Come and See the Show

Congratulations to Avedon Carol at The Sideshow, celebrating its second blogiversary today! (You know, someone ought to create a "milestone" blog for the sole purpose of listing blogiversaries and birthdays and such...)

Science News

These stories on Google's news site caught my eye this morning:

AidsVax fails to prevent HIV spread - The US manufacturer has admitted reported, upon the failure of Thailand's Phase III trial of this prevention vaccine, that it doesn't work. Not very good news considering the threat of the epidemic expanding in the Middle East and North Africa.

Diabetes is potentially 'reversible' (this one's for you, Natalie!) - "Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston said they had reversed the disease in mice by injecting them with spleen cells from healthy animals." It's a long way from mice to humans but this is pretty positive news anyway.

Okay, just what the hell are we doing celebrating the creation of an artificial virus? Don't we have enough problems with the real ones?

Just thought I'd throw this one in - If you haven't caught any episodes of The Elegant Universe yet, do yourself a favor and check your local listings. I'm finding it way neat stuff.

Scrum, Scrum, Scrum, Scrum

Bob Harris, guest-blogging at Tom Tomorrow's weblog, has a nice entry up about the Rugby World Cup, with which I completely agree (particularly about hearing the South African anthem). We caught much of the New Zealand v South Africa match a few days ago. Much more interesting than American football, which is so stop-and-go and military-violence tactics and grotesque padding and stupid cheerleaders that it bores me to tears. Now rugby, on the other hand - I mean, come on, you gotta love a sport whose website features hair highlights. Between the hair and the shorts (yum!) and my husband (an occasional prop forward back in his school days) explaining the game to me as it progressed, I was utterly enthralled. Although the All Blacks' haka still kinda freaks me out. By the by, one interesting thing I've recently discovered whilst watching Premier League football is that, where the score is shown, the home team is listed first (either on the left or on top) rather than last (on the right or the bottom) as in American sports. It's one of those continental cultural differences I'd never seen mentioned before, and Robin admitted it took some getting used to when he first started watching baseball with me. (P.S. Sports-lover Bob's also been following the Kasparov-X3D Fritz chess match.)

Giant Rat Update

I wrote about the giant rat balloon here, and noted that "the union [in question] doesn't even seem to have any handbills to educate passers-by so I'm not sure how successful this action is." Well, I finally remembered to look them up online, and here's the page on their site that shows the rat at another local demo. Still couldn't find anything on their entire site about what's going on with picketing the 7th Avenue office building, though...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Just a little something to tide me over when I'm at work:


I'll doubtless be looking at this one throughout the day wishing I were sleeping as well...

LoL Recommendation of the Week

League of Liberals member "Scout" muses about all the cool things that might be in store during Bill Frist's sleepover party. My guess is they'll spend lots of time playing with the surveys on Frist's website... The recommendation comes via Barry Bozeman at Rush Limbaughtomy, who's just reprinted his 12 Step Program geared towards Dittohead Recovery.

Wednesday Cat Pussy Blogging

I tend not to pay too much attention to blogosphere screeds and feuds that are so self-referential that nobody outside of our little hobby would care all that much, but I did want to call attention to Ampersand's wonderful response yesterday to some fellow named Kim du Toit, in an essay he (Ampersand) likes to call Let's All Get Pussified! Terrific entry, but the title got the song Let's Get Physical stuck in my head, replacing the much-preferred earworm of Windy (which started this morning due to NYC's current weather).

Trish Has Me Scooped

Back on November 1, I wrote about The Strange Case of Steven Kaye. Something about it didn't sound right. Well, Trish Wilson found an update to this saga. Turns out, in her words, "the Dude lied! He's happily married. The guy - real name is Steve - just made shit up for the fun of it. Word of his funny entry got around. He's had half a million hits." Trish also breaks the very welcome news that Justice Roy Moore has been removed from office for not obeying the laws he'd sworn to uphold, whether or not he personally agreed with the separation of church and state. Hey, at least I scooped Trish on the whole "metrosexual" thing, which I noticed back on July 5... And while you're checking out Trish's blog, don't forget this important entry regarding propaganda vs. truth about the "AWOL Mom."

The Personal Concierge

Susie Madrak at Suburban Guerrilla has been following the story of Republican plans to dock "a luxury cruise ship in New York Harbor where members of Congress and lobbyists could stay and play during the GOP convention next summer." Just when you think they can't get any more elitist and arrogant... This is little different from their trumped-up excuses for wanting to increase security during Bush's visit to England next week (see yesterday's entry). We must remember this is the Party That Cries Wolf. Every time the powers that be start whining "protect us from terrorists!" you need to read that as "protect us from citizens' right to protest our actions!" You also need to recall the record of what they've actually done to make the world a safer place and prevent the rise of further terrorism (hint: nothing).

Balancing the Scales

I'm in a pissy mood, so all due apologies and please bear with me. Today didn't start off well, and yesterday didn't end that terrifically either.

First off, another 10+ hour workday precluded me from doing needed errands like shopping for new footwear. I'm not an easy fit - I'm a 9½ wide, I wear mandatory medical orthotics (long and boring story), I don't balance well on heels (and I'm too tall for 'em anyway) and shoes just make me uncomfortable. For years I haven't worn anything that didn't have rubber soles, and most of my footwear has never lasted too long anyway as my pinky-toes wear them out on the insides - and no, price doesn't make a difference, so I'd rather buy 'em cheap if I know they'll need frequent replacing. My current pair (which look more like bowling shoes than sneakers but never mind that) has lasted me longer than most, but they're now effectively shot after almost a year of daily wear. Something seems to have split inside the left sole, letting air out with a loud crack every time I put weight on that foot. Also, my knees and lower back are aching worse than usual (I had to don a knee brace last evening), always a sign that I desperately need to go to PayLess. If, you know, I were allowed anything approaching a lunch hour or a guaranteed quitting time.

Then there's the idiot who's been nasty and snide to me for no apparent reason on every mailing list we've shared for the past decade or so, having at me again on the newest list where we both happen to participate. I don't respond, he's scored his little points; I do respond, and I get tagged the meany. Damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't is usually much more the province of conservatives than liberals, but it just goes to show you there are assholes all across the political spectrum. Then there are the stupid cheating teenagers who keep trying to board the bus from the rear exit door so they can skip out of paying their fares, and who mock and despise me because I won't let them on and I block the exit when I get off the bus, and that actually came to a physical altercation this morning which was not a whole lot of fun. Then there's just working in midtown Manhattan where I come close to getting knocked down at least a half dozen times in the block and a half between the subway and the office. Then there's the situation in the office itself, which as you may intimate from previous posts is far from optimum in more ways than I wish to enumerate on a public weblog. Then I come home (eventually) to the sounds of stomping from upstairs...

So it's at times like this, with my body aching and my heart full of anger over just really, really stupid things (okay, yes, there's that too but even so), that I break out the scales.

Oh good lord no, not bathroom-type scales. I haven't owned one of those, well, ever. After all these years I have too much respect for my body the way it is (albeit a bit too sedentary, and a change of jobs and living spaces ought to remedy that so I see it as a short-term situation) to subject myself to someone else's idea of what it should look like. I'm talking about the imaginary scales of balance. You know, when you imagine holding your hands out, and in one hand is the person or situation that's pissing you off, and in the other is someone or something that gives you great joy. And inevitably the "bad" hand will float insubstantially and the "good" hand will be weighted down by all the blessings I wind up counting. A mantra also helps, where you name the bad person/thing then the good person/thing a few times in succession to remind yourself which has more value, and you imagine the balance tipping more and more in favor of the good. One of my favorites is "[Asshole], Alan Davis; [Asshole], Alan Davis; [Asshole], Alan Davis..." and the Asshole's effects disappear pretty quickly compared with my memories of all the cool e-mail conversations I've had with Alan.

Speaking of which, one of the latest conversations has concerned a panel I'm moderating at the upcoming Mid-Ohio Con at the end of this month, which is sort of a follow-up to the "Writing the Other" panel I moderated at Heroes Con a few years back. The panel isn't exactly what's listed on the website, so I wrote to all the panelists and sent them my original write-up to let them know what they could actually expect:

FROM THE INSIDE, OUT: Characterization and Constraints
How do writers work with established characters given the imposed limitations of publishers and the expectations of the readers? Considering the nature of fantasy genres, do character and plot ideas come from personal experience or are they more imagined, or a little of both? Join Alan Davis, Mark Waid, David Mack, Pam Bliss, and Scott Roberts for what's sure to be a productive panel for writers and readers alike!

So I got a few thank-you's from the panelists for the corrected wording and the heads-up, which led to a few cool e-mail exchanges, and that's made me feel a bit better. And I've started writing up my intro and some basic notes, so I'm hoping it'll be a lot of fun. With any luck, maybe I'll even be sporting new sneakers by then.

All Facts and Birthdays

A very happy birthday to Natalie Davis, who celebrates by passing along The Speech That Bush Didn't Give.

Art for Art's Sake

It should come as no surprise that there's a lovely and well-written eulogy for Art Carney on Mark Evanier's site.

Anatomy of a Spin

So, what's London really doing to gear up for Bush's visit next week? Depends on what paper you read. Check out this list of articles on Google. The headline of American corporation CBS says security has been beefed up, but if you actually check the article - where they only asked one guy, Andy Trotter, deputy assistant commissioner of the capital's Metropolitan Police - even Trotter said "that demonstrations against the Iraq war and other Bush policies will go ahead as freely as possible." UK-based Reuters is probably closer to the mark, not burying their lede at all: "Police say there will be no special 'exclusion zones' for U.S. President George W. Bush's visit next week and he could easily come into contact with anti-war protesters." Horrors! India seems to wants to sow mistrust and fear; the Statesman suggests that "Al-Qaida may target Bush in London" and The Hindu agrees. So does China View. Singapore's Strait Times insinuates that maybe central London should really be shut down to protect Bush from reality terrorists. Nothing like conveniently dangling the spectre of Al-Qaeda bogeymen to stifle legitimate protest, eh?

Taking the Piss

Catching up on my Morning Fix reading, I was amused by something that Mark Morford mentioned in his e-mail newsletter, but the link was bad and I can't find the story anywhere on the SF Gate's website. So I looked around, and found something on an Aussie site. Apparently urinals are becoming a de rigeur fixture (pun absolutely intended) in many well-to-do American homes. As it's been a heavy workday, I'm honestly not quite sure how I feel about this.

Much Wampum

A very happy blogiversary to Mary Beth Williams!

When I Was Born...

I always get a bit introspective as my birthday approaches, so when Maru Soze asked, "What was on the cover of Time magazine when you were born?" I figured it was worth a look. Cool.

Eleven Eleven

Today is Remembrance Day in the UK, Canada, Australia and much of the world, and Veterans Day in the US. It commemorates the day in 1918 when, "on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the eleventh month, the world rejoiced and celebrated. After four years of bitter war, an armistice was signed. The 'war to end all wars' was over." Here's an interesting VD/RD/AD page.

Alas, war itself isn't over, nor are the pervasive myths surrounding the military. Today you'll probably hear a lot of "This day is not to honor war, but the sacrifice made by others for our freedom." But increasingly, the US military consists of poor kids who joined primarily for economic reasons (like Jessica Lynch) with no real desire to sacrifice themselves (I always cringe at that euphemism - they get killed, okay?, they don't "sacrifice" themselves!), and as we see our freedoms erode daily this line is almost becoming a cruel joke.

Now, none of this is to say that the men and women in the military don't deserve respect. Considering they're being asked to do the dirty work of rich old guys who have probably never face dangerous situations in their entire lives, they deserve to be treated like royalty by those rich old guys. It probably goes without saying that they are not. Check this space throughout the day for various examples of how the Bush administration is shafting our armed forces while the empty rhetoric flows (as well as other RD notes of interest).

Paul Krugman gives an overview of the situation.

You've probably heard about the money being denied soldiers who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during Gulf War I. Check out Tom Tomorrow's reprinting of the press conference wherein this decision was queried.

Via Eric Hananoki - the closing of the commissaries and schools on military installations, as detailed in Navy Times.

My favorite Democratic Veteran, Jo Fish, discusses how extended active duty is taking its toll on reservists.

Here's a nice article about Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson accepting the Glamour magazine Women of the Year awards that mentions, among other things, the disparity in their disability pensions.

I'd read that some Canadian businesses wanted to ban the sale of poppies today, but I hadn't heard they were backing down due to public outcry. Frankly, I wouldn't mind wearing a white poppy today.

The Underground Grammarian Would Be Prideful Proud

Mark A.R. Kleiman is collecting examples of "unnecessary 'suffixization.'" I'm loving it (™ Mickey D's). And a part of me would like to believe that Richard Mitchell is beaming from on high.

Leaking Body Parts and Turning the Tables

Len Cleavelin is quickly becoming one of my favorite go-to bloggers for weird stories. He has his finger (not literally) on the pulse of this item about body parts found in FedEx packages (discovered because one was leaking), and he's on top (um, also not literally) of the Connecticut woman who turned the tables on a 419 scam. Oh, and Len, here's why there's a gorilla in front of that vacuum-cleaner shop on Madison.

Know Your Dick

No, this is not a reference to the Nixon photo mentioned on Saturday (scroll down), but a recommendation to read an article reprinted by Kevin Drum that's essentially a profile of Dick Cheney by someone who knew him when - John Perry Barlow, former Grateful Dead lyricist and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.