Book picking time: help, please

Next month my book club will select books for the year. I need to pitch a few and could use input. Can anyone recommend or warn me off of these possibilities:

War and Peace (Seriously; since I learned it is de Bernieres' favorite novel, I've been itching to read it.)
The Power and the Glory (Graham Greene)
Justine (Lawrence Durrell)
The Sheltering Sky (Paul Bowles)
The Bright Forever (Lee Martin)
The Liberated Bride (A.B. Yehoshua)
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War (Nathaniel Philbrick)
In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic, David Wessel

Other ideas welcome, but keep your Cryptonomicon and its ilk to yourself because the book club ladies won't go for that.

Also, since our meeting for Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, two people have read or finished it and loved it. Someone is planning to pitch Yiddish Policemen's Union this year.

Can someone explain to me

why Glenn Beck and his ilk are not horrified by the socialism implicit in the existence of National Parks?

Ultimate Productivity Blog

is here.

H/t SusanG at DKos.

Twitter's best days now behind it

First there was the U.S. Open curtailing players' tweets, and now WaPo is strangling its reporters' tweeting. Bummer. I loved the tweeting from reporters.

Not a great week - Update as of 09/28/09

Finished up with specialist #2 this morning. This was the one that caused me (and for that matter C) the most concern - neurologist. With my initial visit to him earlier this month, he also wanted several tests done (and he is also the one who wanted me to see a cardiologist), then would follow up with me at a later date. This guy was all into the "S" word (stroke) - so I had many many questions about headaches, arm pain, arm weakness, slurred speech, not aware of surroundings, etc. All my answers to these questions were no, which of course is good, but not helpful in trying to determine a diagnosis. So after the tests, C and I went this morning to hear the results....

no problems, no issues, healthy, cannot explain what the problem is...or was. One of the leading candidates when I first went to see him was a transient ischemic attack, or TIA. While I didn't have all the tests mentioned in the linked article, I had many of them and all came back negative.

So, I've now gotten an "all-clear" on the neurological front. This leaves me with one specialist to go, which if this turns out to be the culprit, isn't as critical or alarming as this last 2 possibly were.

In all the research I've been doing over the past month or so, I've come up with my own diagnosis . I have my last 2 tests on Wednesday - when (or if) they also come up negative, then I'll share what I think I have (or had) and the events that occurred in late July and August that got this whole thing started.

Tosca on the plaza

Here is the plaza in front of the Metropolitan Opera house last Monday, Sept. 21. This was opening night for Tosca.

Tax brackets

Dshort.com has a graph of tax brackets through the years, superimposed with a budget deficit graph:


Update: I wonder what percentage of the population is aware of how high the highest tax brackets were from the 50s until Reagan in the 80s.

Long weekend in NYC - Updated to add photos

K has been working a long-term freelance project for about 15 months. In that time, he hasn't taken a day off except for the holidays that his client is closed. He's been exhausted and miserable and cranky, but hasn't wanted to say "no" to even one day of work, since it'll dry up eventually and there isn't much other work out there.

Friday at noon, K called from work and said, "I'm not booked on Monday and Tuesday. Let's go to New York tomorrow." I started looking into airfares and he called back a few minutes later and said, "Let's go TODAY so that I can go to a ping pong seminar at Spin at 1:00 tomorrow." Spin is a table tennis club in Manhattan that is part-owned by Susan Sarandon. I finished some work, found a kennel for Karma and dropped her off, booked a hotel and flights, went home and packed and we made it to the airport by 5:30 for a 7:00 flight.

This is not how I like to roll. I like to research and plan so that vacation time is put to optimal use. But this is how K likes to do things and it was his trip, really. It all turned out well. (Flights were even on time; that's never happened to me before when flying to NYC. This was my fourth trip there.)

Our favorite experience of the trip was on Monday. We went to a recital for a master's student at Julliard. Afterward, about 7:15, I steered us to the Metropolitan Opera House [Update:  photo of Lincoln Center added] so K could see it. The concierge at the hotel had told me that the Met's season wasn't starting until next week, so I hadn't tried to get tickets to an opera, but the building is beautiful and shows up in movies now and then (e.g. Moonstruck), so I thought K should see it. As we came into the plaza in front of the Met, we saw that it was packed with people. There was a huge section with chairs, surrounded by a barricade. A giant, GIANT, screen was hanging on the front of the building and an opera was playing on the screen. Great quality sound came from the speakers. We thought, "Oh cool! They're playing a video of an opera from last season." So we watched from behind the barricades until the end of the first act.

Moments after the screen went to intermission, we saw, through the huge front windows, people in tuxes and gowns moving into the atrium space from the hall, and it dawned on us that what we'd been watching was live from inside the Met. The concierge had it wrong; this was opening night! We tried to get a seat on the plaza, but learned we needed tickets to sit. We resigned to stand and watch, though our feet and backs were worn out from a long day of walking. But then a very nice woman picked us out of the crowd of standing people and offered us her two tickets for the outdoor seating; she wasn't in the mood to stay. So we watched the second and third acts from the 7th row. The weather was beautiful and the sound system was amazing, so it was a completely fabulous experience.

The opera was Tosca. The singers were well-received by the audience, but the director, set designer and costumer designer, who went with a non-traditional approach, got booed loudly. Reviews here: NYT; NYT blog; LATimes; Financial Times. In the blog post, the Met's general manager suggests that the reason for the boos was that the crowd was rooted in the past. I know a smidge about opera, but not enough to have had any clear expectations about how Tosca should look. Still, I didn't like the sets or costumes. It didn't look like it was a particular modern vision being executed; it just looked like they were trying to get by as cheaply as possible.

We loved Karita Matilla as Tosca, but I see her reviews are not glowing. She made us (and the lady next to us) cry at the end of the second act.

I'll post pictures when I offload them from K's camera.

I see that the production was broadcast all over the screens in Times Square too!

The Met's HD live broadcast of Tosca to theaters all over the country will be on Oct. 10.

