Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Saturday, May 31, 2008
 
Country Music Is Dead; Now They're Just Desecrating The Body. Or Rock Music
Nine Lives by Def Leppard featuring Tim McGraw. The most disturbing thing I've seen in quite some time.

Somebody is dead to me now, and I cannot determine if it's Def Leppard or Tim McGraw. Maybe both.

Far worse than Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett. Far worse than Uncle Kracker and Kenny Chesney. Appalling.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 AM   2 comments
Friday, May 30, 2008
 
Public Service Pictures of June Tripp
What do you get when you cross Lileks with Kim du Toit? Something like this: a post with screen caps of an attractive old timey actress.

This particular actress, June Howard Tripp, appeared in a hand's worth of British films in the early part of the 20th century, most of them silent. She was born in June 1901 and died in January 1985 according to the IMDB bio.

I'm posting these photos of her because 1)I thought she was cute and 2)The Internet apparently doesn't have many photos of her on it. These stills are from the 1927 Hitchcock film The Lodger.

June Tripp 1
Click for full size
June in a flapper hat.

June Tripp 2
Click for full size
June with big smile.

June Tripp 3
Click for full size
June with concerned look.

June Tripp 5
Click for full size
June serving breakfast.

June Tripp 6
Click for full size
June with eyes raised heavenward.

There, that should help make sure my content column is almost as long as the sidebar. What, with over five years' worth of weekly archives, it gets hard sometimes.

Also, she was a cutie. Relative to the rest of the cast of the movie, anyway.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:20 PM   0 comments
Thursday, May 29, 2008
 
Don't Answer Those ED Remedy E-Mails!
For the love of Pete, they're all true in their promises of what will happen once you've given over your credit card number and social security number to a friendly pharmacy in .cn and have downloaded their special desktop price widget named attackNSA.exe.

Just ask these two fellows who've apparently taken the treatment. What else could explain a naked woman ramming their truck with her car to get them to stop? All the desire promised in all those subject lines, baby.

(Link seen on Dustbury.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:12 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
 
Book Report: And To Each Season by Rod McKuen (1972)
I am going to postulate that McKuen poetry before 1970 was tolerable, and that after 1970 not so much. I wonder if the quality of the books correlates inversely to the amount of I AM KING OF THE WORLD fluff appears in the about the author page. Perhaps by the time 1990 rolls around, McKuen cured cancer, in addition to being the best selling poet of all time and a sellout recording artist.

These poems run right to the next, with little to differentiate them from any of the others or the rest of the canon. Maybe there's slightly more reminiscing about getting laid than actual getting laid, but that vein runs throughout. As this is supposed to be his most personal book ever (at least to 1972), I'd rather have read his book of best poems.

The introduction indicates he's kinda dealing with the death of his mother, but without the introduction, I'd not have known. Of course, the last poem, "The Leaving of Little Joe", starts out as a poignant reflection on his mother's death using the metaphor of his mother's favorite cat running off, but as with many of McKuen's poems, you turn the page and there's not a new title indicating a new poem. Instead, for some reason, the current poem goes on. And what might have been a touching reflection on his mother's death turns into a poem about cats. Maybe the continued, extending metaphor was too subtle or sublime for me, but it was just a long poem about cats.

Why do I read these books? I don't know. Somehow, I kinda feel for the KING OF THE WORLD, whose poetry was taught in colleges all around the world in 1972 falling into obscurity in the course of 20 years; by the time I got to college, nobody talked about McKuen. Instead, oddly, we talked about Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Eliot, and Millay (although those conversations were sort of one-sided).

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:38 PM   0 comments
 
City Needs Thumb On Scale, Tax Increase, To Remain Competitive
My, is it already the eighth year of the 20th century already? Must be why Creve Coeur has fallen into a development rut that only raising the costs of doing business in the city can cure:
    City officials are asking voters next Tuesday to authorize a half-cent economic development sales tax that they say would keep the city competitive.

    Creve Coeur's economic circumstances are uncertain, said Paul Zimitzsch, chairman of the city's Economic Development Commission. "Town and Country is opening a big box retail center. Clayton is pursuing redevelopment. We've become the hole in the doughnut," he said.
Let's see, in the last eight years, Creve Coeur has thrown up a massive business development (CityPlace); a set of mixed use buildings (King's Landing, et al, ca 2006); tried to run a longtime auto dealer, a country club, and an American Legion post out of town to build more of the same (2001); and in 2006 put out its own fluff piece entitled WHY CREVE COEUR IS THE HEART OF COMMERCE.

Pretty damn impressive run for a municipality crying poverty.

You know what an actual business owner and resident thinks?
    But David Caldwell, a resident and owner of a business in Creve Coeur, sees that kind of hole as a blessing that prevents overdevelopment.

    Creve Coeur also needs to keep its sales tax low to remain competitive, Caldwell said.
That's not the sort of thinking that wins you elections; that's the sort of thinking that allows you to make an honest living. Which is why he's ultimately doomed.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:45 PM   0 comments
 
But Transparency Is So Expensive!
Another part of another government laments about the costs of keeping its workings transparent:
    A bill that would require more rollbacks of property tax rates also would provide residents and business owners with more details about their property taxes.

    Getting the additional information may cost St. Louis County nearly $700,000, officials said.
Dear government: please, consider the costs of doing your job transparently as non-negotiable. Pay out this expense and maybe seek to save that money elsewhere, such as doing your job efficiently and maybe not doing stupid things with tax money. There's a pipe dream for a citizen.

However, I'm not sure I think this is efficiency:
    And Eugene Leung, the county's revenue director, wants the county to hire a company from Dallas to help the assessor. Leung wants to hire the firm without seeking bids or proposals.
You know, it would really suck to have to open things up so the public sees things like no bid contracts and the decision process for that, ainna?


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:40 PM   0 comments
 
St. Charles County Finds Flimsy Excuse
Trash decision will hinge on complaints — from whom?:
    It's interesting how a handful of complaints can change something that's working fine for everybody else.

    The St. Charles County Council, for instance, is considering a plan that might change trash collection for all unincorporated areas in the county because of three negative comments.

    The proposal would split the areas into trash collection districts, each served by only one waste hauler.

    Currently, 11 companies have permits to operate anywhere in the county, and residents can choose which one picks up their trash.

    Council Chairman Dan Foust wants to tinker with that arrangement because he got phone calls from three residents in the St. Charles Hills neighborhood, which has 1,600 homes.

    The negative comments were about the nuisance produced by the current competitive arrangement.

    Right now, trucks from multiple companies are going up and down the streets almost daily. It would be quieter if just one company's trucks were going by twice a week.     [Emphasis added]
You know what else would make streets quieter? How about limiting deliveries to one parcel post carrier, such as DHL? That way, you don't get Federal Express (note: I just wanted to be the last man in America to use its full name) or United Parcel Service trucks rumbling down the streets. Or how about only allowing one furniture store to deliver to the area? This thin gruel of rationalization that seeks to move from a free market solution to one open to corruption (best bid package presented to the trash district commissioners, hint hint, gets all the business) could apply to just about anything.

But this has precedent, don't you know, now that St. Louis County has imposed this solutions on a reluctant populace.

And the others? Well, St. Charles County isn't going to break that ground, but if some other regional government succeeds, perhaps a good presentation or two, hint hint, to the county commission could get the commissioners on board.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:35 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
 
We Could Have Guessed That
Musings from Brian J. Noggle is the number one Google search result for douche noggle.

I take a perverse sort of pride in it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:58 PM   0 comments
Monday, May 26, 2008
 
The City Is Backing Out, Back Out Of The City
After a short run, home furnishings store closes downtown:
    In the latest blow to downtown St. Louis, Good Works Inc. will close its home-furnishings store next month due to a lack of new customers.

