From the Tucson Sentinel twitter feed this afternoon:
TPD: Box truck stuck in 6th Ave. underpass downtown. Road closed while crews clear vehicle.
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Lake Elmira: the Dry Version
Sullivan on God
The best thing Andrew Sullivan has done since his blog moved over to the Daily Beast is a series of short video features called “Ask Andrew Anything.” Anything means anything; the commentaries have covered every subject from the British parliamentary system to Dr. Who. Here he is talking about his personal experiences with God:
I’d rather he lost the Scanner Darkly/Charles Schwab rotoscoping. Something about it makes him look like a Civil War general.
I haven’t had an experience like Andrew’s. My mother has, and my grandmother seemed to on an almost daily basis. Maybe I’ve over-intellectualized my faith.
Years ago, I was on a jury. It was a horrible incident in my community: a man ran a stop sign at high speed, slamming into a family’s van, killing or maiming a dozen people. One of the constant courtroom fixtures was the family matriarch, who came up from Mexico to watch the trial. The trial took three weeks, and several of those days were full of excruciating details of the injuries inflicted upon various members of the family.
The culpability of the defendant was never disputed even by his own attorney. Still, after we came to our decision, one local paper talked to the mother. After reliving the annihilation of her family, bitterness and anger would have been justified. What was her reaction?
She said it was too bad that no member of the defendant’s family was there to help him. After going through something so horrible, she was reaching out and feeling for him.
Not quite what Andrew experienced, but I think I saw a little bit of God that day.
Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.
¡Kurwa Mać, Cabrón!
So, a Twitter pal pointed this lovely thing on the right out to me from a Tumblr site called Breanie’s Word Vomit (as usual, click to make it bigger).
Is that enough internet sub-referencing there?
Anyhow, it’s one of those get your neighbor kind of features in the local paper in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, kinda like the Weekly’s Nine Questions, I suppose. As a matter of fact, it’s called “Know Your Neighbor.”
The guy featured is a named Richard Yanoski, and he seems proud to not like his Hispanic neighbors. I don’t know what they call them in Pennsylvania, but around here we call these folks racist jackasses.
Before you seek the guy out, it seems that there are two other Richard Yanoski’s from the area that have gotten a lot of grief for what this baboso said.
Still makes me wonder: why did this paper, the Hazelton Standard-Speaker, publish what this guy said? The little piece on him seems to have been taken down.
What would this guy do with me? I’ve got the right last name, but…
It shouldn’t surprise me, really. There are relatives on my Polish side from that area that never accepted my Mom. Luckily, these were rather distant relatives both genealogically and geographically.
One thing you learn in Pennsylvania: redneck can still be redneck even if you spell red “czarny.”
Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.
Local Church Makes CNN Blog
I was checking an article on CNN’s “Belief Blog” and was surprised to see that their sidebar feature on funny church signs featured Tucson’s St. Francis in the Foothills. It’s not the only Arizona church featured, by the way. A few clicks forward and you’ll find Calvary Community Church, a Phoenix area megachurch that drivers on I-17 have a hard time missing.
The image of St. Francis in the Foothills was sent in by a woman calling herself Kimbertee. According to the short profile on CNN’s site, she also contributes to a blog called “Milking ‘Got Milk’”, a chronicle of various takeoffs of what they call “the ad campaign that won’t go away.”
I poked around Calvary Community Church’s website. They have a “frequently asked questions” page. One question deals with whether it is okay to do business with a non believer. Their answer?
If you’re in a business partnership with an unbeliever that would certainly be considered being bound or yoked together. The warning is a good one because believers and unbelievers don’t view life through the same grid. As with any relationship, conflict will arise and conflict resolution will be very difficult. My suggestion would be to not get involved.
Lovely.
Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.
Pico de Gallo
I hadn’t gone to Pico de Gallo in way, way too long. I had avoided going because, even though it is a few blocks from work, the place was always packed.
Yesterday, I said, what the heck. Well, not out loud.
It wasn’t too crowded yesterday. As a matter of fact, I was able to walk right up to the counter. I hope this was more that it was my lucky day than any long term trend.
It’s funny, when you go in there, you are guaranteed to see people wearing their ID badges from various Downtown agencies and lawyers whose normal habitat is also Downtown. That they’d make the extra drive when there are so many choices in walking distance says a lot about the place.
Best horchata in town. I think I can say that without fear of contradiction.
To answer your question, I had the shrimp tacos.
I remember when the building was a bit smaller. It was once tiny, but more and more of it got enclosed over the years. It is so South Tucson. It’s that old “Barrio Libre” tradition of additions after additions, damn the architects and code enforcers.
Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.
Quickie Album Review: Buzzcocks
Here’s a novel idea for a compilation album: instead of remasters or remixes of your old songs, go in the studio and record them all over again.
You say one of the original punk bands is doing this, it sounds like it could be a disaster. One imagines a poorly maintained East side bar line-up featuring a couple of men in their mid-50′s playing in a punk cover band. Not so with the Buzzcocks.
What we have here is Steve Diggle and Pete Shelley playing their still fresh classic songs, but with better recording techniques and better musicianship than when they first stepped in the studio decades ago.
And it rocks.
I’m amazed by how much more energetic they sound. It could be in comparison to the sometimes muddy production of those late 70′s singles, but these guys sound like they would blow away most younger and hipper bands that are playing now.
Of course, that’s me talking as a die hard Buzzcocks fanatic. Any quick survey of their songs will tell you why I and many others would fall into that category.
I keep referencing their original singles from the punk period, but the album includes songs from after their 90′s reunion. Even these more recent songs are worthy of the update, particularly “When Love Turns Around.”
My fave, but give me a few more listens and I’ll pick another: “Autonomy.” On the original recording, it is hard to detect the vocal give and take between Shelley and Diggle. Their voices are near indistinguishible on that 1978 single. Here, it’s clear, along with that distinctive riff presented in bright and blazing glory.
Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.
Wouldn’t You Know It?
I tweeted extensively from the FC Tucson matches this weekend, prompting two people to stop following me on Twitter.
I heard from them, and they both pointed out that they follow me for politics, not soccer.
I really don’t want to be an ass about this, but I exist outside of politics. Yes, I have other interests.
It’s shocking, I know.
The funny part is that that particular Twitter account rarely has political content. It’s my personal one. I’m far more likely to complain about the performance of the Revs or talk about the latest Corrin Tucker album than dish about Jan Brewer’s latest move on there.
It’s the Twitter account, by the way, that gets shown in the box on the left here.
I keep two accounts precisely so folks don’t have to read my ruminations on non-political topics. I don’t get why people who only know and care about me because of my political blogging would be the least bit interested in following my personal Twitter account. It’s even weirder that they would follow it and complain to me that what I’m writing there doesn’t interest them. Even better, a number of these folks follow both accounts. This means that they know there are two but somehow expect to read the same content in two places.
Okay, for future reference: my personal twitter account is @tedski. The twitter for political stuff is @3R_AZ.
Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.
Farewell, Spirit: 2004-2011
It’s hard to feel sorry for a piece of machinery, but I was a little sad when I heard that the folks at NASA had decided to pull the plug on the plucky Spirit rover. It had lasted far longer than the 90 days it was intended to. On May 24, the year long attempts to restore communications with the vehicle were suspended.
APOD published the last view from Spirit, last February’s panorama of the foot of the Colombia Hills. As usual, click to enlarge.
The Current Farthest Thing In the Universe
Here it is, the current record holder for the furthest thing in the universe: a gamma ray burst so far away that we can’t even see the galaxy that it came from.
It is 13.14 billion light years away and was observed in 2009 by the Swift space observatory. This beats the previous record that was set only a few weeks earlier by Swift of gamma ray burst a paltry 13.04 billion light years from earth.
redOrbit has some details, but the Bad Astronomer blog has a fantastic geek-sating entry about this discovery.
Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.