Erased

Holey moley

Barack has a lot of money.
A prime-time 30-minute infomercial on several major networks?
(T. the non-plumber didn't see that coming / was looking for junk food.)
Watched it all, of course / channels came in clearly.
Will be at FactCheck.org in morning …
Felt good at the time.

B.H.O.

If you are not white, your citizenship is questioned.

I don't recall the United States people, government, or media questioning Christians here while Adolph Hitler, a professed Christian (Catholic-born), was expanding power through force and killing; of course, we did inter U.S. citizens of Japanese descent, and Hitler is to have said to have admired the armies of Muslim nations, supposedly confiding to a friend that that religion would have been more suited to "our purposes" than Christianity.

President Ronald Reagan was the one who signed the apology legislation that acknowledged racist motives toward the Japanese (despite the Supreme Court's having upheld in 1944 the Constitutionality of Executive Order 9066). There were even reparations, $1.6 billion.

Has anyone ever been inclined to add up the fees and penalties of all the lawsuit settlements the federal government is involved in?

No one ever made fun of Reagan's middle name — Wilson was a Democrat who started the Federal Reserve and oversaw the creation of the federal income tax. He did make sure all ships had enough lifeboats following the sinking of the Titanic.

Sure, being Robin Hood is not popular with everyone. But your income tax rate goes up the more you make already. I can never, ever use any child-related deductions, and we already pay the "self-employment" premium, despite also having two full-time employer-jobs, but it's not like anyone else has improved the situation.

I know we need more money for the wars and everything else. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's time to pay up. Time to be less wasteful — remember those cartoons that depicted squirrels and other animals collecting tires, tin cans, and war bond donations? "Give, brother, give," and check out what you pitch in the landfill every day. (I'm one of those freaks all for the bottle-and-concrete homes). Yes, everything comes in a package, and it's hard to avoid. (Just think how big your house could be — I know I've thrown away a couple of mansions already.)

Everything we do is all complicated and consumeristic. If you're happy about that, let me know and let me know how to justify it; I am sick with compulsory wastefulness. An alternative is to wander off into the national forest and hope it stays that way long enough for you to starve or be eaten by a bear. Fun times!

Redistribution of Wealth 2.0

So, this man comes to the door at 12:11 a.m., knock knock.
In a nice overcoat, knock knock.
Silly us, we have the TV on, knock knock.
Go to door, you never know, knock knock.

Line: "I'm a minister; I'm from the church at the hospital"

Response (partial; loud): "Dude, I don't care who you are, look at what time it is."

Man goes, quickly, gets into silver two-seater's passenger side, leaves, does not ask any other neighbors for "shelter."

They say you shall not know Jesus when he comes / shall reject him. I know the Beatitudes, but my attitude is one of self-preservation.

(Last time a man came to here thusly, he was wearing childish clothes; by that I mean he had a sports jersey and cap and something like a pipe or bat.)

I mean, come ON, people!

(I'm up right now because the neighbor went off somewhere on her moped. You know how loud those are. I think she must have some kind of masochistic thing going; isn't it very cold outside right now? Or she's getting donuts and not bringing me any — she will be back around 8, I assure you, waking me up again; weird people have weird hours and jobs.)

CG goes to St. Louis (pronouce like woman at gallery; ie: the French way)

These are all buildings visible along Washington Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri. I need a wider-angle lens, but you get the idea … if you were in my head, you'd say, "Did I really go to scary-trendy bars alone / with my highschool friends on this street in the '90s? Everything looks so different. Darn, I really miss brick architecture and urban density more than I thought."

More autumnalness

After the party

My new job

BRANSON KICKS OFF CHRISTMAS WITH THE HOLIDAY PROMENADE OF STARS!
Ozark Mountain Christmas event is Saturday, November 1, at 10:00 a.m. at Branson Landing

The Holiday Promenade of Stars parade at the Branson Landing has a very special Grand Marshall again this year – “Mr. Christmas” Andy Williams. And later this year, Branson will be sharing that Grand Marshall with another parade, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

The Holiday Promenade of Stars kicks off the 2008 festivities for Ozark Mountain Christmas on Saturday, Nov. 1 at 10:00 a.m. and will feature many of your favorite Branson stars, a marching band, dancers, acrobats, drummers and more. Even Santa himself joins in the fun as he makes his way to his very own Christmas Tree House in Town Square!

The parade begins promptly at 10:00 a.m. at the north end of Branson Landing by BELK Department Store. The Holiday Promenade of Stars moves along the thoroughfare until it arrives in Town Square. Local radio personalities, Steve and Janet, from Branson’s Hometown Radio KRZK 106.3, will host LIVE performances by Andy Williams, The Lennon Sisters, Bob Anderson, SIX, Jake Simpson, Jason Yeager, the cast of Country Tonite, and many other stars of music shows in Branson. As the promenade continues to move toward the Bass Pro Shops, a second performance area will be hosted by Bob Nichols, host and comedian with Country Tonite, and Gene Bicknell, owner of The Mansion and the Oak Ridge Boys Theatre. Don’t miss all the performances and appearances by Moe Bandy, The Platters and Liverpool Legends with the Starlite Theatre, Silver Dollar City, The Mansion and many more.

Join us at Branson Landing on Saturday morning, November 1st at 10:00 a.m., as we kick off, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" in Branson with the Holiday Promenade of Stars. Have a very Merry Christmas – in Branson!

All I Have

PALEOLITHIC 30000 - 10000
Chauvet cave, Vallon Pont d'Arc 30000 - 25000
Venus of Willendorf 28000 - 25000
Tuc d'Audoubert, Ariege 15000 - 10000
Altimira cave, Santander (Spain) 12000 - 11000

NEOLITHIC 9000 - 4000
Stonehenge 8000 - 2000
Çatal Hüyük 7200 - 6400

BRONZE AGE 3000 - 1000
Narmer Palette 3000
Cycladic sculptures 2700 - 2200

Old Kingdom 2700 - 2200
Djoser step pyramid complex, Saqqara 2630 - 2611
by Imhotep, 413 x 344 x 200; shafts 92; complex 193 x 100 x 33 wall

Pyramid of Cheops / Kufu, Giza 2551 - 2528 (1st and biggest of 3, incl. Menkaure, Khafre and Khafre Great Sphinx) by Hemiunu, 2.3 million blocks; 755 x 756 x 450

Chephren / Khafre 2500
Seated scribe 2500
Mycerinus / Menkaure and wife 2490 - 2472
Tomb of Ti, relief with cattle 2400 - 2300

Sumerian 3200 - 2200
White Temple / ziggurat 3200 - 3000
Standard of Ur, royal cemetery Tell Muqayyar, Iraq 2600
Naram-sin relief, Susa, Iran 2254 - 2218

Middle Kingdom 2040 - 1650
Sesostris III 2040 - 1650

New Kingdom 1550 - 1050
Hatshepsut mortuary temple by Senemut, Deir el-Bahri 1473 - 1458
with sanctuaries to Hathor, Anubis, H., Thutmosis I, Re-Horakhty, Amun
Hatshepsut offering jar kneeling statue 1473 - 1458
Paintings from Tomb of Nebamum, Thebes (dancers, cats) 1400 - 1350
Amarna Heresy, Akhenaton's rule (abandon Amen and Thebes) 1353 - 1335
Nefertiti, Tutankhamun funerary mask 1323
Temple Amen-Re, Karnak 1290 - 1224

Minoan 1700 - 1400
Palace at Knossos, labrynthian, tapering columns, frescoes, pipes, air wells, sliding doors
Harvester, Octopus vases
Destruction of Thera, 60 miles north of Crete 1628

HELLADIC 1600 - 1100 Tyrins, Mycenae (fortified, lion gate, narrowing, mountain)
Mask of "Agamemnon" 1600 - 1500 Mycenae grave circles
Helladic dagger (Minoan style, Helladic subjects)
Warrior crater 1200

Athens revival PROTOGEOMETRIC 1000 - 900

GEOMETRIC 900 - 700
Athens NM 804 740 Dipylon master
Hirschfeld krater 740

ARCHAIC 640- 480
Kouros 600
Anavysos 530
Ajax and Achilles krater by Exekias 540
Herekles and Antaias by Euphronios 510

CLASSICAL 480 - 330
Kritios / Thesius boy 480
Poseidon / Zeus from Artemision sea 460
Discobolus by Myron 460 (1 a.d. copies)
Riace bronze warrior 450
Doryphoros by Polykleitos 450 (1 a.d. copies) proportion, canon, study, chiastic balance
Stele of Hegeso, Dipylon cemetery 400
Knidians Aphrodite by Praxiteles 350 (copies)

Merry something

Just heard someone scream

Drunk and happy scream?
Never saw that before / need help scream?
Angry at known-party scream?

I can not evaluate nor will investigate.

I heard perhaps a gun.

I hear definitely helicopter.

I think all are unrelated.

Thinking is what got us here in the first place.

Let me rant happily that Dr. Robert Cohon is a dedicated teacher.

(We had a review tonight, during cocktail hour, Simpsons — new episode; no functioning recording device here! and no, I don't have the patience to watch "TV" online after the fact, legal or illegal — and I did only learn a few hints as to what one should express on the midterm in two days; however, I am the 10-years-ago undergrad / post-bac / older student (but not the oldest in the room) and so know the game, remember the game, love the game, hate the game, wish I had more time for the game, which I abandoned over a decade ago because I hate games, because I feel as I felt that intellectual games were on their own plane … )

I shall not go on there.

What I mean is: when I watch PBS and see folks spending full days setting up cameras (infra-red / new technology for which I have no name / time to reresearch and confirm) with the goal of seeing forest animals elusive like Sumatran tigers and elephants, I feel at once jealous and sad.

I also envy those who spend hours under the Turkish sun excavating new spaces that show that people there built Stonehedges thousands of years prior to the Paleolithic Age in Beowulf-land.

This woman, while attending to eyebrow- and armpit-plucking, would also like to be one of those females who appears on PBS without any self-conscienceness about post-Victorian grooming "trends."

She wants to live with birds and monkeys / apes and with moths and such that are mysteries.

She doesn't believe in homo sapiens as a thing to explore as-is.

I hear more people screaming.

This one has a female voice.

(No, this is not a metaphor.)

Water sign suffering

When the autumn air turns arid, no amount of usual hydration will do. The people I know who live in California eschew the Midwestern humidity, but I find every year that my skin is suited to it. Those strange nose sores, the violently itchy skin, chapped lips, and the fact that days can go by and one's hair is still "clean" I would trade for mid-tropical today.

I met a bunch of neighbors yesterday; they have this annual block party thing. I can't really comment, because who knows who may stumble by — my neighbors work for DeVry, for Hallmark, for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum; some of them are adamant about restricting street parking to residents via annual permits (and signs the city / your taxes will pay for).

I understand the frustration of not being able to park near one's home when one takes the privilege to use fuel and come home for lunch, or when one works a night shift and finds the whole street full of students' cars … but 24/7 seems silly, and I don't quite buy the fact (he could not produce evidence or paperwork, just petitions — "ah, those are at home") that the civic body elected can't work out some other method. Wanna visit me? Oh, sorry, you have to have $2 permit. More details, please. Yes, I know Parking Control doesn't come around at night — so, again, why would the rules be applicable then?

The more interesting part is how people talked about each other to us, the newest ones, saying things to forge allies, to plant suspicion, to goad, to invite, to inform. There is a book club, apparently, too. I have a feeling I probably said some things that were not appropriate. But I'm always too honest, even when on guard.

I just got this vibe, except from my two closest neighbors (the two sets with little kids, the neighbors whose yard is adjacent, the neighbors whose yard I can see from our porch), that there is tension, that there is discord, that, like certain people one works with, one shouldn't become friends, that it's not going to work out, that it's always going to be based on something besides love.

As for those I do love, I have neglected to carve out the hours it takes to make phone calls, to write letters, to visit.

I'm sorry.

We did refinance the house last week. I guess the neighbors can hear that. Lost over a point of interest and $100 a month in payment. With the appraisal, it cost a few hundred less than the October payment would have been. Don't have to pay again until December, which is uniquely fitting to my personal cash-flow issues. I looked into and have half-completed applying to the IRS for its seasonal positions. You in Missouri and nearby have noticed that your federal return envelope says Kansas City. The processing center, build LEED® Silver, is nearby but not actually employing until February 7.

I have a midterm on Wednesday, and I have the usual, the same pile of work to do for my employment job. I'm angry because the last production has at least three errors — one is mine (a spacing typo), one is the printer's (a post-proof change that apparently was not made clear), one is designer's (typing things in that already exist and are triple-checked and should be cut-and-pasted in).

