direction of the famous Roy Mavor who was then the director of the dance program. During his career, Ron won numerous ballroom and latin titles and especially made a major impact at the British Open. Then in 1979 he met Liz Curtis and became the 7 time undefeated United States Latin American Champion, World Finalist and British Finalist. Ron Montez is one of the most respected personalities in the dance business, as a dancer, coach and judge not only in the United States but internationally. He is a World Renowned coach & choreographer in both American & International Styles including Swing, and is a DVIDA National Examiner.

The Nicholas Brothers In "Stormy Weather"



More dance nostalgia, this time, the Nicholas Brothers (along with Cab Calloway) in "Stormy Weather.

A noted dance authority, Fred Astaire, once told the brothers that the "Jumpin' Jive" dance number in Stormy Weather was the greatest movie musical sequence he had ever seen

Bush/McCain Decide To Sacrifice Florida Governor Crist

Left: Image from NRDC

This is the primary GOP attack of the campaign so far, but it puts Crist in an untenable position. The Dems need to counterattack with NM Senator Jeff Bingaman's approach, asking: What have the oil companies been doing with existing leases of Federal land for oil drilling?:

Crist Angles For VP Slot: Endorses McCain's Plan For Florida Oil Drilling Despite Opposing It Last Week

The Godfather Analogy

Very inventive and clever approach to foreign relations, but not necessarily the most-persuasive. The analogy isn't precise. Still, very interesting.

In the event of a Democratic victory, and an end to the Sonny-style approaches of Bush and McCain, it remains to be established whether Obama might be a Tom Hagen type (Hillary would have been one) or a Michael Corleone type:

The aging Vito Corleone, emblematic of cold-war American power, is struck down suddenly and violently by forces he did not expect and does not understand, much as America was on September 11. Even more intriguingly, each of his three “heirs” embraces a very different vision of how the family should move forward following this wrenching moment. Tom Hagen, Sonny and Michael approximate the three American foreign-policy schools of thought—liberal institutionalism, neoconservatism and realism—vying for control in today’s disarranged world order.

The Consigliere

AS VITO’S heirs gather, the future of the Corleone dynasty hangs in the balance. The first to offer a strategy is Tom, the German-Irish transplant who serves as consigliere (chief legal advisor) to the clan. Though an adopted son, Tom is the most familiar with the inner workings of the New York crime world. As family lawyer and diplomat, he is responsible for navigating the complex network of street alliances, backroom treaties and political favors that surround and sustain the family empire. His view of the Sollozzo threat and how the family should respond to it are outgrowths of a legal-diplomatic worldview that shares a number of philosophical similarities with the liberal institutionalism that dominates the foreign-policy outlook of today’s Democratic Party.

First, like many modern Democrats, Tom believes that the family’s main objective should be to return as quickly as possible to the world as it existed before the attack. His overriding strategic aim is the one that Hillary Clinton had in mind when she wrote in a recent Foreign Affairs article of the need for America to “reclaim its proper place in the world.” The “proper place” Tom wants to reclaim is a mirror image of the one that American politicians remember from the 1990s and dream of restoring after 2008—that of the world’s “benign hegemon.”

This is the system that Tom, in his role as consigliere, was responsible for maintaining. By sharing access to the policemen, judges and senators that (as Sollozzo puts it) the don “carries in his pocket like so many nickels and dimes,” the family managed to create a kind of Sicilian Bretton Woods—a system of political and economic public goods that benefited not only the Corleones, but the entire mafia community. This willingness to let the other crime syndicates drink from the well of Corleone political influence rendered the don’s disproportionate accumulation of power more palatable to the other families, who were less inclined to form a countervailing coalition against it. The result was a consensual, rules-based order that offered many of the same benefits—low transaction costs of rule, less likelihood of great-power war and the chance to make money under an institutional umbrella—that America enjoyed during the cold war.

It is this “Pax Corleone” that Sollozzo, in Tom’s eyes, must not be allowed to disrupt. In dealing with the new challenger, however, Tom believes that the brothers must be careful not to do anything that would damage the family business. The way to handle Sollozzo, he judges, is not through force but through negotiation—a second trait linking him to today’s liberal institutionalists. Like more than one of the leading Democratic contenders for the presidency, Tom thinks that even a rogue power like Sollozzo can be brought to terms, if only the family will take the time to hear his proposals and accommodate his needs.

