shooting down the satellite

Am I the only one totally wanting to read more about the military shooting down their broken satellite?

It's like a giant episode of Mythbusters.

KABLAMMO!

Ways I could spend my government money

Unky George sees that we're falling on hard times. To help us through the hard times and the foreclosure on our homes, he and Aunt Nancy opened their purse and are sending us a check.

You and I could be getting $600 from the government.

How can I spend it?

Can I get a gun?

Three Petsafe Cat Verandas?

Six majestic eagle scuptlures?

An Adventurometer?

20 robots?

here's a list of items for $600

How should the League spend his $600? Assuming he doesn't just pay some bills...

FLILF?

With first Fred Thompson, and now Dennis Kucinich dropping out of the race for the White House, I am reminded of this Daily Show story.

I haven't been reading the news

I don't know when this happened, but I kind of quit keeping up with the news the way I used to. Certainly being unemployed and having basic cable, as was my lifestyle last winter, lends itself not just to reading the news a lot more, but you sort of think the news has more to do with you than it really does. Conversely, I think as busy as I usually feel these days, I see a headline and digest it in the time it takes me to read the headline, and never commit to actually reading the article.

Today I was checking the personal e-mail from G-Mail, and on my MyGoogle Page, I have a news ticker or three, and most of the headlines were about Obama and Clinton, or Heath Ledger, and then one said "5 Million Dead as Congo agrees peace deal". 5 million. I mean, I knew that... anyway. Upsetting, but that's not so much the point.

Add in the chaos in Gaza, and the twin stories of the economy slowing and Bush's steps to stimulate the economy, and there's a hell of a lot going on, and I don't really feel looped in. I hear about stuff like Heath Ledger, which is morbidly interesting, but I'm not taking enough advantage of the internets right now to keep up on the stuff that isn't showing up in my news tickers. I know that the tickers sort of funnel celebrity stuff to the top for click-throughs, anyway, but I'm not doing any real news browsing the way I used to, or I should. Most online news sources are free. I've got no excuse.

I'm not saying the dust up between the dem presidential candidates isn't news. It is. But it's also just the narrative of the week for the race for the White House. 5 million people. Mass exodus from Gaza. Just because its not effecting me and my drive to work doesn't mean I should retreat into funnybooks, my iPod and the latest episode of Ghost Hunters.

That's all. Need to read more. Read my subscriptions to Newsweek and Time.

Also, I need to go practice the bass.

Ya'll have a good one.

Nothing to post

Well, Heath Ledger died. That's something to post, but I'll be honest. I never saw the knight movie, or the cowboy movie, so... I'm honestly not sure I've ever seen anything the guy ever did. Mostly I keep wondering how much the media is going to ghoulishly dwell on his death during the release of The Dark Knight.

Fred Thompson dropped out of the presidential race. I had no plans to vote for Thompson, really. I wasn't against the guy, but he wasn't even really very high on my list of candidates to research. I recall his time in the Senate during the late-90s, as he was in the paper a lot, but I don't even remember why.

They made announcements of Oscar noms for last year. But I don't care. I do want to see "There Will be Blood". No idea if they'll have the Oscars on, and since I don't watch, anyway, doesn't really bug me. Makes room for more American Gladiators.

Watched the second two episodes of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles last night. I am still hopeful, and I think the show is going to make it into my rotation. But... I am deeply afraid the show will become the adventures of a killer robot as she navigates the hallways of public high school. What's amazing is that I just typed that sentence and didn't get totally excited by the idea. That can't be good.

Apparently Clinton and Obama are dusting it up in the debates. Bleh.

Oh, and the economy is going to hell. Awesome. I am guessing we'll get a little closer to the Thunderdome lifestyle I've often aspired to.

I dunno. I got nothing tonight.

More Real Life Superheroes

Here's an article about the tiny (but growing) subculture of Real Life Superheroes (or Reals, as they seem to call themselves).

I certainly think its a terrible idea to dress up in a costume and try to patrol your city. The article does mention the potential for violence, and certainly The League is a lover, not a fighter. And as good-natured as I think it is to dress up and head down to the homeless shelter to help out, do you need a superhero outfit to do that?

Well, honestly, it sounds like it worked out for the guy in the article when he uses his time to read to kids. But, let's be realistic... you don't need a super suit to help people.

Let me be perfectly clear: I think its a good idea to wear clothes if you want to go out and help the public. Otherwise, you're looking at some jail time. Ask Randy.

I don't honestly know what to make of the Reals. Part of me thinks its really cool, but I'm also aware of the potential for this get really bad, really fast. So in what capacity, if any, is there room for Real costumed do-gooders?

I've Got a Golden Compass...

Well, the big news is that I think my folks have signed paperwork and will be building a house in North Austin. Super huge news as far as Jamie, Jason and myself are concerned. I will now be surrounded by parents on all sides. No getting out of town in the dark of night now.

We're very happy to have the folks coming to town for a multitude of reasons, just as we were quite pleased when Jamie's folks announced their intention to relocate to San Marcos. I tell you this much Leaguers, its going to make traveling during the holidays a heck of a lot easier.

Yesterday high school and college pal Erica Foster and her husband, Scott, happened to be in town, and so they swung by. It's really been a while since we've seen Erica, unless you count her wedding. Which I sorta do, but, you know, she didn't really get much of a chance to chit-chat, and we only met Scott briefly. It's always nice to see your friends married a good guy, and Scott is that. So... Well done, Bug. Jamie and I were quite impressed.

Hope to see you over Christmas.

Speaking of KOHS folks, former high school lab chum Jeff Wilser popped up in the old e-mailbox on Friday. Sounds like Wilser is doing very well. He's landed an editorial job for a NYC-based entertainment and nightlife review website. Not a bad gig, and its kinda cool to hear the guy you used to play lacrosse with and dissect the occasional pig fetus has done pretty darn well for himself.

We met up with my parents at Houston's Restaurant on Anderson Ln., but had an hour or so to kill before we were to see The Golden Compass at the Village Alamo. And so, we headed over to Northcross Mall to see if any of the shops were still open.

I wouldn't say Northcross was the busiest mall in Austin, but it's located in the middle of a good neighborhood, there should be a lot of traffic around it, and, hey... it had an ice rink.

I recall seeing "The Muppets Take Manhattan" at its movie theater in 1984 or so, and continued seeing movies there through the first year or two of college. I bought my copy of Cure's Disintegration at the Sam Goody there, and, I believe, Beastie Boys' License to Ill. It wasn't a huge mall, being Austin's first mall, but there wasn't anything really wrong with it.

But now, aside from a fairly dumpy video game shop, that almost seemed to be begging people to steal from it, a Sports Authority where Oshman's had once built a huge sports-plex/ store, and a still functional ice rink, there really isn't anything there. Well, oddly, there's still one of those places where you can go in and record a song in a booth.

There also seems to have once been a church congregating in a part of the mall, but they're gone. The food court and a whole wing of the mall are covered in drywall, so you can't really go there. The wing where the movie theater once stood may or may not be used for conferences now. I couldn't tell if that operationw as still functional.

But as we had time to kill before the movie, I really didn't know what to do but hang out there and sort of soak in the vibe. They're supposedly going to plow the whole place under next year and put in a gigantic Wal-Mart, despite the protests of the areas' residents. No doubt the Wal-Mart would do better than the tomb of a building that remains (I walked through the middle of the dried out fountain), but it seems like its wrong for such an old neighborhood to play host to a Wal-Mart that would be serving people not actually from that neighborhood.

I dunno. Maybe a Thunderdome?

The whole thing had a weird feel of saying good-bye to a place, if not a thing. I don't have a lot of memories tied up in a mall. But I do recall the puppies at the PetLand. And I remember Jason admitting to me (he being 17 and me 15) that he really hated Christmas shopping at the mall, a sentiment that I remember finding odd. I hadn't really thought about it until then. It was just something you had to do, like going to the dentist. But as he now had his own wheels (a swanky Camaro), I think he had a little more time to ponder what sort of shopping horror he would face down in the weeks leading to Christmas.

We watched some adult players knock a puck around the ice for a while (I don't think they were heating the building), and finally crossed the street to go see the Golden Compass.

The Golden Compass isn't bad, per se. It is very, very heavy on exposition for the first half of the movie, and you certainly get the feeling stuff is happening because that's how it happened in the book, not because the director and editor were able to get the momentum of the book culled from the footage. It's an odd disconnect, because the movie is really pretty, the performances are great, and the animal CG performers are terrific and seamless.

In part, the movie suffers because it feels the need to explain everything to the viewer like a manual rather than letting the characters discover anything, or else by letting us know what the deal is with their fairly complicated world by dialog and having a bit of faith in the audience. In setting up the world, the plot itself gets somewhat lost, and, honestly, I can't really piece together much, but it seems the Golden Compass should have just been called Deus Ex Machina for a goodly portion of the film.

Oh, also, the film is a big, poorly disguised allegory that I don't see a lot of America embracing.

I'm not sure how balloon-driving cowboys fit into the allegory exactly. Or Polar bears.

The girls sitting next to me certainly liked the movie. They cheered every time an animal appeared on the screen. Which is pretty much every other shot. They also found Daniel Craig dreamy. I did have to ask them to please keep it down, but they mostly were just really into the movie in a way in which I was not.

I guess if you're on the fence, the polar bears are pretty cool.

Ahmadinejad in NYC

Hey, so Ahmadinejad hit NYC today, and I know you're thinking "Hey, League... You're somewhat literate and watch TV sometimes. I don't know what to think of this Iranian President coming to town and chatting up co-eds. Lambast me with your poorly constructed worldview and mediocre analysis."

