Don't Get Mauled by the Supreme Court Today; It's Happening to Pretty Much Everyone, It Seems.

EVENT

...

END OF POST.

Out of time.

DIARY

Often, at work, I feel incredibly restless, and I want to make any excuse I can think of and excuse myself. The idea is to go home and write. I have the impression that time is running out; that distance, money, possessions, contact, friendship, talent, beauty, thought, and all other resources can be collapsed into just one: time. It is capital that expends itself automatically, so the best exploitation, always and moment to moment, is immediate.

There is a whole lot to do.

Too much to do.

There is far to much to do.

---

I'm listening to Cups (Beaucoup Fish) by Underworld and editing The Encyclopedia of Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders, which is probably why I'm writing this now...

END OF POST.

Lumas 7, 30.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Use small fish, such as minnows, when fishing for pike or pickerel.

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
The Schizophrenia Bulletin.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What do you do when you want/need to relax?

END OF POST.

The Texture of the American Doll Posse.

CONCEPT

Continued from here...

What it means.

It is meant to be political, but not didactic.
Tori's argument is largely that the political process has been missing a loud, boisterous dialogue.
So: Instead of simply leveling one-dimension of invective against incumbant powers, she creates (nevertheless critical) characters to represent different points-of-view. Yo George may be an unambiguous indictment, but this plays differently at the beginning of the album then in its religious situation near the end: "Bushes burning on the mountain." Maybe not the most subtle choice for a double entendre, but it is the song about the youth fighting on both sides of the Iraq war.

The texture of the album results from the movement of points of intersection between these views. Common strands are the tendency to lush/ornate/elaborate arrangments, a polarity between heavy guitar/hard rock and emotive piano, lyrics just as dense as Tori's average, but maybe a little less inscrutable:

There's a gold star on a gendarme,
so she asked him, "Hey, can you hold my song?"
"It's the one piece that I got left,
so hide it well," she said.

Texture: There are mysteries: Is the song Fat Slut intended to be funny, and if so, how serious does that render Girl Disappearing? Of what might a Satin Revolution consist? Most enticingly, who is Smoky Joe, and how many Pips are there, and which Pip wants to kill him? And Why?

Texture: For all of the competing, jostling, voices, there is a whispered quality to all of this. It doesn't happen at a large party or lecture; not at a public event. It seems to all happen at night, in a room that would be silent if not for the people speaking inside.

Texture: There aren't any of the usual out-of-body experiences here. The claims to divinity in Devils and Gods, the mythic allegory in Dragon, and the dense metaphor in Dark Side of the Sun are all about elevating human consciousness within the firm boundaries of a stable mind. In other words, the album feels practical, awake, alert; its discussion mandates that we are able to apply our observations to a world we must recognize as recognized by others.

Texture: Listeners are voyeurs. There are political references we can decipher, sure, but the gossip involves plenty of strangers as well. The reason this doesn't result in inscrutability is because, even if we don't know these people, we know how they relate to each other. Our interpretation, therefore, is possible, but limited and conditional.

Texture: The album has a whiff of the esoteric to it. It was a core inspiration for me for The Silurians. If it happens at night, it also happens in the presence of wind. So I end up imagining some coffee and wine, five friends sitting up all night, talking, in a wooden cottage, surrounded by conifers, high on a hill, close to dunes, and close to a lake...

That is the texture, as I see it, of American Doll Posse.

END OF POST.

Meandering thoughts on esotericism.

BODY

I've always had an interest in esotericism... Flint has a prominent Masonic Temple downtown and Detroit's Masonic Temple is one of the most prominent features of its New Center skyline. Also, my grandfather was a Freemason, and other members of my family were involved through the 70s, though nobody from my generation.

At first what is so exciting about this is the most conspicuously exotic. Secret initiations, secret rooms, secret passages, presumed use of incense and candles, secret words spoken, secret gestures. Most importantly, secret knowledge. Of course, at some point one has to make the concenssion that those little cars that the shriners drive around on McKinley Road or Main Street during the June parade look a little goofy, as do the bright orange and red caftans and fezes. And against that, it always was one of the most engaging parts of the parade.

