Simple Pleasure #3: Summer

Rain makes the grass grow.
Man grills steaks in his driveway.
Rain brings out mosquitoes.
Spiders build webs on outdoor light fixtures.

• The grass goes into the cows
• The cow goes into the man
• The man goes into the mosquitoes
• The mosquitoes go into the spiders.
  
• [Overlay "Circle of Life" from the Lion King Soundtrack here]

Indirectly, I am (Or my blood at least is) Spider Food.

It's not fair, man. The spiders get everything.

Later, I walk down to the mailbox, but my key doesn't work.
Moisture in the lock has froze it up or something.
I can't get to my bills.

Hakuna Matata, baby. It means no worries.

Reprehensible

I watched Michael Vick's apology this morning on youtube.

It was one giant wall of 'personal responsibility' buzz words, cobbled together by some lawyer/personal image consultant and mortared up with pure crap. The stick-up-his-butt insincerity of the apology was an insult to the intelligence of anyone watching.

The only thing this guy is sorry for is getting caught.

Does Anything Change?

I found these insulting political cartoons at History News Network in an article entitled "The Philippine-American War as Race War" written by a chap named Paul A. Kramer.

It is a wonderful article written about the Philippine-American War, a forgotten war fought from 1899 to 1902 (Until 1913 if you include the Moro rebellion).
The article appears to be a snapshot from his book about Philippine-American colonial history.

Just in case you were wondering, here are some Philippine-American War statistics:

• 4,324 American soldiers dead
  (1,000 to 1,500 of which were from actual combat; the remainder died of disease)
• 2,818 American soldiers wounded
• 20,000 Filipino combatants estimated killed (16,000 actually counted)
• 510,000 Filipino civilian deaths
  (Taking into account those killed by war, malnutrition and a cholera epidemic that raged during the war)

There is lots here I could say to draw parallels to the modern day insurgency that we are fighting, but the truth is that it could be better said by a man who was alive back then, whose words are as true now:

"There is the case of the Philippines. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it - perhaps it was inevitable that we should come to be fighting the natives of those islands - but I cannot understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as their protector - not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now - why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation."
-Mark Twain

Mixed Signals

Why is it exactly that the news story below is sick,
but "Weekend at Bernie's" is funny (Depending on who you ask)?

CINCINNATI, Ohio (AP) -- An Ohio county agreed Tuesday to pay $8 million to settle a lawsuit over photos taken of posed bodies in its morgue.

Hamilton County will pay the money to 532 families during a two-year period, formally apologize to them and make sure offensive photos and copies are destroyed under an agreement that must be approved by U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel.

The settlement also includes grief counseling and a memorial.

The photos were of bodies posed with fruit, doll house furniture and other props.

The photographer, Thomas Condon, said he took them as part of an art project to illustrate the cycle of life from birth through death. He was convicted in 2001 of eight counts of gross abuse of a corpse for taking the pictures.

His 2½-year sentence was reduced to 18 months on appeal.

"The current settlement, based on unauthorized manipulation and photography of bodies over a four-month period in the morgue, is viewed by both sides as a fair compromise, particularly with the focus on continuing improvement at the Coroner's Office," said a joint statement by the county and plaintiffs.

Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune said those responsible are no longer in county government and that current officials pledge to remain vigilant.

Friday Video 08-17-07

If the guy wasn't on drugs at this point then I don't know what.

 

Meanwhile...

On the other side of the world:

 

In the cold distance

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

On Saturday 08/11/2007 I went on a road trip to Northern MN to flyfish for trout.
This is what I saw.