I love me some America, Leaguers. Iran, I can give or take, and, let's face it, we've got a rocky history with those folks.

Did you know, according to Batman comics, the Ayatollah Khomeini once made The Joker a UN Ambassador? Amazing and TRUE.

Leading up to Ahmadinejad's appearance today at Columbia University, there was a lot of debate regarding whether or not he should be given such an opportunity, or, with his tendency to make claims many Americans find outrageous (and which the rest find mostly offensively preposterous), Iran's President should be allowed to speak. This is after someone wouldn't let the guy make an appearance at the site of the World Trade Center.

Ahmadinejad isn't crazy. He's a head of state, responsible for millions of lives. And whether he espouses beliefs Americans believe to be bizarre or profane, he's also not the mad dog lunatic that our own resident propaganda artists have tried to spin him. Instead, he's a thinking person, and a seemingly intelligent person, and a caricature of evil doesn't reflect what Americans are getting from this guy. He's not a ludicrous figure in the mode of King Jung Il, or the bizarre Papa of Death that Saddam Hussein appeared to be with his bushy mustache and tendency to fire off rifles during parades.

My fundamental belief, and you can quote me on this, is that if we aren't willing to let everyone speak, no matter how crooked or vile they are, then our belief in freedom of speech isn't worth the hemp the Constitution is written on. We live in a groovy country where we don't need to worry about being jailed or fined for making fun of our leaders or criticizing them, and that's something you can't even really say about most of the rest of the world (there was even a recent case in Spain of a cartoonist getting in legal trouble for making fun of some lazy Prince. A Prince, for love of Mike!).

Iran has a, shall we say, slightly stricter idea of what it means to talk smack to those in charge, from Mullah to President.

As Jim D once wisely pointed out to me, one of the interesting things about freedom of speech isn't just that you get to say whatever you want, it's that people get to say whatever they want right back at you. And here's where things come together about why I think bringing a dictator with a, shall we say, spotty reputation into an Ivy league institution is a groovy idea. Did Ahmadinejad think he was going to walk onto a stage in a room full of America's elite, students and professional intellectuals, and not get a few tough questions?

Honestly, the Newt Gingrich's of the world who were so horrified at bringing this guy to the US to speak were missing the big picture. I don't know if they thought Ahmadinejad was going to be able to persuade a roomful of Columbia's best and brightest that he was a great guy or what, but what I think they were missing was the opportunity which New York and Columbia seemed to take advantage of in pretty good force.

The President of Iran is going to be able to build his cult of personality at home whether he's at Columbia or not. Bring him to Columbia University, and for one day, he was out of his element and speaking to an audience that had no reason to be polite, was not going to worry about having their jobs and homes taken from them (or worse), and who have not had government controlled media managing the message since the 70's (I'm speaking in broad terms here, so let's not go crazy talking about corporate owned media franchises, shall we?).

Ahmadinejad got to see his route lined with protesters he can dismiss, but perhaps he can also note not just that we're a country where you can assemble and go home without fear of arrest, but that our streets can fill with people willing to voice their opposition to the government he's assembled. People who drew attention to some of his quirkier antics.

Whatever moment of personal triumph Ahmadinejad may have thought he was building by walking into Columbia, from what I've read, things worked out pretty well in the way of American republic-style democracy versus Holocaust-denying dickery. For folks who questioned the President of Columbia of University for bringing in Ahmadinejad, check this out:

"When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous," Bollinger said. "The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history."

Bollinger made this comment in his opening remarks, and reminded us that we live in a place where the President, any President, can be called into question when they face the public, and that person should require only the courage takes to look another person in the eye to call that President out.

And that's not all bad.

Lastly, the role of the University is a place for learning, and part of that concept is the open and free exchange of ideas. That's why I blanch when I hear someone trying to get a professor fired for espousing kooky beliefs. Universities, state funded or not, aren't just there to be job training facilities for high schoolers who are too chicken to try a stint in the armed services. There was a reason the university you went to kept inviting all these people to talk on campus, even when you were skipping them to watch "Friends". Part and parcel of that is that they advertise all of these people, so you get to go and tell them they're a big jerk.

No, its true! If, say, Captain Kangaroo showed up and you wanted to give the Captain a piece of your mind, you get to do so. Unless you're that one guy, and you get tased for being a jack-ass. But you have to really push it before they tase you, bro.

Anyhow, I was glad to see most commentators understand the situation, and was glad to see it shook out pretty well.

UPDATE: Or, as pictures always speak better than words: Click here

Thanks, anonymous

Superman in Romania?

Apparently there's a guy in a blue suit flying around Romania.

Go figure...

Here's the story.

And a pic on the Superman Homepage and links to other stories.

ROBBED!!!

Dang it!

This morning I was going out to my car and noticed something seemed off. I paused, looked around, and finally saw that the two very nice chairs we had on our porch were gone.

Now, last spring Peabo noted that he had some nice porch chairs stolen from his back porch, and i thought that odd. Porch chairs? Well, Peabo's stuff was of a certain look and feel, and I understand that it's fairly expensive to get the kind of furniture he had.

But The League is a trusting soul. Plus, honestly, that furniture has been there for 10 or 11 months. I just had given up worrying about it. We live on a street that is not really a through-way, so I suspect that someone who either works on our street or visits our street had been coveting our patio chairs. Because, honestly... I don't think my neighbors that I know are big enough jerks to come between midnight and this morning and take our damn chairs, and I get depressed thinking someone would visit our neighborhood in a desperate search for porch chairs. But what the heck do I know?

I HATE getting robbed. Everyone does. A little bit of larceny from a big box store or something I can almost understand, but when you start stealing other people's personal stuff, it just means you think you deserve their stuff more than they deserve it. It's a dickish move. I don't know if people think we're rolling in cash because we had decent porch chairs, or what... but, seriously, Leaguers... I can't afford new @#$%ing porch chairs.

I also am glum that, no doubt, someone will suggest we secure the chairs somehow.

No. That sucks. I am not chaining @#$%ing chairs to the @#$%ing railing. I don't want to live in a world where anything i don't have nailed down is going to walk off.

But I also have two patios. So... next time the furniture goes upstairs. It seems less likely that people will climb the front of my house to steal stuff.

Downstairs? Who knows? I don't want to clutter the porch with furniture so crappy that nobody will want it, but I also want to be able to sit out there.

I do know that it could have been way, way worse. We got mildly robbed when I was in high school, and it wound up with us getting a burglar alarm. I don't recall losing much but a portable CD player in the robbery, but my mom came home before I did that day, and that could have been bad had the crooks still been there. In PHX we got a burglar system right out of the gate.

This incident just reminds me that, despite our two dog security system, we should probably think about getting wired up. Which is a permanent, ongoing expense. Which sucks. And makes me that much further from obtaining new patio furniture.

But I also don't want to come home one night and find all my stuff is missing. Not that anyone is going to successfully steal a few thousand comics, but... Whatever I can do to keep the house from getting ripped off and kepe Jamie safe is a good idea.

Man.

Urgghhhh.

Hey, Leaguers. Sorry about the sad lack of posting. I've just had some busy days, and then, when I wasn't busy last night, I chose to roll over and go to sleep. I suggest you all write my bosses and tell them I'm entirely too busy and its preventing me from blogging, thus, denying the entire world a vital resource.

Minnesota Bridge Collapse

I keep turning the Minnesota bridge collapse over in my head. Of course thoughts and sympathy go out to those folks.

Part of what I find so depressing is that we know these things can happen and we still turn a blind eye. You hope as a kid that adults will make the right, obvious decisions, but...

If its not in the budget to fix the bridge, then we can't fix the bridge. Anyone who reads the paper might know that a vast number of bridges in our country are not considered safe, but there's an economic incentive not to touch the bridges as it would stop the daily commutes of millions of Americans if we were to actually bring those bridges up to code. That, and raising taxes to actually fix the bridges...

I cross an unknown number of bridges into work. I take at least one bridge over train tracks on William Cannon and, of course, I cross the South 1st bridge when I head over Town Lake on my way in to town each morning. For various reasons I took the Congress Avenue bridge leaving town this evening, but generally, it's the expansive S. 1st/ Lavaca bridge two times a day.

I may also pass over smaller bridges as I cross gullies and creeks on S. First, headed toward town. Certainly there's a dip that, when I think about it, certainly isn't flat with the ground, so that's most likely a small bridge.

Jason crosses the Lamar Street bridge twice a day or more.

I do not think about the possibility of the bridges collapsing. Never. Until
today, when suddenly you realize all those "1/3rd of bridges are considered unsafe" statistics apply to you. I am deeply saddened that the bridge collapse occurred. I think we can all see a bit of ourselves in the position of the commuters.

I wish the victims and families of the victims of the bridge collapse my best.


MAY THE LEAGUE RECOMMEND

Hey, it's not just time for a new season of "Who Wants to be a Superhero?", there's a new show on PBS. So, may The League recommend...

Nova ScienceNow

I know, Nova is a show for geeks. BUT... it is informative and very well produced. This new version is hosted by the astrophysicist guy who makes routine appearances on The Daily Show, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Nova ScienceNow is broken up into shorter, roughly 20 minute segments, far briefer than the usual hour-long Nova shows. Each segment focues on a wildly different topic, with Dr. Tyson popping up between segments and then give you "the cosmic view" at the end. Sort of like "Springer's Final Thought", only... not a rambling bit of incoherence.

One of my life's great regrets was that because I struggled with math in grade school and middle school, I sort of gave up on math and the possibilities for a career in anything which required a strong math or science background. Other topics came more easily, or I could skate by. So, before I ever really understood anything about math or science I was vainly deciding that I'd prusue something a bit more abstract or artistic or something. I had good teachers, I think. I loved Physics and Biology in high school, and I took a boatload of Geology in college, as well as biology, anthropology and other stuff (knowing full well I'd be doomed in physics.) I sort of thought of science, at the time, as something completely out of my grasp. Which was kind of sad and dumb of me. But if it came down to getting low marks in a class or getting the easy A in theater arts, I was going for the easy A.

Nova ScienceNow manages to simplify things so that a brain as ill-functioning as my own can understand the concepts. They're going for the coolness factor and skimming over some of how stuff actually works, certainly, but... Hell, you get to see some really neat stuff and understand how science can make a better world. Plus, you know, robots and dinosaurs.

I was particularly interested in a story on the work of Cynthia Brazeal at the MIT AI labs. She's making social robots that are learning to react to human emotions at a certain level. It was one of those moments when you see a small part of the future, and all those Asimov stories don't seem so crazy. And, for some reason, when they showed the POV of the robot, I was profoundly sad. I don't know why. I guess the idea of the little robot's brain being brought into the world and trying to see and understand the world is that first step beyond being merely a machine. It's sort of a beautiful thing, seeing those silicon neural synapses firing, and wish fulfillment of generations of kids. But you can also almost see the thing struggling.

Sure, in fifty years when the robots have driven us all onto the coasts and we've got our backs to the water while the AI gunships are hunting us down, its not going to be pathetic and heartbreaking... But now... Well, let us hope we are kind to the things we bring into this world.

Anyhow, check out Nova ScienceNow. For us armchair science enthusiasts who are still bstunned by shiny objects and promises of a future full of flying cars and cloned dinosaurs, its a great show.


Christmas is coming...


I'm just saying...


Also just saying...

More Prison dancing action!
From Randy. And this time... QUEEN!!!

Astros Win in the 14th!
Of course I wandred off in the 11th thinking they'd lose...


I Am Popeye

Lady Bird Johnson

When I was a kid growing up in Austin, I recall it was a pretty big deal that Lady Bird Johnson still maintained an office in the LBJ Library. The rumor was that they couldn't build any structures higher than a story or two between her window at the library and the Capitol, lest anything obstruct her view. It wasn't that Lady Bird Johnson was supposed to be mean and bossy, but nobody really wanted to obstruct her view. I thought that must say something pretty nice about the lady.

At some point when I was 12 or 13 my folks were customers of The Bank of the Hills, which belonged to the Johnson family. I still recall my folks going to the opening of the new building out near 620 and 183 (when the area was a field) because they heard Lady Bird would be there shaking hands. Sure enough, my folks were just two of the rubes who Lady Bird shook hands with that night. I believe Lucy may have been there as well. I remember finding it mindblowing that she was involved with family business and would just meet any old person who wandered in to the bank that night. (I think i stayed home, watched an Arnie movie and ate fish sticks).

We have Lady Bird to thank in Austin for Town Lake Park, the LBJ Library, the control of billboard proliferation, the planting of wildflowers along the highway, and, of course, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. She was also involved with Austin's KTBC during its glory days. And, of course, she was also involved in her husband's campaigns in Texas and National races.

Finally, she was also a Journalism major at the University of Texas, and thus a fellow Longhorn. It is my understanding that she also was available as a guest speaker during the semesters in which Dr. Lewis Gould was teaching his "First Ladies" conference course for the History department. (Unfortunately, I found out about the course after it was no longer offered with Dr. Gould's retirement.)

Godspeed, Lady Bird Johnson.

Balloon Guy

I've received basically the same article from at least two people (thanks Peabo and Maria!).

The basic gist of the article is that a guy filled 100-odd helium balloons, tied them to his lawn chair and floated 193 miles.

There is a word for that, Leaguers: Totally awesome.

Also: Balls.

In this era of "pioneers" being defined by which CEO of a company which happened to build a nifty piece of software, give me a dude who straps 105 balloons to a lawn chair, packs a brown bag lunch and cruises 193 miles. Humanity has more or less lost its taste for adventure, so every once in a while it's up to a guy with a half-baked plan and a love of colorful balloons to really break the mold.

I swear, back in the 1920's this guy would have been a national hero and had a sandwich or something named after him. Even today we'd be like "Why do they call it a Couch Sandwich?" and your trivia-spouting friend would say "Oh, it's named after Kent Couch." And you would totally know what that means.

Mr. Balloon Jockey, I salute thee! It would take three or four times that many balloons to lift my XXXL-sized carcass (plus the thermos of coffee) across the sky, and I don't even know where to get big ballons, anyway. But I'm a lot jealous.

I suppose I'd also need a fairly durable lawn chair...

Anyhow, Thanks for accomplishing what they said probably shouldn't be done. And I think was a topic once on Mythbusters. So go figure.

More Bankston in the News

It's late and I have to go to bed, but it appears that KB continues to be in the news. And so much for Google's easy policy regarding requesting that your image be taken down... they're now collecting driver's license information in order to have your pic removed.

