What Would We Do Without Studies?

I swear this is real:

Go here to read the paper... and Calvin didn't cause as much damage over the course of the strip as you might think.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack...

... is an earworm I've had since noon yesterday.

Hey now baby, get into my big black car
Hey now baby, get into my big black car
I wanna just show you what my politics are. 

I wonder why this tune's stuck in my head?

Speakin' o' earworms... there's a study about that (of course. isn't there a study about every-frickin'-thing?):

“Earworms is a colloquial name for a phenomena in music psychology—an experience when you get a song or a piece of song such as chorus [stuck in your head] without a willing attempt to experience a musical memory,” says Lassi A. Liikkanen, who published two papers about earworms recently in the journals Psychology of Music and Musicae Scientiae.   

...

Songs such as “Call Me Maybe” or fun's “We Are Young” seem to pop into our brains against our will. Seeing an album cover or recalling a memory associated with a song can induce an earworm. Liikkanen, who surveyed more than 12,000 Finish Internet users about earworms, found that nearly 90 percent of people experience involuntary imagery of music.

"Finish" internet users?  Are they done with the 'net?  Or what?  Frickin' clue-free MSM...

And speakin' o' big black cars... there's this about the last big black car I owned:

Note the sticker price on that Impala, which was the asking price for the car back in 1995 when I bought it.  That would be $36,391.24 translated into 2010 dollars, which is roughly the sticker price on The Dowager Tart, give or take a grand or two.  TDT has everything that Impala had and more... plus the fact it gets better fuel economy (TDT: 27 mpg highway) and makes 20 more horsepower from a motor just slightly larger than half the size of the Impala's (3.0 liter & 270 hp for TDT, 5.7 liters & 250 hp for the Impala).  Plus TDT has OnStar, satellite radio, traction control, StabiliTrak, and a six-speed auto vs none of the foregoing and the Impala's four-speed automatic.

Still and even, I LOVED that Impala and I'd prolly still have it if I hadn't opted for a mobile lifestyle.  The car was that good, and I hope I feel the same way about TDT three or four years on.

Yet Another Sign o' the Impending Apocalypse (An Occasional EIP Series)

David McCullough, quoted in the WSJ (in an article about the gentleman):

'We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate," David McCullough tells me on a recent afternoon in a quiet meeting room at the Boston Public Library. Having lectured at more than 100 colleges and universities over the past 25 years, he says, "I know how much these young people—even at the most esteemed institutions of higher learning—don't know." Slowly, he shakes his head in dismay. "It's shocking."

He's right. This week, the Department of Education released the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which found that only 12% of high-school seniors have a firm grasp of our nation's history. And consider: Just 2% of those students understand the significance of Brown v. Board of Education. 

[...]

Mr. McCullough began worrying about the history gap some 20 years ago, when a college sophomore approached him after an appearance at "a very good university in the Midwest." She thanked him for coming and admitted, "Until I heard your talk this morning, I never realized the original 13 colonies were all on the East Coast." Remembering the incident, Mr. McCullough's snow-white eyebrows curl in pain. "I thought, 'What have we been doing so wrong that this obviously bright young woman could get this far and not know that?'"

Answer: We've been teaching history poorly. And Mr. McCullough wants us to amend our ways. 

[...]

Another problem is method. "History is often taught in categories—women's history, African American history, environmental history—so that many of the students have no sense of chronology. They have no idea what followed what."

What's more, many textbooks have become "so politically correct as to be comic. Very minor characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence farther back"—such as, say, Thomas Edison—"are given very little space or none at all."

This topic has long been a hot-button here at EIP (yeah, I know: it's but one among many.  But that's what geezers DO, Gentle Reader).  I'll trot out my objections, rant, rave, and otherwise bemoan the woeful state of the citizenry's historical knowledge every danged time I take one of those current events and/or historical knowledge quizzes, and I've been doing so ever since we created EIP.  So, yeah: more o' the same.

That said, I'm SO very grateful that I received a decent high-school education, long before the advent of politically correct textbooks and the proliferation of This-And-That Studies.  Dead White Men had a lot of good things to say and I'm MOST grateful that educators of my youth realized that, and for the fact they insisted I learn those things.

So, at the risk of preaching to the very small but excellent choir here: RTWT.  All isn't lost, yet.  There's still hope as long as people like Mr. McCullough continue to speak out and people like YOU continue to listen.

Linkage

I hesitated for quite a while before creating this post, mainly coz I'm just sick to death of political sniping.  But it's election season, so what does one rightfully expect?  There WILL be lotsa "yer stoopid!" and "Yeah? Well, yer eeeevil!" and all that other horseshit we're so fond of throwing around this time o' year.  And we're not casting aspersions towards any of our favorite blogging friends.  Well, mebbe we are.  You KNOW who you might be when trying on that shoe.  And you're NOT of the female persuasion.

But we digress.  What the sergeant REALLY wants to do is link another piece o' brilliance from James Taranto in today's WSJ.  An excerpt:

When Sarah Palin called Obama a "professor," some professors accused her of racism. What she really meant, they claimed, was "uppity." Kloppenberg's similar characterization, however, draws a quite different response:

Those who heard Mr. Kloppenberg present his argument at a conference on intellectual history at the City University of New York's Graduate Center responded with prolonged applause. "The way he traced Obama's intellectual influences was fascinating for us, given that Obama's academic background seems so similar to ours," said Andrew Hartman, a historian at Illinois State University who helped organize the conference.

One assumes that Andrew Hartman is a serious scholar, although one doesn't know for sure because one has never heard of him. Barack Obama, by contrast, is a scholarly dilettante, a professional politician who has moonlighted as a university instructor.

Yet Hartman's remark about Obama's "academic background" is revealing. Professors imagine Obama is one of them because he shares their attitudes: their politically correct opinions, their condescending view of ordinary Americans, their belief in their own authority as an intellectual elite. He is the ideal product of the homogeneous world of contemporary academia. In his importance, they see a reflection of their self-importance.

Mr. Taranto's brief bit is less a criticism of our president (although he does get his licks in, as always) and more a well-deserved thumping for academic twits who have a tendency to confuse their asses with their elbows.  I'm always up for that kinda stuff.

As Seen On Red Eye II (III?)

Teachers bein' cool (heh):



Didja watch the whole thing?  Me neither.  I didn't like Twisted Sister back in '84, I like this song even less now.

Update, 1400 hrs:  It seems I'm out o' step with all of you Gentle Readers.  I was holding the teachers to a higher standard.  Is all.  (Language alert)

   

Buyer's Remorse

I'm sure this is gettin' all sorts of play on the right today and I'll pile on, as well.  David Michael Green, an obviously liberal  professor of political science at Hofstra University (but I repeat myself), penned a real keeper this weekend entitled "How to Squander the Presidency in One Year."  The good prof starts out like a house afire:

There's only one political party in the entire world that is so inept, cowardly and bungling that it could manage to simultaneously lick the boots of Wall Street bankers and then get blamed by the voters for being flaming revolutionary socialists. 

It's the same party that has allowed the opposition to go on a thirty year scorched earth campaign, stealing everything in sight from middle and working class voters, and yet successfully claim to be protecting ‘real Americans' from out-of-touch elites. 

It's the same party that could run a decorated combat hero against a war evader in 1972, only to be successfully labeled as national security wimps. 

Just to be sure, it then did the exact same thing again in 2004.
...

Barack Obama has now, in just a year's time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime.  Never has so much political advantage been pissed away so rapidly, and what's more in the context of so much national urgency and crisis.  It's astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been lost in a single year.

The Good Prof then launches into a litany of The One's failings, the best of which might be this:

And let's take it up a whole ‘nuther level, while we're on the subject.   A successful president is one who articulates a strong and compelling narrative for the nation.  So, in your quest to avoid rising even to mediocrity, be sure to leave a great big gaping canyon where that whole narrative thing is supposed to go.  No New Deal, no Great Society, no New Frontier or War on Terror for you.  Nope!  Just a thousand little projects with little non-solutions to big problems.  Hey, why not inject yourself into Cambridge, Massachusetts community police politics while you're at it!  Or the New York State Democratic Party gubernatorial primary!  Or you could deliberate for weeks about which breed of dog to get for your kids!  That's a great use of the president's political capital!

