mikal in philly

mikal is not in philly...

2008-01-11T15:47:00.000-08:00

...and that’s why I’m finally closing down this blog and starting a new one.

Check out my new effort, infocloud.blogspot.com.

Busy as a beaver

2007-12-28T11:27:00.001-08:00

Actually, I’ve been much less busy than a beaver. Things slowed down a day or two before Christmas, and we settled in here on Lake Chatauqua for our first Christmas at home since 2003.

Our friends Paul and Saideh came from Indianapolis, with their three-year-old son Connor. Paul and I were out walking along the lake when suddenly we came across this amazing construction of out-of-control beaver activity. I had watched the beavers all summer and fall, even saw them swimming from time to time, and noticed their lodge, which was snug against the shore. Then winter set in and I made fewer trips to the edge of the lake, so I didn’t notice this taking place.

The size of this lodge is amazing, as is the fact that it’s not anchored to the shore. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but it’s about 25 feet long, and most of the trees used are at least five to six inches in diameter.

~

But is this ideology infallible?

2007-12-13T14:57:00.001-08:00

Seems our right-wing holy father has weighed in on global warming. From the Daily Mail in the U.K.:

“Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.”

I wouldn’t think the Catholic church would want to raise the question about beliefs being based on firm evidence and dubious ideology.

~

Supporting our troops, Bu$hco style

2007-12-08T08:05:00.000-08:00

I don’t know how I missed this story for over a month. I read about it in News of the Weird that column of silly stories that appears in alternative newspapers with items like criminals who turn themselves into the police. But this story is not weird: it’ standard operating procedure for the warmongers who are running our country.

Seems a unit of the Minnesota National Guard returned from Iraq in October after serving the longest deployment of any unit, 22 months. Their tour of duty was extended so they could be part of the “surge.” When some of them applied for educational benefits, they were denied because they had only served 729 days. The requirement to receive full educational benefits is 730 days.

Minnesota’s congressional delegation has called the Secretary of the Army on the carpet for this, but nearly a month later, it remains unfixed. These fucking assholes who run (ruin) our country probably hope people will forget about it eventually and the story will go away.

Support our troops, indeed. The best way to support our troops is to throw Bush into the brig.

~

A troublesome endorsement for Hillary

2007-12-05T11:43:00.001-08:00

From my friend in Indianapolis, Brian Howey of the Howey Political Report comes this news:

“U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's national poll numbers are beginning to erode as College Republicans praised her Iraq War Resolution vote and plan to demonstrate that prior to a speech tonight by U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh in Warwick, R.I. ‘I would like to welcome presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign to Rhode Island and thank her not only for the vote she cast in 2002 that authorized the war in Iraq, but also for her recent commitment to keep combat troops in Iraq to fight al Qaeda if she is elected president next year,’ said College Repubican Ryan Bilodeau in the Washington Times.”

I’ve been saying it all along. This woman should not be our next president.

~

Graphic G.O.P.

2007-11-17T12:39:00.001-08:00

This poster speaks for itself. It and two others were designed by Rich Silverstein, and are available at the Huffington Post. You can go there and print them out. I intend to plaster them on telephone poles and wherever else seems apropos.

The quadrant of dread

2007-11-15T19:13:00.000-08:00

I did an uncharacteristic, impetuous thing last night. I attended a new-agey workshop here in Carbondale on the topic of Abundance.

It wasn’t that I’ve been experiencing a lack of abundance in my own life. I’ve been completely amazed by our good fortune over the last couple of years. It was more a nagging feeling that it might be illusory, that it could disappear at any moment if I didn’t guard it more carefully.

At the workshop, the presenter created a two-dimensional map that charted time, from past to future on one axis, and power on the other. The power of course, ranged from positive to negative.

This created four quadrants. In the upper left, towards the past and positive in its power, was nostalgia. One needs to be careful not to get mired in nostalgia for the past, but the quadrant can be a source of positive direction. In the lower right-hand corner, towards the future, and negative in the effects of its power, is the quadrant of dread.

I loved the image. I know I spend a lot of time living here in the quadrant of dread. “What if I lose my job?” “What if George Bush declares a dictatorship?” “What if the real estate market continues in free fall?”

The upshot is if you dwell in the quadrant of dread, you’ll probably start making plans for all the what-if scenarios, and turn them into self-fulfilling prophecies. I learned that one should adopt a new language, a way of rephrasing: “I am not my job. My job is me.”

It’s subtle and it’s new-agey, but by golly, it’s my new mantra.

~

Scrap metal and college kids

2007-11-12T15:19:00.000-08:00

The people who owned our house before us were packrats of the worst kind. They left so much junk in the garage it took me two pickup truck-loads to the dump just to make space to park cars. And left behind were boxes of weird metal parts to things, old radiators, transmission housings from a tractor, copper pipes from failed or completed plumbing projects, and an assortment of pumps and other non-functioning gadgets. Why does someone choose to fill up their space with junk?

I had always meant to load up the truck and head to a salvage dealer with this crap, but doing so just wasn’t high on my list of priorities.

My college-age son needed some money and suddenly I remembered the junk in the garage. I told him if he took it to the scrap dealer he could keep whatever they paid for it. To my amazement, he showed up today with a buddy in tow and they had the metal loaded up in less than an hour. He called later, proud as he could be that they made $70. He said the scrap dealer—somewhere in the remote Southernmost Illinois back country—was one of the oddest places he’d ever been in his life. I could only imagine, and was so glad I didn’t spend an afternoon going there myself. He and his friend were of course on their way to the supermarket, to spend the $70 on stocking the pantry.

And I’m proud too. Proud of the newly-cleaned garage, proud that all that junk will be melted down and made into something new, and proud that my son learned a valuable lesson about how to find abundance in the most unlikely places.

~

Bush’s ride

2007-11-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

I came across this snarky comment from Garrison Keillor in reference to our leader:

“He is heading for the short bus of history where Earl Butz and Spiro Agnew ride.”

I think he is driving that bus.

~

Delicious coast-to-coastness

2007-10-29T15:24:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about my job is that it involves a lot of travel. October took me to Charleston, SC, then Denver, and finally San Francisco. I’m back home in Southernmost Illinois now, and it’s good to be home and watch the leaves turn in all these acres of woods around me.

Some thoughts from my travels...

Charleston was all I expected it to be. I was captivated by its beauty and refinement. Its early architecture was so much more elegant than even Boston’s or Philadelphia’s. My son pointed out wryly, “yeah dad...they had slaves.”

Denver sure has grown up since my last visit about seven years ago. There’s actual vibrant street life downtown, and the arts have exploded. It goes to show what arts can do for a city. It’s also becoming very green, with innovative programs in recycling, reforestation and energy-efficient street lighting. I couldn’t help compare all that to Indiana, where they’re still trying to legally increase the amount of pollution they dump into Lake Michigan.

And of course, San Francisco. More of a gem than ever. Finally, they’ve lifted the constraints on downtown development and skyscrapers are starting to rise higher than the Transamerica pyramid for the first time since the 1970s. They’re dazzling, glassy, ephemeral, just like the city itself. Every time I go there I find myself wishing we had never left. The fourteen years we lived there made it seem like home. But whenever I confront the cost, the hassle, the weather, the frenetic pace of life, I’m glad to get back to Southern Illinois.

Uninspired, betrayed, puzzled

2007-10-13T06:12:00.000-07:00

I haven’t posted here for nearly two months. By now, anyone who visited this blog from time to time has probably abandoned it and I don’t blame them.

There was a time I believed reason would prevail and Americans would wake up to how they’re being fucked over by their own “government.” All through the 2006 election I was fired up, and when Democrats took control of the house and senate, I had a momentary sense of elation. How foolish I was.

We’re coming up on a year since the voters showed their disapproval with the status quo. 70% of us want out of the insane nightmare Bush created in Iraq, but our timid and appeasing Democrats have decided to let the madman carry on. This is not why I—and hundreds of others—walked the dreary streets of Cape Girardeau, Missouri on election day to get out the vote for Claire McCaskill. This is not why my fellow patriots from coast to coast threw their money and effort into similar causes.

How did it take me all this time to realize that our political system is merely a diversion? A way to siphon off our anger and energy, into harmless posturing that brings only the same result no matter who wins? War. Exploitation of the poor and middle class. A system that channels money to the obscenely wealthy ruling class faster than they can spend it. I’m over it.

The thought of Hillary Clinton posturing as an agent of change is laughable, pathetic. I’m at a loss for how to channel my anger. Time for a new American revolution.

~

The People’s History

2007-08-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

I admit it. I didn’t post for two weeks and it gnawed at my sense of responsibility to my reader.

So my newest obsession is Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. OK, it only came out 27 years ago, and I’ve always been meaning to read it but just never did. Oh my god. What a revelation. It explains so much about our world.

Did you know there were war contractors during the Civil War that supplied boots with cardboard soles for soldiers? Shipped sand in place of sugar? That poor and oppressed people rose up in rebellion time and time again? That there was a big bond company called Kidder Peabody a century and a half ago?

I’m going to be posting some of the highlights from this book as I come across them. Stay tuned.

~

Bush’s brain free from Rove

2007-08-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

I picked up this quote from Dick Polman’s American Debate blog:

“Because the - all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be - or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the - like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate - the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those - if that growth is affected, it will help on the red. Okay, better? I'll keep working on it.”

The Decider was attempting to convince a skeptical retiree in Tampa about why privatizing Social Security was a good idea.

~

Six years ago today

2007-08-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, it’s been six years and I guess he figures we’ve forgotten he received a certain memo. Blue Girl in Red State observes,

This stupid, stupid, quintessentially moronic madman ignored this warning, (dismissing it with a flippant "Okay, you've covered your ass now.")

We all know what happened thirty-six days later.

~

Newt? Making sense?

2007-08-03T07:25:00.000-07:00

As I read through stories on the Web about the Minneapolis bridge collapse this morning, a tiring and predictable thread emerged in the comments following the articles: Democrats and Republicans bickering about whose fault it was. There were posts about how Republicans just want tax breaks and how Bush has spent the money we need for infrastructure improvement to line Halliburton’s pockets. These were followed up by Republicans saying all liberals want to do is blame everything on GWB and how liberals never met a tax they didn’t like and are Al Qaeda sympathizers, yadda, yadda, yadda. So tiresome, so unproductive, so ugly.

Then I encounter a post on Salon’s War Room about Newt Gingrich’s address to a gathering of young conservatives. “My God,” I thought, ”another Republican starting to make sense!” Why is Newt making sense to me now? Because he told his audience to stop thinking like Republicans. Read what follows and be amazed:

He began benignly enough, using an anecdote about going to Disney World with his grandchildren to explain an epiphany he'd had about the value of not "thinking like a Republican." From there Gingrich moved into waters the students surely did not expect. He cited the Detroit school system, where a black male is more likely to go to prison than graduate from high school.

"How can we tolerate systems more likely to send young Americans to prison than college?" asked Gingrich. "Republicans have this maniacally dumb idea of red versus blue. They say Detroit is a blue place, so we're not going to go there."

And he was just getting started.

"Republican political doctrine has been a failure," Gingrich said. "Look at New Orleans. How can you say that was a success? Look at Baghdad ... We've been in charge for six years and I don't think you can look around and say that was a great success.

"We have got to get beyond this political bologna. I'm not allowed to say anything positive about Hillary Clinton because then I'm not a loyal Republican, and she's not allowed to say anything positive about me because then she's not a loyal Democrat. What a stupid way to run a country." This last line he nearly spat out, expressing what seemed like genuine outrage.

The post goes on to say that the audience response was lukewarm. Too bad.

~

My kind of Republican

2007-07-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

I don’t usually post twice in the same day, but lately I get excited when something sane happens.

I was reading the Howey Political Report and enjoyed Brian’s article about Senator Richard Lugar’s reaction to the latest government scam-o-rama. As you read this clip, savor Lugar’s comments and remember what sane Republicans used to sound like:

“The U.S. House passed the 2007 Farm Bill Friday, with U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar calling it ... ‘a severe blow to taxpayers, most farmers, rural communities, the environment, and U.S. prospects to export products. The House bill fails to reform an expensive and broken farm subsidy system. It will send more money to a few select farmers, while continuing to ignore the vast majority of American farmers. The President is justified in stating that he would veto this legislation. When the U.S. Senate considers farm policy later this year, I’m hopeful to build a coalition to advance legislation which allows ALL farmers to assure up to 85 percent of their net farm income through a government backed whole farm insurance program. In addition, ALL farmers would have IRA-type savings accounts to cover the balance of any losses. These reforms would also substantially increase rural development, research and deployment of energy from diverse biomass sources, conservation, and nutrition programs, while saving all taxpayers billions of dollars.’ Lugar said that a broad coalition of humanitarian assistance advocates including Bono, Bread for the World and Oxfam; conservationists such as the Environmental Defense; and obviously taxpayer advocate groups all support ending 70 years of inequitable farm subsidies.”

Bono? Bread for the World and Oxfam? 70 years of inequitable farm subsidies? Richard Lugar, you are my hero.

This makes me proud to be from Indiana.

~

Up to my old tricks

2007-07-31T10:06:00.000-07:00

Back when I lived in Indianapolis, I found the formula for getting my letters to the editor published in the Indianapolis Star fairly regularly. It was rewarding as hell to see my liberal views on the printed page and know my words were poking the noses of the redneck brigade over their morning coffee.

Lately, I’ve been fired up about the BP refinery expansion that will increase ammonia and sludge in Lake Michigan. I called the governor’s office and left a snarky comment, and so did some friends who read my blog post about it, in the best crashing the gate fashion. I finally fired off a letter to the editor expressing my embarrassment to be from Indiana where the governor permits this backsliding in cleaning up the Great Lakes. I was pleased—but not surprised—they printed it.

The best thing about newspapers these days is their Web component, and it satisfies my inner sociologist to sift through the comments people make about stories and letters. So far in the comments about my letter I’ve been called a “liberal sissy” and someone suggests I consider moving to California. (God, I consider that all the time!)

~

Too much Mitch

2007-07-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

One of the politicians I most love to hate is the governor of my (former) home state of Indiana, Mitch Daniels. Or “my man, Mitch” as he’s known by our deranged Decider, G.W. Bush.

Mitch has gone on a rampage of selling off state assets such as the Indiana Toll Road to his corporate cronies. (Excuse me: if a road is lucrative enough to be bought, why must its potential be siphoned off to private interests?)

But now Mitch and his henchmen at the Indiana Department of Environmental (mis)Management have done something that amazes even me. They’ve given permission for a BP refinery in Whiting to increase the amount of sludge and ammonia they dump into Lake Michigan by nearly 2000 pounds a day. This in return for 80 promised new jobs.

I’ve often wondered about the priorities of Hoosiers. The state has a mere 30 miles of shoreline on Lake Michigan, and at one time it was a pristine ecosystem of dunes with unparalleled biodiversity. Today it’s a sprawl of oil refineries, steel mills and power plants surrounding a state park. And now they intend to dump a ton of shit into the lake every day for eighty jobs.

This undoes years worth of progress in cleaning up the Great Lakes.

~

Holy f**king sh*t!

2007-07-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

This just in:

BAGHDAD (AP) - ”The U.S. military is weighing new directions in Iraq, including an even bigger troop buildup if President Bush thinks his "surge" strategy needs a further boost, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday.

~

A satisfying read

2007-07-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

One of the most puzzling questions about modern-day America for me is why the lower classes—those just barely scraping by—have come to identify themselves as Republicans, voting time and again against their own interests. Why are they convinced it’s noble to send their children off to a war to defend oil companies, do without access to healthcare, give tax breaks to billionaires and watch their meager jobs be outsourced by big corporations? It’s self-destruction, plain and simple, but why?

Yesterday while at my local Barnes & Noble, a book practically jumped off the shelf into my hands. Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War is so good I started reading it the minute I got home, and finished it up by this morning. (Most books I don’t even finish.)

This book offers some of the clearest insights into the way these people think and behave I’ve ever come across. (What’s the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America was a good start, but this book is eminently more readable and insightful.)

Most importantly, the book shows how the Democratic party has alienated its natural constituency, and offers some ideas for how the party might reclaim it. If I didn’t think the Democratic party had already thrown in with the corporate interests, I’d be doing my part to reach out to my Scotch-Irish bretheren to educate them. I’d put on a plaid shirt and go to a fundamentalist church next Sunday and ask some uncomfortable questions.

But it’s probably too late anyway; America is too far down the drain.

~

Independence day, please

2007-07-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

I wish I could declare Independence from the country that the United States has become.

Traits of our people like the greedy, self-centered splurge of wasteful acquisition, mostly of plastic junk.

Or the willingness to overlook truths staring us in the face, convincing ourselves that the USA can do no wrong.

The guns and violence and crack and death in cities like Philadelphia and Indianapolis—and whoa—even little Carbondale, Illinois.

The hateful political rhetoric fostered by a corporate media that has led to angry, knee-jerk reactions and too many tense Thanksgiving dinners.

The willingness to keep electing leaders who take their marching orders from big Oil and big Pharma while ignoring the needs of the citizens. (Hillary Clinton?)

The ever-widening gap between the have mores and the have nots.

Farm bills that hand out subsidies to millionaires and encourage an unhealthy diet that leads to obseity and diabetes (and drugs from Lilly.)

The wars we wage on people we consider our inferiors.

~

A lot like Disneyland

2007-06-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports on a broughaha brewing in Murfreesboro, Tennesee. Seems there’s a wealth of opposition from the mostly conservative Christian community to a proposed million-visitor-a-year theme park called Bible Land USA.

“Ronen Paldi, the chief executive officer of the proposed park who is also a tour operator who organizes pilgrimages to the Holy Land, said he wanted Americans who were afraid to travel to the Middle East...to be able to visualize scenes from the Bible. Comparing the park to Disneyland, he said it would be a tremendous benefit to the area.”

That’s right, a lot like Disneyland.

~

Watching America devolve

2007-06-12T13:40:00.001-07:00

There’s no question that our civil liberties have been eroded over the last six years. That’s a given.

But what I think is killing America more is the ever-widening gap between rich and poor in the country. Every economic study I’ve seen shows undeniably that this has happened. I see evidence all around me in small Illinois towns, jobs gone and people living a hardscrabble existence. Whole families living in motel rooms. Old cars spewing blue smoke from the tailpipes.

To speak out against this social change subjects one to being called a socialist, or even communist, as if somehow you’re automatically against people making a profit and living well. But can any thinking person believe it’s a good thing that since 1979 the income of the top one percent bracket has risen 7 percent, while that of the bottom 20% has fallen by the same amount? Is it good for our country that more people are falling behind?

Look at how crime rates have already soared across the nation. Are images of tent cities on the edges of our suburbs with ill-clothed children warming their hands over fires in rusted oil drums that hard to envison? Our landscape will increasingly look more like that of third world countries.

Beyond the devastation of the poor, what of the impact of the super-rich themselves? Besides the toll their profligate use of airplanes and mega-mansions and Humvees takes on the environment, what does their extravagance teach us about what really matters in life? And how do they drive up the cost of living for the rest of us? Barbara Erenreich has an interesting article in The Nation that offers some insight. I don’t have a lot of hope this can change because I don’t know how the powerless can get the powerful to turn it around. Maybe just by those of us in the middle saying it’s unacceptable to us.

~

The power of art

2007-06-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

My friend Mark Meadows is an artist and a writer. He’s written a couple of technology books, and in 2003 he traveled to Iraq to observe the country around the time of our invasion.

In Basra he came across a gallery in a building whose upper floors had been bombed out. Inside the gallery he found this painting. When I saw it my heart nearly skipped a beat. Its eloquence is profound. It shows the power of art.

Why are we killing children in Iraq?

~

The antics of dogs

2007-06-05T06:06:00.001-07:00

No, this isn’t a post about how the people running our country are blowing it. It’s just a little story about how I escaped into a simpler, childlike state of mind evening before last.

It was dusk and after a complex work day I went down to sit on the dock and watch the evening settle. The dogs followed me, as they always do. Sam and Rory are at odds over swimming. Sam has always been afraid of water, whereas the newcomer Rory is a natural swimmer. He plunges into the lake without a thought and it infuriates Sam, who always barks and threatens as Rory tries to emerge from the water. It used to be annoying, but now I know it’s just a game for them.

This night, they found a turtle along the shore and began to harass it as dogs will do. I rescued the turtle and threw it way out into the lake. They both sprung into action and dived in after it, oblivious to the fact that it was six feet below the surface already. Their comical and futile splashing around and searching made me laugh out loud.

A little later, the second scene played out when a beaver from the nearby lodge began to swim towards the dock, in what I thought was a very nonchalant way. By this time the dogs had given up on finding the turtle and had come on to the dock to shake off their coats and get me all wet. When Rory saw the beaver, he valiantly plunged back off the side and swam after it. The beaver, who had been stealthy and slow before, did some kind of a flip with its tail and was out of there at the speed of light. Again, I laughed until my sides hurt—something I don’t do enough these days.

Spending an hour like this put me in a better mood than watching any sit-com. But then I realize you’d have had to have been there for it to sound funny.

~

Protect us from ourselves

2007-05-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

God, I wish I could keep writing about docks, but there’s so much craven corruption, so much in which to find outrage, so little time...

The story of Dragon Skin took hold late last week and its implications make me sick. NBC News reported there’s a body armor that’s (possibly) superior to the standard issue Interceptor armor the Army supplies its infantry. (The Army inexplicably cancelled tests). Dragon Skin is so much better that three-star Generals and CIA/FBI special ops wear it. Over the last couple of years parents began buying it at $650 or more as a Christmas present for their children shipping off to Iraq. Suddenly the Army banned its use. Seems their body-armor testing Colonel retired and got a lucrative job with the supplier who makes Interceptor, and that company has a $360 million contract.

Over the weekend, the artillery range in Maryland where the Army began—and then halted—testing on Dragon Skin blew up. Not clear yet whether the testing records that led to the Army’s decision were lost. This sounds like something out of 24. I wish I could change the channel.

I used to think 1/20/09—the day Bu$hco ends—would bring relief from the madness, but the more I learn, the more hopeless I become about how deep the corruption goes. That these bastards would risk one soldier’s life to protect a military contract is unconscionable. Imagine buying your child the best protection (as a Christmas present, no less), and him or her not being able to use it.

~

The best thing I’ve ever built

2007-05-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

We started planning our dock back in February, when being down on the lake was hardly very appealing. But we knew summer would come and what’s the use of having a house on water if you don’t have a dock.

This is where internet research pays off. “Floating dock kits” on Google eventually led me to the Follansbee Dock Company of Follansbee, West Virginia. I told them how big I wanted the dock to be, and they told me what parts to order. They also gave me a list of lumber to acquire locally.

About a week after I placed the order for the floats and other hardware, the UPS lady arrived, very peeved because her whole truck was filled to the brim. A couple of days later, the lumber company left a pallet of yellow pine 2 x 6s nearly obstructing our driveway.

Over the next few weeks I carried the boards down to the lake one by one, and began to plan my assault. A circular saw, several drills, socket wrenches, levels, floats, ropes, chains and other tools helped me beat it into shape. My son came and spent a Saturday afternoon measuring and drilling and assembling.

Finally the day came to push it into the lake and anchor it down to the shore. Now all that’s left is to sit on it and enjoy summer mornings and afternoons and evenings. I haven’t tested yet, but I’m sure hoping the wireless works down there. Then I can spend part of my summer workdays on my new dock, listening to the water lapping up against the shore. Sometimes life is very, very good.