Read here

BTW, this blog is published on a Google product, and if you e-mail me, it'll come to GMail. If they ever decide to merge with Time Warner, we will know the Eye of Sauron is upon us.

Thanks to Amy, Pat and/ or Jeff for the link.

I have a new car

Buenos noches, little Forester. May Howdy Honda's used car department find you a rad new home where you will be loved.

I picked up the Element tonight. It's blue, as I mentioned, but the color is NOT actually described as ATOMIC blue, it is described as Arctic blue or some such... I think that Atomic thing is left over from a different model.

If in Austin and buying a Honda, let me mention that Howdy Honda not only has a great name for a dealership, they had great customer service. When at Howdy, ask for Helen Frink, super car salesperson. We like Helen.

Apparently Howdy Honda was selling a lot of cars today as the financing people were way backed up and it took a while for us to get in the car and get going. Oddly, Jeff and Keora were also there, and I think Keora was picking up a Honda Fit. I do think they were getting the car, because Jeff had that face on he gets when he's about to spend money. I saw this face many times, including when we co-signed a lease in 1996.

Anyhow, the rest of the night was documented pretty well by Jason. Go here.

I was going to call the car "Ted" in honor of slain Superhero, Ted "The Blue Beetle" Kord. But I'm not sure. Is this what Ted would have wanted? And then there's the whole fact that it's not a blue VW... I dunno. The Forester was usually The Krypton Kruiser. I need to find some other alliterative moniker or at least something which speaks about the car.

My first car (a maroon/ red '83 Honda Accord) went by The Badger, as it was dangerous when cornered. My next car, a '92 Eclipse, was called "Hero", for pulling my fat out of the fire and out of reverence for the horse of pulp hero, The Phantom.

So, we'll see. It'll come to me.

Bankston in the News

My former roommate, KB, has made the news.

Here's the article.

Well done, KB.

Honestly, I think that's the first time I've seen him in a baseball hat.

McNewspeak

When I was in high school, I first came across the term "McJob" in Douglas Coupland's book Generation X.

McJob: (page 5)

A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one.

And I think that last bit is the sinker.

Anyhow, it appears McDonald's is outraged that the job of burger flipper/ burger warmer is not held in the highest of esteem.

Read about it here.

Apparently unaware of how the English language works, McDonalds has started an effort to convince those they see as the "owners" of language that they've not given the term "McJob" a fair shake and seen the word the way their corporate decision makers would like the world to see the term "McJob". Oddly, these chroniclers of the language seem to go with how billions of English-speaking people use the term. What to do when you're an enormous corporation and you can't buy your way out of your sorry reputation as an employer.

From the article:

The Oxford English Dictionary, considered by many wordsmiths as the gold standard for the English language, is one of those that will be targeted. It defines the noun as "an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector."

I get freaked out by Newspeak at the best of times, but when you get the feeling a corporation is considering doing something pretty vile to try to demolish an image that's been somewhat fairly earned... I dunno. Kind of freaky. Rather than cowboy up and address the issue, is it really that much better to publicly take on the Dictionary?

Somehow, this generates images in my head of the burger wars from the mostly not-discussed Frank Miller comic "Give Me Liberty" in which the US goes to war to protect fast food cows in the Amazon.

I don't want for anyone to misconstrue this particular rant for some sort of disrespect for the hard working burgermeisters who prepare my fast food. The League has not worked fast food, but... We DID work at Chuck E. Cheese, which is mediocre, slowly produced food delivered in a temple in which all pizza eating worshippers must halt eating and conversation in reverence to a mechanical gigantic mouse in a hat. We swept up pizza crusts, handed out tokens to kids when the machine "ate" their token, oversaw the ball crawl*, and polished the vertical bars on the mini-carousel. I've slung records at the Camelot and pimped Tinkerbell shirts at the Disney Store. There is such a thing as a job where the downers (usually created by inept or negative management) greatly outweigh the $4.75 an hour. In two of these three jobs I was asked to wear an ill-fitting and humiliating uniform (we actually requested silver jumpsuits to wear when I worked at UT. Request denied). And had managers that, on a good day, were indifferent to me at best.

I had no skills, no experience, no future within the organization, and was constantly reminded of as much. If not for school and the promise of becoming a middle-class wage slave, I might have given in to the gripping despair that one can only find when told to keep glass doors clean in a restuarant full of children who've been handling pizza, tokens, tickets, and wiping snot on their own palms. For $4.25 or whatever minimum wage was in 1990.

But I also lived with my parents, and/or was earning supplemental money while in school which my folks generously assisted with. I am not an eighteen year old kid living in Goober Springs, Alabama where options are McDonalds or tending to my Uncle's Used Tire Emporium. So when that kid hears "McJob", I have no idea what he or she must think. But I hope to God that with the power of television and our educational system, Buddy McBarnes from Goober Springs at least knows that there may be more opportunity available than what ends when you pass the Exxon and it's all trees again along the freeway.

Thusly, mad respect for folks in the service industry, but I also know that the bright-eyed promising student is far and few between who says "I want to spend my life earning minimum wage and microwaving McMuffins."

Curiously, the CEO of McDonald's from a few years back was once a burger pimp, himself. Here's an article from when someone died and Bell took over.

Bell began his career with the fast-food chain at age 15 as a part-time crew member at a McDonald's restaurant in Sydney, Australia.

He became the company's youngest store manager in Australia at 19, a vice president at 27 and a member of the McDonald's Australia board of directors by the time was 29 years old.

"This is an absolutely right choice," said S&P's Milton. "Cantalupo relied on Bell a lot for crafting the turnaround. This is someone who has been with the company for a significant period of time."

That's awesome. I bet Bell's staff is made up entirely of the crew he started with at that Australian McDonald's**. What happened to you, Bell? You used to be from the street, dawg! You knew what it was to flip a burger and clean up some kids' barf from the McDonaldland Playscape!*** You sold out, Bell. You sold out.

Minimum wage isn't really the thrust of the phrase "McJob". A McJob is more about the drudgery of many jobs that's cropped up since the Industrial Revolution as people become cogs in an assembly line, whether that be McDonalds employees leaping into action when the frier makes that awful "WHEEEEEEEEEEET! WHEEEEEEEEEEEET!" noise. Or whether that person is wearing a tie, sitting in a cube where they can't be seen, anyway, and calling people to donate to the Austin Policemen's Charity (the tie makes you all professional-like).

There's something far more frightening about the white-collar McJob. It's a job intended to mark time, is mostly insulting to the intelligence, and can usually be identified by how often the manager insists that they are a professional of some sort and how unnecessarily cumbersome the tasks assigned to wage slave actually are. Usually because nobody ever bothered to ask the employees how to improve the processes they do all day, which the executives have never actually performed. But they DO pay well enough, these jobs... and there's not necessarily the same sense of temporary employment that pervades when one is loaned their pants and told they must return them when they quit. And, of course, in the white-collr McJob, you are surrounded by lots of other people all doing the same job, many of whom have been their for years and never once considered a promotion.

What's curious is that McDonalds is going after the dictionary in the same manner they go after our elected officials whenever it's suggested the minimum wage see an increase. As I recall, in order to try to dodge out of some legislation or other that might effect the bottomline, McDonald's attempted to reassign their employees from the food-prep category to some sort of assembly line technician. I can't find it now, but in my commute in PHX, I recall hearing the story on NPR.

Perhaps if McDonalds paid a bit better, perhaps if the drudgery of the position wasn't punctuted only with being shouted at by furious managers and customers... McDonalds might be able to actually convince those of us who've used the term "McJob" without blinking for fifteen years to drop the term if their employees did not always look miserable and their turnover wasn't well known as one of the highest turnover positions in any industry. (As someone who has managed part time employees, turn over is a huge time killer and makes managers grumpy.)









*some new parents read this blog. I beseech of thee, if you care at all for your health or the health and safety of your children... do not let your child enter a public ball crawl. New parents don't want to think about this, but little kids are germ factories. Not only are they perpetually ill, they also have no concept of hygiene, and will wipe their nose with their hands and then leap into the ball crawl. It is IMPOSSIBLE to clean the balls in the ball crawl. And dozens and dozens of kids pass through a ball crawl each day, leaving their trail of germs on everything.

Also, while your child may be an angel, other kids are irresponsible horrors with no respect for their safety or that of anyone else. So expect for your kid to get a shin to the back of the head.

And last, but not least... and i can't believe I have to share this, but I speak from experience... Ball crawls are not a good place for infants. Do not toss your infant into the ball crawl in the high hopes that the disgruntled 16 year old watching the crawl will watch your kid while you pound back a cool Coors 16 oz'er. The ball crawl is about 3 feet deep. Your infant could easily disappear and not be found again until the semi-annual ball-crawl vaccuuming. Also, the note about the shin to the back of the head? Kids like to jump off the walls, pretending to be their favorite luchador, often in the direction of your infant's still unfused skull.

When considering the ball crawl, just.... don't.

**I know they eat beef in Australia, but what else is on the menu? Filet 'o Platypus? Koala Nuggets? Ah, it's funny to make fun of Australians. FACT: They're all reprehensible savages****.

***Why is it that really low-paying jobs often require the removal of vomit? I do recall that one of the reasons I was not liked (and I hadn't thought about this in a while) at the Disney Store was that when I was informed that some kid had tossed her cookies in the store, on carpet, I declared "I am not paid enough to clean up barf. At least not without that pink, granular stuff." Apparently not wanting to clean up barf makes you "not a team player". But, you know what... they weren't paying for benefits or nuthin'. I was supposed to shift from fixing the stuffed anaimal arrangements to scooping up vomit.
Other people's barf is super gross, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some sort of special compensation for cleaning it up. If we all worked together and refused to clean up barf for minimum wage, just imagine the utopia we'd all be living in.