....

Shoot First and Ask Questions Later

SONNY’S SIMPLISTIC response to the crisis is to advocate “toughness” through military action, a one-note policy prescription for waging righteous war against the rest of the ungrateful mafia world. Disdaining Tom’s pleas that business will suffer, Sonny’s damn-the-torpedoes approach belies a deep-seated fear that the only way to reestablish the family’s dominance is to eradicate all possible future threats to it. While such a strategy makes emotional sense following the attempted hit on his father, it runs counter to the long-term interests of the family.

The don himself knew that threats against his position were a fact of life; while his policy revolved around minimizing them, he knew well that in a world governed by power, they could never be entirely eliminated. As he put it to Michael, “Men cannot afford to be careless.” By contrast, Sonny’s neoconservative approach is built around the strategically reckless notion that risk can be eliminated from life altogether through the relentless—and if necessary, preemptive—use of violence.

In Sonny, Tom is confronted with the cinematic archetype of the modern-day neoconservative hard-liner. Their resulting feud resembles the pitched political warfare between Democrats and neoconservatives that has come to dominate the American political landscape:

....

Michael’s Realism

THE STRATEGY that ultimately saves the Corleone family from the Sollozzo threat and equips it for coping with multipolarity comes from Michael, the youngest and least experienced of the don’s sons. Unlike Tom, whose labors as family lawyer have produced an exaggerated devotion to negotiation, and Sonny, whose position as untested heir apparent has produced a zeal for utilizing the family arsenal, Michael has no formulaic fixation on a particular policy instrument. Instead, his overriding goal is to protect the family’s interests and save it from impending ruin by any and all means necessary. In today’s foreign-policy terminology, Michael is a realist.

Viewing the world through untinted lenses, he sees that the age of dominance the family enjoyed for so long under his father is ending. Alone among the three brothers, Michael senses that a shift is underway toward a more diffuse power arrangement, in which multiple power centers will jockey for position and influence. To survive and succeed in this new environment, Michael knows the family will have to adapt.

First, Michael relinquishes the mechanistic, one-trick-pony policy approaches of his brothers in favor of a “toolbox,” in which soft and hard power are used in flexible combinations and as circumstances dictate. While at various times he sides with Tom (favoring negotiation) or Sonny (favoring force), Michael sees their positions as about tactics and not about ultimate strategy, which for him is solely to ensure the survival and prosperity of the family. Thus, he is able to use Sonny’s “button men” to knock out those competitors he cannot co-opt, while negotiating with the rest as Tom would like. This blending of sticks and carrots ensures that Michael is ultimately a more effective diplomat than Tom and a more successful warrior than Sonny: when he enters negotiations, it is always in the wake of a fresh battlefield victory and therefore from a position of strength; when he embarks on a new military campaign, it is always in pursuit of a specific goal that can be consolidated afterwards diplomatically. Can any of the Iran policies currently being advocated by the leading candidates of both parties be said to proceed from these assumptions?

....

Pigeonholes

Hard to find the right one:

The High Court in South Africa has ruled that Chinese South Africans are to be reclassified as black people.

It made the order so that ethnic Chinese can benefit from government policies aimed at ending white domination in the private sector.

A Million Tributes To Cyd Charisse Today



This assemblage of still photos is very affecting. And then all the other outtakes from her movies too!

According to Wikipedia:

She was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons to build up her strength after a bout with polio. At 14 she auditioned for and studied ballet in Los Angeles with Adolph Bolm and Bronislawa Nijinska, and subsequently danced in the Ballet Russes as "Celia Siderova" and, later, "Maria Istromena".

Long live the Ballet Russes!

Tribute To Ballet Russe Men Dancers



Earlier this year at Media City Ballet in Glendale, honoring, among others, George Zoritch, my first ballet instructor.

2008 Mountain Play



Fragment of the "Wizard Of Oz".

E. Returns Early From Camp

E.: MMMAAAARRRRCCCC! They bite me!
M.: Who bite you?
E.: Bugs! Bugs! There was a snake in the cabin!
M.: There was a snake in the cabin?
E.: My friends said it was my imagination!

Apparently it was an all-right time, playing miniature golf for the most part, but then one of the elderly men in their party didn't feel well, so they returned early....