A Defense Of Paris Hilton

Richard Abowitz says some nice things:

In Las Vegas, Paris Hilton has become a professional at attending parties. She reportedly gets paid for it, and she is good at it. In fact, she is the best I have ever seen and, as a result, the resort nightclubs and all Las Vegas have benefited. Paris Hilton created an economic boom for Las Vegas by being one of the first celebrities to pied piper her well-tipping, big-spending and, blessedly, mathematically-challenged friends and worshipers from LA to make hot the new generation of Vegas nightclubs in casino resorts. They play hard; they spend big; they tip well. From my stories to the limo drivers to the cocktail servers: everyone gets something out of the Paris Hilton crowd visiting Las Vegas. A lot of working people (and their dependent families) who are not trust-fund folk or celebrities have benefited hugely from Paris Hilton's role in focusing her large spotlight on the new Vegas as party central.

Meanwhile, that showboat Joe Arpaio says some insensitive things:

PARIS Hilton could be forced to join a "chain gang" because overcrowding in Los Angeles jails mean the hotel heiress might not be able to serve her 45-day sentence in prison.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in charge of the US's only "all-female chain gang", says he's spoken to the chief of jails in Los Angeles and offered to house Hilton at Tent City in Arizona.

"I just made an offer," Sheriff Arpaio told the Drudge Report.

"Instead of reducing for her sentence, which I feel is wrong, why not bring her over here? We can incarcerate her here. She can do her time over here."

..."Oh, I’d love to have her here," Sheriff Arpaio said.

"Just another celebrity. Not that I'm a publicity hound, but I'd imagine if I had her in these tents there'd be (publicity)."

Sheriff Arpaio says that while that Los Angeles County is considering his offer, Hilton’s lawyers will probably object.

Hilton’s psychiatrist today filed a declaration stating her star client was too distraught to participate in a civil trial brought against her by diamond heiress Zeta Graff, according to TMZ.com.

Shrink Dr Charles Sophy claims Hilton needs time to recover from her May 4 hearing during which she was sentenced 45 days of jail time for breaking probation.

Dr Sophy stated Paris is, “emotionally distraught and traumatized…(and) cannot effectively respond to examination as a witness or provide any significant input into her defense."

Graff filed the $10 million lawsuit in 2005 claiming slander and libel after Hilton told the New York Post that Graff once tried to snatch a necklace worth four-million dollars from Hilton’s neck at a London nightclub.

Hilton was to appear in court on May 21 but to avoid "(exacerbating) her current mental condition," the judge has move trial to August 22.

Falwell Reminiscence

So, Jerry Falwell has passed on. Time to recycle my Falwell story:

I think back to the fall of 1980, when Jerry Falwell's campaign road tour came to Tucson, where I was attending the University of Arizona. I stood across the street from the downtown arena and protested with some folks as the crowd of about 10,000 gathered for Falwell's speech. A fellow graduate student (and born-again evangelical) taunted me from across the street, "look who you're with!" My newfound compatriots looked fine to me, but I think he thought they looked gay to him. Maybe they were, but I thought they were nice folks.

Quite to our surprise, the doors to the arena appeared utterly unguarded after the crowd entered, so we decided to enter the arena in a spirit of protest. We entered the indoor space just as Falwell came to the podium, and we erupted spontaneously into rigid arm salutes and spirited shouts of "Sieg Heil." Falwell knew straw men when he saw them - I'm sure that's why the doors had been left unguarded. He immediately condemned us for our self-evident, perverted totalitarian spirit (truly absurd, but we had played a little too easily into his hands). Several protestors were removed when they became a little too feisty. But Falwell actually wanted us around: he knew just how shocking we were to his followers, despite what I thought was our meek appearance, and how useful that was to fire up his followers. We settled down and listened to Falwell's keynote speech, watched a patriotic spectacle, and listened to a few other speeches in a similar vein.

At the very end, Falwell asked everybody to stand and sing "America, The Beautiful." I abruptly noticed our little protest group had been surrounded on all sides by various flacks, who quickly grabbed our hands (hard), pressed us in from all sides (hard), and more or less forced us to sing along with them. So, despite our manifold differences, we all sang together in a (forced) spirit of patriotic harmony. And if we had decided to struggle and shout, who knows?

Ah, the entire spirit of the Bush Administration, previewed 20 years in advance!

Radical Changes For Baby Blue

Last night, I was sitting in the easy chair and Baby Blue was fluttering about the living room, when she landed on my crossed leg. For whatever reason, she slipped off, and fell. Even though the drop was only a foot-and-a-half, she hit hard on her breast, and instantly retreated under the coffee table in the manner of a wounded animal.

This morning, she had considerable difficulty standing up. She wobbled and weaved and fluttered, and backed up against barriers in order to keep standing. Once, tumbling over, she screamed in pain. Nevertheless, she largely kept her appetite, which suggested to me that the injury need not be life-threatening if she got care (and presuming that the problem was indeed an injury, and not something else, like poisoning, or vertigo, or an inadequate diet, or etc., etc.....)

For an hour, we cuddled in the back yard.

I called the 'Bird Doctor' veterinarian, but it wouldn't be until tomorrow until his mobile van was in my neighborhood. I called the Wildlife Care Association (WCA - 965-WILD), but their Scrub Jay consultant's phone had been disconnected. So, I decided to take Baby Blue directly to the WCA in Carmichael.

The small house housing the WCA had a reception area in one room. Various signs suggested that patrons donate; for example, to adopt recovering crows. In the next room, I could see a woman in a lab coat tending various boxes on shelves from which a cacophonous roar of many dozens of birds could be heard.

The WCA volunteer clerk asked me to fill in a form describing how I came to find the bird. Then he removed Baby Blue from my cardboard box, did a quick inspection, and placed her in a small container topped with a screen. Our conversation was confrontational, however:

MPV: May I come and visit the bird?
Clerk: No, you may not.
MPV: I just want to make sure she is OK.
Clerk: In our six-month season, we receive five to seven thousand birds. You may not come and visit the bird.
MPV: Well, then, may I have the bird back?
Clerk: It is illegal to keep wildlife. You may not have the bird back.

I was reminded of the scene from "Oliver!", when Mr. Bumble is reminded that, in the eyes of the law, he is responsible for his wife's actions. "Well, if the law supposes that, then the law is an ass." Continuing, the clerk said:

Clerk: The bird needs to be among her own kind. We will take care of her. You did the right thing.

I donated some commercial baby bird food to the WCA and then slipped out the door. Then I returned to drop $20 in the donation box. The clerk had gone into the other room, where I overheard his conversation with the woman there:

Woman: Oh no!
Clerk: I know, the guy's crazy....

Fischerspooner At Coachella 2004

And speaking of Coachella Movie, give it up for Fischerspooner!

Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies) - Coachella Movie

I was feeling glum because I didn't even try to go to Coachella 2007, so I took solace from the Coachella movie, and one of the best live performances ever!
--------------
Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is
Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids
People say that you'll die faster than without water
But we know it's just a lie, scare your son, scare your daughter

People say that your dreams are the only things that save ya
Come on baby, in our dreams, we can live our misbehaviour

Everytime you close your eyes (Lies, Lies) [4x]
Everytime you close your eyes [4x]

People try and hide the night underneath the covers
People try and hide the light underneath the covers
Come on hide your lovers underneath the covers
Come on hide your lovers underneath the covers
Hide it from your brothers underneath the covers
Come on hide your lovers underneath the covers

People say that you'll die faster than without water
But we know it's just a lie, scare your son, scare your daughter
To scare your son, to scare your daughter
To scare your son, to scare your daughter

Now here's the sun, it's alright (Lies, Lies)
Now here's the moon, it's alright (Lies, Lies)
Now here's the sun, it's alright (Lies, Lies)
Now here's the moon, it's alright (Lies, Lies)

But everytime you close your eyes (Lies, Lies)
Everytime you close your eyes (Lies, Lies)
Everytime you close your eyes (Lies, Lies)
Everytime you close your eyes (Lies, Lies)

Everytime you close your eyes [x3]

Mazal Tov!

From Jason Hammond and Deborah Douglas:

Things have been moving quite fast for me and Deborah since we found our new church at the beginning of the year. On the 9th (one week ago) our pastor discussed with us that while he was in Africa last month, he was praying on a hill and saw the two of us…married. We agreed and he suggested Tuesday. When I picked Deborah up off the ground, she asked for a day to think about it. Now the first day I met her in June, 1989, I declared that I had “met the girl I was going to marry”, so for me…I was ready. For Deborah, who likes control, it took a minute. We decided that we would, we called our families, got our license and made our plans. On Sunday, May 13, 2007, in front of a few family members, Deborah and I finally got married. Interesting fact: I was born on Father’s Day and married on Mother’s Day. Eventually, we will have a reception and invite all of our friends, but we wanted to keep the ceremony small and stress free. We didn’t want anyone canceling plans for a last minute decision, so we decided to let all of you know after the fact. Please feel free to share the news as we don’t have an email for everyone we would like to tell (especially the Sweet Adelines and Theatre Community)

My wife and I thank you for all of your warm wishes, J

Mr. & Mrs. Hammond

PS, Deborah is Deborah (no middle) Douglas, I am Jason Douglas Hammond; we will now both be “Douglas Hammond”!

"Annie Get Your Gun" Closes

I didn't get to post as many photos of "Annie Get Your Gun" as I wanted, mostly because I was busier during the show than I had been for "Camelot". Certain events would have been fun to capture. For example, when Ryan Westlake, dressed as a cowboy, fell through the top of the barrel upon which he was sitting. And what expression on Annie's (Lauren's) face, frozen an unusually long time because Buffalo Bill (Adam) took his time with his lines, set Frank Butler (MikeMac) to giggle during the last performance?

At the cast party, looking at Dannette's photos, I was surprised how nice the show looked from the audience. It's easy to forget the overall impression when one is in the midst of a show.

Blogging Anonymity

Lots of discussion on the Internet today regarding blogging anonymity. Digby, among others, prefers anonymity, and refers back to the pampleteers of the American Revolution:

In the early days of usenet and internet communities people adopted noms de plume, sometimes as an affectation, but most often as a function of insecurity about the new medium. Unlike their revolutionary predecessors, they weren't afraid of the crown but they were afraid of losing their jobs if their political views became known.

...As the political internet grew out of this early manifestation, many of us maintained our pseudonyms when we started our own blogs, partly because the people we already interacted with "knew" us by that name. Our identities in this community were more real than our legal names.

...There is also freedom in this kind of writing and an intellectual challenge. Writing as a genderless entity, without history or corporeal identity and without (usually) allowing myself to resort to personal anecdote or appeals to authority, I think my arguments became sharper, more tightly reasoned. The blogging ethic (driven by the technology that allows it) requires that one not only make a logical and consistent argument, but one must document and substantiate one's work by linking to source material. These demands that bloggers "show their work" and the feedback from our highly intelligent audience of pedants and political junkies served as a kind of diffuse editorial check that lends credibility over time to any blogger but especially to pseudonymous writers like me --- at least among my readers.

...Many of the pamphleteers wrote pseudonymously and many of the founders and revolutionaries wrote pseudonymously in newspapers from time to time as well, which meant that nobody knew if it was an "important" or "unimportant" personage making the argument. ... Fortunately we live in less dangerous times (for the moment, anyway) when it comes to the government. But for many who write psuedonymously it is still dangerous for them to write about politics --- after all, the law allows people to be fired solely for their political beliefs --- and in the real world we all know that there can be great risk of derailing your career by going against the bosses wishes. Who among us hasn't pulled our punches in front of the boss? Blogging pseudonymously, for all its drawbacks, has the very particular advantage of honesty, with all that that implies, in a political world that is dominated by elite interests that impact the average person's livelihood as much as the crown impacted the lives of the colonial revolutionaries. There is value in that even if it is, at times, rude and uncivil.

So, the principle advantage of anonymity is the ability to write frankly. One downside is that it's possible to lose discipline and write intemperately, which you might not do if your real name was attached to the final product. Speaking for myself, I've always considered intemperateness to be the greater danger, and not fear of job loss, which is why this Web Log will remain Marc Valdez Weblog.

Baby Blue's Weekend

This weekend, two weeks after I started caring for her, Baby Blue started to fly. Mostly it was a matter of short hops. She's been travelling all over the bedroom on the floor with hops and small darts.

Watching a DVD last night was fun. First, Baby Blue would jump from the back of the easy chair, behind my head, to the dusty black-and white keyboard. Then she'd fall off the keyboard and hop around the floor, scaring Sparky back to the sofa, until she'd finally jump on my shoe. I'd then extend my leg, raising the shoe to easy-chair level. Then she'd fly the four feet, or so, to the back of the easy chair. Then she started all over again, working me like a Rube Goldberg perpetual motion machine.

She's also noticed her reflection in the cookie tin that forms her nest. Poke, poke, poke.... She also listens carefully to what I say, and tries to imitate my imitation of her.

At night, she likes to hop down from her nest and cuddle near my face, poking and tasting my nose, or trying to grapple with my rubbery thumb, fingers, or lips, or fussing with tiny hairs on my hands. When I open my eyes, she looks up, eager to poke again curiously at that huge, magical, mysterious blinking eye.

Still, it's beginning to get awkward here at work. Not only did she poo on me three times this afternoon, smearing my shirt and pants, but she plastered the chair and the telephone as well.

I knew the teenaged days would be the hardest....

Jenifer Foote's Back In Town!

There was an excellent article in Sunday's Sacramento Bee by Bruce Dancis regarding Jenifer Foote and her role as Jolene in California Musical Theatre's "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."

Jenifer Foote performed with Davis Musical Theatre Company (DMTC) over an eight-year span. It is heartening to see just how well she has succeeded on Broadway.

According to the handy-dandy DMTC Master Cast list (Excel spreadsheet), here were Jenifer's roles with DMTC:

Oliver!; Apr-May 1986; Workhouse Orphan, Fagin's Boy

South Pacific; July 1986; Szazabo/ Kia/ Child

Bye, Bye Birdie; May-Jun 1987; Teenager

Evita; Jun-Jul 1988; Children's Ensemble

Brigadoon; Feb - Mar 1990; Townsperson of Brigadoon

Alice in Wonderland; Sep - Oct 1990; Alice

42nd Street; Jan - Feb 1993; Phyllis Dale & Set Painting

Bonding

In Thrall

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them:

Number of moderate Republicans who met with the president this week to give him a "blunt warning" about the need to change course in Iraq: 11

Number of those moderate Republicans who voted Thursday in favor of a bill that would require the president to show progress in the war before getting more funding for it: 0.

Eurovision Song Contest 2007 Final Tomorrow

Maybe not vapid enough for my taste, not at least since Poland's entry, the Jet Set's "Time To Party" didn't make it to the finals. But I'm sure it'll be a great final - where else do Norse singers sing pop Spanish lyrics for hundreds of millions of adoring fans?

"Free Paris"

Big rally in NYC:

Two self-made human rights activists had attracted an impressive amount of media attention (including your intrepid New York Press reporter) through a livejournal page that implored NYU students to come with “signs and ATTITUDE” to defend Hilton. According to the website, “This is about the freedom to do what you want vs. overly conservative judges coming down hard on anyone who likes to party.”

Inspired by their moving plea, I arrived on the scene at the appointed time to find a clutch of bored reporters with cameras and notepads, silently cursing their editors and the money they’d sunk into journalism degrees. Things livened up a little when Billy Bush of Access Hollywood showed up, shouting into his cell phone, “it’s like I was saying to Angelina Jolie…” and commenced pacing back and forth in front of the park. A woman in stilettos hobbled over to him and asked if he was part of the protest. “No, I’m the host of Access Hollywood!” he barked.

Finally, at 4:15, the two rabble-rousers arrived bearing pictures of Paris that read “Martyr” and “Victim”. The press, which now numbered about 25, including Bush’s camera crew, mobbed the pair, who managed to answer questions and pose for pictures with a straight face. After about ten minutes, they strode off, smiling.

Fussy Baby

Where are you? You're not in your nest! I DON'T SEE YOU! Let's go see if Sparky invited you to snack (with you as the snack...)

...

Well, Sparky doesn't know where you are. Are you under the bed?

YOU'RE UNDER THE BED! It's scary under there! How did you end up there?

Do you want the grape? You don't want the grape. How about the peanut? You spat it out! The nectarine? Nevermind - too stringy. YOU DON"T EVEN WANT THE SHRIMP!

I know what you do like: I'll scratch the feathers just above your nostrils. Cloudy the Bunny likes that too. But I can't do this forever....

OK, you can sit on my shoulder. THAT'S what you want....

Baby Blue At The Office

Left: What do you do at work, Mommy?











Learning ten-key















Ahoy, maties!

Nice Little Nest Up There

Today, Baby Blue is seated on my shoulders, inside the collar of my shirt. It's a lot more interesting there than on the desk - warm, a little elevated, moves around gently like a tree swaying in the breeze. I'm worried about the little fashion statements I may be wearing soon, like beads around the collar, and she's shedding leaf dander like an autumnal tree shedding leaves (her feathers are growing at a furious clip). But she seems to be happy and content and attentive - one nice little baby!

Jogging Childhood Nightmares

There are certain kinds of traumas that become your own obsessions after awhile, because they bothered and obsessed your parents. For me, one such horror is the train-car collision. My Dad used to fret about these a lot when I was a kid, I think, because he once witnessed one himself when he was young. Maybe more than one - maybe several. He instilled a life-long fear of these things in me. So, even today, I still get the heebie-jeebies when the rail crossing arms come down, or fail to come down, or when people go around the arms, or park on the tracks, etc., etc.

The recent tragedy in Riverbank is enough to give me the hives:

Bill Ingalls, 50, of Modesto, was stopped on the opposite side of the tracks from the SUV when the accident happened.

"The bar came kind of like on her windshield, and I then I started waving for her to go back, and she didn't back up," Ingalls told the Modesto Bee. "So I started to go back, thinking I knew there was going to be an impact.

"So I went back a few feet, and still looking at her, and she still wasn't moving. She still wasn't trying to get backwards out of the way," he said. "At the last second she pulled forward. She didn't really accelerate to try and beat the train or anything. She just pulled forward, literally right into the train."

Graffiti

Left: From The Figurative Pineapple


B3ta's most-recent 'Question of the Week' asked it readers to submit the 'best graffiti ever'. In reponse came a deluge of strange images and various bizarre scribblings from around the globe - one of their best efforts ever! Some of these are classics!

From random ferret


















From two_hats_shakir














From littlematt













From Baj


















From mooglemania












From pixieelf













From is0lati0n















From (stolen by) sky blue sam













From crackhouseceilidhband

Underworld - Cowgirl [Everything, Everything]

everythingeverythingeverythingeverythingeverythingeverythingeverything

in one final scream of love who could climb
this high she looks beautiful like a child
I feel tears
and I want to scream
you know what I mean cause this is hurting no one
am, an erazor of love

hurt the necessary feeling

why dont you call me I feel like flying in two (x4)

am, an erazor of love (x8)

All That Paper

Just use computers!:

German researchers said Wednesday that they were launching an attempt to reassemble millions of shredded East German secret police files using complicated computerized algorithms.

The files were shredded as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and it became clear that the East German regime was finished. Panicking officials of the Stasi secret police attempted to destroy the vast volumes of material they had kept on everyone from their own citizens to foreign leaders.

So great was the task that it overwhelmed the shredding machines, and a large number of the documents were torn by hand into between eight and thirty pieces.

Some 16,250 sacks containing pieces of 45 million shredded documents were found and confiscated after the reunification of Germany in 1990. Reconstruction work began 12 years ago but 24 people have been able to reassemble the contents of only 323 sacks.

...Berlin's Frauenhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology estimates that putting everything back together by hand would take 30 people 600 to 800 years.

Researchers are hopeful they will be able to put together 400 sacks in two years using new computer technology employed by the Frauenhofer Institute.

Vague Rumor

Tori Amos is writing a musical.

Death By "Battle Dancing"

As a way to go, it's OK:

A 48-year-old man has died while dancing, trying to outdo a rival with an acrobatic move while ``battle dancing," police said.

Robert Stitt and his rival were competing in a parking lot on Main Street Monday night when he tried a forward flip and landed on his head.

...Police said several people were in the parking lot drinking and battle dancing – a competition in which each dancer tries one-upmanship with unique dance moves.

The Travails Of Paris Hilton

So much schadenfreude, so little time:

The hotel heiress urged fans to join her in a desperate plea to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to keep her out of jail.

She wrote on her blog: "My friend Joshua started this petition, please help and sihn (sic) it. i LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!"

The petition reads: "Paris Whitney Hilton is an American celebrity and socialite. She is an heiress to a share of the Hilton Hotel fortune, as well as to the real estate fortune of her father Richard Hilton. She provides hope for young people all over the US and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives."

"We, the American public who support Paris, are shocked, dismayed and appalled by how Paris has been the person to be used as an example that Drunk Driving is wrong...

