Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

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Mid-January Frosted Mini-Roundup

January 17th, 2008 · Adobe, Blogs, Cats, Comedy, Comics, Culture, Internet, Journal, LGBT, Meta, Mr. Blue, Music, New Wave, News, Online Communities, Politics, Roundup, Social Media/Social Networking, Tech, The Economy, Stupid, Theater, Video

I’m starting to worry that Ocelopotamus has become like that stock old-man character from sitcoms and things, who falls asleep for a while and then wakes up sputtering and tries to pick the conversation up wherever it was five minutes ago, as if no time has passed.

On the other hand, it’s heartening that I can go three weeks without posting anything but a music video (albeit a BRILLIANT one), and there are at least four of you who still click on this thing regularly. In addition to the thirty people who still show up every day to discover those LOLHeroes pictures, which are totally my “99 Luftballoons” one-hit-wonder contribution to the field of blogging.

(Speaking of LOLterature, I have to give big props to Amy and Jim‘s recent brilliant addition to the genre. My favorite is below, but be sure to visit the LOLMozzer blog for the whole snack tray.)

LOL Mozzer Don’t Has Shirt

I could blame OcPot’s most recent long silence on all that messy bill-paying daywork I have to do, but the need to wrap a muscular fifteen-pound blue cat in a towel and get a milliliter or so of antibiotics and/or steroids down his throat a couple of times a day, and then spend 45 minutes vacuuming up all the litter he gaily strews around the apartment in the course of his 32 trips in and out of the litterbox each day — well, all of that can crimp a girl’s style, too.

Anyhowzabadoodle, while I can’t deliver a full-fledged OcPot roundup like in the glory days that made this blog a household word (at least in households where people spend a lot of time uttering random combinations of syllables for no good reason), as a consolation prize here are some warmed-up, heavily salted and ketchupped links I’ve been saving up over the last couple of weeks, just for you.


***

Let’s start off with something good and depressing. Harold Meyerson’s column from yesterday’s Washington Post about the coming (or possibly already-here) recessionary hraka-storm is one of the clearest assessments I’ve read.

In a normal recession, the to-do list is clear … [but] the coming recession will not be normal, and our economy is not fundamentally sound. This time around, the nation will have to craft new versions of some of the reforms that Franklin Roosevelt created to steer the nation out of the Great Depression — not because anything like a major depression looms but because we face an economy that’s been warped by two developments we’ve not seen since FDR’s time.

The first of these is the stagnation of ordinary Americans’ incomes, a phenomenon that began back in the 1970s and that American families have offset by having both spouses work and by drawing on the rising value of their homes. With housing values toppling, no more spouses to send into the workplace, and prices of gas, college and health care continuing to rise, consumers are played out.

… What’s alarming is that this slump in purchasing power doesn’t appear to be merely cyclical. Wages have been flat-lining for a long time now, the housing bubble isn’t going to be reinflated anytime soon, and the upward pressure on oil prices is only going to mount. As in Roosevelt’s time, we need a policy that boosts incomes and finds new solutions for our energy needs.

FDR’s long-term income remedies included Social Security, the Wagner Act (which made it possible for many workers to join unions) and public works projects — including a massive electrification of rural America. A comparable set of solutions today would include the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would enable workers in nonexportable service-sector jobs to unionize without fear of being fired. It would include a massive, federally financed program to retrofit America, creating several million “green jobs” in the process.

On these issues, there’s a clear difference between the two parties.

Go read the rest of it.


***

What else have I got in my pockets for you?

• Well, on a lighter note: In case you didn’t see it, a couple of Sundays back this very entertaining diary, which was posted on Daily Kos and many other places, gave us shiny new nicknames for all the Republican candidates. I’m not sure whether I really buy that it’s the unassisted creation of a 9-year-old, but I do know that I will be thinking of Rudy Giuliani as “Carrot Face,” Mike Huckabee as “Beagle Eyes,” Ron Paul as “Bunny Ears,” John McCain as “Sarge,” Fred Thompson as “Wrinkles,” and Mitt Romney as “Oily” for quite some time to come.

