Scuba Man

Further Evidence in Support of My Theory of the Crippled Spirit

Bear with me to the end of this. I have this theory about the labor movement that grows out of the following maxim: You can tell when an old person loses it, because they do not buy any new styles after the season of the onset of their losing it. This is my Gram's theory. She can tell - to the season - when someone drops out.

This theory applies, whole cloth, to the labor movement. But there's only one moment that occurred for thousands of people - The PATCO strike. Many in Labor never recovered from Reagan's firing of more than 11,000 air traffic controllers. And you can tell because a lot of people in labor still sport fashions from 1981, including a vast array of mustaches.

So whatever. I've had this theory for years, and occasionally (okay, weekly, in my line of work), I will meet someone, and think, Yeah, The Theory.

But then I get this update from a friend who was at the AFL-CIO convention:

What I'm sure you won't read anywhere else is that the convention closed with the playing of Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin'.' From John Sweeney to Journey.
Perhaps the oddest segue in AF of L convention history.

And the saddest.

The most satisfying thing I have done today

Poo Poo Platter offered up this satisfying little treat. It's even better when you "assist" Gee Dub through the bubbles.

Best advice ever?

Maureen Dowd relates in a recent NYT piece that her mother once wrote:

"I hope you will never take a drink when you are unhappy. It would break my heart to think you had become a jobless derelict, an easy prey for unscrupulous men, me dead, and a family who held you in contempt because you had tossed aside your beauty, youth and talent."

Strangely, it makes me want to have a glass of wine when I read that.

I'm blog-giddy tonight!

Finally, the reclusive but brilliant Misha Collins has emerged from his scholarship on all things Canadian to describe his role in the upcoming thriller Karla. To wit: "This story had changed the way Canada thinks about itself," he said. "If that's true, that makes it all the more vital material to explore in a film."

Sometimes, Misha's bon mots are so concise and, dare I say, true, that I cannot even parse their real significance. Not since his work interpreting "Baltimore" in Liberty Heights has the man I once knew as Misha Krushnik turned in such powerful work. Or maybe this turn will soar with his role as Man Hanging from the Rope in The Crux. Good job, Misha.

To those uneducated in the ways of MC, think Matthew Barney* mashed up with Matthew Bender, and you get the idea.

*I'm not going to link to The Cremaster Cycle website for fear it has something that could offend my mom or mother-in-law on it. I didn't even want to poke around on the site myself. My sensitivities are that delicate.

My bad-computer-programming self

Can't get the image-adding-machine to work at the moment, so for some new pix of Liam and other people who you may not know, click here.

Where are the hell. . .

Before I get back to my incisive political commentary (see the one sizzling post below this one), I thought I would give a brief update on my past week. But first, a disclaimer:

I do not intend to turn this blog into an annoying micro-gossip fest or just a place to post pictures of my cute kid. I am only doing it in this instance so that people who care, but could not accompany me through my week, can share my experiences. If you don't care, and you're all "Who's Emily? And who cares what she named her kid?", then this post is not for you. But if life updates of my exes is really what you tune in for, stick around.

Me and the two cutest people I know traveled to Chicago for a wedding and to see our various friends, fathers (okay, just one of those) and former flames. Dave and Rebecca got married. Greg was there with Mary and the Holy Child. Dan was there with HIS Rebecca, but Steve was there without his Rebecca, who is on bedrest for, like, forever. Emily was there with her kids, Ellie and, get this, William. Yeah, William. I think its wierd, too. We saw Dan and Connie and Axel and Sander, and Tom was there sans Wendy but avec Maddie (not that weird since she's his daughter). Other Baffleros were present. Andy G was in the house. In addition to the wedding, we saw my Dad, Ella, Tim and Suzy, and Hannah and her new special man.

Are you dead of boredom yet? You are supposed to be. Travel with a 21-month old is rough stuff. The stultifying heat did not help, although aside from the weather (and a rough patch on the outgoing flight), L-dawg was pretty chill. Bonus: "Scuba man" (pronounced "Buddha man") has replaced "Bat the ball" as the most oft-said phrase in my child's daily-expanding vocab.

