"The Music Man" - Wednesday Night Rehearsal

Left: "(Ya Got) Trouble", featuring Rand Martin as Harold Hill.

Left: "Goodnight, My Someone", featuring Laura Wardrip as Marian Paroo.

Left: "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean", featuring Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (Mary Young).

Left: Wa Tan Ye Girls, with Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (Mary Young) and Kendyl I. (Amaryllis Hix).

Left: "Seventy-Six Trombones" - Harold Hill (Rand Martin).

Left: "Seventy-Six Trombones".

Left: "76 Trombones" finale.

Left: "The Sadder-But-Wiser Girl". Paul Fearn as Marcellus Washburn and Rand Martin as Harold Hill.

Left: "Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little." The Pick-A-Little Ladies, with Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (Mary Young) and Maud Dunlop (Dannette Vassar) at the front, talking to Harold Hill (Rand Martin).

Left: "Marian the Librarian"

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Snakes in the library!

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Cartwheeling girls (Elena L. and Lizzy C.).

Left: Lenore Sebastian (Mrs. Paroo), Laura Wardrip as Marian Paroo and Rand Martin as Harold Hill.

Left: "Wells Fargo Wagon".

Left: "Shipoopi", featuring Ethel Toffelmeyer (Wendy Young Carey) and Marcellus (Paul Fearn).

Left: "Shipoopi", with Matthew Kohrt (Tommy Djilas) and McKinley C. (Zaneeta Shinn) in the foreground).

Left: "Shipoopi", featuring Ethel Toffelmeyer (Wendy Young Carey) at the front. Also visible, left to right, McKinley C., Ashley H., Christina Rae, Lydia S., Kelly Soderlund, and Elizabeth F.

Left: "Shipoopi". I can't believe I caught them in the air at the same instant! Left to right, Riley H., Edgar L., Matthew Kohrt, and Calvin Y.

Left: "Lida Rose" - The Barbershop Quartet (Andy Hyun, Rick Price, Rick Wennstrom, and Don Stephenson).

Left: "Gary, Indiana". Lenore Sebastian as Mrs. Paroo, Laura Wardrip as Marian Paroo and Michael C. as Winthrop Paroo.

"The Music Man" - More Monday Pictures

Left: Wa Tan Ye Girls, with Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (Mary Young). The five girls to the right of Mary Young are (I think), Monique L., Kendyl I. (Amaryllis Hix), Ani C., Rose M., and A. Ewey. The three girls to the left are (I think) McKinley C. (Zaneeta Shinn), Elena L., and Julia S.

I forgot to bring my camera on Tuesday, so here are a few more pictures from Monday rehearsal.

Left: "76 Trombones" finale.

Left: Harold Hill with the Barbershop Quartet - Olin Britt (Andy Hyun), Euart Dunlap (Rick Price), Oliver Hix (Rick Wennstrom), and Jacey Squires (Don Stephenson).

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Harold Hill (Rand Martin) and Marian Paroo (Laura Wardrip).

Left: "Marian the Librarian"

Left: "Marian the Librarian"

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Tommy Djilas (Matthew Kohrt) and Zaneeta Shinn (McKinley C.).

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Snakes in the library!

Left: "Marian the Librarian"

Zaneeta Shinn (McKinley C.) and Tommy Djilas (Matthew Kohrt).

Left: "Shipoopi", featuring Ethel Toffelmeyer (Wendy Young Carey) and Marcellus (Paul Fearn).

High School Tony Awards

High School Tony Awards Honor Nation's Biggest Drama Club Nerds

Attack The Roma

What keeps the Protestant/Catholic tension at bay in Northern Ireland? The ability to attack Gypsies instead:

BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND -- The thugs used bricks and bottles to drive more than 100 Romanian Gypsies from their homes in a wave of attacks. On Wednesday, the victims were sheltering in a community center after a church plucked them off a Belfast street.

...Police said the racist attacks started last week, with gangs smashing house windows and attacking cars. The violence flared again on Monday when youths hurling bottles and Nazi salutes attacked an anti-racism rally called to support the migrants.

Belfast City council press officer Mark Ashby said the majority of the victims were Roma, or Gypsies, from Romania.

..."Starting with Italy in 2007, there have been waves of ... racist attacks against Roma," said Mandache. "Afterwards, there were attacks in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania."

The Northern Ireland government said the displaced Romanians would be given temporary accommodation in Belfast. But many said they wanted to leave Northern Ireland.

"We want to go home because right now we are not safe here," said a woman who gave only her first name, Maria. "We want to go back home to Romania, everybody right now does."

Racial tensions are rising across Europe as the pace of migration grows and the economy worsens. Far-right parties picked up seats in many countries in elections for the European Parliament earlier this month. The whites-only British National Party, which calls for the "voluntary repatriation" of immigrants, increased its share of the vote and won its first two European seats.

Europe's 7 to 9 million Roma people face widespread prejudice in Romania -- where estimates of their numbers vary between 500,000 and 2 million -- and other countries. The European Union's rights agency has said Roma face "overt discrimination" in housing, health care and education, despite many government programs designed to help them.

Since Romania joined the EU in 2007, thousands of Roma have moved west to richer European countries, where many live in squalid camps with no access to health services, education, basic sanitary facilities or jobs. More than 700 encampments have been built in Italy, where Gypsies have been met with hostility and blamed for begging and street crime.

Northern Ireland has only a tiny Romanian population -- fewer than 1,000 people, according to a government estimate.

But a number of Romanian Gypsies have moved to Belfast since 2007 and have become a visible presence, selling newspapers on the city's streets.

...Northern Ireland's surge in racist violence over the past few years has coincided with the decline in Northern Ireland's traditional conflict between paramilitary groups rooted in rival Catholic and Protestant districts.

Much of the violence has been blamed on Protestant youths, who once would have vented their anger against Catholics or joined outlawed pro-British paramilitary groups.

Problem Solved - Next Problem?

Tales from the Gilded State:

Instead of a further cut, the committee's Democrats voted to delay paying workers on June 30, 2010, until July 1, 2010. That would carry 1/12th of the state's $11 billion annual payroll into the 2010-11 fiscal year, and not count on the coming fiscal year's books.

Schwarzenegger was not mollified by the accounting trick.

"It's outrageous that the Legislature would ask Californians to pay higher taxes but refuse to cut the pay of state workers by 5 percent," the governor said in a statement released by his office. "This is exactly why so many Californians have lost faith in Sacramento's ability to solve problems."

Not that I support cutting the wages of state workers, or anything, but it is interesting that, if times are as desperate as people say they are, why would they do something like this? It encourages a cynical stance.

Water Guerilla

Even though Sacramento is arid, by nature, its location at the confluence of two major rivers has allowed it to escape the sort of watering rules that are common elsewhere in California.

So, the City of Sacramento has finally decided to implement new watering rules, and begin enforcing others already on its books.

The rules are kept simple, to make administration easy, but there is enough nonsense in them to make the people rebel. Here are the rules:

New outdoor watering rules are in effect for all residents and businesses who pay water bills to the city of Sacramento. These are permanent changes.

Key changes:

• Watering banned from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

• Hose used for washing car must have shut-off nozzle.

• When standard time is in effect (generally November to March), watering allowed only one day a week (see below).

Continuing rules:

• Watering allowed only on alternate days: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday for addresses ending in odd numbers (Saturdays only during standard time); Wednesday, Friday, Sunday for even addresses (Sundays only during standard time); no one may water on Mondays.

• Watering days apply whether watering lawns or gardens; also apply to both sprinklers and hand-watering.

• Water waste prohibited: No one may willingly allow water to run off property into gutters or streets while irrigating landscaping.

• Washing driveways, sidewalks, parking lots is banned (except for health and safety reasons with prior approval).

Exceptions:

• New landscaping or garden plants may be watered daily for 21 days from the date of planting.

Source: City of Sacramento

My beef is with the continuing rules. With caliche-type soils such are common in the Central Valley, in order to avoid runoff, shorter, more-frequent waterings are called for. This is particularly true with south-facing slopes.

I have a strip of grass in front of my house on a steep, south-facing slope. In order to avoid water runoff, I can't rely on any sprinkler or sprinkler system - I have to apply water by hose, by hand, and since the amounts of water I'm using are quite small, at the height of summer, in August, I have to water every other night, or sometimes nightly. The rules prescribe that, at times, I have to wait four days (from Thursday night till Tuesday night) between waterings. That long a gap means death to that strip of grass.

So, I will adjust my ways, but given my predilection to stay up all night doing various tasks anyway, will anyone notice the man with the hose at 3 a.m.?

On Twitter's Bleeding Edge

An amusing post by Steve Benen (reproduced in full):

NEW MEDIA, OLD RACISM.... Republican Party leaders have gone to great lengths to urge party activists to use tools like Twitter and Facebook to get their political message out. On the one hand, the GOP's rank-and-file have paid attention and taken the leaders' advice. On the other hand, it's the messages that have become, shall we say, problematic.

Yesterday, it was a prominent South Carolina Republican who used his Facebook page to liken First Lady Michelle Obama to an escaped gorilla. (He proceeded to blame Obama for his comparison.)

Today, a different prominent South Carolina Republican operative had shared this all-caps message via Twitter:

Just heard Obama is going to impose a 40% tax on aspirin because it's white and it works.

He later acknowledged that his comments "were hurtful, wrong and have no place in civil discourse."

And making matters slightly worse, this comes the same day a Republican staffer for a Tennessee state senator emailed a "composite picture of the country's 44 presidents, which represents President Obama with only a set of eyes," in what was clearly another racist message. The staffer backpedaled, not by denouncing the racist image, but by explaining she sent the email to the wrong list of people.

I suspect this isn't what Michael Steele had in mind when he vowed Republicans would go "beyond cutting edge" in using technology.

Not Even The Top Ayatollah Buys The Result

A credibility problem:

TEHRAN, Iran — Supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main rival in the disputed presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, massed in competing rallies Tuesday as the country's most senior Islamic cleric threw his weight behind opposition charges that Ahmadinejad's re-election was rigged.

"No one in their right mind can believe" the official results from Friday's contest, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said of the landslide victory claimed by Ahmadinejad. Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi's charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers "in the worst way possible."

"A government not respecting people's vote has no religious or political legitimacy," he declared in comments on his official Web site. "I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to 'sell their religion,' and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God."

...Montazeri's pointed public comments provided fresh evidence that a serious rift has opened at the top of Iran's powerful religious hierarchy after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei endorsed the official election results and the harsh crackdown against the opposition.

A leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution who's often feuded with Khamenei and once vied with him for the supreme leader's position, Montazeri accused the government of attacking "the children of the people with astonishing violence" and "attempting a purge, arresting intellectuals, political opponents and scientifics."

"He is questioning the legitimacy of the election and also questioning the legitimacy of (Khamenei's) leadership, and this is the heart of the political battle in Iran," said Mehdi Noorbaksh, an associate professor of international affairs at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Pennsylvania. "This is very significant. This is huge support for Mousavi and the demonstrators on the reformists' side."

"The Music Man" - Monday Rehearsal

Left: "Seventy-Six Trombones" - Harold Hill (Rand Martin). Adults standing: Rich Kulmann (Constable)and Paul Fearn (Marcellus Washburn). Visible teens: Elizabeth F., Lydia S., Matthew Kohrt (Tommy Djilas), McKinley C. (Zaneeta Shinn), and Calvin Y.

Left: Mayor Shinn (Gil Sebastian, right) pilots River City through troubled waters, aided by alert school board member Oliver Hix (Rick Wennstrom, left).

Left: "Seventy-Six Trombones" - Harold Hill (Rand Martin) introduces himself to River City. Ladies on forward bench: Dannette Vassar, Anissa Smith, Jan Isaacson, Lenore Sebastian (Mrs. Paroo), and Mary Young (Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn). Three boys: Caleb & Josh S., and Michael C.

Left: Harold Hill (Rand Martin) and Tommy Djilas (Matthew Kohrt), with three girls in the background (Ashley H, Elizabeth F., and McKinley C.).

Left: "Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little." The Pick-A-Little Ladies, with Maud Dunlop (Dannette Vassar) at the front, talking to Harold Hill (Rand Martin).

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Laura Wardrip as Marian Paroo and Rand Martin as Harold Hill.

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Absorbed readers in the library.

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Zaneeta Shinn (McKinley Carlisle) and Tommy Djilas (Matthew Kohrt).

Left: Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (Mary Young), Mayor Shinn (Gil Sebastian), Marian Paroo (Laura Wardrip), and Zaneeta Shinn (McKinley Carlisle) begin to review the 'Indiana Journal'.

Left: "Wells Fargo Wagon" - Winthrop Paroo (Michael C.).

Left: "Wells Fargo Wagon".

Left: "Shipoopi", featuring Ethel Toffelmeyer (Wendy Young Carey).

Steve's Cell Phone Camera

A handy tool for capturing Marc capturing others with his camera.

Deconstructing Lady Gaga

Interesting observations:

Lady Gaga is something of an anomaly: a pretentious pop starlet. To hear her tell it, she isn't the anonymous hookup facilitator you might assume from her robotically decadent techno hits but, rather, a savvy media manipulator engaged in an elaborate, Warholian pop-art project. She sprinkles interviews with references to Warhol's "deeply shallow" aphorism, David Bowie, Leigh Bowery, and The Night Porter. Her outlandish, architectural outfits are meant to evoke the avant-garde designs of Thierry Mugler and Hussein Chalayan. She even has her own Factory-style crew of collaborators, which she calls the Haus of Gaga. That none of this is readily apparent in her actual songs might be part of the point. Her pretentiousness—the heady name-dropping, the high-concept video, the wild get-ups—hangs halolike around her music, encouraging us to consider the songs in a different and more radiant light.

Ironically, Lady Gaga's formative influence was as unpretentious as they come. When Gaga, 23, was just an Upper West Side girl named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, she was a Britney Spears obsessive. She would sing Spears karaoke in her bedroom and make pilgrimages to the street outside the TRL studios, she's recalled, "just to see Britney's fingernail in the window." But she didn't disavow her when she grew older and found a cooler set of artists to worship. Gaga's adolescent infatuation with Britney Spears was, in part, anthropological: She's talked about how she loved not only Britney's music but the hysterical devotion it inspired in her own 'tween peers. That seems crucial to understanding Gaga's mission today. She wants to restore an aura of magic and mystery to the pop star—a reasonable reaction to seeing your first idol so brutally stripped of her pixie dust.

Gaga's highbrow bibliography and performance-art theatricality are key to this aura-building, but it's to her credit that she doesn't attempt a regal remove from the debased celebrity culture that trampled all over her favorite Mouseketeer. Instead, Gaga dives into the mud and wrestles with it. We see this in the canny way she plays off of the troubled legacy of her '90s teen-pop heroes. Whereas Britney debuted as a towheaded virgin whose career went on to encompass her public deflowering, Gaga debuted already-defiled: "Just Dance" is about stumbling drunkenly around a nightclub and turning your shirt inside out without knowing it. In this way, Gaga wrote her public meltdown into her very first single while remaining a deft guardian of her actual private life—a teasing pre-emptive strike. In "Poker Face," a celebration of mind games and bedroom power plays, and "Paparazzi," which compares love to stalkerish picture-hunting, Gaga plays a girl completely in control and completely comfortable among the dizzying, superficial signifiers of tabloid-era femininity.

...On the cover of the new Rolling Stone, Gaga appears naked beneath a massive canopy of frizzed-out hair, sprouting bubbles from her skin, with her lips painted to resemble the severely exaggerated pucker of a blow-up doll. The image captures something essential about Lady Gaga: She's an exquisite horror.

Greenwald Notes...

