PTSD And The VP

Worrying about Cheney's mental state.

Cheney, a medically fragile 65-year-old who appears constitutionally unable to unburden himself publicly and was unwilling or unable to discuss the events before being subjected to intense G.O.P. and White House pressure to do so, might be at an unusually high risk of developing symptoms if he did not receive immediate and ongoing counseling as well.

Southern AZ Forecast

Maybe sprinkles for today?

The news over the last couple of days has been so grim that I hesitated to write. The forecasts are progressively downplaying the strength of the Feb. 20 system to the point where it might not be that much when it arrives. I'm hoping the forecasts are bad - they sometimes are when it comes to west coast systems, but it's not as big as I hoped....

Today, the forecasts are suggesting that some of the warm, tropical stuff Hawaii-way might be on the move, aiming for AZ arrival around Feb. 25-26.

A Yellow Grosbeak

A Central American bird stops in Albuquerque for three months, and the world flocks in.

Shoes For The Super Fantastic Scientist

But only if you are a woman, it seems....

Blogs Peaking?

I don't think so, but here's a thought-provoking article suggesting that the blog fad may be cresting, particularly as a business. It features nice paragraph headings like:

• the magazine cover indicator;
• the smart guys cashing out;
• the excited dinosaurs; and,
• the gullible newcomers.

For myself, success seems to follow persistence. The more you write, the more searches Google will send your way, and the more traffic results. It's not even the writing quality: this Web Site is even more inane today than it was two years ago.

Excited dinosaur on the prowl!

Where Are My Presents?

The closest thing to an interview of the founder of Napkin Nights:

The site is a one-stop shop for clubbers. There they can find photos of themselves and friends and assorted other gorgeous folk partying the night away at all of Las Vegas' venues, as well as clubs in Scottsdale and Sacramento.

...Besides her age, Lee is often asked what nationality she is -- something she'll gladly tell you for a buck. She says the proceeds are going toward a boob job. She doesn't need it, but I gladly toss her a single anyway. Then she lists off her countries of origin: Korea, Russia and Hungary. How did I know that was coming?

Just Laying Around...

I usually find just cigarette butts when I hike:

A Greek hiker found a 6,500-year-old gold pendant in a field and handed it over to authorities, an archaeologist said Thursday.

The flat, roughly ring-shaped prehistoric pendant probably had religious significance and would have been worn on a necklace by a prominent member of society.

Something Orwell Wrote

Mr. Whittington issued a statement today:

The lawyer shot by Vice President Dick Cheney during a hunting trip was being discharged from a hospital on Friday and told reporters he was sorry for all the trouble Cheney had faced over the past week.

..."We are deeply sorry for what Vice President Cheney had to go through this week," Whittington said, appearing emotional in front of television cameras.

In his book "Homage to Catalonia," radical English writer George Orwell talked about his recuperation from a bullet wound through the throat, a wound he received on the Aragon front of the Spanish Civil War. Orwell suffered permanent damage to the vocal cords from the wound. Person after person told Orwell how lucky he was, seeing how the bullet had barely missed the carotid arteries. Orwell wryly commented that he had only wished he was lucky enough to have avoided the bullet altogether.

Orwell was lucky, Cheney was unfortunate: it's a Kafkaesque world!

Camera Phones

Only cyberspace is real:

Japan's obsession with camera-equipped mobile phones has taken a bizarre twist, with mourners at funerals now using the devices to capture a final picture of the deceased.

"I get the sense that people no longer respect the dead. It's disturbing," a funeral director told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

..."Some can't grasp 'reality' unless they take a photo and share it with others ... It comes from a desire to keep a strong bond with the deceased," social commentator Toru Takeda told the paper.

Bring Out Yer Dead!

But I'm not dead yet!:

When burying a body in the backyard, don't put it too close to the septic system. That was one piece of advice offered on Wednesday to a business conference on preparing for a potentially lethal bird flu andemic.

Preparations for a global flu pandemic, which many experts believe is overdue, have begun but the grisly details are horrific and the number of sick could quickly overwhelm the health care system.

..."We talk about how people should bury their dead in their backyards, how far from the septic systems," said Dorothy Teeter, director of the King County public health department in Seattle. "In case you're wondering, it's $20 apiece for high-quality body bags. In New Orleans (after Hurricane Katrina) they had to double-bag bodies."

Refrigerated trucks will be needed to ship and store food and medicines and will not be available for corpses, a mistake made by federal authorities who commandeered trucks after Katrina, said James Caverly of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Communicating the truth will be important to deter civil unrest, several experts told the conference. Up until six months ago, the Department of Health and Human Services was planning privately for a pandemic but saying little publicly, said communications consultant Peter Sandman.

The shift may be due to President George W. Bush reading John Barry's "The Great Influenza," an account of the 1918 influenza pandemic during which government assured the public that it was just another seasonal flu outbreak, Sandman said. At the time, Barry said many communities were brought to a near standstill, with people afraid to talk to each other or care for the sick.

"When you mislead people, when you over-reassure people ... they feel less trusting, and they behave much worse," Sandman said.

...Meanwhile, government will have to address public skepticism about its ability to prepare for a pandemic, the official in charge of emergency preparedness at the Department of Health and Human Services said.

Well, count me among the skeptics. The lethality of this virus is still quite abstract to me. Icebergs are abstract to me too. Only cyberspace is real.

The Role Of Ridicule

Bush effectively deployed ridicule against Kerry in 2004. According to Legal Fiction, the tables are now turned:

Getting back to Dead-Eye Dick – slayer of octogenarians – I think the incessant jokes-to-come could undermine him (and the administration) politically – maybe not a lot, but they won't help. And yes, people ridicule Bush and Cheney all the time. But this one is different. To borrow from Ed Helms, he shot a 78-year old man . . . in the face. That’s so ridiculous that even people who pay no attention to politics will hear about it and find it pretty funny.

But here’s why it matters. Perhaps this is too snarky, but I think the continued political support for the administration has little to do with actual policy. How could it? Instead, it relies heavily on a cult of personality – a carefully-crafted aura or projection of toughness and decisiveness. To many people, Bush is still the 9/11 President, the decisive war president, the man who stood on the rubble with the bullhorn.

But the thing is – once you've pulled back the curtain, you can’t ever really believe in the Wizard again. It’s just an old man pulling some switches. Over the past year, the projected aura has lifted and revealed the bumbling incompetence of the administration. Call it the Wizard of Oz effect.

Katrina in particular was the last straw for many people. ... But their image of Bush changed that week. Suddenly the 9/11 President was indecisive, helpless, weak, and incompetent. It popped the bubble for a lot of people.

And now we have Cheney – who shot a 78-year old man . . . in the face. It’s kind of hard to square the tough-guy war-leader image that Cheney wants to project with the image of the bumbling hunter who shot an old man in the face at close range. Yes, in a rational world, this sort of thing would be irrelevant. But in the modern media age, it’s not. And even if the coming ridicule doesn’t pull Cheney’s ratings down lower, it will at least prevent them from being rehabilitated for some time to come. And again, because Cheney depends so heavily on this aura of toughness for support, the ridicule may well effect that support.

"I Have A Gub"

Sigh. Well, at least there's an AM-PM not far away!:

"We find that unattractive individuals commit more crime in comparison to average-looking ones, and very attractive individuals commit less crime in comparison to those who are average-looking," claim Naci Mocan of the University of Colorado and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University.

Mocan and Tekin analyzed data from a federally sponsored survey of 15,000 high-schoolers who were interviewed in 1994 and again in 1996 and 2002. One question asked interviewers to rate the physical appearance of the student on a five-point scale ranging from "very attractive" to "very unattractive."

These economists found that the long-term consequences of being young and ugly were small but consistent. Cute guys were uniformly less likely than averages would indicate to have committed seven crimes including burglary and selling drugs, while the unhandsome were consistently more likely to have broken the law.

View From A Bridge

Chief Officers of HMS Titanic, left to right: Captain E. J. Smith (Richard Spierto), Chief Builder Tom Andrews (Michael McElroy), Owner J. Bruce Ismay (Ben Bruening), First Officer William Murdoch (Chris Neff), Second Officer Charles Lightoller (Jabriel Shelton).

