Hell Is a Skating Rink

The initial Associated Press wire story on Barry's 714th doesn't contain a single reference to booing.

And he hit it in Oakland!

The Death of Something

This story made me sadder than I expected it too. There's the simple fact of having seen someone regularly for an extended period of time that makes that person's passing resonate. But it also works as an allegory for the fate of so many people who went to college and were "disciplined" into the margins or worse, not to mention of the Telegraph Ave. area itself, which has lost Tower and The Gap in recent months -- not a huge loss there, but a loss nonetheless -- and is now going to lose Cody's too. And you know how I'm drawn to texts that can be read allegorically.

Starred, Ill

I had a feeling I should watch this year's Preakness. Now that I have, I wish I hadn't heeded it.

Point and Ponder

The term "Cultural Studies" has been suffering from dilution for a long time now. But its co-optation by the American military has taken this process to another level:

George Hethcoat, UFMCS operations officer, said the program is about looking at the world through a different set of eyes.

Speaking at Thursday’s ceremony, Lt. Gen. John F. Kimmons, Army deputy chief of staff for intelligence, said the military has left the era of simple cause and effect analysis.

“This is not point and shoot,” he said. “We are behind that.”

He told the graduates they have to hold assumptions and truisms up to a bright light.

He said understanding things in the proper context becomes an issue of life and death on the battlefield.

That's like tempering a shot of vodka with the contents of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

(no subject)

My partner just posted an entry with lots of photos I took of this evening's family walk, if you want to see them. The last few minutes of sunlight are particularly spellbinding this time of year. I always love that time of the day, but there's something about the angle of light right now that gives everything a penumbra of radiance. I love living so close to the Catalinas. I never get tired of looking east. Anyway, I'm going to put up an "art" shot taken during the same stroll in a few minutes. I like it a lot, but it doesn't do justice to the beauty of the experience, so you should check out her entry if you are in need of a desert fix.