• Speaking of Beagle Eyes, I hope you didn’t miss him congratulating Canada on its National Igloo.

 

• DownWithTyranny on Obama’s calls for “post-partisanship”:

It’s hard to see how Senator Obama’s stratospheric soar above partisanship can work. It’s based on the assumption that the reason we haven’t all gotten together and worked all this stuff out together in a spirit of harmony is because nobody ever thought of it. Does anyone really believe this?

Apparently so. But while there are certainly narrow issues–important ones, but narrow ones–where such compromises might be thrashed out in a dialogue unpolluted by the demagoguery of the Far Right, there aren’t all that many such issues, and hardly any of the really crucial issues qualify.

As he notes here, Tom Tomorrow previously captured the dynamic perfectly in this cartoon.

• Five-year-old turns up on the no-fly list.

• Homophobic couple’s attempt to censor the book King & King from libraries backfires.

• Will Smith has been claimed for the dark lord Xenu.

• This really bums me out — Hasbro and Mattel are ordering Facebook to remove Scrabulous. Fortunately, there is a “Save Scrabulous” campaign … you’d think that given how many bazillions Facebook and its community are supposed to be valued at, some kind of a deal could be worked out.

• Billy Bragg is working with Mick Jones and others to bring musical instruments to prisoners through a program called Jail Guitar Doors — in part as a memorial to Joe Strummer.

The article also says Uncle Bill has a new album coming out in March 2008, his first in six years, called Mr Love and Justice.

• Liam Finn’s I’ll Be Lightning has been released in the US, gets nice review from Billboard. A bunch of Liam video was previously posted on OcPot here.

• Interview with Terry Jones ahead of the premiere of his new musical Evil Machines.

• Let Abode Arcobrat handle all your improtamant docomunents!
 

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Music: The Swingers, “Counting the Beat”

January 3rd, 2008 · Blogs, Culture, Music, New Wave, Video

Crazy busy with work this week, but here’s a little video fun to keep the Ocelopotamus happy — Phil Judd’s post-Split Enz group the Swingers, doing “Counting the Beat”!

Good heavens, I love this song. It was one of my weekly staples back when I was spinning at Club Foot (Sunday nights, “New Toys for Glow Dogs,” circa 2002-2004, RIP), and never failed to raise the energy in the room. (Well, my energy anyway … )

If this doesn’t make you want to dance, as Natalia Landauer used to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

Brill video, too. The polka-dot bowtie, the animation, the spazz-tastic dancing. Shake me up, Judy!


 

If you’re not familiar with the Swingers, you owe yourself the pleasure.

John over at Lost in the 80s had a great post about the Swingers a while back, so you can read up on them over there. (He’s got the video for “One Good Reason,” too, which is equally memorable.)

While I’m on the subject of John, who’s one of my favorite music bloggers, according to this post he’s turning Lost in the 80’s into a weekly feature at Popdose.com, so set your bookmarks for the goodness.
 

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Merry Crimble, Etc.

December 24th, 2007 · Meta

I’m hereby abandoning hopes of posting any of the 87 things I had wanted to post before getting on the bus for the ceremonial voyage to Peoria, where I’ll be for the next couple of days spending the holly daze with my parentals and watching a Doctor Who DVD marathon with my mom.

In the meantime, I hope you all had or will have the very nice Decemberal holidays of your choice, including, but not limited to, the following selections: Winter Solstice, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Beethoven’s Birthday, and/or Xmas.

See you all on the flip side, and who knows? Maybe I’ll actually manage to post some of the stuff I’ve been storing up before the new year. Or maybe I’ll just have another colorful meltdown!

It really all depends on how thoroughly the cats will have destroyed the apartment when I get back. The extra-catnip-as-rite-of-propitiation thing is of very limited currency with them.

I’ll leave you with my favorite Christmas story ever …

Podgy the Bear and Jasper were huddled around the unlit fire in the center of the room.

“There are no more matches left, Podgy,” said Jasper.

“Then buy some, Jasper old friend,” said Podgy. “Make a list and afterwards, we’ll go to the shop and buy matches, and candles, and buns.”

