Because I Said So

Smallville's Answer to Bill O'Reilly

Today I sent an email to a neighbor man, asking that I be taken off his homegrown email list -- which generally consists of dubious news stories a la Obama birth certificates or other forms of incipient racism and/or politics of the Fox news variety. For awhile I had an email filter that would send his stuff directly to the trash, but then he changed his email address and the messages started appearing in my in-box again. Today I decided I'd had it. But I was polite. He's a neighbor, after all -- not a close neighbor but someone I run into sometimes in town. Despite that, he gave me a mini-lecture on not being closed-minded and admonished me to "be pleasant." He also said I should just use my delete key.

I should have unsubscribed a long time ago -- though there never was a subscription to begin with. (My email was just one he culled from other emails that circulated about a local issue a couple years ago.) To be truthful, I pitied him a little bit -- because he used to be very politically active, locally, and served on the council and school boards and such, and he's both famous and infamous, depending on your viewpoint. 

But there's never any actual content to these messages he sends. It wasn't that we disagreed politically (which is fine and good). It was that 99% of the stuff he'd send was urban legend that seemed to suit his particular world-view -- despite being utter crap.

And I was worried that I'd hurt his feelings!

I see how patronizing that was of me. Sure, he's old now -- but that doesn't mean he's some kind of weak nellie. He's still hanging in there, sending out emails at least a couple times a week, staying on top of local and national news (at least as presented on some fringe sites, all of which seem to have badly rendered American flag graphics), and still an asshole. Shame on me.

The Onion-Worthy Headline

Saw this headline re. the bridge collapse this morning on twincities.com.

"Scene stuns even network TV anchors."

Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren also arrived in Minneapolis on Thursday.

"As my eyes trailed down the Mississippi, I saw what I should not have seen: A bridge should be over the water, it shouldn't be in the water," said the Appleton, Wis., native and host of "On the Record," which was to air live from the scene Thursday.

She's so right. The bridge shouldn't be in the water. But neither should her eyes. With all the trouble the divers face, they're now being asked to go back in the water to rescue Greta's eyes.

Brian Williams of NBC was said to have a "personal connection" to the Twin Cities: his daughter was an intern for the "Prairie Home Companion" movie a couple years ago and briefly lived in the area.

"I keep thinking that if my daughter were only two years late for work, she would have been on that bridge," a visibly shaken Williams stated.

A team of psychologists and religious leaders were dispatched to comfort the stunned anchors. For those of you who want to help out, volunteers are being asked to donate self-restraint, professionalism, and DVDs of "Broadcast News" which warned against just such forays into "journalism" twenty years ago.

 

Bridge Catastrophe Links

For visitors looking for information, insight, and opinion about the collapse of the I35 bridge.

The personal: he lives in an apartment building right next to the bridge, saw it happen, and went out to help rescue people.
http://www.blanked-out.com/2007/08/01/35w-just-came-down-right-in-front-of-my-house/

The political/public policy viewpoint. Something we'll hear a lot about in the days to come:
http://msp.blogs.com/adamplatt/

The media: Minnesota Public Radio coverage
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/2007/bridge_collapse/

Collections of links, photos, news, traffic info:
http://minneapolis.metblogs.com/
http://clicked.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/08/02/301228.aspx

Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/diversey/
http://flickr.com/photos/mordac/sets/72157601156711240/

Minneapolis Bridge Collapses

Everyone has probably seen this on the news by now.

We are safe. But it is sobering to think of how many hundreds or even thousands of times we crossed over this bridge.

Spring Break (Sic)

I started to blog all about Henry's speech assessment at our new autism clinic yesterday, but then I realized I was blathering on and on and so I'll just say BLAH. I've been trying to find an autism day treatment program for Henry which will complement his school program, and these places I've contacted fall into two groups: those with lengthy waiting lists, and those that don't return my calls. (These could be one-and-the-same.)

This week is spring break here in Smallville's school district: hence, no school. Ah, spring break! A misnomer if there ever was one. Slaughtering the dragon-days with finger-painting, toys, games, swimming at the health club, shopping trips, a few hours of "Mommy-needs-to-lie-down, Mommy-has-a-headache", and today we're off to Wisconsin to spend the weekend with the cousins at one of those water-park hotels.

The children will rejoice whilst the parents forbear.

Just in Time

Winter arrived today, a snowy solstice.

