Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

I just have to say, Boopsie is not a demonstrative cat but I have rarely seen her so affectionate as she was last night. Aside from breaks to eat and use the bathroom, I don't think she left the bed last night, curling up around Ian or myself.

Even though Ian and I are both up and on the computers now, she's still asleep on the bed, laying on my flannel nightgown again. And every time I come over and pet her, she starts purring.

I think she loves us. [And I think she's very happy Persephone is gone.]

Much to our surprise and delight, our downstairs tenant is back home again. We had been told he'd be spending some time in Spaulding Rehab after he got out of MGH, but instead one of his friends who is a Certified Nursing Assistant has agreed to stay and take care of him so he could come home.

One of the things this means is that Persephone is no longer in our apartment. She tried to sneak back in once tonight, and I gently carried her downstairs and back to Dave. I've given Dave the food we bought for her (Science Diet Oral Care -- it really did help her breath, though she still needs a professional teeth cleaning) and shut our apartment door.

Right now, Boopsie is curled up on the bed, resting her head against the flannel nightgown I left atop the comforter this morning. [I think she likes the way I smell.] Boopsie looks contented and rested and is purring more loudly than I've heard since we let Persephone come in.

And all feels well with the world.

Remember the threat to Air Force One that kept President Bush hopping around the country on September 11th instead of returning straight to Washington? Brad DeLong compares several accounts and gets the impression it was concocted by Cheney to keep Bush away from DC.

As seen on Mark Kleiman's blog, who also asks "what the hell Mary Matalin and Karen Hughes were doing in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center that morning. Can you say 'permanent campaign'?"

By the way, I just noticed that Peter Pan is still playing second-run matinees at the Arlington Capitol Theatre. I saw the film opening night and loved it, and have been wanting to see it again. Unfortunately, each weekend something has come up that's gotten in the way. It's been nearly three months since the film's release, so this is probably one of the last chances to see it on the big screen. Anybody else interested? Ayesha, have you seen it yet?

[Hey, just noticed the website is now advertising special features for the upcoming DVD, including "Jason Isaacs' behind-the-scenes home video footage!" Ooh!

President George W. Bush at the Radio and Television News Correspondents Association dinner, as described by David Corn:

[A]t one point, Bush showed a photo of himself looking for something out a window in the Oval Office, and he said, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere."

The audience laughed. ... After a few more slides, there was a shot of Bush looking under furniture in the Oval Office. "Nope," he said. "No weapons over there." More laughter. Then another picture of Bush searching in his office: "Maybe under here." Laughter again.

transcript; video at C-Span

Statement from the John Kerry campaign:

Speaking at the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington last night, President George W. Bush showed a stunningly cavalier attitude toward the failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Administration's rush to war.

"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," Bush mimicked, as a slide of the President looking under furniture in the Oval Office appeared on the screen.

That's supposed to be funny?

If George Bush thinks his deceptive rationale for going to war is a laughing matter, then he's even more out of touch than we thought. Unfortunately for the President, this is not a joke.

585 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the last year, 3,354 have been wounded, and there's no end in sight. Bush Turned White House Credibility into a Joke George Bush sold us on going to war with Iraq based on the threat of weapons of mass destruction. But we still haven't found them, and now he thinks that's funny?

Charlie Pierce, writing at Altercation:

Please, somebody, get the tape and splice in some footage from Iraq, and run the damn thing as a commercial every day between now and November.

I haven't been able to view the C-Span video of the event, nor do I have the skills in video production to put something like that together. But he's absolutely right.

Start with one of Bush's prewar quotes about WMDs. Then intercut his jokes about "no WMDs under the desk!" with casualty reports and possibly cost figures...

I think it could be devastating and very effective.

So, anybody reading this have the capabilities and inclination to do so? Has anybody already done this? If so, provide a link in the comments.

Added later: It's not a video, but Road to surfdom found this.

It's a rarity, a company going back on its word in a way that benefits customers and the public.

Even though their official deadline already expired, Long John Silver's will be giving away free giant shrimp to celebrate NASA's discovery of ocean water on Mars.

Every person in the U.S. will have an opportunity to obtain one free Giant Shrimp at participating Long John Silver's restaurants in the United States. Redemption will take place on Monday, May 10, 2004, from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m., local time, while supplies last. Customers can use the store locator at www.ljsilvers.com to find their nearest Long John Silver's locations.

So what's the bad news this time?

The store locator doesn't list any of the New England states. It looks like the closest store is 95 miles away in Hartford, Connecticut.

Darn.

This quote came to mind this afternoon after seeing a very cute springer spaniel on the sidewalk earlier today.

It's from Dissipation and Despair by A.J. Hall, a Harry Potter fanfic and sequel to my much beloved (and highly recommended) Lust over Pendle (more on this in a minute).

"Look," he said, "If you hurt Hermione you're still going to be dog meat, understood? And I do mean that literally, and I have the dogs to prove it -"

Unbidden, Peter's lips quirked as he recollected Marvolo and Riddle squirming on the Manor carpet as they displayed their full tummy-tickling company manners for his benefit. There was a rueful answering flicker in Draco's eyes.

"Blast it!" he said conversationally. "You've no idea how difficult it is to sound appropriately foreboding when no matter that your entire world can't see you as anything but the hellhound type, what fate actually gave you was springer spaniels."

"I'll take the intention for the breed," Peter said solemnly.

I hope that brings a smile to your face as it did mine.

A.J. Hall's stories are set several years after J.K. Rowling intends to end her series, assuming that the characters have left Hogwarts, the war against Voldemort is now over, and everybody is trying to settle down into some semblance of everyday life. And they're incredibly witty, as these quotes (and others I've provided in this journal) attest.

By the way for anybody interested in further reading in A.J. Hall's Harry Potter fiction, LJ user geoviki has created a comprehensive listing of all stories, drabbles and background material. A.J. Hall also provides her own chronology and recommended reading order, but geoviki includes many more links not on the official list.

Aw heck. I'm just going to close with another quote by Draco about his dogs, this time from Lust over Pendle:

"If only the Dark Lord had taken up breeding spaniels instead of trying for world domination. Imagine the trouble he'd have been spared."

I'll confess, I haven't been following the mainstream press too closely of late. But I did see the first half of Richard Clarke's 60 Minutes interview (something else came up during the second half) and I've been following the aftermath in the blogosphere.

By all accounts, it sounds like the administration's smear tactics are being applied in full force against Clarke. I'm not going to get into the details of refuting all the charges flying about -- other bloggers are doing quite well in that respect.

But what I find more fascinating is how inconsistent the attacks are. In some cases, the arguments being presented by different members of the administration (such as Cheney 'Clarke wasn't in the loop' and Rice 'we followed Clarke's advice') are directly contradictory!

What the he!! is going on here? It's not like this should've been a surprise. I mean, ever since Paul O'Neill's book came out, I'd been hearing that an upcoming book would reveal even bigger bombshells. And according to Atrios, "publication of the book had been delayed for 3 months because the White House delayed clearing it for publication."

So it's not like the administration didn't know this was coming down the pike. You'd think they would've used that time to prepare a better and more coordinated response than the scattershot of charges they're throwing at him.

And if the administration can't manage to create a unified response with advance warning, then doesn't that speak poorly to their ability to adjust to unforseen events?

Then again, their record over the last four years shows that they have trouble adjusting their mindset to environmental changes. Economy is good? Cut taxes! Economy is bad? Cut taxes! Entering office? Plan attack against Iraq! 9/11? Plan attack against Iraq! And get a load of this statement:

[H]ad my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New York City on Sept. 11, we would have acted.

-- George W. Bush, March 23, 2004

Um. Yeah. Maybe he ought to stop watching Early Edition and (re)join the real world.

A newly discovered problem of having two cats is that when somebody's crinkling papers in the bedroom at four o'clock in the morning, I no longer know which name to yell...

Every so often, when Persephone's lying in my lap, she will stretch out one paw and try to keep it extended by resting it on whatever's most convenient -- usually my arm. Sometimes, she'll extend her claws ever-so-slightly to try to keep me from moving her armrest too much. Like I said, usually she rests her paws on my arms, but this morning she took the cake... or should I say, mouse:

She kept her paw there, for at least ten minutes. To my credit, I managed to read all my morning comics (some 30 pages) in the browser without dislodging her paw. A few seconds after I took the photo, she stretched again, sinking her claws into my thumb before finally deciding to find a more comfortable armrest.

Last night, I think we witnessed our first fight to come to blows, as both cats came tearing across the room, growling and hissing -- one of them actually chasing the other. I'm somewhat worried because to my brief glimpse, it looked like Sephie was chasing and cornering Boopsie, but it all happened too fast to really be certain what happened. We separated the two for a while, and now things seem to have returned to their normal low-level of simmering hostility.

This has been another episode of Mutually Our Home's Wild Kingdom

Added 8:05 AM: I am so glad I got one of those comfortable ergonomic keyboards:

 

I just kicked her off and she's back on my chair (I'm standing while I write this) in order to type this entry...

NASA has announced that Mars once had a pool of saltwater at least two inches deep on the surface where Opportunity rover landed.

Unfortunately, I just checked Long John Silver's official rules, and the announcement was made too late to qualify for their Free Giant Shrimp offer. [Anybody still remember that?]

Ah well... It was a hypothetical loss, anyway.

So now that we're certain of pools, anybody taking bets on them finding canals?

FundRace.org has taken campaign finance records and mapped them into a nifty little app. Search by your address to see how your neighbors have donated. Or search on a name to check out your favorite celebrity. There are also maps, nationwide and details for certain big cities. You can compare the Republican/Democratic split or look at trends for certain candidates. [Why am I unsurprised to discover most of Lieberman's support came from Phoenix, Miami, the New York area, and a few other urban enclaves known for their Jewish neighborhoods? Weirdly enough, Sharpton actually had broader support, geographically...]

It's somewhat creepy: for the heck of it, I entered the name of one of the higher beings in the blogosphere and found his home address. On the other hand, Teresa Heinz-Kerry was telling the truth that she has only donated the maximum $2,000 to her husband. And for all his big talk, I don't see any donations from filmmaker Michael Moore... Mary Matalin has donated to Bush, but Carville hasn't donated to any Democrats... Donald Trump has donated equally to both parties, while Bill Gates gave only to Bush. And I checked the names of several reporters often accused of bias, and as far as their money was concerned, they didn't spend a cent on either side.

I could go on, but I'm sure you want to take your own look.

Added later: Two commenters have pointed out donations they made that are missing from the list, and have warned not to take absence from the list as indicative that somebody didn't actually donate. The site claims to be "based on records filed with the FEC of contributions by all individuals totalling more than $200 to a single campaign between January 1, 2003 and February 29, 2004" but be aware.

Persephone (aka Sephie or Percy), our tenants cat, is one weird little kitten. [I call her kitten, but much to my surprise I found out that she's nearly six years old! Teeny thing, though.] Two examples from last night:

Ian's and my desks are opposite and offset. Close enough that we can talk and share things on our computer screens, but arranged so we have our privacy.

Persephone likes to sit in laps. However, she has decided that the preferred way to get to my lap is to hop onto Ian's chair, walk along Ian's desk, climb onto and over the printer, onto my desk, and then across my keyboard into my lap.

If Ian's sitting in his chair, she'll curl up in his lap (better padded?) or will occasionally walk directly to my chair and demand a seat. But more often than not, that's the route she chooses.

Last night, she chose to sleep with me.
Correction: she chose to sleep on me.

I sleep on my side. When Boopsie has slept with me, she tends to curl up behind my knees or between my ankles, using my legs as a backrest.

Not Sephie. She climbed right on top of me, like a little billy goat. And when she decided to settle down, she alternated between wanting to sleep on my hip and on my shoulderblade. Fortunately, she's not terribly heavy, but she's very... bony and angular. She was comfortable; me, much less so.

Sigh...

We now have two obnoxious cats. On their own, each has her individual way of being obnoxious, and when together, they demonstrate wholly new means of being obnoxious (hiss, growl).

Ah well... We're taking them both to the vet tomorrow.

Hey! I got a link from Instapundit! I've heard so many myths in the blogosphere about what that does for site traffic that it almost makes me wish I used a hit counter on the site...

[I don't believe standard traffic counters are reliable measures of my audience because any such tool would (a) overcount the number of times that I look at my blog, and (b) undercount all the people reading my syndicated feed through external aggregators. Still, I can always check the site logs later to see what kind of spike it gives me. I've often extracted the logfiles into a database or spreadsheet by hand, and can poke around at the data that way...]

At any rate, for anybody discovering this thru Instapundit: hello, and welcome! Please stick around and poke about. I tend to write about whatever shiny thoughts capture my attention (thus the "mental magpie" tagline), ranging from the personal to the political to the (occasionally) philosophical. You might enjoy my essay on the McDonald's coffee lawsuit or this paper on the USA PATRIOT Act and libraries. The start of the year, I listed some of my favorite blog posts, which I also recommend.

So please, set up a bookmark and make yourself comfortable. May I get you a cup of tea?

Well, there goes the productivity of anybody who uses AOL Instant Messenger. Just send a message to Infocombot or Infocombot2, and you have the option of playing one of several text adventures, including Hitchhiker's Guide.
[via Jenny credited to waxy]

It seems as though everybody in the blogosphere who isn't embroiled in Richard Clarke's veracity is writing about The Confessions of a semi-successful author by <ahem> Jane Austen Doe.

Honestly, I'm less interested in her complaints than curious about who she is. So I've been killing some time this evening trying to piece together the clues to her identity within the article. Even if things have been obscured, there should be enough information for people with the right resources

• Presumably female, since she uses a female pseudonym and mentions her husband at one point. Also mentions a daughter, now 19.
• Claims to have quit job at age 35 to become full-time writer -- the age range may help eliminate some candidates
• Alleged publishing history:
  1. Contract signed 1994. Book published 1996. Advance: $150,000
     Book sold at auction for the big advance
     Hardcover/paperback sales combined are 10,000 copies
  2. Ghostwritten celebrity bio. 1997? "national bestseller" (if you can believe her)
  3. Contract signed 1998. Book published 2001. Advance: $10,000
     Glowing review in Time magazine; won awards
  4. Contract signed 2002. Book published 2004. Advance: $80,000
• The big kicker among most commenters involved in writing or publishing is the $150,000 advance for that first book. Poking about through Google and Lexis-Nexis, I don't see many references to advances that large. Time magazine book reviews for 2001 didn't turn up much, but that was before I noticed.
• Teresa Nielsen Hayden points out that nowhere does it state the author was talking about fiction. One possibility is a nonfiction idea that was topical in 1994 and dated by 1996... [Through Google Groups, I saw apocryphal mention of a heavily remaindered book on Fergie that earned a $150k advance, but searching by subject doesn't turn anything up that meets the other criteria.]
• She gave a recent Amazon sales ranking, but there doesn't seem to be any way to search Amazon by sales rank. Somehow, I don't think she's Kevin Henkes, the author of Wemberly Worried which (in Google's cache) holds the rank she claims.

I found a few other clues, but honestly the woman's writing is laborious to get through and I'm getting bored. Folks are betting her identity will be revealed within the week. Any further insights and angles welcome.

Lisa Williams found that Bush's appointees to the President's Council on Bioethics (making the decisions on stem-cell research) are even crazier than I'd previously thought. Get a load of this quote, by Leon Kass, head of the panel:

Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone -- a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive...This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if WE feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.

Kass, Leon: The Hungry Soul at 148-149. (University of Chicago Press, 1994, 1999)
[Tracing back the chain of links, I found the complete quote here.]

So, according to Kass, eating ice cream cones in public is uncivilized, animalistic, offensive and shameful behavior.

Upon reading this, I decided to check what Miss Manners had to say on the subject, since she's the authority I respect on matters of etiquette. A quick check through Lexis-Nexis turned up two relevant articles:

February 4, 1979:

   Q: Is it proper for one to eat while in the public right of way? Are fruits and vegetables fine, but not fried chicken? Of course I carry a napkin and do not litter with my leftovers, but what is really correct? Tomorrow's breakfast may depend on your response.

   A: Dessert is the only course that may be properly eaten on the sidewalk, and only certain desserts, at that. Apples, bananas and pears are acceptable, peaches and grapefruit are not. Ice cream cones and chocolate bars are fine, but pineapple upsidedown cake is out.
   You will notice that dessert means that no meats or vegetables are permitted, nor are the usual breakfast foods, such as pancakes with maple syrup or eggs once over lightly.

Her July 29, 1979 column also had some interesting information:

   Q: Admittedly, it sounds silly to have to ask how to eat an ice cream cone. But I always end up with a mess dripping all over myself. Can it be that there is a right and a wrong way to eat ice cream cones?

   A: Much more than that, it is an art. Many parents mistakenly think that there is a natural instinct for the eating of ice cream cones, and then they make a dreadful fuss about the upholstery.
   The problem is a seemingly insoluble one, namely that the cone is served empty with the scoop or scoops of ice cream on top of its fragile rim, but the eater is expected to place the frozen substance inside during the course of his eating. It may be done, but it requires the ability to plan, manual dexterity, and a knowledge of physics and geometry.
   First lick the ice cream, in a clockwise motion (counterclockwise for lefthanded people), until the scoop is not wider than the rim of the cone. No overhand is permitted. Then, placing the tip of the tongue in the center of the remaining scoop, push gently downward. This requires much skill, because if you apply too much pressure the cone will burst in your hand like a balloon. After each push, additional edge-licking will be needed as the pressure forced the scoop outward. With careful planning, you should be able to fill the cone at the same time that you are filling you stomach. The cone, once full, is nibbled clockwise to the tip, which is put whole into the mouth.
   This sounds like a great deal of work, but once mastered, the ability will serve you well in other more sophisticated ares of life, such as yogurt cones.

So there you have it. Leon Kass is wrong. According to Miss Manners, it is perfectly acceptable to eat ice cream cones in public.

And now, I think I'm going out for a snack. All this reading and writing about ice cream has made me hungry.

And, as long as I'm writing about being a bad influence to my godson, Lisa Williams posted some baby clothing sites. Not your usual duckies and bunnies, but goth outfitter Hot Topic sells infant clothes, as does Lucky lil Devil, with officially licensed baby clothing from the Ramones, Sex Pistols and Iron Maiden.

A few gems among their catalogs:

• The Ramones in Rock & Roll Preschool
• Twisted Sister: I wanna walk!
• Sex Pistols Anarchy in the Pre-K
• Born to raise hell
• Boo F---'n Hoo

They've got countless other designs that probably aren't suitable for most places one would take one's baby.

Amusing, though.

Josh, Missy, if you see this, don't worry. I'm not actually planning to dress Nate in any of these, although Hot Topic does have black grommet pants that might go real well with the motorcycle outfit mom made him.

I'm not only an aunt, I'm a godmother!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm still feeling a little muzzy-headed recovering from the cold I caught upon coming home, so it's difficult to organize my thoughts, but I'll try to begin at the beginning and describe things well.

A few final amusing tidbits:

• Spotted somebody in the airport with a bag monogrammed MSG. I quipped: Boy, he must have trouble getting into restaurants.
• While out driving with my mother, I think I spotted a bald eagle flying far overhead. Again, can't be 100% certain, but it was definitely a raptor, mostly black with a white tail, and there are bald eagles in the area.
• Showed my husband the water analysis (PDF) for the mineral springs at the Safety Harbor Spa, listing all the health benefits alluded to them. "Isn't that the same list Brita filters advertises?"
• Mapquest driving directions to my brother's house included the instruction:
       Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto 4TH ST N/US-92 W/FL-687 S.
  Ian took one look at that line and said it reminded him of home... [There is a section of highway near Boston which is simultaneously I-93 North and I-128 South -- and I believe one is actually driving east at that point!]
• One of my cousins has gone into business as a ticket broker. If anybody's looking for tickets for Broadway or sporting events... well, he's family: oneticketbroker.com

And though this all feels tremendously incoherent, and I'm sure I'm missing mention of something, that was my weekend in Florida.

from unfinished posts that were all too trivial to become posts on their own:

Say it with... mugs?

When I graduated from high school, the school librarians presented me with a mug with pink and yellow and blue stripes which says "Friend of the library" in large friendly letters. [I was an official library aide all of my senior year, but just hung out in the library and helped out unofficially the previous three.] I still have this mug and treasure it. [My first year(s) at Simmons, I brought it with me to school, but after I noticed other people were using it and not cleaning it, I decided it would be safer at home. Now that I'm working with library-software, I keep it at my desk at work.]

The day after my college senior thesis was due, I received a bouquet of flowers from my parents. It was delivered in a rainbow-colored mug. The flowers are long-dead, but I still have the mug.

For my graduation from Simmons, the one gift I most wanted was a Why you should Worship a Librarian Mug from Librarian Avengers. Ian's parents bought it for me, and it holds a treasured position on my desk at work, where it brightens my mood on dark days. The insides are also getting seriously stained because that's the mug I tend to drink tea from...

Three graduations -- three mugs. And I still use them all and know what they represent. Just an interesting coincidence.

I've never bothered with the mapping meme highlighting all the countries one has visited, because, well, I've only been in the US and Israel (with a stopover at Heathrow). On the other hand, yesterday Ian and I found a Malaysian restaurant for lunch, and I started imagining a "cuisines dined" meme, which would be far more colorful... [Asia: I've eated Afghani food, Cambodian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Nepal(?), Thai and Vietnamese.]

McDonald's Nutrition Information is interesting.

Did you know that the Deluxe Breakfast and all 32 oz shakes each have over 1100 calories apiece? How many calories is one supposed to eat per day?

By the way, shamrock shakes are already gone from the stores. I miss them.

Noticed something interesting in the Saugus Borders bookstore the other night. They have two manga sections. One is beside the SF section and is officially labelled "Graphic Novels." It includes the usual assortment of Marvel & DC and mainstream American comics, but about half the space is Japanese manga books. The other bookcase is in the young adult section, next to the series books. An entire bookcase of manga, near the Sweet Valley High (or whatever the modern equivalents are). I noticed a lot of overlap in the titles between the two sections (raw estimate, probably 66-75% of the titles were the same, although sometimes one section would have different books in the series than the other), but the YA section seemed to have more of the relationship-based stories and the SF section more of the action-adventure-big-robots. And, of course, the SF section also had American comics, which the YA section did not. And there was no indication in either section that more manga could be found in the other location.

Just found that an interesting indicator on the state of comics in modern mainstream bookstores, and I thought I'd share it.