At the Dentist's

I like the supermodern facility, and the little panel on the wall, which indicates the room's status. There are four options for the panel's buttons, and as I left the room, the hygienist casually pressed the button for option two: the room had been 'Clean', but was now 'Dirty'.

Theater People Everywhere!

Went to Supercuts to get my hair cut. Started talking to hair dresser, who turned out to be Kalyn DeKreek, who's big in theater in Woodland.

Theater people everywhere! The walls have eyes (or at least scissors).

Porcupines Not Real Big On Sharing

Changing The World By Making Documentaries - Not!

A Worthy Newt Rant

There are two categories of people in the world: people who put things in two categories, and people who don't.

And there's Newt, of course:

Over the last three decades, wealth has become increasingly concentrated at the top. The middle class is struggling with stagnant wages and a growing class gap; poverty rates are soaring; the jobs crisis seems never-ending; and a growing number of Americans are suggesting it’s time for a larger conversation about economic inequalities and tax fairness.

Newt Gingrich believes that conversation must not occur. In fact, the Republican presidential candidate questions the patriotism of those who choose to draw attention to the problem.

“I repudiate, and I call on the President to repudiate, the concept of the 99 and the 1. It is un-American, it is divisive, it is historically false…. You are not going to get job creation when you engage in class warfare because you have to attack the very people you hope will create jobs.”

...Since when is it consistent with the American tradition to try to shut down a debate over fairness and economic justice? For that matter, since when is it an “attack” on the extremely wealthy to ask them to pay Clinton/Gingrich-era tax rates that allowed the rich to thrive in the 1990s?

What’s more, let’s also not overlook Gingrich’s selective approach to unity. Today in South Carolina, Gingrich said it’s un-American and divisive to pit a majority against a minority. But as my friend Kyle Mantyla noted today, Gingrich said the opposite at the recent “One Nation Under God” event where he told religious right activists “that they are the majority in the country who must stand up and take this nation back from the ‘minority elite’ who are ruining it.”

So to recap, when it comes to the economy, Gingrich believes we’re all one people, and we must pay no attention to the wealth that divides us. When it comes to the culture war, we’re not one people, and those who believe as Gingrich does should target and defeat those Americans who disagree.

If a right-wing voice rails against the “minority elite,” he’s speaking the truth. If an Occupy activist rails against the “minority elite,” he’s an un-American radical.

Got it.

Speculation Separates The 1% From The 99%

Interesting post at Obsidian Wings.

At one time, the argument was fervently and sincerely made that executives should be recompensed heavily with stock options, because it ties their interests directly to their company's interests. In practice, that doesn't appear to be the case. Stock options aren't very useful unless the market is booming, and the market generally doesn't boom unless new money enters, which doesn't happen unless confidence is high. Creating an illusion of 'confidence' is crucial. So, speculation is far more important than tending the company's business, or job-creating, or even lobbying, or half a dozen more-industrious uses of their time and attention:

The important point here is that even the people who look like they've made their money from a business outside the financial industry -- the Bill Gates or Steve Jobs types -- really haven't. They've made their money from *stocks*, not from selling things or services.

It's not just the wealth from the stocks of their companies, either. This chart of income sources for the top hundredth of a percent



shows that dividends -- direct shares in profits -- have become much less important since the 1970s, while "wages" have become much more important. It looks as though these extremely wealthy people are working for their money, doesn't it?

Except that "wages" includes stock options and bonuses, which are often based on stock price performance. So wealthy people who aren't getting money from S-corporations, sole proprietorships, and partnerships are getting almost all their income from capital stock/ real estate gains, and from stock-indexed wages.

And the stock market isn't really for investment, it's for *speculation*. "Give them money and get a percent of the profits" is investment, because you (the wealthy person) are tying your income to how much money the company actually takes in for doing things. "Buy low, sell high" is speculation, because how much money you get doesn't have to depend on anything the company actually sells or does -- all that matters is what potential buyers think, and their confidence that the stock will continue to be worth more in a market of people who think like them.

No wonder so many of our Very Serious Leaders keep saying "confidence" is of overwhelming importance, more important to businesspeople than things like "are there enough customers?" -- even though actual businesspeople are most concerned about lack of demand.

Tomorrow Is The Skilley Hearing

Where E. learns her employment fate.

Maybe The End Of The World Starts Here

Think about all that vulnerable human biomass out there:

A group of scientists is pushing to publish research about how they created a man-made flu virus that could potentially wipe out civilisation.

The deadly virus is a genetically tweaked version of the H5N1 bird flu strain, but is far more infectious and could pass easily between millions of people at a time.

...Virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands lead a team of scientists who discovered that a mere five mutations to the avian virus was sufficient to make it spread far more easily.

...Fouchier admitted the strain is 'one of the most dangerous viruses you can make' but is still adamant he wants to publish a paper describing how it was done.

...Paul Keim, chairman of NSABB, said: 'I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one. I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this.'

Traditionally scientific research has always been open so that fellow scientists can review the work of others and repeat their methods to try and learn from them.

But numerous scientists have said they believe research on the avian flu should be suppressed.

The Year Of The Sex Olympics

Surfing on the waves of the Internet, checking out Jean Poole along the way and following her recommendation, I started reading this interesting essay about the origins of pessimism on the Left, and the prudent refusal of the Occupy movement to identify its aims, but soon started watching this futuristic TV show from 1968: "The Year Of The Sex Olympics".



(see the essay for the abbreviated video)

Well-done science fiction can be truly clairvoyant! We live in the near-future this TV show was designed for! Nigel Kneale foresaw Reality TV!

But what I thought most about were the big talent shows we have this day - American Idol, X-Factor, America's Got Talent; where you watch, not do - and the stark contrast with profoundly-subversive community musical theater, where you do, not watch:

'The Year Of The Sex Olympics' was written by the great TV writer Nigel Kneale (creator of Quatermass) and was originally aired on British TV on 29 July 1968. It was the penultimate play in the BBC series 'Theatre 625' which ran from 1964 to 1968. It was filmed in colour, but only black and white copies are known to exist. Directed by Michael Elliot, it starred Leonard Rossiter, Suzanne Neave, Tony Vogel and Brian Cox.

From the IMDb:

"Set in a future when the world is dominated and run by television, where language has become almost redundant and all 'tensions' - love, war, hate, loyalty - have been removed. Overpopulation is a problem, so there are gluttony programmes to put people off food and pornography programmes to put them off sex. There is artsex and sportsex, and now this - the year of the Sex Olympics. Audience attention begins to wane, however, until TV executive Ugo Priest works on a new concept - a reality-based programme in which a couple is stranded on a bleak island, without the aid of any modern technology, and their efforts to survive filmed twenty-four hours a day. A concept which may sound familiar in the age of reality TV... "

Herman Cain's Lawyer's Opening Gambit

Toss it against the wall and see if it sticks:

this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults - a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life. The public's right to know and the media's right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one's bedroom door.

But this wasn't the GOP standard back in Bill Clinton's presidency, was it?

The Ironman Gets Impatient

As any New Mexican could have anticipated, Gary Johnson is getting ignored on the national stage. So, he's thinking third-party:

Disgruntled former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson says he is considering leaving the Republican slate and running as a third-party candidate in the 2012 presidential election.

