2 drive or 2 drive twice?

DUI twice in one day

MCMINNVILLE, Ore. - Police said a man was stopped and cited with driving under the influence of intoxicants charges twice in one day. In both instances, police say, the 52-year-old man was driving the same pickup and stopped near the same state liquor store.

Police said they first stopped the man at 11:05 a.m. Friday after he ran a red light. He was released into the custody of his grandmother and his vehicle was impounded.

A while later, authorities released the pickup to another party on condition the man not drive it. But he did. A tow company employee saw Reeves take the wheel and called police.

Police spotted the pickup and followed it back to the state liquor store, where he was cited again.

The second time around, the man was booked in jail on $6,250 bail.

[review] Indian Runner

Directorial debut from Sean Penn, this small, independent film is based upon - it states in the credits - a song from Bruce Springsteen. Movies are based upon books (The Road), plays (South Pacific), short stories (Minority Report), epic saga poems (Beowulf), and even in these days, video games (Wanted). But songs? I'm sure there are more and I just didn't notice them. The song is Highway Patrolman, off his Nebraska album. The movie stars Viggo Mortensen & David Morse (if you're old enough, you saw him on St. Elsewhere). Though with Charles Bronson & Dennis Hopper on the supporting cast, you'd think it couldn't be toooo horrible. Sure, I picked it up because Mortensen was it in - this was in the pre-LotR days - and I'd just seen him in American Yakuza (which I'd picked upon because I'd just seen him in G.I.Jane). So, basically, I saw this several years after it was made.

It's a simple, though not simplistic, story. Two brothers divided by experiences struggle at the division between them as adult men. One left to fight in Vietnam, the other stayed home & became the hometown sheriff. One is rather a hard-drinking drifter who enjoys the feminine delights of Saturday nights; the other settled down and married his sweetheart (his own, not his brother's). Best friends at the end of childhood, the two men struggle to be friends as grown independent men.

There comes a point where both can almost see over the fence into the other's yard (figuratively speaking, of course). One man we see and rather immediately identify with his concepts of 'love and family'. With the other, we recognize his struggle to figure out love beyond good sex. Yet while we watch his struggle, we also accept with bland equanimity the other's existing relations without really questioning what sort of struggle he had to get them. Or even if he had a struggle at all. Can I hold as a mentor or hold as an example someone who never had to struggle with my own nightmares? How far does sympathy take you, without congruent knowledge?

I struggled to imagine what kind of song would have painted this picture for Penn, who both wrote and directed it. Since I had a very clear image of the story from the movie long before I heard to song, I'm not sure if my opinion is unbiased - but I found the song's imagery to be close to the film

It doesn't look high-budget, despite the cast ("high" being a relative term). I wonder if it was one of those "Hey, I'm making a movie, I'd like you to be in it, but can't pay much", where the "yes" answer is out of friendship or at least a professional respect.

4 - Definitely see it on video.

[def.] hegemony

... a diverse culture can be ruled or dominated by one class in part through common sense, that everyday practices and shared beliefs provide the foundation for complex systems of domination.

I like the phrase "complex systems of domination". I look at the news and wonder at the insanity of the population who think "freedom" is something real.

holy cow ...

It's always nice to know one's professional opinion is valued. Sure, the annual "you didn't totally screw up" review from you boss is the ticket to the "oh, well, you can't have one" bonus.

10 Ten best things about swine flu: #1 is from yours truly.

I'm suddenly struck by the fear that someone is going to write MPR and say "what a total screw up, why did you listen to her?" Although one would also hope that they asked someone else before quoting me..... Somehow the idea of telling my employer/employees this pales in comparison to the biggest radio station in the state quoting me.

[review] The Bank Job

okay, so this isn't a new movie. I'm so totally panic-attacking life, I don't even want to think about movies. It will just make me more depressed. Unless you want to do my Ventilation Final Project Cost Accounting Estimates. That will be more than a movie length of time. Really, it's interesting!

"Based on a True Story". Well, I am willing to believe more of the story is true than just scandalous photos of Princess Margaret. And I'm perfectly willing to believe the English government behaves rather insanely when it comes to "protecting the image" of the royal family. God, do they actually think they have a sterling image? You'd think no one could ever imagine them doing anything stupid. Broad Street must be running on cold fusion, if it isn't the rich and famously stupid. Anyway ...

This was the cat's meow. Gripping on the edge of your seat suspense by the end of the movie. Who's going to live? Because by then we realize maybe they aren't all going to. Will his wife ditch him? Did he really do that in the middle of a bank heist? Wow. Will they manage to pull this off? How badly are they really being screwed? How much of this is true?

The background bad guy is some Black Panther-esque Caribbean fellow who's got compromising photos of someone in the royal family, and is using them as blackmail to keep the English gov't off himself. (The events leading to the photos are the only sex you see in the movie, designed to grab your attention at the opening credits.) The undercover agent sent to infiltrate his group plays the epitome of the late-60s "I'm Going to Show My Support to the Oppressed to Annoy my Bourgeois White Parents" white women who flung themselves into bed with Latino Communists or Black Panthers. She deserved recognition for her acting.

The basic plot: a bunch of small-time crooks are lured into a major bank job in London c. 1970. This isn't really all that original. Even Statham in a bank job isn't original. What is enjoyable is simply how it's presented. The crime boss in the back, with his fingers throughout the plot; the fact that one of the crooks was a small-time porn star; the leader's (Jason Statham) wife actually knows he was a crook...

The major suspense mechanism during the bank job appears anachronistic. In today's world of global positioning cell phones, trying to find a pair of hand-held walkie talkies seems de classe: and yet, is likely far less traceable than a cell phone. Definitely fun.

Rating:
3 - Buy your own on video.

[rev.] Halleluja

Leonard Cohen is a powerful poet. One can argue about his qualities as a vocal performer; since I don't think opera or Broadway has a corner on quality, he's fine in my book. The Essential Leonard Cohen is on my Amazon Shopping List, and I'm struggling whether or not to buy it before the end of the school year, as a present to myself for finishing without totally losing my mind... or whether I ought to buy it now, because after losing my mind I'll .....

The whole reason I'm considering buying this album is because it has this Hallelujah. Perhaps I should say I really want that one track, and at $14, a 2-CD package of tons of other stuff is almost irresistible.

Hallelujah: There are countless arrangements on this theme. Going back 1800 years or so. This is the music/prayer sung immediately before reading the Gospel during Mass. The joyous celebration that there is a word of god to hear. We want to connect with the divine. Handel's glorious chorus is often what one imagines: perky happiness of the entire soul passionately seeing some true expression of joy.

But we aren't always (in fact, probably rarely) happy when searching for a way to connect with god ... What is one to do, looking at death, misery and the desecration if not destruction of the world, if one is trying to sing to the glory of God?

I recommend the Randal Thompson composition from 1948-ish. It was commissioned before World War 2, and actually written afterwards. It is mournful, very slow, in a minor key and anything other than joyous. Although it does perk up at the very end to "not morosely slow", perhaps having found some solace in the completion of sorrow.

