Forever A Fangirl

The Buzz On 'Rance'

EDIT: See, I told you.
Heh. The blog world is so easy to manipulate, see Exhibit A in yellow below. Good thing I don't use my awesome powers to wreak more havoc (kidding!)
Also, I never wrote about pierced labia--I only quoted Mark Morford--which I don't do much anymore because it appears his editors or maybe the pending lawsuit, has taken away his gonads
bite.

Who is Rance, you ask? It's a common question if one is to believe the buzz being generated by his blog presence.

I came across Rance quite by accident. I check my visitor statistics, and one day last year, there he was. Often when a new visitor with a personal blog pops up, I pop over to his/her blog to check it out. Call it curiosity--possibly it's just a sort of courtesy.

What I found at Rance's then brand-new blog, was a person claiming to be a entertainment insider, a celebrity who pleaded that he only wanted to be anonymous in order to blog about his deep, dark feelings about the biz.

He proclaimed discomfort when word got around at teenage blog places like Live Journal and he was besieged via his comments section, by Dawson's Creek-type fans fervently hoping he was IRL (in real life) "the cute one."
I was somewhat intrigued, but had no desire to get caught in the crush of fan-boys and girls.

Rance sometimes went a week between entries. My interest waned. He used the now ubiquitous blogger tactic of threatening to quit because this wasn't what he had hoped it would be.
At that time, I thought blogging was a noble endeavor ("Writing is good!") and I encouraged him via a comment or two to hang in there and find his groove. Others encouraged him as well, though there were some "disbelievers" who questioned his celebrity status by making unflattering comments.
Despite the naysayers, "Rance" decided to give it another try and the tone of his blog lightened somewhat.

What vexed me is that Rance was all about Rance...and Rance's feelings and Rance and celeb gossip and more Rance. This is a real problem because Rance is not the best writer--by far. He can't spell or doesn't spell-check and he writes the way an actor of possibly average intellect writes--as opposed to how say, a writer would write.

To sum up, Rance bored me and I stopped visiting his blog even as it was becoming apparent that I was one of the more mature readers he had. When he was picking and choosing whom to address by name, mine was starting to show up.

I figured Rance was well on his way to managing his blog and had lots of adoring fans in case he felt the need for another "detour," so I deleted my link to his blog and stopped visiting.
Until a few days ago.
When I checked my visitor stats, I saw his address as the origin of several visits. Curious, I clicked over there and came up with his old posts and my comments.
His newer fans are going through his old stuff--clicking links. And now that this article has come out--there'll be a few more hits from the fan boys and girls. And maybe the people from :cough:overrated:cough: Boing Boing who are actually spending real time trying to figure out who this person is.

Oh yeah, out of the guesses of "who" Rance is--Owen Wilson sounds right in terms of not seeming very bright and so does Affleck.
He is not Clooney or Carrey. Both men have more smarts than that and I really don't think they would hide behind a blog.
Just my 2 centavos.
-----------------------------
Hollywood Mystery Man 'Rance' Has Internet Abuzz

Thu May 27, 2004 09:48 PM ET

By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - He skewers Hollywood and the cult of celebrity on an anonymous Web log that has spawned a cult following. He claims to be an A-list actor, writing under a pseudonym, but admits he may not be believed.

Who, exactly, is "Rance?"

Could he really be, as some believe, Owen Wilson, Ben Affleck, Jim Carrey or even George Clooney?

The answer may perhaps be found somewhere in the entries on his Weblog -- or "blog" -- which applies a trenchant wit and jaundiced insider's eye in chronicling the life of a Hollywood celebrity. Then again, it could all be a hoax.

Though Rance granted an interview with Reuters, he responded to questions only via email, using pseudonymous dead-end accounts for both himself and the reporter and never offering a glimpse into his real identity.

Asked if he was, in fact, a well-known actor, he responded: "Or a well-known actress perhaps. Just not Donald Trump."

In the blog's first-ever post last December, Rance introduced himself this way: "Suffice it to say I know what its like to see your picture on the magazine rack every now and again when you pay for groceries."

Rance's blog has since spawned a furious guessing game on the Internet and beyond, becoming a regular topic at Hollywood parties.

Xeni Jardin, a writer on the "Boing-Boing" blog, recently told her readers that Rance was rumored to be "Starsky and Hutch" star Owen Wilson, a claim that the actor's publicist has denied.

BEN AFFLECK? GEORGE CLOONEY? JIM CARREY?

The anonymous editor of Hollywood gossip site Defamer suggests it could be Ben Affleck -- a conjecture built around the supposed link between a cryptic quiz on Rance's blog and an Affleck tattoo.

Others have surmised that Rance is Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Benicio Del Toro or Luke Wilson, Owen's brother. And one of Rance's readers recently sent him a comment that read simply: "You are, in fact, Matthew Perry. Game on?"

Meanwhile, a Defamer reader tried to unmask Rance by researching the term "Captain Hoof," which appears in the Web address. She came to the conclusion that he was a San Francisco man who worked at an ad agency and once ran a Web site with a similar name -- possibly dedicated to an imaginary horse.

The man, who no longer works for the agency, could not be contacted for this story.

For his part, Rance offers the electronic equivalent of a shrug to the endless chatter about his identity, saying that it was never his intention to play hide-and-seek with the world...

Rance said he set up the Web site on a whim with help from a computer-savvy friend, seeing it as a "really good way to bitch about my job" without suffering any career repercussions. He chose the name "Rance" as a pun on "rants."

The diverse themes of the Web log revolve around pitch meetings and parties, the machinations of Hollywood at work and play and its fascination with sex and celebrity...

Which Sopranos Character Are You?

You are Tony


Which Sopranos Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

This is no surprise at all.

Chicago Weather Bites!

It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood....not!
Today is pretty much a wash weather-wise. I was so excited about getting back to my swimming routine...but at least tomorrow and the next day look somewhat promising.

We went out as a family last p.m. to Pizzeria Uno. I had Lobster/shrimp Newberg which was unremarkable--kind of a dissapointment as I'd never tried it before.

Afterward, we picked up "Kill Bill" and (for me) "Thirteen" at Blockbuster. I'm more of an indie movie-type person and my spouse is more mainstream, leaning heavily towards martial arts stuff. I'd read in an interview that Q. Tarantino (dir. of Kill Bill) wanted to pay homage to the chop-chop (and other) movies of his youth. "His" movies apparently were the same as my spouse's, so spouse was quite happy with the selection. I found the film amusing and it reminded me more of the Monty Python spurting blood scene than anything else as multiple limbs were severed repeatedly. Anyway, KB II is still playing at the theaters here, so we may try to catch it this weekend.
I will watch Thirteen alone tonight, as spouse is working and probably wouldn't get through five minutes of it without nodding off.

Not a whole lot else going on today.

With the condition of completing all of his school work due now and longer term as well as some household chores, we've let Chris off his 2-week total grounding. He never once complained, which I find impressive. I've always believed that with a severe punishment, a child should be able to "work" off a bit of it-- he "served" 10 days and it's the holiday weekend, so he's pretty happy.
Another deciding factor was the letter we got in the mail yesterday from two Junior High Mathmathics instructors asking him to join them and other top 5% students over the summer for a couple of get-togethers. They compete in Mathmatics events throughout the state and my son is over the moon about it.
He's excited about starting junior high early. Definitely not the kind of student I was, thank the powers!

Hope everyone is having a blissful weekend,

Cheers!

A Language All Our Own

Ere'shay anway articleway onway Igpay Atinlay--ymay irstfay "
econdsay" anguagelay asway away idkay.Itway owedshay upway inway
ymay inboxway odaytay andway Iway ouldn'tcay esistray aringshay
itway.

Source

Dear Straight Dope:
What is the origin of pig Latin? —Fritz Horisk

SDSTAFF samclem replies:

First, a test –

Which of the following is NOT pig Latin?

Hammus Alabamus
Hoggibus, Piggibus
Ixnay
Amscray
Ofay
Igpay Atinlay
Wig-ge you-ge go-ge
"dunghill for unguem"
And the answer is (drumroll) … #5, ofay. But that will have to be another column

Pig Latin is thought of by most Americans as a secret language for kids. I say "most Americans" because the game never seemed to catch on in British countries. They were too busy developing "rhyming slang," a game I have yet to figure out. In pig Latin, one takes a word, i.e., bibliophage, moves the first letter to the end of the word, and adds an "ay" sound. So, we get ibliophagebay. The most famous examples of this exercise are the words "ixnay" and "amscray" produced from "nix" and "scram" – so famous that today they're considered slang words in themselves. There are some additional rules about what to do when the word starts with a vowel, but I'll leave that for the reader. As I tell my kids, I'm NOT doing your homework here.

The formalized modern game has its roots in centuries long past and may even predate Shakespeare. In Love's Labor's Lost (act V, scene 1), we find the following exchange:

Costard: Go to; thou hast it ad dungill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.
Holofernes: O, I smell false Latine; dunghill for unguem.

This is a play on a Latin proverb – I'll spare you the details. The point is that nonsensical multilingual wordplay was well known in Shakespeare's time – check out the rest of the scene – and now it had a name, false Latin, which had become "dog Latin" by the 18th century and "dog Greek" not long afterwards. Edgar Allen Poe used the term "pig Greek" in 1844. All of these terms were meant to signify "bad" Latin or things that sounded like Latin but weren't. At first the idea was simply to amuse, using puns, Latin endings appended to English roots, and so on. The first instance I can find of a term describing a language purposely modified to confuse the listener is in Walter Scott's Kennilworth (1821), where a character says, "A very learned man … and can vent Greek and Hebrew as fast as I can 'thieves' Latin.'" The expression referred to the argot of the underworld, sometimes used in conversation to confuse outsiders. In the mid-19th/early 20th century it also meant the lingo used in carnivals and circuses to prevent a "mark" from understanding what the carnies were saying.

Kids developed their own secret code, which by 1866 was called "hog-Latin." In The Galaxy of that year we find the following:

He adds as many new letters as the boys in their "hog latin," which is made use of to mystify eavesdroppers. A boy asking a friend to go with him says, "Wig-ge you-ge go-ge wig-ge me-ge?"
The other, replying in the negative says, "Noge, Ige woge."

The term "pig Latin" appeared in the same decade and seems to have gradually vanquished other claimants (double Dutch, etc.) as the term of choice. The modern system of dropping the first letter, etc., is almost certainly an invention of the 20th century. No, Shirley Ellis didn't invent it in her 1965 hit "The Name Game" ("Shirley, Shirley bo Birley Bonana fanna fo Firley," etc.).

Proving that silliness knows no bounds, one can find on the Internet today a translation of the Bible into pig Latin. Google even has a pig Latin translator in its language tools. though I kinda like this pig Latin translator site.

Ankindmay isway oomeday!

Sources:

The Oxford English Dictionary plus Douglas Wilson, a great finder of cites over at the American Dialect Society. His thoughtful, erudite contributions are greatly appreciated.

--SDSTAFF samclem
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

Am I A Blog Addict? Are You?

I started blogging in September, 2003 after leaving a forum in which I kept a personal journal. Though personal, it was not private. A number of forum members read it and responded to it as I did to theirs.
I knew I had a small situation on my hands when, after I left the forum, I started a blog that night.
Writing was (is) cathartic and the response from my readers validated that I was writing something worth reading. A win/win situation, right?
I'm not so sure.
When one compares blogging behaviour with that of any other avocational activity, clearly the amount of time I spent and still spend on my blog(s) is more than "normal."

My favourite blogger is "quitting" her blog in less than two months. When she started the blog it was with the condition that it exist for exactly one year. In that time she's built up a large, faithful and adoring audience because she's an ace observer and interpreter of life and she deftly manages to get her astute observations written into her blog for all to enjoy. She is also PDF (pretty damn funny).
Right now, some readers of her blog are expressing "blog withdrawal anxiety," despite being given plenty of time to "adjust" to the upcoming termination.
I would venture to say that almost, if not all of her readers are blog writers themselves, so it's with an insider's perspective that they protest and attempt to sway her into "staying."
These people are passionate about blogging. They've come to feel that she is someone they "know."
And yet they don't know her--they know what she chooses to write of herself. Big difference.
One of the allures of blogging is that one can be whomever he or she pleases and the audience, unless they know you IRL (in real life--off line) will not necessarily know.

To expound upon the obvious, blogging is a relatively new phenomenon, thus the bar has yet to be set for what constitutes "normal" blogging behavior.
It seems that our blogging "compulsions" reach further out--to other bloggers--and in some way our blogging selves merge with the blogging selves of others.
To the uninitiated this may seem bizarre.

As for me, I now have four blogs. This one is the "primary" blog. I started a second in an attempt to examine deep, dark thoughts that I didn't want to share with the 150 (give or take) people that click over here each day.
Because photography is a rediscovered love, I started a photoblog at a site that is purely for that purpose. I had been (and still will be) inserting photos into my other blogs, but this one is different in that its is purely for photoblogging, for the amateur on up.

I started yet another blog recently, unique in form from the rest. It's an audio blog and I find it to be the most helpful in sorting through life issues. So far, only one person has listened to it. If no one but me listens to it, that's okay because I can go back and hear in my voice and the thoughts and feelings that I was having in that moment.
Me talking to me, as bizarre as that sounds has been a form of therapy that I could never have anticipated.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The article below does a fairly decent job of examining some of the extremes, though most of us in the blogging community might not judge some of the bloggers in the piece quite so harshly. (The bloggers themselves have opinions ranging from complete agreement that blogging is a problem for them, to the opposite opinion).

For Some, the Blogging Never Stops
By KATIE HAFNER
Published: May 27, 2004

TO celebrate four years of marriage, Richard Wiggins and his wife, Judy Matthews, recently spent a week in Key West, Fla. Early on the morning of their anniversary, Ms. Matthews heard her husband get up and go into the bathroom. He stayed there for a long time.

"I didn't hear any water running, so I wondered what was going on," Ms. Matthews said. When she knocked on the door, she found him seated with his laptop balanced on his knees, typing into his Web log, a collection of observations about the technical world, over a wireless link.

Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession. Such bloggers often feel compelled to write several times daily and feel anxious if they don't keep up. As they spend more time hunkered over their computers, they neglect family, friends and jobs. They blog at home, at work and on the road. They blog openly or sometimes, like Mr. Wiggins, quietly so as not to call attention to their habit.

"It seems as if his laptop is glued to his legs 24/7," Ms. Matthews said of her husband.

The number of bloggers has grown quickly, thanks to sites like blogger.com, which makes it easy to set up a blog. Technorati, a blog-tracking service, has counted some 2.5 million blogs...

Of course, most of those millions are abandoned or, at best, maintained infrequently...

... A few blogs have thousands of readers, but never have so many people written so much to be read by so few. By Jupiter Research's estimate, only 4 percent of online users read blogs.

Indeed, if a blog is likened to a conversation between a writer and readers, bloggers like Mr. Wiggins are having conversations largely with themselves.

...that does not seem to bother him.

"I'm just getting something off my chest," he said.

Nor is he deterred by the fact that he toils for hours at a time on his blog for no money...

Perhaps a chronically small audience is a blessing. For it seems that the more popular a blog becomes, the more some bloggers feel the need to post....

Where some frequent bloggers might label themselves merely ardent, (one blogger) is more realistic. "I wouldn't call it dedicated, I would call it a problem," he said. "If this were beer, I'd be an alcoholic."

This blogger, who lives in Hollywood and works as a scheduler in the entertainment industry, said blogging began to feel like an addiction when he noticed that he would rather be with his computer than with his girlfriend - for technical reasons...

Describing the rush he gets from what he called "the fix" provided by his blog he says, "The pleasure response is twofold," he said. "You can have instant gratification; you're going to hear about something really good or bad instantly. And if I feel like I've written something good, it's enjoyable to go back and read it."

And, he said, "like most addictions, those feelings go away quickly. So I have to do it again and again."

...for some people blogging has supplanted e-mail as a way to procrastinate at work.

People ... who devote much of their free time to the care and feeding of their own blogs and posting to other blogs, do so largely because it makes them feel productive even if it is not a paying job...

... "The Web's illusion of immortality is sometimes more attractive than actual cash..." .

Jocelyn Wang, a 27-year-old marketing manager in Los Angeles, started her blog, a chronicle of whatever happens to pop into her head (www.jozjozjoz.com), 18 months ago as an outlet for boredom.

Now she spends at least four hours a day posting to her blog and reading other blogs. Ms. Wang's online journal is now her life. And the people she has met through the blog are a large part of her core of friends.

"There is no real separation in my life," she said...

"Sometimes (though) you get really particular with the kind of link you want, so you search a little more, then a little more, then you want to see what other people are saying about that link you chose," he said. "And before you know it, some real time has passed."

Others find they are distracted to the point of neglectfulness. Tom Lewis, 35, a project manager for a software firm in western Massachusetts who has a photo blog (tomdog.buzznet.com/user), has occasionally shown up "considerably late" for events and has put off more than a few work-related calls to tend to his blog.

Mr. Jarvis characterizes the blogging way of life as a routine rather than an obsession. "It's a habit," he said. "What you're really doing is telling people about something that they might find interesting. When that becomes part of your life, when you start thinking in blog, it becomes part of you."

The constant search for bloggable moments is what led Gregor J. Rothfuss, a programmer in Zurich, to blog to the point of near-despair. Bored by his job, Mr. Rothfuss, 27, started a blog that focused on technical topics...

For months, Mr. Rothfuss said, he blogged at work, at home, late into the night, day in and day out until it all became a blur - all the while knowing, he added, "that no one was necessarily reading it, except for myself."

When traffic to the blog, greg.abstract.ch started to rise, he began devoting half a day every day and much of the weekend to it. Mr. Rothfuss said he has few memories of that period in his life aside from the compulsive blogging...

He still has the blog, but posts to it just twice a week, he said, "as opposed to twice an hour." He feels healthier now. "It's part of what I do now, it's not what I do," he said.

Suffering from a similar form of "blog fatigue," Bill Barol, a freelance writer in Santa Monica, Calif., simply stopped altogether after four years of nearly constant blogging.

"It was starting to feel like work, and it was never supposed to be a job," Mr. Barol said. "It was supposed to be an anti-job."

Even with some 200 visitors to his blog each day, he has not posted to his blog since returning from a month of travel.

Still, Mr. Barol said, he does not rule out a return to blogging someday.

"There is this seductive thing that happens, this kind of snowball-rolling-down-a-hill thing, where the sheer momentum of several years' posting becomes very keenly felt," he said. "And the absence of posting feels like - I don't know, laziness or something."

Tim Gnatek contributed reporting for this article.

Stupidity: The Basic Building Block Of The Universe

Pinched from this very neat, eclectic site.

Great Quotes:

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.
~Frank Zappa

Sopranos, Season 5, Episode Twelve, "Long Term Parking"

(From TVGuide.com) Synopsis:

The Sopranos
Long Term Parking 60 mins.
   

Tony Soprano and Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi) confide in one another about their pasts; Carmela's interest in a real-estate deal is supported by her estranged husband, who also mulls an offer from Johnny Sack (Vincent Curatola). Adriana: Drea de Matteo. Carmela: Edie Falco.

Cast: Dominic Chianese, Edie Falco, James Gandolfini, Jamie-Lynn DiScala, Lorraine Bracco, Michael Imperioli, Robert Iler, Steven Van Zandt, Tony Sirico, Drea de Matteo, Steve Buscemi, Vincent Curatola

Director: Tim Van Patten
----------------------------------

Who'd have guessed that the lovely (but dense) Adriana would get whacked this week? I guess just about anyone who has seen a mobster movie. Poor, stupid girl. And what a pig Tony is for ordering her hit. And Silvio. Isn't this the first time he's been shown actually whacking someone? Carmela--is she any better than the whores she holds with such disdain? In this episode she was bought for exactly 600K. Christopher. I think of them all, I want him dead the most--for him being extremely physically abusive (outside of "work"), coupled with his complete lack of a conscience, along with his delusion of having writing talent--of any talent, and for his whiny sense of entitlement. I will cheer on the day of his demise.

MSNBC'S summary  includes a nice "eulogy" to Adriana.

Tony Soprano's biggest problem this week: Little Carmine has stepped down to make room for Johnny Sack, and Johnny Sack is out for blood -- Tony Blundetto's blood, that is. When Tony tries to meet with Johnny Sack to ask for Tony B's death to be quick, he meets a new, hardnose Johnny Sack who's going to make his life as miserable as possible. And our Tony's not about to let that happen.

Body count: Two. Gilbert Nieves, a patron of the Crazy Horse, was killed in a fight with his drug dealer. But when Adriana tried to cover it up, she set in motion the dominoes that eventually led her to a long, lonely ride with Silvio. Her presumed death was a horrifying farewell to one of "The Sopranos" best characters, and a reminder that, in the Mob, even those the audience loves are never safe. The repercussions of her murder will echo throughout the upcoming season finale as well as the entire final season next year. Goodbye, Adriana. We would have liked to have seen you live to be a Mafia bride.

Hardest scene to watch: Adriana presumably died at the end of Silvio's gun, but before that, she was almost killed at the hands of her fiance, Christopher. When she finally confessed she had been talking with the FBI, Chris first hit her, hard in the face, and then leapt on top of her and strangled her for an agonizingly long time. It was true to Adriana's character that when he finally let go, her first reaction was to reach out and hold him, their tears mixing.

Best not-so-inside joke: When Christopher shows up late to a meeting with Tony and Silvio (played by Bruce Springsteen's bandmate, Little Stevie Van Zandt), Tony asks him what held him up. "The highway was jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive," deadpans Chris, in a Springsteen homage that would have been funny even if Silvio wasn't present.

Heading for a fall: Poor Carmela. She must have thought her life was getting better, with Tony moving back in and promising "on our children's lives" to stay faithful. She even pursued a project of her own, buying a $600,000 parcel of land. But once she finds out the truth about Adriana, Carmela's world, which has been shaken so much lately, may just fall to pieces.

Best scene from next week's preview: Phil Leotardo doesn't yet have revenge for the death of brother Billy, and if he can't find Tony Blundetto, a member of Tony Soprano's family will do. A preview shows Phil raging with a crowbar, then cuts suggestively to Carmela in her home getting dressed. Draw your own conclusions, or tune in June 6 for the Sopranos season finale.

Tornadoes, Chicken Vesuvio, and Blue Men

Happy Victoria Day to any Canadians (and Brits?) reading along here.
After we moved to the States, my family still celebrated (as best we could) all the Canadian holidays, plus the American. It was having Thanksgiving two months in a row (Canadian in October, and American in November) that was a real killer. Still, having an extra day off is welcome anytime.

My weekend was pretty neat. A few tornado warnings to liven things up both on Friday and Sunday night. Here's the thing. There are tornado "alleys" within the state I reside. People build homes in (on?) them and if their number comes up, their home gets damaged or destroyed. These alleys are even on maps, so it's no mystery where they are likely to pop up on the occasion of the seasons changing, hell breaking loose and chicken littles a/k/a weather dudes, running amok. Here's what the weather guys (repeatedly during each show) broke into the season finale episodes of three of the four network shows I watch(ed), to say (one was two weeks ago--the big one was on Friday night). ***Harsh television noise to get your attention***

This is the (our town) police. A tornado has been spotted at X & Y streets (15 miles from here--that's how big our town is, end to end). Please go to a safe area such as your basement. Stay away from your windows. Repeat...

I'm sorry, but I didn't choose to live in a tornado alley. There is a freakishly small chance that one would come here--we just got rain--not even high winds *shakes head*. I'm so heartless when it comes to stupidity. My younger son got freaked out though--off to the basement with him--no biggy as it's quite comfortable down there. I didn't dissuade him, rather I praised him for being extra cautious. Unless one has a private bunker, it's silly to try to hide from a tornado 'cause if it's time for your number to be up--same as in an earthquake, Mother Nature is controlling your destiny. I'm actually a huge admirer of the power of Mother Nature--she puts us humans on our knees (though of course I don't like hearing of death and destruction).
Saturday was drizzly for our trip to Chicago (but no t-warnings). The meal was fabulous--antipasto appetizers, Chicken Vesuvio, and tirimisu for dessert. Oh, the decadent yumminess. We were seated by a window that adjoined the terrace to the outdoor riverfront area--spectacular views of the River North area of the city.
The Blue Man Group show was highly entertaining--no surprise there. We were in the "poncho seats" (fourth row). Blue Man gets umm...messy--and there's lots of audience participation. The guy behind me had never been to a Blue Man show and he was seriously worried about getting splattered by paint or taken out by a Jell-O mold but we were never in any real danger (as we were far to the left). The folks in the center got hit pretty hard though. Hehe.
I hope y'all are having a magnificent Monday!

Chicago River View Near Clark Street Bridge At Dusk

On the occasion of my 10th wedding anniversary.
5.22.04

Nothing To Do With Pony Cars

Feeling Bloated

State Of Being

Things are a bit intense right now. Christopher (my youngest) is still going through some kind of pre-teenage rebellion and has completely let his grades slip by not finishing assignments.
Nagging doesn't work. Talking to him doesn't work. He's now grounded for two weeks--no electronic anything--because a) he needs to catch up on his work and b) he lied, several times. That is so not like him; obviously he's troubled--but we have to prop him up and get him over the finish line for this school year.
My older son is still employed--yay!-- everyday is a different experience and he says he's learning a lot--so good on that.

Spouse and I celebrate our 10th anniversary on-- damn! it's today. Oh, I'm....screwed.
On Saturday, in honour of 10 years of wedded bliss (13, as a couple) we are going to an Italian "ristorante" right on the water in downtown Chicago, then out to see the Blue Man Group's new show.
We were going to get a room downtown, but I really rather make the half hour drive and come home to my own bed--and besides the youngest will be gone for the night at his friend's so parental duties will not be required.

As usual, I have been out and about with the top down. Every single ride is a ride. I'm just itching for the pool to open though, so I can get back to my swimming. I have kept up with the yoga and have worked more in the warehouse for the charity, not to just help but for the exercise. Hauling hundreds of books around does help one work up a sweat.

Happy Thursday to everyone,
Cheers!

--Cyn
_________________
Take my love, take my land Take me where I cannot stand I don't care, I'm still free You can't take the sky from me
Take me out to the black Tell them I ain't coming back Burn the land and boil the sea You can't take the sky from me
There's no place I can be Since I found Serenity You can't take the sky from me ~ Ballad Of Serenity

Which Biological Molecule Are You?

You are mRNA. You're brilliant, full of important,
interesting information and you're a great
friend to the people you care about. You may
have sides to you that no one understands. But
while you understand more than most people,
you're only half-there most of the time.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'm only half (here) most of the time?
Sounds about right.

Missing

Here I've been thinking that my blog buddies--all of them-- have been taking a rather long break.
Today, I got suspicious and used my "regular" link to Vanessa's weblog and lo and behold, she recounts that she's miffed that Kinja is not (or has not been) functional of late.
Gadzooks!
Turns out everyone's been writing but because I trusted bad Kinja to pull up my favourite blogs each time a new post was published with one-click ease, taking the "effort" out of visiting blogs, and hasn't been doing it's job...grrr. Guess I'll search for people manually like in the old days. :sigh:

Central Library Puts on Fishnets and Hits the Disco

I find this architect intriguing in his ability to quirkily blend form and functionality into a striking-looking building. And I have a "thing"
for neat-looking and well-stocked libraries. ;) This one has the first requirement nailed.



The irregular, and seemingly arbitrary, angles and shapes of the Seattle Central Library, and its dazzling surface, don't come at the cost of functionality. Lara Swimmer/Esto

A photograph of Rem Koolhaas's new Central Library in Seattle.

By HERBERT MUSCHAMP
Published: May 16, 2004
Source

AT a dark hour, Seattle's new Central Library is a blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon. If an American city can erect a civic project as brave as this one, the sun hasn't set on the West. In more than 30 years of writing about architecture, this is the most exciting new building it has been my honor to review. I could go on piling up superlatives like cars in a multiple collision, but take my word: there's going to be a whole lot of rubbernecking going on.

The new library, which opens next Sunday, was designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA of the Netherlands in collaboration with the Seattle firm LMN Architects. Joshua Ramus of OMA was the partner in charge. It is the centerpiece of an ambitious initiative to revamp and expand Seattle's library system citywide. This is Seattle, don't forget: a city where fortunes have been made on the premise that books, and even cities, may be rendered obsolete by digital technology. Yet this new library sets an example for cities nationwide.

Quite apart from its strengths in structure, form and space, the building exemplifies Rem Koolhaas's reliance on the architectural program: the organization of space according to use and function. Because of the clarity of this example, the Central Library's impact on architecture could be profound. It makes art out of the relationship between architect and client.

The first impression is pure bling-bling: an urban montage of starburst images without a special lens. With a faceted exterior of glass and steel, this is a big rock candy mountain of a building, twinkling in the middle of office buildings. The library occupies a full city block, bounded by Fourth and Fifth Avenues and Spring and Madison Streets. Seattle's federal courthouse is across the street. A striking Miesian office tower rises on the opposite side. It's a fantastic location.

The library's exterior is an angular composition of folded planes. Walls are of glass, supported by a diagonal grid of light blue metal that covers almost the entire surface. At first glance, the irregular angles, folds and shapes seem arbitrary. The building's structure is hard to discern, and the overall grid pattern looks like a perverse exaggeration of the abstract geometries used by mid-20th-century architects for decorative relief.

Sunset, Harper College~5.16.04

Photo by my youngest son, taken at dusk from the Mustang, top down. :)
I did the colourizing.

Babble On

Mini-review of Troy
http://www.audioblogger.com/media/22465/55719.mp3

Apologies for my various states of exhaustion, anxiety, and lack of focus exhibited in blaring aural technicolour on this sound clip.
Someday, I'll make a really slick mp3, but don't hold your breath. :/

Two Giant Pacific Octopuses Mate

Now here's something you just don't see every day.
A pair of giant octopuses mating!
Yay them!
But I thought it was octopii?

Two giant Pacific octopuses mate Tuesday, May 11, 2004, at Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, Alaska. Aquarists at the Alaska SeaLife Center introduced 5-year-old J-1 to Aurora on Tuesday morning. The two really hit it off. Spermatophores were seen hanging from J-1's siphon. (AP Photo/Alaska SeaLife Center, Richard Hocking)

Full Story

New Blog

I started an audio blog today--for FREE!

If nothing else, listening to how awful I sound will help me clean up my speaking voice--at least the one I use when talking to myself. I must have said "um" a hundred times in the five-minute clip that one is given each time one records.
Must remember during pauses to say nothing.

The audio blog is to remain private.
Not going to do the poor-me thing because I love "here," but I can't say what I think/feel about a number of things.
And that's my own fault, as I've freely shared this address.
Everyone needs a private spot and though this is my personal spot it's a long way from private.

That lasted a long time.
Is that sarcasm dripping over there?

Twice The Latin Goodness...Or Something

After reading
this post about

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Vanessa
asked,
How come latin is in that diagram twice, as two separate influences?--to which (after I wrote him an email with the same query), the author answered:

Thanks for your message. It's an interesting question and no one has ever asked that before. The Romans colonized the British Isles around the time of the Caesars, about 43 CE and stayed for several hundred years. They spoke Latin of course. During that time Latin had some influence on the early language of the Isles, which was not yet called English. The remaining influence of Latin from that time is not great. The Roman colonization collapsed in the early 5th century and the Norse peoples began raids and colonization. In the year 1066 the Normans invaded and conquered England. At that time Norman French became the official language of the regime. French is, of course, a Romance (Latin-based) language. It wasn't until the Renaissance and the resurgence of study and learning that Latin and Greek once again began to filter their way into the language. For more reading on the history of English, click on some of the links at the bottom of my History of English page or try a Google search for History of English. Regards, Dan Short danshort@gte.net http://www.danshort.com/

The Sloganator: Too Fun To Pass Up!

The backstory is as follows:
earlier this month, the web site for the
Bush-Cheney campaign - the real one, paid for by MBNA America and
Richard Scaife - featured a "create your own banner" tool, where you
could enter your own slogan and print out your own poster, with the
Bush-Cheney logo, and a note at the bottom "paid for by Bush-Cheney '04,
Inc." Democrats, of course, couldn't get enough of this. The original
sloganator accepted everything, then it started censoring profanity and
words like "Hitler," "dictator," and "evil." Nevertheless, many clever folks
exploited the sloganator to their own ends before its sad demise only a
couple of weeks after its birth, and its mourners assembled some of the
best for the slide show.

Turn on the sound and settle back to enjoy! Click on the URL below and let
it load:
The Sloganator

Genital Torture For Dummies by Mark Morford

Morford says exactly how I feel...way better than me.
I'm sickened by this whole thing--who wouldn't be? But surprised, outraged? Are we that frelling naive?
No, we are not.
We know in our little heart of hearts that we are capable of the same shite (the official reason that) we removed Saddam for.
I hate having my intelligence insulted like this.
I hate worse that many American's intelligence isn't insulted.

===== Mark Morford's Notes & Errata ===== sfgate.com - May 12, 2004 Hey, it's a war -- what did you expect, flowers and bunnies and hopscotch in the Baghdad streets? By Mark Morford

Just in time for your morning breakfast sausage, it's all-American rape and torture and rampant entirely condoned military sadism. Mmm, patriotism.

The pictures are worth a thousand disgusted moans. It's all flag-draped coffins and dog chains and forced masturbation and pistol whippings and miserable bloody hooded Iraqi men -- not terrorists, just men -- with wires attached to their fingers and genitals and made to stand up for hours and days on end until their feet swell and their lungs collapse and their livers fail, and you can hear our stunned death-drunk nation cry: Hey, whatever happened to our nice, clean little war? How did it get so ugly and out of hand? And isn't the "Frasier" finale on soon?

Isn't the nation just so very outraged -- outraged! -- over the nasty rogue's gallery of photos gushing forth from the stunned media of late -- (with frightening promises that the worst is yet to come), all those snickering U.S. Army guards and sickeningly abused Iraqi POWs and dead U.S. soldiers and scowling generals....

Full URL

Sopranos, Season 5, Episode Ten, "Cold Cuts"

Cold Cuts
60 mins.   
From TVGuide.com:
Tony B. and Christopher reflect on some painful memories during a trip to the country; Carmela plans another party with Tony; Tony baits Janice after she takes an anger-management class. Mike Figgis directed.

Cast: Dominic Chianese, Edie Falco, James Gandolfini, Jamie-Lynn DiScala, Lorraine Bracco, Michael Imperioli, Robert Iler, Steven Van Zandt, Tony Sirico, Drea de Matteo, Aida Turturro, Steve Buscemi, Steven R. Schirripa, Vincent Curatola, John Ventimiglia, Robert Loggia

Content: Strong, Coarse Language, Explicit Sexual Situations, Violence
Release Year: 2004
----------------------------------------------
In most episodes of the Sopranos, James Gandolfini portrays Tony Soprano as a very flawed, yet oddly redeeming, character. You kinda root for him. The whole "sure he is a mass-murdering, self-absorbed tyrant, but he has panic attacks, mother-issues, and he loves animals,"  thing. So he can't be all that bad.
Tony was not redeemed in this episode--not for a moment, unless one can count as a slightly redeeming thing, his being a complete and utter bastard to Janice. Her new way to fix herself is really just the "same old," in another package. This season, "anger-management" is the way Janice, at the behest of Bobby('s strongly implied threat of divorce) makes another "attempt" at self-improvement--and fails.
But Tony cannot stand for anyone to be doing better than he is--and Janice doing well with the anger management was reason enough, so he had to provoke her. Same thing with Christopher, when he was trying to bully him into taking a drink.
In this episode, Tony Soprano was completely irredeemable.

Random thoughts:

Although I was rooting for him when he took a shot a going legit, more and more Tony Blundetto shows himself to be completely ruthless and utterly without any degree of empathy for others--kinda like most characters in the show, save the damaged in-a-different-way Dr. Melfi. His betrayal of the bond he and Chris had begun to renew (while excavating bodies, natch) was so cold-hearted. Makes him more interesting, and more scary.

I liked the episode in it's exposition/exploration of the relationship of Tony S, Tony B, and Christopher when they were kids and now. Not a whole lot has changed in this dynamic--the two older Tonys being very mean-spirited older "brothers" to Christopher.

I also liked the subtle humor of this episode with the "can of peaches" and "revenge is like cold-cuts".
Only three episodes left, so it should be interesting.

 

History of the English Language

Source

I find the history of the evolution of the English language fascinating--though the complexity is a bit confusing. The creation of this diagram, along with the attached short explanation boils it down to simpler terms that even I can understand.
Bonus: I had no idea that "AD" was no longer the correct term for the time following Christ's death. It's now called "Common Era" or CE. Huh.
----------------------------------------
The figure below shows the timeline of the history of the English language. The earliest known residents of the British Isles were the Celts, who spoke Celtic languages--a separate branch of the Indo-European language family tree. Over the centuries the British Isles were invaded and conquered by various peoples, who brought their languages and customs with them as they settled in their new lives. There is now very little Celtic influence left in English. The earliest time when we can say that English was spoken was in the 5th century CE (Common Era--a politically correct term used to replace AD).

In case you hadn't made the connection, "England" <- "Engla Land" <- Angle Land (Land of the Angles, a people of northern old Germany). Their name lives on in the district of England named East Anglia, and also in the Anglican Church.
OriginalSourceandmoreinfo

Killing Off Housing for the Poor

I only had to read the title of this Op/Ed piece in the NYTimes to know that it was about the hosing of the Section 8 Housing Program that predominately helps poor women and children. It hit just a wee bit too close to home for me to brush it off as another Bush f-up (though that is precisely what it is).

I was a "poor" woman with a child for a number of years.
At age 24, I left a violent, drunk, sadistic prick husband to flee with my baby to Illinois.
I didn't have child support nor an education, rather I had a child and the desire to better myself in order to best care for him.
I was fortunate that my parents, though they were on their way to moving out of the state, knew of some resources and after 2 years of living in a cockroach infested, violent housing project, my young son and I ending up in a one-bedroom "nice" Section 8 apartment. The best thing was that we were safe and in a good school district. We also had unimagined luxuries like inner and outer building double-locking doors and a POOL.
While we lived there I paid minimal rent and earned both my Bachelors and Masters degrees. I got breaks on tuition too, though I ended up borrowing $40,000 US to be able to finish my graduate degree.
Without Section 8 housing...I don't know. I'd probably be up shit's creek--just like the women and children that will be screwed by this latest smooth move by the current occupant of the White House.

(Don't worry about Grandma or Grandpa, though.
The elderly poor have a separate program--Bush ain't totally stupid--he rarely messes with old folk's subsidies 'cause older Americans vote for Bush's political party (proportionally) more than younger.)
-------------------------------------------------------
Published: May 10, 2004

The Bush administration's tax cuts for the well-to-do have taken a heavy toll on the nation's most important social programs for the poor and working class. Prominent casualties include child care assistance for working mothers and federal aid for needy college students. The latest victim appears to be Section 8, the government's main housing program for the poor. The program provides rent subsidies for two million of the country's most vulnerable families and encourages private developers to build affordable housing.

Section 8 subsidies go primarily to families that live at or below the poverty level, in households that include children, disabled people or the elderly. These families pay 30 percent of their incomes toward rent and the Section 8 vouchers pay the rest. Some cities give priority to battered women, many of them with children, who have to find a new place to live to escape danger. The need is so great that families often wait years for vouchers, which become available when voucher holders die or become ineligible after getting better jobs.

Congress rejected an administration proposal that would have placed a financing cap on the program and turned the money over to the states. But the administration's assault continues, through the appropriations process in the House and through administrative rulings at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has been trying to put the brakes on the voucher program. Last month, the department issued new guidelines to the country's 2,500 public housing agencies declaring that it would no longer pay the full cost of the vouchers but would cap the federal contribution at the level of August 2003, adding an adjustment for inflation.

This has already caused some private builders and financiers to back away from projects that would have produced desperately needed affordable housing. In addition, public housing officials in many states have made it clear that the new policies will force them to raise rents or evict tenants. Having paid lip service to the goal of ending chronic homelessness, the Bush administration is now threatening to kill off the only program that could possibly achieve it.

"I don't think all Americans are bad"

QUOTATION OF THE DAY ~ from NYTimes.com

"When Americans do these things, I don't think all Americans are bad. And if one Muslim is bad, it doesn't mean all Muslims are bad either."
HIDAYAT BIN ISMAIL, a 19-year-old Singaporean.

It Was Happy

My older son asked the younger one and me out for what he called "brunch" this afternoon to Eggcentric, a kinda nifty-looking breakfast-and-lunch only place--and he sprung for his brother too, though he balked when Chris tried to order a salmon/egg dish.  (My spouse had to work, but did the bouquet of roses thing and cards. Flowers are nice but I like 'em best outside, growing--no complaints though--again, the gesture trumps.) Best part by far was sharing a meal out with my two boys (it was a yummy avocado, bacon and cheese omelet and "your-choice-of" stuff). For many years my oldest son gave me nothing--really nothing--he'd skip the day entirely--and it wasn't because I was a bad or neglectful mom. So this year was really nice. It wasn't extravagant (in terms of the meal out) but the gesture was lovely. It's nice when we treat one another "extra" specially sometimes--I think it brings out the best in us.

May 4, Revisited

The following is a personal reflection prompted by my post of May 4.
It was written by my brother, J McCrackan.
------------------------------------------
I just read your blog for the first time this week. I normally check in every day or so, but this is the week before finals. Anyway, I read your article commemorating Kent State & thought I'd give you some feedback.

Remember that WHS teacher who asked you out, the really young & hip one? He's the one who taught me about Kent State and showed us the TV movie (featuring a young Ellen Barkin in an unnamed role and a McCracken playing Bill Schroeder--and the producers were the Osmonds!). The experience blew my fucking mind, and those of my classmates. Some of the guys made reactionary comments, which I now understand to have been an attempt to defuse their emotional reaction.

I'm pretty sure that I was affected the most. I'd always been a smart alec, always challenging authority figures, but that had been in a class-clown context, striving for popularity, calling attention to myself while paradoxically struggling to blend into the crowd. But the moment I found out about Kent State is when your kid brother was spiritually shot in the back. These kinds of things happen to other countries, I'd thought, not this one. Once I'd taken the red pill, once I'd learned what happened and why--and that life had just gone on, right on into 1981, the dawn of Reagan's New Morning in America--I understood that there were much more important reasons for questioning authority than egotism.

Each May 4 after that, I mourned. Deep, dark mourning, locked away in my room. Baffled everyone around me, no one more so than myself. I didn't understand why I cared so much about four kids I never knew. In 1985, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the massacre, Ray and I made the pilgramage to the university. (Ray was actually just interested in their railway system--I barely saw him once we were there.) I walked all over campus and into town, listening to people's reactions when exposed to news reports of the anniversary. Mostly, they had the same Archie Bunker-sort of reaction that I'd encountered in high school. "Served 'em right." "Why are we still talking about this?" Etc.

As I knelt at a small memorial (which lists their names but not the cause of their deaths), I realized that I wasn't going to wake up the world and make them feel what I was feeling. I wasn't going to change what had happened, and my rhetoric might call attention to myself, but it wasn't going to enlighten anyone. There was already a movie and a book by Michener about Kent State--I wasn't capable of contributing anything but my ego to the topic. The best I could do, I understood, was exactly what I was doing: just quietly remembering.

Since then, the mournings gradually faded in intensity over the years. I glance at the calendar, see the date, and have to think about why it resonates with me.

And then I remember.

Disturbing Search Requests

I was just about to post to the site Disturbing Search Requests but it appears to be down--and since I've gone to all this trouble (yeah, right) I'm going to just publish them here, as I'm in a state of nothing-to-say-that-hasn't-been-said-ness, atm.

"Nude Mustang" is what led to these Google results and then to
here on my site.
Think they found what they were looking for?
Me neither.

People seeking self-knowledge or info on relatives often type in
what is inbred people or "inbred people in Kentucky" or the like and they get this as their number one search result out of approx. 75,000 results!
I wish I could be proud of that.

Finally, I haven't any idea what this person was hoping to find
using this search term. A photo of "champ" cannabis? What is that, a new French strain?
This is what led him/her to me.

From Another Time: My Mother-In-Law

This is my mother-in-law. She handed me a picture on Easter--the black and white thumbnail (pictured on right)--only in worse condition (it's almost 70 years old and hasn't been terribly well-handled)
I reflexively told I could "fix it up" even though not only was it old and in mediocre shape, it was out of focus, too.
She's coming over tomorrow with her sister--another old lady--just prior to Christopher's afternoon performance of his choral group's spring concert. I thought getting this done in time for Mother's Day would be a good thing even though the scanner's software installed on my youngest son's new-last-Christmas computer has been farked up and I didn't get it working until tonight.
I just spent a few hours on "Elaine" and one of these is what I'll be giving her (in a frame).

The original photo had a bad-looking curtain as the background. I "painted" over it--and didn't get real picky about the bottom edges--so there's a lack of clean lines there. The baby has no shadow--kind of intentional as I wanted the area surrounding her to be bright.

Avatars

When I first joined a forum a year ago last month, I not only didn't have a clue what my joining would entail as far as writing, but wasn't aware that photography would become important to me again.

At many forums, avatars express one's individualism. The avatar is the little picture attached to the upper left of one's posts. When I first started using them, my avatar was Chrissie Hynde--didn't see any reason to change it, plus I had a devil of a time getting the pic down to the size specifications that the forum required.
So fast forward almost a year, and I'm invited to join another forum which allows avatars (I realize now that this is not a common thing as they do take up the host's server space.) I still dig photography and now possess software to easily make any photo or drawing to any specification, so I made a new one every week, sometimes every day.
Then I broke the rules and lets just say that if I step out of line one more time, I will be invited to leave. Meanwhile, my punishment is loss of avatar privileges and a public chastising on the forum.

You know what I think about forums? I think, with some notable exceptions, they are a dying "breed." I think weblogs have or will supplant them for a couple of good reasons. Forums are usually quite general in subject and they are owned by one or more persons that "moderate" the member's behaviour. In contrast, weblogs give one complete autonomy--the only regulation is self-imposed, plus they are usually quite specific in content. Between weblogs, instant messaging, and chat rooms, I don't really see the need for forums, even though there's been enjoyable moments at all the ones I've belonged to.

I learned that I didn't need to belong to one to make Internet friends after the first forum gave me the heave-ho. I can tailor my blogging "community" to fit my specific desires and interests. While blogging, I can discuss any topic I desire and with the comments enabled, engage in give and take "conversations."

I'm realizing now that I probably won't ever fit into the dynamic that is intrinsic to forum membership. I never was a "joiner" and I certainly never have been good at being told what to say or not. I really bristle when politics is played as well. And that's all part of forum life--at least as I've experienced it on the several forums that I've sampled in the past year. I am quite happy with my spot here--but I still want an avatar. ;)

Mayan Discovery Points To Sophisticated Society

TheAgedotcom_AU
May 6, 2004
ANCIENT SOCIETY WAS HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLDER THAN THOUGHT
Thomas Maugh writes from Los Angeles.

Archaeologists excavating a 2500-year-old Mayan city in Guatemala have unearthed buildings and massive carvings, suggesting a royal metropolis of more than 10,000 people.

The enormous stucco face of a Mayan deity in Cival dwarfs archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli.

It was previously believed the Mayans were only simple farmers but studies at the Peten jungle site of Cival have unearthed the oldest known carved portrait of a Mayan king and two massive stone masks.

The discoveries indicate that the Mayans developed a complex and sophisticated civilisation hundreds of years earlier than previously believed.

The city of towering pyramids and sweeping plazas is also yielding other surprising artifacts, including jade and ceramic offerings to the gods that may mark the beginnings of the Mayan dynasties, according to archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli. The Mayan civilisation came into full bloom at cities such as Palenque and Tikal in the Classic Period, beginning about AD300. But other Pre-classic sites have been built over, often repeatedly.

Cival, for reasons that are not clear, was abandoned about AD100, "never to be occupied again", Mr Estrada-Belli said, and had lain relatively untouched ever since.

Because it was preserved, it was now clear that " 'Pre-classic' is a misnomer". The new evidence showed that "Pre-classic Mayan societies already had many features that have been attributed to the Classic Period: kings, complex iconography, elaborate palaces and burials".

The origin of the Mayan civilisation had to be found in the first part of the Pre-classic period, rather than the last.

Cival, about 40 kilometres east of Tikal, was originally discovered in 1984 by Ian Graham, of Harvard University. Most of the site was overgrown by jungle and it was thought to be a minor outpost.

Mr Estrada-Belli had been studying the nearby Classic Period city of Holmul and was using satellite imaging and GPS positioning to explore the surrounding area when he rediscovered Cival four years ago. The new technology showed that its ceremonial centre spanned almost a kilometre.

The most spectacular find at Cival occurred by accident. Mr Estrada-Belli reached into a fissure in a wall in the city's main pyramid and felt a piece of carved stucco.

Digging into the site from the other side of the pyramid, he discovered a 4.5-metre by 2.7-metre stucco mask.

More recently, the team discovered a second, apparently identical, mask. The eyes appear to be adorned with corn husks, suggesting the Maya maize deity.

- Los Angeles Times
-----------------------------------------------
Ever since I learned of the Incas, Aztecs, and Mayas in grammar school, I've always preferred the stories of the Mayans, the peaceful, agricultural society (I was born a pacifist, I think).
It's intriguing to read of the latest discoveries which will call for yet another rewriting of Mayan history.

Four Dead In Ohio

ON THIS DAY  (From the NYTimes.com)
On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.

Kent State 1970
When President Richard Nixon said he was sending troops to Cambodia, the nation’s colleges erupted in protest. At Kent State some threw rocks. The Ohio National Guard, called in to quell the turmoil, suddenly turned and fired, killing four; two were simply walking to class. This photo captured a pivotal moment: American soldiers had just killed American kids. Student photographer John Filo won the Pulitzer; the event was also memorialized in a Neil Young song and a TV movie. The girl, Mary Ann Vecchio, turned out not to be a Kent State student, but a 14-year-old runaway. She was sent back to her family in Florida.

Jeffrey Miller, 6, steals a kiss from his big brother Russ, 9; Sandra Lee Scheuer about age 15; Allison Krause, 19, goofing off for the camera; and young Billy Schroeder with his sister, Nancy.

Activist Alan Canfora confronts guardsmen minutes before they turned at the top of Blanket Hill and fired. Photographer John Filo later told Canfora on Good Morning America that he thought this was his best picture until he captured the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mary Ann Vecchio series.

Four Dead In Ohio
Crosby Stills Nash & Young
Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it.
Soldiers are gunning us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.

Gotta get down to it.
Soldiers are cutting us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.

------------------------
I was 10 years old when the photographs of the carnage at a Kent State (Ohio) University anti-war demonstration were published.
When the truth finally came out, Kent State became a powerful anti-war symbol.
Prior to this it was considered unpatriotic to be against the Vietnam War. It took four more long years before the United States began withdrawing troops from Vietnam. Thousands more American soldiers died and were wounded.
The people killed and injured at Kent State (one remains confined to a wheelchair) are not symbols. They too are people who died for their country.

Follow-up Cyn City post

more photos:

Chillin'

I had a great day.
I won't bore you with tales of my wonderful ride up to near Wisconsin to get my hair ready for next Saturday's concert (that would be highlighting and colour by my friend M, the hair stylist). At least one part of me will be ready. We resume rehearsals tomorrow and between my son and me there'll be a whole lot of singing goin' on in the next two weeks.

I got back in time to volunteer at the charity store and came home to a nice shrimp scampi, rice, and tossed salad dinner.

Youngest son had rehearsals tonight so the evening was unnaturally quiet. I didn't spend the time productively and I don't care.
Watched Sopranos with spouse --a stellar episode I thought. I watched it last night but spouse was working and it's more fun to watch together.

I have an early call at the optometrist tomorrow--need new contact lenses and eyeglasses and I think Mother Nature has dictated that I need bifocals. I don't care. I've been near blind most of my life--one more added feature to my laundry list of malady's isn't going to phase me.

The yoga is helping keep me on an even keel. I'm glad because I'm in the grips of spring fever and I tend to throw caution to the wind when I'm all giddy like this but I've been doing some serious thinking before acting, planning even , and though I prefer spontaneity, being planful has it's distinct advantages.
I'm also methodically letting go. Usually I just plunge in--or leap out--but this time I'm trying something different. It's taken quite a bit of willpower but I'm sitting on the fence waiting and watching to see what turns up. I have an idea, but it's imperative that I be sure and not jump ahead.

Sopranos Season 5, Episode 9, Unidentified Black Males

From TV Guide:
The Sopranos   
Unidentified Black Males
60 mins.   
Gossip about Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi) puts Tony Soprano at odds with Johnny Sack (Vincent Curatola); Meadow looks out for her boyfriend's financial well-being; A.J. avoids making summer plans. Finn: Will Janowitz. A.J.: Robert Iler. Meadow: Jamie-Lynn DiScala.
Director: Tim Van Patten
Release Year: 2004
--------------------------------
No one got whacked, but there was plenty of tension and at least one out-right shock--that would be Vito getting caught orally servicing another guy by Meadow's now-fiancé, Finn.

It's a toss-up whether Finn is going to feel any more repercussions beyond the menacing encounter he had with Vito later that day as Finn worked as a laborer at the mob construction site.
Finn was sufficiently shaken to consider fleeing home to California, but after being berated by Meadow into the wee hours of the morning, he got desperate and proposed marriage to her in order to get some sleep. Or did he do it thinking it would protect him? Does he have clue one as to who Meadow's dad is and that the messy beat-down that he witnessed at the construction site was just a mere hint at what could become of him?

On the Carmela and Tony front, relations swung back from last weeks frolic--in and out of the pool--to a dance of anger over lunch as Carmela announced her intention to proceed with the divorce.
Though Carmela was insistent that she would get her "share," Tony was equally insistent that she's already gotten all she's going to get. James Gandolfini shone throughout this episode, but was especially effective in his expression of simmering malice and implied threat.

Tony B.'s whack job of Johnny Sack's protégé continued to be problematic for Tony S. At the funeral, Sack confronted Tony with information gleaned from his underlings that Tony B. had been seen in the vicinity of the murder(s) on that night--in an area that was not his home turf. Tony S. reflexively defended Tony B. and in a conversation with the grieving and revenge-seeking Johnny Sack, provided an alibi, saying that he knew personally that Tony B. couldn't have been responsible, as the two were together that night--out of town.
Earlier in the episode, when it came to light that the killer had a profound limp, Tony S. confronted the injured Tony B. about accepting the "side-job," and though Tony B. denied doing the killing, he also implied that even if he did, it would only"complicate" Tony's S's life to know the truth. Tony S. alluded to the long-ago incident that sent Tony B. to prison and again expressed dismay that he was supposed to have been part of that job as well. He then offered Tony B. the chance to get a bigger piece of the action through involvement with a nightclub that Tony needed a replacement mob guy to run. Tony B. eagerly accepted.
When Christopher learned that he had again been passed over he went on a tirade, telling Adriana of Tony B's new job.
Adriana promptly phoned her FBI "liaison." It seems that we'll have to wait and see what Ade had to say in that conversation. I've got a feeling major repercussions are going to result. My feeling is that Ade gets found out.

Finally Tony, after having yet another anxiety-induced spell of almost passing out, confided to Dr. Melfi that he's kept a secret that has haunted him for years and that the reappearance of Tony B. has exacerbated.
In truth, Tony explained, all those years ago when he was to do the heist with his cousin, he first got into spat with his mother in defense of Carmela. This led to an anxiety attack, causing him to pass out and gash his head, rendering him unable to help with the "job."
Ever since then, he had claimed that a bunch of black men jumped him, trying to steal his shoes.
After the revelation, visibly relieved, Tony proclaimed to Dr. Melfi that being in therapy sometimes was "like taking a shit."
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To be quite honest, I was feeling a bit let down by the last couple of episodes of The Sopranos, especially week six. But this episode, tellingly entitled Unidentified Black Males was like a bucket of cold water over the head. I was sputtering over some of the plot developments, as I was pulled back in with this well-written and acted episode.
Kudos especially to James Gandolfini and Edie Falco for spot-on portrayals of subtle and swift emotional changes.
Trite as it may sound, this is television as it should be.

Just A Peek

This is my computer area. I don't have a laptop or a mobile blogging device, so I'm tethered to it.
My first, much larger workstation is in a corner of the living room and it's been taken over by the kids.

"Here" is where I do my book business as well as everything I write--this web page, comments on my blogging friend's pages, forums, emails, of course. I do a ton of reading here too, starting with Reuters and the New York Times emails in the morning. Oh, and the photography. Well you can't see that, but most of my "goofing around time" is devoted to that and done here.

The paperbacks that are stacked on the left are books of quotations. Stuff on the upper right includes my yoga book and a red calves-leather book of poetry from 1908 that I haven't figured out what to do with yet. Further down on the right is the freebie calender from my bank, below that, scissors and pens in a glass as a holder, my ubiquitous glass of water, and one day's pill box.

The monitor, if one looks closely just under the little "on" light has a indentation caused by  a...um... candle that I was using so as to not disturb my sleeping spouse. The smell of melting monitor didn't even rouse him, so I quit using the candle as a light and sometimes use the ugly clip-on light that I borrowed from him. It's vintage 1970-something. One can see the "came as a package deal" Dell speaker on the left and behind the monitor, and the network router under that. The CD up front in the photo is there for now to remind me to play it--it's a copy of the songs we are performing--on stage--in front of people-- in (gulp) less than two weeks! Oh yeah, there's post-it's everywhere--that's pretty self-explanatory.
I really love the gold clock perched up on the mini-shelf. My older son gave it too me. Of course it's from the re-sale shop (he works there now). It matters not, in fact that makes it all the better. Behind the clock is my 1933 complete Edgar Allan Poe collection. On the right of the clock are CD-R's, on the left Kleenex, which always must be within reach because I have a terminally runny nose (I hide it pretty well) due to allergies and the vaso-dilation that is caused by heart meds. Bah.

Oh yeah, can't forget--that's my youngest in the seagull frame. The little stained-glass lamp--I l-o-v-e stained glass-- is from my one and only brother, given for my birthday. Both boys tried to kill it by knocking it to the floor repeatedly (accidentally) when it resided at the other computer area. It is kind of farked up but the glass is fully intact and as the picture shows, it works.
That's about it--my little space.

Mall Master

Took my youngest to the Duel Master Mall Tour today.
It was an adventure getting there as we completely by-passed the mall (it was set kinda back and behind from the direction we were coming from) and we ended up at Lake Michigan. I would have much preferred to just park the car and take a walk along the beach but I had a kid with me, clutching his precious trading cards so we turned the car around and after a couple more false starts found the place--with only 45 minutes to spare before they shut down.

Man, after being "locked in" with a sick kid for three days, getting out was surreal!
That, and the whole mall experience--everything is so bright and noisy and colourful--all the marketing to try to grab your attention.
I'm so jaded I usually hardly look--just go straight to the store/item I want to buy and get out of the mall quickly, but since I had some time to kill while the "Duel Master" traded cards, I checked out the Old Navy store that was adjacent.
Ugh. Nothing against Old Navy clothes (I have several of their t-shirts--bought second hand of course) but it all looks the same in there--15 colours of the same clothes item, again and again. It's like the Stepford Wives of stores.
The Klonopin seems to have cured the mall phobia but it doesn't matter much as I just refuse to shop anymore.
Okay, I will shop but if I can't buy it on the Internet, I'll buy resale. Shoes are about the only thing I'll go to a "real" store for. I just can't handle the commercialism, plus I'm really cheap.
On a brighter note, I've stuck with my plan for yoga every day until I can swim again--though the walking the dog thing hasn't really gotten off the ground yet.

