Don't want to go to a party? (Honest, I'm really not that upset about Saturday, I'm just using it as a springboard for the silly site...) Can't think of a good excuse? Have lots of disposable income? Then Alibi Network could be for you! Why does it not surprise me that a service like this actually exists? Via Cory at BoingBoing.

Okay, lesson learned. Next time I want to give a party, I'll go back to the way I did things before I had a blog and send out personal invitations via email instead of just making a repeated announcement here. I apologize to anyone just now finding out that my 49th birthday party was to be this coming Saturday, December 2. It has now been cancelled due to lack of response. (Not the birthday, just the party. I hope to still be turning 49 as scheduled.)

However, as Robin is fond of saying, everything happens for a reason. Due to some welcome extra work he's gotten from Marvel he hasn't been able to attend to as much housecleaning as we would have wanted done in prep for a full-blown affair, and I've been too worn out by Thanksgiving cooking and general exhaustion to properly plan in terms of shopping and so forth. And in any case, Leah is coming up on Saturday and we'll be trying out the new toy Rob got me for my birthday/our anniversary/the holidays, a GPS thingie for the car. I'm thinking of trying it out on the short trip over the GW Bridge to Mitsuwa Marketplace, as Leah says she now makes a terrific miso soup and I want her to teach me. Learning a new skill on one's birthday is always a good thing!

Meanwhile, if you're in the NYC area on December 2, here's a couple other events to attend:

• For my political bloggy friends, the Nineteenth Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair given by the Small Press Center has an afternoon event (from 2 to 3 PM) called "The Rise of the Progressive Blogosphere and the Future of American Politics" featuring Lindsay Beyerstein and Bill Scher which sounds interesting.

• And for my comic industry friends, at 7 PM there's a release party for World War 3 Illustrated's new issue, #37, at MoCCA.

In the end, it's not important that nobody local responded to my party invitation. What is important is that we all remember our time here on this earth is way too brief. I'm just glad I've made it to another year, especially considering my hospitalization so soon after my 48th birthday last year. I've lost too many friends in 2006 - first Bill-Dale Marcinko, then Brian Converse, then Hilda Terry, now Dave Cockrum - to take anyone for granted any more. It's more important than ever, while we're all still here and still vital, to maintain our in-person relationships with each other, to break out of our online-only cocoons and BE with each other. In this season of togetherness, that's one of the greatest gifts of all.

The concept of wanton violence as a heroic duty, especially for "instructive" purposes, has been with us a long time, and appears alive and well today -- on both sides of the violence. The rabid American right is now waging war on its mirror image but is incapable of recognizing it.

- David Neiwert, Behind the Mask

Sorry, data entry and catch-up reading (still two categories to go, News+Views Guys and Groups, always the ones that fill up the most quickly and thus get the quickest skimming in return) made me lose track of the fact that I hadn't blogged yet. Only four more days until my birthday party; please RSVP by the end of today if you want to attend so I can plan accordingly. Don't let this happen to you me!:



The animated wave generator (via Gerard) is part of ImageChef, a way cool site with lots of generator-thingies. Here's another:



Yeah, temps are supposed to rise to the mid-60's the next couple of days. Craziness! Naturally they're slated to fall again by - you got it - my birthday on Saturday...

Via David Malki, the genius behind Wondermark, it's the Channel Frederator Awards! I love awards for which I'm not even eligible, they depress me a lot less than ones where I don't get any votes. Speaking of which, I guess 49 is the new 16. When I turned 16 I invited pretty much everyone in my class to my Sweet 16 party, and only two people showed up. This year I decided to throw a party because my 49th birthday happens to fall on a Saturday - in fact this coming Saturday, December 2 - and so far I've only received one email response to my open invitation, from my dear blog-daughter in Seattle. If y'all are that busy, I think I'll just cancel and, I dunno, eat some worms or something. Please RSVP by tomorrow.

The elevator ceiling just fell on me.

I knew it was going to be a weird day when I was awoken by an work-related nightmare and realized that, even after a mostly lovely 4-day weekend, office stuff had managed to creep into my subconscious again. But things were looking up after my orthopedist x-rayed my right foot just to make sure there's nothing amiss in there (there isn't, but the metatarsal area still hurts) and sent me on my way with a clean bill of health, and even though all the side parking spots were taken I was able to get the space in back closest to the entrance and very convenient to zip out for my final PT session and orthotic fitting after work. Which can't end soon enough, as we currently have no inbound phone service (making it hard to leave messages for folks unless I give them my personal cell phone number as a contact, which I prefer not to do) and my back hurts from where the loosened elevator ceiling panel (since repaired very easily) hit it.

And all I could think was "thank goodness it didn't fall on one of our tenants."

And so I'm not in the best of moods, and I skim Deepak Chopra's fifth (and, I hope to God - pun intended - last) installment of The God Delusion? and, you know, I'm neither an expert spiritualist nor an expert atheist but even I can see what complete bullshit it is, and that makes me restless. You don't conclude that "the physical world can't deliver God, not because God doesn't exist, but because the solid, physical world is an illusion" and then state, with no apparent irony, "The damage that anti-God rhetoric does is to cloud reality." Make up your mind, Chopra - either reality exists amid solid empirical evidence or it doesn't and you're the one clouding things, not "anti-God rhetoric."

And I read Tintin Pantoja's lament after she's seen the NY Times article on the proposed DC "Minx" imprint and she says, "I'd still rather support publishers who have a history of supporting women as creators as well as consumers" and talking about how female storytellers turned shoujo manga from "a moribund genre into a demographic" and I'm like, I can't argue with that. For most of my 20's my only fiction reading consisted of fantasy books written by women. Nothing to do with not liking male writers or not thinking they could do fantasy well, but I was just worn out with storytelling done from primarily a male POV. And if the Minx line has only announced one female writer right from its inception and no female artists, it seems to me Karen and Shelly may be facing an uphill battle to attract female readers (like me) who specifically look for female storytellers. And what worries me is that this might lead to the line dying a'borning and people pointing at it and saying "see, we threw beaucoup bucks at this venture trying to attract young women, let's not bother any more because, let's face it, they obviously don't want to read comics" when maybe young women just don't want to read more primarily-male-created ones.

And lastly, I note Pissed-Off Patricia's essay comparing people who are fighting and dying in a war with their fellow citizens fighting and dying here at home over material possessions. Between that and various news stories about that Colorado homeowners association banning a peace sign Christmas wreath (where's the "war on Christmas" contingent when they could really do some good?), I think I'm hanging it up for the afternoon. At least the phone people are on their way now to reconnect the inbound stuff. Alas, my boss is also on his way. How many hours till I get to go home?

I'm sure there's something endearing about animated robots acting out scenes from movies I've never seen. Via Xeni at BoingBoing, here is the "royale with cheese" scene from Pulp Fiction, as "acted out" by robots.

I was so saddened when Robin told me. I'd thought Dave was doing so much better since moving to NC following his hospitalization almost three years ago. My deepest sympathies to Paty and all who loved and admired Dave. I felt privileged to have known him even as relatively fleetingly as I did. Remembrances from Cliff Meth (who worked tirelessly on the Uncanny Dave Cockrum Tribute book and auction and was kind enough to let Robin participate via inking the picture below, which Alan Davis pencilled) and from Mark Evanier. I'm sure there'll be many, many more.

Cliff informs me that "there are no details of services at this time. Dave asked to be cremated and his widow Paty is burdened with the news, so well wishers are asked not to call" and to email instead. Also, in lieu of flowers, Paty has requested that contributions be made to The Hero Initiative (formerly ACTOR), a cause/organization in which she and Dave believed very strongly.

Ah, all caught up, nothing like this feeling! Have to enjoy it whilst it lasts, I'm sure post-vacation posts will swamp me again by tomorrow. Here's my weekly Liberal Coalition blogaround...

• Update: Ken Quinnell has a new home for T. Rex's Guide to Life; please make a note of it.

• Bora alerts us all about the latest arguments between, as Ed Brayton puts it, "two very different groups involved in fighting against the ID public relations campaign to distort science education. The distinction between the two groups is that one is fighting to prevent ID creationism from weakening science education while the other is fighting, at least in their minds, to eliminate all religious belief of any kind, even those perspectives that have no quarrel with evolution specifically or science in general, from society." I suspect creationists didn't intend this outcome, but it couldn't have worked out better for them. Either their nonscientific ideas get accepted in schools in place of actual science, to the detriment of society in general, or they sit around and laugh as scientists pick each other apart over the necessity of attacking the fanatics' ideas and with how much zeal, and indeed whether science and religion are compatible at all or whether religion is beside the point of (and a different discipline altogether than) science. It's a version of what's happened in larger measure with the "War on Christmas" and other tropes of the radical religious reactionaries, and it needs to stop but I'll be damned - okay, darned - if I can figure out how. To me, the best response is probably not to play the game, which means in essence, despite the fact that I adore Pharyngula to death, I agree with Ed Brayton's initial post in that I think there's a difference between being an atheist and being actively against all religion, and logic would probably work better against radical reactionaries than passion because fanatics are always going to have a leg up in the passion category. And speaking of passion, Bora reminds us of the difference between liberals with actual issues and conservatives who care more about power than governing.

• Chris is preparing a disc collection of (and soliciting from readers) songs that go with each of the 27 amendments to the US Constitution. Wow, good luck with that one, Lefty!

• Jeff expounds upon why Dinesh D'Souza is wrong, wrong, wrong about religion-incited violence.

• John cries fowl at the yearly Forbes list of the world's richest fictional characters. You know how rich these fictional characters are? Exactly as rich as their writers need them to be, at any given time.

• Maru has discovered some great sign generators at redkid's site! Hey, that's my schtick! Okay, it's Gerard's schtick...

• Michael wonders when he became the family baker. I'm still not brave enough to bake.

• Mustang Bobby is pretty certain the Christian blogger spammers have the wrong guy.

• Scott passes along a cool game called Linerider. Robin would probably do well with it.

• Steve G does his holiday food shopping in manageable bits, like me. I do everything having to do with food prep, cooking and clean-up in manageable bits, it's the only way to go. Steve also makes a dire prediction for 2007.

Bonus non-LC posts:

• Pam Spaulding has moved Pam's House blend here; please update your bookmarks accordingly.

• Amanda and Jill on the "creative class." I definitely agree with Jill that, in our present society, wanting to live the creative life is a luxury reserved pretty much for the well-off and, as PJ Myers puts it, educated class. Robin's lucky enough to be able to make a living from freelance art, but he's also college-educated and has a college-educated wife who brings in half the household income (and we can't afford to live in most NYC-area bohemias) so that helps a lot.

• David Byrne has a long and fascinating diatribe concerning his thoughts on religion and geopolitics. Key paragraph:

To me, this is why the current (tiny) wave of atheism — the recent books by Dawkins, Dennett and Harris, for example — are also in denial. They deny that this propensity for people to believe is innate. Yes, they admit that religion offers many comforts and assurances, security and community — very attractive and seductive — but they stop short at admitting that we are genetically predisposed to believe, that it is in our very nature, a part of what it means to be human. Maybe an illogical part, but that all our innate evolved characteristics are not practical forever (context changes, the world changes) or even rational, from some points of view (does the peacock’s tail have to be THAT big? Isn’t all that just a wee bit of a wasteful allocation of resources?)

Good reading.

• And speaking of things religious, as we're in a heightened season of awareness and all that, Tom Hilton posts his Holiday Greetings Etiquette Guide at No More Mister Nice Blog. Pretty common-sense stuff that it's amazing needs to be spelled out in this day and age, but then I think that of most etiquette.

Six days to go until my 49th birthday party, and nobody has emailed me to respond to my invitation yet. (You're all invited! See party announcement here!) I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing. Maybe more games will entice you? How about the Bernie Arcade (via Lindsay, who's otherwise occupied next Saturday so I'm afraid the party won't be enjoying any of her amazing desserts)?

Okay, ya got me, now that I've caught up on blog reading again I'm just trying to postpone any actual productive activity in favor of sitting on my tushie and typing:

• Peter David hits the nail on the head about Fox's proposed satirical news show that "tips to the right." Sayeth the Writer of Stuff, "A liberal mindset understands the notion that anything is fair game, but a conservative insists on lockstep adherence to its leaders and unwavering, unquestioning support." Not only that but, as we've seen time and again, mocking people and institutions in power is what satire is all about; comedy that mocks societal have-nots is just mean bullying and isn't very funny at all (that last is, of course, strictly my opinion). Speaking of which, John Rogers uses Michael Richards' racist tirade as a springboard to hold forth on why stand-up is tricky, including some joke-structure-parsing near and dear to my comedy-wonk heart.

• Cory unintentionally hits on one reason I'm in favor of copyright protection: "by prohibiting new writers from retelling others' characters stories, the characters are limited to the perspective their writers imbued them with." Heaven forfend that an author's fictional characters be limited to, you know, the way the author wanted them to be! You want characters to change, you ask permission of the copyright holder (or his/her estate) to play with them, or you get a job in comics or writing tie-in books and play in a larger sandbox with the sandbox's owner's permission. Failing that, make up your own darn characters. Sometimes I despair of some folks' overblown sense of entitlement, wanting to profit off others' creativity. I truly believe we're all creative enough to produce great wonders of our own, and tech-savvy enough to give credit where due via links instead of coveting hits so much that we publicly pout when copyright holders tell us we can't put their videos on our sites.

• Yay, Jill! That is all.

• Is Meg right about this, does Macy's SF store holiday window display actually feature real kitties?

• Former Pen-Elayne guest blogger Diane "Desi" Sweet outs herself. Congrats on the gigs, Desi!

• Ms. Dewey is seriously creeping out eRobin.

• Kathy presents a great Thanksgiving tale of the honoring of Mohegan Chief Mahomet Weyonomon. Don't think I've ever met current Mohegan chief Bruce Bozsum, but members of my ex's family are (or at least were) high muckamucks in that tribe. Hey Steve, does that name sound familiar? Other harvest festival posts include Sheila Lennon posting a 2005 video of Arlo Guthrie performing Alice's Restaurant (clocking in at a very Nixonian 18½ minutes) and a holiday appearance by Professor Wagstaff courtesy of Gary Sassaman.

• In the old-friends-and-foes department: Cliff Meth is not enamored of the Lubavitchers in northwest NJ (by the way: these folks, like many religious fanatics, are hardcore nutso - Hank Magitz reports that there's been a nasty spate of Jew-on-Jew violence in those parts as well); Stuart Hughes is not enamored of his old mate Heather Mills; and Thomas Dolby's iPod doesn't like his new CD. On the other hand, Lance Mannion extols the writing of blogger (and actor) Quinn Cummings (and good blogging in general), Ken Jennings sings the praises of Bob Harris and expounds upon their very different Jeopardy! experiences, Kris Dresen remembers an old friend and inspiration on the anniversary of his passing, and Frank Paynter shares memories of various covert actions starting with JFK's assassination. The fact that George H.W. Bush was in Dallas that day and has managed (through his CIA tenure, vice presidency during the Reagan devolution, presidency continuing that disastrous slide, and son's presidency coming close to destroying our country thanks to more extreme versions of those same horrific policies) to dominate the political scene in one way or another ever since is, I'm sure, pure coincidence.

• Obligatory "Digby does it again" post - Digby on modern journalists and their culture of laziness (and viciousness).

• Two good ones among many from Jenn, who's been on fire this week: discussing how a male comic strip writer is not quite getting how to "write the other" when putting out a comic called "Single Asian Female;" and bemoaning the preponderance of texting cell phones in college classrooms and how their advent (and that of blogs, etc.) is impacting students' attention span. Wow, do I feel old now. I would have loved a laptop back when I was going to college in the BPC (Before Personal Computers) era, for the purpose of taking notes on what the teachers were saying, as even back then I typed faster than I wrote. But why bother going to a place of learning if you're not going to, you know, learn? It's not like higher education in this country is free, presumably these kids or their parents are paying big bucks for them to have the privilege of sitting in those classrooms and actually absorbing information. Or is this just another example of an overblown sense of entitlement, "I paid big bucks so I can do what I darn well please"? Gah.

Lastly, via Robin, the NY Times reports that DC editors Karen Berger and Shelly Bond are embarking on a new imprint, Minx, designed to market to teenage girls and young women. The article only mentions two creators by name, but one of them (the writer) is female. I hope they can also grab some very appropriate female artists like Becky Cloonan and Christine Norrie for these books. Oh, and Valerie responds to the ":Goodbye to Comics" reactions, and posts a video that one of my comments inspired.

How silly of me! I snapped these pictures yesterday and plumb forgot to upload them!





Yes, they actually know how to cuddle near one another and not fight, particularly when the heat cycles off during the day (one of the drawbacks of apartment living is not being able to control one's own thermostat).

I know I'm remiss in doing my post-Thanksgiving linkfest, but hey, at least Datsa let us sleep until about 7:15 this morning, round four of washing-up is now done and drying in the dish rack (alas, I underestimated it will take five rounds to clean up everything used on Thanksgiving), I've more or less caught up with where my comics reading was before the new DC comp box came (I'm back to the "S" titles), and I think I finally feel rested enough to venture outside with our accumulated trash then drive the short distance to the auto shop to get my driver's side windshield wiper replaced. Maybe I'll even have enough energy left over to do more than one trash run and reconcile my checkbook/organize my finances. Another exciting weekend here at the Riggs Residence! Just one more week until my birthday and the Pen-Elayne Party - no RSVPs yet but I'm sure I'll hear from y'all any day now! Oddly, my Balinese Sign, the Coconut, doesn't mention personal insecurity, but does say that I "cannot keep quiet, tendency to exaggerate, needs compliments, sometimes a bit superficial, arrogant, likes disputes and sticks to his/her own point of view." Okay, maybe about 70% of that is true, but can't one say that about any astrological reading? The Balinese astrological sign website is via Gerard at the Generator Blog.

Yesterday's harvest festival kicked off a month of holidays for me and Robin. A week from tomorrow, December 2nd, is my 49th birthday (and you're all invited! see invite here and please start RSVPing!), followed by our eighth wedding anniversary on the 4th, then Robin's 45th birthday on the 6th, then the 15th begins Chanukah (which I mostly commemorate by lighting candles on each of the eight evenings and trying not to burn the curtains and surrounding area), I have the day off to celebrate Christmas with Robin on the 25th, unfortunately I don't have the day off for Boxing Day which follows, but I'm off again on January 1 for New Year's Day. During that time we balance and "light" our fiber optic tree atop the platform overlooking our front window, give each other the same sorts of pressies we exchange the rest of the year, listen to Christmas songs and watch seasonal TV movies and animated shows (there, that's all three of my annual holiday links done), send out paper cards and the yearly Riggs Residence Roundup to friends and family, open up the fold-out table in the living room and put treats on it that we don't see the rest of the year, and generally start winding down for the cold months ahead. As Rob's Christian family is an ocean away and my Jewish one doesn't do the Christmas thing, our holiday season is what we've chosen to make it, and I'm sure we're not the only ones starting traditions-for-two. Here's hoping your season is festive and peaceful.

Happy Buy Nothing Day! Another broken night, what with being up since 5 AM or so not being able to breathe properly whilst horizontal, and I'm probably going to crash again soon but I wanted to get through blog reading and probably link-posting before that. So no shopping, even though it's bright and sunny out and I really need that replacement driver's side windshield wiper. The auto shop should be open tomorrow anyway. And I have at least two more rounds of washing-up to get through today. As it's also Steven Merchant's birthday, I thought I'd link to the free Podfather podcasts that he, Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington are doing for the seasonal holidays - the first was done for Hallowe'en, the second came out yesterday even though Brits don't celebrate Thanksgiving, and of course the third will debut on Christmas. Takes forever to download but, of course, well worth it.

Datsa interrupted our night a couple times, never a good thing when I've taken an acetaminophen PM, so after Robin went back to sleep this morning I semi-watched the parade for the three hours it took to wake myself up enough to cook. Like a fool, I actually left the sound on, flipping back and forth between NBC and CBS. Yep, they're still sweetening the applause, it's still as fakey-fakey as ever. They even cut off pre-taped musical numbers. Meredith Viera looked like she wanted someone to put her out of her misery. And dang, it looked cold in Manhattan this morning, glad I didn't have to go out!

By noon, with most of my mis en place, I was ready to begin the prep on the turkey breast. It had only been thawing since Tuesday, so I figured it would take a little longer than usual to cook, which would give me time for all of the sides and a little rest if I timed it right. This year we tried an orange marmalade and ginger glaze, which burned-- excuse me, over-caramelized the outside, but most glazes tend to do that anyway, particularly if you have to leave it cook for over three hours.

I had a fairly ambitious menu this year, as I've gotten better at my cooking hobby. Six sides, four of which took fairly extensive prep (lots of veggie peeling), plus soup and dessert. Most of it turned out pretty good. Nothing was a disaster, but - well, more on that anon. We used a probe thermometer on the meat for the first time, which saved us a lot of checking up, but since the bird wasn't ready until half past four we had to reheat some of the side dishes whilst it was resting - again, all planned for in advance. And I finally got off my feet for the last hour or so, which I'd also been hoping to do (and needed, as my foot's still not 100%). Robin saw the chart I'd made of what would be done in what order, and remarked that it reminded him of a vacation itinerary, it was so detailed! But I would have been lost without it.