So that's it. I will put pix up in a minute.

Not as funny as the John Roberts' one. Maybe not funny at all.

T&A Lady has an interesting exchange about Ann Landers, which prompted me to dig out a post I started last week. I think it's a little creepy that T&A Lady and I are on some wierd, advice-giving-columnist wavelength.

How low on the celebrity totem pole do you have to go before you no longer have to tolerate the adult children of celebrities and their pitiful attempts to re-live their parents' "glory days"? As an Ann Landers fan, I am not sure whether Dear Abby even had a glory day, so why is her daughter forcing us to walk the same lovelorn path that teens in 1960 were treading? And is she really making her living off of selling pamphlets about wedding planning and some such? I realize that this problem (C-list celebrity children) is not as pressing as the SCOTUS nomination (what IS a charm offensive?) but TomKat is the sole province of T&A, and Bradgelina's touching adoption and recent struggle against meningitis puts them off-limits. Plus, they bore me to tears so I can only google them once every fiscal year.

Admittedly, I need to warm back up to this blogging thing.

There is hope yet for the Roberts family

I wonder if Judge Roberts can krump as well as his son can?



His mother, Pepto, looks like she wants to bust out as well. His sister Jane, Jr. or whatever her name is, just looks scared.

At this moment, GWB is wondering, "can mah ah-brows float off my face? Wha!? Who is that little boy? Is he one of those Wilson twins? Goddamnit with those people! This was supposed to distract folks from Rove. This is low, sending a 4 year old. I can't top that. Oh, wait, I saw that kid at dinner. How do ah know him? Robert's kid? Is that rah-t? What the hell is wrong with this guy? He can't keep his own damn kid under control and ah'm asking him to overthrow Roe? Crap. Where's Karl?"

Low in Carbs, High in Heroin

Was the guard who snuck the heroin into San Quentin doing a favor for the inmate or the warden?

The Science of Hoarding

In case you were staking your Ph.D. on being the first to study animal hoarding, you are too late. Way way too late, apparently.

How will the nominee be revealed?

Good question. Brook thinks GWB should put the nominee under a heavy black cloth and then, right as he says his/her name, whisk the cloth off, revealing the nominee.

For me, I sort of imagine him being really gushing and silly, saying “I just hope the American people are as crazy about (him/her) as I am!” and then lofting the nominee’s hand high above their heads in victory.

Truly, A Battle Worth Fighting

I am sure Kimi Peck's father-in-law would be SO . . . "how can I say this without getting sued?". . . . PROUD of her.

Shelter Accused of Keeping Too Many Chihuahuas From the L.A. Times (Sorry about the cut-and-paste on this article, rather than a link)

The little creatures snarl when they feel threatened. So do those who care for that curious breed of dog called the Chihuahua. Accusations were flying Monday in Burbank as dog lovers debated whether the operator of a nonprofit shelter is "hoarding" unwanted Chihuahuas instead of finding new homes for them.

Former volunteers at Chihuahua Rescue were in Los Angeles Superior Court to demand that shelter founder Kimi Peck be ordered to put 275 Chihuahuas up for adoption. They say the dogs are being held in filthy conditions at her Moss Street shelter.

Their concerns were heightened when they learned that Peck, former daughter-in-law of the late actor Gregory Peck, shipped 100 of the Chihuahuas out of the jurisdiction of city prosecutors hours before the scheduled court hearing. Peck, a film writer and producer, has operated her Chihuahua Rescue shelter in Burbank for two years. The Brentwood resident and former wife of Stephen Peck launched the shelter with proceeds from her 1980 Tatum O'Neal comedy "Little Darlings" and says she has spent $10 million of her own money on animal rescue work.

"Two years ago, Peck helped coordinate the release of about 200 abused and neglected Chihuahuas who were impounded and scheduled to be destroyed after being seized in a 2002 raid on a breeder's home in Acton. Neighbors had complained that the Chihuahuas were being housed in unsanitary conditions. Authorities found that the dogs had formed feral fighting packs and deemed them unsuitable for placement.

A few blocks away in the industrial area near the Chihuahua Rescue headquarters, the smell of disinfectant was heavy in the air as Peck and other volunteers cleaned cages and played with snippy, yelping Chihuahuas. "I think rescue attracts a lot of — how can it say it without being sued? — emotionally unstable people who are passionate about animals," Peck said. She blamed what she characterized as "this smear campaign" on a homeless former volunteer who sought to live for a time at the Chihuahua shelter. When asked to stop sleeping at the shelter, Peck said, the woman filed a complaint with the city noting that the shelter was housing about 40 more dogs than it was licensed for. Peck said she was terrified that the city would raid the shelter following Monday's court hearing and place the Chihuahuas in public pounds, where they might face destruction. So "we moved 100 dogs last night. I called 10 of my close friends in rescue," she said. "We were up all night saving them."

The Chihuahuas will return, she said, but not for long. "We've outgrown Burbank. There are too many dogs for this little place. I'm tired of rescuing. I'm retiring. I'm opening a sanctuary for dogs in retirement. Maybe in Northern California or Arizona." A din of high-pitched barking almost drowned out Peck as she tried to explain her devotion to the diminutive dogs. "They can be pretty rotten. They're quite stubborn. They're too loud," she said. But she loves them anyway.

Blog-shame

The rumor mill has been spinning at a red-hot speed; not even the aforementioned NASCAR Fantasy participants could keep up with it. Finally, your question - What is the deal with Hedge Funds? - can be answered.

Okay, so this is just a plug for my friend Hannah E. Dunn's book. Only chapters 8, 9, 11 and 17 are worth reading. I heard the same thing about the new Harry Potter book, by the way.

This blog is becoming "about" how excellent my over-achieving friends are*, and how handily they find their own names in print.

This post, however, really concerns the blog-shame I have about telling people that this blog exists. I think I only tell them once they have made an appearance, and even then only if I can extol their fame. What is my problem? Poo Poo Platter, do you feel the same way? Readers, am I lessened in your eyes?

*As opposed to being about my jujitsu career, which I have considered at length as a theme for this blog, notwithstanding the short-livedness of that career.

Mamas, Don't Let Yer Babies Grow Up to Play Fantasy NASCAR

For those of my very few readers who are also my competitors in the Yahoo! NASCAR Fantasy thing that we do to alleviate our far-flung loneliness, a note of caution. A lot of you have used up the number of times you can run a driver in a race (9 is the max), so you need to get in there and pick a different driver. I am pointing this out to you because Tsvidogg and Jeff (can't remember Liszt's secret name) probably already know this and will continue to dominate unless you take affirmative action to pick new drivers. And the real reason is that Brook has just now firgured it out (see, I was not even spreading this around in the house) and he will probably get ahead of all of us unless we band together and act like the Longshots we are. Good luck.

Shout Outs to J Lav

Not satisfied with merely surviving the Tuscaloosa summer, Jen Lav has decided to bust Alabama Medicaid's ass. Clearly Medicaid does not stand a chance.

Who is Scobie?

Joshua Scobie is a character from Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. From the Literary Encyclopedia:

"Perhaps most colourful of all is aging policeman Scobie, whose ultimately fatal “tendencies” involve dressing up as a woman during the full moon and trolling for British sailors on shore leave. . . In other developments, Scobie is kicked to death by outraged British sailors, but is elevated to sainthood by his Muslim neighbors; his bathtub, in which he was wont to prepare a lethal “Mock Whisky”, becomes a holy relic."

For more scintillating plot twists along those same lines: http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10820

Scobie was also our cat for awhile.

The Post Where I Learn How to Post Pictures

Here are the two cutest people I know. But in case you are worried that it will be "that" kind of blog, where I post pumpkin pie recipes and console everyone that my impetego is getting better, don't sweat it. This is just a test to figure out if I can do this properly.

The Accidental Blog

Jeez, I was just trying to set up an identity so I could post pithy remarks in the Comment box of a friend's blog, www.tnda.blogspot.com. I didn't mean to go off and start my own blog. Oh, well, here I am now.