The soundtrack of my life

I am a Kate Bush fanatic. Her Hounds of Love album was literally the soundtrack of my life back in the fall of 1986 while living in Manhattan, falling in love with my soon2bx wife. I have all of her records, some of her bootlegs, and some of her demos from when she was a kid. She was "discovered" by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, who helped her start her career and assisted in getting her first record deal. She was an early pioneer of synthesizer use, back when it was new, creative, interesting, and dynamic. She experimented with the Fairlight, an early sophisticated digital sampler that created unique textures and backdrops for her amazing voice. Her range is unparalleled by other female singers, such as in her song Wuthering Heights, as is her willingness to express her voice both beautifully and ugly, such as in The Dreaming. One of her most exquisitely beautiful songs, This Woman's Work, on which she plays piano to an orchestra written and conducted by the late Michael Kamen, was featured in the movie She's Having a Baby with Kevin Bacon. Her last two commercial records, The Sensual World (late 80s) and The Red Shoes (early 90s), were inconsistent, but easy to listen to. They have their high points and low points, but all in all I still put them on now and then. As my marriage lingers into its final days, it appears it will end much as it began, listening to Kate Bush. She just released a new double CD, Aerial. My soon2bx wife bought it, and it is now on my iPod (which my wife gave me last Christmas -- I gave her an iPod the Christmas before). Bush's utterly beautiful and interesting voice is the same. There are new textures and rhythms on the album, and there is an abundance of experimentation. It's certainly not the same old, same old kind of record. Unfortunately, like my marriage, I'm not sure Bush's most recent effort will stand the test of time. Though I've only listened to it a few times, I'm left with the lingering feeling that she may have lost her touch. She's still beautiful to listen to, and she's still trying new things, but there is an element of age, fatigue and repetition that seems to percolate to the surface. The newness, the freshness, the sparkle seems to be gone.

My 20th High School Reunion

Do you know that song by Bowling for Soup? The song called 1985? The one that goes like this: Bruce Springsteen, Madonna way before Nirvana there was U2 and Blondie and music still on MTV her two kids in high school they tell her that she'’s uncool cuz she's still preoccupied with 1985 Well, I graduated high school in 1985. And last night, I went to my 20th high school reunion. It was quite the experience. It was actually quite an amazing experience. Of 440 graduates, well over 300 attended. Our class president rented a rather large restaurant, and we filled it up. I attended Grosse Pointe South High School. When I was there, it was a bastion of preppy attire, privilege and conservatism. I, of course, would endlessly delight in spiting those around me by wearing electric blue parachute pants. Or, perhaps red and black striped pants with a red and black checked sleeveless shirt and black and white checked Vans sneakers. I smoked cigarettes. I played guitar in a band. I was a non-conformist. Or, if you prefer, a rebel. I have not stayed in touch with anyone from high school. I'm not exaggerating. I don't mean I've stayed in touch with a few people. I've stayed in touch with nobody from high school. In fact, the only people I've actually seen who attended my high school in the last 20 years I pretty much bumped into serendipitously. Or, of course, was my sister. Which makes a total of 4 I can think of. Now, I had been told by many people to expect to see a lot of fat people, a lot of bald people, and basically a lot of old looking people. This advice turned out to be bad. Very bad. I saw exactly the opposite. Nobody was fat (well not excessively so). Nobody looked all that old. There were a lot of bald and balding men, but it wasn't a big deal ('specially since I'm one of them -- the big comment I kept getting over and over was what happened to my hair). They looked fine. The exquisitely beautiful girls I grew up with turned into exquisitely beautiful women. The athletic boys I played football with grew up into athletic, physically fit men. Some looked exactly as they had way back when. Others I wouldn't have known without their name tags. The brainiacs turned out to be smart, and many obtained advanced degrees. The not-so-brainiacs turned out to share the same degree of success that everyone else did. People traveled from California, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Canada, Chicago and more. Our high school football quarterback had a career in advertising. My good buddy from physics class was a Family Practice physician. There were people in the auto industry. There were stay-at-home-moms. There were attorneys. There was someone from Warren Buffet's investing group. I saw girls that I "dated" more than 20 years ago, if you can call it that. I spoke with girls who I didn't even recall dating, but who reminded me that we dated back in high school. I saw guys who I played the Battle of the Bands with back in '84. I saw an old friend in whose garage we stayed up all night building a device that would reliably and accurately shoot a projectile a certain distance for the Science Olympiad back in '85. I saw the brother of a girl in whose bathroom I once blew chunks in a drunken stupor, eliciting a long lecture from his mom. Almost every single person had children. I spoke with an old friend whose oldest son is a junior in high school. Boy did she get started early! Most had younger children. At least one couple had 8 kids since high school. Another lost her son to cancer when he was five. High school sweethearts married one another. Others married people from high school they had never even spoken with while they were there. The so-called "Memory Board" had several of our class that didn't make it this far in life. Frankly, it was chilling to see who was on it. It brought back a lot of memories, many of which I hadn't had in 20 years. Many, many of the group did exactly what I did after high school -- left town, moved on with their lives and never looked back. Others remained in Grosse Pointe, bought homes, and are raising their families there, some going to exactly the same schools that they went to. I was impressed by how nice a group of people they had become. These were people who were generally happy, and obviously so. My high school class was by and large successful, gregarious, family-oriented, and fun to hang out with. I truly enjoyed myself. Frankly, I can't wait until the next one. Who would've known? To finish with more from 1985, the song, "When did Motley Crue become classic rock? And when did Ozzy become an actor? Please make it stop . . ." :)

