Sick kids, sick government

I can't stand it. Current Occupant can say with a straight face that we cannot afford to pay the paltry $12 billion to cover poor children because they aren't really poor (yup, he did say that) and besides, we just can't afford it.

But it's fine to spend untold zillions on a war that is achieving absolutely nothing. The only people that are gaining from the adventure in Iraq are the non-bid contractors and private security firms. Otherwise, it's a total waste. But that is OK with George. And he has the gall to have his minions in the defense department ask for even more, 'cause we all know that throwing money at a problem is the way to solve it, right?

Am I missing something here?

Fall

This is my favorite season. This, rather than January 1st, seems to herald the start of the New Year for me. Maybe it's the school thing. Maybe it's the lovely weather. A lone goose flew overhead this evening, very low, trying to find its way back to the flock moving down the Mississippi flyway. It was honking furiously as it sought its fellow travellers.

Catless after all these years

Judy the cat died on Thursday evening. She had been off-feed for two days, but continued to drink water. Her head congestion was worse. Then she apparently had a stroke, as her back legs didn't work for a half day before her death. While we were watching TV in the evening, she came down, or fell down, the stairs, cried a few times, and died within ten minutes. OLGS (and I must admit, I, too) was touched by the thought that she wanted to be with us in her last moments.

It's amazing how still a dead body is. The notion that people are not dead, but only sleeping until the last judgment, must have been developed by someone who hadn't seen many or any dead bodies.

We are now catless for the first time in more than 30 years. It will be a while before we can replace them. Judy was a mighty huntress, even in her later years, although her victims got smaller and smaller. She seemed to specialize in baby rabbits. It was awful.

She was also amazingly sociable. At her last event, the neighborhood cookout on Labor Day, she sat in front of the grill, oblivious to the 25 people milling around. She was clearly waiting for something meaty to fall to the ground; she was very patient. We finally had to move her out of the line of traffic. She loved parties and being the center of attention.

She was a smart, smart cat. She had us eating out of the palm of her paw. We fed her shrimp, sour cream, and other tidbits. The boys loved her, especially Joe College Grad. He spent several hours patting and grooming her the day before she died. She went to the great catfood factory in the sky with an excellent fur coat.

Minneapolis Bridge Disaster

They opened up the 10th Avenue Bridge, which runs parallel to the 35W Bridge that collapsed in August. This has the best vantage point of the collapsed bridge, and today there were hundreds of people walking on it, staring at the mangled rebar, chunks of concrete, and the long span that runs at a 75 degree angle from University Avenue down to the Mississippi. It looks like a massive skateboard park for really good skaters.

The 10th Avenue Bridge sidewalk was full of families, either on their way back from the Gophers football game (they won) or visiting the kids on the first weekend after the start of the semester. An odd destination for a family outing, but it is a compelling view. From one angle, the bridge just stops. But from the 10th Avenue side, you are about 200 feet from the structure. You can see very clearly that the bridge does not stop, but continues down into the muddy waters of the Mississippi. It's rather chilling.

And now that the 10th Avenue Bridge is open, I can get to my gig at the University libraries much more quickly.

Back to School

Here it is again. This calendar has governed my whole life, spent on the periphery of academe as it has been. OLGS started today, although he had no classes. But he did have 45 freshmen advisees. Joe High School and Joe College also started today. Joe High School has a schedule that includes two classes he's already taken before. They don't have the teachers and sections at Minneapolis South High to give him what he requested, but I will not allow him to take classes he's already taken. I can't begin to spell out how stupid that is. Joe College seems on track, although the AFSCME staff at the U of M are planning to strike on Wednesday. I've urged him to buy his books, but he hasn't. So unless they settle tonight, he (and 49,999 other students) is out of luck.

And so it goes, Academe is not a bad life, as such things go. But OLGS does not recommend it to either his students or his sons. Especially in public institutions, the urge to justify the educational activities of the place to the yahoos who provide the funding has lead to some truly nutso stuff. And the mossback legislators, all of whom benefitted from atending schools like the University of Wisconsin or the University of Minnesota, seem to feel that now that they and their children are out of college, it's OK to turn off the spiggot. Not surprising, but sad for the community, the state, and the country.

Minneapolis Airport

Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune

It's hard to contain myself. Senator Slimy, aka Larry Craig, was caught trolling for sex in a men's room in the Minneapolis airport. Seems ol' Larry comes through the Twin Cities regularly on his way back to Idaho to service (ahem) his constituents. He knew exactly where to go. What the Star Tribune and other fine journalistic organs did not tell you is that the location of this men's room is really not on the way to any gate. It's in the main concourse right outside security. If you just landed from Washington and you need to transfer to Boise or Pocatello, it's a good bet that you don't need to walk through the main concourse.

So, Star Tribune, get on the stick. Find out what Larry's flight numbers and gates were. And, while you're at it, tell us why you didn't break this story in June or July. Have the cuts made in the Strib reporting staff been so severe that you aren't able to have someone review the court cases for newsworthy and titillating stuff? You were scooped by a Washington insider paper.

That the airport uses its security resources to have an officer spending his shift in the men's room, sitting on the toilet and reading the paper, is a sad commentary on so many things that I don't know where to begin. But having a moralistic, gay bashing, conservative being caught with his pants down, so to speak, is too good to be true.

And Alberto Gonzales is no doubt thanking his lucky stars, if he has any, that Americans don't really care about substantive matters. Sex scandals trump violating the Constitution every time.

Minneapolis arts scene

There's a reason I won't live in Washington County, Maine, full time. It's certainly beautiful. But I'm a culture junky. And Minneapolis is a great place to indulge that particular weakness. It's affordable, accessible, and middle of the road enough to appeal to bourgeois types like myself.

Exhibit A: I spent 15 minutes figuring out our obligtions this fall and into the spring. We have a performance of some sort every other week. And that's with three sets of season tickets. And there is a little break in January. We have two sets of theater company tickets and one set of chamber orchestra tickets--the Park Square Theater, the Guthrie Theater, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. It's a bargain that we can share with our kids--if we can't go, they can. And this doesn't take into account the free tickets that Joe High School receives as a result of his attendance at an inner city high school.

For less than $900 per year, OLGS and I can see world class performances of musicians and actors. And if you're not as snobbish as I am, you can see far more for far less. That is one of the primary reasons that I would prefer to live in Minnesota during the opera season, although I've been to the Minnesota Opera twice. But it's the thought that counts and the realty that matters.

You can't get there from here, or Minneapolis cleans up

Three miles of Interstate 94 are closed in downtown Minneapolis for the weekend. This stretch connects I-35W, where the bridge collapsed, with County Highway 280, which is now one of the official detours. The highway gnomes are widening it (i.e., eliminating the breakdown and bus lanes) so that it can handle all the extra traffic caused by the need to manoeuver around the missing 35-W bridge.

It is amazing how fast highway construction crews can move when they really have to. Even though it's been raining all day, they are at work. Last night, we were in one of the last cars onto I-94 before it closed until Monday at 5 AM. The westbound side, already closed, was ablaze with huge floodlights and busy with activity as workers knocked down fences, uprooted metal barriers, and painted new lines.

In normal circumstances, this project would take a whole summer. But because there is no alternative, and traffic has been a total mess for three weeks, it will be done by Monday. Makes one think, yes?

When children return

Joe College Grad and girlfriend moved to Minneapolis. It was a saga getting them out of NYC--Joe College drove to New York, helped them pack, and drove them back to the Little Apple. They are looking for jobs and an apartment while they live upstairs with Joe High School, who had been looking forward to spreading out into the empty rooms and having the bathroom all to himself. My deadline for them is September 1, and it is fast approaching, with little movement on either the job or the apartment front.

They seem depressed, adrift, and without a well-thought-out plan. The skills required to get through the University of Chicago or teach first grade in the Bronx do not seem to translate to the real world. Joe's girl has never been outside New York. So this move represents many challenges for her. Let's hope the whole enterprise works.

Washington County, Maine

View of Lubec from West Quoddy Station

West Quoddy Lighthouse

Dennys River, Dennysville

OLGS and I (and an old school friend who joined us at the last minute), visited Washington County, Maine, the easternmost county in the United States. We went to eat lobster, soak up some of the amazing light, and see whether we wanted to buy or build a second home for our sunset years. Those are fast approaching....

The trip was a disaster as far at getting there was concerned, all thanks to Northwest Airlines. We missed the connection in Detroit because of weather, and couldn't even get to Bangor until 11:00 PM, so went to Portland instead and drove to Bangor. Coming home, we landed in Minneapolis 30 minutes early, and then sat on the runway for 40 minutes because lightning at the airport pulled all the jetway and ground crew workers inside. And they lost our luggage on the inbound leg of the trip.

Frustrating, but being delayed did give us a chance to eat at the Eagle's Nest in Brewer. There are large people eating large portions of food, all enjoying the nice view of the Penobscot River. We saw no eagles, but we did see some otters or muskrats swimming against the tide--if such animals actually venture into salt water. Dinner was really, really, good. The menu calls the lobster roll the "famous" lobster roll. It is deservedly famous.

We had lobster every day while in Maine. Interestingly, the best was in Brewer at the Eagle's Nest and on our way home, in Hallowell, Maine, near the state capital in Augusta. There we had some really good lobster stew. Both Bangor and Hallowell are interior cities, and not on the coast. And did I mention that we stayed in the Coast Guard station near the lighthouse?

Washington County is very poor, as it has been since the lumber industry moved west to Wisconsin and Minnesota. Half of the land and buildings are for sale. This makes it good for folks from away, like ourselves. They need our money; we need their lobster and their light and their access to the sea, which is all around them. And in the real estate agent's office, when we acknowledged we were from Minnesota, we received an outpouring of sadness for the victims of the bridge.

Minneapolis Disaster

From the Guardian

It's hard to write about. An interstate bridge less than two miles from my house, and one that I drive on at least weekly, collapsed during rush hour. An unknown (as of 8/2/07) number of people died; there are still cars at the bottom of the Mississippi River. Witnesses said it was like an earthquake--there was a vibration, a grinding noise, and the structure collapsed with no warning.

I don't personally know anyone who was on the bridge, was injured, or died. But I did talk with one colleague whose husband drove on the bridge an hour before it collapsed. She was shaken. Another co-worker sent out an email about a colleague of her husband's who is missing after the accident; if he has died, he leaves behind four children and a wife who is an East African immigrant. My immediate supervisor has a friend whose fiancee was critically injured; the boss left work at noon to go to the hospital to be with his friend.

Why do we have to have disasters like this for anyone to pay attention to the needs and safety of ordinary citizens driving from work, to a Twins game (they lost), or to the shops? It's a cliche, but we are apparently quite willing and able to spend billions in Iraq and elsewhere on imperialist adventures, but we cannot find the resources to repair bridges at a few million each. This is just nuts. And now we will spend lots of money to inspect interstate bridges throughout the country. This strikes me as a case of closing the barn door after the horse has gone.

Despite the posturing of our governor, it was heartwarming to hear the voices of Minnesotans, with their unmistakable accents, talking to the national media. They were earnest, sincere, and wanted to help. Why can't we do this all the time?

Elegy for a tom cat

Tom the cat died yesterday. The heat, his advanced age, and his off-the-charts hyperthyroidism got the better of him. His last few days were miserable. He now rests under a huge white impatiens plant in the flower bed where he spent most of his last summer days and nights, curled up on the wood chips in the shade.

He was a noble beast, huge in his prime, with a lion's big head and powerful shoulders. In his youth he was impetuous, taking on fights that always left him with wounds in his flanks, which some might see as evidence of cowardice, but that I saw as proof of his innate common sense. When he was outnumbered or outgunned, he ran.

He was never a great hunter, leaving that chore, as do his big cat cousins, to his sister. He guarded the perimeter of our house, fending off marauding visitors from across the street in endless stare-downs and with an inch-by-inch plan of attack that wore them down. At times he was more like a dog, wanting to be with people, following them around and begging for love. And he was more accepting than his sister when we took in a stray during a -30 degree spell one January. He was happy to ignore the interloper as long as the gravy train was still running in his direction. Until his last months, when his voice failed him, he had a loud croak that sounded like a cross between a Siamese and a crow. It was unmistakable.

He was a great cat who gave us 16 years of cat loyalty. In a species not known for this, at least among dog lovers, that's really something.

Sweet Sixteen

Remember the summer you were 16? I don't. Was that the summer I went to England by myself, or was it the summer before? Did I visit any of my out of town friends? Can't remember. And I suspect Joe High School won't either. What has he done this summer?

1. Been to swim practice twice.
2. Taken the classroom part of driver's ed.
3. Expanded his living space to two rooms, now that Luis has returned to Mexico.
4. Taken care of a couple of cats, plants, etc., for pay.
5. Lost his bike lock, rendering him immobile.
6. Gotten his ear pierced.
7. Bought the last Harry Potter at midnight on July 21st.

Looking at the list, it strikes me that he is probably typical, although maybe a bit more slothful than some. He is poised on the cusp of adulthood, but still reads Harry Potter. Of course, as soon as he's done, I'm going to read it, too. Just because I can't remember my youth doesn't mean I don't want to revisit it.

College Frenzy

It's started. Joe High School got his results from the AP tests he took this year--one in Chemistry, the other in US History. While we don't brag here at Domestic Tranquility, suffice it to say that he could use the scores for credit or exemption from prerequisites at Columbia or Princeton or Stanford. However, there's the little problem of his GPA in an inner city high school.

Pillsbury Hall, U of M

And an old friend is bringing his kid to check out a couple of local lights in the private college pantheon--Macalester and Carleton. Both good schools. But Joe, with a GPA barely scraping the top 15%, would probably not get in to either, despite the AP test results. These aren't the golden key they once were. But maybe lightening will strike. And it doesn't stop my bursting with pride at my baby's achievement.

Boomer blues

So much going on. Elderly dad not doing so well. Elderly mom coping, but exhausted. Young adult children need money, apparently supporting friends. Enabling sandwich generation parents wondering what to do. Anxiety producing times, but a story duplicated by the millions across the country as baby boomers finally come to grips with reality.

But what's truly amazing is the behavior of the two chief boomers, George and Dick. How can any sane person think that war with Iran would be a good thing, let alone something we could actually win? How does anyone accept with a straight face the juggling that is Dick's characterization of his position as VP not being part of the executive branch? How can one see George as anything more than a cardboard suit when he supports his master's maneuverings in public? And how can anyone see the commutation of ol' Scooter's sentence as anything more than payback for keeping mum?

And this was very, very clever. Scooter was not pardoned, and his conviction is being appealed. This means that he will not be able to testify before Congress for some time--maybe through 2008, because of the pending appeal. If everything goes correctly for George and Dick, the wheels of justice will grind exceeding slow. And the two chief boomers will leave their offices having avoided the reckoning that is surely theirs. It's enough to make one hope that Armageddon is real.

And it's clear from their actions and speach that Mutt and Jeff smoked a little too much wacky weed in those wonderful days gone by. We know that George indulged. We now have pretty clear evidence that Dick was a pothead too, leaving him with only a few brain cells to use to function as Veep. Too bad he didn't smoke more.