Two Random Things

One- Red Sox pitcher and all around dink pole Curt Schilling just came third out of three on Celebrity Jeopardy, losing the paltry sum he had won in the process. So much for self-proclaimed genius and social/political commentator's grasp on general knowledge.

Two- one doesn't expect to hear the name of neighboring town Port Clyde, Maine or the Penobscot Bay Medical Center (where my daughter Sprout was born a scant 8 weeks ago) on the evening news, but one doesn't expect the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to have a seizure at his summer home, either.

As much as I don't care for his politics, I am glad that no serious harm seems to have befallen John Roberts. However I was left musing that if it had been one of his right wing strict constructionist colleagues- like Alito, Thomas, or Scalia- would they have insisted that all human knowledge about medicine had been perfected in the late 18th century and thus demanded the doctors use leeches and treppaning awls to treat them? Or is it just in the realm of government and constitutional law that perfection was realised in 1789?

The unassuming portico on Justice Roberts' Port Clyde summer cottage

A Half Gallon of Glen MacInbred, My Good Man

England is getting its first whisky distillery in 100 years, in the Norfolk village of East Harling. The same East Harling where my mother's family lived when my grandfather was one of the village policemen, no less. Despite the presense of a bona fide pickled Scottish sailor to help them make the beverage, the drink produced cannot properly be called 'scotch'. Perhaps they should market it as 'Nortch whisky'. Then it would sound so disgusting nobody would buy it, and I'd be able to snatch it up by the caseload at a knock-down price.

Much like grape vines taking hold in southern England, I think this can be laid at the door of global warming.

A traditional West Norfolk cup holder. That's not her drink, she's watching it for a friend.

Feeling a Little Chippy

A sign from Waldo County as seen this weekend, courtesy of Rock-around-the-clock-land's own Canada Dry groove armada Mike:


Nothing to add, really.

“The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings. Or paws, whatever."

From Rhode Island's Providence Journal comes the tale of a highly suspicous cat:

"This cat has a sense for patients’ final hours
PROVIDENCE — Death walks silently among us, invisible except to the cat’s eyes.

The cat would be Oscar. He seems to know when people are about to die.

Doctors cannot say for sure how Oscar does it, but they insist the 2-year-old house cat, one of six cats at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, has foretold the deaths of more than 25 residents....(the rest)"

This was the last thing poor grandma saw:

Its a Bit Damp, Old Boy

Doctor Foster went to Gloucester

In a shower of rain,

He stepped in a puddle,

Right up to his middle,

And never went there again.

We'd love to have you, but we simply can't accept any refugees from the slow submerging of the British Isles, even if you are a blood relative. Sozzers!

Million Dollar Idea

With the mercury approaching 90 degrees here in midcoast Maine I was flicking through the LL Bean catalogue when I was struck by a potentially hugely profitable idea. Here's the pitch.

I see from the pages of everyone's favorite outdoor outfitter that convertible trousers (figure 1) remain popular among hikers. However, it dawned on me that the ability to turn a pair of long breeks into shorts does nothing to address two issues- dispelling core body heat and protecting one from the menace of ticks. Therefore I am going to suggest to LL Bean that they sell each pair of convertible trousers with a pair of extra long braces, or suspenders (figure two). The final cooling yet insect free ensemble will resemble figure three, but without the fashion-forward Tin Man accouterments or skintight-edness. Bish bosh, all that's left is the counting of the money.

LL Bean- call me (unless you are still mad about my idea for a Maine rapper/ Hip-hop mascot for your flagship store, LL Bean J. I still maintain "Straight out of Cushing, crazy clamdigger called Bean J" would have had you in like Flynn among the urban set, a la Timberland or Hillfiger).

Figure One:


Figure Two:


Figure Three:

Two Thoughts on Tonight's News

I no longer have control of the remote in my house and we tend to eat earlier now that Scout is here. So instead of getting an hour of The Dead Nazis and Communists of Stalingrad- Where's The Downside? on the Hitler Channel before tucking into dinner, I find myself shovelling my scran in front of one of the American network news broadcasts.

