My husband has a song called “20 Demons.” It’s a bluegrassy number about being chased by your past and by your personal issues. It’s pretty standard emotional fare in a very catchy tune. I say “pretty standard” not to diminish the impact of the song, but just to emphasize that it’s relatable.
This morning on the bus, we got a dissertation from a different set of demons.
It happens sometimes, people feel the need to talk to you on busses or trains or planes. If it’s a plane, most often it’s just a chatty, friendly person sitting next to you who does not have a hobby and wants to pass the time. Pete does not mind this—he’s a bit of a friendly chatter. I hate it. I want to be left alone. I don’t like planes, and I always have plenty to do, so I don’t need to “pass the time.” The idea of a “single serving friend” is not appealing to me. I suppose as a writer, I should seek out such experiences, but I am 36 years old, and I don’t feel like changing. Anyway, it’s not in my nature.
When you are on a bus and someone starts talking to you, it’s more likely that the person in question is a little more… interesting. Sometimes, it is clearly insanity. Sometimes, it’s more like loneliness gone horribly awry. Usually, it’s somewhere in between. This morning when we got onto the bus, I could tell that a gentleman at the back of the bus had been talking to the gentleman across from him as he was saying “All right… I’m done.” I thought about not going to the back to sit down, but I did not feel like standing. I weighed the options and decided to sit. As I suspected, the gentleman started talking to me almost right away. He was a big white guy (6’3”, 250 pounds, as he would tell us) with big meaty fingers, a little bit of a beard, short brown hair turning to a dishwatery grey color.
“That’s a girly bag,” he said, gesturing to the Hollie Hobbie giftbag I had just put on my lap.
“It’s my knitting.”
“I can see that. What are you knitting?”
“I am teaching myself to knit,” I said, “So I am making a scarf.”
He evidently thought that the green stocking cap perched on my head was an example of my knitting, as he gestured to it and said that it looked like I was doing a good job.
“My grandmother made that.”
“Grandma knew what she was doing.”
“Oh yeah, she was always knitting.”
“Well, back then, they had to. They made their stuff. Things were expensive. You couldn’t just walk down to Target and buy it.”
He had a deep, carrying, pleasant voice. I was leaning toward “lonely friendly talker” for this guy. He seemed nice enough. Not like the guy who had given a loud dissertation at the front of the bus that included his barbecue fetish (“I barbeque, get drunk, and howl like a wolf”), Christian dating experiences (The woman in question, though “some sort of reporter downtown,” nonetheless went into the bathroom and started smoking dope), and a recipe for crack (72% baking soda, 8% vitamin C, 3% ammonia. I don’t know what the other 17% is, but I suppose when you are on crack, you don’t have time for math). His tone was not angry or belligerent either, he was just oversharing. I am sure he was nice enough, too, in his way.
“My grandfather had the last outhouse in St. Paul.”
The things you can learn before 8:00 in the morning.
“He held onto it until I was 12 and then he had to get rid of it. Then he died when I was 14 and my world fell apart. See, I didn’t have a mom, and my dad worked a lot, so my grandfather was my buddy…. You ‘U’ people?” he asked, meaning “University of Minnesota. We said “yes.”
“Yeah, I got an engineering degree from the U, then I went overseas.”
“I can’t believe they are turning these into condos,” he said, pointing to buildings that were just being finished up in their conversion from warehouse to spendy “artist lofts.”
“$180 thousand for a condo. Can you believe that?”
“That’s cheap.”
“Yeah, you could pay 50 thousand for a house, back in the day.”
“My parents paid that for the house they are in now,” I observed, though they actually paid 60. Amending my statement would have been quibbling, I thought.
“I live in an apartment now. I guess it’s ok. Things are maintained, there’s a garbage unit on every floor. It’s a senior high rise over on Minnehaha. It’s quiet. Too quiet. But that’s ok.”
He was in the Marines, in Lebanon back in ’83, he said “when all that went down… Did a lot of killing that day. 267 good men lost their lives. We were somewhere else when it happened, and when we heard, all the Marines, we were all just ‘lock and load’ you know? I tell ya,” he lowered his voice and spoke out of the side of his mouth “if you were Lebanese, you were dying that day. Not to say… I mean, I love everyone, but that was our mindset, you know? But these guys over in Iraq, I mean, they don’t… We gotta get those guys outta there. They been killing each other for thousands of years. There’s been secular violence. We gotta get out and secure up our borders and settle down for the long haul or something. When I was in the service, we had Reagan, and he was military, I mean, he signed all sorts of stuff… Star Wars… it’s still up there, you know. We have it. It’s operational. The Chinese were all saying that they could blow up a satellite, and they blew up one of their own just to prove they could, but they would never blow up an American satellite. Some were saying that they hit one of ours, but no way. They would never do that because it would be all over. The things I could tell you. The things that are out there. People don’t know. I mean, people are dumb. The Feds, they’re all over this place. With the Iron Range—there were nukes on the Iron Range, we were number three on the list in the Cold War. The Feds came in, and they never left. If you think you seen guys in sunglasses and black suits, you did. The things I could tell you. The things people don’t know. You know there was a guy bought an old missile silo and turned it into his house?”
Pete said he had, indeed heard of this. I remained quiet, doubting. (It’s apparently true, and for more than one person. Just put missile, silo, and house into a search engine.
“My ma left when I was a kid. When my dad was on his second divorce, I went into the military. He and I don’t really talk. I think it’s because I am not working and I’m not ‘successful’ anymore. I used to work but now all these injuries have caught up me and whatever. Which stop is this? I need Harvard.”
We told him it was the next stop, but he got off the bus all the same.
“Gotta get my shoulder checked out. Thanks for listening.”
I turned to Pete. “Do you think it’s the personality that goes into the military, or what the military does to the personality?”
Pete said “I think it’s both. Because there are plenty of people who were in the military…”
“…who are not like that,” we said together.
It’s experience and genetics that make the demons. This is what I meant by saying that the demons in Pete’s song are pretty standard. I don’t have killing demons or exploding demons, or world crashing around me demons. I don’t have abandonment demons, or war demons, or even outhouse demons.
Paranoia, while necessarily all encompassing in its scope, is narrow in its conversational opportunities.
It’s more of a monologue.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
For Amber Waves of Grain
It’s not a popular question to ask, but…
How renewable is ethanol?
Because basically, if Bush is selling, I ain’t buying.
I have to wonder, if Bush is pushing it, what’s the real agenda? It’s difficult for me to believe that George W. Bush truly has the interests of the planet or society at heart.
A quick scan through documents and sources on the Internet for guidance and the “truth” about ethanol is like leafing through the Bible for approval regarding one’s actions. One can find arguments to support both sides of the issue.
According to an April 2005 article in “Science Daily,” and a UC Berkely geo-engineering professor named Tad W. Patzek: "In terms of renewable fuels, ethanol is the worst solution. It has the highest energy cost with the least benefit." When one adjusts for “the amount of fuel used to produce fertilizers and corn seeds to the transportation and wastewater disposal costs”, it is his conclusion that “the cumulative energy consumed in corn farming and ethanol production is six times greater than what the end product provides your car engine in terms of power.”
Patzek is again quoted here: “People tend to think of ethanol and see an endless cycle: corn is used to produce ethanol, ethanol is burned and gives off carbon dioxide, and corn uses the carbon dioxide as it grows,” he said. “But that isn’t the case. Fossil fuel actually drives the whole cycle.”
Patzek’s calculations have been disputed by a number of other experts, including Hosein Shapouri, an economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture who says that while "it's true that the original ethanol plants in the 1970s went bankrupt…Patzek doesn't consider the impact new, more efficient production technologies have had on the ethanol industry."
Not surprisingly, Shapouri’s 2004 analysis from the USDA “comes to the exact opposite conclusion…Ethanol, he said, has a positive energy balance, containing 67 percent more energy than is used to manufacture it.”
But wait a minute!
Cornell University ecology Professor David Pimentel calls ethanol production "subsidized food burning” adding that "The bottom line is that we're using far more energy in making ethanol than we're getting out."
The National Biodiesel Board disputes Pimentel’s claims.
Think you have it straightened out?
