Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Science & Politics

I admit that right now I'm focused 99% on the Katrina news, but my eyes did slip down the page far enough to see the headline FDA Official Resigns in Protest of 'Morning-After Pill' Decision.

From the article:

Susan F. Wood, assistant FDA commissioner for women's health and director of the Office of Women's Health, said she was leaving her position after five years because Commissioner Lester Crawford's decision on Friday amounted to unwarranted interference in agency decision-making.

"I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overuled," she wrote in an e-mail to her staff and FDA colleagues.

Wow. I applaud Dr. Wood for taking the stand, though I'm afraid it won't change anything in a climate where politics trumps science.

Interesting reading

I've been reading the Times-Picayune for the last couple of days. (As a cold aside, I'm interested in the way that newspapers can turn their web pages into blogs to keep updates coming quickly and easily during a crisis. Obviously this technology wasn't around when I was in j-school, and I wonder, logistically, how it works. Do the reporters just shoot the content up unedited, or is it the editor doing the blogging, or what?)

Also an aside, they had to evacuate the paper's building earlier today, and the reporters were heading for Houma, hoping to start working again from there. I have a dim view of those guys you see on tv who stand outside in the wind and rain telling you it's unsafe to be outside, but other than that, news people do a hell of a job through things like this. I mean, I'm at my desk in Maryland worrying about people I know of the Gulf Coast, and I have no way to get through to them right now, but at least I can find out what is going on generally.

Ok, the actual reason for the post: the Times-Picayune series Washing Away. I can't tell when it originally ran, but reading it in the wake of this storm is interesting...in a very somber way.

The articles begin:

It's only a matter of time before south Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day.

Happy Birthday, MK

I'm sorry I didn't get you a card. At least I didn't throw you a party and make you do all the work...

Don't I wish!

Via Ted (the Jimmy Stewart type):

Which classic dame are you?

As I took it, I was trying to identify who was who in the answers...oooh, Myrna Loy. Lauren Bacall. Rosalind Russell. And I am...

Katharine Hepburn You scored 7% grit, 38% wit, 38% flair, and 23% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women. Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test.

Niche, indeed

Today is the prologue of the Vuelta a España, the Tour of Spain. This is the last of the three major tours (the others being the Giro d´Italia and Tour de France) this season, and I was hoping to catch it on tv (since it's a crappy rainy day and I won't be out riding myself).

Guess when it's on, the coverage of this major three-week bicycle race?

It isn't every day, live, with three or four rebroadcasts in case you missed it.

It isn't a tape-delayed broadcast each evening.

It isn't a highlight show every morning at 2 a.m. because they didn't want to pre-empt anything important like bass fishing.

Nope. It is a one hour show on September 18, the day the race will finish in Madrid.

Sixy whole minutes! Wow. It's great to be a cycling fan these days.

Shall I dance?

When I got back to my office after a meeting with the boss this morning, a co-worker asked what was up. I said "Just had to do a little rug dance."

She had no idea what I was talking about. Is this not a common term?

I used to get worked up like this about hockey, too

There's a guy at work who likes to talk sports with me, but only when there is a scandal or a controversy or when one of my teams is doing very poorly.

So today, of course, he asked me about the latest Lance Armstrong doping allegation.

I'm not gonna talk about that here, though. I have nothing new to say.

Ted mentioned it today, too, and what I'm gonna talk about is what he said...not so much about Armstrong, but about cycling:

And until another American LeMond or Armstrong comes along to dominate, the Tour de France will drop back to the level of popularity enjoyed by Iron Man triathalons and Arena Football.

As it happens, there are some pretty impressive American cyclists in the pro ranks right now. Levi Leipheimer just won the Tour of Germany this week, in fact. And even if you only want to talk about le Tour, there were eight Americans not named Lance Armstrong in France this past July. Will any of them dominate like Armstrong? I doubt it. I doubt we'll see a Spanish rider dominate like that, either. Or a German or an Italian or a Frenchman or an Australian.

But I have a question: Why do we the American-sports-viewing-public need an American to dominate the event to be interested in it?

Can we watch a sport for its own merits, regardless of where the athletes live? Do we need a thousand Nike commercials to surround it to let us know it is An Important Event?

...she asks rhetorically.

(Nic isn't really short for Nicolle, it's short for Niche.)

Suck it up, kid, it just gets worse

I e-mailed my sister today to see how my nephew liked yesterday's first day of preschool. Her reply:

This morning, when I said it was time to get up so he could get ready for school, he said "But I went to school yesterday."

Best laugh today

From Dawn's fashion advice: "...pink-and-yellow shirts make you look like a ham-and-cheese sandwich."

I have actually noticed people wearing pink and yellow shirts at the office, and now I won't be able to look at them without laughing.

Or getting hungry.

Jeans

We can only wear blue jeans to work on Fridays, and then, according to our dress code, the jeans have to be "neat, clean, and in good repair."

I have no problem with this. But I did notice, on my way to work a few Fridays ago, that ten years of wear (and a little help from some rodents) have pushed my pants outside the dress code.

So, shopping time. While at the beach I hit the Levi's outlet, where the size marked on the clothes bears no resemblence to the actual size of the clothes. I was also a little surprised by how many styles of brand-new jeans were not only not neat or in good repair, but they didn't even look clean. Then again, I'm old enough the remember when "prewashed" (instead of the stiff, dark blue denim) was a new way to buy them.

I found a pair of 501s that will, in a year or so, be perfect, but I'm still mourning the loss of the other jeans. I thought I was pretty shallow to be doing so, but the Post ran a couple of articles this week that made me feel much better about myself: Tres Cheek: The Denim Mystique and The Tao of Denim: If It's Not Worn, You Have Nothing On.

People pay hundreds of dollars for jeans. Parents allow their kids to buy more than a dozen pairs of jeans. People pay somebody else to turn new jeans into jeans that are no longer neat, clean, and in good repair:

The jeans have various holes and worn spots that Mauro has designed and executed through hours of labor with a palm sander, stitch remover and dental pick. Angie is pleased. She takes them home and wears them out at night. She says they look good with sequins.

Hmm. Perhaps I'll start a jeans-distressing business...I can finally get the rats to earn their keep.

Our county fair is a great county fair

We have food made into sculpture:

Racing pigs:

And baby pigs:

Pigs made into corn dogs:

And rides to make you puke the corn dogs up:

Just dropped in for a quick one

RP was the bad influence for this one: The Alcohol Knowledge Test.

Since the graphics tend to whack out my format, the result are in the extended entry. I must admit, I'm disappointed...only the 90th percentile for beer?

Oh, and interestingly, if I were to go for the bottle and a shot glass, it would be for bourbon [I have three rats named George, Jack, and Jim]...but I'm a bit of a rarity in that I also like the smokey taste of scotch.

Bourbon Congratulations! You're 127 proof, with specific scores in beer (120) , wine (150), and liquor (78).

Screw all that namby-pamby chick stuff, you're going straight for the bottle and a shot glass! It'll take more than a few shots of Wild Turkey or 99 Bananas before you start seeing pink elephants. You know how to handle your alcohol, and yourself at parties.

The cat's pajamas

Well, I don't know about the cats...but I have the coolest new pajamas.

Sock monkeys! How much cooler could it get?

I don't think you can have nightmares if you're sleeping in sock monkey pajamas.

(This is what happens when I go to Target with a chaperone. If I'd gone alone, I'd have cowboy pajamas too.)

I will call her "Zorak"

I'm just guessing she's a female...aren't the males eaten by now?

New year

I put the new calendar pages in my planner today. Planner-wise, my year starts on October 1. I think that puts me in step with the federal government, if not the company where I work (we're July-June), the Gregorian calendar, or the weather patterns of the mid-Atlantic.

And I do actually feel like fall is the beginning of the year. It's the new school year feeling, which is funny, since I've been out of school longer than I was in it.

Or maybe it has something to do with hockey season.