Garage D'Or

I just paid the garage door repair guy $100 to press the "reset" button on our opener. I exaggerate: he also sprayed WD40 on the chains. So, I guess it was worth it. His name was K. and he had hair just like Andy Travis on "WKRP" -- that feathered, brushed back style. I wanted to touch it. But I didn't. Stay tuned for another episode of "Desperate Housewives of Smallville," in which our heroine is tempted to ask for a ride in the fabulous yellow 1970-something Pontiac convertible of the guy down the street. Man, that car is so cool.

It's spring now and all the people pour out of their homes like ants out of an anthill. The warm weather brings out everyone's inner optimist; that's why you see so many Minnesotans wearing shorts when it's 52 degrees. But today it is in the 70's. It truly is warm and beautiful.

Yesterday Henry and I went to a park nearby and watched the geese paddle around in the pond. The bright yellow-green branches of the willows were alone in looking lively; the other trees are still bare-knuckled and dead looking. In two or three weeks, everything will be green.

The winter seems so long, and so slow, and spring seems to happen so quickly. It's like a very long fuse is lit back in late November with the first snow, the first sub-freezing temperatures, and that cold-looking blue flame crawls slowly through the black, cold months of winter, igniting in a single, blazing moment the first day of spring.

The Big, Two-Parted Comeback: Part II

When I feel like certain aspects of my life are out of control (out of my control, that is), I like to clean. Organize. And throw things away.

Having already finished my closet and the kitchen cupboards, I started on my laptop computer -- specifically, with my digital music library. My friend P. borrowed my iPod awhile ago, and left a bunch of his music on it, and I never bothered to clean it up. Until yesterday, when I finally got around to deleting all the ELO (gak!) and Rush (urgh) and Jimmy Buffett (just kidding, P.!). I deleted three gigs worth of P.'s crap, and replaced it with my own crap -- such as my coveted, Walmart-purchased "70's Dance Party Boogie Nights" compilation featuring The Miracles' "Love Machine." Now THAT'S music.

What else is happening locally? Very locally -- like down the hall in the kitchen?

Well, it no longer smells like gas. A couple weeks ago, we bought a new oven, which leaked gas. The repair guy didn't believe me; he thought it was just a "new oven smell" that would fade in "a couple months." Also, he didn't have all the "sophisticated equipment" he needed to check for a leak (like a nose?), so I had to call the gas company. They gave me a list of instructions AKA dire warnings such as:

Do not turn on any lights or flip any switches, as switches are a source of ignition.
Do not hang up the phone; just put it down when we're done speaking, as phones are a source of ignition.
Do not rub any cats together, as cats are a source of ignition.
When the technician arrives, he will not ring the doorbell as doorbells are a source of ignition.
You may wish to vacate the premises. If you do, please leave the door unlocked as the technician will return with a locksmith and police escort if he cannot enter the premises.

This gas leak had been going on for a few days. It was faint. We knew it wasn't a big leak. But this litany of "do nots" and that "vacate the premises" line made me a bit nervous. That wording -- that hard, Latinate phrasing of TV police officers and Cliffy from Cheers -- did put fear into my heart. But the technician was supposed to arrive "within a few minutes," so I elected to refrain from vacating.

Nearly two hours later, the technician showed up with a fast food cup in his hand. He stopped for lunch on the way over. So I guess it wasn't that much of an emergency. He found the leak with his sophisticated equipment (a very sensitive gauge, but only -- I might add -- as sensitive as my nose). "When a woman calls with a gas leak story," he told me, "Eighty-five percent of the time, we find one. When a guy calls, it means he burned the fish."

So the dorky repair guy came back, ordered a part, left, came back, replaced the part, and now we have a beautiful new oven, and the cats can dilly-dally without fear of blowing us up real good.

Stormy Weather

Lots of thunderstorms tonight. We sat and watched the news coverage from the various local stations. Nothing gets people in the Midwest really juiced like a good storm, flood, or tornado. Some people ran outside and gathered up golfball-sized hail, took digital pics of it, and sent the pics to the TV stations -- where they were dutifully broadcast with warnings not to go outside. There's irony for you.

How's about a photo of someone's dog, crushed beneath a hailstone the size of an Oxford English dictionary?

Sick Days

Sick. Body and joints ache horribly. Hurts to type.