“I feel abandoned by the Republican Party,” Johnson, who has been left out of most of the Republican debates, told the Sante Fe New Mexican newspaper this week, saying he might seek the Libertarian Party’s support.

“The Republican Party has left me by the wayside,” said Johnson, whose polling numbers have recently been so low that they are often not even being picked up by pollsters.

...Johnson, 58, holds dear libertarian values such as low taxes and limited government and wants to legalize marijuana. He is also a fitness fanatic, having competed in a number of “Ironman” triathlons and climbed Mount Everest.

Top 100 (Or So) DMTC Lists

Playing around with the DMTC Master Cast List, I was curious about two questions:

• Who are the most important people in DMTC production history (based on a very crude metric: the number of lines upon which their names appear in the list); and,
• Who has appeared the most number of times as cast members on the DMTC stage?

This list inhales people and spews them out like spray paint on a highway overpass. It reminds me of another amusingly-jumbled set of lists I looked at, where Japanese TV viewers were asked to rate the most important people in history (based, in part, on their recollections of recent historical miniseries on Japanese TV).


Most Important People (number of lines of mentions in list)

1___Jan___Isaacson___591
2___Steve___Isaacson___487
3___Jean___Henderson___200
4___Dannette (Bell)___Vassar___193
5___Arthur___Vassar___111
6___Daniel___Pool___109
7___Mary___Young___109
8___Ben___Bruening___106
9___Marie___Petersen___102
10___Anna___Johnson___82
11___Ron___Cisneros___81
12___John___Ewing___79
13___Erik___Daniells___77
14___Marc___Valdez___73
15___Noël (Spellman)___Bruening___72
16___Jane___Butler___72
17___Cameron___Kuss___69
18___Jeni___Price___69
19___Chris___Adams___65
20___Nikki___Nicola___65
21___Eileen___Beaver___60
22___Leslie___Kuss___60
23___Salina___Morlang___60
24___Paul___Wurschmidt___56
25___Michael___Miiller___55
26___Dave___Chan___54
27___Mara___Bernhard___53
28___Valerie___Cogdill___52
29___Jonathan___Rothman___52
30___Rich___Kulmann___49
31___Megan___Houpt___46
32___Wendy (Young)___Carey___45
33___Tom___Gohring___45
34___Jennie___Reuter___45
35___Russ___Bruch___43
36___Julie___Kulmann___41
37___Jon___Mounts___41
38___Laura___Sitts___41
39___Marcia___Burns___40
40___Warren___Harrison___40
41___Dan___Stern___40
42___Scott___Griffith___39
43___Celeste___Hammon___39
44___Rand___Martin___39
45___Dian (Calahane, Becker)___Hoel___38
46___Bilene___Mason___38
47___Jocelyn___Price___38
48___Ron___Easley___37
49___Rick___Jones___37
50___Ben___Wormeli___37
51___Alene___Chandler___36
52___Jon___Daniells___36
53___Vivian___Krich-Brinton___36
54___Andrew___Lampinen___36
55___Bruce___Lampinen___36
56___Katherine___Gohring___35
57___Kay___Hight___35
58___Michael___McElroy___35
59___John___Reuter___35
60___Monica___Parisi___34
61___Lauren___Miller___33
62___Clifton___Wood___33
63___Linda___Abrille___32
64___Lindsay___Carpenter___32
65___Mark___Carpenter___32
66___Laura___Daniells___32
67___Andy___Sullivan___32
68___Mark___Allen___31
69___Charlotte___Gremillion___31
70___Keven___Morlang___31
71___Heather___Sheridan___31
72___Patrick___Stratton___31
73___Mark___Ashton___30
74___Gwyneth___Bruch___30
75___Deborah___Currier___30
76___Sharon___Reuter___30
77___Barbara___Ruhmann___30
78___Eva___Saur___30
79___Amy___Schoedel___30
80___David___Silva___30
81___Steve___Weigt___30
82___Ryan___Adame___29
83___Aly___Ivler___29
84___Danielle___Mason___29
85___Holly___Newell___29
86___Tim___O’Laughlin___29
87___Colin___Wallace___29
88___Natalie___Armstrong___28
89___Cheryl___Barker___28
90___Jon___Beaver___28
91___Hank___Cogdill___28
92___Janell___Gohring___28
93___Chris___Petersen___28
94___Scott___Sablan___28
95___Mary Jo___Seminoff___28
96___Julia___Spangler___28
97___Susan___Sullivan___28
98___Kelly___Daniells___27
99___Elliot___Mulberg___27
100___Karina (Summers)___Selvaggio___27
101___Jenny___Short___27


Most Frequently-Appearing Cast Members (number of mentions in list)

1___Jan___Isaacson___113
2___Mary___Young___75
3___Steve___Isaacson___69
4___Ben___Bruening___45
5___Dannette (Bell)___Vassar___45
6___Marc___Valdez___40
7___Wendy (Young)___Carey___38
8___Arthur___Vassar___34
9___Julie___Kulmann___32
10___Rich___Kulmann___31
11___Jocelyn___Price___28
12___Eva___Saur___27
13___Andrew___Lampinen___26
14___Laura___Sitts___25
15___Noël (Spellman)___Bruening___23
16___Lindsay___Carpenter___23
17___Scott___Griffith___23
18___Jennie___Reuter___23
19___McKinley___Carlisle___22
20___Katherine___Gohring___22
21___Dian (Calahane, Becker)___Hoel___22
22___Julia___Spangler___22
23___Colin___Wallace___22
24___Jon___Beaver___21
25___Ashley___Gohring___21
26___Rhiannon___Guevin___21
27___Vivian___Krich-Brinton___21
28___Danielle___Mason___21
29___Jon___Mounts___21
30___Eileen___Beaver___20
31___Hank___Cogdill___20
32___Holly___Newell___20
33___Nora___Unkel___20
34___Kelly___Daniells___19
35___Aly___Ivler___19
36___Leanne___Kuss___19
37___Lauren___Miller___19
38___Alison___Munn___19
39___Chris___Petersen___19
40___Paula___Short___19
41___Natalie___Armstrong___18
42___Russ___Bruch___18
43___Mark___Carpenter___18
44___Monica___Parisi___18
45___Amy___Schoedel___18
46___David___Silva___18
47___Nathan___Brown___17
48___Petra___Favorite___17
49___Michael___Miiller___17
50___Ryan___Adame___16
51___Warren___Harrison___16
52___Michael___Lewis___16
53___Natalie___Mo___16
54___Barbara___Ruhmann___16
55___Kara___Sheldon___16
56___Clifton___Wood___16
57___Juliana___Wynkoop___16
58___Kitri___Bakay___15
59___Gwyneth___Bruch___15
60___Erin___Carpenter___15
61___Paul___Fearn___15
62___Ashley___Hickman___15
63___Michael___Jenkinson___15
64___Linnea___Lampinen___15
65___Stacy___Sheehan___15
66___Edward___Bianchi IV___14
67___Julie___Bock___14
68___Kailani___Carlisle___14
69___Bridget___Egan___14
70___Tiffany___Fletcher___14
71___Michael___Manley___14
72___Tim___O’Laughlin___14
73___Cass___Olson___14
74___Mary Ellen___Price___14
75___Lenore (Gordon)___Sebastian___14
76___Cole___Stratton___14
77___Angela___Yee___14
78___Mara___Bernhard___13
79___Arlon___Carlson___13
80___Kyle___Cherry___13
81___Valerie___Cogdill___13
82___Cody___Craven___13
83___Matt___Dunn___13
84___Julie___Holmes___13
85___Jon___Jackson___13
86___Brian___McCann___13
87___Jason "Clocky"___McDowell___13
88___Michael___McElroy___13
89___Tara___Newell___13
90___Lisa___Parente___13
91___Rebecca___Rudy___13
92___Gil___Sebastian___13
93___Stacia___Truesdale___13
94___Kennedy___Wenning___13
95___Lisa___Bennett___12
96___Ana___Chan___12
97___Roger___Clark___12
98___Meeka___Craig___12
99___Lexi___DeRock___12
100___Janet___Evans___12
101___Rebecca___Evans___12
102___John___Ewing___12
103___Wil___Forkin___12
104___Caroline___Gohring___12
105___Amy___Henderson___12
106___David___Holmes___12
107___Andy___Hyun___12
108___Melissa___Kuss___12
109___Elena___Lipman___12
110___Rachel___Pinto___12
111___Christina___Rae___12
112___Adam___Sartain___12
113___Emily Jo___Seminoff___12
114___Don "Gemini"___Spotts___12
115___Patrick___Stratton___12
116___Shea___Stratton___12
117___Eimi (Stokes)___Taormina___12
118___John___Trent___12
119___Casey Marie___Wilson___12
120___Sarah___Yablon___12
121___Ginga___Zeidenberg___12