"This petition is to ask Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to pardon Paris Hilton for her mistake. Please allow her to her return to her career and life."

But legal experts say Paris has little chance of staying out of jail.

One experienced attorney who specialises in driving under the influence (DUI) cases said: "Her chances of winning an appeal are little to none. The prosecutors had a slam dunk case. The evidence was overwhelming that she repeatedly violated her probation."

Paris has claimed that police only stop her so they can hit on her. She said: "I think I get in more trouble just because of who I am.

"The cops do it all the time.

"They'll just pull me over to hit on me. It's really annoying. They're like, 'What's your phone number? Want to go to dinner?' "

Blue's First Hike

Quite unexpectedly, Blue jumped from her nest this morning, stationed on my desk top, and then jumped on top of the keyboard (where all the action is, of course). Then she clambered across the keyboard and started climbing on my shirt. I helped her up to my shoulders, where she sat for awhile. She then moved between the shoulders and the chair back. Then she started falling off the chair back, so I helped her into my palm. I started flying exercises, quickly raising and lowering my hand, which triggers her flapping insinct, until she pooped in my hand. Then I released her on top of the desk so I could fetch a kleenex. She momentarily played with the keyboard, until she sat down and started dozing on the mousepad. Then, she got hungry again. Then, back to the nest for lunch!

Subtropical Storm Andrea

First named storm of the season! It's a strange one too, formed from an unusually-vigorous low that became cut-off from the mid-latitude circulation and found sustenance from warm Gulf Stream waters, so it's not entirely tropical in nature, nor entirely mid-latitude either:

Subtropical Storm Andrea had top sustained winds around 45 mph Wednesday morning and didn't appear to be much of a threat, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. Still, a tropical storm watch was issued for parts of Georgia and Florida, meaning tropical storm conditions are possible within 36 hours.

"We're not looking at this system strengthening significantly," said Richard Pasch, a senior hurricane specialist at the center. "We're not viewing this as a major threat."

At 11 a.m. EDT, Andrea was centered about 140 miles southeast of Savannah, Ga., and about 150 miles northeast of Daytona Beach. The storm was moving west at about 3 mph.

Forecasters said no significant rain from the storm was expected to fall over land through at least Thursday morning. But wind-driven waves have been causing beach erosion in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida and the ocean has lapped at beachfront homes and condominiums.

Subtropical systems are hybrid weather formations that are usually weaker than hurricanes and tropical storms. They are kind of a half-breed, sharing characteristics of tropical systems, which get their power from warm ocean water at their centers, and more typical bad weather that forms when warm and cold fronts collide, Pasch said.

Forecasters said Andrea has the warm center characteristic of tropical storms but its core is not particularly well defined. In addition, its winds are farther out from the center than they would be in a tropical storm.

Weasel Defense Coming Apart

The friends of Paul Wolfowitz must be smashing beer cans against their foreheads by now:

Paul Wolfowitz yesterday backed away from earlier claims that the World Bank's ethics committee had been kept informed of his handling of the pay and promotion of a colleague with whom he was romantically involved.

The president of the bank said in a letter to a special committee investigating allegations against him that earlier assertions that the bank's board was kept informed referred to an anonymous e-mail it had been sent by an angry member of staff.

Bush Finally Getting Some Good Advice

Just a bit late, that's all:

Sir Alistair Horne may be the only author in the world whose books have been read and praised by George W. Bush, Ariel Sharon and Robert Fisk. ... The distinguished British historian, author of 18 books, became the talk of the U.S. chattering classes when it was revealed that President Bush was reading his classic account of the 1954-1962 Algerian War, "A Savage War of Peace." Indeed, Bush was so impressed with "A Savage War of Peace" that he invited Horne to come to the White House for tea and a talk last Thursday.

..."He was extremely courteous, very cheerful, loves jokes and he couldn't have been more charming. I was very honored," Horne said. "He was very determined. 'We're not going to give up, we're not going to give up,' he repeated from time to time. He was very interested in my book, had obviously read it most thoroughly, as he had my other book, 'The Price of Glory' [about the WWI battle of Verdun].

...That "A Savage War of Peace" is on the Bush administration's must-read list is one of the more remarkable intellectual ironies in recent years. Horne's book recounts the inevitable defeat of a colonialist power at the hands of a small but determined group of insurgents, the National Liberation Front, who effectively used terrorism to win their nation's freedom -- not exactly the sort of book you would expect Bush and his inner circle to curl up with. As Horne notes, the Algerian War "remains on the statute books as a prototype of the modern war of national liberation." Nelson Mandela's African National Congress guerrillas and Palestinian leaders both studied it, Horne points out. So did al-Qaida. And now, so has George W. Bush.

Backgrounder On Gustavo Arellano

The "Ask A Mexican!" columnist:

Ever wondered why Mexicans swim in the ocean with their clothes on, but were just too damn politically correct to ask? Well, OC Weekly columnist Gustavo Arellano is neither afraid of the question, nor afraid to give you a truthful, well-researched, and often hilarious answer. A compilation of his nationally syndicated “¡Ask a Mexican!” columns has just been released as a similarly titled book and should be required reading for every gabacho who thinks he knows just where he stands on immigration, burritos, and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Beloved for its bravery and derided for entertaining patently offensive notions of cultural stereotype, Arellano’s refreshing approach is to accept any question and research an answer that is rooted in history, etymology, and the best scholarship available. The effect is one of brilliant detournement, rendering explosive, hate-filled suppositions into lessons on culture and habit. Oh, and he might rip you a new culo while he’s at it.

And the reason you see all that denim at the beach? Arellano writes: “Unlike gabachos, Mexicans respect the public when it comes to flashing our flabby chichis, pompis, and cerveza guts – so when we’re out near the pool or by the beach, we cover up. It ain’t Catholicism, machismo, or an homage to our swim across the Rio Grande. It’s good manners.”

Preparations For Flying

Let's play "Totally Now - Workout!" on the CD player.....

Stretch right, stretch left, flaps out, tail under;
Stretch right, stretch left, flaps in, tail out;
Flap!, flap!, flap!, flap!;

Come on, no pain, no gain;
Stretch right, stretch left, stretch down the middle....;

Oh come on, you're not hungry again, are you?

Rare Frogs Aren't Croaking

Relict leopard frogs near the Colorado River, in Nevada:

With their spotlights shining on a spring-fed creek off Lake Mohave, biologists Jef Jaeger and Dana Drake searched for one of the rarest creatures in Nevada, a once-forgotten frog that was thought to have gone extinct more than 50 years ago.

Binge Flying

It's so seductive and tempting! :

Ellingham now says travelling is so environmentally destructive that there is no such thing as a genuinely ethical holiday. He wants the industry to educate travellers about the damage their holidays do to the environment. The development he regrets most is the public's appetite for what he calls 'binge-flying'.

'The tobacco industry fouled up the world while denying [it] as much as possible for as long as they could,' said Ellingham. 'If the travel industry rosily goes ahead as it is doing, ignoring the effect that carbon emissions from flying are having on climate change, we are putting ourselves in a very similar position to the tobacco industry.'

