Thursday Dancehall PowerUp

Just Too Big A Subject

I've been preparing to give a talk entitled "Streamline Moderne and Jimmy McGill" for the 38th Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference in Albuquerque in February. I'm ready too soon, so I keep digging into the subject further, and further, and further....

It's just too rich a subject. Too much treasure for one talk. Like this. Here's my favorite human ever, Ann Reinking, in performance:

Libertarian Utopia

They can keep it:

There's also a preponderance of white faces, most of which belong to Central and Western Europeans and North Americans. Conspicuously absent are Asians or Middle Easterners, who account for a vast proportion of the applications for citizenship. The one exception is Rehan Allahwala, a Pakistani entrepreneur whose plan to provide the country with universal wi-fi recently landed him the title of Minister of Communication, maybe. “I proposed that, you know, I can be the Minister of Communication, and [Jedlička] introduced me to people as the Minister of Communication,” Allahwala told me. “I was like, ‘What, seriously, is that how it’s done?’” At breakfast one morning, I have the pleasure of watching Allahwala, a Muslim, listen respectfully as a guy from Monaco mansplains Sharia law to him.

The Folks In Butte Dissolved 25,000 Migrating Snow Geese

Sizzle:

"I can't underscore enough how many birds were in the Butte area that night," said Mark Thompson, an environmental affairs manager for Montana Resources, which controls the pit mine along with Atlantic Richfield.

"Numbers beyond anything we've ever experienced in our 21 years of monitoring by several orders of magnitude,", Mr Thompson said, adding that they typically only see between 2,000-5,000 birds in the region each year during the summer and winter migrations.

A Vivid Illustration Of Why 2011 Was So Hard For Japan

The California Frame of Mind

Bella's Favorite Place

The cairn of broken concrete I intended to use was gone, so instead I wedged Bella's tags next to a boulder at Sacramento's 19th Street Safeway, Bella's favoritest place in the world; an endless cornucopia of parking-lot surprises.

Fun Poking Around Eldorado Musical Theatre's (EDMT) Rehearsal Space and Warehouse

With Steve Isaacson and Christine Martorana.

Get The Basic Facts Right First

Trust San Francisco

The City By The Bay gets it right:

RESOLVED, That no matter the threats made by President-elect Trump, San Francisco will remain a Sanctuary City. We will not turn our back on the men and women from other countries who help make this city great, and who represent over one third of our population. This is the Golden Gate-we build bridges, not walls; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That we will never back down on women’s rights, whether in healthcare, the workplace, or any other area threatened by a man who treats women as obstacles to be demeaned or objects to be assaulted. And just as important, we will ensure our young girls grow up with role models who show them they can be or do anything; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED....

International Diplomacy Is Weird

Oh, The Humanity!

Eric Trump:

Eric Trump, the son of President-elect Donald Trump, asserted over the weekend that “at least 5,000 children” had died due to an effort to verify the election outcome in Wisconsin.

In a tweet on Sunday, Eric Trump said that the “sad truth” was that “the cost Of Stein/Clinton’s #Wisconsin vote recount could have saved at least 5,000 children’s lives.”

The tweet included a link to a Forbes column by conservative writer Chris Conover, who argues that Green Party candidate Jill Stein should have redirected the $3.5 million spent on the recount to malaria prevention for children.

Investors Believe In DAPL

The battle has only started:

In other words, the companies believe that they, not the government nor the Native American tribes whose land could be impacted by the pipeline, make the decision. They’ve deemed the ruling illegitimate because it was made by an administration with which they disagree, and they signaled they will move ahead regardless. Investors seem to agree. The stock of Energy Transfer Partners only fell about 2 percent in early trading.

There’s good reason to believe the companies’ analysis of the situation isn’t just posturing—and their confidence is downright terrifying. There are two possible reasons the Army Corps issued this decision. First, it could be that the corps, which is tasked with managing the health of large internal waterways and infrastructure projects, really believes that it is a bad idea to put a crude oil pipeline underneath a dammed portion of the Missouri River. Second, it’s possible that Obama political appointees higher up the chain of command leaned on the bureaucracy to issue a last-gasp environmental protection effort.

Either way, it’s easy to see how this could be reversed in a matter of months.

Cleaning Up After A Life

I learned in August that Helga Frank passed away. Helga lived at my place from 1998-2001, and when she moved out, she stored some things in my basement. In November, I tried to contact her daughter, Jennifer Hempstead, about Helga's belongings, but wasn't able to do so. So, now, after fifteen years of not touching her stuff, ever, I'm finally touching her stuff. I spent the last six hours cleaning up.

A lot of the stuff should have thrown away in 2001 (the ketchup and salad dressing packets particularly). With other stuff, I'm making executive decisions: tossing out much; incorporating hardware items and Christmas ornaments into my belongings; preparing a box for theater donation; preparing another box of old toys for thrift-store donation; washing dishes for possible use.

Still, there is a hard core of old photos and documents that should not be thrown away under any circumstances, detailing the early lives of Makaila and Malich Hempstead. So, I'm hoping I can get in contact with someone from the family eventually.

"A Southwest Nutcracker" 2016

This month, my friends at Tucson Regional Ballet will present their annual "A Southwest Nutcracker", featuring Lindsey Felix as the Prickly Pear Fairy. One of the Chili Peppers will perform live on television this upcoming Friday, December 9, on Tucson's Fox 11 Now Daybreak (at 8:15).