Wolf Sightings

I get confused, is the sky falling in California and New Mexico (thanks Liz!) or in NYC (thanks Susie!)? Why doesn't someone create a Chicken Little Scorecard so we busy bloggers can keep up with such things? Or is this another weird version of divide and conquer?...

Iraqi Bloggers Back

Both Raed and Riverbend have checked in, thank goodness.

"A Tipping Point Had Been Reached"

Son of 40 (Ron Reagan Jr.) talks about the administration of Son of 41:

On top of the usual massaging of public perception, they traffic in big lies, indulge in any number of symptomatic small lies, and, ultimately, have come to embody dishonesty itself. They are a lie. And people, finally, have started catching on.

Nice long article; I'm only on page one and I'm psyched to read through the rest, even with about a thousand more blog posts to catch up on... Via Susie Madrak. Try to ignore the left sidebar, it's Esquire.

Silly Site o' the Day

Hope everyone caught the special Friday edition of the Daily Show last night, featuring a brief DemoCon interview with the blogosphere's own Jesse Taylor of Pandagon! Both Dave Johnson and Tom Tomorrow mentioned they were around Daily Show folks as well but I didn't happen to spot them... As we're all probably still in a DemoCon kinda mood, let's pass on this silly site: Will Ferrell stars in American Coming Together's "Straight Talk from the White House West," via Mark Evanier and a host of others.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Datsa's favorite night-time spot, between the pillows:

Note the "tüng."

Ssh! We Know We're Crooked, And So Do You

I know I'm behind in blog-reading (that's tomorrow's goal, in the hopest that I can maybe do my Blogway Blabby round-up after all on Sunday), but tucked away at the end of Paul Krugman's latest brilliant column (click here to bypass NYT registration) about "the triumph of the trivial" was this:

The St. Petersburg Times says the Republican Party of Florida has sent out a flier urging supporters to use absentee ballots because the machines lack a paper trail and cannot "verify your vote."

Of course, the president's brother's spokesweenies insist he had no foreknowledge of such a campaign, but please, he is the Republican Party of Florida, nothing they do gets by without his dirty fingerprints on it. Again, they can't get away with denying it - "Republican Party spokesman Joseph Agostini initially denied that the brochure was the work of the GOP. But after he was shown the flier, he backtracked. He confirmed it was a GOP flier mailed in response to an Artiles flier that used the president's face without permission." - so instead they pretty much regard their sin as having been caught doing it. And the obfuscations to try to wriggle out of being busted! It's like Randi Rhodes (Goddess bless her she absolutely makes my afternoon commute!) said (paraphrasing), "it's very easy to tell the truth, it's much harder to lie." For these folks, truth seems to be a foreign commodity, so they've made it as difficult to do as lying, which means they'll never, ever be above suspicion. Their only hope to hang onto power is to try to drag others to their level. Don't let them do it.

Black and White and Read All Over

Duncan "Atrios" Black (we can call him that now, right?) has a great post musing about race and labelling, which has always fascinated me as well.  Says Duncan, "I've never been a big fan of the term 'African-American' as it ties a race into a geography... What do we call... black citizens of Britain?"  I thought everyone knew the answer to that.  (Although Robin and I have a different one.)  I know famous mixed-race folks perplex and intrigue a lot of others in the media; there's a reason that every time Derek Jeter comes up to bat the cameras show his parents (black father, white mother) in the stands.

 

I wonder if the hang-ups about labelling and categorizing that some have aren't so much a matter of obsessive anal-retention as a reaction to changing times, a sort of subconscious need to keep things "the way they've been" in the minds of many to increase the feeling of security, when everything was literally, in their minds, "black and white."  This need seems as much of a social construct as the idea of "race" itself, and we also see it at work when talking about gender; it's reflected in language like "when men were men and women were women."  On the face of it, this expression seems absurd, implying we've all suddenly lost distinguishing sexual characteristics, but I think it does indicate resistance to change.  But at the same time I don't think the need is overtly political; after all, we're not immune to it on the left end of the spectrum, where "identity politics" are as powerful as ever.

 

Maybe it's a kind of primal fear of a future in which we all look way too much the same; there's been speculation that, with multiracial intermingling, sooner or later we'll all be one "race" and have the same sort of tannish/brownish skin tone and wouldn't that be kind of boring and non-rainbow-ish?  On the other hand, future scientific advances might make it possible to change skin tone (permanently or temporarily) the way we now use contact lenses to change eye color, so all bets may be off after all.  Might as well get a head start by shifting our paradigm to "we're all just human beings and we're all worthy individuals at the same time" now.

Silly Site o' the Day

Legend has it that the Paleozoic Era ended on July 30, 245 billion BC. Alas, this year I'll be missing Ken and Mercy's Paleozoic Party (no, not that Paleozoic Party) once again due to this lingering illness and other considerations, but in honor of it here's a site of dinosaur games.

Silly Site o' the Day

Still feeling pretty under the weather, pissed that my RealPlayer still isn't streaming any of the DemoCon speeches stored on C-Span's site nor even Air America (at least I can finally tune in again, barely, on my dinky desk radio) and that I don't yet have the concentration to return to blogging or even get through blogroll reading.  I'm beginning to doubt Blogway Blabby will make an appearance on The American Street this weekend, not that she'll be missed because I haven't gotten a single e-mailed suggestion yet for any of her participatory segments (Meme Recap, Milestone Notes and Premier Performance/Blog of the Week) but still, I hate to blow off a commitment.  Anyway, as we're all in a political mood, how about this gem from the ACLU, which I found out via Eszter at Crooked Timber?  (Oddly, that plays just fine, sounds and all, even though I no longer hear any of the usual system pings when I receive new e-mail or am about to delete something... wish our programmer weren't on vacation this week...)

Apology and Brief DemoCon Review

Sorry about the lack of posting lately - I appear to be suffering a relapse, as Steve Bates suggested in a comment section.  I got up enough energy to take care of a good deal of job-type stuff yesterday, but that left me too drained to go through my blogroll either during work or back home.  Slept through much of Barack Obama's speech Tuesday even though I tried not to, and I'm afraid he'll be associated for some time in my mind with a 100.4-degree fever, but I did rewatch it last evening on Robin's computer (for some reason, I can't get my new RealPlayer download to work with C-Span's videos either at home or at work; I wonder if the pop-up blockers are interfering) and he was... well, he was okay but he was no Al Sharpton.  "We never got our mule, so we decided to ride the donkey as far as it would take us..." great stuff.  Much better than the frighteningly war-mongering tone of much of last night's speechifying, and the way everyone's exiting the podium intoning "God bless America."  So much for inclusion of differing viewpoints like pacifists (you heard about Medea Benjamin being dragged off the floor in handcuffs for unfurling an "End the Occupation" banner, right?) and atheists or agnostics...