Cohen's piece I believe, truly brings forth the sorrow of searching, and perhaps not finding, a god to praise. 'yearning but helpless prayer' was used to describe one of his more recent songs. The use of simple music behind the vocals in the verses mimics the minimalistic presence of god at times, erupting into a resigned but emphatic chorus of "Halleluja". Although, as the word is so often associated with Christianity, I do wonder if people notice neither of the figures referred to are Christian? Not a surprise, as he's a Jew; yet it appeals to my Catholic visceral response.

It doesn’t matter which you heard,
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much,
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya
And even though it all went wrong,
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but
Hallelujah

I love the phrase "the broken halleluja".

The use of this in the recent flick "Watchmen" is nicely poignant. A paean to lost opportunities consummated perhaps too late in life.

7 Deadly Sins - coming to your front door

A couple of geographers from Kansas State University wrangled up a host of national statistical databases, massaged the numbers and used them to quantify lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride on a county-by-county basis across the U.S. ... Greed was calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line.
Graphs are located at: http://www.lasvegassun.com/photos/galleries/2009/mar/25/seven-deadly-sins-nationwide-hot-spots/

Minnesota is pretty cold on most of them... except Envy, with Hennepin & Ramsey Counties leading the pack. This translates to Minneapolis & St. Paul.

Focus on what is truly important

I was just chatting with a classmate about kids & parents' delusions/obsessions about their children's astronomical intelligence/athleticism/whatever. She said there are studies indicating that - regardless of what the parents think - by the time kids are teenagers, they move toward a more obvious normal. That parents' beliefs/hopes of their wunderkind is based upon a child developing faster, not further.

As I told her, as long as my sons grow up to be self-sufficient men who are capable of giving and receiving love ... anything else is icing on the cake of life.

Well, that's a surprise. Or not.

Not long after Specter met privately with Republican senators to explain his decision (he just joind the Party of Evil), the party's leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, said the switch posed a "threat to the country." The issue, he said, "really relates to ... whether or not in the United States of America our people want the majority party to have whatever it wants, without restraint, without a check or balance."

sure, as long as it isn't the Republican Party, I'm okay with that ...? WTF? The GOP has wanted that for themselves ... power hungry pricks just don't want to share. Oh, I guess the Democrats don't either.

Jr.Gopher #1: why do I have to share?
me: Because sharing means everyone is equally unhappy.

Specter's switch leaves them with 59 Senate seats. Democrat Al Franken is ahead in a marathon recount in Minnesota. If he ultimately defeats Republican Norm Coleman, he would become the party's 60th vote — the number needed to overcome a filibuster that might otherwise block legislation.

I think we just got doomed to our election dragging on and on and on and on and one ....

The powerhouses

Who's going to win the Olympic basketball games? Well, it's no longer a sure thing we will, but no one is going to write us off. Baseball? Well, I might start betting on Cuba or Puerto Rico, but no one's going to be surprised if we do. American football? No one else plays it, so who cares? Soccer? Only our women are seen as a serious threat internationally. Ice hockey ... hmmm....

Well, gone are the days of 1980's "miracle", mostly because all of the amazing Soviet players moved here. Still, they're retired. The Russians clogging the NHL now, that's different - or perhaps no so different.

Russia 7 : 2 France

They play ice hockey in France? Where?

Sweden is the powerhouse of ice hockey. The largest nationality group for the Red Wings is from Sweden. Sight unseen, if I had to pick a best bet, it would be them. Of course, no one is immune from failure.

Sweden 2 : 3 Latvia.

Do most people here even know where Latvia is?

“We are obviously going to need that killer instinct when we play the Swedes,” [the US coach] said. “They are a very good team, a puck possession team, and play a little different from what we’ve seen so far.” Well, it's good that someone has explained to them that you need to actually get your stick on the puck in order to score.

I'm curious as to why this is going on concurrently w/ the Stanley Cup. A couple of the teams have yet to announce their line up for the next round, due to the players being distracted by the Cup. Sorry, Mr. Gopher, the Fatherland is (probably) out by another one of the Germanic countries (CH), although we took out the other one.

Canada 9 : 0 Hungary

Sure, rooting for the underdog is great - but the finals are likely to be the same-old-same-old: Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech, & Slovakia, and and the U.S. Although, just checking, the Russia-Switzerland game is 2:2. If I can't root for Germany, at least I can hope one of the other underdogs take down the big boys.

But, the power game for the Gopher household is tomorrow: U.S. vs. Svenska (Hey, Mr. Gopher, did you know Linköping has an ice hockey team?) The only way Mr. Gopher will cheer for us is if we're not playing Germany or Sweden. Unfortunately, 8:15 p.m. Central European Time isn't exactly coordinated with Minnesota Central Time. I suspect my professors won't be too keen on ice hockey rather than a boring goddamned waste of my time field trip tomorrow.

With a name like Dinkytown, do you wonder ...?

These are some seriously impressive photographs: from the riots Saturday night in Dinkytown (part of Minneapolis). “We understand celebrating spring, but it should not involve starting fires and breaking things,” Rinehart said.

What a nice break from studying. You start drinking at noon, are hammered by six, and nobody is wiser at the end of the night when flash grenades go off and your friends are together in being sprayed with chemical irritants. - editorial

Rewind to Morgantown. I was a student at West Virginia University from '83-87. The big wild party event each year was in Sunnyside (read: student ghetto) after the Pitt game. It went overboard into a riot '84 when we beat Penn State for the first time in 30 years. I had to walk through the area on the way back to my dorm. Walk through being the operative word. I and several other members of the WVU Marching Band left our uniforms on for the trek. A matter of personal safety. Those students were setting cars on fire. (the party goers, not the band :)

Michigan State University in '99 had so-called "riots" two years running, once after losing the NCAA basketball tourney, and the other after winning. That constituted overturning city police cars and setting them on fire.

There's a really interesting paper (2003) which references both WVU and U of Minn (there was a riot here in '03 after the men's hockey team's championship game).

• WVU - over 1120 street fires have occurred since 1997 related to sporting events (five times the national average). In 2002, the City of Morgantown incurred over $430,300 in property damage as a result of “street” arson.

• More than $250,000 in property damage occurred at Michigan State University following the March 27-28, 1999 riots that resulted in 132 arrests, including 71 MSU students.
  

Whimsey of my life

Sex, Lies & Tee-times
The court also determined the $35,000 was a reasonable sanction when Ali Dunham was told that her golf schedule was not a factor to be considered in scheduling her deposition in the case, but she "disregarded that directive by deliberately choosing to play golf at the time of her deposition," the court said. "She then lied to the court about her reason for failing to attend her deposition, lied repeatedly under oath when presented with the true facts about her whereabouts at the time of her deposition, and now refers to her lies as a mere failure to 'volunteer' information." The court said Audian Dunham then lied to corroborate his wife's story.

Industrial ventilation design:
what exactly is a degree-day?

Do you want to rent space at the Mpls city public gardening area?
I have such a brown thumb. I've never been able to grow anything. I managed to keep a couple cacti alive at BioPort for 6 years. Then it died, too.

2 cents
Advice from one lawyer to his son, who was contemplating doing something socially rude:
"You're going to run into everybody again. They may not remember that you're a nice guy, but they'll certainly remember you're a jerk."

The Cup
So, I’m checking the NHL stats. I haven’t looked in the past two weeks. I can’t really watch the games, unless Yahoo is showing them on line, and that’s usually in conflict with the rest of my life. It’s in the final stretch. Boston, Washington, New Jersey, San Jose, Detroit, and Vancouver are at the top of the two conferences. No need to wonder who I want to win. Who do I think will? Well, Boston has been fantastic, and fantastically consistent. Detroit has, on more than once occasion in the past 20 years, fallen on their faces in the first round. Of course, they’ve also won 4 times in the past 12 seasons. Ultimately, I really want to be able to watch fantastic hockey. This is quite apparently not occurring today, with Columbus being pounded like a baby seal. “Columbus has an all-time record of 247-328-43. Detroit, meanwhile, is 288-254-1 ... but that’s just in playoff games.”

How many U.S. Senators are there? 100? No! There are only 99.
Minnesota can't seem to figure out how to make political assassinations feasible, and then take out the loser (in more than one sense) who's holding up our right to representation. Our senator has - like many in the country - been doing two people's work without adequate resources.

... hmm... maybe this might keep them in touch with the reality of the Modern Workforce? ... given their guaranteed unrelated to performance "pension", I doubt it ...

[Sen. Klobuchar] noted that she had originally predicted that the Senate race would be resolved by the time ice-out was officially declared for Lake Minnetonka -- which occurred last week on the same day as the ruling of the judges.

"Now I predict this will be done when Minnesotans are allowed to swim in our lakes, which is Memorial weekend," she said Sunday.- Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Seriously, what will it take to make the GOP satisfied? If the only answers is “I win”, they sound like my 4 year old. You lost, Norm, get over it and go find a job. Not that you actually need one, with your senatorial retirement benefits.

A little bit of everything

I'm sitting in the Hosmer library struggling to estimate the operational costs for electrical energy (i.e., the bill from XCel) for the ventilation system I apparently screwed up in hte last homework. I have the little study room, so my computer has music playing without needing earphones. (nice)
iTunes is set to random tune selection. There are times when it really hits home how diverse one's musical tastes can be. It just pulled up:

Peggy Lee
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Carl Orf's Carmina Burana
Ralph von Williams
Cowboy Junkies
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Enigma
Leonard Cohen

win-max = fn(η-min)

St. Olaf Professor of Physics Jason Engbrecht said you'll want to see this "because obscenely complicated machines are cool."



St. Olaf was not only the only liberal arts school in the competition, it was also the only school without an engineering program.

The annual competition aims to bring to life Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg's drawings of complicated machines and gadgets that accomplish simple tasks. Using as many whimsical, counterintuitive steps as possible, the machines must complete a task determined each year by contest organizers. The contest is sponsored by the Theta Tau engineering fraternity (at Purdue) and rewards machines that most effectively combine creativity with inefficiency and complexity.

This year's task was to replace an incandescent light bulb with a more energy-efficient light-emitting design. It took 239 steps to turn off an incandescent light and turn on dozens of LED lights spelling "St. Olaf."

Team members built a record player from scratch that, as it spins, allows lasers to fire through pre-drilled holes. The lasers are picked up by light sensors, which trigger several other steps and eventually enable a gate to open and release a ball.

The team also constructed a Gauss rifle, a mechanism that uses a magnetic chain reaction to launch a metal ball at a very high speed, and a simple harmonic oscillator, a system that employs simple harmonic motion and magnetic induction to trigger the start of a car moving along a track. They even turned an ice auger into an Archimedes' screw that caught pool balls and took them from the machine's lower level to an elevated track.

Pictures of Death

Dover AFB open to reality again.
The DoD/USAF are again allowing photography at Dover for returning soldiers' caskets.

2nd Quarter Update

I added why I want to see it, if there's any particular reason beyond "oh, it looks interesting"

Still out there in the T.C.
Sunshine Cleaning (top choice for Anniversary Night Out next week)
State of Play
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh:
Slumdog Millionaire
Hannah Montana: The Movie


... just kidding


Coming Soon(er or Later) to a Theater Near Me:
Sin Nombre:
The Road: assuming it ever gets released
Drag Me to Hell: Sam & Ivan Raimi - how could I pass it up?
Star Trek: no, I'm not a geek, but it does look interesting
The Soloist: Downey Jr. what else is there to say?
Up: come on, it's Pixar!

Already gone, but not forgotten - this is why DVDs exist

Appaloosa: Mortenson & Harris in a re-match sounds good. Add Jeremy Irons, and it's a definite. Harris - god, he's prolific!
Coraline: Neil Gaiman is awesome
The Lucky Ones: intriguing plot
Frost/Nixon:
Cadillac Records:
The Betrayal:
City of Ember: Bill Murray is a serious negative. Even in the previews, he looks like the comic relief. There isn't supposed to be any comic relief. It's a dark story of childhood's ending and questioning the status quo. The book was wonderful.
Burn Before Reading:
Pride & Glory: Edward Norton
Defiance: Liev Schreiver, not Daniel Craig
Revolutionary Road: I'm totally cold to the whole Titanic re-match; the plot is what sounds intriguing: the insane self-delusion of the 1950s
Milk: Sean Penn is consistently great. Jake Gyllenhaal & Heath Ledger aren't the only masculine straight men who can be gay on screen
Valkyrie: serious doubts, especially with all the brou-ha-ha in the German media during its filming (esp. since Cruise is a Scientologist, which the German Government officially lists as a Cult ), but the reviews were good, so I'll try

Ban the Blue Jean!

Is That Really What You're Going to Wear?

Hell Yes!

No wonder the Left thinks the Right are out-of-the-closet Social Cookie-Cutter Fascists.

Easter

Some of the family from Germany were visiting for the week. Easter & the days preceding it had utterly beautiful weather.


Minnehaha Falls
just to remind you that Winter isn't really all that far in the past.....



This was taken in a reflecting mirror



Sophie & Tobias in front of the Mississippi


Jr.Gopher #2 at the Sculpture Park reading the art



Just hanging out in Minneapolis


Jr.Gopher#2 and his godmother, Tante Christiane


Jr.Gopher #1 take of the eggs.

He really looked much happier about the Easter Egg hunt at school than the picture would lead you to believe











Getting a lift around town
(we've no idea who the little girl is)






















Dr. & not-Dr. Gopher



We hope you had a happy Easter

I wish I'd ...

There's an ad for the Peace Corps on several of the bus stops around town, with the slogan "Means you'll never have to say I wish I'd ..." A post on the News Cut blog on MPR was The War on Parenthood about how pop culture claims we influence our children's eventual moral and character development.

I thought about this, and my immediate response was there are two major rules to parenting:

Recommendation 1: Do the best you can. What else can the world reasonably expect of you?

Recommendation 2: There is absolutely no way you can possibly control the actions or thoughts of another person (like your children). Don't bother trying.

If my children become self-sufficient men capable of loving others, and respecting and loving themselves, I will have succeeded as a mother. Anything else is icing on the cake of life.

Then I thought about it some more during my 15 minute break from the panic of turning in homework late. and later. and an exam due in a few days that I haven't started ...

This obsession with blaming me for anything wrong in the future with my kids is simply a left over of the eugenics "your children are born with their character already predestined, which is why you're so poor and I'm not".

The journalist did a series of interviews with college students (of all ages) at the smaller colleges in Minn. One of them gave up her dreams of being an artist because her parents said "you can't make any money at it".

I really want to believe that I will never tell my children they shouldn't bother to at least try. The next Steve Yzerman? Go for it. A professional portrait painter? go for it. The next president? You're nuts, but hey, go for it.

Will they actually make it? Maybe not. My brother, STFU&GBTW no doubt heard "there are too many people who all want that job, go do something that you can succeed at". You know what you should do? Go watch his name zooming by on the next James Cameron movie. Or Lord of the Rings. Or whatever it is he's doing.

I read an old Life article when I was about 12 or 13 about a physician somewhere in BFE Appalachia who did housecalls for the destitute (i.e., just about the whole area). I was so inspired. I decided that's what I wanted to do with my life. Not the Appalachia part, but the improving the quality of people's health part. I thought you had to be a doctor to do it. So, I decided to go to med school. (That, at least, generally gets parental emotional support.) After about 3 semesters in college, I realized there was no way in hell I would ever make it through med school. I was so disappointed that I couldn't pursue this career. I didn't know what else to do, so I figured I'd just finish what I started and be a chemist. I am quite certain I would have made a piss-poor doctor.

Fast forward 30 years ...

You know what I really really wanted, back in 1979? I wanted to go into Public Health. A field which doesn't require being a physician (one who deals with the individuals); I wanted the large-scale public aspect of it. Had I ever heard of it? No. Would I have done it then? Yes. Would people have supported my idea of going to some third world country to make their lives better? I'm pretty sure not.

Where am I in 2009? The University of Minnesota School of Public Health. I finally figured out what I wanted. Am I doing it? Nope. I'm sitting in the midst of a good school - (well, I really wanted Johns Hopkins which I would have done, had I not married Mr. Gopher) - with a good global public health infectious disease program. Now that's what I wanted to do with most of my life. Nope, I'm in the Environmental Health Science's Industrial Hygiene program. Most people wonder if I clean teeth.

I'm still stuck in the "I wish I'd ..." If I hadn't been married and forced to confront the reality of balancing my life with someone else? Hell, yes, I'd have popped over to Baltimore for a few years.

But, you know what? That beautiful piece of paper which will say University of Minnesota Masters of Public Health doesn't come with an expiration date. I know what I want. Perhaps one of these days I'll get it. And, unlike the kid nextdoor who idolizes Wayne Gretsky ... at least I'm not too old to pursue what was once my dream.

"I'm smooth"

BBC: A man in the US state of Pennsylvania accused of a robbery at a narcotics police convention has been described as probably the state's dumbest criminal.

Retired police chief John Comparetto was attending the meeting of 300 officers when he was allegedly held up at gunpoint in the men's toilets.

He handed over money and a phone but then he and some colleagues gave chase as the suspect tried to flee in a taxi.

They arrested a 19-year-old man over the incident near Harrisburg.

'Retired police chief John Comparetto says he was held up at gunpoint

Mr Comparetto was wearing an ankle holster with a gun, and when told to drop his trousers, he managed to conceal his weapon.

He described the suspect as "probably the dumbest criminal in Pennsylvania".

The Associated Press news agency reported that when a journalist asked the suspect for comment as he was led from court, he said: "I'm smooth."

Finally ...

Yes, it has finally happened! Finally! There actually exists something about basic science (Limits of Quantitation) that I know and Mr. Gopher doesn't. Wheeeee! I can die a happy woman now.

Cutting class

UNC v. MSU

“I do realize they have a cause. Well, we also have a cause, too,” [UNC's coach] said. “We want to win a national championship, period, the end. And if you would tell me that if Michigan State wins, it’s gonna satisfy the nation’s economy, then I’d say, ‘Hell, let’s stay poor for a little while longer.”’

My professor is cutting class short tonight. The alumnus of UNC told us last week that if the Tarheels made it to the finals (i.e., tonight), class would be short, so that he could make it home in time for the game. He's apparently going to drive to campus, rather than take the bus to make sure class is at least more than an hour.

One of the other students asked if we could also skip, if our alma mater made it to the finals. At this point, it was already down to 4 teams. None of us having attended them, it was sort of moot. My friend then asks permission for me to skip, having attended MSU. I - embarassed - said "I didn't graduate". At the same time Prof. says "it doesn't count unless you actually graduated". Too bad the Mountaineers blew it in the first round. Although, I also think if the Gophers had made it this far, he'd have been willing to let us cut out early. Not awfully likely that.

Beethoven Quartet

Beethoven Quartet for 2 Honkers, Dinger & Cello:
The Chamber Music Society of Sesame Street with Yo Yo Ma

The Missing LInk

I was told this disappeared off my blog. Then the more I thought about it, the more I think I emailed it to a select audience. Anyway, here it is for public consumption. "It's a send up of the chord combination us music-theory dorks would refer to as I V vi IV"

I admire the scope of the comparison. Although i think the only reason A-ha got such a long segment was to show off the singer's falsetto range. I can only sing that high after warming up. If you got this as an email, the clip here is a "live" version, which is much funnier to watch.




Now, that said ... the options that pop up at the end of the video (scrolling across at the bottom), the poster obviously has an interest in music theory. One of the automatic YouTube suggestions, however, is in a similar vein. This is g.damned funny.





And, in case you're fond of instructional, how-to videos, the band (in the 1st video) also has:
How to Kill a Hooker
How to Bake a Scone
How to Catch a Duck

Collectible = ? = $ =???

Mr. STFU&GBTW mentioned the manga "Apocalypse Meow". The preview looks pretty cool. The library system here has the source book. I can check it out for free. Well, actually I can request it and get it in a few weeks.

Amazon carries it too. Available new for a measley $175. And, yes, that is a period at the end.

2016 Olympic bid: Ely

[April Fool's]
>>Why have the olympics in Ely, Minnesota?
Sarajevo.
>>What?
Sarajevo. No one had ever heard of it before the olympics. And it's a lot easier to pronounce Ely.

Now ...
Ely is on the list of "You know you're a Minnesotan when you can pronounce the following cities:
Wayzata, Bemidji, Mille Lacs, and Ely. (the list is longer & none of which is pronounced the way you'd think. No, not even Mille Lacs, regardless of whether you're a francophone.)

how often does "never" really mean?

A few days ago on the news:

... so many of these people don't have flood insurance ...

what?

... during the big 1997 flood, these lands were dry corn fields. ....

well, I suppose if it was dry during that huge flood, one might expect it to be dry no matter what.

... they were told they'd never have to worry about getting flooded.
now, seriously, unless you live on top of a mountain, anyone in the Midwest who tells you 'you'll never need to worry about flooding' is lying or stupid. Or perhaps she's lying and hopes you're stupid.

I have flood insurance on our house in Lansing. And it sure as hell is not within sight of a big open plain near a huge river prone to flooding. I cannot comprehend the amount of flooding that would be necessary to get the Grand River up and into our basement there. But if it does do that 500-year flood, we're set.



update....

well, after writing that, this afternoon I read:
In fact, only 4,558 homeowners in the entire state of North Dakota and fewer than 9,000 in Minnesota carried flood insurance as of January, the most recent figures available.