Romeo Void - Never Say Never

Getting my Eighties groove on, with Romeo Void. Vocalist Debora Iyall was the unlikeliest pop diva of the decade:

The sudden surge in popularity was disorienting to Iyall. "It was frightening: we played a college in Santa Barbara, and there were all these blond people crowding the stage, and I thought 'These are the people who hated me in high school!' When you grow up being 'outside' -- because I wasn't white, and I was fat, and always a bit of a free thinker -- it was strange. It was like, 'uh-oh, I must be doing something wrong -- they like me!'"

Kelsey B - Boy If You Only Knew

Kelsey B's official video is out!

Serendipity is on Kelsey's side. Cousins of her co-stars were big draws this weekend at the cinema!

Kansastan, Kansastan, You Very Nice Place!

No one pulled back from the forward trenches in the Great Kansas Tweet Incident for the longest time:

Last week, during a Kansas Youth in Government field trip, Sullivan watched Gov. Sam Brownback speak. Unmoved, she cavalierly tweeted to her roughly 65 followers, “Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.”

...Sure enough, Brownback’s office – the Thin Skin Division — noted Sullivan’s tweet, and contacted Youth in Government. As Sherriene Jones-Sontag, Brownback’s communications director, explained to the Kansas City Star, “That wasn’t respectful. In order to really have a constructive dialogue, there has to be mutual respect.” She added, “It was important for the organization to be aware of the comments their students were making.”

Sullivan was soon called into the principal’s office, where she says she received a one-hour scolding on her “not so nice” behavior and told she needed to do “damage control” in the form of a letter of apology. Oh, but the damage was just beginning.

You see, the girl, who didn’t even meet Brownback — let alone tell him to his face that he sucks — isn’t sorry. Nor does she feel the need to offer a hollow apology. Instead, she tweeted Sunday, “I’ve decided not to write the letter but I hope this opens the door for average citizens to voice their opinion & to be heard!” Suddenly, #heblowsalot is the hashtag to beat.

It’s quite likely that Jones-Sontag read the original tweet, jumped to the hasty conclusion that a confrontation had occurred, and decided to take swift action. And had Sullivan been truly disruptive and abusive during a school event, organizers would be entitled to know. But she wasn’t, and that makes Jones-Sontag and principal Karl R. Krawitz look increasingly absurd for getting whipped up over the blithe tweets of a teenager. Jones-Sontag could have backed up and said, “We misread the events. We never demanded an apology. And differences of opinion are what makes this country great.” But she didn’t. So now it’s a big deal, one that pits a mouthy adolescent’s right to say her governor sucks against a bunch of adults who’d prefer she didn’t.

All of this reminds me of other places on the globe where national leaders insist on respect from their citizens.

Please stand, for Borat's rendition of the Kazakhstan National Anthem:



But finally, today, Great Leader Of Kansastan declared mercy on sniveling, coddled Ute In Government:

“My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms. I enjoyed speaking to the more than 100 students who participated in the Youth in Government Program at the Kansas Capitol. They are our future. I also want to thank the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum. Again, I apologize for our over-reaction”

Over-reacting staff will volunteer to be strapped to fence posts and function instead as tornado early-warning system.

Oskar, The Blind Kitten

DMTC Master Cast List, Version 2.0

Several years ago, as Davis Musical Theatre Company (DMTC) Historian, I compiled a Master Cast List for DMTC in an Excel spreadsheet.

Tonight, I completed an update (Version 2.0) to that Master Cast List. That list will be provided to DMTC Producer Steve Isaacson, who hopes to make it available, to all, as a database accessible online from the DMTC Web Site. The list represents all regular-season DMTC Main Stage and Young Performers’ shows (but not yet irregular shows, such as Summer Workshops, Teen Cabarets, etc.), and is 99% complete (there are a few missing programs from the 90’s).

Nevertheless, I would like to gauge the interest people might have in receiving a copy of their own, as an Excel spreadsheet. I need to complete a write-up describing the list, so I’m still a few days from making it available.

The Master Cast List (Excel spreadsheet size = 8,345 KB) contains 18,600 lines, representing the efforts of 3,785 people in 270 shows spanning 27 seasons, from June, 1984 to November, 2011. That is actually a surprisingly-small number of people: only 14 new people, on average, are introduced to the theater per show, indicating how many people return again and again to DMTC, and thus just how much fun it is doing community theater shows.

Let me know, in comments, if you are interested in receiving your own list, and I will get back in touch. Then, once I make it available, I can start on Version 3.0 of the Master Cast List, which will contain irregular shows, such as Summer Workshops, Teen Cabarets, etc.

Quiet Thanksgiving

Shhhh!

Awkward Time To Bring Up The GPA

So apparently Dr. Doug Brinkley is a well-known historian from Rice University, whereas Rep. Don Young (AK - R) once went to Yuba College:

Things went south when Young called Brinkley “Mr. Rice” and said his testimony is “garbage.” Brinkley then goes on the attack: “It’s Dr. Brinkley. Rice is a university. I know you went to Yuba College and couldn’t graduate.”

Twilight Struggle In The War On Error

"When All You Have Is A Hammer, Everything Looks Like A Nail"

Via Salon, we have this:

Surreptitious Bag Exchange Late At Night In The Home Depot Parking Lot

J.: So, you brought the Quikcrete?

M.: Yes. Sorry I first brought the Sancrete. Damn, that bag is heavy!

