The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Left: From Delboyonline at B3ta.


OK, despite her fine singing and eccentric taste in men and meds, I promise I will leave Amy Winehouse alone....

Where In The World Is Nelson Mandela?

In South Africa, where else?:

In a speech defending his administration's Iraq policy, Mr Bush said former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's brutality had made it impossible to find a leader who could unite the country.

"I heard somebody say, 'Where's Mandela?'," he said.

"Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas."

The bizarre gaffe was made in a press conference in Washington yesterday.

Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for preaching racial harmony and guiding the nation into the post-apartheid era.

References to his death – Mandela is now 89 and increasingly frail – are seen as insensitive in South Africa.

Bev's Review Of "Pirates Of Penzance"

Left: The Pirate King (Brian McCann)


The Davis Enterprise's Bev Sykes' review of "Pirates Of Penzance" is out!

Dada On The Beach



Deborah McMillion-Nering and James Bucanek, being all things Dada, on the beach, in San Diego.

Lucy, Goddess Of The Tropics, Is Pulling The Football Regarding Tropical Storm Ivo

Regarding the approach of Tropical Storm Ivo to Arizona, I sent this missive to Deborah in Phoenix today:

Already Lucy is pulling the football away.

*sigh*

Well, the Gila Wilderness can always use the extra rain....

She responds:

I decided not to share the news till it was overhead.

I reply:

Looks like a wise choice!

Over the next few days, with the powerful low pressure system to the west, the Colorado River valley is likely to get rain, and with Ivo's remnants passing to the east, the AZ/NM border area is likely to get rain.

Leaving you-know-who in the dessicated middle!

Responding with a picture, she states:

This is my cousin's ranch west of Tucson after Henriette--we coulda used some!

To which I can only respond:

Wow!

But like you say, it's dry, dry, dry in Phoenix these days!

Odd Beliefs Of Celebrities

Like all people, celebrities can hold unusual beliefs, but this belief clashes so pointedly with her status that her whole life must either edge towards the miserable, or she is just posing for effect (or both):

KEIRA Knightley, 22, says being photographed is destroying her soul. The Atonement star believes a part of her dies every time she is snapped by the paparazzi.

She told the Daily Mirror: "I believe the Aborigines say that every photo takes away a bit of your soul. It's very odd but I think there's definitely some truth in that." She is reluctant to face the camera lens because she suffers from acne. She said: "I look in the mirror and go, 'Oh no! More spots, more acne!' And I'm not comfortable being photographed when I'm being myself."

Parallels

The LA Times has a little featurette comparing the allegedly many parallels between the careers of Michael Jackson and Britney Spears.

I am not persuaded. Until plans are afoot to have a large, 50 foot tall Britney Spears robot walking randomly around the outskirts of Las Vegas, firing laser beams into the sky (plans which are already in the works for Jacko), and not until then, will I be persuaded.

San Francisco's Mystery Goo

Nobody's running away screaming yet, but it's just a matter of time. Where is Steve McQueen when you need him?:

A mysterious, greasy goo of unknown origin is seeping into garages and basements near San Francisco's Balboa Park. Residents suspect a nearby Muni yard may be the source, but so far the city has helped little in attempts to determine what the substance is and where it's coming from.

For a half century, Josephine Paras has lived on the same block of Navajo Avenue in Balboa Park. Recently, she noticed a black gooey substance coming up all over her garage floor.

"I noticed more and more of this stuff coming up; like a greasy substance when you rubbed it," explains Paras. "Since then, we've gotten more and more."

She says most of her neighbors on this stretch of Navajo Avenue with eighteen homes have the same problem and worse, including strange and growing numbers of deep pits in the concrete slabs.

"I'm quite concerned because I don't want to live with contamination under my house," says Paras.

Paras says the city of San Francisco has been no help.

"They took samples; twice they came out. I called them and they said they'd get back to me. I never heard from them," says Paras. "Three months has gone by since I haven't heard."

The neighbors hired consumer attorney David Birka-White, who says he's already had surface samples analyzed and is now taking earth core samples.

"We've found there's a series of chemicals that come from bus maintenance and automobile maintenance," says Birka-White. "So we're looking in the immediate area to find where those sources could be."

So the neighbors here wonder, is the city blameless or deliberately ignoring a costly problem?

Because not two hundred feet uphill from this neighborhood are SF Muni's huge rail maintenance yards including a former bus maintenance facility.

"I think years ago they must have dumped oil or whatever and it's gradually been seeping down," Paras says.

...Wednesday Muni said it doesn't know what the substance is and referred KTVU to the City Sewer Department. The sewer department said it's a matter for the Health Department, while the Health Department theorized that the substance is antifreeze, but claimed it was up to the residents to figure out what it is.

Scientific Graffiti

Left: Scientist taggers hit the windows at the Salk Institute....

Ah yes, scientists are a scruffy lot, and can't help but deface the architecture!













Who is that in the distance? Is it Deborah?














Yes it is!

Deborah writes:

I saw the recommended DVD "My Architect" on Louis I. Kahn's designs.

One of his 'best' is the Salk Institute in La Jolla. Since I was going to be nearby this week I decided to visit and take these shots of this wonderful concrete building. All the offices and labs have views to the ocean. The plaza is very beautiful in the rain.

"Pirates Of Penzance" - Special Thursday Performance

Half price too! Tonight, at DMTC, for those who have trouble making weekend performances!

Trying To Find Connections

K. asked: "Did you hear about the Big Meteorite?"

"In Peru?", I responded.

K. said "No, in Zimbabwe! But that's right, there were two. And OJ Simpson is in the news too!"

"Just like 1995!" I said.

K. said, "I wasn't too aware of the news in 1995 - I was still in school. What were the similiarities between then and now?"

"Well, in 1995, housing prices were near a bottom. Today, they are near a peak. Congress had just turned Republican; today, it's just turned Democratic. OJ Simpson was in the news then; today, he's still in the news. But I don't remember any meteorites in 1995."

K. is still working on it....

What Do You Really Think?

EMTs were blocking 19th Street with their ambulance as they talked to someone in a parked car by the Plum Blossom restaurant at 19th and J Sts. A firetruck with lights and siren on was awkwardly trying to cut through the Old Spaghetti Factory parking lot. A small knot of bystanders tried to figure out what was going on. Conversing with a woman who likely shopped at, or worked in, the Italian deli near the corner, conversation turned to the Old Spaghetti Factory's menu.

"I could see people getting sick there. I mean, it's doggy food. Chef Boy-Ar-Dee crap!"

Hmmm. Well, I kind of like doggy food myself. But some people have more sensitive palates....

Henriette's Clone

Tropical Storm Ivo looks like it will follow almost exactly Henriette’s path. The major difference is that the trough in the west is much stronger now, with Ivo, than Henriette experienced. The current forecast brings Ivo into AZ, starting Tuesday morning, slightly farther west than Henriette did, so maybe, this time, Phoenix will get nicked. But maybe Lucy, the Goddess of the Tropics, is just pulling the football away again from all us Charlie Browns.

The Flip Side Of Lowering Interest Rates

Problems with the dollar. I wonder which crisis will prove to have the worst bite?:

The Fed's dramatic half point cut to 4.75pc yesterday has already caused a plunge in the world dollar index to a fifteen year low, touching with weakest level ever against the mighty euro at just under $1.40.

There is now a growing danger that global investors will start to shun the US bond markets. The latest US government data on foreign holdings released this week show a collapse in purchases of US bonds from $97bn to just $19bn in July, with outright net sales of US Treasuries.

The danger is that this could now accelerate as the yield gap between the United States and the rest of the world narrows rapidly, leaving America starved of foreign capital flows needed to cover its current account deficit - expected to reach $850bn this year, or 6.5pc of GDP.

