Sitemeter Crash

Sitemeter, a key site that monitors traffic on websites, crashed sometime yesterday. There was a brief announcement yesterday about having 'issues' and then that disappeared too. My hits for the day were listed as zero. Same today, but now there is a new announcement:

S27 Account Holders – Update

July 2, 2009 · Comments Off

Greetings,

We had an issue with the server that you are using. We had to replace this server and restore an older backup. We recovered all of the log files and have been processing log files since yesterday morning. It will take awhile to reprocess all of the log files. If you have any questions please let us know. We apologize for the delay in displaying your statistics.

Thank you,

Sitemeter Support Team

I've been getting this service for free. I think it's time to upgrade my account and give them support for all the work they're doing to track the hits to my site. It's real clear that having all that information about how many hits and where they are coming from is great feedback for bloggers. And yes there are other ways to get it - such as Google Analytics - but I like the format of what I get from Sitemeter.

I hope things get fixed soon.

Cottonwood - An Untapped Alaskan Resource

Every year as the cottonwood seeds burst open and litter our deck and yard, I wonder whether we couldn't find some ways to use the cotton.

Deirdre at Lifetecture has asked the same question:

I’ve been looking at the drifts on the streets and the white fuzz floating around, getting in peoples’ eyes and generally wasted. I wonder can this be harvested? It seems like it would make the most amazing kind of felt, even batting for insulation. I wonder if this has ever been done?

Sure, cottonwood will not replace oil as an economic stimulus (though maybe it could be used to absorb oil that spills), but little niche markets here and there could provide employment and income, just as people make money from birch syrup and musk ox wool.

Aside from the obvious pillow stuffing possibilities, what else could be done with cottonwood cotton?






This is just the collection on our deck on the morning of the first day of our trees starting to send forth their seeds. There's a nickle at 5 o'clock so you can see the size.













Coincidentally, BS invited me for a bike ride today and at the first stop on the old Seward Highway that is now a bike trail to Girdwood, I found this nature lesson - on cottonwoods.






The website halfbakery already has this suggestion for uses of cottonwood seeds posted. It begins:

Make clothing, fill comforters and pillows with cottonwood fibers.

While he's being tongue-in-cheek (the site is called halfbakery after all) others are more serious.






Someone actually mixed cottonwood (60%) with regular white cotton (40%).

After I had enough to skein I boiled it like one would regular cotton and then let it dry under some tension. It dried to a nice off-white, softer than regular hand spun cotton.
It worked up better than I thought it would!

(This site says you need permission of the author before reprinting the article. But at the bottom it said:

The copyright of the article Spinning Cottonwood in Fiber Arts is owned by . Permission to republish Spinning Cottonwood in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

No author was listed as you can see. I went through all the listed authors and each of their lists of articles (usually only one or two) and nobody claimed credit for this one. Nevertheless I only give you a bit of the post and you can see the whole post here. (She even links to the blanket she made)

Someone at Knittingirls has found uses for the buds.

And, if you could bottle the scent of the cottonwood buds when they open in the springtime, I'd surely wear it every day. It's not that I haven't tried. There seem to be a number of ways to do this (looking around online), but I make a salve by gathering the buds when they start to open, steep them in olive oil for up to a year, strain, and heat the oil while adding enough beeswax to make a salve, hardening some as it cools in the jar. We use it medicinally as an analgesic and anti-inflammatory. Apparently the buds have been used for sore throats and whooping cough, as well, by Native Americans and First Nations.

[Update: Anonymous left a link to a website that has a recipe for using the sticky, but oh so fragrant, leaf buds to make balm of gilead.]

And she used the catkins of a cottonwood tree to dye a shawl. (Yeah, I had to look up catkin too. Wikipedia says it's

a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated (anemophilous) but sometimes insect pollinated (as in Salix). They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged closely along a central stem which is often drooping. (look at the top two pictures on this post.)

There's a Cottonwood Baby Products that sells diapers but there's nothing to suggest that Cottonwood is anything more than their name. Same thing with Cottonwood Pallets.



The Utah State University Cooperative Extension site says that only the female trees have cotton and there's a product to prevent them from producing cotton:

Male clones of cottonwoods should not produce cotton- only the female trees produce the seeds ("cotton"). Sometimes you will hear of cottonless cottonwood trees later developing cotton but they were probably mislabeled. Some hybrid cottonwoods sold are listed as "sterile female hybrids." These are not cottonless because they are not male. The "sterile" refers to the fact that the seeds they produce are incapable of germinating. However, they still produce the cotton to distribute the seed. If you have a cottonwood that produces cotton and you don't want to cut it down, you can use Florel to prevent cotton development in female trees. You will need to check the label to see when to apply it.

For all the mess they make, would I really want to do that? I think not.

One site says cottonwood is the state tree of Kansas and Nebraska.


The Alaska fishing industry used to throw away the salmon roe until a visiting Japanese businessman saw what was going on and now someone makes lots of money selling salmon roe. While Alaska won't get rich from cottonwood, some families might be able to make a living. It just takes someone looking at what we see as a nuisance with a different eye, to find something useful. And we certainly have plenty of cottonwoods and cottonwood seeds.

[UPDATE June 1, 2014:  Here's a new post on how to prevent your cottonwood trees from spreading cotton.  It's probably not too practical for most people.]

[UPDATE Nov. 2, 2015:  Here's discussion at Permies in which Deb Berman offers a step by step description of how she spins cottonwood fibers.]

Anchorage Changes - Prov and Greek Corner and Bike Status

Riding a bike means you're going slower and can stop easily to check out the changing landscape. Last night (Monday,) coming home from the Bear Tooth we noticed - how could we not? - that Providence was tearing down its old building at 36th and La Touche. I think at one point it was part of the Neighborhood Health Center, but I'm not sure.(If you double click the pictures the get a little bigger.) This afternoon I passed it again. They got quite a bit more done today.




Also today, I noticed this sign on Northern Lights across from Blockbuster and PowerHouse Gym. Is Greek Corner moving? Or does the 's' on corner mean they will have two?
I called and they are moving. One of the few little restaurants in a building that has some bit of charm, and they are moving. Let's see how well they can Greek up this spot. Oh, and "late summer" means first week of September, but you know how well remodeling stays on schedule.

And I have to mention that the ADN had a front page story Sunday on roads that was mostly from the perspective of bike riders!!!!!!!

Rosemary Austin, author of "Mountain Bike Anchorage," commutes on a road bike from East Anchorage to her sales job at Paramount Cycles off Huffman Road. She said a number of state-owned roads are dangerous with dirt, gravel and glass. She often rides along the new Elmore Road, which has bike lanes, but the DOT told her it's not even on the list to clean.

"I don't want to get flat tires and I don't want to wash out in sand and gravel," Austin said.

Ann Reed, a cyclist who is eight months pregnant, took a spill Monday on a gravelly section of sidewalk on DeBarr Road at Pine Street. She was pulling a Chariot bike trailer with her toddler aboard.

She saw the gravel and slowed down, but it was so deep "there was no way I was not going to wipe out," she wrote in an e-mail. She broke her fall with her hand and was scraped up a bit but not really hurt, she said in an interview. The Chariot stayed upright and she thinks the baby she's expecting is fine.

Amazing. I've been bemoaning dirt and gravel since I've had my bike out. Northern Lights and Benson are HORRIBLE. Walmart, can't you clean up the sidewalk around your parking lot???!!! But they aren't the only ones. And that was followed up by an editorial Monday.

The state department of transportation has made a total hash of this year's contract for sweeping a winter's worth of sand and gravel off state roads and sidewalks in Anchorage. . .

This isn't just an aesthetic issue. Loose sand and gravel is a hazard to bicyclists on trails and streets. Road traffic stirs the winter leftovers into the air, making breathing more difficult for people with sensitive lungs. Heavy rains can wash the sediment into storm sewers, many of which empty into local streams. That's bad for stream life, since the sediment is tainted with oil, grease and heavy metals left behind by months of traffic.

It seems the DOT went for the lowest bidder - someone who doesn't have much experience doing this. (Maybe they know someone from church.) Nevertheless, a new world is dawning when a bike rider's point of view is a front page road story and editorial. Thanks ADN.

And when the State Department of Transportation gets some bike riders in positions of authority, maybe they'll remember bicycles when they contract for road cleaning as well as road design. But that's another post.

Hunger - and three other movies

I've been to four movies in the last ten days or so, but none of them moved me to write about them until tonight. Well that's not completely true. Examined Life was more than I was ready to write about. The other two, before tonight, less.

In a review for the Toronto Film Festival, Monika Bartyzel wrote about Examined Life: (Photo from the same link)

Throughout the course of 90 minutes, Cornel West, Peter Singer, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler with Sunaura Taylor, Avital Ronell, Michael Hardt, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Martha Nussbaum appear on-screen talking about modern philosophies and thought. To bring life and depth to each discussion, she films each in the midst of movement – whether it be a car ride through New York City, a walk through a park, or a conversation at a garbage dump. At times this works well, the environment feeding into the discussion, while other times, the movement and cuts to passerby distracts from the discussion. In these moments, as the camera trails off the speaker, it almost seems as if it’s bored by the words.

I noticed this constant movement - walking, boating, biking, in the back of a cab - too, and also how everything was in such an urban setting. Even the idyllic row boating scene was filled with buildings and other signs of ubanity. The people we'd suggested the movie to thought all the talking (even if they were also walking) heads were a bit slow. What does it mean that all the philosophers are in urban settings most of the time? J and I enjoyed the movie. We knew of a couple of the philosophers and it was good to hear them all in their own words. But our daughter is studying philosophy so we're biased. I couldn't help but feel, I must know more about philosophy than I realized, or these guys have dumbed it down so far that I didn't get any totally new ideas - except for the garbage guy who thinks we should consume more. So I'll let you click on the link to the review above if you want to know more.


Away We Go was a slick Hollywood movie with some funny lines. Of the three generations who went, my son liked it the most and my mom and I (this was while I was in LA) thought it was . . . ok. Thirty somethings trying to figure out what to do with their lives. I know lots of people are crazy about David Eggars, but reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius didn't inspire me to read any of his later books. It was easy to believe he wrote this film.

Then Sunday night we saw Micky Bo & Me at the musuem. (This was our first visit since the opening. I took pictures from outside for a later post, trying to figure out how much of the new addition really is just stairwell.) Neither of us got into the movie. The two young kids - one a Catholic and the other a Protestant - growing up in Belfast fancied themselves as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and were not particularly sympathetic - particularly Micky. One could say he played his role well, but he wasn't a kid I'd want to be around.

Then tonight, at the Bear Tooth we saw Hunger. When the credits began rolling and it said Northern Ireland, I was fearful after last night's movie. But then Steve McQueen built up a hugely powerful film through the meticulous study of details, slowly watched through the camera, interspersed with sudden acts of brutality. We see a close up of the prison guard - we don't know that at the time - buttoning his shirt. The camera pans along a crack in the ceiling, slowly, then down the wall. These are long shots, but they are perfect.

I got irritated at the woman next to me who began talking as we watched an orderly mop up the piss and disinfectant the prisoners pour out into the hallway under the doors of their cells. (OK, the orderly added the disinfectant.) He starts way down at the end of the hallway and we watch him work the liquid across the floor all the way down the hall. I was mesmerized until that lady started talking. She might have thought nothing was happening, but everything was happening. We were in prison time where even this was an event that breaks the monotony. The visuals were spectacular in their plainness. They showed nothing and everything. And the music, so low keyed that I really didn't consciously notice it until the credits mentioned it, but I recognized that it had been there all the time. A movie like this reminds me why the other three didn't inspire me to write anything.

This interview with the director Steve McQueen may give a clue why the movie is so powerful:

I honestly don't know about making any more films - I'm not that passionate about it, I'm not in love with the medium, to be honest. Creativity ought to be about ideas, I believe, not the medium that it serves. I think that I am, basically, going to find it extremely hard to find a story which involves me and energises me, and about which I can feel completely passionate. I don't know. We'll see. It's a definite ‘maybe'. I've now got a Hollywood agent - but I don't think that they'll be hearing a lot from me!

