Telekinesis

This band, Telekinesis (kind of amused nobody has ever named their band that by this time), is really mining the Cure's sound in this song "Please Ask for Help." Kinda funny to hear that signature sound adopted in someone else's tune, but it makes sense -- for the kids today, the Cure qualify as "classic rock." The video is mildly amusing -- packed to the gills with hipsters, and there's even a Limoncello cameo around 1:01, one of the partygoers dancing.

Later

I'm up late. Was watching some movies on DVD. I'm semi-sleepy, now, and, unfortunately, a little hungry. It's been mild enough that I've been able to keep the windows open during the night, which is nice. Not sure how long it'll last, though.

Shuttle Diplomacy

I'm getting B2 enrolled in kindergarten this week. Not that it takes a week to do so, but one kinda needs to, to ensure all the bureaucratic stuff is sorted out. My younger boy, kindergarten-bound. He's ready for it.

B1 was so miffed that Chicago didn't get one of the retired shuttles. He was particularly irked that New York got Enterprise. Never mind that it never flew in space, he wanted it! We'd already talked about the shuttles, and I figured Endeavour would go to LA, and was sure the Smithsonian would take Discovery. The other two were open questions -- I thought Houston might get one, or Canaveral. Turns out Canaveral got Atlantis, and New York got Enterprise.

So, three on the East Coast, one on the West. The rest of us flyover folks can stuff it, I guess. Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton would've been a great location for Enterprise. Chicago or Houston would've been nice, too.

Why does New York rate a shuttle, tell me? With all there is to see in New York, it hardly seems like a shuttle would be that much of a draw. Way to blow off the Midwest, NASA (or whoever made the final decision on allocating the shuttles).

B1 was grumbling about it all day. He said "New York is spoiled. They get everything they want."

I would have allocated a shuttle to each region of the nation -- Discovery for Smithsonian, Endeavour for LA, Atlantis for Houston (or Canaveral), Enterprise for Chicago (or, failing that, Dayton). It's why it's called NASA, not ECASA (East Coast Aeronautics and Space Administration).

Butter Maid

I was pleased to see Butter Maid Bakery redid their web page. That's a bakery from my hometown. They're really good. Give'em some business, if you're so inclined. They're really good. Their kolachi is fab, and their cookies are amazing. They're really a local treasure, so I'm always talking them up.

Balloon Man

Beautiful light today, and the day got milder, which was nice. A couple of amusing things happened on the way back home with the boys -- one had a tall, attractive, well-dressed woman clacking behind us in knee boots, brandishing some balloons (one was a red, white, and blue braid, the other was a pink and purple hat), and she caught up with the boys and me and said "Can I interest you guys in some balloons?" and, of course, for a moment, my city radar is in place, and I'm thinking "What's the catch?" but there was none apparent, so I said "Sure." and she gave us the balloons, and I thanked her, and then she strutted off on her merry way. The boys loved getting some free balloons out of the blue like that.

Then, a few minutes later, I stopped by a store to get some orange juice for the boys, and one of the mothers from B1's school came in with her own boys and said "You know, I see you every day, walking with your boys, wearing that scarf of yours, and you always get it to hang perfectly, and I ask myself 'How can this guy get that scarf to hang like that?' It's always just perfect." and I said "What can I say? It's a gift." and said my farewells a moment later. I hadn't seen that mom before, although I recognized her kids. What CAN I say? Scarves are a necessity in the city, during the cold months.

Chilly, of course

As predicted, it got cold again over here; or cooler, anyway. Gusty winds, too.

I know I've mentioned the "No problem" response a lot of the younglings offer as an answer to a "Thank You." Well, this morning I got a new one from a young woman who held the door for me while I trucked the boys through it. I said "Thank you" and she said "Of course!" That's a new one for me! Obviously, it was because I was seemingly encumbered getting the boys through, so she held the door to help me out, but it was still a curious response.

Summmmmmmery

Beautiful weather today -- a taste of summer (although it's just a tease. Often it gets very warm like this in Chicago [it's 82 degrees] only for it to get cold again for much of May). But it's all sunny, hot, and windy today. I took the boys out biking today, the first ride of the season. They loved it, and it was fun seeing everybody else out and about, enjoying themselves. I found $20 today, too! Gotta love that!

Coin of the Realm

Nutter Butters operate much like Scooby Snacks in my household, delivered at timely moments, when necessary. The boys both LOVE Nutter Butters...

Clementine, cont'd...

Clementine sapling is doing fine...

Testing, Testing...

This is amusingly weird, like something the Parallax Corporation would design, but is probably a digital art project of somebody's...

http://www.hypnoid.com/psytest2.html

Here's my result...

Always happy in a crowd, you love to converse, to relate, and above all to have fun. You tend to think in a more holistic manner than many others. Like a crow you are attracted to shiny objects, new ideas, playful exciting colors and the thrill of a new personal relationship. You love to talk or gossip. You are highly invested in the reality of day-to-day life. Practicality is far more important than issues of honor or allegiance. You are a creature of the here and now. You are a natural multi-tasker, often switching mid-thought from one duty to another. You have a flair for presenting your personality in your work, and are known as a great storyteller and natural actor. You are very skilled at taking in a barrage of information and distilling what is most important from it. Naturally charming, you are quick to win new friends. Over stimulation is a danger.

Spacing Out

This is pretty great...

The Sleeper Must Awaken

My brain is hard-wired to wake me up around 4:30. It kinda drives me bananas. I've never been one to sleep in (for me, "sleeping in" is perhaps sleeping in until about 8:00 -- although that's not happened since the 90s), have always been an earlybird, but still, it kinda bugs me -- I could be up really late, and my brain'll still have me up around 4:30. The ole' circadian rhythms are locked in with that. I've long since made use of that tendency by making that early morning time my prime writing time, so I've been productive in that time. I've always been like that, even as a kid -- I'd sneak downstairs and read or watch whatever was on television that early. One show I remembered was a trippy one called "Dr. Snuggles..."



I could never understand why this show was only on in the very early morning hours. My kid logic was confounded -- it was a cartoon, kids liked cartoons, it should be on during normal cartoon times. But it was only on in the early morning hours, so I'd usually watch it, while the rest of the house slept, while the whole neighborhood slept. I haven't thought about that in over 20 years, but I still remembered that theme song for it, and the style of animation.

Cutting Remarks

I'm peeved at the whole $5.8 trillion in budget cuts proposal of Paul Ryan's making (or whoever actually came up with it, likely crafted in some reactionary think tanks). While the balls of actually invoking such draconian cuts is laudable, the targets they're choosing are irritating, to put it politely. Privatizing Medicare and Medicaid while barely touching the defense budget ($78 billion skimmed from it over a 10-year period? That's ludicrous) while at the same time throwing more tax cut bones to the already-gorged rich and hyperrich? WTF? Crotch-kick the poor, the young, and the elderly for the sake of the top 1%? The truth is that an honest budgetary discussion must take place nationally, but that's the key thing: it must be an honest discussion. The defense budget has to come down, because it's massive, and the Right views it as sacrosanct. So many of the worst excesses of their "Big Government" bugaboo are buried deep within the defense budget, but it's a powerful and well-entrenched lobby, and so they go after Medicare and Medicaid, instead, because that's just poor, old, sick, and weak folks.

They say you can judge the health of a society not by how it treats its strongest citizens, but how it treats its weakest. The Ryan budget proposal is very revealing as to what the priorities of the Right are in this.

The frustrating thing is that the Democrats will likely cobble together a wussified "alternative" to the Ryan budget proposal that'll also overlook the gorilla in the room that is the Pentagon. The simple truth of it is that our defense budget is a runaway thing, operating far and away beyond anything that can possibly be construed as "national defense." Unless we're simply waving the white flag and are accommodating ourselves to a state of permanent military mobilization, keen to spend our way right over the cliff for War, Inc. We are not immune from history -- empires invariably end up doing exactly this: the homeland becomes destitute because the money is flowing outward, to the military.

There's a reason why coups occur in regimes where civil society boils away before the concentration of wealth and power -- it's because the only institution left standing by that time is the military. It becomes the only thing left, so why not take power? That's why standing armies are invariably inimical to liberty.

This reality is completely lost on the GOP, and the Democrats lack the stones to make a stand on this issue. A true budgetary compromise should take about half of our military budget (then we'll only be outspending the rest of the world combined by 8 times, instead of 16 times) and half of the entitlements spending, and reform the tax code to some kind of progressive standard.

The alternative is just a highly militarized, domestically impoverished, elite-controlled plutocracy, staggering around, with an increasingly unhealthy, ignorant, and destitute populace. Not a situation terribly conducive to democratic functioning, or economic well-being. Turning the US into a banana republic is simply not a step forward, and the Ryan proposal paves that way.

Whether the Democrats have the balls to actually offer an alternative to it is another matter. I'm not holding my breath.

Further reading...

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/86301/ryan-cbo-severe-medicare-medicaid-cuts

And a bit more that gets to the heart of what I'm grousing about, which is the mendaciously regressive tax cuts that are, at heart, the only thing near and dear to the GOP's hard heart...

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/86270/the-achilles-heel-the-path-prosperity