Strangers

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio

Yes, well, I knew it would be someone I had never heard of, much less read. For all I know, the books are in still in French. The idea that his work has something to do with "sensual ecstasy" is intriguing. Of course, considering one of his cited works was published in 1980 … yes, of course, they are translated.

Gosh, I'm fairly stupid.

PS — I have books by the 2007 winner on my shelf. Me and Doris Lessing have a long but shallow relationship, however.

Can anyone guess the Peace Prize winner?

What should be really darn funny is who they pick for the economics prize (announcing Monday) — you know, since the world is doing so well on that topic (and I'm getting alarmist and depressing mail from 9-11 dentist about how the banking crisis is contrived, unConstitutional, based in a 100-year-old mess involving the original banker-types like Rockefeller, and related to charming items such as martial law and the CIA, etc. Some of it does stand up to evidence … who is in charge of what companies and how they are all related. Yes, of course, it makes sense that rich and powerful people are related. Family is family. Anyone want to check on the Frank George Wisner III / Enron / AIG / CIA one? How about Lehman Bros. / Bush family / campaign contributions to both McCain & Obama? Bottom line is that Americans are fairly stupid overall, of course.)

Shall I turn my entire yard into a field of St. John's Wort?

I feel like I haven't had a seratonin-moment since, well, let's just say that even the parakeet factor is no longer valid.

Junket

What a fun word.

Reading the financial news is boring, but I've found that switching to science provides a few lights:

Nobel Prize in chemistry to trio of men who invented glowing proteins

Man who came through (a vastly expensive — they never mention how these things are paid for) double-arm transplant

Stem cells for men in a most accessible place

Plants that tell Prozac to go to hell

Bunches of "new" sea creatures and mountains

The NP for literature will be announced tomorrow. Dear nerd friends: Anyone got any picks?

Math

Have you heard the one about how "if we split up the $700 billion, everyone would get $400,000" (or $40,000, or whatever)?

It made me optimistic for about 10 seconds, until fact-checker me did the math.

Counting kids and the undocumented, we'd all get about $2,000, folks. If it were divided per household, each of those would see about six grand.

Now, $1.3 trillion? That's walking around money! Welcome to the United States of the Federal Reserve. (Not really; it's still not enough to pay anything off in this household.)

On another note, I read that the Springfield, Missouri, School District is set to become larger than ours. It got me thinking about my "investment" in education (being a property owner and all).

If $300 million is the Kansas City, Missouri, School District's annual budget, and there are about 21,000 kids in that system, why doesn't $14,000 per student add up to anything like adults who can use a calculator to divide 700,000,000,000 by 305,000,000 before spreading around misinformation? Or better yet, people who can estimate that in their heads and spew out a retort posthaste.

Can you tell I've been reading founding-father-era fodder?

Well, duh

"Investors are realizing that the Bush administration's $700 billion rescue plan won't work quickly to unfreeze credit markets, and many banks are still having difficulty gaining access to cash. European governments also took steps over the weekend to limit the damage from the growing global financial crisis."

Dear Congress,
I wanted to thank you once again for not listening.

All my love,
Registered sucker.

PS, to all you non-Congressites out there: If you live in Missouri, you have two more days to register to vote, change your address, and get right with the system. Even though there is Diebold and Florida and all … wouldn't it be amazing if the country that invented modern democracy (and then set about dismantling elements of it) had the kind of turnout that they get in Iraq and Africa?

Go to 1828 Walnut, kceb.org or to the library or grocery store, where the cheerful volunteers are daily with their clipboards.

Spread it

Yeah, I'm going to be a politi-dork and tell you that I sent a fax to "my Congressman." The D.C. servers are all down — hmm, wonder why? They haven't ever expected "us" to be involved to this extent. Funny.

If you have access to a fax and you live in KCMO, tell Emanuel Cleaver how you feel: 202-225-4403.

He is one of the Dems who switched from "no" to "yes" after "sweeteners" like tax breaks for natural disaster victims (great precedent, eh?), money for rural schools (again, what does this have to do with banks taking risks they are not able to sustain?), and even rum, I read, were added.

I do not see how my government's buying risky assets is a good thing, especially when the idea is to "create a market for risky debt again."

See any safeguards? Regulation? Sure, just print more money and cause inflation. That helps consumers.

Who owns America? In case you had forgotten, they are making a huge transparent show of it.