~

Happy Mission Accomplished Day

2007-05-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

Some time has passed since chimp-in-chief pranced around on the deck of an aircraft carrier, barely able to keep his hands off his tingling codpiece, his vaunted leadership on display for all to cheer. He declared that hostilities were over in Iraq. Four years ago, that is.

In honor of his foresight and good judgment, Mikal in Philly is pleased to offer this tidbit (thanks to Dick Polman’s American Debate blog) from Chimpy’s beloved mom, the always-delightful Babs Bush. She who raised him appeared on ABC, March 19, 2003:

“Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it’s gonna happen? It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”

After all, a beautiful mind is a terrible thing to waste.

~

Babs weighs in (again)

2007-04-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

One of my “favorite” politicos, the inimitable Barbara Bush (Sr.) had this to say recently when asked about Romney and Mormonism:

"I mean it was in 1897 that bigamy was outlawed in that church. You know we have a lot of Christian wild people too, and a lot of Jewish wild people and a lot of Muslim wild people. The Mormon religion takes care of its own, they don't have people on welfare.”

Heaven save us from them people on welfare!

~

Rebuilding Bucky’s dome home

2007-04-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

Back in 1959 Buckminster Fuller came to Carbondale to begin teaching at Southern Illinois University. He and his wife Anne Hewlett Fuller built a small house on a corner lot near campus, a dome. They surrounded it with an ingenious redwood fence that allowed for privacy and air passage at the same time.

The years haven’t been kind to Bucky’s home. At one point it was even rented out as student housing, with a shabby new kitchen and an “upgraded” bathroom. All the angles and joins in the 2 X 4 superstructure were subject to leaks, and rot set in. The skylights fell through the roof. It was a mess.

A foundation was established to raise money and volunteers to restore the dome and one of their first interventions was to construct a protective dome around the original building. This afternoon I spent an hour there helping to shovel away ground up roots, from a tree that had uprooted the once-splendid redwood fence and was cut down last week.

Though I had seen the dome from the outside many times, this was the first time I got to go inside. What appears tiny from without is actually quite a spacious and liveable interior. Even in its current decrepit condition, it felt like a spiritual place. You could almost feel the history these rooms have seen. Bringing it back to life feels like a worthy cause. I’ll enjoy volunteering on this project over the next couple of years.

~

The 30% lie

2007-04-04T06:19:00.000-07:00

In most of the polls about our Commander in Cheep, a recurring number of reported Bu$hco supporters baffles me. I keep asking myself, “how could even 30% of Americans support this idiot?”, followed by “What would have to happen to erode that number?”

I read an article about Chimpy’s vacation on the ABC News site this morning. I always like to read the comments following any article almost as much as the article itself. As I read through the comments on this one, I was struck by the fact that almost all of them were critical of Chimpy. In fact, when I counted, there was one positive comment, out of 46 total. That’s something like 2.1% approval—and this on a very mainstream site. I feel better about the discernment of my fellow Americans now.

30% indeed.

~

Up close and personal in the third world

2007-03-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

The thing about travel to somewhere you’ve never been is that your preconceptions get smashed. Until I went there last week, I had a mental picture of Costa Rica as this well-ordered resort area that probably looked something like a cross between Puerto Vallarta and Miami Beach. In my mind, it was predominantly English-speaking and prosperous.

So imagine my surprise when I saw the concertina wire on top of fences surrounding most houses in San Jose, and the capital’s smoggy, diesel-clogged air. We came down out of the mountains in a jam-packed minibus driven by a macho maniac who more than once came close to knocking off a gaggle of schoolkids coming around a curve too fast. The roads quickly deteriorated to little more than rutted tracks of mud and rocks by the time I got to my destination on the Caribbean coast. I also found my pathetic college Spanish needed to be called into action, and decided it would be wise to be on constant lookout for scorpions on the bathroom floor.

The first night after my five hour bus ride (replete with Latino rap songs on a tinny sound system) neighbors nearby started partying with similar music, and kept it up well past dawn. My friend refers to said neighbors as “the crack whores,” and I surprised myself by staggering through the jungle and showing up at their front door demanding peace and quiet. When one of them became aggressive and pushed me away, I ran back to my “compound” and scrambled up the vines next to the locked gate.

We spent the next few days hanging out with a series of American and European expatriates who have made their home on this pleasant coast over the last couple of decades. It was harder, but not impossible, to meet the Costa Ricans themselves. When I did, they were sweet and open and helpful. Their lives seemed appealing, but it’s clear that a precarious balance is being threatened by the rapid and unsettling development.

One day we went to a little river landing at the end of a gravel road, where a man in a dugout canoe would take you across to a dusty little strip mall in Panama. There some Palestinians own stores and sell everything from digital cameras to Gucci knockoffs. I bought some underwear and smuggled it across, just to say I did.

I came home stimulated, confused, amused, educated and enfused with of a sense of adventure. I also came home tired as hell.

~

Going offline

2007-03-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Here I am, sitting in a hotel lobby in Austin, doing my best to wrap up all my online chores like email and bill paying before taking off for a week in Costa Rica in a couple of hours. I’ve been here at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival for the last few days. My brain hurts from all the trends, innovations and opportunities I learned about at the event. (And also, it hurts from a little too much partying four evenings in a row. Austin’s bars and music venues are the scene of parties staged by everyone from Google to Blogger to Adobe. The booze flows freely, and the patios are jammed shoulder to shoulder with the technorati. The conversations are so compelling, I end up getting back to the hotel way too late.)

Before I process all that took place here in an effort to get some new killer books into the pipeline, I'm taking a week off in a place where Internet connectivity is sketchy if available at all. I’ll post when I return and share some of what I discover in Central America.

~

Soldiers with cameras

2007-03-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

Like most Americans, I know I have only a shadowy impression of what the war in Iraq is really like. You don’t see much footage on the TV newscasts because they’re more concerned with Anna Nicole Smith or the astronaut who wore the diaper. “But it’s OK not to know what’s going on there,” I tell myself; “I don’t support the war so the details are irrelevant.” So much for ignorant bliss; now I can no longer ignore what’s taking place in my name.

On Saturday night I attended a showing of The War Tapes as part of our local Big Muddy Film Festival. This isn’t mainstream media’s take on the war. It is the first war movie ever made by soldiers filming all the war footage themselves. An unvarnished picture, you might say.

One of the most striking themes of this movie is the Americans’ contempt for the Iraqi people. One memorable scene shows a tanker truck filled with urine and feces being emptied by spraying the waste into a ditch along the side of a busy road. There are scenes of humvees barreling down city streets at 60 miles an hour, escorting convoys of Halliburton trucks. Caution: I’m going to give away a “climactic” scene in the next sentence. When one of those speeding humvees runs over a little girl who tries to dash across the highway in front of it, all the carnage and confusion is captured on videotape. The soldiers more or less scrape her severed body parts over to the side of the road while they search for her head. Iraqis come and shovel the parts into a body bag.

This is what’s being done in our name. If you want to see for yourself, buy this movie (only $19.95) and ask your friends and family to watch it.

~

In the eye of the beholder

2007-02-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

You may have read about Delta Zeta sorority at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana kicking out all their black and overweight members. This is one of the most sickening stories I’ve come across lately, in a world full of sickening stories. These babes need to be humiliated and spurned.

Still, I remember how much I disliked fraternities and sororities when I was in college. To me it was evident they chose members based on looks, money, and other qualities that I couldn’t measure up to. My friends and I in Willkie Quad proudly self-identified as “GDIs” or god-damned independents.

Though there are certain parts of college I wish I could go back and do differently, joining a fraternity is not one of them.

~

Walkin' in Memphis

2007-02-19T07:26:00.000-08:00

We spend most of our time at home in the country or our small university town, so E. and I were in need of an urban fix. Chicago is usually our first choice, but it’s been unusually cold lately, and we knew it would be worse if we went 250 miles further north. Why not head south?

That took us to Memphis, where we stayed at an artsy/lofty/quaint guesthouse called Talbot Heirs, just across the street from the famous Peabody Hotel—the place with the ducks in the fountain. It was a perfect location for an immersion into the city’s Downtown.

Friday night we had the requisite barbecue (and now I proclaim, Memphis reigns!) After that, we wandered in to the Blues Hall on Beale Street, a funky club dripping with history, where The Dr. Feel Good Potts Band played some of the best blues I’ve heard. We lingered there into what I thought were the wee hours. I was shocked when got back to our room and found it was only 10:45—but then it had been a long drive.

On Saturday we took the trolley to the National Civil Rights Museum. Walking up Mulberry Street, I kind of choked as I glimpsed the facade of the Lorraine Motel, an image that was seared into my brain in 1968 when Martin Luther King was gunned down there. The exhibits included a bus like the one Rosa Parks rode, a reconstructed Woolworth lunch counter and KKK robes. The displays tell such a troubling—yet inspiring—story.

I didn’t expect a great meal in a small city, but we both agreed Saturday’s dinner at Automatic Slim’s Tonga Club was among the best we’d ever had—anywhere.

I think my favorite experience of the weekend was buying a sweater and two shirts at Lanskys in the lobby of the Peabody. There are pictures on the wall of Mr. Lansky fitting Elvis in 1952. I asked the 80-year old guy waiting on me if that was him in the picture. “Yes,” he said. Then he went on to tell me he’d lived in Memphis all his life, and how much he loved his hometown. I told him that after just a couple of days there, I agreed it was a pretty great place.

On Sunday we had brunch with old friends Jeanne and Bill Goodrich who have retired back to their hometown. The experience was kind of “Old South” because men are required to wear jackets on Sunday at their place. Jeanne and Bill’s sunny, southern dispositions brightened our family’s lives when they were our next-door neighbors in Indianapolis in the 1960s and it was great to reconnect with them.

~

Not ready to make nice either

2007-02-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

Huzzahs to the Dixie Chicks for sweeping the Grammys. Do they hold grudges? “Without going through what we did, we wouldn’t have been able to make this album” one of them said.

I spent the weekend with family in Indianapolis, and got into an argument with my brother-in-law about the war in Iraq while I was helping him wash the dishes. He broke a crystal bowl in the sink. I felt sad as I carried the shards out to the trash. This war has broken families apart just as much as it has Iraq. We should’ve been laughing and talking about the Colts Superbowl win, not trying to make each other right or wrong. Reflecting on it, I feel such certainty that the war is wrong. Even though I love my brother-in-law, I'm not ready to make nice either. Fucking George Bush.

~

Fan dancers

2007-02-07T16:58:00.000-08:00

When my mom was moving into an assited living facility a few years back, we were sorting through her things and I found a box of mementos from my dad, who died in 1981. Among the items was a little notebook where he must have jotted down his thoughts on an almost daily basis. I never knew he kept the little book, and reading its tattered pages brought tears as well as smiles as I reconnected with him through it.

Dad always talked of his adventures, and one of his favorites was his first trip out of Indiana to the Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago. It was 1933, and as a 19-year old farm boy, he was quite taken with Sally Rand. Here’s what he had to say about it years later:

“People are funny.
Some object to the fan dancer;
Others object to the fan."

The quote made me laugh out loud. It’s so funny and pithy I can’t be sure if he thought of it on his own, or if he copied it down after he heard it from someone else. At any rate, I suspect he was one of the people who objected to the fan. Curtis Nolan was that kind of guy.

~

Indianapolis’ moment

2007-02-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

Pro football is one of those things I never cared much about—until the Indianapolis Colts made it into the Superbowl. I couldn’t pull myself away from yesterday’s game, and was jubilant when the home team won.

All last week I read snarky comments from people in Chicago. The worst was “The RCA Dome is 188 miles from Soldier Field. Chicagoans say it’s more like they’re 188 years apart.” Well, now Indiapolitans have the last laugh.