As I say, everything finally came together about 4:30 or so (which was pretty much exactly when the phone rang, and I knew it'd be Mom and Dad, so I apologize to my parents for letting the machine take it and I'll call you guys tomorrow), and Rob arranged it all on the table as I went to get my camera. I think the four and a half hours of kitchen magic paid off; what do you think?



Click to enlarge. Front row, left to right: clam chowder; cranberry sauce with mandarin oranges and pecans; da boid; da gravy; corn on da cob; Brussels sprouts with chestnuts. Back row, left to right: Apple shallot saute (my variation on this); panko stuffing with mushrooms, chestnuts and kielbasa; Kathy Flake's sweet potatoes with pecan topping; and Three Flavor Mash (potatoes, turnips and squash). That's got pretty much all the "traditional" Thanksgiving bases covered, as far as I was concerned.



And for drinks, apple cider for me and eggnog for Robin. Kitties eagerly, eagerly I tell you, await their turkey scraps.



Robin brought the turkey back into the kitchen to carve, then we loaded up our plates and zapped them for a minute or so in the microwave so they'd actually be warm again.



Here's Robin's plate. He forgot to put the cranberry sauce on it, but it's pretty colorful anyway. The only thing that didn't really work was the apple shallot saute. I don't know if I should have stuck with onions, or used different apples, or just forgotten about it - probably the latter. It tasted edible but just didn't go with the rest of the meal. And dang Kathy, that sweet potato dish was more like dessert! It worked even though I forgot to add the teaspoon of vanilla.



The actual planned dessert was apple pie a la mode. I'd say this dinner was probably about a 95% success. I took my time putting all the leftovers into storage containers, and washing up (which will wait for tomorrow) will probably have to be done in at least three rounds as I used up quite a few pots and pans, but it was well worth it.

I'm thankful that I'm able to afford to buy this food, and that I do not know hunger.

I'm thankful for my wonderful and supportive husband, and for all my family and friends.

I'm thankful for a job that includes health insurance, which has taken care of a few unexpected needs this past year, including that hospital stay and new glasses. (Also, apparently half the cost of my orthotics will be covered, so that's a lot I won't need to pay out of pocket this time around!)

I'm thankful for the opportunities I've had to get a better job, and confident that 2007 will be the year I finally break away. I came very close this autumn, and will resume my search after the holidays.

I'm thankful that enough voting citizens of the country where I was born and in which I've lived my whole life seem to have come to their senses and elected leaders who promise to be saner and smarter than the ones currently in power.

I'm thankful for kitties. I mean, kitties, y'know?

I'm thankful for this amazing tool we have that allows strangers to become friends, spreads news and truth at lightning speed, and brings the people of the world closer together. And I'm thankful there are people out there who still like to read my writing.

Linky leftovers tomorrow!

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! One of my favorite holidays, as a foodie. Will post the menu, photos, etc. as the meal takes shape. Also plan to post a lot of links and other things for which I'm grateful this year. But you know, some people can never finish complaining. Like the Finnish complainers of the Helsinki Complaint Choir, as shown on Neil Gaiman's blog. Bet they're not invited to the Oland harvest festival, they'd be a real downer...

I'm about as ready for Thanksgiving as I'm going to get. Depending on when my boss lets us out today, and then whenever I get out of my last physical therapy session (today is Orthotic Fitting Day, at last - I've had my present orthotics for over eight years so baby needs a new pair and all that, and this place can get them for about $150 less than I paid in '98 which is great because I don't think my insurance covers it), I may still do a bit of fun last-minute shopping at the local "Garden Gourmet" place this afternoon before sushing. It's pretty neat, I've watched it evolve from a pretty decent fruit-and-veg store into a gourmet specialty shop and then they added on more space and more items (whole sections of cheese and meat, at terrific prices) and now it's like shopping at a European supermarket or something. Maybe I should make a random shopping list (via Gerard at the Generator Blog)...

As promised for the past few days, here's a baker's dozen of photos of neighborhood trees taken over the last few weeks, on October 29th, November 4th, 5th and mostly 11th. My sense was that this foliage season wasn't nearly as spectacular as 2005, but we really had a nice burst of fabulous color for a few days towards the middle of this month, before wind and rain took care of most of the leaves. I miss it already.























Today on the drive home from work I saw the first residential Christmas decorations. I'm glad house-dwellers have more restraint than corporations. I expect to see lots more decorations going up this coming weekend, and with any luck I'll be able to get a few choice photos of those soon.

I hope Valerie (see post below) likes this one, as it's dedicated to her. Via lots of folks but I first saw it on BoingBoing thanks to Cory, it's the Manifestoon.

Valerie D'Orazio, aka The Video Store Girl, has wiped her Occasional Superheroine archives and repurposed the blog anew with a serialized book-in-the-works currently entitled Goodbye To Comics. It's an intensely personal story about Val's experiences in the comics industry and her life filtered through the medium, and I love the parallels between the two that she weaves throughout her narrative. I am ashamed to say I've never chuckled so much at the reality of torn genitalia whilst wincing simultaneously at the idea of fictionalized rape. As Robin says, "she writes in a quirky, entertaining way about some really dark stuff."

Here's the story in chapter order (unfortunately Val's site feed isn't working at the moment so the only way I've been able to read it is backwards on her site, bottom to top):
Chapter #0 - "What The Hell Happened To Your Blog?" (intro)
Chapter #1 - The Broken Vagina Monologues Part I
(Interlude - Edit to the Chapter Order [loved the Wonka reference])
Chapter #2 - The Broken Vagina Monologues Part II
Chapter #3 - The Broken Vagina Monologues Part 3
Chapter #4 - Batman and Wonder Woman
Chapter #5 - Lesbian = Woman Who Reads Comics? Part One
Chapter #6 - Lesbian = Woman Who Reads Comics? Part Two
Chapter #7 - “We Need A Rape” Part One
Chapter #8 - "We Need A Rape" Part Two
Interlude (on speaking truth to power)
Judith Regan And Why I Don't Apologize For "Sleeping With The Enemy"
Chapter #9 - The "Jonah"
Why I Write
Well Yeah, Sometimes Abuse DOES Create The Superheroine
Chapter #10 - "Lost Girl's First Comics Job"
Chapter #11 - Willy Wonka And The Comics Factory
Chapter #12 - How Comics Almost Busted A Cap In My Ass
Epilogue
Postscript

Val finishes up with the following positive note:

As for the comic industry, there are a lot of good people, men and women, in it. I've grown up with comics people my entire life, and I'm taking care of one who recently fell ill now. I just want the industry to move in the right direction, get rid of the lingering sexism & racism, stop the sexual violence towards female characters, get more diversity (gender, racial, sexual orientation) into the characters, and make some of what I wrote in my blog things that no longer have relevance.

There is a big crop of talented young women and people of color out there who want to break into comics. Open the doors, give them an even and respectful playing field, and say a warm "hello" to the next gen of this industry.

Doubtless this series will be much talked about in the comics and feminist blogosphere, so it's probably a good idea to get caught up fairly quickly. Took me most of the morning, but it was well worthwhile, and I highly recommend it.

Wow, both Heidi and Graeme linked to my review of Thursday's event and said some really nice things to say; thanks y'all! Sometimes it's hard not being categorizable as specifically a comics blogger or a political blogger or a food blogger or whatever (what can I say?, I contain multitudes), I feel like I'm sort of shunted aside from all quarters, but I assure you I'm as enthusiastic about comics now as I've ever been, even though I no longer have the free time nor disposable income to go to lots of conventions or even comics-related events in Manhattan. Anyway, as I'm sure I'll be getting a few more hits than usual from comic'y friends today, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind any fans of my husband Robin's inking that he's inked half of Marvel's Iron Man #14 over Patrick Zircher and his new regular gig is on DC's Manhunter starting with issue #26.

Also, I have been asked to write a regular column for a comics and pop culture website that's planning to debut sometime before the end of this year, alongside other columnists whose names would both cause jaws to drop and people to wonder "how the hell did Elayne get on that list?" This would be my first paid writing gig since the Utne Reader gave me a token $20 to repro something I'd written for INSIDE JOKE around 20 years ago (even though I've had four comics stories published, they've all been for non-profit groups), which is to say my first paid writing gig ever, and I'm fairly well psyched for this assignment with at least a half dozen column ideas already in the can. More as things develop!

The Women Comic Artists review post took a lot longer to pull together yesterday than I'd originally planned. Added to that various apartment chores and a very erratic sleep cycle that had me crashing for most of the afternoon, I didn't get any further on my foliage photos than organizing them. I hope to post them later this evening. Meanwhile, here's a Pac-Man knockoff called Foley's Follies, wherein the disgraced Congressman gobbles up pages (via Bob Geiger at HuffPo). Figured I'd run it before he's justifiably forgotten.

As previously mentioned, I was very excited about attending this event, as I hadn't seen my "sparring partner" Trina (who's SF-based) since May of '05, and it had probably been longer since I'd last hung with locals like Joan Hilty (who happens to be Robin's current editor) and her wife Nancy Goldstein (aka Nancy in NYC). Working outside Manhattan has really put a crimp in the ol' social life, so I needed stuff like this - an event I couldn't very well miss, in a venue that couldn't be more convenient in terms of commuting as the express bus to and from Museum Mile has its terminus about a block away from our apartment - to remind myself that folks in my generation (as well as those generations before and after) are still active and interesting and fighting the good fight, so maybe in a way I am as well. It's always a good thing to feel somewhat vital as one is approaching one's 49th birthday.

Fortunately my boss never showed up on Thursday so I was able to leave a bit early (clutching both hands on the wheel in the afternoon wind), get home and change, and catch the bus on the half-hour we'd planned, just as the wind died down and it started raining a bit. Even though it was like riding with a student driver (honestly, 35 mph on a relatively traffic-free Major Deegan Expressway?) we made it there with some time to spare, and the student driver even dropped us off at the exact corner of The Jewish Museum so there was minimal walking involved, which my right foot greatly appreciated.



It was barely drizzling by the time we got to 92nd Street, and I had to snap this photo of one of the Jewish Museum's display windows, as my mom collects menorahs and I figured she'd get a kick out of it.



The presentation and discussion panel was supposed to be part of the Jewish Museum's and Newark Museum's ongoing Masters of American Comics exhibit, which as we later learned contains not a single work by women. Hey, after all, you can't call women "masters," can you, and it's way more trouble to change an exhibit name to non-gender-specific than to exclude women!

