Two books that I enjoyed reading were Peter Mayles’s A Year In Provence and Frances Mayes’ Under The Tuscan Sun. Both books have strong, arching narratives that place the reader in the center of their stories. Reading Cleveland Ex-Patriot Fran Schiavo’s accounts of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico gives me the same feeling. From two recent posts:

18 October: Mike and I return to the house and move furniture, finally deciding to eliminate about half the pieces that are in the small living room. The house we”re renting is gradually becoming ours and we”re glad there”s a garage to hold what we”re not using.

Prior to turning in for the night I decide I really should wash the dishes that have collected since Saturday afternoon (the maid does not come on Sundays). This is the first cleaning I”ve done since our arrival.

I finish the evening on the rooftop patio watching fireworks. It”s a day of firsts, all mundane – taking the bus, getting my shoes shined, being recognized as a new resident, washing dishes, and enjoying a rooftop fireworks show – and now all recorded here nonetheless.

20 October: A surprising advantage of the internet is the ability to post questions to local newsgroups. Earlier today, Mike is on route to the Canadian bakery — we are shamelessly hooked — and I”m here wishing we had some good butter.

Nothing we”ve found so far is very, well…, buttery tasting. I post a query on civilsmacoollist.com and receive immediate responses — Fern brand butter from New Zealand is sold at Espinos (the grocery just a couple of blocks from us). I also learn that it”s important to read the list of ingredients on Mexican butter — some show pure cows” milk, others show that fat is added not from cows” milk. So that explains the margarine taste.

I call Mike on the cell phone and relay the Fern brand info. He”s walked to the bakery, is on the bus headed back. He gets off right at the door of Espinos and in just a few minutes we”re enjoying whole wheat biscuits with New Zealand butter.

My Soundtrack: I Was A Sunny Rainphase by Stereolab on WOXY.

A Republican Congress and a Republican president doesn’t mean what it might have a generation or so ago. Take a look at the explosive growth in Pork projects that results when there’s no one to disagree with how Big Government spends our money. Can you say Drunken Sailor? Forget the long boat, it’s time to throw them overboard.

I think that Columbus Mayor (and gubernatorial candidate) Mike Coleman has some creative people working for him. This is not your usual campaign poster. Some might suggest it’s negative right out of the gate. I don’t. You have to pony up $50 dollars to Coleman’s campaign to get a copy. Thanks to Adam for the catch.

My Soundtrack: No Cities Left by Dears on WOXY.

This is really weird. Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald now has a website. It’s not much, but the question has to be: why? Is he going to use it for some special end-run around the Bush administration and the Justice Department when he announces the results of the Valerie Plame grand jury? This is spot to watch, folks. Thanks Andrew.

This just in from Boing Boing. Looking at espresso machines is almost as much fun as drinking espresso. These Dutch machines remind me of the typewriters in the film verson of William Burrough’s Naked Lunch. After all, coffee — with it’s caffeine — is a form of bug powder. Go ahead. Look it up. I dare you. Hehe.

Nearly a month after I pondered why the fired and disgraced former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was still drawing a paycheck, comes the news from the Los Angeles Times that Michael Brown’s 30-day consultancy has been extended a further 30 dys and he’s still sucking at the public teat.

How much debriefing does this former manager of the Arabian Horse Association need? What possible gems of wisdom is FEMA gathering from Brown’s vast wealth of management knowledge?

Well how about this: Michael Brown knew how to find the best restraunts when he we in Baton Rouge overseeing the revovery from Hurrican Katrina. That’s important, isn’t it?

North Dakota’s Williston Herald News Daily has posted excerpts from emails to and from Brown and his staff, including the following gems:

Sharon Worthy, Brown‘s press secretary, to Cindy Taylor, FEMA deputy director of public affairs, and others, Aug. 31, 2 p.m.: Also, it is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner. Gievn (sic) that Baton Rouge is back to normal, restaurants are getting busy. He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes. We now have traffic to encounter to get to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc.

Marty Bahamonde, regional director for New England to Taylor and Michael Widomski, public affairs, Aug. 31, 2:44 p.m.: OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! No won‘t go any further, too easy of a target. Just tell her that I just ate an MRE and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants. Maybe tonight I will have time to move my pebbles on the parking garage floor so they don‘t stab me in the back while I try to sleep.

The LA Times has much more on Bahamonde’s tesitmony yesterday before Congress.

Do you think President Bush is spending your tax dollars wisely by keeping Brown on the payroll?

I don’t.

My Soundtrack: Jealous Of The Moon by Nickel Creek on WOXY.

Well, yeah, sort of, I mean kind of when you look, but… USA Today reports this morning that 57 percent of college students are female. Now if you’re an undergraduate male, that’s a good thing. We used to go on road trips to the University of Northern Colorado because, as a teacher’s college, the ratio of men to women was very favorable.

But what do the numbers mean?

According to the story, there are some 29.2 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 24. Of those, 51.4 percent are male and 48.6 percent are female. It is not reasonalbe to expect that 51.4 percent of all college students should be male. Why? Because different people make different choices, very often based on economic realities, about their education.

What this number represents is the growing proportion of lower, middle-class and upper, lower-class women who are making the decision to pursue higher education. That their male cohorts are not making, or are not able to make, for whatever reason, that same decision explains the gender disparity.

This is not a case where affirmative action makes any sense. If gender parity is important, and I don’t think it is, then society needs to examine the root causes of the decisions made by those males who do not complete high school, or, who, having completed high school, do not continue on to college.

College is not a universal answer, despite all of the educational propaganda out there. I am the eldest of four children. I am the only one of my siblings to pursue and obtain a college degree. My two brothers and sister all graduated from high school and then made different decisions than I did. And, on balance, I have to say that their lives are better than mine.

They all have loving spouses and growing families. They have good jobs and homes. They are contributing members of their communities. If I were to point out a model for success, I’d say theirs was better than mine. It’s not for everyone, but neither is college.

My Soundtrack: Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by Stars on WOXY.

This is great. George Nemeth has touched off a shit storm that may be some kind of record for Cleveland. Not only is his Bullshit Diatribe post raking in the comments, the length of the comments has to be some kind of record as well. And the follow up posting of Jim Rokakis’ epic comment is running a close second. You rock, George.

The scenario might go something like this. In the depth of winter, when all but the far center of Lake Erie is frozen solid to a depth of several feet, construction crews spread out on the ice along the water front of Cleveland. In a flurry of welding, hammering and caulking, magnificent upscale condominiums rise on the ice.

Meanwhile advertisements proclaim the chance of a life time. “Own lake front property at a fraction of the expected cost. Live within walking distance of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Enjoy downtown living in Cleveland”s newest neighborhood.”

In February, Mayor Mike White and members of council rally to herald yet another sign of growth and vigor in the city. In March, Governor Voinovich personally travels back to his home town to cut the entrance ribbon and help the first family move its belongings into its beautiful home.

In April, the ice melts and millions of dollars worth of homes and family possessions disappear through the rotting ice and into the chilling water and mud of Lake Erie. Terrible, says the mayor. Tragic, cry the members of council.

A disaster, proclaims the governor as he quickly calls Washington and asks President Clinton to declare the development a disaster area and for the Congress to pump tens of millions of tax dollars into the community in the form of disaster relief. The money pours in. Tearful families appear on the evening news telling of the wonderful compassion of their elected officials.

They intend, say these gallant individuals, to not allow this catastrophe to break their spirit. With the help of the government, they intend to rebuild their community. By December the planning and enthusiasm pays off and once again the construction crews stride onto the ice to rebuild anew.

I wrote those paragraphs back in 1995 as the lede for an op-ed piece in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. That time I was writing about the billions and billions we were going to spend to rebuild Florida in the wake of Hurricane Andrew.

This morning, listening to a National Pubic Radio’s Morning Edition on WCPN, 90.3 FM, I heard Louisanna Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco’s testimony to a congressional committee considering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Governor Blanco’s plea was passionate: we must rebuild New Orleans.

I don’t think so.

I think it makes sense to retore commerical aspects of the area such as the port. But we should allow the Mississippi to reclaim most of what is its. Spending hundreds of billions to restore homes in a flood plain, no matter how high we build the levee, makes no sense.

My Soundtrack: Metronomic Underground by Stereolab on WOXY.