****This is not an actual fact. I've met a few Australians, and while I get tired of hearing about how they find my slection of knife completely substandard, our friends from down under couldn't be a more decent people. In fact, if you'd like to point to anyone as an utter savage, it's Canadians, who, FACT: eat babies*****.

*****It is mostly not-true that Candians eat babies. At least not Canadian babies, or there would be no actual Canadians. I suspect some Canadians of cannibalism, but can prove nothing. They probably clean up barf for a shiny dime, too.******

******I feel sort of bad about that. That may have gone too far.

Tuesday Short Bits

-Walter Reed Army Hospital/ Bob Woodruff and Veteran's Affairs Hospital

Wow. This is just one of those things that I recall some folks being concerned about in the run up to the Iraq War. It's easy to send in the tanks and helicopters. It's in the following years that we, as a nation, have to answer the tough questions. Will we honor our soldiers when they come home, but don't come home in a box? When they took a piece of metal to the head for us, will we make sure we take care of them?

I watched the Woodruff special last week, and the answer appears to be: we'll help out a bit, but don't expect too much. Oh, and we'll report that injuries are coming in at a rate of 1/10th of the actual numbers of soldiers receiving treatment.


-Anna Nicole Smith's Mom

I totally think I saw her at the Austin airport when I went to pick up Jamie Sunday night. Jamie assures me it wasn't her, but I think it was.


-Ann Coulter

At what point did folks decide it was okay again to use bigotry as part of the political process? And just outright hatred?

How can you even do much but roll your eyes anymore when Coulter speaks? One horribly distasteful comment can sink a career, but it's no secret that a steady line of reprehensible comments builds a career.

I spent enough time in suburbia to know that this is the sort of discourse that occurs over a cold beer or three, and that, however idiotic and seemingly juvenile Coluter's comments, she's speaking for some segment of the population. Do we give too much credit to the Conservative Political Action Conference? At least to some attendees.


-Kyle MacLachlan to voice Superman

Here's some good news (in my book). Special Agent Cooper is scheduled to play the voice of the Man of Steel in the upcoming "New Frontier" straight to DVD feature-length cartoon.

I think MacLachlan should have landed the George Reeves role in Hollywoodland, but I guess the producers didn't think he'd sell enough tickets. He was, after all, up for the role and is the appropriate age.

Keep your eyes peeled for "New Frontier" when it's released. The comic series was excellent stuff, and Darwyn Cooke's style will most likely be maintained for the feature (think 1950's and 60's cartooning). Hopefully the series was self-contained enough that nobody will feel they need to tweak the story too much. I loved the Right Stuff meets Mort Weisinger sensibility of the whole thing.

Just wait until you see Cooke's Lois and Wonder Woman.


-Superman at accident, but not particularly helpful

And before anyone assumes I do not have a TV or the interwebs...



-Extreme Make-Over Home Edition airplane family

Upon occasion on Sunday nights Jamie I watch this horrible, horrible program while we DVR stuff on other networks. The formula is simple: Find people who have simply too much responsibility and a ton of misfortune fall upon them, and give them a McMansion and flat screen TV. Usually the family has someone who is chronically ill and lives in a hovel, or they've taken in 6 foster kids and a tornado levelled their trailer.

The show has been on a while, but last night was the first time I thought (a) these people are badly off not just because fate dealt them an unlucky hand, but because they made a stupid decision by cancelling their home owner's insurance while refinancing, and then living across the street from an airport. Yes, a plane ran into their house. And (b) these people fully knew what was in store for them when they got on the program. They fully expected the amenities of the McMansion and kept saying things like "Oh, this is totally what I wanted." Not, "Wow, I am used to sharing a room with six people and ten rats." IE: these people weren't exactly slumming it prior to the show, or at least prior to getting hit with an airplane.

A few weeks ago, the show was about a family in Austin with 5 autistic kids and a dad who worked two blue-collar jobs to try to cover the bills, but their house was days from being foreclosed upon. But with five autistic kids, the bills were piling up, the house was in serious disrepair and mom was at her wit's end.

These people cancelled their insurance as part of a plan to refinance their existing house. Had the plane NOT hit the house, they'd still be a comfortably middle class family with very few problems. Sure, their son was a marine who'd been in Iraq, but he wasn't injured. And he was 21. As mentioned above, we have a lot of our troops who are not so fortunate. And, he's 21... How long was he expected to live at home?

I dunno. The funny thing is that the cast usually spends the whole episode talking about how amazing the families are who they're helping out. In this instance, they were sort of quiet on the subject. I think they knew, and we knew, that there were probably a lot of families in Florida in much worse shape than these folks.

Updated Terror Threat Color-System

found at The Beat

Mooninite Enablers Address the 4th Estate

I wish I had the presence of mind to do this sort of thing when my entire future is in the balance.