Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

OLD FRIENDS

I don't have too many friends in Mississippi, these days. After Katrina, the only person I could think of on the Gulf Coast to worry about was my friend Anna Marie (a lawyer-turned-nurse), whose house was THIS CLOSE to the Gulf in Bay St. Louis. After the storm, I didn't try to call her, just because I figured that there were other people who needed to know how she was doing more than me, and the phone lines were all scrambled up anyway.

I caught up with her this week, at long last. The house where she and her husband lived is now just a slab of concrete surrounded by debris, and the lot may be declared unbuildable (or any new construction will have to be elevated 35 feet or so to comply with code -- and it's pretty expensive to build a new house on top of 35-foot stilts, in case anyone ever asks you). Her husband is a fireman, so he's stayed on the coast (living in a FEMA-issued travel trailer) while she's gone to live with her sis in Missouri. I'm glad that she's OK.

Greg, of links at left fame, my college roommate whom I haven't seen in TEN YEARS, told me he was coming to my neck of the woods in October. Cool! Then he came and went without saying anything. I emailed him last week to say what's up with the trip dude, and he replied, oh dude, I did it already, sorry.

Grrrrrrr. posted by Carlton at 12:23 PM

AHTISTIC

So I draw about as well as I sing, which is a devastating commentary on my drawing. My wife, on the other hand, draws MUCH BETTER than she sings. She's recently relaunched her personal/commercial website on the left (same link, different address). She took a class, put it together herself. It's pretty faboo, and everyone should go look at it.

Speaking of links to the left, I've added the Poor Man, as I threatened to do a few posts ago. The Editors is really quite the incisive writer, although he likes kitties a bit too much for my taste.



Read it fools! Read it all! posted by Carlton at 12:17 PM

PARTY SHUFFLE

I'm taking a little skip down memory lane, wearing a garland in my hair and my favorite floral summer frock. I am just now recording all of my CDs into iTunes (ripping? burning? yes, I am SOOOO hip to this computer lingo, I just can't tell you). Because I just moved, I have all of my discs right here in a box, and I don't have to make my office into any more of a mess than it was anyway. So go me.
Now that I have a little library built up, the "party shuffle" button has given up some pretty funny results. I hadn't listened to Joni Mitchell's "Blue" in a long time, and that was quite nice.

But what IS this stuff? I haven't counted how many CDs I have accumulated over the years, but it's safe to say that I haven't gotten rid of very many. I decided that, aside from some initial triage (I'm not recording any classical music at this time, and I'm not going to record any music that I never liked in the first place -- Tin Machine?) I decided not to make any editorial decisions at this time. By that I mean that I'm going to record everything that I ever liked. Even if I haven't listened to it in ten years, it's going on the computer, for posterity if nothing else.

On the other hand, I had some pretty bad taste -- well, um, DIFFERENT, anyway -- in college and in the years immediately following. Interestingly enough, that's when I did a great deal of CD buying. I've liked a lot of different types of music since reaching self-awareness on the topic sometime in college. Back then I would become a BIG FAN of some artist and buy a bunch of CDs because I wanted EVERYTHING they ever did. That, as it turns out, was turd-headed foolishness.

Specifically, I am referring to my long affair with Nanci Griffith -- and when I cheated on her with Patsy Cline. (Now I'd much prefer Loretta Lynn and Alison Krauss, if I were listening to that subgenre.) I ended up with a LOT of their recordings. I'm afraid that, when I'm done, I'll hit "party shuffle" and "Gulf Coast Highway" and "Honky-tonk Merry Go-Round" will alternate 100 times in a row.

But of course there's the Police and Pink Floyd and the Beatles, and then there's always my wife's collection of Blur and Pulp and REM to balance them out.

Holy shit I hope so. posted by Carlton at 11:46 AM

MAN DOWN

Via the Poor Man, who I've been reading so much he deserves a permalink, we have the story of Daniel, a soldier in Iraq who has been held past his discharge date by the stop-loss practices of the current administration. Daniel is a blogger, and unhappy about being stop-lossed, and has sounded off about his unhappiness in the Internet. He has been quite critical of the war, the administration, the Army and his own situation.

Here's his last blog entry, in its entirety:

Double Plus Ungood

I thank all of you who have been so supportive recently. I have never before received so much positive feedback, and it was very heart-warming to know that so many people out there care. Having said that, it breaks my heart to say that this will be my last post on this blog. I wish I could just stop there, but I can not. The following also needs to be said:

For the record, I am officially a supporter of the administration and of her policies. I am a proponent for the war against terror and I believe in the mission in Iraq. I understand my role in that mission, and I accept it. I understand that I signed the contract which makes stop loss legal, and I retract any statements I made in the past that contradict this one. Furthermore, I have the utmost confidence in the leadership of my chain of command, including (but not limited to) the president George Bush and the honorable secretary of defense Rumsfeld. If I have ever written anything on this site or on others that lead the reader to believe otherwise, please consider this a full and complete retraction.

I apologize for any misunderstandings that might understandably arise from this. Should you continue to have questions, please feel free to contact me through e-mail. I promise to respond personally to each, but it may take some time; my internet access has become restricted.

We live in interesting times, sure enough. posted by Carlton at 11:35 AM

TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THINK, BILL

This is a direct steal from a post by Kevin Drum, but so be it.

Bill Bennett, former Secretary of Education, virtuecrat and slot-machine addict, reportedly said the following when asked about providing funding for public schools for classroom computers:

He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers,charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education. Well, I thought, at least he's candid about his true views.

This was while he was Secretary of Education.

Read the whole story here.

I only repeat this here because I've had arguments with friends about what the Repubs really want to do -- I say they want to eliminate public schools, environmental regs, worker protection, the minimum wage. My friends and relatives, many of the Mississippians, pooh-pooh that. Nonsense, they say. They haven't said that.

Well yeah, they don't say it. Except for Bill Bennett. Personally, I don't think you have to lie about good ideas. posted by Carlton at 10:02 PM