One thing about Indianapolis is that it’s usually under the radar. Over the last 25 years, while other cities were struggling to reinvent themselves, Indy quietly built its reputation as a sports capital, and new venues started cropping up all over downtown. Suddenly, people started moving back into the city too; it became a very hip thing to do. The streets came alive almost overnight, and now there are theatres, jazz clubs, galleries and museums galore in interesting old neighborhoods. Still, the rest of the country persists in its view of the city as India-no-place. When we lived in Philadelphia, we had to listen to slurs and jokes about red-state hicks quite often. These from people in a town where kids get killed on their way to school.

When the Colts won, I wanted to get on the road immediately and drive to Monument Circle. The four-and-a-half hour drive from here meant that I wouldn’t get there until the celebrations were over, so I decided that would be silly. The Superbowl glow will keep Indy charged up for quite awhile. At least until the Indy 500 in May.

~

Our daily bread?

2007-01-22T19:57:00.000-08:00

Over the years I’ve gone through various bouts of baking bread. “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a simple recipe that became so commonplace for me it would fit into the weekly routine and yield scrumptious, freshly-baked perfection?”

Last week we saw an article in the New York Times that promised just that. Flour, salt, yeast and water. Stir it up and let it rest 18 hours. Pour it into a searing hot covered ceramic dish and bake it at a high temperature, and voila! Crusty, yeasty, moist and chewy. Mmmmm.

Guess what: it works. Sort of. We’ve tried it three times now. The second time was the best. Half of the first loaf and all of the third have so far been flung into the woods for the wildlife to enjoy. These things are an art. They take practice. If we get it right, this could be our daily bread.

~

Egg ’em on

2007-01-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

MR. LEHRER: Is there a little bit of a broken egg problem here, Mr. President, that there is instability and there is violence in Iraq...

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah, you know, that's an interesting question. I don't quite view it as the broken egg; I view it as the cracked egg --

MR. LEHRER: Cracked egg?

PRESIDENT BUSH: -- that - where we still have a chance to move beyond the broken egg.

~

Sloganeering

2007-01-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

“Operation Iraqi Freedom”

“Mission Accomplished”

“Stay the Course”

“Adapt to Win”

“Plan for Victory”

“New Way Forward”

Pointed out by a favored columnist in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Dick Polman.

~

War weariness and wariness

2007-01-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

The decider has spoken. Going against the wishes of his generals—not to mention the people he purports to “lead”—he’s escalating his folly and threatening to extend it to Iran and Syria. Oh. My. God.

Talk about a sense of futility. Our new Congress can only twiddle its thumbs it seems. Somebody wake me up from this madness.

~

The red king arrives

2007-01-10T06:20:00.000-08:00

Not sure why, but for a long while we’ve wanted to get a new puppy. For years we’d been saying we wanted a Chocolate Lab. So look what we got instead: a “Labradoodle.” That’s a cross between a labrador and a poodle. We found this little guy on the internet, at a place called Rainbow Farm in Missouri. The lady there rescues dogs and cats. This fine fellow came from a puppy mill. They were going to put him down because he came out red, rather than the chocolate color most buyers prefer. Fortunately, he was saved.

Now he’s here with us, safe and sound. We decided to call him Rory, which means “red king” in Gaelic.

~

Boomers’ chance for redemption

2007-01-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

I’m an avid trends watcher. Maybe it’s my undergraduate training in Sociology, but I’m fascinated by the way new ideas and ways of living develop and manifest. An article about the trends of 2007 caught my eye in today’s edition of our local paper, the Southern Illinoisan, and I love what it said: Authenticity is back. Baby boomers are returning to their old values.

Says a trends expert from Hallmark Cards, “We boomers did a lot of singing and talking about ideals. Then we moved into big houses and turned our backs on our beliefs. Now we have a chance to implement our ideals.” Gerald Celente, who has followed trends for 25 years adds, “People are facing hypocrisy at every level. The war, Congress, Wall Street. They feel they’ve been sold a bill of goods. History hates a hypocrite. Boomers have got a shot at redemption."

Well, I must say I’ve awaited this return to integrity for quite awhile. All through the ‘80s and ‘90s my wife and I expressed disbelief to each other as we watched once-cherished values of our generation evaporate in a fury of selfishness and conspicuous consumption. We asked ourselves whether there could be a return to those core beliefs of our youth.

A new authenticity? Bring it on.

~

Surge of insanity

2006-12-18T09:50:00.000-08:00

I found this comment on the Huffington Post:

“War is peace, privatization is democracy, wrong is right, down is up, backwards is forwards, and sending in troops is pulling them out.”

I’ve already contacted Reid and Pelosi. Now’s the time to take the keys away from GWB.

Will we have to take to the streets again to end this war?

~

The First Amendment of the Internet

2006-12-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

We’ve seen how much they value things we used to take for granted—oh, like free speech, the right to privacy, or habeas corpus. Why should we be surprised that they’re trying to steal the internet?

The Nation has an interesting story about Bush’s man who heads up the FCC. It sounds complicated and a lot like inside baseball, but if you read between the lines, you’ll see a fine example of the corporate lackeys doing the bidding of their masters. They want to let big telecommunications companies charge fees so particular websites can buy priority treatment.

The article says, “Network neutrality is the first amendment of the internet. It prevents telecommunications corporations from rigging the web so it is easier to visit sites that pay for preferential treatment. And it is under attack from internet service providers that want to set up a system of two-tier internet access -- with an information superhighway for sites that pay premiums to the providers and the digital equivalent of a dirt road for sites that cannot afford to pay the toll.”

We’ve got two more years with these scalawags in power and we need to continue watching our backs—and our pockets. The FCC did away with the Fairness Doctrine under Reagan, and the media consolidation they’ve encouraged since then has led to homogenized radio stations and right-wing TV news lies coast-to-coast. Bu$hco has given us bankruptcy laws written by the banks, sent our kids off to war for the oil companies, given public forests to lumber companies, and prevented negotiations between Medicare and the drug firms. God help us if we let them sell our internet (remember, the government—taxpayers—built it) to the highest bidders.

Any of you other bloggers who value being able to speak your mind might want to think about this and not allow yourrself to believe the Net Neutrality battle is one you can afford to ignore. It’s not.

~

The Five Dollar Christmas

2006-12-03T15:49:00.000-08:00

It must have been 1974 or 1975. I was in my full-blown back-to-the-land mode, living in Chicago and planning a late-Spring move to a decrepit farmhouse on 40 acres in Wisconsin. I was very focused on not wasting money—or anything, for that matter—and the prospect of the excess our family exhibited each Christmas was beginning to worry me. Not only did I hate to see my parents and siblings go into debt for a materialistic splurge that no one really needed, I knew I couldn’t meet the gift expectations myself.

Suddenly, it came to me: the five dollar Christmas. I’d convince the family to place an extreme limit on how much each person spent, in the name of rediscovering the real meaning of Christmas. Gifts would be handmade, or hand-me-downs, or thrift shop finds. To my amazement, the family bought the idea, lock stock and barrel. Oh there was some grumbling from my sisters, who were used to getting whole new wardrobes on Christmas morning, but everyone agreed to observe the limit.

I remember buying my dad the paperback edition of The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook for $4.95. (In the first throes of the organic lifestyle, I was sure my parents were eating too much meat and over-cooking their vegetables, and dad did most of the cooking.) But it’s what he gave me that I’ll always treasure. He made a trip down to Southern Indiana, to the farm where he was raised and asked my uncle if he could scavenge around in the barn. There he found it—the two-man saw he had used in the summer of 1933 to cut wood and make enough money to travel to the Chicago World’s Fair that fall. It was a gift to say he supported my “move to the land,” and an affirmation of the love we both held for Chicago. I still have it today; it hangs on the wall above my desk reminding me of the payoff that comes from hard work. And it didn’t cost a dime that Christmas.

~

Who knew?

2006-11-21T07:38:00.000-08:00

While perusing my usual round of political websites, I came across a link to...Halliburton. Consider these statements:

Our Vision, Mission and Core Beliefs

Vision
People unleashing energy for a better life.

Mission
Creating sustainable value by delivering outstanding service that helps our customers succeed.

Motto
Done Right

Core Beliefs
We believe in doing things right by our employees, our customers and our investors.

Excuse my profanity; what a fucking crock of double-talking bullshit!

~

Oh yeah, “soaking up” the ”mini-glut” of crude

2006-11-20T15:34:00.000-08:00

Election’s over. Gas prices are rising again. Salon says, “After dropping 84 cents between Aug. 11 and Nov. 3, gas prices are up five cents in the first Lundberg Survey released after the Nov. 7 election.

“Trilby Lundberg tells CNN that the reversal in the 12-week pre-election slide shows that the market has ‘soaked up’ a ‘mini-glut’ of crude oil from August, causing a ‘normalization’ of supply and demand.”

Now that’s crude. See what you get when your president is in bed with oil companies?

~

A little Friday Foley fun

2006-11-17T12:13:00.000-08:00

While getting my daily dose of news at The Huffington Post, I came across this delightful little game. You use your arrow keys to send Congressman Foley through the halls of Congress to capture young pages who are trying to run away from him.

Enjoy.

~

Can we measure the drapes now?

2006-11-09T06:13:00.000-08:00

I want to be magnanimous in victory, I really do. I don’t want to be smug, or adopt an “I told you so” attitude with my Republican friends and family. Still.

We Democrats have endured years of demonization by the likes of Bush, Limbaugh, Coulter, Cheney, Inghram, O’Reilly, and their ilk. By last week, they had come to equate being a Democrat with supporting Osama bin Laden. For most of the Bush years, we’ve endured humiliation from Fox News on a nightly basis. Unpatriotic. Deranged. Immoral. Being a Democrat began to feel like it might have been to be a Jew in the early days of Nazi Germany, or black in the South.

Yesterday I felt like I had been liberated. Democrats went from being the devil’s spawn to being seen as the saviors of democracy.

And I want to be generous and kind-hearted after the way we were treated during the years in the wilderness. Still.

~

GOTV in SEMO

2006-11-08T05:43:00.000-08:00

I've worked for Democratic candidates in about every election cycle since George McGovern ran in 1972. I have memories of knocking on doors in Chicago, San Francisco, Indianapolis, and Philadelphia in countless cold November GOTV (get out the vote) efforts.

I was tempted to sit this one out, because I had come to believe that no matter how hard we worked, the Republicans would steal the election. Besides, I now live in an area where Dems are the norm. Our House representative, Jerry Costello ran unopposed, and our governor was so far ahead in the polls he couldn’t lose.

Yesterday morning I headed to my polling place, the nearby Bible Baptist Church, marked my ballot, and watched dubiously as it was sucked in to a big machine with “Diebold” emblazoned across the top. The judge ladies were talking amongst themselves about how remarkable it was: “We don’t even have to count the votes when it’s over; the machine does it automatically.” I didn’t want to rain on their parade, but I told them I had zero trust in that voting machine, and hoped by the next election it would be in a trash heap somewhere.

I had decided to become a carpetbagger of sorts, to go to the next door state of Missouri, where Claire McCaskill was in a tight Senate race. So I spent the day knocking on doors in Cape Girardeau, Rush Limbaugh’s hometown. The registered Dems are so scarce in SEMO (Southeast Missouri) that sometimes there’d only be one or two on an entire block. When I knocked on their doors, they gave me enthusiastic thumbs up.

Looks like Claire won. Take that, Rush.

~

2006-11-03T06:43:00.000-08:00

One Breath

This one kind of speaks for itself.

~

2006-11-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

Several of my interests...

...are served by the above YouTube video.

First, there’s my interest in telling a good story. This little clip contains quite a plot in its one minute and fourteen seconds.

Secondly, it’s about using software like Photoshop—which I do a lot.

Then, I actually know the guy who started the Dove Real Beauty campaign. It’s Brian Collins of Ogilvy & Mather in New York. I’ve taken him to lunch more than once in an attempt to get him to share his branding brilliance in a book.