Tonight it was the turn of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Lead story- Dow approaches 14,000, but who will be making money? Here's a clue, how about the $10 million a year anchor of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams? I bet he's on that list.

Second thought. I know that the networks believe the news to be the sole preserve of the nearly dead and so they instruct their reporters to shout slowly and every advertisement is for some kind of medication. Tonight's fave : some bladder control potion that plays on women's fear of pissing down their legs into their sling backs by having the spokesmodel wear a sandwich board that reads "I Have a Bladder Control Problem". I want that sandwich board so I can wear it around town. But here's the twist: I want to paint "Or do I???" on the back.

Keep 'em guessing, that's what I say.

Thousands Are Sailing

My dear friend Mondale and his family (pictured above) are departing the United States for a new life in the wilds of eastern England tomorrow. It will be a harrowing, arduous 7 hour flight (with movie and meals) followed by a bit of a drive at the other end, but the price of a life of freedom, smaller houses, and access to Subbuteo is worth every metaphorical penny.

The life of a reimmigrant to the UK is hard- one runs the risk of being labelled an asylum seeker, of being firebombed from one's home, and of being hopelessly behind in the plot of Eastenders- but I know Mondale et al will thrive. As the man himself says,

"Tomorrow we fly to England. Forever."

I expect to see them back on vacation, July 2008, forever being a relative term.

Fare thee well, old chum!

Fiendish Plot Uncovered by Me

Most Americans know the Sherwin Williams company as a patriotic all-American purveyor of paint and stain: the British equivalent would be Dulux. However, thanks to the example of our great president I have begun to look at even the most innocuous things more closely and thus can reveal that Sherwin Williams paint is a communist plot! Look at the logo, above:

• Red paint, dripping menacingly over the planet
• the slogan is a command like something Lenin would have said "Cover the earth"
• The initials "SWP" adorn the paint can- the Socialist Workers' Party.

Those damn commies are trying to make a comeback!

Operation Constant Vigilance

As noted in the comments in the previous post, more people seem comfortable with cakes than espionage but I did want to mention one thing from the Milton Bearden lunch the other day before heading into the weekend. Asked how (Hindu) Bollywood movies and (Arab) Al Jazeera news broadcasts were changing the conservative culture of Afghanistan, Bearden demured but did note that President Bush was so obsessed with the idea that the Al Jazeera news crawl was sending coded messages to Al Qadea that he ordered the text to be constantly run through an NSA Cray super computer to dry to crack the code. It was such a big deal to him that in Bearden's words it resembled "Captain Queeg and the strawberries".

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Bush then insisted that if you played the audio book of Knights Under the Prophets Banner backwards it says "death to America, kill George Bush". Nevermind that it says that going forwards, but still, eh?

A Line In The Sand

A Cake (for illustrative purposes)
From the BBC, last week:

Woman runner-up in one-horse race
A grandmother won second prize in a cake-baking contest at a fete, only to discover she was the only entrant.

Jenny Brown, 62, entered her Victoria Sponge into the competition and was initially pleased to have come second. But she was left shocked when a friend revealed to her that she was the only person to take part.

The contest was organised by the Wimblington Sports Committee and judges marked down the cake because it had indentations from a wire rack...(the rest)"

The picture that accompanies the article is priceless:



Second place? Quite right. It is good to see that in this day and age someone is keeping up standards- the cake did not deserve first place, with its unsightly rack marks, so second place it is. Hold the line, Middle England! Hold to standards!

Dear me.

Dear Diary...

Had lunch Monday (along with about 80 others) with Milton Bearden, the former CIA chap who was head of station in Islamabad, Pakistan and who delivered the war-changing Stinger missiles to the Afghan Muj during their war against the Soviets. He later served as Eastern Europe honcho during the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. It can be said that he did his bit to hasten the demise of the ol' Evil Empire, but yesterday his comments over the caesar salad were mostly directed as to why the current lot running US foreign policy were about as much use as tits on a nun (I paraphrase). Most interesting, all told.

Its fascinating to me, who wanders past the transom when one stays moored to a spot long enough.

I'm Sure It Is A Lovely Plane...