Silly Site o' the Day

Since it's Phil Proctor's birthday today, how about a link to Planet Proctor?

TV Con

If you're interested in watching the Democratic National Convention and don't have a very strong stomach for bullshit, you might not want to do what Bob Harris did yesterday and channel-hop.  I started with CNN but all those pundits were doing was whining about the "shove it" remark, even though nobody seemed to be complaining about the far-worse Cheney expletive on the Senate floor.  Then I turned to PBS and quickly grew frustrated with their spin, everything from terming Bill Clinton "a best-selling author... and President" like the latter was an afterthought, to proclaiming right after every speech that they were shocked at the amount of "Bush-bashing" even though I thought most of the speakers were too restrained if anything.

 

It became pretty clear that even the much-vaunted PBS was just there to spread Republican talking points rather than reporting on or analyzing what was actually said.  (Aren't the conservative fundies the ones who go around saying "Hate the sin, not the sinner?"  Don't they recognize that's exactly what's going on here?  The Democrats, and many of the American people, have no love for the policies that got the country into the spot it's in today, but that doesn't mean they're saying nasty things about specific people.  The message was the lack of leadership, not "George Bush is a horrid man.")  So I turned to C-SPAN for uninterrupted coverage that let me make up my own mind about what everyone was saying.

 

Brief impressions: I loved the kids singing "This Land Is Your Land," obviously omitting the last two verses.  I didn't think of JibJab even once.  It was cool to see all nine Democratic female senators, although my first thought was "oughtn't there be more?"  I loved and covet Madeleine Albright's dress.  I thought it was weird that the Clintons didn't kiss.  I couldn't help but shout out "Zappa Lives!" every time PMRC leader Tipper Gore was shown.  It was nice to see the greatest living president in my lifetime, Jimmy Carter, get his due (and fie on the pundits who called him "frail," he looked pretty sprightly to me).  Hillary isn't yet the speaker her husband is, but she's getting there.  Bill Clinton is a much, much better rhetoritician now than he ever was, particularly back in '88 when he did that interminable nominating speech.  Lots of info in his speech that I was hearing for the first time; I loved the line about not angering one's bankers. :)  Gore was also pretty good, and much funnier than any of the other major speakers.

Silly Site o' the Day

I'm feeling a bit like death warmed over; I think I picked up a co-worker's illness yesterday. Made it to work okay but I may not be doing a heck of a lot, other than staring at this very soothing animation that Guy at Rook's Rant found.

Silly Site o' the Day

Robin and I finally bought the DVD of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and watched it the other evening.  It was frightening how much I remembered of it, but then I have all four books in the "trilogy"... Now, via Frank Paynter, I find out where Marvin's been keeping himself...

The Blabster Rides Again

My latest Blogway Blabby post is up at the American Street, for any interested parties.  Depressingly, still no e-mail at all from Blabby's readers.  I wonder what I'm doing wrong...

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Jude at Iddybud, and in celebration of the upcoming DemoCon, it's the Crosby-Nash Joint Presidency 2004 campaign, a clever marketing bit to announce their tour and sell their album.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Jerry Bowles, why not have Republican Press deliver your news "with honor, morals, integrity and shit like that"?  Very spiffy-looking parody news site.

The Jersey Curse

Just got back from visiting my parents in south Jersey, coming back through the worst rain I've ever encountered in my, um, weeks of regular driving. It's all Robin's fault, of course. We have a running gag that he's never once been to New Jersey on a day when it hasn't rained. I think this gag has so angered the rain gods by this point that they make sure it does rain every time we go into Jersey - and rain heavily if we're driving.  Most of the time we were down there, there was hardly any rain at all.  Dad took this picture during a light sprinkle:
Note the somewhat matted-down-from-humidity shorn hair.  Anyway, we had a lovely time while we visited, even if the journey was a bit nail-biting.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Hiding places of choice this time:
 
Amy likes to hide between the folding table and the wall; Datsa prefers "kitty in the bag" tactics. Update: Link changed; what the hell good is a Yahoo photo album if nobody else can see the pictures in it? 

Silly Site o' the Day

So much for getting an early start down to my parents' house; not one but two nightmares disturbed my sleep (one involving a sort of Dali-esque plane crashing - actually melting - into Manhattan buildings in front of my eyes; and the other featuring a spoiled princess laying into me for gross incompetence after I spent half an hour trying to make a decorative bow for her package, causing her to spend $175 more on parking and couldn't I do anything right and my boss was sitting next to me agreeing with her) and Datsa, for once, didn't rouse us till after 8.  Sorry Mom and Dad, we're on our way as soon as we've had a cuppa and fed the cats.  In the meantime, considering my bad dreams, perhaps I shouldn't play this copter game that Kathy Pearlman passed along...

McKinney Wins

Woo-hoo!

If You Can't Say Something Nice...

Maybe it's the lazy hazy days, maybe it's the lingering cold that's killed half my vacation, but a lot of things on my blogroll are pissing me off lately.  I've held off on talking about them because I don't particularly enjoy getting people mad at me, but that's kind of a poor excuse because how badly off are we if we can't take a little criticism from our friends?  (And, conversely, if we believe what they say isn't true, what's the point in taking offense at it on behalf of others?)  But I can see if I don't get these things off my chest they'll only fester, so here goes.  You have been warned.

 

If you write to the Democrats asking them to consider you as a convention blogger, and you are indeed chosen, don't you think it's a little unfair for you not to cough up the money to attend that convention yourself?  Isn't it just a tad gallish asking your readers to do it?  We're not talking about Chris Albritton raising money to go Back to Iraq, we're talking about dime-a-dozen liberal pundits blog-begging so they can report about hanging out with political bigwigs.  It's your responsibility to find the bucks to go to this shindig, not your readers'.  If you didn't have the disposable cash for something like this in the first place, you shouldn't have put your name in for consideration.  But of course, long-time Pen-Elayne readers know how I feel in general about blog-begging (it's unseemly and rude from any blogger who's relatively well-off and gainfully employed).

 

Which segues into this week's big debate about "bloggers versus journalists."  This whining reminds me a lot of the comics "fan versus pro" debates.  Lots of people (including me) used to be able to get into the San Diego Comic-Con (before it became the behemoth it is today) by insisting they were industry professionals even when they weren't - for instance, if they'd had an article about comics published somewhere, or did comics reviews, or considered themselves a BNF (Big Name Fan), they could finagle that into meaning "professional."  It's the sort of behavior that should stop when you become experienced enough to know better and stop kidding yourself (at which point, like me, you can get into cons for free by working tables for non-profit organizations and/or being married to an actual professional).