Think again.
A little booklet from the United States Department of Energy from 1999, citing mainly their own research and that of other government agencies, tells us that ethanol is just good, good, good, and it’s a fact.
Michael B. McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies at Harvard wrote in the November-December 2006 issue of “Harvard Magazine”, writes that, even aside from ethanol’s dubious claims to energy superiority, the people who are really profiting from the subsidies and tax credits are the ethanol producers themselves, not the farmers. He also states that “an increase in the fuel efficiency of American vehicles by 10 percent would result in gasoline savings greater than could be achieved with even a sixfold increase in domestic ethanol production (and would yield an immediate large reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions).”
A new (January 2007) MIT study states that. “the energy balance is actually so close that several factors can easily change whether ethanol ends up a net energy winner or loser.” Her research was supported by BP America.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and Climate Solutions put out a report in February of 2006 concluding that corn ethanol is saving emissions and oil but that cellulose would be preferable.
What do I think?
I am skeptical. I think that the government should fund research and development in sustainable and renewable energy such as solar and wind. I think that tax credits and subsidies should be given to farmers who plant organic and use sustainable practices for food production. I believe that oil companies should not be given tax breaks for using ethanol, but should be penalized for not using it, if it’s so great.
I think that ethanol is a placation for midwestern farmers who have been devastated by industrial farming practices, giving over land that was used for food production to ethanol production. I think this will lead to less biological diversity, more imported food, depleted soil, erosion, and increased use of irrigation and fertilizer.
I think it’s another case of Bush using words that sound good while avoiding making the choices that could effect real change in consumption and in energy production. What about more stringent CAFÉ standards? Tax gas guzzlers and increase rebates for hybrids. Reward conservation and penalize unnecessary consumption.
I think that this is another way to continue to reward oil and energy companies while sounding “green.” I think it’s another way to keep farmers quiet while the real people making the money are the refineries and the producers.
How renewable is ethanol?
Because basically, if Bush is selling, I ain’t buying.
I have to wonder, if Bush is pushing it, what’s the real agenda? It’s difficult for me to believe that George W. Bush truly has the interests of the planet or society at heart.
A quick scan through documents and sources on the Internet for guidance and the “truth” about ethanol is like leafing through the Bible for approval regarding one’s actions. One can find arguments to support both sides of the issue.
According to an April 2005 article in “Science Daily,” and a UC Berkely geo-engineering professor named Tad W. Patzek: "In terms of renewable fuels, ethanol is the worst solution. It has the highest energy cost with the least benefit." When one adjusts for “the amount of fuel used to produce fertilizers and corn seeds to the transportation and wastewater disposal costs”, it is his conclusion that “the cumulative energy consumed in corn farming and ethanol production is six times greater than what the end product provides your car engine in terms of power.”
Patzek is again quoted here: “People tend to think of ethanol and see an endless cycle: corn is used to produce ethanol, ethanol is burned and gives off carbon dioxide, and corn uses the carbon dioxide as it grows,” he said. “But that isn’t the case. Fossil fuel actually drives the whole cycle.”
Patzek’s calculations have been disputed by a number of other experts, including Hosein Shapouri, an economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture who says that while "it's true that the original ethanol plants in the 1970s went bankrupt…Patzek doesn't consider the impact new, more efficient production technologies have had on the ethanol industry."
Not surprisingly, Shapouri’s 2004 analysis from the USDA “comes to the exact opposite conclusion…Ethanol, he said, has a positive energy balance, containing 67 percent more energy than is used to manufacture it.”
But wait a minute!
Cornell University ecology Professor David Pimentel calls ethanol production "subsidized food burning” adding that "The bottom line is that we're using far more energy in making ethanol than we're getting out."
The National Biodiesel Board disputes Pimentel’s claims.
Think you have it straightened out?
Think again.
A little booklet from the United States Department of Energy from 1999, citing mainly their own research and that of other government agencies, tells us that ethanol is just good, good, good, and it’s a fact.
Michael B. McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies at Harvard wrote in the November-December 2006 issue of “Harvard Magazine”, writes that, even aside from ethanol’s dubious claims to energy superiority, the people who are really profiting from the subsidies and tax credits are the ethanol producers themselves, not the farmers. He also states that “an increase in the fuel efficiency of American vehicles by 10 percent would result in gasoline savings greater than could be achieved with even a sixfold increase in domestic ethanol production (and would yield an immediate large reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions).”
A new (January 2007) MIT study states that. “the energy balance is actually so close that several factors can easily change whether ethanol ends up a net energy winner or loser.” Her research was supported by BP America.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and Climate Solutions put out a report in February of 2006 concluding that corn ethanol is saving emissions and oil but that cellulose would be preferable.
What do I think?
I am skeptical. I think that the government should fund research and development in sustainable and renewable energy such as solar and wind. I think that tax credits and subsidies should be given to farmers who plant organic and use sustainable practices for food production. I believe that oil companies should not be given tax breaks for using ethanol, but should be penalized for not using it, if it’s so great.
I think that ethanol is a placation for midwestern farmers who have been devastated by industrial farming practices, giving over land that was used for food production to ethanol production. I think this will lead to less biological diversity, more imported food, depleted soil, erosion, and increased use of irrigation and fertilizer.
I think it’s another case of Bush using words that sound good while avoiding making the choices that could effect real change in consumption and in energy production. What about more stringent CAFÉ standards? Tax gas guzzlers and increase rebates for hybrids. Reward conservation and penalize unnecessary consumption.
I think that this is another way to continue to reward oil and energy companies while sounding “green.” I think it’s another way to keep farmers quiet while the real people making the money are the refineries and the producers.
Monday, December 4, 2006
In his new book “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins talks about religious hallucinations in terms of brain activity. He describes how the brain flips through stored images in order to match what it knows already with what it is seeing in order to identify it. Most of the time, we are unaware of this process. It happens very quickly and automatically.
On Saturday morning, my conscious self and my unconscious brain melded into one being for a moment. It was, to say the least, interesting and, of course, happened in the most mundane of circumstances.
Pete had computer training on Saturday and Sunday afternoon this past weekend, leaving me free to make a mess in the living room, painting a small vanity table he had picked up for me. Balancing my make up pots on the sink has led to more than a little exasperation and at least one unfortunate spill. The last thing a partner needs to hear in the morning is a yell of growling anger from his or her beloved, so he took matters into his own hands, found this little piece of furniture on Craig’s List, and bought it for me. It’s a trashy, cheap little piece, a filler for now until such time as we have the resources to redo the bathroom.
And it is almost entirely beyond the point.
The house is a mess. It has been a mess since before Thanksgiving when we hosted a late birthday gathering and had to leave in the morning before being able to clean, and I have not yet caught up. The mess has stayed one step ahead of me. And it has started to make me crazy. Getting that vanity out of the guestroom, painted, and into the bathroom was a First Thing that needed to happen, and it of course led to other things. The bathroom itself had to be reorganized, the piles of paper and books in the living room had to be put away, and things from both rooms had to be transferred to the basement. With Pete away for most of the day, I could make bigger messes with organization as the end result, and not make him loony in the process.
At around 11:30 on Saturday morning, I decided to take a stack of books downstairs to the area where Pete has started building bookshelves. I went down the basement steps to go straight across to the far wall and deposit them, when I stopped just short of a floor rug we have down there. It’s a lovely old cream-colored antique with rosy flowers along the edges, and it was Pete’s. On it was an object. This is where my brain kicked in, and I came along for the cognition ride:
Hazy dark spot ahead of me.
Object on floor.
Object on floor that was not there before.
(I could actually see images flipping through my head and the accompanying identifiers. It was like a slideshow with floating captions.)
Stuffed animal.
Animal.
Real animal.
Real animal, not moving
(I don’t know when I have ever stood so still in my life. I was just standing there in my pj’s with a stack of books, in my basement, while my brain worked.)
Real animal on floor that was not there before, not moving.
Dead animal.
Rat.
Dead rat.