“There’s no more paper to write on, Podgy.”

“No need to worry, Jasper. You keep saying to yourself ‘matches’ and I’ll keep saying ‘candles’ until we reach the shop. Then we won’t need to write it down. We’ll remember.”

“Who’ll remember the buns, Podgy?”

“We both will, Jasper.”

“Matches …”
“Candles … ”
“Matches … ”
“Candles … ”
“Matches …”
“Candles …”

 

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CIGNA Decides to Commit Murder by Spreadsheet — “Day of Rage” Organized

December 20th, 2007 · Activism, Blogs, Healthcare Crisis, Human Rights, News, Politics

Nataline

See update #3 at the bottom of this post: after an emotional roller coaster of a day, Nataline Sarkisyan has passed away.

The fine, caring folks at CIGNA health insurance have made the warm-hearted decision to let a 17-year-old girl die because they don’t want to pay for a liver transplant. And they’re trying to justify this callousness by using that old-favorite insurance company dodge of claiming that liver transplants are “experimental.” (Tell that to all the folks whose lives have been saved by that radical operation.)

Nataline Sarkisyan, 17, of Northridge is in the intensive care unit at UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, and her mother says she has been in a vegetative state for three weeks.

Nataline will die without the transplant, said her mother, Hilda Sarkisyan.

Nataline was diagnosed with leukemia at age 14, and after two years of treatment the cancer went into remission, Hilda said. But this summer it came back.

When doctors said Nataline could use a bone-marrow transplant, the Sarkisyans discovered that her only sibling, Bedig, 21, was a match, and he donated his bone marrow the day before Thanksgiving.

But Nataline developed a complication from the bone-marrow transplant and, because her liver was failing, doctors recommended a transplant, according to an appeal letter sent to CIGNA earlier this month.

But doctors said in the letter that CIGNA denied the transplant, saying Nataline’s plan does not cover “experimental, investigational and unproven services.”

Meanwhile, it’s not like CIGNA would have to count the pennies in their coin jars to pay for the operation:

Cigna profits increase 22% in 3Q

Cigna Corp. Friday released earnings guidance for 2008 and said that its third-quarter 2007 earnings were up 22 percent.

Cigna said a 5 percent increase in members for the first nine months of the year and an increase in Medicare Part D premiums helped push profits higher.

For 2008, the Philadelphia-based health insurer anticipates consolidated adjusted income from operations to range from $1.15 billion, or $4 per share, to $1.21 billion, or $4.20 per share. This year’s consolidated adjusted income from operations should range from $1.1 billion, or $3.80 per share, to $1.16 billion, or $4 per share, the company (NYSE:CI) said.

So yeah, I’m thinking they could swing it.

As NYCEve wrote in the diary where she introduced the term “murder by spreadsheet”:

… the murderous for-profit insurance industry is the darling of Wall Street primarily because of their consistently favorable medical loss ratios. That’s Wall Street speak for improving profits by reducing payments for health care services. With lower medical loss ratios, investors gain while patients and doctors lose.

This is Murder by Spreadsheet.

So. Nataline’s life is hanging by a thread at this point, and the questions is, what can we do about it?

For starters, the heroic nurses at the California Nurses Association have organized a protest today at CIGNA’s offices:

Shum Preston, spokesman for the California Nurses Association, said several dozen people are expected to protest today at the CIGNA offices – including nurses, Nataline’s family and members of the Armenian-American community.

Meanwhile, over at Daily Kos, NYCEve is proposing some nationwide action:

I’d like to ask a favor from those of you who read this.

Could you help turn today into a day of rage?

Could you let CIGNA know we are strong, organized, outraged and will fight them at every bend in the road?

Will you spend a moment calling this scum MURDER BY SPREADSHEET for-profit insurer and demand that they approve the liver transplant. Please.

1-818-500-6262

Would you call Cigna and tell them that this young woman needs a liver transplant or She. Will. Die.

Wouldn’t it be great if these companies had to deal with massive public protests and bad publicity every time they make the decision to let someone die? Pickets, sit-ins, news cameras?

I wonder how they’d factor that cost into their spreadsheets.

So … If you’re somewhere where you can make a phone call today, why not take the opportunity to confront CIGNA and ask them point blank how they sleep at night?

Actually, you’ll probably only get voicemail, but the folks at the California Nurses Association say that CIGNA will be counting every call and feeling the heat.

There’s much more information in NYCEve’s diary post, both in the main body itself and the comments section. And of course, at the California Nurses site.

******
UPDATE: An important point from the CNA’s press release:

CIGNA’s refusal of Nataline’s liver transplant—overruling the urgent appeals of an array of doctors and nurses—is indicative of the failures of the new healthcare plan sponsored by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Fabian Nunez. That plan, which is actively supported by CIGNA, requires every single Californian to purchase insurance products from companies like CIGNA, but does not address the problem of denial of care evident in this situation.

It’s not enough just to make sure everyone has health insurance, if we can’t compel the insurance companies to actually provide the coverage people pay them for.

UPDATE #2: Victory! Shum from California Nurses posted the following at DKos:

QUICK UPDATE–WE WON!!!

Sorry for jumping in line…

But CIGNA just called the family AND APPROVED THE LIVER TRANSPLANT. WE WON!!!!!! I am ready to start crying now.

I know that the Sarkysian family sends their hearts and love to everyone who called CIGNA this morning. They have come so far, and your support means so much. They are going to write you directly later on, but for now, as part of their patient revolt, they are continuing their action, with 150 friends, family, nurses, healthcare activists, and members of the Armenian community gathered in front of their headquarters in Glendale.

CIGNA had to go into crisis PR mode, and stop answering phones around the country…and no way for the press to get in touch with them.

We HAVE power. We can never forget that. We can do this again for other patients–and we can fix this torture masquerading as a healthcare system.

UPDATE #3: Horrible news — no happy ending after all. Nataline has died. ABC News hasn’t figured out how to spell her name yet, but here’s the story:

During the protest, Natalee’s mother got word CIGNA had changed its mind and would make an exception for Natalee’s surgery.

But the decision came too late for Natalee. Just after six o’clock tonight, her condition worsened.

Natalee’s family took her off life support and she passed away.

Attorneys for the Sarkisian family may pursue legal action against CIGNA HealthCare.

The kicker? A liver was available six days ago, when Nataline was in much better condition, but CIGNA’s refusal to authorize the surgery prevented it from happening.

On Dec. 14, Hilda Sarkisyan was told by the hospital that a healthy liver was available, but because CIGNA had refused authorization, the family would have had to make an immediate down payment of $75,000 to proceed, an amount the family could not afford.

It seems very likely that those six days Nataline was forced to wait took away her chance to survive.

Tonight, CIGNA has blood on its hands. And as the commenters over at DKos are making clear, this story is not going to go away.
 

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La Vie en Rose

December 19th, 2007 · Culture, Gender, Hate Crimes, Human Rights, Journal, LGBT, News, Politics, TV

ma vie en roseIn Florida a 7-year-old was covered in bruises after a man (seemingly his father, but the story isn’t clear on the relationship) beat him up and whipped him with a belt.

His crime? Giving himself a manicure. A pink manicure.

A man was arrested on child abuse charges after he beat a 7-year-old boy with a belt because the child put pink fingernail polish on his own nails, according to Orange County sheriff’s deputies.

Aundre Jermaine Hill, 25, was arrested on Saturday at about 5:19 p.m. after sheriff’s deputies responded to a home in reference to a call saying that a boy was discovered with bruises on his body.

Orange County sheriff’s deputies said the boy’s mother was bathing him when she noticed the markings on the boy.

Investigators said it appeared the boy was beaten with a belt and hands on his buttocks, arms, temple and legs.

Andy at Towleroad writes:

Pink has been in the news quite a bit lately. In September I posted a story about the South Carolina prison system and their use of pink jumpsuits to mark prisoners punished for sexual misconduct. Inmates forced to wear the suit complained because they felt it made them a target for assault. Apparently in Florida this applies to small children and nail polish as well. You may also remember the incident in early September where a Nova Scotia boy was bullied after wearing a pink T-shirt to school and his classmates stood up for him in solidarity.

Also — I’m not accusing Sherri Shepherd from The View of child abuse, but I can’t help thinking of the ignorant, small-minded, and bull-headed attitude she puts on display in this clip.

In Junior high I remember a day when a male classmate and I, in an eruption of pre-adolescent camp, spent the afternoon coloring our fingernails various colors with magic markers. By the time we left school our hands probably looked more like we’d slammed our fingertips in various doors than like we’d done them up with actual nail polish. Nonetheless, we were guilty of giggling and pretending to model them. And as we made our way home we were attacked and thrown to the ground by some older kids who felt the need to enforce certain important understandings about gender roles upon us.

It certainly wasn’t the only time I got shoved around on the playground, or the worst, but it sticks in my mind because it was the incident that made it most clear (in retrospect, anyway) exactly why so many of my peers felt that kind of hostility toward me.

Back in the middle-90s when I got my 15 seconds of semi-demi-quasi-fame on the “Sissies” episode of This American Life, I attempted to make the point that sissyphobia is the deeper underlying prejudice in the world — the one that actually fuels homophobia, rather than the other way around.

In other words, gayness and same-gender sex are stigmatized in our culture because of their association with being a sissy. Which is the opposite of what most people I talk to seem to think. But you can see it in our culture’s increasing willingness to accept gay men who seem fairly subdued and conventionally masculine (like that nice gay couple that moves next door in movies and on TV shows), rather than overly flamboyant or femmy.

And in the messages you sometimes get as a gay man that you’re okay because you’re not one of those big flaming screamers I can’t stand like so-and-so who drives me up the wall with his high-pitched shrieks and bitchy quips and loud disco shirts and the fact that he actually knows the difference between asiago and fontina which would be okay if he just wouldn’t rub it in my face all the time!

(Not to mention the way some gay men adopt and enforce these attitudes within the community itself, whereby sports-playing machogays become the royalty and femmy queens are frowned upon as the low-caste pink sheep we’re terrified of being confused with and whom we don’t want representing us on the news or TV shows because they might reinforce stereotypes and get all of us knocked down on the playground, even those of us who don’t deserve it because we’re fulfilling our duty to be manly rather than festive.)

Meanwhile, the Huckabeeites and other bible-twisting homophobes still love to dress their prejudice up in the disingenuous argument that it’s homosexual behavior they frown on, not the orientation itself. That it’s what gay people do that makes them sinful, not who they are. And if gay guys would just stop all that icky man-on-man sex they’d be perfectly welcome at the potluck dinner.

But the fact that in this Jetsonian year of 2007, coloring his fingernails pink can still get a 7-year-old boy — who is not guilty of any sexual activity of any kind — beaten up by the father figure in his home would seem to underscore the point that ultimately, it’s acting too pink that makes people really see red.

******
UPDATE: I posted this one as a diary at Daily Kos, and appended this comment:

Adding — this story strikes me as particularly relevant in the wake of the kerfuffle over transgender rights being left out of ENDA, and those few voices in the gay community who argued (shamefully, in my opinion) that they just couldn’t see what gay people and transgender people have in common.

UPDATE #2: Made last night’s diary rescue list at DKos.
 

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R.O.U.S.

December 18th, 2007 · Books, Comedy, Fantasy, Film, Nature, News, Science

More breaking news from the world of fantasy science:

A giant rodent five times the size of a common rat has been discovered in the mountainous jungles of New Guinea.

The 1.4kg Mallomys giant rat is one of two species of mammal thought to be new to science documented on an expedition to an area described as a “lost world”.

Please tell me they found them near the Fire Swamp.

And that the scientists were careful to avoid the snow sand.

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Force of Hobbit

December 18th, 2007 · Books, Culture, Fantasy, Film, News

Looks like the film version of The Hobbit is going to happen after all. And it’s going to be a two-parter (because they sell more popcorn like that, see).