J.: I need it for dry wall.

M.: The security guard is looking at us.

J.: I better leave.

Secretary of State Dianna Duran Found The Only Person In New Mexico Committing Voter Fraud, And Ran Him Over

Or so it seemed to me, reading the news:

New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran said earlier this year that her state had a “culture of corruption” and referred 64,000 voter registration records to police that she thought were possible cases of voter fraud.

...Duran’s interim report now alleges that 104 voters — about one for every 10,577 on the rolls — were illegally registered to vote. Of that group, just 19 — or approximately one for every 57,894 registered voters — actually allegedly cast a ballot they shouldn’t have.

Then:

Broncho was killed Thursday night on New Mexico 599 as he was walking alone near Camino La Tierra.

His body was then hit by at least three other vehicles, including that of Secretary of State Dianna Duran.

Duran released a statement saying she was shocked at learning she had run over a person and not an animal.

Occupy UC Davis Rally, Noontime, 11/21/11

Here's a video I took at the noontime Occupy UC Davis Rally on Monday, November 21.

Just before UCD Chancellor Linda Katehi was to speak, very popular (and Untenured) Assistant Professor of English Nathan Brown vigorously-dissected Chancellor Katehi's recent public proclamations, excoriating her blame-shifting.

The video starts in the middle of Brown's speech. People lean in to capture pictures of Chancellor Katehi's facial reactions. Calls of "Resign!" filled the air.

In her speech, Katehi apologized, but did not resign.

Aerial View Of Monday's Occupy UCD Rally

Christina was kind enough to forward this on Facebook.

Occupy UC Davis Rally, Noon On The Quad, November 21, 2011

I had to participate in a workplace conference call in Sacramento at 11 a.m., but it ended earlier than I expected, so I had enough time to catch much of the noontime rally at the Quad on the University of California, Davis (UCD) campus.

Things have been pretty much in an uproar at UCD since Friday, when UC Davis cops casually hosed down protesters with pepper spray in an astonishing display of police violence. Videos went viral worldwide. Calls for UCD Chancellor Linda Katehi's resignation have been resounding since then.

Chancellor Katehi was scheduled to speak at the rally too, which made it even more interesting, since I couldn't figure out how she would resist the resignation calls and still maintain her dignity. Very unlike life in places like the UK, where officials resign all the time for transgressions big and small, and sometimes for no transgressions at all, but for points of honor.

In American public life, officials almost never resign, no matter how odious their conduct. Resignation is akin to annihilation. People never, ever resign willingly, ever! So, what would Katehi do?

As it happened, I was standing not far from the speaker's stand, when Chancellor Katehi quietly sidled up close: not more than twelve feet away. As time passed, and her speaking time approached, more and more photographers from the news media clustered around to take photos. So, I had an unusual vantage point at this rally: able to see her, the speakers, and the crowd virtually simultaneously....

Various speakers who had been either arrested or pepper-sprayed on Friday spoke about their tribulations.

As an introduction to Chancellor Katehi's speech, very popular (and Untenured) Assistant Professor of English Nathan Brown roasted and vigorously-dissected Chancellor Katehi's recent public proclamations, analyzing and disparaging her blame-shifting and flights of fancy. People leaned in to capture pictures of Katehi's reactions. Calls of "Resign!" filled the air.

As it happened, my camera's memory filled to the brim just as Katehi started speaking, so I have no record of that, but it hardly matters. Her speech was so anticlimactic, even pathetic, that it made me wonder if she is just a figurehead for the real power at UCD, which might very well reside in its police forces.

Chancellor Katehi apologized to the students, in a fashion. Quoting from here:

“I am here to apologize,” she said. “I feel horrible. I don’t want to be the chancellor of the university we had on Friday.”

Sounds like an easy-to-remedy problem there! Resign! Just resign! I started shouting "Resign!" along with many others.

But Katehi did not resign. Instead, she declared her willingness to dialog with students, and to get to know the students better, for which there would be more opportunities over the next several weeks. Then she made a feeble effort to assert solidarity with the students. "Do you know that plaque over there?" she asked, while pointing vaguely northwards. "November 17, 1973. I was there!"

I'm not familiar with the history of UCD: presumably the plaque in question honored a past demonstration? So, it was time to check around.

Cloudminder indicates that it was the Athens Polytechnic Uprising: not a UCD demonstration. Which just begs the question, why would UCD students give Katehi 'street cred' for the martyrs of 11/17/73, when there were more-immediate near-martyrs available, standing right in front of everyone, for 11/18/11? The disconnect was painful to witness!

And that was that! Afterwards, more speakers spoke, and the Occupy UCD organizers got down to the more quotidian (but essential) business of passing resolutions, including a demand to disband the UCD Police Force.

How does Katehi recover from this? Respect, once totally lost, is very hard to gain back.

I'm impressed by the organization of the Occupy UC Davis protesters. They are coordinating closely with their counterparts in Oakland and Berkeley, so there is fertile sharing of experience. The emergence of cell phone and Internet technology over the last two decades, and creative use of older methods (e.g., the 'human microphone'), enables much-tighter control over large audiences than protesters in the Sixties were able to manage. Less time wasted too. Even new protest lingo is emerging (e.g., 'stack', for the list of speakers).

The best to them!

Various protesters who were pepper-sprayed on Friday, or arrested, or both, testify about their painful experiences.

Capturing the moment on an i-Pad.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi quietly arrives with her security detail.

A veteran who was pepper-sprayed too.

Pepper-sprayed in Palestine, and pepper-sprayed in Davis too!

More testifying.

This is the Occupy protester who suffered the nerve damage to his left hand (clearly visible). Quoting from Boing-Boing:

They handcuffed the students so tightly. One kid, later on they were unable to cut off his ties, they'd been tied so tight. One of the other students couldn't feel his hands they were so purple, his circulation was cut off so badly for so long. He took himself to the hospital after he was released from the zip-tie restraints. They told him he had nerve damage and not to expect to be able to feel his hands for the next week. He has to come back next week to see if there was permanent nerve damage in his wrists.

And yet more testifying!

As an introduction to Chancellor Katehi's speech, very popular (and Untenured) Assistant Professor of English Nathan Brown excoriated Chancellor Katehi's recent public proclamations, and analyzed her blame-shifting and evasions.

The heat is on.

I was mystified by this balloon. I understand that Occupy UC Berkeley is using balloons to float tents above Sproul Hall, in order to creatively evade anti-camping rules. Is something like that being considered here as well?

UC Davis Decides To Start Playing Rough

So here's the woman that Atrios helpfully labels "The Worst Person In The World".

And I have to agree. Not for a moment do I think the University of California at Davis (UC Davis, or UCD) police pepper-sprayed the students on their own authority. No, this order to get rough came from the top. And the reason the Administration is getting rough is that Occupy UC Davis finally got their attention, and they want to hurt them.

University Administrators do not live in the same community that faculty and students do. For decades now, Administrators have had their own job track, which is quite divorced from everyone else's, and has little to do with either learning or teaching. Administrators don't really know many students, and thus, to them, students seem shadowy creatures; subhuman perhaps, or, more accurately, almost human. Students don't become fully-human until they become fully-employed alumni, at which time they can contribute to the Annual Fund.

