Once more, we escape winter by the skin of our teeth

Spring officially arrived this evening at 9:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time. This gratifying event was first reported by Mrs. Dorothy Stetson of Freeport, Long Island, who promptly telephoned the Mayor.

The Society for Affirming the End of the World at once went into a special session and postponed the arrival of that event for TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.

All honor to Mrs. Stetson for her public spirit.

By history denied

This is – sweartogod – an idea that came to me, pretty much verbatim in a dream last night.* In my dream I submitted it to The Onion but it was turned down. Peasants.**

Inventer declares his invisible car a "total failure"

WEST LAFAYETTE  Engineering student Howie Mantera has declared the spinoff of his doctoral research, a stock Accura modified with an invisibility field generator, to be "a complete and utter failure." Mantera said his dreams of wealth on the scale of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg or SpaceX founder Elon Musk were "down the shitter."

"I figured out pretty quickly that an invisible car is no use because the other drivers don't know you're there. I got T-boned three times the first afternoon I test-drove it. I mean, it's only an Accura – it's not a DeLorean – but still. Look at it!" The would-be inventor paused, mournfully. "Well, I guess you can't."

"And then I realized that, to get anyplace, I'd have to take side streets and pull to the curb every time I met another car. So it took about five times longer to get where I was going. And I had to park in the space farthest from the door of wherever I was going."

Mantera announced that, after shutting down the invisible car project, he planned to develop a revolutionary textile fiber that would be impervious to wear and discoloration.

The text would be accompanied by a stock photo of an empty parking space.

*Yes, verbatim. Not literally, which is correct but less accurate.

**In the cold light of day, perhaps the imaginary editors of The Onion were right.

Memorial Day repost

(Original post: 5/31/10)

After last winter's visit with the family back at the farm (what I sometimes like to call "Walton's Mountain without the mountain"), I came home with four of my dad's WWII Army service ribbons. (No idea where the medals are, though they may have been donated with the rest of his dress uniform to the Indiana War Memorial museum).

(Update: Sister Ann told me, after the the original post, that she doesn't remember seeing the medals, so wherever they are, they didn't get donated with the rest of his uniform.)

The first three ribbons connect with well-known family history regarding his service years:

European/African/Middle Eastern Campaign:

Southwest Asia Service:

Asiatic/Pacific Command:

Regarding the fourth, we only have the Army's word:

Army Good Conduct:

Overheard (Part 2)

Person sitting nearby, talking on a phone:

I think writing The Great American Novel is great, but I'm not sure about Transformers 4.

I'm inclined to agree.  Who wouldn't?

Overheard

Just a few seats down from me:

Thinking is not a good look for you.

I talked this over with someone later. Perhaps, the friend suggested, I misheard. Perhaps they said, "I found a good book for you."

Yeah, maybe.

For your Thanksgiving enjoyment, one of the two immortal sit-com moments from the 1970s.

And, as most of you know, this is the other one. (The good part starts at around 18:30. And if you want a little bit of funereal irony, go here.)

Let me hear you howl

Talking to my friend Wendy this morning, I found myself telling part of the story about Tiller, a german shepherd who lived next door to me when I lived in downtown Philadelphia off 20th and Chestnut, a lot of years ago. Tiller lived with two Siamese cats, an iguana, and his two humans, Dave and Enid.

Tiller used to howl when I played the guitar, so I wrote this piece of twelve-bar blues for him:

Howlin' Dog Blues (Tiller's Blues)

Got the howlin' blues, baby, got me howlin' like a dog.
Yeah, got them howlin' blues, sugar, you got me howlin' like a dog.
Poundin' whiskies until sundown, then I'm howlin' all night long.

(All right, let's howl)
Aa-wroooooooooooooo . . . !
Aa-wroooooooooooooo . . . !

You may have heard it; we released it on our own label in 1982. Got some local play.

Tiller and I did the clubs around town for a while, but we both knew we were headed in different directions. We played one last gig together for a charity in late 1983, and that was it. Guess we kind of drifted out of touch after that.

Last I heard about him was several years ago – a friend told me he was still doing openers as "Blind Kibble" Tiller.

Happy Thanksgiving: Garbage

Here's hoping you have a Thanksgiving dinner that can't be beat.

You find your miracle, I'll find mine

So there's this:

An amateur beer maker found an unusual way to toast to the memory of Margaret Thatcher - by finding her image imprinted onto the bottom of his bottle tops.

Lee Harlow, 55, had been preparing the latest batch of his homemade brew when he stumbled upon the eerie image of the former Conservative Prime Minister on the underside of the cap.

Thatcher? Meh. I don't see it. (It's interesting to note that the alleged image of Our Lady of the Falklands only appeared after the cap “had been left for several days soaking in cleaning chemicals.” A lot of objects might begin to resemble Thatcher after such treatment.)

Here's what I see: Another Brit who's never busted unions, sold off public assets, or pushed a big chunk of British children into poverty.

A spokesperson for the Vatican said that the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is ordinarily responsible for such apparitional phenomena, was currently unavailable, handling “a grilled-cheese incident somewhere in the United States.”  Mr. Harlow and the Transylvanian embassy did not return our calls for comment.

(Also, continued p3 get-well wishes to Tim Curry.)

Memorial Day repost: Ribbons

(Original post: 5/31/10 Updated below.)

After last winter's visit with the family back at the farm (what I sometimes like to call "Walton's Mountain without the mountain"), I came home with four of my dad's WWII Army service ribbons. (No idea where the medals are, though they may have been donated with the rest of his dress uniform to the Indiana War Memorial museum).

(Update: Sister Ann told me, after the the original post, that she doesn't remember seeing the medals, so wherever they are, they didn't get donated with the rest of his uniform.)

The first three ribbons connect with well-known family history regarding his service years:

European/African/Middle Eastern Campaign:

Southwest Asia Service:

Asiatic/Pacific Command:

Regarding the fourth, we only have the Army's word:

Army Good Conduct:

No, no. Be of good cheer.

If life teaches us anything, it teaches us to accept the aging process with quiet dignity and grace.

I came home last night to find sixty pink flamingos on my patio, courtesy of my sisters, who decided they wanted to mark the occasion with "something different," and this is what they came up with. (Memo to Ann and Jane: Mission accomplished. There are obviously a lot more of them that simply couldn't be fitted into the photo.) I had planned on keeping the day kind of low profile, but that's not really an option now. Neighbors are filing by and taking pictures out there like it's a Smithsonian exhibit.


Pardoe the parrot does not like the encroachment of the new flock. They are all arrayed facing my patio door, and on our/his side of the glass is the big tree perch where it is his pleasure to pass away the day watching the world go by -- not to be stared at by a phalanx of pink aliens. Tell you the truth, they kind of give me the heebie-jeebies myself. I don't know if real flamingos have such a sour expression on their faces, but I'm now becoming something of a lay expert on the plastic variety, and I can tell you this is a face not everyone would enjoy peering at them before breakfast.

And sixty of them magnifies the effect considerably. From the wrong angle, they look deeply annoyed and vaguely disappointed, as if they're expecting an apology. Perhaps it has to do with the absence of feet.

Still, I imagine I'll miss them (although Pardoe probably won't) when they're retrieved tomorrow. Once you've had sixty pink flamingos on your patio, you can never completely go back to the days when you didn't.

Quiet dignity and grace. . . . Quiet dignity and grace.

Impressive

So I'm sitting next to a fellow who's working the daily crossword. He's doing it in ink, which generally irritates me, since they're the ones who usually leave it unfinished (and ruined) when they've made enough mistakes.

Suddenly he dives into his backpack, comes out with a worn paperback, quickly thumbs to a page, and just as quickly copies an answer into the puzzle. I had to ask: You just happened to be carrying the book that had the answer to the crossword clue?

The answer: The Aeneid. The clue: Poem by Virgil. The paperback: Dante's The Inferno, in which Virgil appears and The Aeneid is mentioned.

All is forgiven.

Once again: For your Thanksgiving viewing pleasure: One of the two funniest scenes in 1970s sit-com history*

Here's on of the things I'm thankful for today.

From 1978, the finale of the legendary “Turkeys Away” episode of WKRP in Cincinnatti. It was written by veteran TV writer Bill Dial, who later wrote for Sliders, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek Voyager.

But no matter how big a fan of any of those shows you might be, you have to admit none of them came up with a line as good as this: As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

For some reason, this clip now sometimes stops about a minute before the end. If your browser won't display the full embedded version, click here to see it on Hulu. The scene begins at 17:12 and ends at 23:36.

^*For the record, this is the other one.

Autumn equinox.

Damn.

I want the sun back.

I don't like it. No sir, I don't like it at all.

The summer solstice hits at 4:09pm Pacific Time. Right now. Look out the window. See that sunlight?

There'll be less of it tomorrow. Only a couple of seconds less, but I'll be able to tell.

Don't like it.

(Acknowledgement to the works of John Kricfalusi.)

Memorial Day repost: Ribbons

(Original post: 5/31/10 Updated below.)

After last winter's visit with the family back at the farm (what I sometimes like to call "Walton's Mountain without the mountain"), I came home with four of my dad's WWII Army service ribbons. (No idea where the medals are, though they may have been donated with the rest of his dress uniform to the Indiana War Memorial museum).

(Update: Sister Ann told me, after the the original post, that she doesn't remember seeing the medals, so wherever they are, they didn't get donated with the rest of his uniform.)

The first three ribbons connect with well-known family history regarding his service years:

European/African/Middle Eastern Campaign:

Southwest Asia Service:

Asiatic/Pacific Command:

Regarding the fourth, we only have the Army's word:

Army Good Conduct:

Once more, we escape winter by the skin of our teeth

Spring officially arrived a few minutes ago, at 10:14 PM PDT . This gratifying event was first reported by Mrs. Dorothy Stetson of Freeport, Long Island, who promptly telephoned the Mayor.

The Society for Affirming the End of the World at once went into a special session and postponed the arrival of that event for TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.

All honor to Mrs. Stetson for her public spirit.

A p3 True Animal Story: The seldom-considered down-side of borderline extinction

There's a great moment in Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (the company motto: “We solve the whole crime. We find the whole person.”) when a protagonist finds himself face-to-beak with one of the last of the dodo birds, on the island of Mauritius not long before the poor creatures were finally clubbed into pointless anthropogenic extinction near the end of the seventeenth century:

A large cross bird was looking and Richard and Richard was looking at a large cross bird. Richard was looking at the bird as if it was the most extraordinary thing that he had ever seen in his life, and the bird was looking at Richard as if defying him to find its beak even remotely funny.

Once it had satisfied itself that Richard did not intend to laugh, the bird regarded him instead with a sort of grim irritable tolerance and wondered if he was just going to stand there or actually do something useful and feed it. It padded a couple of steps back and a couple of steps to the side and then just a single step forward again on great waddling yellow feet. It then looked at him again, impatiently, and squarked an impatient squark. It then bent forward and scraped its great absurd red beak across the ground as if to give Richard the idea that this might be a good area to look for things to give it to eat.

“It eats the nuts of the calvaria tree,” called out Reg to Richard.

The big bird look sharply up at Reg in annoyance, as if to say that it was perfectly clear to any idiot what it ate. It then looked back aty Richard once more and stuck its head on one side as if it had suddenly been struck with the thought that perhaps it was an idiot it had to deal with, and that it might need to reconsider its strategy accordingly.

“There are one or two on the ground behind you,” called Reg softly.

In a trance of astonishment Richard turned awkwardly and saw one or two large nuts lying on the ground. He bent and picked one up, glancing at Reg, who gave him a reassuring nod. Tentatively he held the thing up to the bird, which leaned forward and pecked it sharply from between his fingers. Then, because Richard's hand was still stretched out, the bird knocked it irritably aside with its beak.

Once Richard had withdrawn to a respectful distance, it stretched its neck up, closed its large yellow eyes and seemed to gargle gracelessly as it shook the nut down its neck into its maw. Whereas before it had been a cross dodo, it was at least now a cross, fed dodo, which was probably about as much as it could hope for in this life.

It made a slow, waddling, on-the-spot turn and padded back into the forest whence it had come, as if defying Richard to find the little tuft of curly feathers stuck up on top of its backside even remotely funny.

“I only come to look,” said Reg in a small voice, and glancing at him, Dirk was discomfited to see that the old man's eyes were brimming with tears that he quickly brushed away, “really, it is not for me to interfere -- “

Richard came scurrying breathlessly up to them.

“Was that a dodo?" he exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Reg, “one of only three left at this time. The year is 1676. They will all be dead within four years, and after that, no one will ever see them again. Come,” he said, “let us go."

Part of the problem for dodos is -- or, I suppose, was -- that they just weren't shrewd enough to realize the vital importance of keeping their distance from the big featherless bipeds. A bad move, it's true; but there's a reason that “dodo” isn't much of a compliment nowadays.

While Adams was researching dodoiana for that scene, he became interested in learning more about those other creatures teetering on the brink of extinction in our own time. The result was a fascinating, wistful travelog called Last Chance to See.

In 2009, the BBC launched a television series of the same name in which Stephen Fry, as stand-in for his late friend Adams, travels to remote spots on the globe to record some of the creatures still barely hanging onto existence by their toes, claws, talons, or prehensile tails.

(One of the ironies that Adams discovered while researching Last Chance is that some endangered species, such as the komodo dragon, may be able to survive only to the extent that they can be made into a spectacle for public broadcasting documentarians and ecotourism marketers. The fanciful notion that they might deserve to survive simply on their own ontological merits, apart from their place in anyone's business model, has never really seemed to catch on.)

I bring all that up because of this cult-following incident which, at first, reminded me of Adams' fictional human-dodo encounter. An example of an almost-extinct species, sporting a bizarre-looking beak, more grumpy and irritated than alarmed about the presence of these ridiculous looking creatures without feathers, stalks out of the cover of the forest, waddles directly up to a fascinated human, and stares him down, clearly expecting, feeling entitled to . . . something.

Then it all goes terribly, terribly wrong:

(If you're reading this in FB Notes, click here to see the video. 

And believe me -- you really want to watch the video before going any further.)

Oh, dear. Talk about taking one for the team. Zoologist Mark Carwardine, for whom the epithet “the ultimate wingman” does not seem extreme, was an astonishingly good sport about that experience, although he clearly didn't find the whole thing nearly as amusing as (the unmolested) Fry did.

(Before looking it up, I had deduced that the poor fellow must be an extremely dedicated zoologist rather than, say, a mere production assistant or a co-host. The latter groups would surely have contractual protections against that sort of on-camera treatment by the talent.)

Looking at the incident from the point of view of the bird (a male kakapo dubbed Sirocco), though, I suppose we should be at least a little forgiving. A seldom-considered down-side of borderline extinction must surely be the severely limited opportunities for makin' whoopee. And unlike the hapless dodo, this fellow was not about to march blithely into extinction without putting up a fight. No going gentle into that good night for Sirocco. He rode that poor man's head like a rented mule -- a little feathered Slim Pickens astraddle his own H-bomb.

(Of course, why the zoologist allowed the bird to begin a second ascent into the saddle is another and altogether more disturbing question.)

All that being said, though, I should assure p3 readers that my own parrot, Pardoe,  has never behaved like this. But I'm also not letting him watch this clip. No sense putting ideas in his head at his age.

(Hat tip to Mario Piperni.)

Reminder to Tea Party members: The US Constitution is the other one.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the
thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock

Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll

Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

Memorial Day repost: Ribbons

(Original post: 5/31/10)


After last winter's visit with the family back at the farm (what I sometimes like to call "Walton's Mountain without the mountain"), I came home with four of my dad's WWII Army service ribbons. (No idea where the medals are, though they may have been donated with the rest of his dress uniform to the Indiana War Memorial museum).

The first three ribbons connect with well-known family history regarding his service years:

European/African/Middle Eastern Campaign:

Southwest Asia Service:

Asiatic/Pacific Command:

Regarding the fourth, we only have the Army's word:

Army Good Conduct: