Why the widespread interest in Gov. Palin's religion?

I've been amazed at the apparent desire people have to know more about Republican VP candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's religious beliefs and denominational preferences. Since I posted a brief article yesterday entitled "Palin's Religion," the Gazette has received an estimated 1,000 visits just from search engine results for that and similar phrases.

A search on Google for Palin religion now yields almost 600,000 more than 800,000 (updated 8/31) relevant webpages. I'm willing to bet that 24 hours ago, the return would have been a minuscule fraction of that total.

Why the widespread interest? I think part of it is simple fascination with Palin. It's rare to have such an unknown figure assume a position of such prominence on the national stage. But I also believe that religion continues to be hugely important to many Americans, and one's religious preferences form a big part of the identity we assume.

When Palin ended her speech in Ohio with an emphatic I God bless you, and God bless America! (a phrasing that struck me as a bit odd, by the way), the first question I had was along the lines of "is this just something she says, or does it indicate something she believes?" I suspect that I'm not the only one who had that question. And it seems pretty clear to me, based on what I've since learned, that her faith is an integral part of who Sarah Palin is, and not just something she'll parade when it's necessary to appeal to a particular demographic.

The continued emphasis on faith in public and political life is a phenomenon that some continue to ignore or discount. They do so at their own risk.

Palin's Religion

I predict that in about 48 hours, almost everyone will know almost everything there is to know about Sarah Palin, but thus far, I haven't seen much about her religious affiliation. If you are wondering about that yourself, I direct your attention to this post on the Dallas Morning News Religion Blog.

Here's the short version: her religious affiliation is Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal Christian denomination (an affiliation shared with our blogger pal Julie Neidlinger). She was also a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in high school.

Read the rest of the post for more insight into Gov. Palin's faith background.

It's a coincidence! Really!

Remember the preceding post (well, it has been four hours; I don't want to take anything for granted) about getting new neighbors and doing some tongue-in-cheek imagining about what they might be like?

Well, I just dropped by MyWestTexas.com and almost fell off my chair when I saw the most current local posts picked up via that site's RSS feed. Here's a screen shot:

For the record, I don't know Kate (author of The Wild Curl), but I'm positive she's not moving in next door (they're from out of state), and so her move is not the inspiration behind my earlier post. But I have to admit that this is one of the funnier coincidences I've seen in a long time.

And, as an aside to Kate, if she happens by here: while you're not the person giving rise to the previous post, you might want to read it before contemplating your new neighbors! ;-)

Neighborhood Watch

We're getting new neighbors this weekend, judging by the moving van parked in front of the house next door (yes, I'm perceptive like that). We don't know anything about them, since they bought the house through a realtor and thus bypassed the more enlightening builder information pipeline that keeps us clued in as to who's joining the neighborhood. As a result, we're having to use our imaginations to come up with a picture of who will be living next door. That's not always A Good Thing.

Here are the Top 10 Indicators That Your Neighborhood Is About To Become More Interesting:

10. There's a "Vlad For President" campaign sign in their front yard.


9. All the moving boxes are sealed with yellow crime scene tape.


8. You open your front door just in time to see a line of very small people wearing funny clothes and singing "Hi ho, hi ho..." march into the house.


7. A live moose is led from the back of the moving van, and there's a chicken perched on the moose's back. The Homeowner Association's bylaws explicitly ban chickens.


6. The moving company employees are wearing hazmat suits.


5. A car parked in the new neighbors' drive has a bumper sticker reading "My daughter and my money go to Zombie Overlord school."


4. There's a mysterious blue glow emanating from the window on the east wall of the house, which faces you. Then you remember that there is no window on that wall.


3. A young child of indeterminate gender comes from next door, rings your doorbell, and asks if you have brown recluse spiders. When you answer no, he/she/it asks if you want some.


2. A backhoe arrives and begins to dig a hole in the new neighbors' front yard. Curious, you ask the operator what kind of tree they're going to plant. He replies that all he knows is that he was asked to dig a hole six feet deep and four feet wide.


