07.31.2002/10:52
Susan just dropped by the doctor's office for her allergy shot, and while she was there, one of the nurses was on the phone with a tearful, hysteric mother who was nearly convinced that her child might be suffering from West Nile virus. Another nurse told Susan that the office was getting a lot of that just now, but that at least people have quit calling in thinking that they have anthrax.

07.31.2002/10:50
Crock pot recipes. Just in case you want them.

07.31.2002/10:44
Sites That Are What Their URLs Say They Are Dept.:
bargainhumidors.com
negroteams.com

07.31.2002/10:38
Boston commuter train makes two scheduled stops carrying heart attack victim for whom paramedics are waiting in Back Bay.

07.31.2002/10:34
"The Santa Cruz SPCA's plan to dismantle the 64-year-old Pine Knoll pet cemetery to make way for a luxury home stalled after a biotic survey found a breeding population of the Mount Hermon June beetle and the Ben Lomond spineflower, both listed as federally endangered species."

07.30.2002/14:56
A virtual visit to Monet's garden in Giverny.

07.30.2002/14:46
Religion meets natural selection.

07.30.2002/08:12
They saved the whales!

07.30.2002/07:49
Nice takeout piece in the Washington Post observing 50 years of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

07.29.2002/22:05
Hmm, looks like they can have games ending with tied scores in Japanese professional baseball.

07.29.2002/19:36

Under the Bridge
Sometimes Susan and I take a shortcut under New Iberia's Duperier Street bridge. It saves having to wait for traffic to cross at the foot of the bridge. And of course we... like it under there.

07.29.2002/10:26
Here's a story about the National Radio Quiet Zone that protects radio astronomy in Green Bank, WV.

07.29.2002/10:11
I am taken with the tremendous urge to visit the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, WV. Green Bank is a few miles northeast of Marlinton, WV in Pocahontas County, one of my favorite counties in the U.S. I wanna go, I wanna go!

07.28.2002/22:56
This afternoon we watched our DVD of Amelie. What a truly delightful movie. There is a love story at the core of the narrative, but is one-sided in the sense that all we hope for is for Amelie's happiness, having become besotted with her after the first 10 minutes of the film. Imaginitive, visually inventive, masterfully paced... and highly recommended.

07.28.2002/21:50
Thieving starlings, or clever photo retouching? You make the call. (via Anita's LOL).

07.28.2002/21:07
Clematis on the Web.

07.28.2002/21:03
I don't know what you did this weekend or how exciting it seemed at the time, but it may pale in comparison with this.

07.28.2002/17:50
A Day at the Races, a photo collection from University of California Riverside's California Museum of Photography, breathes life into the sporting scene of southern California in the late 30s.

07.28.2002/17:48
Mr. Beller's Neighborhood does something that is surprisingly elusive: it makes New York City seem, to those of us far away, seem like a place.

07.28.2002/17:44
The Pennsylvania mine rescue made my weekend.

07.28.2002/17:03
Last night I dreamed that I had to drop out of an unfinished semester of college because I had signed up for a class, a math class, and had hardly gone. I am fifty years old, it has been more than half of my life since I have been to college, and I still have this kind of dream. It is not uncommon, I am told, but when will I not have this dream? When does this particular grain of madness finally dissolve?

07.28.2002/10:50

Agribusiness
This ATM is located just west of New Iberia, LA on LA Highway 182.

07.27.2002/22:51

Wasted exposure?
This smeary frame turned up this afternoon and at first I simply disregarded it as a wasted exposure made when the shutter was accidentally clicked as the camera was being moved or carried. But as I gave it a closer look... I liked it.

07.27.2002/22:16
Fast food calorie chart with specific menu items at major franchises.

07.27.2002/22:08
A short, concise history of forks.

07.27.2002/18:15
Sites That Are What Their URLs Say They Are Dept.:
artsbenicia.org

07.27.2002/18:13
Lava rocks!

07.27.2002/18:12
Dead squid in the news.

07.26.2002/12:41
The Gargoyles of Notre Dame de Paris.

07.26.2002/09:48
I went last night to a performance of Earl Long in Purgatory, Jason Berry's one-man show performed by veteran Louisiana actor John McConnell. This was a benefit performance at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge, and in the audience were several politicos, including the convicted but continually appealing former La. Gov. Edwin Edwards, which added a notch or two to the atmosphere. In Louisiana, we take an oblique pride in the eccentricity and Populism-scented venality of our politicians. We rather wallow in it, actually.
McConnell gave a fine performance, and Berry's script gives appropriate insight into the conflicted nature of the demagogue. Despite Long's incarcerations in mental hospitals, his fling with stripper Blaze Starr, and his generally mercurial demeanor, he is given credit in some quarters for having been one of the better southern governors in the 50s where race was concerned; Berry does a good job of acknowledging that virtue while also showing to what extent Long's racial stance was flavored by expediency...and by his political wrangles with the New Orleans based established elite.
I saw Earl Long speak here in New Iberia when I was a boy of about nine, between the time he had come out of a Louisiana mental hospital and when he ran for Congress. It is my first memory of a political event. The excitement was immense. The man had an extraordinary power to draw your focus. At one point, he flourished a sheet of paper, which he claimed was his discharge from the nut house. "I got me a piece of paper here says I'm sane now," he shouted to the crowd. "They ain't got one of 'em that's against me that has no piece of paper saying they're sane. I'm the only one! The rest of 'em, you take it from your Uncle Earl, they're all crazy!"
After the speech, I joined the long line of people going to the podium to shake the man's hand. I don't remember my handshake so much as the look on his face, the whole rhythm of his body as we each had our turn for contact. He breathed heavily in time with the surge of the crowd, his eyes blazing, the tide of adulation bathing him in some essential elixir of life. He grew through our breaths, took life from our life, swelled and grew bigger from it; and we were bigger, too.

07.26.2002/09:43
Rich content in this site from a Hungarian post card collector.

07.26.2002/09:24
High tech high jinks in the Ivy League: Princeton admissions officer admits hacking Yale web site; claims he was only testing its security.

07.26.2002/09:18
A move to provide some kind of oversight and indepedent review of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects.

07.24.2002/22:12
In the midst of budget cuts in Tennessee, the arts hold their own.

07.24.2002/22:04
Cool Whip Fun Facts.

07.24.2002/21:55
All the basic info about camels.

07.24.2002/09:06
On Monday night, we went to the Off-Broadway run of Capitol Steps, a Washington-based troupe that is national politics' answer to Forbidden Broadway. The highlight of the show for me was a song about Bill Clinton's office move from midtown Manhattan to Harlem, to the Elvis tune "The Ghetto." The highlight of the highlight was a rhyme in the song of "ghetto" and "Gepetto." You guess.

07.24.2002/09:01
All the state flowers.

07.24.2002/08:30
Does this bring to mind for anyone else the old Smothers Brothers song?

07.22.2002/09:55
We went last night to see Rebel Without A Pause, a show by comedienne Reno that is winding up a New York run this week and starting to tour around a bit. Good lefty humor with a serious inner theme of what patriotism really means post Sept. 11. Or ever did.

07.22.2002/09:50
Interesting take on how Tiger Woods' troubled play at the British Open, and particularly the way he responded to the situation, enhances rather than diminishes his stature in the sports world.

07.20.2002/23:09

Red Tides
Tonight we went to see something called the Caravan StageBarge, which has docked on the Bayou Teche in downtown New Iberia to do a pair of evening performances of its "work of experimental theatre," Red Tides, tonight and tomorrow night. Much acrobatics, a bit of pyrotechnics, mouthfuls of poetry that is sometimes a bit violet when it means to be violent, and awestruck faces in the small town crowd. There was continual movement by acrobats strung up into the rigging of the barge or on cloths hanging from high masts, and I found myself watching them even when there was movement from the dancers who performed mostly on the deck below.
I hope this kind of show is something that is repeated here. We do get bands that play in the downtown park from time to time, but this was something special.
The best thing I heard about the show, though, was what our wonderful mayor, Ruth Fontenot, told me. The crew had asked for four motel rooms, which the local Best Western offered on a complimentary basis. Later, the mayor learned in conversation that the troupe would gather and draw lots to see who would sleep in air-conditioned comfort and who would be left to swelter on the boat. So, she moved them all a block away from their boat to the thick-carpeted floors of the city-owned, richly cooled Sliman Theatre. "If I had known ahead of time, we could have gotten them some nice cots," she told me.
Anyway, hats off to our City government for sponsoring this truly unique theatrical experience.

07.20.2002/14:30
Are there any drive-in movies still operating near you?

07.20.2002/10:56
I've been watching a lot of B-grade horror movies lately, I am happy to say. One thing I have to watch out for, though... last night I caught myself shouting at the screen, "Put your guns away. Can't you see they're useless against that thing?"
Anyway, one of the movies I watched last night was Lady Frankenstein, a dubbed Italian production that actually starred Joseph Cotten as the Baron; but the real star is the titular Lady, Rosabla Neri, aka Sara Bay. As the Baron's daughter, she returns from medical school to tumble onto his experiments and surprises him and us by displaying an even more ruthless willingness to sacrifice those around her to science. As well as to be seductive in pursuit of her aims.
I am curious to know if this film was ever shown much on late night U.S. TV, and if so, how it was edited down, because there are some nude scenes that are fairly essential to the plot... although the most sexually evocative moments come when the Lady's eyes gleam as she lays out her plan to put the brain of her wimpy, love-struck doctor assistant into the brawny young body of the idiot hired hand.
Meanwhile, the monster her father created roams around the village and the Italian countryside, killing and laying waste. At one point the masses assemble with their torches and rakes and shotguns, which they fire uselessly in the last moments before doom. Put your guns away. Can't you see they're useless against that thing?

07.20.2002/10:55
More on the recent blowgun shooting incidents in Washington, D.C.

07.20.2002/10:48
It's less than six months until Christmas, so here is where you can order a Carmen Miranda rubber bathtub duck.

07.20.2002/10:44
Cribbage Corner: "Everything for the cribbage fiend."

07.20.2002/10:36
Please don't feed the bears. Also, please don't kick the bears.

07.20.2002/10:23
What a great idea! I really want to go to the Spy Museum.

07.19.2002/22:47
Does the threat of a baseball players strike have you down? Don't just brood, do something about it.

07.19.2002/14:01

Introducing Blink
Here is a shot from my first day of having a new StyleCam Blink digital camera. About the size of a soda cracker, takes a hundred 640x480 photos, and it set me back forty bucks. More to come...

07.19.2002/10:36
After the forest fire is contained, there is still much to be concerned about.

07.19.2002/10:33
Ugly babies? Actually, I find all of these rather adorable.

07.19.2002/10:27
Sites That Are What Their URLs Say They Are Dept.:
funeraltransporting.com.
bowlingshoes.com.

07.18.2002/21:06
Ox Tongue Ice Cream.

07.18.2002/20:51
Today and yesterday have been classic southern Louisiana Gulf Coast July midsummer hot. Double that for any time you are in a car in slow-rolling traffic, and bonus points if you came to your car only moments ago and found it oven-like from mercilessly efficient closed-window solar heating.
My answer to all this is to declare heat my hobby. And sitting in traffic, that's a hobby, too. If traffic's a hobby, then it's a great thing to be stuck in a wait-three-times-at-the-light backup, and if summer heat is a hobby, what a delight to have those sweat beads roll down my face and my wet shirt cling to the car upholstery. See? Make it a hobby and the otherwise dreaded becomes the collector's delight.
On my post-jog cool-down walk this evening, I brightly greeted a couple of people I know, saying, "Enjoy this warm weather, it won't last long." Only a couple of more months. Maybe three; it really could be mid-October before we get a dependably cool day. I think I'll look forward to pursuing one of my other hobbies: pleasant weather.

07.18.2002/20:47
What's this, two citations of View from an Iowa Homestead in two days? Yes! Check out John's photos from a driving trip across north-central Iowa.

07.18.2002/20:45
Just think of your local Wal-Mart as a watchful Big Brother.

07.18.2002/20:40
Fairly interesting story about the problem of how to get rid of, or re-use, troublesome motel properties in Indianapolis.

07.18.2002/09:34
Save the boxers.

07.18.2002/09:30
"Critics say what the Red Sox really want is to inspire fans to spend more money."

07.17.2002/09:39
I had a bit of correspondence today with John VanDyk, whose weblog View from an Iowa Homestead I had identified in my links, through some kind of Freudian typo, as "Iowa Farmstead" (since corrected). It's one of my favotire weblogs to read. In fact, I've thought much about a recent pair of posts John did, the first about an auction he attendended; and the second, the one that really gave me pause, was the follow-up he posted the next day.

07.17.2002/09:25
Copy-bat crime.

07.16.2002/22:39
Clown crime in London, U.K.

07.16.2002/22:22
Jacob, Meet Emily...
The most popular baby names of 2001. (Via TheCrayfish.com.)

07.16.2002/22:16
Blowgun dart attacks in the news.

07.16.2002/08:05
Oh, I don't mind the part of a lottery ticket that winds up going to the state in the form of a sort of elective tax. What I resent is the part that goes to pay the winning ticket holders. What do I ever get out of that?

07.16.2002/07:55
The Found Magazine web site has a generous sampling of found objects, most notably hand-written notes and photographs that often themselves come with written evidence. There is also the Find of the Week.

07.16.2002/07:52
The Apostrophe Protection Society.

07.16.2002/07:50
Just remember to turn on your speakers when you go to Seven Peas.

