B12 Solipsism

Local high profile designed Maria Pinto (we’ve discussed her store before) is closing down her boutique.

All of the praise for Michelle Obama’s grape- and tomato-colored sheaths couldn’t bear enough fruit to spare their Chicago-based designer — Maria Pinto — from the recession’s blight.

Pinto, whose work has been worn by not only the country’s first lady but also queen-of-talk Oprah Winfrey, will open her West Loop boutique for five final days starting Tuesday. Her daywear, eveningwear, wraps and one-of-a-kind accessories will be liquidated at 50 percent to 70 percent off their original prices.

In January, Pinto arrived at the decision to close her shop and cease wholesale operations, she said. A fashion designer for 20 years who previously worked for Geoffrey Beene, Pinto launched her own line in 1991. Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys New York and Takashimaya in New York, as well as high-end boutiques across the country, carried her pieces.

[Click to continue reading Maria Pinto: Chicago designer Maria Pinto liquidating boutique - chicagotribune.com]

I’ve glanced at her store window a few times, and I didn’t see any item that entranced me. Perhaps her best work was customized to particular customers, and not for display on a clothing rack.

And this statement mostly sounds true:

“In the general scheme of things, our store was doing very well. But our other retailers are paring down their open-to-buys (merchandise purchases) and looking to build sales through trunk shows,” she said. “It’s difficult because it makes your forecasted cash flow challenging. You’re waiting for the show to happen, waiting for things to happen. Before, the stores were committed to larger inventories.”

Any avid shopper can see the shift, she said.

“Walk through the stores and see how the stores are buying very differently. Saks had blast-out sales going in November 2008. November this year, there was very little in stores that was on sale. What was left was bottom-of-the-barrel. Everyone is having to reposition themselves.”

For 2009, total U.S. apparel sales fell 5.2 percent to $188.5 billion, market research firm NPD Group reported last month.

Another crazy Obama smear circulating the frothosphere¹.

After Robert Montgomery wrote in an ESPNOutdoors.com column that the federal government had a strategy in the works that “could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters,” it was only a matter of time before the conservative media took the bait — hook, line, and sinker. Easily made puns aside, the story was tailor-made for “conservative journalism.” After all, Montgomery had no evidence for his claims.

Another week, another wild, right-wing-media-driven conspiracy theory centered on the Obama administration.

Conservative blogs led the charge in advancing the dubious story, posting their own spin under headlines like “Obama: The Will Of The People Be Damned – I’LL Decide Who Can Go Fishing” in the case of RedState.com and “Obama’s war on fishing?!?!?!” from the queen of right-wing blogging and bellyaching, Michelle Malkin. It mattered little that the story was complete bunk — unsupported by a shred of proof.

It wasn’t long before Fox News’ Glenn Beck, a regular purveyor of ridiculous Obama-centric conspiracy theories, took up the yarn. In classic Beck fashion, the crew-cut host told his audience, “I told you a year ago this would happen. I’m not some prophet by any stretch of the imaginations. … People are losing their rights. Who’s more important: the fish or you?”

Beck aside, no smear of the Obama White House would be complete without an assist from Rush Limbaugh, the granddaddy of the conservative media. On back-to-back shows, El Rushbo laid it on thick, one day saying that “fishing is about to become a privilege controlled by Barack Obama,” and the next, speaking as if he were Obama: “[Y]ou can’t touch me. … I can stop you from going fishing wherever you want. … I can do whatever I want to do.”

In perhaps the strangest turn of events surrounding the story, FoxNews.com ended up debunking Fox News, with the conservative outlet’s reporter Joshua Rhett Miller writing that government documents didn’t contain “language pertaining to a potential ban on recreational fishing, as some reports had previously asserted.” Of course, some of those “reports” included the Fox Nation website, Fox Business Network, and the previously mentioned Beck.

Ultimately, an ESPNOutdoors.com editor acknowledged “errors” in the handling of the piece and its lack of “balance,” but you can expect this one, like so many others, to end up in some chain email from your Fox News-loving uncle in the coming weeks.

[Click to continue reading Gone fishin': Right-wing media hook another dubious Obama conspiracy theory | Media Matters for America]

Laughable if it wasn’t so serious a topic, and such a perfect illustration of how facts are silly things to the Republican right.

1. I just made this word up – I think – referring to the frothing-at-the-mouth conservative sector of the country. The Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh brigade, in all of their paranoid glory [↩]

A South Austin neighborhood is being hammered with seemingly nitpicking and spurious code violations.

In October, the city’s 311 nonemergency number started getting a flood of calls complaining about homes in South Austin’s Fairview neighborhood. Over several days, the anonymous caller or callers gave the city 35 different tips about houses with possible code violations. After city inspectors followed up, they issued violation notices to 76 homeowners in the neighborhood, telling them they must apply for permits for improvements such as garage conversions and carports.

Those who fail to correct the problem could be criminally charged and fined up to $2,000 per day or have their utilities disconnected, according to recent letters sent to homeowners that gave them a March 26 deadline to comply.

The homeowners say they’re upset by the violation letters and want more time to figure out how to negotiate the city bureaucracy to get into compliance.

“I’m worried about the fines,” said John Anguiano, 77, who lives on Heartwood Drive, and got a violation notice for a garage conversion he did about 1975. “I’m old, retired and sick, and it’s a pain to deal with this.”

Anguiano said he’s tried to get a permit, but it’s been on hold since October; he’s being told he must get a variance from the Austin City Council because he lives in the flood plain. Williamson Creek is nearby, and many of the 76 homeowners can’t resolve their permit issues until they get a variance to do home improvements in a flood plain.

Dale Flatt, a 24-year city firefighter on medical leave, is one of the organizers trying to help his neighbors straighten out the mess.

“To code inspectors, all these people are just associated with an address,” he said. “But they have lived there up to 40 years, and now it’s turned into a nightmare.”

[Click to continue reading Code violation letters rain down on South Austin neighborhood]

The city’s Planning and Development Review Department is only open from 8 AM to 11 AM, Monday through Friday, not the most consumer friendly hours.

My dad lives in this area, and has received one of the letters. He emailed:

I got a violation notice for replacing my doors with a window and a door. They think that I’ve creating “living space” in the garage. I could beat that by demonstrating that it is not living space but is still a workshop and storage.

… So I must go for the Flood Plain variance from city council to get a permit and get that work inspected. Bullshit, fer sure.

I’ve been in this garage, and other than his oil paints and easel, no building inspector in their right mind would think that area could be classified as living space. There are mostly construction tools and various related items, car parts for the vintage Porsche that’s getting modified to run with an electric motor, and similar things. Stuff that belongs in a garage, in other words.

My brother, pictured above with brussels sprout earrings, who happens to live next door, also got a code violation letter, and adds:

We have been cited by the city for illegal conversion of garage into living space without a permit. In addition, we are located inside the 100 year floodplain, so the city will not issue permits to us because of increased liability for flood damage. What the residents have to do is apply for a permit, get rejected, then bring it to the city council and ask for a variance. If accepted, then file again for a permit, get inspected, pay the fees etc. If the city council will not issue the variance, then either destroy the construction or sue, I guess….

So crazy. The majority of these houses¹ were built in the 1960s and 1970s, why has the 100 year flood plain only suddenly become an issue? Curious as to how this will play out now that the story has been made public. Also wonder why this particular area has been singled out. Maybe a disgruntled former resident (someone’s ex-husband or similar)? A disgruntled building inspector? A disgruntled contractor? Who knows, but if a building inspector wanted to look closely, they could discover violations in nearly every house and building on every block in every city².

1. an educated guess, I could be off by a few years [↩]
2. yes, including where I live currently [↩]

Mayor Daley’s budget is in deficit, municipal projects don’t get funded, schools don’t get funded, yet developers can get as much TIF money¹ as they need, no matter what. No consequences, no strings. Just plain ole corporate welfare.

A city panel approved another major increase in financial assistance for planned Loop apartment development that has struggled to get off the ground because of rising costs and the tough lending climate.

The Community Development Commission signed off Tuesday on a $34-million tax-increment financing subsidy to help pay for the conversion of a vintage Loop office tower at 188 W. Randolph St. into a 310-unit apartment building.

That’s more than four times the $8 million in TIF funds the city initially approved for the development back in 2006, when its total cost was estimated at $79 million.

But the projected cost had soared to $139 million in 2008, and the project’s developer, Village Green Cos., went back for more. The city complied by hiking the subsidy to $20 million.

[Click to continue reading Loop project poised to get another big TIF boost - Chicago Real Estate Daily]

Via Lynn Becker, who adds:

When, in 2006, a developer announced plans to rehab Vitzhum & Burns Steuben Club Building at 188 W. Randolph, an $8 million dollars contribution from the massive Central Loop TIF was going to kick in about 10% of the $79 million cost.

…

But wait – there’s more! The project is also getting $40 million dollars in tax-exempt bonds from the state, plus $37 million in tax credits. You, lucky taxpayer, kick in almost half of the project cost and the private developer gets the building. Socialism, Chicago style.

When Draconian cutbacks are effecting everything in Chicago from the CTA, to the schools, to 4th of July Fireworks, the city is diverting another $26 million in tax revenues to an economically unsustainable development.

[Click to continue reading ArchitectureChicago PLUS: Welfare Queen]

Really disgusting. The Vitzthum & Burns Steuben Club Building is not a cookie-cutter square box, but it isn’t in the upper echelon of Chicago architecture either.

from a CBS Chicago report (presumedly based on the press release from Village Green Companies)

The Community Development Commission approved a plan to redevelop the vacant and historic Randolph Tower at 188 W. Randolph St. into 310 apartments, retail and commercial space, according to a release from the CDC.

The action recommends the designation of Village Green Companies as the developer for the proposed $145 million renovation.

Plans call for the mixed-use building, formerly known as the Steuben Club Building, to be converted into 168 studios, 98 one-bedroom and 44 two-bedroom units, the release said. Sixty-two of the residential units will be made affordable to households at or below 50 percent of median area income.

Village Green bought the 45-story office building out of bankruptcy in 2005 and will convert the 80-year-old structure into apartments. Plans also include 9,500 square feet of ground floor restaurant and retail space. Village Green will occupy 11,400 square feet on the second floor as its Chicago regional office.

Amenities will include a fitness center, swimming pool and spa. A social club will be located on the 38th and 39th floors, offering 360-degree views of the skyline and Lake Michigan, the release said.

The Gothic-style building will have extensive work done to preserve its historic terra cotta façade and other ornamental details and a gut rehabilitation of the interior.

The CDC also approved a redevelopment plan for the proposed Randolph/Wells tax increment financing district. Creation of the district will support the renovation of Randolph Tower and help redevelop other underutilized and vacant buildings in the area.

[Click to continue reading
City OK's Rehab Of Loop Tower, Home For Teen Mothers On West Side - cbs2chicago.com
]

Hey, build for the future, right? Demand for new condos might be low now, but in twenty years…

Via EveryBlock’s hyperlocal news

1. tax increment financing [↩]

Incompetence is what this sounds like to me. Dick Cheney probably ordered the anthrax attacks.

More than eight years after anthrax-laced letters killed five people and terrorized the country, the F.B.I. on Friday closed its investigation, adding eerie new details to its case that the 2001 attacks were carried out by Bruce E. Ivins, an Army biodefense expert who killed himself in 2008.

[Click to continue reading F.B.I. Concludes Investigation in Fatal Anthrax Mailings - NYTimes.com]

Didn’t solve anything, didn’t discover the truth. The eerie new details probably wouldn’t stand up in open court, and Ivins is dead anyway, and cannot defend himself.

As Ezra Klein points out, the sausage making of legislation is not that interesting nor memorable to most of the country. Results are much more important than process.

Here are some things that happened on the night the GOP pushed the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit through the House of Representatives:

A 15-minute vote was scheduled, and at the end of 15 minutes, the Democrats had won. The Republican leadership froze the clock for three hours while they desperately whipped defectors. This had never been done before. The closest was a 15-minute extension in 1987 that then-congressman Dick Cheney called “the most arrogant, heavy-handed abuse of power I’ve ever seen in the 10 years that I’ve been here.”

Tom DeLay bribed Rep. Nick Smith to vote for the legislation, using the political future of Smith’s son for leverage. DeLay was later reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee.

The leadership told Rep. Jim DeMint that they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina if he didn’t vote for the bill.

The chief actuary of Medicare, Rick Foster, had scored the legislation as costing more than $500 billion. The Bush administration suppressed his report, in a move the Government Accounting Office later judged “illegal.”

Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a “no” vote, spent the night “hiding on the Democratic side of the floor, crouching down to avoid eye contact with the Republican search team.”

Rep. Butch Otter, who provided one of the final votes after hours of arm-twisting from the Republican leadership, said, “I thought there was a chance I would get sick on the floor.”

Remember all this? Probably not. There wasn’t much reporting on it at the time. It wasn’t a major controversy, despite resulting in multiple official investigations.

[Click to continue reading Ezra Klein - Lessons from the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit vote ]

Bottom line, Democrats currently have a majority in both House and Senate, so they should use this majority to pass health care reform. By 2012, hardly anyone will care how the bill got passed, just that it became law¹.

1. or it didn’t. The Democratic leadership has shown, time and time again, they lack the ruthlessness of the Republican leaders [↩]

Joe Conason wonders why partisan witch hunts, a rhetorical question I’m sure

The House Ethics Committee is far from concluding its investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel, despite his resignation from the Ways and Means chairmanship, as the Republicans will no doubt remind everyone repeatedly in the months ahead.

Near the top of the ethics docket, they are sure to mention, are allegations concerning the Harlem congressman’s fundraising for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, a $30 million project at his alma mater. Rangel has acknowledged using his congressional stationery to solicit funds for the center, a violation of House rules. But he has denied more serious charges — based on an investigative report in the New York Times — that he may have exchanged legislative favors for corporate donations to the center.

When ranting on about Rangel, however, what the Republicans surely won’t mention is that he’s not alone in questionable fundraising for a vanity academic institution that bears his name. Leaders on both sides of Capitol Hill have done likewise for years — notably including the odious Trent Lott — but the most troubling example is none other than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who now holds Lott’s former post. If the term “Senate Ethics Committee” weren’t an oxymoron, he would be enduring an intense investigation, too.

[Click to continue reading Why probe Charlie Rangel -- but not Mitch McConnell? - Joe Conason - Salon.com]

Actually both of these seemingly corrupt politicians should be probed, preferably by alien invaders

Guitar blues, iPhoney edition, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

messing around with the Best Camera iPhone app instead of working

emBiggen

from last year

Wonder how the torture apologists will spin this case? Two American citizens were tortured after bringing forth allegations of bribery. Whistleblowers should be feted, not treated as enemy combatants. Hope Rummy has to defend his actions in open court, and soon.

Two Americans claim they were tortured by US officials after making bribery allegations

A federal judge in Chicago ruled on Friday that a lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, brought by two Americans who had worked for an Iraqi contractor, can be allowed to proceed.

