Great Moments in Editing

Ah, yes ... time once again to lower the claw into the pile of editorial gems and see what we can drag out ...

Uh, no thanks ...

Picture yourself drinking it ...

Now, that's a good used horse ...

But this one probably has a better pedigree ...

Thanks, but really - I can handle it ...

I went to the wrong school ...

They'll probably be back with lawsuits ...

Contributed by my friend Dave ...

I've heard of padded bras before, but this one is a bit much ...

I'm sure I don't want to know the backstory to this one ...

There you are ... another selection of Great Moments in Editing. Just a little something to help take your mind off all the miserable news that surrounds you.

And if you still need some help, come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. It's the least I can do.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

The Too-Much-Information App

If you own a smartphone (and nowadays, who doesn't?), you know that there are bazillions of software applications, colloquially known as apps, out there to help you use that phone to do just about anything you can imagine. And a lot of things you probably wouldn't.

Dear Readers, I call your attention to the latest feature which will be a part of the new operating system update for Apple iPhones this fall: a new set of health-tracking features that will allow one to track every aspect of their "reproductive health," including how often one has sex, and whether or not "protection" was used ...

I'm not sure about you, but that's way more information than I think I need to track. And in any case, I'm pushing 65, and really don't need a software application to track how often I'm not having sex any more.

But I suppose this app will be useful for many people, particularly those who are fond of using their fitness-tracking apps to let the rest of us know, via direct updates to Facebook or Twitter, that they're busy sculpting their magnificent bodies while we're reaching for that last donut in the box. 

And what potential updates can we foresee for this application? ...

Any other suggestions?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Doing the Poll Dance

My daughter drew my attention yesterday afternoon to this article in the Washington Post: Voldemort Is Polling Better Than Many Republican Presidential Candidates.

The chart below, from the article, plots favorability ratings of the current crop of presidential wannabes from the latest Washington Post-ABC News and Quinnipiac polls against a survey of Internet users about their feelings toward four of Hollywood's favorite villains ...

What it shows is that Lord Voldemort - the epitome of evil from the Harry Potter stories - is more popular than most of the GOP front-runners ... and that all of the Democratic front-runners and the rest of the Republicans are less popular than Darth Vader, the Terminator, and the shark from Jaws.

Of course, this is not a fully scientific survey, but it does say something about the perceived quality of the people who want to convince us that they are capable and worthy of leading this great nation.

I don't know about you, but Lord Voldemort is looking pretty good right now. And so are others ...

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Born in the USA. Not.

In its decision on the case Zivotofsky v Kerry (13-628, read it here), the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional part of a federal law that allowed Americans born in Jerusalem to claim "Israel" as their place of birth in their passports.

You may not care much about the issue of what place of birth is shown in your passport, but this case has major implications. Congressional conservative supporters of Israel strongly supported the current law because it allowed them to give a de facto recognition to Jerusalem as part of (if not the capitol of) Israel ... while it has been official US government policy for more than 60 years that no single state has full sovereignty over that city.

The larger political issue (as if ownership of the most contested city in the world isn't enough) is this: who controls foreign policy? Is it the President or is it Congress?

I would argue that it's a shared responsibility (as is all of government), but that the government needs to speak with one voice - and that's the President's ... informed and advised, but not undermined, by Congress. The Constitution doesn't say much about the subject*, merely implying the ability to recognize foreign governments by giving the President the authority to "appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls" (see Article II, Section 2).

The debate over this decision will go on, much of it silly** and unreservedly partisan rather than thoughtful and reasoned. But there's one other aspect of the whole sad affair that really bothers me, considering that it was based on the notation of "place of birth" in a United States passport ... this statement by 12 year-old Menachem Zitofsky, whose passport was the original issue:

"I'm an Israeli, and I want people to know that I'm glad to be an Israeli."

Well, then, young man, I suggest you move to Israel and get yourself an Israeli passport. If you don't want to be an American, you don't belong here holding the same passport carried by US soldiers who have bled and died for their country, and wasting the time of a Supreme Court that has better things to do than validate your desire to be an Israeli.

End of rant.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Oddly enough.