...In the past 25 years, he said, there has been 'a huge growth in expectation of what people think they can do on holiday. People have more money. Flights cost a fraction of what they did then.'

...While determined to encourage people to reduce the number of flights they take, Ellingham admits he has no intention of stopping himself, and he does not expect others to do so either. 'As a "recovering travel writer", I fly less than I would like to, but more than I know that ethically I should. The deal I have made with myself is to limit the number of flights I take to one long-haul and two or three shorter flights each year,' he said. 'I very much respect the purist attitudes of those who say they will never fly again, but it's totally unrealistic to expect the majority to do the same.'

...Encouraging people to reduce the number of flights they take, however, is no easy task. Ellingham said he has been horrified by a new travelling trend. 'If there was just one thing I could change, it would be this new British obsession for binge flying,' he said. 'We now live in a society where, if people have nothing to do on a Saturday night, they go to Budapest for 48 hours. We fly anywhere at the slightest opportunity, 10 times and upwards a year. This needs to be addressed with the greatest urgency.'

The Enhanced Connecting Lackluster Omnivore

I fall squarely in-between all of these pigeon holes:

The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that adult Americans are broadly divided into three groups: 31 percent are elite technology users, 20 percent are moderate users and the remainder have little or no usage of the Internet or cell phones.

...Many longtime Internet users, the lackluster veterans, remain stuck in the decade-old technologies they started with, Horrigan said. ... The moderate users were also evenly divided into "mobile centrics," those who primarily use the cell phone for voice, text messaging and even games, and "connected but hassled," those who have used technology but find it burdensome.

...The Pew study found 15 percent of all Americans have neither a cell phone nor an Internet connection. Another 15 percent use some technology and are satisfied with what it currently does for them, while 11 percent use it intermittently and find connectivity annoying.

The Host Can't Help But Listen

The kid with spiders in his ear.

And don't forget the chicken-eating spider...

And the spider venom that has viagra-like effects....

Last Of The Silver

All my silver fillings have now been removed, as of today, and changed into that white porcelain-like stuff.

Early Atlantic Tropical Storm?

Very odd storm has developed off the Carolinas, that might turn into the first named storm of the season, even though the season doesn't even start until June 1st.

Marcus Crowder Liked "Hair"

Good review!

Theater's transcendent magic lives right now in a vibrant new production of "Hair" at The Space. Earnest, irreverent, lewd and lovely, the musical that put hippies on Broadway gets a glorious revival from the upstart Artistic Differences theater company.

...Electricity surges through the production, from Netty Carey's arresting lead vocal on the opening anthem "Aquarius" to Lindsay Grimes and Cierra Tahsini bringing home the soul-stirring closer "Let the Sunshine In."

Director Maggie Hollinbeck and her youthful tribe capture both the innocence and arrogance of the 1968 musical. The counterculture was still more a curiosity than a commodity then, though the interests and excesses of youth change little from generation to generation. As much a social phenomenon as a bracing breath of radical musical theater, "Hair" broke new ground when first produced in 1968.

Here is the SacBee multimedia presentation.

"A Wide Variety Of Food"

"P-w-a-a-a-c-c-c-k!"

The Web Site says that Western Scrub Jays can eat a wide variety of food.....

Do you want the salmon? Lot's of good salmon! How about rice? Here's some hamburger! Or maybe the pineapple? Crushed peanuts? Strawberry is good this time of year. The tuna part of the tuna/cucumber delight is excellent. Apple? How about the beans? Beans are very nutritious! Navy or pinto? The cat food looks great. Look, E. bought two kinds, including salmon with vegetables....

"P-w-a-a-a-c-c-c-k!"

Asparagus tip is great. You should try it. Look what E. insists on - shrimp! I would never have thought of shrimp! Banana is wonderful (maybe a bit pasty, so don't choke, but yummy!) Mandarin oranges? Lots of vitamin C! How about grapes? Here, let me peel them.... And don't forget the chicken chunks!

"P-w-a-a-a-c-c-c-k!"

Pictures From "Annie Get Your Gun"

Left: Lauren Miller as "Annie Oakley". Also pictured are Mary Young as "Mrs. Wilson", (and largely obscured) Matthew Fyhrie as "Little Jake", Petra Favorite as "Jessie", Arrin Graham as "Nellie", and Sabrina Schloss as "Minnie".













Left: Mary Young as Mrs. Wilson, (largely obscured)Lauren Miller as "Annie Oakley", Arrin Graham as "Nellie", Petra Favorite as "Jessie", and Sabrina Schloss as "Minnie", and Matthew Fyhrie as "Little Jake".















Left: Lauren Miller as "Annie Oakley" and Michael McElroy as "Frank Butler".

















Left: Lauren Miller as "Annie Oakley" and Mary Young as "Mrs. Wilson".

















Left: Michael McElroy as "Frank Butler" and Lauren Miller as "Annie Oakley".

Baby On Board

It was early evening Saturday, 6:30 p.m., and I had to get to Davis from Folsom pronto, for DMTC's "Annie Get Your Gun." So, it was 75 -85 mph in the fast lane, down the hill and across the Sacramento Valley, Baby Blue and myself (the bird had been waiting patiently in the car while I had attended the housewarming party).

Bounding along the freeway, I thought it was a learning opportunity for Baby Blue, to experience - velocity! After all, how is a bird supposed to learn speed without actually experiencing it? So, I removed her as she sat upon her supporting masking tape and pie plate from the cardboard box and placed her on the dashboard as we raced through the eastern Sacramento suburbs on Highway 50. As we passed the Watt Avenue exit, she got into the spirit of things and clumsily flapped her wings three times, the first time she had ever done that so many times.

Approaching Howe Avenue, she moved out of the pie plate and started do her little pterodactyl crawl along the dashboard, which seemed slightly-hazardous as the car bounced vigorously along the pavement on its tight suspension, so I picked her up and set her in my lap. She painstakingly experimented with my finger as we drove past downtown Sacramento and as we joined Interstate 80 and emerged onto the Yolo Causeway, for the first time ever, she perched on my finger. I held her aloft with my right hand as I steered with the left. After awhile, her legs lost strength, so she was no longer exactly perched, but more or less sitting on my hand, but she didn't complain. She effortlessly flew into Davis watching the great views out the windows, as her driver took care of the more-mundane driving chores.

Folsom Housewarming


Left: Home, sweet home for Jim Lyons and Janice Da Silva.

Pleasant drive up to Folsom Saturday afternoon, but since I rarely go to Folsom at all, I did not know how to out-think ambiguous driving directions. Turns out Evite maps are no longer available after the party starts, rather than after the party ends, so mapless, I ended up driving randomly all over Folsom, but eventually located the party after violating the most sacred of the Sacred Laws of Men (I stopped at a convenience store and asked for directions).

Very pleasant house and very pleasant company! Decor is Mediterranean/Italianate.



Friends!

















Great dining room. Over hors d'ouevres, we bandied around the idea that I should debate my company's Big Boss regarding the merits/demerits of global climate change. Sounds scary, but fun!









Living room fireplace.












