Bums and bindlestiffs

Senior Policy Analyst Jason Richwine couldn't resign quickly enough for the Heritage Foundation after the recent disclosure of his dissertation study linking hispanics to lower intelligence quotients.

I am reading a fascinating book about the history of transient labor in this country, Mark Wyman's Hoboes, bindlestiffs, fruit tramps and the harvesting of the west. The book takes you from northwest coast hop picking, beating the tracks (riding the rails) to sharecropping, basically a great chronicle of America from the 1880's through the depression. Hobo jungles a mile wide.

I am currently reading a section on the history of the long, love hate relationship between Arizona and Mexican migrants. In 1918 the Republicans took over Congress. Washington's Rep. Albert Johnson called a hearing titled "Temporary admission of illiterate Mexican laborers." Much of the hearing was a discussion of Joint Resolution 271, which basically gave the mexican laborer an open door since they were so necessary to the cotton harvest. Whites refused to work in the stark Salt River Valley conditions and the blacks had moved to the cities.

One of the classic moments from the hearing is when Texas Representative Carlos Bee said that "the Mexican is specially fitted for the burdensome task of bending his back to pick cotton and the burdensome task of grubbing the fields." His cohort and resolution cosponsor Representative Claude B. Hudspeth was not to be outdone; he believed that the Mexicans "...are an inferior race, Mr. Vaile, they are an inferior race of people."

Guess some things never change.

*
Will publish a lexicon of some of the great new words I have discovered while reading this book.

Blue Oyster Cult

Deathwave

The other side © Robert Sommers 2013

The waves of death engulfed me; the currents of chaos overwhelmed me. 2 Samuel 22:5

Those that are close to me know that I have been in a very dark mood the last few weeks, if not months. What better time to discuss the wave of death? Scientists have tried in vain to understand what happens in the moments during brain death, particularly that odd 5 to 15 second period where the brain sends out a high frequency signal, perhaps signaling the mother ship for docking instructions.

From Discover.com Brain waves surge moments before death:

A study of seven terminally ill patients found identical surges in brain activity moments before death, providing what may be physiological evidence of "out of body" experiences reported by people who survive near-death ordeals.
Doctors at George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates recorded brain activity of people dying from critical illnesses, such as cancer or heart attacks.
Moments before death, the patients experienced a burst in brain wave activity, with the spikes occurring at the same time before death and at comparable intensity and duration.
Writing in the October issue of the Journal of Palliative Medicine, the doctors theorize that the brain surges may be tied to widely reported near-death experiences which typically involve spiritual or religious attributes.

These researchers decapitated rats and found that a minute later they broadcast this high amplitude signal, a process they say might be reversible.

This scientific paper, Neural Dynamics during Anoxia and the “Wave of Death” offered some explanations for the occurrence.

Abstract

Recent experiments in rats have shown the occurrence of a high amplitude slow brain wave in the EEG approximately 1 minute after decapitation, with a duration of 5–15 s (van Rijn et al, PLoS One 6, e16514, 2011) that was presumed to signify the death of brain neurons. We present a computational model of a single neuron and its intra- and extracellular ion concentrations, which shows the physiological mechanism for this observation. The wave is caused by membrane potential oscillations, that occur after the cessation of activity of the sodium-potassium pumps has lead to an excess of extracellular potassium. These oscillations can be described by the Hodgkin-Huxley equations for the sodium and potassium channels, and result in a sudden change in mean membrane voltage. In combination with a high-pass filter, this sudden depolarization leads to a wave in the EEG. We discuss that this process is not necessarily irreversible.

Citation: Zandt B-J, ten Haken B, van Dijk JG, van Putten MJAM (2011) Neural Dynamics during Anoxia and the “Wave of Death”. PLoS ONE 6(7): e22127. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022127

Editor: Olivier Baud, Hôpital Robert Debré, France

Received: May 10, 2011; Accepted: June 15, 2011; Published: July 13, 2011

Copyright: © 2011 Zandt et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Discussion

Dynamic phenomena that occur during hypoxia and the way they are reflected in the EEG are only partially understood. Measurements of extreme cases showing clear features in the EEG present an opportunity to gain insight in the relation with the underlying physiology. Such an extreme case is decapitation, in which the supply of energy to the entire brain is halted almost instantaneously. This causes the EEG to become flat after several seconds, but also results in a large amplitude wave approximately a minute after decapitation. Van Rijn et al. suggest that this wave “ultimately reflects brain death” [3], but also state that further research on the physiology of brain function during this process is needed.

What exactly is this wave of death? At what frequency does it cycle? Merely last gasp chemical reactions or is it possible that it points to the existence of a soul or better yet, a personal electrical field, one that might need a half a minute to aim and shoot into the next bardo?