The rapid acceleration in the cost of education of the last decade is of little concern to Administrators, since they benefit from that acceleration, so the sacrifices that that acceleration is causing among students seem of little moment. It is exasperating to students and faculty alike that when they speak to Administrators, it's like speaking to deaf people. What hurts students helps Administrators, and vice-versa.

So, Administrators and Students stare across a rapidly-growing gulf of misunderstanding. Students and faculty labor under the impression they have more clout than they really do. Administrators understand, however, that the role of faculty and students is to obey. Obey them, specifically.

So, the various protests at UC Davis over the last three years have only served to irritate the Administration. So, what do Administrators do when faced with insolent refusals to obey?

Administrators do what bureaucrats often do in this situation. They carefully-calibrate escalating punishments so as to dissuade further inconvenience. Because, to Administrators, the proper course of action is quite logical and clear: it's just a matter of compelling people, with increasingly-forceful methods if need be, to obey.

The targets of persuasion are usually quite bewildered, however. To them, the recommendations of the Authorities are often illogical and haphazard. Instead of compliance, obstreperous rebellion results.

The classic case of escalation failing in application, of course, is Vietnam. The Johnson Administration thought its actions in support of the South Vietnamese people were quite reasonable, balancing careful applications of force with efforts not to offend the Soviet Union or the Chinese. As historical records have made clear, however, the North Vietnamese never understood at all what the United States was doing. To them, it looked liked foreign conquest, pure and simple. They resisted. Before long, the United States had dropped more bombs on Southeast Asia than they had ever dropped in Europe in WWII. Compliance did not result: quite the opposite.

But there were other examples where escalation was practiced domestically: specifically, and more to the point, the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in the mid-60's. Reasonable people on both sides were soon literally at each other's throats:



Blogger Digby has been warning for years now that the militarization of police forces following 9/11 (tasers, bean bag guns, pepper spray, sound cannons, water cannons, etc.) has given them unwarranted confidence that they can indeed escalate dangerous situations without harm or consequences to themselves. The consequences will be increasing threats to our democracy from unaccountable, even fascistic, police forces. She's right! The UCD incident on Friday is a prime example of this development.

Most of my information this weekend came from Facebook.

Christina was here, at the Walk of Shame, where Chancellor Katehi left Surge II hours after originally scheduled and walked to her car, but only after an agreement was negotiated to allow the students to gather on just one side of the walkway.

(As an aside, I have to admire the way that UCD alumnus Christina usually ends up on both sides of any arbitrary division she encounters in the human race: both in the Greek system, and outside of it; both sides of the town/gown divide in Davis - DMTC (town) and UCD (gown); both an actor and on the Board at DMTC. I'm sure the only reason she isn't an Administrator herself, as well as an alumnus, is that she's just been busy lately. In any event, it makes her an unusually well-informed participant in, and reporter of, events at UCD.)

As I was saying, what is not so clear in the video (but as Christina relays) is that Katehi made eye contact with each and every student lining the walkway, and vice-versa. The shaming was complete from the students' perspective: from the Administrators' perspective, however, we still don't know. For all we know, Katehi may have silently pitied what she might have thought were these poor, misguided Morlochs. But if it's any consolation, Digby (and many others) give the highest credit to the UCD students:

I have to give the students at UC Davis a big round of applause. Not only did they show tremendous restraint and maturity in enduring that pepper spray assault, they skillfully organized the most effective possible response

The best reporting so far seems to be coming from Boing-Boing (h/t Karina). It's clear that there was plenty of dialog between the police and the students. There was no misunderstanding between them, or indeed, any police overreaction in the press of events. The police didn't panic. No, they were acting under orders. And those orders were to cause pain.

Much has been made of the fact that the police felt compelled to act because they were surrounded. But this was no siege: it wasn't something from the movie 'Zulu'. Being surrounded doesn't mean being aggressively surrounded; it just means being encircled. (This ambiguity may have escaped the Administrators' attention, but it certainly didn't escape the attention of the police).

To the police, being surrounded was important as a bureaucratic check box. Once the police were 'surrounded', they had carte blanche to do whatever they pleased to whomever they wished. And it's simple choreography to get surrounded: you just walk into a group of people. Once you are 'surrounded' your actions are completely covered and you can do any depraved thing without consequence. Like hurting people. With military-grade weaponry. As they had been instructed to do. Because Occupy UC Davis won't obey, and must be taught a lesson:

W. tells Boing Boing that Pike sprayed them at close range with military-grade pepper spray, in a punitive manner. Pike knew the students by name from Thursday night when they "occupied" a campus plaza. The students offered Pike food and coffee and chatted with him and other officers while setting up tents. On Friday, UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi told students they had to remove their #OWS tents for unspecified "health and safety" reasons.

"Move or we're going to shoot you," Pike is reported to have yelled at one student right before delivering pepper spray. Then, turning to his fellow officers and brandishing the can in the air, "Don't worry, I'm going to spray these kids down."

...So the Tuesday protest was one of the biggest rallies on the campus since tuition hikes in 2009. That protest ended with a march around the campus, which led us to the administrative building. Sort of spontaneously, we all decided to occupy an area on the grounds and we stayed the night. The administration allowed it. I had a wonderful conversation with Lieutenant Pike that night. I dialogued with him for a while. He was cordial to me. He knew me by name. We offered him coffee and food.

On Wednesday there was the big protest in San Francisco, and striking at the UC regents meeting over the proposed 81% tuition increase next year. The regents actually canceled their meeting because they knew we were coming, and they have since decided to do it by teleconference next Monday so we can't disrupt them.

UC Davis police cleared out the 15 or so protesters who remained in Mrak Hall while the rest of the occupiers had left for the demonstration in San Francisco.

We had another rally on Thursday, with a big General Assembly. We decided to have an occupation against the injustices we were facing, and on Thursday night there were 35 tents set up, with more planning on coming.

...So, everyone removed the tents, and they were in the process of arresting more people. A collective decision was made on the fly to just sit in a circle arms linked legs crossed, with police officers and "prisoners" in the middle because we didn't want them arresting only 3 of us. It wasn't fair that 50 of us were there, and only a few arrested who hadn't volunteered to be arrested. There was still one walkway open that the police were going to use to walk the arrestees out. I saw some friends of mine sit down there, and they were my friends, so I joined them. We linked arms, legs crossed.

We were never warned that we were going to be pepper-sprayed.

Lt. Pike walked up to my friend, and I am told that he said, "Move or we're going to shoot you."

Then he went back and talked to a few of his police officer friends. A couple of other officers started to remove people who were sitting there, blocking exit. Pike could have easily removed us, just picked us up and removed us. We were just sitting there, nonviolent civil disobedience.

But Pike turned around and I am told that he said to the other officers, "Don't worry about it, I'm going to spray these kids down."

He lifts the can, spins it around in a circle to show it off to everybody.

Then he sprays us three times.

As if one time of being sprayed at point blank wasn't enough.

So, where do we go from here?

Interesting! The UCD incident is big on BBC at the moment. If it bleeds; it leads!

There is the big rally at noon on Monday (I want to be there, but I forgot about a 11 a.m. conference call I'm supposed to be in on.) So, I might have to lean on Facebook again to understand what is actually going on there.

Slow-Motion Baton Twirling

I was trying to establish that Australian baton twirling has a distinct tradition with distinct, large batons, but by touring YouTube for several hours all I've managed to do is show that Australian baton twirling looks very much like baton twirling everywhere else. Appreciation for serious athleticism is affecting cheerleaders all around the world, and Australia is no exception.

Nevertheless, I thought this was interesting: baton-twirling in slow motion. Slow enough to allow armchair baton twirlers everywhere to comment upon and criticize her technique. Which just increases the performance pressure she must be experiencing. And if there is a distinct baton-twirling tradition there, it gets left in the dust in the effort to perform, and to come up to the accelerating international norm.

So Obama Triangulated On Ozone

Obama threw the environmentalists under the bus, but as I've blogged about before, as the ozone ambient air quality standard gets pushed lower and lower, the law of diminishing returns sets in. It's interesting that many enviros didn't see it that way, and many didn't see this coming.

As the ozone ambient air quality standard drops, more and more people get roped into more and more sacrifice that has less and less value in the real world. Part of the trouble is that there is no apparent threshold for ozone damage to the lungs. Ozone is always harmful, in any concentration, and so there is no logical stopping point. Enviros can always press the standard towards zero, and health science will always support them. And the role of emissions from natural vegetation grows too, with no way to realistically control those. As the standard drops, at some point, the problem becomes difficult to manage.

There are costs to a lower standard, and eventually someone - someone like Barack Obama - does a cost-benefit analysis and finds the environmental case to be weak:

The White House announced the decision the next morning, infuriating environmental and public health advocates. They called it a bald surrender to business pressure, an act of political pandering and, most galling, a cold-blooded betrayal of a loyal constituency.

“This was the worst thing a Democratic president had ever done on our issues,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. “Period.”

...The ozone decision pitted Ms. Jackson, a Princeton-trained chemical engineer and self-described “New Orleans girl,” against the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, a son and brother of bare-knuckled Chicago mayors who was brought in to help repair relations with business and Congress. It also shows the clout of Cass R. Sunstein, the legal powerhouse who serves, mostly behind the scenes, as the president’s regulatory czar with the mission of keeping the costs of regulation under control.

...The standard for ozone was last set in 2008 by the Bush administration at a level of 75 parts per billion, above the range of 60 to 70 recommended by the E.P.A.’s scientific advisory panel at the time, but never enacted. Environmental and public health groups challenged the Bush standard in court, saying it would endanger human health and had been tainted by political interference. Smog levels have declined sharply over the last 40 years, but each incremental improvement comes at a significant cost to business and government.

So Ms. Jackson asked health and environmental groups to hold their lawsuit in abeyance while she reconsidered the ozone standard, a job she expected to complete by the summer of 2010. Until then, an outdated ozone standard of 84 parts per billion, set by the E.P.A. of the Bill Clinton administration in 1997, remained the law.

Delay followed delay until the spring of this year, when Ms. Jackson determined that the standard should be set at 65 parts per billion to meet the Clean Air Act’s requirement that it be protective of public health “with an adequate margin of safety.” At 65 parts per billion, the agency calculated, as many as 7,200 deaths, 11,000 emergency room visits and 38,000 acute cases of asthma would be avoided each year.

...Ms. Jackson thought she had a deal. In early July she sent the White House a 500-page package with a detailed cost-benefit analysis for what she assumed would be routine vetting and approval.

“We were absolutely, 100-percent certain we were going to get this ozone rule,” one senior E.P.A. official said.

...The ozone rule became a symbol of what opponents called a “regulatory jihad” and brought out a swarm of industry lobbyists and Republicans in Congress who identified it as one of their top targets.

...Against all this, there was no one lobbying strongly within the White House for the tougher standard.

...In charge of Mr. Obama’s effort to reduce regulatory costs and burdens was Mr. Sunstein, on leave from teaching at Harvard and a onetime colleague of Mr. Obama’s at the University of Chicago Law School. One of the most respected liberal legal scholars of his generation, he is known for his at-times unconventional thinking on regulation and economic behavior.

Mr. Sunstein had his pick of jobs in the new administration. He chose the obscure regulatory affairs office as a potential laboratory for his sometimes iconoclastic views. He has challenged the utility of command-and-control-style federal regulation and has written favorably of programs to “name and shame” polluters as a way of getting them to clean up their operations without enforcement actions or fines. He has sought creative ways to encourage responsible economic and environmental behavior without using the heavy hand of the state.

Mr. Sunstein never really warmed to the proposed ozone rule, not least because it would, by law, be subject to revision again in 2013. He also noted that in nearly half of the E.P.A.’s own case studies, the cost of the new rule would outweigh the benefits, raising additional alarms.

...Mr. Josten added: “The funny thing was nobody wanted to come right out and say, ‘Are you guys thinking this through? Your boss is up for re-election next year, do you really want to shut down industrial permitting? You’re going to have a major negative impact on the economy.’ ”

...Charles D. Connor, president of the American Lung Association and a childhood friend of Mr. Daley’s, opened by discussing the adverse health impacts of ozone. He introduced Monica Kraft, a pulmonologist at Duke University and the president-elect of the American Thoracic Society.

“I told them that we thought a 70 p.p.b. standard was appropriate for health reasons and laid out the statistics on deaths associated with progressively higher levels of ozone,” Dr. Kraft said. She emphasized the damage smog does to the lungs of even healthy young children.

Mr. Daley listened politely, then asked, “What are the health impacts of unemployment?” It was a question straight out of the industry playbook.

Another member of the group introduced polling data showing strong public support for tougher air rules. Mr. Daley cut him off with an expletive, saying he was not interested in polls.

The Lobbyists Who Tried To Get Paid For Letting Qaddafi Skate

Thank God for WikiLeaks Libya! Turn over rocks and the roaches scurry! The RNC connection was most-crucial, but, sadly, the application to act as lobbyists is still pending:

The papers contained a shock for the Americans: a three-page letter addressed to Colonel Qaddafi on April 17 by another partner in the proposed deal, a Belgian named Dirk Borgers. Rather than suggesting a way out of power, Mr. Borgers offered the Libyan dictator the lobbying services of what he called the “American Action Group” to outmaneuver the rebels and win United States government support.

Noting that the rebels’ Transitional National Council was gaining control of Libyan assets abroad, and attaching a registration form showing that the rebels had engaged their own lobbyists, Mr. Borgers said it was time for Colonel Qaddafi to fight back with his own Washington representatives.

“Our group of Libyan sympathizers is extremely worried about this and we would like to help to block the actions of your international enemies and to support a normal working relationship with the United States Government,” the letter said. “Therefore it is absolutely required to speak officially and with one strong voice with the American Government.”

Mr. Borgers ended the letter with the words “Your Obedient Servants,” signing his own name and adding those of the four Americans.

The letter is especially awkward for Mr. Livingstone — described by Mr. Borgers in the proposal as the “recognized best American anti-terrorism expert” — who closed his Washington consulting firm in April to plan his campaign for governor.

But Mr. Livingstone said that he had never seen the letter before this week and that it distorted his intentions. “That doesn’t reflect our view at all,” Mr. Livingstone said. “Our whole goal was to get the Qaddafis out of there as fast as possible.”

Another member of the proposed American team, Marty Martin, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who led the agency’s Qaeda department from 2002 to 2004, said he, too, was chagrined to see Mr. Borgers’s letter this week.

“We were not there to be lobbyists for Qaddafi,” said Mr. Martin, who retired from the C.I.A. in 2007. “I was not told anything about that letter.”

The other American partners were Neil S. Alpert, who had worked for the Republican National Committee and the pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Randell K. Wood, a Kansas City, Mo., lawyer who has represented Libyan officials and organizations since the 1980s. (Neither Mr. Alpert nor Mr. Wood responded to requests for comment.)

...Mr. Borgers said he, too, wanted to “stop the butchering,” but he offered a positive spin on Colonel Qaddafi’s record.

“I don’t think he was that brutal a dictator,” Mr. Borgers said. “He created a country out of nothing over 42 years. He created a very good lifestyle for the people.”

Of the $10 million fee the group sought, Mr. Borgers said, “The aim was not to make money.” On the other hand, he added, “If you want to put up a serious operation in Washington, I think you need at least $10 million.”

...But the wheels of the Washington bureaucracy grind slowly. A Treasury Department spokeswoman, who would speak of confidential licensing matters only on the condition of anonymity, said the group’s application to accept millions from the vanquished Qaddafi government “is still pending.”

Fairbanks Freakin' Freezes

Serious winter came early this year. I like this quote:

“There’s some inconsistencies in the models right now,” meteorologist Julie Malingowski said. “If it does clear out, we’re doomed.”

Bubble, Bubble, Toil And Trouble

In May, my brother-in-law assured me Gingrich was doomed in the Republican nomination race, because Gingrich is actually a liberal.

Surprise! He's B-A-A-A-C-K!

Gingrich is not a liberal, but maybe he's a zombie conservative instead. Whatever he is, I understand he eats brains.

Pakistani Spiders Make Do

Jerry sends this:

An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the flood waters.

Because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water has taken so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiders webs. People in this part of Sindh have never seen this phenonemon before - but they also report that there are now less mosquitos than they would expect, given the amount of stagnant, standing water that still remains.

The Supercommittee Has Taken Black Friday Hostage

Or so you'd think if you actually believed this article, which I doubt more than two retailers ever have:

Retailers are worried that failure by the committee could dampen consumer confidence on Black Friday.

Wailing And Gnashing Of Teeth From Erick Erickson

Erick Erickson doesn't like how the Republican nomination process is falling out so far. And I can't say I blame him. The Republicans are displaying the same sort of problem the Democrats displayed in the 80's: a weak bench. The reasons differ: Democrats relied too heavily on the regulatory state and the courts in the 80's, whereas the Republicans currently rely too heavily on big business.

In a democracy, however, the best leaders generally come through the legislature. Obama, for example, came through the Illinois legislature. But among the GOP, respect for the legislative process is at an ebb. Respect for outsiders, businessmen in particular, is quite high (e.g., Herman Cain). But outsiders generally don't know enough to get the job done.

The last really successful outside leader was General Eisenhower. Above all, Ike respected people who got things done. Ike liked empire-building businessmen: it was analogous to breaking Nazi Germany the way Ike had done. That's one reason Ike had such disdain for his own VP, Richard Nixon: he couldn't figure out exactly what Nixon had ever really done with his life. The same problem the GOP primary voters face when trying to gauge Romney, Gingrich, Paul, Bachmann, Santorum, etc. Who are these folks, anyway? But Ike could respect legislative work.

Active legislators get things done in a democracy, but who can remember any laws connected with the GOP field? They've been distracted by the lights and fury of the stage - by TV, by money, by applause. That's not where it's at, though.

So, things will probably get worse before they get better, but that's life in a democracy:

Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee. And his general election campaign will be an utter disaster for conservatives as he takes the GOP down with him and burns up what it means to be a conservative in the process.

...Mitt Romney will be the nominee because the other candidates, right now, are a pretty pathetic lot.

The base will not forgive Rick Perry his immigration sins. In fact, that has hurt him far more than his debate performances, but his debate performances have hurt him badly. Perry, who came out principled and fiery with a record others could only envy, has left others with the impression that he’s a poor man’s version of the village idiot, which in the SEC we call “Aggies”. Maybe he can turn it around.

Newt Gingrich will not be the nominee because, despite his daughter’s rebuttals to the horror stories of how Gingrich divorced his first of three wives, Jackie Gingrich told the Washington Post on January 3, 1985, “He walked out in the spring of 1980 and I returned to Georgia. By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said Daddy is downstairs and could he come up? When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from the surgery.”

Gingrich went on to cheat on the second wife with the third. Regardless of the actual facts or even the spin, he won’t win women.

Herman Cain won’t be the nominee because he can’t win women either. Regardless of what you think of the Politico story, Cain’s handling of the story has been an epic disaster. He’s down at least 10 points with women in Iowa. He’s falling even further and doesn’t even realize it. He’s largely been emboldened by a conservative media that is so used to standing by its men that too few are telling Herman that he is now at the point where he must actually sit and answer questions whether he wants to or not and whether he feels maligned or not and whether I think he should have to or not. If he loses women by as big as he is starting to lose the women, he cannot win.

So Mitt Romney will be the nominee. Conservatives will not rally together with the least of the bad alternatives and Romney, like John McCain before him, will run up the middle to the nomination. But, just like McCain, Romney will not beat Barack Obama.

...I’ve been reading the 200 pages of single spaced opposition research from the John McCain campaign on Mitt Romney. There is no issue I can find on which Mitt Romney has not taken both sides. He is neither liberal nor conservative. He is simply unprincipled. The man has no core beliefs other than in himself. You want him to be tough? He’ll be tough. You want him to be sensitive? He’ll be sensitive. You want him to be for killing the unborn? He’ll go all in on abortion rights until he wants to run for an office where it is not in his advantage.

...To beat Barack Obama, a candidate must paint a bold contrast with the Democrats on their policies. When Mitt Romney tries, Barack Obama will be able to show that just the other day Mitt Romney held exactly the opposite position as the one he holds today.

Voters may not like Barack Obama, but by the time Obama is done with Romney they will not trust Mitt Romney. And voters would rather the guy they don’t like than they guy they don’t trust.

...It is striking to me that in 2012 there is broad based popular angst against Wall Street and Washington and the Republican Party is on the verge of nominating a multi-millionaire scion of the Rockefeller Wing of the Republican Party whose closest encounters with the common man are accidentally touching one of the many hired hands in one of the many rooms of one of his many mansions. But then many of the DC-NYC Republican “conservatives” who support Romney are the same, only coming into contact with regular people when they are served their breakfast by a steward in the first class car on the Acela Express.

Cashed-Up Bogans

Australia's pride (and terror):

Mr. Dinnison proudly calls himself a Cub—a Cashed-up Bogan, a bogan referring to Australian slang for an uneducated blue-collar worker. Books and documentaries are coming out about this group, exploring the country's unease with the thought that conspicuous consumption by undereducated people is what is helping to keep the country afloat.