Before the Cheney camp gets too excited:

Much of the same faction now claiming such concern for the welfare of The Iranian People are the same people who have long been advocating a military attack on Iran and the dropping of large numbers of bombs on their country -- actions which would result in the slaughter of many of those very same Iranian People. During the presidential campaign, John McCain infamously sang about Bomb, Bomb, Bomb-ing Iran. The Wall St. Journal published a war screed from Commentary's Norman Podhoretz entitled "The Case for Bombing Iran," and following that, Podhoretz said in an interview that he "hopes and prays" that the U.S. "bombs the Iranians." John Bolton and Joe Lieberman advocated the same bombing campaign, while Bill Kristol -- with typical prescience -- hopefully suggested that Bush might bomb Iran if Obama were elected. Rudy Giuliani actually said he would be open to a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran in order to stop their nuclear program.

Imagine how many of the people protesting this week would be dead if any of these bombing advocates had their way -- just as those who paraded around (and still parade around) under the banner of Liberating the Iraqi People caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of them, at least. Hopefully, one of the principal benefits of the turmoil in Iran is that it humanizes whoever the latest Enemy is. Advocating a so-called "attack on Iran" or "bombing Iran" in fact means slaughtering huge numbers of the very same people who are on the streets of Tehran inspiring so many -- obliterating their homes and workplaces, destroying their communities, shattering the infrastructure of their society and their lives. The same is true every time we start mulling the prospect of attacking and bombing another country as though it's some abstract decision in a video game.

Arizona Minutemen Get Cocky

Not only did they decide to go after an alleged local drug dealer (and fund their efforts by stealing his drugs and selling them), but they killed one child witness and tried to hunt down another. They seemed to have even bigger plans - an international militia, traveling the world, killing supposed 'terrorists' and stealing their stuff in order to finance their operations:

According to local law enforcement, three people posing as police officers forced their way into the home of Raul Flores in Arivaca, Arizona, about 10 miles from the Mexican border, on May 30. They shot and killed Flores and his nine-year-old daughter, and wounded Flores' wife. The three, Shawna Forde, Jason Bush, and Albert Gaxiola, were arrested and charged last Thursday and Friday.

But here's where it gets interesting: Forde's brother, Merrill Metzger, has told the Arizona Daily Star that Forde had been talking recently about "starting a revolution against the United States government," and had said she planned to recruit members of the Aryan Nations as part of a plan to rob drug cartels.

It sounds like Forde had started putting that plan into action. Bush, accused of being the triggerman in the killing, was also charged Friday in the 1997 murder of a sleeping Hispanic homeless man in Washington, reports the paper. According to law enforcement authorities in the state, Bush "has had long-standing ties to the Aryan Nations." In 2003, they say, Bush moved to the Sandpoint area of northern Idaho, a historic center of white supremacist activity.

Both Forde and Bush also have ties to the fringe of the anti-immigration movement. As Josh noted last week over at TPM, Forde leads Minutemen American Defense (MAD), a vigilante group that conducts patrols of the US-Mexico border. And according to a recent post on MAD's website, since taken down, the group recently signed up Bush -- said to be a Special Forces veteran, and identified only as "Gunny" -- and put him in charge of "command decisions, Recon and Tactical training."

...MAD isn't formally affiliated with Jim Gilchrist's anti-immigration Minuteman Project, or with its off-shoot, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), both of which also conduct border patrols. But it appears Forde used to be active with the MCDC, and in this video from 2006, she's introduced both as a member of the Minutemen and as a "representative" of the more mainstream anti-immigration group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which is quoted frequently in the media on immigration issues.

...Metzger told the Daily Star that Forde had said she planned to start an "underground militia" that would steal money and drugs from drug cartels (Flores, one of the Arizona victims, was a suspected drug dealer.) Metzger said he had secretly recorded a recent conversation with Forde, because he had grown concerned about her violent rhetoric, and had spoken to police about her.

And, reports the paper, investigators believe the attack was intended to be the first in a series of such crimes, with the goal of funding MAD and another venture. What was that venture? According to Metzger: "She was telling me that they were going to start some sort of militia that was going to go overseas and aid and abet those who are kidnapped. She said she was going to go to Syria."

Cute Formula

A pizza with a radius z, and a thickness a, has a volume pi*z*z*a.

Don't Even Think About Inflation Yet

The brief burst in interest rates in the last month made some people think maybe inflation is going to take off, but that burst probably had more to do with the falling sales of U.S. Treasury bonds in May (a reflection of the loss of confidence in U.S. markets in general over the last two years) than it had to do with roaring inflation.