** As in Justice Scalia's cogent observation that "the fact that the State Department doesn't like the fact that it makes the Palestinians angry is irrelevant."

Pictures from Germany

As you know, Agnes and I returned from our latest trip to Germany last Wednesday evening. It wasn't really a vacation trip per se, as the point was to settle Agnes's father's affairs; nevertheless, we did manage to do a little bit of sightseeing in and around the city of Singen. Here are a few pictures ...

My favorite place in Singen is the Stadtgarten, or City Garden ... a beautifully landscaped and peaceful area alongside the Aach River. There are a few sculptures dotted around the garden, one of which memorializes the German author Joseph Victor von Scheffel. He's the one on the right ...

Here are two more random pictures from the Stadtgarten ...

Agnes's cousin Bernadette and her husband Richard were a godsend to us during the visit, helping us with arrangements and (in poor Richard's case) allowing his car to be fully and completely packed with junk so we could take it to the landfill. One day they decided to take us on an outing to the Dorotheenhuette in the town of Wolfach, a glass-blowing center and gift shop in the Black Forest region.  

The Dorotheenhuette specializes in mouth-blown glassware, and for a modest amount of money (I think it was about 14 Euros), you can blow your own vase. Agnes, being the crafts-crazy person she is, naturally had to try her hand at it. Here, she heats up the slug of glass in the furnace under the watchful eye of the instructor ...

Once the glass was hot enough, she blew it out into the desired shape (this was not the end product, of course!) ...

This was Agnes's vase, as the instructor cut it away from the blowing pipe. The picture doesn't do it justice ... it was quite beautiful ...

On another day, our friends Vreni and Marcel drove up from Lucerne, Switzerland to have lunch with us in the Bodensee town of Radolfzell. We met them on our Panama Canal cruise a few years ago, and have remained friends ever since.

Richard and Bernadette also took us up the Schiener Berg - a ridge summit overlooking an arm of the Bodensee. It was a beautiful day, and the views were spectacular ...

I don't remember if I've written about this before in the blog (I know I have on Facebook), but Singen is the home of the Scheffelbruecke (the Scheffel Bridge, named for the same fellow whose statue you met earlier in this post). I first learned the story of the Scheffelbruecke from fellow blogger Buggie, who lived in the area some years ago. The bridge was built in 1923, during the depths of the wild hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic era, and the inflation was so huge and so rapid that the cost of the bridge went up - literally - every minute.

In the end, the bridge cost more than one and a half trillion Marks, as noted on this stone at one end of the span ... and it's often cited as the most expensive bridge in the world ...

On our last evening in Germany, we went to dinner with Bernadette and Richard at this marvelous restaurant in the town of Moos (pronounced mows as in grass, not moos as in cows) ...

As is probably fitting for a restaurant called "The Ship," the house specialties are fresh fish dishes from the Bodensee and the streams of the Black Forest and Hegau regions, and they were wonderful. I ordered warm smoked trout with horseradish sauce and parslied potatoes ...

... and, as you can see, it was pretty good! ...

I have lots of other pictures, but unfortunately I don't have any of the one thing I most wanted to photograph - the ruins of the Hohentwiel fortress that overlooks the city. I have dozens of pictures looking up at the Hohentwiel from Singen ...

... but it had been many years since we'd hiked up to the fortress itself. 

In order to keep me awake and force my body onto German time, on the day after I arrived, Agnes decided we should make the hike up to the ruins. This we did, and I took the camera along ... not realizing that the little Nikon camera I'd brought along did not have a memory card installed! We had made it about halfway up the giant volcanic plug on which the Hohentwiel sits when the camera flashed a petulant "out of (internal) memory" message ... AAARRRGGGHHH!!! It was a gorgeous day, the light was perfect, and I got exactly NO pictures out of a roughly 10-kilometer hike. Of course, the gift shop at the foot of the final trek to the fortress sold everything except photo supplies.

One interesting thing, though: the area is dotted with volcanic plugs (some, like Hohentwiel and Hohenkraehen, topped with ruined fortresses), but although the volcanos are gone, their memory lives on in the smell of brimstone all the way up to the summit. Ugh.