Not a Dreamliner, but a still more gorgeous looking aircraft- a Boeing 307 from back when Arabs could easily board American airliners
Amidst all the glowing coverage of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner long-haul jet, America's NBC Nightly News stood out last night as more enraptured of the aircraft than most. Eschewing independent interviewees, the NBC piece ran like a Boeing promotional film, with the company's spokespeople being given a free hand to plug their admittedly lovely jet.

Such effusive praise on a news program- praise that extended beyond the usual gee-whizzery of engineering reporting on TV- struck me as a little odd but I had a hunch as to why they were doing it. I checked my hunch on line this morning, and sure enough:

"Boeing has selected two engine types, the General Electric GENX and the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000, each type developing 55,000lb to 70,000lb thrust."

NBC television is owned by General Electric. Although I'm sure the idea of using their news programming to run puff pieces designed to promote their projects and collaborations and thus potentially improve their share price never crossed their minds.

The Way Life Should Be?

I'm no huge fan of Joni Mitchell but it is interesting to watch the lyrics of Big Yellow Taxi come to life in one's back yard. Two stories from Maine that illustrate the chutzpah of those who move here seeking a rural paradise while having no intention to share our rural purgatory:

First, from my neck of the woods, an editorial (in its entirety) by a local lobsterman who was "successfully" sued by his neighbors demanding he remove his fishing gear from his property:

"Hello this is Jed Miller and I am responding to the decision in my case. I am frustrated by the fact that the Judge doesn't fully grasp the foolishness of this situation.

He doesn't realize that the piece of my property is smaller than my house foundation. He doesn't realize that my neighbors can't see my traps from their house (they live one-quarter a mile down the road.) He doesn't realize that one neighbor involved in the lawsuit keeps his 40-something-foot sailboat in his yard. Also the judge decided that this was irreparable damage to the community and neighborhood, lowering the property values of my neighbors. My response to this is, what community does the judge think we live in? This isn't Newport Beach California or even Newport Rhode Island. This is Midcoast Maine! This is a lobstering/fishing community.

The fishing part of this community is what brought these people here. The same people suing me for having lobster traps in my yard are the same people who came here from out of state and "just loved this cute little fishing village." The same people that would go down to the harbors and ogle at the "adorable" little lobster boats and lobstermen. The same people who come up to my boat trying to buy lobsters from me for a cheaper price. The same people who supposedly respect the lobstermen's blunt independence. These same people are trying to stop us from starting our boats before 7 a.m. Well, what these people have to remember is, if they want their precious lobster dinner, then they have let us do our jobs! Remember the reason you moved here was because you liked the way it was! We don't need you to save us from ourselves, run our lives, or to change everything to how it was where you came from. That is why you left there remember?

There is a law against wet storage of lobster traps. That means in the winter when you spend more money than you make lobstering, it makes more sense to bring them in and store them than to fish them and lose money. One of my neighbors involved told me that he doesn't want to look at the traps when he drives by them because they are an "eyesore" to him, and "they remind me of New Jersey." Well sir, I guess that means you shouldn't have moved to St.George where there are lobster traps in almost every other yard on the way to your house.

With all that is going on in the world today, you would think that people would have more important things to think about. When our founding fathers drafted the Bill Of Rights, I don't think they were trying to protect property values.

Jed Miller, Spruce Head"

Second, a story from Maine's over-development sacrificial lamb, York County:

"Southern Maine timberlands give way to housing development .....Although it has attracted little notice, the pace of land conversion has doubled over the previous decade, bringing changes to an area defined by forests that supply local lumberyards and provide recreational opportunities and wildlife habitat.

'It's the forest we live in every day, but it's kind of invisible,' said Lloyd Irland, a Winthrop-based forestry consultant. 'We`re losing a lot of what makes Maine the way it is.'..."

Checking In

A location (minus the creepy costumes) that should be familiar to Mr & Mrs Mondale and Listmaker & Youthlarge. (Not my photo, it is this chap's from 2006

Hello chumlets!