    Many of the shoppers who visited the store at 901 Washington Avenue were the same ones who frequented the Good Works store at 6323 Delmar Boulevard in University City, said Chris Dougher, one of the owners. Co-owners Dougher and Rita Navarro plan to expand the store in the Delmar Loop.

    "We just aren't generating new business," Dougher said of the store on Washington Avenue. "It's a huge disappointment, but we can't foresee it changing in the near future."

    The 8,000-square-foot store, which opened in November, was one of the larger retailers to locate downtown in recent years.
Huh. So empty, tax-incentive-and-not-market-driven lofts don't buy furniture. Who knew?

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:45 PM   1 comments
 
Has It Come To This?
Letter to the editor in the Webster Kirkwood Times:
    On Mother's Day about 2:40 p.m., I was driving west on West Lockwood Avenue. As I went under the railroad trestle just past Sherwood, I came upon a large tree that had blown over, blocking the westward lanes. The only people there was a crew working to clean it up.

    I swung over to go west on one of the two eastbound lanes. Very quickly flashing lights from a police car came up behind me. I don't know where it had been. While I was waiting for the police officer to get out of his car, a woman going east went by and said she was going to court. She had gotten a ticket too.

    The officer told me to pull onto a side street. He followed me and after he got out of his car ran back to hail another car going west on the eastward lane. The officer said I should have turned around. When I said people go around obstacles all the time, he said it was dangerous and I could have had a head-on collision.

    I wonder how the police chief would assess the situation. The road must have been blocked for some time before I arrived, since a woman had gotten a ticket, done her business and was on her way back, and a clean-up crew had to be assembled and brought to the location. I wonder how many tickets the officer managed to write.

    Shouldn't the police be helping drivers get around the obstacle rather than waiting (where?) until drivers get into a "dangerous" situation so they can give them a ticket?
Law enforcement not as concerned with public safety as with writing tickets and generating revenue? Say it ain't so!

Granted, all we have here is the letter-writer's version of events, but the story too easily falls into an anecdote supporting a cynical mindset that couples red-light cameras (sometimes with shortened yellow lights), rules allowing law enforcement to seize assets easily, and ticket quotas.

I'm very disappointed that the Webster-Kirkwood Times didn't see this as a lead on a story, because either there is some dereliction of duty or behavior that's not in the interest of public safety here, or there's a letter writer spinning his tale of woe for all of us to see. Maybe signs were clear that the road was closed. Maybe there were even detour signs up. Hard to say. The paper only presents an allegation and lets it go.

But we've got a letter and our own cynicism that keeps us cold at night.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:18 PM   0 comments
 
Thirteen Days Later, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Gets A Sign
On May 10, I posted the picture of the LOL gas price sign on Clayton Road.

On May 23, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch posts a picture. Sure, it's clearer, but it's theoretically a professional photographer and he or she was not driving a temporarily unionized wife to the hospital.

Kudos to them for not explicitly blaming Bush in the article (unlike this "article" in the neighborhood paper, where the newspaper editor takes four short paragraphs, 10 short sentences, to lay the blame at George Bush's feet. On the front page of the paper, no less. Good work, activist!). However, I wonder who told someone that LOL means "Lots of luck."

Funny bit from the Post-Dispatch story, though, in the semi-mandatory, tout light rail section:
    "I just started riding it a couple weeks ago, and I love it," said Richards, of St. George. He said he finds riding the train so relaxing that he'd probably keep doing it even in the unlikely event that gas prices plummet. "I guess I'm hooked."
I guess he doesn't work downtown. The fundamental problem with the light rail system is that it has two lines: a main line from the airport to downtown, and a spur down to Shrewsbury. If the guy in St. George works downtown, a highway commute looks like this:


View Larger Map


His ride to the Metrolink station looks like this:


View Larger Map


That's a fourteen minute ride to the Metrolink station and then a ride on the train downtown or about a 20 minute ride on the highway. When I lived in Casinoport and worked downtown, I could drive 30 minutes to the Metrolink station, wait for a train, and then ride downtown on the train, or I could drive 40 minutes to downtown.

Light rail proponents will yap that that explains why we need a bunch more rails and stops, but it took 10 years to build that one spur I mentioned above. To this day, Metrolink bleeds money. More rails mean it would bleed more money. Light rail and those fixed transit systems make no sense in a widely distributed, low-density area. But they're BIG THINGS, and elected leaders get their names on buildings, so they continue to support it. The right-minded busybodies who tend to move downtown anyway continue to push it because it makes sense for them and the population should fund their pet projects. For the rest of us, time and tax money are wasted.

That's a long way from pointing out I had the photo before the Post-Dispatch did. I'll stop now.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:08 AM   0 comments
Sunday, May 25, 2008
 
That Should Hold Them Until The Next Ballot
Crestwood tax increase expected to keep city running:
    About $7 million ought to cover it. That's what the Crestwood Board of Aldermen thinks will be needed over the next six years to maintain city services. And to cover losses from declining sales tax and property tax revenues from its shopping mall, the board wants to place a 35 cent property tax increase proposal on the August election ballot.The measure will be on the August 5 ballot once it is approved by county election officials.
Here's a little hair petting to calm you, citizen:
    How much of an increase is that to the average Crestwood taxpayer?

    Ward 3 Aldermen Jerry Miguel said residents can take the Crestwood portion of their 2007 property tax bill, and then double it for next year.
That's an opponent of the bill speaking out. Let's put it into context:
  1. Take the Crestwood portion of your 2007 property tax bill.
  2. Double it.
  3. Add 20% when your property is reassessed next year.
  4. Subtract it from your budget, which will be dinged by two county tax increases.
  5. Put in an x in all future household budgets, where in x represents the total of all future emergency tax increases for your fire protection district, for your police pension plans, for Forest Park, for the impending museum districts, for the county budget shortfalls, and so on and so on.
When the total is equal to or greater than your income, I guess you can stop. Or keep going, assessing penalties for not making enough to cover your tax liability.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:28 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Tales by Washington Irving (1987)
As you might now, if you're Gimlet, Gimlet's mom, or Deb (that is, someone who reads my book reports), I'm trying to intersperse some classical literature within my normal reading diet of cartoon books, space operas, and crime fiction these days. Here's the first American author I've read in some time, dabbling in the French (Hugo and Dumas), Russian (Tolstoy), and British (Austen and Dickens) literatures lately. And you know what? Oddly enough, writers who use the American idiom, even the American Idiom of 200 years ago, are more accessible to the modern American reader (or at least me) than the imports.

This book collects a number of short stories from Washington Irving, the first American-born novelist to get note (or so the insert tells me). He wrote a number of tales in a series of volumes, many of which focused on the regular American theme of the old rural ways versus the new urban ways (rural=better). The theme goes back 200 years, back to a concept urban that we would find rural and quaint today. I can surmise where Irving would stand on the direct election of Presidents/elimination of the electoral college issue.

The volume includes The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, the two tales most alluded to or made into cartoons. Additionally, it contains a number of other stories from the same volume, so they have the similar tall tale sort of flavor to them (the volume is based on the premise that it's a collection of papers and true stories from Diedrich Knickerbocker). This book also contains a selection from the Tales of a Nervous Gentleman series, including a series of ghostly stories told by a group of hunters in a remote lodge where each tale follows the other in telling as the speakers riff off of each others' stories.