 

Nowadays very few fans see a difference between "published" and "professional," which is certainly a step up from the "wanna-bes" who pontificate on mailing lists about their Amazing Projects Which Will Change Comics Forever (yes, again, guilty as charged, and Ari of Lemuria is still the best comic never to be published outside of this [scroll down to see page 1]), but still a far cry from reality, not to mention an insult to those talented and lucky few who are able to make their living writing and drawing comics.  But it's a weird business, in which the transition from fan to pro nowadays is more of a continuum than a hard and fast line; half the aspiring writers with whom I used to hang out at the CompuServe Comics and Animation Forum are now bonafide pros, for instance.  So it's understandable why so many aspirants would want to see those lines continue to be blurred.

 

So it seems with bloggers.  Just because you write well enough to attract a sizeable audience and influence opinion does not make you a professional journalist.  Just because many professional journalists are beholden to power and not doing their jobs the way they should still doesn't make you one.  I've seen tons of nicely-done comics that I wish their creators could make a living from writing and drawing, and I've seen lots of (subjectively) poorly-done professional ones that I can't believe companies are paying people to write and draw, and even though I've had comics stories published none of this makes me a professional.  It just makes me a jealous whiner.  Just, just stop it, okay?  You want to be considered a professional journalist blogger, get a job with a news organization and blog for them.  It's not impossible if you're talented and lucky enough.  Otherwise, stop insulting both journalists and other bloggers by acting like a blog is somehow both a less worthy and a purer medium of communication than news reporting.  Be proud of what you're doing, of the audience you're attracting, without feeling the need to call what you do (in a new and increasingly powerful medium) by another name.

 

Lay off Jenna and Barbara Bush.  I mean it.  Expecting spoiled heiresses to behave as something other than spoiled heiresses is foolish; treat them with the exact same contempt or bemusement you reserve for Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.  Or else you've shown that, for every "oh my god that drunken brat is sticking her tongue out at the camera!" remark you make, you more than deserve all the nasty "Chelsea Clinton is a dog" comments that right-wingers used to make.  It was tasteless when they visited the perceived sins of the father and mother upon the children; it's still tasteless when you're doing it.

 

Well, I don't know about you, but I feel better now.  I'm off to watch the Yankees game, and I don't want to hear another word about how evil the team is.

Silly Site o' the Day

This one's been on so many blogs that Broadway Blabby has duly marked it for the Meme Recap on Sunday (in other words, enough already!):  Right-Wing Squares.

Terror in Times Square

I'll be in Times Square tomorrow, visiting Midtown Comics and getting my hair cut.  After what happened Monday I admit to being more than a bit nervous.  I like visiting Manhattan occasionally but there are good reasons why I don't miss working there.  Seeing the Forest's Meryl Johnson (Dave's mom?) puts it far better than I ever could.

Homebound

And loving it!  We discovered this morning that the movers hadn't quite set up our bed frame correctly a few months back, and having Robin adjust it so the box spring is actually resting on the frame now instead of falling through it has made a world of difference.  I slept much of the afternoon away (and with any luck the last vestiges of this awful cold are finally gone), when I wasn't plowing through the rest of my 3-4 months' worth of unread DC Universe comics.  Now on to the Alan Moore stuff and the Vertigos!  While many of our friends are partying down in San Diego we're here reading and drawing the stuff (Rob's really got his nose to the grindstone today), so we're at the Comic Con in spirit, anyway!  Tomorrow's the car inspection and my semi-annual shearing, and Friday's the long drive to visit Mom and Dad, so I think I'm finally back up to speed.  It does seem a shame that it took a vacation week to do it...

Politics and Humor

Pretty good essay by Russ Barnes at The American Street about how to take a jokes during this tense political time.  As you know from my essays On Bended Knee-Slapping and 'Tain't Funny McGee, this is one of my areas of interest.

Silly Site o' the Day

Kathy Pearlman found a really nice one - just pick up the phone to begin your dialing journey.

Food in the News
 

Via Heidi MacDonald, there was a mishap on the set of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory "when a $540,000 camera lens fell into a vat of chocolate," delaying the picture.  Also via Heidi, for those of you going to Comic-Con International San Diego this week, beware illegal street cheese.  Speaking of which, via a number of blogs, "Nude Man Caught Covered in Nacho Cheese."  Behold the power of cheese!  I'm on vacation so I'm losing track of hours; is it time for breakfast yet?  Update: More cheese in the comments section, and via Anne Zook, even more.

The Arabian Candidate
 

Paul Krugman re-imagines an update of the Manchurian Candidate for the 21st century.  Robin thinks he'd never be able to sell the entire plot as a screenplay, the aftermath of the Presidential installation would be far be too fanciful for belief.

Silly Site o' the Day
 

Via Oliver Willis, new footage reveals Neil Armstrong's actual reaction upon setting foot on the moon 35 years ago today.

From the Mailbag
 

David Chin writes to announce that, on August 1, his site A Picture's Worth will celebrate its first birthday.  Says David, "Since birthdays aren't meant to be celebrated alone, I would like to invite you to join in the first birthday celebrations!"  All are invited to provide a gift by sending in their special photo and story.  With so many photo-bloggers around now, this could be a lovely celebration.  I hope NTodd participates, his photos are amazing.

 

Also, I'm not at liberty to say which little bird e-mailed me that Clifford Meth has left Aardwolf Publishing in the capable hands of co-founder Jim Reeber and accepted the position as V.P. of Creative Development for the ever-expanding IDT Entertainment (which has announced deals with Stan Lee and Todd MacFarlane, as well as recently acquiring an equity stake in Archie and signing an agreement to acquire Manga Entertainment).  I have no idea what Cliff will be actually doing there because Cliff ain't talking, but I do know that Neal Adams (to whom he still hasn't introduced me properly) is doing the cover to Cliff's final book for Aardwolf, and that three of the stories from god's 15 minutes (still on my to-be-read graphic novel pile) were recently optioned by Richard Saperstein's Hidden Films.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Hanan Levin (yes, again :p) comes Four Pong - two balls, four paddles!  For those of us nostalgic for such things...

Hidden Costs of the Republican Convention

Robin just received a letter from Terri Cunningham at DC, informing freelancers that "the security requirements for the convention will likely delay, and sometimes prohibit, our workday commute. In the event that we are understaffed as a result of our personnel being unable to get to work, our workflow may be disrupted. This disruption could prevent us from delivering payment to you in the usual time frame during the week leading to the convention, which begins August 30th and ends September 2nd. Please prepare for this possibility." Just one example of how the imminent lockdown of Manhattan has hidden repurcussions that often resonate way beyond the island.