	Friday night to Saturday morning it stormed. I drove north through the aftermath with lightning crackling through the clouds above me as I drove. The river was going to be muddy and I knew it. But there was nothing else to be done. My fishing day was my fishing day, and I had to take it come rain or shine. I had several potential entry points circled on my map, and as I prowled the back country roads I happened across a whitetail family set up near the road. They gave me all the time in the world but by the time I had the presence of mind to dig out the camera and snap a photo, they were all but gone.
	After exploring several of the tributaries to the Nemadji River, I finally settled on an entrance point on the river proper, where Highway 23 passes over it. There was a nice parking area that was empty, except for a fellow who was scouting for grouse hunting spots. I wasn't much in the mood for company. It is hard enough to find a free day to depressurize once a quarter. Added to that I recently lost a cousin from complications involving a gall bladder removal. She was 43, died three days after my 39th birthday. She still is 43, and always going to be 43 from here on. I had been been easing into the mindset where I realistically know I could go at anytime, but now the 'easing' phase is officially over.
	The river was muddy as I suspected. I spent a long time along the banks, watching for activity. It looked pretty dead. Given the lack of surface activity I started out nymphing, using a black wooly bugger with a strike indicator. After only a few casts I had two separate hits on my strike indicator. I quickly switched over to a #12 wolf adams and promptly hooked this little baby through the nose.
	I worked the river for a few hours and that chubby little shiner was the only luck I had. I practiced my casting. I listened to the world around me, paying no mind to the occasional bridge noise in the distance. There was no sense to be made from my cousin's death. I hadn't seen her since my mother's funeral, had scarcely even spoken to her then as there were just too many people to talk to. I had no idea that she was even having the surgery. I was not a factor in her life, nor she in mine really. And that is what the sadness is about, the guilt. The feeling that yes, we played together as kids and that somehow that childhood friendship should have carried over into adulthood. Up to now I had been able to live with the idea that there was time to make that connection, that it was ok to put it off for now. Except that now there isn't any more time. I finally crawled up a muddy bank and set back to my truck for some lunch. There was no real trail to speak of so I bushwhacked through the forest, keeping the the river in earshot. I have humped through some tough brush in my day, and this was some of it. It was definitely not a friendly environment for a chubby guy lugging a flyrod. After I ate I broke out the camera and explored for some good shots. Several attempts netted me some local insect life. Insects live hard and die fast. They don't have complex emotions like guilt and angst. They just get on about their business and make way for the next generation. The local plant life echoed that sentiment, as the air hung thick and sweet with the smell of pollen and nectar. Every plant and tree was in the midst of a giant bender, drunk to the gills on the rainwater from the previous night. The cicadas trilled from the treetops, like an alarm to let us know that September is coming. And when it does the nights will turn cold, and no insect plant or tree will wonder why nobody told them that it was coming. I didn't have much heart to try the river again in the afternoon. I packed up the truck and made my way a few more miles up 23 to a scenic overlook. I have passed it a few times and never taken a picture there. Since I had the tripod with me I did a panoramic. After that I turned to the south and made my way back to my family like a homesick puppy.

Friday Video - 08-10-07

As mentioned in my previous post about Husker Du, back in my college days I had a cassette with Flip Your Wig on one side and King of America by Elvis Costello on the other. The two may seem like an off-balance mix, but as I wandered around the U of M campus and rode back and forth on the MTC buses, that tape seemed to capture my duplicitous personality perfectly.

This Elvis Costello song is called "American Without Tears":

Daddy's Lunch for Tomorrow!

The title of this post was something my wife wrote on a different post-it note
(Not pictured). It was meant to designate an item in our refrigerator as my
lunch for the following day.

I kept the post-it and used it as cube art. It inspired this doodle,
obviously with a different context:

Keep the Change

Last Friday night I dreamed that I was Sir Ian McKellan and that I was at a public swimming pool, attempting to rent a towel.

The towels were $.50. As I sifted through the pockets of my trousers, I found a quarter, a nickel, a dime and some assorted foreign coinage. I unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the attendant to accept three francs in lieu of the dime I was short.

"My dear boy," I heard myself saying in Ian's good-natured voice. "A franc is worth far more than a dime. And you may have all three."

The attendant shook his head and motioned to a paper cup full of cast-off pennies, from which I began digging out the ten cents that I needed.

A brief Hiatus

... From my usual smart-ass commentary, in lieu of the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis last night. It may sound like a cliche, but my thoughts and prayers are with the survivors and the families of the victims of yesterday's tragedy. I was on southbound 35W taking the Stinson exit at exactly 6:00 PM yesterday. If for whatever reason I had been heading into downtown, I would have been right on the bridge when it went down.

Back in my 20's I used to fish from the bank of the Mississippi, in the shadow of that bridge. I used to relish the contrast between the busy hum of the cars passing overhead with the slow pace of catfishing. It's hard to imagine such a large structure, whose presence I have taken for granted my entire life as simply not being there anymore.

It will be more than a year, possibly several years, before things get back to 'normal' here. I don't know about anybody else but I will think differently each time I cross the river from now on.

Pictures (All 3 are Copyright of the Star Tribune):








Video (Courtesy of CNN via YouTube):