07.16.2002/07:44
The Birdhouse Network.

07.16.2002/07:42
What would you call a street where a mammoth tusk had turned up when it was being constructed?

07.16.2002/07:33
Hey, like guys, you wanna see something, like, really gross?

07.15.2002/21:02
"Playing the bare market, Playboy magazine on Monday offered female employees of threatened corporate giants WorldCom and Andersen the same chance to pose nude as it did those of fallen energy trader Enron."

07.15.2002/08:41
Sites That Are What Their URLs Say They Are Dept.:
ballparkblueprints.com.

07.15.2002/08:37
Though most of Colorado is not in the least affected by recent fires, tourists are punishing the whole state.

07.14.2002/21:38
Nice photo of tricolor jet trails for Parisian Bastille Day celebration.

07.14.2002/12:00
It rained hard and steadily from early this morning until about 10:00 a.m. I had planned the cut the grass this morning, but it's much too wet. Oh, well!

07.13.2002/15:54
I think my aversion to Wal-Mart, and its kin, has matured into a phobia. Martophobia. If I have to even think about going to one of those places, I'm simply martified.

07.13.2002/15:47

Banana Leaf in the Rain
Raindrops on a banana leaf in our back yard, as thunderstorm ebbs.

07.13.2002/08:24
Blackmask Online has over 8,000 books, available in a range for e-book formats. Content is slanted towards mystery and pulp fiction, though the classic fiction is well stocked.

07.13.2002/08:16
A pretty girl is like a malady.

07.12.2002/21:43
Clown crime in Winona, MN.

07.12.2002/09:24
Those folks at the Memphis Zoo are sure hoping that they get some pandas for their panda exhibit.

07.12.2002/09:02
Crazy Crows are crow decoys of use to... crow hunters. See 'em in action.

07.12.2002/08:52
Hey kids! Look! Your science project on rain is already done!

07.12.2002/08:50
Um, who builds a $45 million mansion on spec?

07.11.2002/11:37
I have updated the archive page to include both what we call around here Modern Poor Clio (since 6.19.2002) and Classic Poor Clio (before that re-design date). The old stuff is in static pages, the new stuff searches from the Access database that ColdFusion uses to store all the entries.

07.11.2002/09:47
Observatory for sale, not that anyone has much idea what it's worth.

07.11.2002/09:40
Interesting collection of photos depicting London's Industrial Heritage.

07.11.2002/09:32
Safe in Space?
So, the Lifeboat Foundation proposes to safeguard humanity from "the growing threat of terrorism and technological cataclysm" by having such alternative means as the space station Ark I. Presumably, there will be some pretty good security screening in place to ensure that no terrorists get to board the space arks.

07.10.2002/18:10
The Japanese Female Facial Expression Database.

07.10.2002/16:01
Atomic Frontier.

07.10.2002/10:47
A tie in the All Star game. One more moment where the veneer shows to be rather thin.

07.10.2002/10:34

Consider the Eel
I have just finished reading my friend Richard Schweid's new book, Consider the Eel. It is Richard's gift to not only fascinate the reader by leading him into a new and engrossing world, but to set the grander perspective in a way that comfortably grows around the details at hand. We learn not only about the extraordinary life cycle of European and American eels, we are given an absorbing view of what is happening to this and other fishery industries. As happened with vegetables and meat long ago, we are now moving toward a point where our seafood will be grown programmatically rather than harvested from its natural environment. Good book, good read, good topic. Consider this book.

07.9.2002/20:50
I have really come to appreciate the writing at bluishorange.

07.9.2002/07:40
elgooG.

07.9.2002/07:37
A rather replete online guide to British ghosts.

07.9.2002/07:34
All-Star Break
Steroid scandals. Rapdidly escalating ticket prices. Nasty labor disputes. Maybe I should start thinking of baseball as something I used to enjoy.

07.8.2002/22:44
It turns out that my after-lunch visit to my easy chair is good for something after all!

07.8.2002/11:03

Baby Chimney Swifts
Susan gives one last feeding to the baby chimney swifts which had been orphaned in our chimney before taking them to a bird rehabiliator. She found someone who is equipped with flight cages, etc., and where we expect the young birds have their best chance of success.

07.8.2002/08:39
New York City subway cars have useful new life as artificial augmentation of Delaware coastal reef.

07.8.2002/08:32
Ebay to buy PayPal, though not at auction.

07.7.2002/18:50

Our Table Before Supper
Partially set table before our evening meal, July 7, 2002.

07.7.2002/13:38
Sites That Are What Their URLs Say They Are Dept.:
alligatorfarm.com.

07.7.2002/13:34
Slow recovery of wolf pack population in northern Rockies.

07.7.2002/08:45
Urban villages along the Metro line in the Washington D.C. suburbs.

07.6.2002/22:27
I absolutely love both the design and content of the photographic site secretthree.com.
(And I gratefully acknowledge mood-indigo.net for showing the way!)

07.6.2002/15:50

Cross Fire
The fire that struck the Breaux Bridge, LA building that houses both Cafe Des Amis and the apartment of owners Cynthia and Dickie Breaux on June 27, 2002, was fortunately detected early. No one was hurt and the restaurant will be re-opened within a few weeks. Soot and smoke in the apartment left this cruciform imprint above a doorway.

07.6.2002/15:46

Office Aftermath
The Breaux Bridge, LA building that houses Cafe Des Amis and the apartment of owners Cynthia and Dickie Breaux suffered a fire on June 27, 2002. The fire was fortunately detected and controlled early; no one is hurt and the restaurant will re-open in a few weeks. This room was the second floor office.

07.6.2002/09:14
Sites That Are What Their URLs Say They Are Dept.:
llamatravel.com.

07.6.2002/09:10
Some riders of the Washington Metro system are pissed.

07.6.2002/09:03
Ted Williams' dead body in the news.

07.5.2002/16:38
Ted Williams, R.I.P.

07.5.2002/16:37
Texas flood.

07.5.2002/09:58
Road rage in the dead of the night.

07.5.2002/09:54
Cat feces-imperiled sea otters in the news.

07.5.2002/09:51
Dead babies in the news.

07.5.2002/09:48
Last night we were at a friend's house, where there was a pretty good display of fireworks to celebrate the Fourth. At one point, a couple of the kids lit up some Roman candles, and as the bright intermittent puffs illuminated the sky for brief seconds, I wondered how the Romans were able to read by these things.

07.5.2002/09:45
Hardcore Backyard Wrestling.

07.5.2002/00:37
City council in Moscow, ID, faced with a topless carwash, floats anti-bare-breast ordinance in an effort, as one civic solon says, to "eliminate any community harm from naked breasts."

07.4.2002/11:52
Fish story.

07.4.2002/11:45
Ebbing interest from school kids in summer jobs.

07.4.2002/11:28
Sites That Are What Their URLs Say They Are Dept.:
sparebladder.com.

07.3.2002/13:22
"I would stay away from this stock. I would not be speculating even at 12 cents."

07.3.2002/12:35
If you were given the choice, would you rather talk about ice box desserts, or your role near the center of an insider trading scandal?

07.3.2002/12:23
"Scotland is UFO Hotspot."

07.3.2002/12:07
Careers
JOE: Well, it's great to see you after all these years, thanks for calling me for lunch.
SHMOE: Sure. This is the first time the circus has come here since I joined up... let's see, nine years ago.
JOE: You've been with the circus nine years now? You must really love it. Is it fun?
SHMOE: Love it? Fun? Do you know what I do? I wash elephants. And shovel elephant poop. That's what I have been doing every day for, well, for almost a decade now. It's awful. I hate it, every minute of it.
JOE: Well, if you hate is so much, why don't you just quit?
SHMOE: Quit? No way. And get out of show business?

07.3.2002/12:05
Roswell's annual UFO Festival might be well worth attending, particularly for Saturday's alien costume contest.

07.2.2002/17:11
More on the dangers of overhydation.

07.2.2002/10:57
Interesting look at practice of creating roadside memorials for accident victims.

07.2.2002/10:54
San Francisco Board of Supervisors decides that the city should, after all, ban public urination.

07.2.2002/10:50
Boombox Museum.

07.2.2002/10:43
Sites That Are What Their URLs Say They Are Dept.:
highheelsonline.com.

07.2.2002/10:38
You mean it's not space vampires? Oh, rats.

07.1.2002/22:27
Though not as dramatic as fires, bugs can kill just as many trees over the course of a Colorado summer as the blazes do.

07.1.2002/19:07
Romania seems determined to go ahead with Dracula theme park, catering to commercial demand for fake history rather than celebrating real history.

07.1.2002/19:02
I would like to go to this place.

07.1.2002/17:59

Jesus de Milo
New Iberia, LA.

07.1.2002/10:29

Drained Pond
About three weeks after it was drained for the season, this crawfish pond near Loreauville, LA, shows a growth of rice. Crawfish and rice are sometimes "rotated" as a crop but even those ponds that are used only for crawfish are sometimes seeded with rice to provide for the next year's mudbugs.

07.1.2002/10:20
One of our favorite restaurants in New York is moving.