Iacocca ditches Bush for Kerry

The Real One Rhapsody applications seems to think that it would be interesting as hell if it used its powers of blogging to post a list of the songs that I've been listening to. I sure as hell don't get that. 

On the other hand, through Rhapsody -- which I've got connected via a USB audio device and a digital optical link to my stereo -- I've been listening to Caetano Veloso's A Foreign Sound, which includes his singing old standards like "Summertime," "The Man I Love" as well as a little-known song from the Talking Heads late period, "Nothing But Flowers."

His rendition of "The Carioca" (Carioca means "someone from Rio") is both hilarious and touching if you've seen the 1933 film the song was written for, Flying Down to Rio. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers -- who are like 4th and 5th bananas in this film -- do this song and dance with that natives, expressing what  it's like to be from Rio.

What this means, apparently, is that you dance with forceful sexual innuendo. In Rio, you express forceful sexual innuendo by dancing with your forehead locked to your partner's.  

Amazing to hear one of Brazil's most revered performers (and political activists) take on this bit of American tropical fever from the 30's.

Household Opera hits on a great idea for a story, only to find that, yes, it's been done before:

I once had an idea for a short story about a character who likes browsing for used books, and starts to find a lot of books that have all been owned by the same person (he can tell by the handwriting), and eventually pieces together an entire history based on this person's marginalia, discarded train tickets used as bookmarks, jotted notes on stray pieces of paper, and so on. But, according to this article, other writers have had the same idea. Grumble.

Ok, but maybe we could come up with some sci-fi story involving reader's of second-hand blogs? (Yeah, what the hell is a second-hand blog? The challenge of the story...) 

Not surprising, but it still makes me sad. I came back unconsiously expecting to find the same people around who were writing when I was blogging manically. Alas, it seems that Invisible Adjunct is no more. Invisible writes in one of the final posts:

In the meantime, I’ve decided to give up the blog.

I do so with both a good deal of reluctance and a certain sense of relief. Writing blog entries and reading and responding to comments has become such an integral part of my regular routine that it’s very difficult to walk away. For the next few weeks, at least, I’m sure I won’t know what to do with myself (novel-reading? I just finished rereading all six of them). But this weblog has always been a labour of love, and lately I find that my heart is no longer in it. I think the time has come to focus my energies elsewhere.

But I can't help thinking: you know you can't excape. You'll be putting up another blog somewhere, just wait and see.

GREAT LAKES CHEMICALS CORPORATION

The site is a chemical production facility located approximately 5km southwest of El Dorado, Arkansas. In general, there appears to be very little effort at controlling spills. White areas of solid waste deposit are visible throughout the facility. These are most likely caused by the allowing of liquid chemical waste to go unchecked... Vegetation damage is also noted throughout the site... the contents of two waste ponds appears to have been emptied directly into drainages.

My mother's side of my family all from El Dorado, Ark. and many of them live there still, including my grandmother and a bevy of my aunts and prolific cousins. I spent many summers and vacations there. Somtimes swimming in that beautiful, deadly lake.

Half-told tale I just heard from my aunt points to something horrific in Arkansas, which has struck my family--but I don't really understand the extent of what's happened yet.

The initial details, though, are sickeningly familiar. A man builds a camp for children in rural Arkansas.

Some local chemical plant was illegally dumping deadly toxins everywhere, including the camp for kids. Kids die horribly. The family who builds the camp -- who are friends of our family, I believe -- die horribly.

I'm supposed to be talking to some of the people affected and I'll be writing more about this.

Here's an excerpt from the Frank McKinnon and Friends web site:

My dad, Coach Joe McKinnon, spent most of his life building a camp for kids.  Hundreds of kids enjoyed this camp.  If you went to this camp with my dad, if you went to this camp with me, or if you have lived along the southern border of Great Lakes Chemical Corporation - Central Plant  (GLCC-Central) about 3 miles southwest of El Dorado, Arkansas, please call me at 505 627-9843.   

Great Lakes Chemical Corporation (GLCC) broke several laws - including false reporting to state and federal government agencies, and concealment of state and federal crimes - resulting in horrific injuries and/or premature deaths of my grandparents, my father, many of my relatives, many of my friends and neighbors, more than 500 kids from Roswell, several thousand Americans living near this chemical plant, and me. GLCC has poisoned some of the most beautiful land in America including my summer home. GLCC also financially motivated some young men to work very hard at damaging the buildings on my summer home.

(Man, gotta love it. Great Lakes Chemical Corporation? Why not just call yourself the "Poison Your Water, Sir?" chemical company?)

Pictures of the camp and the lake:

(This all there on the web site; just trying to get you to take a look.)

Walking out the door the other day and heard someone say on NPR: "CIA determined to enhance human intelligence." Since I was only half listening and groggy, I continued to wonder what kind of genetic engineering they were engaged in, and how this information became public, until I finally realized...