The Years in Your Ears
 

Thanks to Susie Madrak I discovered the Leftist Bloggers Alliance and their blog The Leftist, at which contributor Haywood had a fascinating observation about watching Bush at a French press conference last month - actually, listening to him.  More to the point, listening to what sounded like the feed of a different voice saying the exact words he did a few seconds before he spoke.  Obviously one person's anecdotal observation doesn't constitute proof, but it tends to lend credence to suspicions many have had for some time that Bush is fed all the lines of his speeches, even the first names of the hand-picked reporters on whom he calls because the answers to their questions have already been formulated.  Haywood ends with his supposition about why this item didn't merit more press.  An interesting read; draw your own conclusions.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, my first official day of vacation could have been better health-wise, I seemed to back-slide as far as the cold was concerned. But I got through my entire blogroll, finished my weekly Blogway Blabby column for TAS (it's up now), and tore through about 3-4 months' worth of DC comics from A through F, so I'm in good shape to get through the rest of the comp boxes this week.  Weird doing the comics reading that way, since there happen to be a lot of major plot shifts going on now in the DC universe: a (temporary?) new Robin, the (re)debut of the Doom Patrol, the death of Sue Dibny (one of my favorite characters *snif*)... I kept having to skip ahead alphabetically to pull comics further back in the stack and read them before I could come back to the one I'd had to hand.  Having just taken my cold pills I'm now headed off to a defensive driving course being given at a hotel about two blocks away from my office, so I'm essentially doing my daily commute on a Sunday - which feels weird, but on vacation I guess stuff is supposed to feel weird.  Anyway, on to today's Silly Site, which comes to us via Hanan Levin (as do so many) - feel like a change?  How about going to the Baldwinization™ Centers of America?  They'll make you look like a Baldwin, honest!

Over and Down Under

Via Natalie Davis at All Facts and Opinions, a site called the Livingoom blog (which just celebrated its 1300th post) has an annual Underblog celebration, where readers can nominate up to five blogs that they wish more people knew about, a short reason why they like those blogs, and of course the appropriate link.  In response, Darren notes (and I found out via Moi) that the Flying Space Monkey Chronicles is having a Denigrating the Overblog contest, where readers are invited to "Put the names/URLs (max 5) of blogs in comments along with why you think they get too much traffic and we'll have a vote or a random drawing or I'll up and pick the top 20. The top 20winners losers, them, hehe, we'll all take them off our blogrolls and NEVER, EVER GO THERE AGAIN."  Them wacky Aussies!

Silly Site o' the Day
 
Light blogging today, as I rest up and try to get rid of this cold, catch up on my reading both online (the blogroll) and off (3 boxes' worth of comics), and prepare my next Blogway Blabby column for The American Street (last chance to e-mail me with your contributions for the Meme Recap, Milestones and Premier Performance sections!), so I'll leave you with a game via Judy Nagurney-Campbell of Iddybud - now you too can help the Beastie Boys arrive safely at the protest rally, maneuvering them through the minions of the evil Bush regime!  Fairly easy (Frogger's much tricker!) but you may want to turn the sound down a bit...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

It's always comforting to have a lap cat when I'm not feeling well:
 
Amy can't not be cute, y'know?

Fuzziness Continues
 

Still not thinking straight, due to lack of sleep and this horrid cold.  Have almost given up trying to figure out why Bobby Fisher got censured on the House floor.  I'm sure it'll be better in time for my next Blogway Blabby column at The American Street, which I'll write tomorrow and send early Sunday before heading off to take my defensive driving course...

Silly Site o' the Day
 
We got our July comp box yesterday from DC, Robin's hard at work on Bloodhound and many of our friends are gearing up for the annual San Diego comic con, so being in a comics mood (and possibly even catching up on my comics reading next week!) I thought it appropriate to pass along a site that's spreading like wildfire through the comics blogosphere (I first saw it on Scott's blog) - it's Hulk's Diary, presumably by BeaucoupKevin whose own blog is pretty good too.

Everything Old is New Again
 
Well, this is an interesting change to wake up to, if indeed I did wake up (I've a touch of insomnia along with the cold so I finally just gave up on uninterrupted sleep).   Blogger has tinkered with its editing system again.  Much for the better this time; you now compose in what resembles a word processing program (and can switch back and forth between that and "edit HTML" to see the code) that allows one-button capabilities to change font type and size, color, put in block quotes and images, create both bulleted and numbered lists, and align text.  They've also coded in keyboard shortcuts and the ability to delete formatting if you don't like it.  It's nice to have learned the HTML for most of this, but it's even nicer not to need to know it to do stuff like fonts and colors (I mean really, stuff like that has been more trouble than the coding's worth).  And, as before, I'm still not paying a single cent to blog.  Good going, Blogger, thanks!  (Now if only I could figure out how to erase that extra line on the bottom... Update: I figured it out; it's because I'm justifying the text to align on both the left and right margins.  If I leave it at left-margin alignment only it won't have that extra space.)

Wobbly

Dang, I hate summer colds. Had to go back to work today (and tomorrow) as next week I'm on vacation, but my powers of concentration are shot. I've been keeping up with my blogroll but I can't figure out why Mike Ditka is scheduled to give the keynote speech for SlimFast and Whoopi Goldberg can't marry a box turtle. I'm sure once my head clears it'll all make sense.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Tristero, Eric Blumrich (of BushFlash) has a new Flash bit out called Osama Bin Lotto, where viewers are invited to write in their best guess at when the Bush administration will have pre-planned Bin Laden's capture for maximum political gain.

Joyeux le 14 Juliett!

Once again it's Bastille Day, so I refer y'all to last year's post wherein I celebrate the best way I know how. I found it pretty cool that British troops led the annual Bastille Day parade for the first time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale.

In Stores Today - Bloodhound #1

Rana's work-in-progress pictures reminded me I wanted to put up one of my own:



This is Robin's studio wall (yes, that's a box on the left side, it's part of the library unpacking we have to do for the living room bookcases once we get them secured), on which he's chosen to pin up his Bloodhound pages in progress. These are the first six pages of issue #2. Issue #1 goes on sale today at a comic book store near you. He's a hard-bitten and fairly violent ex-con ex-cop with a knack for catching supervillains! She's an FBI agent who can more than hold her own in a fight! Together, they're detectives! Warning: the violence is pretty graphic in places. But if you can get past that, Dan Jolley's writing is tight and interesting, and of course the art is superlative and yes I'm biased. :) Please check out the title and keep us in sushi!

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, that was sort of a fun All-Star Game yesterday. It would have been terrific if it weren't on Fox, which has a tendency to dumb things down and make everything all about them instead of the players. In any case, I still have baseball on the brain (and not much else, I'm pretty sick today) so I thought I'd pass along, via Kathy Pearlman, a "Fastball Reaction Time" game. Which of course just measures reaction time for clicking a mouse button rather than swinging a bat. :)

Mixed Media

Oh, come on, Project Billboard. You really can't see the difference between the effectiveness of the picture on the left and the picture on the right?



God knows I'm no fan of Clear Channel, but as someone who still winces upon looking up and seeing a plane that I think is flying too low to the ground, I have to agree with their spokeslawyer when he said, "Those of us who have been in New York for a while understand the sensitivities that many New Yorkers have to bombs." And sure, they offered to change the graphic from a bomb to a dove (presumably the one that adorns their website), but then they went and rescinded the offer, after Clear Channel approved the change, and decided to sue them for breach of contract! This to me speaks volumes. The hearing has been postponed to Thursday, so we should see a definitive response then.

Voracious Voting Machines

As Laura points out, today is the nationwide Computer Ate My Vote Day of Action. Click on the link or the button on the sidebar for more information.

Robbin' Red Breast

Kevin Drum passes along an amusing article from the Beeb detailing the adventures of how a scambaiter turned the tables on a 419 scheme. Great pictures!

Silly Site o' the Day

Via B.J. at StoutDemBlog, it's the condensed PowerPoint version of Clinton's autobiography.

Maintenance Notes

Over on my Bloglines page, whence I do all my blog-reading, I have around 50 or so "Blogs in Waiting" that I scan when I get a chance to see if I want to move them to my main blogroll. As of last night I was once again caught up with all my regularly-read blogs, so I've had another perusal of the BoW's and have now moved to my sidebar blogroll the hilarious Fafblog (under "Da Groups" as it's contributed to by three pseudonymous entities - Fafnir, Giblets and The Medium Lobster) and Simbaud, King of Zembla (who's given this blog a couple of lovely mentions lately!).

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Hanan Levin and a host of others, the folks at JibJab have come up with a parody of This Land is Your Land featuring Bush and Kerry. I haven't looked through their entire animation site yet but they seem pretty talented.

Back in Time and Space

Thanks Johnny, your return inspired us to rewatch the DVD of Head again this evening!

Silencing More Voices

As Teresa has said, "I deeply resent how this Administration makes me feel like a conspiracy nutbar theorist," but I have to wonder if this story via Professor Juan Cole's blog about the gutting of Voice of America isn't somehow related to the item I mentioned a couple days ago about the US authorities' new rules for renewing foreign journalists' visas. I dunno, it's like these efforts to stifle what gets out about our country to the rest of the world seem to be coordinated or something.

On an utterly unrelated note, since this is simple concern rather than paranoia, does anyone know what's happened to Lean Left? I try to get to the blog and I'm presented with a page from "selene.hmdnsgroup.com" saying "This Account Has Been Disabled - Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible." Weird.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Avedon Carol (whom I thank for her recent plug and wish she had a comments section and a fixed RSS feed!), a long time ago: Google in Klingon. Perfect, I suppose, for the Klingon bloggers among you.

Blogway Blabby Debuts

My first post is up at The American Street. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Milestone Note

Happy second blogiversary to Skippy! Say, did you know he coined the word "blogtopia?"

Silly Site o' the Day

Got lots of silly sites recently from Mike at Left is Right, and was fortunate enough to save them offline rather than on Bloglines so they didn't disappear when my old Bloglines Silly Sites folder did. Here's one I especially liked: Knackerfactor, supposedly a formula you can use to calculate your tiredness throughout your working day. Having actually gotten a decent night's sleep last night (by which I mean, asleep by around 11PM and woken up only once by the cat and once by nature's call until about 8 AM, when the light from the eastern-facing window became too bright to ignore) I'm not knackered at all today, which bodes well for my initial drive up to the local farmer's market this morning and the movies this afternoon, as well as for my debut "gossip" column at The American Street tomorrow. Of course, all that (plus watching the Yankees Old-Timers' Day) does mean I probably won't be posting a lot here today, but I'll be furiously reading through my blogroll as much as I can, as I consider it a necessity for the TAS column...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Amy and Datsa make themselves at home atop some of our magazine boxes:

As soon as Robin's secured the bookshelves (which threaten to topple every time the cats jump on them) we'll start unpacking the living room libraries (records, books, magazines, videos, graphic novels). The comics library, well, that's a whole 'nother story...

And if you still need a dose of cuteness overload, Andrew at The Poor Man can provide.

Update: Even more cuteness! Darn you to heck, Lis Riba, for finding Kittenbreak and its RSS feed! In the interest of equal time, the same site also offers Puppybreak.

Silly Site o' the Day

Linked to lately from just about every blog having to do with comics, it's Spider-Man: The Peril of Doc Ock using LEGO® pieces. Officially sponsored, as LEGO® has Spider-Man 2 movie merchandise on its site.

Milestone Note

Happy birthday to TBogg! Looking forward, as ever, to his fabulous Friday with America's Worst Mother™ ...

Controlling the Foreign Press

So let's just say, for argument's sake, that the fix is in this November. The fixers don't need to worry about controlling the American press, they've been doing that pretty well for four years. But what to do about those pesky fur'ners? They're liable to go back to their wacky overseas newspapers and, you know, tell their readers the truth and such. Well, now we have our answer. Via Maru Soze, the UK Guardian reports that our lovely Fatherland Security department has now come up with new rules for foreign journalists who need to renew their visas.

From next week the estimated 20,000 foreign journalists stationed in the US, who used to be able to renew their visas with ease in any major city, will be forced to leave the country to do so. Rather than applying to renew their visas in Washington or New York, they will be forced to leave the country and re-apply at a US embassy or consulate abroad, delaying their application for between four weeks and six months.

And you just know that any applications that are granted might not mean a thing anyway because of our tendency to stop foreign journalists at our airports and harass or jail them just because we feel like it. The Mayberry Machiavellis strike again.

Acknowledgements

My social life must be picking up, I'm getting name-checks now. Thanks to Rich Watson and Cliff Meth for mentioning me and Robin in their most recent columns (about the MoCCA Art Fest and Dave Cockrum tribute, respectively). Note to Cliff, it's actually the "1" train. :) Presumably the link to Robin's Cockrum event pictures will be added to Cliff's column eventually.

Tall Trees

Happy first blogiversary to the folks at Crooked Timber!

Laugh While You Can, Monkey Boys!

Okay, am I the only one a little nervous about this name situation here? John Kerry, John Edwards - who's next, John Whorfin and John Bigbooty ("that's Big-boo-Tay!")? I think we're talking major 8th dimensional Red Lectroid invasion here. Maybe someone should investigate if Yoyodyne has been contributing to the Democratic Party...
[yeah, I'm in a slightly silly mood, so sue me all y'all trial lawyers...]

KenJen

Via Augie DeBlieck, there's a short blurb on SlashDot today about the 26-so-far-game winning streak of Jeopardy! contestant Ken Jennings (and his response to Alex Trebek upon running the Marvel Comics category, at which I smiled). All I keep thinking is, wow, so far almost 83 thousand bucks tithed to the Mormon Church...