Finally, there’s the instantaneous suspiscion the corporate culture breeds. One of the first comments on the YouTube site: “Now you will only be beautiful if you get DOVE brand "self-esteem" and DOVE brand "real beauty" what do they take us for consumer drones. We don't need DOVE brand self-esteem thank you very much. Nor do we need your corporate viral videos.”

Gotta love it all.

~

An award well-deserved

2006-10-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Magazine Publishers of America have given the award for 2006 Cover of the Year to this cover from The New Yorker. Here’s what the judges had to say about it:

“The ineptness of the response by FEMA and the U.S. government after Hurricane Katrina was an outrage to everyone who watched it unfold. The images of bodies floating unclaimed in murky waters were clear signs of the lack of care and empathy by those at the top of the government. In his cover, ‘Deluged,’ Barry Blitt turns the tables on the situation. As the Oval Office is slowly submerged, the reader gets a release that goes beyond the first laugh and unleashes the floodgates of the nation's collective anger.”

I wonder if the floodgates of the nation’s collective anger will be unleashed after the GOP and Diebold steal the 2006 election? Polls are clear the voters want to throw them out, but I no longer trust the voters’ intent will be honored. The media will talk about a last-minute effort by the GOP ground troops saving the day. Then people will just go back to sleep, resigning themselves to life in an America without a semblance of care and empathy.

~

Just to let you know mikalinphilly is still happening ...

2006-10-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

...came across this interesting site on the ever-amazing world wide web:

Cats that Look Like Hitler

OMFG.

~

Falling like the poll numbers of the GOP

2006-10-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

I was just out and about this afternoon and had to check twice when I looked at the price for regular gas. $2.02!

I suspect that by election day they’ll be giving us free fill-ups. That’s so we’ll forget about the little brothel staffed with pages they’ve set up in the basement of the Capitol Building.

But never expect their election defeat; when all else fails, they’ll just ask their buddies at Diebold to work a little magic with the voting machine tallies.

~

If he thinks Iraq’s just a comma, then he’s just a virgule

2006-09-25T15:21:00.001-07:00

BLITZER: Let's move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public, a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war, if not already a civil war…. We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.

BUSH: ...I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there's a strong will for democracy.

Definition of virgule:
noun: a punctuation mark (/) used to separate related items of information.

~

Here comes your October surprise!

2006-09-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

Amidst blog posts referencing emails from Karl Rove to Republican activists about an “October surprise,” I came across a scary report in The Nation about a US strike force of aircraft carriers being sent to the Persian Gulf, probably to attack nuclear sites in Iran.

According to the article, “The Eisenhower had been in port at the Naval Station Norfolk for several years for refurbishing and refueling of its nuclear reactor; it had not been scheduled to depart for a new duty station until at least a month later, and possibly not till next spring. Family members, before the orders, had moved into the area and had until then expected to be with their sailor-spouses and parents in Virginia for some time yet. First word of the early dispatch of the "Ike Strike" group to the Persian Gulf region came from several angry officers on the ships involved, who contacted antiwar critics like retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner and complained that they were being sent to attack Iran without any order from the Congress.”

I guess Bu$hco needs to launch its next war before they lose control of the rubber-stamp Congress.

~

Fill ’er up!

2006-09-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

I pulled in to my local BP Connect to get gas and was astonished when I saw that Regular was selling for only $2.39 a gallon. Seems like less than a couple of weeks ago it was more than $3.00. And then I remembered: it’s almost election time! Call me cynical, but I just wonder if Bu$hco has been putting pressure on their oily buddies to lower the prices at the pump so we’ll all forget about the recent gouging. Couldn’t be, could it?

Meanwhile, back in our oil war I think I read that 65 Iraqis were murdered today. Oh well, gas is cheap again. Fill 'er up!

~

Stratifying society by design

2006-09-07T06:12:00.000-07:00

“As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing.”

—Karl Rove

A new report out today from the non-partisan National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education confirms that a college education is increasingly becoming something only the wealthy can afford. From today’s New York Times: “The study...found that although the United States still leads the world in the proportion of 35- to 64-year-olds with college degrees, it ranks seventh among developed nations for 25- to 34-year-olds. On rates of college completion, the United States is in the lower half of developed nations.”

In the 1990s, Pell grants covered about 70% of the cost of a year of tuition and room and board at a four year college. Now, they cover less than 50%. College tuition is rising faster than the cost of living, faster even than the cost of healthcare.

Does anyone see a connection here? Could it be that the GOP leaders of our country really don’t want an educated population? Does it serve their purpose for there to be an educated wealthy elite, and a permanent, ever-growing underclass? Quick, let’s have some more tax cuts for the rich!

~

Maybe the answer is to laugh

2006-08-30T06:24:00.000-07:00

This morning I came across one of those rarities: a blog that really stands out, publishes new posts frequently, and makes me laugh. It’s called Assimilated Press and it doesn’t wallow in anti-Bu$hco angst. Instead, it posts hilarious little stories that are so close to the real news they’re almost not funny. Check out some of these headlines:

* Bush Plans To Move New Orleans To North Dakota
* Newborn Babies To Be Slapped With Liens To Cover Debt
* Cheney Spends Vacation Clubbing Baby Seals
* Dead Zone Surrounds Crawford, Texas
* Aspirins For The Sick & Blankets For The Dead
* Bush Announces Amnesty Program For Democrats
* Pharmaceutical Giants Reach Agreement With Drug Overlords

Those and more are why I’ve added Assimilated Press to my list of favorites.

~

A blogger’s challenge solved

2006-08-29T06:08:00.000-07:00

These days I find it increasingly difficult to post anything worth writing about. My usual subjects seem boring. I mean, how many times can one rant about George Bush when almost two thirds of the populace share your outrage? It’s kind of like self flagellation. I’m weary of writing about Bu$hco, and my handful of readers are probably weary of reading about it.

Living out in the country like I do, there aren’t many distractions worthy of commentary. I have been meaning to write about the flock of wild turkeys who occasionally wander into our yard—about eight of them—but I wanted to accompany a post about them with a photo, and lately they’ve stopped coming by.

I’ve noticed a similar slowdown in posting on several of my friends’ blogs as well. (Detroit Gail! Hello! Your last post was a month ago! Rick! We’ve been awaiting your insights into 9/11 as a government conspiracy!) Makes me wonder: is blogging a passing phase? Maybe people soon be saying, “Blogging. That’s sooooo 2004.”

Just in time, along comes a new book I’m proud to have signed for Peachpit late last winter. It’s called No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. It’s by uber blogger Maggie Mason, purveyor of the Mighty Girl and Mighty Goods sites. It’s chock full of suggestions to prompt you to write interesting posts. Not that this post is that interesting, mind you.

~

His house of cards is falling down

2006-08-22T06:33:00.000-07:00

Joe Scarborough asks the question on Fox TV: “Is Bush an Idiot?” (duh). Conservative columnist George Will finally concludes the Iraq war is a disaster. William F. Buckley has made his distaste clear. About the only conservatives left supporting Bu$hco are stalwart blowhards like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Inghram and Anne Coulter.

From an article detailing the rats leaving the sinking ship in the Washington Post: “While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: ‘I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people.’” Must be kind of depressing hanging out in or near the Oval Office these days.

FDR said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and that’s such a contrast to the whimpering false bravado of the Bu$hco gang who try to make us fearful as a way to keep themselves in power. FDR went on to describe “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

If I didn’t know the way this cabal works, I’d be celebrating their downfall. But instead, I’m very fearful. I’m expecting some kind of dramatic attack on innocent citizens just prior to the elections coming up. These craven bastards know no limits. They’ll kill innocent men, women and children in Iraq, and they’ll do the same here (and blame it on “terrorists”) to make the rest of us afraid. Call me paranoid, but mark my words. They’ve done it before; they’ll do it again.

~

New levels of incredulity

2006-08-11T06:17:00.000-07:00

As if flying wasn’t demeaning, tiring or uncomfortable enough already, now we can’t take toothpaste or hair gel or even a bottle of water on an airplane. Those things get confiscated by the security coolies at the airport and thrown into the same trashcans. They’re supposedly potential explosives and they’re indiscriminately mixed together? My god, what a bunch of idiots Americans are. Everytime I take off my shoes at an airport checkpoint I feel like a sheep being led to slaughter. Wonder how long before they’ll be asking us to spread our butt cheeks? At what point will we say, “enough!”?

Is anyone suspicious that just a few weeks before an upcoming election when Bu$hco stands to get its ass whupped we have this latest “terrorist plot” with the threat level raised to RED? I’m not afraid anymore: I’m incredulous at the stupidity I see all around me.

~

Got that Wheeling feeling

2006-07-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

Back on the East Coast for awhile. Gorging on seafood like there’s no tomorrow. Putting the final touches on the cottage so we can rent it out long-term for a couple of years.

On the way here from Illinois we stopped and spent the night in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was an exquisite summer evening and our room overlooked a tranquil Ohio River. Around the corner from our hotel, we came across this lovely bridge. I had never known about it before, but came to learn it was built before the Civil War, dedicated in 1850. When it was built—to open the Louisiana Purchase to settlement via the storied National Road—it was the longest bridge in the world. That it still serves us 150 years later is a testament to ingenuity and a can-do public spirit. I couldn’t help contrast that to today’s money-wasting, over-engineered, failing-after-one-year “Big Dig.”

We walked across the bridge into a place called Wheeling Island. Everyone we met there kept assuring us, even though we never asked, that we were indeed on an island, and that it was a great place to live. I remain unconvinced about the latter because they had a wall on their city hall painted proudly with marks indicating how high the floods had been in 1946, 1958, 1963, 1975, 1977, 1982—you get the picture. I was glad to get downashore the next day.

~

Chicken Little in Seattle

2006-07-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

One of the most bizarre things that has ever happened to me took place yesterday morning.

I was on my way from the Seattle Sheraton to the Convention Center a block away for the opening of the Web Design World conference. I stopped to read newspaper headlines in the newsboxes on the street, mostly to see what kind of new atrocity Bu$hco might have mounted while I was sleeping the night before.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, something fell out of the sky and bonked me on the top of the head. At first I wondered if it had been a stray bullet, but then I thought, “this is Seattle, not Philadelphia.” I put my hand on the spot and when I took it away saw I was bleeding profusely. People on the street corner edged away from me. A lady suggested I go back into the hotel lobby and seek assistance.

The pretty, young desk clerk was visbly upset when I casually said I’d been injured on the street, yet she remained composed. Hotel security officers appeared and started barking into walkie-talkies. One guy pulled on rubber gloves, brought antiseptics and ice and called 911.

Minutes passed before the ambulance pulled up in the crowded downtown street, and its wailing sirens caused quite a stir, as did the EMT guys strolling through the lobby. They took me upstairs to an empty room and checked me out. They said I had a 1/2 inch gash in my scalp, and suggested I take it easy for the rest of the day. We all speculated about what might have fallen from above, but nothing was found on the sidewalk.

After they left I went back up to my room to clean up and compose myself. It took almost an hour for the bleeding to stop. But the sense of unease and profound relief that I hadn’t been killed didn’t leave me for the rest of the day. I went to the conference, and felt queasy and light-headed. I knew I had escaped a close call, having survived an unknown object falling on my head from a tall building.

This morning I passed by the spot again with a sense of dread and relief, thinking about the thin line between life and death. All day today I was filled with a kind of existential anomie. I suspect I will feel that way for some time to come.

~

Bushwhacked in Mexico

2006-07-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day. While Americans prepare for barbecues and fireworks, our illegally installed administration has once again reached out and stolen another election. Surprise, surprise. While exit polls say otherwise, the conservative corporate-backed presidential candidate, Felipe Calderón, claims to have “won.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer puts it this way: “Stirring memories of the 2000 nail-biter in Florida, electoral officials said a preliminary count had given the conservative Calderón an edge of 1 percentage point over Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico City’s leftist former mayor.” For me it also stirs up stinky memories like Ohio in 2004.