Krugman delivers an impassioned lecture, reminding people of 1937:

The debate over economic policy has taken a predictable yet ominous turn: The crisis seems to be easing, and a chorus of critics is already demanding that the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration abandon their rescue efforts. For those who know their history, it's déjà vu all over again – literally.

For this is the third time in history that a major economy has found itself in a liquidity trap, a situation in which interest-rate cuts, the conventional way to perk up the economy, have reached their limit. When this happens, unconventional measures are the only way to fight recession.

Yet such unconventional measures make the conventionally minded uncomfortable, and they keep pushing for a return to normalcy. In previous liquidity-trap episodes, policymakers gave in to these pressures far too soon, plunging the economy back into crisis. And if the critics have their way, we'll do the same thing this time.

The first example of policy in a liquidity trap comes from the 1930s. The U.S. economy grew rapidly from 1933 to 1937, helped along by New Deal policies. America, however, remained well short of full employment.

Yet policymakers stopped worrying about depression and started worrying about inflation. The Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy while FDR tried to balance the federal budget. Sure enough, the economy slumped again, and full recovery had to wait for World War II.

The second example is Japan in the 1990s. After slumping early in the decade, Japan experienced a partial recovery, with the economy growing almost 3 percent in 1996. Policymakers responded by shifting their focus to the budget deficit, raising taxes and cutting spending. Japan proceeded to slide back into recession.

And here we go again.

On one side, the inflation worriers are harassing the Fed. The latest example: Arthur Laffer, he of the curve, warns that the Fed's policies will cause devastating inflation. He recommends, among other things, possibly raising banks' reserve requirements, which happens to be exactly what the Fed did in 1936 and 1937 – a move that none other than Milton Friedman condemned as helping to strangle economic recovery.

...First of all, while stock markets have been celebrating the economy's "green shoots," the fact is that unemployment is very high and still rising. That is, we're not even experiencing the kind of growth that led to the big mistakes of 1937 and 1997. It's way too soon to declare victory.

What about the claim that the Fed is risking inflation? It isn't. Laffer seems panicked by a rapid rise in the monetary base, the sum of currency in circulation and the reserves of banks. But a rising monetary base isn't inflationary when you're in a liquidity trap. America's monetary base doubled between 1929 and 1939; prices fell 19 percent. Japan's monetary base rose 85 percent between 1997 and 2003; deflation continued apace.

Well, then, what about all that government borrowing? All it's doing is offsetting a plunge in private borrowing – total borrowing is down, not up. Indeed, if the government weren't running a big deficit right now, the economy would probably be well on its way to a full-fledged depression.

Oh, and investors' growing confidence that we'll manage to avoid a full-fledged depression – not the pressure of government borrowing – explains the recent rise in long-term interest rates.

These rates, by the way, are still low by historical standards.

The Collapsing Porch

You know it's a bad day when neighborhood news makes it onto the Daily Rotten Web Site.

All I have to say is that at least my porch is made of wood, not concrete, so when it collapses, at least a thousand pounds of debris falling on whoever is below will have a lower density:

A concrete porch collapsed and killed a termite exterminator Monday afternoon in Curtis Park.

Capt. Jim Doucette, with the Sacramento Fire Department, said two workers were underneath a vacant house on the 2800 block of 27th Street at about 1:30 p.m. when the porch fell on them.

"In my experience, almost 30 years, it's a freak accident," Doucette said.

Rescuers used air bags to lift a 4-foot by 6-foot concrete slab, weighing at least 1,000 pounds, off the victim. Although crews got to the home within minutes, it took nearly a half-hour to pull the man from under the massive slab. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Impact Of A New Casino Opening

I was reading a print-version of this article (online for subscribers only) and I was struck by this observation:

The opening of Red Hawk Casino in Shingle Springs in December brought in another revenue generator that could help the community weather the (Sierra Pacific) mill closure, but (William Carey, owner of The Forester Pub & Grill in the town of Camino) said he thinks the casino has damaged his business more than the mill closure will.

"We were doing just fine coasting through the recession until the casino opened in December," Carey said. "We experience an immediate 30 percent drop in business."

Carey said he had to lay off five of his 10 employees to compensate for the loss of customers.

"It's interesting how a casino can affect an area," he said. "On the one hand it brings jobs in. On the other hand, all that money going into the casino comes from somewhere."

"There Will Be Blood"

As part of my 'stay up all night strategy' to dealing with my cold, I rented "There Will Be Blood" on DVD, starrying Daniel Day-Lewis, and based on Sinclair Lewis' novel "Oil!".

The film follows the rise to power of Daniel Plainview - a charismatic and ruthless oil prospector, driven to succeed by his intense hatred of others and psychological need to see any and all competitors fail. When he learns of oil-rich land in California that can be bought cheaply, he moves his operation there and begins manipulating and exploiting the local landowners into selling him their property. Using his young adopted son H.W. to project the image of a caring family man, Plainview gains the cooperation of almost all the locals with lofty promises to build schools and cultivate the land to make their community flourish. Over time, Plainview's gradual accumulation of wealth and power causes his true self to surface, and he begins to slowly alienate himself from everyone in his life.

Despite Lewis' excellent acting, the great cinematography, and the amazing score, I was surprised this movie won two Academy Awards. Everything about this movie conspires to remove it from general sympathy. This movie is NOT a 'chick flick', but rather its absolute antithesis. Women have almost no role in the picture. Family life is so attenuated, so fraudulent, so vestigial, as to be almost (not quite) meaningless.

Nevertheless, the movie does have its charms. Great charms! To anyone interested in the America West and the pursuit of mineral wealth, particularly oil, it is a wonderful chronicle. There are a number of references to mining in New Mexico (the movie starts in Engle, NM, and there are references to Silver City as well).

The movie also has attractions for atheists, and fellow thinkers. To anyone interested in the triumph of business over religion in American life, the entire last scene in the Bowling Alley is a vivid nightmare. Paul Dano's Eli Sunday is no match for Daniel Day-Lewis' Daniel Plainview's volcanic hatreds! Religion = Weakness in Plainview's world-view!

Raw, brutal, real!

The movie purports to be about California, particularly the oil fields in Kern County, but interestingly, much of the movie was filmed in the Marfa/Alpine, Texas area, the same place featured so well in "No Country For Old Men". Two recent cinematic triumphs for West Texas!

But still, the Academy must be praised for seeing past the repelling parts of the movie to celebrate and award its charms. Mining is an interesting and absorbing subject, but it's just the thing that sends audiences right out the door!

Tech Week Begins - DMTC's "The Music Man"

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Laura Wardrip as Marian Paroo and Rand Martin as Harold Hill.

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Snakes in the library!

Left: "Marian the Librarian" - Matt Kohrt as Tommy Djilas and McKinley Carlisle as Zaneeta.


Left: "Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little, & Goodnight Ladies", with Director Steve Isaacson leading the group.

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight



Left: "Ice Cream/Sincere" - The Barbershop Quartet (Andy Hyun, Rick Price, Rick Wennstrom, and Don Stephenson).



Left: Wa Tan Ye Girls, with Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (Mary Young). The four girls to the right of Mary Young are Kendyl I. (Amaryllis Hix), Ani C., Rose M., and A. Ewey.

The Mattress

Surprise!:

An Israeli woman who bought her elderly mother a new mattress threw out the old one unaware that it had $1 million hidden inside it.

Israeli newspapers reported today that the woman was left scrabbling through landfill sites in an, as yet, fruitless search for the mattress which contained her mother's life savings.

The woman, identified only as Anat, a resident of Tel Aviv, told Army Radio that she bought the mattress on Monday as a surprise for her mother and got rid of the other one without telling her.

When she realised her mistake she rushed outside to look for the mattress but found it had already been taken by the rubbish collectors. Subsequent searches at three different landfill sites turned up nothing.

...Yitzhak Borba, the dump manager, told the radio station that his staff was helping the woman, saying she appeared “totally desperate”, but the mattress was hard to find among the 2,500 tonnes of rubbish arriving at the site every day.