Thanksgiving Day

Most of you know how difficult this year has been for me. For those of you who don't know, you can take may word for it -- it's been a difficult year. That said, there is so very much that I have to be thankful for. I'm thankful for my wonderful daughters, who are the most beautiful, smart, fun and intelligent girls in the entire universe. They are very silly, too :) I'm grateful for my parents, my sister Christie (despite the secrets she reveals in comments here), and my cousin Teri, all of whom have been incredibly helpful and supportive. I'm grateful for my friends, wherever you may be, for having been so supportive this year and really helping me get through everything. Thank you (in no particular order) Amy and Bob, mean_girl, Ann, Kate, Nik, Eric and Julie, Meredith, Paula and Dave, Sam and Julie, Dave and Tiffany, Michael, Cindy, Denise, Gerry, Don, Andy, Floyd and Flora, Tom, Mary and John, Heather and Jordan in Anchorage, Bill, Karen, Lynnae and Matthew in Denver, Diane in D.C., everyone who has ever shown up for a DEAD (Dads Eating and Drinking) club meeting, Chris, and Nancy, all for being willing to pick my sorry ass up off the ground, dust me off, and make sure I could figure out which way I was headed. Thank you to all the bloggers who have enriched my online and actual existence in ways I never realized were possible. I don't know what I would have done without you Keb, Lu, Jim, Brian, Blond Girl, Deputys Wife, Emily, Free, YJ, E (come back to us, already), Courtney, Netchick, Peri, WarEagle, Wickwire, and of cource, the Macek Collective (whoever he is). Thanks to my soon-to-be-ex-wife for the first 18 years of our relationship, which I wouldn't give up for anything. Happy Thanksgiving everybody ! If I forgot anyone, or if you're link is wrong or broken, pls email me or comment so I can fix it!

I'm behind in blogging, mainly b/c I spent the entire day in my car

I had to take depositions in Traverse City today. If the state was a hand, I live in the lower right hand corner, on the pad of the palm right under the thumb. Traverse City is in the upper left hand corner, where the nail of the pinky would be. Follow the purple line. It's a four hour drive, one way. Didn't have time to blog. I spent more time driving than I did in the depositions. Sheesh !

Yea, I know I'm beatin' another dead dog, but . . .

I came across this Op-Ed piece on the Intelligent Design controversy, and thought it might be a good last word before abandoning the subject to the internet archives of past and antiquated fads. Charles Krauthammer (gotta love that name) snarkily begins his piece, Phony Theory, False Conflict, with: Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous: that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious. He goes on to make some excellent points, such as the following: Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together? Thank you, Mr. Krauthammer, for articulating something that should have been kind of obvious to me, particularly since I've spent far too much time reading and posting on this subject in the last couple of months. Now, fellow bloggers, you have my permission to officially refer to me as slow. As in, not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Or the brightest light on the Christmas tree. Or the, well, you get the picture, I'm sure . . .

Help me out here: I have a quick question for you about fascism

According to the Wikipedia, fascism is: . . . typified by attempts to impose state control over important aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic. The fascist state regulates and controls (as opposed to nationalizes) the means of production. Capitalism is diminshed, but not eliminated. There are elements of both left and right ideology in the development of Fascism, but it generally attracts political support from far-right, populist and reactionary agents. When people like Tom Delay and George Bush talk about creating a "permanent Republican majority" are they really advocating fascism? When the Texas Republican party gerrymandered, ahem, I mean, redrafted all of its districts to decrease Democratic representation in Congress and increase Republican representation in Congress, wasn't that fascism? Wasn't it having the government decide who it would represent to further its control instead of permitting its citizens to decide who would represent them? Help me out here. I don't want to incite a panic or anything, but it seems to me our nation is coming dangerously close to stepping over a line we haven't really seen since McCarthy.

More evidence that the "tort reform" movement is a scam

Ken Connor, a high powered conservative who represented Jeb Bush in the Schiavo case and who is a former president of the conservative and Christian Family Research Council, posted an article on his current think-tank's web site exposing "tort reform" for the scam that it is. According to Connor: The truth is that there is a medical malpractice crisis facing our nation. It has its origins in the operating room, not the courtroom. He believes we should be attacking the problem, not the patient, and exposes the true motive behind the "tort reform" movement: big money. He also exposes the culprits: insurance companies. All told, the top 15 medical malpractice insurance carriers raised their rates a startling 120% between 2000-2004, even though their payouts increased less than 6%. Some companies continued to raise the rates doctors pay even though their payout expenses were declining. Healthcare Indemnity, Inc., for example, charged doctors an extra $173 million even though the company’s payouts had decreased by more than $70 million during the same timeframe. Of course, you’d never know those facts listening to the spin coming out of the insurance industry. The industry’s clear strategy is to blame injured patients and their attorneys in order to deflect attention from their avarice. I, for one, could not possibly agree more! It is rare for conservatives to weigh in on "tort reform," even when they disagree with it. Though I disagree with much of what Connor is into, I do welcome this breath of fresh air as well as his candor.

This Too Will Pass

Like the river flows Like the east wind blows You're gonna find your situation change for the better Like the melting snow Let your trouble go You and I will get through this together Some days seem to drag on forever You need all your strength just to keep your head together Soon you'll see things are gonna get better at last This too will pass Like a sprouting seed You'll grow through this need And the things that bring you grief shall be forgotten Like an hourglass This too will pass And what's hard as rock will soon be soft as cotton Some days seem to drag on forever You need all your strength just to keep your head together Soon you'll see things are gonna get better at last This too will pass You feel like you've been chosen to be frozen in time Your body is exhausted you feel like you lost your mind These eyes may see That your nearly free If you can hang on a little bit longer I swear you'll see it too Well, a prophet I ain't No mystical saint But I promise you my angel I will see it through Some days seem to drag on forever You need all your strength just to keep your head together Soon you'll see that things are gonna get better at last This too must pass This too will pass -Peter Himmelman (from Strength to Strength) You can listen to a live version of the song here. Posted for my friend who is going through a rough time, to whom I say, this too shall pass.

My father is quite the photographer

When I was a kid, my dad had a darkroom. You know, the amber light, multiple sinks, stinky chemicals, enlarger, the whole shebang. And he made absolutely wonderful photographs, both color and B&W. In fact, I have some hanging up in my office, right now. Of course, as with many families, I have plenty of stories of losing my composure as an impatient young man, having to sit through family photograph after family photograph, particularly on holidays. It's funny how much work and patience can go into making a staged photograph look spontaneous, isn't it? Well, my dad has switched over to the digital realm and now does the developing and enlarging on his computer. He is quite talented. He emailed me some smaller versions of pics of my daughters, and I thought I should share them. Here's Hannah: And here's Esme: Needless to say, they didn't get their good looks (or their hair) from me. They are the absolute cutest little girls in the entire universe, so far as I'm concerned. :)

My only remaining question about Bush and his legacy: Huh?

I don't know quite what to make of Dubya's latest rant. His polls are at their lowest ever, more than half the country (Repubs, Democrats, and everyone else) doubt his honesty, more than half the country questions his ethics, he couldn't make his second SCOTUS nominee fly, he can't get anything substantial done in Congress, the deficit is higher than it's ever been in history, he was ridiculed at the most recent free trade conference, Iran and Korea are in the process of making nuclear weapons, and his VP's chief aide was just indicted for perjury. I could go on and on, but I won't. So, on Veteran's Day, instead of actually honoring veterans (many of whom gave their lives and limbs for the benefit of this country), he blamed Democrats for "rewriting history." I'm left with only one response. Huh? Once I finished yawning at our leader's latest feeble attempt at leading our country by simply blaming others for that which he is responsible, I began to wonder whether if we as a country can actually go any lower than we have. I live in Michigan. We are in either 50th place or the low 40s of all the states in the nation in just about every economic indicator. And Delphi, a major employer in these parts, just filed bankruptcy and wants to trim wages by 2/3. Our cities are running out of money and wondering if they can provide fire protection, police protection and basic services like garbage pickup. Our schools are doing everything they possibly can to make due with the paltry sum we get from the state. Seventy percent (70%) of our school funding is through income tax and sales tax, both of which are notoriously unstable means of generating revenue and extremely vulnerable to downturns in the economy. Both chambers of our statehouse are controlled by a wide margin by Republicans, and our judiciary is controlled by Republicans. Only our state House and Senate can vote for a budget, so they have complete control of the purse strings. Yet these nutcases continue to blame the only Democrat in power in the entire state for our woes, our Governor, who is so fiscally conservative and moderate that she practically isn't even a Democrat. When is the Republican party and the Republican majority going to take responsibility for the state of our nation? They've been in control since the mid 90s, and once the tech bubble burst, it's been downhill since then with no end in sight. We're spending money at such a rapid pace, the Treasury practically can't print it fast enough. One of the leaders on the new panel rewriting the tax code, when asked in the NYT where the money was going to come from once the rewrite is done said, "We'll probably have to borrow it.' Is anybody paying any attention at all? Can it get any worse?

How to not get re-elected to a school board

Advocate the teaching of religion in science class. The current Dover, PA school board majority was shown the door during last Tuesday's election. If you recall (how 'bout that pun?), the board has been engaged in litigation over its fervor for teaching "Intelligent Design" in science classes. This, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of pretty much everybody feels that "Intelligent Design" has no place in a science classroom or biology curriculum. One voter put it best, when he said: "They underestimated the intelligence of voters." I linked to the story in a Kansas paper, because the Kansas State School Board wants "Intelligent Design" taught in its state next. Political suicide, if you ask me. And a major embarrassment for the otherwise great state of Kansas. You can read about it here (reg req'd - free).

For anyone who has ever regretted an impulsive clothing purchase . . .

Read this entry on eBay. Don't miss the questions at the bottom.

Without a trace . . .

I recently tried to visit a blog that I've been lurking at for several months. 'Twas a very good blog. It is now completely gone. Deleted. Nowhere to be found. I emailed the blogger with a "hey, are you gone forever?" question. No reply at all. No bounceback on the email, so it was apparently received, perhaps not read, hard to say. I feel pretty darn weird about it, partly b/c I left my first comment on the blog a couple days before it disappeared. It was a brief, benign comment so, don't get me wrong - it's fairly obvious that I didn't have anything to do with the disappearance, but the whole situation makes me uncomfortable. Anyone ever have this happen to them? Any advice? P.S. I'm leaving the blog out of my post, b/c it seems the blogger doesn't want to be found at this point, and I'm not going to make things more difficult.

Too much excitement for one day

After tuckering myself out bowling with the kids yesterday, I was looking forward to getting some work around the house and yard done today. 'Twas not to be. It was a very, very windy morning. Esme asked me if we could go fly a kite. I said that might be fun, but we shouldn't if we wanted to keep the kite. That's how windy it was. As my girls and I were eating breakfast (Sunday is waffle day at my house), we heard a big loud crash. A sizable branch from my dead ash tree (compliments of the non-native invasive species known as the Emerald Ash Borer) fell on my roof, punching a small hole, and precariously balancing itself there. I can't wait to find out what my deductible is. It's probably two or three dollars more than this will cost. Never one to leave my neighbor Strenski out of an opportunity to procrastinate even more, I called him to come over and help me get it off the roof. Only, while I was on the phone explaining the situation to him, while I was actually looking out the window at the tree, fully 1/3 of it broke off and came crashing down. Scared the living crap out me, if I may say so. I think I got less of an adrenaline rush last time I jumped out of an airplane. He rushed over. That branch on the roof in the pic above -- it's the small one that fell first. The part of the tree that hit the roof and fell to the ground was about three times that size. While inspecting things, the neighbor's power lines began to arc in a dazzling display of bright white light and loud firecracker-like pops and whizzes. Then, of course, the fire engines arrived. While the fire department was ensuring nothing was burning and nobody was subject to electrocution, we cut the tree into pieces, scaled the roof, and got the branch down without significant injury to persons or property. I did ruin a pair of shoes, if the truth be told. Now its raining. I don't think I'll ever get my house prepared for winter. Well, at least I get to go to Audioslave tonight.

I tried to get a lot of work done today . . .

It was really warm this afternoon. Today I had storm windows to put up, leaves to rake, some caulking to do, a window air-conditioner to take out and put in the basement, and a little painting to finish. Never one to avoid an opportunity to procrastinate, I took the kids bowling instead. Strenski, my neighbor who works for Cray Supercomputers, talked me into walking to the Ypsilanti Transit Center, hopping on a bus, and taking it to Ypsi Arbor Bowl. Utterly unable to pass up a challenge, I got my bowling ball and shoes, put them in a bag, assembled the children, and took him up on his offer. Once there, the kids had a blast. We bowled with the bumpers up, which has a tendency to even the playing field. I, of course, tied Strenski (being the pro-bowler that I am -- NOT), but I hasten to add that Irene, who is 8 mind you, was only 3 pins behind us. I've never been known for my talent at bowling, and I'm not likely to break any records in the foreseeable future. After the bowling, we walked over to a new Asian Market that has all sorts of live seafood and Chinese and Japanese foods and products. We gawked at the eels swimming with the frogs, the crabs climbing all over each other and the mammoth carp that weighed more than my youngest. We bought pretzels wrapped in seaweed, wasabi green peas and stuff like that. Then it was over to Subway for sandwiches that my girls love to eat a bite or two of and then be done. After an excruciatingly long wait for the return bus (think children literally climbing a fence), we shortcutted through Riverside Park and played by the river before coming home. 'Twas a fantastic day! Tomorrow night: Audioslave at the Fox Theater, a relatively small venue for a concert . . . :)

Water Street Project

My friend, neighbor, and camping buddy, Bob Doyle, has expressed a degree of dissatisfaction with the City of Ypsilanti's Water Street Project. He sent a long letter to the Mayor and City Council earlier this week. Regardless of whether your are for or against the project or think it has been handled well or poorly, the letter is quite articulate and raises a number of issues that probably bear a detailed look and response. You can read the letter here. Since I don't think it is appropriate for me to publicly express my opinion on City issues while sitting on the BOE, I'm not going to do so on my blog. I will continue to provide information from others, though, good or bad, pro or con, or even neutral if people are willing to continue to forward stuff to me.

You get who you vote for

A clear majority of those who showed up to vote in our last presidential election voted for Dubya. Democracy means that we as a country get exactly who we as a country want by voting for that person. We did so despite the fact that he started a war based on a pretext. We did so despite the fact that the economy was tanking. We did so despite the fact that unlike any politician in modern times, when Dubya opens his mouth to speak, it's obvious to everyone that he has no clue where that sentence is going to end. Sometimes his sentences end well, other times they don't, and sometimes they just don't even end or make sense. We voted for him anyway. I'm perfectly comfortable with that. That's democracy in action. Well, folks, we got who we voted for. I'm surprised about all this talk about outlawing abortion. What surprises me is that people are surprised. It is a foregone conclusion that a woman's constitutional right to an abortion is about to be curtailed. That's what Dubya said he'd do, and that's what he's doing. That's what the country voted to do when they handed Dubya the reigns. Pussy footing around about it now is little more than sour grapes. People can't vote for him and then turn around and say they didn't want him to do that. I keep hearing from judges and Senators and other sources about how soon-to-be-Justice Alito is intellectually honest and will honor precedent. Poppycock! There is no way he would have been appointed if he hadn't passed the Republican litmus test on all the key issues. No doubt someone other than Dubya asked him, probably a lawyer, just so Dubya can say he never discussed it with Alito, and nobody can ever reveal what was said, because now it's privileged. It's called plausible denial, and the concept has been around for decades. It's a very effective political technique that has saved the powerful time and time again. Does anyone really think that Dubya would put anyone on SCOTUS that would disagree with him on this issue? Dubya made the culture of life a central plank of his platform. He's not going to walk away from it now. To think anything other than that -- and I'm sorry if you find this insulting -- but it's just plain naive. Wishful thinking. Unmitigated optimism. Completely unrealistic. Judicial conservatism has become a code word for saying one thing yet doing another. SCOTUS can legislate from the bench. It has, and it will. Conservatives love to say they won't and don't do that, and then, just like with Michigan's Supreme Court (which is packed with "conservatives"), turn around in the next breath and do it. Entire law review articles have been devoted to the precedents that our judicially conservative Michigan Supreme Court has discarded as if they were no more important than wads of belly button lint. Conservatives are not embarrassed by these actions, and they are not at all uncomfortable doing these things. They are in charge and lovin' every minute of it. They've been waiting decades for this moment in history to arrive. And now it's here. SCOTUS is far more important than Congress or the President. If SCOTUS says you can do something, you can do it no matter what the rest of our policiticans think about it. And when they stop saying you can do it, your fate is left to the whim of politicians. SCOTUS makes the law of the land. And only SCOTUS can change it. SCOTUS is on the eve of doing so. In the coming months, the already hushed voices of moderation on the Court will be all but silenced. Whether we like it or not, this is what we as a country decided just a short time ago. We are getting who we voted for. This is democracy in action. It's too late now to turn the clock back, and bellyaching about it won't help.