So, where are all the great women bloggers cartoonists?



Represented by this distinguished panel:



From left to right: Sabrina Jones (whom I hadn't seen since the She Drew Comics! event at MoCCA to which we'd brought a visiting Cat), Trina Robbins (ditto), Joan Hilty, Leela Corman and moderator Laura Hoptman, the senior Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

After a brief welcome by someone from the Jewish Museum whose name escapes me because I was still in photo mode and wasn't yet taking notes, but who thanked the Weissman family for endowing the program in honor of their parents, Hoptman introduced the panelists, who came to the podium individually to make brief presentations before the actual discussion portion of the evening.

"Show a guy 'cute' and he wheels out irony as self-protection."

Trina led off with a terrific historical overview, as her particular area of expertise is women cartoonists at the beginning of the 20th century. It's amazing how popular women like Rose O'Neill, Grace Drayton and Nell Brinkley were in their day but are practically forgotten now, even though their creations like the Campbell Kids and the Kewpies have long outlived them and are around to this day in the form of valuable collectibles.



That's one of Trina's slides showing O'Neill's Kewpie characters. I'd highly recommend picking up Trina's Century of Women Cartoonists, which has far more illustrations than she was able to show in her slides. She has such a fun way of making all this "herstory" come alive, I abandoned my camera for the rest of the day and started note-taking. She discussed how so many of these women were heavily involved in politics as well through the suffragette movement, how the newspapers followed their every move, and the four coded elements that "women's art" was seen to have which made it easier for men to trivialize and gradually marginalize it (it was "cute" or "pretty" or contained romance or fashion). Trina pointed out a woman who happened to be sitting next to me in the front row, Golden Age artist Lily Renee (Wilhelms) Phillips, for whom she had been searching for a number of years and whose daughter had gotten in touch with Trina and brought them together in time for last year's She Drew Comics! exhibition. Her portion of the evening ended with a mention of Hilda Terry, at which I immediately teared up and got admonished to "stop crying, you'll get me started then I'll never be able to get through this," where "this" was Trina reading aloud Terry's famous letter to the National Cartoonist Society which succeeded in breaking the NCS' gender barrier. It was a fitting segue into the current era and the next speaker.

"Less Derivative of Other Comics Artists"

Sabrina Jones gave props to a, and showed slides of the work of, a dizzying array of contemporary women cartoonists, such as Fly, Katherine Arnoldi, Susan Wilmarth (all of whom were in the audience), Nicole Schulman, Isabella Bannerman and Jennifer Camper, many of whom have worked on educational and activist comics like Prisoners of a Hard Life, Juicy Mother, World War 3 Illustrated, The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom, Wobblies! , and Prisoners of the War on Drugs. Many of these feature distinctly and uniquely female views, and Sabrina further observed that she believes contemporary women cartoonists tend to be less derivative of other comic artists than do men, that they draw (pun intended) more from life than from the mainstream comics tradition, which I think could well be a side effect of how those comics have by and large excluded women in the last few decades. After all, if the clubhouse and old boys' network keeps giving off the "no girls allowed" signal, why seek to duplicate its structure if one can just more easily learn one's craft through life drawing, museum study, etc.?

"There's been a severe deficit of Nell Brinkley in my life"

Particularly when one's perspective is so personal, such as Leela Corman's. Leela, who I met for the first time this evening and who reminded me a little of a young Bebe Newirth, had a little trouble getting started - as a Mac artist, she found her PC's PowerPoint a bit needlessly intimidating. But once she got going she positively enthralled audience members with a preview of a book she's working on called Unterzachen, about twin sisters in the turn-of-the-last-century Lower East Side, which she later told me would probably be out sometime in '08. She mentioned her minicomic beginnings, including stocking her wares at SohoZat, a name I hadn't heard since I did the same thing with INSIDE JOKE so naturally I was momentarily overcome by a wave of nostalgia. For her part, Leela was fascinated by the rich and largely-unknown "herstory" overview given by Trina, hence the quote above.

"Half the battle is first showing up"

Joan Hilty was the final speaker, excited about being on the same bill as Trina for the first time, as Trina was the teacher for the first drawing class Joan ever took. She had looked frantically for the cartoon she'd produced in that class, which Trina remembered and said she had a copy of, only not on her at the moment. Joan straddles two worlds, in a way, working her day job as an editor at one of the Big Two comic book companies and writing and drawing Bitter Girl on her own time. She had a great perspective on what she called the three different aspects of modern comics - mainstream books, alternatives and strips. Joan sees a definite line between comic strips and sequential art, and believes that, when done well, comics can hold to the highest standards of both fine art and commercial art, it needn't be one or the other. She discussed the gains made in strip artist contracts thanks to efforts by Cathy Guisewite and Lynn Johnston (information on which I can't even find online, talk about unsung heroism!), inroads made by Lynda Barry in the alternative world and Karen Berger in mainstream comics, and announced that DC Universe editorial now has four women editors, the highest number ever. She's very optimistic about comics' future, including marketing to women who love manga and telenovelas, observing "Now everyone wants to get a piece of the Buffy audience." Joan also placed great emphasis on the role of women as mentors, opining that comics mentoring seems to be a very unconscious and natural process for men but women need to push a bit harder to network and educate more easily.

The last part of the presentation consisted of the discussion panel, with Hoptman starting off by asking whether there is such a thing as a "female art style" or "drawing like a guy." Most the panelists didn't think so but I've had recurring disagreements with female artists about this so I think the jury's still out. Leela made a good point about the cultural history of Asian art leading to a separation of art styles by gender, but I don't know that this translates into the American art form. Other topics touched on in the too-brief discussion portion were bizarre breasts, how male artistic preferences tend to be more confrontational, whether the panelists have a specific audience gender in mind when they work, and where the mainstream comics are for girls. That last question was posed by audience member Barbara Slate, who used to write Barbie for Marvel when Trina drew it (and fellow audience member Hildy Mesnick edited it). I didn't get a chance to mention Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, one of my favorite aimed-at-girls Marvel comics, but I was pretty content to soak up the atmosphere. The discussion ended with Leela Corman pleading with the museum world for this to be among the last "Women Comic Artists" panels - if curators actually took a little effort to gender-integrate their exhibitions, there wouldn't, and shouldn't, be a need for continued marginalization of women in this day and age.

After the panel, Robin and I got reacquainted with Trina's significant other, artist Steve Leialoha, currently inking Fables for Vertigo. Steve and Trina were also in town to attend this past weekend's National (alas for Robin's workload and my exhaustion, this was not in our plans this year). I also got to speak briefly with Lily Renee, who mentioned she's going to be a guest at San Diego next year (her first convention appearance ever!), expressed a fair amount of trepidation about the online world, and reminded me that anyone can live a creative life no matter what they did. Here's a photo I snapped of Lily Renee, Barbara, Hildy and Steve.



Perhaps due to my proximity to Lily Renee or the fact that I seemed to know a lot of comics folk, I was approached by Ellen Weissman herself (one of the folks who endowed the panel), and had to confess to her that, despite my pretty shiny shirt, I wasn't anyone of significance, I just wrote about comics, was "married to it" and had a little weblog kinda thingie. But it was cool to be temporarily mistaken for someone important! The last picture I took was of the aforementioned Fly, whose art Sabrina had described as "managing to be whimsical and hardcore at the same time."



I think Fly's smile captures that. I learned, much to my horror, that she'd recently been the victim of an SUV accident, but has made a full recovery and now looks as radiant as ever.

We did get caught in a downpour, on the way to the 3 Guys restaurant/diner on Madison and 96th, where the chatting among panelists and friends meandered from Borat (someone, I think Leela, observed that "The Romanians are suing" would be a great tagline for just about any discussion), the differences between Argentinian and Brazilian and Spanish artists (that was among Joan, Robin and Steve, and qualified as "shop talk" for sure!), whether Sabrina had heard from Peter Kuper in Mexico, and of course Trina's fashion sense. By the time we left for our return bus home it had stopped raining and was after 10 PM, and we made it home in time for me to spend a few minutes on Firesign chat with Dave Ossman, then to Daily Show/Colbert and bed. Not sure I've recovered yet, but part of me doesn't want to, it was a near-perfect evening, very informative and energizing, and like Joan I see only good things ahead for women in comics!

The cat's still meowing even after being fed. I'm just glad Robin has been able to get some sleep during these wee hours when I've been up, he has another killer day of work ahead of him with two deadlines looming. Me, I can just crash later, so I may as well do my weekly Liberal Coalition blogaround in the meantime, with a few non-LC posts of note added for good measure:

• Echidne suggests a drinking game based on dissing important women by referring to them by their first names in situations where, were these newsmakers men, they would be referred to by surname or title. I still find myself doing that way too much when making phone calls at work. Echidne also has more good news about chocolate (I love the bit about those tested having dropped out of another study because they couldn't give up the stuff) which could be very germane to my situation because I'd much rather ingest chocolate than the daily blood-thinning medication I'm told I'll have to take for the rest of my life.

• While another co-blogger from First Draft is actually the LC member, I liked Athenae's post about Battlestar Galactica enough to link to it. Money line: "What you are willing to do in war is not and never was about your enemies."

• John notices an engineering student who's unclear on the concept of gender bias.

• Moi finds an online dog who will obey your typed commands. This is a pretty clever idea, I wish I had the tech smarts to do something similar with my cat. (I can use my camera to make the movies, and upload them to YouTube, but I wouldn't be able to tie each trick to a corresponding user command.)

• Mustang Bobby has some good Florida-based blogging this week, including musings on Mel Martinez and Little Havana's reaction to the latest rumor mills about Castro.

• Norbizness has some wonderful family pictures of Thanksgivings past.

• For NTodd, it's a brand new year and he has the photos to prove it.

• Scott passes along the sad news that Lynn Johnston will end For Better or For Worse next year. She's had a great run on this comic strip! He also recommends a holiday toy that'll poke your eye out, kid.

• Steve Bates recommends a new widget called LibraryThing. Paging my ex!

• Steve Gilliard has started a food blog, hooray! He also has a good follow-up to Digby's "Clinton Rules" post that I mentioned on Friday, where he proposes that the liberal blogosphere guarantees the Republican smear machine won't be able to get away with the same tactics they used in the late '90s. I dunno, we're still only bloggers, I think our real-life influence is a lot more limited than many A-list bloggers believe it is.

• Trish found a quiz just for Marylanders.

• Lastly, upyernoz celebrates a peculiar anniversary, looks forward to Global Orgasm Day (I don't, I dread the cleanup), and discusses the proposed Dutch burqa ban. I guess he's not one of those bloggers who went on the junket to Amsterdam earlier this year; I'm not holding my breath for one of those bought-and-paid-for bloggers to raise this particular topic.

