8 Random things about me

Ok, I wasn't technically tagged. But whatever.

8 random things about me

1. I went to the same high school as Ernest Hemmingway
   (ironically, I can't stand his writing, I find it tedious)
   
   
2. I've never traveled outside North America - This New Years will be the first stamp on my passport.
   
   
3. I hate mayonnaise but love cole slaw
   
   
4. I've been to more funerals and wakes than I have weddings.
   (this one inspired by Cyberkitten's #8)
   
   
5. I have never been able to stop biting my nails. Tried everything.
   
   
6. I hate having my picture taken, but I love taking pictures of others.
   
   
7. I don't understand how to interact with young children.
   
   
8. My eyes are so bad I can't read anything on my computer screen from 2 feet away without glasses.
   

The political hat trick

How many people can actually say they like all of their federal legislative representatives, let alone downright love them?

I've got Obama, Durbin, and my new political hero Rahm "I'm a big fan of yours" Emanuel. I'm tellin' ya, the only drawback to buying a house is probably having to move out of his district. That's pretty much a political hat trick to me. Throw in da'Mayor and that's a winning combination for sure...

I'm sure you've all heard that Dick Cheney apparently thinks he's not a member of the Executive Branch of the government because he also serves as president of the Senate and is therefore a member of the legislative branch. Maybe he's a member of the Cabal branch? This is of course, because he doesn't want to follow the rules laid down for how the Executive Branch must document the procedures used to classify information.

Forget that in 2001 he claimed Executive Privilege when he did not want to disclose who attended his Energy Task Force meetings...

So what did Rahm Emanuel do? He called bullshit. He said, OK - if you're not a member of the Executive Branch, then we're going to cut all the funding for your executive offices and staff since you obviously don't need them. Oh yeah, and the fancy VP residence provided by the taxpayers... well, that is provided to someone in the Executive Branch, so you better move on out.

I guess this means it's safe for someone to poison Dubya since Cheney, not being in the Executive Branch, is no longer second in line to the throne?? I also wonder if Congress can strap Cheney big fat lying ass to a chair and make him testify under oath about the myriad scandals this current administration has created, now that he apparently doesn't benefit from Executive Privilege.

Cheney's camp and the Whitehouse spokespuppet have accused Emanuel of playing "partisan" politics instead of focusing on important issues. Maybe they should try setting an example before trying to hold others to a higher standard of behavior than they hold themselves? This administration has done nothing but waste our time and money with deceitful behavior and political games.

Arrogant Napoleonic douchebag does not even come close to describing what a pathetic excuse for a human being Dick Cheney is.



In other news, we had a HUGE storm yesterday. Reports say we got something like 4 inches of water in less than a half hour. Our basement flooded a little, apparently water just came up through the shower drain. It happened to just about every house on the north side of our block. There was about an inch of standing water in certain areas, but thankfully it didn't get everywhere... and thankfully no circuits blew and no cats got electrocuted. So we spent last night soaking up water (thank god for shop vacs), mopping, and doing laundry. The only casualties were a couple of games that were on the floor and one of Annie's chewies. Thankfully all of our bedroom furniture sits above floor level and all of our under-bed storage containers are rubbermaid.

The Holy Grail

For the last year or so, whenever Laura and I go to the local movie theatre, I've been spending money on more than tickets and popcorn. You see, this theatre has 50 cent vending machines in it, and one has Sponge Bob toys. More than that, they have the most awesome Patrick ever. I would usually get 3 bucks worth of quarters to try for this wonder, and always come away with Plankton or Spongebob's pet snail, Gary. I've easily spent $30 on this machine. Saturday was my lucky day. Laura, her sister and I went to see Ocean's 13, and I had 50 cents. Laura didn't want me to try, and so I ignored her and got another Gary. The girls made fun of me. I sent them to go get seats while I waited in line for some M&Ms and some more quarters. $3 worth exactly. So I went back to the box where I got some of that Charlie Bucket luck, the first try I got my Patrick. I did a small jig and people pulled their children away from me.


