Views from the shell

Apparently a tsunami is imminent in the Caribbean, maybe, or it could be later, but there's a big rock that wants to fall ... I hesitate to be skeptical of the urgency, but there WERE to recent warnings about volcanoes that did, indeed, come to pass.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090427-tsunami-caribbean-rock.html

FEMA Unveils Nationwide Phone Tree In Case Of Emergency

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/qrgOVke8Jp8/fema_unveils_nationwide

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/fema_unveils_nationwide?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

WASHINGTON—The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Monday unveiled its new $48.2 million Phone Tree Response System, a program designed...

Flying in to Milwaukee this evening: thunderstorms had just dumped more than an inch of rain. We were coming in over Lake Michigan, which was this deeply dark expanse beneath the grey cloud threads the plane broke through. The heavier rain clouds were above us, cottony and wet, sort of hanging there like cottonballs used to wipe up a mudpuddle. As we came ashore you could see these portside cranes and streaming fog rushing through the gateway they formed, and on either side, marching inland as the temperature rose with the front. You could see it rising, just off shore, tufts, obliterating the flooded fields that were reflecting back that steely light of dusk beneath storm clouds.  The further inland, the more they fog was just little tufts of grey clouds flitting over the landscape, almost as if the patchwork of land was a pond in which puffs of cloud were reflected.

It was an eerie image, like so many stories from the horror movie where some creeping mist or smoke or terror envelops the town. The fog that ate Milwaukee ... as seen from above.

And then we landed, and it was just wet, and dreary, and the fog had misted my windows and mirrors and didn't fade until I'd outrun it.

Coming from a city like Madison, where winter tends to limit such activities as sleeping outdoors and leaving vacant buildings to stand empty, gutted and open to the elements just isn't typical. It's simply too cold for most people and water lines freeze and break, generating huge bills (and fines). I was a bit surprised that just around the corner (literally) from the touristy Peachtree center/convention hotel block downtown and along the three or four block walk to Gladys & Ron's restuarant across from the university hospital, we passed large, multi-story buildings with the windows broken out and people sleeping in the doorways. And I haven't been hit up by panhandlers with such gusto since the Baltimore WFC, more than 10 years ago (where they basically had a gauntlet one had to pass through to get back to the hotel from the waterfront). On a couple of occasions, hotel staff yelled at panhandlers who wandered into the hotel valet area and the mall cop at Peachtree told someone to turn around and leave as they entered the area. Since I decided to leave the pub before the rest of the crew, I was a bit uptight being accosted by four panhandlers in one block, after midnight, by myself. 

Madison would have the panhandlers confined to one block where they would take turns, with police to help enforce it and negotiate the turn taking ... the panhandlers have been known to pull down a decent wage, especially during high school March Madness when all the small town kids are hit up for the first time. Some earn enough to rent rooms. Instead of standing around in the street, homeless people needing a break from the rain  (in Madison from the cold) would hop on a  free city bus and ride it around for a while. There would be no one publicly intoxicated or high in the streets for very long as they would be hauled away to detox right away the moment they became belligerent or began making people feel uncomfortable. There would be no gutted buildings, especially in the downtown, or the owners would be slapped silly with fines and brought up for ridicule at council meetings and in the local paper. Our homeless shelters here are full, especially with working poor and families, and there are people who car camp and a few who eschew the shelters and choose to sleep outside on all but the coldest winter nights: under bridges and in the park shelters. Some of the homeless have organized, and complained about the city rousting them from the parkshelters. They have attracted attorneys and community organizers who have taken on their causes - such that there was even a battle about how it shouldn't be illegal to pee publically, since that targets homeless in the park.

It would probably take the Madison city council only one or two of their typical marathon sessions to "solve" Atlanta's homeless problem.

Which is a kind of unsettling because whether they are mentally ill, addicted or a victim of the economy, we can SEE Atlanta's homeless to rock the sensibilities of the small town folk and make them feel just a little nervous and uncomfortable, and make them think about why. Madison's homeless are almost invisible, almost corporate, as if they really weren't there at all. They are, but we don't see them. 

-M

Hotels that charge $170 a night, plus 11% tax, charge $8.6 for a glass of wine and $7.50 for a glass of beer, have a lot of nerve offering wireless internet at $0.25 per minute. I have dutifully schlepped my laptop from the Marriott to Caribou to gain access (and the coffee around the corner was $1.50 instead of the $3 being charged by the hotel's Starbucks.)

When one is already feeling a bit vertically challenged from the vertigo perspective, flying through thunderstorms is really no help. While others briefly shrieked when the plane bucked like a mechanical bull without warning, my annoyance was, great, it'll take another 10 minutes to get undizzy.

Conferences that helpfully tell you that something is only a "20 minute ride" on the Marta, need to let those attendees know that there is a maze on either end that one must negotiate while hauling bags and bundles and wearing the coat that was needed in Wisconsin, but certainly not in Georgia. The people who create these mazes need to helpfully post signage like "Marriott" with an arrow, to indicate that you must take four 90-degree turns to end up there. What, I'm here?

People with vertigo should not look behind them down steep escalators hauling them four-stories up from a train station ... not unless they are intensely interested in falling back down the stairs.

It would be so nice if food courts would offer at least a couple of restaurants that don't assume people want every food group deep fried. Deep fried salad must be a southern delicacy? What?

--M

This is kind of cool, think of the possibilities (not just of inane tweets, but communication for those who have physical challenges).  And hoping this "cut" works since it kept trying to post it outside of the cut ...
( Read more... )( Read more... )

From:
http://marriedtothesea.com/

Pfff .... it's dusty in here!

Please forgive the lengthy silence (what, you didn't notice?), and how far behind I am on flist (which I KNOW I'll never catch up on) but I've been weathering a perfect storm of grading 84 essay exams and 84 term papers while carrying 9 credits, each credit of which demanded it get every last minute of my priority even while six of them were asking me to take simultaneous exams and six of them were demanding near-weekly papers and ... well, three of them have been excised and all the essays and term papers have been graded and received with horror by way more students than should have done so poorly, and so now I'm simply procrastinating the business I have with the other six credits. Of course, the class I dumped was probably the only interesting class I had this semester (Greek Classical Archaeology) but it also wasn't a required class that involves research pertinent to my qualifying exams so off went its head.

It has been a busy month or two. I have a new barn and new fencing to enclose it. I had to suffer through three weeks of Mr. 11 being grounded from video games (really, he has NO IDEA how much I suffered for him ... I had to listen to the whining). The grounding occurred because Mr. 11 apparently doesn't take after his mother when it comes to paying attention to the finer points of actually turning in one's homework. IT took him three weeks to figure out how to do it so that his grade could come up into the range where one is allowed access to video games. Since Mr. 11 also managed to get himself elected to an office in his 4-H club (treasurer), and I managed to be appointed to a leadership position in same said club, I have managed to burn way too many hours managing his office and mine. Too many numbers. Too many details. Too many people think volunteers should work harder, faster, and cater more to others' schedules. Of course they do.

I have read something like 200 pages per week for classes taken and taught. Though I can't for the life of me remember what they are about. I had to teach a segment of biological anthropology, which was interesting in that I kind of had to learn it first (what fun, population genetics and cell biology, primate cranial morphology, hominid evolutionary morphology ... the thingamijiggy connects to the what's it ...). Fortunately I'd had a little background in the primate/homind evolution material and a class that focused on bone analysis for archaeologists, but not at a level that made me feel qualified to teach it.

There's that whole business of having to find time to meet with the school to discuss the little issue of Mr. 11 and his failure to turn in homework (it's STOOOPID, I know how to do it why SHOULD I!) Oi. And meeting with the school over that little bit of a temper he has (he's for McCain, Mom, I had to take him down!). And meeting with the school over that whole organizational thing (I can't find my math book! It's in your back pack. Oh THAT math book). And talking with the school about his hormones (but she's HOT, Mom, you really don't understand. She's SO HOT!). Uh, yeah.

Then there was answering 15 robocalls a day and the wallpapering project with the 5 "terrorists will eat you for breakfast" flyers received each day. That seems to have a wearing down effect you don't realize until the silence settles after the storm. There are the little medical maladies that have been dogging me all month (like the evil disease that snagged me for two weeks and some weird thing where my immune system keeps launching assaults on body parts I'm still using (like my left eye and my knee)).

Unbelievably, there are only five weeks left of the semester and I feel like it has only just begun. The WORST part of it is next semester it's quals and I KNOW the tensions will only be increasing. No, I'm really not having fun yet.

So, apologies to anyone who may have been offended if I didn't comment on news or items of interest ... I feel like I've been living inside a vacuum cleaner bag, with the vacuum cleaner in the perpetually "on" position ... and someone just decided to clean the floor boards of their family minivan ...

--M
 

"Ex beauty queen's got a gun" sung to "Homecoming queen's got a gun" had me laughing out loud this morning.

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_tribute_song_The_Ex_Beauty_Queens_Got_A_Gun

Your own copy  can be downloaded here ...

http://www.juliebrown.com/

I keep coming across little things like this:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/palin/rally.asp

Well, heck, based on some of what I've been reading in the media I thought all of Alaska was pleased as pucks at the thought of Sarah Palin going to Washington. Even some of the more leftwardly leaning columnists talk about some of the narrower minds they've encountered as they wander through the Wasilia Wal-Mart.

The kind of thing that sets off my radar is statistics like: in Wisconsin McCain and Obama are in a dead heat, 2 percentage points apart within the margin of error. Yet, I have seen in the last month ONLY 2 McCain bumper stickers (and one "Nobama" which doesn't necessarily declare for the other candidate)  and about three yard signs. On the same street as I saw one McCain sign, I counted something like 8 Obama signs. I have seen countless, and I mean countless vehicles with Obama bumper stickers.

While granted, the city tends to be pretty liberal, this has also held true for the countryside where I'm seeing Obama signs on lawns that have in the past gone the other way.

Why should this set off my radar? Yup, polls can be wrong. Especially when such a huge segment of our local voters have no land lines, or they are people like me whose answering machines have been chatting up with robocalls and other unidentifiable 800-numbers. Is this good for Obama, that he could slip in the door?

And this is where the last eight years have turned my usual skepticism toward conspiracy land. Of course the pollsters know darned well their data is worthless. But if you drum up the fervor of a close election, it's a lot easier to steal it.