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You Should Take a Minute and Read This........
Just a short post and story over at Fat in Indiana

MAY GOD BLESS THIS AIRLINE CAPTAIN:

He writes: My lead flight attendant came to me and said, "We have an H.R. on this flight." (H.R. stands for human remains.) "Are they military?" I asked.

'Yes', she said.

'Is there an escort?' I asked.

'Yes, I already assigned him a seat'.

'Would you please tell him to come to the flight deck. You can board him early," I said..

A short while later, a young army sergeant entered the flight deck. He was the image of the perfectly dressed soldier. He introduced himself and I asked him about his soldier. The escorts of these fallen soldiers talk about them as if they are still alive and still with us.


Go read the rest, it's a very powerful story. That's all I can can say.

I can't even begin to tell ya how reading this affected me. Not what I was expecting fer sure.

Robert Spencer argues at Jihad Watch that news coverage of the Gaza flotilla is leaving out key details.

Memorial Day Monday.........
We will be observing Memorial Day here with little fanfare today.
To me, Memorial Day is not a day to celebrate and that's why I use the term, observing.

I try to take a bit and reflect on just what and whom we're Memorializing today.
Remember the long line of Veterans that gave all so we are able to enjoy the freedoms that we still have.

For now.

You may want to reflect on the fact that our current President is unable to find the time to follow the traditions of his betters and Honor those dead by laying a wreath at Arlington this weekend.

Good to see these guys picking up the slack for him.

They haven't forgotten and G-d bless each and everyone of our young folks in service now.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Here's where he was referring to-

"row on row".

Do yourself a favor and see the eight-Academy-Award-winning, 1946 masterpiece, "THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES." One of the best films ever made; certainly among the five or so best films ever made about veterans.



Favorite scene: wizened old geezer Roman Bohnen and his worn-out wife Gladys George are the parents of Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), a returned World-War-Two fighter pilot who can't seem to escape his destiny as a guy from the wrong side of the tracks. In frustration, Derry runs away from his hometown, ready to hitch to any location he can get free transportation to. After he leaves, Bohnen and George find and read Derry's commendation letter. This guy who couldn't handle the phoniness and strictures of polite, civilian life was a savior, a hero, in battle. For anyone lucky enough to know a veteran, that scene says so much.



Fred Derry has a combat flashback



A character, coded as anti-Semitic, disses veteran Harold Russell

I've been asking myself why the outrage and heartbreak I feel over the BP Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe is not more widespread, or expressed. Why aren't we protesting? Demanding? Mourning? Is the Gulf of Mexico, its flora and fauna, so cheap to us? Do we care so little for the coastal culture of Cajuns and others that goes back generations and that this may wipe out?



If it were proven, as is rumored among conspiracy theorists, that Muslim terrorists caused this oil flow, or North Korea, we WOULD be outraged. We might even bomb the perpetrators.



But THEY didn't do this to us. WE did this to us. So we continue to sleepwalk to poisoning the planet that supports our life.



I donate to half a dozen environmental organizations. None has my full respect. They all work from an elitist paradigm. Their goal is to save this or that capsule of pristine hideaway for elite adventure travelers.



I'll probably never make it to Glacier National Park. I live in an American slum where people throw their garbage in the street as a matter of custom and culture. Paterson, New Jersey's garbage flows into the Atlantic Ocean, to be swallowed by ocean going birds, to poison them to death. The Sierra Club does not speak my language. Saving refuges for elite backpackers won't save the planet. The mindset of a peasant will: we depend on this soil, the soil beneath our feet, this water, this air, for our biological life.

This weekend's movies: "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time" and "Letters to Juliet."



"PRINCE OF PERSIA SANDS OF TIME" ain't no "300." The ancient Greeks win again. In the opening scene, before you've had any chance to learn who anyone is or why you should care about anything that happens, the film's "heroes" commit a massacre and invasion of an innocent, spiritually advanced civilization. Hard to care about these characters.



Jake Gyllenhaal is sexy and appealing, almost Errol-Flynn-like. Ben Kingsley could not give a bad performance if he tried. Campy Alfred Molina has some laugh-out-loud funny lines as an anti-tax "entrepreneur" and ostrich race organizer. Steve Toussaint is impressive as a Sudanese knife-thrower. But that's it. Their best bits add up to about five minutes. Otherwise the movie is cluttered, meaningless, and boring.



"PRINCE OF PERSIA" is orientalist in a way that feels unacceptable for 2010, even in a movie based on a video game. Every cliché of the Middle East is piled into the movie, junkyard style – whirling dervishes, sand dunes, camels, women for sale, the Hashshashin, Arabic – whether these items fit in sixth-century Persia or not. Do we really need to gratuitously toy with others' histories and cultures at a time when the current leader of Persia, or Iran, is talking about getting nukes to wipe Israel off the map?





"LETTERS TO JULIET" is a sweet, nice, mildly enjoyable movie with absolutely no magic or spark. Sophie, an aspiring New Yorker writer, travels to Verona, Italy and discovers the charming custom of lovelorn women writing letters to Juliet, of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." She has a life-changing encounter with Vanessa Redgrave. How could you go wrong with this plot? This should have been a classic. The script and direction merely plod, where they should sparkle and glow.



Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan, the film's leads, are stunningly good looking, healthy, young, blonds, with perfect teeth. They are also both completely without charisma here. I actually found both irritating to look at. If this had been a zombie film, these are the ones you would root for to be eaten first.



Vanessa Redgrave is beatific. You bask in her performance, wishing the rest of the film could live up to her gift. Gael Barcia Bernal is brilliant as a very annoying man. From the first second he's onscreen, he let's you know exactly who he is, and why you will relish his ultimate fate. *That's* acting! Italy's picturesque tourist spots are indeed picturesque, but not filmed with any penetration or grace. I've seen postcards that capture Italy better.