When I got to where the ladies were sitting, Laura asked me "How much did you spend today?"


Beaming, I said "50 cents" and displayed my prize.


Not very impressed, she then asked, "So we can finally stop feeding that thing quarters?"


"Yes, as long as I don't loose Patrick."

So I got my holy grail, here's hoping you get yours.


Here he is as he sits on top of one of my monitors:

Paris, je t'aime

So John and I went to see a movie last night at the fancy-schmancy arthouse theatre in Lakeview/Lincoln Park. John heard about it from somewhere and seeing how we'll be in Paris in about 6 months, decided it might be fun to see.

It's called Paris, je t'aime (Paris, I love you) and it's a series of shorts each directed by a different director, and each about 5-10 minutes long dealing with love and friendship in various areas of the city. Some notable participants: The Cohen Brothers, Steve Buschemi, Bob Hoskins, Marianne Faithful, Tom Twyker, among others.

They all varied in style and subject. The Cohen Brothers short took place in a subway station with Steve Buschemi getting pelted in the face with bee-bees by a bratty kid while inadvertently starting a fight with a couple locals.

Some of my favorites were one revolving around some college boys and a Muslim girl in hijab. Two of the boys were taunting girls passing by (you guys know we love it when you shout at us down the street..). A girl in hijab sitting nearby starts to walk away when she trips. The third boy goes to help her up and most of the segment is them talking. Why does she have to cover her hair? "I don't have to, I choose to" she says. She's not a stereotype, which I was thankful for. Later he went to go find her, waiting for her to come out of the Mosque. And he ends up walking home with her and an older man, presumably a relative. Again, another non-stereotyped Muslim - something we need much more of in our media. It was a beautiful segment.

Another of my favorites was a young woman putting her baby down in a nursery, singing to him. She leaves, gets on several trains and buses where she works - watching another woman's baby. A very feminist message in this one about the plight of many working-class and poor women who work in the household industries who often are forced to spend less time with their own children so they can make money watching someone else's.

There was a fucking creepy segment about Mimes in love. Both John and I had looks of complete horror during this one. If you think clowns are fuckers, wait till you see Mimes in love.

In all, I thought it was fantastic. If it's playing near you, go see it. It's certainly different than anything else that's out there.

Moral of the story: Don't piss off Alan Dershowitz...

...until AFTER you have tenure.

Now, I don't want to be accused of speaking out of turn here, but DePaul is my alma mater and I do still care what goes on there. I'll fully admit that I am not privy to all the details (who really is in cases like this?) and that this is my own opinion based on what I've read in the papers, gleaned from speaking with others, and my own knowledge of the politics of higher education.

It all started when Alan Dershowitz stuck his nose where it didn't belong: into the tenure proceedings of a faculty member in DePaul's Political Science department that he had an ideological and academic disagreement with. ("b.o.o.-h.o.o. he criticized my book").

1) Dershowitz is a Law professor, not political science. I wouldn't expect a political scientist to critique someone's law research, would you? Different fields have different methods and different styles. Also, academics is often about taking one point of view, ripping it to shreds, and from the pieces creating your own point of view.

2) It is inappropriate, at any level, for anyone external and uninvited to insert themselves into what is an internal decision based on review of peer faculty, committees, and administration. The DePaul administration says Dershowitz's intrusion had no bearing on the final decision to deny tenure - but come on, how could it not? It's been all over the academic news for months. He was approved for tenure by his own faculty peers in his department. It's very rare for that to go opposed.

So why did Dershowitz give two shits? Because Finklestein wrote a book attacking Dershowitz's stance and there are those who feel Finklestein's attacks were more personal than academic, i.e., attacking the author as opposed to the argument. This is a very subjective assessment however. Another faculty member, who came to Finklestein's defense and organized supporters around him was also denied tenure.

This has sparked a possible vote of no-confidence in the President by the faculty. Yesterday there were picketing students outside the Administration building in the Loop, students who were staging a sit-in outside the president's office were forced to leave, and rumor has it there will be protesters outside the graduation ceremonies. We'll see how this plays out.

Here's a story from the Trib:

June 10, 2007
CHICAGO -- A political science professor at DePaul University who has accused some Jews of improperly using the legacy of the Holocaust to get compensation payments has been denied tenure by a close vote after a drawn-out public fight.

Norman Finkelstein, whose work has sparked a long-running feud with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, said he was disappointed by the decision.

"They can deny me tenure, deny me the right to teach," the 53-year-old told the Chicago Sun-Times. "But they will never stop me from saying what I believe."

On his Web site Sunday, Finkelstein posted a letter from university president Dennis Holtschneider explaining why a faculty panel voted 4-3 to deny him tenure at the Catholic university.

The three-page note cites Finkelstein's "deliberately hurtful" scholarship along with his lack of involvement with the school and his tendency for public clashes with other scholars.

"In the opinion of those opposing tenure, your unprofessional personal attacks divert the conversation away from consideration of ideas, and polarize and simplify conversations that deserve layered and subtle consideration," Holtschneider wrote in a letter dated June 8.

An e-mail message left Sunday for Finkelstein, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., was not returned. A telephone recording said his Brooklyn phone had been temporarily disconnected.

The debate over his tenure raised the ire of many in academic and religious circles, and blogs and petitions that both support and deride him have appeared on the Internet.

Dershowitz, the lawyer famous for representing O.J. Simpson and other high-profile clients, has urged DePaul officials to reject Finkelstein's tenure bid.

"This should not have been a close case," he said in an e-mail Sunday. "Finkelstein's only academic output is ad hominem attacks on ideological enemies. ... The only reason this appeared close was because outsiders from the hard left mounted a political campaign on his behalf."

In a statement issued by the university, Holtschneider noted the heated debate surrounding Finkelstein's tenure.

"Over the past several months, there has been considerable outside interest and public debate concerning this decision," he said. "This attention was unwelcome and inappropriate and had no impact on either the process or the outcome of this case."

DePaul's political science department and personnel committee both voted to support Finkelstein's tenure application. But it was opposed by the dean of the school's liberal arts college as well as a university board charged with granting tenure and promotions, which acknowledged Finkelstein's popularity with students and effectiveness in the classroom.

Holtschneider said that the decision to deny Finkelstein tenure had nothing to throttling academic freedom.

"In fact, academic freedom is alive and well at DePaul," he said. "It is guaranteed both as an integral part of the university's scholarly and religious heritage, and as an essential condition of effective inquiry and instruction."

The son of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein earned his doctorate from Princeton in 1988. He published five books and taught political theory at DePaul since 2001, school officials said.

University spokeswoman Denise Mattson said Sunday that Finkelstein's teaching term expires next June, but he can elect to leave his post immediately.

He was one of nine faculty members to be denied tenure or promotions this year, she said.

One of Finkelstein's books was "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering." The book, first published in 2000, has been translated into two dozen languages, according to Finkelstein's Web site.

Finkelstein's most recent book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," is largely an attack on Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel." In it, he argues Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.

Dershowitz threatened to sue the book's publisher for libel.

Finkelstein supporter Raul Hilberg, a Holocaust scholar and emeritus political science professor at the University of Vermont, said he believes the school's tenure process was unfairly influenced.

"The person who is denied tenure under these circumstances clouds the institution that has made that kind of a decision," Hilberg said. "He's a sort of academic street fighter, he's not going to just collapse."

I find this ridiculous given that DePaul has historically employed outspoken and controversial faculty. Michael Eric Dyson was a visiting professor a number of years ago, and Dominic Crossan had tenure. I never got the opportunity to take a class with either, something I still regret. Think of it, a Catholic (albeit, a very liberal Catholic) University granting tenure to a man whose research cast doubt on the Bible and the life of Jesus. Crossan questioned the historicity of many of the gospels, including his "nature miracles", the virgin birth, and the raising of Lazarus (from his Wikipedia entry).