Demonizing Fat in the War on Weight

I admit that what caught my eye about this article was the references to scholar Paul Campos, whom I've respected as a historian and dogged voice in the wilderness in re: fat for many years. Ten years ago, I was a fat activist in the active sense. I was quite large and healthy, other than being "obese." As my readers know, I developed a non-fat-related heart condition due to a virus five years ago and have since had to modify my food intake and exercise regimen in an effort to extend my life. At the time of my foray into the world of heart disease, I had given up dieting and bingeing and was maintaining a steady weight--unlike the previous decades of "yo-yo" dieting behaviour--which study after study reports is more damaging than just remaining at one weight. My psyche was less bruised too, when I normalized being fat. I had felt much shame and endured a lifetime of taunts and disparaging looks from strangers and "concern" from the medical community and friends. When one takes into account the "dangers" of being fat, one must look at the situation in a much more comprehensive way than the numbers on a scale or an index of fat chart. We are much more than that as individuals. Boiling it down to over simplicity does no one any good in the goal that should unite all factions on fat--optimizing one's health. ----------------------------------------------

LINK  By DINITIA SMITH Published: May 1, 2004

Almost every day, it seems, there is another alarming study about the dangers of being fat or a new theory about its causes and cures. Just this week, VH1 announced a new reality show called "Flab to Fab," in which overweight women get a personal staff to whip them into shape. But a growing group of historians and cultural critics who study fat say this obsession is based less on science than on morality. Insidious attitudes about politics, sex, race or class are at the heart of the frenzy over obesity, these scholars say, a frenzy they see as comparable to the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism and even the eugenics movement. "We are in a moral panic about obesity," said Sander L. Gilman, distinguished professor of liberal arts, sciences and medicine at the University of Illinois in Chicago and the author of "Fat Boys: A Slim Book," published last month by the University of Nebraska Press. "People are saying, `Fat is the doom of Western civilization.' " Now, says Peter Stearns, a leading historian in the field, the rising concern with obesity "is triggering a new burst of scholarship." These researchers don't condone morbid obesity, but they do focus on the ways the definition of obesity and its meaning have shifted, often arbitrarily, throughout history. Mr. Stearns, provost and professor of history at George Mason University, has written that plumpness was once associated with "good health in a time when many of the most troubling diseases were wasting diseases like tuberculosis." He traces the equation of obesity and moral deficiency to the late-19th and early-20th centuries. In 1914, an article in the magazine Living Age, for example, stated, "Fat is now regarded as an indiscretion and almost a crime." Mr. Stearns cites it in an essay he wrote for the aptly named "Cultures of the Abdomen," a collection to be published by Palgrave Macmillan next November, edited by Christopher E. Forth, a senior lecturer at Australian National University, and Ana Carden-Coyne, a lecturer at the University of Manchester, in England. During World War I, Mr. Stearns writes, some popular magazines actually said that eating too much and gaining weight were unpatriotic, presumably because of concerns about food shortages. In "Fat Boys," Mr. Gilman describes how plumpness used to be associated with affluence and the aristocracy, while today it is associated with the poor and their supposedly bad eating habits. Louis XIV padded his body to look more imposing. During the French Revolution, obesity inspired a rallying cry, "The People Against the Fat," he says. And whereas once the fat man was generally seen as hypersexual, like Falstaff, now he is seen as asexual, like Santa Claus...

In Mr. Stearns's view, 19th-century changes in attitudes toward obesity were a guilty reaction to the new abundance of food, the rise of the consumer culture and the growth of sedentary work habits. "I don't think we were comfortable with it because of religious legacies and hesitations," he said in an interview. "Having a target for self-control, like dieting, helped express but also reconcile moral concerns about consumer affluence," Mr. Stearns writes; the dieting fad become a new kind of Puritanism...

Other contemporary scholars see a more dangerous underside to the current campaign against fat. Paul Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, argues that obesity is used as a tool of discrimination, citing disturbing similarities to the eugenics movement, with its emphasis on "improving" the species. Obesity in America is "primarily a cultural and political issue," Mr. Campos writes in his new book, "The Obesity Myth" (Gotham), due out this month.

"The war on fat," he argues, "is unique in American history in that it represents the first concerted attempt to transform the vast majority of the nation's citizens into social pariahs, to be pitied and scorned."...

In what may turn out to be his most controversial claim, Mr. Campos writes: "

Contrary to almost everything you have heard, weight is not a good predictor of health. In fact a moderately active larger person is likely to be far healthier than someone who is svelte but sedentary.

" To bolster his argument, he cites several studies, including one published by the Cooper Institute, a private research institution in Dallas. Most medical experts warn of the dangers of fat, but Mr. Campos disagrees. "There is no good evidence," he writes, "that significant long-term weight loss is beneficial to health, and a great deal of evidence that short-term weight loss followed by weight regain (the pattern followed by almost all dieters) is medically harmful." He said in a recent interview: "The current hysteria about body mass and supposedly devastating health effects is creating a stratification in the society of power and privilege based on a scientifically fallacious concept of health. What we are seeing with this moral panic over fat in many ways is comparable to what we saw with the eugenics movement in the 20's." Kathleen LeBesco, associate professor of communication arts at Marymount Manhattan College, also asserts that at the root of the current slimness craze is an effort to stigmatize certain groups. Mr. Stearns has charted the way women in general gradually became the targets of obesity campaigns. The 19th-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton was praised for her "mature figure," he says. "Feminist leaders who were more slender were reproved," Mr. Stearns writes, perhaps because of "the traditional linkage between thinness and discontent."

Then, around the 1890's, suddenly, women were being urged to diet. "Fat began to be obsessively discussed," Mr. Stearns writes. The Gibson girl was rendered as slender, and the weight of Miss America in relation to her height decreased from the 1920's on.

The emphasis on slenderness in women was no accident, Mr. Stearns says. At the same time women were being urged to lose weight, the ideal of motherhood was declining and women were able for the first time to express an appetite for sex. "Dieting was a way, again, to express virtue and self-control even in a changing sexual climate," he writes. And while there are many causes for obesity — cheaper food, more aggressive marketing, bigger portions in restaurants and, of course, increasingly sedentary habits — Mr. Stearns says that gaining weight is still seen as a moral issue, "a sign you were lazy, lacked self-control." He notes that the French have been more successful at weight loss than Americans, partly, he says, because weight loss in France is based on aesthetics, not morality.

Mr. Stearns insists he is not promoting obesity but rather arguing that making people feel guilty for being fat is a useless form of weight control.

In describing the contemporary ethos, he said: "If you fail to lose weight you are demonstrating you're a bad person. It's a big burden. Faced with this additional pressure you are even more likely to end up by saying: `The hell with it! I'm going to get ice cream. I am such a bad person I need to solace myself.' "

Mothering

The past 72 hours of my life have revolved around taking care of my youngest son, as the flu that's taken hold of him runs its course.

The first 24 hours was the toughest for both of us--with him enduring a skull-splitting headache, raw throat, fever/chills, and occasional nausea. Day and night, he needed something almost all the time, be it more ice for the cold cloth that he kept on his forehead, more grape Kool-aid (the "only" thing he drank), another blanket 'cos he was cold, more Motrin, help getting to the bathroom because he was dizzy, Push-ups (like sorbet on a stick) for his sore throat--did I mention fetching Kool-aid and ice? I've got that practically down to a science. Oh, and then there was Raven, our dog who wanted to stick to him like glue, sometimes by walking across his supine body on the bed. This was accompanied by groans of discomfort from my son. Yes, groans of discomfort or discontent have been what I've had my ears tuned in for-- and there have been plenty of them.

The good news is that though he remains bedridden, save for a residual (improving) raw throat and some minor relapses, he is on the mend.

He's napping now though earlier he was trying to catch up on missed school-work. There's much work in the accelerated program, therefore lots of work was sent home yesterday.
He wants very much to go to a Duel Masters Mall Tour in Chicago on Sunday so he's motivated (to the degree his illness allows) to put a dent in the school work.

If we go to the Hawthorne Mall tomorrow it will be "we," as Dad got bombarded with work this weekend on his second job. I usually try to avoid malls. Scratch that. I always avoid malls. Only under duress can I be forced inside one. So then, if he's up to it I will break my no-mall rule. (Yes, I know, "What a good mom.") ;)
My reasons for disliking malls are myriad--suffice to say the Scot in me doesn't care to pay mall prices and the neurotic in me hates the crowds.

So how am I? I'm fine. I've dusted off my "Yoga" book by Christine Brown. I like it because of the many good-sized photos of stages of poses and the descriptions are easy to understand. I keep it open and use it to make sure I'm getting the details of the pose right.

It's also helping me from getting all panicky that I can't swim for a month (due to the college pool closure and my pool not opening 'till the end of May). There are several reasons to be concerned about getting proper exercise--I feel better, stronger. My heart likes it too apparently, given that my most recent cardiac stress test showed the best "numbers" that I've had in 5 years.
But, equally important is my struggle with body image issues. If I work out, I can eat more. Not gobs of food--but by the same token I don't have to worry about the occasional food indiscretion. If I'm sedentary, it all goes to fat, as evidenced my winter gain.
During this past Christmas and Spring break, the pool was closed for weeks and I didn't make yoga or anything else a daily activity--plus I did like the bears and ate more. I totally think it's normal to gain some weight in winter but I exacerbated it by slacking with exercise. I can't stress about it--I just have to be active and make food an only moderate daily issue. Moderate in that before I eat, I think about what I'm doing. No mindless stuffing of the face. In that mode, emotionally I'm a train wreck about to happen. Yeah, I eat out of crazy emotions--hard for most guys to understand--lots of women get it though.

So for me it's like puzzle pieces. If I sort them and fit them together, all is well. And I build on my successes, feeling more confident--but when I slip, I fall hard and getting back up is difficult, so I work hardest on keeping an even keel. Boring, if it weren't what helps me to keep my act together on several fronts.

Today is another cold (40's), overcast day. Because of my caretaking duties and my husband's schedule I have not been outdoors (other than letting the dog in and out) for three days. The weather hardly seems to be calling me, but the greenery that is popping up and out is a hopeful sign of things to come.
On that note--hope--I'll end.