So what does this election theft have to do with Bu$hco? Greg Palast points us to an FBI memo detailing a no-bid contract given to Choice Point of Alpharetta, Georgia (the same folks hired in 2000 by the Florida Republican party to purge that state’s voting rolls of “felons”). Their work helped set up challenges of Mexican voters who might be “terrorists.” This is being done with your tax money and mine, and it’s deja-vu all over again.

~

The satisfying “thwack” of my new pursuit

2006-06-28T06:32:00.000-07:00

Living in the country is something I haven’t done since about 1975, so it’s taking some getting used to. It’s an odd feeling when an entire day goes by without seeing another human being (other than my family.) That happens often, when I don’t have any errands to run in town. I’m not complaining; it just feels odd.

One aspect of being surrounded by woods has allowed me to take up a new hobby: archery. Just behind our garage is a small clearing, and on the end of it there’s a wooden wall about fifteen feet long and eight feet high. Our real estate agent surmised it was an shooting range. Turns out, the previous owner told me one of his teenage sons built it to kick soccer balls and keep them from going into the woods. But the idea was planted in my mind for it t to keep arrows from flying into the thicket of trees and poison ivy.

I mentioned I’d like to try archery, so for Father’s Day my wife and son bought me a beautiful bow and six carbon arrows. Now whenever I want to take a break from staring at the computer screen, I stroll out to the archery range and shoot until my fingers are numb and my shoulders ache. The sound of the arrows striking the target and the wooden wall is quite gratifying. The feeling of pulling the bowstring and letting the arrow fly seems not-quite-21st Century. It’s timeless.

~

Getting off my bucolic ass and writing something

2006-06-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

That's what my most faithful reader Gail suggests. Says she’s sick of the pretty pictures. So I’ll write about something dear and near to my well-being: wine.

First, one of my authors, a great young guy named Dan Cederholm who wrote Bulletproof Web Design has just launched a tasty and exquisitely designed new website devoted to wine. It’s called Cork'd, “the simple way to review and share wine.” When I saw it, I had another one of those, “why didn’t I think of that first?” moments.

And back to the aforementioned Detroit Gail. She also pinged me with an ad for Illinois wineries she saw on LA Times.com and asked if I was aware of the growing reputation of our local wines. Am I ever! Eight of the wineries, (and one of the best) are along the Shawnee Trail, within 20 miles of Carbondale. This was already a region known for its peach and apple orchards, and now they’ve begun growing grapes as well. Some of the results are surprisingly quite palatable, even for a California wine snob like me. At the very least, who could fail to enjoy a sunny day on the terrace at the neo-Tuscan Blue Sky Winery listening to live Chicago blues, sipping an Illinois red (Chamburcin is my favorite) and dipping crusty bread into olive oil?

~

I’ve been in a state of shock...

2006-06-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

...which is why I haven’t posted to mikalinphilly for a while. See, I'm so not in Philly at the moment it’s shifted the whole way I think. Posting to a blog seemed rather disconnected from the green wall of forest and lake outside.

All my life I’ve been an urban person. Indianapolis, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia. As each decade passed, I found myself living ever closer to the core of whatever city I called home. Then fate brought us to Southern Illinois and now to our serene home on Lake Chatauqua and I’m doing something I always said I wanted to do—live a rural, quiet life.

Our cell-phones hardly work, so we’ve started to use the VoIP line more. Fortunately, the rather hill-jack seeming cable company (headquartered in some small town in Kentucky I’ve never heard of) installed internet service that is flawless—much better than the spotty Mediacom connection we had when we were in town. That’s a good thing because I depend on the internet for my livelihood.

My new office is almost completed. I painted it a quiet celadon green and the light filters in through a wall of windows overlooking the lake. I positioned the small desk where I work on my laptop so it faces those windows, and every now and then I look up to watch birds in the trees near the deck. At night the bullfrogs start their croaking. It’s outrageous. Sometimes it’s so rhythmic it sounds like a jazz riff.

Today I built an enclosure for the compost pile near the garage, and threw in all the watermelon and canteloupe rinds and Fair Trade coffee grounds that had been accumulating since we moved in. It was impractical to have a compost pile in Philly.

~

Our new backyard

2006-05-31T12:22:00.000-07:00

After one of the most nail-bitingly difficult and complex mortgaging/closing processes we’ve ever experienced (not much good to say about Countrywide Mortgage this afternoon), we finally settled today on our new house. This is the view from part of our backyard.

~

Living with war in my heart

2006-05-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I bought Neil Young’s new album, Living With War. As soon as I put it into the CD player in my truck my heart went heavy, and my spirits rose. It’s plainspoken, anthemic, compassionate and outraged. It’s unpolished, unashamed and inspiring. I read in an interview of Young that he kept waiting for someone in the younger generations to write these songs, and when they didn’t, he had to.

This morning I came across a Salon article about the billion-dollar memorial being proposed for Ground Zero. The author made some choice observations. One is that the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan has now surpassed the number killed on 9/11. But the best was this excerpt from the preamble to the Declaration of Independence:

“The history of the present King ... is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States ... He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power ... He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation ... For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences ... For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”

Sound like anybody we know?

~

What’s up with this?

2006-05-15T18:45:00.000-07:00

Seems like 40 days and 40 nights this has been going on. Here it is, friggin middle of May and we’re still wearing sweaters—during the day!

The weather lately has been like something out of a Garrison Keilor skit about Northern Minnesota, but I can assure you: it’s not funny. I’m ready to bask in the sun, and the sun’s nowhere to be seen. Day after day, I wake up, optimistic, thinking maybe this will be the day it finally gets warm. But then I see the clouds, hear the dreary sound of raindrops on the roof and I fall back into a kind of despair. The poor basil plants on the deck sympathize; once so promising and vibrant, now they’ve given up, withered away, and decided to die.

I seek independent verification when the weather goes weird like this. “Is this normal?” Someone who knows please tell me. “Will we have a summer this year?” Because if I don’t get a strong dose of the season I live for—soon, I’ll be pissed.

~

Living next door to the senator's daughter

2006-05-09T19:13:00.000-07:00

When the winds of fate blew us from Philly to Carbondale, Illinois, one of the best outcomes for us is we rented a house in town next door to Sheila Simon and her family. She's the daughter of the late Illinois Senator Paul Simon, a bow-tie wearing liberal whose common-sense approach to government was in the same vein as Abraham Lincoln's.

If you're from somewhere else, this might not mean much, but if you're from down here in the mining country of Southern Illinois, you gotta understand, it's all Simon all the time. There's the water tower in Makanda, a hamlet a few miles south of here where Paul Simon built his sensible, ecologically advanced country home in the 1980s. The tower sports a bright yellow paint job and a smiley face, replete with a black bow-tie. Then there's the Simon Public Policy Institute here at Southern Illinois University. You can't miss the Senator Paul Simon Federal Building in downtown Carbondale with its solar panels in the roof. He also founded the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, and—the list goes on and on.

Paul's daughter, our neighbor, Sheila Simon is the real deal. Right now she's a city council member here in Carbondale, and she just announced she's gonna run for mayor. Of course, I've helped elect a mayor before, and this really appeals to me. And that's not just because she's a Democrat, but more because she's my next door neighbor and I get an intimate glimpse of how she lives.

She's a mom and she's always driving her daughters to music lessons and school events and god knows where else. Clearly, her family comes first in her life.

She's in a band called Loose Gravel. She plays banjo and the other women in the band play mandolins and violins and guitars. Their songs are wry and sweet and make you smile.

She spent spring break on a fact-finding trip to Cuba.

She invites us to dinner quite often. Then we get to join her and her family and an eclectic set of guests who are as likely to be from Zimbabwe as Carbondale. We come away energized.

She lets us borrow her push lawn mower to get some exercise while we trim our grass, and I know she's glad we're saving a half gallon of gasoline. Tells us to "use it anytime—you know where it is." In fact, she and Perry, her husband, are so environmentally conscious you see their laundry hanging on clotheslines all the time. Many evenings Sheila rides up on her Trek bicycle, commuting home from her workday. These folks practice what they preach.

There's something about Sheila that tells me she's destined for something bigger than mayor of Carbondale. How about President of the U.S.?

~

Mystery solved

2006-05-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

After a couple of very intense and productive work days with my Peachpit colleagues in Berkeley, I got up early yesterday morning so I could drive my rental car back to the San Francisco airport in time to catch my plane back to St. Louis.

The plane was delayed, the takeoff was delayed, the arrival was delayed, so it was after 7 pm when I landed in St. Louis. I had left my truck across the river in Illinois and taken the brilliant St. Louis Metrolink to the airport, which meant I faced an hour long train ride from the airport back to the commuter lot. Twenty some stops later, I threw my suitcase in the bed and my computer in the cab and commenced the final leg, an almost two hour drive home to Carbondale. It was a sultry late spring evening and the drive through the countryside with the windows down was pleasant but long. Let's just say I was tired when I got home.

Around midnight I was unpacking my laptop in my quiet, dark office. I looked over at my desk and was repulsed by what looked like a puddle of dog puke right next to my inbox. I couldn't believe it. Why, (and much more pertinent, how) did Sami our dog get up on my desk to throw up?

Without thinking, I put my finger in the substance. It smelled sweet, almost pleasant. That meant it wasn't dog puke. But what else could it be? I glanced at the ceiling to see if there was any kind of leak. Negatori. My mind turned to the supernatural: maybe it was some kind of manifestation from a poltergeist. I was too tired to worry about what caused it, much less clean it up so I went to bed.

This morning I realized in an instant when I saw the package of Airborne tablets I had set out to pack before I left on my trip. They're supposed to guard against bird flu and other bad stuff in stuffy airplanes. I had placed two tablets on my desk to drop into a glass of water right before leaving for the airport, and in my usual rushing around before a trip, had forgotten to take them.

In the rainy, rainy last few days those tablets must've absorbed the moisture in the air and grew into a puddle that looked a lot like dog puke. Only a prettier yellow.

~

The kinder, gentler Condi

2006-05-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

To be frank, it scared the shit out of me: I found myself in agreement with Condoleeza Rice. According to the San Francisco Chronicle she actually said something that sounded reasonable:

“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice weighed in on the anthem debate Sunday, skirting Bush's strong statement last week that the anthem should be sung in English.

‘I've heard the national anthem done in rap versions, country versions, classical versions," Rice said. "The individualization of the American national anthem is quite under way. I think what we need to focus on is an immigration policy that is comprehensive and that recognizes our laws and recognizes our humanity.’ ”

Wow. Suddenly the lady is making some sense. The feeling crept up my spine and made me shiver: she’s cut and run from Bu$hco and has a new group of people advising, grooming her—people who want to formulate her into presidential material. I have a very bad vision forming in my head for 2008: Hillary/Condi.

S-h-u-d-d-e-r. Mind if I sit this one out?

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

~

Our next adventure

2006-04-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

We spent a lot of time this winter searching for a house to buy here in Southern Illinois. We saw dozens of places that all failed to inspire in one way or another. Now we have found a place that we think can be a very special home. When our college freshman son saw it, his comment was, “awesome, dad!” We're equally excited.

Who'd have guessed: a 1980s fixer-upper. There is about an acre of fuschia-colored carpet that must be dealt with immediately. Not to mention the original 80s decor that must be banished with a dazzling array of current colors. (Was it really that long ago we actually liked mauve and gray and peach?) I can see the need for a new roof right around the corner. The HVAC is original and that means it will probably need to be replaced in the next couple of years.

Those are the minuses. There are some definite plusses. 7 acres. Lakefront. No other house in view. Hot tub. 4 bedrooms, 3.75 baths. 2 fireplaces. Contemporary, clean architecture with decks and walls of (insulated) windows.

Our new address is 1 River Rock Road, Murphysboro, IL. We envison this place as a retreat for us and for our family and friends. Plan to come visit. There's plenty of room.

~

Dubya’s last bet

2006-04-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

One of my very favorite writers, Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle has a mighty fine column today. As usual, it’s very funny, and also very dark. Here’s just one paragraph:

“Now, here he is, sitting right next to all the other countries at the Big Table, representing America, it's little Dubya Bush, stewing in his own juices, his poll numbers hovering right near Nixon levels, mumbling to himself, smelling vaguely of sawdust and horse manure and dead Social Security overhaul plans.”

The jist of the column is that Dubya’s last bet is to spend what remains of his dwindling political capital and nuke Iran. I suggest you read it yourself; it’s chilling.

~

It’s no accident...

2006-04-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

“...we've got $20-million houses offering spectacular views down the hill and into the Third World. If not for the fact that it takes forever to get anywhere on the bus, we'd have a revolution on our hands.” This statement comes from an article by Steve Lopez in today’s Los Angeles Times headlined “Income Gap More Like a Chasm.” Though he’s talking about Southern California, the claim could be made about any place in the U.S. Obviously, under the benign rule of Bu$hco, the phenomenon is more pronounced than ever, what with offshoring jobs, tax cuts for the wealthy and other class-warfare policies.

This is the saddest thing going on in America today, and its going to destroy our country. John Edwards earns my respect because he’s working to address the problem. While Americans rush off to Wal-Mart to buy a gross of tube socks for $4.99, people who work there try to make a living for themselves and their families on subsistence wages. I'm waiting for the revolution; I’m waiting for the burgeoning lower class to rise up and say, “enough is enough.”

~

The cottage takes shape

2006-04-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

One of my readers requested that I post a picture of the New Jersey cottage I've been working on for more than a year and a half. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

What you can't see here are the two giant oak trees, the garden and landscaping yet-to-come, the IKEA kitchen or the killer stained concrete floor in the living room. You'll just have to use your imagination about those.

This whole project has been about using my imagination.

~

Take a long last look

2006-04-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

Last week I read a disturbing story in the Philadelphia Inquirer telling of a huge die-off of coral reefs in the Caribbean. As much as 30% has died, some reefs as old as 800 years. Because coral only grows the thickness of a dime in a year, it would take centuries to replace even part of what's gone—if what's causing the coral to die could be stopped. Why is the coral dying? The temperature of the sea has heated up a few degrees.

This weekend I picked up a copy of Time magazine. The cover story was about the fact that global warming is no longer seen as a controversial theory, and what's worse, its effects are hitting us faster than anyone anticipated. The earth has reached a tipping point, according to Time, and now glaciers are melting fast, polar bears are drowning as ice floes break up, sea levels are rising, and hurricanes like Katrina are happening more frequently.

This morning I went online and saw stories about how intense thunderstorms and winds tore through several Midwestern states yesterday, demolishing a town in Tennessee, and sending glass from a high-rise building into the streets of Indianapolis while the Final Four tournament was taking place there. Do you suppose there's a connection to global warming?

For a long time we've been told—but few believed—that the Earth is a fragile ecosystem. Big energy companies spent a lot of money to dismiss warnings about global warming as the rantings of quacks. Pro-business government leaders blew off the Kyoto treaty and haven't done a thing to try and wean our country's dependence on oil. The complacency is a form of denial that makes the denial about Iraq seem like small potatoes.

What kind of a world will we leave our children?

~

Ghosts of Cape Mey

2006-03-27T18:30:00.000-08:00

In need of human contact, I decided to go down to "the island" on Sunday morning and join a $20 walking/brunch tour of Historic Cape May. It was slightly drizzly and there were only six of us interested in being there. I surveyed my companions: a grandmother/mother/daughter group in from Maryland and a lovey-dovey couple in matching Nascar jackets. Intellectual stimulation seemed far off.

Mary Lou, our tour guide, was erstwhile and she knew her architecture. She and her husband had retired here from Philly, and were so in love with the place they want to give back. We set out to Hughes Street to take a look at the first houses on the tour. And the modern day world of automobiles and cellphones began to melt away as my mind wandered back to 1620 when Captain Mey of Holland discovered this peninsula...and then to 1820 when Captain Hughes built the house we're looking at. Ghosts of Victorians in carriages streamed by from the steamship landing to their hotels that were later burned down in a November conflagration that took out a third of the town. U-boats hovered at the mouth of the Delaware Bay during World War II and the canal that marks a shortcut from the ocean to the bay was cut to provide a safe haven for the merchant ships headed to the refineries at Philadelphia. The doldrums of the 50s and 60s set in and nobody wanted to come here so the historic nature of the town was preserved from rampant redevelopment.

Then fast-forward to the 80s and 90s and 00s. Suddenly Cape May is hot. Houses cost a million dollars. People paint their Victorian gingerbread in a thousand lurid hues, colors that would make those old Victorians blush. Mary Lou was unabahshed about her disdain for the over-the-top colors people are using today: "Less than twenty years ago, most of the houses in Cape May were painted white."

~

No Child Left Creative

2006-03-25T18:33:00.000-08:00

St. Andrew's School, Indianapolis, Indiana, circa 1960. After a week of dreary, repetitive study of math, English, social studies and science, the clasroom suddenly became an engaging place for me. Every Friday afternoon was devoted to Art. Out came the scissors, paste, crayons, paints, and construction paper. I no longer had to hide the little drawings I'd been secretly doodling in my notebook during English or geography. As rigid and unimaginative as the lesson plans might have been (usually, to recrerate a drawing the teacher put up in the front of the room), I still sailed out of the doors of that school on Friday afternooon with a jolt of creativity that made my segue into the weekend a delight.

Now, the mo-fos who've taken control of everything else have made sure their impact is felt in the most important sphere of all, education. Bowing to the yoke of Bu$hco's "No Child Left Behind" folderol, school districts are abandoning those pesky subjects like art and music in favor of doubling up on math and reading instruction. It's just one more example of how what really should happen gets twisted into some kind of bumfuck alternate reality where the elite of the world congratulate themselves that they're doing something meaningful for the po' folk by getting them on the right track. In reality, those po' folk being screwed.

You know, if we're going to work ourselves out of the mess(es) we currently find ourselves in (oh, you know, those pesky issues like war, poverty, environmental meltdown, social disintegration—that sort of thing) the one bright shining star offering hope to humanity is e-d-u-c-a-t-i-o-n. We're going to have to devise creative solutions for problems now facing us. We need to teach more creativity, not less.

I don't know if you've noticed: the same idiots who've mired our asses down in Iraq, the ones who couldn't figure out people in New Orleans were in danger, have also been in charge of education "reform." You see how well they've succeeded in their other endeavors. How do you like what they've done to your child's school with their punitive one-size-fits-all kind of thinking?

Is it possible our masters don't really want creative people in their world? There might be too much independent thinking as an outcome. Too many might walk away from the mindless consumer treadmill we're on and go throw some pots. A society comprised of math whizzes can do important things for us like devise new ways to cook the books for Enron or arrange no-bid contracts for Halliburton.

~

Better in bed

2006-03-22T19:20:00.000-08:00

Catching my daily fix over at Daily Kos, I found this interesting link: 10 Reasons Why Liberal Men are Better in Bed. I always suspected this was the case. The author argues it's because we have conscience, a sense of perspective, a sense of humor, efficiency, largesse, and good nightstand reading. In addition, we are not afraid to shed tears, and we're "so intellectually sexy everything is foreplay." Most of all, it seems size matters: "Size. It is absolutely, positively, 100 percent true that Republicans are bigger dicks who trigger the gag reflex."

~

Take me to New Ephemera, please

2006-03-21T13:20:00.000-08:00

Cruising through design websites looking for the next big publishing idea I came across a reference on Design Observer to an imaginary destination created by Amanda Spielman, a 29-year-old graduate design student at MFA Design program at the School of Visual Arts. She had created a brochure as part of a design assignment for an island city she calls, "New Ephemera," located just east of the Sea of Enumeration. The city overlooks the Bay of Water, with the Untold Islands just offshore.

Cradled in the Pleasing Mountains, New Ephemera's main industries are winemaking and bookbinding. It also boasts the world's largest flea market, a Vegetation Museum, "Pools of Certitude," and a place you can go to soak away cares, the Subterranean Honey Baths. The brochure encourages you to "find peace in the gardens, satisfaction in the gourmet selection of wine, cheese, breads and seafood, and intellectual stimulation in the renowned multilingual libraries and extensive museum collections." It also suggests you soak up the sun on the nearby beaches, or go biking in the Outer Bivouacs to breathe in all the abundant fresh air.

When the brochure made it out into the world with its designer's phone number listed, more than a dozen people called to ask for more information, what flights go there, and hotel availability. Foolish hearts; they didn't know enough about the world to ascertain that there could be no such perfect place. Still, it's nice to dream about one.

~

Goodbye to winter—and daddy

2006-03-20T16:21:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of Higbee Beach on the Delaware Bay. It's just a short drive from our cottage in Villas. I'm seeing out the final days of winter here alone. The kitchen's almost complete, but the sink and dishwasher aren't hooked up so I have to wash dishes in the bathroom lavatory. That keeps me from wanting to make elaborate meals, so I'm buying lots of frozen dinners. Last night it was a tasty frozen deep-dish pizza; tonight I'm having shepherd's pie, which seems like a reasonable choice, especially when paired with a nice glass of red wine. In this short culinary experiment I've come to prefer Stouffers (their lasagne is killer) but they don't make shepherd's pie I guess.

As always, my time down here in Cape May County amazes me by how New Jersey/not New Jersey the place is. In fact, it's below the Mason-Dixon line, I'm told. There are fields and farms and woods interspersed with housing tracts and strip malls. Every so often on the two-lane highways that wind through the peninsula you'll come across a proud old Jersey farmhouse, often converted into a bed and breakfast, antique shop or an attorney's office. These houses attest to the fact that people have been down on this spit of land for a long time, and that even then life was good.

I drove down to Cape May for a bottle of wine at the chi-chi liquor store there. The selection at the liquor store here in Villas really, really bites; I've never seen stranger choices. Of course, you'd expect that: Cape May is more upscale and houses start at about a million dollars. Villas is where people have vinyl picket fences and nautical-motif landscaping with dock pilings, plastic seashells and miniature lighthouses in their front yards. Folks actually live in Villas; they summer in Cape May.

In the old seaside town the last winter winds blew in off the ocean. I was struck by the emptiness, all the dark Victorian houses lumbering over the narrow sidestreets waiting for the summer when they'll be reopened. The sidewalks will be full of people coming to and from the beach. Then all the restaurants and souvenir shops will be open and bustling, and you can get a decent capuccino again.

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring, and I'm ready as I've ever been. It's also the day my dad died more than 20 years ago, so it carries a bittersweet feeling for me. He passed like the winter, inevitably and quietly.

~

Ambient interestingness

2006-03-17T11:52:00.000-08:00

Mikal is back in Philly, and glad of it. The things I took for granted while I lived here I now miss. Like the funky mix of architecture and people and culture the place has, the food, and just the whole damned vibe.

I haven’t posted for awhile because I spent the last week on the road. Four of the most heady days of my life found me again at SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin. If there was any doubt the internet is back with a vengeance, it was dispelled by the wall-to-wall crowd estimated at two or three times last year’s attendance. The topics explored in panels and impromptu meetings in the hallways and at parties were mostly new from those just 12 months ago. Words I hadn't heard before were dropped casually by the digerati, concepts like the knowsphere (the collective knowledge of those of us who are not dead), interestingness or the social Web. I’m still processing them in my head, and I had an "aha moment" when I realized the internet is mutating exponentially in ways we can only glimpse at this point in time.

After SXSW I flew back to Indianapolis and then drove East over the next two days so I can oversee the work needed to get our fixer-upper shore cottage ready for this summer. It’s down to minor things now, but there are still a thousand details to take care of.

The weather’s beautiful here, I’m back online and will be posting more regularly for awhile. If you'd like a copy of the photo accompanying this post, it's the free image of the week at istockphoto.com.

~

Do they also block mikalinphilly?

2006-03-07T07:52:00.000-08:00

By way of Wonkette.com comes a story about how censors control soldiers' use of military computers in Iraq by denying access to particular websites:

* Wonkette – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.wonkette.com/) is categorized as: Forum/Bulletin Boards, Politics/Opinion.”
* Bill O’Reilly (www.billoreilly.com) – OK
* Air America (www.airamericaradio.com) – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion.”
* Rush Limbaugh (www.rushlimbaugh.com) – OK
* ABC News “The Note” – OK
* Website of the Al Franken Show (www.alfrankenshow.com) – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion.”
* G. Gordon Liddy Show (www.liddyshow.us) – OK
* Don & Mike Show (www.donandmikewebsite.com) – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.donandmikewebsite.com/) is categorized as: Profanity, Entertainment/Recreation/Hobbies.”

Excuse me, aren't our soldiers fighting for freedom? To me that means things like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. I guess it doesn't mean that to the craven cabal that's taken over our government.

Perhaps this censorship explains why a recent Zogby poll showed that 85 percent of troops serving in Iraq believe that a major reason for their mission is to “retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9/11 attacks.”

~

Today's dose of paranoia

2006-03-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

I guess I should've been more disturbed when Britain's government approved national ID cards last month. I'm sure the anti-freedom brigade tapping our phones and running (ruining) our government can't wait to institute such a plan for the sheep who comprise our populace.

I predict there will be little uproar when the plan is instituted. Right-wingers will write letters to papers like The Indianapolis Star bashing them commie groups like the ACLU when they make a last-ditch attempt to challenge the government in court. Maybe the question will go all the way to the Supreme Court. Now that's reassuring.

We'll all get cards with little RFID chips that will let the government know our whereabouts at any moment. Get stopped by the cops without your card? You may be in big trouble. All our purchases will be laid bare for the world to see: “Boxers or briefs?” will no longer be in question.

After a few years, most people will forget there was a time when we were free to roam without carrying our ID cards. It will become commonplace to put RFID chips in babies’ necks right after they're born, and people will think that's simply more convenient and less aesthetically intrusive than tatooed barcodes.

This is stuff I used to read about in Sci-Fi novels and think implausible. I thought people would stand up and fight a government that tried to impose such a system. How wrong I was.

Paula Scher, one of my favorite designers created the image above in 1992. Jessica Helfand writes about this disturbing idea in an article called, Give Me Privacy or Give Me an ID Card at Design Observer, one of my favorite web publications.

A reminder, from Benjamin Franklin: “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”

~

The rich kid's Christmas toys

2006-02-27T10:28:00.000-08:00

Last night I cracked open a beautiful short book called A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut. I've long been a fool for Vonnegut's droll conclusions and deadpan declarations. They cut to the quick.

I couldn't put the book down until I was finished, and then I was torn between starting over and reading it again or running out and buying a copy of it for everyone I know. Here's an excerpt:

"Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas."

The book's visual beauty is informed by liberal use of Vonnegut's artwork. Who knew? You can visit www.vonnegut.com and see for yourself.

If you or someone you love is from Indiana and shares Kurt’s love for our native state, click here for a very special piece of his art—and thinking.

~

mikal needs some art

2006-02-24T20:07:00.000-08:00

It gets weary, thinking about politics so much. It consumes me sometimes and I forget to indulge the creative side. So I went out on the net tonight in search of some art to entertain myself and both of my readers.

First I found this wonderful image called "resolving differences." It's the free image of the week at one of my very favorite sites on the whole world wide web, istockphoto.com I came across this wonderful portal into the world of images several years ago, and have always relied upon it for startling visual idea generation. The concept is, anybody can upload their photos and offer them to the world at large, royalty-free, and for everytime somebody else downloads the photo, receive a credit. Those credits can be accumulated and used to purchase other people's photos. The work is original, provocative, vast, and always the first place I turn when I'm seeking an image to illustrate an idea.

Back in the day, I submitted several of my own photos to istockphoto, and have been pleasantly surprised that lots of people have chosen to download the pictures I took. I've built up some credits, and it's fun to see what people like the best.

So what about this photo of the week? I don't know what it means. Anybody want to suggest a caption for it?

.

Things fall apart

2006-02-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

Even some of the rats are beginning to flee the sinking ship $$ Bu$hco these days. As Iraq descends into civil war Bill O'Reilly says we should cut and run. Showing his loyalty to the cap'n, none other than Tom DeLay calls the ports deal, “pretty outrageous.”

In the pilot house, they're also dealing with the Abramoff thing, the Valerie Plame investigation, “Cheney's got a gun,” illegal spying on American citizens, and a few other distractions. In their spare time they're trying to nurse our Katrina hangover with assurances from Michael Chertoff. Seeing his skeletal face and listening to his defensive tone of voice only serves to remind me of the long list of incompetent appointments made to reward campaign contributors.

I just don't know what to make of it. Scandal fatigue has never been higher. The media reports one atrocity after another and then in a couple of days starts parroting the Bu$hco party line. Americans go back to sleep because it's just too much trouble to face the music.

Meanwhile those in power demonstrate their disdain of average Americans over and over by doing things like sending our kids off to war, cutting college aid, Medicare/Medicaid, early childhood education, food stamps and housing assistance, focusing their energies on another round of tax cuts for their rich buddies.

I’m ready for a new reality.

.

Sudden convergence

2006-02-20T16:07:00.000-08:00

It crept up on me when I kind of wasn't paying attention, and I like it: digital convergence.

There was the empowering feeling last month when our wireless router really started working, and suddenly I could use my laptop in any room in the house. What a fun sensation it was placing it on the kitchen counter and hitting a recipe site to learn how to make pear tarts.

My new cellphone takes pictures which can be uploaded to the web, and it also lets me check movie times on the Internet for whatever zipcode I happen to be in. Or the weather, or the news. I can also read my email on my cellphone and answer it if I like. (The keyboard interface for typing is still a bit cumbersome.)

Today the UPS guy dropped off the box for the new VOIP service. I plugged it in to the wireless router, turned it on, and lo and behold, a common old telephone set had a dial tone through the Internet. I picked up the new cellphone, called my VOIP phone and left myself a message. Then I went to my account management page on the web and played my message back to myself on my laptop. Seamless.

I'm listening to one of my favorite radio stations as I write this, Channel 2 from LiveIreland.com, broadcast(?) from Dublin. Later at night I like to take my laptop down to the family room, plug it in to the surround sound and listen to hip music from Detroit or Philly.

All this and more is part of something called ubiquitious computing. I just finished working on a book about it for Peachpit. By Adam Greenfield, the book is called Everyware. This is heady stuff that'll change our lives.

Not all of this is good or easy. I still have to call my y-gen techno son sometimes when I can't figure out how to turn on the TV.

.

Three more years of this shit???

2006-02-13T18:30:00.000-08:00

The Cheney shooting his rich friend news couldn't have been more disheartening. Even though my first impulse when I heard it was to laugh, on deeper thought it makes me want to cry. Every passing day brings me more disgust and revulsion about the people who are so-called "leading” our country. It's like we're living a trainwreck in slow motion. And we have three more years of it to endure.

Mmmmm. Bush. Rumsfeld. Gonzalez. McClellan. Alito. Rice. Cheney. Libby. Abramoff. Lay. What a tasty stew!

Selling us what we don't want

2006-02-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

I couldn't help but notice as I watched the Super Bowl last Sunday the ads for cars and trucks.

The most prominently-featured ad was for the Cadillac Escalade, a big, hunking SUV.

Now I'm sure GM has been caught with a few too many Escalades in stock, what with the gas prices and resultant disdain for SUVs. And I know that GM is in big trouble and needs to make money, but this was ridiculous: how many folks watching the Super Bowl are in the market for a top-of-the-line gas guzzler?

Not us. We're looking for a trim, economical convertible that will comfortably seat four people. It needs to be quick, stylish and affordable, preferably a hybrid. Nobody makes one. But what does GM spend millions on Super Bowl ads pushing? Cadillac Escalades. Yecch.

Advertising can only go so far by pushing people to buy products. Better to pull them by designing and building what they want to buy.

Band of brothers—and sisters

2006-02-03T09:51:00.000-08:00

Why doesn't the supposedly liberal mainstream media take account of this interesting bit of news? There are 55 Democrats, all of whom are veterans, running for Congress, from districts in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennesse, Texas (7) and Virginia.

This must be disturbing to the chickenhawks who have been so happy to send our children off to their senseless war while their kids party in discos. The Bushco gang and their Swift Boat lackeys must be working feverishly on ways to tarnish the reputations of these 55 brave men and women. Otherwise, this thing might gain some traction.

That's assuming Bushco even really cares about winning the upcoming elections. I'm reading blogs by people suggesting that there was effectively a stealth coup d'état in 2000. All that it will take is another 9/11 and Bushco will implement plans (already known to have been discussed) to “suspend” elections. Now they have Alito and Roberts in place, the Supreme Court will rubber-stamp the whole thing if it becomes “necessary.”

Okay, enough paranoia. We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Another road game and kicked in the nuts

2006-01-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

More time spent on the road led to trying to concoct new, mind-expanding thought games. I'm math challenged, so I thought something based on the numbers you see on signs along the highway would be nice. Maybe "add 'em all up," where you simply add the numbers in your head as they come at you. So, "Effingham 25, Carbondale 109, and St. Louis 125 displayed on a sign would add up to 259. But that got boring pretty quickly. And besides, they kept coming pretty fast so it didn't take long to lose count.

Next I turned to a refinement of "Who lives there." I decided to get a fuller picture of people by noticing the details in their yard. "They have a horse trailer so they must ride horses. The swing set indicates young kids. Their pickup truck is new, so they probably have jobs." Then I added another level of complexity to the game: I'm visiting and spending the night with the imaginary people. I wondered what we'd talk about. This track also led to some um, interesting thoughts.

Just saw a fantastic little short film on the net called "Kicked In The Nuts." I heartily recommend it as a metaphor for modern-day America.

Road games

2006-01-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

I burn a lot of miles on highways, planes and trains these days. Most of the time I just give in to the zen of the situation and let the time pass entertaining myself with rolling idle thoughts. In the car I seek out right-wing or Christian radio stations so I can find out what the enemy's up to. On a plane or train I listen to my iPod and read the more obscure sections of the New York Times. But I'm getting bored with those pursuits and lately I've invented some road games. Here are a few you might like to try:

Notice the details
This one's easy and hard both. Driving down the highway, mind wandering, you focus on noticing as many details as you can: All the bridge overpasses are painted blue. There are five series of lines along the highway delineating the edges and lanes. The clouds are far-off and very high in the sky. The poles holding up the little reflectors alongside the road are all rusted except for an occasional new one which means it was replaced after somebody ran it over. Or if you're sitting in a restaurant: all the light fixtures are square and hang over the centers of each of the tables. The carpet has a diagonal pattern. The sound system is bad. There's a lot of unopened mail behind the cash register. Noticing the details can lead to a lot of associations and surprise insights. You suddenly begin to see things you otherwise wouldn't.

Find the light
This one I owe to my friend Keith, an enlightened being if there ever was one. He was telling me about the Cathars, the "pure ones" of southern France branded heretics by the Catholic church in the 10th century. Keith says they always looked for the light. So I've taken to scanning the sky for the brightest spot and peering deeply into it. Seeking more light is inspiring. (OK; maybe I'm nuts.)

Imagine their lives
As you pass by neighborhoods along the highway, or fly over a city's rooftops, choose a particular house and invent people that live in it. Decide if they're young or old, have kids or not, what their names are, and what they do for a living. What do they fight about? Are they happy?