Parsing a little deeper, however, there's something more substantial in the esoteric society that I find personally attractive. It is esoteric. It is not public; membership requires effort or agency and confers privilege and benefit. It is not secret; the organizational philosophy is one of focus and attention to the world. Tension with the world. The esoteric society is created to acknowledge, be acknowledged by, and interact with the world.

In the case of the Freemasons, the square and compass might represent one extreme of allegorical economy... they can be metaphorically representative of many relationships to a degree of depth and specificity that almost matches Derrida's sun in White Mythologies. Freemasonry itself had a guiding hand in the U.S. Constitution. To broaden the sphere of examples a bit more, whatever we might think of the astrological and divinatory statements of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, they produces Yeats. In Ancient Greece, the Lyceum and the Academy had some of the properties of esoteric societies; the Pythagoreans certainly were. By allowing a sufficiently broad definition, we could also incorporate most religious sects (from early Christianity to Wicca), artistic groups like the Surrealists and the Futurists and maybe even the Dolce Stil Nuovo that produced Dante.

I'm not arguing that "esoteric thought" specifically is always a fruitful vehicle for expression. It does, however, seem to encourage a structure where the application of guiding principles, which themselves can be quite broadly conceived, allow for the coexistence of institutions that usually are in opposition. The ideological inclusiveness is important. The communal exclusivity is important. The sharing and exploration of fields of inquiry through a common vocabulary is important. The hats are awesome.

END OF POST.

Lumas 6, 30.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
It rained fish at Tiller's Ferry, South Carolina, after a heavy shower, 1901.

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
Available Store Fronts in Attica.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Assuming no negative consequences, what part of what other country would you like to be in right now?

END OF POST.

"Hijacked"

EVENT

Political Things I want to talk about: 1) organic foods, 2) ends and means, and 3) activism. But I don't know enough to trust my opinion yet, and anyway, those subjects are too large to take on up front right now.

Instead, I'll defer to something easier: This post from Street Prophets. The context is a religious-political debate, but what ought to be of interest to everybody is the question of expediency raised by the post and its implied measure of latitude for a rigorous progressive religious critique.

"Doing the Lord's work is a thread that's run through our politics since the very beginning," Obama told church members. "And it puts the lie to the notion that the separation of church and state in America -- a principle we all must uphold and that I have embraced as a constitutional lawyer and most importantly as a Christian -- means faith should have no role in public life."

He also accused the Christian right of "hijacking" Jesus to polarize the public.

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together. Faith started being used to drive us apart," he said. "Faith got hijacked partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us.

"At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design," he said. (Chicago Tribune)

The Street Prophet posts asks, in the present instance, whether Obama is harming his campaign more by alienating possible support than he is encouraging the liberal religious vote?

I'm interested in what you think.

Personally, I'm encouraged by this sort of "risky" statement. It isn't an ends/means conflict to me. Successful politics and ethical politics can coexist when one can take their stand diplomatically. Likewise, uwdomke neglects Obama's actual phrasing. With the exception of the Religious Right (which he mentions by name), almost anyone (who may have voted for Bush / state "marriage protection" / ID / etc.) can assume from the content of Obama's statements that he's actually referring to someone even further right. In this sense, the accusation is of an intangible quality from which almost anyone could find a way to exempt themselves. In fact, it almost brings the discussion of the pragmatic value of the comment full-circle. If the comment only applies to the "so-called leaders of the Christian right" (who presumably won't be voting for Obama anyway) is there any reason to call it a worthwhile risk? Not because it isn't worthwhile, but because it isn't really much of a risk?

Maybe. It depends on who is listening and what they're listening for.

There is at least a residual risk, however. As uwdomke points out, a lot rests on the word "hijacked":

It's a potent word, laden with assumptions about motives and imagery of terrorism. As a result, it's certain to raise the ire of those on the right. Yet it also may not sit well with some on the center or left who strongly share the sentiment -- but nonetheless may not want a like-minded candidate to use it.

The speech is a sort of turnabout of the Republican gambit of the early 2000s, when the loyalty of any dissenters were questioned. In this case, the Religious Right is associated a group they try to visibly separate themselves from – terrorists – and which separation, given the militarism of the Right these days, has been largely successful. The superficial meaning of Obama's statement, that the Religious Right has dictated a discourse inwhich progressive/Liberal Christianity is irrelevant/unacknowledge is, in fact, fair. Almost anyone considering themself a liberal Christian has a sense of this. I certainly have.

And yet, his word choice economically packages a whole range of arguments we've (and I've) been making for years: that fundamentalisms have more in common with each other than they do with a mainstream understanding of the same faith; that fundamentalism preempts the process of negotiation and compromise that we typically engage to resolve issues in community; that the Religious Right has taken our theological and political debate toward an undesired and undesirable destination. In other words, the word "hijacked" itself is not a subtle reference. It begs an particular interpretation that, at this moment, most populist readings of the facts are only too happy to support.

While I do not doubt that Obama's speech might "raise the ire" of the Right, I doubt that they will make a scene over it. Today, they're too vulnerable. To accuse Obama of anything in this light would acknowledge and widen a debate, a line of questioning, that compromises conservatives on their own friendly issues. I don't think that this speech is going anywhere controversial fast.

What is encouraging, however, is that a contending Democratic candidate can make such a comment without an immediate negative upshot. This is a far cry from the steamrolling of liberals that followed 9/11 and preceeded the start of the Iraq War, or even Kerry's silence against the Swift Boat campaign in 2004. It signals, if nothing else, a very healthy lack of timidity. I'm not discouraged yet. The political pendulum still has leftward momentum, and might gain some yet.

END OF POST.

The American Doll Posse, by Tori Amos.

CONCEPT

WARNING: These comments came out something more stream-of-consciousness than I'd intended.

Tori Amos is one of my very very favorite musicians, so I'm already going to have oodles of bias in her favor. It has been interesting to consider her career and its reception as a barometer for the role of a genre of music within the establishment. Not that I know this field thoroughly, but I've seen the same thing happen to the Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, R.E.M., and others. The initial albums, some of which were not initially well-received by critics (Rolling Stone soundly panned Boys for Pele) have all been ensconsed as the very essence of the nineties. More recent work, much of which has been positively received, is soon forgotten (until the next review, which dismissively brushes off the entire latter-day catalog), because this music is not well situated for massive mainstream play. The interesting thing is the sort of critical amnesia that this process involves, with each Spin or Rolling Stone review touting the artists' ultimate "rearrival."

In the case of Tori Amos, the split happens soon after Tales from the Choirgirl Hotel, and certainly afflicts all of her work from Strange Little Girls on. I don't expect American Doll Posse to make many waves beyond its currently modest ripples. Which is unfortunate, because it is a fine album, and it is, actually, her best in the last eight years.

* * * * *

Let's look at the concept here, because Tori has taken an increasinly structured, almost schematic approach to her last several albums. Strange Little Girls was a collection of covers of songs written by men about women. Scarlet's Walk followed a protagonist, a la Forrest Gump, meandering about the United States. The Beekeeper resembled a set of six EPs, each corresponding to a different kind of garden, mixed and thrown together. Each of these albums has been longer than the last, and American Doll Posse is just shy of eighty minutes long.

Here's how it works:

The album is "not composed by Tori" but by five characters sporting wigs that Hedwig would envy (you can see them on the album cover, or the picture above). These characters each have a dizzying assortment of names. They have first names: Pip, Isabel, Santa, Clyde, and Tori (who is not Tori Amos so much as a self-conscious caracature of Tori Amos). They have punning faux-Greek allegorical names: Expiratorial, Historical, Sanatorium, Clitorides, and Terratories (note the subtle presence of "Tori" in each of these names). And, they are all correlated to Greek goddesses: Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, Persephone, and Demeter/Dionysis. Each character has her own wig, writes her own blog, performs her own songs, receives her own song credits (I wonder if they each receive their own royalties). This does seem to be a bit of overkill; I can forgive it if she moves forward to stimulate her own creative impulse, to saturate herself in her own work.

That said, it's of limited use to an audience. My objection is the same objection that can be made to Pessoa's characters: the very pragmatic issue that creating convincing personalities takes a lot of time and energy. Tori does not seem to have sufficiently differentiated the voices or ideas of her characters in non-superficial ways. Unlike Rolling Stone, I don't object to the blogs per se. I think it's an interesting/fun idea at worst, and it's refreshing that intermedial art via the internet has become common enough that it isn't some obscure backalley route for fans to get an extra fix. But these characters read the same as each other. They have similar physical stances and facial expressions. Perhaps most alarmingly for Tori's project, I can't tell the characters apart by their music. Fortunately, the lyric book is color-coded for easy decoding of identity, but I could not have done it on my own.

So far, everything I've said is negative: the conceit, it seems, fails.

And yet: Here is a successful, catchy, surprisingly tight eighty-minute album. What I wonder is whether the process of integrating so many different characters in combination, against each other, apart from each other, and situating them politically, personally, and religiously, produced an huge amount of material. If this was the case, then Tori had the Prince option. She could cut and edit down to "essentials" and still be left with plenty of material to work with. Giving her even a bit more credit, though, just because I can't always distinguish or parse the five characters, they do have a palpable presence. The meaty feedback and sonorous rhythm of Smoky Joe is almost completely alien to the playful preschool piano dance runs of Mr. Bad Man. Bouncing off Clouds and Big Wheel are both danceable; it's just that one belongs at a discotheque and the other in a honky tonk. Best of all, these songs are almost all catchy; they're genuinely different sounds without feeling like they're just paying lip service to musical diversity. They're also (unlike Strange Little Girls) firmly in Tori territory, playing the part of violence or vulnerability, and often straddling the line.

I haven't really talked about what the album means. It's densely lyrical, as usual, but this time the references are mostly political. Given the concept, of course, dialogue is of paramount importance. But that probably belongs in another post...

END OF POST.

Lumas 5, 30.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Phoenix, Arizona, reached 122 degrees F, today in 1990.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -
"You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down."
- Ray Bradbury

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Free Association! Respond to the person who commented before you...

END OF POST.

Soundtrack for the Last Year.

DIARY

This is far and away the most danceable soundtrack of this sort I've devised. If this was playing at a party at which there were cool kids, I bet they'd spend a decent chunk of time dancing!

1. Hole - Heaven Tonight
2. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Message
3. Public Enemy - Bring the Noise
4. Cranberries - Will You Remember?
5. Afrika Bambaata - Looking for the Perfect Beat
6. Chuck Berry - Maybelline
7. LL Cool J - I'm Bad
8. The Astronauts - Baja
9. Dick Dale and His Del Tones - Miserilou
10. The Jimmy Chamberlain Complex - Loki Cat
11. The Rolling Stones - She's the Rainbow
12. The Beatles - As My Guitar Gently Weeps
13. The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter
14. Björk - Sun In My Mouth
15. Lush - I've Been Here Before
16. Lush - Parasan
17. Scott Joplin - Maple Leaf Rag
18. Giorgio Moroder - Chase
19. Legowelt - Disco Rout
20. Sufjan Stevens - O Come, O Come Emmanuel
21. Sufjan Stevens - Star of Wonder
22. The Jimmy Chamberlain Complex - Newer Waves
23. Radiohead - Stand Up, Sit Down
24. Safety Scissors - Fridgelife
25. Elisabeth Blair - The Hungry Rats Theme
26. Ladytron - This Is Our Sound
27. Berlin - Sex (I'm a...)
28. ATB - Underworld World
29. The Smashing Pumpkins - So So Pretty
30. The Smashing Pumpkins - When You Die Inside
31. The Smashing Pumpkins - Unknown MSIC Demo
32. VNV Nation - Darkangel
33. The Giving Tree Band - Do It Well
34. Nine Inch Nails - Chosen Ones
35. Tori Amos - Smoky Joe
36. Tori Amos - Bouncing Off Clouds
37. Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop
38. Doris Henson - When You Go

END OF POST.

Lumas 4, 30.

DIARY

This past week I celebrated "Eventime," a project I started to develop when I was in 6th grade to acknowledge and give a name to the year that has passed and to make plans for the year up ahead. I've gradually elaborated this idea, and it has been useful in increasing day-to-day productivity by situating it all in a larger context.

At any rate, this is what I was mostly up to during the last week. I bought a new journal and made a plan for religious and personal activity. I spent a lot of time cleaning, and worked out an exercise and health plan, and hopefully will establish a better, more frequent correspondance with friends and family. I updated Here Is No Why so that it looks less gloomy and depressing (you should check it out). I also cleaned out some redundant code and dead links from this blog; though the changes may not be conspicuous, I will hopefully allow the blog to load faster. I made lists of books to read and music to listen to, movies to watch, places to go. I laid out ideas for some possible writing projects (the most major of which is resuming work on Urbantasm). I did some research and consultation about developing the Gothic Funk Nation. I came up with a financial agenda and a weekly schedule to submit stories, enter contests, and attend readings so that I will be published sooner and more frequently. It's a great week; I never finish all of my plans, but it can't help but give a sense of focus and hope for the future.

The high point, though, was the Nightwalk I took on Saturday night; this one was a lot shorter than the ones I've taken in the last few years, but was memorable because I persuaded Jessica to come with me. We set out from home at a little after eleven, and stopped on Myrtle for snacks (Snapple, Dr. Pepper, and Goldfish crackers). We followed Flushing Ave. to Bedford, and it wound us through the Hasidic section of Williamsburg to the bridge. We crossed the bridge, which I hadn't been on in seven years; it's a long bridge (moreso than the Brooklyn or the Manhattan) and enclosed in such a way that you have a literal dozen angles on the suspension span, the cars, the subway tracks, the support structure, and the river. The bridge gave a splendid view of both Downtown and Midtown, but the bridge itself was the most thrilling thing from the inside. When we touched down in Manhattan, we stopped at a 31 Flavors so Jess could get ice cream and me a donut. Then we continued on, winding through Little Italy and Chinatown and City Hall, and then crossing the river again by the Brooklyn Bridge. We followed Willoughby back through the Fulton Mall, got home at about 3 AM, and finished watching Enemy at the Gates. We walked about nine miles in four hours; last summer I went twice that, but distance cannot make up for a lack of Jessica.

Of course, there were other things going on last week as well. On Friday, we met with Marco and Scott for some bar hopping and political talk. We watched the Yankees getting spanked by the Giants, which was nice. Friday was Manditory Cleaning Day and we're still in the middle of the mess from that. On Saturday, after about two hours of sleep, we went out for breakfast at this little taqueria up the street where we've never been before (they had a great breakfast bargain) and hit the Farmers Market before heading home around eleven. We napped for most of the day and watched two episodes of Lost, which we are currently obsessed with. On Sunday I went to church and helped prepare a meal at a Quaker Friendship Hall for people in Downtown Brooklyn. Then I walked up to Park Slope through a massive street market and past some beautiful abandoned textile works. We RPGed with Marco and Scott until 8ish before going home. Mojitos and more cleaning.

It was quite a week.

I said I name the year each year. The year that has just passed; I named it the Year of the Hidden Rain. (If you think it tends toward the melodramatic, you should hear what I called them in high school...)

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Start to address stomach problems by first eliminating caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco.

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
Report: China exceeds U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What is Grimace?

END OF POST.

Dammit.

BODY

Today, I wanted to grapple with February, March, April, May, June, July, and August, 2005, but before I could catch it, it ran away, and I just can't seem to catch up.

END OF POST.

NY, NY, NY?

EVENT

I've breaking my "week off" because I have to say something, however incidental about this.

If things progress along speculated lines, there could be three viable U.S. Presidential candidates, all in some sense representing New York City. I can't say that I'm (as a Midwesterner) offended... the swinging Midwest has had too much presidential political clout for decades. But still, I have to notice it, just because it seems so weird.

Let's hope that the Yankees resume sucking in short order, so the nation can better stomach the idea. It isn't really that implausible.

END OF POST.

The Next Week.

CONCEPT

I will be posting little or not at all over the next week. I want to do some evaluation of and revision of the website. When I'm back (on June 25th) I will definitely be posting about politics/art/religion/et al. again.

END OF POST.

Silurians Story #3 Posted.

CONCEPT

I've posted an excerpt of Story #3, The Silurians on the Silurians website.

The first few sentences:
"What is truth?

I mean, what is luck? What is happy? Who is lucky?

The King James Version says something like "on the face of the deep," but the better translations say "darkness covered the abyss," and that's the wording I like better. We all know how many questions there are about the meaning of the word "darkness" – I mean the difference between a real hunter's predatory thick darkness and an untouchable vacant vacuuming darkness – and which of the two is the more evil?"

The full story is available upon request.
(Please request via excerpt link).

END OF POST.

Lunas 26, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Oregon Treaty set 49th parallel as U.S.-British border, 1846.

- COUNTRY (TERRITORY) OF THE WEEK -
The Cayman Islands (United Kingdom).

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
From Belicove.com: " Sony's PlayStation 3 release "Resistance: Fall of Man" features a battle among British and American soldiers and aliens inside the [Manchester] cathedral. The Anglicans are demanding an apology and a contribution to the Church's antiviolence education campaign using the game's profits. Sony maintains that it will not alter the game." What do you think of this? What is your take on either/both parties position? You can answer from either a legal point-of-view, or in the context of (mutual?) social obligation.

END OF POST.

Lunas 25, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Lemon juice sweetened with crushed sugar helps to relieve a cough.

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
Isabel.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
How many address have you lived at (let's say to live "live" is to reside for at least a month)?

END OF POST.

:(

EVENT

Mr. Wizard died.

END OF POST.

Lunas 24, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
To stop the hiccups, eat something spicy hot.

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
An interesting map.
Another interesting map.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Well, I was going to ask what outraged you about the city you lived in, but I think that many people answered that yesterday. So here's a new one:
What kind of natural disaster would you least like to be caught in?

END OF POST.

Lunas 23, 29.

DIARY

- I failed at writing last night. I am now three stories behind. =(

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Have you ever heard of rose wine?

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -
"We just wanted to make a record that sounded cool. So we stole from hip-hop, we stole from techno and blues and mashed them all up."
- Shirley Manson

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What are people insufficiently annoyed by in the town where you reside?

END OF POST.

Lunas 22, 29.

DIARY

- Last week was dominated by Silurians drafts... I drafted stories #2, 3, and 4, all of which I plan to send out for comment (I've already sent out #2). But there were a few other things going on as well.
First, since Jess is taking classes each day (in addition to work) I've become a full-time house husband, which is something I aspire to anyway. I've been doing the cleaning, the cooking, packing us lunches, etc. It's been fun so far, but that's just because I haven't gotten to any laundry yet.
A few other things were going on, though. Most notably, on Friday we saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch (lots of fun!) and on Saturday we attended the Bat Mitzvah of one of Jess' coworkers. I'd never been to a Bat (or Bar) Mitzvah before, or even, to the best of my knowledge, in a synagogue, so it was a very engaging experience. In these situations, I'm always surprised at first at the conspicuous differences between different faiths, but then again by the overwhelming number of similarities. In this case, we were in a beauful high-ceilinged room conducting Biblical readings and singing for the glory of (the same) God. Much of the focus that I am accustomed to seeing placed upon the altar was not invested in the ark. The Torah scroll was treated much as the crucifix is treated at the Presentation of the Gifts. The star of David received the same reverence as the cross.
On the subway I couldn't help thinking (in a snarky voice), People killed each other over this?
Of course, I was uber-aware at church the next day, and this made for a very rewarding experience of something more familiar. The parish was celebrating First Communions that day, and I was sitting next to a very sharp, very opinionated and warm former social worker with a great history in the church. She told me about her accomplished relatives in the midwest and Texas. Later we met with Marco and Scott. We tried to watch The Man Who Knew Too Much, but I fell asleep before it was over.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Beware the Pogonip.

