Take Me For A Ride In Your Car-Car

Deborah's working apace in her new medium.

Various YouTube Videos From The Britney Spears/Pussycat Dolls 4/11 ARCO Arena Concert

"When I Grow Up"


Montage, with a full account


"Hit Me Baby One More Time"


"Get Naked" - This was the most - how-you-say? - decadent, or Weimarish, number of the night. I like it mostly for its hypnotic chorus.

NOCODMVLV

Can't get anything past the Colorado DMV:

Kelley Coffman-Lee's plan to advertise her love of tofu on a license plate ran afoul of censors at the Division of Motor Vehicles.

The 38-year-old mother of three asked the DMV to approve a special plate emblazoned with "ILVTOFU" for her Suzuki SL-7.

It was not 2 B.

..."My whole family is vegan, so tofu is like a staple for us. I was just going to have a cool license plate, and the DMV misinterpreted my message," the Centennial resident said.

...The rear of Coffman-Lee's vehicle is festooned with a multitude of bumper stickers that leave little question about her feelings on issues such as global warming and meat-eating.

As a vegan, she won't consume or wear anything that comes from an animal. "But it's not just about food. It is a philosophy of life. It means you have compassion for animals; it means that you don't want to see them performing or research done on them or them being eaten."

So far, Couch said, no carnivore has requested ILVMEAT.

Interview Fail - Don't Joke With Reporters



Because it ends up looking pretty lame on the TV news....

Cranston police have arrested an alleged cyberstalker.

Ann Bruno, a local costume shop owner, is accused of using a computer to harass a competitor.

NBC 10s Jim Taricani attempted to question her about it in what turned out to be an unusual interview.

Leavening The ASU Stew With Just A Touch Of Hypocrisy

The folks in Tempe are funny:

The mini-drama surrounding Arizona State University's refusal to award President Barack Obama an honorary degree may have a second act.

Obama is scheduled to deliver a commencement address at ASU next month, and last week, the university touched off a bit of controversy by suggesting that he hadn't "been in [his] field" for enough time to deserve an honorary degree just yet.

There were, unfortunately, some problems with that rationale.

But over the weekend, the university announced the formation of the "President Barack Obama Scholars" program. And, though they haven't decided to give Obama a degree, Politico's Jonathan Martin reported on Saturday that ASU President Michael Crow sent an email to faculty and students re-justifying that decision.

"Since my appointment," Crow wrote, "we have not awarded honorary degrees to sitting politicians, a practice based on the very practical realities of operating a public university in our political environment."

And that's, perhaps, the rationale they should have used in the first place...except that it's not completely true. Crow became ASU president on July 1, 2002 and on Dec. 19 of that year, ASU awarded an honorary agree to Robert Stump, a lame duck Arizona Congressman who was finishing up his last term in office.

Pedroia Says He Was Joking

Hmmmm:

Dustin Pedroia said in a lengthy interview with The Bee this morning that he was only joking when he called his hometown of Woodland "a dump" and that his comments were taken out of context.

..."I'm totally crushed by this, devastated, because I didn't mean it that way at all," Pedroia said. "The (Boston Magazine) writer doesn't know my personality. I kid around a lot, and that's what I was doing when I was talking about Woodland.

"That town raised me. I grew up there. I rode my bike there. I played high school ball there. Loved all of it. My family and best friends are still there. I love going home. This article made me seem like a jerk, and I'm not."

...Pedroia also denied that he called Alex Rodriguez "a dork," as he was quoted in the story.

"Come on, dude," Pedroia said. "I never said that."

It all sounds fishy to me. Since I don't know Pedroia personally I can't really say anything about his sense of humor. But there shouldn't be any question by now that there are certain classes of people with whom you don't joke: TSA agents, for one; Newspaper Reporters, for another.

Britney Spears "Circus" - ARCO Arena - April 11, 2009

I ended up with far more pictures of Britney's derriere than of her face - somehow "Piece of Me" now seems far less like a challenge and far more like a prophecy....

Left and Below: Britney's show featured many other highly-skilled performers.




Left: Certain color cues stimulate the baboon male (and truth be told, the human male as well....)

















Left: The projections on the stage's big cylinder at the show's start were quite impressive!

Apparently this wicked-looking fellow is Perez Hilton.




I was experimenting with a video camera I borrowed and I got lots of really crappy video (one trouble with this camera is close-ups).

For 'Bows', however, I brought the zoom back in order to focus on the visual displays on the set, and those make interesting viewing....

Pussycat Dolls "Doll Domination" - ARCO Arena - April 11, 2009

Phantom Animals

Today, while mowing the lawn, and doing other tasks, I went into the backyard and left the front door open and unattended for two, or maybe three, minutes.

Upon entering the living room from the back of the house, I found a large pool of pee on the floor. Apparently some kind of animal, likely a cat, had entered the house through the open front door, peed, then quickly fled back out the front door. There have been two mysterious cats lurking around the house lately, but I don't know if either was responsible for the mysterious pee pool.

When E. learned that a mysterious animal had entered the house and peed, she picked up a broom and used it to start charging into dark corners of the house, screaming variations of martial art shouts, like "Hai-yaaa!"

In the back yard, I found turdlets from some kind of animal, perhaps a dog. But there has been no dog in the back yard lately.

Phantom animals are afoot this spring.

New Zealand Trip Slide Show

I showed it to the people at work today. They seemed to like it!

Jetta At Callison's

The first part of "I Touch Myself" (the second part was a bit over the top).

She wants me to be her agent. I have no idea how to discharge this responsibility....

Another Drunken Party Next Door Last Night

"No Trespassing"


Took me by surprise. I left home at 9 p.m. and there was no party; returned at 2 a.m., and wham! Party!

This time, they stayed out of their courtyard and tried to run it as a tailgate party in the parking lot. They tried to stay away from my driveway, too. Good.

Still, the shouting didn't die down till 3:30 a.m., and the last guest didn't leave until 4 a.m.

Here are a couple of "No Trespassing" signs, from Fairbanks, AK, that summarize my feelings. Fortunately for my neighbors, I don't endorse gun ownership, and possess no firearms:

"No Trespassing"

Feature Regarding Big Idea Theater Company

Left: Kristine David, left, Jeffrey Lloyd Heatherly and Kelly Ogden rehearse a scene from the Big Idea Theatre Company's upcoming production of "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead," directed by company co-leader Kirk Blackinton. (Hector Amezcua, the Sacramento Bee)




Marcus Crowder had a nice article regarding Big Idea Theater Company recently, but I was happy mostly just to see what Kris David is up to:

"Do you do a show that everybody knows to try and get an audience? Do you go for something edgy?" Mahoney asks.

They've settled on a balance that runs a broad gamut of styles and genres. The classics are also important, and they'll do at least two Shakespeare productions a year.

Mahoney says that ultimately what they're able to do depends on the people they work with.

"We can do these bigger shows, hard-hitting shows, really emotionally driven shows, or crazy-silly shows and really commit to it – but we couldn't do it without the talent we're picking up."

RIP, James G. Boswell, II

One of the most important people in California history just died:

FRESNO, Calif. -- When cotton was king in California, it had a reticent monarch in James Griffin Boswell II, who built the company that bears his name into a global fiber operation. Boswell died having successfully kept himself out of the public spotlight for most of his illustrious life. He was 86.

"A lot of people pride themselves on their anonymity, and I happen to be one," he said in an interview.

Boswell died Friday of natural causes at his Indian Wells home, according to the Riverside County Coroner's Office.

Under his leadership, J.G. Boswell Co. grew into one of the world's largest, privately owned farms. The company farms 150,000 acres of Pima cotton, tomatoes and other commodities on land mostly in Kings County in the San Joaquin Valley. The company headquarters is in Pasadena.

Boswell is credited with the phenonmenal growth enjoyed by the company - started by his father and uncles - while he was president and CEO from 1952 until 1984. According to business analyst Hoover's Inc., J.G. Boswell Co. is the largest producer of cotton in the United States, supplies textile mills worldwide and boasts sales topping $150 million annually.

Land he retired from farming in Arizona 40 years ago became what is known today as the retirement community of Sun City.

Boswell was born in Greensboro, Ga., in 1923, and his family moved to California as the boll-weevil descimated cotton plantations across the South. He received a bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University in 1946 and served in the Army during World War II in the South Pacific.

A 2003 book about this life, "The King of California," calls him the last land baron of California. It chronicles the family's political clout that allowed them to drain the massive Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater body West of the Mississippi, and plant cotton in the early 20th century.

Graceless And Disappointing Dustin Pedroia

Dustin Pedroia disses Woodland:

Pedroia said of Woodland: "It's a dump. You can quote me on that. I don't give a … "

Pedroia was The Bee's Player of the Year out of Woodland High School in 2001 before attending Arizona State.

Pedroia admitted to Boston Magazine that he was upset with the city for an unspecified reason. However, his brother was arrested in Woodland in January on child-molestation charges. Brett Pedroia has pleaded not guilty.

"Everyone wants to get out of there," Dustin Pedroia said. "You don't want to stay in Woodland. What do you want to stay in Woodland for? The place (stinks). The newspaper there, I don't really get along with.

"I come from your town. You should embrace me. I play for the Boston Red Sox. You haven't had a lot of major leaguers come out of your city."

Listen, Dustin, I come from New Mexico. There are towns there that make Woodland look like the Garden of Eden. But even those New Mexico towns are full of interesting people and unforgettable places. It's the attitude you bring to a town that matters most when you are trying to come to grips with it. Woodland is great. Get over yerself, for chrissakes.

Sponge Bob/ Burger King Ad



Via The Evil Beet, where they have the lyrics too.

There are two ways of looking at this - Good Fun, or The End Of Human Civilization (I'm thinking maybe the latter).

Silent Sentinels

Deborah likes what she can do on her iPhone.

Just Don't Know Enough To Be Mad As Hell

Kevin Philips is pessimistic that the news media today is doing as good a job as it did in 1910 or 1930 to provide Americans with enough solid information about the financial crash to force necessary changes on Wall Street:

Today's disaster stage of American financialization - the bursting of the huge 25-year, almost $50 trillion debt bubble that helped underwrite the hijacking of the U.S. economy by a rabid financial sector -- won't be nearly so kind. It is already ushering in the reverse: a global realignment in which the United States loses the global economic leadership won in World War Two. The ignominy deserved by Wall Street after 1929-1933 is peanuts compared with the opprobrium the U.S. financial sector and its political and regulatory allies deserve this time.

...Thus, it was pleasing to read MIT economics professor Simon Johnson's piece in the April Atlantic fingering financial "elites" who captured the government for the latterday financial debacle. This is broadly true, and judging from my e.mail, even some conservatives accept Johnson's analysis and indictment. After the furor over the AIG bonuses, the public and some politicians may be ready to start identifying and blaming culprits. This would be useful. Having an elite to blame is a often prerequisite of serious reform.

Nevertheless, the extremes of financialization, together with the havoc we now know it to have wrought, represent a much more complicated historical and economic genesis, one which U.S. leaders must be obliged to confront if not fully acknowledge. Elite avarice and culpability has multiple and longstanding dimensions. It has been fifteen years since Graef Crystal, a wellknown employment compensation expert, brought out his incendiary In Search of Excess: the Overcompensation of American Executives. The data was blistering. Over the last decade, New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston has published two books - Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch - describing how the U.S. tax code, in particular, has been turned into a feeding trough for the richest one percent of Americans (especially the richest one tenth of one percent).

...This could be a powerful framework. All of these critiques have merit, and ideally they might converge as earlier indictments of elite and governmental abuse did during the Progressive and New Deal eras. But I have to return to whether the public will ever be given full information on the fatal magnitude of financialization, who was responsible, and how it failed and crashed in 2007-2009. So far, political and media discussion has been so minimal that the early 21st century American electorate has much less readily available information on what took place than did the electorates of those earlier reform eras.

...To try to put 20-30 pages into a nutshell, the financial sector hyped consumer demand - from teen-ager credit cards to mortgages for the unqualified - to make credit into one of the nation's biggest industries; nearly $15 trillion was borrowed over two decades to leverage de facto gambling at 20:1 and 30:1 ratios; banks, investment firms, mortgage lenders, insurers et al were all merged together to do almost anything they wanted; exotic securities and instruments that even investment chiefs couldn't understand were marketed by the trillions. To achieve fat financial-sector profits, the housing and mortgage markets might as well have been merged with Las Vegas.

The principal inventors, hustlers , borrowers and culprits were the nation's 15-20 largest and best known financial institutions - including the ones that keep making headlines by demanding more bail-out money from Washington and giving huge bonuses. These same institutions got much of the early bail-out money and as of December 2008 they accounted for over half of the bad assets written off. The reason these needed so much money is that they government had let them merge, speculate, expand and experiment on dimensions beyond all logic. That is why the complicit politicians and regulators have to talk about $100 billion here and $1 trillion there even while they pretend that it's all under control and that the run-amok financial sector remains sound.

This is a much grander-scale disaster than anything that happened in 1929-33. Worse, it dwarfs the abuses of debt, finance and financialization that brought down previous leading world economic powers like Britain and Holland (back when New York was New Amsterdam). I will return to these little-mentioned precedents in another post this week.

But for the moment, let me underscore: the average American knows little of the dimensions of the financial sector aggrandizement and misbehavior involved. Until this is remedied, there probably will not be enough informed, focused indignation to achieve far-reaching reform in the teeth of financial sector money and influence. Equivocation will triumph. This will not displease politicians and regulators leery of offending their contributors and backers.

Well, I Suppose We Could Have National ID Numbers

Or, we could just try harder to understand the difficulties and to make sure eligible voters are allowed to vote:

In a puzzling move which she insisted isn't about race, a Republican state lawmaker in Texas said in House testimony Wednesday that Asian Americans should change their names to ones that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

Democrats jumped on the comments by state Rep. Betty Brown. Her remarks came during a Texas House Elections Committee hearing, who'd invited a Chinese American representative to testify about ballot accessibility.

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown remarked.

“Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?” she added.

A spokesman for the Texas Republican legislator told the Houston Chronicle her comments weren't about race -- she was only attempting to "overcome problems" with identifying Asian names "for voting purposes." Brown made the comment after the Chinese American representative, Ramey Ko, said people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent had trouble voting because their legal name may differ from the English name they use on their driver's licenses.

Democrats demanded an apology. Local Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie said that the Republicans were trying to suppress votes with a voter ID bill and that Brown is “adding insult to injury with her disrespectful comments.”

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