It's hard to resist having a bit of fun....

Capt. Smith: Are there any reports of ice?

Lightoller: Sir, we have several reports of ice at 42 degrees latitude, and just one report, from the French liner Tournant, of ice at 41 degrees.

Capt. Smith: That is so like the French.

Lightoller: Sir, my mother's family is French.

Capt. Smith: My condolences, Mr. Lightoller.

Lightoller: Yes sir. Sorry sir.

Capt. Smith: Mr. Murdoch, do you see any ice?

Murdoch: No sir, but I do see a large, white bird. I've never seen a wingspan so large - it covers the western horizon!

Capt. Smith: Please ask Mr. Fleet to inform the first class with dispatch that a large, white bird is approaching from the west, and that their diligent attention to this hazard is required.

Murdoch: Aye, aye Captain! If you don't mind me saying so, sir, we are blessed with a very attentive first-class on this maiden voyage.

Capt. Smith: Indeed we are, Mr. Murdoch. Indeed we are.

Cheney Plays Folsom Prison

Inspired by Johnny Cash - and Senator Patrick Leahy's experience last year.

Australia's Cane Toad Invaders

The long-legged ones are rushing forward like embers from a leaping forest fire. The invasion started in 1935, and it's a disaster!

The researchers believe their findings indicate evolution is favouring longer-legged toads which can travel further, quicker, meaning they can encroach on new territories faster than ever before.

Weird Rumor

Cheney had to figure out first what to do with the girlfriend before hitting the airwaves? History repeats itself, first as tragedy (Chappaquiddick), then as farce?

The New Spartans

Video gamers, in a sense, spend all their spare time preparing for high-tech war, much like the ancient Spartans prepared for traditional warfare. Here is an interesting big-think article about the effects on young warriors:

"Of course, it's not a game. The feel of the actual weapon was more of an adrenaline rush than the feel of the controller," he continues. "But you're practically doing the same thing: trying to kill the other person. The goal is the same. That's the similarity. The goal is to survive."

Cheney's Got A Gun

A roundup of the Web:

Red State Update (pretty funny)

Song Parody Lyrics:
Am I Right
Famous James
Pittsburgh Thoughts
Call Me Roger
etc., etc. etc.

Even The Right Is Making The Chappaquiddick Parallel

I don't see much of an upside for the Right here, but if they think humor helps, so be it:

Top radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh put a political spin on the accident, offering his listeners a choice:

"Would you rather go hunting with Dick Cheney or riding in a car over a bridge with Ted Kennedy?” Limbaugh asked. "At least Cheney takes you to the hospital.”

Annoying Matters of Law

Ann Coulter apparently voted in the wrong precinct in a recent Florida election. She gave her realtor's address as her own, perhaps in an attempt to avoid stalkers, but nevertheless, that is still a third-degree felony.

The Wily Bob White

I remember walking through sagebrush one day during quail-hunting season in Corrales, New Mexico. I could hear gunfire nearby. I was getting nervous. Then I stumbled into a covey of quail, and dozens of birds abruptly took flight. I hit the ground just as fast as I could manage! Can't be too careful in quail-hunting season!

Here are three good questions that Slate is reporting that Harry Whittington's co-workers have:

Who was in charge of the hunt? As many Americans are learning for the first time, quail hunting is dangerous—arguably the most dangerous type of hunting. Participants, usually a threesome, follow dogs through thick brush and tall grass seeking what Karl Rove, a dedicated quail hunter, calls "the wily bob white." When the quail flush, hunters are surrounded by panicked birds. Each hunter is supposed to fire forward, but in the adrenalin spike of the flush, it is easy to lose your bearings. That is why it's good practice for someone who is not shooting to be in charge of the hunt. The hunters are supposed to maintain a horizontal line as they move forward, but this is easier than it sounds in rough country. When someone falls behind—someone, for instance, like Harry Whittington—the person in charge calls a halt until the line forms up again. Whittington, as we know, dropped back to pick up a bird. This happens all the time in quail hunting; the question is, why did the other two hunters keep going? Perhaps, veteran quail hunters are speculating, no one was in charge on the Armstrong Ranch, leaving the three hunters in Dick Cheney's party on their own while hostess Katharine Armstrong watched from the car that had transported them.

At what range was Harry Whittington hit? The official story is that the blast from the vice president's shotgun hit Whittington at a distance of 30 yards. Hunters at the Vaughn Building are skeptical. The hunt took place on a cold, windy afternoon. Whittington and his fellow hunters were probably wearing warm clothing—say, a jacket and a flannel shirt. Cheney was using a 28-gauge shotgun, a smaller-diameter firearm with pellets smaller than BBs. Whittington's friends question whether the pellets could have penetrated his layers of clothing and skin at that range. Yet two pellets lodged against his larynx, another was in his liver, and another migrated into the heart muscle, causing the heart attack. The pattern of wounds was between the lower chest and the forehead, a pretty tight zone for shot of 30 yards. If the range was considerably less than 30 yards, then it is likely that Whittington's injuries were worse than the initial statement by Katharine Armstrong indicated. (The blast "knocked him silly," but "he was fine.")

Whose fault was it? If there is anything that Harry's friends at the Vaughn Building are angry about, it is not the shooting itself but the attempt by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan to place the blame on the victim. It's the shooter's duty to know what he is shooting at and where his companions are. A shooting accident is always the fault of the shooter. Always.

Marlin Fitzwater Reacts

Ronald Reagan's and George H. W. Bush's Press Secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, can't quite believe how bad Cheney and the White House handled this:

"If [Cheney's] press secretary had any sense about it at all, she would have gotten the story together and put it out. Calling AP, UPI, and all of the press services. That would have gotten the story out and it would have been the right thing to do, recognizing his responsibility to the people as a nationally elected official, to tell the country what happened," Fitzwater added.

"Secondly, it would have been confined to the vice president. By not telling anyone for 24 hours, it made it a White House story. Now it has become 'when was the president notified?', 'why didn't he put it out?' It becomes a story about the White House handling of it."

Letters To The Editor Are 'Sedition'

Albuquerque nurse is a menace to Homeland Security:

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has asked Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson for a thorough inquiry of his agency's investigation into whether a V.A. nurse's letter to the editor criticizing the Bush administration amounted to "sedition."

Merely opposing government policies and expressing a desire to change course "does not provide reason to believe that a person is involved in illegal subversive activity," he said. Bingaman said such investigations raise "a very real possibility of chilling legitimate political speech."

Laura Berg, a clinical nurse specialist for 15 years, wrote a letter in September to a weekly Albuquerque newspaper criticizing how the administration handled Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. She urged people to "act forcefully" by bringing criminal charges against top administration officials, including the president, to remove them from power because they played games of "vicious deceit." She added: "This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil....Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times."

The agency seized her office computer and launched an investigation. Berg is not talking to the press, but reportedly fears losing her job.

...Berg signed the letter as a private citizen, and the V.A. had no reason to suspect she used government resources to write it, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, which last week asked the government to apologize to Berg for seizing her computer and investigating her.

V.A. human resources chief Mel Hooker had said in a Nov. 9 letter that his agency was obligated to investigate "any act which potentially represents sedition," the ACLU said.

Can't Beat The Daily Show!

Even the wingnuts are having fun with it (picture, left, from Lucianne), but I still prefer Jon Stewart (as posted at Daily Kos):

Jon Stewart: "I'm joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Rob Corddry: "Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.

"And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face."

Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."

Jon Stewart: "That's horrible."

Rob Corddry: "Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them. I'm sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little 'covey' of theirs.

Jon Stewart: "I'm not sure birds can laugh, Rob."

Rob Corddry: "Well, whatever it is they do ... coo .. they're cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Jon Stewart: "Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man's face. Let's move forward across party lines as a people ... to get him some sort of mask."

Problems in the Colorado Strip

When I was doing genealogical research on my family, I discovered Judge Drake, who, in his capacity as the first federal judge for Utah, was a royal pain in Brigham Young's backside. I wonder what he would make of this?:

...Intermarriage among close relatives is producing children who have two copies of a recessive gene for a debilitating condition called Fumarase Deficiency.

They predict the scale of the problem will increase dramatically in the future. Wyler, who has lived in the polygamist community most of his life, said he expects residents to continue marrying close relatives.

