Nevada Senator Reid Tells Bush To Cut The Crap

Democratic Senator Harry Reid came out today and called the Administration on the carpet, suggesting that President Bush's most trusted advisor, Karl Rove, should resign for his involvement in exposing Valerie (Wilson) Plame's identity as a CIA agent.

Reid expressed growing disappointment that Bush tried to diffuse the tense situation by declaring that "Scooter" (the affectionate insiders' pet name forVice President Chaney's top aide I. Lewis Libby) did a good job and that he is a patriot, rather than apologize to the American people for the behavior of his trusted advisors.

Bush, of all people, should know that western politicians haven't yet perfected the smooth doublespeak of their eastern brethren, or at least aren't as comfortable affecting it in every situation that comes up.

The Clog Almanac praises Senator Reid for his candor and straight-talk. We need more politicians with that sort of grit and courage, who will demand accountability of servants who are losing the trust of the American People.

United in Death, October 31

Need a Halloween costume? Try dressing up as one of these august personages, all of whom died on October 31.

Federico Fellini – Filmaker – 1993
River Phoenix – Actor – 1993
Joseph Campbell – mythology/comparative religion – 1987
Indira Ghandi – Indian Prime Minister – 1984
Harry Houdini – magician – 1926

The Real Fate of Gasoline Profits

Here's interesting news, via Tax Foundation: Gas taxes paid to the government since 1977 exceeded the profits made by those companies over the same interval. Which means that state and federal coffers made out better than those of the petroleum industry. Where does all that money go? How interested in reducing oil company profits and the price of fuel are those profiting governments?

There has been a lot of buzz about taxing the oil industry in these flush times of astronomical profits. These "windfall tax" proposals are a bad idea. Say the industry tanks sometime in the future. What's to stop the industry from then approaching the government with this proposal: "Hey, you guys levied windfall taxes upon us when profits were way up, now subsidize our industry since profits are way down".

Ode To A Parakeet

The great romantic poet John Keats was born on Halloween in 1795. Like his mother and brother Tom before him, Keats died of tuberculosis, in his 26th year. In the space of just three remarkably productive years Keats published 3 collections of his poetry. About 150 poems are known, and many of those survive in manuscript form, written in Keats' own hand.

There are many useful web resources on Keats, as one would expect. Perhaps the best place to start is here, at the Keats page of the fine reference source, literaryhistory.com.

What these web resources won't tell you is that the grounds of the Keats House in Hampstead Heath, where Keats wrote one of his most beautiful poems, Ode to a Nightingale, are these days frequented by naturalized ring-necked parakeets, according to a recent City of London website news page:

"Birds in Keats House Garden - In May and early June there has been a lot of activity in the garden from our pair of blackbirds. We are now helping them by providing currants and these seem popular. The smaller birds are not much in evidence and for this we blame an aggressive magpie. The Ring Necked Parakeets have been particularly noisy and fly high amongst the trees. Originally, these were caged birds but those that escaped have survived the British winters in the south and are now breeding..."

I don't think an ode to a parakeet would have had the same effect, although Wallace Stevens tried his darnedest. The young Mr. Keats was far the wiser to go with the Nightingale.

Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972), of Idaho (barely)

The Clog Almanac notes the birthday of poet Ezra Loomis Pound, born on this day in 1885 in Hailey, in my home state of Idaho. A nice link to a summary of his life and works and the full text of 13 of Pound's poems can be found here.

Pound has always been a bit of a mystery to me. What chain of events puts one on a trajectory that carries one from socialism to fascism, to seeking out Mussolini and becoming one of his propaganda tools? This book may answer that question.

I've haven't fully appreciated Pound's poetry. But I hold him in regard, given his friendship with Yeats, his translations, and his advocacy for talented young American poets even while firmly in exile - in particular his sponsorship of T.S. Elliot - whose poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is one of my favorites.

I'd like to know once and for all whether Pound's middle name bears any connection with that of the upscale fishing rod-maker G. Loomis.

Stock Market Crash

October 29, 1929 is known as "Black Tuesday", the day the US stock market crashed and ushered in the Great Depression and the decade into which my parents were born, in the Gem State, Idaho.

I note, upon today's receipt of my mutual funds' quarterly report, that my investments have earned an average of 7.5% on the year so far. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, as they say.

Life's Little Rules

The First Rule of Life: No Friday may pass without laughter aplenty.

The Clog Almanac challenges you to read some of these quotes from the Blackadder series without losing it at least once.

Evelyn Waugh

British satirist and novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) was born on this day.

For 4 years at school I read Brideshead Revisited during Christmas break. The novel was a supreme delicacy to be looked forward to and savored during those precious few vacation days, like the cherished plovers' eggs that Sebastian Flyte's mother sent to him at school in the novel.

Visit Doubting Hall - a very nice guided tour of the works of Evelyn Waugh. I particularly enjoyed the random "Quotes of the Day" link.

For the record, I once saw canned plovers' eggs at a grocer's, but don't ask me where or when.

Mrs. Prothero and the Firemen

The Clog Almanac honors Welsh Poet Dylan Thomas, who was born this day at Swansea, in 1914.

I believe that the word-play and imagery in his writings are among the finest. A Child's Christmas in Wales is my favorite piece of writing, period. It reads so well aloud, in part, because it was originally crafted as a radio piece.

The video production of A Child's Christmas in Wales starring Denholm Elliott is a must-have for the hopeful child in all of us. It is available at Amazon.com.

Holy Cripe! Another Python Sighting

Another big snake story. This one from Iowa, where a farmer and his combine nudged a snake coiled between 2 rows of corn. The farmer had mistaken the 11.5 foot python for an old tire.

The October 26 Sioux City Journal quoted the Paullina, Iowa man as saying "Holy Cripe! It was big!"

Pass the (RFID) Chips, Please

Coming soon to your passport, as soon as next year: RFID chips that contain and broadcast your personal information. As if it isn't already easy enough to lose that data to information thieves. I've yet to find out how many US passports are lost or stolen each year, but it would be interesting to find out. One wonders if the black market price for a US passport will be affected by the electronic information contained therein.

The official State Department information page for the proposed electronic passport can be found here. The site includes links to public comments received by State. The comment period ended April 4, of this year.

The Clog Almanac wants to know how long it will be until those little chips find their way (literally) under our skin? Our three-legged Corgi already has one in his neck, and he's not even contemplating international travel.

Cloggers Take Tampa By Storm

The Cross Creek Cloggers, the Appalachian clogging group of which the Clog-wife and I are members, performed this morning for 500-600 attendees of the 94th annual conference of the American Association of Port Authorities at the Tampa Marriott Waterside hotel. The Clog-wife and I enjoyed the 23rd floor room with its gorgeous view of the adjacent marinas and Tampa Bay beyond. We enjoyed the valet service, and the hotel staff attention, even down to happily bringing us his/her toothpastes/toothbrushes when we discovered we’d forgotten ours in our rush to make the evening-before rehearsal.

Backstage, prior to the performance, we met the head of the Tampa Port Authority, who graciously spent a few minutes chatting with members of our group making sure that all our needs were being met. Needs? What needs? His organizers booked our room, validated our parking tickets, attended our every desire, and payed our 8-member group $3000 to execute one single three and a half minute routine. We didn’t need a single thing, except to convey our gratitude and let him know that we were prepared to dance our hearts out for those fleeting moments.

Event planning staff and talent wranglers from PGI were consummate professionals. They had every contingency covered, had smoothed every wrinkle beforehand, and were pleasant to boot. This is the first time I’d encountered that level of professional show biz, and I’m duly impressed and humbled. The kind of professionals you’d want to, say, direct FEMA operations.

As we traveled from north central Florida to Tampa, hurricane Wilma was departing the state leaving millions of fellow Floridians to the south without power and other essential services. Here we were lounging like Romans in a lavishly appointed hotel while not very far to the south and east of us, all those people were coming to grips with the destruction the storm wrought upon their communities and livelyhoods.

Goober Season

October is peanut harvest time in north central Florida. The roadside landscape suddenly sprouts signs advertising "Peanut Hay", "Boiled P-Nuts", or "Hot Boiled Peanuts".