Mr Redeker said foreign investors have been gradually pulling out of the long-term US debt markets, leaving the dollar dependent on short-term funding. Foreigners have funded 25pc to 30pc of America's credit and short-term paper markets over the last two years.

"They were willing to provide the money when rates were paying nicely, but why bear the risk in these dramatically changed circumstances? We think that a fall in dollar to $1.50 against the euro is not out of the question at all by the first quarter of 2008," he said.

...Mr Redeker said the biggest danger for the dollar is that falling US rates will at some point trigger a reversal yen "carry trade", causing massive flows from the US back to Japan.

Jim Rogers, the commodity king and former partner of George Soros, said the Federal Reserve was playing with fire by cutting rates so aggressively at a time when the dollar was already under pressure.

The risk is that flight from US bonds could push up the long-term yields that form the base price of credit for most mortgages, the driving the property market into even deeper crisis.

"If Ben Bernanke starts running those printing presses even faster than he's already doing, we are going to have a serious recession. The dollar's going to collapse, the bond market's going to collapse. There's going to be a lot of problems," he said.

The Federal Reserve, however, clearly calculates the risk of a sudden downturn is now so great that the it outweighs dangers of a dollar slide.

Monty Python - The Funniest Joke In The World

Because we can always use one!

Heightening The Contradictions

The Senate apparently disapproves of MoveOn.Org's "General Betray Us" ad:

The Senate voted Thursday to condemn an advertisement by the liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org that accused the top military commander in Iraq of betrayal.

The 72-25 vote condemned the full-page ad that appeared in The New York Times last week as Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, testified on Capitol Hill. The ad was headlined: "General Petraeus or General Betray Us? Cooking the books for the White House."

The ad became a life raft for the Republican party as the war debate kicked into high gear. With several Republicans opposed to President Bush's war strategy, GOP members were able to put aside their differences and rally around their disapproval of the ad.

Nevertheless, I consider the ad a complete success. The purpose of the ad was to "bitch-slap" the Washington politicians (formerly a method used primarily by Republicans) and force the Iraq issue, when all the Senate prefers is to compromise away on matters of principle. So, you didn't like it? Good! Here's some more ads you won't like, either! And you better get used to it! It's an election year!

So far, the ad is doing better than expected....

"American Doll Posse"

Tori Amos' international tour continues, Down Under. In her album "American Doll Posse" she reveals five characters, five women, within herself. She even keeps up a blog for each character! Sheeesh! It's hard enough keeping up one blog for one character! Five blogs! I wonder is she maintains a Myspace page too?

In this interview, she wonders if Britney Spears might have found a better, less public, way to reveal the characters she's apparently keeping under wraps too.

Catch A Wave

This B of A ARM reset chart suggests the subprime loan crisis wave will crest at the beginning of next year. Shiver me timbers!

Frontiers Of Dubious Science

I find this hard to swallow without further explanation:

The number of people born left-handed plummeted temporarily around the turn of last century, according to recently released documentary footage of factory workers in northern England between 1900 and 1906. Researchers recorded the number of people waving to the camera with their right or left hand—a proxy for handedness—and compared the results for different age groups.

Tropical Storm Ivo

Looks like it will closely follow Hurricane Henriette's path into Sonora.

And it might even rain here in California from this winter-like storm coming in!

Memory Like An Elephant

The Pope tells Condi to get lost:

The latest request was made during the summer. The US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice indicated to the Vatican that she urgently needed to meet Benedict XVI. She was on her way back into the viper’s nest of the Middle East and it would have been no bad thing to meet her counterparts with the credentials of a papal audience.

...But the failure to arrange a meeting between Benedict XVI and Ms Rice has taken on a significance perhaps beyond the intentions of the Holy See. It has been seen as confirming the divergence of views on the Bush administration’s Middle East initiatives and growing friction on Iraq and relations with Iran. The Vatican believes that the United States may be taking too lightly the issue of guarantees for religious minorities in the new Iraqi constitution and has said so to the government in Baghdad. In reply, it was told that threats and violence against Christians are no more severe than those experienced by other minorities. The Americans were also approached but they replied that troops were unable to maintain full control of the territory and had difficulty in protecting non-Muslims.