"Around here," Wyler said, "you're pretty much related to everybody."

Fumarase Deficiency is an enzyme irregularity that causes severe mental retardation, epileptic seizures and other cruel effects that leave children nearly helpless and unable to take care of themselves.

Dr. Theodore Tarby has treated many of the children at clinics in Arizona under contracts with the state. All are retarded. "In the severe category of mental retardation," the neurologist said, "which means an IQ down there around 25 or so."

Until a few years ago, scientists knew of only 13 cases of Fumarase Deficiency in the entire world. Tarby said he's now aware of 20 more victims, all within a few blocks of each other on the Utah-Arizona border.

...According to community historian Ben Bistline, most of the community's 8,000 residents are in two major families descended from a handful of founders who settled there in the 1930s to live a polygamist lifestyle.

"Ninety percent of the community is related to one side or the other," Bistline said.

Bargaining With The Arizona Weather Gods

Things look a little more reasonable after the weekend. A trough will move into the western U.S., allowing opportunities for some weather to occur, but with not as much wind as once looked likely. A disturbance will pass through AZ on Feb. 16th, but a more significant disturbance will pass through, slowly, around Feb. 20th.

White House Blames The Victim

As usual:

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan tried to absolve Cheney of blame for shooting wealthy Austin lawyer Harry Whittington, saying that hunting "protocol was not followed by Mr. Whittington when it came to notifying others that he was there. And so, you know, unfortunately, these types of hunting accidents happen from time to time."

Several hunting experts were skeptical of McClellan's explanation. They said Cheney might have violated a cardinal rule of hunting: Know your surroundings before you pull the trigger.

Adam Taylor's "Gardens of Eden"

Under construction! Working on gutters this week.

Boy, Cloudy the Rabbit is having a hard time just keeping up with the changes in the backyard!

Flying Monkey Productions - Saturday Night Performance

Caught the tail end of the Saturday performance (saw Friday's show, though). Appropriately enough, Flying Monkey Productions did some of their best work with "Wicked."

Glinda just chucks the wand: 'Popular,' from "Wicked." Elphaba (Kelley Jakle) left, and Glinda (Kristin Cunningham).





Elphaba gets confidence: 'Defying Gravity,' from "Wicked."

Elphaba gets a whole lot more confidence: 'Defying Gravity.'


Inertia DeWitt (left).


Nice weekend of benefit performances for Flying Monkey Productions. According to Katherine Vanderford, for this benefit, the performers had been practicing songs for about six months, with more focused rehearsals for the past two months.

Many good voices! Portions of five popular, recent musicals were performed: "Hairspray", "Rent", "Phantom of the Opera", "Mamma Mia!," and "Wicked."

The singer who did best with the exposure was Inertia DeWitt. Her strong voice and excellent rhythm-and-blues training served her very well, particularly as Joanne in the 'Seasons of Love' opening from "Rent." Her strong voice was particularly useful in helping her overcome the often-missing sound amplification from the microphones, a problem that tended to bedevil the show (the short technical rehearsal period compromised quality here).

Katherine Vanderford did well as 'Christine' in the "Phantom of the Opera" segment, managing to hit those impossibly-high notes. She's disappeared into the Parisian underworld - who knows when next we'll see her?

The performer who seemed to have the greatest range and versatility was Kristin Cunningham, who performed numerous dances and songs, and brought the house down as bubbly Glinda, singing 'Popular,' from "Wicked." Interestingly, she was less effective as Ula, singing 'If You've Got It, Flaunt It,' from "The Producers." I suspect it wasn't because of any particular failure: rather Ula's song-and-dance must be much more difficult than I had appreciated. In retrospect, maybe that is to be expected: the role of the sultry siren is a minefield of difficulties. Even Marilyn Monroe had to learn her trademark walk, closely following choreographer Jack Cole around the room for hours at a time, trying to use her hip sway to maximum effect.

Kelley Jakle was very effective playing opposite Ryan Warren and Kristin Cunningham, as 'Elphaba' in "Wicked." I had never seen anything from "Wicked" before, and I thought Kelley's 'Defying Gravity' was marvellous! Ryan Warren did well as Fiyero: in fact, I think I shall appropriate Fiyero's trademark slogan for myself: "Life is Painless for the Brainless."

Julie Soto (left) was very funny as Tracy Turnblad in "Hairspray," and I particularly liked whatever that hip action was that she had going on in 'Dancing Queen.'

I was surprised that Flying Monkey Productions attempted 'Out Tonight' from "Rent." As Rosario Dawson demonstrated in the recent movie, that is one hella athletic song-and-dance that 'Mimi' does. I was even more surprised to discover that Carly Wielstein was doing the number. In the spring of 2004, DMTC's Young Performer's Theater had cast Carly as 'Cinderella,' but after she graduated from high school, I no longer knew what she was up to. She apparently remained in contact with the Sacramento crowd, however, and Ryan Warren was able to tap her talents for this show. She is now a soon-to-declare theater major at Cal State Fullerton.

Carly started out with a vamp across the front railing of the hall, and then aimed at a portion of the uncompleted 'Titanic' set, stage right. For a few seconds, I thought she was going to do a pole dance on one of the bare wood pillars. If she tried that in spandex, she was going to get more splinters than she'd get by embracing a porcupine. "Don't do it, Carly!," I wanted to shout, but she draped a leg across a railing instead. As graceful and athletic as her dance was, Carly's dance was somewhat conservative compared to the universe of possibilities (to the extent that the word 'conservative' can be applied to 'Mimi' in any meaningful way), which was a good thing, since Carly may have never danced on that stage before.

Carly also did 'Does Your Mother Know?,' from "Mamma Mia!," with Tyler Thomas (Tyler did an inspired 'worm' at the end of the Friday night show - lots of potential there!) It will be interesting to see what Carly can do in Southern California in the years ahead: she's only gotten better as a performer in the last two years!

Local community theaters are often not able to do the more-recent Broadway shows because of copyright restrictions: as long as Broadway shows are playing, or on tour, rights are simply not extended to small groups. The benefit performance genre seems to be an exception: for a brief time, performers can tackle the latest and the greatest, and get away with it. It's not a surprise, then, that this weekend's performances felt like a dam bursting, almost like we were hearing sung every song these talented people had ever learned.

I don't have much experience with benefit performances, but I saw one last year for Huntington Beach High School, one of the best public performance-arts magnet schools in the Los Angeles area (which I blogged about here.) The two theater groups are not directly comparable, of course - well-established drama department vs. recently-formed community group - but a benefit is still a benefit, and there are lessons to be learned.

For their benefit performance, Huntington Beach also featured popular songs from recent musicals (e.g. 'Hairspray'), but they also focused on another class of shows - obscure or failed musicals. Lots of musicals have been written, but despite beautiful songs, some have been handicapped by lame plots. People usually can't be persuaded to leave their homes to see an obscure musical, but they will easily turn out to see their favorite group do a benefit show, and if they have their horizons expanded as a consequence by seeing an obscure musical, so much the better!

The Huntington Beach group focused on the musical "Side Show," which is sort-of an anti-Carnival kind of show: instead of people running away to join the circus, the circus closes, and the carnies have to pack up, go home, and readjust to normal life. You can just feel the excitement leach away - what? - will the bearded lady find a depilatory cream that works? By that logic, DMTC, instead of doing "Titanic," should be doing "Carpathia - the Musical" (about the bitter second-half of the 1912 Atlantic crossing.) Nevertheless, there are some great songs in "Side Show" that make it worth a second look. And there are a bunch of other worthy (but defective) musicals out there too.

Just tossing out an idea!

Flying Monkey Productions - Friday Night Performance

See Saturday's show (7:30 p.m.) if you haven't already. Here are a few shots - the camera's juice failed by the end of Act I. Commentary later.

From "Hairspray": Edna Turnblad (Kyle Hadley) and Prudy Pingleton (Debbie Vanderford) watch TV with the kids, Tracy Turnblad (Julie Soto), and it sure looks like Meghan Vanderford rather than her sister Katherine, as listed in the program.

Mom and daughter: Tracy Turnblad (Julie Soto) and Edna Turnblad (Kyle Hadley), left foreground: in background, the Dynamites (listed in alphabetic order in the program: Kayla Berghoff, Kelley Jakle, and Ashley Mortenson). From "Hairspray."

I know you have your reasons, Roger, but really, what would it hurt to go out tonight? Carly Wielstein, as 'Mimi' and Will Finan as 'Roger': 'Out Tonight' from "Rent."

What's the time?
Well it's gotta be close to midnight
My body's talking to me
It says, "Time for danger"
It says "I wanna commit a crime
Wanna be the cause of a fight
Wanna put on a tight skirt and flirt
With a stranger"

'No Day But Today,' (aka Finale B) from "Rent." Stepping forward, Carly Wielstein as 'Mimi' (left) and Nick Murphy as 'Angel.'

Let Bush Be Bush

"I support the free press, let's just get them out of the room."

Scapegoat Loses Patience

Michael D. Brown, former head of FEMA and national laughingstock after Hurricane Katrina, finally tired of covering everyone else's ass in the Bush Administration (e.g. Michael Chertoff, Andy Card, etc.) and is beginning to fight back.

Car-Surfing

All articles about accidental teenage deaths all sound so similar - all that lost potential. Here's one about car-surfing.

When I was in high school, I remember watching two teenage girls riding on the hood of a car, one on the left side and one on the right. It was like slow motion: the slow-moving car slowly turned left, and the right-hood girl slowly slipped off and bounced on the gravelly pavement. Slow or not, it looked so painful I vowed never to try it myself.

Bait-and-Switch

Aggravating. Today's weather forecast blocks the soft, warm Hawaiian storm from reaching Arizona, and instead replaces it with a harsh, windy storm approaching from the NW around February 16th. My fear is that there won't be much precipitation, and instead, lots of blowing dust.

Work Tales

Every Friday morning at work, we have a staff meeting. As far as story-telling is concerned, the staff meeting usually provides pretty tedious material, but there are exceptions (such as today):

• The company has been doing wintertime smog check testing in Fairbanks, Alaska. One colleague discovered that a hose containing nothing but car exhaust had been diverted into the cab of a truck outside, where people were sitting. They were using the car exhaust to warm themselves up (the dangers of freezing outweighing the dangers of auto exhaust).
• One colleague was watching the live-feed of a stenographer's notes from a court-room deposition. A computer takes the stenographer's phonetic notations and converts them into scrawling text. Sometimes, when the computer can't recognize the notations, it inserts random characters, making it appear as if the witness is cursing.
• After repeated, detailed, technical testimony at the deposition, the stenographer parenthetically noted that this is why she dated her science teacher, rather than bothering to actually learn the stuff.

Flying Monkey Productions - "The Benefit" - Thursday Feb. 9th Rehearsal

I caught a few minutes of the rehearsal for this weekend's Flying Monkey Productions' "The Benefit" (7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at DMTC's Hoblit Performing Arts Center). Kristin Cunningham, Katherine Vanderford, and Jaie Sacco had the stage at this particular time.

Afterwards, in the DMTC office, I saw Kyle Hadley. There were still traces of makeup on his face, and had the lighting been a soft, incandescent yellow rather than a bright, fluorescent white, I would have found him - how to say? - fetching? (I can't wait to see what he does onstage!)

Kristin Cunningham and Katherine Vanderford (left) singing a duet. Most, maybe even all, of the Flying Monkey Production numbers are from later musicals (this one I didn't recognize offhand, but it sure sounded nice.)


Update: Yes, you were right, Andrea, this is "Angel of Music!"









Ula dance now! Kristen Cunningham (left) as Ula, performing 'If You've Got It, Flaunt It,' from "The Producers."




Katherine Vanderford (above and left) and Jaie Sacco (left) sing from "Phantom Of The Opera."

I Should Have Thought Of That

Six-year-old girl and her dad, preparing to mount their motorbike at a sidewalk curb. The parking meter must have been an irritant because, as her dad busied himself with the motorbike, the girl busied herself by unscrewing the parking meter from its mount in the sidewalk.

Disconnect

Interesting point over at Eschaton. If you detonate a shoe bomb in the vicinity of an airliner cockpit, you are likely to cause the airliner to crash. An airliner that crashes can't be used to fly into buildings.

Keeping Hope Alive

Deborah in Phoenix asks:

My birthday is the 27th--think we can manage rain by then?

I reply:

By your birthday? I'm thinking yes!

It actually appears to be raining today, particularly around Tucson, but maybe where you are too. Not much, but better than zip.

Flying Monkey Productions Presents!

Here is the notice from Steve. Please note that the times are a bit earlier than usual DMTC times. This should be a fun show. Lots of talented people in the cast!

There will be a special production at the Hoblit Performing Arts Center, this Friday & Saturday...many DMTC Teens are involved in this worthly cause...

"The Benefit"

February 10th and 11th, 2006 at 7:30pm
Tickets - $10 (on sale at the door)

The Hoblit Performing Arts Center
607 Peña Drive Davis, CA
Songs performed from Wicked, Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Rent, Phantom of the Opera, The Producers, Avenue Q, and several other Broadway shows.

Performed by local teens and adults to benefit Flying Monkey Productions (a youth theatre company) and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

Alien Song

Courtesy of Noel, how the 70's disco fad saved us from an alien invasion. This almost worked for preserving American 80's pop music from British influences as well. In December 1999, poor Boy George fell victim, but he managed to 'survive,' so it's not a foolproof method of Homeland Security (I've to get one of those T-Shirts, though.)

From Monday's Rehearsal

Another picture from Monday's "Titanic" rehearsal, featuring first-class passengers. The cast for this show is unusually large, to simulate the crowded confines of the boat.

My theory regarding the Titanic's sinking is that it never struck the iceberg at all: the ship capsized when someone on the deck said "Look, there's an iceberg!" and everyone ran over simultaneously to the starboard railing to take a gander.

I recognize almost everyone here...

Front row of women, left to right: Monique McKisson, Dannette Vassar, Jan Isaacson, Noel Bruening, Linda Abrille, Bridget Maguire, Amber Lidskin.

Back rows, left to right: Chris Neff, Jon Beaver, Robert Coverdell, Rich Kulmann, Jabriel Shelton, Tawny Hansen, Julia Spangler, Mary Young, Alex Powell, Julia Kulmann, Jennifer Bonomo, Brian McCann, Bethany Pedersen, Andrew Lemons, (obscured), Claire Lawrence, Scott Griffith, J.P. Villa, Steve Lemons (obscured), (cut off).

Viewing from the seats: Steve Isaacson (waving his arm) and Ron Cisneros.

Darwin Too

Education can't save you from bad judgment sometimes. Very innovative approach, and unexpectedly effective - terrestrial parasailing:

Gusty winds were blamed for a bizarre accident that killed the son of a local TV weatherman who was parasailing behind a tractor, a family friend said Monday.

...But on Sunday, as Don Greene was driving the tractor with his son in back, the wind proved so strong it picked the tractor up off the ground, Sellers said. That caused the rope holding James Greene to break and he went free-flying into the air, he said.

Misjudging Gases

Darwin Award runner-up: if I don't get run over by a bus first, this is how I'll go:

When a deputy arrived to check it out, he found a white car that showed obvious signs of an explosion. All the windows were blown out, the vehicle doors were bent towards the outside and the roof was pushed about a foot higher than normal.

The deputy traced the license plate to a home in the 3600 block of South Grove Street in Sheridan. Sheridan officers talked to the people inside and a man and a woman admitted that they were in the car.

They explained that they were taking a balloon to a Super Bowl party -- a balloon filled with acetylene, a very explosive gas used in welding -- so they could blow up the balloon while celebrating.

However, on the drive, the balloon rolled across the back seat, possibly causing static electricity, and igniting the gas, causing it to explode.

More Paranoia

The City of San Diego called today, with a few questions about a property I supposedly own down there. I don't own any property down there. Makes me nervous.

Reminds me of when a friend, a lowly college student, received a call from the Bureau of Reclamation, asking to be reimbursed a million dollars for a dam he was supposedly building. Made him nervous too.

Wonder how these things happen?

Grasping At Straws

Both the NOGAPS and GFS models show the development of a storm just north and east of Hawaii on Feb. 13 - 14. The signal is quite strong in both models, so the storm will likely occur in some form. That's quite a while in the future and a long distance away from AZ, but it's the first storm in a long time to be in a place where it might plausibly affect future AZ and SoCal weather. It would take about four days after that to travel to the U.S. West Coast, arriving, say, Feb. 18 - 19, and a lot might happen to it in the mean time, but at least something is happening somewhere.

I was looking at some of the climate forecasts for the SW this spring. Total pessimism everywhere. Not surprising - there is a weak La Niña in effect, and spring is the driest season anyway. Hope everyone is wrong!

Weak La Niña, Strong Drought

The climate people blame La Niña:

THERE IS WIDESPREAD CONSENSUS AMONG DYNAMICAL MODELS FOR BELOW MEDIAN PRECIPITATION OVER LARGE PARTS OF THE SOUTHERN THIRD OF THE CONUS FOR FMA 2006. CCA... ECCA AND SMLR FORECASTS ALSO SUPPORT THE FORECAST FOR BELOW MEDIAN PRECIPITATION OVER PORTIONS OF THE SOUTHERN CONUS. THE STRONGEST INDICATIONS ARE OVER THE SOUTHWEST... IN THE CENTRAL PLAINS... AND IN THE EXTREME SOUTHEAST.

Meanwhile, January temperatures in the Lower 48 were the warmest ever recorded. It's not global warming so much at work here, it's just that January wind patterns effectively prevented arctic air from entering the Great Plains and points south. But the effect was very striking - practically a balmy January in Fargo, N.D.

The Real Story

Naw, this ain't it:

Consumers, weighed down by high debt loads and low savings rates, increased borrowing last year by the smallest amount in 13 years, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday.

The government said that borrowing on credit cards, auto loans and other forms of consumer debt rose by 3 percent in 2005, down from rates above 4 percent in the previous three years and a 7.7 percent surge in 2001. It was the smallest increase since a 1 percent rise in 1992.

...Some analysts attributed the slowdown to the fact that consumers are beginning to feel a bit pinched with consumer debt at record levels and interest rates rising because of a campaign by the Federal Reserve to slow borrowing as a way of cooling the economy and keeping inflation under control.

...The Fed report showed that the increase last year in credit card debt and other types of revolving credit was just 2.6 percent, the smallest in 23 years.

Ah, here's the real story!:

Analysts said some of that slowdown reflected that fact that Americans have stepped up borrowing through home equity loans rather than increasing credit card debt.

Total Information Awareness

Digby, being (appropriately) paranoid:

Remember: Watergate was about bugging the Democratic National Committee. The "3rd rate burglary" was to replace an illegal bug that had been planted on the telephones of prominent Democrats.

The lesson of Watergate for the chagrined Republicans was that they needed to be more forceful in assuming executive power and they needed to be more sophisticated about their campaign espionage. This is what they've done.

Anybody who even dreams that these guys are not using all their government power to spy on political enemies is being willfully naive. It is what they do. It is the essence of their political style. This is Nixon's Republican party and they have finally achieved a perfect ability to carry out his vision of political governance: L'etat C'est Moi.

Exxon Speaks

A sad, but likely true, statement regarding the feasibility of American energy independence:

"Realistically, it is simply not feasible in any time period relevant to our discussion today," Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President Stuart McGill said, referring to what he called the "misperception" that the United States can achieve energy independence.

The comments, in a speech at an energy conference in Houston, come a few days after U.S. President George W. Bush declared America was addicted to Middle Eastern oil and promised to help the country kick the habit.

Many in the United States believe America should wean itself off oil imports from the Middle East, fearing it makes the country dangerously dependent on an unstable region.

The world's largest publicly traded oil company, however, says hoping to end foreign oil imports is not only a bad idea, but also impossible.

'Doing The Latest Rag'

Working on the latest 1912 dance floor moves! "Titanic: The Musical" (opening February 24th at DMTC).

Ron Cisneros, choreographer. Dancers, left to right: Julia Spangler, Robert Coverdell, Dian Hoel, Scott Griffith, Bridget Maguire, Chris Neff, Bethany Pedersen, Jabriel Shelton. In the background: Steve Lemons (left) and Julie and Rich Kulmann (right).

NDEs

Not yet, not yet:

I left my body and went walking towards a very bright white light which was at the end of a long tunnel. At the same time I could see three figures standing at the end of the bed and I kept wishing they would go away so that I could go to the light, which to me was lovely and warm.

Look! Is That A Unicorn?

In comments on a previous blogpost, former classmate Lawrance Bernabo, who apparently holds the record for writing the largest number of reviews for Amazon.com (books, music, etc.), took note of the overweening commentary at The Conservative Voice:

I don't think I'm a myth, but maybe I am the wrong person to ask (not that this guy did...).

Southern Arizona Angst

I told Deborah:

The Great Wall of High Pressure is being replaced by a Perfect Void

Deborah replied:











Staring into The Void, I'm thinking that the forecast has to be only slightly different and it would mean even more sprinkles in the mountains. So, let's see what happens this Thursday. At the least, it might mean pretty skies.

Sounds Like Kelly Is Having Fun

She updated her journal.

Ron Cisneros noted that one of his former students, Tia Miller, has been with "Mamma Mia" in Las Vegas for some time, and will be leaving soon to tour with "Bombay Dreams."

Marshmallows and the Violation of the Conservation of Mass

James notes that physical laws are mere playthings to marshmallows:

It has been stated on good authority that consuming a one pound package of marshmallows will add two pounds of body mass. I think it has to do with the inability of anyone to eat marshmallows alone, and the hot chocolate and S'mores ingredients do their thing as well.

Writing Blogs

Everyone who writes blogs follows a similar procedure (from Dadahead).

Yes Ma'am, It Never Rains In Arizona

Deborah uses semaphore to convey her state of mind regarding Arizona's dangerous and unprecedented drought.

My take:

Screaming is bad in a dry climate...flinging dinner plates against the wall is better.

The weather situation looks intriguing after mid-week - all chaotic on the macro level - but squeezing water out of it looks like an exercise in herding cats. Maybe some mountain sprinkles on Thursday. Rescue is still over the horizon, though: more than a week away....

February 5th - An Important Date

In 1981, February 5th was the date I moved into Dr. Tom's place, in Tucson, where I lived for the next six years. But two years before, in 1979, February 5th was an even more important date in American legal history:

Woodrow Bussey files suit against the Adolf Coors Brewing Company for failing to warn him that their product, Coors Beer, is an intoxicating beverage.

Optical Illusion

When Leo and Glen from "Curb Appeal" painted the panel above the new Hoblit Performing Arts Center lobby, they made it appear to have three-dimensional depth, but, in fact, it's all smoke and mirrors, or (more accurately) paint.





Detail of the panel. Notice the dark blue stars on the black background above the panel.

Flying Monkey Production's Upcoming Musical Revue

On Friday and Saturday of this week, Flying Monkey Productions will be staging a musical revue at DMTC's new Hoblit Performing Arts Center. Three veterans of last summer's DMTC workshop "Bye, Bye Birdie" will be in the show: Ryan Warren, Katherine Vanderford, and Julia Soto. The cast is largely composed of teenagers, but there will be several adult guest stars (e.g., Debbie Vanderford, Kyle Hadley).

I understand Flying Monkey is named after promoter Ryan Warren's first stage role ever, as a flying monkey in "The Wizard of Oz," and is the first group to rent out the Hoblit for any purpose besides DMTC shows.

People are telling me I have no idea how big this thing really is - they apparently have fans. Indeed, there were lots of people practicing yesterday in the lobby of the New Theater whom I did not know. I heard fragments of songs from several different musicals (e.g., "Rent"). Something to look forward to!

I will provide more details regarding times when I learn it.

"Lost in Yonkers" at Magic Circle Theater

(Left: Simple set, strong emotions)


Yesterday afternoon at the Cisneros' studio I told Mary Young, "Yes, we're coming up tonight to see your show!" Wendy Young Carey smiled knowingly and said "She's mean!"

And who would know better, after all, than Mary's daughter?

I went with the DMTC crowd Saturday night to see the Neil Simon play "Lost in Yonkers" at Magic Circle Theater's Tower Theater in Roseville. It was the first time I've seen this show. An excellent show featuring strong performances, not only by Mary, but also by Lee Marie Kelly as Aunt Bella, Kirk Blackinton as Uncle Louie, and the two teenage boys, Dustin Dunbar (Jay) and Jordan Mahallati (Arty).

There is a kind of claustrophobic, hopeless, helpless sense to the show, which takes place entirely in the living room of an apartment above 'Kurnitz's Kandy Store' in Yonkers, NY, in 1942-43. Out of necessity, the two teenage sons are left with their grandma for nearly a year to help her run the store while their dad and aunts and uncle try their best to make ends meet. Everyone in the family lives on the edge of desperation; a kind of economic poverty and familial desperation that was very, very common during the Depression and World War II, and which lingered well after, where people employed all sorts of half measures to keep families together and keep food on the table.

The strange thing about growing older is that now I find my youth seems to have had more in common with the Kurnitz's youth than, say, my own nephew's youth, both in time, and in attitude. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother when I was young. Even though my grandmother was not as stern as Grandma Kurnitz, the times were better, the locales were different, and even though the visits never lasted as long, there was the still the same sense of having to function under different, arbitrary rules and of losing key freedoms (like mobility). Remember YOUR relatives when you were young? Remember the fold-out bed?

Plus, Dustin Dunbar's appearance is similar to that of an old high school friend of mine, and so I felt like I had entered a time warp to a place I already knew well (and felt much better seeing in a play than experiencing again).

A good job, well-done here! Hooray for Neil Simon!

Notable too was the convivial atmosphere established Saturday night between "Lost in Yonkers" Director Brent Null, Sarah Null (who ran over after "Hello, Dolly" finished at Magic Circle's nearby Roseville Theater), and the rest of the DMTC crowd. Five years have passed and hard feelings have dissipated (something Grandma Kurnitz would not have understood).

(Left: Very pretty display in the lobby of Roseville's Tower Theater.)

Message in a Bottle

Long Island man places message in a bottle and tosses it into the Atlantic. Half a year later, he gets a reply from England.

"I recently found your bottle while taking a scenic walk on the beach by Poole Harbour. While you may consider this some profound experiment on the path and speed" of "oceanic currents, I have another name for it, litter."

"You Americans don't seem to be happy unless you are mucking about somewhere," says the letter, signed by Henry Biggelsworth of Bournemouth, in Dorset County.

Doctor, It Hurts When I Do This

There is an old joke that goes something like:

Patient: "Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this."
Doctor: "Well, don't do that."

A friend of mine went to the doctor to diagnose her aching knees, except the doctor was former Olympic speedskater (1980 Lake Placid, NY) and Sacramento orthopedist Eric Heiden. Besides being an orthopedist himself, Heiden is apparently married to an orthopedist, and his father is an orthopedist, so it's not like the field is unfamiliar to him. Heiden insisted that my friend radically cut back her level of activity, including giving up using the stairs.

"But doctor, surely you, as an athlete, can understand the value of remaining active to maintain one's health." Heiden replied that if she didn't stop using the stairs, she'd have to get knee replacements.

So, I guess the central truth of the old joke is that it isn't really a joke at all.....

Chikungunya

Sacramento would be a perfect place for this illness:

Nearly 2,000 people in the Seychelles have been infected with an incurable mosquito-borne disease that has spread to three Indian Ocean islands prompting health alerts, officials said.

Owl Vengeance

Terror in the skies for canines in an English village:

"It is very frightening for Heidi to have this giant bird trying to eat her all the time. I have no doubt that it wants to make her into its next meal. I guess Heidi looks like a rabbit or a tasty snack.

"It is a magnificent looking bird but I am getting a bit fed up with it and I wish its owner would come and get it. Poor Heidi can't stand it being around. She is spending her days at the moment trying to hide in our house curled up by a chair."

Mystery Marshmallow

So, Congress is already undermining Bush's unusually-focused physical sciences initiative (no surprise here) but what really bothers me is how enough heat can be transferred fast enough to a tossed marshmallow so it can be eaten straightaway:

President Bush urged employees at a computer chip factory to take their math and science skills into the schools to help the United States keep its technological edge in a global market.

..."America has to make a choice: Are we going to lead or are we going to fear the future?'' Bush said.

...Bush's plan would double over 10 years the physical science research budgets at three agencies: the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology.

To encourage private investment in research and development, a research tax credit for business should be made permanent, Bush said.

He also has proposed training 70,000 high school teachers to lead advanced-placement courses in math and science and bringing 30,000 math and science professionals into the classrooms to teach.

...Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said he doubts Bush can get enough funding for his proposals because the Republican-led Congress already has cut funding to the National Science Foundation and has not fully funded No Child Left Behind.

...Martin, a volunteer at Starbase La Luz Academy at the base, received the president's Volunteer Service Award.

Martin volunteers more than 100 hours per year during lunch hours and some weekends to teach students in the program, designed to encourage New Mexico students to pursue careers as scientists and engineers.

...A lot of Martin's work with children involves a hands-on approach to teaching thermal dynamics. For example, he said he will freeze a marshmallow, then throw it to children, and before it hits their hands, it will be warm enough to eat.

But he doesn't tell the children how that happens.

"I want them to tell me how it happened,'' he said.

"Slow - Children" as the traffic signs say......

I will neither lead the future, nor fear it. But I do want to know more about this rapid-heating marshmallow.

OK, I give up. I'm slow. Real slow. How does it happen? Foams like marshmallows are bound to have low thermal conductivities. There isn't nearly enough time available to heat the marshmallow fast enough to avoid broken molars.

So, what's the answer? They may as well outsource me if I can't puzzle this one out. I must have an answer. I NEED an answer! Aaarrrgghhh!

I Like Green Chili; He Likes Red

George W. Bush visits El Pinto Restaurant in the North Valley (north of Albuquerque, NM):

Owner John Thomas had some special guests Thursday. But one of his managers had a problem.

"Do you have the keys for the white house?" one manager asked another.

No, not that White House. This one is just an old house out back where they store cases of salsa.

Thomas wanted seven cases of 32-ounce salsa bottles sent back to Washington, D.C., with his special guest.

Bring It On

So, are you threatening violence for publishing a representation of Muhammed? If so, then you've got a fight on your hands:

Thumbnail Chavez

Digby wondered about the Bush Administration's growing belligerence towards Venezuela's controversial leader Hugo Chavez. Here's my comment:

My understanding was that Chavez captured people's imagination with his original coup attempt (1992). Afterwards he gave a very brief televised statement ACCEPTING BLAME for the episode and went to jail for it: no one in Venezuelan politics had ever accepted BLAME for anything as long as anyone could remember! Startled Venezuelans were intrigued by the guy.

Chavez understands television well. He has a gonzo call-in TV show where he accepts calls in his sweats from just about anyone - kind-of like Rush, but much more intelligent, and with more clout. I call it highly-effective.

The left-right divide in Venezuela is like the red-blue divide in the U.S., except even starker. Some of his enemies were just made to hate by any feeling person. Many of Chavez' enemies are South American allies of Bush. If you hate Bush, it's hard not to like Chavez.

Like the other commenters say, and despite all its embarrassingly hagiographic simplicities, 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' is really an eye-opening movie. It's Bush v. Gore, but with guns. See it if you can...

Echoes of the Titanic

Not quite a glorious floating city, and certainly not an iceberg, but the death toll may be as high, or even higher:

An Egyptian passenger ferry carrying nearly 1,500 people sank in the Red Sea early Friday during bad weather, and rescue ships and helicopters pulled dozens of survivors and bodies from the water. Egypt's transport minister said 203 survivors have been rescued.

Will It Ever Rain Again in Arizona?

Maybe around Valentine's Day.....The Insufferable, Inpenetrable High Pressure Wall shows signs of getting rotten in that time frame. Still a ways off, though.....

Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking

Walt sent an academic-type document called "Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking" and posed the question:

Is it a serious manuscript? Is it a hoax? YOU DECIDE.

I responded:

Boy, this reads like utter dreck. Therefore it must be a serious manuscript.

Here are excerpts - let me know if you'd like a copy of this. Is it better than William Shatner singing 'Rocket Man,' or worse?:

We sense joint enthusiasm to restate sensemaking in ways that make it more future oriented, more action oriented, more macro, more closely tied to organizing, meshed more boldly with identity, more visible, more behaviorally defined, less sedentary and backward looking, more infused with emotion and with issues of sensegiving and persuasion.

....The emerging picture is one of sensemaking as a process that is ongoing, instrumental, subtle, swift, social, and easily taken for granted. The seemingly transient nature of sensemaking (“a way station”) belies its central role in the determination of human behavior. Sensemaking is central because it is the primary site where meanings materialize that inform and constrain identity and action (Mills 2002, p. 35). When we say that meanings materialize, we mean that sensemaking is importantly an issue of language, talk, and communication. Situations, organizations, and environments are talked into existence.

Etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. But I do like the last paragraph - it reminds me of community theater!:

Taken together these properties suggest that increased skill at sensemaking should occur when people are socialized to make do, be resilient, treat constraints as self-imposed, strive for plausibility, keep showing up, use retrospect to get a sense of direction, and articulate descriptions that energize. These are micro-level actions. They are small actions. But they are small actions with large consequences.

Erik Reports

Erik Daniells is back from Las Vegas. He reports that Kelly is doing well and that she's doing great as Sophie in "Mamma Mia." He saw the show one night: the rest of the Daniells family saw it twice. He got a back stage tour, met lots of people, and stressed just how nice everyone in the cast and crew is. He also said the three-year anniversary of the show is coming up shortly, and there will be something like a re-grand opening, with press releases focusing on the new cast.

Gotta get reservations!

Humor, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The Joint Chiefs of Staff recently sent a letter to the Washington Post protesting the tastefulness of a political cartoon by Tom Toles lampooning Donald Rumsfeld's recent denials that the Iraq war has damaged military readiness.

I think the cartoon is ironic and funny, and not distasteful. Indeed, I wondered about the sense of humor of the Joint Chiefs (the target is Rumsfeld, after all, not the veteran soldier).

Military commanders have often been known for their rather dour demeanor. Some commanders who did have a dark and savage sense of humor (e.g., William Tecumseh Sherman; Curtis LeMay) found themselves roundly (and justifiably) condemned for it. There are a few commanders (Tommy Franks seems to be one) who are genuinely funny. Maybe the cartoon cuts too 'close to the bone,' so to speak.

Or is the cartoon some kind of ideological Rorschach test: liberals laugh, but conservatives frown?

So, how do you feel? Funny, or not funny?

Roadkill Chili

Hey, it's there for the taking! Bon apetit!:

Mr. Boyt has spent the last 50 years scraping carcasses from the side of the road and chucking them, together with a few herbs and spices, into his cooking pot.

The retired civil servant has sampled the delights of weasel, rat and cat. His most unusual meal was a greater horseshoe bat, which he reckons is not dissimilar in taste to grey squirrel, if the comparison helps. Fox tends to repeat on him. He has tucked into labrador, nibbled at otter and could not resist trying porcupine when he came across a spiky corpse while on holiday in Canada.

...He said: "It's good meat for free and I know nobody has been messing with it and feeding it with hormones. By writing a book I hope to show people it's perfectly normal and healthy to eat."

...Mr Boyt has no regrets about eating the labrador, which he emphasises was without a collar when he found it. "There was nothing on it to show who its owner was even though it was in good condition, so I took it home and ate it. It was just like a nice piece of lamb."

Paranoid

Don't you love the Internet? Today, an investigative service in Tucson is apparently doing a Google search on my name. I wonder what they want? Am I the one they really want? They specialize in:

• pre-trial civil & criminal investigations;
• narcotics;
• industrial intelligence;
• white collar crime;
• paternity suits;
• missing persons;
• skip tracing,

or, as the Beggar Woman from 'Sweeney Todd' would say, 'mischief.'

No mischief here, just opinions!

Study Your Spam

At last, some interesting information from spam:

Q: What is Hoodia?

A: A type of cactus. Hoodia Gordonii is a succulent in the family Asclepiadaceae. It forms multi-stemmed clumps 45cm (18in) high and bears unpleasant-smelling, pale purple disc-shaped flowers 7.5-10cm (3-4in) in diameter. Hoodia Gordonii grows in semi-arid areas of South Africa. The San people, formerly known as bushmen, of the Kalahari eat the bitter-tasting plant on long hunting expeditions.

Jennifer's Mission

(Sacramento Bee caption) Jennifer Fearing founded the Sacramento Area Animal Coalition. Her criticism of Sacramento's Animal Care Services helped bring about an audit by the Humane Society and many changes. Sacramento Bee file, 2005/Anne Chadwick Williams.

[Update: Apparently I've made an error here. Jennifer Fearing looks somewhat like Jennifer Jackson, a ballet student with Pam Kay Lourentzos (on Sundays, over at the Cisneros studio) and I got the two of them confused. Nevertheless, Jennifer Fearing does worthy things, so I'll let the post stand]:

In 1997, picking up a stray dog in Del Paso Heights changed the course of Jennifer Fearing's life.

She took the canine to what was then a night drop-off at the city's animal shelter. What she saw there transformed her into an animal advocate.

"It was such a bizarre thing putting it in this shed and not knowing what was going to happen to it," Fearing said "I went back the next day, and then I became a volunteer at the shelter. That's when I really learned what was going on."

Dance Tune Rollout

(left: Roger Sanchez)

I guess it takes about a year to whip up a dance tune and move it into wide circulation. It was early January when I first heard the Axwell remix of 'Turn Up The Music' by Roger Sanchez, featuring GTO on excellent vocals. Here is advance notice from July, 2005 that no doubt alerted the cognoscenti. I like the urgency of the paragraph:

A monster brewing! Roger S returns to the studio and creates one dirty, writhing, jacking piece of floor burning infectious dance. It kicks off tribal beats style and un-folds with a ferocious dirty musical barrage into an electro bassline that leads to GTO's full character gospel style vocal. Now it feels like DJ International meets latter day Ibiza. An original, that is strong in all departments, and grew out of Winter Music 2005. With future mixes from Axwell, Superchumbo and Sueno Soul, this promises huge things! Already being championed by heavyweights Morillo, Haji, Rampling and Morales and that's only the start! An anthem of the highest order from one of the best in the business and it's just waiting to break!

From 'The Onion'

Damn, this is me. I can't even work sleep into the schedule anymore:

Ted Henson, a copywriter at Green/Allium Advertising and notoriously disorganized procrastinator, is awestruck by his coworkers' ability to manage multiple aspects of their lives. "I'm surrounded by, like, these amazing super-multitasking rock stars," said Henson as he watched creative director Kyle Peters put some layouts in a metal file cabinet. "How do you deal with all this lame bureaucratic bullshit? You have to tell me your secret kung-fu organization system." Henson remained in Peters' office for over an hour, talking about Peters' filing system, the filing system in the film Brazil, and other Terry Gilliam films, causing him to miss a 2:30 assignment deadline.

Cindy Sheehan's Arrest

For wearing a T-Shirt.

Patriot Search

A search engine for our times.

Another Nut Makes A New Mexico Sojourn

The pig-man obsessive comes to the Intel plant this Friday in Rio Rancho, NM, disturbingly close to my hometown of Corrales:

New Mexico's congressional delegation agrees with President Bush's goals for energy independence and boosting math and science education, while still waiting on the details, more of which could come when he visits the Intel plant in Rio Rancho on Friday.

Radical, Militant....

Librarians.

Jennifer Sanmarco's New Mexico Sojourn

Just another face in the crowd in western New Mexico:

"We weren't sure what she was going to do next," said Terri Gallegos, deputy clerk for the city of Milan, N.M., where Sanmarco applied for a business license in 2004 for a publication called "The Racist Press" that she said she planned to launch. Another time she said she wanted to register a cat food business.

During one meeting, Gallegos said, Sanmarco carried on a conversation with herself "like she was arguing with someone but there was no one there."

Last March, office workers called authorities after the 44-year-old woman made what Gallegos described as a rude allegation. Other times, Gallegos said, Sanmarco would come in and simply stare at one employee in particular.

In June, police in nearby Grants talked to her after someone at a gas station called to complain of nudity, Police Chief Marty Vigil said. Sanmarco was dressed when officers arrived.

Thrill-Junkie Moose

Driven bonkers by a tedious Scandanavian winter:

Whatever, Kjell Grannes happened to be watching the river and ice action from his kitchen window near Overhalla on Monday when the moose came surfing down the river.

Grannes told Trondheim newspaper Adresseavisen that the ice was clear, "so it almost looked like the moose was walking on water."

Would Have Been Run-of-the-Mill in California

Recent arrival in Minnesota apparently has a past:

Self-described vampire and Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Jonathan "The Impaler" Sharkey has been arrested on Indiana charges of stalking and escape.

...Sharkey gained the limelight earlier this month with his Friday the 13th announcement of his candidacy for Minnesota governor under the Vampires, Witches and Pagans Party banner.

Among his proposals was one that would use impalement to execute murderers, rapists and terrorists.

"As governor," Sharkey said, "terrorists and criminals will live in fear of me, while the people of this state will be able to live fear free."

'Spirit of New Mexico' Mission to Planet California

One of my favorite activities in an airliner is to point a camera out the window and snap pictures. The geomorphologist and map fiend in me thrills at seeing the various landscapes whip by in life-like detail. It's almost like a spaceship travelling above the surface of another planet!

The recent trip from Las Vegas to Sacramento, through San Diego, was in a Southwest Airlines spaceship christened 'Spirit of New Mexico.' The craft had a pretty, yellow 'Land of Enchantment' paint job that, unfortunately, I couldn't appreciate (because I was inside the airliner). Photos taken Sunday afternoon and evening, January 22, 2006.

Boulder City, NV. Boulder City sits at the edge of the mesa overlooking Boulder Canyon, where Hoover Dam was built in the 1930's (towards the upper left of the photo). The construction workers were housed here. Most construction camps are dens of gambling and iniquity, but since this was Nevada, and Las Vegas wasn't very far away, Boulder City became instead a family-focused construction camp where high moral rectitude was practiced (and a deadly dull place on Saturday night).

Eagle Mountain Open Pit Iron Mine (the gray gash just left of center), located just south of Joshua Tree National Park (to the left of the photo). Wispy clouds marred this shot of the Eagle Mountain open pit mine, where virtually all of the iron used to build ships for the Pacific theater was mined during World War II.

In the 90's, a large garbage dump meant to receive Los Angeles trash was proposed to fill the now inactive open pit. A decade later, the dump isn't there (probably too controversial). In general, there is an absence of environmental data for facilities like this: no one had ever contemplated building a dump this large in a place so dry before.

Ludlow Crow. Here is a Mojave Desert crow, a clever and intelligent bird that would nevertheless swiftly die, if not for the nearby Dairy Queen, located along Interstate 40 at Ludlow, CA. The Fish and Wildlife people worried a lot about crows like this one being attracted to a large garbage dump in the desert (next to cake cones and parfaits, crows like nothing better to eat than rare desert tortoises).

Salton Sea, and the fertile Imperial Valley beyond. Looking south, towards Mexico. On the right, San Felipe Creek flows into the Salton Sea. So much of our lettuce comes from here!

The Salton Sea was formed by a massive irrigation accident in 1905. Colorado River water poured for several years into this desert basin. Today, the Salton Sea continues to be sustained by Imperial Valley irrigation runoff. There is lots of wildlife in the area, but the area is susceptible to pollution and salinization problems.

Fish Creek Mountains. Deceptive name! I wonder why it got that name? This place is so arid it seems to resemble Mars more than Earth. What a contrast between dark rock and light sand! The Imperial Valley is in the background.

High plateaus NE of San Diego abruptly end with a dizzying drop. Amazing - it's like a wall! A dry-looking Cuyamaca Reservoir is evident at right. The reservoir is in the vicinity of Harrison Park, amongst the pines of the Cleveland National Forest.

San Miguel Mountain, at the end of Millar Ranch Road, west of Jamul, and SE of San Diego. Looks like you can almost reach out and touch these radio and TV antennas! In the background, the San Ysidro Mountains form a backdrop behind Lower Otay Lake, just north of the international border. The mountains on the horizon are south of Tijuana, in Baja California Norte, Mexico.

Familiar San Diego Bay! Lindbergh Field is in the foreground, with San Diego Bay and marina (and a hotel) in the middle, Coronado Island in the left background, and the rocky Point Loma peninsula in the right background.

San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, looking SSW. Hoo boy, the Central Valley sure looks soggy in wintertime!

The Sacramento River flows in a narrow band from right to left, past flooded fields in the foreground, turns right at Walnut Grove in the lower-left corner, turns left at Ryde, and then wiggles towards a triple-junction. At the triple junction, the river (left stream) meets Steamboat Slough (middle stream), and overflow from the Yolo Bypass (right stream).

Water from the fortified Sacramento River then flows past Sherman Island and meets the San Joaquin River (flowing from the left). Both rivers together flow towards Suisun Bay. From Suisun Bay (off the photo), water flows westwards towards San Francisco Bay. In the sunset, Mt. Diablo (which is east of the San Francisco Bay area) can be seen.

Yolo Causeway - Interstate 80, between Davis and Sacramento. I practically live on this bridge! Davis is to the left, and Sacramento is to the right. The freeway is the lower path; the railroad more-or-less parallels above.

The Yolo Bypass is an alternate path for Sacramento River water to flow past Sacramento during wet winters. Sometimes, so much water pours from the Sierra Nevada, down the American River and into the Sacramento River (at downtown Sacramento) that the flow of the Sacramento River backs up, reverses, and flows north. Disaster is averted when the overflow spills into the Yolo Bypass, and flows harmlessly southwards again. Without this relief from raging floodwaters, life in Sacramento and vicinity would be very precarious indeed!

A 'Chicken' In Every Pot

Let's hear it for Progress! At last, two clear-thinking intellectuals have a bold plan to defeat injustice! Instead of quailing and whining like many of our so-called leaders, and thus accomplishing nothing, the team of Todd and Lovett plans to 'turn the tables', so to speak (excerpt from the lyrics to "A Little Priest"):

TODD: The history of the world, my love --
LOVETT: Save a lot of graves, Do a lot of relatives favors!
TODD: Is those below serving those up above!
LOVETT: Ev'rybody shaves, So there should be plenty of flavors!
TODD: How gratifying for once to know
BOTH: That those above will serve those down below!

"Joseph..." Closes

Nice finish to "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at DMTC. Andrea, Ryan, and the rest of the cast and crew did a fine job.

Strike finished unusually early, partly because Joseph is a short show, but also because, now that we have a unitary facility, we don't have to transport sets and scatter materials all over Davis to various storage units. I do regret, however, that we will soon have to stop using the rest of Buzz Oates' facility (within which the new Hoblit Performing Arts Center is housed) as a warehouse, and learn to carefully compact and store what we do have into our allotted storage space.

Many of the Joseph cast will be joining us in "Titanic," which helps ease that pained anguish of separation: maintain, and no pain!

Hoping Dian's daughter Casey gets better soon from her recent accident. We are all so fragile....

Two Embarrassments

Marc behaving badly again.....

At "Sweeney Todd" Saturday night, Erin Jones asked, "So, are you coming?"

I didn't know what she was talking about.

"The wedding invitation," she elaborated. Uh.... I replied that I'd thought that was a Christmas card that had arrived over the holidays while I was out, and in the rush after returning from NM, still hadn't opened it.

"Didn't you think it strange that we'd put personalized stamps on a Christmas card?" Tev asked. (Well, no, but that would be assuming there is a thought process going on at all...)

Then, yesterday, near the end of the final performance of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at DMTC in Davis, during the Megamix and final bows, I tried to sneak a photograph in from a doorway without first checking to see whether the flash was on or off. Whoops! The flash effect was muted due to the presence of curtains in the doorway, but still, an embarrassment.

Magical Mandalay "Mamma Mia" Moments

Begin tonight!

"I Am Entirely At Your Disposal"

Oh, it's you Sweeney! If you would, just a bit off the top, a clean neckline behind, and a liberal dusting with talcum powder.