gimme some of that big-box religion

death smog day, 25 years later

drusilla — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:08:29 GMT

The New York Times reported today that an Indian court finally issued a warrant on Friday for the arrest of the former head of the American chemical company responsible for a pesticide gas leak that killed at least 10,000 people and sickened more than half a million. In response to a recent appeal by a victims’ group, the court ordered the arrest of Warren M. Anderson, who was the chief executive of Union Carbide when its pesticide factory in Bhopal leaked 40 tons of poisonous gas on Dec. 3, 1984, the world’s worst industrial disaster. Mr. Anderson was arrested immediately afterward, but he soon left India. http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/01sld2.htm

please support health care reform

drusilla — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:26:40 GMT

No discrimination for pre-existing conditions No exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles or co-pays No cost-sharing for preventive care No dropping of coverage if you become seriously ill No gender discrimination No annual or lifetime caps on coverage Extended coverage for young adults Guaranteed insurance renewal so long as premiums are paid Please see the following for more information: http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-insurance-consumer-protections/?e=9&ref=text2 My employer provides medical insurance via Blue Cross, but I also pay $265/month for the privilege. In June I sprained my ankle. I thought it was broken, so I went to the ER. While there I saw a Physician's Assitant (not a doctor) for ten minutes and had two X-rays. The cost? $2,600, and my co-pay was $650. In July I needed emergency medical treatment and a procedure called Cardioversion. This was all done on an outpatient basis - I was not admitted to the hospital. The cost for this treatment was $14,700.... so far (the bills are still coming in). My co-pay for this event is about $3,000. To sum it all up, in a single 30-day period I incurred a $4,000 medical bill. And people: I'm not even actually really SICK. These charges would break people in the lower middle and low income brackets. When I was a kid, in the interest of public health, the government gave out free polio vaccines. My mother took me to a local elementary school, and we all stood in line, and got a sugar cube with a pink dot of medicine on it. Imagine a world in which the government was, now, distributing Tamiflu to everyone, in advance, in case it's needed. It's not an unreasonable idea. Please, please support healthcare reform, and urge your friends to do the same. Thank you.

ephemera electronica

drusilla — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:11:58 GMT

Last week Amazon started selling George Orwell's novels, including 1984, for the Kindle, their proprietary ebook hardware device. Many people bought it. But then, Oh noes! it turned out that the publisher didn't have rights on the novels after all. So Amazon silently went into everyone's ebook account and deleted the files. More fodder for the ash heap of history.... ebooks down the memory hole.... the irony is not lost. "In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building."

mensa, dixieland jazz, and easy cheese

drusilla — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:47:49 GMT

For an optimal sensurround experience, play the following over and over again at maximum volume while reading the material below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4Yrxqdi2o Last weekend we went to San Diego. Well, technically speaking, we didn't quite make it all the way down to San Diego - we stopped short in Carlsbad. Carlsbad is a peculiar name. It's the German-bastardized-pronunciation of the name of a city in the Czech Republic named Karlovy Vary (similar to the incomprehensible pronunciation of Ellas as "Greece"), which is located on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá - two rivers I have never heard of before - approximately 80 miles west of Prague. The foresty-mountainy area is riddled with natural hot springs and grandly overdecorated hyperblocky 19th century spa hotels that look like they belong in Casino Royale (which they do - it was filmed there). Let's visit it someday. We kinda-sorta missed our flight to LAX. This is the second time in my life I have missed a flight. Missing a flight feels like something serious - like not showing up for your appointment with the IRS auditor. The airlines are responsible creating this aura of gravitas - if you miss your bus, nobody cares. Both of my flight-misses occurred within the past five years. Of course, I'm traveling more now so the odds are higher. And while I could ignore one miss, two misses could be an indication that mental shit-togetherness is slipping. Fortunately, technically speaking, we didn't actually miss the flight - we missed the Baggage Cutoff. By the new rule of Baggage Cutoff, you can be blocked from getting on your flight even though you are at the airport 40 minutes before they start to let people onto the plane. This is a painful insult-to-injury scenario, since the day before your flight, as you were using the modern miracle of the internet to check in and avoid all those long, tedious lines, you learned that checking a bag will cost an extra $15, but only if you buy the rights to check it Right Farking Now; if you wait until you are at the airport, it will cost $20. Let me spell this out: I paid $15 extra so that United could block me from boarding my plane. By the way, would you like an extra three inches of room for your knees for just $25 more? How about the right to board the plane with the premium elite group for only $46 more? All of the time I am learning more and more ways the internet is improving my snappy, modern lifestyle. When you miss a Baggage Cutoff on United, they do not give you a replacement seat on a later flight. Instead, you become an Airport Zombie Extra, also known as a 'standby passenger'. Airport Zombie Extras never actually get on planes - they are just force-marched from gate to gate all weekend long, where they take up space and moan and get in the real passengers' way, and watch helplessly as their name trickles further and further down the Standby Lists displayed on the snappy, modern flat-screen displays, from slot 8 to slot 12 to slot Not Now, Not Ever In Your Zombified Life, while wondering if the checked bag is on its way to United's transportation hub in Wildhowl, Rangaloon. In order to leave the netherterminal of the Airport Zombie Extra and become a Real Passenger, you have to get 'firm' with the gate attendant. This is a more delicate process than you might think, because it's a fine line between 'firm' and 'shrill', or even 'firm' and a regrettable misdiagnosis of 'schizophrenic'. If you overdo it, security personnel who have successfully completed a four hour certification course in Tazer 'safety' will be called to 'assist' you, and you will end up in indefinite airport detention, wearing a straightjacket and shoved in an economy class Airbus lavatory where you will not be allowed to shave your legs and you will breathe jet fuel fumes for a few years, and while there, you will miss the beverage and snack cart every time it passes, so No Peanuts for You, Security Threat Level Orange Crazy Lady. I must have done an ok job of getting firm with Supervisor Edward Tse and Ms. Hidemyfirstnamewithmyfingers Chan at standby attempt #4, because just as I started taking down their names and requesting badge numbers, we magically skyrocketed from standby positions 23 and 24 straight into a first class and window seat, and were up and away into the friendly skies before we could say Fuck You really, really politely. Doctor Turvy says when you fly United you're not a customer, you're a mark. I couldn't have said it any better. Next, we drove south from LAX, through the circling-the-drain area of the LA basin, which is full of oil refineries and boutique airports like John Wayne Snacksize and Orange County Hyperpseudonational. When eating dinner on the road, I'm happy with the Moons Over My Hammy plate minus the ham from Denny's, but Vajra hates Denny's, so we stopped at a Cheesecake Factory, which is really inaptly named, as there are no nubile and/or scantily dressed women anywhere - just squeaky clean robots wearing polo shirts and khaki pants and impressive telecommunications head gear. I would have named the restaurant the Super-Managed Up-With-People Dining Experience, with a second tag line "all the upsell and twice the calories". The interior is an admixture of Damanhur and Pompeii as interpreted by Disney. I could talk about the Republican ooze, or the endless procession of tight-skinned and lacquered-haired customers in identical four inch tall espadrilles, or the flavor-enhanced portions concocted by chemists in New Jersey served on plates the size of boogie boards, or the intrusive muzak, or the gloppy, manufactured weird-science 'food' products that were obviously dispensed from handy, single-serving reheat-pouches - I'll bet you $20 there isn't a real stove in the kitchen - but it would take too long. Just don't go there. Vajra and I have different ideas of what constitutes a hotel. My view, is, technically speaking, if it costs more than $150 a night but there's no room service, I don't know what it *is*, but it definitely isn't a hotel. Vajra, on the other hand, was *almost* satisfied with our $59 room at the Red Roof in in Virginia - which instead of room service and a mint on the fluffy down pillow, came with blood and semen-stained polyester bedding (not kidding) and when I went to the laundry room to ask for a clean bedspread, I was informed that there were none, because the bedspreads did not fit in the onsite washing machines (just as Mother had always warned us). In any event, the hotel in Carlsbad, CA was nowhere near as bad as the Red Roof in Virginia, but nowhere near as nice as the Russian Mafia-run hotels in Karlovy Vary. But other than being within a quarter mile of a big, scary gas power plant with a 300 foot tall smokestack, and the name of the facility, which was Inns of America Suites, which rolls off the tongue like a car that has lost a wheel and is scraping along on the axle, it was ok. I guess. In the morning we drove north. First we stopped at a playground that was literally right under the natural gas power plant so we could take some pictures to prove it existed, then we went to the beach. Playing in clear-ish sea water that does not require environmental protection gear is as close to heaven as I am likely to ever get. There were four and five foot waves to dive under and bodysurf on; the sun was glittering on the turquoise water, I could see my feet and therefore visually scan and confirm that they were not being eaten by sharks every five to ten seconds, and the tide kept coming up so high that the beach would disappear entirely and the nearby bikini-and-baseball-cap people kept shrieking and running up into the rocks and leaving. See? Heaven. Following the beachness and my photo shoot as the spokesmodel for Easy Cheese, we had lunch at a Cuban restaurant in Oceanside. The concept of Cuban cuisine was better than the execution, and Evita was singing emotively at maximum volume throughout the meal (she kept her promise, but I could not maintain adequate distance), but the waiter was very nice, even if he did lead us astray by suggesting the methane-producing crushed-plantain-and-meat spheres. Because it was Oceanside on a Saturday, all the shiny-headed military recruits were out cruising in their uberly groovy hot rods and vintage autos that they would be paying for over the next five years. Sparkle plenty! Vroom! After lunch we went to a thrift store in Encinitas that had a magnificent supersize poster of Spock that was done in the style of Chuck Close, which I really really wanted, but I knew that United would require me to purchase it its own seat in order to get it home, and a 1950s era hat that was made of mesh stitched into curlicues so that it looked like oversized black and green brain matter from Mars Attacks (I really should have bought it - it looked fantastic). We also browsed a flea market with grotesquely lumpy papier mache and scissor-clipped palm-frond deep-sea fish with needle-teeth, and bizarre lights and lures hanging off their fishy earlobes, and polka dots all over. And after that we went to dinner with Vajra's family, at a Chinese restaurant that had recently moved from one abandoned strip mall to another with all the same anchor businesses selling the same petrochemical based products, where we ate potstickers filled with unidentifiable and disturbingly-flavored meat, and drank Jasmine tea that was the consistency of motor oil that had been left in an engine for 14,542 miles, 14 years, or both. Sunday morning we had breakfast at Cafe 101, where you can order things like Chicken Fried Bacon and Gravy (fat, double-coated in fat, fried in more fat, served with a side order of fat) and "Roadkill Scramble: possum or squirrel, when available, with grits or toast". They didn't fool me with that "when available" disclaimer though: everyone knows possums are born dead by the side of the road, and are therefore always available. On Sunday afternoon I went to a party that mixed Mensa people over the age of 65 up with live Dixieland Jazz. There are some number of years I would trade off the end of my life to never hear dueling trumpets play Candy Lips and Washboard Wiggle ever again. As for being asked whether I am "a Mensan" every thirty minutes, I hereby officially solicit your suggestions for how to best respond to that question. An elderly but fairly perky band in garish Hawaiian print shirts took the 'stage', which was really a small section of concrete patio under a poorly pruned elm tree with a dangerous looking tree fort angling wildly overhead. One of the younger adult party-goers heckled the band about their shirts, yelling, "The Honolulu morgue called - they want their shirts back." Even I was offended. After politely listening to the first song, which I believe was called When The Cochlear Nerve Damage Goes Marching and Marching and Marching and Marching and Marching In, I retreated to the farthest corner of the lanai and played with my camera and thought deep thoughts about mortality and acute hearing loss. Near the end of the band's classically-Dixieland wobbly, cacophonous set, there was a small but enthusiastic parade. It was impossible not to draw parallels between this Senior Citizens of Mensa Parade and the Grand Oceania Parade up at Turtle Creek. Parades, also called Marchpasts, Processions, and Trooping the Colors, are an interesting human behavior. I love how effortlessly paraders create their own little temporary world, with their own customs, attire, and even their own temporary royals, and how the audience enthusiastically adopts it own role, watching and crowning and applauding the self-anointed. I'm mystified by my own desire to dress up and parade about, since I don't think of myself as any kind of exhibitionist - the best I can do is to chalk it up to repressed silliness. I wonder if paraders would look lemming-like to an alien observer. I wonder if parading is a redirected predatory urge to chase things. And I wonder how close to Heaven's Gate and the Order of the Solar Temple our marching takes us. Fun, though. In any event, when not overcome by the auditory assault, I had a pretty good time watching the elderly folks on their day out - dancing, parading, sitting for hours under their festive straw hats, drinking and eating and talking, some unable to stand up on their own, others dancing sprightly with sexy hip undulations that invoked Mick Jagger and / or Showgirls. The odd lumpy bulges of varicose and spidery veins on their faces, hands, and legs frightened and upset me; the gentle sweetness of their smiles, and their self-awareness of themselves as both survivors and short-timers, well, if you think too much about those things, it'll break your heart. By the way, the image above is of Wayne, husband of Dorothy for 58 years. Dorothy is a friend of Vajra's mother's - they met during their freshman year at high school. I liked Wayne - even that shirt, which you should inspect closely. After that, we drove back to LAX, stopping briefly to gawk at the blue metal pyramid building on the CSU Long Beach campus, and made it to the airport two hours before the all-important Baggage Cutoff. This should make me happy, but all it does is make me resent United even more. Anger is so energizing! All in all, a good trip. By the way, did I ever tell you that I like to travel?

if you never see me again....

drusilla — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:26:04 GMT

...now you know why. http://www.quantumjumping.com Universe hopping utopian beings. Yeah!

as pragmatic as a toothache

drusilla — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:39:40 GMT

Who has the awesomest dentist in the SF bay area? I have a bad toothache, and expect the treatment is going to be a nightmare. Shmanks.

incredible disappearing blogs

drusilla — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:14:33 GMT

So, did the blogs of friends disappear from everyone's home page or just the home pages of the non-premium users? I let my subscription lapse after they sent me a t shirt printed with a squid with wings that was half the size of my body, and they had four multi-day outages in a period of two weeks.

three emails and a retraction

drusilla — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:57:21 GMT

After receiving personal emails from Deputy Mayor Jeff Kraus, Commissioner Jeff Rupp, and City manager Chris Cukulski, Chris also sent me the press release below. I'm not terriby ecstatic about the reasons they give for their decision, since I think it's more than just that it "exceeded that which is acceptable to the community", and I have a strong negative reaction to both the statement that they are "reconsidering the practice" and the statement in interview to the effect that "It's wasn't like we were asking every job applicant - only those that had a provisional job offer." There have been many time in my life when various people, in the name of comunity or family or relationship have overstepped a personal boundary and gone messing around in my head and life. Being a member of a hive community in which the hive behavior standards are not hardwired, but negotiated, and trying to maintain those boundaries is an endless job. On a related note, I feel I should report that on the last three business trips I took, I did not bother putting my liquids in a plastic bag. This deliberate noncompliance with idiocy went completely unnoticed. Prescribed hive behavior fails again. And to those who say, "If you don't have anything to hide, why should you care?" I feel compelled to point out that that statement is wrought from the fraternal-twin tyrannies of centrism and conformism. "City of Bozeman Press Release For Immediate Release: The City of Bozeman believes we have a responsibility to ensure candidates hired for positions of public trust are subject to a thorough background check. The extent of our request for a candidate's password, user name, or other Internet information appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community. We appreciate the concern many citizens have expressed regarding this practice and apologize for the negative impact this issue is having on the City of Bozeman. Effective at 12:00 p.m. today, Friday June 19, 2009, the City of Bozeman permanently ceased the practice of requesting candidates selected for City positions under a provisional job offer to provide user names and passwords for the candidate's Internet sites. In addition, until further notice, the City will suspend its practice of reviewing candidate's password protected Internet information until the City conducts a more comprehensive evaluation of the practice. Since the initial media inquiries, the City of Bozeman has been reviewing the practice of requesting user names and passwords to access a candidate's Internet sites. Today's decision to terminate the use of passwords and usernames in this process reflects the City's commitment to reconsider this practice. In addition, today's decision to suspend the practice of inquiring into a candidate's password protected Internet sites demonstrates a continued commitment to ensure the City's hiring practices comply with state and federal law and protect the safety of Bozeman residents. Chris A. Kukulski City Manager "

bliss? are you sure?

drusilla — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:22:35 GMT

Pure dreck. At first I thought the reference to male "precious bodily fluids" was an ironic homage to General Ripper from Dr. Strangelove, but they were totally serious, and it only got stranger after that. This movie has "frigid" (don't get me started on this word) women, incest, borderline personality disorder, obsessive kitchen pantry pest eradication techniques, chakras, hanging upside down while breathing seven times through the left nostril, about a thousand nipple shots, and tons of blue mood lighting. Who knew that women hold all their childhood traumas in their g-spot? Who knew that anyone could make a 103-minute-long movie about female sexuality and use the word 'penis' twelve times but never make a single reference to the clitoris? Who could have suspected that the first time I tried to submit this review to Netflix that the word 'clitoris' would be rejected as obscene? Grow the hell up, people. Who knew that they would then reject the word 'Netflix'? They must be selling/licensing our reviews to another website. Yes, the image above is really from the movie. Der der da der der. I wish I could remember why this was in my queue so I could go beat up the person who recommended it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118742/ "Joseph (Craig Sheffer) and Maria (Sheryl Lee) are a young married couple in serious trouble. Although they love each other, Maria has difficulty opening up to Joseph, and, after 6 months of marriage, he makes the unhappy discovery that she's been unable to have an orgasm with him. Enter Balthazar (Terence Stamp), an unlicensed sex therapist who agrees to initiate Joseph into the mysteries of tantric sex that could save his marriage."

how to register a car

drusilla — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:25:15 GMT

March 16, 2009: Go to DMV counter at AAA and attempt to register vehicle. Vehicle cannot be registered because the sales tax is more than I have in my checking account. Pay for registration but not sales tax. April 3, 2009: Go to DMV counter at AAA to pay sales tax. AAA informs me that the vehicle must pass a smog test. April27, 2009: Plead with Vajra to finish the registration process, as I have started to dread the AAA lady with frosted hair and dustbowl bangs. Obtain agreement. May 30, 2009: Drive vehicle to service station for smog test. Vehicle fails smog test. Make appointment for repair on May 31. May 30, 2009: Drive vehicle to propane station and fill propane tank. May 31: Drive vehicle back to service station for repairs, so it will pass smog test, so it can be registered. May 31, 2009: Mechanic decided not to come to work. June 1, 2009: Take afternoon off work to drive vehicle to different, more reliable mechanic. Reliable Mechanic looks at printout and says: "Go to my friend The Muffler Guy and buy a catalytic converter." June 1, 2009: Drive vehicle to The Muffler Guy and buy a catalytic converter. June 1, 2009: Drive vehicle back to service station for smog retest. June 1, 2009: Mechanic with interesting Russian accent and a bandana covered with bright red chili peppers refuses to perform smog test due to propane odor. "Bye bye! No charge!" he gleefully shouts. June 1, 2009: Crawl under van and independently confirm that propane is leaking out of tank. Begin feeling headachey and nauseous. Begin wondering about local ignition sources, measurements like Parts Per Million, and the overall flammability index of propane. Decide not to turn motor on; instead, push vehicle out of shop and onto street. June 1, 2009: Apply Occam's Monkeywrench and assume that The Muffler Guy nicked a propane line during the catalytic converter install. Call The Muffler Guy to let him know that I will be coming back to his shop. Rolls to voicemail - they're gone for the night. June 1, 2009: Call AAA and request a tow to The Muffler Guy's parking lot. June 1, 2009: Adjacent shop owner comes out and asks me how much longer I plan to be blocking his view to the street. I tell him, "Six point three four minutes, plus or minus four point nine nine minutes and three point seven seconds." He goes away. June 1, 2009: Supernaturally cheerful AAA Towtruck Dude comes. I dissuade him from starting the motor by informing him, "Es un mal idea - gasolina del propano - peligroso - boom." Ultimately, he agrees, and he cranks vehicle up onto flatbed truck. June 1, 2009: AAA Towtruck dude drops vehicle perfectly into a parking space and leaves me alone in the late-afternoon parking lot of the lonely rapist- and murderer-filled industrial area of The Muffler Guy's shop. June 1, 2009: Call cab. Dispatcher says they're pretty busy, could be an hour. June 1, 2009: Call martial arts instructor, ask him to tell my son that his Mommy is busy and will be late picking him up so instead can he please walk back to his dad's after class and I will pick him up later. June 1, 2009: Wonder where cab is. Look up propane in Wikipedia. Learn that it is heavier than air, and that Propane + Oxygen → Carbon Dioxide + Water, and that it is used as a refrigerant, although this is discouraged in car air conditioners, for obvious reasons. Wonder whether Harrison Ford's inventor-character in Mosquito Coast was using propane. June 1, 2009: Crawl under van and confirm that propane is still hissing out of tank. June 1, 2009: Read all warnings, alerts, and other notices slathered all around the tank and valves as I start to feel like I am going to hurl from the propane smell. Notice the one that says, "Warning! Do no fill talk more than 80% full. This tank is equipped with an automatic lock-out device that will prevent the tank from being overfilled. However, it is the responsibility of the person filling the tank to ensure that it is not filled more than 85%. Warning! Warning! Warning!" Look at gauge. Notice that the tank is 105% full. Notice that the "leak" is coming from something that looks suspiciiously like a pressure release valve. June 1, 2009: Stand up and attempt to move farther away from odor, but fail, because it is now covering my hands, hair, and clothes. Think. June 1, 2009: Consider getting in van and boiling pots of water for about six hours. Decide this is a Darwin Awards scenario. Think. June 1, 2009: Wonder where THE HELL cab is. June 1, 2009: Consider crawling back under vehicle, trying to find something that looks like a spigot, and letting a cup or two of propane out into a bowl or coffee cup borrowed from my cute little kitchenette. Think about Boyle and PV=nRT, which looks a little like the word "PerveRT". Think about the elegance of the concept of an Ideal Gas. Think about turning Muffler Guy's parking lot into a Superfund site.Think. June 1, 2009: Notice that my hands are really dirty. Call Vajra and whine and complain and whimper and think about crying but manage to hold off on that on account of the rapists and murderers will undoubtedly take it as a sign of weakness and come in for the kill like hyenas around a helpless baby gazelle with large, brown eyes that plead to no avail. Think, think, think. June 1, 2009: Cancel cab. June 1, 2009: Call fire department. Merrily tell the dispatcher that it's not an emergency at all, I just want to know what to do in the case where a small, recreational-use propane tank has been overfilled and appears to be spontaneously leaking gas out of its "containment vessel". Dispatcher says the fire department's Hazmat team will be Right Down. June 1, 2009: Giant yellow hook and ladder truck arrives. Three men in Superhero-blue uniforms with yellow letters get out of the truck. One is carrying a pair of gloves. One is carrying a bottle of Simple Green. And one is obviously the Public Relations expert. All of them have such an intense Don't Worry Ma'am aura that life is, suddenly, fine again. June 1, 2009: Glove-Fireman efficiently releases a quarter gallon of propane out into the atmosphere while Public-Relations-Fireman and I talk about our favorite camping spots and flow characteristics of trailer toilets. Hazmat-Fireman lurks. June 1, 2009: Glove-Fireman displays an abnormal enthusiasm for getting really close to the gas leak. A little pile of snow forms under the valve, and occasionally Hazmat-Fireman sprays it with Simple Green. Public-Relations-Fireman and I stand 30 feet away, discussing the thermodynamics of the reaction. June 1, 2009: Simple-green sprayed snow now looks like a lime sno-cone. Glove-Fireman is using a knife to scrape ice off the gauge every 45 seconds. Public-Relations-Fireman and I discuss camping spots some more. At length. Lett's lake is, apparently, a Mendocino favorite. Vehemently agree about the Icehouse Wilderness area. June 1, 2009: For some reason - probably gas poisoning - become overly interested in the Firemen's utility belts. Play Which One Would You Do with the firemen while pretending to discuss wind levels at Union Reservoir. Discard Hazmat-Fireman, because he's too lurky and all he has going for him is a spray bottle of Simple Green and it;s not enough to counteract his large Magnum PI mustache. Discard Glove-Fireman, even though he has a strangely interesting light in his eyes because he's giving himself brain damage. Successfully control urge to tell Public-Relations-Fireman that he's today's Big Winner. June 1, 2009: The gauge finally reads 85%. Glove-Fireman look a little disappointed, stands back up, and sniffles a little. Hazmat-Fireman sighs and takes his spray bottle of Simple Green back to the hook and ladder. Public-Relations-Fireman waves, but I can see the lust in his eyes. I wave back, and wish them well. June 2, 2009: Try, but fail, to juggle work schedule so that vehicle can be taken to service station for smog test. June 2, 2009: Decide that 'Street Legal' is open to interpretation.

teachable?

drusilla — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:00:00 GMT

care to guess how many times I accidentally sewed the front and the back of this costume thing I'm working on together and had to rip a bunch of stitching out. Better yet, guess, keeping in mind that I am supposedly, to *some* degree, teachable.

insufficient privileges

drusilla — Wed, 20 May 2009 05:11:31 GMT

oh, ferchrissakes - tribe's telling me i have insufficient privileges to leave a comment on my own blog (the preceding entry).

do not use the poke function

drusilla — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:33:08 GMT

"...you also need to let her know that you have other priorities in your life. She is not at the top of your list. Think about this, why are good looking women so in demand from men? Because they don't chase you! If they do, then chances are even if she is good looking she would be considered a slut. Sluts have no social value and thus are no challenge." "This may sound a bit ambiguous so let me clarity [sic]. What I mean by using the environment properly is that you need to take her to a place where the settings put her in a good mood automatically so you don't even need to do any talking for her [to] think she likes you (eg. take her to somewhere beside a pool of water at night in the public that creates a romantic feel). Don't take her to places where it's just friendly. Such as catching a movie. If you don't understand this then you don't know how to attract women properly." "Attraction is not a choice as it has been told by some. Seduction is a game, it is a dance of the mind. Thus, if you are able to persuade the women you desire that you two have similar values, attitudes, beliefs and convictions then your chances of seduction increases. No, you do not need to go out of your way to actually make yourself align with what values you are attempting to project, but all you need to do is allow her to allude to this likelihood." "1. Do not use the "poke" function to try and get her attention - why? Well because a hot girl would be receiving so many pokes from random guys it would get annyoing." Is this what you guys were doing while I was getting boss-spit on me? More really helpful and informative material that will enable you to get lots of really hot chicks can be found here: http://www.yourownwingman.com/ If you have any tips to add, please include them in your comments, below, so we can all benefit. Image forwarded to me by Doctor Turvy.

as seen...

drusilla — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:32:47 GMT

The bumper sticker says something like, "Ask your doctor if medicines seen on television in advertisements paid for by pharmaceutical companies are right for you."

the municipal transportation enthusiast

drusilla — Mon, 04 May 2009 04:20:30 GMT

Imagine that you’re walking around in one of the most beautiful and fascinating cities in the world, and there’s a small rock in your shoe that’s making you crazy, but you can’t take it out. Never mind why; you just can’t. Now, you’ve taken your shoe off and poked around in there. You’ve seen the little rock. It’s not a boring gray chunk of basalt or road base or fossilized metamorphic asphalt-goulash – it’s a magnificent, faceted ruby. But it doesn’t matter how sparkly or valuable is; you can’t get it out of your shoe, and you can’t go around barefoot, and it hurts like hell with every step. That’s what loving Paris is like. It’s an incredibly beautiful, artistically dazzling city with some truly advanced cultural modalities and fantastic food, but you sort of despise yourself for having become One Of Those People Who Love Paris, and the self-loathing is a lot like a really pretty rock in your shoe that hurts as you march around squawking about its myriad virtues. Perhaps you can comfort yourself by saying you’re an art history buff or and amateur architect or... a municipal transportation enthusiast. Paris has the best public transportation system of any city I’ve ever visited. A car in Paris would be worse than inconvenient – it would be problematic; probably even dangerous. From the airport you can travel to within a block or two of anywhere you want to go in Paris via the métro, in less than an hour. And you won’t have to wait at any station for a train for more than five minutes. Not only that, it’s very fun to figure out, in a child’s-puzzle sort of way. None of the instructions or labels is in English, but the maps and arrows make language unnecessary. In addition, the sequential numbering of the city sections, the métro line numberings and color codes, and the general organization of the tunnels and stations are all consistently predictable, even if you’ve never been there before… familiar, even. Except Gare Austerlitz. You will get lost in Gare Austerlitz. Have a care, for there are Minotaurs in the lower levels. All in all, the métro is a dark, humid, cozily introspective world. It’s a place of stairs and windy corridors and concrete and wires, white tile, billboard ads, acceleration and deceleration, traintrack-clacks and squealing brakes, low, blippy electronic chimes, and hissing doors. You’ll see interestingly-dressed people with hair pulled back off of angular faces without nosejobs and eyes that look mostly inwards. During commute hours it’s a place of briefcases and newspapers and trench coats; in the very early mornings, it’s a place where bodies emanate esters and aldehydes and ketones, stinky and incontrovertible proof of the excesses of the night before. And there’s graffiti everywhere. It’s all block letters rendered in multi-colored paint. There are no political slogans or cartoon characters, just blunt, stabby names. Risk, Maco, Dieo, Brai, Job, Uster, Trash, Maxy, Sista, Sook, Tige, Plone, Mams, Aslo, Stabs, Dexa, Dingo, Sport, Jax, Mefa, Locka, Stale, Boing, Fami, Fumb, Muff, Mori, Lev… they flash by faster than I can jot them down; faster than I can fix a picture of their faces in my mind. I want to talk to the artists – ask them about the compulsion to write the names, over and over – ask them what the process means to them. But I never see anyone down there. The tunnels themselves are low and wide, like cylindrical tunnels that have melted with time and weight into flatter, lozenge shapes. There is a place between Odéon and Cluny where, way below the modern métro tracks you’re riding on, a series of older, vaulted stone tunnels angle off hilter-kilter into the dark. Your eyes will compulsively reach as deeply into these mysterious places as possible. You want access. You want to know. You want there to be a private *tour*. Never mind the gap, dear, watch out for the third rail. And the Minotaurs, for they be hungry. Once you’re underground, the real world goes away, and when you’re not keeping track of how many more stops it is to your destination, you’ll look inward, too. In the métro, you posses magical powers. Assuming you can conjure properly, you may ride inside the great green and white robotic earthworms – creatures that, within certain limits, are yours to command. Your non-reserved seat will be located just past the pseudohearts, inside the gizzard – but don’t worry, you’ll remain miraculously undigested. It’s true that the worms have no eyes, but they are tireless and have a relentlessly infallible sense of direction. Although they worship the act of Piercing Darkness with Forward Motion, and scream as they prey, some will also, in a dazzling maneuver, arc their way up to the surface just long enough to get you across the river that bisects the city, then plunge back below the ground before your eyes have a chance to adjust (between Cluny and St. Michel you’re better off surfacing under your own power, though). In the twilight-world beneath Paris, the mechanical metal worm is what’s real; what’s tangible; what abides. We, the small, slow, creepy-crawlies made of soft, subtle materials, are the ghosts. The station names are beautiful; evocative. They're people to me. There’s poor Saint Sulpice, who died in a horrific medieval sewing accident involving selvage scissors and massive, inexplicably sharp gnomon. And Cluny-Sorbonne, the hirsute son of Cluny The Scourge, the anthropomorphic ill-tempered rat, and Madame Maubert Sorbon, who accidentally fell in love with The Scourge when he nibbled her neck a hundred times in the now-famous erotic maneuver known as the Rodential Cenobite. Who could not be enchanted with Mabillon, the smolderingly beautiful and resplendently gowned French Madame Butterfly, who instead of killing herself, buried her father’s knife in the guts of the bastard who abandoned her? As for the bald and terrifyingly brilliant Doctor Hadron Vaneau, he’s been working on a diabolical protocol involving the no-hair theorem, the Cern collider, a quantum-mechanically operated squid axon, and several hundred gallons of sap collected from Mersenne Pine trees, which he uses as a coolant to form small location-controlled and time-bound black holes as tactical weapons, or at least that’s what his lab assistant's girlfriend claimed he told the DoD after a couple of fine French cocktails. But I’m not worried: Mabillon’s far too sharp a cookie to get involved with a man who’s decoherent enough to play around with an infinite density of microstates while still claiming he can control entropy via hyperactive, prime-driven temperature management. Mare’s tails and mackerel scales. Hectocotylus arms thought to be parasites. Frog DNA. Need I say more? But my favorite station is Odéon. Odéon is my lover - the one I haven't met yet, on account of elven kings being few and far between around here. The Paris métro system has 199 km (124 miles) of track and 15 lines. There are 368 stations (not including RER stations), 87 of which are interchanges between lines. The 3500 cars transport roughly 6 million people per day. There are 15,000 employees of the métro. Every building in Paris is within 500 meters of a métro station. Play with the interactive map here: http://www.ratp.info/orienter/cv/carteparis.php

rusty irises

drusilla — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:53:36 GMT

I planted these five years ago. They seldom bloom, because they're under a massive live oak, and they don't get quite enough sun. But this year the plants and I got lucky. This iris is an unusual hybrid - they don't usually come in deep-rusty-orange colors, and the golden tiger-stripes at the base of the petals are more vivid and well defined than is typical. The bulbs were grown in someone's backyard in a remote area of Sonoma. I went there when the irises were in bloom and chose my favorites, then had to wait months and months till the growing season was over before they shipped them to me. I can't remember the name of the place, but the business owners were living in a geodesic dome right next to the iris beds, up at the top of a remote, beautiful hill, which made me triply jealous. I wish I could remember, because I'd like to go back, just to see all the irises blooming again. If I do find it, whatever you do, don't go with me, because I will be up there for hours. I ended up planting my selections in the too-shady location because between the time I'd chosen them and the time they arrived my ex and I split up and I moved. They had been selected for an area of the garden in which I'd planted a lot of dark burgundy, wispy, clumping grasses, and I was working on a tropical 'peaches, burgundies, corals, and oranges' theme in the foreground. The concrete patio had a vaguely peachy color to it too. Behind the planting area was a hill covered with red hot pokers (a dark green succulent) and some deep-green cypress trees, which would have really made the high temperature colors pop. It was awkward, bringing the iris rhyzomes to my new house, and having to figure out what to do with them. It was like I'd bought a dress for an event to which I'd later been uninvited. I was embarrassed, for them and for me. I made a lot of questionable landscaping decisions that first year. For example, I also planted lilacs, another longtime favorite, in a spot without adequate sun. But those also bloomed nicely this year - in fact, there's a huge bouquet of them on my dining room table, and they're stinking up both the dining area and the kitchen quite nicely. But irises smell even better, like a mixture of grapes and violets. There's an extremely fresh tangy-ness, and they're not overly sweet. It's one of the loveliest scents in the world.

what selfish looks like

drusilla — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:37:31 GMT

It's lunchtime at the conference center. The center's name is Earl's Court, which I like a lot. The bloodlust for High Demand Product and the High Stakes Deal is palpable. We've been walking for miles inside this rat's citadel of publisher capital. Rather than say that my feet 'hurt', I'd say that they were a podiatric contour map of pain, with meandering riparian valleys of throb, a small village named Blisterville, and several K5-like peaks of special agony. After waiting in a long line and paying double what the food products are worth, I get a sandwich and an orange juice, and look around for a place to sit. There's none. I walk all over the restaurant area. No luck. So I wait, standing, holding my tray, praying for a chair the way Cowboy Dan prayed for cool, clear water. A man and a woman are sitting at a table in my line of sight. There aren't any food or beverages on thir table at all. There is a third chair at their table, which is empty except for a small notebook. It looks like a good spot to me. I approach them and ask, "Excuse me, is this seat taken? There are no other seats, and I'd like to sit for a few minutes and eat." The man, whose badge says he is from Poland, replies thickly, "No. We are using it." I blink. This is not standard conference behavior. But I figure someone in their group is picking up food and will be right back. I leave, and walk fifty yards up and down the aisle, looking for a place to sit other than the middle of the floor. There's nothing. I'm just one of dozens of desperate chair-sharks, circling, waiting for the opportunity to strike with the jaws of my ass. But the chairs are all taken by people holding business meetings, reading their email, and the like. They don't just look busy; they look ensconced. Fifteen minutes have now passed. Increasingly unpleasant fantasies are unfolding in my mind. I am thinking of using my ham salad sandwich as a custom orthotic device. I imagine composing nasty letters to the conference organizers; the conference organizers see that I am American, nod to each other knowingly, then laugh and use my letter as toilet paper. I imagine returning to the table of the man from Poland and fainting across it, splashing my juice absolutely everywhere in the process, probably ruining his suit and short circuiting his cell phone. My feet are screaming. I am hypoglycemic and jetlagged to hell and gone. I start to want that third chair Real Bad. Monkey Bad. I go back to the man and the woman. The small notebook is no longer on the chair; in its place is a massive, hideous purse. It's one of those 'high fashion' sacks rendered in golden metallic pleather, with ridiculous brand proclamations and lots of extraneous hardware, such as oversized chain links, rivets, buckles, horse bridles, toy master locks, and a small towing package. You know the ones - the women clutch the glittery things to their breasts like babies. Stabbing pains are shooting up through the bottoms of my feet. The knowledge that that glittering Escalade of Purses has been relaxing in that chair while I wander in agonizing chairlessness pisses me off even more. I go back to Mr. Congeniality of the Eastern Bloc, and say, "Excuse me, but you're still not using this chair, and I really need to sit down. I'll use it just long enough to eat, maybe three or four minutes, then I'll leave." The man snarls, "You cannot sit. The chair is ours." I flash on that scene in The Exorcist when the devil says, "The bitch is miiiiiiiine." But social wiring and pressures are working in his favor - I really don't want to make a scene. So after standing there, stupefied, for a minute or so, I walk another hundred yards, find a dark corner against a wall, sit on the concrete, and eat my lunch. My mood is spoiled. I feel small and impotent and mistreated and alone. I want to go home and cry. But while I'm eating, I figure out what to do (self-comforting is an important skill - one I really can't recommend enough). I go back to the table, and of course they're still there, the man, the woman, and the golden vinyl polymer purse. I swoop in, and using my phone camera, take several pictures of the man. I lean in close, trying to read his name off his badge, but he covers it up with his hand. All I can make out is 'CEO' and 'Poland'. And I keep snapping photos. He becomes incensed. I step back, smile and tell him that I'm going to post his photo in Wikipedia under the definition of Selfish. He threatens to go get security. I smile some more and tell him to go for it. He runs off, sputtering. And that is my report on how the panopticon concept worked for me today. Thank you for your participation, and I apologize in arrears for my immaturity. But dammit, my feet really hurt.

drug decriminalization and poverty criminalization

drusilla — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:01:35 GMT

Interesting article from the cato institute on the decriminalization of drug offenses in Portugal, which happened in 2001: "On July 1, 2001, a nationwide law in Portugal took effect that decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Under the new legal framework, all drugs were "decriminalized," not "legalized." Thus, drug possession for personal use and drug usage itself are still legally prohibited, but violations of those prohibitions are deemed to be exclusively administrative violations and are removed completely from the criminal realm. Drug trafficking continues to be prosecuted as a criminal offense. While other states in the European Union have developed various forms of de facto decriminalization — whereby substances perceived to be less serious (such as cannabis) rarely lead to criminal prosecution — Portugal remains the only EU member state with a law explicitly declaring drugs to be "decriminalized." Because more than seven years have now elapsed since enactment of Portugal's decriminalization system, there are ample data enabling its effects to be assessed. Notably, decriminalization has become increasingly popular in Portugal since 2001. Except for some far-right politicians, very few domestic political factions are agitating for a repeal of the 2001 law. And while there is a widespread perception that bureaucratic changes need to be made to Portugal's decriminalization framework to make it more efficient and effective, there is no real debate about whether drugs should once again be criminalized. More significantly, none of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents — from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for "drug tourists" — has occurred. The political consensus in favor of decriminalization is unsurprising in light of the relevant empirical data. Those data indicate that decriminalization has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates in Portugal, which, in numerous categories, are now among the lowest in the EU, particularly when compared with states with stringent criminalization regimes. Although postdecriminalization usage rates have remained roughly the same or even decreased slightly when compared with other EU states, drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically. Drug policy experts attribute those positive trends to the enhanced ability of the Portuguese government to offer treatment programs to its citizens — enhancements made possible, for numerous reasons, by decriminalization." Full text here: http://cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080 Meanwhile, on US soil last week, from the If You Aren't Outraged You're Not Paying Attention file... "The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan asked for an emergency hearing today on behalf of an Escanaba woman sentenced to 30 days in jail because she is too poor to reimburse the court for her son’s stay in a juvenile detention facility. "Like many people in these desperate economic times, Ms. Nowlin was laid off from work, lost her home and is destitute," said Michael J. Steinberg, ACLU of Michigan Legal Director. "Jailing her because of her poverty is not only unconstitutional, it’s unconscionable and a shameful waste of resources. It is not a crime to be poor in this country and the government must stop resurrecting debtor’s prisons from the dustbin of history." In December 2008, Ms. Nowlin’s 16-year-old son was sentenced to the Bay Pines Center and Ms. Nowlin was ordered to pay $104 per month for his lodging. At the time of this order, Ms. Nowlin was homeless and working part-time with a friend after being laid off from her job. She told the court that she was unable to pay the ordered amount, however the judge found her in contempt for failing to pay. In addition, Ms. Nowlin’s requests for a court appointed attorney were denied. Since March 3, 2009, Ms. Nowlin has been serving her sentence at the Delta County Jail. On March 6, 2009, she was released for one day to work. Once released she picked up her $178.53 check from work thinking that she now could pay the $104.00 to get out of jail. However, upon her return to jail that evening, the sheriff forced her to sign over her check to the jail to cover $120.00 for "room and board." She was also charged $22 for a drug test and the booking fee." http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/30/714608/-Woman-Sentenced-to-Jail-for-Sons-Crime The ACLU has since gotten Ms. Nowlin out of jail. I'm a member of the ACLU, and happy to think that I might have helped with that. Even $5 helps. http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FJ_donationhome

traveling, tigers, tsunamis

drusilla — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 03:49:26 GMT

I was pulling in to a small town airport. This place was so small that the landing strip and the parking lot were connected. I parked and went inside to check in. The place was dark, like an old casino, and nearly empty. There wasn't even a check-in counter, just a dark, dingy, empty bar with a high angled ceiling and chunky leather barstools. Everything was dark brown except the Arrivals and Departures screens, the letters on which emanated a dull, gold light. A man behind the counter greeted me. In this airport, all the checkin counters and gates were bars! I was very early, so I decided to go get something to eat first. I went back outside, happy to be in the sunshine, drove to an adjacent cluster of buildings, and found a diner. I parked and went inside, wandering around looking for a table. The place was bustling and I couldn't find a place to sit. The small dining rooms were connected by corridors, and both the rooms and the corridors were full of crazy Alice in Wonderland angles. I guess I took a wrong corridor, because it angled down, and before I knew it I was below the restaurant. I realized that there was a huge community college complex underground, in a maze-like warren. I kept trying to get back into the restaurant to order some food, but every time I managed it, it was just for a moment, then I'd I find myself back in the maze of corridors, and then I'd go through a door and find myself outside in the parking lot again. Finally I gave up, but when I looked around the parking lot, my car was gone. It turned out that there were two parking lots, and my car was in the other one. The two lots were connected by what looked like a double decker highway structure, like the cypress before it collapsed, but on a very small scale - the levels were only about two feet tall. If I wanted to get to my car, I was going to have to go through the structure. I had to lie down and scoot and roll through it for hundreds of yards, with other people slowly scooting this way and that beside me and on the level above. It was very uncomfortable and dusty. When I got back to the airport-bar and was checking in, I realized I'd lost my powder blue backpack in the concrete highway structure. I had to go back to look for it. I found it just as I was about to give up. I got very claustrophobic in the process. By the time I got back to the airport-bar I had missed my flight. By hours. ------------------------------- I was in the house I lived in when I was a kid, and I was talking to you on the phone - just chatting about nothing in particular. There was a terrible windstorm raging outside. It was blowing so hard that trees were falling down - some were even flying through the air on their sides. There was a massive live oak about 50 yards from the window where I sat, and as we talked, a gust blew so hard that the normally inflexible giant branches, three feet thick, flexed and curved and bowed down onto the ground, then slowly returned to the original skyward positions. I told you about it, on the phone. You didn't believe me, and decided to come over to see for yourself. You showed up in just a minute or two. You had your white tiger with you, on a leash. The animal was still a juvenile, maybe only 200 lbs, but it scared me. You and the tiger came in the house, and we walked from room to room, and all the while I watched the tiger out of the corner of my eye. Some other friends came over, and some of them had kids, and this made me even more nervous about the tiger. At some point, you went out in the backyard, leaving the tiger in the house with the other guests. With some fast footwork, I was able to lock the tiger into a back bedroom - but just barely - I had to use all my strength to push the door shut far enough that the latch clicked. I could hear it growling and scratching on the other side, and it was very strong. I was getting more and more worried - there were people all around me laughing and smiling and chatting, and they had no idea of the danger behind that door. Finally I got so nervous that I went looking for you, to tell you that you needed to keep the tiger under your control. I found you about a quarter mile away, way up in a sparse Monterey pine tree with gnarled amber bark. Your back was turned. I decided to fly up there to talk to you. Using a very complex sculling motion with my hands, I was able to lift off the ground and fly about 20 feet up into the air, but just as I was getting the hang of it, I noticed that you were climbing back down. I hoped that you would see me flying, because then you'd realize how special I really was, and you did see me, but you weren't impressed at all. I told you about the tiger. You weren't concerned. Our faces were very close - less than an inch apart. I could feel the moisture and heat coming off your skin, and I could smell you, and you smelled wonderful. Our cheeks brushed, then our noses. We began kissing, and it was lovely, but after a minute or so you stopped. I was sad. ------------- The tide was out. I was happily rock-hopping and scrambling around on boulders inside a small rocky bay. There was a small rocky island out in the middle, and I made my way out there, looking at all the stones and some ruins of an old wall. Then I scrambled back to the shore. Back up on the quay, a elderly gentleman with a fussy, detached demeanor showed me a postcard containing a photo of a waterfront town. The man asked me how old I thought the photograph was. I studied it closely. It looked like an antique. The image was of a town that looked a little bit like Catalina might have a hundred years ago, but it wasn't on as steep a hillside, and there was a large open-air pavilion on a spit of land off to the left with a carousel in it. About 100 yards offshore from the small bay was a tiny island of rocks and a few straggly trees. I realized it was the same town I was in right now, a hundred years ago. The town in the old photo was very different from the town today. There was no pavilion or carousel now, and everything was all much more dull and in a state of decay. But the biggest difference was that curving all around the outside of the island in the middle of the harbor was a very tall stucco wall. It was at least 30 feet high, and the top of it was decorated with glossy, intricately painted dark green tiles. As I studied the photo, I understood that the wall was a seawall, and it had been built to protect the town from the massive waves that occasionally came rushing in to the little bay. I marveled both at the engineering and the naievete that such a thin, tall thing might hold back the sea. Then the postcard came to life, and I was in the postcard and the earlier time, and a wave at least 30 feet tall was rushing forward and crashing against the stucco seawall. Spray and water were roaring fifty feet into the air, and I worried that the wall might not hold. Of course, it didn't. --------------- (all dreams from last night)

aids education

drusilla — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:55:50 GMT

The teacher put two stacks of cards on the table at the front of the classroom, face down. One pile was printed with the names of body parts and fluids and objects, a subset of which you can get AIDS from - blood, semen, infected needles, menstrual fluid, a cold sore, etc. The other pile was printed with the names of body parts, a subset of which are ways AIDS gets into the body - things like vaginas, penises, and blood vessels, and chancre sores. The students are to go up to the cards and pick one from each pile, then turn and tell the class whether their two cards represent a combination by which AIDS could spread. My son's turn comes. He goes to the front of the class and picks two cards. He looks at the cards, turns back towards the class and says, "Yes, you can get AIDS from putting breast milk in your anus." The teacher says, loudly, "That's not funny." He answers, even louder, "I know. It's totally not funny. Breast milk in your anus is dangerous...." The teacher says, "Go to the office. Right *now*."

salt point

drusilla — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:40:50 GMT

Doctor Turvy and I went on a road trip this past weekend, and discovered that the plants are waking up. The one in the accompanying photo is a type of lily, called death camus. Supposedly the bulbs were mashed and used as arrow poison, but since I just read the same thing about the poisonous newts, and I doubt the poison is very effective in very small amounts that would have been used to coat an arrow tip, it's all starting to sound a bit like paranoid xenophobia - I mean, why not use amanita, which is abundant and tens if not hundreds of times more poisonous? The following wildflowers and bugs are identified in this photo set: death camus indian paintbrush footsteps of spring sea thrift indian warrior suncups / golden eggs coast checkerbloom / checker mallow / dwarf checkerbloom sea slater jumping spider - phidippus johnsoni http://picasaweb.google.com/drusilla.stranger/Salt_point_mar_2009#slideshow Other elements of note in this web album: one image of DIY tentacle pr0n, and one of a rock formation that I swear looks like a fossil.

littering

drusilla — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:45:43 GMT

This morning, as I was driving to work My mind wandered, disoriented Through fogs of daylight savings time and memory and I accidentally I thought of you First I remembered your eyes Then I remembered how desperate I was to be loved back then And how you helped me perfect my natural talent for lying to myself And I thought about how When an animal is being eaten alive it supposedly enters a state of grace But I saw the deer's round brown eye as the tigers spread its belly open and fought over the choicest bits It didn't look like ecstasy to me And as I hurtled along the highway Of asphalt and bad decisions I reprimanded myself for having chosen rapture over fight or flight and I lectured myself on the difference between paralysis and surrender Your first name pounded in my head like blood but I couldn't remember your last name Which panicked me a little, at first But when I finally found it in that fog of daylight savings time and memory I realized I didn't need it any more So I smiled and tossed it out the window.

crawlies

drusilla — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:31:02 GMT

I was working in my yard today, and found these creatures under a rotting cardboard box that was covered with sycamore leaves directly on my concrete driveway. The curly one's Narceus Americanus - a giant north American millipede. Millipedes are arthropods, and are thought to be among the first animals to have colonized land during the Silurian geologic period, about 443.7 million years ago. While this one's not poisonous, many species emit poisonous secretions or hydrogen cyanide gas (!) through microscopic pores along the sides of their bodies. Some of these substances are caustic and can burn the exoskeleton of ants and other insect predators, and the skin and eyes of larger predators. Capuchin monkeys have been observed intentionally irritating millipedes in order to rub the chemicals on themselves to repel mosquitoes. The short, fat mega-maggot was hard to identify. It may be a Lesser bulb fly. None of us liked the look of this thing at all. It would play dead for a while, then move amazingly fast back and forth across the bowl. The tiny salamanders are a species of California Slender Salamander. Adult newts breathe with their lungs on land (they have gills in their early life, but most lose them as adults), but in water many can take in oxygen through their skin. Many newts use neurtoxin secretions as a defense mechanism against predators; some Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest used Taricha newts as a poison. Here's a terrific site for identifying California salamanders and newts: http://www.californiaherps.com/salamanders/salamanderspics.html And there's an interesting article about newt toxicity here: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/toxin.shtml I sometimes go up into Briones regional park when it rains just to see the newts mating. If you can time it right and see it, it's pretty amazing. It looks like this: http://www.californiaherps.com/salamanders/images/ttorosa308group2.jpg Lumbricus terrestris - the earthworms, also called megadriles, are hermaphrodites, and they breathe through their skin. They secrete a lubricating mucus, which helps them burrow underground - they live in what biologists describe as "lubricated tunnels" that can be as much as seven or eight feet underground. I'd put a tiny bit of water into the bowl in the photo above, and it became viscous and slimy in a matter of minutes. Worms eat dead organic matter - even stones up to 1/20 of an inch across - they have a gizzard where the stones get ground up into a fine paste. The animal class is clitellata, and the fatty ring around their bodies is called a clitellum. Do I like this? No, I do not. This site has a great illustration of earthworm anatomy, instructions on how to dissect an earthworm, and hideously interesting dissection photos: http://kentsimmons.uwinnipeg.ca/16cm05/16labman05/lb6pg2.htm

kites, puppets, tinsel, and fire

drusilla — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:25:52 GMT

I was at your house. I had slept over. Not with you, in a separate room. When I woke up I wrapped a sheet around myself, like a toga, and went wandering from room to room looking for you. It was sunny and pleasant in that way that mid-mornings in summer are, and the house was well-furnished and clean and attractive, but also completely unfamilar. I felt good - happy, but a little shy. I found you in the living room. You were working on something that involved lots of tubes and wires and electronics. I said hello, and you turned and said good morning. It was hard to see your face, but you seemed in good spirits - kinda happy, but focused on your project. I held the sheet tight around me, because I felt that exposing my body would be a social gaffe. On the wall to the right was a large stone fireplace. Inside, a well-tended fire was burning strongly. The heat radiating off the hearth felt good. In front of the fireplace was a large tri-fold glass fire screen, and on the outside of the screen were several cube-shaped cardboard boxes, about 12 inches square, scattered about on the floor. They were open, but I didn't see what was inside. I noticed that one of the flaps on the nearest box had caught fire, so I extinguished it. It was a really close call, because large pieces of the cardboard were turning into giant, glowing embers as big as my hand, breaking off, and floating up into the room, threatening to set the nearby curtains on fire. This wasn't scary at all. I turned back to you, and still feeling awkward after having slept over, said something about how I should probably get dressed and go home. You told me not to go - that the weekend was just starting - and smiled and handed me a set of strings. I saw then that the project you were working on was a beautiful, complex kite. It was multi-colored, like a rainbow, and sort of like a tandem tetrahedron*, but much more complicated - like a molecule or crystalline structure - I had to study it for several seconds to discern its symmetry and order. There were 16 kite strings, each of which controlled a different aspect of the kite's movement. They were much more like the strings one sees attached to puppets than strings for a kite. And interestingly, they weren't made out of string; they were made out of old-fashioned Christmas tree tinsel - not plastic, but nicely-weighted dark-silvery metal foil - the kind that had lead in them back before we cared. They caught the light as they twisted back and forth. You handed the kite-puppet-tinsel strings to me. They were all supposed to be parallel to each other, but some of them crisscrossed. I looked at the glittering threads, stretching, with gentle tension, away from my fingers horizontally at waist height, out across the room, through the window, and on and on.... i'm sure the kite was at the other end, perhaps out in the yard somewhere, or down the block, or in another country... I tried for a long time to untangle them, but couldn't. So I handed them all back to you, and you untangled them straightaway. I became aware, as I often do, that you're smarter than me. This was both slightly scary and slightly thrilling. I told you about how the cardboard box had caught fire and I'd put it out, and suggested that you might want to move the boxes away from the flames. You didn't seem to care. * I used to make tandem tetrahedron kites from scratch, out of balsa wood, rainbow-colored paper or cellophane, glue, and string. You can see an image of a tandem tetrahedron kite here: http://www.kitefestival.com/photos/stlouis2.jpg

atlas shrugged, then prometheus puked

drusilla — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:54:42 GMT

Don't miss Hunter's blog on Dailykos today. It's magnificent. I bow. "...may I present Representative John Campbell, who lets us all know that our betters are outraged, outraged I tell you at the economic policies of the president: Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), who gives his departing interns copies of Ayn Rand’s novel "Atlas Shrugged," told me today that the response to President Obama’s economic policies reminded him of what happened in the 51-year-old novel. "People are starting to feel like we’re living through the scenario that happened in 'Atlas Shrugged,'" said Campbell. "The achievers, the people who create all the things that benefit [the] rest of us, are going on strike. I’m seeing, at a small level, a kind of protest from the people who create jobs, the people who create wealth, who are pulling back from their ambitions because they see how they’ll be punished for them." Oh, yes please. By all means, let's give that "strike" a go. I'll tell you what, "achievers" -- you keep your Collateralized Debt Obligations, and we'll keep the food. You take away your energy futures trading, and we'll keep the actual power plants. You run off to your own private island with your structured corporate insurance derivatives, and we'll keep the automobiles, and the boats, and the oil, and the coal, and the grain, and the batteries, and the electronics, and the cows, and the roads and bridges, and the drinking cups, and the indoor plumbing, and the light bulbs, and the televisions, and the art, and the music, and the trees that grow the fruit, and the lumber, and the recycling centers, and the actual pills to cure what ails you, and the fishing lines, and the books, and the buildings, and the railroads, and the little metal clips that hold the little hydraulic lines that keep that gigantic, thundering airplane you're on in the air. We'll keep the borax, iron, salt, aluminum, and steel. We'll keep the corn, the soybeans, the lettuce, and the water. We'll spot you as many U-haul boxes as you need to pack up your money and your stock certificates, and then please, by all means -- teach us a lesson." The full text: http://hunter.dailykos.com/