- HAPPY BIRTHDAY -
Ian ("Victor").

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
NASA: Rare Tropical Cyclone Chuns in Arabian Sea.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What is the best example of "lame" you've ever encountered?

END OF POST.

Silurians Story #2 Posted.

CONCEPT

I've posted an excerpt of Story #2, The Silurians on the Silurians website.

The first sentence:
"Hello. My name is Melanie Prior and I am a Silurian. ("Hello, Melanie") I have been a Silurian for three months now. I am powerless over my Silurianism and my life has become unmanageable."

The full story is available upon request.
(Please request via excerpt link).

END OF POST.

Lunas 19, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
An advertisement in a NY newspaper by a Mr. Hull of 76 Chatham Street announced that he would start manufacturing ice cream on a commercial basis, 1786.

- COUNTRY OF THE WEEK -
Canada.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
How do you feel about having your picture taken without your permission?

END OF POST.

Lunas 18, 29.

DIARY

- Wow, I don't think I've gotten so much mileage out of a QOTD since... ever!

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Last Quarter moon at ascending node. Delegate Richard Henry Lee proposed independence of American colonies, 1776.

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
Balls to Congress.
Not only is this a great idea, but my good friend Gemma has helped to put the whole thing together!

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Who is the dead author that you would most likely to have write just one more book?

END OF POST.

Lunas 17, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
A slice of pumpkin pie before bedtime may help you sleep.

- HAPPY BIRTHDAY -
Chris K.

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
Walter Myers: First Plants.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
If you could dis-invent one thing, what would it be?

END OF POST.

Partial Retraction re: Superintendent Walter Milton, Jr.

EVENT

Not too long I wrote a rambly off-topic post and I've let it languish because most of it wasn't worth keeping. However, there was a bit at the beginning that I thought I really needed to give a voice to, mainly because I think I had a lapse in judgment, and I want to air it before I forget. So here it is:

Last April I wrote about the resignation of Water Milton, Jr. as the Superintendent of the Flint Board of Education. I shortly received some visits and comments from Flint residents who politely and articulately disagreed. I conceded somewhat that the the bulk of their arguments made sense, but I couldn't help imagining that the "chaos" I kept hearing about was somewhat exaggerated.

Then, today, I came across this article/editorial on the subject from the Uncommon Sense. While sometimes given to hyperbole itself, this is a paper I have read for several years, and which I know and trust.

If even half of the incidents described in the article are true, then I did this subject a disservice. At best, I gave the administrators involved far too much credit, and at the worst I engaged in the sort of arbitrary apologism and excuse-perpetuation of which I'm always accusing neocons.

Quite simply, I lacked the knowledge to make the argument that I made, and now I feel bad about it.

Did the Flint Journal fail to pick these stories up?

Or did the Journal report on these incidents, and I failed to notice?

Either way, Walter Milton quite probably deserves even less credit than the little that I gave him.

END OF POST.

Lunas 16, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
If you are suffering from jet lag, have a cup of chamomile tea.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -
"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."
- Isaac Asimov

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Do you kiss with your eyes open or closed?

END OF POST.

Lunas 15, 29.

DIARY

- Last week was generally frustrating, with some highly rewarding moments. Often, I felt like I was behind on everything and didn't have the energy to catch up on anything. However, on Wednesday, there was a final Lit meeting at Lizzie's East Village apartment, and I really enjoyed visiting and talking about the pieces that week. I'm looking forward to the upcoming launch. On Friday, I drafted Adamstown, the first story of the Silurians, and that was fun. Jess and I cleaned and hung out with Marco and Scott on Saturday and Sunday, and I talked to my dad about my parents' trip to England. And I fell more or less recharged for this week. So, no regrets!

- ALMANAC SAYS -
One eyewitness is better than two hear-so's.

- HAPPY BIRTHDAY -
Jacob, Ricardo, and Socrates.

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
The New York Times: Commanders Say Push in Baghdad is Short of Goal.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What is one object from your kitchen that seems to sum up your personality?

END OF POST.