So, that's a brief summary in pictures of our trip. I didn't include pictures of the cleaning (you're welcome), but wanted to remind myself that we did, despite the circumstances, have a great time. After all, it's Germany ... how could you not have fun?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

As you all know, and as many of you have experienced, I like to write long and chatty letters. Postcards are condensed letters - the few notes we write on the back of a small card to say things like wish you were here or you really ought to see this or I miss you. They aren't quite the same as a full-up letter, but they fulfill much of the same function: a message, written by hand, that provides a tangible connection between people who care about each other enough to take the time to put pen to paper. Or a picture card. Whatever. This short poem by Wendy Cope reminds us of the magic of written communication and the desire of friends to remain in touch.

Postcards 

by Wendy Cope 

At first I sent you a postcard
From every city I went to.
Grüsse aus Bath, aus Birmingham,
Aus Rotterdam, aus Tel Aviv.
Mit Liebe. Cards from you arrived
In English, with many commas.
Hope, you’re fine and still alive,
Says one from Hong Kong. By that time
We weren’t writing quite as often.
Now we’re nearly nine years away
From the lake and the blue mountains,
And the room with the balcony,
But the heat and light of those days
Can reach this far from time to time.
Your latest was from Senegal,
Mine from Helsinki. I don’t know
If we’ll meet again. Be happy.
If you hear this, send a postcard.


Have a good day. If you'd like a postcard from my next travel destination, or a personal letter now, let me know. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

It's the first Saturday in June ... 2015 is just about half over, if you can believe it. Oy.

In China, hundreds of people were killed when a cruise ship sank in a storm on the Yangtze river; a Florida hospital is under investigation after it was discovered that it had three times the national average of infant deaths during surgery; US authorities are blaming China for a massive theft of personal data of millions of current and former federal employees; a senior official of the National Weather Service helped write the job description and set the salary for a consulting position with the agency, then retired and took the job, coming back to the office doing the same work he'd done as a government employee ... but with a $43,200 raise; and in Georgia, a monumentally stupid dumbass carried an AR-15 automatic rifle with a 100-round drum magazine into Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, and when reminded by police that his action, although legal under Georgia law, had made many people fear for their safety, replied "People's fears are not my responsibility," before threatening to sue the airport if police bothered him.

If the first half of the year is ending like this, I'm not sure I want to know what's coming in the second half.

This week, we once again dip into the bottomless well of ghastly puns for our collection of theme cartoons ...

Do you suppose he was spayed or circumsized ... ?

My English-teacher friends like Kathy and Melissa will appreciate this one ...

It's as good a de ... scription as any ...

Sometimes you need to trust those odd feelings ...

Always read the signs carefully ...

I've started looking for these, too ...

I'd have thought the hieroglyphic character for "politician" would have been in there somewhere ...

Well, if we're using more bio-fuels, it's only a matter of time before we start using other bio stuff ...

It pays to be in shape if you want to make a good showing ...

And finally for this week, I've been in lots of meetings like this ...

And that's how it is for the first Cartoon Saturday of June, 2014. I hope it helped you get over the past week and get ready for the week to come.

I'm headed outside to mow the lawn, which is just about up to the second story windows after all our recent rain, and then we'll see about whether or not I can do a little relaxing before Monday rolls around again. Stranger things have happened.

Have a good day. Come back tomorrow for Poetry Sunday ... more thoughts then.

Bilbo

The Right Cheek Ass Clown of the Month for June, 2015

Yes, Dear Readers, it's a new month and a new opportunity to recognize world-class ass clownery ... it is time to name our

Right Cheek Ass Clown of the Month

for

June, 2015

The field of notable ass clowns is large, and each month I try to make a careful selection of a single top candidate, as difficult as that choice might be. For this month's Right Cheek award, though, a group award seemed more appropriate; therefore, it is with an exasperated sigh and a funereal drum roll that I present the award to

The GOP Presidential Candidates

(who have announced as of June 4th)

One of my friends noted the other day that - when compared to the Democrats - at least the Republicans have options* ... but considering that the options represent a selection of individuals who are almost uniformly homophobic, religiously bigoted, ignorant of basic science and history, blindly gun-worshipping, belligerent, and limited in their understanding of the Constitution, I'm not so sure the options are especially good. Mind you, the Democratic bench is not loaded with towering statesmen, either ... but at the moment they're a lot less embarrassing than their GOP opponents.