New Line and filmmaker Peter Jackson have resolved their differences over Jackson’s profit participation over the $3 billion-grossing “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, paving the way for a two-film adaptation of Tolkien’s children’s masterpiece.

New Line and MGM, which holds “Hobbit” feature rights, have pacted to co-finance and co-distribute the movies, with New Line handling North American and MGM international distribution.

And Peter Jackson isn’t writing or directing this time, just supervising it all.

Jackson decided not to take on writing and directing roles himself because with his other commitments, he figured that he would not be able to complete the “Hobbit” films until around 2015. One consideration that pushed all the parties to reach an agreement is the huge fan interest surrounding the franchise.

Jackson didn’t want to keep the fans waiting that long, and New Line and MGM knew that if they moved ahead on the project without Jackson’s involvement, they risked alienating the fans. As executive producer, Jackson will have approval over creative elements of both films.

I don’t care. Just tell me Sir Ian is back as Gandalf and I’m there.

The release of the first film is slated for 2010 and the sequel in 2011.

We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.
 

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Burl Ives Recordings, Gingerbread, Dog Hair and Open Flames

December 17th, 2007 · Blogs, Comedy, Culture, Law

Speaking of Earthgoat, the goat has your official holiday party release form. A valuable service to humanity — pro bono!

By signing this form, I understand that I have been invited to attend a Holiday Party by the Host. By choosing to attend this event, I recognize that I’m doing so at my own peril, and that the premises may contain many hazards both known and unknown to the Host of the Holiday Party, including, but not limited to: icy sidewalk, icy steps, peanuts, Burl Ives recordings, “John Denver’s Christmas with the Muppets,” ginger bread, dog hair, Host hair, children of the Host, relatives of the Host, friends of the Host, pets of the Host, wife or husband of the Host, open flames, pointy Holiday tree branches, pointy Holiday tree ornaments, insufficiently stirred egg nog, electric wires, bright lights, flashing lights, ugly lights, jingle bells, fake snow, glitter, fruit cake, and/or pine needles.

By attending, I agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Host from any liability, including but not limited to, that caused by the drinking or serving of alcohol, the possibility of the Host getting drunk and telling everyone what he or she “really” thinks about them, inappropriate dance moves, my own dance moves that may cause injury to myself, unfunny jokes, funny jokes, unflattering Holiday sweaters, disappointing gifts, or “regifting.”

Oh, there’s more. Go read the rest. Or don’t blame me when you trip and drown with your face in the punch bowl.

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Tea-Upon-Ice Brews Up a Wiki-Firestorm!

December 14th, 2007 · Blogs, Culture, Internet, Journal, Meta, News, Tea

What a thing to wake up to! Following hot on the heels of yesterday’s post on the subject of tea-upon-ice, Grendel has drawn my attention to the fact that some unknown reader of this weblog has now created a Wikipedia entry for tea-upon-ice.

I am gobsmacked, flabbergasted, tiggywinkled, prattpaddled, chunderflapped, pussintuttled, argybarged, and various other polysyllabic British conditions-of-astonishment in regard to this development.

It appears that the entry has already begun generating some controversy within the ivied walls of Wikipedia, and it may not be around much longer.

As Grendel wrote, in the comments to the previous post:

Indeed, there seems to be some objection already to its very existence and a discussion page has been created by Wikipedia. One wonders just how close the Wikipedia people are to the Lipton people, and how long this important wiki will survive.

Given that I have not been publicly credited for my invention prior to this, nor demanded such credit, it is not surprising that the information should meet with challenges from those not in the know.

Dark insinuations of the involvement of Big Tea notwithstanding, it’s true that new ideas always create controversy in their wake, and the battles over the credit for those ideas are rarely resolved fairly in the lifetimes of the people involved. For example, will Tesla ever be given credit in the public mind for his invention of such items as the radio, the parachute pant, and the lemon bar? One wonders!

Still, I hope that the brave soul who created the entry, whomever she may be, is not slapped around too harshly by Wikipedia’s meter maids and weed-gardeners and gnomes and fairies and whatever else they have working there. (Or placed in hot water by the private security forces of Lipton, Bigelow, et al.!) It was certainly a noble attempt to add to the store of human knowledge, however quixotic.