Fargo: 586 of 92,000
Moorhead, MN: 145 of 30,000

Exit Stage Righteous

On the BBC World News (I found it in print on the Daily Mail)

ringing cell phones, crinkling candy wrappers, whispers, coughs ... the straw that broke this camel's back was a group of giggling teenaged students attending Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, (which The Author & I went to see this Winter). The lead actor simply stopped the play, the house lights went up, and an ultimatum was issued: The play must go on ... but you're outta here

Had I been their teacher, I would have been mortified.

totally sandbagged

Where in the World is Ada-Borup?

Holy, cow - the DCHS class of 1983 was 93 people. Down right metropolitan compared to Ada-Borup High School. Ada and Borup, Minnesota are north of Moorehead/Fargo (i.e., where it's really wet right now). The joint high-school has 179 students, close to half of whom play in the school's pep band. I only know this because they're playing in the state boys' basketball play-offs today. A clip from their pep band indicates their unique style....

How high is too high?

National Weather Service defines 'flood stage' for Fargo/Moorehead as 18 feet. This afternoon at 12:40 p.m., it was 40 feet 9 inches. It's expected to keep rising for another day or 2. According to the NWS, the record height observed was in 1897 at 40' 1".

It's top news on CNN, so the world at large knows. Of course, so is the fact that Texas is having blizzards - but that involves people driving who've never seen snow before. CNN reported an expected 7-10 in. snow in Amarillo (where the worst tasting coffee in the McDonalds universe is located). They promptly added there might be "snow drifts of up to 10 feet". Sure, if all of the snow in the entire county all shows up at the same place, maybe.

It's amazing reading/watching the news from out west - in the Fargo/Moorehead/Grand Forks area. Flooding has been in the news for at least the past week. It's like watching a freight train barreling down at you, and not being able to get away from it.

where do you get all the dirt for dikes? "out in a hole by the airport. It looks like the Grand Canyon."

Snows? Yes, the water slows down, but ... apparently "stacking frozen sandbags is like stacking frozen turkeys." The National Guard is storing their sandbags in a heated building for emergency response to dike/levee breaches.

MPR solicited "what would you grab, if you were getting evacuated?" My response:
my son's favorite stuffed toys. I think it would be easier to explain "the cat died" than "Mr. Giraffe got lost in the flood". Besides, the psychologically comforting function of the stuffed critters would be critical in maintaining my sanity.

Where the Wild Things Might Be

"from one of the most beloved books of all time"

well, that means people will either love it or hate it...

Bring out yer' dead!

Who's going to know if you die? ... family, friends, co-workers - but only if you see them regularly anyway. How about that gal you chat with on-line about the economics of microthermal expansion of Russian Sable toenails?

Here's how it works: You sign up for this and configure it the way you want. It sends you an e-mail however often you want to be "pinged," so that the Deathswitch can make sure you're still kicking. If you don't respond, it goes into "worry mode," and eventually, if you don't respond, it announces to the online world that, yes, you've gone toes up.

There's an interview here with its developer.

Pear fizz

2 cans of pear juice left over from the 12 oz. can of pear halves
1 bottle of soda water (selzer, sparkling water, carbonated water - whatever you want to call it)

Take the left over fruit juice and pour it into an ice cube tray.
Freeze.
put 4-5 juice cubes into a glass.
Add soda water.

4 cubes in a 12-oz. glass gives a nice pear-soda flavor. And, the closer to the bottom, the sweeter the drink.

It goes without saying, one ought to start with the "lite" fruit packed in fruit juice, and not the syrup. I'm assuming this will work equally well with the juice from canned pineapple or peaches. They're next on the list. All of the canned mandarin oranges on the shelves here are from China & therefore not available for use.

Just Remember the Red River Valley

You might as well remember the valley, 'cause you sure ain't gonna see it any time soon. For those of you who don't live out here ... the Red River is doing its hundred year flood again (last time was in '97). The crest is expected to reach, if not surpass the record high of 39 1/2 feet. Yes, feet, not inches. And, no Mr.Gopher, not meters either. The river is currently at 28 feet & rising.

I wish I could link to or upload some of these pictures:
If you do look at them, check out specifically
#7 - how to make a corn field look like Lake Superior
#14 - picture of a town park - you can see the bridge where the river normally is

If you've ever traveled US Highway 1 from Miami to Key West, you know what it's like to drive around West Central Minnesota and eastern North Dakota tonight. Other than the water lapping the road edge on both sides, and the anticipation of a cold drink at your destination, there the similarity ends.

Interestingly, the wonders of modern technology are impacting the flood-preparation/defense efforts. Not just the sandbag filling machine that will do 5,000 bags/day or some other insane number ... nope - calls for volunteers were amply responded to. Calls went out with email, Twitter, blogs & Facebook.

Deathbed Confessions

Cleanse the Soul and Pay the Price

A US man who thought he was dying and confessed to having killed a neighbour in 1977 has been charged with murder after making a recovery, US media say.

James Brewer could now face the death penalty over the unsolved killing in Tennessee 32 years ago, reports say.

Convinced he was dying after a stroke, Mr Brewer reportedly admitted to police he shot dead 20-year-old Jimmy Carroll.

The 58-year-old, who had fled Tennessee after the killing, was arrested after his condition improved, reports say.

"He wanted to cleanse his soul, because he thought he was going to the great beyond," said police detective Tony Grasso, who interviewed Mr Brewer in an Oklahoma hospital, The Oklahoman website reported.

Mr Brewer had reportedly moved to Oklahoma from Tennessee after jumping bail after he was originally arrested and charged with Mr Carroll's murder in 1977.

The former factory worker changed his name to Michael Anderson and settled down with his wife, Dorothy, in the town of Shawnee.

The couple became active members of the local church, where Mrs Brewer established a Bible study group, reports say.

After suffering a stroke, Mr Brewer called police to his hospital bedside earlier this month, where he reportedly made the confession.

Detectives said Mr Brewer had admitted killing Mr Carroll, who he believed had been trying to seduce his wife.

However, Mr Brewer survived the illness and surrendered to authorities in his former home town of Hohenwald, Tennessee, after they were notified by the Oklahoma police.

Bears, Giraffes & pumpkins

from Our Zoo's newsletter:
Providing new smells in an animal's exhibit can cause excitement or alarm and often triggers territorial behaviors like rubbing and scent marking. A wide variety of scents are used for enrichment, including spices, perfumes and urine, as well as animal fur. Our clouded and Amur leopards like poultry seasoning, cardamom, dirty tapir straw and binturong fur. The tigers love "Obsession" and "Charlie" perfumes. The camels aren't very picky, they like most food extracts. On the other hand, the tapirs, tree kangaroos, binturongs and gibbons are very particular - they go for banana extract!

and yes, those are real grizzly bears. The faux Pooh is paper mache (sp?)




and here you thought that dorky opossum in Over the Hedge was just some animator goin' overboard? Nope, they really do look that goofy.





while it may not be totally obvious this is an ermine. His pumpkin is bigger, just ready for a nap.




FYI
There are 2 zoos here in the Twin Cities. Jr.Gopher#1 insists that the Minnesota Zoo is "Our Zoo" (reasonably enough, as we have a membership there - thanks, Dad - and go about once per month). Though, the other zoo in St.Paul has more animals that won't survive the Minnesota winters, like giraffes. Unfortunately, Jr.Gopher#1 informed me that Mr.Giraffe (his favorite stuffed toy) is allergic to the Como Zoo and can't go to visit the giraffes. Cute? just wait.