Here are the ten sorry specimens of political dross who share the Right Cheek Ass Clown Award for June, 2015:

Ted Cruz

Rand Paul

Marco Rubio

Ben Carson

Carly Fiorina

Mike Huckabee

Rick Santorum

George Pataki

Lindsey Graham

Rick Perry

With honorable mention to those who will probably join them soon on the specially-designed, multi-tiered GOP debate stage:

Jeb Bush

Scott Walker

Chris Christie

Bobby Jindal

John Kasich

For their stalwart determination to lead America back to her imagined glory days - when men were men, women were quiet, everyone was a Christian, minorities stayed away and didn't try to do nasty things like voting, nobody paid any taxes, everyone owned a home arsenal, and nobody bothered businesses about silly things like environmental pollution, safety standards, child labor, and paying employees a living wage - the GOP Presidential Candidates as a group are presented the Right Cheek Ass Clown Award for June, 2015.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Have a good day. See you tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

* As it happens, as of today there are five declared Democratic candidates, of whom only two - Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders - appear to be reasonable contenders, and none of whom appears to be (to me, at least) an attractive candidate. That said, the least of them (your choice) looks better than any of the declared Republicans. You'd think that out of a population of nearly 300 million, we could field better candidates than these. You can get a comprehensive look at the entire list of those currently in the game here.

He's Baaaaaack ... More or Less.

Good Morning, Dear Readers!

Yes, Agnes and I got home last night from our latest trip to Germany. I'm not quite sure whether it's 4:40 AM or 2:40 PM, but I'm awake and slept relatively well last night. I should be fine at the office, at least until ten o'clock or so. Probably no one will notice.

We had a good couple of weeks in Germany, under the circumstances. Those of you who are my friends on Facebook already know that I am in awe of how much stuff two elderly people can accumulate in a two-room apartment (plus small kitchen and bath) and an 8x8-foot basement storage locker. And I can tell you that it's not as easy to get rid of junk in Germany as it is here in the good old US of A.

Our flight back yesterday from Frankfurt seemed endless, but our arrival in DC was unexpectedly smooth: the flight landed at Dulles Airport at 7:40 PM, and we were among the first off the airplane and into the nightmarish "mobile lounge"*; there was NO ... repeat ... NO wait at Immigration**, our bags were coming off the carousel as we got to baggage claim, we were in a taxi pulling away from the curb at 8:20, and arrived home at 8:55. If you've ever gone through the international arrivals fandango at Dulles Airport, you'll know how utterly amazing that was.

In spite of our best efforts, we didn't get everything done before we had to leave. Agnes will have to go back in a month or two to deal with legal paperwork screwed up by bureaucratic ineptitude, get rid of the last of the big pieces of junk we couldn't handle this time, and oversee the renovation of the apartment so we can rent it out.

I'll have full details and pictures in a few days, once I get the camera downloaded and sort through all the accumulated e-mail, snail mail, and other stuff.

Tomorrow's post should be the Right Cheek Ass Clown for June, but I'm not sure if I'll be awake and alert enough to write it, so you may see an alternate, shorter post. Don't worry ... we'll honor the right person in due time. Until then, have a good day. More thoughts coming once I wake up and know what day it is.

Bilbo

* If you've ever flown internationally from Dulles Airport, you can appreciate this. Here's a picture:

** "No wait at Immigration" never happens. Although there are about 30 stations for ICE agents to interview arriving passengers, I've never seen more than four or five occupied, no matter how many hundreds of people are waiting.

Poetry Sunday

A poem doesn't have to be long and involved and have perfect rhyme and meter to be interesting and thought-provoking ...

421

by Emily Dickinson

A Charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld –
The Lady dare not lift her Veil
For fear it be dispelled –

But peers beyond her mesh –
And wishes – and denies –
Lest Interview – annul a want
That Image – satisfies –


Yes, Dear Readers, sometimes ... even most of the time ... what we imagine is better than what we see.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo