Kucinich Rips Democrats

If, like some of us, you've been puzzled by the Democratic Party's apparent fear of the "L Word," you might enjoy Kucinich's riff on the disappointments of the past twelve months.

Or, to play a bit loose w/ Pete Townsend's lyrics:

And now the party on the Left

Is now the party on the Right

And their beards have all grown longer overnight.

Meet the New Boss

Same as the Old Boss

Isabelle is no more

Yesterday was Isabelle's last day. She was a good cat, but she'd been failing for the last few months, and in the last week she went drastically downhill. Her digestive system wasn't working and she was losing weight. It seemed as though she grew more and more frail daily.

There is only a part-time vet in this tiny town and s/he is "Not Taking New Patients," so we've been either driving Isabelle to another town for care - which is traumatic even for healthy cats - or paying for an out-of-town vet to come for a house call. Either way, in these lean times we can ill-afford such bills. And despite all the tests and treatments, our cat was getting steadily worse.

When I handed her over to the man at the animal shelter (we do have a county animal shelter that will euthanize sick pets for a fee), he promised that they'd take good care of her.

I hope so.

Now I realize that the sadness I feel at losing a small felius domesticus is utterly insignificant when weighed against all the suffering and wrong in the world, but I still think it is appropriate to acknowledge a good cat.

'Bye, Isabelle. Thanks for being a friend.

Democracy in the US: July 4, 1776 - January 20, 2010

I know that, strictly speaking, we're supposed to be a republic (rule of law) rather than a democracy (rule of the majority). Either way, it was a pretty good run, but going forward, we have institutionalized the notion of all the freedom money can buy.

Oh, Ick

The Old Amigo had to buy a pair of shoes yesterday. Not the best of timing in these lean days.

I keep a pair of casual slip-ons that I wear for most occasions. I'd bought the last such pair oh, three or four years ago in CO. Since they got a lot of wear, they had gotten a bit ratty, but they had another year in them.

Operative Word: "Had"

You see, I went outside to take a look at one of the key garden projects. I'm putting a path around the main vegetable garden. Brick border, bark/chips in the middle, my home-made concrete stepping stones scattered here and there. It'll give the main garden an attractive, finished look when it's done.

I'd dug about 20% of the shallow trench around the perimeter -- most of the way along the east side. This is the bit directly adjacent to the new, 30 sq ft extension of the garden (i.e. also along the east side). We've had several storms up here at the Corner. I wanted to move my guide lines so that the next leg would be the right width. And straight.

There were puddles, so I stepped into the newly dug/newly filled with Roger's Magic Dirt bit.

Schlurp! The Venerable Friendly One sank, both feet, into the new garden bit. Nearly up to the knees. Picture the moist sucking sound as the Old Amigo attempts to remove his feet from the muck and leaves behind both shoes.

I ended up digging the shoes out with a shovel. They were filled with wet, muddy compost (partially made up of manure from an organic dairy). Yes the outsides could be scraped off, wiped off, what-have-you. But the insides?

So the shoes are in the trash. Today I dug another fifteen linear feet of garden path trench. I'm perhaps one third of the way done. Today I:

1. Wore my lace-up hiking/gardening boots
2. Stayed out of the mucky garden bit

The path is going to be really nice. Really. I'll lay down landscape fabric. I'll border the path with carefully leveled bricks. Sigh.

District Nine

Elder Daughter recommended this film. She mentioned it twice (at least), so finally we put it on our Netflix List.

We watched it a few days ago. The film was chock full of violence and amazingly foul language... and it was totally excellent. The aliens were ugly and hard to sympathize with, but over the course of the film, you began to do just that. Some of the themes were extremely close to those touched upon in "Avatar," but I found "District 9" much more interesting and satisfying.

Angel and I had very modest expectations. I started the film off w/ the "we can always shut it off if it's terrible" preface. Within ten minutes we were interested. Within thirty we were sitting up straight and paying attention. It was very good.

"District 9" was a $30M film. It's done in a documentary style that's very believable despite the fantastic story line. For the interested among you, I'm providing a wikipedia link for District 9. If you follow the link, read only the top two paragraphs because there are spoilers later in the wikipedia article.

The Locust Queen's Feast

That's the current working title.

Angel is reading the latest iteration. So is C. in Socorro. I expect that even after all the multitude of editing passes, there will be the odd typo and clunker of a sentence.

The project has turned an important corner: I've mailed off my first agency inquiry letter. Hitting the ball out of the park on the first time at bat is unlikely, but getting Feast to this stage still feels significant. Cross your fingers, but don't hold your breath.

Stormy up here at the 48th parallel. Wet too. Glad I hiked down to the big woodpile yesterday and carted firewood up to the covered front porch. I'll eat breakfast and spend a few hours pounding the electronic pavement in search of regular employment. As if.

Avatar

Angel & I went to see "Avatar" today. We were at a potluck on Friday night and lots of people there were talking about it. Of course the little movie theaters here in this Village at the Edge of the Rock don't have 3-D capability, so we viewed the film in its flat form.

According to sources on the web, the film cost somewhere north of $230M. Some estimates went as high as $300M. Toss in another $150M for promotions and you're talking real money. One of the most expensive films ever. So far, at least.

The Old Amigo is puzzled. You might think with all those bucks spent on 3-D and special effects they might have found a top-tier science fiction writer and asked him/her to write an original story. Something a little less in the COMPLETELY PREDICTABLE department, for instance. You might also think with all those bucks, they'd hire a great screenwriter so there'd be excellent dialog.

You might think those things.

But you'd be wrong.

Health Care Numbers

I came across some interesting charts regarding health care costs, life expectancy in various industrialized nations (the US does do better that the Czech Republic and the Soviet Union), projections on percentage of Americans who will continue to receive health coverage through their employer.

The charts are available on John Dingell's (Michigan's 15th district) website, but I've included a link for your convenience. Click on the charts to see enlarged versions.

For those of you who need to cut to the chase: well, the US spends a bigger fraction of its GDP for poorer citizen health than most industrialized nations. We're pretty much the only "advanced" nation whose citizens face the threat of healthcare-related bankruptcy.

But for the top 1% of the income "earners" in the US population... why those folks receive the best care available on the planet.

Which I guess is why meaningful reform of the American health care system is unlikely.

Oh, Sorry About That (not really)

Just in case you think you haven't enough of a reason to boycott Wal Mart, you might want to check out this article. Note that a full one-third of the people who live in New York fall below the poverty line.

Happy New Year

New Years Waffles

It stays dark well into morning this time of year, this far north. I was thinking it was time to climb out of bed and into the new year when Angel said, "It's New Year's day. Would you make waffles?

The waffle iron was actually one of my parents' wedding presents. Here's a shot of the waffle iron with the lid up.

I use a variant of the recipe from my mother's Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Basically, I use about half whole wheat pastry flour and half another kind of flour (usually brown rice flour). I separate the eggs and whip the whites into frothy mountains and fold them into the batter.

Here's another shot with the waffle iron closed. Check out the electrical cord. No three pronged plugs for these babies. And the outside gets about as hot as the inside of this chrome monster. It's over sixty years old and still going strong.

I hope you all have an excellent 2010. One would hope that it's got to be better than 2009. One would hope. The Old Amigo thinks it's possible. Just.