We also saw Ravi Coltrane, John Coltrane's son, in a quartet at the Village Vanguard. He was great; his drummer (E.J. Strickland) and piano player (Luis Perdomo) were even better. The quartet has been together since 2003. Review of this stint at the VV is here.  [Update: photo of Ravi added.]

We went to The Lion King. For me, the set and costume design and art direction are the reason to see this. The creativity is stunning. The music is meh.

We saw a retrospective of Richard Avedon's fashion photography at The International Center of Photography. (Review is here.) This exhibit was timed to coincide with Fashion Week last week that took place at Bryant Park, kitty-corner from ICP. People like to poo poo reality TV shows, but I have to say that I've picked up some appreciation for the skills and techniques of clothing design/construction from Project Runway and for modeling from America's Next Top Model. This made the photography exhibit more interesting to me than it would have been otherwise. Also, I learned that Angelica Huston was a model when she was young.

K got to enjoy his table tennis seminar at Spin. We ate lots of great food. All flights were on time. The weather was perfect.

Our hotel was crawling with young men with German shepherds. If I were to see lots of people wearing fezzes in a hotel, I would assume there was a Shriner's convention in town. So my first thought when I saw the fourth or fifth shepherd was that there must be some sort of training seminar for police dogs. But then it dawned on me that if one were to hold a training seminar, one might find somewhere cheaper to do it than Manhattan. I tried to talk to the men with the dogs and they didn't volunteer any information about their dogs or their dogs' jobs. I would guess they were there to do explosives checks for the UN General Assembly taking place this week.

Not a great week - New Update as of 09/22/09

Finished up with one of my specialists this morning. One of possible candidates for the root of my problems was something heart related. So I was referred to a cardiologist. I've had several tests done in the past couple of weeks, one of which was to wear a heart monitor for 48 hours. My follow-up with him was today and to "close the book" on this avenue, he suggested a treadmill stress test.

Bottom line: whatever is causing my symptoms is NOT heart related as far as he can tell. I could lose some weight (like I didn't already know that) and while my resting heart-rate is a bit high, it's not high enough to warrant any concern. I've always thought my resting/normal heart-rate was on the high side, especially compared to my dad's, which is very low. He admitted that they wanted something to occur while I was wearing the monitor (this wasn't a surprise) and only noticed "a few extra beats every now-and-then", but nothing out of the ordinary or a concern.

So, while I still don't know what exactly is going on, it appears that I've received a clean bill of health on the cardio front. My last test with specialist #2 is later today - I'm hoping his news is good as well.

Her name is Danmell Ndonye

The name of the Hofstra student who falsely accused four men of rape has been published. Here it is at NYPost. (Don't know who published the name first.)

Update: Sounds like the press found out her name with unofficial help from police. From HuffPo:

The woman was identified as Danmell Ndonye of Manhattan by a law enforcement official with firsthand knowledge who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the name. A call to a Manhattan phone listing for a Ndonye was returned by a woman saying it was a wrong number.

Ralph Stanley

We saw Ralph Stanley last weekend at the Cedar Cultural Center, a small venue near our house. He was amazing. He's 82 and announced he'd just been released from the hospital. I might have thought that was a performer stunt but he had the IV bruise on his hand to prove it.

I'm not generally a bluegrass fan, but we discovered Dr. Stanley when O Brother Where Art Thou? came out. He was the voice of the Grand Dragon/Wizard (whatever they call themselves) of the KKK who sang O Death a cappella. (Video here.) He won a Grammy for the song in 2002 for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. Age and infirmity only make him sound more compelling (and by that I mean chilling) when he sings this.

Before Saturday's show began, as I was looking around the room and taking in the crowd, I felt like I do at the dog training club: "these are not quite my people". That was confirmed during the show when Dr. Stanley made a joke formatted thusly: "...made me as uncomfortable as Karl Rove at a [somebody] concert." The room erupted wildly. Everyone but us knew who the somebody is and what somebody's political leanings are.

His band was completely amazing. It included a fiddle, lead guitar, banjo, rhythm guitar played by his 17 year old grandson, and a bass. Each were incredibly skilled and together they were tight. Watching them live really gives you appreciation for how difficult what they're doing is. You can see brows furrow and jaws clench through difficult passages and that helps you note the coordination and dexterity (and years of practice) required to execute what they're playing. If you search on youtube for Ralph Stanley, you'll find lots of footage of him.

I'm sorry to not be able to connect this to bacon. Bacon, we had a good run.

Bringing home the bacon. Or not. (Three bacon posts in a row. Thank you very much.)

Here's where we're at on unemployment: 9.7% for August 2009. (This is from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.)

And to refresh recollections, here's the projected unemployment graph from the Romer/Bernstein report used to justify the stimulus bill. (This is the third time I've posted this graph. Previous posts on the topic from June 5, 2009 and January 16, 2009.)



I'll leave it to economic historians to say whether the stimulus has helped with unemployment. This much is clear: we have not seen a downward turn to the unemployment rate yet; the report projected that we would see a relatively sharp turn by now. Of course, things may have been worse than was understood when the report issued in January 2009 and the stimulus money may be being spent more slowly than the plan provided.

Speaking of bacon and internet nonsense

Look what I can do! I can speak in dancing bacon.

Kanye is everywhere

In case you haven't heard, there's a Kanye-ruins-people's-moments meme that's on fire about the interwebs. See more here and at knowyourmeme.com.

Update to post an example of the fun people are having with this. This is one of the silliest:



One more of the animal variety:

At times I hate the press

I saw this story on the CNN website this morning and it got me riled up at bit. I understand protecting the identity of victims of certain crimes, but once it has been determined that no crime as been committed, then I don't. Add to the fact that all the articles I found reporting the "crime" also mentioned the alleged suspects by name and in some cases their addresses were also mentioned. How is that fair? How does that fit into our supposed "innocent until proven guilty" system of justice? Perhaps it's because of her age (though that isn't mentioned), but 18 is considered adult, so I don't really understand.

If I were any of these guys, I would be very upset. Why isn't her name being mentioned? I'm glad to read that criminal charges are being investigated (as they should be) and when she is charged, she should be named.

Serena

I expect that by now even people who don't follow tennis have heard about Serena William's tirade that handed a point -- matchpoint, specifically -- to Kim Clijsters at the U.S. Open in their semi-final match over the weekend. This site has a good recap with transcripts (to the extent a transcript can be generated from the available video).

Here's the key portion of tirade, directed at a LINE JUDGE, from an angle where you can read Serena's lips at least in spots:



Serena swears to God she can or will "take this [f***ing or m*f***ing] ball and shove it" somewhere in the linesperson's f***ing anatomy. It's been reported she said "down your throat". The words conveyed a physical threat, and the words were amplified by her pointing a racquet aggressively at the line judge while stomping toward her.

Michael Kimmel, writing at HuffPo, claims that the line judge was intimidated, or the umpire and referee interpretted Serena's behavior as intimidating, because Serena is a large black woman. He blames it on a mix of racism and sexism. He says that McEnroe and Connors displayed similar behavior and got away with it. Uh, no. No they did not, as far as I remember. I wasn't following tennis when they played, but I've seen the clips of their tantrums. They swore. They yelled at the CHAIR UMPIRE (big difference). But I haven't seen a single incidence of them threatening physical harm to anyone, let alone a line judge.

Kimmel would have a point if Serena's behavior had been on par with McEnroe's and if more serious consequences were meted out for her than they were for him. But those aren't the facts here. Serena's behavior was worse than McEnroe's and it was the worst on-court behavior I've ever seen from a tennis player. It was absolutely a rule violation. Since she'd received a warning earlier for breaking a racquet, this second violation carried a mandatory point penalty. It's Serena's fault this happened. Serena is not a victim here. The $10k fine is completely appropriate.

The most unfortunate thing about the incident is that Clijsters was robbed of the opportunity to win the match of her own volition. She had it in hand, had played a beautiful match, and deserved to get that win without the point penalty.

It was, by the way, a foot fault called by the line judge that started the episode and I say that if the line judge clearly saw a foot fault, she ought to call it, no matter where in the match it occurred and no matter the color or gender of the player. It would not, however, be right for a line judge to selectively call foot faults.

Serena has issued two statements about the incident. The first did not contain an apology but the second did. Though she typically gives her god Jehovah credit for her tennis wins, she did not credit her god Jehovah for making the tirade possible.

Poster for 2012

Update II: removed the fake Brian May tweet.

The title of the song is Time for Miracles and Adam is mentioned on the movie poster (at the bottom).

Plaid

I have kind of a thing for plaid. Here's a plaid generator: www.tartanmaker.com

You can add bands and select colors for the bands. The slide bars for each color affect the relative size of the stripes. Then you can download a .png of one repeat of your plaid (that you can "tile" in graphics software to make a bigger sheet of your plaid, say, for example, for a desktop background).

I'm doing this rather than reading David Brooks for a second time to figure out what he's saying.

Update to show examples:

Not a great week - new update

I was remiss in not mentioning doctor appointment #2 that occurred last week. My personal opinion is that this doctor's specialty is closer to finding the problem than the other specialist I saw last week. Doctor #2 wants me to have 4 tests done before seeing him again - 2 of them are today (and I get to add a new specialist to the mix - doctor #3). The picture, I think, will become clearer by this evening (at least I hope so).

That being said, I'm in a weird mental place these last few days. It's frustrating not knowing what is going on with me, but it's a bit scary because I think it's going to be something more related to doctor #2, which is a much more serious proposition. And, if it turns out that it isn't related to doctor #2 and the tests he wants me to have, while I'll be happy that that whole range of stuff will be probably be ruled out, it doesn't get me any closer (in my mind) to figuring out what is going on.

I just have to keep telling myself that it's a process of elimination - figuring out what it ISN'T gets everyone closer to figuring out what it IS.

And for those of you keeping score at home:

doctor #1 - specialist that if it falls here isn't that serious of a deal.
doctor #2 - specialist that if it falls here is a more serious deal.
doctor #3 - specialist that if it falls here is a more serious deal.

Iceland

Is anyone following what's going on in Iceland? Iceland, faced with the banking disaster of 2008, let its banks go belly up rather than bail them out. Who knows? Maybe they'll be in better shape for it in the end, but right now, things are grim there.

Iceland's gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 2.0 percent in the second quarter from the preceding three-month period for an annual contraction of 6.5 percent, preliminary data from the statistics office showed on Friday.

[JUMP]

'Contrary to other countries in the region, quarterly growth in Iceland is probably going to remain negative for the rest of this year,' he added.

[JUMP]

Although the central bank sees the economy of the island of only 320,000 inhabitants contracting around nine percent this year and shrinking still further next year, there is little scope for reducing interest rates, currently at 12 percent.

There are a lot of fascinating things about the Iceland situation. I'm just beginning to follow it. Maybe others here know more and could write about it. Letting the banks fail is clearly not the end of the story when vast sums of money are owed to other countries or citizens thereof, regardless of what the Icelanders may want. The Iceland situation makes one ponder the meaning of national boundaries and sovereignty.

Update: Here's a link to a Vanity Fair article from April 2009 about Iceland's banking collapse and its response to it.

Sometimes 140 characters is plenty

Update: Well, a few more characters sharpens the point:

Update II: OK, I take it back. 140 characters are not enough to adequately skewer ridiculous ideas with sarcasm:

Fish

Wondering if this is how Scooter cleaned the pool.

The internet IS the real world - Part II: Pro Tennis and Twitter

First a few background facts for you:

1) Andy Roddick and Serena Williams are big Twitter users.

2) People bet on tennis.

3) There have been some stories about players allegedly being involved in throwing matches or otherwise being involved in betting shenanigans. The highest profile case involved Nikolay Davydenko. He was ultimately cleared of throwing a match in 2007. (Interesting story. This was a first round match. Davydenko was ranked 4th; his opponent was ranked 87th. Davydenko won the first set 6-2. THEN, a big chunk of $7 million was bet against him winning. He lost the second set and then retired with a foot injury in the third set. BetFair voided all wagers. The ATP launched an investigation, but cleared him of wrongdoing.) In July, another player, Mathieu Montcourt, was found dead after he was banned from tennis for betting on matches. He was found dead in a stairwell. The cause of death has not been determined. Make up your own story. There are lots of other stories about betting problems in tennis. I was going to catalog them, but it turns out that's a fairly big job, better left for a snow day.