Learning how to make truffles. In background, co-worker Mark Peak.















Fountain.


















Hi-tech see-saw.

Abandoned Vehicles

The latest junker on the block:

Residents of the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) are wondering how long it will take to remove a disused Boeing 737 that has been abandoned in a busy road.

Learning From Other's Misfortunes

Avoid superglue and exercise:

A gang of armed robbers forced a man to strip naked and then glued him to his exercise bike and sealed his lips with more glue while they ransacked his house, according to a published report.

The One Second Film

Strange idea, but maybe it works:

The 1 Second Film is a non-profit film that combines social-networking with collaborative art to empower many small contributions to make a difference. Anyone in the world can help produce the film by donating as little as $1. Our producers range from celebrities to great-grandmothers.

The film will be one-second of animation (made of 12 large paintings), followed by 90-minutes of credits (which include an open-source feature-length documentary). The entire film is being completed on 70mm, making it the 'Worlds Biggest Shortest Film.'

Speech Crime

Even talking about an eco-terrorist past makes you a present-day danger, and therefore merits prison, according to the feds.

Questions & Answers

From 'Ask A Mexican':

Are Mexicans really baptized in bean dip?

-- Frito Laid

Dear Gabacho: Yes, but only because Jesus once said, "Blessed are the refried, for they shall inherit the Southwest United States."

A Bit Of A Non-Story

So why is it getting prominent mention? Big media spin by the White House veterans? In any event, like Lee Rainie, founding director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project says, the Internet is custom-made for niche interests, so have at it:

But YouTube, which is owned by Google, has also been a favorite target of conservatives, who accuse the site of a liberal bias.

Railing against YouTube, two Republican White House veterans have launched QubeTV as a conservative alternative.

"The 2008 campaign will be dominated by video and in particular by user-generated video," says QubeTV founder Charlie Gerow, a former aide in the Ronald Reagan White House.

"There are a vast array of young conservative activists and operatives out there armed with cell phones or hand-helds that are going to capture the next 'macaca' moment or John Kerry bad joke and put them on Qube TV," says Gerow, whose Pennsylvania strategic media firm, Quantum Communications, created the Web site.

Gerow insists YouTube banned a video by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin about radical Islamists.

Responding to that incident, a statement on the Web site reads: "We fly the conservative flag here at QubeTV, and we will not be about banning or deleting conservatives."

YouTube takes issue with Gerow's assertion that the site is banning conservative content.

"That's flat out incorrect," says a spokesman for YouTube, who asked not to be identified by name.

...YouTube says its users, not YouTube employees, police the site. However, if users flag inappropriate content, YouTube managers review it and remove the offending video from the site.

...But YouTube isn't the only site raising the ire of some conservatives.

Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales' Internet encyclopedia, also has some conservative competition on the Web. Conservapedia.com was founded in November 2006 by Andrew Schlafly, son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.

A statement on the Web site reads: "It's time for the conservatives to get our voice out on the Internet!"

...The difference in approach -- a classic "wiki-war" -- is not uncommon, and Rainie suggests that the conservative alternatives are natural outgrowths of the Internet.

"The Internet is all about niches," says Rainie. "It makes perfect sense for all kinds of groups that are organized by partisan belief and passion to create their own channels."

Too Tough

I'll wimp out on this course, thank you:

By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape.

Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person.

After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water.

But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various walks of life were being led by expert guides on a wilderness-survival adventure designed to test their physical and mental toughness.

And the guides, it turned out, were carrying emergency water on that torrid summer day.

Buschow wasn't told that, and he wasn't offered any. The guides did not want him to fail the $3,175 course. They wanted him to dig deep, push himself beyond his known limits and make it to the cave on his own.

This Old House

Kinda sounds like mine:

An upstate New York couple didn't think a few bats in the attic were much of a problem when they were buying a house last summer.

Months later, they found out how wrong they were when they discovered more than a ton and a half of bat droppings up there.

Mystery Of The Empty Nest

The last two days, I had noticed that the jays had disappeared from the vicinity of my house, which I took to be ominous. After all, there was still a baby bird in the nest in the hedge.

Or at least, so I thought. This evening, I got the ladder and checked out the nest - empty. And yet, no body.

So, something bad happened. A predator attack? Squirrel, possum, cat? Or maybe the body had fallen and was scavenged.

In any event, it looks like Baby Blue is a foundling.....

"Largest Robbery In The World"

It certainly is interesting what happened to all that U.S. taxpayer money:

A former Iraqi defence minister whose 10 months in office coincided with the disappearance of more than $800m (£400m) from the ministry’s coffers is living openly in Amman and London despite a warrant for his arrest.

Hazem Shaalan, a small businessman in London until Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003, rose in a year to one of the most important jobs in the interim government that ran Iraq from 2004 to 2005.

He left Baghdad before the next government discovered that a fortune had been looted from his ministry’s account in what one senior investigator has called “one of the largest thefts in history”.

The missing money was part of $8.8 billion of shrink-wrapped American cash that was flown into Iraq after Saddam fell but which is now unaccounted for. It is the subject of a congressional inquiry in Washington amid growing demands by Democrats to identify those responsible.

...An investigators’ audit of the ministry during Shaalan’s tenure found that $1.7 billion went into its account at the Rafidain Bank in Baghdad before vanishing into a Jordanian account.

Two cheques drawn on the Ministry of Defence account, one for $149m and the other for $348m — were among transfers totalling $1.126 billion to al-Warka, a small private bank in Baghdad. The money was then deposited at the Housing Bank in Amman.

There it went into the account of Naer Jumaili, a little-known Iraqi businessman who held no official position but acted as a middle man for Iraq’s defence contracts while Shaalan was in charge. Jumaili also lives openly in Amman despite an Iraqi arrest warrant on charges of theft but was unavailable for comment last week.

“What Shaalan and his ministry were responsible for was possibly the largest robbery in the world,” said Judge Radhi al-Radhi, the head of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity which investigates official fraud.

The scandal has raised a series of perplexing questions. The nature of Shaalan’s role, the impact on the faltering development of Iraq’s nascent army as the insurgency took hold and the failure of US officials to keep track of billions of dollars are all coming under growing scrutiny in Baghdad and Washington.

Not least is the question: where did all the money go? Iraqi investigators have been denied access to Jordanian bank details and have yet to establish how much may have simply been stolen.

But they believe that most of it went on weapons deals in which the ministry was supposed to acquire expensive, modern equipment but bought cheap, substandard items instead, with the difference in price being pocketed along the way.

In one example, the latest MP5 American machineguns were ordered at a cost of $3,500 each. But what was delivered were Egyptian copies worth $200 per gun.

Other purchases included outdated Pakistani armoured personnel carriers that could hardly stop a Kalashnikov bullet and had steering wheels on the wrong side; and bullets so old that when soldiers opened the ammunition cases they feared the ammunition would explode.

“Huge amounts of money simply disappeared,” said Ali Allawi, a former finance minister who uncovered the problems after he came into office in 2005.

“We got scrap metal in return. This is not just about fraud. The substandard equipment that the army received meant soldiers died as a result.”

One Iraqi official claimed last week that the missing money would have paid for 11,000 schools or 500 hospitals. But the immediate impact was that the Iraqi army was woefully unprepared to tackle an increasingly savage and well armed insurgency, just at the time when the Americans were pressing for the national force to start replacing their own troops. Iraqi soldiers found that they were ambushed by insurgents with far better weapons than their own.

...Shaalan became defence minister without any experience in security or managing a large organisation. Soon after his appointment he wrote to the prime minister, Iyad Allawi, asking for an increase in his ministry’s budget, which had been set at $450m, on top of $8-$10 billion the Americans spent separately that year on training and equipping the Iraqi army.

Shaalan decided to create new mechanised divisions and a rapid deployment force to counter the insurgency, and for that he needed more money. Such an increase would normally have been submitted first to the cabinet and, if approved, to the National Assembly.

Instead, Shaalan sent a memo to the office of the prime minister, requesting an emergency exemption from the procedures.

In a memo signed by Shaalan he said there were “a number of secret contracts the amounts of which cannot be made public”, and other contracts “which require immediate expenditure”. In the same memo he demands “tax exemption for secret contracts”. The finance ministry was instructed to allocate the $1.7 billion for the creation of the rapid deployment divisions and to place it at the disposal of Shaalan’s ministry.

Shaalan’s memo was dated August 29. Two days later Jumaili incorporated the Flowing Spring company with assets of $2,000. Within months the company was doing deals for the ministry and hundreds of millions of dollars were flowing into his personal account.

Jumaili forged an alliance with Ziad Cattan, an Iraqi with dual Polish citizenship. Cattan was appointed head of military procurement at the ministry, even though he appears to have had no credentials for the job. He had run a pizza parlour in Poland while Saddam was in power, and had a small used car business in Germany.

He later admitted to an American newspaper: “Before, I sold water, flowers, shoes, cars – but not weapons. We didn’t know anything about weapons.”

...There was little or no competitive tendering. The contracts, some of which the Ministry of Defence never saw, even allowed Jumaili to determine what was delivered at his own discretion.

Documents show that in one transaction Jumaili transferred about $480m in ministry funds to the account of a colleague in Baghdad. The colleague then transferred the entire sum to Jumaili’s account in Amman.

Jumaili also took $100m of ministry cash from a bank in Baghdad in a single withdrawal and flew it out of the city.

A large quantity of substandard equipment was bought by Jumaili from a Polish company through a connection established by Cattan.

Twenty-four Soviet-era helicopters were acquired for $100m, ostensibly paid in advance. They were more than 30 years old and so outdated that Iraqi army inspectors refused to take delivery of them. Another purchase of 16 Polish-made Sokol helicopters is still being disputed.

...Last week Shaalan said he had sold a spacious villa in Amman and now lived in a small flat. But among the countless Iraqi refugees in Amman, many of them destitute, Shaalan cuts a suave figure, travelling in a luxury car and accompanied by solicitous bodyguards.

He also seems to have ready access to cash. When he travelled from Amman to London with a Sunday Times journalist in 2005, he stopped before customs to divide up bundles of US dollars from his briefcase between himself, his wife and his travelling companions.

...On visits to his family in London, Shaalan stays in some of the capital’s most expensive hotels and has been known to take a suite at the Dorchester.

...By the time Shaalan’s successor came to office in May 2005, the ministry’s resources had been plundered and an army that was supposed to be well equipped and trained was vulnerable and demoralised.

When Ali Allawi traced the missing money to Jordan, his request to officials in Amman for the records of Jumaili’s bank account was stonewalled..

RIP, Wally Schirra

I remember how exciting and dramatic the Gemini 6 mission was, particularly the aborted launch, where the Titan II engines fired, but then were shutdown, which led to the oddity of Gemini 7 being launched before Gemini 6:

Walter M. "Wally" Schirra Jr., who followed his barnstorming parents into the sky as a Navy combat pilot and the only astronaut to fly in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs, has died. He was 84.

...A Naval Academy graduate credited with shooting down at least one enemy jet during the Korean War, Schirra was chosen as one of America's seven original Project Mercury astronauts.

On Oct. 3, 1962, he lifted off from Cape Canaveral in the Sigma 7 space capsule for America's fifth manned space mission and third orbital flight.

...Asked later what went through his mind as we waited atop the 95-foot Atlas rocket for liftoff, Schirra replied with a grin: "You think, all these hundreds of thousands of parts were put together by the lowest bidder."

In 1965, Schirra and fellow astronaut Thomas P. Stafford were selected to fly the Gemini 6 mission, the first attempt to rendezvous in space with another orbiting spacecraft. Success was necessary if the Apollo program to land men on the moon was to advance.

After several postponements due to a rocket failure and technical problems, Schirra and Stafford were launched from Cape Kennedy -- the temporarily renamed Cape Canaveral -- on Dec. 15, 1965. Schirra's assignment was to maneuver Gemini 6 close to the orbiting Gemini 7, which had been launched 11 days earlier and carried astronauts Frank Borman and James A. Lovell Jr.

Six hours after liftoff, Schirra brought Gemini 6 to within 6 to 10 feet of Gemini 7, close enough to see the other astronauts' faces.

"It was done to perfection," Schirra said later. "Until then, we came in second to the Soviets. But they had never done a rendezvous and they didn't do that kind of rendezvous for another 10 years."

...Three years later in October 1968, Schirra and fellow astronauts Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham orbited the Earth in Apollo 7. The flight went well but all three men came down with severe head colds. Schirra was the first person to take Actifed in space, much to the delight of the product's manufacturer, Burroughs Wellcome.

Walter Marty Schirra was born March 12, 1923 in Hackensack, N.J.

His father, Walter M. Schirra Sr., was an engineer and an Army pilot who had flown bombing and reconnaissance missions over France during World War I. His mother was Florence Leach Schirra, who starred as a wing-walker during some of her husband's stunt flights over county fairs during the early 1920s. She was pregnant with Wally during the last of those flights.

Schirra said he grew up knowing he'd be a pilot. He soloed at 16 and in 1942, the year after the United States joined World War II, he was accepted into a three-year, accelerated course at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md.

...In 1949, Schirra was assigned to the 154th Fighter Bomber Squadron, flying low-level bombing and strafing runs over Korea. Rated an outstanding pilot, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Air Medals.

From 1952 to 1954, he was a test pilot at the Naval Ordnance Training Center in China Lake, where he was remembered for evading a Sidewinder missile that unexpectedly turned on him during an exercise. From 1954 to 1958, he was assigned to the carrier Lexington, the Naval Air Safety School at USC and the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent, Md.

In 1959, Schirra was selected as a Project Mercury astronaut. His responsibility, in addition to training for spaceflights, was the development and testing of the astronauts' life-support systems.

Schirra was a practical joker, relaxed and popular with his fellow astronauts. But he also was tough, cool and decisive under pressure. He became an outspoken critic of the carefully choreographed public relations program that threatened to smother the astronauts.

"None of us is interested in the glamour of being a spaceman," he said. "We're interested in getting up and getting back."

Schirra got up and back three times, once each during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. During his second spaceflight, maneuvering at 17,000 mph under Schirra's direction, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 circled for hours, perfecting the techniques that would enable later space vehicles to dock with one another during flights to the moon.

Despite the danger, the banter never stopped.

"There seems to be a lot of traffic up here," Schirra radioed from Gemini 6 after one particularly close maneuver.

"Call a policeman," Borman retorted from Gemini 7.

"I can see your lips moving," Gemini 7 pilot Lovell told Schirra.

"I'm chewing gum," Schirra replied.

In 1969, after receiving the Collier trophy for achievement in aviation, Schirra left NASA and the Navy. He became a commentator for CBS News and often teamed with anchorman Walter Cronkite on space coverage.

Anita Creamer's Column On Eric Presnall

Amusing column this morning regarding a standout at El Dorado Musical Theater:

In the autograph line after the show, he'd hear girls whispering to one another about him.

"They were like, 'Oh, my God, there he is. What should I say to him?' " Presnall says. "People would sneak a kiss on my cheek. They'd have me sign their hands and their foreheads.

Companion At Work

But one with a prodigious appetite....

A Night On The Town With Joe The Plumber

Left: Colorful chandelier, in the rotunda at Cheesecake Factory.


Joe the Plumber had been promising for two months that he would treat me to a night on the town, in gratitude for me helping through a rough patch several months ago by lining up work for him. With schedule conflicts, it seemed difficult to arrange this jaunt, but last night seemed opportune.

Joe had lots of time to envision what he considered the perfect night out. The night would start with dinner at Arden Fair Mall's Cheesecake Factory, and would end at an establishment where 'the ladies sit on your lap', which sounded perfectly sedate.

Left: Sacramento's "Torch Club" beckons on a Tuesday night.


Dinner was pleasant at Cheesecake Factory. I had pork cutlets with macaroni. We both got white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake, but got it to go, since we were already stuffed.

Dinner conversation was light. I've had trouble fully-following Joe's reasoning since he suffered a beating at Del Paso's Stoney Inn several years ago, so I just let him riff. Regarding Iraq, we both lamented the war, but Joe sees the hands of the British in the bloodshed, since they essentially own everything in the world (I disagree, but like I say, Joe's treating here, so I kept conversation light). We didn't touch usual subjects, like UFOs, and only lightly discussed his Native American roots.

Joe told one of his favorite stories again, where he had once been sent into South Central LA on a union plumbing job, but was waylaid by a van full of youths. A machete was produced, and he understood they were going to decapitate him. He told them "I was sent here on a job. I am just a plumber." One of the youths said, "Oh yeah, my mother's waiting for you," and so they let him go.

After Cheesecake Factory, we went and listened to blues music at Sacramento's Torch Club. It was a slow night, but the music was good. I had a margarita, but since Joe was driving, he had just a soda.

After The Torch Club, it was time to find this sitting establishment. We ended up at a club called Amber's, in Citrus Heights. Very slow Tuesday night, very dark lighting, and the dancing was lackadaisical - nearly clinical. One dancer put more energy into her act than usual, and I called out to her afterwards. I asked her: "So, what do you do?" She stifled a laugh, and Joe chimed in helpfully "she's a neurosurgeon." She said that, when she wasn't busy here, she helps sell spoilers for Dodge Vipers. Such a colorful occupation! Afterwards, I asked Joe what he thought. "She's a Hell's Angel," he said. "Really?" I said, "Why? She's the most-improbable-looking Hell's Angel I've ever seen." "Her colors, the ones she wore - red and white: those are Hell's Angels colors," Joe said. Once again, I disagreed, but like I say, Joe's treating here.....

We were both dissatisfied with Amber's, so we ended up at a place called Club Fantasy on Richards Boulevard. The place was nearly deserted, but the dancers soldiered on. One dancer urged us to sit closer to the stage, since 'Nina' was going to be dancing: "She's the best!" I have to admit her assessment was accurate. Still I couldn't help making an eye-rolling comment to the first dancer aforementioned that it was the improbably-tall platform shoes that really caught my eye. For some reason, Joe seemed out-of-sorts in this establishment. No British or Hell's Angels were in evidence anywhere, so I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the cheesecake waiting in the truck.

An interesting evening with Joe The Plumber.

Veto

Hmmm. What's that about the pot and the kettle?:

Moving toward a veto of a war spending bill, President Bush said Tuesday that Democrats who made the legislation a showdown over withdrawing U.S. troops could turn Iraq into a "cauldron of chaos" with their approach.

SOI Still Negative

The Southern Oscillation Index is STILL negative - essentially neutral, but still negative! Like a negative attitude, not much use in a negative SOI!

Tom Poston, RIP

Familiar actor passes away:

Goof-up or not, Poston was a versatile actor who made his Broadway debut in 1947 playing five roles in Jose Ferrer's "Cyrano de Bergerac."

One role called for him to engage in a duel, fall 10 feet, roll across the stage and vanish into the orchestra pit. Other actors had auditioned and failed but Poston, who in his youth had been an acrobat with the Flying Zepleys, did the stunt perfectly.

He went on to play secondary roles in Broadway comedies and starred at regional theaters in such shows as "Romanoff and Juliet" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." For 10 years he was also a panelist on the popular TV quiz show "To Tell the Truth."

He made guest appearances on scores of television shows, including "Studio One," "The Phil Silvers Show," "The Defenders," "Get Smart," "The Bob Newhart Show," "The Love Boat," "St. Elsewhere," "The Simpsons," "Coach," "Murphy Brown," "Home Improvement," "Touched by an Angel," "Will & Grace," "Dream On," "Just Shoot Me!" and "That '70s Show."

Mercy On Them

No redeeming social benefit here, except schadenfreude:

Obese British teenagers will be dropped into Australia's harsh outback, where they will have to hunt with Aborigines for food in a new reality television show, said a report on Tuesday.

The makers of Fat Teens Can't Hunt are talking to Aboriginal groups who will teach the youngsters how to trap, kill, gather and cook "bush tucker" for the BBC show.

Common Aboriginal food includes kangaroos and emus, witchetty grubs, lizards, snakes and moths.

The series will feature five boys and five girls aged 16-19 in six one-hour episodes and is based on an earlier series, Fat Men Can't Hunt, which sent a group of eight obese adults to live with the bushmen of Namibia.

..."The biggest revelation of the last series was that people are addicted to tastes and they don't eat for survival anymore.

"For them to realise where the meat actually comes from and to actually trap a small game bird and eat it is really, really special. It helps them reconnect with where food came from."

Ramsden rejected suggestions from critics that the show was voyeuristic.

Big Anniversary - Mission Accomplished Day!

Britney Singing On Sunday?

A rumor of Britney Spears singing at House Of Blues at the Mandalay Bay on Sunday. The messenger is a bit skeptical, though:

Still, I have a hard time imagining her in a venue like House of Blues that requires a band and actual singing from performers. That would almost be a new Britney Spears. I see Britney Spears "singing" comeback taking place, if in Vegas, at a spot more in fitting with her career to date, like Pure or Tao, where she can just get up and sing-along with a little help from her old recordings. We will see.