**Yeah!**

She updated!

**The TimesSelect discussion continues**

Reading a front page discussion on PressThink (Jay Rosen's weblog linked from my blog), I came across a good point brough up in a journalism class discussion... Ironically, it arose in a class at George Mason University - the home and general breeding site for libertarian thought in the "worship Ayn Rand" sense.

Here is the concern raised about the new TimesSelect feature:

Outing: “Steve Klein, an online journalism professor at George Mason University, says one of his students raised an excellent point during a class discussion this week about TimesSelect: ‘Even if the Times picked up most of its existing online readers, how are they going to grow a new generation of online Op-Ed readers if they keep the columnists behind a pay firewall?’ Good question.”

**While we are talking about the New York Times**

The newspaper of record is slowly moving content to premium subscription. You either have to pay for an online subscription to access some of it or can get it free with a regular subscription. Can someone who has a subscription let me use their information to access premium content?

To do the online "TimesSelect" you either have to have the online premium account already and share the password and the account name with me (no big deal, really), or tell me the delivery address and the NYT's account number where you receive your print copy (which would either be on the newspaper label or on the credit card bill you use to pay for the paper). I can set up the account for you and tell you the password.

I hate the fact I can no longer read Nicholas Kristoff columns anymore, but out west, the paper of record costs a fortune to receive.

**Hail to the New York Times**

In one of the better staff editorials I have read, the New York Times steps, for a moment out of journalistic timidity and says it like it is. Here are the first couple of paragraphs. Go read the editorial for yourself before it slips into their archives next Sunday.

September 25, 2005
Hard Bigotry of No Expectations
Throughout his campaigns in 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush talked about "the soft bigotry of low expectations": the mind-set that tolerates poor school performance and dead-end careers for minority students on the presumption that they are incapable of doing better. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said recently that this phrase attracted her to Mr. Bush more than anything else.

It was, indeed, a brilliant encapsulation of so much of what is wrong with American education. But while Mr. Bush has been worrying about low expectations in schools, he's been ratcheting the bar downward himself on almost everything else.

The president's recent schedule of nonstop disaster-scene photo-ops is reminiscent of the principal of a failing school who believes he's doing a great job because he makes it a point to drop in on every class play and teacher retirement party. And if there ever was an exhibit of the misguided conviction that for some people very little is good enough, it's the current administration spin that the proposed Iraqi constitution is fine because the founding fathers didn't give women equal rights either....

**Smile**

Q: What is Bush's position on Roe v Wade?

A: He really doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans.

**The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...**

is the name of a new film series started by a colleague. Tonight we premiered the Bad. I am pondering who would have sat through this whole movie in order to recommend it, and then it occurred to me that whoever chose this is actually watching it again.

Tonight's selection was Army of Darkness

I would have been more judgmental, but then I realized that the film has actually won awards.

It won the Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films
It won the Golden Raven at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film.

There is more but I won't bore you.

The movie had numerous memorable taglines associated with it:

Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas

---

1 Man, 1 Million dead, The odds are just about even.

---

They move. They breathe. They suck.

---

Sound the trumpets, Raise the drawbridge, and drop the Oldsmobile

---

How can you destroy an army that's already dead?

---

In an age of darkness. At a time of evil. When the world needed a hero. What it got was him.

Now...

My favorite quote from the movie, set in the 1300's with plenty of old English in the script... happened at an amourous moment:

"Give me some sugar, baby." That was delivered by the lead in the film, Bruce Campbell.

He attended Western Michigan University for awhile. Hah.

I would suggest that this movie is not his most notable and memorable work. I think his very best is available at Amazon.com, and... what can I say (except this is a link worth clicking), I think I will let this one speak for itself.....

**Did I Really Hear That?**

Let's just set the scene first:

I am watching ABC World News Tonight and on comes a story about the the Catholic church and gay priests. The reporter narrated a story that described the Vatican's and Pope Benedict XIV's pending deicsion to ban gay priests whether celibate or not.

But that is not what put me over the top and sent me "bee-lining" to the blog. One of those interviewed made a comparison between gay priests-around-little-male-parishoners to alcoholics being present with a key to the liquor cabinet.

When will the idea that one's sexual preference being a "disease" stop rearing its intolerant, ignorant, hateful, narrow-minded head?