I did write down the Caps home games on my new calendar pages, but we aren't getting season tickets this year. (Take that, NHL and NHLPA.) I was irked to see two home games on weekday afternoons...Columbus Day? Does anyone but the federal government get that day off? I have yoga on Friday nights now, and I think I may need yoga more than hockey. I'm sure I'll get to a game eventually, but I'm oddly dispassionate about when.

Anyway, since I had the new calendar out, I went ahead and filled it up, not just with hockey games I may or may not ignore, but with charity walks and a bike ride. If anyone is interested in contributing to any of the charities there in the left sidebar*, I'd be more than happy to send you the link to the fundraising sites. (If you click on the logos, you'll be sent to the registration pages...just in case you want to join me for a walk.) And all of the events have opportunities to honor or remember loved ones, so if you have someone you'd like me to honor on your behalf, I'd be happy to do that as well.

*The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the Lance Armstrong Foundation and cancer research, the Alzheimer's Association, the American Diabetes Association, and the American Heart Association.

Most guys I know seem to think one is plenty

3 Wives Greet British Man After Surgery

How the heck do you juggle three wives at once?

Family legend has it that my great-grandfather was a bigamist. I believe he was a travelling salesman, which explains part of the logistics. And it's not like he was expected to available by cell phone or anything. But still.

Oh, and this was after my great-grandmother had divorced him. She later married a guy that my dad says was the nicest man alive, but in all the pictures I've seen, he looks like a gangster.

He is related to me, after all

Without kids of my own to brag (or blog) about, I need to borrow other people's kids...like my nephew, age 4. He can be quite the, um, handful, but I realized on vacation that he only turns evil when he's bored...occupy his mind, and he's a delightful child.

I picked up some crayons and a coloring book for him at a dollar store, hoping that would keep him out of trouble for a couple of hours one evening. It did, mostly (he did put the broken crayons in his pocket, but I noticed it and remembered to alert my sister before a load of laundry was ruined. Dollar store crayons break really easily, by the way. And the colors suck. But that's a post for another day.)

Anyway, I was playing a trivia game with the rest of the adults when my nephew tugged my sleeve and asked what he was supposed to do on this page:

"Circle the one that doesn't belong," I answered. A minute later, he tugged at my sleeve again, and I looked down, expecting to see that he'd circled the dog.

"The spider isn't happy," he told me.

I looked again. Sure enough...the grasshopper, the bee, and the dog are grinning, but the spider has more of a scowl.

I am so proud of that boy. Next time, I'm getting him Crayolas.

Lines, a photo essay

As usual, click the image for a bigger picture. I particulary like the last one, the crayons, because my 4-year-old nephew took it. I'll be getting him his own photo blog soon.

As you might have guessed, the broadband is fixed. There is much rejoicing. Now I can go read up on what everyone's been doing for the last week and a half...

It's a metaphor

I went down to the office to sort through my mail and messages. It isn't that I'm particularly important, or that my boss expects it, but for my own peace I wanted to have my priorities prioritized and my responses to last week's problems formulated before people start coming by my desk tomorrow morning looking for salt water taffy.

Ah, crap. I forgot to buy the salt water taffy.

To continue the vacation experience

...our high speed internet connection is busted again. The tech is scheduled for Tuesday.

Guess I won't be uploading the 175 vacation pictures tonight, either.

Dialup didn't seem so bad with a view of the beach, but at home it's a tad irksome.

I can see the ocean from here

I've mentioned the last couple of years that the Ocean City (Maryland...I forget about the one in New Jersey until I say just "Ocean City" and people start asking me about restaurants I've never heard of, then I get nervous that I'm developing a neurological disorder because I know every restaurant in this town, and then it eventually works out that I'm not nuts, we're talking two entirely different cities) is being completely rebuilt. So far this week we've noticed three demolition sites where we remember seeing the original construction.

Anyway, the slick new condos that are replacing the lovable old dumps have wireless internet.

We don't have wireless internet.

So I have a view of the ocean right now, but I can't show it to you.