4) Of course, there's a rule that precludes players from passing on insider information.

5) The U.S. Open is going on right now through Labor Day. (Watch on ESPN2; both McEnroe brothers are announcing together!)

6) Professional tennis is constantly struggling to generate public interest in tennis, particularly now when there's a dearth of U.S. players.

U.S. Open officials have banned on-court tweeting. (As far as I know, no one has tweeted from the court before, but they're anticipating it, I guess.) They've also posted warnings in the player locker rooms reminding players not to tweet "insider information" and encouraging them to tweet minimally.

Andy wasn't too pleased about the insider info warnings. Andy seems to be thinking that all tweets are public, so that sending info by tweet would be stupid because a) there'd be a public record of your rule violation and b) the info, divulged to the world, wouldn't be helpful to the bettor you were trying to feed. I suspect Andy doesn't realize that one can have more than one account, that an account can be anonymous and that one can "lock" one's tweets so that only approved followers can read them. But still, Twitter doesn't give any ability to communicate info that didn't already exist with text messaging via cell phone, except that it allows broadcasting (which is not a useful tool for betting manipulation) so I think he's right that the U.S. Open officials are being silly.

Frankly, I think the officials are missing an opportunity. I think they should instead REQUIRE players to tweet on change-overs. And require them to think of something amusing and entertaining. Tennis needs more fans.

Personal note: I follow Andy Roddick on Twitter. As a tennis lover, I'm probably inordinately interested in things like what time he gets up, and what time he practices and how many hours he works out and what he's eating, so even his boring tweets are fun for me. Also, he has a bulldog that he tweets pictures of fairly often and bulldog pictures are always fun. He lives in Austin, btw.

What?!

Ezra Klein is only 24 years old.

It's not been a great week - update

Had doctor appointment #1 this morning. A typical "good news/bad news" scenario in which the good news is that this doctor says that they DO know what I DON'T have - the bad news is that they DON'T know what I DO have. I'm not presenting the typical and/or normal symptoms to fit me into the 2 or 3 usual suspected conditions. So....I go back to see this doctor in a month for additional tests.

In the meantime, they suggested that I keep doctor appointment #2 on Thursday, if just to rule out other possibilities and for my peace of mind.

It still sucks getting old....

Attitudes about capital punishment

K always tells me that as soon as there's a case where it is proved that we've executed an innocent person, people who support the death penalty will change their minds. But I don't think he has that right. I presume that folks who support the death penalty recognize that we execute an innocent person now and then, but they feel that is an acceptable cost for what they perceive the benefits to be.

So in this case, I think they're comfortable saying this:

Here's what you get for a life: you'll watch your kids die in a fire, then we'll wrongly accuse you of killing them (by burning them up in a fire, no less) and then we'll execute you. Sorry about your life, bud. Cost/benefit analysis, don't you know.

Here's a link to The Innocence Project. They can use donations.

Get unlucky

I'm just going to offer some silliness for a distraction for a minute.

There's a website that allows you to execute an internet search, ala Google, but it returns purposefully bad search results.

I searched for "secondhand smoking jacks" and got this:



Update: another attempt yields:

It's not been a great week and an event put on hold

As I talked about in late June, I had a big July planned. A trip to Telluride, CO over July 4th; getting my concealed handgun license and taking a motorcycle riding course. 2 of the 3 were accomplished - well, while I've passed the CHL test, I haven't received it. Supposedly because of the deluge of applications, the state of Texas is running behind in issuing them. The one that hasn't happened yet is the motorcycle course. Between days of rain and 100+ temps, I put it off until I could try to get days with no rain, not a lot of wind and below 95 temps.

However, the wait has been extended indefinitely due to some medical issues. I'm not so much of an ego-manic to believe that anyone other than a very few even care what it is, but I thought I had to mention a bit more of an explanation about why I haven't taken the course yet (in case anyone recalled that I had mentioned that I was going to do it).

I don't want to go into much detail for a couple of reasons - (1) not exactly sure what is causing the problem right now and (2) want some degree of privacy. That being said, I'm torn about talking about what is going on once the cause has been determined. I will say that the symptoms are such that I do not feel safe being on a motorcycle unless and until it's all figured out and straightened out.

I first became aware of a potential problem with taking the course in late July and was in the process of trying to work the course in during Sept between Arkansas football game trips when that had to be rethought due to the events of the past week. I can't recall too many weeks in my life (that being said, my memory isn't the greatest to begin with) that were as bad as last Tuesday thru Saturday (not counting a week long stay in the hospital with an appendix problem in the late 80's). Hopefully, by the end of this week, I'll know more about what is going on (since I have a couple of doctor's appointments) and I'll post, in more detail, about the events of last week and what happened back in late July.

As I've said to C repeatedly during the last week, it sucks getting old.

Inglourious Basterds

I liked it. Richly imagined. I'm always tickled when someone WRITES SOMETHING, and Tarantino did. It's WWII depicted as a bit of a western. Brad Pitt was a problem for me; I was distracted by how hard he was working at maintaining some sort of Southern accent, but K was not bothered. Christoph Walz on the other hand is worth the price of admission. I only had to close my eyes for a few brief spells.

Cassidy Haley in the Houston Chronicle (with comparison to Trent Reznor)

Here. Joey Guerra describes Cassidy's music thusly:

The songs on Little Boys and Dinosaurs are lushly produced, dark and theatrical. It's like Trent Reznor lightened up a bit and got a bit of a groove on.

Potato chips

I see from This Day in History that today is the birthday of the potato chip. Thank you very much, George Crum.

I wonder why it took 150 years, give or take, for someone to make jalapeno-flavored potato chips.

District 9 OR Mmmmm, Cat Food

The older I get, the less I'm able to watch violence. This was unbearable for me.