Silly Site o' the Day

Don't remember where I got it, because I misplaced my Silly Site file yesterday, but Michael Moore Plays the Xylophone is a cute parody of the Weebls toon Patrick Moore Plays the Xylophone. Which Sir Patrick does, actually.

Today's Business Lesson

If you're going to cold-call my boss regarding your fine offshore outsourcing capabilities, you're going to find a secretary much more eager than usual to hang up on your ass. Politely, of course.

Silly Site o' the Day

Oh, great. Now that the Blogger/Blogspot problems seem to be settling down, and I'm finally 100% caught up in my blog reading, Bloglines has just redesigned - and I apparently pressed the wrong button trying to correct a misfiled clip and now all my saved Silly Sites are lost. This is extremely depressing, there were at least a dozen! E-mail me Silly Sites, people, I'm bereft! Meantime, the misfiled clip I had is the only Silly Site that remained: via Eszter at Crooked Timber, for the nostalgic among you, have some Rubik's Cube fun!

The Pause That Refreshes

As many regular blog readers might have figured out by now, both Blogger (my editing program) and Blogspot (the hosting site) have been acting up in the last few days. As I've said before, it's a minor annoyance at best since I don't pay a cent to blog. But just as a heads-up, you may have to hit your browser's page-refresh button like a half dozen times before this blog loads correctly for you. It's out of my hands - and with free blogging, that's exactly the way I prefer it.

Plurality

Dick Bell at the John Kerry blog posted, "A great big blog welcome to our new VP campaign couple, John and Elizabeth Edwards! The Edwards showed us what great campaigners they both were during the primaries."

So okay, since Edwards is now Kerry's official VP choice and I can't post comments to that blog since - for the second time - they haven't e-mailed me whatever confirmation I'm supposed to click on to be cleared, I'll get this off my chest here. Minor grammatical nitpick, I know, but it's something I've had to deal with since I married Robin.

The plural of the surname "Edwards" is "Edwardses." Just like the plural of "Riggs" is "Riggses." The easy way to remember this is to recall the expression "keeping up with the Joneses." No apostrophes to denote plurals - and when you need to use one to denote "something that belongs to the Democratic VP candidate," the proper usage is "John Edwards' record..." with the apostrophe after the s, because the s is part of the name.

Like I said, I know it's a minor nitpick, but let's at least try to get it right on the official level?

Silly Site o' the Day

The perfect birthday present for the little emperor who has everything? How about a copy of The Bushiad and The Idyossey? Via Cyndy at Mousemusings?

A Journalist's Temptation

Stuart Hughes has a lovely fantasy during a Bush/Blair news conference. And, apparently, the following day in the streets of Istanbul (an image that made me laugh out loud way too late in the evening).

This Year's Project

As many know, the Blogathon folks will be taking 2004 off, but they - and now Julia - have directed people to Project Blog, another 24-hour posting for charity event which will take place on July 24. Yes, coincidentally that's once again the Saturday ending my vacation week, so I should theoretically be well-rested. No, I won't be doing it this year, but so far 107 others will be blogging for lots of worthy causes. I've personally never heard of any of the bloggers, but what a great opportunity to check out new blogs - provided, of course, that I've caught up on all my regular blog reading... still 372 posts from Da Gals and 451 from Da Guys to go tonight...

Hasn't He Blogged Before?

Michael Moore's blog has just been added to the blogroll (I found out about it via Arthur Hlavaty). He's been doing his "Mike's Message" and "Latest News" items for a couple years now so he's no stranger to the format, but I guess he didn't technically consider those blog posts. I get the feeling this ain't gonna be a daily update either, and of course it's not syndicated so Bloglines won't tell me when there are new posts. Neither does it have a comments section, which is probably to be expected.

Silly Site o' the Day

Robin says, it's time for a little Animusic! I think the price of the DVD is a little dear, but these video clips make it awfully tempting. Reminds me a lot of the old Mind's Eye videotapes, and no wonder - same people!

Steal This Movie

I wonder if this report, via Eric at the Hamster, has anything to do with this decision, via Chris Albritton. Says Chris, "Fahrenheit 9/11 has hit Baghdad in the pirated DVD stalls that line the lobbies of hotels and the concrete barriers along the Green Zone. I'm curious as to what the reaction among the Iraqis might be to the film." Me too.

Common Sense

What's better than just having finished watching 1776 again? Reading this patriotic post from Digby right afterwards.

Declaring Out Loud

Via the Democratic blog Kicking Ass, here's the link to see lots of famous folks reading the Declaration of Independence out loud. (On the right side, under "Watch and Listen," click where it says "Declaration Reading.") I don't know what gave me more chills, seeing Graham Greene read "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions," or Mel Gibson read, "He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation." Narrated by Morgan Freeman, with music by John Williams, and co-produced by Norman Lear and Rob Reiner, the entire piece is very stirring.

Looking Up One's Own

Congrats to Barbara O'Brien on the publication of Blogging America, even though probably I'm not in it. :) Update: Uh, apparently I am. :) Thanks Barbara! Go buy the book, folks!

Where a Lee, Where a Lee, Nowhere a Lee a Lee...

My husband has just informed me that I'm independent of him today. :) This meme has been making the rounds; I like the version my parents sent me, which ended with something about how it's more important than ever this year for people to be reminded that true patriotism and dissent often go hand in hand. Tena at Eschaton recommends the LA Weekly piece "Give Us Back Our Damn Flag: The leftist case for patriotism" as appropriate reading for the day. And a name much in the news of late, Michael Moore, has some good musings about patriotism in the LA Times, reproed on his site. Lastly, there's also a good column in the Times today by Barbara Ehrenreich; since she's only a guest columnist through this month due to Thomas Friedman's leave, it doesn't look like they'll be seting up an archive page for her, but at least her bio's up there.

Once again, same as last year, no channel on my cable system has seen fit to show the movie 1776 today. In fact, I couldn't see mention of it anywhere in the TV Guide for the entire week, although I was corrected last year in that someone did wind up showing the non-letterboxed version around the holiday, so maybe I missed the small print somewhere. In any case, I'm going to celebrate the 4th by popping in the DVD of the movie and eating a few hot dogs.

Have a safe 4th, everyone, and keep soothing your pets during fireworks time, the noise can freak 'em out.

Silly Site o' the Day

As promised yesterday, via Scott at the Gamer's Nook, get ready for Icon's Story!

LC Blogaround

I'm home for the next three days while Robin finishes up BLOODHOUND #3 (it feels weird not to be driving about, but this is one of those holiday weekends where I prefer not to be on the roads anyway), so it's probably a good time to catch up on blog reading. Yes, I've fallen behind again, but that's to be expected considering the 350+ blogs to which I subscribe. :) As I start this entry I've just refreshed my Bloglines feed (and bear in mind the feed only works for RSS-enabled blogs, which are the only ones I get a chance to read any more) and, as of this moment, I need to catch up on 494 posts from the News+Views Gals, 746 posts from the News+Views Guys, and 418 posts from fellow members of the Liberal Coalition. So let's go to the latter and see what they're talking about:

Over at SoonerThought, Alex Greenwood has just celebrated his first blogiversary! Woo-hoo, way to go Alex, Jake, Greg et al! Alex also mentions the latest curmudgeonly tirade of Bill Cosby; did you know when Cosby was younger he had to walk 5 miles uphill to school - both ways? Hey, you kids, get off his lawn!

Amy at blogamy has a gorgeous picture of the almost-full orange moon from Thursday; much better than the pitiful ones we tried to take with my dinky digital camera!

Andante implicitly contrasts John Kerry's old divorce with Jack Ryan's newer one.

Bryant Gries passes along Independence Day greetings from Molly Ivins.

Charles2 notes, "The situation in Iraq almost seems like something out of a very bad A-Team episode," and I'd completely forgotten there was an A-Team chick, so I thank him for that nostalgic picture.

Chris Brown talks way too much about Green Lantern. I mean hey, I was one of the people who expressed outrage and condolences to Mart Nodell after the ComicFest '93 panel when DC originally announced their planned screwing around with Hal Jordan, and even I can't get into this essay. :)

Clonecone names his dream Kerry cabinet.

Over at Corrente, Lambert tempts us with cheese and wonders who died and made George Bush God?

Echidne poses a question about reincarnation. If I could come back to life after death, I would choose to be... someone who remembers what I've been through in this life so I can still seek out my soulmate and, with luck, know enough to avoid the mistakes I've made thus far in favor of-- a whole new set of mistakes! Either that or a dolphin. Echidne's also using SiteMeter banner ads as mantras; I thought that kind of thing can rot your brain. And speaking of brain rot, Echidne found the Beeb's video of Colin Powell's Village People number!

Scout at And Then... takes a look at rigged Coke cans. Glad I'm not a cola person!

Guy Andrew Hall at Rook's Rant agrees that blogs are driving mainstream conversation. I'm not sure seeing something on the blogosphere and then seeing it in the mainstream press means that blogs are taking any sort of general lead as much as that the mainstream press is, as it has been for awhile, behind the curve of what real people are talking about.

HL Victoria, the New World Blogger, laments her lack of free time to blog - tell me about it! - but comes back to pass along the story of the Buddhist jailed for three months for unknowingly videotaping an FBI building.

Jeff at Speedkill wonders how a Montanan rancher can possibly fall of a horse if he ain't drunk. Good chance he was, since this particular guy, a Republican Congresscritter, was also the idiot doing the Coneheads routine mocking traditional Kazakstani dress at an official delegation party! Get this: "Rehberg denies the allegations of drunkeness and said he never mocked the Kazakh people. He also said he's never watched an entire episode of Saturday Night Live, and isn't familiar with the television show's skits." Oh come on, not familiar with the Coneheads? Hasn't that kinda stuff pretty much seeped into the common pop-culture vernacular by now? Or is he disassociating himself from Beldar and family because... they're from France?

Jesse from the Gotham City 13 helpfully passes along some FBI tips for this holiday weekend.

Jude Campbell at Iddybud has written a lovely poem in tribute to Patrick McCaffney.

John McKay at archy compares Thomas Jefferson with John Ashcroft. Let the eagle soar!

Keith Kisser at the Invisible Library presents the Amazing Adventures of Politician Man! I love Mexican superhero culture, and agree with Keith that comics are very effective at selling political ideas. I'd love to get a hold of this book; guess I'll have to ask Jesus Antonio...

Maru Soze misses the orange kitten and her DSL. But before she took off she gave us some cool visuals like an altered billboard in Sacramento, and some intriguing gossip about Bremer's supposed girlfriend in Iraq.

Michael at Musing's Musings thinks the Bush folks are acting like crybabies, but I think it's not over until we take our ball and go home. He also discusses the ins and outs of heresy, which is kinda over my head.

Mike Stabile at Left is Right spreads the word about Red Shirt Fridays. Hey, I'm in as long as I don't have to sign up with the crew of the Enterprise...

Over at Bloggg, Moi! has more cute kittens (hey, never too many for me!) and has had enough of Home Depot.

Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof spent Canada Day in Stratford, Ontario - cool!

Natalie Davis warns us about the impending nomination of anti-choice fanatic J. Leon Holmes to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Wish the Clintons could do something about this...

Norbizness at Happy Furry Puppy Story Time sends greetings from Tiki Island, Texas.

N. Todd Pritsky over at Dohiyi Mir promises to ride his bike more through the picturesque Vermont countryside; wouldn't you?

Peter at Kick the Leftist looks into the depleted Iraq fund and exposes more GOP dirty tricks.

Rick's Cafe Americain reports on the finals of the Funniest Jewish Amateur Comic contest. So nu, where was my invitation? What am I, chopped liver? Gevalt, I miss those Borscht Belt days...

Rivka at Respectful of Otters listens to her friend Jennie analyze the recent Canadian elections.

Scott at The Gamer's Nook gets way too into a piece on Cheney's lies and delusions. I've been going around the house lately imitating the Burgess Meredith Penguin and trying not to move my lips as I say "weh weh weh, go fuck yerself Batman, weh weh weh..." Sorry, too much information? And look for another Silly Site swipe from Scott tomorrow!

Steve Bates quips that "'Freedom Over Texas' is a choice I'd make any day of the week..."

Steve Gilliard examines in detail the last century's history of the military draft in this country.

Trish Wilson's cat Lucky sure likes that cat tree. Meanwhile, Trish examines fathers' rights wingnut Stephen Baskerville.

Lastly, at Rubber Hose, upyernoz keeps on playing those word games and looks at three recent Supreme Court decisions.
Whew! Okay, my unread Gals list is now at 534 posts and the Guys list stands at 785, but at least the LC roll is done!

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Kim Davis at Alternative Hippopotamus, here's your chance to get a jump on things and write your own epitaph, thanks to the Random Obituary Generator of DOOM!.