At any rate, expecting that the article will disappear from Wikipedia soon, I have saved some screenshots and PDFs of it so that the valuable information contained in it will not be lost to humanity. (And I encourage those of you who would like to help preserve this information to do likewise!)

And who knows? Perhaps in time, tea-upon-ice will have its own Foundation, and the article could be republished at something like Tea-Upon-Ice-a-Pedia.com!

In the meantime, as I just posted in response to Grendel’s comments:

This is truly a banner day in the history of tea-upon-ice and my mind is all a-whirl trying to comprehend the meaning of this event.

Thank you for drawing my attention to it. I must now draw the blinds, put on a Mama Cass record, and pause for reflection and perspective.

And of course, brew myself a cool, delicious glass of what those in the know call tea-upon-ice.

 

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A Note on the Text of the 10-Second Interview

December 13th, 2007 · Blogs, Culture, Internet, Journal, Language, Restaurants

Grendel from Earthgoat, always an attentive and keen-eyed reader, has written to gently chide me for conforming to a certain lowbrow usage in my 10-Second Interview post.

The question in question would be this one:

Pepsi or Coke?
Iced peppermint green tea.

Since that post and its comments are a fair way down the page at this point, I thought I should “front-page” (as the hep young kids say) his comment and my reply.

Grendel wrote:

There were many funny ones, but didn’t you mean “Peppermint green tea-upon-ice”? An understandable slip of the keyboard.

To which I replied:

Grendel, I thank and commend you for remembering the proper name of the beverage. As a fellow working editor, I know you know what it’s like to be compelled by common convention to spell (for example) grey as “gray” even though you know in your heart that “grey” is a much prettier way to spell the word. And so I have learned to conform to the way the rest of the world refers to my invention, and to hardly even notice that no one ever credits me. But your comment restores to me something of that sense of achievement I had, alone in my kitchen, the night I transformed the beverage world forever.

Note: A distrustful, paranoid sort of reader might suspect me of having deliberately made that error just to see if anyone would notice and raise the subject, so that I might link again to my original tea-upon-ice post, and its astonishing follow-up, in order to passive-aggressively remind the world of the staggering innovation I so selflessly bestowed on it, in hopes that the world may some day decide — of its own free accord, and out of a sense of what gentlefolk used to call “fair play” — to bestow upon me the credit that I disingenuously claim I don’t want.

You know the sort of idle, mean-spirited, tongue-wagging accusation I’m speaking of, the type of thing that is rarely said directly but usually put into the mouth of someone else, via convenient constructions like “some say … ” or “people are wondering … ”

Well. I am sure, and am very glad, that we are all above casting that sort of aspersion around here.

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Welcome Back, Otter

December 12th, 2007 · Chicago, Illinois, Nature, News, Science

Forget about the possums, the raccoons, even the coyotes turning up in our urban environment.

There are now officially otters in the Chicago River.

Thousands of commuters were walking past Union Station on the day that Chris Anchor happened to see a dream made flesh.

Furry otter flesh, to be exact.

I know, I know. It sounds like it’s going to be an article about a fetish party at a downtown hotel. But bear with it (you should pardon the turn of phrase) …

Anchor glanced at the Chicago River and noticed something strange on the bank — a cone-shaped pile, made up of fish scales and a carp head.

The pile of food scraps suggested a specific feeding animal. The North American river otter leaves its garbage in neat cone-shaped piles.

I had a roommate who did that exact same thing! Except her neat cone-shaped piles were mostly cigarette ash.

And they weren’t so neat. But they were piles. And they were cone-shaped!

Wait, we were talking about otters.

Otters disappeared from the area a century or so back as population and development surged.

Anchor isn’t sure where they’re now coming from. They may have migrated from Wisconsin along the Fox and Des Plaines rivers, or traveled up north from the Kankakee River. They also might be traced to Louisiana. Otters caught by trappers in Louisiana were re-introduced in Illinois waterways by state officials 10 to 15 years ago, Anchor said. The closest release to Chicago was north of Danville, he said.