Our Zoo - that is, the Minnesota Zoo - is having an African exhibit this Summer, to include giraffes. It was here a couple years ago, and #1 was just totally geeked to see a real giraffe.

I informed him last month that the giraffes were returning. He said Mr. Giraffe wanted to go to the zoo. I asked him if he wanted to take Mr. Giraffe to see the real giraffes. He looked at me like I was stupid and said, "Mama, Mr. Giraffe is a real giraffe."

At least Mr. Giraffe isn't allergic to our zoo. I forgot to ask about Freddie (the girl giraffe who until recently was the stunt-double for Mr. Giraffe, i.e., the one Jr. got when the other was in the wash).

Judo & basketball

Wow - I didn't realize judo was a pre-requisite for playing NCAA men's basketball.

Pity I didn't read the paper earlier yesterday. Practice at the Metrodome was open to the public. WVU played today here in town - again, if I'd realized the game was in the middle of the afternoon, I would have at least checked out the ticket prices.

I saw a bit of the WVU-Dayton game. In which case, I'm glad I didn't bother to go to the game. The Mountianeers were playing a prett lame game toward the end of the 1st half. Perhaps someone forgot to tell them Dayton was a good team and that anyone can lose, no matter their relative ranking.

uh, yeah:
#13 Cleveland St. = 15 points over #4 Wake Forest
... 5 of the 8 games yesterday were "upsets"

Stanley Cup is coming ...........

Raining

The rain falls on the just and the unjust.
But mostly on the just, because the unjust have stolen their umbrellas.

[rev.] Body of Lies

“Nobody’s innocent in this shit.” Over and over one hears this in the movie; over and over one sees it borne out. Most notably by the fellow saying it. More directly: everyone is out for his own interests; perhaps not his own person, but certainly his own side. Whether wearing grungy blue jeans or Armani suit or at children’s soccer games - everyone has his own goal. It's like a Venn diagram - everyone's area overlaps, but suspiciously so - it's not the part that overlaps which will get you, it's what lies in the other part of the area that doesn't overlap.

We are drawn into being sympathetic, yet discover what we like about them hides the reasons we shouldn’t like them. It’s not a twisty plot of surprises, but the plot is only straightforward when viewed from the end in the very big picture.

A CIA agent fights the Good Fight against terrorism in the Middle East. Is there anyone worthy of our friendship (the governmental agency kind)? Who can we trust? Even more importantly, who should trust us? Nobody’s innocent - those who want to be trustworthy aren’t allowed to be: neither them nor us.

I’m probably one of the few women under 45 and over 25 who only saw Titanic once. I’m even more likely in the minority who thought it was a nice movie, but not awe inspiring. And I certainly was too old to fall in vapors over Leonardo di Caprio either in that or Romeo & Juliet. I thought Blood Diamonds was one of his better works, displaying real talent. Body of Lies eclipses that, providing a “solid performance” (I think the stock phrase is). The not-stock phrase: wow, that was a good movie.

It’s easier to see an actor who normally plays ‘the good guy’ continue to play one; it’s more challenging to see the normally ‘good-guy-playing-$5,000,000-earning-actor’ play an SOB. Russell Crowe was annoyingly good; the sort of fellow one loves to loathe. After seeing di Caprio in Blood Diamonds, his character’s performance wasn’t a surprise. After seeing Crowe in just about anything else, his character gives an opportunity to see his skills. A leading man who doesn't have to be center stage to be impressive.

I’m only left wondering if the CIA actually has anyone running big operations for them who is so Not A Company Guy. The technology gizmos I'll accept are either in existence or else are just a reasonably plausible as a plot device.

HealthyGopher's rating:
4 - Definitely see it on video.

[review] Watchmen

So, I sit down to write 2 sentences about this movie - well, quotations, actually, as a prelude to writing this:
"... are presented in a film experience of often fearsome beauty."
and
"The film is rich enough to be seen more than once."

Coming from my favorite movie critic. Wow. I've got the day off, I'm thinking about hitting the multiplex in Southdale ... I log on here, and what do I see? STFU&GBTW posted a review. No! Ah, normally, I would read them. For, while he isn't Roger Ebert, I enjoy his reviews. Not that Ebert is so wonderful, but his opinion usually matches mine, and his opus is more accessible than my brother's. 'Nuf said. off to the movies ...

A whopping 2:41 (hours, not minutes) managed to keep my attention. The characters aren't really "superheroes". They call themselves 'masks', as they all hide behind them. After being outlawed (the scriptwriters of The Incredibles must have read the graphic novel), a couple come forth to admit their prior activities. A murder of one retired 'mask' leads to others. Only one wants to pursue it; the others hide behind their secret identities and quiet retired lives as mild-mannered people.

Why does anyone want to kill retired crime-fighters? Mixed in are vignettes of how does one become a super crime-fighter? I found these little stories quite interesting in filling the characters' motivations. Following in mom's footsteps; nuclear accident; abusive childhood - other than the giant naked glowing blue guy, pretty much just the way anyone chooses a profession. There's more male full-frontal nudity than in any other ordinary Hollywood film I've ever seen. A swift flash of Mortensen in Eastern Promises this wasn't.

This is one of the more gruesomely violent movies I've seen: violent in the sense of Eastern Promises, not just ordinary action movies. There's a bit of romance & far more of social commentary. It's 1985, Nixon is on his 3rd (4th?) term and the government is running on the fear of imminent nuclear annihilation from the USSR.

The photography was wonderful, giving a distinct picture of 1985. The music, when it hit, was overwhelming, though quite a bit preceding 1985. Characters appear whom I doubt anyone under 20 would recognize, like Henry Kissinger or Lee Iacocca. Altogether a picture of how 1985 could have looked, perhaps not politically but visually. The end of the movie was a surprise to me (never having read the comic book), although the denouement was kind of saccharine.

okay, just read STFU&GBTW's non-review ... shouldn't have avoided it - though it's an interesting comparison of hypothetical "themes"

Gopher Rating:
2 - Go see it on the big screen, at matinee prices

Inspiration of the Muses

The following is from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. I just enjoyed it so much, I thought I'd share it. This is around p. 22, before any of the graphic slaughter occurs. This is set at an immigrant Lithuanian wedding in 1906. I assume my immigrant forefathers celebrated St. Patrick's Day; I'll use it for other immigrants. It occurs to me this is roughly the same time Grandpa Sullivan's family came over.

The little person who leads the trio is an inspired man. His fiddle is out of tune, and there is no rosin on his bow, but still he is an inspired man - the hands of the Muses have been laid upon him. He plays like one possessed by a demon, of a whole hoard of demons. You can feel them in the air round about him, capering frenetically; with their invisible feet they set the pace, and the hair of the leader of the orchestra rises on end, and his eyeballs start from their sockets, as he toils to keep up with them.

[Tamoszius] has taught himself to play the violin by practicing all night, after working all day on the killing-floor. ... He is only about five feet high, but even so, these trousers are about eight inches short of the ground. You wonder where he can have gotten them -- or rather you would wonder, if the excitement of being in his presence left you time to think of such things.