Goodness, what a busy week- what with the magic of a public holiday stranded on a Wednesday (and thus equidistant from the convenience of the prior or post long weekend concept), racking up lots of lovely "Frequent Driver" miles shuttling between work in the midcoast and festivities downeast, wiping a miniature bottom, and the joyous art of keeping a roof over one's head by moving bits of paper around a desk and having unimplementable ideas. I must say I'm rather happy it is Friday.

I have had some new experiences this week. For the first time in my 12 year association with Bar Harbor, Maine I made it to the Rotary Club's pancake breakfast on the Fourth of July (ever the contrarian, I had an egg breakfast sandwich). Previously, I had always been too hungover, too busy preparing whatever awful 'float'* I was involved with for the parade, or refusing to dive into that thronging mass of humanity on principle. What a difference a 140 decibel fire alarm that can shit itself and wears a cute bonnet can make. I suppose I shall be sitting on a park bench at the athletic fields at half seven in the morning chewing a rubbery egg sarnie every Fourth of July going forward- things like this become 'family traditions'.

And speaking of the self-soiling fire alarm, I had no idea that a baby worn on the chest had such an effect on women. Admittedly, they were all women in their late sixties to early eighties wearing their best 'cruise-casual' vacation wear (wrap-around lighthouse print terrycloth cardigan, anyone?) but still! All it takes is a pair of feet sticking out the leg holes of the Baby Bjorn and these grannies go insane. Aside from the worryingly frequent statements along the lines of "I want to take her home with me" it is all rather good fun- never before have I been on the receiving end of such sustained approval by complete strangers for having it off with my wife.

On the subject of Country Mouse, I'd just like to note that until this past Wednesday she had never knelt in a gas station forecourt massaging sunblock into my lillywhite shins and calves while a constant stream of tourists filed by looking for a good vantage point to watch a parade. Everyone got to try something new.

Back on the road tomorrow to collect the family from Grammy and Grampy's compound. I have ambitions this weekend to take the canoe off the rack, paddle down the creek and out to sea, and drown some worms in an imitation of a fisherman. I'll let you know if I catch anything other than sunstroke. (Can one 'catch' sunstroke? Bit of round peggery in square holery there, I think).

*Float is an elastic term. One year; a stock car, a hippy drum circle in a pick-up truck, a rapper, and an Incan pan pipe band. Another; 48 VW Beetles of assorted vintage driving in formation.

Questions

Amidst all the hoopla on both sides of the Atlantic over the attack by the Islamic Non-Sequitur League* on Glasgow Airport I want to ask a two-parter. After every incident or thwarted incident the level of airport security in the United States is raised. Does this mean:

a) That the terrorist types are fiendishly clever and are constantly out-thinking our best security minds? On Saturday afternoon was a TSA or FBI person thinking "A car that explodes- a car bomb, if you will; that's so out of left field we never would have anticipated that in a million gazillion years. Now we know about that, lets raise the security level"?

Or:

b) That these tightened security measures are a pointless attempt to mollify the great travelling herd of egotistical idiots who won't go near a 25 year-old Boeing 737 crewed by surly failed models and crop-duster rejects in case Osama bin Laden has personally poisoned the complimentary nuts unless some cro-magnon git with a plastic sheriff-type badge confiscates their shampoo?

"We get what we deserve" is a way better battle cry for this Globule War on Turr than "They hate us for our freedoms" or "you are either with us or against us". I wish they'd set up an airline and a security check-in for those of us prepared to weigh the risk and travel the old way anyway.


(*"Knight Salman Rushdie, will ya? Well we'll try to blow up the Ryan Air desk at Glasgow Prestwick in retaliation. Allah Admiral Akbar!")

The Value of a Good Education

The garish neon sign (arrogantly erected without planning permission) outside of R*ckl*nd D*str*ct H*gh Sch**l currently says something along the lines of:

"Happy Independance Day"

I may not have their sentiment exactly right, but the spelling is verbatim. Nice work there by our town's leading public educational institution.

It is this sort of thing that lead to the sign outside the Otis, Maine volunteer fire department's "modjelaah" building in September 2001 that read "Untied We Stand". I hope they didn't trip over their laces en route to rescue cats stuck up trees.