In his ruling (PDF), US District Judge Wayne R. Andersen said the plaintiffs had provided enough concrete evidence of torture to allow the suit to go forward. The judge dismissed Rumsfeld’s arguments that his position near the top of the executive branch immunized him from lawsuits involving the authorization of torture

According to court documents, Nathan Ertel and Donald Vance went to Iraq in 2005 to work for an Iraqi contractor, Shield Group Security. Once there, they say they witnessed SGS employees handing money over to “Iraqi sheikhs.” After they notified two FBI agents in Baghdad and one in Chicago of what they say, they say their employer cut off their access pass to Baghdad’s Green Zone and were struck in the city’s dangerous “Red Zone.”

But the lawsuit claims things got really bad once they were “rescued” from the Red Zone by US authorities. Instead of being treated as witnesses to potential crimes, the two plaintiffs say they were told they could be classified as “enemy combatants”

[Click to continue reading Judge allows lawsuit against Rumsfeld over torture of US citizens | Raw Story]

Judge Wayne Anderson describes the details (click here for PDF version of MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER):

Plaintiffs allege that they then were taken by United States forces to the United States Embassy. Plaintiffs allege that military personnel seized all of their personal property, including their laptop computers, cellular phones, and cameras. At the Embassy, plaintiffs claim they were separated and then questioned by an FBI agent and two other persons from United States Air Force Intelligence. Plaintiffs contend that they disclosed all their knowledge of the SGS transactions and directed the officials to their laptops in which most of the information had been documented. Plaintiffs also assert that they informed the officials of their contacts with Agent Carlisle in Chicago and Agents Nagel and Treadwell in Iraq. Following these interviews, plaintiffs claim they were escorted to a trailer to sleep for two to three hours.

Next, plaintiffs claim they were awakened by several armed guards who placed them under arrest and then handcuffed and blindfolded them and pushed them into a humvee. Plaintiffs contend that they were labeled as “security internees” affiliated with SGS, some of whose members were suspected of supplying weapons to insurgents. According to plaintiffs, that information alone was sufficient, under the policies enacted by Rumsfeld and others, for the indefinite, incommunicado detention of plaintiffs without due process or access to an attorney. Plaintiffs claim to have been taken to Camp Prosperity, a United States military compound in Baghdad. There they allege they were placed in a cage, strip searched, and fingerprinted. Plaintiffs assert that they were taken to separate cells and held in solitary confinement 24 hours per day.

After approximately two days, plaintiffs claim they were shackled, blindfolded, and placed in separate humvees which took them to Camp Cropper. Again, plaintiffs allege they were strip searched and placed in solitary confinement. During this detention, plaintiffs contend that they were interrogated repeatedly by military personnel who refused to identify themselves and used physically and mentally coercive tactics during questioning. All requests for an attorney allegedly were denied.

Despicable behavior, rule of law, my ass. Just because some official asserts a suspect is an enemy combatant, does not make it so, and even enemy combatants still deserve consideration under the Geneva Convention and so forth.

Judge Anderson concludes:

In ruling that the lawsuit can go forward, Judge Andersen said the decision “represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting.”

[via GapersBlock]

A few top-of-mind thoughts re: the 2010 Oscars

• What the frak was Sean Penn babbling about? Said something like, “I’m not a member of the Academy, and don’t agree on the best actress nominations.” So vague as to be incomprehensible, why bother? And if he is not a member of the Academy, why was he chosen to present one of the most prestigious awards? (Best Actress)
• Cringeworthy interpretative dance number involving jazz hands and break dancing to Oscar scores, especially the Hurt Locker theme. 95% of the Best Score nominations are instantly forgettable anyway, but why not show film clips for context instead of Up With People, or whatever that was?
• Elinor Burkett interrupting Roger Ross Williams after he won Best Documentary Short for Music by Prudence, there’s a lawsuit between the two, why was she allowed to speak and not the actual winner?
• Horror film montage was a waste of time. What exactly qualified a film as being a horror film? Marathon Man was included, for instance, by what measure is that film in the horror genre? Such a random montage without meaning or depth.
• Sycophantic introduction of Best Actor and Best Actress by some other Hollywood luminary. A few were heartfelt, but most triggered rolled eyes in my viewing audience.
• Did Kathryn Bigelow win Best Director because she was a woman? or because she was the best director? Seriously, why was her gender hyped so much? Am glad that Avatar didn’t win¹ but did The Hurt Locker win on merit or on quota?
• Why a closeup of some random African American each time Precious won an award? Morgan Freeman and Samuel Jackson had absolutely nothing to do with Precious, why look for their expression?
• Sandra Bollock’s The Blind Side, which I have not seen, appears to be a little racially skeezy, plus is about football. I doubt I’ll ever sit through it, should I? Her acceptance speech was ok though.
• Jeff Bridges, on the other hand, should have thought a bit about his speech because it was a mess. I’m happy he finally won an Oscar, and Crazy Heart looks interesting, so it goes. I mean, groovy, man.

Whatever, I watch the damn things every year, despite how frequently lame both the winners and the ceremony are.

-update
youTubery of Sean Penn announcing something or other:

A few other points from various other, more astute critics:

Hamish Hamilton making the wrong choice at virtually every turn.

He gave us long shots when we needed something more intimate (for instance, when all the John Hughes movie alums first came on stage at the end of the Hughes tribute), random and confused edits, terrible choices on who to cut to in the audience (anytime “Precious” won, we of course had to see every notable African-American person in attendance, and after spending half the show cutting randomly to a surly George Clooney, nobody could bother when Sandra Bullock told a joke at his expense in her acceptance speech), etc., etc. After everyone screamed bloody murder about the framing of last year’s In Memoriam segment, which focused more on Queen Latifah than the images of the movie people who died, what excuse was there to make the exact same mistake for the first few entries in this year’s montage? (Unless you were squinting, you may not have even realized Patrick Swayze led things off.) And after giving us shot after shot after shot of former spouses/collaborators Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron every time one of “The Hurt Locker” or “Avatar” won, how in the world did Hamilton fail to show us their interaction when Bigelow beat Cameron for Best Director?

[Click to continue reading What's Alan Watching?: Oscars 2010: Can't anybody here make a good TV show?]

Salon explains the on-stage feud re Music by Prudence, and interviews both sides:

[Elinor Burkett] claims she found the movie’s story, that she brought it to you.

[Roger Ross] WILLIAMS: No, not at all. The truth is that she saw the band perform [in Zimbabwe], and told me about that, and then I opened up a dialogue with the [King George VI School & Centre for Children with Physical Disabilities] school and went on my own – which you would’ve heard about in my speech — and spent $6,000 going to Africa shooting myself. And when people expressed interest in the film, I asked her to come on board. And then I regretted that decision. Then she sued.

[Click to continue reading The story behind Oscar's "Kanye moment" - Oscar Nominations, Academy Awards 2010 - Salon.com]

1. even though I’ll probably eventually see it. Though maybe not, I’ve still never seen Titanic, Cameron’s other blockbuster smash [↩]

Edit ∆ (delta) IL Connect Four, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

or whatever that says (Oil? Delta IL?). Pretty cryptic.

Kinzie Street and the stairway leading up to Orleans St.

Embiggen

from last spring

Agribusinesses have all sorts of negative effects on our society (pollution, poor health, corruption); add superbugs to the list.

If ESBL E. coli is frightening, there are even more potent superbugs emerging, like Acinetobacter.

“We are seeing infections caused by Acinetobacter and special bacteria called KPC Klebsiella that are literally resistant to every antibiotic that is F.D.A. approved,” Dr. Spellberg said. “These are untreatable infections. This is the first time since 1936, the year that sulfa hit the market in the U.S., that we have had this problem.”

The Infectious Diseases Society of America, an organization of doctors and scientists, has been bellowing alarms. It fears that we could slip back to a world in which we’re defenseless against bacterial diseases.

There’s broad agreement that doctors themselves overprescribe antibiotics — but also that a big part of the problem is factory farms. They feed low doses of antibiotics to hogs, cattle and poultry to make them grow faster.

A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that in the United States, 70 percent of antibiotics are used to feed healthy livestock, with 14 percent more used to treat sick livestock. Only about 16 percent are used to treat humans and their pets, the study found.

More antibiotics are fed to livestock in North Carolina alone than are given to humans in the entire United States, according to the peer-reviewed Medical Clinics of North America. It concluded that antibiotics in livestock feed were “a major component” in the rise of antibiotic resistance.

Legislation introduced by Louise Slaughter, a New Yorker who is the only microbiologist in the House of Representatives, would curb the routine use of antibiotics in farming. The bill has 104 co-sponsors, but agribusiness interests have blocked it in committee — and the Obama administration and the Senate have dodged the issue.

[Click to continue reading Op-Ed Columnist - The Spread of Superbugs - NYTimes.com]

FDA and Washington diddle why people die, sounds like business as usual.

Not sure what happened exactly, but my Postalicious plugin went a bit nutso last night, creating several posts that were erroneous. The plugin is a simple way to keep track of interesting URLs that I don’t have the time to make a full blog post about, when it works correctly.

The way the plugin is supposed to work is that it polls my delicious links ever hour, finds if there are any additions, merges these snippets into a page, and publishes the page once three entries are found. There is supposed to be a time regulator as well so that a Links post is only published ever 26 hours (so there aren’t multiple Links posts a day), but that didn’t keep several posts from being published last night, posts with empty URLs at that.

500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error

I’ve disabled the plugin until I can figure out what went wrong (or there’s a new version, whichever comes first). It could be a problem at Delicious.com, or it could be because of the new version of the Postalicious plugin I installed yesterday, or some other factor.

Sorry about that.

“One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko” (Mike Royko)

Factoid I did not know, Mike Royko, one of the famed Billy Goat denizens, coined the long-lasting epithet for Jerry Brown.

For the uninitiated, ‘Governor Moonbeam’ became Mr. Brown’s intractable sobriquet, dating back to his days as governor between 1975 and 1983, when his state led the nation in pretty much everything — its economy, environmental awareness and, yes, class-A eccentrics.

The nickname was coined by Mike Royko, the famed Chicago columnist, who in 1976 said that Mr. Brown appeared to be attracting “the moonbeam vote,” which in Chicago political parlance meant young, idealistic and nontraditional.

The term had a nice California feel, and Mr. Royko eventually began applying it when he wrote about the Golden State’s young, idealistic and nontraditional chief executive. He found endless amusement — and sometimes outright agita — in California’s oddities, calling the state “the world’s largest outdoor mental asylum.”

“If it babbles and its eyeballs are glazed,” he noted in April 1979, “it probably comes from California.”

[Click to continue reading How Jerry Brown Became ‘Governor Moonbeam’ - NYTimes.com]

Of course, Mike Royko eventually came to be a Moonbeam supporter, and hated that the nickname stuck:

All of which made Mr. Royko’s epiphany even more striking. It came in 1980, at the Democratic National Convention, where Mr. Royko said that the best speech had come from — you guessed it — Governor Moonbeam.

“I have to admit I gave him that unhappy label,” Mr. Royko wrote. “Because the more I see of Brown, the more I am convinced that he has been the only Democrat in this year’s politics who understands what this country will be up against.”

A few interesting links collected March 2nd through March 6th:

• Rispondere al telefono in bicicletta costa caro, la multa di Milano – Foto | Polizia a Chicago, swanksalot by Flickr

• 

• Ted Williams on Jim Bunning | Richard Adams | World news | guardian.co.uk – Ted Williams, when he was still playing, would psyche himself up for a game during batting practice, usually early practice before the fans or reporters got there…hen he’d say, “Here comes Jim Bunning. Jim fucking Bunning and that little shit slider of his.” Wham!
• “He doesn’t really think he’s gonna get me out with that shit.” Blam!