Several months ago — I’ll be damned if I can find the original post, search isn’t finding it — I spun out a fantasy for impeaching President George Bush based on the President Richard Nixon model. Step one had to be removing Vice President Cheney, President Bush’s insurance policy against resignation or impeachment.

My thinking went like this: as bad a president as I think President Bush is, Vice President Cheney would be an order of magnitude worse. The idea of President Cheney, just as the idea of President Spiro T. Agnew was more than 30 years ago, is enough to make me stop short of removing President Bush from Office.

But the rumor mills have kicked into high gear as the grand jury under the guidance of Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald nears its conclusion. According to U.S. News & World Report:

Sparked by today’s Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney’s office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Elevating Secretary Rice to vice president would be a shrewd move. It might be, in some eyes but not mine, an even greater protection against forced resignation or impeachment than Vice President Cheney. I don’t particularly care for Secretary of State Rice’s politics, but I think she would make a much better president than Vice President Cheney.

U.S. News & World Report continued:

The rumor spread so fast that some Republicans by late morning were already drawing up reasons why Rice couldn’t get the job or run for president in 2008. Isn’t she pro-choice? asked a key Senate Republican aide.

Is she? I don’t know. (Although now, thanks to that pesky little check-box, we do know that Harriet Miers isn’t.

My Soundtrack: Heaven Runs On Oil by Nightmare Of You on WOXY.

My Soundtrack: This Better Go As Planned by Calla on WOXY.

It seems that the good Reverand James Dodson of Focus On The Family has really stuck his foot in it. In an attempt to assure the religious wrong that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers was their kind of judge, Dodson told supporters on his radio know that he had information he probably should know that Miers will be a good justice.

By all accounts, he learned what he shouldn’t have in a 3 October conference call engineered by none other than Karl, I ain’t no Dutch boy, Rove. A tape of the conversation has surfaced and it doesn’t look good. Central to the conference call were the voices of Justice Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court and Judge Ed Kinkeade, a Dallas-based federal trial judge. According to the Wall Street Journal:

…Then an unidentified voice asked the two men, Based on your personal knowledge of her, if she had the opportunity, do you believe she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?”

Absolutely, said Judge Kinkeade.

I agree with that, said Justice Hecht. I concur.

OK, that’s pretty bad, but it gets better. As the Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports today:

Some opponents of abortion took comfort from a quote from Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, a longtime friend of Ms. Miers, who said her personal views are consistent with that of evangelical Christians.

But Justice Hecht also said he couldn’t predict how Ms. Miers might vote on a challenge to Roe v. Wade.

If you’re asking, ‘Is she going vote to overrule Roe v. Wade, or Lawrence v. Texas [a 2003 decision striking down Texas’ law against same-sex sodomy], I don’t know that you can ask anyone that because you don’t know until you are there.

In Texas they have mighty big hats and it looks like Justice Hecht is talking through his.

My Soundtrack: Family Rap by Breakestra on WOXY.

Join Keef (Keith) Knight at either the Cleveland Institute of Art or the Neopolis Gallery as he tries desperately to wake up and be coherent. (Or even better – after he’s been up all knight!) Be nice – bring him a latte and he’ll sign a body part! Knight’s Cleveland schedule for this Friday, 21 October is:

10:30 a.m.
Kulas Auditorim, McCullough Building
Cleveland Institute of Art
11141 East Blvd (116th and Euclid Ave)

7:00 p.m.
Neopolis Gallery
1900 Superior Ave. Suite 101
216.215.0350

I’ve got a Friday-evening student this week, so I’m going to try and make the CIA event.

My Soundtrack: Boxcar by The Rosebuds on WOXY.

In less than a month Robert Greenwald’s Wal Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price comes to Cleveland. But you can watch Confessions Of A Wal Mart Hit Man now. Make no mistake, your company’s culture can change you. If you can’t quite believe what you think you’re hearing, the transcript is also available.

My Soundtrack: Stick To Me by Magnapop on WOXY.

This afternoon I hitched a ride downtown with a friend of mine to hear Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) speak at the American Civil Liberties Union’s annual Ed Likover Memorial Lecture. The speech was OK. Nothing exciting or stirring. Feingold is a competent speaker and he told the story his audience wanted to hear on the USA Patriot Act.

It was the audience that disturbed me. Not by what it did, but by who was in it. My friend just before the meeting began looked around and said: This looks like an AARP meeting.

And it did. We had been counting heads as the auditorium filled (and it did fill up, the crowd was very large) and I counted maybe 30 people out of a ball-park estimate of 600 people in attendance under the age of 30. There was maybe a smattering of another 30 people or so between the ages of 30 and 60.

The vast majority of those who came to hear Feingold were either on, or about to be on, Social Security. I felt like I was attending a reunion of those who opposed another junior senator from Wisconsin: Joseph McCartney. Please understand that I know these people deserve tremendous credit for their support of the ACLU.

But who’s going to fill the seats when they’re dead?

Driving home I speculated that perhaps those under 60 were too busy surviving in the Republican economy to worry about the USA Patriot Act. Where were the college students? Where were the young couples? Were where the Generation X’ers? They sure weren’t there to hear Sen. Feingold.

The one man to stand up in the Senate and say No to the USA Patriot Act deserved better.

My Soundtrack: Mr. Freedom by Gabin on WOXY.

What’s a Bright? A Bright is a person who: has a naturalistic worldview; has a worldview free of supernatural and mystical elements; and bases their ethics and actions on a naturalistic worldview. I consider myself to be a Bright. I raise this because of an email I received today contained a proposed statement on Intelligent Design.

Various school boards and communities in the United States are trying to introduce Intelligent Design into public school science classes. ID advocates may, by and large, believe ID to be scientifically credible. Then again, perhaps some of the proponents are trying, by essentially surreptitious means, to introduce religious beliefs into science programs.

Whatever the impetus, the ID endeavor disregards the definition of science and must be rejected. Intelligent Design has no valid place in a science curriculum.

Simply put, Intelligent Design is not science. Science deals empirically with reality. In fact, central to scientific method is that its ideas about the natural world can be tested, replicated, and verified.

Unlike science’s account of the evolution of life on earth, the ID explanation postulates ideas that can not be observed or validated. By looking upon a designer as necessary to account for the origin and development of life, ID breaches science as a discipline.

The scientific process, with its rigorous methods of confirmation, is the best means to understanding our world, and no nation can expect to fare well if its citizens are confused about or misinformed in science.

The Intelligent Design movement presents an impediment to educating students for our scientifically-oriented world. ID is a grievous threat to the academic integrity of science education.

If you suspect that you may be a Bright, I encourage you to register and vote.

[Update — 19 October — Be sure to read Will Kessel’s comment and follow the links to fascinating reading on FSM.]

My Soundtrack: I’m Only Dreaming by Dios (Malos) on WOXY.

In 5,881 words New York Times reporters tell the tale of Judith Miller. After reading it through, I’d say that’s about 5,281 words too many. Near as I can figure it boils down to this. Miller thought that Lewis Libby’s permission for her to talk wasn’t genuine and she needed to speak to him face-to-face, to judge his sincerity.

Ms. Miller, though, wanted more than Mr. Libby’s letter to feel free to testify. She told her lawyers that she still needed to hear from Mr. Libby in person. When that could not be arranged, she settled for a 10-minute jailhouse conference call on Sept. 19 with Mr. Libby, while two of her lawyers and one of Mr. Libby’s listened in.

Ms. Miller said she was persuaded. I mean, it’s like the tone of the voice, she said. When he talked to me about how unhappy he was that I was in jail, that he hadn’t fully understood that I might have been going to jail just to protect him. He had thought there were other people whom I had been protecting. And there was kind of like an expression of genuine concern and sorrow.

Ms. Miller said she then cross-examined Mr. Libby. When I pushed him hard, I said: ‘Do you really want me to testify? Are you sure you really want me to testify?’ He said something like: ‘Absolutely. Believe it. I mean it.’

At 1 p.m. on Sept. 26, Ms. Miller convened her lawyers in the jailhouse law library. All the lawyers agreed that Mr. Libby had released Ms. Miller from the pledge of confidentiality.

That’s it. That’s the whole story. The rest is window dressing. How sad for the Gray Lady.

My Soundtrack: Crooked In The Weird Of The Catacombs by Oranger on WOXY.

[Update — 2000, 15 October — WTOL TV in Toledo has video up on the rioting and looting in Toledo. The 24, or so, peacefully demonstrating Nazis were safely escorted away by law officers.

In the face of this horrendous provocation, several hundred residents decided to trash their neighborhood; setting fire to one building after removing everything of value that wasn’t nailed down. Mayor Jack Ford blames gang elements. Interestingly enough, it was these very gang elements that the Nazis were protesting in their march.]

Nazis may be one of only two classes of people not protected from public humiliation and hatred in the United States. According to news reports, some two dozen members of the National Socialist Movement gathered today in Toledo for a march that was, as far as I can tell, properly permitted and peaceful. The protesters weren’t.

According to the Associated Press:

A crowd that gathered to protest a white supremacists’ march Saturday turned violent, throwing baseball-sized rocks at police, vandalizing vehicles and stores, and setting fire to a neighborhood bar, authorities said.

The march was called off just before it was to begin at noon, and the mayor and a local minister tried to negotiate with the rioters. But their efforts produced little response, and police prepared to forcibly remove a crowd of several hundred mid-afternoon.

According to a radio news report on WCPN, 90.3 FM (not yet posted) Toledo Mayor Jack Ford has declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew on the city.

A counter-march group — Erase The Hate — had planned to show the marchers that their message was not welcome in Toledo.

In an Associated Press story filed before the march:

…the Reverand Mansour Bey of Toledo’s First Church of God said that would tell hate groups that their protests don’t bother the city.

Sure, there will be police protection, but what about moral support? he asked. Toledo is not a magnet for these hate groups. Toledo is a place where we love and respect.

But it is not the Nazis whom police are now attempting to control. It is not the Nazis whom are throwing rocks. It is not Nazis whom are looting. It is not the Nazis whom are breaking into businesses and private homes.

Reverand Bey needs to get his house in order.

My Soundtrack: Michael A Grammar by Broadcast on WOXY.

This is what happens when the ignorant and the superstitious campaign to breakdown the walls between government and religion. They think that only their good superstitions will get in, but the reality is when you break down the walls, it all floods though. From a James Randi reader comes this on Applied Scholoastics:

Dr. Chris Wright, Superintendent of the Hazelwood School District in Missouri, was not pleased when Bennetta Slaughter (CEO of Applied Scholastics) falsely announced that her group would be partnering with the Hazelwood Public Schools to provide supplementary tutoring to Hazelwood students. In part, Dr. Wright’s letter to Slaughter said:

We have repeatedly indicated that we are not interested in your services, not willing to participate in your training programs, do not want your materials, and will not enter into any association with Applied Scholastics.

Dr. Wright was also not happy with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which granted Applied Scholastics’ application for “approved provider status” without any meaningful review of the organization or its materials. Her letter to Commissioner Dr. Kent King warns that Applied Scholastics is trying to hide its Scientology connection, and suggests that the department should reexamine its approval.

Can’t you just see Katie and Tom smiling in front of your child’s class?

My Soundtrack: Always Mine by The Morning After girls on WOXY.

For three years Fran Schiavo led our local Socrates Cafe. In August she and her husband left Cleveland to take up residence in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. They’re settling in nicely and Fran is being good enough to keep us poor souls in Cleveland posted on her adventures. She calls it journaling, but she’s really blogging.

Mike and I walk to the Jardin and choose a seat on one of the iron benches. As usual, a mariachi approaches and asks if we want music played for us. Mike startles me with his Si, necesito! and I know the wine and food have softened him up, too.

Soon a seven-piece mariachi band is arranged in a half-circle before us — three violins, two trumpets, a guitar and a large bass guitar called a guitarrón. Not sure what they play; Mike asked them to play their favorite. It is performed with gusto and style and Mike gives the leader 200 pesos.

Although we thank them and bid them adios, we seem to have paid for two songs, so permit them to again play one of their favorites. Their version of Guadalajuara features a strong solo performance by one of the singers/violinists and is also performed with passion.

Mike hopes the word is out that we have done our part in paying for the music in the Jardin – and so we may get a respite from the requests. I look for the opposite – since we”ve shown ourselves to be a couple who overpays for music.

Maybe I should have put all that Spanish Mrs. Bolden pounded into my head to good use.

My Soundtrack: