Circuitous — This is the word that got me interested in posting a word of the week. I used it several years ago with my friend and co-worker Dan, who was immediately intrigued by it.

cir·cu·i·tous \sir-KYOO-eh-tus\
adjective
1 : having a circular or winding course <a circuitous route>
2 : not being forthright or direct in language or action <a circuitous explanation>

For more, see the complete entry at Merriam-Webster online.

Labels: vocabulary

In honor of the 46th anniversary of the Beatles' first U.S. television appearance, the employee cafeteria here at the benevolent dictatorship that employs me is spinning* tunes from the Fab Four and raffling off a few choice Beatles items. Click the picture to see one of the displays in lousy BlackBerry camera quality. I have my eye on the Revolver puzzle (lower left).

*Remember the term "spinning tunes?" It has a different meaning in the era of compact discs from what it meant in the days of phonograph records, but CDs do indeed spin. That is just about the only attribute they have in common with their circular predecessors. For one thing, the first Beatles albums were produced in monaural sound reproduction. Now, thanks to the miracle of modern audio technology, those same mono recordings have been digitally remixed and remastered stereophonically, with the results sounding better than the originals did when they were brand-new and played on a turntable with a brand new diamond stylus.

Labels: history, music

With yet another major winter storm poised to clobber the region from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, I pass along a weather map that is as applicable now as it was last week.

Labels: weather

This is what he came up with this morning at 2:16 while at work.

Haiku is an art
Seventeen perfect syllab—
Shit, I screwed it up

Kind of brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?

Labels: poetry

Thank God Al Gore for the internet! Without it, I wouldn't be able to review all the Super Bowl XLIV television ads without the background noise of a couple hundred other revelers at McFadden's Pub in Providence, Rhode Island (where, by the way, there were two Colts fans in attendance).

There were 68 ads, more than I care to comment on. So I have selected a few of the best and worst. You will notice that I avoided all the ads having anything to do with underwear. They all got an automatic Eeeewwwwwww.

• Bud Light house made of beer cans — Hated it.
  And to think that the poor suckers at Anheuser-Busch paid some snot-nosed advertising executive big bucks to come up with this spectacle of stupidity. They should demand their money back.


• Snickers featuring Betty White and Abe Vigoda — Loved it.
  Betty White hasn't changed her hairstyle since she was on the Mary Tyler Moore Show in the '70s. The best part is that I don't think she cares. And she had the best line of the day ("That's not what your girlfriend says!")


• Focus on the Family with Pam and Tim Tebow — Liked it.
  It was cute, not to mention the least controversial or offensive ad possible. All the people who spent the last three weeks hyperventilating now look like idiots.


• Boost Mobile's Super Bowl Shuffle — Hated it.
  The Super Bowl Shuffle sucked the first time around, and it still sucks. Besides, no one under the age of 30 understood this commercial.


• Coke featuring Mr. Burns — Hated it.
  Yes, I get that Coke is supposed to make you happy and bring about World Peace. I remember the buy-the-world-a-Coke commercials of my childhood. They should have left it at that.


• Late Show with Dave, Jay, and Oprah — Loved it.
  Between Letterman's infamous peccadillos, Winfrey's history of Dave-dissing, and Leno's recent public relations debacle, this ad packed a lot of entertainment dish into ten seconds.


• Hyundai featuring geriatric Brett Favre — Loved it.
  I wonder if Favre realized that America was laughing at him, not with him. Of course, if he's still around in ten years, I'll be crying, not laughing.


• NFL Draft featuring young Peyton Manning — Hated it.
  God, he was even goofier looking in college. And can we please have just one NFL game without a Peyton Manning commercial? Pretty please?


• E-Trade babies — Loved it.
  OK, I have a soft spot for all the E-Trade baby commercials. And "milkaholic" will be this year's hot new word.


• 2010 U.S. Census — Hated it.
  Your tax dollars in action, people. If they're going to waste my money, the least they can do is waste it on an ad that isn't completely lame.


• Diamond Foods performing swimmers — Liked it.
  The sort of Planet-of-the-Apes role reversal made me laugh out loud, even as I proclaimed to my friends how ridiculous I thought it was. The ring of fire was great.


• Anheuser-Busch horse and bull — Hated it.
  The Clydesdales are usually as automatic for me as the E-Trade babies. Cattle, on the other hand, do nothing for me. You can't ruin a beautiful Clydesdale scene with something as ugly as a Texas longhorn, or whatever that thing was.


• E-Trade crying babies — Liked it.
  Not as good as the other one, but as I said, I dig the adorable kids. The only problem is that it made me really really really want a boiled lobster.

Labels: arts and entertainment

There are very few circumstances under which the Den Mother has been rendered speechless, but this is one of them. I am blown away by a story I just read on CNN.com about a rape victim, the man she was absolutely convinced raped her, his equally absolute claims of innocence, and the friendship they are forging.

Dean Cage spent almost 14 years in prison for the October 1994 rape of Loretta Zilinger, who positively identified Cage as the man who attacked her. Years later, DNA testing not available at the time of the trial exonerated Cage and left Zilinger convinced the testing was wrong. But her husband, a former police officer, helped her come to terms with her new reality: that she had helped convict the wrong person.
Phil McGraw of the popular "Dr. Phil" show brought accused and accuser together when both were ready. It must have required a tremendous leap of faith on both their parts. Zilinger had to accept that Cage wasn't the violent rapist she thought he was. Cage had to accept that Zilinger wasn't the malicious liar he thought she was. Somehow, after so many years of hating each other, they have found a way to make things right and move on.

Zilinger and Cage are sharing their story to help exonerated people and victims who have misidentified their assailants. Most victims truly believe the exonerated person is guilty despite DNA evidence, according to experts who study wrongful convictions.

They plan to start an organization to educate groups about wrongful convictions and spread their message of forgiveness.

What surprises me is how understanding Cage was able to be.

The attacker, who has not been found, had ruined both their lives, he concluded. They were both made victims.

And remarkably, despite the fact that the man who attacked her is still out there, Zilinger finally has some closure, even though her case has been reopened.

For the first time since the attack, Zilinger no longer lives in fear. She feels at peace, like she has closure, and she wants to help other women reach that point.

"I realized I can't always call myself a victim," she said. "I have to start calling myself a survivor."

Experts know that during times of extreme stress, the mind can play all kinds of tricks. I recently found this article from the Stanford Journal of Legal Studies that addresses the topic of how easy it is for people to "misremember" even the most fundamental aspects of something they observed. I recall a commercial aircraft incident many years ago in which eyewitnesses described flaming engines, but subsequent investigation and examination of the aircraft showed no charring, discoloration, melting, or any other sign of what multiple witness insisted they saw. On the other hand, in many cases physical evidence does corroborate eyewitness accounts. Such is the dilemma of trying to ensure the integrity and fairness of a judicial system that seeks to draw conclusions from different sources of information of varying degrees of reliability.

The story of Loretta Zilinger and Dean Cage evokes Boston's notorious Fells Acres child molestation case, a case that in its later stages was mishandled by then-District Attorney Martha Coakley. Coakley, like Zilinger, just couldn't seem to give up the narrative she had come to accept. The difference is that Coakley, like any prosecutor, is supposed to be more objective and dispassionate than traumatized victims or witnesses.

The case of Zilinger and Dean has a happy ending. How many others just like that one will never be made right?

Labels: justice

The Supreme Court of Minnesota says yes. This story is a couple weeks old, but I just got around to looking it up after the Den Parents mentioned it. From the perspective of both civil liberties and common sense, it's a disturbing case.

I'm not a lawyer, but I am reasonable. Reason seems to be absent from the Minnesota Supreme Court's finding.

Being drunk and asleep at the wheel of his car while it was parked in his apartment lot with the keys on the console was sufficient evidence to convict a Crookston man of drunken driving, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday.

The article contains a bit more detail, but I would recommend going straight to the horse's mouth and reading the court's published decision.

The central issue addressed by the court appears to be this:

The question on review is whether the facts in the record and the legitimate inferences drawn from them would permit the jury to reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the offense of which he was convicted, giving due regard to the presumption of innocence. State v. Crow, 730 N.W.2d 272, 280 (Minn. 2007); State v. Ulvinen, 313 N.W.2d 425, 428 (Minn. 1981).

The facts appear not to be in dispute. Fleck was sitting in the drive's seat of his car, which was parked in his assigned parking space at the apartment complex where he lived. He was asleep when police found him. The front driver's side door was open. The keys were on the console between the two front seats. The car was not running and appeared not to have been running recently at the time police found him there. The police did not try to start the vehicle, so they don't know if it was operable, but at some point between Fleck's arrest on June 11 and "shortly before" his August trial, police went back and were unable to start the car.

That bring up the question of what the law says. The court wrote:

Minnesota law provides that it is unlawful for "any person to drive, operate, or be in physical control of a motor vehicle" while under the influence of alcohol or with an alcohol concentration of .08 or more. Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 1(1), (5). The term "physical control" is more comprehensive than either the term to "drive" or to "operate." State v. Harris, 295 Minn. 38, 43, 202 N.W.2d 878, 881 (1972). Physical control is meant to cover situations when an intoxicated person "is found in a parked vehicle under circumstances in which the [vehicle], without too much difficulty, might again be started and become a source of danger to the operator, to others, or to property." State v. Starfield, 481 N.W.2d 834, 837 (Minn. 1992). Thus, a person is in physical control of a vehicle if he has the means to initiate any movement of that vehicle, and he is in close proximity to the operating controls of the vehicle. Id. We have held that "physical control" should be given "the broadest possible effect." State v. Juncewski, 308 N.W.2d 316, 319 (Minn. 1981) (holding that the statute was amended to modify the requirement that a driver be in "actual physical control" by deleting the word "actual" so that the statute be given the broadest possible effect).

The purposes underlying the offense of being in physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol is to deter intoxicated persons from getting into vehicles except as passengers and to act as a preventive measure to "enable the drunken driver to be apprehended before he strikes." Shane v. Comm'r of Pub. Safety, 587 N.W.2d 639, 641 (Minn. 1998) (citations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The decision then goes on to cite other cases ruled on by the court and, as appeals courts do, use them as precedent.

The court then seems to move toward some objective standard of "physical control" by stating the following:

We consider a number of factors in determining whether a person is in physical control of a vehicle, including: the person's location in proximity to the vehicle; the location of the keys; whether the person was a passenger in the vehicle; who owned the vehicle; and the vehicle's operability.

By that standard, Fleck didn't meet two of the four factors specified by the court. The keys were not in or near the ignition, and there was no indication that the car was operable. Yet rather than considering the multiple factors the court itself delineated, it found as follows:

Although the facts of this case are not those of the typical physical control case in which a jury can infer that the defendant was in physical control because he drove the vehicle to where it came to rest, a jury could reasonably find that Fleck, having been found intoxicated, alone, and sleeping behind the wheel of his own vehicle with the keys in the vehicle's console, was in a position to exercise dominion or control over the vehicle and that he could, without too much difficulty, make the vehicle a source of danger.

The problem, in my view, is that the court moves beyond the question of "physical control" to embrace a standard of being "in a position to exercise dominion or control." It is not at all clear that the law, as written, intends any such thing. Even if it does, how does one apply that standard consistently and objectively? If someone who is asleep in an inoperative vehicle with the keys not in or near the ignition is in a position to exercise dominion or control, then isn't it even more so for the person who is awake, holding the keys in his hand, and walking past the car? What about someone who is standing on his front porch with the keys in his hand and the vehicle 20 feet away? If there is a line to be crossed, neither the law nor this decision is at all clear about what it is. The law allows the police and the jury to project onto a defendant intent that the prosecution need not prove. More importantly, in this case, the prosecution did not prove it.

A law must objectively define the behavior being criminalized in order to be enforced in a manner consistent with the constitutional right to due process. This law does not, so there is no way for the jury to have "reasonably [concluded] that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the offense of which he was convicted". For that reason, I would have voted to reverse the decision.

Labels: justice, law enforcement

MEMORANDUM

(For those who can't see the YouTube video embedded above, go here to see another version.)