Jesus! (and I don't mean that in the calling out for the "man" sense)

**Whadda Day for News**

I have kept the television on in my office for much of the day (and I did not even catch the Daily Show!).

I watched Hurricane Rita tranform from a tropical storm to a Category 5 monster in what seemed like record time. And I monitored my nieces's blog as she and her friends prepared to evacuate from the Houston/Galveston area. More recently, I watched Jet Blue's Burbank/NYC flight perform an emergency landing at LAX after the front landing wheel was stuck at a ninety degree angle. The landing, live, thanks to LA area television affiliates, showed the AMAZINGLY skilled flight crew drop the back wheels to the tarmac, and then slow the airplane down BEFORE dropping the skewed front wheel. Contrary to what safely officials hoped, the wheel did not right itself on landing. It scraped along the runway, the wheel finally bursting into flames. But those darn pilots brought that plane to a stop without the wheel support system collapsing.
I will fly with those pilots ANYTIME. Now, whether I am going to be anxious flying on a A320 airbus, is another story. This is the second time that has happened on that model of plane. I guess it is better than a rudder breaking or a wing collapsing, or double engine failure....

**Googling "Failure"**

My ever clever nephew just sent me this and it is too good not to post.

Do the following:

Go to www.google.com and put in "failure" into the search key then hit "i am feeling lucky"

Hard to beat a search engine with a sense of humor.

Thanks, N.

Update:

Even better: it works with "miserable failure."

**Balrog rises from the depths of Middle Earth**

It was inevitable that he would emerge as a topic in this blog. Ex-husbands don't die, they just fade in the murky and firey depths only to emerge again when money becomes an issue.



And so it is. Balrog arises again.




In a couple of weeks I head to Colorado to go head-to-head with a demon who now claims he does not see any value in higher education, and has stayed unemployed for over a year to present to the court a miserably low income in order to eviserate his support for two amazing, talented hardworking kids who have done nothing to this man.

Efforts to reach an agreement continue to fail. Lawyers are making the better part of a year's tuition and there is no end in sight.

I remain astounded that my best hope might be to salvage some measely amount of college support. After ten years time to save and plan, I managed - on one income and raising these kids alone - to put away enough money to cover half their college costs. Balrog meandered from job to job, took a year off to hang out in Italy, and saved nothing. Well except, apparently enough to pay $100,000 cash for a house in the italian riviera. Now he claims he has no money to help his kids with their education in spite of his written promise.



Where is the Gandalf when you need him?

** 7 things....**

7 things I plan to do before I die:
* Fulfill a longstanding plan to travel from Chile to Argentina, to Patagonia, to Tierra del Fuego
* Excel at wilderness backpacking
* Go to law school
* Bike or ride a horse across country
* Build a retirement home in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho or western Colorado
* Learn to ride a motorcycle
* Be satisfied

7 things I can do:
* Write a book
* Ride horses, well
* Hike farther than I ever thought possible
* Milk a cow
* Teach, well
* Live on my own and be happy
* Raise children of substance

7 things I cannot do:
* See the forest through the trees sometimes
* Be satisfied
* Admit that I am wrong right away
* Take financial risks
* Easily let go
* Technical climbing
* Play an instrument well

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:
* Eyes
* Smile
* Intellectual capacity
* Minimal bagage (nearly impossible by middle age)
* Ponytails
* Ability to cut through bullshit
* Liberal, but not a loser

7 things I say most often:
* Is it Friday?
* I will be there in five minutes
* I love you Shiloh, you're such a good dog!
* I miss my kids!
* This is why I live on the other side of the country.
* What did that stupid idiot say today (referring to Bush, any member of the Bush administration, and/or any employee of FOX news) ?
* They should have impeached him and his two buddies (still say this in reference to the late J. Rehnquist and his cronies, J. Thomas and J. Scalia).

7 celebrity crushes:
* John Cusack
* Nicholas Cage
* Robert Redford
* Tom Hanks
* Morgan Freeman
* Denzel Washington
* Robert De Niro

**Four Years Ago**

I remember coming into that morning work in Michigan. I pulled into the covered parking garage, stepped out of the car and crossed paths with a co-worker on her way to her car. She said with anxiety in her voice, "Did you hear? A plane crashed into the World Trade Center!" Two thoughts crossed my mind simultaniously: an image of a small private plane hitting the building and that what she told me was a joke.

Then I remembered the last time someone told me something like this and I didn't believe it at first. I was walking into a Burger King in Panama City. My cameraman had gone in ahead of me and when I entered the restaurant, he said, "The Challenger blew up." He was a kidder, so I didn't believe him. But he pointed to the overhead television, and there it was. The spanish was hard to follow, but the images said everything.

I walked into my office and turned on my television. I had the only office on my floor with a television (perk of the job). There it was. Within minutes my cramped office - no bigger than a parking space for a car - was full of people. There we sat for 8 hours. We watched the second plane crash. We watched the buildings come down. No classes were taught that day. The world stopped. My eyes left the television only long enough to drive home and turn it on there.

This event joins several other I have witnessed in my life that makes me feel to my core that the world is fundamentally changed. The Challenger explosion was like that for me. So was the death of Princess Diane for some reason. 9-11 joined that group. And now, New Orleans. For some the scope of the disaster is just too much to wrapped one's head around. Other incidents it the emotion.

I didn't know anyone else in Michigan who lost someone on Sept. 11th. But Michigan felt closer to New York somehow. Maybe it was because we were in the same time zone. Maybe it was because many here were from the east coast. Maybe it was because large cities were nearby us... cities that felt like an east coast city.

At that time, I had decided to move west the following year. I talked to my future employers a day or so after 9-11 and asked how the students experienced it out there. I was struck by how detached they were from the experience. It was traumatic alright, maybe like the way the Indonesian tsunami felt. Traumatic but far away.

9-11 is a mixed experience for me. Closer to home for sure, but having lived away from the east coast for many years, more removed than for my immediate family who lived an hour away by train from NYC (meaning it was a commuter area). They all knew neighbors - lawyers, stockbrokers and even one of the pilots - who died.

And then there was my cousin and his wife. I knew them, but not well. I hadn't spent time with my father's side of the family - after many years of living far away, and after many years since my father's passing.

Their son, Ryan, was on the 104th floor. Worked for Cantor. I knew of him more than I knew him. But I think of him every Sept. 11th. So he is not forgotten out on the west coast.

**Oregon voices**

Purusing the Oregonian, which I don't come across that often, I was struck by one letter to the editor today. A very succinct response to the Oregonian's front page picture on Sept. 2. It was an image of an deceased african american man lying in a lawn chair. This image generated a lot of "feedback" about the appropriateness of putting someone who had died on the front page. This woman's response was perfect in my mind:

She said:

I love the photo of the dead, elderly black gentleman lying in a lawn chair in New Orleans on the Sept. 2 cover of the Oregonian. It was arresting and shocking, but also a perfect representation of the broken social contract in this country. He survived the flood, but he couldn't survive the wait for help. No one should be offended by this any more than a christian would be offended by a painting of Jesus dead on the cross. Both of them represent man's inhumanity to man.

Simply and well put. Oregon. Nice state. At times.

**Oregon: the land of idiosyracies at their best**

Pacific University, in a suburb of Portland just appointed its newest member of the board of trustees. He apparently fits key criteria for board membership: moneyed, likely to be so honored at the opportunity that he gives that money to Pacifica, and likely to be so overwhelmed by the "letters" of all the other members of the board (it looks like he mat not have a college degree) that he won't ruffle and of the feather of the doctors, lawyers and ex gov.-types that share this honor. Who, you ask is will be "contributing" to the long term future of Pacifica U.? None other than:

Let's join in a round of "I wanna rock and roll all night.... and party every day."

**The Times-Picayune Open Letter to the Prez**

What can be said. The New Orleans newspaper, published on line during the worst of the flooding is back in print thanks to a neighboring printing facility. I think the paper captures some of the feeling of frustration. I do say, this one is a keeper. Here is the URL, but in case it doesn't stay current, the text is below (with all due deference to fair use).

OUR OPINIONS: An open letter to the President

Dear Mr. President:

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we�re going to make it right."

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It�s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city�s multiple points of entry, our nation�s bureaucrats spent days after last week�s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city�s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We�re angry, Mr. President, and we�ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That�s to the government�s shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don�t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city�s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren�t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn�t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn�t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn�t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We�ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they�ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don�t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You�re doing a heck of a job."

That�s unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We�re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn�t be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

**Walmart and McDonalds**

So, there have been all sorts of reports about businesses promising to continue paying displaced workers for anywhere from a month to 6 months - the length typically seems to depend on the size of the company. So big one's have stepped forward and promised to pay workers for 6 months at least. Smaller one's promise what they can, generally committing to continuing paychecks as long as they can financially. The floating casinos - now destroyed shells on the beach- are continuing to pay employees.

And then there is Walmart, Mickey D's and UPS. According to the NY Times this past Sunday:

While some employees of large companies are still receiving paychecks, Wal-Mart stopped paying workers in the area four days after shutting its stores, and McDonald's and UPS have not paid regular wages to idled employees since the storm hit.

Now Walmart has denied this, saying they are still paying employees, but I heard on TV (so it must be true, right?) that they plan to stop paychecks imminently. And here my hard Walmart heart was almost softening when I heard of their significant donation to relieft efforts and their promise to find jobs for all displace refugees that want them. This seems to be recast into a promise to give jobs to all displaced Walmart employees that want them, whereever they current are refug'ing - if there are job openings. So I am trying to find the definitive position of the largest private employer in the country. What exactly are they willing to do.

At least Mickey D's is upfront. They have confirmed that they ain't paying anybody any more.

**Administration of Shame**

Not being this furious since Rehnquist appointed Bush Jr. prez, I thought an excerpt from Kristoff's New York Times column was in order so we may acknowledge yet another accomplishment of this administration.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported a few days ago that the poverty rate rose again last year, with 1.1 million more Americans living in poverty in 2004 than a year earlier. After declining sharply under Bill Clinton, the number of poor people has now risen 17 percent under Mr. Bush.

For a brilliant biting pieces check out Maureen Dowd's column. I like her work more and more.

**The Race Factor**

So the news media continue to raise the "race" question. Was race a factor in the loss of lives, predicted now to approach 10,000? That is a stupid question that begs a response of ridiculous, and worse, marginalizes the complexity of the race question.

Then there is the follow-up question of class. Again, a completely artificial way to set up the debate that becomes is easy to dismiss. One cannot seriously conclude that there was a systematic decision made to leave people behind because of their race and/or class. Our government doesn't operator at the level of such open and obvious racism.

But look deeper and across time and you can see how race is at the very core of the devastation in New Orleans. Not overt racism, but systemic structural racism. You have a city built upon the backs and cheap labor of an underclass. You have a city (and this is NOT limited to New Orleans) where the civil rights movement resulted in legal rights of equal opportunity, but not until all the natural resources and long term forms of wealth had been gobbled up by the elite anglo class. Great to have equal opportunity when there is no level playing field to begin with.

The very fact that the poor in New Orleans or in almost any metropolitan area in this country are African American should bring this fact home given we have had "equality" for 4 decades. The moment of devastation was not about race. The past 40 years of poverty and structural perpetuation of inequality is about race. Katrina just put it in front of the cameras so couch potato liberals and conservatives hiding behind the belief that widespread racism ended with the civil rights era, could not avert their eyes any longer.

Yes, it is about race and class. That fact that they intersect in the bowels of New Orleans; the fact that the faces crying for help from rooftops of shanties and from floating mattresses are overwhelmingly black; the fact that the city never developed an evacuation plan for the significant portion of the population that lives under the poverty level and does not have private transportation; brings racism and class, hopefully, into the public consciousness again.

Katrina did not discriminate in her destruction. She took the possessions of rich and poor alike. But the rich can rebuild. The rich have insurance. The rich have their lives.

To New Orleans, Lousianna and the U.S., the emperor is not wearing clothes.

**spamalot** (EMILY READ THE COMMENT)

Got the first spam comments. Pesky lil' fellas. Welcome to comment verification land.

**News from the Equator**

I thought that I would post the contents of some of my daughter's emails since she appears to be too busy to update her blog. Slacker. For efficiency and brevity, I excised the ongoing expressions of love gratitude that I am her mother:) and just left in the stuff I thought would be of general interest for those who know and love her. Or just know her. I also left out the part where she provided detailed instructions for the care of her fish, Che. Needless to say, there has been some anxiety around the house over whether we might kill the fish. Too many animals of hers are being left in my rather inconsistent care. For the record I have almost killed her dog three times since she left for college.

