Catch up

For anyone reading:

Our house was broken into in April, and stuff was stolen. It sucked. We're still picking up pieces from that incident.

My mother had knee replacement surgery for the third time at the end of May, and it was successful. At 87, that makes her both a clinical trial and a tough old bird. I'm proud of both, and that I could help her. Thanks to all for your support, friendship, prayers, and sacrifices of farm animals.

I saw the best pop/rock concert of my life (LCD Soundsystem) while in Portland helping my mother. I also ate three incredibly memorable meals, two at the Silver Grille in Silverton, and one at Le Pigeon.

Oregon is Tuscany, Provence, and Catalonia all rolled into one. Why we don't live there is an open question in the Gunn-Cory residence. Oh, the economy thing. Ooops.

Our house was broken into again in June, and more stuff was stolen. This with an alarm system. It sucked even worse than the first time we were robbed.

I guess that makes the Oregon question even more painful than ever.

That is all.

Reversing roles and avoiding tragedy

Virginia Cory -- my mother -- is having elective knee surgery tomorrow. Never easy, surgery today is complicated by a variety of hospital-acquired infections, including some very nasty staph infections that most people have heard about as "flesh-eating bacteria." Now, it turns out there are some very simple pre-surgical practices that can help prevent those hospital-acquired infections.

One of them is pre-surgical bathing with a strong disinfectant. By bathing, the practice means careful cleaning of the surgical site, plus areas where the various tubes and attachments penetrate the surgical patient -- that is, pretty much anywhere on the skin, and the other orifices where things pass in and out of the body.

Now, let's look at the facts:

• My mother is 86 -- almost 87 -- years old. She's competent, but she's also in great pain, and isn't the most flexible person in the world. She's not able to get to all the places on her body that she needs to bathe and clean.
• My mother was a professor of nursing. She knows one or two things about bathing patients. Including getting to those orifices.
• I'm cheap labor, and could with some instruction, bathe my mother properly. My mother could probably instruct me, and I've already researched how to bathe patients for pre-surgical staphlococcal prophylaxis.

Now, here's the issue: this kind of bathing means you have to get to some very private places. Yeah, those private places. I'm not squeamish, nor ashamed of, bodies. The thought of the bathing doesn't bother me at all -- except for my mother. When I think about doing this for Virginia, in a weird way the Orestia comes screaming into my mind. Seriously. And as we know, nothing good can come from that story -- which arguably is the tragedy of all tragedies. So it's on to plan B.

I've made sure that one of the nursing assistants will bathe my mother, and show her how to clean the appropriate bits tomorrow morning. In this simple way, I'm really, really hoping to avoid both classical tragedy and modern tragedy.

The New Doctor, continued

First, it made me cry.

Second, what is Steven Moffatt's infatuation with ginger women?

Third, Amy Pond and River Song. Discuss.

Too big to fail

This pretty much sums up why I think "too big to fail" is wrong. If the Chicago School had ever considered economic models analogous to ecology (in particular, population modeling) they would have seen that there are limits to growth -- rather spectacular ones, in fact. It seems to me that there was a whole lot of productive investment in the 1980's when Glass-Stegall was intact and a whole lot of investment banks did just that -- invest capital in business, and get a reasonable return. Alas, the profits just weren't big enough for some, hence the mania for mergers and acquisition, outsourcing, and when that dried up, the development of exotic financial instruments -- also know as "three card monte for the economic elite".

The resources required to support massive consolidation and centralization of capital, as demanded by the Chicago School and their "efficient model" simulations are always greater than the resources demanded by multiple small concentrations of capital, just as massive monoculture in agriculture is unsustainable for the same reasons. The inputs always exceed the outputs; but you get a concentration of resources in one location for a period of time. However, at the end of the model, when the input resources fail, the entire system collapses.

That's the end game of the Chicago School, and the direction we've been headed as a country for the last 30 years.

We're still headed in that direction, and frankly, it's probably too late to change.

But this is a great illustration, and fantastic satire.

Pope Palpatine and his Evil Empire

It's not very sensitive or politically correct to describe the Catholic Church as a zombie that can only be destroyed by a chain saw -- on Holy Friday. But I'll stand by my analogy. I think the religious corollary to Godwin's Law is any comparison of anti-clerical action to Antisemitism.

Really? Did the Pope's PR folks think that would work to make us sympathetic? About the organization that brought us the Crusades, the Inquisition, and witch-hunts?

Don't get me wrong -- I love the ritual of Mass, and what individual clergy and Catholic communities --including the Catholic laity -- have done over the millenia include wonders and miracles. But the Church as a corporate body, at this moment in its history, is corrupt and festering beyond redemption. End it now.

If it's war they want ....

Seriously, the states' right issue has been settled, both at the end of the gun and with a gavel, for a long time. You lost the first time. You'll lose again. And if you don't lose, we'll sell you and the rump end of the current Republic to the Chinese in exchange for our debt. Hell, maybe they'll have more luck with bringing you all into the 2oth -- let alone the 21st -- Century than we've had.

What Josh said

Please, for the love of all that is good about democracy, no more families in politics. No Kennedys, Udalls, Cheneys, Bushes, Reagans, Gores, Clintons, Bayhs -- no more. Dynasties make bad politics and policies.

That is all.

Pull the band aid off

There is much gnashing of teeth and wailing in the blogosphere about the "go slow" approach to the repeal of "Don't ask don't tell". To which I say, "pull the band-aid off". The same is true for, oh, let's say, health care reform, campaign finance reform, tax policy, etc. Apparently the shrinking violets who populate the Capitol, and their eager to please minions who swarm Capital Hill aren't willing to make enemies with the people who pay for campaigns and with whom they drink and eat at horrifying benefit dinners and in mediocre restaurants in DC (Lauriol Plaza anyone?).

Pull the band-aid off.

The wounds that our polity has suffered aren't getting any better by covering and coddling them. The treatment -- open air, some astringent medicine, and possibly cutting away some of the rotten bits -- aren't pleasant, aren't easy, and aren't expensive. This is simple political medicine. Do something. Hold politicians and bureaucrats accountable. Change directions if necessary.

But the consequences for not doing anything are severe: the patient -- our republican government -- will continue to suffer, decline, and rot.

Just pull the band aid off.

The Kids are Alright

I have three things to say about the Super Bowl:

1. Bon Jeu, Saints!

2. Hate on the Who all you want (and do so at your risk in my presence), but both Townshend and Daltry have the good sense to wear long sleves, something which cannot be said for other aging rockers (Jagger and Springsteen come to mind).

3. Was that the Edge on stage playing fill guitar? And when did Simon Townshend ever play with his brother?

We get mail (SOTU Edition)

From the inbox:

S --

I couldn't watch (I would have had to take a day off to find John Boehner and Eric Cantor and beat them to a pulp, which most likely would have cost me my job). Have to say it was somewhat better than I expected. And it certainly got him the NYT headlines that he was hoping for after a week of "Democrats in Disarray" "Obama in Trouble" and the rest. The press is so maddeningly predictable.

More public flogging of Congress, the press and the high court, please. Sad little Sammy Alito whining silently that he's not responsible for killing democracy. What a worm.

R,

At home with a miserable cold that started last night. SOTU was infuriating to me -- we watched five minutes, and I went to bed. G2 correctly noted that the SOTU has become a Catholic Mass or an opera, with the Congress and invited guests jumping up and down like a well trained parishioners or claque. The only saving grace is Obama can deliver a speech better than any President in recent memory, including, in my opinion, St. Ronnie. Take that, la Noonan!

As for the color commentary, it's more appalling than the speech itself. Nothing good can come of having Skeletor (James Carville) and Mrs. Skeletor (Mary Matalin) provide commentary and berate each other. The myth of Tracy and Hepburn is just that -- a myth. It was scripted, people. And just having to look at the Skeletors is appalling, let alone having to hear their flatulent bleating.

As for the Supremes, the military in their full gear, and the other assorted guests, all I can say is: kabuki theatre.

On the other hand, G2 is mightily amused at the level of dudgeon I can summon when provoked on 1. lowering rates of marginal taxation and 2. the "success" of the conservative movement and the "free market". I verbally disemboweled our cab driver when he started in on how California should just lower taxes more and they'd be successful. As I said, "You didn't emigrate from Ethiopia so you could watch your adopted country become a third world country, did you?"