"So you won't find me working for a major studio, be very certain of that. It's not about money - it's about being asked to compromise, and that's one thing that I never ever do! Never. I want to have my own say on the final cut and look of any film that has my name on it - what's the point, otherwise?"

The main character in the movie - hunger striker Bobby Sands (played by Michael Fassbender) - is equally uncompromising. In one remarkable scene, we see Bobby and a priest, sitting at a table, backlighted, as they argue the ethics and practicality of a hunger strike. Both men passionately arguing their cause. McQueen says in the interview he wanted it like a tennis match, back and forth. But I think with them sitting there at the table, it was more like a chess game as they moved arguments across the board.

This is a movie! I hope McQueen finds more stories he can get passionate about. And yes, it raises prison issues that are relevant today, but the movie itself, without any of that, is powerful.

I can't embed the trailer, but you can go here to see it. Listen to the sound. And no this is NOT a children's movie. There's a fair bit of nudity and violence.

Sex in the Sun - Shameless Blog Pandering

Midnight Soapscum Year 2 Episode 2 - Live Original Stage Serial in Anchorage

[If you want to avoid my way too long and highly tangential intro, you can go straight to my comments on the performance.]

Where else can you see live stage serials? I'm sure they must be out there, but Google didn't help. I did find videos of Pakistani stage shows - the Urdu language shows didn't work, but the Punjabi ones did. But I'm not sure these are serials or television or live stage.

I found a blog post about writing in serial form, even writing a serial on her blog, but despite the post title "Writing on Stage: Coming to terms with serial writing" I couldn't find any stages in the post.

And then I got this:

STAGE 4: CREATING A SERIALS PREDICTION & ISSUE
Now that Horizon knows how many copies of a serial you take, how often the serial should be claimed and who your vendor is, you can now create a prediction pattern and set an issue to begin the prediction pattern with.
1. Use Item Search/F2 to bring up the item search box and search for the relevant journal.
2. Send to/F10 the title to ‘Serials Control’.
3. Ensure the correct copy for your location has been selected and click the Prediction button located along the bottom of the window

Then there's Todd's Serial Blog and his other blog Todd Gault's Serial Experience. Both seem to be about movie serials.

I found a post by a young Indian actor looking for work on Cinechance that seems to be an electronic classified section for actors to find work in India.

About Myself :

hi guyz ,m vikram frm delhi.m 21 yrs of age nd graduating. i hav worked in serials for dd "do behne" , & "kabhi dhoop kabhi choan" both directed by reputed director "mr shiv kumar".also done one ad film for india tv. i love to act nd travel..........[emphasis added][And before you make fun of his written English, his bio says he also speaks Hindi and Punjabi]

And I learned from StageNews that

The BBC’s drama production department has announced a restructure of its senior staff, with head of series and serials Kate Harwood promoted to the role of controller of series and serials.

But that's television and radio.


I also learned that there is a software called live theater:

Live Theater 1.2 description
Live Theater - with the help of the software Live Theater TM you will be able to arrange the live broadcast from theater, TV etc. to a wider range of the Internet audience.

It is highly recommended to use broadband Internet connection for using Live Theater.

Here are some key features of "Live Theater":

· Broadcasting of live streaming video over Internet from any possible external video signal sources (video camera, web camera, video capture card etc.).
· Re-broadcasting over Internet of any source of TV signal, digital and analog.
· Broadcasting of the prerecorded video files.
· The areas of use are not restricted by the above mentioned. Live Theater can be used for any other purpose of brodcasting [sic] streaming video over Internet.
· The main advantage of Live Theater is ability of broadcasting of high-quality video without purchasing the expensive hardware and password protection from watching by an unauthorized user.

One problem I had with 'live theater' was that it monopolized the google hits for that search term.

So why all this esoteric trivia? Because I was trying to find out how unique Christian Heppinstall's Midnight Soapscum production at Out North is. Just because I can't find anything about live theatrical serials doesn't mean someone isn't doing them. After all, I didn't find Soapscum googling variations of stage/theater/serials/ etc. either. But given the obstacles to producing a play a week, I bet it's not happening too many places.


Christian's first run of Midnight Soapscum was a live, theatrical serial about a centenarian Russian emigre and her porn studio empire in San Francisco and it first ran over a couple of months in Spring 2007.

And now it's back - five new episodes of Midnight Soapscum. This time the subtitle is: Goes To Hell.

Just the idea is pretty amazing. Live, original episodes, performed weekly, with local talent. Christian's cranking out an hour and a half of material a week! And it's good! It moves along, it's funny, and the acting is first rate.

Think of this as Saturday Night Live as a political sitcom performed on stage before a live audience. No broadcasting. No huge budget.

Christian not only writes and directs Soapscum, he also stars as Svetlana Smirnov. That's him as Smirnov in the poster. He uses the episodes to comment on a wide variety of current issues and personalities. [Update: Christian emailed me to say that he's not directing this time. Jon Minton is. Sorry Jon.]

This year's incarnation takes place days before the 2008 election and the focus is on whether Smirnov is going to support Proposition 8. Characters include, besides various porn actors from the studio, Marie and Donny Osmond, Todd and Sarah Palin, a terrorist chained in the basement who turns out to be Osama Bin Laden, Barack Obama, four amazing aliens, and a slew of others.



Here, the Palins are plotting. . . well, I can't quite remember what they were plotting. The script takes so many twists and turns. The guy in the tie is Obama.









The cast is so big they could have a full house even if there was no audience. And I suspect they'd have almost as good a time without an audience. The second person in red with the two story blond wig, sitting above the cast on the right[left - somewhere between third grade and a couple of years ago I knew the difference between left and right], is NOT Svetlana, but the narrator who keeps the audience appraised (and well behaved) of what all is happening between scenes. She also had the list of all the characters and named them before and after the show. But I didn't write them all down and there was no program.


But is it any good? The acting is good and considering they didn't have a lot of time to learn the script - and they have a new one next week - I don't remember any flubs. The jokes would be funny to liberals but it might get tedious for conservatives. The people we were with thought it was a bit too long - partly, I think because it doesn't start until 10:30pm and it ended just past midnight. Considering what they were trying to pull off and their low budget, I thought it was amazing. (I have two standards. One is an absolute standard. The other is based on quality/cost. This one did pretty well on the absolute standard and would have swept the Tony's on quality/cost.)

And we have it here in Anchorage at Out North (you can buy tickets online) for three more episodes. And don't worry if you missed the first two episodes, it doesn't matter, trust me.

Christian has a pretty strong background in theater. I met him when he took some public administration classes with me. But he already had a masters in theater and had performed and/or directed in San Francisco, New York, and Budapest where he lived for several years. He's also the director for the Anchorage Theater of Youth and has been active in HIV/AIDS education. He's bright and aware and it shows in Soapscum.

Bent Alaska has the details of when the other episodes will be presented.

Baby Burke Brouhaha

I've been pondering this week's brouhaha over the picture of Baby Eddie Burke in Sarah Palin's arms. While I enjoy satire, I also feel that political humor generally feeds the faithful and ticks off the targets. Only brilliant satire has the possibility of changing the minds of the committed.

Looking at the picture, I didn't realize it was Eddie Burke's face and it was only after I read the explanations that I got the point. I certainly wasn't going to post the picture and I figured I'd stay out of the discussion altogether. But then the Governor's spokesperson, Meghan Stapleton, released a statement (copied here from Conservatives4Palin) (If the picture is so terrible why did C4P post it on their own website? You can see it at the link.)

Recently we learned of a malicious desecration of a photo of the Governor and baby Trig that has become an iconic representation of a mother's love for a special needs child.

The mere idea of someone doctoring the photo of a special needs baby is appalling. To learn that two Alaskans did it is absolutely sickening. Linda Kellen Biegel, the official Democrat Party blogger for Alaska, should be ashamed of herself and the Democratic National Committee should be ashamed for promoting this website and encouraging this atrocious behavior.

Babies and children are off limits. It is past time to restore decency in politics and real tolerance for all Americans. The Obama Administration sets the moral compass for its party. We ask that special needs children be loved, respected and accepted and that this type of degeneracy be condemned.

Paragraph 1:

Recently we learned of a malicious desecration of a photo of the Governor and baby Trig that has become an iconic representation of a mother's love for a special needs child.(emphasis added.)

Desecration. Merriam Webster's online dictionary isn't too helpful:

: an act or instance of desecrating : the state of being desecrated

But you can link to desecrate:

1 : to violate the sanctity of : PROFANE
2 : to treat disrespectfully, irreverently, or outrageously

And sanctity?

1: holiness of life and character : godliness
2 a: the quality or state of being holy or sacred : inviolability
b plural : sacred objects, obligations, or rights

So there is a religious etymology to this word, but it has come to be used in other contexts as well. But then Stapleton also uses the term "iconic representation of a mother's love. . ."

Back to the dictionary:

Icon

1: a usually pictorial representation : image
2 [Late Greek eikōn, from Greek] : a conventional religious image typically painted on a small wooden panel and used in the devotions of Eastern Christians
3: an object of uncritical devotion : idol
4: emblem, symbol
5 a: a sign (as a word or graphic symbol) whose form suggests its meaning
b: a graphic symbol on a computer display screen that usually suggests the type of object represented or the purpose of an available function

Using both desecration and iconic image in one sentence strongly suggests to me that there was either intentional manipulation to give this a religious spin, or that Palin's staff are so steeped in religion that they think in those terms and just write this sort of language naturally. Here's my picture (from talaria) of an iconic image of a mother and child.


Paragraph 2:

The mere idea of someone doctoring the photo of a special needs baby is appalling. To learn that two Alaskans did it is absolutely sickening. Linda Kellen Biegel, the official Democrat Party blogger for Alaska, should be ashamed of herself and the Democratic National Committee should be ashamed for promoting this website and encouraging this atrocious behavior.

Why is a special needs baby, in this case, any different from any baby? Why are they continuing to emphasize that this is a special needs baby? It's like saying "this is my black friend' as opposed to just "my friend." What's the point? If Biegel had 'doctored' a picture of a 'normal' baby, would that have been ok? What if they had photoshopped the baby out completely and used a different baby in the picture? Would that have been ok? Or what if she had put Palin's face over Mary's in the icon and Burke's over the baby Jesus'? Would that have been ok?

Because here the outrage all seems to be that someone would make fun of a special needs baby. And as I see this picture, it's aimed at parodying Burke's and Palin's close relationship. Palin doesn't complain about Burke's degrading comments about women and he seems to be infatuated with Palin. The emphasis on 'special needs' seems to be Stapleton's effort to remind people that Palin is indeed an icon of motherhood because she kept her special needs baby. As if such a baby is less than a 'normal' baby and keeping it shows Palin's holiness. (Hey, I could be totally wrong. But at least I pose my comments as possible interpretations, while the tone of Stapleton's release suggests there can be no other interpretation than hers.)

And why is it more sickening that Alaskans did this? Are Alaskans supposed to give Palin more respect than other people? It seems people who are most affected by Palin have the most responsibility to closely monitor her actions as governor.

And I have to note the use of the term "Democrat Party." This is a way you can tell a Republican, sort of like catching a Canadian from her pronunciation of the word "out." As I understand it, using Democrat Party was a conscious Republican effort to denigrate the Democratic Party by replacing the official name with one that sounded harsher. I didn't find a good credible citation, but you can see a discussion of the issue here.

Paragraph 3:

Babies and children are off limits. It is past time to restore decency in politics and real tolerance for all Americans. The Obama Administration sets the moral compass for its party. We ask that special needs children be loved, respected and accepted and that this type of degeneracy be condemned."

First, when was there decency in American politics? If I recall my history, things were pretty wild in Jefferson's day. If a politician uses the kids to pump up his image, but the image the candidate is portraying is misleading, then the kids are fair game. Bristol's unwed motherhood was announced by Palin. If a blogger had announced the pregnancy before Palin did it would have been a disaster, so she really had to do it. But the irony of the pregnancy, given Palin's stand on abstinence-only-education, is certainly newsworthy. Picking on a baby's behavior makes no sense since a baby is not responsible. On the other hand, the baby is totally unaware of the debate. And despite Stapleton's take on this, I don't see the picture as being about the baby.

OK, I do understand Stapleton's plea to Obama to somehow censor Linda. After all, among the Republicans, especially in the Bush2 years, everyone was expected to toe the party line. Obviously, from the Republican perspective, if they assume the Democrats are the same, Linda doesn't say anything without approval from the Oval Office. And if she does, she should be edged out. . Well, that image of Democrats is a joke.


To a certain extent, I find the constant attacks on Palin by fellow bloggers to be borderline reasonable. The pointing out of ethical violations - even those that are rejected by Palin's favorite review board - is certainly reasonable. The bloggers do not have access to all the available information and may not be able to prove the violation, but at least these things should be pursued if there is reasonable evidence. Think of all the trouble that might have been avoided if bloggers had been poking into the relationships between Bill Allen and various legislators early on.

What I find less appealing are the snarky comments about clothing and behavior. But that's part of the American tradition of politics and the media. When Palin was on the Bob and Mark radio show, she laughed when they called cancer survivor and political rival Lyda Green a "cancer" and a "bitch." And I recall Palin being the attack dog in the McCain campaign. So let's cut out the crocodile tears here.


One More Thing

To put the religious tone of the first paragraph into context, we can look at the language of Ahmad Khamani from a Reuters article:

ISLAMIC LAW

Ahmad Khatami, a member of the powerful Assembly of Experts, said the judiciary should charge leading "rioters" as "mohareb" or one who wages war against God.

"I want the judiciary to ... punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson," Khatami told worshippers at Tehran University on Friday.

"They should be punished ruthlessly and savagely," he said. Under Iran's Islamic law, punishment for people convicted as "mohareb" is execution.

He too is equating the demonstrators' behavior to desecration. At least Khamani is a religious leader and an official of a religious nation. That may be Palin's dream, but so far it isn't the case.

Mr. Wisples Lost and Found

Every now and then I allot myself about 30 minutes (whatever the timer on my watch is set for) to check out sites through Stumbleupon. Today I saw this poster: (It's in the middle of the page, best to "find in page" for Mr. Wisples)


I'm sure I saw that cloud yesterday hovering over Fred Meyer at Old Seward Highway and Benson.


Yes, I know it's not as plump as the one on the poster, but if you drifted all the way up to Anchorage from Hyperion Avenue, you wouldn't be as plump when you got here either. Now I just need to find a carrier pigeon.

Some Context of Holier Than Thou Types

From today's Anchorage Daily News:


From today's New York Times article on Governor Sanford:

But other senior Republican strategists and leaders said they were concerned that their party’s large segment of evangelical voters makes the party more vulnerable to political damage from scandal, especially when it involves politicians like Mr. Sanford and Mr. Ensign, who had both been harshly critical of the infidelities of former President Bill Clinton and others.

From a Wiki on Republican Sex Scandals we see a long list of politicians who have been involved in sex scandals. Granted that many were involved in state and local level politics, a number on this list (without having looked at further details of each) are said to have been particularly vocal against the sexual misdeeds of others. For example:

Matthew Glavin, president and CEO of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, big player in the Clinton Impeachment, and many anti-gay jihads, has been arrested multiple times for public indecency, one time fondling the crotch of the officer who was arresting him.[102]

The link gives us a longer article that begins with another fallen angel:

It had been a tough two weeks for anti-gay Republican moralists. First, John Paulk, the leader of the bogus Ex-Gay movement was caught frolicking in a Washington, D.C. gay bar.

And then goes on to talk about Glavin:

The Atlanta Journal Constitution notes that Glavin’s Southeastern Legal Foundation has been active in anti-gay crusades as well, helping the Boy Scouts "fend off a court challenge to their anti-gay posture," and leading "a charge against an Atlanta City Hall initiative to provide insurance and other benefits to same-sex partners."

The wiki also got me to other links like this news story:

With the Mark Foley scandal still troubling Republicans, one of the nation's top evangelical leaders is now accused of paying for gay sex. Heading into Tuesday's election, when voters in eight states will decide on gay marriage bans, liberals and some conservatives are saying the party that prides itself on family values has a hypocrisy problem.

Ted Haggard, a staunch foe of gay marriage and occasional participant in White House conference calls, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and head of his Colorado church following allegations he met monthly with a gay prostitute for three years. Haggard denies having sex with the man, but admits receiving a massage and buying methamphetamine.

Five weeks ago, Foley -- a vocal advocate for exploited children -- resigned from Congress because of sexually tinged messages to male pages. Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Pa., a married father of three, has been burdened by revelations about his five-year affair with a mistress who says he physically abused her.

On tedhaggard.com, the former evangelist has a lengthy "healing overview" in which he refers to these events as "my personal crisis" or "my incongruity." The closest he comes to spelling things out is when he discusses what

...the Overseers, who were a group of 4 pastors from outside New Life Church that were given authority by the church bylaws to investigate alleged misconduct on the part of the Senior Pastor and, after their investigations, discipline or remove the Senior Pastor...

imposed on him after he "confessed my sins to them and resigned all of my positions."

Included in this list of requirements in addition to leaving the state of Colorado and other prohibitions was that he

not engage in any sexually immoral behavior.

That's as close as he gets to suggesting what his 'incongruity' was about. We have to look elsewhere to get the specifics.

Since being fired as pastor of New Life Church amid a gay-sex and drugs scandal, the Rev. Ted Haggard has discovered he's "completely heterosexual."

The Rev. Tim Ralph, senior pastor for New Covenant Fellowship in Larkspur, told The Denver Post on Monday that Haggard's homosexual activity appears to be limited to Denver male escort Mike Jones, who said he and Haggard had a three-year sexual relationship.

The fact that I can't find nearly as extensive a list of Democratic sex scandals (Top Ten Democrat Sex Scandals in Congress shows up a few times) doesn't mean that Democrats are having less extra sex I'm sure. And I can't believe that Republicans aren't capable of making lists of Democratic transgressors. I suspect it's more about Democrats being less committed to sexual purity than Republicans. For Republicans, in addition to the sex, there is often the contrast to their strong 'morality' stance.

"The attention focused on these cases will inescapably lead people to think about these people's hypocrisy," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "They make a career out of defaming gay people and preaching family values, when it's clear that it's just a veneer." (from Truthout)

When people focus so strongly on demonizing people over their sexual practices, one wonders what they themselves are trying to hide. Is the lashing out at others a way of projecting punishment for their own desires or guilt? Is it 'just a veneer?" I'm sure for some that is the case. What drives the others to such extremes?

Jerry, how about a heart to heart about your gay phobia. Or is it just that you found it stirs up the fears of your flock and they open their wallets when you cry "Gay?"

New Respect for People Doing Physical Therapy

Before Doonesbury disappeared from the editorial page and became so tiny and hidden among the other cartoons that I almost need a magnifying glass to read it, I had followed B.D.'s struggle through physical therapy. But I never really appreciated the psychological struggle people go through, taking at faith that pushing their bodies this way and that will eventually get you back into order. Or at least better, enough better to be worth the effort and pain.











My injury is tiny and almost inconsequential. Nevertheless, working towards getting full, normal use of my finger is giving me a new respect for the work and will needed to do much more significant therapy - learning to walk, learning to talk again, etc. I've been doing the exercises that I posted a month ago. I can almost make a fist now, but the bad finger still doesn't curl all the way in. My main knuckle on that finger is still fat and that finger has a distinct downward bend to it.

The therapist left town right after I saw her. And then I was out of town. So I finally got back in to see her.


So, to stretch my finger further so I can eventually make a tight fist again, I'm supposed to wrap my finger like this and pull it as tight as I can for 15 minute periods, three times a day.

But after that time, it hurts like hell when I try to straighten it out. And all this concentration on bending has postponed dealing with the fact that I can't totally straighten out the finger.

So now I have this gadget which bends my finger in the opposite direction. And when I take this thing off, it hurts to bend the other way.

The therapist wouldn't make any predictions, but 'two months' did slip out of her mouth. I'm not holding my breath, just my finger, in various contorted positions.

And I'm not complaining, just observing. My problems are minuscule.