There are a great many opinionated and outspoken faculty in higher education. The fact that most of them wait to show their "true" colors until after they've gotten tenure is telling. Apparently in "Higher Education" the principle of academic freedom only applies to those protected by law. It's not that the university wouldn't want to fire someone for their outspoken views, it's that, legally, they can't. So what do they do? They weed out the potential troublemakers before they get the academic equivalent of the "get out of jail free" card. Personally, I wish it'd be the other way around. That no matter what a faculty member comes up with in his/her research, that as long as it's methodologically sound, the institution should not want to fire them - because that's the true meaning of diversity - a word DePaul likes to throw around a lot. Diversity of ideas is a lot more difficult to achieve than getting a bunch of students with different skin colors in the same room together.

Once you start down the road of academic censorship, you end up here: Hamas now has control of the Palestinian schools and are making what appear to be ideological changes to the curriculum. Now, let me be clear. It's not the fact that it's Hamas, it's the fact that a particular ideological group is trying to insert their ideology into what should be a system of sharing ideas ( I know, there goes idealistic Laura again - someone snap me out of it). To me, this is no different than the Religious Right wanting to teach creationism (er, I mean "Intelligent" design, in public school science class). Note, that I have no problem with varieties of creation myths being discussed in philosophy, literature, history, or comparative religion classes... but science, it ain't.

It concerns me because we all seem to have forgotten that the emergence of the Taliban sprung from what? Refugees in a violence-ridden area who fled Afghanistan for Pakistan where the only available education were fundamentalist madressas. Do we want to repeat the same mistakes again?

George Carlin's Condensed 10 Commandments

Fucking brilliant. Gotta love Carlin...

Roger Waters, June 9 2007

Hands down the best concert I have ever seen. Musically, visually, energetically, and thematically it set a new bar that I do not believe anyone else could ever top. I know, I'm biased, but I've seen Floyd sans Waters, and I have to say there's no comparison. I had my doubts because the United Center has always been terrible for concerts. I’ve seen Clapton, Peter Gabriel, the Who and Neil Diamond at the United Center and while all were good concerts, there were always acoustic problems, echoes, stray sounds. You could never hear them clearly if they spoke. I was amazed at the quality of this sound. Not that I expected anything less. Roger Waters is known to tour with sound systems that can overcome even the most acoustically flawed spaces. It exceeded my expectations, and my expectations were already pretty high.

It was great that I got to take my dad, since he's the one that introduced me to Floyd in the first place. And, while I was not excited about having John's old phone at first, but when I realized that, hey... it' had a camera in it... and our seats were so close to the stage - literally the edge of the stage was maybe 200 feet away, if that. So this has turned into a photo essay.

The energy here was so much different than the Rosemont Theatre. Not better or worse, just different. At the 1999 show, there was a quiet reverence. At this show there was this electric flash that seemed to overtake everyone in the room. We were all connected by our love of the music. Tonight was special too because I brought my dad. One thing we’ve always shared is a deep respect for Roger Waters and Pink Floyd, though my fandom goes far deeper than his I think. It was great to be able to share something like this. The generational gaps in the crowd prove that some music, music that touches something deeply symbolic in ourselves, is truly timeless.

The whole show revolved around recurring themes. Would we expect anything less? The background music playing before the show was old rock n’ roll and blues like Chuck Berry, Elvis, and Billy Holiday. On the 30ft tall screen behind the stage was a layered, almost three dimensional image of a bottle of Johnny Walker, a half poured glass, an ashtray, and an old European radio with a toy airplane atop. A few minutes before the start of the show, the ashtray started smoking, and the 3D illusion was aided by a couple of smoke machines. A giant hand with a cigarette grabs the glass of Johnny Walker, puts the cigarette in the ash tray and then the background music begins changing as the hand turns the dials of the radio. Once, the radio came to “Dancing Queen” and quickly changed to another station, playing “Waterloo,” also by ABBA and quickly changed the station again. This theme of the man in his bedroom drinking, contemplating, returned several times during the course of the show.



Setlist:
In the Flesh
Mother
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Shine on You Crazy Diamond (abridged)
Have a Cigar
Wish you Were Here
Southampton Dock
The Fletcher Memorial Home
Perfect Sense 1&2
Leaving Beirut
Sheep

Intermission
Speak to Me
Breathe
On the Run
The Great Gig in the Sky
Money
Us and Them
Any Colour You Like
Brain Damage
Eclipse

Encore
The Happiest Days of Our Lives
Another Brick in the Wall Part II
Vera/Bring the Boys Back Home
Comfortably Numb

I was absolutely blown away that he played Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, it’s such a beautiful song. If you’ve never heard it, it is worth seeking out. Waters wrote the lyrics after reading some Eastern philosophical poetry (I’m not sure if was the Tao or something else). During Shine on You Crazy Diamond, the giant screen showed old images of the band from the late 60s and old Super 8 video of Syd Barrett. He practically played the entirety of Wish You Were Here, with the exception of Welcome to the Machine.

Even though I had seen the setlists online, and I knew what was coming, I still was not prepared for how Southampton Dock and the Fletcher Memorial Home affected me. Those songs off the Final Cut that I never thought I would ever hear live, bring tears to my eyes when I listen to them anyway. The album is based on Waters' opposition to the Falklands War, a war he felt Margaret Thatcher used to gain popularity and thus, betrayed the memories of the soldiers who fought and died in World War II (his own father among them). Hearing them live, watching the emotion roll over his face as he sang them, and hearing the crowd sing along while images of poppy fields and soldiers graves rolled by on the screen had a profound impact on me.

“they disembarked in 45
and no one spoke and no one smiled
there were too many spaces in the line
gathered at the cenotaph
all agreed with hand on heart
to sheath the sacrificial knifes
but now
she stands upon southampton dock
with her handkerchief
and her summer frock clings
to her wet body in the rain
in quiet desperation knuckles
white upon the slippery reins
she bravely waves the boys goodbye again
and still the dark stain spreads between
his shoulder blades
a mute reminder of the poppy fields and graves
and when the fight was over
we spent what they had made
but in the bottom of our hearts
we felt the final cut”


I was happy to see the images on screen during the Fletcher Memorial Home included the likes of George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, Karl Rove, Saddam Hussein, and Kim Jong Il who obviously all belong in the Fletcher Memorial Home for "incurable tyrants and kings" along with its original residents Thatcher, McCarthy, Reagan, Begin, Brezhnev and Nixon.

I still maintain that Perfect Sense is some of his best writing. It's an amazingly powerful song, and this time it came with visual aids to go along with the scathing criticism of our media’s dismissal of war as entertainment --"It all makes perfect sense, expressed in dollars and cents, pounds, shillings, and pence." In an animated scene, we get an aerial view of a stadium, filled with water, almost like the Colosseum, the stands packed with cheering fans. In the water, there's a submarine and an oil rig and along with the sound samples in the song, we get the live, telecast play-by-play featuring Marv Albert. The entire place turned electric during the final chorus of that song.

Then, to pull all of this together, songs written 20-30 years ago, he included a new song he wrote a few years ago about a trip to the Middle East he took when he was 17 (making it 1960-61) and his car broke down. It’s the story of him being taken in by a poor Arab family who fed him what little of their food they had, and gave him their bed to sleep in. He said in his introduction that he never forgot that family and their kindness toward a stranger. It’s a commentary on our monolithic image of Arabs in the West as terrorists and violent people when the majority of them are simply poor people living their lives the best they can under the circumstances and wishing for peace. There’s an interview with Waters where he speaks about playing that song in Israel, in a small rural town inhabited by Arabs, Jews and Christians and he told them they’re the hope, the new generation that can help end all this strife. It’s a wonderful song. Much more direct and less symbolic than his usual body of work, but given the subject matter, it had to be.

During Sheep, he brought out the Pig. It flew around on remote control like a little dirigible. On it’s skin were images of a brick wall, with messages like ‘Religion Divides us All,” “Fear Builds Walls,” “Habeus Corpus Matters,” “Torture Shames Us All,” and on the butt, was “Impeach Bush Now” with a peace sign underneath. Now I’ve heard two songs from Animals live. Sheep is a classic Floyd song starting out fairly mellow and bluesy, and then morphing into full-blown energetic rock – all with a political message of course.


Dark Side of the Moon made up the entirety of the second set and hearing it live, with the images on the screen and the energy in the stadium was inexpressible. As the band left the stage for the intermission, the screen went black and there was a distant image of the moon slowly getting closer. Then, the pulse started. A faint red light in the distance blinking with the heartbeat as the band took the stage again. The light on a satellite orbiting the moon flew past the screen and started Speak to Me. Dark Side is a timeless classic album and a scathing political commentary on our individualistic, selfish lifestyles. I never realized that the ticking of the clock at the beginning of “Time” was Waters clicking his pick against the strings of his bass. I always thought it was a synthesizer. During Us and Them he flashed images of people and children living in refugee camps and impoverished areas of the world in contrast to what appeared to be New York (any modern city really) with well-dressed people hustling and bustling.

Carol Kenyon, one of his backup vocalists nailed The Great Gig in the Sky. I’ve always said that if I ever could sing, I’d want to learn to sing that. It’s one of the hardest vocal solos in rock in my opinion.





Now, you can’t conclude Dark Side without the classic symbol of the album – the prism. In the middle of the stadium, hanging from the ceiling, I noticed this strange looking contraption and I knew immediately what it was. It was a laser prism that created a floating, 3-dimensional, rotating prism above the crowd with the white beam and the rainbow casting light over us as it spun like a lighthouse beacon. With everyone singing along


All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All that you feel
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All that you save
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy
beg, borrow or steal
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say
All that you eat
everyone you meet
All that you slight
everyone you fight
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.”


The entire band took their bow and exited the stage. They came back a couple minutes later for the Encore set, before which, Roger introduced the band members. During “The Happiest Days of Our Lives”/”Another Brick II” the screen projected images of the new wall built in Palestine. It had spraypainted on it “Fear Builds Walls” and “No Thought Control” among other things, many written in Arabic and Hebrew. “Vera” and especially “Bring the Boys Back Home” drew such fury from the crowd. Another song I never thought I would hear live. Again the theme of war figuring heavily into his work. The show concluded with Comfortably Numb where the screen reverted back to the room of the man drinking Johnny Walker and were eerily similar to the scenes in The Wall where Bob Geldof is sitting in his hotel room staring off with empty eyes into nothingness. As if this whole time he has been listening and contemplating as we all have; as if the whole show was his imagination or an expression of the vast helplessness most of us feel looking at how fucked up the world is and thinking there’s not much we can do to make a difference.


Undoubtedly the best concert I have ever seen. It will take a lot for anything to top this. Musically and thematically, the entire show pulled together Waters political commentary on the world and brought us all closer together for a few hours. I have a deep love for that man. I know how silly that sounds, like I’m some sort of groupie, but it’s not like that. I love his ideas and his sincerity. It’s not a romantic or erotic, groupie-type love. It’s nearly paternal in a way. His thoughts and expressions have helped shape who I’ve become. There’s just something in his work that connects with me on a deeper level than almost anything else in this world and certainly no other music has this effect on me. Seeing him live, seeing how much he still feels the emotions of the songs as much as I do even after playing them time after time. Seeing how deeply and sincerely he loves sharing his ideas touches me like nothing else can.

Today's "What the Fuck" moment as brought to you once again by Donna

Thank Christ... it's a parody. phew.

Busy weekend

Vacation plans
John and I have been toying with the idea of going to Paris for New Years since this past Christmas when SecretRudy put the idea in our head. He noted to us that fares and hotels were really cheap that time of year and wouldn't it be fun...

So we mulled it over and decided, yeah, that would be fun. I've been looking at some information on flights and hotels and such, and last weekend, John and I booked a pretty cheap vacation package. I love Expedia and those such sites. It was so below our budget that we threw in an evening dinner package on top of the hotel and airfare.

Dinner on the Eiffel Tower, followed by an evening boat cruise down the Seine, followed by a show at the Moulin Rouge, and transportation to and from our hotel. I usually don't like doing the so-called "touristy" stuff, but if you're only going to a place for a very short time (a few days), sometimes it's the best way to get a small taste of everything.

The rest of the time I fully intend on spending walking around the city just doing whatever we feel like at a relaxed pace. The hotel is walking distance from the Louvre and Notre Dame - two of the sites on my "must go" list. Now, I know that one could easily spend 2 weeks in the Louvre alone, but we'll just have to pick our priority collections carefully. Other than that, whatever we feel like doing, we'll do. If we feel like sitting in a cafe playing Scrabble for 3 hours, we will (yes we have travel Scrabble - we brought it to Hawai'i too. There's nothing quite like sitting in a quiet oceanfront condo playing Scrabble with a man who cheats and tries to get you to accept "Quif" as a real word while listening to the waves crash on the shore).

Swimming
I finally got back to swimming again this week. I couldn't go for 2 weeks after my tattoo work and then Memorial Day weekend was too busy and last weekend I had stuff goin on. So I went Monday and did 30 laps in about a half hour. Not bad. Though I did realize that I'm not doing my breast stroke (hee hee, she said breast stroke) quite correctly. I'd love to find a swimming class that teaches technique instead of how not to drown. I looked up some videos online and found my timing is off and I'm extending my arms too far. So last night I went again and tried doing it the right way and - wow... a LOT harder.

Work
Our student worker is slowly losing his faith in the intelligence of his fellow students. You'd think college students at faculty with PhDs could figure out how to correctly complete scantron forms. Nope. I promised him that before he graduated, this place would turn him into a full-blown cynic. Higher Ed has that effect on people.

Bluesfest
I'd like to get to Bluesfest this year. I always think I'm going to go, and then for some reason, I never get there. Usually because it's not fun for me wandering in the hot sun with 200,000 of my closest friends. I generally try to avoid mass humanity. I might wander over after work Friday for a little while and check out the secondary stages. I have no real excuse not to - I work about a block and a half away from the park.

Roger Waters
I'm taking my dad to see Roger Waters at the United Center on Saturday. From the reviews and other such things I've read it's supposed to be a fantastic show. I hate the United Center with a white-hot passion, but what'y'gonna do? The sound is usually terrible, but I have faith since Waters is known to travel with sound systems that can overcome even the most craptacular acoustics.

Graduations
John's step sister is graduating high-school and was accepted at Texas A&M - Galveston to study Marine Biology. Her party is Sunday so that should be fun.

George Bush's Bullshit Excuses
Bush wants us to believe he has our best interests at heart when he vetoes a stem cell research bill. He said he didn't think it was right to force people to pay for something that is morally questionable (using tax dollars to "destroy" human embryos that are already going to be destroyed anyway). Why not pass a bill that makes it illegal for embryos to be grown in the first place then? I mean, there's always adoption, right? Isn't that what they tell the women seeking abortions? This, opposed to an immoral war in Iraq, Abstinence Only education programs, mercenary armies, and the illegal torturing and detention of human beings. Our tax dollars pay for those too, and last time I checked, the majority of people were opposed to most of those too. So, spare us your excuses Georgie.

Book Review: Straight Man

I just finished Straight Man by Richard Russo, yes the same guy that wrote Empire Falls which I haven't read. This book was recommended to me by a friend at work as the funniest and most accurate portrayal of the oddities and dysfunction in higher education. It's fiction for sure, but I swear I could picture people I work with as one or an amalgam of several characters in this book.

It centers around a week in the life of William Henry Devereaux Jr (Hank), a near 50 English professor and interim department chair at a small, somewhat mediocre college in a depressed Pennsylvania industrial town called Railton. Believe me, the small mediocre college part I could totally identify with.

Hank spends every day inventing ways to toy with his colleagues. He takes nothing seriously, much to the dismay of his fellow faculty, his dean, and the campus CEO. There are rumors of massive budget cuts abound that no one will confirm or deny. There are rumors that each department chair must provide the administration with a list of expendable faculty, that Hank himself will neither confirm or deny. Of course, being Humanities faculty and academics, everyone takes his non-comment as an affirmative.

At one point, donning a pair of Groucho Marx style glasses with the fake nose, Hank, so frustrated at not even having been given his budget for the Fall semester yet, brandishes a resident goose from the campus pond in front of a local news crew and threatens to kill a duck every day until he gets his budget. Believe it or not, if we had ducks or geese on our campus, I'm pretty sure someone around here would resort to that at some point.

In addition to his campus woes, he has to deal with his less than engaged students, one of whom has an obsession with writing fiction stories involving necrophilia. His father, once a high-profile literary critic who left his family for a series of graduate students, is coming home after his fall from grace. His daughter living nearby is having marital and financial problems. His best friend and colleague is in love with his wife, and Hank, for no lack of trying, can't pee.

If you're interested in getting a look at the complete political mayhem and infighting that is academia, look no further.

Obama, Beaches, and Peeping Tom

Yesterday I spent 4 hours at our neighborhood street festival signing people up for Barack Obama's campaign mailing lists and collecting campaign contributions. It was interesting. I've never done anything like that before really. I've stuffed envelopes and done other non-interactive things, but never canvassed.


Funny thing was the woman organizing all the volunteers for the event turned out to be someone I went to high school with. Small world - she lives a few miles away from us. We weren't very good friends toward the end of school, something involving a boy I won't get into nasty details. At one point she said "yeah, I probably shouldn't have done that." I looked at her and said "uh, like I care anymore". Seriously - if I was still hung up on a guy from high school I'd have some real serious issues and be in need of some serious therapy.

For the most part, the people who were interested were very enthusiastic and the people who were not just simply gave a respectful "no thanks."

One woman came up to the table and told us that he was a great man but she'd never vote for him because he "gives too much attention to the blacks." She walked away before we could say anything else... I love that - people willing to give their opinion but not talk about it. I wanted to hear her give some specific instances - but oh well. We weren't there to debate anyway.

Earlier in the day, one guy I went up to gave me a very definitive answer: "No women, no blacks." So I said "and YOU have a nice day too" and walked away. I would have loved to have gotten into it, but A) I was representing the campaign and B) it was a German street festival and everyone was loaded on beer. Drunken brawl would not have been good.

Of course, only later when relaying the story to John did I think of a great comeback line: "What about Jews? Jews OK?" or "but a bumbling idiot, that's cool with you? got it"

We took Annie to the beach again on Saturday morning. She loves the dog beach. She just needs a bath every time she comes home. We have a little floaty toy we throw in the water and she goes to get it. The water isn't very deep, but there's one spot that she's actually got to swim a little. It's great exercise for her legs but you can tell in her face it makes her uncomfortable.

Lastly, if you haven't seen the Henry Rollins Show - find a way. It's on IFC and it's fantastic. He's got great rants, great guests. He has featured musical guests each week also, and this last week was a group called "Peeping Tom," a side project from Mike Patton, the former frontman of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. John and I bought the self-titled album the other day and I love it.

Check out this song "mojo" - the video is hilarious.