Very enjoyable, and it makes me want to get the originals from which the stories appeared. Also telling: the number of Yahoo! IM statuses I got from turns of phrase in the book. I think it was 3. Three lines I quoted from the book. Far more than I get from most of the volumes of poetry I get, and far beyond what I get from space operas or crime fiction (that is, more than nothing). I guess that's what makes this literature classic.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:27 PM   0 comments
Saturday, May 24, 2008
 
I Take Back What I Was Going To Say
You know, I was going to use the "newspapermen blame Bush for everything except [event related to baseball]."

However, those hard working men and women of the press have found a way to demonize Bush for things related to baseball.

So I take it back. Their creative writing classes have taught them how to blame a Republican president for everything now. Their training is complete.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:04 PM   0 comments
 
I SAID, 'ANOTHER SIGN THAT YOU'RE GETTING OLD'
When the sportscaster starts talking to a woman about the latest baseball phenom, and you think, "Hey, she's kinda cute," and it's the ballplayer's mother.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:59 PM   0 comments
Friday, May 23, 2008
 
Is That What I Said?
Sorry, I seem to have deployed some confusing sarcasm with this post. Here's how the Kansas City Star's Prime Buzz characterizes it:
    Musings from Brian J. Noggle contends that cutting the most expensive people from the public health care rolls is not a solution.
Allow me to be clear: The solution is to cut them all and allow the free market to bring prices down. If people cannot afford it, families and charities cover. Government programs will eventually either tax the citizenry to death or have to use faceless and blameless bureaucratic means to cuts costs, which means denying health care to expensive cases.

Cutting the most expensive people from the public health care rolls is a solution. An efficient government solution that actually replicates the practices of the private industry it's trying to replace.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:36 AM   0 comments
 
The Race To Eliminate A Tax Cut
New taxes never sunset. Sometimes, tax cuts don't even sunrise:
    A state law requiring St. Charles to cut property taxes when the city's share of Ameristar Casino admission receipts increases may be repealed before it ever triggers any reduction.

    At the request of Mayor Patti York, the Missouri Legislature last week approved a little-noticed measure to get rid of the tax cut requirement.
Please, don't take away her slush money. Think of the poor, bawling, hungry bureaucrats she has to feed.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:32 AM   1 comments
Thursday, May 22, 2008
 
Let The Failures Begin
State-run health care in Wisconsin begins denying coverage to the most vulnerable, i.e., expensive, "clients":
    "I was close to crying in the drugstore," Clark said. "I knew there just had to be another recourse."

    Clark's son was among the 450 children with pre-existing medical conditions who were dropped by the Health Insurance Risk Sharing Plan Authority when BadgerCare Plus was introduced.

    Their experience is an example of the often-inescapable complexity of state health programs and the insurance market in general, particularly for families who do not get insurance through an employer.
Is the solution letting the free market work? Foolish mortal; the obvious solutions include drug reimportation and spending even more tax money.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:00 PM   2 comments
 
Speed Limits Will Vary Based On Traffic Flow, Budget Shortfalls
Variable speed limits set to begin on I-270:
    Starting Thursday morning, the Missouri Department of Transportation will begin a two-year experiment with variable speed limits along Interstate 270.

    Motorists might have already noticed the digital speed limit signs that began popping up along the Missouri stretch of the highway in recent weeks. So far, those signs have shown that the speed limit is 60 miles per hour.

    But by the morning commute, the speed limits on those signs could change to as low as 40 miles per hour depending on traffic flow.
Hey, we've already seen the authorities stretching existing laws to cover things that they didn't. Why not just give the authorities to actually change the rules at their whim? I'm sure this power will only be used for safety, and not revenue enhancement. So it will only be coincidence when these speed limits drop during nonpeak times when there happen to be a large number of municipal police cars sitting on the entrance ramps.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:57 AM   1 comments
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
 
Book Report: Best Home Plans by Sunset Books (1995)
Here's a crazy sort of sidelight into my mind: I'm sort of a fan of looking over house plans. Back in the days when I was working at a startup, spending half my day working like crazy to build an award-winning set of manuals for a software product nobody eventually bought, I spent the other half of my days spending my stock option millions. I looked at a number of Web sites offering the plans for sale and dreamt.

I mean, I bought a number of magazines and whatnot containing them and had a good run of selling them on eBay around the turn of the century, so I ended up with a bunch of them in my unsold inventory. I even bought a cheap piece of home designing software to play with in my spare hours in the old days where I didn't think I had any time for spare hobbies, way back before I knew what that meant. So I sort of sometimes dabble in this as an interest. Dreaming still of that stock market wealth, I suppose. I'll have some when National Lampoon stock goes to $400 after a couple of splits.

This volume I bought at a garage sale sometime in the past. And I perused it while watching a number of baseball games. If you're not familiar with the genre, it's a bit of marketing text along with a bare home layout schematic coupled with some measurements (sometimes) and the way to order the actual plans from the stock architectural firm if you're interested in actually building the home. Each page also includes an artist representation of the home and sometimes a photo of a built unit.

That said, slight hobbying aside, it took me a while to get through it because each page is almost the same, and many of the homes have very similar layouts when the architectural firm starts with a template and rearranges the interior a bit. So I got bored every couple dozen homes or so, particularly when I was reading all the marketing fluff bullet points. I started skimming a little faster, though, and I got through it.

In case you're wondering, the elements I like most in the plans and that I'd like to see in my future dream home include:
  • An atrium/courtyard.

  • An octagonal shaped house.

  • A tuck under two car garage with basement workspace.

  • A loft.

I mean, sure, I could just buy this house when I buy the lottery, but the original on the site was far larger and I have seen a map of its lands at the time of its construction, including orchards, toboggan run, tennis courts, and whatnot, so its pale comparison to its former splendor would break my heart daily. Maybe.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:11 PM   0 comments
 
Another Mass Transit Fan States His Case
Suspect, 17, arrested in bus beating case:
    The attack occurred about 3 p.m. last Wednesday, when a masked male boarded the bus near N. 60th St. and W. Silver Spring Drive and immediately began beating the driver.

    The bus driver drove about two blocks north on N. 60th St. before the suspect grabbed the steering wheel and stepped on the accelerator.

    The bus traveled about another 50 yards before crashing into a tree near N. 60th St. and W. Carmen Ave.

    The suspect got off and ran north. The bus driver suffered minor injuries, but no other injuries were reported.
Ride mass transit, and you ride with a large number of strangers and the occasional felony-minded individual who will attack you for no reason. At which point, none of your fellow riders will come to your aid.

You know, if only mass transit used expensive, inflexible trains instead of buses, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Or maybe the argument should be that trains won't run in to trees as easily when their drivers are beaten. Keep trying, New Urbanists, and remember what that Urban buys you.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:50 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
 
Book Report: The Book of Tomatoes by National Gardening Association (1995)
I bought this book because I was going to put in some tomato plants. Of course, I didn't read the book until I'd already done several wrong things with the tomato plants, but what's a guy to do?

This book is a supplement to the National Gardening Association's regular materials, apparently. It covers the gamut of tomato raising, from selecting the right variety between the determined/indetermined growth varieties, natural resistance to disease and insects, and onto fertilization techniques, planting considerations, and finally into canning tips and recipes for tomato dishes.

I learned a lot from this book and hope that next year I can put its lessons, coupled with the big ones I'm learning this year on my own, into practice.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:06 PM   0 comments
 
In The Court Of Public Opinion, The Verdict Is Not "Innocent"
Story from last week: John Burroughs Teacher Arrested For Misconduct With A Minor:
    A John Burroughs School teacher is on administrative leave after being arrested for misconduct with a minor.

    ....


    Ladue Police were tipped off by an anonymous call, and a Johns Burroughs' teacher has since been arrested. Police aren't releasing his name because he hasn't been charged yet.

    "There was an inappropriate relationship that took place over a 3 year period," says Detective Andreski.     [emphasis added]
Ah, that reliable old anonymous call. Less reliable than the testimony of a cellmate overall.

Later: Burroughs School Still in Shock over Allegations against Teacher:
    It is alleged that the teacher had inappropriate contact with a Burroughs student.

    Ladue Police said they're investigating the alleged relationship between the teacher and the student, which could have occured     [sic] over a three year period. [Emphasis added.]
Hmm, that seems to hedge a little, doesn't it?

The story now: Prosecutor: Not Enough Evidence to Charge John Burroughs Teacher:
    St. Louis County Prosecutors said there is not enough evidence to file charges against a teacher at a private school in Ladue.
Not that he didn't do it, but that there wasn't enough evidence to file charges. Hah! As we've seen, there's often a way to prosecute where something isn't against the law; is it possible this poor, soon to be jobless teacher actually didn't do anything?

Of course, if one presumes that one is innocent until proven guilty. However, in the world of law enforcement hemming, prosecutorial hawing, and media rah-rahing, false charges and overeager arresting get footnotes instead of salacious headlines.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:45 AM   5 comments
Sunday, May 18, 2008
 
Book Report: Lonesome Cities by Rod McKuen (1968)
So J2 didn't dodge the McKuen bullet for long. This collection, a 1960s collection of McKuen's lyrics, uses the schtick of travelling, as the sections are titled after cities but only sometimes have to do with them. Mostly, though, they deal with lost love and alienation. Not a bad set of topics for poetry.

The pieces aren't very image laden, but after the book below, this was a bit refreshing.

The book foreshadows some of the self-indulgence and self-consciousness that makes McKuen's later work lesser, including poems written for people because McKuen wanted to write a poem for someone. That's a police composite sketch, not a work of art.

Still, one of McKuen's better works, worthwhile even if it doesn't put children to sleep.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:53 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: The Braille Woods by Ann Townsend (1997)
This chapbook, published by the St. Louis Writer's Center, was J2's first volume of poetry. Unlike his elder, he did not receive the Rod McKuen treatment fresh from the womb.

As I was active in the poetry scene in St. Louis at that time, I thought perhaps I might know of her. However, she's a professor at some university in Ohio with a pile of literary magazine publications, not one of the locals who stepped beyond the Kinko's chapbook.

The poems have a lot of dense imagery within them, but mostly, that's it. I didn't get a lot of other deeper meanings or connections with the pieces. Nothing I'd like to read again, and certainly nothing I'd memorize to recite to myself when bored. Nothing I'd quote, and nothing I'd set my Yahoo! IM status to so I'd sound smart. That means, I guess, she's no Ogden Nash or Michelangelo.

Your mileage may vary, of course. Maybe an incident, nicely evoked, of seeing a blind person in the woods while you're on a hike and not saying anything to the blind person, even though the blind person senses you're there, means something to you. That's the title poem in a nutshell.

Did nothing for me.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:32 PM   0 comments
Saturday, May 17, 2008
 
Whatever Happened To....?
Remember that Stupid as Kryptonite (or some such) guy? In the old days, apparently people linked to him and he got an early paid blogging job for a left-leaning consortium or something? You ever wonder what happened to him?

Me, either; I didn't think about him until he sent me an e-mail trying to sell me counterfeit software:

Like Kryptonite to High Software License Prices!


Oh, how the mitey have fallen.

(Sure, it could be a random combination of names built by a spambot. But which narrative would you prefer to perfect your reality?)

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:46 AM   0 comments
Friday, May 16, 2008
 
Where There's A Headline, There's A Way (To Prosecute)
Finally, after the initial furor has died down, some creative prosecutor has found a way to bring charges in the Child Commits Suicide In Response To Online Taunting case:
    The incident prompted an international cry for action, but Missouri and federal prosecutors here in St. Louis examined the circumstances shortly after Megan’s death, and passed on trying to build a criminal case. No law, they said, applied.

    Then, in January, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles began issuing grand jury subpoenas, signaling a new interest in the case.

    MySpace is based in Santa Monica.

    Prosecutors are said to be seeking a felony fraud indictment under the legal theory that Lori Drew defrauded MySpace of computer time and resources by supplying false information.

    In December, St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Jack Banas said that the circumstances surrounding Megan's death defied a simple placement of blame.
After local and localized federal prosecutors decided no laws were broken, another, more ambitious headline-hungry creative prosecutor has found a way to advance his career get his name in the national papers serve justice.

In twenty-first century America, forget double jeopardy. You're not safe from prosecution or persecution until everyone in government service has a crack at you.

(Yes, I know that double jeopardy applies to actual prosecution. However, it's enough now that any act brings the possibility of numerous charges in multiple jurisdictions that make it clear that the principles behind double jeopardy, that the government and its individual executors shall not continuously hound a private citizen, are violated de facto but not de jure.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:25 PM   0 comments
 
I Blame Bush, Inadvertently
Huh, who knew I was suffering from the effects of the Bush economy and endorsing a Democrat challenger in this year's presidential election?
    With the skyrocketing costs of fuel and food, people cite sticker shock as the catalyst pushing them into the garden.

    "It's crazy that we're spending so much oil, time and money on food," Staley said. "If we can do it in the backyard, why not?"

    Concerns over food safety and the environment are among other factors prompting people to get their hands dirty. And, of course, the bragging rights that come with serving a homegrown tomato.
I mean, if the journalist is going to ignore other reasons for the draw of gardening--that is, of exerting control over the nearby environment and tying down that Gaia wench and making her do what you want for a change, the nesting instinct, the desire to have a food source when the centralized government falls and disorder reigns, or having free seeds come in the mail--and if the journalist is instead going to impute the failing environment story, why not just go right out and say that gardeners are voting for Obama this year?


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:13 PM   0 comments
 
When Corporate Training Fails
Brazen robber shot Overland store clerk:
    Overland Police Chief James Herron said a surveillance camera showed police what happened next:

    The robber pulled a small-caliber semiautomatic handgun and demanded money. The clerk did everthing right, Herron said. He obliged -- opening the cash register drawer and stepping back, just as management had taught him to do.

    But the robber fired anyway. He shot the clerk once in the shoulder, then reached into the register to grab the money. The robber then jumped onto the counter and tried to fire several more times, but the gun malfunctioned. He ran out the door and down the street. Two customers on the lot saw him. They found the clerk on the floor behind the counter and called police.
Fortunately, corporate training didn't include the advanced techniques, dying to prevent corporate liability for accidental employee-inflicted wounds during self-defense.

Similar story related at Books, Bikes, and Boomsticks. Perhaps a wave of similar incidents will change corporate policies in this regard, but I'm not hopeful that corporations will ever value their individual employees rights to life and self-defense over their own legal liabilities.

Also, memo to the city of Florissant and to all similar (soon to be simply "all") cities who lust for surveillance cameras to prevent crime: discounting the British example, wouldn't common sense indicate that cameras haven't eliminated bank robberies or gas station hold ups and won't particularly impact street crime?

Not, I suppose, if budget is on the line. A higher principle than anything stated by government officials.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:16 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
 
Book Report: Rooster Cogburn by Martin Julien (1975)
Given my love for books that were made into movies or movie novelizations, of course I picked up this book at a book fair. I didn't look too closely, though, as it's neither. It is the tie-in to the movie, but in this case, it is a forward by the producer, an introduction that includes interviewish fan magazine style pieces on the stars (John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn), and then the script for the movie.

As such, it's an even quicker read than a novel would have been.

The movie is a sequel to True Grit, and I've not seen either of the films, so I had no preconceived notions about it. However, I've read books that include the script of a film I liked (particularly Casablanca, and I'm always struck with how thin the scripts seem compared to the actual film. As a writer, of course I'd like to think that the words are paramount; however, the actors and cinematographers add something. Don't get me wrong, a movie with poor choices of words makes a bad film as easily or maybe more easily, but the other factors add a richness to the experience that the script itself cannot.

That being said, it's a decent Western story, sort of a stock bit but serviceable.

Now, of course, I'll have to see the film to see if I'm correct in my thesis. I'd add it to my wish list on Amazon, but none of you googleheads looking for free book reports to turn in as your own bother to read this far, much less click my wish list. At least, I hope you're smart enough to read enough to turn in something else. None of these book reports has particular scholarly merit. But in case you don't, I'd like to add HEY TEACHER/PROFESSOR, YOU SUX!

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:29 PM   1 comments
 
Odd Trivium About Me
I have no problem drinking a warm glass of water. Not even a lukewarm glass; I can drink a relatively hot glass of water. Which comes in handy here, because the tap in our kitchen has some sort of taste running through the cold water when you first turn it on. So when I'm thirsty, I don't have to wait for the cold line to clear. I'll just drink a glass of hot water if we've just been washing dishes or whatnot.

Some people, like my beautiful wife, cannot abide by anything but the coldest of water. I don't know if that makes me odd, or her.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:01 AM   1 comments
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
 
You Only Hurt The Ones Who Are Loyal Customers
In an era of shrinking newspaper circulation, it's good to see that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch thinks so little of its loyal readers and its delivered circulation, which helps with its ad rates donchaknow, that it's taken to helping part them with some extra money because they can. Notice the cutesy line at the bottom of this subscription card?

Shipping and handling extra
Click for full size


The line is: Subscribers may pick up the newspaper to avoid delivery costs. That would seem to indicate that the Post-Dispatch adds shipping and handling to its home subscribers who make up the bulk of its audience. Does it really?

Here's a bill:

Shipping and handling exhorbitant
Click for full size


Fifteen cents on a daily delivery and forty cents for Sunday? That's 30% markup over the daily cover price of 50 cents and 27% over the Sunday cover price. But if you want to avoid that surcharge, you can subscribe so the paper gets its recurring revenue and circulation numbers and then you can drive every morning to a place where you can pick it up.

Or, I suppose, you can do like the subscriber noted above and cancel your subscription, picking up a paper once in a while at the grocery. Or not at all.

Well-played, circulation department. Your earnest pursuit of zero subscriber base is noteworthy and efficient.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:46 AM   0 comments
Sunday, May 11, 2008
 
That's All I Have To Say About That
Born. Good. Good.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:04 PM   1 comments
Saturday, May 10, 2008
 
At Least Someone Is Enjoying Himself
Gas-a-LOL



- posted by Brian J. @ 7:22 PM   0 comments
Friday, May 09, 2008
 
Book Report: An Altogether New Book of Top Ten Lists by David Letterman (1991)
It looks as though it's been four and a half years since I read the first Book of Lists, and what a four years it has been. Punchlines about Iraq and President Bush, written in 1990 about a different set of circumstances, still cause one to do a doubletake.

Like the other book, the best lists are on topics that aren't dated; the ones that are, I can appreciate for the historical/nostalgic value and get some of the humor from them, but they're not going to last long. Of course, you can get these lists on the Internet now, but when has free availability online ever stopped me for spending a buck or less for a paper copy?

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:10 AM   0 comments
 
A Book Listing Meme That Proves, Again, That I Read A Lot
Via Dustbury, I again have an opportunity to list some books and identify what I've read. Apparently, this is some list of books people tend to own just so they look smart.

The schtick is as follows:
    What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.
Additionally, I have listed in green the ones that I have on my to read shelves to actually read. Additionally, I have posted links to the reports on books that I've finished in the last couple of years so you can see I did read them.

Anyway:
  • Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
  • Anna Karenina
  • Crime and Punishment
  • Catch-22
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude
  • Wuthering Heights
  • The Silmarillion
  • Life of Pi: a novel
  • The Name of the Rose
  • Don Quixote
  • Moby Dick
  • Ulysses
  • Madame Bovary
  • The Odyssey
  • Pride and Prejudice
  • Jane Eyre
  • The Tale of Two Cities
  • The Brothers Karamazov
  • Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
  • War and Peace
  • Vanity Fair
  • The Time Traveler's Wife
  • The Iliad
  • Emma
  • The Blind Assassin
  • The Kite Runner
  • Mrs. Dalloway
  • Great Expectations
  • American Gods
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
  • Atlas Shrugged
  • Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
  • Memoirs of a Geisha
  • Middlesex
  • Quicksilver
  • Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
  • The Canterbury Tales
  • The Historian: a novel
  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
  • Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Brave New World
  • The Fountainhead
  • Foucault's Pendulum
  • Middlemarch
  • Frankenstein
  • The Count of Monte Cristo
  • Dracula
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • Anansi Boys
  • The Once and Future King
  • The Grapes of Wrath
  • The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
  • 1984
  • Angels & Demons
  • The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
  • The Satanic Verses
  • Sense and Sensibility
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray
  • Mansfield Park
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
  • To the Lighthouse
  • Tess of the D'Urbervilles
  • Oliver Twist
  • Gulliver's Travels
  • Les Misérables
  • The Corrections
  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
  • Dune
  • The Prince
  • The Sound and the Fury
  • Angela's Ashes: a memoir
  • The God of Small Things
  • A People's History of the United States: 1492-present
  • Cryptonomicon
  • Neverwhere
  • A Confederacy of Dunces
  • A Short History of Nearly Everything
  • Dubliners
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being
  • Beloved
  • Slaughterhouse-Five
  • The Scarlet Letter
  • Eats, Shoots & Leaves
  • The Mists of Avalon
  • Oryx and Crake: a novel
  • Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
  • Cloud Atlas
  • The Confusion
  • Lolita
  • Persuasion
  • Northanger Abbey
  • The Catcher in the Rye
  • On the Road
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  • Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values
  • The Aeneid
  • Watership Down
  • Gravity's Rainbow
  • The Hobbit (well, the graphic novel, anyway)
  • In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
  • White Teeth
  • Treasure Island
  • David Copperfield
  • The Three Musketeers
Sadly, the list is mostly unread, even the books that I actually think are worth reading and not just fluff put on by contemporary reviewers or poseurs.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:02 AM   0 comments
Thursday, May 08, 2008
 
The Boilerplate
How often newspapers pose the important question about governmental authorities who might have done wrong based on a single citizen's spurious and often dubious assertion. Here's one such story from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Questions arise after girl's day out of school:
    As Milwaukee Public Schools spokeswoman Roseann St. Aubin puts it, "A 12-year-old girl, it's not appropriate that she's out without the family knowing where she is."

    As the mother of this particular girl and MPS officials agree, the sixth-grader was out of Burroughs Middle School, 6700 N. 80th St., for a day last week without her family knowing about it.

    Whose fault was that? The school's or the girl's?

    According to St. Aubin, the girl was suspended from school April 22 for misbehaving in class. The mother said the suspension was a result of a verbal argument between the girl and another girl during a class.

    St. Aubin said the girl was told of the suspension and given a letter to take home to her parents, and she was not supposed to come to school the next day. A voice mail message explaining that was left for the girl's mother, St. Aubin said.

    The mother says the girl was not told she was suspended and the mother didn't get the letter or a voice mail.

    The girl went to school the next day.