For the record, I once made the same mistake. When I was about 11. Is there really anyone who still believes this guy is brilliant?

On a related note, watch Obama's head movements. He constantly looks from one side to the other; never straight ahead. This is because the teleprompter screens are off to the sides. Apparently he can't take his eyes off them for even a few seconds. If he were speaking from a written script in front of him, he'd be one of those people who never looked up from the script.

Labels: politicians, things stupid people say/do

This is the kind of thing you don't want happening in your quiet suburban community, but it happened in my town yesterday:

At 12:54 p.m. police received a 911 call from Keith Rosiello, 44, stating that he had an altercation with his wife at their home and she was no longer breathing.

When police arrived to the home on 32 Deerfield Road, Maureen Rosiello, also 44, was not breathing and she was pronounced dead on the scene.

Rosiello was taken to the Shrewsbury Police Department where he was charged with murder.

As is so often the case, neighbors were taken by surprise:

Alan McDonald and his wife, Grace, live next door to the Rosiello home, and said the couple seemed happy and friendly. Mr. McDonald said he believed Mr. Rosiello ran his own business, but could not recall what type of business it was. He said Mr. Rosiello grew up in Shrewsbury, and said Ms. Rosiello stayed at home with the children.

"They're a quiet, regular couple," Mr. McDonald said.

It's always the quiet ones, isn't it?

But seriously, this is the first homicide in Shrewsbury since a man strangled his estranged wife and then took his own life six years ago.

Labels: local

Claire, who is six years older than her sister Amy, is now three times as old as Amy was four years ago.

How old are Claire and Amy now?

See the answer by highlighting between the brackets:
<Claire is 15; Amy is 9. The algebraic equation that solves this problem is:
A+6=3(A–4) >

Labels: brain teaser

President Obama isn't the only real slow learner in Washington these days. Many just like him populate the halls of Congress as well.

The health care bill is in trouble, but a series of narrow deals — each designed to win over a wavering senator or key interest group — is alive and well, despite voter anger over the parochial horse-trading that marked the rush toward passage before Christmas.

[ . . . ]

... House liberals want to reopen the labor deal struck just days before Democrats lost their 60-vote majority — not to dial it back but to provide more generous protections from the tax on Cadillac insurance plans.

[ . . . ]

... [T]here is no visible movement to erase a Medicaid deal with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) that she has said is worth $300 million, three times the amount of Nelson's agreement.

Or to strike a line item that exempts Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan from a 40 percent tax on insurers that provide expensive health plans. Or to remove a provision that sends an extra $500 million in Medicaid funding to Massachusetts and $600 million to Vermont for being leaders in providing health insurance to their residents.

Read the rest, including the two more pages of the article beyond that from which I have quoted.

The rich irony is that this news is coming out as Scott Brown is about to be sworn in as Massachusetts' junior Senator. Brown was elected on the strength of the independent vote, people who usually vote Democratic but were finally fed up enough to switch sides. And believe me, that doesn't happen in Massachusetts. I don't recall in my lifetime a Republican serving as Senator, Representative, or Governor who was a real conservative. Anyone who thinks that election wasn't a bellwether is in deep denial.

Someone who cares should take Congressional Democrats aside and inform them that they're shooting themselves in the collective foot (and knee, and groin, and stomach). They are clearly too high on the drugs of power and pork to feel the pain, but if they don't cut it out, they'll be hurting a lot more come November. Already, some Democrats are publicly rebelling against the White House and Congressional leadership, on health care, the budget, the Guantanamo prison, you name it.

Still, Obama, Reid, Pelosi, et al. refuse to budge. Whether that reflects stubbornness or stupidity isn't yet clear. Perhaps it's both.

Labels: politicians, things stupid people say/do

We Americans like naming public places after people. I don't know if other countries do this too, but here, we like to honor significant people by putting their names on streets, schools, community centers, and office buildings. In my town alone, we have the Beal Early Childhood Center (formerly the Maj. Howard Beal Memorial High School, dedicated to a town resident who was killed in action in World War I), the Richard D. Carney Municipal Office Building (colloquially known as Town Hall and named after the man who, at the time of his retirement, was the longest-serving Town Manager in the country), the Irving Donahue Rowing Center (named for a successful businessman who funded the facility), and the Patrolman James Lonchiadis Memorial Highway (state Route 9, a.k.a. Boston Turnpike, and the road on which Officer Lonchiadis was fatally shot in the line of duty in 1975). Mr. Carney is still alive, but he shares with the other honorees a record of distinguished formal service or giving to the town or the nation.

Soon we will have another named building, this one a little different from the rest. For one thing, it's a federal facility, one of our Post Offices. But what will make the dedication unique is that the person who will be honored was not a soldier, elected official, wealthy philanthropist, or professional public servant. She was a loving wife, a dedicated mother, and a good neighbor. Nothing more, yet so much more.

House bill 4017, a piece of federal legislation on which Representatives of all 50 states voted, reads as follows:

To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 43 Maple Avenue in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, as the "Ann Marie Blute Post Office".

The bill passed the House unanimously and, on December 11, 2009, was referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where it is pending. The full Senate will take it up eventually and it will pass, I'm sure of that, before the end of this session.

Quite something for a regular citizen, isn't it? When Mrs. Blute died last spring, she was eulogized by the Boston Globe as someone who gave of herself every day while living a very normal life. No single action or event set her apart from the hundreds of millions of other Americans. What a contrast to Maj. Beal and Officer Lonchiadis, who were recognized because of their violent and tragic deaths, Mr. Donahue, who was recognized because of his extraordinary financial giving, and Mr. Carney, who was recognized because of his record-setting tenure. That's not to take anything away from any of them; they were all good and humble people who richly deserve the honors that were bestowed on them. But Mrs. Blute proved that everyday people can improve the lives of those they touch without every doing anything dramatic, dangerous, expensive, or record-setting. The difference between her and most of the rest of us is that she actually did it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I knew Mrs. Blute. I am old friends with her son, the ex-Congressman and talk radio personality; her daughter, the television news anchorwoman; and one of her other daughters. I frequently run into her husband and two of their other daughters at church or around town.