1. A giant beanstalk, the top of which disappears into the clouds, appears in the neighbors' backyard overnight.

Of course, the most shocking revelation is when you learn that your neighbor is a blogger. Horrors!

There's a new "Badman" in town

We just went live with a new website for a client whom I think you'll want to get better acquainted with. Ron Eckert is a songwriter, singer, and guitarist living in Gardendale (just up the road a few miles from Midland, for those not fortunate enough to live in West Texas). Ron has recorded a new CD entitled The Badman, and it's a nifty piece of work.

Ron says The Badman was inspired by Willie Nelson's legendary The Red Headed Stranger, and, in fact, The Badman was recorded at Willie's studio in Luck, Texas. Willie even stopped by the studio during the recording process and visited with Ron for a bit.

The album's concept is based on the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son, set in the Old West. It features original music composed by Ron, interspersed with narrative to enhance and flesh out the storyline. The Badman is entertainment with a message.

Ron is available for bookings, local or otherwise, and you can contact him via his website, where you can also sample and purchase his music.

This was an interesting project for me because it provided me with my first professional interaction with MySpace, and, specifically the MySpace Music pages (which are somewhat different from the regular MySpace sites, and geared toward professional musicians). I can't say that the experience was always pleasant – MySpace has severe limits as to what you can and can't do in the way of customization, and even the things you can do are overly tedious and kludgy. However, it was educational and I added another trick to the bag. I also got some exposure to SNOCAP (a music storefront that integrates with MySpace) and iMeem (another social networking site whose music player we integrated into Ron's website, since MySpace didn't permit that).

I want to thank Kyle Lent for providing some initial tips for getting started on the MySpace editing (he's a musician AND web designer, so he's got all the bases covered). I also picked up some helpful hints from Mike Davidson's post on hacking the MySpace layout, although my efforts fell far short of the amazing things he can do within the imposed limitations.

The website itself was a lot of fun to design, as I was able to use Ron's CD artwork to construct an Old West-themed layout that ties in with his musical style. Working on artistic sites is often (though not always) a refreshing break from adhering to a lot of the rules that make traditional business sites a bit more mundane.

I hope you'll visit Ron's website and MySpace page, give him a listen, and maybe even favor him with a download or CD purchase. He's got a real gift for songwriting, and he's also one of the Good Guys (he should be wearing a white hat, but that doesn't work for a concept called The Badman).

Spam of the Day

Of all the wonderful spam I received today, this one did the most to cheer me up:

If true, that would explain a lot, but I am – how you say? – skeptical. I'm pretty sure that if I was a (the?) Zombie Overlord, I wouldn't be making requests of Ms. Spears or any other NZ. Nosirreebob, it would be nothing but demands.

And, frankly, I'm skeptical that the (a?) ZO would care whether her head was shaved or not. Brains is brains, regardless of what you have to go through to get 'em.

Of course, if brains are the end game here, one might also question why Ms. Spears is even in the picture.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this does to the Gazette's Google search results.

The Curious Case of the Unholey Tire

Update (8:53 am): In the Biblical book of 1 Kings, the king of Aram decides to attack Israel, and sends Ahab, the Hebrew king, a message to that effect. Ahab, after some initial quaking, fretting, and, eventually, praying, gets word from God not to worry about it, and Ahab's response to the Aramean king is a classic understatement: "One who puts on his armor should not boast as one who takes it off." The message would later evolve to the more mundane, "don't count your chickens before they hatch." Why this seemingly irrelevant aside? Simply because when I tried to take the spare tire off this morning in order to remount the regular wheel, one of the lug nuts seized up and I had to break off the stud in order to remove the wheel. So, the non-event described below will end up costing significant dollars. I'm also now convinced that the lug nut studs on 1999 Durangos are imbued with manufacturing defects, as this is the third such mishap in four wheel changes.

I took the Durango in for its 3,000 mile service on Monday, and when the guy brought out the air filter and fluid samples for inspection (we've previously covered that mystifying ritual in these pages), he also informed me that there was a nail in the rear passenger-side tire. "We don't do tire service, but we thought you should know."

I did appreciate the heads-up, and I thought to myself, "how fortunate that they caught that before it causes a problem in an unexpected situation." At least now I have some degree of control over the matter.

I ran some errands and then drove the car home and parked it in the garage. Later that evening, after the temperature had dropped a bit, I swapped the spiked tire for the spare and threw the former in the back of the SUV. Before I did that, however, I attempted to extract the nail with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, but I was unsuccessful; it appeared to be completely embedded and I didn't want to snap a tip off the pliers. I figured it would be easier for the mechanic to locate the hole if I left it in, so I didn't think twice about it.

I dropped the tire off yesterday morning at one of the few neighborhood gas stations that still provides mechanics services, giving them my cell number to call when the tire was fixed. Shortly before lunch, the phone rang and the young lady told me that they'd found "five thorn holes" and they couldn't repair the tire because they're only allowed to patch two holes in a tire, for safety reasons.

Well, that news was unexpected, and I couldn't imagine how I'd managed to mangle the tire like that, nor why there hadn't been any additional evidence. I figured I was just skirting disaster, working my guardian angel overtime. At lunch, MLB pointed out that I had driven in the pasture at the cemetery following a funeral last Friday (we were boxed in after the graveside service), and that's probably where we picked up the thorns. I didn't agree, because (1) we hadn't really driven in "the pasture" – wives like to exaggerate things like that, you know; and (b) even if I was in the pasture, it had been graded and I didn't see anything thorny. However, the evidence seemed to side with her account.

Anyway, mid-afternoon I dropped by the blood bank and made a donation, then drove to the service station to pick up the tire. I greeted the woman who handled the paperwork and told her that I was there to pick up the unfixable tire.

Yes. We can't repair more than two holes in a tire, because it's not safe, she repeated as we walked through the greeting area into the service bay.

OK, I understand. I don't know how it happened, but I do understand your position.

There's your tire, right there. She pointed to something that was, indeed, a tire, but it wasn't my tire.

No, that's not my tire; that one's mine, pointing to the Michelin resting next to the one she had labeled as mine.

No, it's not; that's someone else's, she retorted.

At that moment, a man who'd been standing in the bay but was obviously not an employee spoke up. That's MY tire, he said, pointing at the non-Michelin, and confirming my contention.

Well, we can't fix yours either, because it's also got five holes in it she exclaimed.

At this point, my head started making little creaking noises as it's wont to do just prior to exploding, as I tried to wrap my brain around the immense coincidence that two tires, both with five thorn holes, would appear at the same service station at the same time. It's My Cousin Vinny time.

Fortunately, the mechanic walked up, pointed to the other guy's tire, and confirmed that it was unrepairable. He then pointed to mine and said those words we all love to hear, There's nothing wrong with yours.

As it turned out, the screw (not a nail after all, and that's why I couldn't easily extract it) didn't penetrate the casing of the tire, and there were no other leaks. They had gotten the paperwork mixed up, and my tire was misidentified. I offered to pay them for their time, but they refused payment.

I was struck* by the symmetry of this sequence of events. The guy at the lube place thought he was doing me a favor (which he was) by pointing something out. The lady at the service station thought she was delivering bad news (which she was) by letting me know about the multiplying leaks. Both ended up being wrong, and I ended up being relieved. (I did feel empathy for the guy whose tire really was hosed.) Nevertheless, I'll still have to change the tire again to get back to square one, and I'm not really seeing an obvious lesson.

*I debated briefly with myself over whether the proper word in this case was "struck" or "stricken." Fortunately, my beloved copy of Garner's Modern American Usage solved the dilemma by reminding me that the latter is an archaism that has fallen out of favor. Unfortunately, when I looked up the referenced entry for "archaism," I found that it was accompanied by my photo.

Random Thursday: The Abbreviated Tuesday Political Edition

Some of you have been anxious for me to post something – anything – in order to knock the rattlesnake article off the top of the page. Be careful what you wish for.

This is about as close to a political post as you're going to see around here. After reading it, you'll understand why.

• John McCain's campaign is running a TV ad attempting to capitalize on the fact that a Democratic delegate is switching her allegiance to the Republican candidate, since Hillary won't be on the Dem ticket. I understand what the GOP machine is trying to say with this ad, but what it says to me is that John McCain is an acceptable substitute for Hillary Clinton, and that makes me feel even less enthusiastic about the election.


• I was relieved to see that the TV networks are devoting only an hour of prime time viewing to the Democratic convention (you can catch extended coverage via the local PBS affiliate, if you're so inclined). That's one hour too much for me, of course (and I'll feel the same way about the Republican counterpart when it lumbers by). But there's some small consolation – locally, anyway – in knowing that on Thursday evening, our ABC affiliate is choosing to televise a high school football game (Odessa Permian vs. Duncanville) instead of the convention. It's nice to know that while political candidates come and go, West Texas football is forever.


• The best thing about the upcoming presidential election? Regardless of who wins, it will mean at least one less returning US Senator.

Now, let's talk women's beach volleyball, how about?

More rattler than meets the eye

Note: This post contains some photos that might be disturbing to some. Seriously. If you get queasy at the sight of dead animals, or if you have Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes), you'll probably want to skip this one. Seriously.

I was copied yesterday on an email making the rounds that contains a couple of fascinating (or gruesome, depending on your perspective) photos. I tracked down the originator of the email to get permission to post those photos, which he granted, provided I attribute them to "Bob Wire" (an inside West Texas joke, and to be fully appreciated it must be pronounced bob wahr). He said he got the photos from a veterinarian who didn't remember precisely where or when they were taken.

The photos show a large and very dead rattlesnake laying on top of a stainless steel table, which leads me to believe the setting is a vet clinic. The cause of death is not obvious, although some manipulation of shading in Photoshop reveals what looks like some head and neck trauma. What distinguishes the photos from your run-of-the-mill dead snake pictures is that the rattler's abdomen has been slit lengthwise, revealing eighteen babies. In one photo, the snakes are still in their embryonic sacs; in the second, the sacs have been opened and the babies laid out on the table.

Here are the photos. Click on each thumbnail to view the full-sized version.

As these photos obviously show, rattlesnakes reproduce via live birth. The babies are venomous from the get-go, and many believe that they're more dangerous than adults because, unlike the mature snakes, they can't control the release of venom when they strike (rattlers can release venom via one or both fangs, or neither – some refer to the latter case referred to as a "dry strike"; I call it a "Lucky Strike"). However, the babies also have less venom to dispense, so the relative degree of danger is inconclusive, in my opinion anyway.

I find it fascinating* how much the embryonic snakes resemble the adults, in both marking and shape. Some of the babies even appear to have rattles, although I think that's just the shape of the tail where the rattles will eventually appear.

The email to which these photos were attached contained a warning to be alert in the upcoming dove hunting season. Rattlesnakes are a danger to hunters and their dogs, and pregnant rattlers are deemed to be especially hostile. Some may be offended by photos such as these, but unless you live in snake country and have had friends, family, neighbors, dogs, horses, or other pets impacted by these reptiles, those of us who do and have aren't particularly open to the idea that these are creatures to be coddled.

*What can I say? I was a zoology major at A&M for five semesters, until organic chemistry made an accountant out of me. I'm still interested in the endless surprises to be found in the world of nature.

Poop happens. And then disappears.

Warning: The following post contains multiple and explicit references to poop. Those with delicate constitutions are forewarned.

There's a poop thief on the loose in our neighborhood and the very thought of it creeps me out.

Here's the story. Each morning as we head out for our walk, Abbye pauses in our front yard to, you know, do her thing. I dutifully encase the result in a sandwich bag (I know; too much information) and leave it on the driveway, next to the lawn, for retrieval and disposal upon our return.

We've been doing this pretty much every morning since we moved in last February, and the bag has always been there at the end of the walk. Until today, that is.

Here's the sequence of thoughts that ran through my mind. (1) I'm on Candid Camera. Someone is watching through a window, yucking it up at my confusion as I look around for the missing baggie. I must look nonchalant, as if someone moves our poop all the time. (Aside: "Who Moved My Poop" would be a good title for a best-selling book. Or not.) (2) MLB realized that she had forgotten something on her way to work, turned around, parked in the front drive, noticed the poop bag, and considerately disposed of it for me. (3) There's a creature in the neighborhood with a disturbing fetish.

I'm pretty sure that (1) doesn't apply (although just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean that everyone isn't watching you through their plantation shutters). Also, I confirmed with MLB that she didn't come back to the house (although she could be messing with my head). So that leaves (3), which in turn generates some unsettling mental images.

If it's an animal, that poop is going to end up somewhere. It could have been a bird, so be on the lookout for a report from Midland, Texas from a distraught homeowner whose dip in the pool was rudely interrupted. (Doodie! Extra credit for the source of that reference.)

It could have been a helpful neighbor (I can't believe someone would leave a bag of poop on that guy's driveway. Sure, he's a lame-o geek, but no one deserves that!), but I sorta doubt it. I know I wouldn't go around picking up bags of poop that don't belong to me, but that's just me. So it could have been a perverted neighbor. I doubt that, too, because everyone knows they don't get out until after 10:00 a.m.

I'm going to go with the animal/bird theory, until I find evidence to the contrary. In the meantime, until I hear back from CSI, my advice to you is to guard your poop.

How the West was Won

For reasons I simply cannot fathom, my clients are expecting me to do some work and stuff, and thus I've not made much progress on our Hill Country trip report. But I hope to assuage your bitter disappointment by sharing the following video with you.

The ball of fluff striking fear into the hearts of the cattle is a three pound Yorkie named Paris. She always accompanied us on our walks around the B&B because she could tell that we needed protecting from the fierce cows; Abbye was obviously useless in that regard. (In fact, I don't think she ever really figured Abbye out.)

What this particular clip doesn't show is the way she would chase the cows off the road, then turn around and look at us as if to ask, "didja see that, huh, didja didja?!" If we expressed suitable adoration, she would seek out the next bovine victims.

I'm pretty sure all the parties involved had some kind of understanding, but it was still entertaining to behold.

Beware of Vampire Dog

Someone just paid the Gazette a visit by following a Yahoo search link for texas vampire dog horrifying.

While I'm not really a big fan of Yahoo's search capabilities, in this case they seem to have nailed it:

Abbye is so proud. Nowadays, the only horrifying thing about her are the sounds she occasionally makes during her 20-hour-per-day naps.

Tieing? There's no tieing in gymnastics!

My father-in-law refuses to watch any Olympic event in which judges are involved. After seeing the confusion in last night's competition in the women's uneven bar gymnastics event, I can see why. If you just turned on your TV thinking the election was finally over (it's not), American Nastia Liukin's initial score matched China's He Kexin (the world's oldest 14 year old girl), but she lost the gold medal in a tie-breaker (which the NBC pundits labeled "complicated" but which actually involved some 3rd grade arithmetic). Everyone was outraged.

Well, everyone except, um, Liukin, her coach (a gold-medal-winning gymnast who doubles as her dad), and the American team coach, Martha Karolyi (wife of professional curmudgeon Bela). They all admitted that while disappointed in the outcome, they had no quibble with the judging itself or the system.

So, where's the beef? In my opinion, it begins and ends with the TV commentators, each of whom feels they are better qualified as judges than the judges themselves, and who whip themselves and, by extension, the viewing audience into a frenzy over perceived or fabricated slights against the hometown favorite (which is usually the American athlete). They speak often of the Olympic Ideal, but in reality, creating controversy seems to be their end game. Had they not generated one last night with their running commentary critical of the judging, there wouldn't be much of an eyeblink over the results today. (Anyone losing sleep over the fact that the men's vault gold medal was also decided by a tie-breaker? Of course not; there were no Americans involved. A Pole beat a Frenchman, and that's all we need to know about the loser, um, silver medalist.)

This will no doubt add more fuel to the fire to somehow reform the reforms in gymnastics judging, but as long as humans are involved, the system will inevitably yield some results that seem puzzling, if not downright unfair. But if the athletes involved are OK with those results, the rest of us should hold our tongues.

Extra points for identifying the inspiration for the title of this post. Here's a hint: it comes from one of the best sports movies ever made.

NBC Bungles Web Video

I was surfing NBC's Olympics website and ran across an intriguing video report (and it had nothing to do with women's beach volleyball. Really.) so I clicked on the link. The machine creaked and groaned for a minute and then spit out the following:

So, all Mac users who haven't invested in an Intel machine are out of luck. That makes absolutely no sense. There are only about 17 gazillion websites that manage to deliver streaming video to non-Intel Macs, so it can't be that hard.

Random Thursday: The Monday Olympics Edition

We're back from a vacation in the Texas Hill Country, where the agenda consisted of three items: bicycling, eating, and watching the Olympics – although not necessarily in that order. I hope to post a report, including riveting video of Paris, the cow-herding Yorkie. I hope you can stand the suspense.

• I find it ironic that the world's biggest athletic spectacle – the one that should inspire all of us to get out and "just do it," is instead the world's greatest incentive to couch potato-ness. When it comes to making a choice between getting out and sweating or staying in and watching, say, American women's beach volleyball, there's really no competition.


• And speaking of women's beach volleyball, the mere existence of that sport is ample evidence that there is a God and He is benevolent.


• Another great thing about women's beach volleyball: it probably ensures that the Olympics will never be held in Tehran, Riyadh, or Islamabad.


• I'm impressed by the arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner that's being played for the medal ceremonies. It's quite elegant and has a dynamic range that's inspiring. Not everyone agrees, though.


• And speaking of women's beach volleyball, I've decided that volleyball (in all of its various incarnations, not just the ones that feature scantily clad and ripped female physiques, not that I've even noticed) is my favorite Olympic sport. It's fast-paced, the scoring is decisive, and not burdened by overly-complicated strategies. The sport is also accessible. Almost everyone has or could get out and whack a ball over a net. Despite its seeming simplicity, the athleticism and lightning-quick reflexes of the participants is amazing. I was also mesmerized by some of the badminton matches, an under-appreciated sport in the States, to be sure.


• My favorite commercials thus far are those for Visa, narrated by Morgan Freeman, and especially the ones where still shots of the athletes have been captured and set into magical golden-hued music box settings. It's not often that one can accurately refer to a TV ad as beautiful, but the one featuring American gymnast Nastia Liukin merits that description.


• It occurs to me that any American kid burdened with the name "Nastia" really needs to develop a world-class talent in something (preferably tae kwan do or karate).


• I'm very impressed with Michael Phelps, and he deserves all the accolades he's being showered with, and I won't debate that he's right up there with the greatest Olympic athletes in history, and perhaps even merits the title of the greatest. But I'm not willing to concede that his accomplishments exceed those of Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, or even Lance Armstrong. Your disagreement, however, is not a test of fellowship.


• And speaking of women's beach volleyball, you don't need a high-speed camera to confirm who won an event, as we saw in Phelps's 100 meter butterfly race. But that close finish made me wonder about the cameras that were in place as backups to the touchpads that register the official finishes in the swimming events. The standard frame rate (frames per second, or FPS) for broadcast TV is about 30, meaning that the normal TV cameras might not have captured the precise touches of Phelps and Serbia's Milorad Čavić, the two being only 1/100th of a second apart. So it occurred to me that the monitoring cameras were surely faster than that. Yeah, just a bit. Try 5,400 fps for a high-def signal, and up to 675,000 fps at reduced resolution. If a finish require something more precise than that, let's just call it a draw, shall we?

In closing, props to NBC for broadcasting the entire women's marathon live. I doubt that it was one of the more popular events from a viewership perspective, but my wife and I found it fascinating.

On Holiday

The entire staff at the Gazette's Pixel Wrangling Ranch World Headquarters is off on holiday for the next week or so. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we'll return with fascinating tales of adventure and/or woe on the 18th or thereabouts.

Random Thursday

Miscellaneous observations while contemplating the tremendous downpour that Eduardo hasn't brought to our little corner of West Texas. As usual, we can see the rain, but that doesn't do my lawn any good. I may have to resort to the unthinkable strategy of washing my car.

• From the Even More Evidence That I Was Born 30 Years Too Early: Abilene Christian University is the first college to provide all incoming freshmen with either an iPod Touch or an iPhone. (Thanks to Denise for the tip.) It appears that ACU's IT consultant is developing applications specifically for these devices to ...to receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors' offices, and check their meal and account balances.... I started to smirk at the one for directions, and then I remembered how clueless I was as a college freshman.


• I confess that I've never been a big fan of jazz, but I'm trying. My efforts are being assisted by a CD given to me by MLB with the rather hubristic and awkward title of The Ultimate Most Relaxing Jazz Music in the Universe. It's a two-disc compilation from the catalogs of Savoy Jazz, Muse, Landmark and Denon Jazz and it covers the waterfront of smooth jazz renderings, from old standbys like Round Midnight to interpretations of more contemporary tunes like You are the Sunshine of My Life. This collection lives up to its billing of providing a relaxing backdrop for almost any event (raves excluded), but it also holds up well to focused listening.


• I witnessed an unusual scene yesterday morning during Abbye's walk around the pond. There was a small covey of blue quail in the pasture adjoining the sidewalk, and my attention was drawn to them by the sudden increase in the noise level. I looked up in time to see two of them face off against one another, engaging in the quail equivalent of smack talk, which then escalated into a full-fledged battle royale, with dirt and feathers flying, as they spun around and rose into the air like Beetle Baily and Sarge in the comics. After a few seconds, one of them gave up and ran for his life, with the other in hot pursuit. I can't guarantee that this is what happened, but I swear it looked like the pursuer spit a feather or two out of his mouth as he chased the vanquished opponent out of his territory.
  
  I knew that quail were quite territorial but I've never seen them engage in such serious fighting. I use the term loosely, because quail are such goofy-looking birds that their self-important jousting is just hilarious to the onlooker.


• It occurs to me that "The Battling Quail" would be a great mascot name for a high school.


• Speaking of close encounters of the avian kind, when I let Abbye out in the back yard around 5:30 yesterday morning, I could hear an owl hooting somewhere nearby. I briefly considered running back in the house, grabbing my pistol, and going back outside to fire wildly into the dark.


• My choice of a Kindle as a birthday gift for my wife was a huge success, so much so that I'm beginning to rue the day I ever thought of it. She's finding so many books she wants at such good prices (compared to the treeware versions) that we will likely have to renegotiate our mortgage in order to free up cash flow for her book habit. Anybody know of a good Kindle interventionist? By the way, she has promised to write a review of her impressions of the e-reader, but I'm not optimistic that she'll stop reading (and downloading!) long enough to do that.

In closing, did you notice that the flight attendant suing Houston televangelist Joel Osteen's wife is claiming that the actions of Victoria Osteen caused the airline employee to suffer from hemorrhoids? I know that flight attendants often encounter passengers who are pains in the rear, but I never realized that was a literal affliction!

Chair Play

Presenting the world's tallest professional guitar player:

[If you're a Midlander, try to guess where this photo was taken.]

Book Review: "The Road"

No plot spoilers are included in this review.

In his devilish little book called A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose (reviewed in these pages in 2006), B.R. Myers devotes an entire chapter to Pulitzer prize winner Cormac McCarthy, calling his prose unspeakable in every sense of the word.

That and similar pronouncements were at the front of my mind as I opened McCarthy's 2006 novel entitled The Road, and the first few pages seemed to validate my reservations, as I immediately encountered incomplete sentences, perplexing punctuation, and obscure metaphors. "OK, just as I thought; I'm not cut out for McCarthy's style."

But the oddest thing happened. The story took over and it was so compelling and horrifying and tender that while the literary affectations still whirled like gnats, they were dismissed with a mental wave of the hand and I was immersed with no hope or desire of rescue. I read it through, cover-to-cover, in as close to non-stop fashion as someone with real-life responsibilities can get away with.

The Road is a travelogue through a post-apocalyptic landscape, recounting the story of a father and young son who inexplicably survived something – we're never told exactly what – but are now threatened by the aftermath. McCarthy crafts a tale that engenders dreadful anticipation. His vignettes are pictures of the horrifying lengths people will go to survive, offset against the unyielding and unnaturally optimistic force of love.

I wonder if McCarthy actually read Myers's critique and took some of it to heart. What I didn't see in The Road was bloated prose. If anything, the author forces the reader to look for what's missing in order to complete the picture. Even the repetition of certain scenes (there are only so many ways to describe a gray and dreary landscape, and most of those are no better than what I just wrote) serves the storyline.

Post-apocalyptic stories are common and often take the form of something more accessible to the masses; you just don't think about a Pulitzer Prize winner writing something like Mad Max, The Stand, or A Boy and His Dog. McCarthy has managed to elevate the literary quality of that story while still retaining some of the macabre and nightmarish elements that made those other works popular. If you prefer to consume your horror novel with extended pinkie finger, I unhesitatingly recommend The Road.

Postscript: Let's hope that the movie version of this novel translates to the big screen as well as did No Country for Old Men.

Education is paramount. Well, next to jet skiing.

Update: The school administration has changed its collective mind and will recommend to the board that Labor Day be granted as a holiday after all. I'll be surprised if there's any opposition.

The story above the fold on the front page of today's local newspaper deals with an issue that I believe goes to the heart of many societal problems we face. MISD officials are pleading with parents to not pull their kids out of school on Labor Day, which on this year's school calendar is not a holiday. One official is quoted as saying the administration is mulling over ways to "incentivize" the students and parents.

Incentivize? Well. I admit that this issue causes me to channel my inner Old Fart, but I can recall an era when nothing interfered with being in school. Parents actually teamed with teachers and administrators in enforcing attendance rules, and the idea that a family outing might supersede school was ludicrous. (Granted, we didn't have jet skis, and the rich life lessons they offer.)

How things have changed. My observation is that school attendance is pretty far down on the family list of priorities, especially when it competes with important quality time on the lake or at Six Flags.

Kids are still being taught a lesson, of course, even if they aren't in the classroom. Unfortunately, that lesson is that respect for the educational system and even education itself is not all that important.

As with every issue, there's more than one side to be considered. This increasingly cavalier attitude by parents reflects a growing feeling that the education system has become more of an enhanced daycare system than an institution that prepares kids intellectually for achievement in real life.

I remember more than one occasion when I picked up the Niece and Nephew from school and inquired about their day. "We watched a movie!" I flashed back to my own school movie experiences, with the grainy black and white productions delving the mysteries of photosynthesis, or extolling the wonders of electricity, or laying out in embarrassing detail those pesky personal hygiene concerns that we really weren't concerned about. But they still had a focus on education, however inartfully they went about that task.

So, I withheld judgment about their movie experiences until they said, "we watched Shrek!"

I'm reluctant to extrapolate too much from this, but considering that the kids weren't attending film school, I failed to grasp the educational value of that curriculum.

The other sobering aspect of this issue is the reason that school officials are begging parents to deliver their kids to school on Labor Day: it's all about the money. Government funding is tied to school enrollment and attendance, and if the kids aren't there, neither are the dollars.

I don't blame officials for being concerned about funding, but I'd have felt so much better if in the article, they'd have at least given lip service to the idea that education is critical for individuals and society, and attendance is essential to getting that education.

So, we have families who view school as an annoying disruption in important personal plans, and a system that reduces students to their cash flow generating potential. In this situation, the kids are the big losers, and it doesn't stop there.

As the Prince of Verona put it in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (the non-animated version that inexplicably contains no mention of trolls), "–all are punish'd."

Warbirds, Old and New

AirSho 2004 1999