Recently in Other Stuff Category

Sorry for the day away from the blog. My life has been, um, interesting since about 8:50 p.m. on Monday night, when my youngest son (the five-year-old known on the interwebs as Splig) slipped while climbing on furniture in his room, splitting open his chin quite badly and resulting in a late-night visit to our hospital's emergency room.

Fourteen stitches and an exhibition of seriously impressive bravery by Splig (as he accepted huge needle injections of local anesthetic to allow us to avoid a several-hour-delay for a room where general anesthetic could be administered) later, we were home. Unable to sleep for awhile. But home.

Needless to say, such an episode has thrown off the schedule, to-do list, and sleeptime a bit.

Splig is now fine, although I did receive a tweet from my wife after he decided, far too soon, to start climbing on furniture again. Sigh.

To make this political for a second (that would be my world): this situation was stressful enough with the blood and the open wound and the crying and the trying to figure out whether to call 9-1-1 (quicker in this case to get to the hospital ourselves, we only live about 10 minutes away): but it was nothing compared to what far too many other people would have to face in a similar situation. I knew what our co-payment was. I didn't have to worry about getting a bill that could force bankruptcy.

It is insane that every person does not enjoy a similar comfort when facing such circumstances. Even if we fail to get there with the current health care reform under discussion, we must continue the work until every U.S. family can know they can get health care services without facing financial ruin.

That should be the minimum bid.

Oh, why did the Splig slip? Our gymnastics-ninja boy also loves pretty things. (See his holiday wish list here for an example of his wonderfully complicated desires.)

So, while climbing around on furniture in his room, he saw one of his "very pretty colorful rocks" on his dresser. He reached for one and lost his balance, hit hard the corner of the dresser, thus setting off a rushed visit to the hospital.

My wife made some changes to his room yesterday. The big chair is no longer next to the dresser. It will be, however, easier for him to jump on his bed. Which is softer and has no edges. Such are the trade-offs with a gymnastics-ninja-princess-loving boy.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Visit the National Archives to read the rest. Happy Independence Day!

As someone who cannot handle the sky glider at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (much to my children's mocking merriment), obviously there is absolutely no way I'd consider doing this:

Visitors to the Sears Tower's new glass balconies all seem to agree: The first step is the hardest.

The balconies are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out four feet from the building's 103rd floor Skydeck. Their transparent walls, floor and ceiling leave visitors with the impression they're floating over the city.

There's also no way I could watch people do it. I could not even finish the accompanying slideshow that featured kids enjoying the view.

(Hat tip: Chris at Americablog)

CaliforniaCityNews.org has a post about an over-the-top hiring requirement in Bozeman:

If you're planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, prepare to clean up your Facebook page.

As part of routine background checks, the city asks job applicants to provide their usernames and passwords for their social-networking sites. And it has been doing it for years, city officials said.

I really could understand if the requirement was to disclose all of your social networking sites so they could be reviewed, but demanding your usernames and passwords? That simply goes too far.

Update: My friend KL Tweets: The best response on Fark to that story: tell 'em it violates the Terms Of Service for the websites and you obey rules

The story of the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, who successfully landed his disabled plane in the Hudson River yesterday, is well worth a read.

And, yes, as far as I know the Mayor of Claycord was the first person to point out that the pilot, Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III, is from Danville -- just a couple cities over from where I am located.

Speaking of music, Boston Philharmonic Conductor Benjamin Zander shows us in this TED talk how important passion is to an appreciation of classical music.

Via Balloon Juice, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performs Shaft.

No, I could not turn this off.

Via Cernig at Crooks and Liars, we learn of another global embarrassment recently achieved by the Bush Administration:

By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would "consider it intolerable" that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world's present population. (See Annex III.)

By the terms of the text, the Assembly would express concern that, in many countries, girls were twice as likely as boys to die from malnutrition and childhood diseases and that twice as many women as men were estimated to suffer from malnutrition. Accordingly, it would have the Assembly encourage all States to take action to address gender inequality and discrimination against women, including through measures to ensure that women had equal access to resources, including income, land and water, so as to enable them to feed themselves and their families. By further terms of the draft, the Assembly would urge Member States to promote and protect the rights of indigenous people, who have expressed in different forums their deep concerns over the obstacles and challenges faced in the full enjoyment of the right to food.

After the vote, the representative of the United States said he was unable to support the text because he believed the attainment of the right to adequate food was a goal that should be realized progressively. In his view, the draft contained inaccurate textual descriptions of underlying rights.

Just when one might think that our national reputation could not be debased any further, we learn that our government believes that the right to food is controversial. Little kids starving requires much more study.

The Bush Administration cannot be finished soon enough.

Those individuals who have had the misfortune of having me edit their copy will cringe at how much I (they?) can relate to this paragraph, written by Brian Doyle in the Spring 2008 Kenyon Review:

And dickering with photographers, battling in general on behalf of the serial comma, making a stand on behalf of saddle-stitching against the evil tide of perfect-bound publications, halving the number of witticisms in any piece of prose, reading galleys backwards to catch any stupid line breaks or egregious typos, battling on behalf of the semicolon, throwing away all business cards that say PROFESSIONAL WRITER, trying to read over-the-transom submissions within a week of their arrival, deleting the word unique on general principle and sending anonymous hate mail to anyone who writes the words fairly unique, snarling at writers who write We must or We should or, God help us all, the word shan’t, searching with mounting desperation for a scrap or shard or snippet of humor in this bruised and blessed world, reminding male writers that it’s OK to acknowledge that there are other people on the planet, halving the number of times any writer says me or I, checking page numbers maniacally, throwing away cover letters, checking the budget twice a day, and trying to read not most but all of your direct competitors, on the off-chance that there might be something delicious to steal.

And then away to lunch.

Thanks to Ezra Klein and Andrew Sullivan for insisting people go read this essay.

I've been trying to catch up on TED talks on my ipod. This one by Michael Shermer on "Why People Believe Strange Things" caught my attention.

Olmsted, of the bright lights of the blogosphere, was killed in Iraq earlier this week. I've enjoyed reading his thoughts over at Obsidian Wings.

His final post, written to published if he were killed, is truly beautiful and well worth your time to read. And I do hope everyone respects his wishes that his death not be used by anyone on any side of the debate to score political points.

While I am not a person filled with the most holiday spirit, there is one tradition that I have loved for years. On the last Late Show with David Letterman before the holiday break, Darlene Love will appear to sing her classic song, Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home).

Yep, I'm a sap, at least for this holiday tradition. It's a short list (one admittedly that has grown longer since I had kids) but this is on there for a long time.

This year, alas, we could not see Darlene Love preform the song because Letterman is not showing new episodes. A consequence of the movie and television producers decision to run away from the negotiating table while members of the Writers Guild of America are striking to try to ensure their viability in a 21st Century economic environment.

Well, thanks to Digby, I realized that I could still have a part of the tradition, thanks to YouTube. There is a great collection of Love's performances on Letterman, and it brought a smile to me to see and remember these performances.

This performance, from 2000, is one of my favorites. It includes the Air Force's Singing Sergeants on background vocals -- a nice touch, for me anyway, given my dad's long service in that branch of our military.

The baby boom generation lost one of this giants today, with the passing of William Strauss.

It has been my honor to work with Bill as a web consultant for one of his companies. He was a thoughtful and active person.

A co-founder of the Capitol Steps, noted generational historian, co-founder of the Cappies (a high school “Critics and Awards” program), author of three musicals, co-author of important books like Generations, Millennials Rising, and The Fourth Turning, Strauss accomplished so much -- he was a true leader.

I am sad that he is gone. I send my best wishes to his wife and family.

Update: The Washington Post's obituary of Bill Strauss can be found here.

I'm with Atrios: people should back off on their mocking of Miss Teen South Carolina.

Imagine for a moment if your worst oral answer to a question were YouTubed around the world. We've all been there, but most of us have had only a handful of people around to see it.

We have a president who regularly says stupid things -- and his statements have real consequences. A little more focus on him would be appropriate.

Talking Points Memo's David Kurtz points us to a stunning Washington Post article about an experiment tried in a Washington, D.C. metro station in January.

What would happen if one of the world's premiere violinists, Joshua Bell, performed without notice as if he were a street musician? Would people notice? Would they see the special performance for what it was?

The answer, alas, is no. Nearly 1,100 people passed by during the 43-minute performance. Only one person, who had recently seen Bell in a free Library of Congress concert, recognized him. Only a few others paused to listen. As the Post's Gene Weingarten writes:

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

As it turns out, only one demographic group seemed to take special notice of Bell: children.

The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

The wisdom of children shines through again.

The entire story is well worth reading. As I read it, I was amazed by what people were missing, and the stories they told about passing through the station that morning.

Yet, I must admit that I most likely would have been one of those who rushed past, or only paused for a moment. That realization made me quite sad.

Something to consider as another all-too-busy week begins.