And a couple non-LC links before reading through the rest of the group blogs and/or catching some more Z's:

• David Rees gets his disgust on over a recurring Billy Crystal character brought out once again for last night's Comic Relief. Dang, I forgot that was even on. I'd never considered this "can you dig it? I knew that you could" guy "earnest minstrelsy," but then I'd never really thought about it. I'd be curious to see what Kai and Gary and Mary Beth and other supporters of my posts against blogging-blackface think of this essay.

• Scaramouche reproes a concession letter regarding the loss of a MN state senate race by a presumed evangelical Christian to someone she knew damn well is Hindu. My jaw dropped.

• It's almost an axiom to note that Digby does it again, isn't it? But he does, this time with an interesting analysis of how the meanness of teenage girl hierarchies may be playing out politically and an observation on how "the base" is getting more than David Kuo thinks they are, in the form of incompetent evangelicals being appointed to influential government posts.

• There is no question in my mind that Kathryn Cramer's dad is very cool indeed. And I can see what attracted her to science fiction so much!

• Kathy Flake points out that it's amazing what can be accomplished when men actually listen to women and girls instead of assuming what they're thinking. More about that, I'm sure, during my review of last Thursday evening's event.

And with that, as well as with the sun now rising everywhere but in our be-curtained bedroom, I'm going to attempt to go back to sleep.

Both Scott and PZ Myers mentioned my link to Graeme's mention of the Galactus is Coming Stan Lee/Jack Chick mashup, and as they're higher on the B-list than me (okay, PZ's an A-lister as far as I'm concerned) I'm expecting a few more hits than usual. Thanks to a weird sleep schedule (to bed at around 10:30 PM, up again since 3:30 AM tending to the cat, who just got fed at 6) today's visitors shouldn't be as disappointed as yesterday's. There's my weekly Liberal Coalition Top 10 (more like a Top 20) coming, plus two posts I'd planned on for yesterday (a comprehensive review of the Women Comic Artists panel at the Jewish Museum as well as a Final Fall Foliage Foto series) but postponed as I had to take care of some errands in Manhattan, including a haircut at the barber school in the East Village (I prefer never to pay more for a haircut than I would for a car wash, and preferably they should both take about the same amount of time; I was not disappointed) and then I was pretty exhausted when I got home because, even though my ankle has improved tremendously there's this muscle on the side of my right foot which I keep pulling and re-injuring through foolish activities such as walking, so I spent the rest of the day watching food shows and mentally planning our Thanksgiving menu (less than a half-dozen items left to buy now) and making French toast with the challah my boss' wife gave me yesterday (it came out great) and reading comics as our latest comp box arrived this past week and I don't want to fall too far behind again and why hasn't anyone responded yet to my party invitation with my birthday now less than two weeks away? Yes, insomnia not only engenders paranoia (I'm sure folks just want to get through the four-day Thanksgiving weekend before they make plans for the weekend after that, but I may break down and do the extra work of address gathering and sending out email invites after all) but run-on sentences. Oh well, at least it also invites blog catch-up. I enjoy digging myself out of various self-imposed holes. Speaking of which, via Terry, where would a theoretical hole you dug through the center of the earth, starting at your home base, wind up? For me, it's off the coast of Perth.

White City seems like it was tailor-made for someone like Colleen - as she says, the mash-up video is a "what if Frank Miller made Lord of the Rings"...

So we had a real blowing wind last weekend, Sunday I think it was, and since I was sitting here I got good shots of both Amy and Datsa at the computer room window:





Datsa's trying to get at a leaf blown (and stuck) against the screen. I think the tree outside that window is all but bare now. Proper foliage photos coming over the weekend, if I have the time.

The owner of the Trump tower being erected next to our office building didn't like the color of part of the facade, so the workers are currently repainting it. I thought the pinkish tone was quite nice, but they didn't make it for me.

• Okay, all that stuff I was saying about how I have no interest in watching Heroes? If the news Keith passed on is genuine, I may have to rethink my stance.

• I am also doing a happy dance at Heidi's news that Nexus will be returning.

• Susie rules! But I'm sure you knew that.

• Congrats to "Radical" Russ Belville, America's next great progressive talk star!

• Aaaaaaa! Galactus is coming, warns Graeme, in a very sick Stan Lee-Jack Chick mashup!

• What a clever idea (via BoingBoing), if you have the bucks and the free time - buying souvenirs of places around the world, going to those places, holding the souvenir at the exact angle in front of the real thing to duplicate its relative size, then photographing it all for an upcoming book. I want Michael Hughes' disposable income!

• Same as it ever was: Norman Soloman at HuffPo notes the NY Times is still pushing for continued war in Iraq, and Digby observes that, sadly, the Clinton Rules are back in effect among the mainstream media punditry. I was wondering why the majority leader horserace and James Carville's opinion of today's birthday boy Howard Dean were reported as being of any major interest outside the Beltway, and after reading Digby it all clicked, as the last time I asked "why are you media folks making mountains of out molehills-- no, anthills?" was the late '90s when, as we all recall, the Republican-led smear-Democrats'-power-into-ineffectiveness machine was last in full effect.

• I wish I had enough hours in the day to talk about how much I love Amanda and Melissa. They both observe things and write about them with the same energy I used to have in my INSIDE JOKE days, back before I let my soul be crushed by life circumstances about which everyone wishes I'd just stop whining. Check these out from Amandapanda: the skewering of a true believer who pities the poor atheists, why wearing pink ribbons is not enough, and why making street signs gender-inclusive does too matter (the last is piggybacking off one of Melissa's). (More about why the "little things" matter in my Women Comics Panel report tomorrow.) Oh yeah, and another visit with the Strawfeminist who's purported to say things that real feminists have never actually said. inda like every time Bush goes, "Some people say..." and you're there thinking, "Really? Name one!" For her part, Melissa has done her first podcast and reminisces about everything and the kitchen sink.

• Okay, I confess, I'm not as upset as others are, including The Truffle, over Bush père's remarks concerning the internet. Like I said to Her Truffliciousness, I actually agree with Poppy. I think the 'net has really upped the rudeness of discourse and given nutbars (particularly on the right) far more attention than they would have received in erstwhile times, when one actually had to have a bit of money and dedication to self-publish one's rantings. And "our side" isn't immune to coarse and inflammatory discussion either, particularly when mocking "their side." Sometimes I feel like reading through portions of my blogroll is like being a spectator at a giant pissing contest, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Sorry to leave you with that image, but it's time to catch up on more blog-reading that I didn't get to do last night when I was out. The workers have now finished one large square of the facade, and I'm looking out on a dullish tan instead of a cheerful peachy-pink. So it goes.

We had a terrific time last night - I was able to leave work just that bit early and beat the rain home, and the only time we got deluged was the walk from the museum to the diner which wasn't bad at all. Great event, terrific company, I took photos and notes, and hope to have a full review tomorrow. Appropriate to the evening, via Hanan Levin, here's a bilingual comic strip generator.

In honor of our going to Museum Row this evening to attend the Women Comic Artists panel discussion (looking forward to seeing Trina, Joan, etc., not looking forward to the predicted horrid weather), I present, via Gerard at the Generator Blog, the Warholizer!



Yes, it's that easy.

Lots of bloggers agree with Toys for Tots' decision to reject donated talking-Jesus dolls for distribution to needy children in the upcoming holiday season. Well, I don't, and I'll tell you why.

The tradition of gift-giving for Christmas is, well, a Christian thing. Yes, Jewish kids get presents and gelt during Chanukah, which happens to fall in the same season, but that's nowhere near on the level of Christian children on Christmas. And Christmas is a Jesus thing (okay, a bebejesus thing) so, as tacky and non-fun-related some might consider it, a Jesus doll is as appropriate to the occasion as, say, an easy-zip dreidel necktie is to Chanukah. A doll, in fact, can be a lot more fun than clothing, because you can (more easily) play pretend with it, and pretend doesn't have to include making the doll talk, and it doesn't have to include anything educational. And T for T is implicitly claiming they couldn't find some alternatives in Santa's big bag for kids who shouldn't be celebrating Christmas anyway?

I'm sorry, I can understand getting annoyed or frustrated at complete strangers coming up to you, automatically assuming you share their religion, and wishing you a Merry Christmas instead of the more inclusive Happy Holidays (and of course, their corporate equivalents, although that's a bit different because you're approaching them rather than the other way around, and the holidays aren't supposed to be about consumerism anyway, they're supposed to be about FOOD). But a charity rejecting donated religious toys to be given to kids on a religious holiday? There's such a thing as taking the possibility of offense too far.

Happy birthday, Heidi! (The fortune in the cookie I just opened has the transliteration of the Chinese word for birthday as Sheng-dan-jie, so there you are.) No seriously folks, think about it. If comics does not equal superheroes, then comic fans per se shoudn't be embracing a superhero show as a comic-book show unless they really suspect that comics do equal superheroes, in which case they have no cause for complaint when non-comics fans make that presumption. (And good lord no, I don't hate TV; anyone who watches the Food Network, the Travel Channel, the Science Channel, Create and Fox Soccer as much as I do cannot hate TV. And the fact that I have no interest in this particular program is entirely beside my point.)

• Speaking of the birthday girl Heidi MacDonald joins Variety in mourning the passing of VHS. Robin's in the process of converting of all our stuff on tape (both video and audio) to digital media, after which we hope to donate our cassettes to needy families still living in the 20th century. However, you'll still have to pry our vinyl LPs from my cold dead hands...

• It's supposed to get up to around 62° F today here in southern Westchester County, NY, and Claire reports that it's been snowing in Australia. So that's where our mid-November weather has gone. Also, via CE Petro, northern Japan, Russia, Hawaii and Alaska are bracing for possible tsunamis.

• So, that Freeper fake-anthrax terrorist? Also loony when it comes to science fiction. Teresa breaks it all down brilliantly.

• Kathy Flake spots some sexism as yet another article about blogging comes out that completely ignores over half the blogging population. Hey Roxanne, has it been three months already?

• Et tu, Johns Hopkins? (Via Bint and Barry.) Et tu, Maru?

• Atrios inadvertently supplies a very good reason why blog ads are a bad idea. I don't think "people fail to understand" his point, I just think people disagree with it. Running any ad is an implied endorsement - maybe not of a specific product, but of the idea of selling out. Blog ads are an acknowledgement that you can be bought and paid for. Don't fall for the newest version of this age-old scheme, folks (aka ReviewMe) - to these people, any publicity is good publicity, and any hobby-bloggers reviewing anything primarily for money that they wouldn't ordinarily consume (i.e., "get paid to review products and services...increase your traffic!") are buying into that.

• Bill Connolly's hanging it up. *snif* I'm actually surprised more liberal bloggers aren't given it a rest after this election season, remembering how exhausting '04 was for so many.

• Kai examines the PC propaganda phenomenon, using bigger words than I'd be able to muster.

• Okay, I'm not necessarily a "Michael Moore liberal," whatever that means (after all, there's a thin line between Moore and his camera crew and, say, Borat and his), but I smiled at his Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives.

• Like Karen, I also like the idea of the newly-elected Democrats cranking out popular legislation on a weekly schedule for Bush to either sign off on and accomplish positive change or veto and appear obstructionist.

• Justin's had an earful of Quiverfull. What century is this, that some folks on both the right and the left are still suggesting mandatory multiple childbirths? Betcha it's mostly guys doing the suggesting.

• I gotta say, even the phrasing of Fox News' internal memos creeps me out.

Now on to read through all the accumulated posts in the News+VIews Guys and Group Blogs sections. And another thing, I still like Studio 60 even when some of the writing makes me wince, so there.

Okay, I'm cheating a bit, but it's a friend so I'm allowed to do that. David Ossman from The Firesign Theatre has written a new book, The Ronald Reagan Murder Case: A George Tirebiter Mystery. (If that sounds a little Colbert-ish to you young'uns, it's approximately the same concept, i.e., Tirebiter is to Ossman, more or less, as Tek Jansen is to Colbert. Only, of course, David's alter ego came first, by a few decades.) David's also going to show up on tomorrow' night's Firesign chat. Hope to see many of you there! (Please note, I may be a bit late to the proceedings as I'm planning on attending the Women Comic Artists panel discussion at the Jewish Museum on Museum Row, and the express buses back to Riverdale run infrequently at that hour.)

If you're a comic book reader and you've ever complained that the mainstream entertainment media doesn't take comics seriously and assumes all comics equal superheroes when comics is a format and not a genre, etc. etc., then you -- as a comic book reader -- probably shouldn't be all-out embracing a TV show in the superhero genre that has nothing to do with comics at all.

I'm just saying. I've never watched a single episode of the TV show Heroes and I'm probably not going to. I like the superhero genre, as well as other genres, but this just didn't look like my cuppa, and there just aren't enough hours in the day anyway. I feel absolutely no obligation as a comic book reader to embrace this non-comic-book-related show as my own.

Is it the weather turning colder, or me getting older? I can't seem to wake up easily any more, particularly when Datsa gets us up at 6 AM and I drift off back to a fitful sleep for another hour or so. Now I can't seem to find the nose in front of my face, much less Waldo (via Eszter) or what element in each of these pictures gradually changes (via Cory at BoingBoing)...

• Holy moly, Josh Marshall's been blogging for six years now! Happy blogiversary, Josh!

• Holy moly again and isn't this sad, Liz at Blondesense reports that Australian scientists have created a "wearable instrument shirt" that lets folks play "real" air guitar, tambourine or percussion.

• Holy moly the third, via Oliver Willis it turns out that idiot perpetuating the newest version of the anthrax scare (this time on celebs as well as politicians) turns out to a a Freeper (i.e., a frequent poster at the radical reactionary site Free Republic). Not surprising, and one more example of the real threat to our freedoms. Remember, the people actually harming the country are always the first to accuse their opponents of doing so because that's how they think.

• Speaking of projection and so on, Lance has a great companion piece to the one Glenn wrote yesterday about Beltway insiders. The only thing with which I disagree is when he talks about how these insiders hold liberal bloggers in more contempt than anyone else, as I just don't think we're as important as we keep saying we are...

• "He pointed a skinny finger at me and hollered, 'And I bet you look like your mom!'" Oh man, I'm so sorry Lindsay won't be able to come to my birthday party, she's such a scream!

• Tild explains to PZ Myers what the deal was with Steve Bell's cartoon; I didn't know it was "after Tenniel" either, having never seen the original. For his part, PZ reminds us that Cephalopodmas is coming up.

• Bless you, Hugo! You hated Borat for pretty much the same reason I have no desire to see it. Pranking people may be aesthetically genius or whatnot, but it's still mean and sadistic.

• Zuzu's back! (Does happy dance.)

• Via Jessica, so nice to see second-wave feminism reduced to bras and aprons. Also at Feministing, Ann observes that all the anchors for election coverage were possessed of y-chromosomes, so any mentions of a Year of the Woman were of course from an outsider's POV.

There, all caught up again for now...

Ginger Mayerson emails to ask that I (and others) publicize the winner of the 2006 Women Comics Podcasters grant. I didn't even know women were podcasting about comics, much less that there were grants for such a thing. Anyway, the winner is Jenni Moody of the Phantom Power Comics Podcast, which I guess I'll now put on my podcast list on Bloglines even though I don't even listen to podcasts (I have trouble reading and listening at the same time). It's a good job I elected not to purchase the last couple seasons of favorite podcast, Ricky Gervais & friends, as I don't think I'm through the free first season yet. Still, Jenni's win has inspired me to create a comic strip in her honor. This comics generator (which, alas, has way too many ads) is via Gerard, natch.

On Saturday, December 2, 2006, I plan to party like I've just turned 49. And you're all invited! At this point plans have yet to solidify totally, but I'm thinking along the following lines so far:

• Even though it's a Saturday, I'd like to hold the party during the daytime so folks can return from Bronkers to their homes before it's an ungodly hour. Say, a 1 PM start time.

• This and subsequent blog announcements constitute the invitations; I don't plan on sending out any additional ones via email. But I would like to receive RSVPs via email so I can send you directions and such, as well as get an approximate count of attendees. I'm setting the deadline for RSVP'ing as Wednesday, November 29 to give us enough time to plan. As I'm a secretary, there will doubtless be nametags/handle tags.

• I hope to see friends from the comics industry, the Firesign chatters, and regular Pen-Elayne blog readers. Hey, maybe I'll even be surprised by folks from other fandoms in which I've participated in the past... Uncle Floyd, sf fandom, who knows? 'S what I do, bring together folks from all these little intersecting circles.

• There ought to be plenty of parking within a couple blocks of our house, if not within the U-shaped driveway enclave itself, but we're also very accessible from lots of different public transit choices (from both NYC and Westchester). Public transit is strongly encouraged!

• The current Riggs Residence isn't as massive as our last apartment, and we have very few chairs, so be prepared to sit upon our comfy carpet or bed or circulate standing.

• Menu not planned yet, probably typical party food like cheese and crackers. I haven't exercised my entertaining muscles since before 9/11 but I'm sure it'll come back to me. (I've already started planning my Thanksgiving-for-two menu for the previous week.) Presents not necessary, but any type of food or beverage you'd care to bring is fine.

• The Riggs Residence is a non-cigarette-smoking home. Any legal tobacco products should be smoked outdoors; there's plenty of room (our "stoop" consists of a dozen steps) and it's a nice quiet area. Oh, speaking of steps, we live on the top floor so you'll have to deal with a dozen steps outside then a further dozen inside.

• Please be aware we have two strictly-indoor cats, who have free reign of the apartment. Although it's possible they'll run and hide at the first sight of a stranger, and of course the place will be given a good vacuuming, their presence remains. If you're allergic, please take your allergy medicine beforehand or consider alternate plans.

Anyway, that's all I can think of so far, but please stay tuned to this blog for further announcements. Hope to see you all on the 2nd for my 49th!

I've now installed the Performancing add-on to my Firefox browser both at home and at work, making it a heck of a lot easier to compose most posts (complete with HTML coding) before opening my Blogger edit window, thus enabling me to save anything link-rich if Blogger suddenly gets a bit bloggered. Highly recommended. I won't do it with photo-rich stuff (which I can still write in Blogger and save it in Performancing before posting, as Blogger will have already uploaded the photos) and I've already tried but failed to post directly from Performancing without going through the Blogger edit window, but opening a new tab isn't really a big deal for it, it was losing posts that bothered me. Anyway, my weekly Liberal Coalition blogaround posts are a must for this method, as the Performancing window appears on the bottom half of my screen (with a "hide" option) and I can see Bloglines simultaneously on the top half, so it's pretty darn convenient. Let's take a look:

• A number of LC'ers celebrated blogiversaries this past week, including Andante, Echidne and Mustang Bobby. Election time seems to have precipitated a flurry of new blogs in the past few years.

• Guy from Rook's Rant has been having trouble posting. For my part, I didn't even know Guy was still blogging, as he's apparently a member of the Liberal Coalition (he's using the LC blog for his posting at present) but doesn't have my blog or many other LC blogs on his blogroll, which listing is one of the two "requirements" for being an LC member (the other being occasional blogarounds). Maybe once his server problems are fixed he can update said blogroll?

• Bora links to some exquisite paper cutouts and reviews a Ken Miller lecture.

• Bryant, for one, welcomes our Daily Show overlords. Y'all saw the Rolling Stone interview (edited version online), right?

• Chris has opened nominations for the Second Annual Brownies Award. If his comments section worked for me, I'd ask him if he could make the comic book-related ones a bit less "guy"-centric and a bit more gynocentric, as right now the wording seems to discourage any votes for female creators.

• Speaking of the uphill battle against sexism, Echidne notes the speed at which the Washington Post greeted the first female Speaker of the House by discussing her wardrobe.

• Tena at First Draft calls upon the Schadenfreude Fairy.

• Jeff gets a kick out of conspiracy theories.

• Moi passes along a gorgeous photo of the Orion nebula.

• A couple days ago I was looking for a good map of how the '06 Congressional election makes the country look now. NTodd found a nice one.

• Steve G celebrates the possible end of the "Southern strategy" road to power (okay, the essay's from today rather than this past week but I like it because it's all-original-content), takes Mayor Bloomberg to task, and reminds black conservatives of the shame they've brought on others. Oh, and he doesn't seem to like Greg Palast very much.

Just a couple non-LC links then I'm done here:

• Natasha has a terrific Natasha's terrific "happy post-election weekend" blog review of most of the stuff I've enjoyed these past few days.

• And Glenn Greenwald has a nice love letter to Russ Feingold. While I can't be bothered to care about an election that's two years away when we've just been through one - I mean, can't we give it a rest for, you know, at least a couple months? The money quote:

The Beltway pundit class and the premises which generate conventional Washington wisdom are corrupt to their core and always wrong. And this Feingold announcement illustrates a major reason why that it so. They operate from a set of completely unexamined, empty premises that reflect their own character and belief system, but nobody else's. They have no core convictions and no passion and think that those attributes are the marks of sober, responsible people.

We've seen this projection time and again from the people who've been in power these last half dozen years - they always accuse their opponents of being something that their own behavior embodies, because they believe everyone else out there thinks as warped and sleazily as they do (so naturally, if their actions are treasonous the Democrats must be the traitors, if they think fear-and-smear the Democrats are the ones politicizing 9-11, etc. etc.).

Now that I'm caught up on blogs again, it's once more time to tackle the comics box - a few indies, a few DC Universe books (I go through those alphabetically and I'm now up to "S") and the rest Vertigo and Wildstorm. Should be doable in a couple hours at most, then perhaps I'll crack open Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Yes, I've known who dies and who kills him for some time now, but when one decides one will wait for the UK children's paperback edition of each book, one can't help but come across spoilers from everyone else who reads the US hardcovers as soon as they're published...

Okay, I admit it, I don't really get this "I am in ur [blank] [doing something to] ur [blank]" meme even after looking it up. It's videogame player kewl-kid leetspeak designed for and by folks at least one generation after me. But I'm loving the uses to which it's been put lately:

I am in ur dictionaries verbing ur nouns

I'm in ur macaronis warming my feets

I'm in ur House impeaching ur doodz

Im in ur fridge eatin ur foodz

Lots more here.

Blame BoingBoing, which has just updated its collection again...

...is to work against war.

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Veterans Against the Iraq War

Vietnam Veterans Against the War

Military Families Against the War

Just because the Democrats winning back the House and Senate may have begun the march back toward a semblance of sanity in this country, we shouldn't forget it's still a long, hard slog, particularly when it comes to racial issues.

Rick at Bent Corner informs us that a certain big-box store is still "selling t-shirts with the Nazi SS 'Death's Head' logo on them," even after their PR lackey assured them it would stop. As he writes, they "should have concentrated on simply removing the shirts from their stores. They could have worried about contacting bloggers after their stores were free of Nazi clothing." Pam reports that the blackface parade continues, this time at Texas A&M University. NTodd notes it goes on as well at Whitman College.

And some white liberal bloggers are still insisting that when they post racist imagery it isn't incendiary?

Gerard calls this a Bilateral Thinking Puzzle Generator, but I think it just generates random beginning and ending lines to two "thinking puzzles" that don't really go together. I never really liked these types of puzzles, except in that scene in Desk Set where Hepburn's character guesses the answer to one of Tracy's character's questions, "Were Harry and Grace goldfish?" Other than that, meh.

Perpendicular kitties!



As the weather turns chillier I'm sure they'll actually deign to cuddle together some more...

And it hasn't been a bad week at that! Not only are a lot of American citizens (and probably many people in the rest of the world) breathing a sigh of relief at the apparent restoration of checks and balances to our could-be-great democracy, but my right foot appears to be getting better (although it still aches after Theraband exercises), the weather has been lovely and balmy these past couple of days, and my writing gig for a soon-to-be-rolled-out site may be morphing into a writing and editing gig, which extra income (and résumé credit) will be quite welcome while I continut to try and extricate myself from my current day job. Oh, and I've decided that, since my 49th birthday is going to be on a Saturday this year, I'm going to give a party, something I haven't done in ages. So mark the date - Saturday, December 2, party in Bronkers! Details to follow, but my preliminary thought is to make it an afternoon thing so everyone can get home before it gets all that late. Should be room for parking within a couple blocks of our place, if not within the U-shaped driveway enclave itself. Anyway, speaking of birthdays, I'm just about caught up on blog reading before the weekend (and naturally I've just been given enough work to take me through the rest of the afternoon, and my boss is on his way and so's the IT guy), so in honor of Neil Gaiman's birthday I present at least one link I think he'll like:

• That would be from David talking about goings-on in Robin's old hometown of Lewes, near where Neil's originally from as well. (Which is kinda cool when you think about it, as David's from Melbourne and I read his article in the US and it's about a place across the ocean which I love to visit...) I really hope Greene King's scheme to wipe out Harveys fails miserably; the brewery survived the floods of a few years back, it ought to survive this rapaciousness as well.

• Lance comments on the Hope/Crosby-type dynamic inherent in the Mac/PC ads.

• Susie corresponds with an LA Times journalist.

• Lastly, Melissa has a good long post examining the current state of the college fraternity system - sadly, same as it ever was.

• Speaking of which, hey, this is not David Byrne's beautiful vote! However, it is his beautiful House (and Senate).

And with that, it's time to move this from Performancing to the blog edit window and carry on with my Friday assignments...

Via Melissa, whose sense of humor seems to align with my own:



Pass it on!

Our office's off-site IT consultant is coming in today to switch us from our T1 to DSL, so I expect internet interruptions aplenty and therefore want to at least do the Silly Site before I go to work. Via pretty much everyone in the blogosphere, Jesse Hamm imagines Dennis the Menace Meets Fight Club.

So first CNN snips the portion of Larry King Live where Bill Maher outs (and, as Maher said, he's not the first to do so) a barely-closeted Ken Mehlman. And when I say "snip" I mean the whole kit and kaboodle, from editing out the video to censoring the show's official transcript to sending John Aravosis a cease-and-desist when he puts the video snippet up on YouTube. (John has directed folks to the Huffington Post, where you can still see it.) Now John reports that Mehlman is about to step down as chairman of the Republican National Committee, passing along this quote from CNN: "He's been on the gerbil wheel, as one of his close friends put it..." Now, you know, considering all the bad jokes about gays and gerbils, perhaps this was an unfortunate choice of animal, particularly as the expression is usually "hamster wheel," but there you go. As, apparently, does Mehlman.

And the Dems take the Senate.

This is the best election map I can find so far, but it hasn't updated the last few states which are outlined in blue and ought to be colored in. Anyone have a better map? (Update: Here's one from the NY Times, via Avedon.)

I watched the last part of Allen's concession speech live via WaPo, and thought he was far more gracious in defeat than he'd ever been, well, in most of his life, going by his well-documented past activities.

You know, it's kind of pathetic when one is watching the Daily Show and they're mocking the disproportionate attention CNN paid to A-list bloggers on Tuesday night and one sits there going, "Look, that's Pam, and Christie from FDL, and Jeralyn, and Atrios!" Especially when one has never met the bloggers in question. And when one basically agrees with Jon Stewart's premise. Someday other liberal bloggers will have to tell me how they keep their arms limber enough to continuously pat themselves on the back like many (not necessarily the bloggers named above) have been doing these last couple days. Then I'll tell them how jealousy tastes. (Bitter.) It's always dangerous, and a little bit sad, when people start falling for their own publicity and losing sight of the bigger picture. For those folks for whom "excuse me, the liberal blogosphere's Great White Hope Ned Lamont lost, so just maybe this Democratic victory doesn't have as much to do with 'us' as you're trumpeting," might I instead offer a glass of dehydrated water? (Via Kathy in NJ.) I swear it's half-full, not half-empty.

And that was the exact point at which Robin and I decided to stop watching the Food Network's Sugar Showdown challenge program for the evening, as we knew nothing could top that quote. Like, ever.

John at AmericaBlog is all over the further good news for the forces of sanity: it appears the Democrats have won back the Senate as well as the House, and that Donald Rumsfeld is resigning. Of course, there's still Joementum to contend with. By which, of course, I mean the tendency of Republicans to try to divert attention away from anything good having to do with Democrats (like last night's wins) and steer momentum back towards themselves and their friends (whom they will continue to screw even if they're Democrats In Name Only like Lieberman).

So the anti-heroes won instead of the villains. Still doesn't make it an inspirational story. As the Englishman in New York observed, and I paraphrase, the slightly less extreme right wing capitalists trumped the raving loony extreme right wing capitalists. Small steps in the right correct direction, perhaps, but much remains. For one, I need to get rid of a couple politically-oriented videos that I chose not to run earlier. Via NTodd, it's "Creature Comforts (Talking Politicians)", although it really doesn't look that Nick Park-ish to me; and via Dave Johnson, it's Red Guy / Blue Guy.

I'm not going to congratulate anyone for voting, any more than I'd give kudos for sending in a jury eligibility questionnaire (I did both today, by the way). It's like patting someone on the back for basically doing their job. We don't have an overwhelming number of jobs we need to perform as citizens, so this is all kind of the least we can do, unless we're talking about people who can't take voting for granted (still far too many in this country), in which case bravo to those citizens on their continued uphill battle for full enfranchisement.

No real excitement at my local polling place. A steady stream of people but not stifling, and there was nobody in the queue ahead of me at all for my election district, so I went right in, did the deed, and we were on our way to sushi in the space of about two minutes. The only surprise was that nowhere on the ballot was there any indication of the offices for which the candidates were running. Their names and parties were listed, but as far as I could see there was nothing that said "Senator" or "Judge" or whatever. Weird. Anyone else in NYC notice this, or was this just on my voting machine?

Not terribly interested in following the horse-race aspect of this, so I'll probably read more comics than blogs this evening. But at least I've, you know, done my job. No "attagirl"s necessary, it was fairly literally the least I could do.

It's logoriffic! Which is the real logo? Via Mark at BoingBoing. As Robin says, it shows how unimportant all their little differences are, despite all the big bucks people get paid to design them.

Bleary, bleary, bleary. Insomnia last night (probably all the residual excitement over my newest favorite toy, the stir-fry pan I zipped out to Target and bought yesterday in which I cooked both lunch and dinner) but three of my boss' family members are due in today so I'll need to be on my toes. At least I made my physical therapy appointment for after work instead of 8 AM, which means I got a decent parking spot this morning. I know I should probably link to something political but I'll save that for tomorrow (this robocall/fake flyer Republicheat tactic still has me pissed) and instead point to this Flickr slide show of illistgrated internet acronyms via BoingBoing.

This is important. National Republicans are orchestrating machine-dialed phone calls implying they're really from local Democrats, calling so frequently that people hang up when they just hear the Democrat's name and the constant annoyance is turning them off against voting for the Democrat. John at AmericaBlog is documenting the proof, and terms this "the Republican October Surprise, launched in November." Josh Marshall has been investigating as well. And it's not just phone calls - Liz Losh reports that Republicans are sending out fake flyers as well, claiming Democrats oppose measures they actually support and vice-versa.

Rob's catching up on the sleep he missed when Datsa woke us up (yes, we're glad he's still active and in fact even alive at 14, but geez, it would be nice to sleep in one of these days) and I'm feeling much better today than yesterday. I've planned lunch and dinner (now if only I could locate my electric wok) and caught up with blog-reading at last, so it's time for the weekly Liberal Coalition blogaround plus a few extras:

• Speaking of beloved pets, Echidne is dealing with a chipper 14-year-old of her own, as she gets ready to celebrate her third blogiversary this coming Wednesday. As she puts it, "I hope that we can combine partying for the blog and for a saner world."