    The mother said her daughter told her that shortly after she got to school, she was told by an assistant principal that she had to leave and was given a dismissal pass and a bus ticket to go home. Administrators ordered her to go out the door, the mother said. She said her daughter did not know how to take a bus home and went to Noyes Park, several blocks north of the school, where she spent the day without food or shelter.

    The mother showed reporters the girl's suspension notice, an early dismissal slip from the school with a time of 9:20 a.m. that day written on it, and a bus ticket she said was the one given her daughter.     [Emphasis added.]
Good on the paper for bringing to light this story of a suspended girl who apparently told her mother she didn't know that she was suspended. Mysteriously, the notice that she was suspended appears as evidence that the school did wrong.

As a government entity, the paper holds the school up as an example of government incompetence or malfeasance. At least until the time comes to raise taxes to give more money to those incompetents or miscreants, in which case it will become a moral imperative to support the bureaucracy against the individual tax payers.

You know, that should be only one word, tax payers. Breaking it out into two somehow seems to add a certain emphasis that is lost when it's classified through single word usage.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:31 PM   0 comments
 
Things I'm Asked All The Time
Dude, is that you in that picture dressed like a scientist riding on the back of a moped driven by an actor dressed in a suit?

Of course it is. Don't be ridiculous.

Did you really almost get into a wreck on that moped? What would make a mild mannered fellow like you do something like that?

Yes, and I was paid $1 for my role in that commercial. This brings my total revenue from Internet modeling and acting to $2.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:13 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
 
Book Report: Alice in Jeopardy by Ed McBain (2004)
Et tu, McBain?

I guess it comes as no surprise. Many of his post-2001 books, particularly the ones after 2003, offer their asides that identify exactly how McBain felt about President Bush. He managed to dodge overt political disapproval for almost 50 years, but the climate and tenor of the times allowed him to unleash his disdain, so this book includes a throw away about how Bush ruined the economy and two references to the Iraq War as a Bush crusade. These sorts of things put me off of writers almost daily; it's only McBain's exemplary career beforehand that keeps me from dismissing him as a leftist hack. Sadly, that's what it's like to be a semi-conservative reader in the early part of the 21st century.

Now, this book is a Florida book. Because I've not read a Matthew Hope book for a while, it's easy for me to forget that McBain did his dabbling in the world of MacDonald (mentioned by name in this book) and Hiaasen. It seems like he's trying to emulate the latter a bit here, with a cast of odd characters weaving in and out.

The titular Alice is a recent widow whose husband drowned in the Gulf of Mexico. She's running out of money, waiting for the insurance company to finally pay up, and trying to keep it together. When someone kidnaps her children, the various law enforcement agencies move in with little success and Alice herself has to do something.

The book falls short of the Hiaasen standard and doesn't move quickly enough to fit into the MacDonald mold. Ultimately, it's a lesser book in the McBain canon (politics aside), but it's not a bad book on its own. If someone writes the incomplete Becca in Jeopardy, I might read it. But it's not an 87th Precinct novel, that's for sure.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:35 PM   0 comments
 
Enjoy Your Popcorn, Conservatives
You know, a lot of conservative sorts of political observers have had a lot of fun watching Obama make a series of gaffes and get caught up in ill-considered personal relationships.

However, as long as these things are coming out in the primaries, they'll be old news by election time, and if Obama ends up the nominee, I think a long, bruising primary battle will have given him some inkling of what he'll face in a real election, so he'll be better equipped for the real election than if the Democrats had just crowned him early.

The bruising fight between Obama and Hillary might be fun for some conservatives to watch, but ultimately it might strengthen Obama just enough for November.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:58 AM   0 comments
 
I Voted
An advertisement from Fortune magazine, complete with my official vote added:

I choose nothing


You know what's sadder than wasting money in a national publication to encourage people to visit a freaking Web site to fight global warming?

That Fortune magazine of all things dedicates a large number of pages each issue in the service of the Holy Gaia Empire. I mean, the design magazines are rife with it, the homemaker magazines are full of it (take these frugal steps not to save your money, but to serve the Earth Mother through your own self-sacrifice and denial), and the news magazines are affixed to the leg of the fundaenvironmentalist church, but a magazine for the capitalists? That is the sign that our civilization is rotting to the core.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:44 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
 
Book Report: Space Wars: Worlds & Weapons by Steven Eisler (1979)
In retrospect, Tamara K. was not recommending this book at all. She mistook it for something else. This is not a Stewart Cowley book, this is a Steven Eisler book. I didn't expect Tam would remember fondly a book that called Robert A. Heinlein a fascist.

Okay, here's what we have: a book of unrelated space paintings with essays about the evolution of science fiction stories. Within these texts, we discuss how some science fiction is juvenile (that is, the right-winged stuff). Also, the first half of the Fantasy chapter is about sex, not, you know, fantasy fiction. It's hard to square elitist academic posturing with space paintings, but even demigeeks can get tenure, I guess.

Then, within the captions, we have the schtick that this is some historical document from millenia hence with a history of mankind's space travel. Each disparate painting is worked into this timeline, including the images from obvious fantasy novels.

It was meh. Coffeetable art book for science fiction geeks from the 1970s. Even though I've read some of the novels the book refers to (mostly in a derogatory light, since if they were enjoyable, they were right-winged Power-Is-Truth stuff, unlike Solaris which was mind-broadening, man).

But it counts as a book that I've read this year, and I did it during a baseball game. Woo.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:07 PM   0 comments
 
Point of Order
In this piece about Obamalove in the media, the professional journalist/writer fumbles:
    If the wellborn New England Wasp George W. Bush (Andover '64, Yale '68, Harvard '75) could be successfully refashioned as a down-home rustic, why shouldn’t Hillary Clinton (Wellesley '69, Yale '73) be talkin' guns and drinkin' Crown Royal shots and droppin' all the g's from her gerunds whenever she speaks extemporaneously these days? [Emphasis added]
The examples cited, as you well know, gentle reader, are not gerunds at all, but rather are examples of the present progressive tense (often with the form of to be omitted).

Unless, of course, the author truly means that Hillary becomes talkin' with guns and drinkin' Crown Royal and that these gerunds are supposed to be used in the predicate nominative sense. However, that does not appear to be the case. But I just wanted to throw in another esoteric grammar term to show that I know what a gerund is.

But we cannot expect our snobbish elites to know their grammar, can we?

(Link seen on Instapundit.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:22 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Hard Times by Charles Dickens (1854, 1995)
I liked this book the most out of the Dickens I've read recently (notably, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations). Within it, adults do things, and there's something at stake. This book tells a number of stories: A daughter of a Utilitarian, raised on Facts, marries a wealthy capitalist; the brother of said woman escapes his Utilitarian upbringing by becoming a ne'er-do-well; a worker refuses to join the union and is accused of a bank robbery; and a circusman abandons his daughter, who will be raised by the Utilitarian.

In short, it's not about waifs, which is a boon.

The book is short and has some messaging going on, but it's not a straight ahead book bespeaking the glory of the masses. Instead, it's more of an individualist/Romantic bit, so I didn't find the themes odious. However, the shortness makes some of the storylines truncated, and it seems like Dickens was making it up as he went without an idea of how he was going to resolve things. So when the book came time to end, so did some of the storylines in offhand ways. Also, one of the more speechifying characters, who reveals a lot of the message and philosophy book, speaks with a lisp which was very distracting.

But Dickens was Hemingway to Austen's Faulkner, relatively speaking, and I'd rather pick up another Dickens than an Austen at this point.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:57 PM   0 comments
 
Good Book Hunting: May 3, 2008
Even after our run on the Friends of the Old Trees Library book sale on Thursday, we decided to go out on Saturday to a couple of yard sales even though my beautiful wife used the "I'm going to have a baby any minute" excuse to limit our excursion. I mean, come on, how else will you know if the fifty cent baby clothes are going to fit?