Sweat Yer Ass Off Friday.......
Just a few weeks ago I was complaining about how the weather was cold and wet.
Once again, be careful what you ask for. Now it's Hot and Humid. And it started raining again this evening. Rained just long enough to raise the humidity to about 100% but not cool things off any.

I'm not sure how folks in the Deep South deal with this as a regular way of life. I don't think I'm tough enough to live with that high heat and humidity all the time. I'm sure you must get used to it or there wouldn't be so many folks still there.

This is much better than the cold and wet for the plants in the garden though. It's also making the weeds and the lawn - same thing, weeds - grow like crazy.

And I'm falling behind again. I can see that the next week is gonna revolve around killing a lot of weeds. Lots of hoe work coming up.

I spent the day today planting trees and picking strawberries.
These are both good things.

A buddy of mine came by early today and picked a couple of gallon Ice Cream containers full of Strawberries.
I went out about 5 pm and here's what I got.

That's 10 lbs of Strawberries there.
I had the Wife weigh them to see how much was there.

This is the 2nd picking I've made so far.

Between the wet weather, bugs, birds and working the last 2 days, there were a ton of berries that were bad, too. If I were able to pick every day this week I'd have gotten 2 more containers like this.

Gonna get some jam out of this bunch I hope. Looks like there will be berries for at least another week or 2.
Fresh Strawberries, like Beer, are a good reason to believe that there is indeed a God and that he love us.

There are other reasons too.

Yes, I plant flowers in with the Beans and Tomatoes.

See those Tomato cages? Old (as in, heavy gauge) fence wire. Picked up a couple of partial rolls of wire at an auction for $1 each and made cages from it.
Cheap way to make ass kick Tomato cages on the cheap. Keep your eye out and snatch shit like that up when it's cheap.

Hell, while were at it, here's a nice Delphinium picture.


I like having flowers around the garden. Not real utilitarian but it does make things a bit prettier and nicer.

Speaking of nice....

Lots of Pears coming on. should be a good year for them.

I don't know just what type of Pear these are but they sure are tasty. The Wife canned a bushel or so last year and they REALLY taste good about February.

Looks like we may get a decent Apple crop from this tree. We've never had a lot of luck with this tree & I'm not sure why.

I've got 5 more new ones planted and if this one doesn't start putting out a decent crop it's gone soon.
Maybe this year.

Took the picture a bit late in the evening and the flash sorta mucked things up. Oh well. Photography is not my strong suit. You get the idea.

I transplanted these Raspberries last year. They had just kinda hung out and hung on where they were planted before. It's pretty obvious that they like the new place. I have no idea why they responded so well to the move & if you do, feel free to chime in on that.

See what I mean about the weeds taking off? The Corn is gonna be over run if I don't get on top of that soon.
Drives me nuts when I know that I HAVE to get a particular job done soon but that's just how it is and you'd think I would be used to it by now.

But overall things are coming along. Everything is behind schedule but still doing ok and I guess you can't complain about that.

I do know that a, "Sweat Yer Ass Off Friday" now is gonna be worth it come January.

One more picture.

More Tomatoes, Peppers and home made cages.

Note the fence wire strung on the posts in the right side of this picture.
More of that $1 fencing providing an area for the cukes to climb on. Growing things in an upwards direction increases your usable space tremendously.

See ya Monday!

Comparison of two Holocaust-themed films. "Lisa" aka "The Inspector," 1962.

Starring: Stephen Boyd, most famous as the ruggedly handsome, flamboyantly evil Messala in "Ben Hur."





Dolores Hart, most famous as the first to kiss Elvis onscreen, subsequently left Hollywood to become a cloistered nun. (Perhaps he'd just eaten a fried peanut-butter-banana-bacon sandwich.)





"Lisa" is an old, creaky, cheesy, politically incorrect film. It sexualizes the Holocaust and titillates; Lisa has no Jewish-coded traits; she isn't even an obvious survivor. She's perky as a surfer girl.





"Everything is Illuminated" was made in 2005, after we all became enlightened. It's based on a book that was embraced and celebrated by the elite as the greatest thing since sliced rye bread.





"Lisa" is the better film.





"Everything is Illuminated" sucks. And it plays the Bieganski card.





Amazon reviews:





I saw "Lisa" exactly one time, many decades ago, when I was a kid. I watched it on a black and white TV, late at night, interrupted by many annoying commercials. I've never forgotten "Lisa": Dolores Hart played a Holocaust survivor determined, by any means necessary, to get to Palestine at a time when the British were interdicting such arrivals. Ruggedly handsome Stephen Boyd was Inspector Jongman. He began by hindering Lisa's pilgrimage and ended up helping her. For comic relief, there was Hugh Griffith, a smuggler who used a tennis racket in his ongoing battle with the bats that invaded his exotic Tangiers apartment at dusk.

Most importantly, I never shook the feeling that the film aroused in me - this film literally made me sick, and terrified, but it also moved and inspired me.





In the intervening years, I read somewhere that "Lisa" was an early attempt to depict the Holocaust in a mainstream Hollywood movie. That just increased my curiosity. Some kind soul has finally posted "Lisa" on youtube and I watched it there.





The title sequence appears over train tracks, rushing rapidly beneath the camera. This allusion to trains rushing to concentration camps felt heavy-handed. The film opens in 1946. Lisa is the pouty, passive cargo of a Nazi white slaver. There's some implausible cloak and dagger stuff - the daggers are SS, engraved "blood and honor" - and for sale by the Nazi white slaver, a villain with obviously dyed blonde hair and an obviously fake German accent. The Nazi dies; Lisa escapes via a fire escape; investigators suspect that Inspector Jongman murdered the Nazi. The chase / road movie is on. Lisa and Jongman begin a cat-and-mouse odyssey, via Dutch canal barge and smuggler ship, to Palestine.





After my decades-long wait to see "Lisa" again, these opening scenes disappointed me. I thought, "Gee, we've come a long way since 1962. This ain't no "Schindler's List." Lisa is merely an object. The Nazi controls her; the good Dutch man wants her. She volunteered to go with the Nazi, stupidly falling for his lie that he would smuggle her to Palestine. And Lisa is obviously NOT Jewish. Dolores Hart was famously Catholic; she's got bright blue eyes and blond hair. English, Irish, and American actors try, or don't, to speak with slipping and sliding Dutch, German, or Arabic accents.





Lisa is a survivor of medical experimentation at Auschwitz. She had been used "Like a cadaver" in gynecological training. Jongman wants to help Lisa because he had failed to help Rachel, his Jewish fiancee. The Holocaust is translated from genocide into a titillating morals charge or the plot twist in a risque romance novel. Though the center of this crime against women is a woman, Lisa, the film is really all about the men around her: Jongman, the Nazi, the police chasing them, the colorful smugglers aiding them, exploiting them, or ripping them off.





I kept watching, though, and in spite of all the problems, I rediscovered the movie that had so moved me years ago. Lisa's blondeness and American style add to the horror, in the same way that Jeanne Crain's whiteness added to the impact of "Pinky." Casting a white woman as a victim of Jim Crow, or a Catholic as a Jew, emphasizes that there is no logic nor justice to racism. We humans really ARE one race, and none of us can rely on our putative racial identity, or our physical features, for immunity.





As Bowsley Crowther pointed out in his New York Times review, the film's "Lurid" advertisements are not representational of the film's "decent" and "asexual" content. In any case, Lisa's intimate victimization, and her literal sterility, economically and powerfully communicate the Nazis' sadism and nihilism.





There is a scene in this movie that I have never forgotten. Though, in the intervening years, I've seen too much graphic violence, I was afraid to re-watch this scene. Lisa describes how she was used as a medical display. In her flashback, all you see is what Lisa saw: the overheard medical lamps, and doctors' eyes staring at her clinically, as if she were, indeed, a cadaver. Lisa concludes her flashback by saying, "I wanted to say to them, we are people, we are human beings." The scene includes no special effects. It is one of the most high-impact Holocaust scenes, or depictions of dehumanization, that I've ever seen.





Lisa has been betrayed by the world. She survives by telling herself that Palestine is that somewhere-over-the-rainbow that can restore her will to live. Her goal and her intensity are palpable, both poignant and steely.





Dolores Hart is something to behold. She radiates rare beauty and depth. She and Boyd develop genuine chemistry; you come to care about their fate. Robert Stephens, in a small part as an Englishman who is, alternately, oafish, cloying, threatening, and moving, punctuates the final act of the film. There is an ideological smuggler, Brown, who wants to use Lisa to his own purposes; this subplot underlines how sometimes the highest ideals can inspire exploitative behavior. The theme of noble sacrifice is believable and moving.





"Lisa" is based on Jan de Hartog's novel. He was the son of a Dutch minister and a convert to Quakerism. As a child he ran away, and lived on barges. During the war he aided in the hiding of Jewish babies; he hid from the Nazis disguised as a woman. Dolores Hart, who plays Lisa, left Hollywood at the height of her career to become a cloistered nun.





*** *** ***





"Everything is Illuminated" is an embarrassingly bad stinker on almost every count, with two exceptions: Eugene Hutz is weirdly, wildly charismatic as Alex, a goofy young Ukrainian who imagines himself a hip-hop star.

And "Everything Is Illuminated"'s score is excellent, consisting, as it does, of authentic Eastern European folk music.





The first half of "Everything is Illuminated" consists of g-rated versions of "Borat" jokes. Ukrainians are funny because they try to be cool like Americans. Ukrainians are laughable because they speak English in a simple-minded pidgin, calling "African Americans" "Negroes," for example, and saying "repose" for "sleep." Ukrainians are funny because of their sex lives. Ukrainians are also dirty, irrationally and by nature violent, they hate Jews, they wear unattractive clothing; the men are ready to beat up any newcomer to their town naïve enough to ask for driving directions; the women are either cowed housewives married to husbands and fathers who lead with their fists, or slatternly, sullen, obese waitresses; goat-herding Ukrainian children engage in mindless vandalism like flattening car tires. These folks are so debased that even their dogs are ugly, stupid, and vicious. Yup, there's even a creepy household pet. Of course these comically stupid, ugly, crude yokels are responsible for the Holocaust. At one point, Elijah Wood, as Jonathan Safran Foer, insists that the Ukraine was as bad as Nazi Germany.





This nasty stereotype is not the invention of Liev Schreiber, the director and script writer. Schreiber and Safran Foer, the author of the book on which the film is based, are merely exploiting, not inventing, hateful ethnic stereotypes. The image of the brutal Eastern European peasant has been around for centuries. Americans are most familiar with this stereotype from Polak jokes and the film "Borat."





Eugene Hutz is genuinely funny in his thankless, Eastern European "Amos-and-Andy" -style role. He acts the Ukrainian dunce with as much grace and dignity as possible, and is the only thing worth watching in the film. Some scenes are laugh out loud funny, especially when Wood lectures Hutz on the use of the term "African American." But "Amos and Andy" was funny, too.





After about an hour of Bohunk jokes, "Everything is Illuminated" abruptly turns off the comedy tap and turns into a turgid, static Holocaust film. What little action there was in the film, provided by Hutz's kinetic mugging, shuffling, and jiving, or by Ukrainians punching other Ukrainians, stops. Characters stand still and offer speeches about horrible things that happened in the past. Jonathan and Alex arrive at the one pleasant house, with the one dignified resident, in all of Ukraine. The colorful cottage is out of a Disney fairy tale. Clean laundry snaps on the line. Orderly rows of sunflowers surround the home. The peasant woman living in the cottage is gracious and lovely. Aha. She's not really Ukrainian. She's Jewish.





On the other hand, Elijah Wood, as Jonathan Safran Foer, a modern American Jew, comes off no better than the stereotyped Ukrainians. He, too, is a stereotype: the uptight, obsessional, neurotic, socially backward, weak, frightened, passive Jew. Wood, as Jonathan, is so stiff he could be playing a corpse. A writer and director should have a very sound aesthetic reason for making the Jewish character in a film about the Holocaust a passive Jew. Schreiber has no good reason. He's just playing two stereotypes against each other, insisting that one needn't learn anything from one of the most horrendous crimes in history in order to make a film about it. Given that there is a very self-destructive death of another Jewish character in the movie, Wood's passivity is even more troubling.





The Holocaust is never honored by "Everything Is Illuminated." In the unlikely event that this is the only Holocaust film the viewer ever sees, that viewer would have no idea what the Holocaust was. As slow, pretentious, and ponderous as this film is, it never for one moment manages to convey the monumental horror and heartbreak of the Holocaust.





Again, I'd love to see Eugene Hutz in just about any new film; meanwhile, I've been watching youtube videos of his band, "Gogol Bordello." Hutz sings and dances like a man who has vowed to live fast, play hard, die young, and leave a good looking corpse.

Busy Days Here........

Not much posting going on. Lots happening here at the "GrumpyUnk Command and Control Bunker" right now.

I've got a ton of projects going on that all seem to be needing done at once and work has scheduled me a couple of extra days this week to boot.
Don't like to complain about that as the extra money is surely needed to help move those projects along & I'll be heading in there shortly to save lives and all that.

Here's a couple of pictures of the garden and such
Peaches.....

Happy Bean plants.



New Baby Chick saying, "Hello".



Fat Hen in by the Motorcycles & soon to be crapping on the garage floor.

I had another Long Run Revelation this weekend (see previous LLR's,  Part I - There Is No Such Thing As Work/Life Balance, Only Life Balance, and Part II - Want A Fulfilled Life? Embrace Death), one of those blissful moments of clarity around life's big questions that occurs after a couple of hours of exercise. This revelation was prompted by a question from a parent of one of Sophie's friends, which is one I'm sure we all get regularly:

Why do you do it? Why beat yourself up with all that ultra and Ironman training, only to beat yourself up even more on race day? Even worse, why do you keep doing it?

It's a hard question to answer, especially to people unfamiliar with our world. How do you give a short response without sounding crazy? If you say "I like to challenge myself", you are clearly a masochist. If you say "it's a spiritual journey that I share with like-minded people", they think you are one step away from joining the Hare Krishnas. And God forbid you reply "I like the belt buckles"...they will call the funny farm and have you in a straight jacket immediatement.

So how best to answer this question without oversimplifying, and still root the response enough in practicality to give them a takeaway?  Here's what came to me:


The Wall, The Pit, and The Abyss - What Defines You Lies Just Beyond Each Of These Challenges.

The Wall
-----------
Most people have heard about "The Wall". It's that physical challenge most of us hit around mile 20 in a marathon (often exclaimed as "oh, sh*t, I just hit the wall") when your glycogen gets dangerously close to "E" and your body starts messing with you to get you to stop. Cramps, fatigue, twitchiness, fluctuating body temp, and an ego ready to throw in the towel. It's not fun. But in truth, it's a defining part of the marathon experience. When you push yourself through this barrier, moving forward despite everything your body is signaling, you learn to trust your will. You find, on the other side of that wall, that you are far more courageous than you thought. You engage, and build, your character. You finish a stronger person.

In a nutshell, that's really it. What lies beyond the challenge is what defines you. By overcoming your own perceived limits, you face the undeniable truth that you are stronger than you thought, and thus must redefine your self image as a more confident and capable person. It's not always a conscious thought, but it's always there. It's what gets you sign up for the next one.

So why not just do marathons? Isn't The Wall enough? For some, yes. But what happens if you go farther?

The Pit
----------
Beyond The Wall lies "The Pit". This is when your head is so full of reasons to stop, so many excuses piling up that you can barely acknowledge them (let alone answer them), that it feels like quicksand pulling you into a deep pit. I usually find this around mile 38-42 of an ultra, or at mile 3 of the run in a Half Ironman. You try and claw your way out of the pit, but the mounting excuses are relentless. It's all the reasons you aren't good enough, all of your self-doubts, and every parental/ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend/bully-at-recess lashing that you have unwillingly stored in your memory banks. It's self-imposed mental torture. And it seriously sucks ass.

Then suddenly, you get tired of hearing all that bullsh%t and just push on through. What awaits you on the other side is a calm serenity; a flow where you hear nothing but the rhythm of your steps. Hours feel like minutes, and in this peaceful state your world is awash in possibilities. Then you realize the source of all of those excuses - it was you! Ha, ha! It was you all along! Little did you know you could just turn it off like a spigot. Most of us need to push ourselves to this limit to understand that the ability to create a strong, positive outlook lies within. When you feel it, it's almost embarrassing how simple it is access. My God, what a revelation.

It may not be clear to you in that moment, but your self-image just sprouted like a spring flower sipping the first rays of sun. This experience builds confidence unlike anything I have ever witnessed. I see it in the smiles of all ultrarunners, and is one of the reasons I love to be a part of any event, racing, volunteering, or just cheering. It's why I keep coming back - give those flowers more sunshine!


The Abyss
-------------
Beyond The Pit, lies the ultimate spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical challenge called "The Abyss". It's when you've taken yourself frightfully close to your limitations, stripped away all of your judgment and ego, and find yourself staring into a black void so incomprehensively large that it forces you to redefine everything. And I mean everything. Time won't just stop, it will become irrelevant, as will most of reality. What is your place in this universe? Who is your God? What defines me? It's why buddhists meditate. It's why shamans fast or take peyote. To go beyond The Abyss is to find enlightenment and truth. It's to understand and embrace your role in the cosmos. Endurance sports can absolutely help you find it.

Mark Twain summed it up well when he said "Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss." (some will know this from the movie, Wall Street) Friedrich Nietzche also pointed out "When you stare into the abyss, it also stares into you." My own experience with The Abyss combines the two - "the abyss is the great mirror, the reflection of your soul, and my God, it's full of stars." No matter how you slice it, it's a worthy quest when you're ready for it.

When do you encounter The Abyss? Mile 80 of a 100-miler? The last 10k or an Ironman? Maybe never? Yes to all. But to have a chance at finding it, you have to make it to the starting line of a great challenge and be open to the possibility that it's out there. If you do, I guarantee you will finish the day a very different person than when you started, no matter how your day goes.

So there it is - The Wall, The Pit, and The Abyss. I'm finding it's a good way of explaining the passion for endurance sports, while giving people a taste of the rewards at different levels. I would love to hear if any of you also have good ways to explain our drive to do endurance sports. Perhaps something a bit more succinct. ;-)

- SD

Arrington and Carol Bartz

New York, NY - (Zennie62's trip to TechCrunch is sponsored by Christine Smith Associates, Inc., the Premier Female Contractor in NYC.) Yahoo!'s CEO Carol Bartz is known via Fake Carol Bartz on Twitter for getting off the occasional "F-bomb."

But even with that, one doesn't actually expect a person to live up to a Twitter persona created by someone else. Not the case with Carol Bartz; she did.

Bartz, who's taken a beating from a very critical Michael Arrington in TechCrunch, walked into what TechCrunch Co-Editor Eric Shoenfeld called "the lion's den" and talked with Michael for 25 minutes.

While we have the entire 25 minute interview, this exchange on video was the talk of TechCrunch Disrupt and served to solidify Carol Bartz' combative reputation.



To set the stage, Arrington was pressing Bartz on the idea that the best companies are often "single-revenue-source" producers, and was implying that Yahoo, by getting away from search to his view, was moving away from what could work for the company. While asserting that Yahoo! is still a search company, Bartz disagreed, pointing to successful firms that were conglomerates.

Then Bartz seemed to think that Arrington was saying that because Yahoo! had not created a device they were not innovative and lacked direction. Bartz then focused on his "tiny company," saying that even with a firm as small as his, he didn't always know what direction he was going in. "So don't give me crap about what the fine people of Yahoo! are supposed to do, so F-off."

That brought the house down and it was Bartz open attempt at a knockout punch to Arrington. From all accounts she scored.

But I'm not sure what this is going to do to Yahoo! stock price.

Stay tuned.

I began this blog to talk about the book, "Bieganski the Brute Polak Stereotype."





I wanted to tell a story about Polish-Jewish relations by way of an anecdote about running into my student Jorelle Baker on a snowy February road. In my head, this anecdote took about six sentences to tell.





On the page … it is much longer.





I know blog posts are supposed to be short.





That's why I've entitled this blog post "TL: DNR."





I can't afford wheels, so I walk. Rodgers and Hammerstein were right; you really never will walk alone. Nowadays, walkers everywhere, even in wooded spots, are accompanied by roadside garbage; previous passersby have flung their Dunkin' Donuts plastic cups out their car windows, no doubt certain that Dunkin' Donuts plastic cups, once flung out car windows, transmogrify into butterfly farts. Not so; someday our trashy indulgences will rise so high they smother us. Thanks to this roadside garbage, you always know who passed here, and what junk food hardened his arteries and pimpled his butt. You can't expect the garbage-tossers to treat the earth, or their own grandchildren who will inherit their garbage, better than they treat their own guts.





Along the road there are also, in spite of the garbage, flowers. "The garbage and the flowers": Leonard Cohen was right, as well. Walkers witness the confident blossoming of the first crocus from snow, the first yellow walls of strident forsythia, the first redbud, whose buds are really magenta, not red, and then lilacs, the sweetest scent, and then dogwood; walkers hear the first cicadas hammer, a message translated into human speech thus, both: "Summer is truly here" and "Summer is almost over." Walkers mark the first fired sassafras leaf to fall in early autumn, and follow the first snowflake on its slow trail down from downy early winter sky.





Walkers are also never alone because drivers get lost. The very same people who would not slow their cars if I were to stick out my thumb and attempt to hitchhike stop me as if I were a human Garmin Nuvi stationed roadside expressly for their service. "Miss, is this the way to ______?" I have a lousy sense of direction, but I have worked on it over the years exactly to be able to answer these demands, they come so frequently. I mark the name of the road I left, the road I'm walking to, exactly so that I can say, "No. Make a U turn. Go back five miles, turn left at the light on Broadway."





And you're never alone because of the ever-present birds who know who and where and what your intentions are better than you do. Existentially lost? You don't need a shrink. You need a bird.





Listen: by the species, and their calls, you know you are in a city, or a swamp, north or south of the equator, and what accompanies you. That jay screech records both the speed and the location of a stray cat you never even saw; the chickadees celebrate finds of grubs; hornbills never shut up on red laterite roads in central Africa; wagtails staff every Himalayan stream.

I once saw a turkey on Route 4 in urban Paterson, New Jersey, and a beaver outside a fourteen-story apartment complex in Bloomington, Indiana, where, on a busy street corner, I once, breathless, spied a fierce and hungry Cooper's hawk chase a terrified, but clever and rapid songbird through thick privet hedge. The birds were negotiating life and death in a ten foot square mathematical maze of manicured urban landscape.





Cooper's hawks' bodies and moves are sharp and slender, designed to catch and kill quick prey in dense foliage. But the songbird wanted to live, or maybe it just wanted to have some fun with this aerial Godzilla several times its size. Neither darted outside the confines of the ten feet the furious battery of their wings circumscribed. Neither "made a break for it" – to leave the hedge or cross the street or attempt to pass by mingling with a crowd of pedestrians. The songbird plunged into the hedge; the hawk followed; the songbird zigzagged; the hawk did the same; the songbird rose up; the hawk followed. And well-dressed businessmen and buskers and students walked hither and thither and never saw the twisting, feathered bullet of hawk, the beating, bright, shot of song, the attempted song-i-cide. I won't tell you who won. Go for a walk yourself and find out.





And the walker is never alone because of weather. Don't laugh. Weather is our most palpable, most voluble, most constant and all-enveloping companion. If you've ever been so untutored as to forget your water bottle on a dry-season road in equatorial Africa, or if you've climbed from rice paddies, palms and parrots up to eleven thousand feet in Asia and it begins to snow, you know exactly what I mean. Before you can do anything else you have to breathe, and there are winds that can and do, utterly without conscience, steal your breath away.





The first thing I want to know when I wake up in the morning is that day's weather. I've already got a good idea from yesterdays' signs: the ring around the sun, or the moon. Whether or not the moon has horns. A red moon. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning; red sky at night, sailors' delight. Leaves showing their backs. Mare's tails in the sky. The way the dirt smells. The way the wind tastes. The snow's crunch. Whether or not you can make snowballs from it. The size of the flakes; their speed. The seconds' count between lightening and thunder. What tale the wooly bear caterpillar's wool tells. Chimney smoke's path: "If smoke goes up the day is clear; if smoke goes down rain is near." Old folks' joints. Most terrifying: mammatus – yes, from the word for "breast" – mammatus clouds and green sky: a tornado; you shouldn't be looking at the sky, but ducking and covering!





Jesus knew; Luke, 12:54: "When you see clouds rising in the west you say immediately that it is going to rain – and so it does; and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot – and so it is." My favorite: morel mushrooms sprout at that moment in spring "when oak leaves are the size of a mouse's ear."





I know I live in the city because the local NPR station is contemptuous of weather reports, which they offer casually, as afterthoughts.





Not so in Indiana. I remember, year after year, the alarm: "The state's agricultural secretary reported today that the year has been exceptionally dry and there is worry that the corn and soybeans will not be able to weather the drought."





And then the next year the report would be, "This year's excessive rains have flooded the fields and many farmers worry that the corn and soybeans will not be able to survive the floods."





And the next year a new alarm would arise: "The weather has been perfect. Farmers worry that prices will sink so low that they won't be able to make a profit."





An Indiana joke: "Did you hear about the farmer who won the lottery? When asked what he would do with all the money, he replied, 'Oh, I guess I'll just keep farming until it's all gone.'"





People who don't walk ask me about it. A young African American man in a drugstore. "I've seen you walk. Is it a religious vow?" I should have said "Yes," and added some fascinating backstory.





People assume that cold is the walker's worst enemy. Au, contraire. My favorite: single-digit subzero, bright blue sky. Few people. Laughing kids testing out Christmas sleds. Snow crunches with acoustic perfection. Air in your lungs snaps like an invigorating menthol massage at an exclusive spa. Everything is so Currier and Ives, for that one day, before the temps climb upward, and the snow loses its voice, and the indulgent emerge from their hideouts, and dogs pee on the snow, and garbage, again, accumulates.





The scariest weather? Just between me and you? Cold rain. Yup. That same meteorological package delivered by every April, the month that T. S. Eliot dubbed the cruelest. I'll go farther – cold rain is scarier than black mambas or green mambas or even wolves.





Don't laugh. Hypothermia will down you, before the rare snakes you'd be lucky to so much as see, as they slither in fear away, scarier than the imagined roadside stalkers, hominid or canine. In 1980, sixteen shipwrecked Danish sailors were rescued after an hour and a half in North Sea water that was well above freezing. They thanked their rescuers, walked across the deck of the ship, reported below for hot drinks, and promptly died. One website claims that water sucks heat out of the human body twenty-six times faster than air. That number sounds made up, but I guarantee you that I will quote it, whenever anyone asks me the toughest weather condition I've faced.





There are those days best captured by that notorious sybarite, Henry David Thoreau: "This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore."





So, yes. I walk. In weather.





***





One dark day in February, 2010, I was walking along a tree-lined road frequented by turkeys, deer, and red-tailed hawks. It was a dark day in a dark winter. I have to wonder if statistics don't reflect that the shrouded sun of winter 2010 here in Jersey contributed to … something. If not an increase in the suicide rate, maybe there was a mass outbreak of Russian-novel-reading along the New Jersey Turnpike.





Snow was falling thick and fast. Life in a snow globe: I lose my tenuous hold on a sense of "up" and "down." There's something anti-gravity about a thick snowfall. A dark form approached: my student. He was hatless; snow sprinkled his fluffy black hair. He had his arms outstretched, as if to catch snowflakes on his dark sleeves, to check if there really are no two alike.





"Jorelle!"





"Professor!"





"You're not wearing a hat!"





"I know."





I chided him. "You lose ninety percent of your heat through your head," another made up statistic.





But Jorelle seemed, really, to be enjoying the weather.





I liked that moment. Encountering another walker, someone else who is aware of weather.





Jorelle likes animals. One day, in reference to Freudian dream analysis, Jorelle told us one of his dreams. It was as thick with various fur and fins as the Bronx Zoo. Every student bears a gift without which the world would be less. I loved Jorelle's sense of whimsy.





***





That day a handful of students dramatized the Golem legend.





Rachel Greenspan was the impresario-cum-narrator and sound engineer: she played klezmer. Azur Sehovic, a Muslim from Bosnia, was Rabbi Loew; he wore a paper beard and a derby. Liz Bacon, despite her un-kosher last name, in her paper beard and yarmulke, handed in a Tony-award-worthy performance as "Unnamed Kabbalist # 2." Tall and strapping, Russian-American baseball player Scott Zirul was unmistakable as the Golem, especially since he had a sign on his chest. There were paper trees for the golem to tear up, and paper villagers for the golem to assault.





***





One day Azur – who had been so good as Rabbi Loew – and I were sitting in the office talking and Jorelle was sitting behind us, kneading a wad of freshly-purchased Silly Putty. When he arrived in class with the Silly Putty, someone made a crack, and Jorelle said, "Yeah, people tease me for it, but they all want to play with it!" Usually I try to finish up quickly with one student when another student is waiting, but Jorelle seemed so focused on his Silly Putty, I forgot about him, and focused on Azur.





Azur told me that one day his dad came home to his house with many windows. He wanted a smoke. He walked to the table to get his cigarettes and a man with an automatic weapon began to spray the house with gunfire. Azur's dad hid under the stairs for the next several hours. He had no weapon. Azur told me that, when running from Serbs, his dad favored cemeteries. He knew that the Serbs were too superstitious to pursue him there.





Once, when Azur was a kid, a child near him dropped an ice cream cone. Azur squatted down and began to eat it. His mother began to cry. Azur was hungry.





Around that same time, eight thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred by Serbs in Srebrenica.





Azur mentioned the name of his hometown to me. I turned from him, to the office computer, and did a Google image search of Azur's hometown's name. I expected to see photos of picturesque villages and mountains. Instead, there were photographs of crushed and bloodied corpses, some stretched out and arranged in rows on morgue slabs, some crumpled, random.





There was a photo of two men on a sunny street. The men have their backs to the camera. The closest man is wearing a blue shirt, a belt, and grey pants. The man in front of him is wearing a red sweater and blue jeans. The man closest is holding what looks like an automatic weapon up to the head of the man in the red sweater; that man is cringing, as if to protect himself from heavy rain or a falling branch. In a subsequent photo, both men are lying on the ground, streams of dried blood clot about their heads.





Azur said to me, very casually, "You know, I would never indicate the number three by holding up these fingers" and he pointed to the fingers he meant. "Because the Serbs, when they were massacring us, used to hold up those three fingers, to indicate 'Father, son, and Holy Ghost' and after they massacred us, they would chop off our three fingers."





And then he said, "My goal in life is to become a forensic anthropologist, so I can return to my country, and identify corpses. One of my family members was just identified after sixteen years."





Azur, without my prodding, insisted, "If this had happened in Paris, in Western Europe, there would have been protests. But we are Eastern Europeans, Slavs, so it doesn't matter."





As Azur spoke, my head wanted to explode.





One of the rewards of old age is being able to share important lessons with younger people. "You don't know how to do that? Here. I'll show you. Voila! Problem solved!"





In writing my book on Polish-Jewish relations, I had been focused on the past. What really did happen 1918-1939? 1944? 1968? I met men who, their heads suspended between hunched shoulders, books stuffed under their arms – appeared never to enter the twenty-first century, to be always lurking outside its doors, aggressive with their assertion that they had the inside scoop on exactly what went down in 1648.





There was a humanitarian justification for this obsession with the past: "Never again." We had to understand the Holocaust, so it would never happen again. So we had to read the next book, the next thousand books, attend the next debate between the usual combatants. Each pugilist might merely repeat exactly what he had stated in his previous debate performance, but he might place the semi-colon in a new spot; we had to be present for that.





"We must understand the Holocaust to guarantee a better future": That was the justification for obsession with the past, but a Milan Kundera quote comes to mind:







I know this sounds incredibly stupid and naïve; it sounds incredibly stupid and naïve to me. We haven't fixed things. We are passing on to young people a world where "Never again" is empty syllables. Feeling utterly impotent and dreading the future young people face: not one of the rewards of old age.





As Azur spoke, lines from W. H. Auden's poem, "The Shield of Achilles," went through my head.





Thetis approaches Hephaestus, the Greek god of the forge, a blacksmith, and asks him to make a shield for her son Achilles, heading off to fight the Trojan War, where he will meet his doom. Thetis expects to see beautiful scenes engraved into the metal of the shield. Instead, Hephaestus, the only ugly Olympian, fashions one scene after another of carnage:

In the poem, Auden alludes to the crucifixion of Jesus. I ask students why Auden does this. "This is an *allusion.* It is *anachronistic*."





I turn to write "allusion" and "anachronism" on the blackboard.





"Why would Auden place Jesus in a poem about The Trojan War, over a thousand years before Jesus was born?"





Maybe I'm asking the question wrong, but my students never give the answer I suspect is true: Auden is saying that the time on the clock or the calendar page does not matter. "Never again" is a catchy slogan; that's it.





My head wanted to explode as Azur spoke because I craved the release of tears and I did not feel I could cry in front of my student. My head wanted to explode because I didn't know what to say.





"What's your favorite animal?" Jorelle asked. I had entirely forgotten about Jorelle, sitting there behind me, quietly waiting for Azur to finish up so he could have my attention.





Azur looked at Jorelle with a bit of surprise. Not the question one might expect in a discussion of genocide.





Azur's reply was as eccentric as Jorelle's question. "Walrus," he replied. I giggled.





Azur continued talking. He never seemed to run out of things to say, or of quiet outrage.





A few minutes later, Jorelle reached past me and handed Azur a gift: a perfectly fashioned walrus, complete with conspicuous flippers, tusks, and whiskers, made out of Silly Putty.

Is This For Real?????????

What I mean is, Have any of you heard or read up on S510? and is it as bad as this article says it is?

It's midnight and I just got home from work. I saw a comment on a site I go to that mentioned this and followed the link. Is this "Little Boy Crying Wolf" bullshit or is there something to this?

I have no idea at this point and I'm tired as hell and I ain't gonna go looking tonight.
So if any of you readers or passerby's know anything about this, sound off in the comments. I'll be researching some tomorrow but I have a pretty busy week scheduled and, if this Bill is as bad as it looks at first glance, we better be getting with the program and taking appropriate actions.

At first glance this looks bad. Check out the sponsors and who voted for this House version of it.

Ok kids. Your help is appreciated on this matter. Please let me know WTF is up with this.
Thanks!

Gratuitous Picture for a Very Early Monday Morning-

2 for 1............
It's always been my rule to plant 2 trees for every 1 cut.
This afternoon I decided to get back at the job of thinning out a stand of trees that runs along the creek behind the Compound.

Now I'm waaaaaayyy ahead on the 2 for 1 rule so far as I've planted 25 or 30 trees here in the last 2-3 years already.

I dropped 5 trees today. Fortunately, I didn't have any problems like the last one I dropped.

Actually, things went pretty smooth. I got 4 of 5 topped out and cleaned up before I ran out of gas.

No, the chainsaw had plenty of gas. I ran out of gas and just had to call it quits for the day.

But I now have a nice area cleaned out and already have trees coming to replace the ones I drooped today. Pecans and English Walnuts.
I've not had real good luck with Nut Trees in the past and I don't understand why that is.
There are plenty of folks who have been eating Apples and Peaches for years from trees I've planted at places I've lived in the past.
Nut trees? Not so good.

I'll just have to keep trying I suppose.

None of the trees I cut today were very big, 12 - 18 inches is all. But every bit of firewood will be worth a lot come Wintertime.
I still have a few BIG trees that I'd like to drop, but frankly, I'm a bit shy on tackling them after that last big one. Even though it was a case of internal rot that caused me problems and not something I could have known, I'm still a little leery as of yet.

That'll probably change eventually.
As I have a small place I need to find a source of firewood for the future. I've got a couple of places in mind and have to get over to speak with the owners.
Wish me luck.

I saw a truck full of sawlogs go by the house yesterday but never saw them going back. That's always been a good source. Those guys are after the big logs and leave a huge amount of wood lay afterwords. Not a lot of tree cutting going on right now, between the weather and the economy.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get in to glean the leftovers of any work being done around here.

As much as I hate it, I'm gonna need to get another saw before to long. The old Homelite XL is a hell of a cutting tool, but it's getting worn. I can see needing an upgrade soon. The Poulin is only good for glean up. Just not a real cutting tool. Not a knock. It's been a heck of a reliable little saw. But it doesn't have the oomph to really do real wood cutting duty.

That's it for tonight. My ass is tired.

Gratuitous Picture for a Thursday Night-

Sunshine This Morning..........

What a nice change! I was up early this morning and enjoyed my morning coffee on the porch catching some sunshine.

It didn't last and by 11:00 it was back to cloudy again and it looks like rain now. Oh well. I enjoyed the sunshine while it lasted.

I did get some grass cut around the "GrumpyUnk Command and Control Bunker" and things look a bit better now. Most of the place is beginning to look like a hayfield but that's ok.

Gratuitous Picture for a Thursday Afternoon-
Barber Motorsports Museum picture. Cool pair of Jawa's.


As always, click pic to enlarge.

The new BMW 335i-based Alpina B3 S Bi-Turbo is now accessible for adjustment in the UK with aboriginal deliveries to alpha in July.

Offered in four-door saloon, Touring, Auto and auto Convertible forms, the new B3 S comes with a adapted 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged beeline six upgraded to bear a ample 400HP at 6,000 rpm and 540Nm or 398.3 lb-ft of aiguille torque.

The 0-62mph (100km/h) dart takes 4.7 abnormal for both the alehouse and auto models which are aswell able of accomplishing a top acceleration of 186mph or 300km/.

Alpina's yield on the 335i ambit is articular on the alfresco by a redesigned foreground spoiler, a new rear diffuser which encloses the tailpipes and a altered set of admixture wheels. The BMWs interiors are upgraded with a new council caster and adapted instruments while Alpina aswell offers assorted cream trim options.

Infiniti's European arm has now appear appraisement for the abate EX30d. On auction beyond Europe from July, Infiniti says it expects the EX agent models to annual for eight out of every 10 EX sales in the continent.

The EX30d is powered by the aforementioned 3.0-liter V6 turbo agent begin on the FX30d. It generates 238-horsepower and 550Nm (406 lb ft) of aiguille torque at 1750rpm, and is disordered to a 7-speed automated transmission.

The accepted 0 to 100km/h (62mph) dart comes in 7.9 seconds, while the crossover allotment 8.5lt /100km (equal to 33.2mpg UK and 27.7mpg US) on the accumulated aeon with 224 g/km of CO2 emissions.

In the UK, the EX30d will be offered in three trim levels - basic, GT and GT Premium with prices set at ВЈ35,975, ВЈ37,305 and ВЈ41,220 respectively.

Peugeot Golf GTI brand isn't asleep for Peugeot afterwards all. Despite antecedent letters from assertive media outlets in the UK, the French close has just launched a new 308 GTi action auto archetypal for the European market.

Available alone as a 5-door archetypal (at atomic for the time being), the new 308 GTi gets the aforementioned 1.6-liter THP engine with a twin-scroll turbocharger begin on added PSA Peugeot and Citroen and MINI products, including Peugeot's own RCZ sports coupe.

It produces an achievement of 200-horsepower accessible from 5,500 to 6,800 rpm and a best torque of 275 Nm or 202.8 lb-ft amid 1,700 and 4,500 rpm. Power is beatific to the foreground auto through a six-speed chiral gearbox.

Peugeot says that the 308 GTi accelerates from aught to 100km/h (62mph) in 7.7 seconds, while it completes the 1,000m dart in 27.8 abnormal and allotment an boilerplate ammunition burning of 6.9 lt/100km or 34.1mpg US with 159 g/km of CO2.

The car's anatomy has aswell been acclimatized to bout the characteristics of the engine featuring a new abeyance and council caster arrangement setup, a 10mm lower ride acme and 340 mm bore anchor discs at the foreground and 290 mm at the rear. The 308 GTi rides on 18-inch admixture auto shod in 225/40 R18 action tires.

The administration upgrades over the accepted 308 are rather attenuate and cover a ablaze atramentous carbon-style admit beneath the foreground bumper, a lower foreground console acquired from the 308 CC, roof spoiler, a rear diffuser accomplished in Perla Nera black, GTI badges and accompanying chrome bankrupt pipes.

Distinctive autogenous appearance cover sports seats at the front, aluminum basal blow and accessory knob, covering action council caster with a bedfast basal and deride rests, and piano atramentous fascia trim.