Trent Reznor on marketing for unknown artists

Not only do I love his music, but his passion for getting his music to the people (either live or recordings) in the cheapest way possible. Radiohead, again one of my favorites, used something in a similar vein with offering their last cd as a "pay as much or little as you want". I thought that was a genuis move - Trent disagrees and actually makes an intelligent argument against what they did...
"that works for one time for one band once - and you are not Radiohead".

Anyway, I found this posting on the official NIN website by Trent very enlightening.

Cassidy Haley OR I Love the Internet

Several years ago, Cassidy Haley met Adam Lambert on MySpace.

Both were LA musicians and had posted their original music on their MySpace pages for streaming. Cassidy and Adam liked each other’s music and became MySpace friends and then real-life friends. Cassidy was/is also a designer/creator of clothing, including leather jackets.

Fast forward to 2009. Adam performs on American Idol. He has a distinctive fashion style and his leather jackets get noticed.



During the Idol season, Adam mentions in an interview that his Idol jackets are from SkinGraft, a design house owned by a friend of his.

Adam’s fandom whirs into action to find out what this crumb of information might reveal about Adam's life before and outside of Idol. They learn that SkinGraft is owned in part by Cassidy Haley and they see Cassidy's picture on Skingraft’s web page. They squee!!! when they realize that they’ve seen him before, in pictures of Adam that had surfaced previously from Adam's old MySpace page and from the FB and MS pages of Adam's friends and family. They find Cassidy’s MySpace and Facebook pages. One bold fan “friends” Cassidy on Facebook and he surprises her by “accepting” her friendship. She reveals to the fan community that he’ll friend strangers, so hundreds of people friend him and discover his music and a small fan base is born.

On Sunday (Update: Saturday), Adam, via tweet, encouraged his followers to check out a music video by Cassidy. At least one Idol fan forum (ontd_ai, for all Idols but it's a particularly Adam-loving place) went to work encouraging its members to not only check out the video, but also buy Cassidy’s self-produced and just-released EP on iTunes. In less than 24 hours, the album went from nowhere to #3 on the electronic album chart. It stayed in the top 10 for a bit more than a day and is holding in the Top 25 seven days later.

Journalists have picked up the story, first internet bloggers (Lyndsey Parker for Yahoo Music blogs about Adam being an Idolmaker himself) and coming soon to the mainstream press, i.e. the Houston Chronicle. Lyndsay Parker's piece describes Cassidy's efforts to mobilize the fans to do the marketing for him by generating ideas for getting his music heard and taking on tasks themselves to get it done. Cassidy mobilizes them via Twitter exchanges like this:

Who knows how it’ll go for Cassidy’s music career from here. If he makes it big, it’ll be a crazy illustration of the intertwining of the real world and the internet world; they are not separate. Relationships on the internet are not meaningless; social networking on the internet can make big things happen in real life; a 140-character tweet can be as powerful as ad time on network TV (and it’s free). Meeting someone on MySpace may change your life.

Meanwhile, a 44-yr old mother of three living in California has a date with herself for the September day that her kids will go back to school. She plans to shut the windows and the blinds, have a drink or two, put on Cassidy’s EP that she bought on iTunes, turn the volume up to 11, and dance until she can’t stand up. How did she find Cassidy’s music? It's simple, but yet amazing. She went to nursery school with me and now we’re in touch daily via Facebook (after decades of barely staying in touch) and I watched Season 8 of American Idol and became an Adam fan, crazed enough to keep tabs on an internet fan forum where I learned about Cassidy. And Cassidy has six of her dollars and six of mine in his pocket. I love the internet.

I don't expect that Cassidy's music will appeal to others writing here, but I was all wrong about LJ and Dropkick Murphys (still puzzled by that) so what do I know. Try it:


And another one (Whiskey in Churches) here. This is dancier. And a little bit racier. (Possible trivia: Adam might be the headless man, but Cassidy refuses to confirm or deny, which I think has to mean it is Adam.)

Update 9/30/10: We learned a while back that Adam is not the headless man in Whiskey in Churches.

Johnny Law...

got his man.

Favre

Favre becoming a Viking is just odd. I grew up a Packers fan and I still root for them except when they play the Vikings. So I feel bad for Packer fans. And I can't get excited for the Vikings since I don't think Favre will be very effective. (He's old and he hasn't practiced.) It's a win for Favre's bank account, I guess and maybe the Vikings ticket sales will be improved for a few games. I must say I enjoyed his press conference yesterday. It's been eons since the Vikings had a quarterback who spoke in paragraphs.

Manhunt in Athens

Just as I hung up the phone last night about 9:30 pm, I got my first robo-call from reverse 911 about the (still ongoing) manhunt. From the Athens Daily Review.

Finally going to the House of Blues.....not

As Stephanie informed us here, my newest musical discovery was going to be in Dallas, playing at the HOB. I was going to get tickets today when I saw this on the HOB website. I'm bummed...

How I spent my summer vacation

Before:

After:

Eggs

At our family reunion in Bis, I had the pleasure of enjoying some perfectly-made scrambled eggs. Thank you, M. There is really quite a difference between well made eggs and poorly made eggs. I suspect part of the key is using a low temperature, but perhaps he could comment or guest-post about technique.

In the meantime, here's Julia Child teaching us how to make an omelette.


h/t Ezra

Every single time I've ever set out to make an omelette, I've bailed at some point and decided that I'd rather just have scrambled eggs anyway, dammit.

Update: I'm a bad blogger. I completely forgot that we made "omelettes" like this (and they were edible) in Bis:

Might as well make it three Adam posts in a row

Here is the full-length version of Adam Lambert singing A Change is Gonna Come at The Zodiac Show, pre-Idol. He's wearing more (fabulous) feathers than when he sang it on Idol. Stunning, vocally.

Staging an apocalypse? Cue Adam Lambert music

A promo for Flash Forward here, coming television series, uses Adam Lambert's Mad World, starting a tad before the 2:00 mark. (Updated to take out the embedded video because it looks like ABC isn't allowing embedding.)

I wouldn't bother to post this except that it's a nice pairing with the previous post. Apparently, there has heretofore been a vacuum for music/vocalists befitting an apocalypse and Adam has arrived just in time.