...No one will say so officially but the refusal may also have been prompted by Ms Rice’s stance in 2003, when she was Mr Bush’s national security adviser. On the eve of the Iraqi conflict, it was Ms Rice who said bluntly that she did not understand the Vatican’s anti-war stance. She treated John Paul II’s envoy, Cardinal Pio Laghi, with a coolness that bordered on disrespect when he was sent to Washington on 2 March 2003 on a desperate mission to avert military intervention. Clearly, the incident has not been forgotten.

Crazy Traffic

Left: A chart of Web Log traffic for the last two years. Even as the number of returning visitors has remained fairly-stable (except when I went to Australia - apparently kangaroo stories frightened the regulars), the number of Page Loads increased abruptly in March, and especially this week, have increased yet again, astronomically! But why?

The referrer's log blames the Kylie picture on the sidebar. Everyone wants it! But why?

This year, Google has been experimenting with its Image Labelling scheme. I wonder if previous labels attached to the image because of text proximity ('Beauty Reawakens', 'Brisbane Entertainment') have been superseded by *something else*. But what is that new label? It's apparently not 'Kylie' or 'Kylie Minogue', because Google searches on those terms don't seem to bring it up. But it's got to be a simple label, because Thais, Italians, Turks, and even Americans can't seem to get enough of it.

Squirrel Sniperscope

Left: Courtesy of Jim McElroy's digital "Night Vision" (TM)


Sparky! Watch out! The squirrels! The squirrels! They SEE you! RUN! RUN!

Sparky, do you hear me?
Can you feel me near you?
Sparky, do you hear me?
Can I help to cheer you?

Sparky? SPARKY! RUN!

(*sigh*)

Actually, I lost Sparky on the streets, last night. Black dog, fairly-deaf to commands, vanished in the inky darkness.

I thought he went the long way around, so I double-backed and went that way, but I was mistaken. I circled back and eventually located him, 15 minutes later, snuffling in some hedges, as if everything was just fine.

Bad dog! Squirrel bait!

Endangered Languages

Some have just a few speakers:

The hot spots listed at Tuesday's briefing:

• Northern Australia, 153 languages. The researchers said aboriginal Australia holds some of the world's most endangered languages, in part because aboriginal groups splintered during conflicts with white settlers. Researchers have documented such small language communities as the three known speakers of Magati Ke, the three Yawuru speakers and the lone speaker of Amurdag.
• Central South America including Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia - 113 languages. The area has extremely high diversity, very little documentation and several immediate threats. Small and socially less-valued indigenous languages are being knocked out by Spanish or more dominant indigenous languages in most of the region, and by Portuguese in Brazil.
• Northwest Pacific Plateau, including British Columbia in Canada and the states of Washington and Oregon in the U.S., 54 languages. Every language in the American part of this hotspot is endangered or moribund, meaning the youngest speaker is over age 60. An extremely endangered language, with just one speaker, is Siletz Dee-ni, the last of 27 languages once spoken on the Siletz reservation in Oregon.
• Eastern Siberian Russia, China, Japan - 23 languages. Government policies in the region have forced speakers of minority languages to use the national and regional languages and, as a result, some have only a few elderly speakers.
• Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico - 40 languages. Oklahoma has one of the highest densities of indigenous languages in the United States. A moribund language of the area is Yuchi, which may be unrelated to any other language in the world. As of 2005, only five elderly members of the Yuchi tribe were fluent.

Let's Get Moving With The Atlantic Season!

I want to start blogging about Hurricane Noel, crashing around, breaking stuff. The name is on this year's list, but we have a few storms yet to go.

Rudy Giuliani: A Betrayal of Trust

I just kicked $100 to MoveOn.Org to help them run this political ad in Iowa. I will feature it on my blog as well. Join MoveOn.Org and help them sponsor this ad, and others yet to come, in even more states.

Typhoon Wipha

Should be ashore now, south of Shanghai and heading north, causing all manner of chaos.

Florida Rains

There is a rainy region just east of Florida that is likely to move westwards across the state (bringing rain to Tampa over the next two days, with subsidiary rains coming to Charleston, SC), form a tropical depression or tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico late this week, which would then move westwards to eventual landfall in Texas or Louisiana on the weekend, or early next week. No threat to FL, except for the ever-present threat of flooding whenever big thunderstorms are at work.

Sulfurous Fumes

Cause trouble in Peru:

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

A Yiddish Version

Of "Pirates Of Penzance" :

Director Allen Lewis Rickman has provided an English translation of Grand's words, which is projected above the stage along with a Russian translation. Those familiar with the operetta will surely get a charge out of the clever way Grand has adapted Gilbert's lyrics and situations. Instead of mixing up the words "pirate" and "pilot" as in the original, Grand has nursemaid Rivke (Ruth) accidentally bind young Fayvl (Frederick) to a band of pirates because with their swords in hand she thought they were kosher slaughterers at afternoon prayers. When the pirates leap upon Der Groyser General's daughters they sing what translates to, "What a chance to get married! / Quick, find a chuppah!" And when the Sergeant of Police explains his hesitancy to attack the Groyser Gazlen and his men, he pleads, "I'm no Maccabee."

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Lest we forget:

PUT a parrot on your shoulder, strap on a peg leg, hit the rum and start bellowing "Shiver me Timbers" - Wednesday is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Pirates of the Caribbean star Johnny Depp is not the only over-the-top buccaneer allowed to have fun.

September 19 is your once-a-year chance to don an eye patch, sport a ridiculously large hat and keep on saying "Arrrrr".

Why Conservatives Are Smarter Than Liberals

A conservative takes issue with that silly study showing liberals are smarter than conservatives, based on banging M's & W's on a keyboard:

The conservative case against this study is easy to make. Sure, we're fonder of old ways than you are. That's in our definition. Some of our people are obtuse; so are some of yours. If you studied the rest of us in real life, you'd find that while we second-guess the status quo less than you do, we second-guess putative reforms more than you do, so in terms of complexity, ambiguity, and critical thinking, it's probably a wash. Also, our standard of "information" is a bit tougher than the blips and fads you fall for. Sometimes, these inclinations lead us astray. But over the long run, they've served us and society pretty well. It's just that you notice all the times we were wrong and ignore all the times we were right.

In fact, that's exactly what you've done in this study: You've manufactured a tiny world of letters, half-seconds, and button-pushing, so you can catch us in clear errors and keep out the part of life where our tendencies correct yours. And now you feel great about yourselves. Congratulations. You haven't told us much about our way of thinking. But you've told us a lot about yours.

Sacramento Late Night

Left: Sparky is a friend of all large, stationary objects. Here, he becomes acquainted with a tree just outside Crepeville, at 24th Street and Second Avenue.


Sometimes, when Sparky and I walk about in the wee hours, pedestrians catch up to us, pass uncomfortably close, but nevertheless make small talk. What is on their minds? Invariably, they ask three questions:

• What kind of dog is that? (Pomeranian);
• Do you know what the rent is on this pretty (fill in the blank - apartment, house) right here? (no idea);
• You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette on you, would you? (sorry!).

Some people think that Sacramento streets late at night are the haven of gangs, thieves, and the homeless. In fact, they harbor an itinerant population of restless, home-shopping smokers.

They'll Write An Opera About This Someday

At the Evil Beet:

This poor girl can’t catch a break. At Britney’s House of Blues show in Orlando Saturday night, her pre-recorded vocals track skipped four times while she was lip-syncing to them. People in the audience started booing. According to a source at PerezHilton.com, “When the CD started skipping, she turned her back to the audience. Then when it stopped, she turned around with this look on her face like she was gonna puke!!! I really felt bad for her. Then the effin thing started skipping really badly again!!! And then again and again. It was crazy.”

Sadly, this didn't happen:

There’s been some buzz today that Britney might be making an appearance on the Emmy broadcast, perhaps to perform, or apologize for the VMAs, or both.

Emmy producers have stated that “We cannot confirm nor deny this rumor.”

...Britney Spears apologizing for sucking at the Emmys is the worst idea ever. Ev. Er.

Oh please, please let her do this.

Northern Rock

Crumbling under an onslaught.

Triple Diamonds

I arrived home tonight, after aerobics, in pain. The lightweight kangaroo hide shoes I bought last December in Brisbane were never very sturdy, and now, after nine months use, the shoes had let my arches down. Nothing seemed to help the chronic ache, especially in the left foot. After a suitably-brutal bruising in Pepper's class tonight, I was now both exhausted, and with foot aflame.

But E. had a different idea. "Remember when I won the triple diamonds? I only played one quarter though, so I only won $250. I was so mad - three quarters would have won me $1,000. M-A-A-A-A-R-R-R-C! Gimme some money! Let's go find that Black Oak casino! Let's go to Cache Creek! Let's go to Feather River! What is 25,000 divided by four? I want to play my 'Aliens'! Let's go to Thunder Valley! M-A-A-A-A-R-R-R-C! M-A-A-A-A-R-R-R-C!

Bleary-eyed, I looked at her and thought 'Good Gawd, what have I done to deserve this?' The insistent worm of gambling addiction wanted to be fed. An intervention was necessary. But how to distract the worm?

There is only one addiction strong enough, deep enough, to possibly compete with gambling addiction. Strong medicine, I know, but given the advanced stage of the disease, there was only one solution.....

OK, it was time to go to the mall....

I bought some sturdy shoes and she bought some heavily-discounted summer clothes at Arden Fair's Macy's.

We stopped to eat at California Pizza Kitchen. I was startled beyond words - Chris Scarberry was the server! After a summer in Sacramento, he is returning to UC Santa Barbara in a week, where he is working on a history degree. He hasn't been in any shows since RSP's "Victor Victoria", "Sherlock Holmes", "Sweeney Todd", and "Baby", however: just too busy. A shame - he has a lot of stage presence! Maybe after graduation....

Altogether, a nice evening, and even with a big tip for Chris, still a lot cheaper than an evening chasing 'Triple Diamonds.' May it be enough to placate the worm....

OJ Happens In Vegas

And stays in Vegas.

Fox censors Sally Field

"Fair And Balanced" goes for entertainment too!

Fox censors Sally Field.

At tonight’s Emmy Awards show, the audience cheered Sally Field’s acceptance speech, which recognized the mothers of U.S. troops. “Surely this [award] belongs to all the mothers of the world,” she stated. “May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised. Especially to the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait. Wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm’s way, and from war. I am proud to be one of those women.”

Field then continued, “If mothers ruled the world, there would be no –” But the Fox Emmycast cut off her sound and pointed the camera away from the stage, silencing the rest of her sentence: “god-damned wars in the first place.”

ABC News Slightly Embarrassed...

Consultant placed and vetted to make up s*** about Barack Obama, but gets caught.

How many others don't?

"The Pirates Of Penzance" - Opening Weekend

Views from the wings.

Left: Major-General Stanley (Paul Fearn) and Frederick (Travis Nagler), amongst the ruins at Tremorton Castle, at the top of Act II, on Saturday night, Sept. 15th.






Left: Mabel's Entrance (Allyson Paris).


















Major General Stanley (Paul Fearn) and his daughters atop a tomb amongst the ruins at Tremorton Castle, Sunday afternoon. Daughters, left to right and around the tomb: Kristen Knight, Kristen Meyers, Kat DeLapp, Elsbeth Poe, Jessica Bean, Rhiannon Guevin, Katie Baad.








Major General Stanley and his daughters move from the tomb. Daughters, left to right, Katie Baad, Allyson Paris (Mabel), and Jessica Bean.











The daughters (left to right: Kristen Meyers, Kristen Knight, Katie Baad, Elsbeth Poe, and others), plus Allyson Paris (Mabel) and the Slave To Duty himself, Travis Nagler (Frederick).















Left: Kristen Meyers and Jessica Bean.


















Left: Jessica Bean, Kristen Meyers, Rhiannon Guevin, and Kat DeLapp.

















Left: Katie Baad, Kristen Knight, and Elsbeth Poe.


















An excellent start!

We had a few difficulties, as might be expected. We failed to bring a faux-marble bench for General Stanley to sit upon on stage for Act II Saturday night, leaving that hefty task for Mabel. On Friday night, I asked: "what is that patch of red and blue on stage just in front of the 'Savoy' tombstone?" It was apparently Ruth's handheld Union Jack, which had sprung out from her bosom (where it had been secreted) and fallen on stage (no doubt in a paroxysm of patriotism). There were a few late entrances and bobbled lines and other such mishaps, but really, quite few problems overall. The audiences seemed to like the show too.

New management difficulties at DMTC: props defiling other props. Like a popped fly at a ball game, this difficulty fell squarely in-between the Technical Director, the Props Mistress, and Scenic Designer, so everyone missed it.

Alan Greenspan States The Obvious

Too bad he didn't say anything earlier, when it would have counted:

Mr Greenspan said: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

Or this:

"Deficits don't matter," to my chagrin, became part of Republicans' rhetoric."

Marc Cried Wolf Too Often

The situation remains murky in the south, in the Caribbean, but it is a good sign that nothing has yet evolved. There is a tropical wave north of Haiti that people are watching, and there are several other locations where storms could spring from without much prompting. Nevertheless, there’s nothing major to get concerned about now.

So, my earlier concern appears to have been a false alarm.

But, as always in the late summer/autumn, it is wise to keep a wary eye on the tropics.

Phony Sanctimony

I've thought that having both McCain and Giuliani attack MoveOn.Org because of the 'General Betray Us' ad just showed that the ad was effective, the kind of thing the late Lee Atwater would have assembled, had he been a Democrat. The Republicans attacked in a fit of jealousy, not real anger.

John McCain has suggested that MoveOn.Org (all four million of them) should leave the country. As a MoveOn.Org member, I think it would be far better for the country if John McCain would leave it instead.

The Art of Deborah McMillion Nering

Wonderful! From Deborah's friend Winholler.....

Oils and watercolors by Deborah McMillion Nering, 1997-2007. Audio; "Bell, Book and Candle", by Boo Hewerdine, performed by Eddi Reader, from her 1998 album, "Angels and Electricity". (more)

The Road Is A Dangerous Place

Full of people like this lady:

A woman who crashed her vehicle into five cars in three separate accidents says she didn't stop because she was rushing her pot-bellied pit to the veterinarian.

Deborah Angiolillo left a trail of smashed cars and trucks across Palm Coast Wednesday afternoon. She first struck a vehicle in a parking lot. Deputies say Angiolillo left that scene and drove to the intersection of Cypress Point Parkway and Palm Coast Parkway where she hit the back of an SUV. Reports show she shifted into reverse, hit yet another car, and drove away.

She ended up at a second intersection where deputies say she hit a pick-up truck, which hit the car in front of it. The impact of that wreck threw Angiolillo's car into another car's path.

...Angiolillo was taken to the hospital but first told deputies that her pot-bellied pig was dying and needed emergency care. Deputies searched the scene but didn't find a pig. Angiolillo was taken into custody under Florida's Baker Act which allows law enforcement to hold people for psychiatric evaluations.