In any case, it is a curious topic. A 2002 paper in the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine found that brain cells taken from a person several hours after death could survive for weeks in the lab. Scientists think the wave was evidence that the brain was on its last legs. Neurons have an electrical signal, thanks to an imbalance of positive and negative charges along their cell walls. This imbalance is called a "membrane potential." The wave of death might signal the loss of membrane potential, specifically from a mineral imbalance of sodium and potassium channels where the latter channel gets too big.

Hot Rod Race © Robert Williams 2013

definition of the wave of death in Urban Dictionary:

It occurs in traffic and often leads to a bad accident. One car is stopped. Another car coming in the opposite direction wants to turn left in front of the stopped car. The driver of the stopped car waves as if to say "it's OK to make the left turn in front of me". However, in the empty lane to the right of the stopped car, here comes another car whose driver has no idea that the left-turning car got the OK wave. The left-turning car and the car in the empty lane hit together usually pretty hard. Thus, the wave of death.

I was in an accident because some asshole gave another driver the wave of death.

Happy © Alex Grey 2013

Please Send Me Someone To Love

May tidings

News out today that our planet's CO2 levels have just reached historic heights, over 400 ppm. First time in history. Yippee! I give the climate change contrarians less than 24 hours to declare that the earth's plants will be happier now.

*

As a photographer, you have to love afternoon sun.

*

"The Internal Revenue Service said Friday that while "mistakes were made" when the agency inappropriately targeted conservative groups for additional reviews between 2010 and 2012, its actions were not motivated by partisan politics."
Holy Richard Nixon, Batman!

*
The Republican congress has bagged two Obama nominees this week, at EPA and Labor. They seem content to just obstruct at every opportunity.

"...a Congressional Research Service study of recent judicial nominees found that Obama’s nominees have been blocked longer than any other administration since 1980, with Obama’s district court nominees waiting an average of 221 days for confirmation, compared to an average of 34.7 days for Reagan’s court picks." 

Texas Senator John Cornyn had the audacity to complain about the dearth of judicial nominations when he himself short circuited the process and refused to make recommendations.

"Texas has one of the worst judicial vacancy rates in the country, due in large part to its senators simply not making recommendations to the White House. Cornyn and fellow Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) haven't moved to fill seven vacant judicial slots. One of those slots has been empty for 1,743 days; another has been without a nominee for 1,044 days, according to data recently published by the Alliance for Justice, a left-leaning association of more than 100 organizations focused on the federal judiciary."

I scare myself

Wienerstock

Ken and Lauren Seals took their dachshund to the wiener dog races in Temecula last weekend. About 65 dogs took part in the canine run for the roses. Looks like a lot of fun and Ken gives us some really great photography. Link to Ken's site here to see more shots.

Heighty High

Black Peter

Let the chips fall where they may

I pride myself on calling balls and strikes fairly from either side of the plate. Check my early posts on Benghazi here, here and here. Even here. It was obvious from the get go that the State Department and the administration were trying to peddle a bucket of shit. I don't care what the CIA guy said, there was a reason Susan Rice wanted to project the idea that the Libyan violence was not an orchestrated terrorist attack but instead a spontaneous eruption. Because we were trying to consolidate hard fought political gains and this fit the narrative better. "They love us so much."

The Republicans and Issa's committee are clearly using the Benghazi hearings to inflict as much harm as they can get to stick to the administration and maybe further down the road, Hillary's election chances.

That being said, I think that it is important that we hear from the whistleblowers. When Mr. Hicks says that he was demoted to a crappy desk job for not adopting the company line, I believe him. Of course the military brass said that the Special Ops aid he requested would never arrive in time. We talked about the matter at coffee and one of the guys, an ex captain said, "Did you ever know a general or admiral that was not a politician?" Maybe Ken actually said it, don't know his old rank.

Of course a lot of what the Republicans are alleging doesn't hold water either. Clinton's name is on every cable, that is the way it always works at State, there is no evidence that she was in on anything. Mostly what we get from the administration is that working in the foreign service is a dangerous job and these courageous men and women knew what they were in for and accepted the inherent risks. But somebody was asleep at the wheel. It didn't have to go down like this.

Of course if the security detail was not allowed access to bullets or the people back home stopped paying the help and you were letting the station run on fumes and not granting repeated requests to bolster security, well that would not be a good thing.

I Shall Not Be Moved

Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl and Johnny, Sun Studios - circa 1956.

islama - islamo

I have to confess. the conservatives were right. Upon hearing about the events in Boston, I was hoping for right wing, tea party zealot. Eric Rudolph, McVeigh type. I was wrong.

I have been doing a little research and I have the sneaking suspicion that I may in fact be an Islamophobe. I read this article Exclusive: Dagestani Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is a Prominent Islamist in Time Magazine yesterday about Tsarnaev's cousin in Dagestan and offer you a quoted section in order to start a brief conversation:

“We also believe in the restoration of the caliphates that ruled after the death of the Prophet, may peace be upon him.”
As such, they are fiercely against U.S. intervention in the Muslim world and, more broadly, the encroachments of Western liberalism. Within 20 minutes of meeting a TIME reporter, Bilyal Magomedov, one of the group’s leading members, poses a rhetorical question: “Tell me, who is not an enemy of America these days?” Asked what he thought about the Boston bombings, he offers a silver lining for the Islamist cause. “In principle, it’s good that this happened, even though the [Tsarnaev] brothers suffered,” he said. “Don’t understand me wrong, but September 11 led many Americans to convert to Islam. It’s another question that people died there, sure. But people also started to wonder why this act was committed… And when the enemies of Islam try to blacken the religion, Allah creates the opposite effect. More people get interested in Islam. They get curious.”

The bright side of 9/11? More islamic converts. Perfect! Honestly, I can think of no other creed that believes in mass conversion by force and is so active in the killing of innocents in order to achieve their theological aims. And allah forbid that you belong to the wrong religious subset, you'll end up deader than an Israeli at Mecca.

In order to explore the roots of my hostility and to learn something about islamophobia, I checked a book out of the library, ISLAMOPHOBIA, making muslims the enemy by Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg. Both of these men are or were connected with Wesleyan University. This book, written in 2008, looks at Islamophobia through the prism of western political cartooning. It is a standard apologist's text for the sins of the religion and its adherents. The book is pretty darn worthless but I did glean a few things from it.

The book points out that only a fraction of a fraction of the world's billion or so muslims engage in terrorist activities and violence. We only have a million or so natives to really worry about. Having said that, muslim sensitivities are quite high because of the results of western empire building on their turf and real or imagined western denigration and hostility.

More muslims live east of Afghanistan than west of it, according to the author, rendering the middle east an "insignificantly minor place" in demographic muslimdom. Only a small minority of muslims today and historically are engaged in religiously motivated armed conflict. Media outlets overlook the moderate voices of the majority of muslims.

The book goes on and on, exploring the tenets of the religion of peace and vilifying anyone who might object to the message. What else did I learn? Part of Mohammed's duty was to be a warlord and raid trade caravans, a tribal tradition. European imperialists are the real bad guys. Muslim slaves brought by the spaniards predated the english arrival in the new world. Muslims have become synonymous with terrorists in the minds of many americans. Muslim defenders of the levant used straight swords like the crusaders, at least for the first two centuries, not scimitars. The croissant was invented in Vienna in 1689 after the successful repulsion of Turkish invaders. Croissant comes from the word crescent. If you think that cartoonists are mean to muslims you should see how they depict the french. Honor killing, genital mutilation and forced marriage occur in some other cultures besides the islamic, one should not assume that the western "ideal" is normal. 

*

I have lived in the middle east and studied the situation both on the ground and from afar. I was thinking about my recent arguments at AlterNet regarding an article contrasting American's comparative reaction to the Boston bombing viv a vis the West, Texas disaster. And I have come to a conclusion. Americans have an overwhelming desire to think that the whole world thinks like they do, that every human being is at heart a rational and moral being. It is a serious conceit of ours, especially among liberals. The Bilyal Magomedovs of the world are fictional, or inconsequential at best, since they don't fit into our favorite narrative that the whole world is interested in peaceful coexistence. It is anathema for us americans to have to consider a large group of people evil. The real enemy is capitalism or the Israelis, flouride or maybe circumcision. It is always our fault because we are americans and when we get attacked by the next terrorist action we might consider turning the other cheek. Perhaps give the mean old, misunderstood terrorist a timeout, but certainly not at Guantanamo.

And so we can look forward to more and more tragedies like Boston. Because we never learn.

Arlyne Ingold

photo courtesy of the Village News

A great friend of Fallbrook, known far and wide for her generosity and philanthropic work, passed away yesterday. Arlyne Ingold was 95 years old. She had been ill for the past several years but her symptoms worsened the last several days and she died yesterday morning in her home after slipping into a brief coma.

Arlyne had four children, many grand and great grandchildren. Her kids were all beside her in her last days as was her trusted aide, Carmen.

Arlyne was born to Sebastian and Mary Ann Walz on December 27, 1917, in Carroll, IA, and moved with her family to Los Angeles at the age of three. She was married to the late Robert Ingold and they were longtime residents of the friendly village.

Arlyne will be greatly missed by her family and many friends. She was known for her vivacity, sense of humor and the way she enjoyed life with so much gusto. Fallbrook owes this woman a lot, she did so many wonderful things for our town.

Sick, Sober And Sorry

Fool some people

In a remarkable political rebirth, Republican Mark Sanford has been elected back to the South Carolina House. What is the message from the voters when they put a philandering liar and adulterer back in office, a man censured for misusing state funds, who was accused as late as last month for breaking into his ex wife's home when she was out of town?

I think that the message is that the bible belt is not in play. Red states will stay red, blue states will stay blue. They would elect a murderer before they elect a democrat in some of these states.

Play the jesus redemption card, go straight to the office of the first South Carolinian congressional district, unless you have a little side trip scheduled to visit Argentina or the Appalachian Trail first, of course. You folks deserve him.

"A short while before the wedding, when Mark and I were picking readings and vows, Mark told me that he didn't want to use a wedding vow that included the promise to be faithful. He was worried in some odd nagging way, he said, that he might not be able to remain true to that vow. In retrospect, I suppose I might have seen this as a sign that Mark wasn't fully committed to me, and with the benefit of the knowledge I have about Mark now, I could point to this moment as a clear sign of things to come."

"We were all together the day Mark called to tell me that he had more explaining to do. Another woman, it seemed, had come forward and suggested to a member of the press that she had also had relations with Mark, which meant he would likely have to address the accusation with an AP reporter who would be interviewing him later in the day. I was gut-punched all over again. Mark had sworn to me when I'd discovered his secret back in January that Belen was the only "other" woman. Now he explained that there had been nothing much at all with this new woman, nothing he had felt I needed to know about before. Ever businesslike, he wanted to know what I thought he should reveal in the interview. Here again he was asking for my advice instead of first considering how the news might make me feel. Here again he was only really admitting his indiscretions because the woman had come forward, forcing him to come clean. I would soon learn—secondhand from the AP interview—that Mark had had yet more dalliances over the years, but that in his opinion he had not "crossed the line" as he'd done with Belen. When I pressed him for details when I saw him a few days later, I understood fully that his and my definition of an appropriate line were not at all the same."
Jenny Sanford - Staying True

Bob Seger- Love The One You're With

Elephants and the bees

The Republicans don't appear to be very serious about budget negotiations. Mitch McConnell insists that he will not negotiate until the democrats accept two preconditions; that the outcome of the negotiations not raise taxes or lift the debt ceiling.The dems certainly won't accede to that so there will be no prospects for accord in the future. Senator Cruz made a similar take or leave it offer to Harry Reid yesterday.

They either think that they are dealing from a position of strength or they simply don't care. They will be intent to just obstruct through the next election cycle and hope that their approval rating somehow crawls out of the tank.

*
Looks like the three front runners for the right are the young turks Ryan, Rubio and Cruz. They need to pander to the hispanics that they will need to court with the changing electoral demographics. I would say that it will be Rubio's to lose but it has not been proven that a Cuban will electrify the rest of the hispanics, they typically are much more conservative than the mexican population. He seems slightly less toxic than Ryan and Cruz, who is totally malevolent and punkass in his manner, especially to his colleagues.

I am not a republican but wonder if any of my republican friends are excited about these three and if not them, who? Rand Paul has great pluses among many but turns off an equal number with his isolationism, belief in the right to privately discriminate and other idealogical libertarian ideas that might seem extreme for the populace.

*

© Robert Sommers 2013

The accent mark sent over this article about the great honeybee die off, Todd Woody's Honey Bees Are Dying Putting America At Risk Of A Food Disaster.   Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has wiped out some 10 million bee hives worth $2 billion over the past six years.

The USDA thinks that the answer is to breed better bees. Because we humans are so much better at this nature stuff than nature itself, just look at our track record.

Hudgins sends this in response;

I really the brilliant statement:  "One answer: Breed better bees."

It really makes a lot of sense to genetically engineer a bee that can survive and prosper on a mix of industrial grade poisons and isopropylamine salt of glyphosate. 

What could go wrong with a chemical that inhibits the enzyme catalsyt in the synthesis in plants of the amino acids tyrosine and tryptophan.  (Note: tryptophan is an essential amino acid. This means that it cannot be synthesized and therefore must be part of the diet.)

The human race is very poor indeed at seeing connections.  

Other then the ones that link dollars together....

Words, words and more words

Expert Counsel

I was approached last month by a woman asking me if I was interested in doing an antique appraisal at the Fallbrook Community Center last weekend. Due to a busy schedule, I declined but thought that the idea sounded good. I had a brief moment of professional introspection and wondered who would be appraising for them? Read Tom Pfingsten's column today and found out:

"...Stacey Riggs, who sells a variety of household items from her Fallbrook Trading Co. storefront on Main Avenue, said the market for vintage goods and antiques has changed drastically over the last decade.
“People are not necessarily looking for antiques any more, because there’s newer furniture that’s just as beautiful, but is better made because it’s not 100 years old. When I buy antiques, I buy them because they’re unique or well-priced, not because they’re old,” Riggs said. “There’s this misconception that, because it’s an antique, it must be worth something.”
Antiques can still fetch a good price, in other words — but not just because they are old.
Riggs was on hand to give casual appraisals, telling folks what she would charge if their item was for sale in her store. When a woman approached with an antique doll, Riggs had to break the bad news: “I’ve tried dolls in my store, and I cannot give them away.”

The word is out folks, antiques are over. To each his own. Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder but the idea that things are just as beautiful and are made better today than yesteryear is really quite laughable to me. More like we are in the great abyss.

Charlie Musselwhite

We get letters

Good morning Robert - I have observed that it is your (really quite extraordinary) arrogance that other people probably object to. Essentially (with regard to most questions) you refuse to consider the possible validity of any point of view other than your own. I find it amusing, probably because we have very limited contact - and because I have developed a great deal of tolerance in my 12-Step program. Just a personal opinion.

R

Sing me back home

Couldn't decide. Or you can try the original.

The innocent man

A Texas District Attorney railroads a man in a murder trial and withholds key evidence that would have shown the man's innocence. The man spends nearly 25 years in prison for a crime he never committed. The prosecutor, Ken Anderson, now a judge, may finally have to pay the piper. Read the riveting story Reversal of Fortune: A Prosecutor on Trial at ProPublica.

And check out the expose's regarding the case of Michael Morton here at Texas Monthly. I was particularly interested in Pamela Colloff's Why John Bradley lost that shows that the then active Williamson Country District Attorney, John Bradley, attempted to have DNA evidence destroyed that when admitted, ultimately led to Morton's exoneration. Fascinating and sordid tale of Lone Star justice.

...Bradley advocated seeking DNA destruction as part of plea agreements on the grounds that "Innocence ... has proven to trump most anything." "A better approach," he said, "might be to get a written agreement that all the evidence can be destroyed after the conviction and sentence. Then, there is nothing to test or retest."

Hello, Trouble

Desert Shower © Robert Sommers 2013

Más comer

KerryB tells me that he has found great Mexican food in San Francisco. He says it is the best he has ever had. I am not in the habit of mentioning places I haven't tried myself but will make an exception here. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think if you are in the city. BigD (who is having a birthday today) says that he knows the joint.

The restaurant is called San Jalisco. He told me about it on the phone yesterday. He was just there with his girlfriend. Said that the carne asada was insanely good.

Hi Robert,

Like I said, ordered the Carne Asada yesterday at San Jalisco ( S. Van Ness between 20th and 21st - their logo features a cartoon goat ), got a huge steak, inch and a half thick, grilled green onions and peppers on top, great home made refried beans, tortillas, chips and salsa. Didn't expect much based on the building and the decor but got the best Mexican food ever. Easy five stars.

See you soon.

Kerry

http://www.yelp.com/biz/sanjalisco-san-francisco

Always happy to pass these things along. The San Francisco and San Diego take on Mexican food is very different, both approaches have their respective strengths.

*

Los Angeles Times Jonathan Gold did his 14 best mex annual review the other day. I took umbrage at his failure to include La Cabanita, my favorite anywhere. I wasn't the only commenter that noted the omission in my misspelled harangue. Border Grill, please! The place in Bell does sound interesting...

*

We got a lazy start today, even a nap. Started with my wife's special piquant mexican hot chocolate, modeled after a concoction we first tasted at Soma in Toronto. Flaxseed pancakes with walnuts and bananas and real syrup. 

Did a few chores and then Leslie and I went into town, she opened her store for a few hours. Afterwards we went to Rosa's for menudo but they had  ran out at noon so I was forced to scramble.

I don't know how Leonora does it but a simple chicken taco at Rosa's is a sublime thing of beauty. Nobody does a chicken taco this good anywhere. I also had a shrimp and avocado tostada. Shrimp piled high with a generous squeeze of lime. Heaven. Les had a monstrously sized carnitas burrito with cilantro and sour cream. Everybody does carnitas differently, their meet was the wet and stringy type, not the crispy cubes from a place like Robertitos.

We finished our early supper with a slice of flan. Don't think I have ever tried the flan here, funny. A very thick consistency with a dollop of whipped cream. Really good but not eggy, not the more custard style I usually favor.

* 

We went to Oink and Moo with a couple of other couples on Friday. Started out with a truffle fry and a maple syrup glazed sweet potato fry combo. Sinfully good, especially the latter. I had pork ribs and brisket. Somebody had an ostrich burger. Les had a salad. I was so full I couldn't even attack mu favorite honey drizzled biscuit with much gusto.

Dave regaled me with stories of eating rat in China. Rat on a stick, flattened, sans head. He said that it was delicious. I will pass.

*

I am reading the book From the land of green ghosts by Pascal Khoo Thwe, a captivating look at Burma from the eyes of a Paduang student turned revolutionary. He started out in the book eating bugs and insects but I have progressed to the point where he describes the eating of dog and monkey.

George "Harmonica" Smith

Had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Smith at the Academy when I was a wee lad, performing with Big Mama Thornton, Hound Dog Taylor, Big Joe Turner and Stovepipe, who didn't make the poster. My sister Liz's fiancee ran security at Stein's Academy of Music at the time, she and all the roadies hung out at a village bar named Googies, long gone now I suppose.

Life is for the birds

Mother red tailed hawk, obviously weary from the long travails of child birth and rearing, is starting to give the two chicks longer and longer periods of solitary independence in the nest.

She stays at wings length, a position that affords her a bit of peace but not yet too far, caring nothing for the compositional problems that she leaves for the poor photographer.

Still haven't seen a male this year, quite unusual. Dad must have gone out for that proverbial pack of smokes.

Soft and fluffy little guys, I still can't get quite close enough. Maybe If I focussed a little better?Anybody have a Sigma 150-500mm with a Nikon mount they aren't using?

Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho

Bang Bang

Guns for Kids Marketing Debate Ignited by Latest Child Death

...At about 1 p.m. the boy used a rifle that was given to him as a gift to shoot his sister in a moment when his mother stepped outside.
"The weapon is a single shot .22 caliber rifle," Cumberland County police spokesman Billy Gregory told ABCNews.com. "One of the parents was at home at the time of the shooting. She had stepped outside the residence. She was cleaning and stepped outside to empty a mop bucket, and heard the shot and ran back inside."
Gregory said that the case is currently a death investigation, and detectives are waiting for findings from the coroner. When you're dealing with grieving parents and a young child who shot his sister, there are a lot of muddy waters we have to wait for to clear," he said.
Cumberland County Coroner Gary White told The Associated Press that the rifle was kept in a corner and the family didn't realize a bullet was left inside it.
"It's a Crickett," White said. "It's a little rifle for a kid. ... The little boy's used to shooting the little gun."
The Cricket model was called "My First Rifle" and is manufactured by Keystone Sporting Arms.  The shooting in Kentucky on Tuesday and the one in Washington on Wednesday were the latest in a series of shootings in the last month involving young children. In early April, Brandon Holt, 4, was shot by his 6-year-old friend in New Jersey while the two were playing a game of "pretend shooting," also with a .22 caliber rifle. The following day, a 4-year-old boy in Lebanon, Tenn., fired a gun that killed his mother. 

US News | Entertainment News | More ABC News Videos

Caution - do not stop on the tracks

My birder friend Beth came in today and said that my recent picture of the Bullock's Oriole was pretty unusual, although common many places, it is apparently not found so much around here.

I hadn't recalled seeing it before in my three plus decades in the Santa Margarita River valley. What makes it doubly, or triply cool is that both kj and R&D saw a bird of the same species the same weekend I saw this little guy and they didn't recall seeing it before either.

*
I think that we are entering uncharted levels of antagonism when the new President of the NRA calls the President of our country the fake President. As bad as people got on his predecessor, as many people as were sore at the Supreme Court stopping the Florida vote count, I don't think anybody ever called Bush a fake. Dumbshit, yes.

Of course this is from a man, Jim Porter, who once called the Civil War the "war of northern aggression." Good luck, America. These people are armed and dangerous.

*
I am getting some blowback, some blog related and some relating to other matters. You live in a place a long time and have a big mouth, like me - not everybody is going to like you. One of my clients got into my face last night at an opening because I had dissed one of his heroes, Margaret Thatcher, on these very pages. Have noticed a few stink eyes of late, mostly from some of the more reverential folk in town. The word might be out on the curly headed apostate.

*
Met a hedgefund billionaire that I hadn't seen in a while at the reception and I tried to make nice, while I like and respect him, I think that I may have scared him a bit at our last meeting. Super smart guy, extremely conservative.

I used one of my more common conversational conventions and asked him what he had been reading lately. He pulled a list off of his phone and I asked him if there was any fiction. Oops. One book, Wait, I can guess. Bingo. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand. I may have made a little face and said something about the patron saint of selfish behavior but he was nonplussed and took it in stride.

He told me that the book's antagonist was the carbon copy of Barack Obama and that the book was helping him understand what was happening to our country. Said my problem was that I had a heart or words to that effect.

I gave him the name of a historical book that was not political that I thought he would enjoy and decided not to press anything any farther. But I got to thinking today; I read a lot, being an information processor. I am a regular and daily reader of at least four conservative magazines, Townhall, Weekly Standard, National Review and the Wall Street Journal. I read a lot of things from left, right and center. Because it does none of us any good to feed or reinforce our preconceived notions, narrative and bias. The more intellectually honest approach is take the raw if not the whole feed and then figure out what makes sense or not.

Of course if I had a billion or so in the bank it would be much more convenient to believe that the poor and middle class were merely lazy parasites after something for nothing. My something. Something that I had earned due to my innate brilliance and motivation, not to mention hard work. Dog eat dog world and there is nothing like being top dog. If you manage to remove yourself far enough away from other people's problem, they either become abstract or cease to exist.

*
I would like to think that clear thinkers will head towards to the center but it's probably just wishful thinking. We are probably closer to the armed insurrection that the conservatives are getting so giddy about than any real balanced solution.

*
I find the recent money morning quarterbacking regarding the FBI concerning the Boston terror suspects troubling. In this great land of ours, until somebody actually does something bad, it is very hard to judge, castigate or imprison them. You can't have it both ways. And I think the g-men do the best job they can under the circumstances.  Unless you would rather have a police state, shit like Boston is going to unfortunately sometimes happen.    

Human Battery

I Wish It Would Rain

Knock, knock, knocking...

Optical delusion. I took this picture last time I was in L.A.. Is it just me or does the right side margin seem to pull the thing into a rhomboid shape?

I have been in a pretty nasty mood of late. Wound licking after a rotten pair of shows and the paralysis of not knowing exactly how I was going to pull it off. As usual things are sort of working out and disaster is once again close to being narrowly averted, but just barely. Managed to pay bills yesterday.

I owe a couple people money, had a leak in the skylight that I didn't catch in time that took out about 5k in prints and watercolors, damaged a consigned painting during the San Francisco move out, the normal shit. I overpaid for a painting that I didn't see in person that is going to cost a fortune to restore to make saleable, my fault. If I hadn't overspent all would be cool right now.

Two shows back to back, two weeks on the road plus prep, it's getting harder and harder. Lot of time for me to have to be charming and nice. It took all week to put my shop back together, left me completely worn out.

Because of the general pattern of life's events trying to knock me out of the box, I have really not been my normal cheerful self, don't want to engage whatsoever. Haven't played guitar, taken any photographs, read or written (with the exception of my giant flaming session at AlterNet), done any of the stuff that usually makes me a happy person, can't afford myself the luxury until I right my personal ship. Not good company.

I know what I won't do again. Del Mar or Hillsborough in April.

*

I did take this picture of one of the chicks and red tailed mama the other day with the smaller lens. Not perfect or sharp but you get the general idea. Hawkchild is growing up.

*
In a perfect world I would travel to Hawaii at some point this year and decompress on a hot beach. In the world that I currently live in I will settle for getting my monthly bills paid.

*
Found one benefit of getting old. Cashier at Major Market timidly asked me if I was fifty five or older the other night. When I assented that I indeed was, I found out that hot damn, first wednesday of the month is now ten percent off for us old timers. Went out and bought me a nice steak.

*
I bought this beautiful navajo rug in San Francisco from Bill. It had been in a fire at some point. Very large, 7 x 9'. I believe it is what is known in the trade as a mo-fo. I guess that it is an antique Crystal with Ganado and Teec Nos Pas features. Unusual size and good classic design elements. Nice carded gray end panels. Perfect for that third house in the Hamptons, the Wisconsin hunting lodge or even the casita in Placitas.

I am going to have to re weave the burnt areas as the rug cleaner tells me that the carbon stains won't come out. When I do we will have ourselves one beautiful room size rug. Very rich red background. Minor bleed. The danger with these things is that your rug cleaner kills the red. I am going to do my best to see that that doesn't happen. Will post a picture if it ever gets finished.

Baby you got it

Be Vigilant

Ed sent me this as well as a few more links that you might want to explore.

http://static.video.qq.com/TPout.swf?auto=1&vid=r010673xh67

This one is a must see - Alzheimers and Coconut oil!

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=ZZOR-Qd3QSg

Shawn sends this along:

http://dudespaper.com/thats-fucking-interesting-man.html/

Don Perry sends this one over - oldie but goodie but funny -- don't mess with grandma!

http://zanylol.com/accident.html

April shared this one:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/-1w48qPF5hc

Hudgins offers this vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/57757618#

Calvanese offers this - Brass Band

Trick pool shots

Degoff sends us a joke:

Magic

Thibodeaux and Boudreaux entered a chocolate store. As they were looking at the candy,
Thibodeaux stole 3 chocolate bars. When they left the store Thibodeaux said to Boudreaux,
"I'm the best thief, I stole 3 chocolate bars and no one saw me put them in my pocket. You can’t beat that.

Boudreaux replied: "You want to see something better? Let's go back

to the shop and I'll show you real stealing."    I'll steal while the

shopkeeper is watching me and he won't even know.

So they went to the counter and Boudreaux said to the shopkeeper:
"Do you want to see a great magic trick?" The shopkeeper replied: "Yes"

Boudreaux said: "Give me three chocolate bars. "
The shopkeeper gave him three chocolate bars and Boudreaux ate all three. The shopkeeper

asked: "But where's the magic ?"

Boudreaux replied: "Look in Thibodeaux's pocket."

Captured

Mrs. Viola Sievers, one of the wipers at the roundhouse giving a giant "H" class locomotive a bath of live steam. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Ed Vivanco sent me a link to a remarkable photographic trove, Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943.

From the Denver Post Plog:

These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.

Bob Brozman : American House Fire Blues

I met Brozman twice I think , at Namm. Andy introduced me to him. He was a guitar player's guitar player, a musicologist and scholar of the highest order. Through the morass of pointy guitars and crap at Namm he could be found playing his dobro with the real authentic old timer cats downstairs.

Took his life a week ago up in Santa Cruz, I hear. Rest in peace, Bob.

Southern Strategy

untitled woodcut, Claire Leighton

A portion of the late Republican consultant Lee Atwater's famous 1981 "Southern Strategy" interview with Alexander P. Lamis:

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger.

Alternate Reality

I am more leftist than the normal shmoe but at times even I am amazed by the vacuous "blame amerika first" crowd on the far western side of the bandwidth. Compared to these people I'm the second coming of Dick Cheney. Check out the comments over at AlterNet, truly mind boggling...

http://www.alternet.org/have-we-lost-our-minds-why-boston-bombing-got-so-much-more-attention-west-texas-explosion

Driving Miss Daisy

I am not above petty literary theft, especially when I can get away with it. I purloin these snippets from Daisy Deadhead's most recent post. They are pages from Bob Jones University's homeschool curriculum. Ms. Deadhead lives in Greenville, South Carolina, site of the evangelical school. Bit of revisionist history going on in Dixie. Way, way back.

“[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001

“A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991

“Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years.”—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

“[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke.”—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

The Ghost of General Lee

That sucking sound

Quran 2.191-193- "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers]... but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful.   And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah." 

Come to America, bring your whole skanky family over, apply for asylum, receive over $100,000 in welfare benefits, over 5k for your education and then blow your new hosts up and kill a bunch of innocent people. Complain because America is so mean to the poor muslims. Such gratitude. This family is really something. Mama is a shoplifter, nailed Lord and Taylor for $1600.00 Allegations that Daddy was a thief too. The new daughter in law caught on quick. Son beats his girlfriends and has been linked to a prior triple homicide. What a great country.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev received from fall 2006 to fall 2007:

- A total of $2,532 in Federal Pell Grant funds to attend Bunker Hill Community College
- A total of $1,100 in Cash (ACCESS) Grants funds to attend Bunker Hill Community College
- A total of $288 in Tuition Waivers to attend Bunker Hill Community College
- A total of $400 in Part-Time Grants to attend Bunker Hill Community College

In spring 2008:

- $1,000 in Federal College Work Study funds while attending Mass Bay Community College
- $246 in Federal Pell Grant funds to attend Mass Bay Community College


The city of Cambridge awarded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a $2,500 scholarship toward his education at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

From WCBV Boston:

"On Friday, however, a letter from the interim commissioner of the state Department of Transitional Assistance, Stacey Monahan, was released to the news media along with an explanation from her that she now believed "the public interest outweighs the privacy interests of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in this instance."
“We know the Department of Transitional Assistance has had a lot of trouble with eligibility. We just saw the inspector general's report where they were not getting the information they were required to get,” O’Connell said.
The brothers had, however, received benefits through their parents, and Tamerlan also received benefits from September 2011 to November 2012 through his wife, according to the letter dated Thursday.
Neither of the Tsarnaev brothers ever was a direct recipient of welfare benefits, she wrote to state Rep. David Linsky, chairman of the House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, in response to the panel's request for records of public assistance received by the suspects or their family.
According to the letter, the suspects' parents, Anzor and Zubeidat Tsarnaev, received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps, from 2002 to 2004, and again from August 2009 to December 2011. Anzor Tsarnaev also received cash welfare benefits for three months in 2003, and from August 2009 to June 2010.
The parents were eligible for benefits because they were legal, non-citizen residents who were granted asylum status, Monahan wrote. The brothers, she said, were also residing legally in the country.
Dhokhar Tsarnaev received benefits as a member of his parents' household, as did Tamerlan, the older brother, for a period of time, according to the agency. Tamerlan lived with his wife and daughter when his wife was granted both SNAP and cash assistance for families with dependent children from September 2011 to November 2012."

This isn't the first time that terrorists have lived off Uncle Sam before unleashing their dastardly plans. I would like to think that it pisses off all Americans, regardless of political stripe.

Tedeschi Trucks Band

Grand Old Patriots

New study at Fairleigh Dickinson shows that 44% of Republicans believe that an armed revolution may be necessary in the United States.

"Overall, the poll finds that 29 percent of Americans think that an armed revolution in order to protect liberties might be necessary in the next few years, with another five percent unsure. However, these beliefs are conditional on party. Just 18 percent of Democrats think an armed revolution may be necessary, as opposed to 44 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of independents.
Only 38 percent of Americans who believe a revolution might be necessary support
additional gun control legislation, compared with 62 percent of those who don’t think an
armed revolt will be needed.“The differences in views of gun legislation are really a function of differences in what people believe guns are for,” said Cassino. “If you truly believe an armed revolution is possible in the near future, you need weapons and you’re going to be wary about government efforts to take them away.”

As always, these troubling statistics show that discontent merely depends on whose ox is getting gored. I doubt that the Republicans could give two shakes at the prospect of dwindling liberty regarding say, reproductive choice or the freedom to marry the person of your choosing, regardless of gender. God forbid you touch my ak-47. Petulant children that never learned to share and can not handle not always getting their way. So let's blow the whole thing up.