• Elsewhere in the pet parade, Moi's beloved Feak gets a haircut, and NTodd gives us insight into a typical night on the farm with his brood of five.

• Have you bookmarked Jude's new blog address yet? I'm hoping that this time she'll have a full rather than partial feed, since as a rule I'm much likelier to read and comment on full feeds, which are easier for a busy blog-reader.

• Bora/Coturnix has decided to expand his blogroll, the madman. He's going through things alphabetically, so hop on over there if you feel like making some suggestions.

• Jeff has a rather creepy monkey-see, monkey-do story.

• Kathy on Kathy - Harris actually prays that God will "bring the hearts and minds of our Jewish brothers and sisters into alignment" then her spokesidiot claims she meant Republicanism, not Christianity. Note to Harris - Florida's Jews aren't as stupid as you think they are, and they still haven't forgiven you for insisting they voted for Pat Buchanan in 2000.

• Speaking of Katherine Harris, Mustang Bobby live-blogs round two of the FL senate debate. He also remembers William Styron, and asks the open question "What was the first election you voted in?" Jimmy Carter, 1976, and mighty proud of it.

• Maru helps Bush use teh Google.

• Cheating a bit in that the post is from today rather than this past week, but Norbizness has a great point that Saddam Hussein's sentencing is for crimes committed when he was "our bastard." Regardless, hanging's too good for him. I have no desire to see our bastard martyred; let him rot in a hole until he's obscure and forgotten. That would also have the added bonus of distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys, for people who still believe good guys aren't supposed to kill. (You already knew that killing Saddam wouldn't magically resurrect those 148 people nor even bring closure to their families, right?)

• NTodd reviews the winner in the Iranian cartoon contest (and finds it, and others, more haunting than anti-Semitic), compares our current election season to the best of Python, and celebrates the Miami Metrozoo's acknowledgement that everybody poops.

• Steve G and Jen are busy cooking and eating. Jen gives her recipe for chicken soup, whilst Steve extols the virtues of sandwiches here and here. Steve also reminds us that Brooklyn Jews are no stupider than Floridian ones, particularly when it comes to idiots dressing like Hitler for Hallowe'en. Yes, he was a monster, but as Steve points out, "just because you can say something, doesn't mean it's the smartest thing to do so."

• Lastly, upyernoz notes that, when mature countries engage in diplomacy, those with immature leaders throw around baseless accusations to drum up more hostility.

And as promised, here's some recommended reading from non-LC bloggers:

• I think Barb's analysis of Bush as the eternal adolescent is one of the best pieces she's done all year, quite worthy of a Koufax nomination.

• Cathie from Canada has dramatic BBC photos of the Dutch horse rescue.

• Ilyka ponders at Feministe, "what has blogging really accomplished?" Isn't that really a case-by-case question? I mean, you might as well ask what writing or thinking accomplishes. For me, it's given me the discipline to keep writing every day, it's made me new friends, it's expanded my political and cultural thinking, it's made me more aware of the world around me... you know, little things like that. Of course, Ilyka seems to mean what has blogging accomplished for the wider world, which I guess would be that, worldwide, it highlights and draws attention to stories that most people wouldn't otherwise know about, and helps energize an engaged citizenry. Oh yeah, and that community-building thing, it does that too.

• Amanda highly recommends the Salon review of Ugly Betty by Rebecca Traister. Me too, it actually made me want to watch the show.

• Over at Mark Siegel's blog for First Second Books, FS author Gene Yang responds to Tony Long about prose being an inherently superior medium to comics. I love how he comes about this from an Asian POV, pointing out the pictorial nature of written Chinese characters. Yang quickly become a must-read writer/artist for me back when American-Born Chinese debuted online and I recommended its Monkey King segments to Alan Davis (and "introduced" the two via email), and I hope Gene starts a blog of his own soon.

• Speaking of comics and things Asian, both Colleen Doran and Heidi MacDonald wax rhapsodic over yaoi. Yowee!

• Here's CT-based Mike Gold on why Lieberman is a shanda for the goyim.

• I neglected to mention that Paul Henry has posted the last two parts of his War of the Words Ken Burns-style parody skewering right-wing pundits. Here are Part IV and Part V.

• Happy seventh - yes, 7th! - blogiversary to Backup Brain! Tom and Dori are celebrating by cruising around New Zealand and thereabouts.

Oh, and for the record, I have no desire to see Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat movie. Watching Cohen reminds me way too much of watching Andy Kaufman - I could appreciate what he was doing on an intellectual level, but it made me cringe to actually view it.

...compared with Karl Rove and his ilk.

Remember, remember
To vote this November
And foil Rove's sinister plot
I see no reason
Why Rove's constant treason
Should ever be forgot

Or, if you prefer, I did this one on 11 September.

Here's my annual link to the Lewes Bonfire Council. Apparently this year's procession was "led by [the] first ever female Zulu Pioneer Chief." In Lewes, as with most other spots in England, fireworks displays took place last night, but you can still catch a couple today in Liverpool, Yorkshire and Stockton. And some spots are celebrating on both nights.

The fever seems to have sweated out of me, and the shower's washed all that away and soothed me a lot (vanilla/lavender body wash this time), so before collapsing and getting more sleep I may as well look at the ol' Silly Site stash... Okay, here's some Flash games in French to which Eszter pointed me. I played the ladybug one, and when you "win" you get to see a picture of a woman, so I'm not sure how that's incentive.

Now how in the heck did I get febrile today? I wasn't at the auto shop (quarterly oil change/safety check) that long. I slept most of the afternoon, wound up neither making nor eating dinner, feel like ye olde crappe (pronounced "crap-AY") and I think I'll just sit here and read as many blogs as I can before going back to bed. Update: Or, you know, I could just watch a movie on TV. This was absolutely the best flick for what ails me...

Oooh, pretty. Chromatic scale dots! Via Eszter.

I found this excerpt from atheist Daniel Dennett's recounting of his recent heart scare and its aftermath fascinating:

I am not joking when I say that I have had to forgive my friends who said that they were praying for me. I have resisted the temptation to respond "Thanks, I appreciate it, but did you also sacrifice a goat?" I feel about this the same way I would feel if one of them said "I just paid a voodoo doctor to cast a spell for your health." What a gullible waste of money that could have been spent on more important projects! Don't expect me to be grateful, or even indifferent. I do appreciate the affection and generosity of spirit that motivated you, but wish you had found a more reasonable way of expressing it.

But isn't this awfully harsh? Surely it does the world no harm if those who can honestly do so pray for me! No, I'm not at all sure about that. For one thing, if they really wanted to do something useful, they could devote their prayer time and energy to some pressing project that they can do something about. For another, we now have quite solid grounds (e.g., the recently released Benson study at Harvard) for believing that intercessory prayer simply doesn't work... If you insist on keeping the myth of the effectiveness of prayer alive, you owe the rest of us a justification in the face of the evidence. Pending such a justification, I will excuse you for indulging in your tradition; I know how comforting tradition can be. But I want you to recognize that what you are doing is morally problematic at best. If you would even consider filing a malpractice suit against a doctor who made a mistake in treating you, or suing a pharmaceutical company that didn't conduct all the proper control tests before selling you a drug that harmed you, you must acknowledge your tacit appreciation of the high standards of rational inquiry to which the medical world holds itself, and yet you continue to indulge in a practice for which there is no known rational justification at all, and take yourself to be actually making a contribution. (Try to imagine your outrage if a pharmaceutical company responded to your suit by blithely replying "But we prayed good and hard for the success of the drug! What more do you want?")

I don't care how he justifies it, it's still harsh. Dennett himself characterizes these people as his friends. Caring about friends, and expressing that caring to them, is one of the things that connects us all as thinking human beings. It doesn't automatically convey expertise in how to cure those friends when they take ill. Prayer, hoping, wishing, sending good mojo - they're all things we do when we're faced with things we acknowledge as beyond our personal control and want someone to know we care about them but are powerless to help them beyond that basic human impulse to reach out and hug them with our thoughts. That Dennett wishes not to hear about these good thoughts, and dismisses his friends as gullible and useless, even though he pays temporary lip-service to "appreciat[ing] the affection and generosity of spirit," says less about his atheism, to my mind, than it does about his lack of such generosity, one of the things which makes our humanity so worthwhile and special.

(That said, I'm still working on practicing what I preach, since my first reaction to strangers telling me they're going to say a prayer for me is often to cringe as well, as I noted here. But you know, that's strangers, not friends.)

Can't have the big black birthday boy beast hogging all of this week's pictures, can we?



But of course, Amy can't not be cute.

I think Tom (co-)wrote this just for Lesley, even though I don't think he knows her...

I would have posted sooner, but I was helping a coworker with data entry and various other office tasks, then I clicked on an entire category in Bloglines instead of just one blog so I can't access my Silly Sites until that category is read, but it just occurred to me that the one to which I wanted to point is all over the place (I first saw it at BoingBoing) so I don't have to access that part of Bloglines after all. Ladies and gentlemen, the Pac-man Pie Chart. That is all.

Oh, Gary's pure evil, he is. I'm glad I added him to my reading list.

Look, nobody's making you blog. Presumably you blog because you enjoy it. Nobody's going to scream and wail if you decide to cut back a little on your online activity, whether it's the week before the election or the week after. It's just blogging, it's not anything important, and it shouldn't be running your life to the point where you're exhausted from it. Calm the eff down. There are millions of other bloggers, many saying pretty much the exact same things you are. You take a few days off, they'll be around to pick up the slack. You come back, your readers will still be there too.

Or is it just that you're afraid to discover you're really not as important and vital to the national discourse as you like to pretend you are?

(And no, this post isn't about Chris, who's decided to go on hiatus for very sensible reasons and will be missed until his return.)

Via Justin in email, take a look at some Ambigram Artwork! This Roopak Suri guy has a much better design sense than I ever could...

I should mention that I'm participating in National Blog Posting Month, which is pretty easy despite my other obligations as the minimum requirement is one post per day, and I've done that (mostly with Silly Site posts) pretty much since this blog started. When I get home I'll affix the above logo to my sidebar.

White Rabbits! The PT taped my ankle in such a way that I didn't need the air cast for most of yesterday, so today I'm going to try descending the two flights of stairs cast-less for the first time since I began wearing it. As it's invoicing day, I'll be off my feet and busy at the computer for much of the workday, so that should help too. Sleep would help the most, but I keep having to schedule PT appointments at 8 AM (the next one's Friday) and, of course, wanting to watch The Daily Show and Colbert when they're on rather than the next evening via DVR. That may change. Oh, speaking of rabbits, via Desi it's Fight Club in 30 seconds as performed by those Angry Alien bunnies...