So we only went to four garage sales, and I bought only two books at fifty cents each (since we didn't discover if the baby clothes would fit).

A couple books from a garage sale
Click for full size

This includes:
  • Master and Commander, the historical novel by Patrick O'Brian.

  • Dot Calm, a book about relaxing in the modern world, I guess. Want my hint? Quit your job and work in your yard more often. That's what I did, and so far so good.
Amount spent: $1.00. Number of books: 2.

It marks a rare Saturday where I bought fewer books than I read over the course of the week.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:40 AM   0 comments
 
Possibility Exists That She Is Just Sleeping Very Soundly
Young woman apparently killed in hit-and-run in city


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:42 AM   0 comments
 
Great Moments in the Command Economy
Let me know if you've heard this before: Government meddles in free market because it can. Prices rise. Government investigates price gouging:
    St. Louis County officials plan to ask the state attorney general to investigate whether some trash haulers have gouged residents by drastically raising rates in recent weeks.

    The county's chief operating officer, Garry Earls, said some residents in the county's unincorporated areas have received bills that are almost double their previous rates.

    "This price gouging is tantamount to unscrupulous contractors ripping people off after a major storm," he said.

    The county is moving ahead with plans to divide its unincorporated areas into eight trash collection districts. Through competitive bidding, it would hire a single hauler for each district, except in subdivisions that opt out of the program.
The government's action leads to a rise in prices that justifies, in the government's mind, more government action.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:28 AM   0 comments
Monday, May 05, 2008
 
Missouri State Legislature Would Eliminate Middle Man, Pass Savings On To Voters
The commanders of the economy are at it again:
    A bill before the Missouri House would prohibit doctors from marking up the cost of certain anatomical laboratory work — such as skin biopsies and Pap tests — that are performed by outside laboratories.

    The bill, which has been approved by the Senate and is awaiting floor debate in the House, would prohibit what's known as "pass-through" billing.

    That's when a doctor sends a patient's test sample to an outside laboratory for analysis. The lab charges the doctor a discounted price for the work, but the doctor bills the patient's insurance or the patient a higher amount.
No word on whether the Missouri state legislature will go after mechanics, computer repair shops, construction people, and every other business that uses subcontracting. It's doubtful, though, because these people are not the current boogeyman that the medical industry is.

However, once that particular Gulliver is bound to earth, watch out.

UPDATE: Legislator corrected to legislature in title and body. Now that someone's reading it, I suppose I should make it correcter.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:36 AM   3 comments
Sunday, May 04, 2008
 
Who Wants To Be The Last Memorialized For A Mistake?
A "memorial" park in Lake St. Louis is surprised by criticism that its memorial plaques include sections on "mistakes" and "consequences" of the wars in which the dead fought:
    Plaques citing "mistakes" in U.S.-fought wars have been removed from a new Veterans Memorial Park after veterans complained.

    Ralph Barrale, head of the veterans group behind the park, said he's sorry if the plaques upset anyone.

    "We don't want to disgrace the city or anyone else," he said. "If we offended anyone, I am personally sorry."

    At issue is information on small metal plaques that had been glued atop stone pedestals. The plaques summarized the nation's wars, with the information divided into sections, including "mistakes" and "consequences."
In another story, Barrale is quoted as saying:
    World War II veteran Ralph Barrale, who is 84, says it upsets him that some in his St. Louis suburb don't want to read "the good and the bad" of America's wars. He says they are historically accurate.
However, here's some of the meat on the plaques:
    For example, the "mistakes" portion of the plaque titled "Global War on Terror, 1997-Present" read, in part: "As of 2007, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars failed to enable viable governments leading to continued guerrilla fighting. The Iraqi Army was quickly crushed but the U.S. disbanded the Iraqi Army and removed civilian government employees belonging to the ruling political party leaving no one to help maintain security or run the country, which was contrary to policy used after WWII in Germany and Japan."

    Under "consequences," it stated: "U.S. was accused of a Crusade against Muslims which caused riots all over the Muslim world. Pakistan became an opportunistic ally of the U.S. in its Afghanistan war. U.S. lost prestige around the world."
That's not historically accurate, that's historical interpretation. The sort of thing that's up for discussion and controversy. If Mr. Barrale wants to put those interpretation into government-sanctioned metal in a park, he wants them to be known as fact instead of what he and his other elegy composers think.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:50 AM   0 comments
Saturday, May 03, 2008
 
Good Book Hunting: May 1, 2008
On Thursday evening, we got into the Friends of the Old Trees Book Sale on preview night for free because we're Friends of the Old Trees library. Uncrowded and in a much better space this year (a recently vacated former video store), we had a good time, but unfortunately I suspended shopping a bit early because I thought we were running out of cash and we didn't bring the checkbook.

Still, here's what I got:

Friends of Old Trees Library results
Click for full size


This includes:
  • Three local history books that I read last year: Webster Park 1896-1996, Webster Groves, North Webster, and the first three editions of the In Retrospect series. Given that they're expensive if you find them online or in local book stores, I feel very fortunate indeed. I guess I can remove them from my Amazon wish list, you know, the one you ingrates never visit.

  • Several pamphlets about Missouri trees and Missouri birds.

  • The Happy Gardener by Clarissa Start; I think this marks the fourth book of hers I now own.

  • Basic Writings by Martin Heidegger. This is probably the only time in history Heidegger and Start have appeared together.

  • Viets Guide to Sex, Travel & Anything Else that Will Sell this Book by Elaine Viets, a former local columnist.

  • The Naked Society, a book about the forthcoming lack of privacy as government and corporations consolidate data. This book was written in the 1960s.

  • A History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill, in a box set. For $8.

  • The Elizabethan World, a history summary, I assume.

  • The Battle of New Orleans, which details that battle from the War of 1812.

  • All My Best Friends by George Burns, a memoir of life in the entertainment industry. But it's by George Burns, whom I expect to be very funny.

  • Three Essays by J.S. Mill.

  • Red Zone by Mike Lupica. It appears to be a sequel to Bump and Run; regardless, it's Lupica fiction that's new to me.

  • Lafitte the Pirate, a book about a pirate in New Orleans. Nonfiction, I think. It was on the history table, but so was Harry Turtledove.

  • The WPA Guide to 1930s Missouri. Why not?

  • An issue of the Webster Review, Webster University's literay magazine, from 1993. I checked to see if any of the alumni I know were associated with it (apparently not), but it has a poem by Lyn Lifshin.

  • Book IV of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I bought 5-7 at the Kirkwood Book Fair in hardback; this is a trade paperback. As a result, I own all of them now, so I guess I can read them sometime. I'll probably have to reread the first three since it's been probably a decade since I read them. Probably 15 years by the time I get to them again.

  • History of Columbia, Illinois, a short treatise on the first hundred years of that town. From the 1950s, I think.

  • Around the World in 99 Beds. I'd flirted with purchasing this before. This one had the title page intact, but was not signed. Which might make it the only copy in existence not signed, increasing its worth.

  • A short treatise on St. Louis.

  • Livings II: A Guide to the Other St. Louis, a resource guide for people who are newly moving to the revitalizing city of St. Louis. Written in 1972. It would give pause to the current crop of The-city-is-backsters, but they're too busy humping the legs of the developers and public/private profiteers to bother gaining any perspective on just how long the city of St. Louis has been on the cusp of revitalization that fails.
Yeah, I hit the local interest table pretty hard.

The beautiful wife gathered a collection in her interest areas, God, food, and UNIX. Not pictured: A Babar board book for the urchin(s); urchin1 was looking at it at the time of the photo.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:43 AM   0 comments
 
Things You Didn't Know I Collect: Goblets
Sometime just before the turn of the century, back when I spent Saturday mornings and part of the afternoons scouring garage sales and estate sales for stuff to list on eBay, I encountered a single goblet at a garage sale marked a quarter. Hey, a goblet! I could drink my soda/wine/beer like a king! So I bought it.

Then I found that a yard sale or two each week that had a goblet, sometimes two, and rarely three. So I'd buy those, too. So I could drink like a king in different colors each night or without having to wash the dishes between drink like a king sessions. Suddenly, I was collecting goblets:

The Noggle Goblet Collection
Click for full size


Since filling the tops of my cabinets a couple years ago, I haven't acquired anything new in a while. I haven't seen them as often of late at the garage sales we attend; I don't know if this means that I've bought them all, or if our change in suburbs has caused a change in garage sale vendor demographics to people who wouldn't own goblets in the first place, but there you have it.

I took them all down this weekend and washed them for the first time in two years (!), and I've discovered I do have a little room up there for a couple more goblets....

Also note that my goblet collection includes a stein; this was a gift from my mother in law, who misremembered the beer consumption vessels I collected.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:29 AM   0 comments
Friday, May 02, 2008
 
With Tam Out Of The Way, There's Room On Tennessee's Porch
Tam of View From The Porch moves from Tennessee to Indiana.

A senatorial candidate in Tennessee starts blogging on The View From The Front Porch.

Looking to hijack a little of name recognition?

(Link seen on Instapundit originally.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:09 PM   0 comments
 
If You're Going To Be On The Society Page, Put Down The Beer
As someone who peruses the society page of a couple of different magazines here in town, I've got a bit of a pet peeve. You have a guy that is dressed nicely, at a high class function, stone cold munchin', and standing next to an attractive woman who's a date/spouse/person whom he'd like to impress enough into one or the other, and he's got a beer bottle in his hand. Worse, given that this is St. Louis, it's usually an Anheuser-Busch product of some sort. Some examples:
Man with best friend and a woman The bottle doesn't go with his tie
Hiding it with a napkin doesn't work Camouflaging it against your shirt only works if you're wearing a Budweiser shirt
Jeez, boys, show a little class. Put it down for the photo. I know you don't want someone else to get your precious beer, but even if someone else grabs it, it's only a Budweiser. Look at it as a sign from providence, and get something real to drink.

Notice those people amongst you, your betters, who understand that a cocktail glass doesn't make you look like a frat boy. Take the hint.

Also, a quick note to recruiters: if you find my name on LinkedIn, Google my name, visit this blog to get my e-mail address, and then try to tempt me into an entry-level position at Anheuser-Busch for which you think I'm suited, please, take a moment to search this blog for what I say about Anheuser-Busch and its products. Rest assured, someone there will, and you'll find they don't think I'm suitable at all. Thank you, that is all.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:43 PM   3 comments
 
Book Report: Pogo: We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us Walter Kelly (1972)
As I mentioned when I bought this book, it would probably be a good book to read during a ball game. It was.

I admit I wasn't that familiar with the Pogo comic strip. Of course, one book doesn't make me a knowledgeable fan by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't get into it in high school, when I had access to a daily paper carrying it. The humor is sort of dry and carries over between the different days into storylines. That's the way they did it in the old days, before the strips became mostly episodic and didn't rely on daily readers to keep up.

Funny how television has reversed that as consumers rely more on DVDs and timeshifting to keep up. I wonder if Web comics will do the same, or if they're doing it already.

The comic tends to skewer a right and a bit of left, poking at the powerful regardless of their persuasion or means to power. Good enough. Even when it skewers my particular oxen, it doesn't do it hatefully, so I'm not offended. Maybe I'm layering on the sepia, but political opponents and humorists who were politically different didn't always acutely offend, apparently.

On the plus side, I got this book at a book sale for under a buck; you can get it from Amazon for as little as $35 and change.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:37 AM   1 comments
 
That Sounds Like An Imminent Threat
A co-worker complains about threats made by another:
    A 54-year-old doctor at St. Anthony's Medical Center was arrested after being accused of threatening people during preparation for surgery by allegedly saying he would shoot up the hospital, police said.
Luckily, the SWAT team swooped in and got him before he could get his arsenal from his Lexus:
    The doctor allegedly made the threat April 11 and it was reported to police April 23, officials said.
An almost two week lag time before the arrest? It sounds like someone got cheesed off later at the doctor and called the buttons on him.

There's probably more to the story than the paper lets on, but each of these ill-described incidents leads me to believe that the police might come for me someday on some wisecrack gone awry.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:21 AM   0 comments
 
The Kirkwood City Council Shootings In Depth
St. Louis Magazine has a in-depth look at the Kirkwood City Council shootings this month with insight that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's coverage sadly lacked.

It looks like the online version has three additional parts not found in the print magazine, too, which means I have further reading to do.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:06 AM   0 comments
 
Samuelson Said What?
Robert J. Samuelson, economic columnist for the Washington Post, usually offers sensible advice on economics. However, in this column about oil prices, he proffers the following dangerous aside:
    (And yes, we need a gradually rising fuel tax to create a strong market for more-efficient vehicles.)
You know, I find it terribly inconsistent that so many people who lament the high price of gas are the same people who, only a couple short years or months ago, were clamoring for a high fuel tax to alter people's behavior are now up in arms about the market-dictated rising prices of fuel. Just think where the price of gas would be if the East Coast "Conservatives" had had their way.

The behavior we alter with any new revenue stream is the government's: it spends the money, and when the citizen behavior is effectively altered, the government will have to come up with alternative behaviors to modify or raise general revenue streams. We know that the only painful cuts the government tends to make are slower increases in spending.

Which is why I'm surprised at Samuelson's advice here, coming as it is in the middle of a column on high fuel prices.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:48 AM   0 comments
Thursday, May 01, 2008
 
An Obvious Sign, If You're A Bureaucrat
Headline: Texas polygamist kids abused, officials say. Evidence offered in the brief story?
    Commissioner Carey Cockerell, who oversees the state agency now caring for the children, said medical examinations have revealed numerous physical injuries, including broken bones in "very young children."
How many hundreds of kids did they take to find "numerous physical injuries" including broken bones in "very young children"?

Nearly 500.

Go to any elementary school. If you see a cast, that child has been abused, right?


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:29 AM   4 comments
 
How Popular Is It Then?
St. Charles art center seeks more city aid:
    A former industrial site that has become a hub for the local arts scene and a popular event venue is seeking more city money to plug a budget gap.
One would ask how popular it is, then, if it cannot sustain itself. Very popular, no doubt; ask anyone who's there or who runs it.

Best quote of the day, though, for its galling honesty:
    "The obvious thing is to go to your daddy" before seeking additional private money, said Dick Sacks, who heads the foundry's board.
Who's your daddy?


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:25 AM   0 comments
 
Candyman: The Return Preview
After Matt Blunt's term as Missouri governor, with its semi-austerity in cutting government programs unpopularly (some of which I chronicled on my old Draft Matt Blunt blog), it looks like 2009 will return to government business as usual. Jay Nixon will be your candyman:
    On a gubernatorial campaign stop Monday at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon unveiled a plan that would allow Missouri students who start out at a community college to get a four-year degree without having to pay tuition along the way.
Of course, economics dictates that once everyone has a bachelor's degree, the starting salaries for people with college degrees will diminish, squeezing the middle class in another fashion. But this is government/politics, not reality/economics.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:20 AM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."