Many area waterways have seen a resurgence in fish populations, providing otters a steady food supply. “We have tons and tons of carp available,” Anchor said.

Well — at least somebody will be enjoying all those Asian carp.

******
UPDATE: Wow, I totally forgot to make a governor-of-Idaho type joke. Fortunately I covered that ground a while back.

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Rough Beast

December 11th, 2007 · Culture, Media, Music, News, Politics

From the profile of Putin’s protégé (if that’s what we’re calling it), Dmitry A. Medvedev, in this morning’s New York Times:

Short, boyish with a tuft of brown hair and sometimes described as socially awkward, Mr. Medvedev is also praised for a sharp and lawyerly intellect.

Awww … tuft! Don’t you just want to tousle him?

He’s really just like Dennis the Menace. Except — Russian, and a lawyer, and … scary.

Also, check out the pictures of this guy. There is definitely a painting in an attic somewhere. (I wonder if Pootie Poot will have him posing for shirtless photos soon?)

And, just so you can cross it off your signs-of-the-apocalypse scavenger hunt:

He has also let drop some hints that he indeed belongs to a younger generation: Mr. Medvedev is a fan of heavy metal and attended a Scorpions concert in St. Petersburg this year.

I weep for the future.

And I’m trying to purge from my mind the image of a young President Medvedev speaking before the Russian legislature, and doing that “rock the devil” hand sign that the heavy metal/classic rock/camaro mullet dudes all do, while the assembled politicians hold up their lighters.

Because you know it’s just a matter of time.

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Being a List of Things That Will End Our Civilization

December 6th, 2007 · Culture, History, Human Rights, LGBT, Politics

Just riffing off this most excellent post by Devilstower — as you probably know, Mike Huckabee has attempted to justify his opposition to gay marriage and civil unions by saying:

There’s never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived.

For some reason, this is a very common “deep thought” among the right-wingnuts. They think that this represents some amazing analysis of history or something, to say that because past civilizations didn’t do a certain thing, somehow we’re all doomed if we attempt to live differently than, say, people lived in Great Britain in 1879. Or something.

Apparently, nothing must ever be done that has not always been done, or the very pillars that hold up the sky will crumble and the earth will shake and we will all be cast into the sea.

This is such a brilliant and fascinating little intellectual formula that I figured we could make it work a little harder for us by plugging some different variables into it.

So. The following statements are also all true — logically they are every bit as true as what His Governosity the Huckabee said above.

Prior to our current historical era:

  • There has never been a civilization that has connected many computers together into a great network that can be accessed in homes and offices and cafes all around the world and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has allowed Britney Spears to record and market multiple albums and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has carried around tiny telephones capable of unexpectedly playing all sorts of annoying melodies at loud volumes in crowded public places and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has allowed two different men named “George Bush” to serve as president and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has regularly dined on frozen Lean Cuisine entrees warmed up in microwave ovens and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has migrated to Windows Vista and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has allowed Dick Cheney to shoot his hunting companions in the face and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has set up giant factory farms, with hogs kept in miserable confinement, generating giant lagoons of feces, and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has allowed Jim and Pam to get together and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has put lots of silly misspelled captions on pictures of cats and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that allowed a falafel-crazed, sexual-harrassmentizing blowhard to have his own TV show and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that had the Backstreet Boys get back together without Kevin (the cutest one!) and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has bought into the idea that Rudy Giuliani was a competent mayor and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has cast Sylar as the young Mr. Spock and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has baked cheese right into the crust of pizzas and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has believed Mitt Romney means anything he says and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has adapted Young Frankenstein into a musical and survived.
  • There has never been a civilization that has treated Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson, and James Carville as respected pundits and survived.

So, you know, just some food for thought for y’all. Clearly, we’re all doooooomed.
 

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OMG STFU!

December 6th, 2007 · Culture, Film, LGBT, News

Andy at Towleroad thinks Jodie Foster just came out. Surely a sign of the end times.

And here I haven’t even gotten over finding out that David Hyde Pierce is a mo.

I mean, he just seemed so butch in Wet Hot American Summer.

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