"I have civil-servant friends who talk about giving it all up and going to the work in the mines," says David Nichols, author of "The Bogan Delusion", a sociological book about the riches of blue-collar Australians. Jules Duncan, who filmed a short documentary called "Cashed-Up Bogans" that he is hoping to turn into a feature, admits jealousy prompted his curiosity. "But I've come to respect these people who are just doing what I'd be doing if I wasn't a self-indulgent filmmaker," he says.

Mr. Dinnison hopes to be promoted to another underground job paying $1,400 a day, up from $800 a day. Lina Mitchell, his 28-year-old fiancée, said she is committed to teaching Mr. Dinnison how to manage his money. "The miners will spend the money on cars, bikes, parties," she said. Mr. Dinnison, meanwhile, said he is committed to mining. "I'm qualified enough now that I'll always have a job," he said. "Without mining, I'd be an auto mechanic making $600 a week. I love mining, mate."

A History Of The Sky

Twenty-One Pedestrians Arrested In Las Vegas

In Las Vegas, nothing is left to chance:

Reacting to stories that they are so in cahoots with police and authorities that they behave like little more than casino bellmen, 21 Occupy Las Vegas protesters sat in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard this morning intending to be cited.

...In Las Vegas, the group is leasing property between Paradise Road and Swenson Street near UNLV campus.

The fact that the land is leased, that Las Vegas police are advised about the group’s protest plans and that police are welcome -- even as undercover officers within the group -- has led many to believe the group is little more than an urban campout.

“This was about how serious we are about what we’re doing,” said Jennifer Reed, a UNLV graduate student who drove many of the cited protesters back to the encampment this morning.

She said narratives about the group were “that we’re not really serious, that we’re cooperating with authorities. We want to show that we’re very serious and we’ll escalate if we have to in order to get our message out.”

She quickly adds: “Peacefully.”

...Protesters were cited for being a “pedestrian in a roadway,” police said. They were transported to a temporary processing site at Cashman Center.

At Joe The Plumber's Storage Unit

M.: I've got to get to work before too long. We won't have time to empty the storage unit this morning.

J.: Yeah, I guess I'm not ready.

M.: Look at all this - stuff!

J.: I gave some away to friends, and they already sold it to other friends for cash. It hurts!

M.: May as well start near the front. What's this thing?

J.: It's a Gold's Gym Powerflex! You get the best workout from it!

M.: It's so tall it won't stand up in the garage. We'll have to lay it on its side. It'll be a new obstacle course for the rabbit!

J.: Hard times!

People Are Beginning To Chafe At Political Inaction

One of the wonders of our age has been the disconnect between increasingly-urgent problems in the country, and a Congress slouching towards inaction. For whatever political issue and from whatever political stance, inaction is the watchword.

People are beginning to get fed up.

I like the over-the-top rhetoric in this editorial about immigration. Got to start somewhere!:

The following opinion by Rebecca Lockhart, speaker of the Utah House of Representatives, was received by the Daily Herald on Friday.

...This year, the Utah Legislature formulated a potential solution for Utah after growing tired of waiting for our completely dysfunctional federal government to act. A package of four bills was signed into law that proposes comprehensive reform including enforcement measures and a guest worker program that provides funding to fight identify theft and fraud. It's a plan that involved painful compromise from all sides and is now being lauded across the country as model legislation.

Not everyone is happy with it, including some members of the Legislature, but as a body we're proud of the work we've done. Like most legislation, we'll keep working to iron out any remaining kinks.

But after all our efforts, after the blood, sweat and yes, tears, where is our federal delegation when we ask for support? They run for cover wherever they can find it or throw rocks at those trying to make a difference.

Congressman Jim Matheson feels so strongly about the issue that he gives it a total of four sentences on his "Issues" page. Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Sen. Mike Lee dismissed the efforts out of hand. Rep. Chaffetz says it's unconstitutional. But that's why we built in a two-year delay -- to apply for and receive a waiver to show what we can do. Sen. Lee says he doesn't think a federal waiver is an option. How about he propose federal legislation to make it an option? Sen. Orrin Hatch said he couldn't help us. Congressman Bishop remains curiously silent. These self-proclaimed champions of states' rights didn't even give us the courtesy of pointing to Utah as an example of what could be a starting point at the federal level.

Our federal delegation has watched the Legislature do the heavy lifting to get immigration reform off the ground, while their political will atrophies in the airless echo chamber of Washington, D.C. We bleed in the trenches while they wallow in the temporary glory of meaningless blood-boiling rhetoric. Immigration is just one more in a long list of examples where states bear the brunt of failed federal policy. Meanwhile, Congress benefits politically from an ongoing untenable situation. They refuse to take the risks necessary in order to tackle the issue and implement solutions.

Hints Of Belen

Bruce sends this. Arnold goes to New Mexico to help with his comeback:

The Belen High School football team and cheerleaders were also asked to be in the film. Jaramillo said $5,000 was donated to the high school, plus $500 was given to each of BHS' clubs.

...Herman Tabet, owner of Tabet Lumber and Concrete, Inc., said he wishes film crews would make these types of purchases two or three times a year.

Pat Trujillo, a clerk at Bethlehem Trading Post, said movie crews purchased everything from furniture to antiques for movie sets at their store.

Theresa Padilla, owner of Pete's Cafe, said the movie crew eats at the cafe on a regular basis, and Schwarzenegger has stopped by twice.

"When he came in, I was expecting a group, but I wasn't expecting him," Padilla said.
Movie personnel have also bought supplies from other businesses, including Through the Flower, Becker Street Pub, Adelante Bargain Square Thrift and Ranchero Builders Supply Co., said former mayor Ronnie Torres.

...The movie set contains business signs from Reydar's Barber Shop and Craig Tires, Inc., as well as historic Belen photographs, Torres said.

"They've incorporated a lot of the local community in the story line," Torres said, adding the high school mascot in the movie is an eagle like BHSs' mascot. "They want it to be as authentic as possible for Belen, even though (the town) isn't called Belen."

...The film, directed by Kim Jee Woon and produced by Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, details a small town sheriff, Schwarzenegger, and his inexperienced staff who find themselves standing between a fugitive cartel leader and the Mexican border, according to a Lionsgate news release.

Things I Want To See On YouTube That Just Aren't There

Last year, I saw this wonderful work-related video of a machine in a blasted-looking, cratered dump near Fairbanks, Alaska whose sole task is to destroy old wood stoves and rip them into tiny pieces.

Old wood stoves in Fairbanks that smoke too much are being replaced by newer, tonier models, but that means the old wood stoves collected at the dump have to be converted into scrap metal for recycling. This machine was built for that purpose.

Because it was a work-related video, I couldn't get anyone here interested in posting it on YouTube, so I'm hoping, via the Internet, that I can convince someone in Fairbanks, AK to go down to the dump with a video camera and capture the machine in action. It was a noisy, smelly, spinning, clawing science-fiction-monster-like machine - Dr. Seuss meets The Terminator meets H.G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds' - and it spells doom to wood stoves.

I like machines whose sole task is to rip things apart!