But I should also note that my long acquaintance with the Blute family has not biased me in favor of such a special honor for their matriarch. On the contrary, I am somewhat awestruck that our nation's lawmakers have seen fit to name a federal building after someone I always saw as the nice woman down the street. Federal buildings around here are named after big shots like President John Kennedy and House Speaker Tip O'Neill, not average folks whom few outside their circle of friends have ever heard of.

When you stop to think about it, maybe we've gotten it wrong. Perhaps the formal accolades shouldn't go to those who have achieved public success and fame. In a sense they have already gotten their reward. Maybe it would be more appropriate to honor more of the everyday heroes, those who, in the words of Mother Teresa, "do no great things, only small things with great love."

Labels: helping others, local, remember

Gelid — An appropriate word considering the current state of the nation's weather.

gel·id \JEH-lud\
adjective
1 : extremely cold : ICY <gelid water>

For more, see the complete entry at Merriam-Webster online.

Labels: vocabulary

My most loyal reader asked me recently why I hadn't blogged about the upcoming Tim Tebow Super Bowl commercial. The ad reportedly features the former Heisman Trophy winner and his mother telling the story of how doctors urged her to abort Tim because of a serious illness she contracted while pregnant. She didn't have an abortion, obviously, and now both she and her son want to tell the Super-Bowl-watching audience that they're glad she didn't because her baby boy turned out to be not only healthy but exceptionally talented at football.

Frankly, I didn't feel the urge to write about it at the time; it seemed like the usual brouhaha whenever anyone in a public position says anything directly or indirectly questioning abortion. The hyperbole is amusing but ultimately meaningless. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I had more interesting things to write about.

What changed my mind and got me off my butt to weigh in was seeing this posted on the Facebook page of one of my friends:

EMILY's List: Tell CBS not to politicize the Super Bowl with an anti-choice Focus on the Family ad!

The ad, of course, isn't "anti-choice" except in an Orwellian sense, which may explain the need for the hyperventilating exclamation point at the end of the absurdly reactionary sentence. Nonetheless, Emily's List was only one of many "women's groups" to gripe. (For my money, the most interesting quote in the just-linked article is from columnist Gregg Doyel, who complains that Super Bowl Sunday is "not a day to discuss abortion." Presumably, he believes it is a day to "discuss" men drinking beer while surrounded by scantily-clad, objectified women, but that's a topic for another time.)

The anti-ad reaction is so ridiculous that even abortion activists Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman seem embarrassed by it and think it's a huge tactical mistake.

Erin Matson, the National Organization for Women's new vice president, called the Tebow spot "hate masquerading as love." That kind of comment may play well in the choice choir, but to others, it makes no sense, at best; at worst, it's seen as the kind of stridency that reinforces the view that pro-choice simply means pro-abortion.

As a matter of fact, as we can see from the unreasonable reactions to the ad, most organizations (if not most people) who claim to be "pro-choice" are simply pro-abortion and viscerally disapprove of the less lethal choices. They call the Tebow ad "anti-choice" for the sole reason that it dares to showcase a choice other than abortion.

The response also highlights a tactic that has become not just common but necessary in defending abortion: when you can't argue with the message, attack the messenger. In this case, Focus on the Family is indeed the anti-feminist, anti-gay, ultra-traditionalist organization its critics claim. For that reason, some people would have the urge to argue with the group if they ran an ad asserting that the sky is blue, especially if the point was that God made it that way.

But worse than the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty is the disdain for women this manufactured controversy reveals, an attitude that holds that women who challenge the abortion orthodoxy by making a different decision aren't being team players. Pam Tebow rejected the advice of her doctors, and she and her son proved the doctors wrong. If you're an absolutist abortion defender, a woman who exposes the fallibility of abortion-promoting doctors is dangerous because she empowers other women to make their own decisions based on what they think is best. And if women feel empowered, if their decisions are respected and they and their children supported, it makes the screamers whose only answer is abortion seem callous and cold, not to mention virulently anti-choice.

Pot, meet kettle.

Labels: activism, media, sports

That is my assessment of the motives of the members of New Life Children's Refuge who were arrested trying to smuggle 33 Haitian children out of the country.

OK, so maybe I have their motivation wrong. Or maybe not. Some of those arrested belong to a Baptist church in Idaho. Some varieties of Baptists consider Voodoo and Catholicism (Papism, they used to call it, and maybe some still do) to be the work of the devil. Anyway, the church's web site currently has a message asserting its members were falsely arrested.

It is plausible that the volunteers thought what they were doing was legal and in the best interest of the children, since at least some chidren's parents said they voluntarily relinquished their children.

CBS' Bill Whitaker went to the home village of 20 of the children, and were told by the children's parents and siblings they willingly signed their children over to the Americans.

To get a better life, one woman said. "We have nothing; look around here."

Still, laws and procedures are there for a reason, to bring order to chaos. In a chaotic crisis situation such as has existed in Haiti since the earthquake, the process of relinquishing chidren for adoption should be more deliberative, not less, if for no other reason than to prevent errors that could have devastating effects on children and families. Instead of trying to remove the children from the country in the midst of the crisis, the volunteers should have agreed to provide for the children and their families locally until the situation stabilized. Besides, with the already-poor of the country now facing even more dire living conditions, the parents' decisions could be said to have been made under extreme duress, even if the pressure came from the circumstances and not the volunteers.

Incidentally, the Den Mother's Special Edition Stupid Remark of the Day Award goes to the woman who tried to justify the group's actions by explaining the kids really wanted to go:

"We showed them where we were going, and they were excited to go with us," said Laura Silsby of New Life Children's Refuge.

Well, yeah. They saw a chance to get out of the hell they were living in. But I'll bet they didn't think they were going to be gone forever.

Labels: international news, things stupid people say/do

With the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics just ten days away, it seemed like an opportune time to mention that athletes have begun to arrive in Vancouver. I have it on good authority that the Swiss biathlon team flew in last night from Zurich via Toronto, delaying departure of the Toronto-Vancouver leg of the flight until they boarded. The Den Mother has sources everywhere!