For he is in a inspired man. Every inch of him is inspired -- you might almost say inspired separately. He stamps with his feet, he tosses his head, he sways and swings to and fro; he has a wizened-up little face, irresistibly comical; and, when he executes a turn or a flourish, his brows knit and his lips work and his eyelids wink -- the very ends of his necktie bristle out. And every now and then he turns upon his companions, nodding, signaling, beckoning frantically -- with every inch of him appealing, imploring, in behalf of the muses and their call.

For they are hardly worth of Tamoszius, the other two members of the orchestra. The second violin is a Slovak, a tall, gaunt man with black-rimmed spectacles and the mute and patient look of an over-driven mule; he responds to the whip but feebly, and then always falls back into his old rut. The third man is very fat, with a round, red, sentimental nose, and he plays with his eyes turned up to the sky and a look of infinite yearning. He is playing a bass part upon his 'cello, and so the excitement is nothing to him; no matter what happens in the treble, it is his task to saw out one long-drawn and lugubrious note after another, from four o'clock in the afternoon until nearly the same hour next morning, for his third of the total income of one dollar per hour.

Before the feast has been five minutes underway, Tamoszius has risen in his excitement; a minute or two more and you see that he is beginning to edge over toward the tables. His nostrils are dilated and his breath comes fast -- his demons are driving him. ...

Now he is in his glory, dominating the scene. Some of the people are eating, some are laughing and talking -- but you will make a great mistake if you think there is one of them who does not hear him. His notes are never true, and his fiddle buzzes on the low ones and squeaks and scratches on the high; but these things they heed no more than they heed the dirt and noise and squalor about them -- it is out of this material that they have to build their lives, and with it that they have to utter their souls. And this is their utterance: merry and boisterous, or mournful and wailing, or passionate and rebellious, this music is their music, music of home. It stretches out its arms to them, they have only to give themselves up.

Liberty or scrap metal?

The Author's blog about her novel asks in passing: Would Americans ever want security and economic stability more than democracy and freedom?

hell, yes! Look at what we did to ourselves in 2000. And far more in 2004. The US government ran for 5 or 6 years on nothing but screaming fear of our security. (Admittedly, even today few seem to give a goddamn about our economic stability, which is likely far more critical to her novel's view of the future ... this being defined as the willingness to educate themselves about what the gov't is doing with their money, and scream about it).

Even today, the right-wing of the Republican party is harping on keeping out the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.* Tear down the big copper bitch, if we can't bother to respect her. At the rate copper is going, it might even make a microscopic dent in the national debt. Or sell it, like bits of the Berlin Wall, and make a more significant dent in the debt. I doubt any of the unmentionables on Wall Street would give a damn.
(the Wikipedia entry on it is pretty interesting, especially the Aftermath of 9/11 section)

Far, far too many Americans ponied up to the Fear-Я-Us campaigns. It was like watching the Deep South in '64 facing the potential of actually having the government enforce equal rights for all those 'pesky niggers'. Protect our sacred rights to racial purity! Let them into our schools and they'll be impregnating our daughters and stealing our jobs! They'll destroy Our America! Or was that Mexicans? Or Arabs? Or the Irish?

Who's kidding who?

We happily embrace limitations of our freedoms without blinking! The government is still legally allowed to tap our phones, grossly impede commerce/travel with TSA, obscenely violate our legal rights of a speedy trial, or even reasonable suspicion. God forbid any of these ignorant voting idiots actually know what the phrase habeas corpus means.** Did anyone bother to read the PATRIOT Act? Even legislators afterwards admitted they didn't! Has anyone got the brass balls necessary to revoke it? No. Why? Because politicians are too afraid of scaring off the votes of the Fearful, who happily accept those limitations. Hence does fear make cowards of us all.

Even with a change of governmental figurehead, the government doesn't bother to revoke the acts made in initial panic. They pander to the fearful, rather than do anything to educate them into some sort of recognition of reality.





** The Habeas Corpus Acts "declare no principle and define no rights, but they are for practical purposes worth a hundred constitutional articles guaranteeing individual liberty." ~ A.V. Dicey, specifically it is a summons with the force of a court order addressed to the custodian (such as a prison official) demanding that a prisoner be brought before the court, together with proof of authority, allowing the court to then determine whether that custodian has lawful authority to hold that person

*The inscription on the base of the statue originally named Liberty Enlightening the World reads:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land; [i.e., the Collosus of Rhodes]
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles.

From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.

"Give me your tired,

your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

admittedly, I'm sure the 'wretched refuse of your teeming shore wasn't intended to mean Manhattan's garbage scows

Bumper Sticker of the Month

Scars are just tattoos with better stories

[movie review] TBA

Well, I realized I had a list of "I want to see..." I suspect the list on "Gone But Not Forgotten" is going to get longer and longer ... These are in no particular order. Spring Break is next week - I think I might try to catch one or two of the ones still in town, if they're still here. Things tend to hang out pretty long, if they're popular, in the 2nd run places. Unfortunately, those are always late-afternoon-evening-only shows on weekdays.

Still out there in the T.C.
Coraline
Milk
Watchmen
Slumdog Millionaire
Revolutionary Road
Valkyrie

Coming Soon(er or Later) to a Theater Near Me:
Sin Nombre
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The Road
Drag Me to Hell
Star Trek
State of Play
The Soloist
Up

Already gone, but not forgotten - this is why DVDs exist
Appaloosa
Frost/Nixon
Cadillac Records
The Betrayal
City of Ember
Burn Before Reading
The Lucky Ones
Pride & Glory
Fear of the Dark
Defiance

General Duty

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety & Health Act, often referred to as the General Duty Clause, requires employers to:
furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.

This is my profession's mantra: "free from recognized hazards". Closing one's eyes fails to qualify as "I didn't see it".

Homegrown Terrorism & Stupidity in Winter Cultural Fashions

Minneapolis has become the focus of a wide-ranging FBI investigation into a terrorist group's recruitment of young immigrant men for service in Somalia's ethnic and religious warfare.

"We have seen Al-Qaida franchise itself around the world ..."
Is this like McDonald's? Call 800-4TERROR now to ask about the franchise opportunities in your neighborhood for extremists. Evangelical Christians need not apply.

"Somali youth talk more about March Madness, Kobe Bryant, and the NFL draft than they do about [him],"
At least the discussion of March Madness isn't a total wash: the Gophers are managing to not loose all of their games. (mind you, "not lose" isn't quite the same thing as "win".)

Rep. Keith Ellison, the Minneapolis Democrat who became the first Muslim elected to Congress.
This implies there's been more than one, rather than "Ellison ... the only one who managed to get in"

If they're sitting around wondering why their kids are haring off to the Old Country with no clue about Reality ... they'd do better trying to integrate into Main-Stream America. Walking through Riverside (a.k.a. Little Mogadishu) is a fashion parade of eastern Africa. I really don't care what culturally-specific clothing people wear. I encourage people to keep their traditional languages alive, and am happy the Hennepin County Library system has Somaali books. (In fact, the only foreign language books in East Lake, Hosmer or Hopkins are Spanish and Somaali.)

The avoidance of being American is what leads naive children to do stupid things in pursuit of someone else's nationalism. If the kids had more ties to being American, and seeing America as their primary nationality, they'd be less likely to go wandering off in pursuit of someon else 's nationalistic goals. (Although, admittedly the problem in Somali seems to be the predominance of ethnicity rather than nationalism.)

Speaking of cultural fashion: there are several different groups of traditional/semi-traditionally clothed females around here. The traditional Somalis are quite noticeable with their head-to-toe veil-coverings. While I certainly couldn't tell, at least it would lend itself to wearing warm clothes in the Minnesota Winters.

The other Muslim traditionalists with hijabs are a common sight. Yesterday the weather was -3F when I left for the Light Rail to campus. The wind chill was at least -25F. I'm standing inside the shelter at Lake Street Station. A young woman is there wearing a hijab, coat and ankle-length skirt. Totally unremarkable sight, except ... she wasn't wearing gloves. Okay, a stupidity shared by quite a few others on the platform. Her hijab is a sheer, lightweight cotton/polyester - a stupidity shared by all the other women with them. Why don't you ever see them in heavy cotton flannel or thermal fleece? Not fashionable enough? But what made me struggle to not laugh: Because she was backlit in the bright morning sun, I could also see that her skirt was really sheer. I could see her legs clear up to her knees, where the skirt lining stopped. I was left wondering if she even realized this ... Cultural compliance in form, but not substance.

Library Vigilante

Libraries get a better business in poor economic times - it's free & it's an easy way to hang out with your friends. However, it's also a place to be thoroughly annoying. I got up from my table (I'm in the middle of an exam) to dump a cup of cold coffee. Three steps away, a 6' teenaged boy comes around the end of the shelves doing Mach 2. My yelp of "hey!" was a cross between the simple shock of nearly getting run over combined with the (now well practiced) maternal condemnation. He managed to avoid hitting me.

It is amazing how fast your brain works...

In about 1 second, my brain processed:

there's a kid running at me
get out of the way
if I leave my right leg where it is, he'll trip and fall on his face
great idea
step left, leave right leg out

unfortunately, he managed to stop before he got past me.

I was really surprised afterward that I considered and actually tried to trip the little snot. It's the sort of thing one thinks of in retrospect, like "I wish I had said ..." or "I wish I had done ..."

Personally, .... "I wish I'd contemplated hip checking him. It probably would have succeeded."

Kindergarten auf Deutsch

Celebrate!

Jr.Gopher#1 will be attending the Twin Cities German Immersion School for Kindergarten!

Bendejo

Bendejo! Well, I'm not sure it's spelled right, but Dora told me what it means.

Why argue with a political satirist? It's like putting a bullseye on your chest. A big one. The Daily Show - what a delight - makes fun of MSNBC's financial advice. One of the financial 'gurus' takes offense ... well, the description is the first minute or so of the video clip.

"You're not the only member of a multiplatform media conclogmerate with huge synergistic reach and strategic levering capabilities ... "

At 8:40 is the segment with Dora. Yes, Dora the Explorer. Wait through the teen-chick clip for the 2nd part of Dora. Well, actually the whole thing is funny.

Superhero Science

U. Minnesota professor of physics and author of The Physics of Superheroes served as a technical advisor on Watchmen:
"When I saw 'Iron Man,' I was one of very few people who got excited about the soldering," he said. "Robert Downey Jr. was using the same soldering tool I have in my lab to build his armor, and he was holding it correctly."

This started a discussion this afternoon with a couple of my classmates about the over-the-top safety-geek things we notice in movies: Bob the Builder's personal protective equipment, surgical masks in 24 where he ought to be using a supplied air respirator.

ummm.... Mr. Gopher shouldn't read this ...

not to be too blunt, but what an asshole with absolutely no fucking clue about God or Jesus. I sure as shit don't want to worship any goddamn deity who would approve of his actions. No clearer example exists of the fact that the Church's laws are those of men, and not of God. "Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said the law of God was above any human law." That may be, but he's pretty fucking clueless about the difference between God & church. People like this make me embarrassed to admit to being Catholic. This goes completely and directly right past Fucktard to Total Fucking Asshole.

I cannot imagine my God turning her face away from a mother who helps her 9 year old raped daughter get an abortion. No, I'm sure DickWad's deity would rather shrug in paternal disappointment and say "Oh, well, that's just life. I'd rather she let her daughter die in childbirth".

If it was my daughter, I would move mountains to get her the abortion and I would without hesitation or regret turn my back on the Church who dared condemn my actions.

The new syphilis*

There's an interesting parallel between Bush [G.W.] and Richard Nixon. While Nixon was clearly a superior statesman and in many ways a more intelligent politician, what they share is a kind of boldness in how they emote their insecurities. What we're finding with George Bush, part of what's familiar to people and that adds to his likability for many, is that there's a commonality of deep insecurity and his handling it with a kind of bravado. What they both did is handle things with a similar certainty - certainty being the "disease of kings". --Sean Penn, no date given

*strangely enough, the Wikipedia article doesn't list "disease of kings" as one of the euphemisms for syphilis.

Mountain Lion v. DNR

Puma treed. DNR in pursuit.

For 4 hunters who found the cat, it was a no-brainer: They liked the big cat more than the DNR.

DNR arrives. Trys to tranquilize cat. Puma leaves. Puma gets treed again.

That's when a tranquilizer-gun-toting DNR employee climbed up the oak tree to get a closer shot.

DNR arrives. Trys to tranquilize cat. Puma leaves. Puma gets treed again.

We've called our friends with dogs and told them if the DNR calls for help tracking the cat, tell them to go to hell.'

Puma last seen somewhere in northern Wisconsin. DNR hasn't been seen at all.

will it never end ?!?!

It's up to the panel to decide whether the Coleman side has proven its claims, and how many of the rejected ballots should be counted.

Democrat Al Franken's attorneys begin presenting their case tomorrow and have about 800 of their own ballots to introduce. It's expected Franken's case could take two to three weeks.

Globaloney

From January's Atlantic Monthly, with thanks to my friend The Author:

"Change” has been President-elect Barack Obama’s mantra, and for many of his supporters, the most important change his administration promises is a more restrained, less arrogant foreign policy, a global posture that avoids the costs and dangers inherent in playing the world’s policeman.

They’re dismayed by the presumptuous and anachronistic attitudes behind the declaration that the president of the United States is the “leader of the free world.”

They’re exasperated with the messianic invocation of “America’s larger purpose in the world,” with the smug notion that this country is “called to provide visionary leadership” in “battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good.”

They discern the dangers of declaring with righteous omniscience that America “has a direct national security interest” in seeing its economic and political beliefs take hold in foreign lands.

They’re annoyed with the historical myopia that results in an unironic reference to American military “operations to win hearts and minds.”

In the claim that “the security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people,” they hear echoes of the universalist logic that led to the disaster in Vietnam and see a sweeping foreign policy that the rest of the world finds at best meddlesome and at worst menacingly imperialist.

These lofty but potentially dangerous sentiments are entirely consistent with George W. Bush’s assertion in his second Inaugural Address that “the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands”—an assertion his critics at home and abroad rightly judged as … lofty and potentially dangerous. But the pronouncements quoted above—all of them—are in fact from Barack Obama’s two major foreign-policy statements, both made in 2007.