The goober season having arrived, I've availed myself of the fresh crop, locally harvested in Williston, over in Levy County. I've been working on a two and a half pound bag of dry roasted salted nuts all week. Last night I set a couple of pounds of raw peanuts to cook in my crock pot overnight, and woke up to the salty treat of hot boiled peanuts.

Life is good in peanut land.

Read Brenda Flynn's loving account of fresh vegetables and the pleasures of hot "boilt" peanuts in The Recipe for Boiling Peanuts, over at Southern Scribe.

Have a Crantastic Weekend

Not in a blogging mood today, so the Clog Almanac will leave you with a link to Wikipedia's list of funny neologisms (made up words) that have appeared in episodes of The Simpsons.

Coburn Burns Bridges with H.R. 3058 Amendment Threat

Senator Coburn of Oklahoma has fired a huge shot across the bow of his fellow senators with this letter (many thanks to Mr. Reynolds of Instapundit who made it available in this format) which proposes to amend H.R. 3058 in order to return pork monies earmarked for the the construction of the controversial Gravina bridge in Alaska, and to use the money to reconstruct the "Twin Spans" bridge in Louisiana destroyed by hurricane Katrina.

Oh, how that man doth offend! His colleages should fear two things: 1) being outed in the public square for their porkmongering, and 2), being forced to publicly justify some of the outrageous items they have slipped into this and that bill during their (sometimes very long) careers.

The blogosphere may create so much buzz and noise on the pork issue that pols will be unable to quietly stave off Coburn's bill. Should the process eventually continue to a Senate vote I say that a roll call vote should be demanded.

The Art of Too Much Math

This is cool - an article discussing a steel sculpture representing a 3-D "shadow" of a 4-D solid designed by Penn State math professor Adrian Ocneanu.

The subject of the projection is a regular 4-dimensional solid of intermediate complexity, which Ocneanu calls an "octacube." It has 24 vertices, 96 edges and 96 triangular faces, which enclose 24 three-dimensional "rooms." Windows cut in faces allow the viewer to see within the structure, the same way that a window in a cubic room opens to the inside of the cube. Physically, the sculpture is a giant puzzle of 96 triangular pieces cut from stainless steel and bent into spherical shape.

An even cooler animation of the object can be viewed here.

Turtles Can Fly Really Flies

I watched Iranian filmaker Bahman Ghobadi's beautiful award-winning 2004 film Turtles Can Fly in conjunction with this week's appearance of Saddam Hussein in Iraqi court, on charges he ordered the massacre of Kurdish Shiite villagers after an attempt on his life.

First impression: Turtles Can Fly is a film, not a movie.

It was the first film to be shot on-location in post-Saddam Iraq. The film is set in the portentous days preceeding the overwhelming American invasion of Iraq in 2003. It is peopled by Kurdish non-actor children of the stark Iraq-Turkish border, who portray orphaned and maimed children forced to fend for themselves by selling land mines they have "gleaned" from their village environs after their parents were killed or jailed by the ruthless dictator.

Turtles Can Fly is the sort of honest offering that stands in stark contrast to the bulk of American releases, whose dimension-challenged characters appear, even before the print of the trailer is released, on the super-sized cups of corporate fast-food chains, T-shirt fronts, and a hundred other kitchy essential daily non-essentials. Do you not agree it lamentable that much American film-making has all but abandoned the high road of the artistic portrayal of the triumphs and vicissitudes of the human condition in favor of the dumbed-down, crass, and obscene delights of a selfish and pedestrian society? Don't we clamber to the theaters in droves as soon as the booming advertisments command us to, and don't we inhale every last drop of each successive "blockbuster", just as we swill from our corporate half-gallon monopoly soft-drinks and oversalted popcorn buckets? Where is the recreation, much less the art and and class and humanity in that? Isn't our collective zeal for movie-watching a little like picking up a well-mouthed cigar butt from off the sidewalk, lighting it up, passing it around, then rhapsodizing that it is a "most wonderful smoke"?

Turtles Can Fly is the gem you found after you ignored the butt-ends of all those other film offerings.

Mike Baker's fine review of Turtles Can Fly can be found here, at the British DVD Times site.

Better yet, buy the DVD from Amazon.com. The Clog Almanac strongly recommends that at the very least you view this film if you haven't already.

Iceman Airman Found in California Glacier

Ice climbers scaling the Mendel glacier in Sequoiah National Park discovered an airman melting out of the glacier's base, where he'd been entombed since 1942. Just when you thought you'd seen and heard everything under the sun.

Hey Wilma, Look at that Hurricane!

Hurricane Wilma upped the ante last night by 100 mph in the course of 4 hours to become the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin, and the fifth category 5 storm of the season. Currently, top sustained winds are at 175 mph. The storm is projected to take a hard right as soon as it passes the west end of Cuba, and make landfall in the southern Florida penninsula sometime this weekend. This just in, at 12:30 p.m EST, via beeper to my supervisor: projected landfall somewhere near Naples.

Visitors to the Florida Keys were ordered to evacuate today. Over 6800 FEMA trailers across Florida still house families who lost homes during the last hurricane season. Hurricane Wilma is predicted to pass quickly over Florida, possibly with little diminution of its strength.

Here in north central Florida, we have predictions of spotty rainstorms associated with the outer bands of the storm, and little else. We'll see how the forecast shapes up over the next couple of days before we rest easy.

The Death Connection

The Clog Almanac notes the following luminaries that share October 18th deaths:

Thomas Alva Edison – American inventor - 1931
Jose Ortega y Gasset – Spanish philosopher – 1955
Walt Kelly – of Pogo comic strip fame – 1973
Bess Truman - First Lady to Harry S. - 1982
Cab Calloway - American "Hi-De-Ho" jazzman - 1994

Memories by Dawn's Early Light

While looking at the first-light images captured by the Yellowstone National Park webcams I thought of this quote by Theodore Roosevelt's friend and author Hamlin Garland:

I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets.

Though I miss the Fall in my native Idaho, the unmistakable change of seasons in the Florida air this morning calls up a store of treasured memories that are keener and more stirring just by the remembering.

I Can't Hear You!

I'm a collector. Century-old hand-wrought iron fish gigs and eel spears. Antique corkscrews. Victorian optic glass tumblers and molded glass liquor flasks from the 1930's. But I never thought there'd be someone out there in collectorland amassing an exhibit of old ear trumpets and disguised hearing improvement devices. That is, until now.

Charming, Tedious or Just Wilde?

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."

Quoth Irishman Oscar Wilde, whose birth on this day in 1854 the Clog Almanac notes today.

P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975)

The Clog Almanac today honors P.G. Wodehouse, aka "Plum" who was born on this day in 1881. Who can read of the escapades of Bertie Wooster and his gentleman's gentleman Jeeves and not come away with strained smile and chuckle muscles?

Please don't go away uninformed: ALL of your kids's term papers and book reports ALL contain material plagarized from search results of the Ask Jeeves website (what, you didn't know? Tsk tsk.)

It is also the birthday of politician/scientist/novelist C.P. Snow, perhaps now remembered best for his examination of the science vs. humanities schism in western education in the book The Two Cultures.

Update: Chinese Rocket Science

The Chinese space rocket Shenzou VI with its birthday-boy astronaut has been slipping out of orbit. Experts noted the gravity (pun) of the situation and will correct the orbit today.

A small collection of Chinese Space Program posters can be viewed here. I particularly like the one depicting a chubby young girl in a bubble helmet chasing a bunnywabbit with a boquet of flowers while her panda compatriot waits in the open-cockpit mini-shuttle.

Halloween Head in a Jar!

Halloween hasn’t excited me since my kids got too old to trick or treat with parental supervision.

The Clog-wife has put up some decorations around the new house and I’m fine with that. But here’s a decoration idea you might want to attempt this year: The head-in-a-jar.

This spooky illusion will scare the bejeebers out of any neighborhood thuglings that might have designs on your stuff. Answer the door with a couple of heads-in-a-jar cradled in your arms and they’re sure to get the message. Follow the link for simple instructions on how to make your own.

The Invasion of Florida Continues

Two more exotic pythons have been caught poaching Florida animals this week. Follow the link for a list of other big snake stories.

Meanwhile, Japan will begin implanting computer ID chips in 650 exotic and dangerous pet species, including snapping turtles, pythons, spiders, in an attempt to regulate rampant irresponsible breeding and ownership.

It sounds like if you turned Tokyo upside down and shook it, it would rain bears, crocodiles, big cats, and poisonous spiders, to cop an image from Yann Martel's fine book The Life of Pi, which I've just completed reading.

Just Noodling Around

Archaeologists noodling around among the remains of a 4,000 year-old city near the Yellow River in China found an upside down bowl. Imagine their surprise when they lifted up the bowl to discover a little pile of 4,000 year-old noodles. It pushes our noodle awareness back about 2,000 years.

Then some other scientists got to work and analyzed the noodles and discovered something even more interesting: The noodles were made from millet, not wheat.

How, you may ask, could they tell it was millet, not wheat? Grasses, including the cereal grains produce tiny silica inclusions in their tissues called phytoliths. Phytoliths come in a variety of shapes distinct enough from one another that they may be used to differentiate major taxonomic groups. The scientists were able to conclusively determine that the phytoliths in the noodles were those produced by millet, not wheat.

It doesn’t stop there. Because phytoliths are silica (like pure sand or glass), they persist and can even be collected from soil samples where no or limited fossil plant macro-remains have survived. A specialist can analyze a pinch of dirt and say things like “there was millet here”. Here is a sample article on phytolith research from the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Noodles were not among the favorite space foods mentioned by two Chinese astronauts, one of whom celebrated his 41st birthday in orbit.

The Future of Marriage

Whither marriage? Look no further than the Netherlands, where a bald-headed man just married two women in the same ceremony.

Call it a civil union, or a Samenlevingscontract if you wish. I call it polygamy. Tacitus has some interesting discussion.

Whats in a Name?

The Clog-wife competed in the Tampa feis (Irish dance competition) this past weekend and brought home two trophies and a fistfull of cool medals.

Two different people that she'd had little to with outside of infrequent sightings at workshops and competitions pulled her aside and each informed her that they'd named a new puppy after her because they liked her name. Anyone else out there with a wife or dog named Piper?

She isn't sure whether she should be flattered or insulted.

Five Items, Six Feet

Yet another variation on the "name (insert number) things" meme:

Name 5 items located within 6 feet of your computer
that are metaphorically, literally, or otherwise connected. Explain briefly.

The Clog Almanac's list:

(1) Silvestri accordion. Yes, an accordion in its case sits mere inches from my right foot. Coordination of one hand with the other while moving the bellows of the instrument is difficult, in a rub-your-stomach, pat-your-head sort of way.

(2) A mano (primitive stone pestle for grinding corn by hand) from the environs of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajauto, Mexico, where I lived for a few months in 1979.

(3) Also held in the hand, a carved alligator cane, circa 1900, Jacksonville, Florida. Shafts and handles of these canes were fashioned from sucker shoots pruned from orange groves. The cane's curved hand grip bears an exquisitely carved juvenile alligator on its upper surface. It's a fine example of a rare high-dollar souvenir from the very early days of Florida tourism, when the gentry sported fashionable hats and canes.

(4) My Old straw boater. A label on the satin lining proclaims the hat maker was Knox, 5th Avenue, New York. Now it so happens that the Knox Building was designed for the famous hat maker by John H. Duncan in 1902, about the year the alligator cane was created. The facade of the Knox Hat building, as well as most of the adjacent Kress building (Eduard Sibbert, 1955) were eventually both incorporated into the Republic Bank building in 1985 by architect Eli Attia. The resulting structure overlooks Bryant Park and the New York Public Library to the north. The north facade of the newest construction accordions between and above the older buildings with pleats and to-the-street-line expansions that preserve a palimpsest of the two beaux-arts and art-deco predecessors. In my opinion the conglomerate strains toward the ugly as a whole. Decide for yourself whether to laud or to decry the preservation effort.

(5) Nicholas A. Basbanes' lovely book Patience and Fortitude, titled after the pair of marble lions that guard the 5th Avenue entrance to the New York Public Library. One can't help feeling sorry for the old Knox and Kress building's remnants forlornly being engulfed by modernism. Perhaps they should be named Patience and Fortitude too.

Tom Joad Isn't Here

What will become of the thousands forcibly displaced by this year's hurricanes? Those in coming years? Will history books show a significant permanent shift in population from the devastated areas?

Between 300,000 and 400,000 people migrated from Oklahoma and other Plains states in the 1930's - escaping the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. I believe that more than 400,000 have been displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. How long until the bowl of New Orleans is drained and populated again?

Will the next decade see caravans of hurricane refugees tom-joading around the country looking for work and a place to live? Will a Steinbeck emerge and produce a Grapes of Wrath for our time and experience?

Right now I just hear lots of whining from all quarters.

Jenny Lind (1820 – 1887)

Swedish coloratura soprano Johanna Maria “Jenny” Lind was born on this day in 1820.

P.T. Barnum toured the U.S. with “The Swedish Nightingale” and got very rich in the process. Barnum was so successful a promoter that 40,000 people showed up at the New York harbor to greet her arrival. She was the first celebrity, and among the first to reap the rewards of celebrity endorsement.

“Lindomania” swept the country. Songs, dances, clothing, pianos, pleasure boats, and even a locomotive were named after her. I’ll bet you that there are scores of marinas in this country with a “Jenny Lind” moored at dockside.

Here’s the musical notation for the Jenny Lind Polka, courtesy of The Session website. Follow the link and click the "sheetmusic" tab.

Here is an 1852 daguerreotype of Lind by the eminent photographer Mathew Brady.

Warning: Don't Swallow Alligators

Things that transpire in Florida never cease to amaze. This transplanted Idahoan gets by in this state by pretending everything is a circus. The drivers. The rednecks. The crazy development. The neon colored surfshops at the beach. The ratty beach bungalows of a bygone era. The frequent hurricanes.

Never would I have imagined that there are droves of Burmese pythons slithering around in the Everglades. Never would I have imagined that they eat man-sized alligators. Now there's proof of this very thing.

Thought for the day: Don't swallow alligators.

Frederic Remington (1861 – 1909)

Frederic Remington, whose birthday The Clog Almanac honors today, is one of the pantheon of those august artists whose body of works represents some of the most sublime and inspiring American art. Remington’s works captured with vivid movement and honesty the humanity that moved and worked on the great western landscapes: the working cowboys and vaqueros, the native Americans, cavalrymen and Buffalo Soldiers, the pioneers. And always their horses. 55 of Remington's canvases can be viewed here.

By the late 19th century a mythic view of the West was becoming firmly planted in the American mind. With watercolors and oils painters such as Alfred Bierstadt and Thomas Moran created stunning images that captured the immensity and grandeur of the western landscape. Their works, including the paintings and bronze sculptures of Remington exude a nobility and soaring spirituality on par with the rose windows of Notre Dame or the interior of the cathedral at Chartres – and depict the sort of landscape explored by Lewis and Clark, Ferdinand V. Hayden, Major John Wesley Powell, and well-suited for the likes of Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir. These Hudson School, American pre-Raphaelite artists, and others such as Thomas Cole and Frederic Church transposed European ideas of landscape and romanticism onto the vast reaches of the North American landscape.

Their efforts did not go unnoticed: Moran’s Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872) was purchased by Congress for the princely sum of $10,000. It and other examples of Moran’s paintings of the Yellowstone country were instrumental in the decision to designate Yellowstone as the nation’s first national park. Likewise, Bierstadt’s Domes of the Yosemite (1867), commissioned for $25,000 by New York magnate Le Grande Lockwood, helped convince Congress to establish the nation’s second national park in 1890. What greater use for art could one conceive but to convince a nation to preserve its best natural places as a legacy for posterity?

(Note to contemporary artists: Where do your works fit into this scheme?)