I would imagine part of the delay was due to all the ski equipement that had to be loaded into the cargo hold. But what I want to know is where they put the rifles and ammo...

Labels: Olympics, sports

If Friday night was a time for raucous college sports madness, then Saturday night was a time to settle down and enjoy the arts. What I discovered this past Saturday is that there is an excellent symphony orchestra in Milford, Massachusetts, a mere 20 miles by car from my home.

The Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra, whose home is historic Milford Town Hall, is celebrating its tenth season. Last weekend's program, called "Songs of America," presented a fascinating mix of uniquely American works. Starting with George Gershwin's "Cuban Overture," the orchestra set the mood for the evening as not-your-average-orchestral-concert. That foot-tapping piece was followed by three spirituals sung by operatic soprano Melanie Campbell, who had terrific expressive presence and the voice to match. Then guest conductor Thomas Hojnacki directed his own "Concerto for Orchestra" in three movements — Toccata, Tango, and Toons — which ended with members of the orchestra announcing, "That's All, Folks!"

Post-intermission, we enjoyed "Motor City Dance Mix" by contemporary composer Jonathan Bailey Holland, lately of the renowned Berklee College of Music. Hojnacki called it a "serious disco piece," which belied the beauty of the piece. Next was more Gershwin, two songs from Porgy and Bess again sung by the wonderful Ms. Campbell. The evening ended with the great Duke Ellington's "Harlem," thus leaving the audience where we started, dancing inside.

It wasn't what you'd expect from a night at the symphony. The next Claflin Hill concert I plan to attending, on March 6 (in honor of a very special person's birthday), will feature more conventional fare, W.A. Mozart's magnificent Requiem, along with 20th century German composer Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. The concert is aptly named "The Sacred and the Profane."

Labels: local, music

Last week was unusually problematic at work. Several issues came to a head at once, at the same time that my personal trials seemed to weight heavier than usual. I had plans to go out both Friday and Saturday nights but didn't know if I had it in me. At times like this, it's best to just go and not think about it. So Friday I left work and drove to Providence, Rhode Island, for the hockey game I posted about last week. Here's a game recap, including a few of the tweets I sent along the way.

I was supposed to meet several fellow RPI alumni/ae at the Meehan Auditorium ticket office so we could buy our tickets and all sit together. I was led to believe that it was easy to get tickets and you could usually "trade up" to better seats. That was an understatement. I have never been to such a poorly attended athletic event. I even wondered if perhaps the school was still on winter break at this late date. They weren't; this is just how it is at Brown. If there were more RPI fans there than Brown fans, I wouldn't have been surprised.

On the upside, their pep band was pretty good and seemed to get into it. But more about the game itself.

It was a scoreless first period, but RPI outshot Brown 9-7. We have some good aggressive skaters, accurate passers, and decent defense. RPI committed a couple penalties, minor stuff like tripping and holding, whereas the lone Brown penalty in the period was the thuggish behavior known as boarding. I always thought boarding and high sticking should be major penalties because (warning, I am about to sound like a mother) you could hurt someone that way.

As the game progressed, I realized that last week when I mentioned RPI players worth watching (Chase Polacek, Brandon Pirri, Allen York), I completely forgot to mention freshman forward Jerry D'Amigo, who had a goal and an assist for Team USA in the World Junior Hockey Championship last month.

Anyway, the first period ended and I got myself a snack. Spicy nacho chips with imitation melted cheese-like substance, and a bottled water. The arena concessions don't have a whole lot, my other choices being hot dog, pizza slice, or assorted candies. I just had a craving for something salty and imitation, and the nachos did hit the spot, fortifying me for the second period.

The second period was ushered in with another Brown boarding penalty. God, they were vicious.

Tweet 19:52 — Brown draws first blood. Brown 1, 'Tute 0.

For the uninitiated, RPI is the 'Tute (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).

Tweet 19:55 — Fuck. 2-0 Brown. Where's this great goalie I've been hearing about?

OK, so York wasn't looking so good. Given the stats I saw last week, I figured he'd do OK in a conference game against a sucky opponent like Brown. I said that to one of our party, who pointed out that Brown's season has gone like this: five losses*, five wins, five losses, one win prior to our game. I didn't like the implications of that pattern, and with the score already 2-0, I was getting cranky. (*I have since learned that they actually started with six losses, not five.)

Another Brown penalty and I was beginning to wonder if our guys could actually do anything on the power play. I needn't have worried.

Tweet 20:01 — RPI figured out that they aren't supposed to kill the other team's penalties too. Brown 2, 'Tute 1.

That was more like it. The goal was by senior Paul Kerins from Pirri and Polacek. I jumped up and started singing the Fight Song. I got to the third line ("True sons [metaphorically speaking] of Rensselaer...") before I realized no one else was singing. WTF? I could see some of the retired fans there; maybe it's been a long time since they went to a game and they had forgotten the fight song. But there was no excuse for the bunch of kids next to me who graduated in 2008 and 2009. I goaded two of them into joining in. Hey, someone had to take charge.

Tweet 20:08 — The Brown PA announcer has an orgasm every time the home team scores. Brown 3, 'Tute 1.

Seriously. Just tell me who scored the goal and stop sounding like someone who wants to sell me this fabulous vacuum cleaner that has the suction of Linda Lovelace for the low, low price of just six easy payments of $199.99.

Oh, and that last goal was short-handed.

Tweet 20:13 — The RPI head coach looks like he's 12.

Here, judge for yourself. His name is Seth Appert and the bio says he's in his fourth season and was born in 1974, which means he took the job when he was 32. Did anyone actually check his birth certificate?
That did it for the second period. Now it was time for the fans to buckle down and get serious. Our team needed us, and everyone had to chip in. So as is the tradition between the second and third periods, we gathered a group together for "Here's to Old RPI."

Tweet 20:25 — Yours truly rallied the troops. The Alma Mater has been sung. Ready for a big 3rd period comeback.

RPI went on the power play again just three minutes into the period. You guessed it...

Tweet 20:41 — Another power play goal! Brown 3, 'Tute 2.

I admit being somewhat disappointed that they hadn't yet been able to score with their opponents at full strength, but I was prepared to accept a win on power play goals alone. A win is a win.