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

Click the FCBD icon at the sidebar to find out more information about where you can get free comics today. In celebration, besides wishing Joey Manley a happy birthday, I'm posting a few pictures from last Thursday's benefit for Dave Cockrum at MoCCA. I just found out my posting limit on Buzznet is 10 pictures per day, so while Robin's busy uploading the whole file on iPhoto here are a few teasers:


Joe Rubinstein and his portrait of Dave


The event was co-hosted by Cliff Meth and Neal Adams, shown here signing tribute books and chatting



A couple of shots of the gallery

Okay, the entire folder of pictures has now been uploaded here as a slideshow. And here's my write-up from the Comicart mailing list:

Robin and I had a great time! We mostly hung out with listers Joe Rubinstein (whose portrait of Dave left me breathless!) and Mike Pascale & wife (brain not working, forgot her name, please forgive me Pascales!), but I also met Cliff Meth and Heritage's John Petty for the first time which was cool; alas, Cliff didn't have a chance to introduce me to Neal Adams, whom I've met but only in loud convention-type settings. Also saw Lawrence Klein (who mentioned that MoCCA had just received a very large grant from the city; great news!), Ken Gale, Jim Salicrup, Joey Cavalieri, and other friends whose names I'm blanking on because we stayed up late to watch the rest of the Yankees game after we got home. Probably the highlight of my evening was meeting Mike Netzer's daughter, who assured us that her dad's fine and back in Israel and hasn't had the time yet to update either his website or his Yahoo group. She liked my writing on the Yahoo group, and is also pulling for me to finally finish the Bible story script that her dad wants to draw and that Cliff wants to publish. Someday it will crawl its way out of my head.

Thanks again to MoCCA for another fabulous gallery showing, and to Robin for using this as an excuse to test out iPhoto!

Heidi on the Back Beat

Comics culture maven Heidi MacDonald has unveiled the new look for her beloved column The Beat - and it's in blog format! Very spiffy layout, pictures are top-notch, and of course the writing can't be be-- nah, too easy. :) Welcome to the blogosphere, Ace!

On Getting Out of the City

We did a little bit of underground travelling yesterday, and boy did I not miss the subway throngs. The only thing worse than a pedestrian who suddenly stops in the middle of a crowded street for no reason at all - which would have given us every right to bump into her and have it be her fault entirely except that our "City-sense" (yes, that is like "Spider-sense") let us swerve last-minute to bypass the brainless one - is two Chatty Cathies standing directly in front of the subway doors on the platform so exiting passengers can't get out. Now that I read this, I'm even happier I don't have to commute on subways any longer.

Silly Site o' the Day

I bookmarked this recommendation from Hutch at Monitor Duty awhile back, but haven't had a chance to view it till this morning. I hope Daniel Rocha (aka Lis Vender) got permission from "Weird" Al Yankovic to animate his "Angry White Boy Polka," which I found absolutely brilliant even though I didn't know a single song he was parodying (being, you know, old and all).

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Datsa snuggles up between my computer table and one of our printers:

Lots more pictures to come tomorrow; to celebrate Free Comics Day, I'll be posting shots from the Cockrum benefit we attended last night.

Travels with Grandma

She's not my actual grandmother - both Nanny (Dad's mother) and Baba (Mom's mother) have long since passed on - but she wants me to call her Grandma and I'm very happy to do so. She's my boss' mother-in-law, and being with her is a delight. She's from the old country and the old school, very much like my Dad, so she'll say something and I'll get this eerie yet oddly comforting déjà vu feeling. Today she picked me up at 11:30 and drove me up through Larchmont (ostensibly to show me where to do some banking for the family in a couple weeks when she's elsewhere) to Mamaroneck where my boss lives, right on the water, in a drop-dead gorgeous mansion. It was the first time I'd ever been to his home, and I felt like I was in one of those A&E shows about mansions where every room the camera takes you through is more impressive than the last.

Grandma and their live-in helper made me a ham sammich while Saddam was on the kitchen TV in the background (we both agreed he cleans up nice), and I ate at the kitchen table sorting through my boss' mail to take back anything work-related and gazing out on the backyard with their pool overlooking a cove and omigod it was all just too fancy for words. Then we drove back with Grandma saying "Do you want we can stop and go shopping there?" every few blocks or so as she pointed out supermarkets and strip malls, and me guiltily responding, "uh, I really should get back to work" even though it's starting to dawn on me that this is part of my work now. This is the "fun part" I was hoping for ever since I realized I was not only a secretary but an unpaid personal assistant.

We did a little fruit-and-veg shopping a few blocks away from the office before she drove me back, and she wouldn't let me pay for anything, and all in all it was 2 hours spent on a lovely drive on a pretty day instead of sitting in an office and you should see the giant red onions! I mean, you really should. Did I mention they're giant?

I've felt rather adrift this last week or so, even with having a car, because I really don't know the area well, and the trip up and down Boston Post Road helped fill in some more blanks and increase my comfort level a lot; there's a big difference between having to keep your eyes on the road as the driver and being able to look about as the passenger! I even found a convenient dry-cleaner in a strip mall near the office, so that's tomorrow's lunchtime trip. Plus, I like being around people who've lived full lives and accumulated experience and wisdom at which I can only begin to guess. I've always believed in the idea of honoring elders, and as I'm certainly not getting any younger that idea achieves more prominence all the time. I just found out that my father-in-law reads my blog every day, and between that bit of news and this day's sojourn I'm a very happy camper indeed. This morning's bus discomfort doesn't even bother me any more (besides, I get to take Metro-North into The City after work so I'm anticipating a smoother ride then!).

Forced Anonymity

From the Boston Phoenix, on the author of the new book Imperial Hubris:

But at issue here is not just the book’s content, but why Anonymous is anonymous. After all, as the Times and others have reported, his situation is nothing like that of Valerie Plame, a covert operative whose ability to work active overseas cases was undermined when someone in the White House blew her cover to journalist Robert Novak in an apparent payback for an inconvenient weapons-of-mass-destruction intelligence report by her husband, Joseph Wilson. Anonymous, on the other hand, is, by the CIA’s own admission, a Langley-bound analyst whose identity has never required secrecy.

A Phoenix investigation has discovered that Anonymous does not, in fact, want to be anonymous at all — and that his anonymity is neither enforced nor voluntarily assumed out of fear for his safety, but rather compelled by an arcane set of classified regulations that are arguably being abused in an attempt to spare the CIA possible political inconvenience. In the Phoenix’s view, continued deference by the press to a bogus and unwanted standard of secrecy essentially amounts to colluding with the CIA in muzzling a civil servant — a standard made more ridiculous by the ubiquity of Anonymous’s name in both intelligence and journalistic circles.

Just the latest version of up-is-down, I guess. You need to be anonymous to protect your life and the lives of others, the spiteful bastards will blow your cover. You want to tell folks who you are, the bullshit bureaucracy kicks in.

Silly Site o' the Day

White Rabbits, happy Canada Day, and congratulations to NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Italian space agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) et al on Cassini-Huygens reaching Saturnian orbit! I read Wanda's description of this time-traveler's site and, like her, was intrigued. Naturally I don't believe a word of it. :)