Anyway, here is some of what she said last week.....

The morning after I arrived I went with my family to see a little bit of the city. We went to this hill above the center of town where there is a huge statue of La Virgen de Quito who stands on top of a serpent signifying the dominance of good over evil and I suppose the dominance of Spain and its Catholicism over the indigenous people of Ecuador.

We walked around the center of town with them at night and all the churches and old colonial buildings were lit up. We saw a bunch of chivas, which are these converted trucks that have a band playing on the roof and people travel below in a sort of parade. They played Quito’s anthem and my abuelo tried to teach me how to dance to it, but it wasn’t too successful.

Most days, though I spend hanging out with my mamí and Paula talking about life and holding Paula’s hands while she tries to learn to walk. Paula is learning all the sounds of animals so I have been learning all the songs that she listens to in an attempt to participate in talking with her.

The university is amazing - a little, no very grandiose. There are tons of fountains all over the place and a lake (well, maybe a pond) filled with goldfish and koi. Needless to say I spend a lot of time at the pond staring at the fish. In addition to the carp, there are these black organisms that look like a cross between a tadpole and a fish larvae. I can’t find anyone who knows what they are.

I am taking a Spanish class for the first week that meets three hours a day then I come home and eat lunch and spend the rest of the day with my mamí and Paula. Wednesday is the actual orientation to the university for all the international
students who will be arriving and then I will pick classes and start school for real.

I think the bus ride to and from Cumbaya is my favorite part of the school day. I walk six or so blocks down a steep hill to the first bus I take (all I know about it is that it’s blue) that takes me past the commercial part of Quito, by Parque de la Carolina, this huge park in the middle of town, where I get off. Technically, I am supposed to ride the blue bus all the way to an old Olympic stadium a few blocks away but I still haven’t figured out how to take the bus that far. The bus I always end up getting on turns before the stadium. From there, I take a very crowded red bus to a transfer station where I take a green agricultural bus to Cumbaya. The bus to Cumbaya always plays music according to the taste of the driver (usually some kind of traditional Ecuadorian music). People get on at random places and sell everything from cd’s to El Comercio (the main newspaper) to metal orbes decorated with colorful beads.

Cumbaya is in a valley to the West of Quito so the bus climbs up a small mountain before descending into Cumbaya and as the bus reaches the top of the mountain the contrast between the blue sunny sky, the snow covered mountains and colorful buildings in the valley below muted by a layer of smog is incredible.

Although there are designated bus stops, no one really uses them so when you want to get on a bus you kind of jump on as the bus slows down a little. To get off, you do the same thing, jumping off running as the bus slows down a little. The stop where I get off comes up really quickly because generally I am staring out the window at the surroundings when suddenly I realize I have to get off.


There ya go. Once her email is up and running again, I will try and post more.

**Missing the Offspring**

It only has been 20 days or so and I miss them both. Maybe the aftermath of Katrina has something to do with it. Maybe it is a long Labor Day Weekend without a barbeque or hike with the kids. But it feels a long way off until I see my son for parent's weekend and a lifetime (not even 1/10 of the trip has passed) until I see my daughter's smiling face. But she did send two pictures in an email. That is before she lost email capability:

This is a picture of the grounds of her university. Can you say Ecuadorian upper class education?


This is a picture of her mama and little Paula. My daughter must be in heaven having an 18 month old in the house!

**Bit by the hand that feeds ya**

Here is a link to the transcript of the New Orlean's mayor who is peeling away the layers of bullshit that is mishaping the reality of the tragedy in the fallen city. If you can listen to the sound file that also is available on the CNN page. Then you can hear the deep frustration in this man's voice. That alone would have been enough to make me mad as hell. But then a colleague brought in a transcript from the most recent Bill O'Reilly show. Check it out and get mad. O'Reilly insinuated that those who stayed behind did so so they could loot the city.

Here is how the coversation went on the Sept. 1 show:

O'REILLY: Well, you know, what I - from what I'm hearing, this looting was fairly - you know, it's not an organized thisn like organized crime. But these people didn't want to leave.

SHEP SMITH: It's wide spread, Bill.

O'REILLY: Right. But they didn't want to leave because they sensed there might have been an opportunity to do what they eventually did, if they stayed behind knowing."

Racist chump he is.