Hey, look, another Brown boarding penalty. Sorry, but every time I see someone smash into the boards, I think of Travis Roy. It was purely accidental and no one did anything wrong, but still, that shit makes me nervous.

Maybe I wasn't the only one. Tensions were heating up a bit on the ice, and the officials had to nip a couple altercations in the bud. Alas, one of them got out of hand and Pirri went off, earning himself a five-minute major for head butting (is that really a penalty?) and a game misconduct.

Tweet 20:48 — RPI needs to kill a 5-minute major (Pirri). Crap.

To be more precise, they only had to kill the last 3:48 of the penalty because one of the Brown boarders still had 1:12 left on his penalty. To my relief, RPI held off Brown. Their penalty killing really was quite impressive.

Tweet 20:54 — The RPI captain is named John F. Kennedy, or so I'm told.

I had noticed the Captain's name was Kennedy, and the recent grads sitting with us were calling him "JFK," but it turns out that he really is named John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., after his father, who was presumably named after the late President. And it took me to about this point before I realized he was black. Ordinarily a player's race wouldn't jump out at me, but how many black hockey players do you see? When I was in college we had a black player, Graeme Townshend, who played briefly for the Bruins and is now, lo and behold, a skating coach for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Of course, I didn't know that last part when I was at the game, which was probably a good thing because I was already struggling to keep from sliding into a funk from missing my favorite Torontonian. But I digress.

Tweet 20:58 — Woot! Good guys score! Brown 3, 'Tute 3.

The comeback was complete. By this time, I had gotten a few other people to join me for the Fight Song, but I was horrified to learn that a couple of the more recent grads didn't even know the words despite having had season tickets for four years. I gave them a good scolding and instructed them to go online, get the lyrics, and don't dare show up at another hockey game in my presence until they knew them by heart.

RPI turned on the pressure in the last few minutes and had a couple scoring opportunities that weren't quite good enough. Then, with less than ten seconds left in regulation and the faceoff in the RPI end, Joel Malchuk was called for slashing and, on the very next faceoff, Peter Merth was called for interference. Now I am not a hockey expert by any means, but I didn't see anything that could even remotely be called interference. Suddenly I wished I had the eye chart my college buddies brought to games for just such an occasion:

Tweet 21:10 — Officials call 2 RPI penalties in 3 seconds, Brown wins in OT, PA announcer has another orgasm.

FYI, it appears that the ECAC plays one five-minute sudden death overtime period and no shootout in case of a tie after OT. It took Brown, enjoying a 5-on-3 advantage, 47 seconds to score and end the game. Oh well.

The game result wasn't what I was hoping for, but I would go back again for a game. The Meehan Auditorium is a nice facility, quite small compared to the RPI Field House, but clean and modern. However, it appears to have no heat and was only marginally warmer inside than outside, which is saying something during this cold snap.

Tweet 21:20 — That was the coldest arena I've ever been in.

In a game-related note, I noticed on Twitter that D'Amigo got a mention in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd section for his performance in the gold medal game at the World Junior Championship. These are heady times for the young man.

Coming later tomorrow: the Den Mother reviews Saturday night's concert by the Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra.

Labels: sports

On this date in history:

• 772 – Adrian I begins his reign as Pope.
• 1327 – Teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
• 1796 – The capital of Upper Canada is transferred from Newark (Niagara) to York.
• 1920 – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is established.
• 1963 – 17-year-old Neil Young performs his first professional gig at a Winnipeg country club.
• 1986 – Singer Diana Ross marries Norwegian businessman Arne Naess in Switzerland.
• 1997 – J is born.
• 2004 – Singer Janet Jackson's breast pops out of her costume during the halftime show for Super Bowl XXXVIII, which the New England Patriots won against the Carolina Panthers.

Labels: history

One of the revelations that came out of my health odyssey of the last year is that I have chronic nasal congestion and post-nasal drip, evidently due to some low-level common allergy. I'll spare you the details and just say that I was getting tired of the twice-a-day low dose antihistamine and two different nasal sprays, one of which dries out my nasal passages and throat so badly that I had a constant sore throat.

When I complained about it during my last visit to the pulmonologist, he suggested nasal/sinus irrigation. This is a process by which you basically rinse out the nasal passages and sinues, which sounded like less fun than the constant sore throat. But the doc urged me to give it a try, acknowledging that it might take some getting used to for someone who doesn't like swimming underwater because she hates getting water up her nose.

I bought an over-the-counter nasal irrigation product, fully intending to give it a try. That was three weeks ago, and it was still sitting on the shelf in my bathroom when I developed a cold earlier in the week. Figuring it was a good time to see if this stuff worked, I bit the bullet and tried it.

Yes, it felt strange. Yes, it took some getting used to. And yes, it has helped quite a bit. I haven't used my nasal sprays all week.

The product I use is NeilMed Sinus Rinse because that's the one my pulmonologist recommended and it's available at CVS. A quick online search turned up other products such as SinuPulse, Grossan Hydro Pulse, Dr. Hana's Nasopure, and Nasaline, none of which I have tried. The NeilMed Sinus Rinse instructions recommend using boiled or distilled water; I use the latter, available by the gallon at any drug store, rather than having to boil and cool regular tap water every time I want to rinse. I measure the water in the squeeze bottle provided in the kit and add the pre-measured salt/baking soda mixture. WebMD has a page about nasal irrigation using a neti pot, an alternative to the squeeze bottle and a variation of which is available with the NeilMed system. For those who want to try nasal/sinus irrigation without buying a commercially available product, About.com tells how to make a nasal irrigant mixture from scratch using regular baking soda and non-iodized salt.

I chose the squeeze bottle option instead of the neti pot because I thought it would be easier to get used to if I had better control over the flow of the solution, and also because the idea of leaning forward over a sink while I rinse is more palatable than tipping my head sideways and pouring. (The image at the right shows the correct position for irrigating using the squeeze bottle.)

The acid test would be if I were to develop a sinus infection and could see what effect, if any, irrigation would have on my recovery. Then again, I suppose it's possible that regular prophylactic rinsing (as opposed to post-operative irrigation or as treatment for a cold) might help prevent infections. That would be even better.

I have been using the rinse three times a day and will probably reduce that to twice a day once I'm sure my cold is cleared up. For those who suffer from chronic nasal congestion, I recommend this procedure, whether with a commercially available product or a home remedy, as a safe and affordable alternative to medications that may otherwise be necessary.

(Disclaimer: The Den Mother is not a doctor and this blog post should not be taken as medical advice. In other words, consult your own doctor, use your good common sense, and don't sue me if you do something stupid.)

Labels: health

I can't even remember how long it's been since I went to an RPI hockey game. All I remember is that it was at Harvard, and we lost. I'm hoping for a better result tonight at Brown. I'm joining a bunch of alums, most or all of whom I probably won't know, but you're never really alone when you're at a hockey game, especially when it comes time to link arms and sing the Alma Mater.

It will be an opportunity to check out a few of the team's shining lights. Junior forward and Hobey Baker Award candidate Chase Polacek currently leads all ECAC players in points (32) and goals (16), while freshman Brandon Pirri leads in assists (20). I've heard good things about sophomore goalie Allen York, although he's only slightly above the middle of the pack in goals against average (2.72) and save percentage (.906) overall. I notice his stats are better in conference play (2.27 and .922). (All stats are taken from the ECAC Hockey web site and are current as of the time of this post.)

In the spirit of being a polite guest, I will try to refrain from the cheer that was ubiquitous back in the 1980s whenever Brown visited the Houston Field House ("What's the color of s***? Brown!") but if the hometown fans get obnoxious, all bets are off.

Listen to the live game stream on WRPI.

Labels: fun, sports

I am three words,
Two of them appear the same,
Two are pronounced the same.
One is the third person use of "capable" or "permit."
One means to sleep, but only for a bit.
The last word means a group of deer,
Perhaps now you can tell me, what words are here?

See the answer by highlighting between the brackets:
<does, doze, does>

Labels: brain teaser

Then again, God didn't give everyone the gift of common sense.

For years, Felix Baumgartner has taken to the skies in a way most of us can only hope to emulate in an aeroplane. From skydiving to base-jumping, his endeavours have thrilled onlookers and frequently enraged the authorities. But like most extreme athletes, Baumgartner has always been on the lookout for the ultimate rush - and now, it appears, he has found it.

His goal, which he hopes to achieve this year, is to make the highest ever parachute jump. It will be from well into the stratosphere. It will mean breaking the speed of sound. And, if it succeeds, it will break a record that has stood for 50 years.

[ . . . ]

The attempt is planned for an as-yet unnamed location in North America. Dressed in a specially modified full pressure suit and helmet, he will ascend to the stratosphere in a pressurised capsule attached to a 450-foot high helium filled balloon. He then intends to jump out at an altitude he hopes will exceed 120,000 feet, or nearly 23 miles, and make a descent lasting over five minutes. Scientists say he will almost certainly break the sound barrier during his free fall and become the first human to do so without the aid of a machine.

Baumgartner views his forthcoming attempt with a mixture of excitement and adrenalin-fuelled apprehension. "No one really knows what that will be like," he says. "The fact is that you have a lot of different air flows coming around your body. Some parts of you body are in supersonic flow and some parts are in transonic flow. What kind of reaction that creates, I can't tell you."

It looks like he will find out, but whether he will be able to tell us is still up in the air (ugh, bad pun).

Labels: crazy

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
Howard Zinn (1922-2010)

Leftist alternative-historian Howard Zinn, a long-time Political Science professor at Boston University, died yesterday.

Zinn was little known outside the far-left circles in which he moved. But his above referencedBush haters of the 2000s, he was best known for the above quote, which during the George W. Bush administration was often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson by lesser minds who felt the need to elevate their contrarianism. In fact, while Zinn was no Thomas Jefferson, he was a brilliant mind for his time. He certainly deserved to be recognized for his ideas, which he held consistently and without apology.

Labels: remember

Well, technically, my ear is part of my head. And this weekend, I am going to get a second piercing in my right ear, to match the second piercing I got in my left ear 11 years ago. I like the two-hole look, and I'm tired of being asymmetrical (although I generally believe that symmetry is highly overrated).

Then again, this will render all my single earrings, the mates of which have been lost, basically useless. Will a third hole become necessary in the future?

Labels: minutiae

Let's start with the given that everything Washington does is political. Now let's get more specific and point out that even in areas politicians say shouldn't be politicized, if it's done by the federal government, it is by definition politicial. The politicians and political appointees who most bemoan the politicization of science are usually those whose grasp of the scientific is most colored by their own idealogical biases.

From climate change to fat in food to abortion and education, issues that can least afford to be distorted by politics have been most distorted. That's why it is ironic almost to the point of hilarity when politicians venture into the scientific arena insisting their motives are pure. Monday's New York Times Science section had a thought-provoking piece about the prevalence of conflicts of interest within the government where scientific study is concerned.

Meanwhile, Mr. Taubes writes, journalists have paid too little attention to the scientific questions or to other types of bias: "Scientists were believed to be free of conflicts if their only source of funding was a federal agency, but all nutritionists knew that if their research failed to support the government position on a particular subject, the funding would go instead to someone whose research did." David Kritchevsky, a a member of the federal advisory board that issued dietary guidelines in the 1980s, summed up the pressure on researchers: "The U.S. government is as big a pusher as industry. If you say what the government says, then it's okay. If you say something that isn't what the government says, or that may be parallel to what industry says, that makes you suspect."

When you consider that the federal government is basically just a really humongous business with absolutely no competition, you could say that government funding is even more corrupting than funding from private industry. Damn, that sounded really, really libertarian.

Labels: politics, science

Perambulate — This is a wonderful word that evokes images of Rhett and Scarlett pushing Bonnie Blue's carriage down the street while the neighborhood ladies greet Rhett warmly and glare at Scarlett.

per·am·bu·late \puh-RAM-byuh-late\
transitive verb
1 : to travel over or through especially on foot : traverse
2 : to make an official inspection of (a boundary) on foot
intransitive verb
: stroll

For more, see the complete entry at Merriam-Webster online.