There may as well have been a soundtrack to this part:
*Drum beat like thunderclap*
*flash*
Insert close-up still of ringed, naked tail snaked out behind…
*Drum beat like thunderclap*
*flash*
Insert close-up still of half-open black eye reflecting pinpoint of light…
*Drum beat like thunderclap*
*flash*
Insert close-up still of little feet curled under dark grey furry body…
At this point, I became very aware of my reactions: my heart was racing; I had not blinked; I was very still and breathing through my nose. I became aware that I was frightened. Then I became aware that I did not know what to do. I knew I could not proceed and step over the rat and deposit my books in their intended position. I knew that I could not pick up the rat and dispose of it. And I realized that I was being a girl, and it made me mad at myself. I turned around on the spot, deposited the stack of books near the steps, and went back upstairs.
I did not want to return to the basement. I did not even want to be in the house with the dead rat. I was being totally illogical and irrational, and it pissed me off. I sent Pete a text message that read “dead rat in basement. being a girl. leaving now.”
He called in a remarkably short amount of time and said that he would take care of it when he came home for lunch. I went to the bookstore. Pete came home and buried the rat in the back yard.
“Did you say a few words?” I asked.
“I did, actually. I said ‘Poor rat. You get a bad rap.’”
I figure that Hazel, one of our female cats, and the only one of the two who mixes with the other cats, had caught and killed the rat. This was by deduction. She is the fiercest and the youngest. She was a stray. She spends a lot of time in the basement near the holes by which we now think the rat entered. I am guessing that one of the draws for this area has been the scratching and smells that she has detected and the hope that she would one day catch one it venturing into the house proper (it was under the crawl space under the new kitchen, I think). Sometime between Thursday night and Saturday morning, it, or one of them, did indeed make this unfortunate mistake, and she was there.
The fun thing now is getting rid of them. Assuming that there are more. I figured “OK, we’ll seal up the holes around the power lines that come in from the crawl space and get the squirrel corn out of the basement, and then I will call someone and have them take a look down there because there is no way I am taking that vent off and shining a light in there. But I guess that the whole Black Death/Rabies thing has sort of given rats a bad name because when I called a highly rated local pest control company, the guy told me to call the City of Saint Paul, and they would come out and bait the sewers. I could cover the drain, he said, and put out snappy rat traps, but that was about all. When I said that I thought they might have gotten in through my crawl space, the guy said that then I might have a broken sewer line, and I would have to call a plumber. When I said that my ex-husband had trapped a rat in the garage five years ago, he said I must have had garbage back there.
What was that all about? Don’t they “do” rats? Do I need a Pied Piper? I was ready to pay them to come over, take the vent off the crawlspace, shine a light, set some traps, and see if they could see any holes where they got in. I guess I should not feel so bad that I reacted illogically if even the professionals don’t want to come over.
On Saturday morning, my conscious self and my unconscious brain melded into one being for a moment. It was, to say the least, interesting and, of course, happened in the most mundane of circumstances.
Pete had computer training on Saturday and Sunday afternoon this past weekend, leaving me free to make a mess in the living room, painting a small vanity table he had picked up for me. Balancing my make up pots on the sink has led to more than a little exasperation and at least one unfortunate spill. The last thing a partner needs to hear in the morning is a yell of growling anger from his or her beloved, so he took matters into his own hands, found this little piece of furniture on Craig’s List, and bought it for me. It’s a trashy, cheap little piece, a filler for now until such time as we have the resources to redo the bathroom.
And it is almost entirely beyond the point.
The house is a mess. It has been a mess since before Thanksgiving when we hosted a late birthday gathering and had to leave in the morning before being able to clean, and I have not yet caught up. The mess has stayed one step ahead of me. And it has started to make me crazy. Getting that vanity out of the guestroom, painted, and into the bathroom was a First Thing that needed to happen, and it of course led to other things. The bathroom itself had to be reorganized, the piles of paper and books in the living room had to be put away, and things from both rooms had to be transferred to the basement. With Pete away for most of the day, I could make bigger messes with organization as the end result, and not make him loony in the process.
At around 11:30 on Saturday morning, I decided to take a stack of books downstairs to the area where Pete has started building bookshelves. I went down the basement steps to go straight across to the far wall and deposit them, when I stopped just short of a floor rug we have down there. It’s a lovely old cream-colored antique with rosy flowers along the edges, and it was Pete’s. On it was an object. This is where my brain kicked in, and I came along for the cognition ride:
Hazy dark spot ahead of me.
Object on floor.
Object on floor that was not there before.
(I could actually see images flipping through my head and the accompanying identifiers. It was like a slideshow with floating captions.)
Stuffed animal.
Animal.
Real animal.
Real animal, not moving
(I don’t know when I have ever stood so still in my life. I was just standing there in my pj’s with a stack of books, in my basement, while my brain worked.)
Real animal on floor that was not there before, not moving.
Dead animal.
Rat.
Dead rat.
There may as well have been a soundtrack to this part:
*Drum beat like thunderclap*
*flash*
Insert close-up still of ringed, naked tail snaked out behind…
*Drum beat like thunderclap*
*flash*
Insert close-up still of half-open black eye reflecting pinpoint of light…
*Drum beat like thunderclap*
*flash*
Insert close-up still of little feet curled under dark grey furry body…
At this point, I became very aware of my reactions: my heart was racing; I had not blinked; I was very still and breathing through my nose. I became aware that I was frightened. Then I became aware that I did not know what to do. I knew I could not proceed and step over the rat and deposit my books in their intended position. I knew that I could not pick up the rat and dispose of it. And I realized that I was being a girl, and it made me mad at myself. I turned around on the spot, deposited the stack of books near the steps, and went back upstairs.
I did not want to return to the basement. I did not even want to be in the house with the dead rat. I was being totally illogical and irrational, and it pissed me off. I sent Pete a text message that read “dead rat in basement. being a girl. leaving now.”
He called in a remarkably short amount of time and said that he would take care of it when he came home for lunch. I went to the bookstore. Pete came home and buried the rat in the back yard.
“Did you say a few words?” I asked.
“I did, actually. I said ‘Poor rat. You get a bad rap.’”
I figure that Hazel, one of our female cats, and the only one of the two who mixes with the other cats, had caught and killed the rat. This was by deduction. She is the fiercest and the youngest. She was a stray. She spends a lot of time in the basement near the holes by which we now think the rat entered. I am guessing that one of the draws for this area has been the scratching and smells that she has detected and the hope that she would one day catch one it venturing into the house proper (it was under the crawl space under the new kitchen, I think). Sometime between Thursday night and Saturday morning, it, or one of them, did indeed make this unfortunate mistake, and she was there.
The fun thing now is getting rid of them. Assuming that there are more. I figured “OK, we’ll seal up the holes around the power lines that come in from the crawl space and get the squirrel corn out of the basement, and then I will call someone and have them take a look down there because there is no way I am taking that vent off and shining a light in there. But I guess that the whole Black Death/Rabies thing has sort of given rats a bad name because when I called a highly rated local pest control company, the guy told me to call the City of Saint Paul, and they would come out and bait the sewers. I could cover the drain, he said, and put out snappy rat traps, but that was about all. When I said that I thought they might have gotten in through my crawl space, the guy said that then I might have a broken sewer line, and I would have to call a plumber. When I said that my ex-husband had trapped a rat in the garage five years ago, he said I must have had garbage back there.
What was that all about? Don’t they “do” rats? Do I need a Pied Piper? I was ready to pay them to come over, take the vent off the crawlspace, shine a light, set some traps, and see if they could see any holes where they got in. I guess I should not feel so bad that I reacted illogically if even the professionals don’t want to come over.
Friday, December 1, 2006
Just Another Cat Story
While at Menards—a local, less menacing version of the Home Despot, I picked up a few cat toys. Max—the middle child, our Jan Brady, the weird one—likes to carry things around in his mouth, and he also likes to dismantle small stuffed animals, which he then carries around in his mouth (he took apart a small, jointed cat stuffed animal once and carried the mangled head around for weeks), so I bought little rubbery Koosh™ ball type thingies and also little puffs. There are a few scattered about the house now, and Max tends to squirrel them away. They appear every once in awhile, most often in the middle of the night accompanied by claws-on-wood scrabblings and astoundingly loud little cat feet. The purple one has been out most often lately, and I call him Arnold because that is what Ginny named her pygmy puff.
Last night, we bought our first Christmas tree as a couple and brought it in. Anything new in the house is cause for celebration by our four-legged housemates, and when that new thing is large, smells of the outdoors, and is accompanied by much moving of furniture, it’s practically a party. Fritz, the elder of the tribe, got out Arnold and started racing about the room as we attempted to adjust the tree in its red and green stand. Just a couple of evenings before, he had brought Arnold into the living room in his mouth and was vocalizing in what we have always thought was his mournful howl. We were sitting right there on the couch, and it’s a sound he usually only makes at night when he is alone in another room and we are already in bed. It has always seemed to us that he is looking for us or crying. It’s a very sad sound. But there he was, howling, Arnold the purple pygmy puff dangling from his teeth. He kept howling; we tried to talk to him, but he can’t hear very well anymore, and certainly could not hear us over his own racket. It was the strangest thing. He kept it up even after he made eye contact with us. We thought that perhaps he had the puff caught on his teeth and was upset about it. Then he dropped it and started playing again. All seemed well.
It’s another example of humans casting their own emotional perceptions onto animals, I think. Because last night, as he raced around chasing Arnold, he stopped periodically and made the same sound. He came into bed with us, but left soon after, and the sound wafted into the bedroom. Pete got up to check on him, and there he was in the living room with the puff between his front feet, howling. I now believe that what I thought was mournful, simply because it conjured up mournful feelings in me, is actually a little song that he is singing to his little toy.
Last night, we bought our first Christmas tree as a couple and brought it in. Anything new in the house is cause for celebration by our four-legged housemates, and when that new thing is large, smells of the outdoors, and is accompanied by much moving of furniture, it’s practically a party. Fritz, the elder of the tribe, got out Arnold and started racing about the room as we attempted to adjust the tree in its red and green stand. Just a couple of evenings before, he had brought Arnold into the living room in his mouth and was vocalizing in what we have always thought was his mournful howl. We were sitting right there on the couch, and it’s a sound he usually only makes at night when he is alone in another room and we are already in bed. It has always seemed to us that he is looking for us or crying. It’s a very sad sound. But there he was, howling, Arnold the purple pygmy puff dangling from his teeth. He kept howling; we tried to talk to him, but he can’t hear very well anymore, and certainly could not hear us over his own racket. It was the strangest thing. He kept it up even after he made eye contact with us. We thought that perhaps he had the puff caught on his teeth and was upset about it. Then he dropped it and started playing again. All seemed well.
It’s another example of humans casting their own emotional perceptions onto animals, I think. Because last night, as he raced around chasing Arnold, he stopped periodically and made the same sound. He came into bed with us, but left soon after, and the sound wafted into the bedroom. Pete got up to check on him, and there he was in the living room with the puff between his front feet, howling. I now believe that what I thought was mournful, simply because it conjured up mournful feelings in me, is actually a little song that he is singing to his little toy.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Thursday, November 2, 2006
John Kerry to Abandon Dreams of Stand-up Career
(Obligatory note to stupid people. I made this up. John Kerry did not say these things. And no, I didn't just call YOU stupid. Oh, never mind.)
After an off-the-cuff comment about stupid people was misunderstood and manipulated by stupid people, Senator John Kerry has decided to step back from his long cherished wish to become a stand-up comic. “I figure I travel the country so much as part of my job as a senator, I might as well use those open mics at colleges, expensive fund-raising dinners, and invited speeches for personal gain. And in my case, it’s making people laugh. Or, I thought it could be.” The Massachusetts senator, who ran for president in 2004, has “loads of material” he says, but little time to practice his act in front of a live audience when he is “not working.” “I thought I would try something there, but maybe my wife is right. I should save it for the living room. Or just save it. Teresa’s a riot.”
In an effort at fraternity-style ribbing, Mr. Kerry says he was just trying to call the president a moron for getting the United States embroiled in an overseas conflict reminiscent of Vietnam yet rife with enduring and explosive possibilities for hateful retribution against our country for generations to come. "It's all in good fun for a couple of Yalies like us." He says he was shocked and appalled when Mr. Bush and other republicans responded with such vitriol, though he opted to use the phrase "yucky feelings." He also steered away from the words “acrimony” and “vituperation” and the phrase “willful obfuscation of intended meaning for nefarious political purposes” fearing any more mix ups. “Did you know that according to Roget’s Thesaurus, 6th Edition, an acceptable synonym for ‘quagmire’ is ‘receptacle of filth’? I thought that was interesting,” he added as an aside.
Senator Kerry, who was born at an Army Hospital into an Army family and whose father volunteered in the Army Air Corps and flew during World War II, volunteered to serve his country in Vietnam after graduating from Yale, and served two tours of duty, which, he says “really informs my sense of humor.” His unsuccessful bid for president against fellow Yale graduate, George W. Bush (B.A. 1965, History) taught him a lot about “keeping things light.” “People accused me of being ‘wooden’ and ‘impersonal.' I thought that I could loosen things up a bit this campaign season because I am not running for political office." Mr. Kerry went on to say that, instead of being a stand up comic or president, he was just going to have to find a way to be content with being “really, really smart.”
After an off-the-cuff comment about stupid people was misunderstood and manipulated by stupid people, Senator John Kerry has decided to step back from his long cherished wish to become a stand-up comic. “I figure I travel the country so much as part of my job as a senator, I might as well use those open mics at colleges, expensive fund-raising dinners, and invited speeches for personal gain. And in my case, it’s making people laugh. Or, I thought it could be.” The Massachusetts senator, who ran for president in 2004, has “loads of material” he says, but little time to practice his act in front of a live audience when he is “not working.” “I thought I would try something there, but maybe my wife is right. I should save it for the living room. Or just save it. Teresa’s a riot.”
In an effort at fraternity-style ribbing, Mr. Kerry says he was just trying to call the president a moron for getting the United States embroiled in an overseas conflict reminiscent of Vietnam yet rife with enduring and explosive possibilities for hateful retribution against our country for generations to come. "It's all in good fun for a couple of Yalies like us." He says he was shocked and appalled when Mr. Bush and other republicans responded with such vitriol, though he opted to use the phrase "yucky feelings." He also steered away from the words “acrimony” and “vituperation” and the phrase “willful obfuscation of intended meaning for nefarious political purposes” fearing any more mix ups. “Did you know that according to Roget’s Thesaurus, 6th Edition, an acceptable synonym for ‘quagmire’ is ‘receptacle of filth’? I thought that was interesting,” he added as an aside.
Senator Kerry, who was born at an Army Hospital into an Army family and whose father volunteered in the Army Air Corps and flew during World War II, volunteered to serve his country in Vietnam after graduating from Yale, and served two tours of duty, which, he says “really informs my sense of humor.” His unsuccessful bid for president against fellow Yale graduate, George W. Bush (B.A. 1965, History) taught him a lot about “keeping things light.” “People accused me of being ‘wooden’ and ‘impersonal.' I thought that I could loosen things up a bit this campaign season because I am not running for political office." Mr. Kerry went on to say that, instead of being a stand up comic or president, he was just going to have to find a way to be content with being “really, really smart.”
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
I'm really too mad to actually write this...
They can say things like this .
Or this .
Or classics like this .
They can accuse all democrats of being terrorists, veterans who are democrats of being antipatriotic cowards, and they can insult people mourning the death of a beloved politician (I have worlds of words to speak to on that one), but Senator John Kerry flubs one joke equating the president with a moron, and it's Swiftboat Season all over again. First of all, Mr. Kerry is not running for office at the moment. Second of all, he's a decorated veteran who actually served this country in a foreign war.
Republicans, shut up already.
Or this .
Or classics like this .
They can accuse all democrats of being terrorists, veterans who are democrats of being antipatriotic cowards, and they can insult people mourning the death of a beloved politician (I have worlds of words to speak to on that one), but Senator John Kerry flubs one joke equating the president with a moron, and it's Swiftboat Season all over again. First of all, Mr. Kerry is not running for office at the moment. Second of all, he's a decorated veteran who actually served this country in a foreign war.
Republicans, shut up already.
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