Brian May on Adam Lambert's 2012 song

Adam Lambert has recorded a song for the soundtrack of the movie 2012. Here's what Brian May has to say about it on Brian's blog (Aug. 14, 2009 entry; sorry no permalink):

And I was privileged to hear a track that the guys have finished for Adam Lambert ... a song for a forthcoming film, 2012. I have to say I was completely blown away ... it's truly sensational. In fact it's so obviously a number one smash, any bookie would be mad to take bets on it. I am not kidding. I'm not easily moved to jelly by male vocalists ... but Adam's voice reaches out with sensitivity, depth, maturity, and awesome range and power which will make jaws drop all around the world. Its an awesome performance. No doubt about it. The world of Rock has a bright new star.

H/t ontd_ai.

As you may already know, Glenn Beck is a tool

I'm pretty sure that no one here is a Glenn Beck fan. So enjoy laughing at The Daily Show outing Beck's douchebaggery. (Sorry I can't embed. The code is flawed.)

Military spending, in historical perspective

I came across usgovernmentspending.com that allows you to generate historical charts of government expenditures. (You can view the data in actual dollars or inflation-adjusted dollars or percentage of GDP by changing the units.)

Here is a graph of military spending using inflation-adjusted dollars (and a link to it and the underlying data):


I went looking for the data because a Facebook friend of a friend claimed that the drop in military spending as a percentage of GDP during Clinton's administration was the cause of 9/11. Ew boy. For starters, it should be obvious that our external threats are what they are regardless of GDP, so I don't get why you'd look to percent-of-GDP data to make the case that the spending was insufficient (or sufficient) to keep the country safe from attack. Further, military spending at the end of Clinton's term was still historically plenty high. Does anyone writing here believe that the drop in military spending under Clinton allowed 9/11 to happen or caused 9/11? I hope not.

Setting all that aside, I have to say that as I looked at this chart I was amazed at the extreme increase in military spending since 2001 relative to historical levels. I'm curious to know whether those who believe the Iraq war was a good idea also feel that the benefit you see is commensurate with these costs. In other words, was our takeover of Iraq as important as our role in WWII? Was it far more important than the Cold War?

"Put it down!"

Update: The rest of the story is just as funny. I guess this has been around the tubes a while but it's new to me.

Calling certain Scooters

In case you missed it in the comments:

The question of my Native American heritage

After speaking with my parents concerning this, I've come away with some facts: (1) it appears that I would not be able to claim "NA" as my race; (2) they are somewhat confused as to the exact lines; and (3) some details (such as dates and first and/or last names) are somewhat sketchy. Through the years I have either misunderstood what details have been told to me or I have twisted them to fit what I wanted. As best as my parents can tell me, here is my linage:

Father's Side: This side of my family is Choctaw, not Cherokee. My great, great, great grandmother was full-blooded Choctaw. One of her children was a daughter (this is the relative who lost an eye in a raid, not by other Choctaw's, but by Cherokee's). This daughter was my great, great grandmother who was actually still alive when I was very young. I was around her, but of course I have no memory of her. She married a white man and one of their children was a daughter. This daughter was my great grandmother. I do have many memories of her and my great grandfather and their farm. One of their children was a son who was my grandfather. One of his son's is my father.

On a side note, one of my grandmother's (my father's mother) brothers has some NA linage on his side. I was told that one of his son's (a cousin of mine) was able to attend the University of Tulsa and claim some type of NA heritage and thus get a big reduction on tuition. I need to check this out and see what the story is.

Mother's Side: I guess I never knew that there is some NA heritage from this side of my family - it wasn't really talked about. This side of my family is Cherokee, from somewhere in the Southeast, possibly Georgia. My great, great, great grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee. All anyone knows is her first name ( which might be her only name). One of her children was a daughter. This daughter was my great, great grandmother. She had many children and was married twice. One of her children with her 2nd husband (who not much is known about, but "the story" is that he was either full-blooded or 1/2 blooded Choctaw, but it seems no one really knows) was a daughter. This daughter was my great grandmother. I have memories of her and I remember she was funny as hell. Very outspoken. Very blunt. One of her children was a daughter. This daughter was my grandmother. One of her daughter's is my mother.


There are a couple of relatives that have done some rather extensive research on the family trees - more so on my father's side. I need to get with them and see if they have actual names, dates, places, etc. I'm told they do and in fact, one of my cousin's has traced back to pre-Civil war times. The Civil War details are actually more interesting to me than the NA stuff. I've heard stories about relatives that fought in Tennessee, so I'd like to get some details and learn more about my relatives and where they were, what they did, during the Civil War period. Maybe I can get into the Sons of the Confederacy.

This just in

No version of the new health care plan precludes vampires from biting people. Therefore, it is pro-vampire. In fact, I hear (though I haven't confirmed), the plan calls for citizens to make an appearance in a room of vampires for a five-minute period and take their chances. Those who can't evade the vampires will live forever. It's a socialist plan to help all people live the same amount of time.

When children disappoint their parents

Michelle Bachman's son has joined Teach for America, one of the program under the AmeriCorps umbrella. (From Jon Tevlin, columnist for the Strib, heavy on the snark.) Tevlin notes that Rep. Bachmann has had this to say about AmeriCorps:

"[It's] under the guise of quote, volunteerism, but it's not volunteers at all," she said on the Sue Jeffers radio show in April. "It's paying people to do work on behalf of government. There are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people get trained in the philosophy the government puts forward and then they have to go work in these politically correct forums.

"As a parent, I would have a very, very difficult time seeing my children do this."

Devils Tower

Those of you who were just there probably know this:

Devils Tower is made of phonolite porphyry. Phonolite refers to the ringing of the rock when a small slab is struck, and its ability to reflect sound. Porphyry refers to its texture, large crystals of feldspar embedded in a mass of smaller crystals.

From NPS.gov.

Another reason for my trip to Little Bighorn

I must admit that I had another reason for wanting to go Little Bighorn - my quest to visit all 50 states. That is why I had a fail-safe point on my route. Had I thought I wouldn't make it within 1 hour of closing time, while I would have been bummed out about that, I would have been able to add Montana to my count. I do have some criteria that must be met:

• I have to have some memory of being there. When I was very young, my parents took me on a trip from Tulsa to Yellowstone. I have no memory of this, so any states that we went through do not count on my list.
• Flight connections where you never leave the airport do not count.
• There has to be a legitimate reason for going there, not just to cross the border to say you've been there. This rule is a bit subjective and is open to some interpretation.

To date, here are the states I'm counting:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, DC (obviously not a state), Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire (this is one that I had to make a ruling on, but I counted it because to get to Maine from Boston, you have to go through NH and I paid a toll), New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.


So that's 40, plus DC. That leaves me only 10 to go:

Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Ohio, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.


Of these, the ones I really want to get to ASAP are Alaska, Idaho and West Virginia. Obviously some of these can be combined (WA/ID; WV/DE; CT/VT/RI) which leaves the most difficult ones, for me, to be Ohio and ND. I can't think any reason to go to either of these 2 states (with all due respect to Stephanie with regards to ND) and Alaska has it's own set of issues.

So, to help me with my quest, give me some reasons (legitimate ones) to go to Ohio and North Dakota.

Death on the prairie

LJ, I see your death-markers-for-soldiers-on-the-prairie, and I raise you actual-graves-and-interesting-causes-of-death:
(This looks impossible from this vantage point, but the Missouri River is not so far away.)





From Ft. Lincoln, south of Mandan, North Dakota.

Update to give some history about these soldiers (from the Ft. Lincoln site):

The History of Fort Abraham Lincoln

As the Northern Pacific Railroad advanced west across Dakota Territory, the US military kept pace. When the railroad reached the Missouri River in 1872, the city that would become known as Bismarck sprang up and Fort McKeen was established on the west bank of the river as a small infantry post. By November of that year, Fort McKeen had been renamed in honor of the fallen President, Abraham Lincoln.

Fort Abraham Lincoln was expanded to house six companies of the 7th Cavalry under the command of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in 1873. Their mission was to further the advancement of the Northern Pacific Railroad and open the westward expansion of the American frontier.

By 1874, Fort Abraham Lincoln was the largest and most important fort in Dakota Territory and was considered the “premier“ frontier fort on the Northern Plains with 650 Infantry and Cavalry soldiers keeping the post maintained and operational.

May 17, 1876, the troops left Fort Lincoln on the Centennial Campaign, which took the 7th Cavalry into the valley of the Little Big Horn. They were attempting to force non-treaty Indians back to their respective reservations. Outnumbered, outgunned, and out-maneuvered, 260 cavalry troopers would not return to Fort Abraham Lincoln, including every member of the five companies with Custer.

By 1883, the Cavalry had been detached to Fort Meade, the NP railroad had been completed to Montana and Fort Abraham Lincoln’s importance declined, leaving Fort Abraham Lincoln to be later officially abandoned in 1891 by order of Congress. Fort Abraham Lincoln and General Custer’s 7th Cavalry would leave a lasting legacy for years to come.

Today, the visitor can relive what Fort Abraham Lincoln was like for General Custer and his command in the year 1875. We invite you to take a step “back to 1875“ as uniformed soldiers and laundresses conduct “Living History“ style guided tours through the reconstructed Custer House and Central Barracks. Relive the Legacy! Come out to Fort Abraham Lincoln and see for yourself.

Update II: I should note that the most surprising thing about the causes of death in this cemetery is that at least 90% had nothing to do with engaging an enemy (at least not directly), but instead were these kinds of things.

Sarah's family

Can I just say to Sarah Palin that, under Obama's plan, her parents and Trig are welcome to keep their current health care coverage. Sorry to spoil her frothing and ranting fun.

Pictures from the great road trip of 2009

Try to picture Kansas in your mind and this is what you should come up with:




The bison have the run of Custer State Park. When they cross the road, they amble. They seemed oblivious to cars and trucks and minivans - motorcycles they didn't really like. You could hear them grunting and making all sorts of noises. I liked watching them roll around in the dust:




Some of the elk I saw, as the bikers pulled up:




Picture South Dakota in your mind and this is what you should come up with:




One of tunnels on the Iron Mountain Highway. The white-ish area on the mountain to the right looking thru the tunnel is Mt. Rushmore:




The best tunnel, which is on the Needles Highway. It's longer than it looks and there is a 45 degree turn to the right at the other side:




The first view of Devils Tower you get on the road coming from the northern route from SD:




Pictures really don't do Devils Tower justice - I kept looking for the Mothership:




Looking down towards the Little Bighorn river from Last Stand Hill. The markers are not graves - they mark where each soldier fell. Most of the remains were moved to the cemetery located near the visitors center. Custer's' remains were moved to West Point:




Driving towards Little Bighorn, hoping to make it before closing:

Great road trip of 2009

For over 20 years, I've wanted to go to the Great Plains. Don't ask me why, because I couldn't really tell you. Perhaps the vast openness; perhaps the lack of people; perhaps what I call "the pull of my people" (since I am part Native American). I was planning to do this back in the 90's, but never really got around to it. But now, a perfect storm of life situations made it possible. My proposed route was to be basically Dallas - Black Hills (Mt. Rushmore), SD- Devils Tower, WY - Little Bighorn, MT - Boulder, CO - Dallas. I wanted to stay off of interstate highways as much as possible, so I could see more of the countryside. The only part I wasn't sure about was making it to Little Bighorn - my problem when I left was having to be back on a certain day because C was possibly traveling. That part was going to be a last minute decision. Overall, I loved the trip. The only negative was that I picked the wrong time to be anywhere near the Black Hills - it was Sturgis week. I've never seen so many bikers in my life. I started seeing them in Kansas and the further north I went, the more I saw. Luckily, they were all heading south (since the motorcycle rally was ending that weekend and from what I was told, most of the bikers leave by Friday). Well, if most of them were gone, I can't imagine how many are there. They were ALL OVER THE PLACE. The hotel guy where I stayed in the Black Hills told me that you basically draw a circle 100 miles around Sturgis and that is how far they have to stay. Which also explains why I had to pay $100 for a hotel room that would normally be $40. Sturgis week + summer rates = $100. I guess I was lucky I could find a room at all. I can see why bikers love the BH - great weather, hilly and curvy roads. But they certainly hinder wildlife viewing. I can't count the times I was stopped on the side of a road watching elk or bison or antelope when here would come 5 or 6 or 20 bikes. They would stop to see what I was looking at and with all the noise of idling bikes, the animals would stroll or run off. Some of the little towns would not allow non-motorcycles down the main street because the traffic was so bad. Making turns took forever; buying gas took forever, trying to eat took forever. Then again, if I had a bike, I'd probably be up there with them.

I was convinced by a Park ranger at Devils Tower that I could make the trip to Little Bighorn before it closed. So I decided to give it a go. My route was going to take me thru 2 reservations, so I was advised to fill up before taking off, since there isn't much out there. I also had a back-up plan if I felt I wasn't making good enough time and had to call it off. About 20 miles before I had to make the decision, I ran into a really bad rainstorm. The temp dropped from 75 to 55 in about 5 minutes and it was raining with some hail mixed in. I was driving 80-85 (and getting passed) and had to slow down to below 55. But, after about 15 minutes, it stopped and the skies cleared and it looked good to the west. I made it with about an hour or so before the park closed. I was an interesting place, a bit eerie, and was the one place where I really thought about the history of the area and the Plains in general.

Some other observations:

• I've heard of the "seven wonders of the world". Until I drove thru Kansas, I'd never heard of the "seven wonders of Kansas". One of which was "The Big Well" - the deepest hand-dug well in the world. For Kansas, I guess that is a big deal.
• Why anyone would live in Kansas is beyond me. Nothing there, flat and just miles of dirt, corn, or wheat and a stench that made me gag every time I got out of my vehicle. All the people I saw were rather large, which surprised me because I could barely eat. But I guess you get used to it.
• I saw a crop duster airport - a long shed and planes taking off one after the other. Cool!
• My parents have always talked bad about Nebraska (the smell, the flat fields that go forever, brown and no trees). Well, the part of Nebraska I went thru was nothing like that. I saw trees, rivers, grassland with rolling hills. Not much wheat or corn. I even went thru a national forest that reminded me (sorta) of parts of Colorado.
  
• The Iron Mountain Highway in the Black Hills is the coolest road I've ever been on. I was on it early in the morning in the rain, so I didn't see a single bike. Only saw 1 other car. Great views, great wildlife, unbelievable "rock tunnels" and then BOOM - Mt. Rushmore. And I think Mt. Rushmore is something every American should see (as well as a trip to DC). I thought all the faces looked like the person, except for Teddy Roosevelt.
  
• The road curves and spiral over and under itself. Even at slow speeds, you get a bit dizzy. The best individual tunnel was on the Needles Highway.
• When you first see Devils Tower from the highway, you are 20 minutes or so from it. When it popped up after taking a curve, I had a "Close Encounters" feeling, like I was being drawn to it. It was as awesome as I expected. The grooves and crevices were incredible and it looked really cool with the blue skies, white puffy clouds and birds flying on and around it.
• Montana folks drive really fast. Then again, the roads are flat and you can see forever and you wonder why they even have speed limits. I seem to recall that parts of Montana didn't have them until just recently.
• I spent Sat. night in Sheridan, WY. I couldn't believe how dead if was. I was trying to find a place to eat and had a difficult time finding any place that looked open. I think I may have been on the wrong side of town, but still, it was strange. I ended up having to get a sandwich and some chips from a convenience store where I bought gas.

I had a great time and probably could have spent another day in the Black Hills area, but I was worried about finding a place to stay and I was getting tired of bikes. Not the riders, because all the ones I talked to were nice and friendly. Just dealing with driving and noise and the hassle was getting to me. I want to go back during off-season and perhaps I can talk C into going as well.

Status check on bailouts

I haven't checked these numbers, but according to Tim Fernholz at Tapped today, here's the current tally on bank bailout money:

Even the limited transparency has allowed federal regulators to examine the weird compensation practices at the banks, creating a prototype for real financial regulation. And for all the talk of taxpayer money and expense, we may end up being surprised by how relatively cheap the bailouts ultimately are -- keep in mind, for all the talk of spending, the Obama administration's policies will still result in a lower deficit than if Bush administration policies had been kept in place, that banks are paying back their loans, plus interest, and that ultimately the cost of the bailouts will be much lower than its sticker price, especially if management of the program continues to improve under congressional and public pressure for higher returns. Of the $1.1 trillion in bailout money being tracked by ProPublica, only $583 billion has been committed, even less has been spent, and $77 billion has been returned.

That picture will only continue to improve as banks continue to pay the loans back. I don't know whether the bailouts were a good idea, but it's useful to keep the actual dollar amounts in mind when considering the topic.

CRA: not guilty

I'm not trolling any right wing blogs these days (now that Hot Air crashes my browser), so I don't know if they're still pushing the story that the Community Reinvestment Act is to blame for our recent economic collapse. Let's hope not, since that idea has been debunked, most recently by Ellen Seidman at The American Prospect.

Based on the Canner and Bhutta study, former Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner concluded, "we believe that the available evidence runs counter to the contention that the CRA contributed in any substantive way to the current mortgage crisis." In reaching this conclusion, Kroszner and the Federal Reserve Board joined other bank regulators in affirming that CRA did not cause the mortgage-market meltdown. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chair Sheila Bair has stated, "I want to give you my verdict on CRA: Not guilty." Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan agrees: "CRA is not the culprit behind the sub-prime mortgage lending abuses, or the broader credit quality issues in the marketplace. Indeed, the lenders most prominently associated with sub-prime mortgage lending abuses and high rates of foreclosure are lenders not subject to CRA." All of these regulators were appointed by President George W. Bush.

Bear: Was it over several months ago?

From dshort.com:

Paris Rosen's front flip attempt

at the Summer X Games 15:


As I mentioned earlier, he's from the Twin Cities.