Labels: vocabulary

Apparently, I have quite a few of them, according to my co-worker, Sandy, who recently called me "The Gadget Queen" upon seeing my new Sony Reader. It doesn't seem to me that I have any more gadgets than the next person, but I admit having more than Sandy does. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that, far from being on the cutting edge of technology, I generally wait until an item has gone mainstream before getting one.

My home and car are remarkably gadget-free: I have no HD television, surround sound, TiVo, state-of-the-art music system, electronic appliances (except a microwave), remote starter, remote door locks, in-car CD changer, GPS, The Clapper, etc. (I threw in that last one just to see if you were paying attention.) Remote controls for things that always come with remotes don't count, and neither do gadgets required by law like smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors. What I do have are convenient and portable items that do regular everyday tasks, and they are generally as simple as possible. Beginning with the laptop.

Dell Inspiron 14 laptop computer. No one is going to be blown away with envy over this computer. I made sure I got more than enough hard disc space and memory, but besides that, there aren't many bells and whistles beyond what came standard, which is basically a CD/DVD player/burner and wireless card. It is smaller than my last laptop (about the same width but less in screen height due to the wide-screen aspect ratio). It's black, mostly because trendy colors cost more and I don't consider my computer to be a fashion accessory. I didn't even spring for the super battery because I am not morally opposed to plugging into a wall outlet and don't foresee bringing it into the woods or onto the beach.

Logitech V222 wireless optical mouse. I only got this because my old Dell wired optical mouse died, and pretty much all the mice that were small and felt comfortable in my hand were wireless. I like the fact that the USB transmitter slides into the bottom of the mouse for storage and, at the same time, automatically turns off the mouse to save the batteries. The red is a little flashier than I'd like, but that's the color they had in the store the day I went and it was on sale. Besides, once I put my hand on it, you can't see the color anyway.

SanDisk Cruzer Micro 8 GB flash drive. Once I figured out that a flash drive was the easiest way to transfer music files from my son's computer when his wireless router was acting up, it was a no-brainer. It's also the easiest way to deliver digital photos to a friend's computer without having to burn a disc. I have also been known to use it to bring the occasional file home from work (nothing sensitive, just in case the Privacy Police are reading, though it is encrypted). Yes, I carry it on my key ring, which I gather is the 21st century equivalent of wearing a pocket protector or hanging a slide rule off your belt.

BlackBerry Pearl 8130 smartphone. I never would have gotten a smartphone if I hadn't decided to go cell-only and was told (erroneously, as it turned out) that my new plan included use of the phone as a wireless modem. I picked BlackBerry as opposed to any other brand because I could use the BlackBerry network instant messenger with someone out of the country, thus avoiding costly international text messaging charges. I picked the Pearl because it was the smallest phone Blackberry makes. I got the "amethyst" color because the only other choice was dark red (see color comment in Logitech mouse section).

Plantronics Explorer 360 bluetooth headset. It only makes good safety sense to go hands-free when talking on the phone while driving, and I admit I was getting sick of hopping out of the car at the gas station and nearly strangling myself on the wired headset. This model had the most comfortable earpiece, adequate range, good battery life, and was made better than some of the others. The picture shows a gunmetal blue color; mine is actually silver. By now you've figured out that neutral colors are the theme.

Sansa Clip 4GB mp3 player. I love this thing. About two inches high and light as a feather, it holds about 1,000 songs and has an FM tuner and voice recorder I never use. It's my third Sansa mp3 player and each one was better than the last. My co-worker Nicole just got the upgraded version (Clip+) which has a memory card slot; evidently there are pre-filled memory cards available in various genres for those who don't want to go through the trouble of building a digital music library.

Sony Reader Pocket Edition PRS-300 electronic book reader. This is my newest gadget and the only one I consider to be an unnecessary luxury. I wrote all about it the day after I bought it. By now, you can probably recite the things about it that appealed to me: the smallest reader available... no-nonsense functionality... silver... on sale. And even though it is the least necessary item on this list, it is basically just a replacement for the lowest-tech things anyone owns, books.

Oh, I also have a portable CD player, but it doesn't make the list because I haven't used it since I made the jump to mp3.

Most high school and college students have a lot more techno-stuff than that, right? Between netbooks, digital tablets, portable DVD players, handheld gaming systems, virtual reality goggles, and heated socks (just checking, again), they are so far ahead of me that I might as well be stuck back in the 1980s.

(Edited to correct multiple typo, grammar, and punctuation errors because, apparently, I was stoned when I posted this.)

Labels: minutiae

I've seen this story a few times on various blogs in the last couple weeks, but when it makes News of the Weird, it's time for comment.

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.

[ . . . ]

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.

Call me hopelessly unhip, but wouldn't it be a better idea to encourage more minorities to take laboratory classes, offer remediation if necessary, and try to improve their performance? Or does the Berkeley School Board believe black and Latino students can't excel?

Labels: education, things stupid people say/do

Can you imagine being the first human beings to summit the world's highest peak, only to die on the way down and have to watch from the Great Beyond while someone else 29 years later gets all the glory? Man, I'd be pissed.

Scientific American raises the possibility of that very scenario, personified by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, who headed up the North Col of Mount Everest in 1924 but never returned with proof they made it. A recovery expedition planned for either this year or next may finally settle the question once and for all.

The key to solving the mystery, many climbers say, is finding Irvine's remains and with it the missing Vest Pocket Kodak (VPK) camera he was supposedly carrying with him on that fateful journey.

Everest historian Tom Holzel believes that after decades scrutinizing maps and photos of Everest's north face, where the mountaineers are thought to have disappeared, he may have spotted Irvine's final resting place in a high-resolution picture earlier this month. Holzel has begun mounting an expedition he hopes will visit the site either this spring or, more likely, spring 2011.

If Holzel manages to find history-altering evidence, it won't diminish what Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay did in 1953. The trip down, after all, is every bit as perilouss—some might say more so—as the trip up. They will always be the first climbers to reach the summit and live to tell the tale.

(Hat tip: Boing Boing.)

Labels: international news