Oh, my.  You just KNOW things are bad when academics start pissing and moaning about their golden boy.  And then Professor Green drops this lil bomb towards the end of the screed:

Of course, I don't give a shit about Barack Obama anymore, other than my desire that really ugly things happen to him as payment in kind for the grandest act of betrayal we've seen since Benedict Arnold did his thing.  But what about the country?

Heh.  This dude is harsh and the above ain't the half of it, Gentle Reader.  But... what about the country, anyway?  What to do?  What to do?  Never fret, there's the standard Lefty poli-sci solution on tap, if ONLY The One would see the light and...

Go where the real solutions are.  Fight the good fight.  Call liars ‘liars' and thieves ‘thieves'.  Do the people's business.  Become their advocate against the monsters bleeding them dry.  Create jobs.  Build infrastructure.  Do real national health care.  End the wars.  Dramatically slash military spending.  Produce actual educational reform.  Launch a massive green energy/jobs program.  Get serious about global warming.  Kick ass on campaign finance reform.  Fight for gay rights.  Restore the New Deal era regulatory framework and expand it.  Restore a fair taxation structure.  Rewrite trade agreements that undermine American jobs.  Rebuild unions.

Ah, there's more but I'm sure you know the tune. You can hum right along if'n ya have a mind to do so, but as for me?  I'm just glad Ivory Tower academics don't actually run anything and spend all their time corrupting young minds.  Young minds have a habit of being changed once they're out in the Real World... or at least that's the way it used to work.  I'm beginning to have my doubts about that but that's also another story, entirely.  We'll not go there today.

So anyhoo... the Good Professor really isn't done after he's vented his spleen about his Fallen Hero.  No, he just has to fire one last shot, predicting we'll sink into a fascist dictatorship once Palin (his speculation) and those eeevil Rethuglicans come into power.  About which: Put the bong down and back away from the lectern slooowly, Professor, and no one will get hurt.

At Least One Important Contest Is Still Goin' On...

Yesterday the AP (and others, but they were first) reported The Obamanon has enough pledged delegates to claim the Democrat nomination. Hillary hasn’t conceded, yet, but all the talking heads went on last night as if Obama is a done-deal. And he probably is. This, of course, leaves me feeling just a little bit perplexed about my fellow Americans of the Democrat persuasion. William J. Bennett, writing at NRO’s The Corner, captures my thoughts exactly:

And thus the Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of George McGovern, albeit without McGovern’s military and political record. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far-left candidate in the tradition of Michael Dukakis, albeit without Dukakis’s executive experience as governor. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of John Kerry, albeit without Kerry’s record of years of service in the Senate. The Democratic party is about to nominate an unvetted candidate in the tradition of Jimmy Carter, albeit without Jimmy Carter’s religious integrity as he spoke about it in 1976. Questions about all these attributes (from foreign policy expertise to executive experience to senatorial experience to judgment about foreign leaders to the instructors he has had in his cultural values) surround Barack Obama. And the Democratic party has chosen him.

So, what’s going on in the country, anyway? Is there something in the water? Should someone…anyone…contact the EPA about this? Is this an outgrowth, or the final stages, of BDS? What the HELL is wrong with these people? Let’s take just one point in Mr. Bennett’s thumbnail description of the why-nots… Obama’s resume is so thin I’d be arrested for indecent exposure were I were to wrap myself in it, solely, and go for a stroll around the Roosevelt County courthouse. The Democrats are gonna nominate a one-term US Senator? A man who’s primary claim to fame is being a “community organizer?” A guy who’s voting record in the Illinois legislature is laughable? This election, for all intents and purposes, is there for the Democrats’ taking. And they’re going to nominate Obama?

I suppose I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, cf. McGovern, Dukakis, and to a lesser extent, Kerry.

―:☺:―

From the Air Force Association’s Daily Report:

Desert Touchdown: Holloman AFB, N.M., received the first two of its 40 planned F-22s on June 2. "It's a big day. We're very proud to have the aircraft finally here," said Lt. Col. Mike Hernandez, commander of Holloman's 7th Fighter Squadron, who flew in one of the two Raptors. Col. Jeff Harrigian, commander of the base's 49th Fighter Wing, piloted the second F-22. "I'm really proud of what everyone did to make this happen," Harrigian said. Gen. Michael Moseley, Chief of Staff, will hold an official arrival ceremony at the base on Friday (June 6). Holloman is the third of four bases on tap to host combat-ready Raptors under the Air Force's current 183-aircraft program of record. Already Langley AFB, Va., is home to two fully populated squadrons, and Elemendorf AFB, Alaska, is in the midst of standing up its two units. Hickam AFB, Hawaii, early next decade, will be the last base to receive its Raptors--in this case, just one squadron. The 7th FS is the first Holloman unit that will receive its complement of 20 F-22s. More aircraft are set to arrive at the beginning of 2009 en route to the squadron achieving operational status by November 2009. The yet-to-be-reactivated 8th FS will then receive its 20 F-22s, according to a 49th FW spokeswoman. The 7th FS and 8th FS (as well as a third unit, the 9th FS) formerly operated F-117 stealth strike aircraft from Holloman. The base retired the last of its F-117s in April to make way for the new F-22s. (Includes Holloman report by Amn. Sondra M. Wieseler)

So…Raptors in New Mexico! Cool, eh?

―:☺:―

An interesting…and short… essay by Rick Hills at PrawfsBlawg: “Why I am an anti-intellectual.” Excerpt:

But to continue: My confession of being an anti-intellectual requires a bit of explanation. Being anti-intellectual is not the same as being anti-intellect. My beef is with a particular social class -- the "intelligentsia" -- and not with the practice of using one's intellect to reflect on experience. In my experience, intellectuals (as a class) are ideologically intolerant, easily offended by ordinary humor, and pretentious in their prejudices, which they disguise as universal truths. (Whether any of these adjectives applies to Professor Heller's response to my little poke, I leave it for others to judge).

Moreover, I find a direct relationship between the academic obscurity of self-consciously "intellectual" writer's prose and the willingness of that writer to justify the unjustifiable.

It takes the convoluted abstractions of a Carl Schmitt or a Heidegger to offer apologetics for Hitler; a Sartre, to temporize about Stalin; a Foucault, to defend Khomeini. In this respect, I stand with George Orwell who spent the 1930s and 1940s denouncing the obscurity of intellectuals' prose as a cloak for tyranny (and, incidentally, who was also accused of being an anti-intellectual). Intellectuals spray polysyllables like squid ink, to evade the democratic decencies of conversation. I'd like not to be one of their number.

Yep. The whole thing is well-put and it’s a quick read. Do go.

―:☺:―

Just a lil hockey in anticipation of tonight’s game…

Where’s the pressure tonite? Depends on who you read… or where you live. First, Bob McKenzie, writing at TSN:

Everybody seems to think that all the momentum in the series has shifted towards the Pittsburgh Penguins. I don't necessarily see it that way.

Is Pittsburgh excited that they lived to fight another day in Game 5? Absolutely; but do the Detroit Red Wings have to do a lot of navel gazing and say 'Boy oh boy are we ever in trouble.' I don't think so.

[…]

I've got to believe that the Red Wings are looking back to their series with the Dallas Stars where they were up 3-0 before Dallas came back to win two straight. At that point everyone was talking about how the momentum had shifted heading to Game 6 in Dallas. Well the Red Wings came in and obliterated the Stars in their home arena.

I'm not saying that Detroit will obliterate Pittsburgh in Game 6, but this is a team with a lot of composure and I don't think they are very happy right now.

And if you happen to write for a Pittsburgh newspaper, you see it like this:

The Red Wings still lead it, three games to two.

But it was the Red Wings who lost The Marathon.

And recent history is replete with examples of teams that end up losing such games being unable to recover.

And those teams, unlike the Red Wings, didn't belong to AARP as well as the NHLPA.

[…]

That's the emotional and physical baggage the Red Wings have dragged with them into Game 6 tonight.

This wasn't just a loss after 49:57 of OT.

This was a shot right to the octopus.

The truth is out there…and will be revealed tonight, beginning just after 8:00 p.m. (EDT), on NBC.

What was the cost of Game Five and its two and a half overtime periods? From NHL.com:

The physical toll of Game 5 was truly staggering.

The teams played almost 110 minutes of hockey, combined to score seven goals, give and received 69 hits and block 43 shots before Pittsburgh emerged with a 4-3 victory at the 9:57 mark of the third overtime early Tuesday morning at Joe Louis Arena.

The game lasted a staggering four hours and 36 minutes.

And there’s more… including Malone’s five stitches and chipped teeth from taking a puck in the face, Pens D-man Orpik’s need for intravenous fluids to alleviate cramping, and so on. Ya gotta be tough to be a hockey player.

And… if you missed Game Five, you missed yet another game for the ages. From The Hockey News:

This is what we envisioned.

Game 5 had everything:

Electricity. The crowd was pumped well before the opening faceoff, spontaneously chanting as the pre-game music played. They were quieted in the first period, but reached a zenith in the third when the Wings went ahead, and maintained their vigor through much of the overtimes.

An abundance of scoring chances. The offenses were on display early and often.

A frenetic pace. Obstruction, for the most part, was on holiday.

Comebacks. The Wings' surge in the third period was high drama; the Penguins shocker to tie it, then the stunner to win it was out of Hollywood.

Unbelievable saves. By both netminders, but in particular Marc-Andre Fleury. He was plywood between the pipes. The toe save he made on Mikael Samuelsson will be immortalized in highlight reels. Chris Osgood deserves kudos for remaining sharp when needed, despite long spells of inactivity.

[…]

How entertaining was the contest? The worn-out beat reporters sitting on press row – men and women who after two months of travel typically pray for the final to end in a sweep, regardless of who wins – were standing in OT ...for good chunks of it anyway. It’s the first game I can recall attending in years where I felt nervous energy as a paid neutral observer.

And that ain’t the half of it…

Once again: Game Six tonight…on NBC.

Miscellaneous Musings, Thursday Wednesday Edition

This is interesting: “See Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign.” The title is self-explanatory, but the methodology used to ID “anonymous” Wikipedia editors— all of ‘em — is pretty danged creative. Gotta love those graduate students…

Note: I wrote this last evening right after I found and read the linked article. And this morning the whole freakin’ ‘sphere is trying to play “Gotcha” with the Wiki…so much so that the search tool’s author has disabled the “search by wikipedia page” function (“Specify by Wikipedia page -- Disabled until the onsalught of traffic wanes.”). This is one of the hazards of trying to “get ahead of the game” when blogging…the ‘sphere just moves too fast. And not sometimes, either. ALL the time.

So, I’m watching The WX Channel (once again: last evening), and I’m noticing it’s really hard for them to contain their excitement over Hurricane Flossie. Hell, they’ve even flown Jim Cantore to the Big Island, even though the hurricane is only supposed to graze the island and is diminishing in strength with each passing hour. But, Hell. We all have our boondoggles and I like Cantore, besides. He deserves an assignment that isn’t Mississippi or Florida, just for a change.

Suspicion confirmed… On the same subject: Hurricane Flossie? What kind of name is that? I’ve never heard of anyone named Flossie, let alone known anyone by that name. The first thing that came to my mind was some sort of animated cartoon my dentist might show to kids (he’s big on that sort of stuff…good on him). And I was right:

Flossie's pages contain smile, dental and Tooth Fairy related graphics, clip art, pictures, animations, art & drawings that you may use in your school reports, non-commercial web pages, etc. I hope you brush & floss your teeth at least twice every day. A pretty smile always lends a hand in making friends.

“Flossie” is also a 1974-vintage movie. And not a particularly good one if you believe IMDB’s user ratings. Other than that? Not a lot…aside from a British knitting blogger (Becky).

One final thought on hurricanes (for the moment): I’d LOVE to see a Hurricane Cruella. Just sayin’.

Ron Rosenbaum, writing in Slate, takes it to The Academy, in the form of one professor Stanley Fish:

It was Aug. 5, and professor Stanley Fish, the famous postmodernist and "guest columnist" for the New York Times, had some breaking news to expound upon in an op-ed piece. He had discovered a new development in American culture that deserved the kind of exegesis only he could deliver: the appearance of a new kind of coffee place.

Have you heard about these new coffee places? Professor Fish's column made it seem as though they had never been noticed or discussed before.

"Getting Coffee Is Hard To Do" was the title of his essay, which in its self-satisfied cluelessness may just qualify as the worst op-ed ever written.

“New kind of coffee place?” Now that’s right up my alley! Oh, wait…Starbucks. Starbucks? WTF?

Today’s Pic: OK…it’s NOT a photo. But it is kinda cute. SN3 demonstrating American Idol potential, of a sort.

Somewhere in Colorado. February, 2000. (He was almost three.)

Still Mired Down...

I’m still in a bit of a funk when it comes to “meaningful” blog posts. You know, things like Putin reviving the Cold War, Obama’s formal announcement (yeah, like that’s news), or even another incidence of academic political correctness winning the day. Wait. Back up. Let’s reconsider that last item:

The feminist takeover of Harvard is imminent. The Harvard Crimson reported yesterday that the university is about to name as its new president Drew Gilpin Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Harvard’s Corporation, which is likely to recommend Faust to the university’s Board of Overseers for confirmation, could not have more clearly repudiated Lawrence Summers’s all-too-brief reign of meritocracy and academic honesty, or more openly signaled that Harvard will now be the leader in politically correct victimology.

Faust runs one of the most powerful incubators of feminist complaint and nonsensical academic theory in the country. You can count on the Radcliffe Institute’s fellows and invited lecturers to proclaim the “constructed” nature of knowledge, gender, and race, and to decry endemic American sexism and racism.

And from that “powerful incubators” link in the preceding quote…

…beneath the ubiquitous “discourses,” “constructions,” and “negotiated meanings”—behind the coy hyphens, parentheses, and slashes—lies the belief that there is no such thing as the “self,” or “truth,” or “males” and “females,” or “good” and “bad,” that all are arbitrary categories designed by an oppressor class of white male heterosexual capitalists to keep a victim class of minorities, women, and poor people silenced and powerless?

That particular paragraph describes the mindset of Harvard’s (rumored) new president. Hell, she was instrumental in shaping what can only be called a radical point of view and is in the vanguard of the “movement,” so to speak. My reaction?

Good Lord. It’s hard to see how the pendulum can swing any further to the left, or to imagine a more egregious offense to the values that made this country what it is today, or rather what it was...back when “traditional values” were the norm and well before we began lionizing the “victim class(es).” I only hope that some sort of backlash is forming, somewhere. Coz it’s way past time for the pendulum to begin its swing back towards reality. The fate of western civilization hangs in the balance, and I’m not being melodramatic. Not in the least.

So. Let’s lighten up. In the “Fun with Site Meter” department, I offer you the leading search terms resulting in EIP visits from Googlers for the past 45 days or so:

“My Lil Reminder” in its various permutations (IIVP): 136
“USAFA Cadet Requests F-15 Ride” IIVP: 59
“YGBFSM” IIVP: 39
“Petticoat Punishment” IIVP: 29
“Heidi Cullen” IIVP: 15
People Looking for Becky’s Place but Winding Up at EIP Instead (“Hemipenes”): 2

And the strangest search term these past days:

“Woah-Oh Oh-Woah-Oh-Oh-Woah Woah-Oh-Oh-Woah-Oh-Oh techno song lyrics.”

Could you just hum a few bars? I might have that. Somewhere. On the other hand…techno has lyrics? Who’d thunk it?

On the other, other hand, I’m surprised this got any hits at all:

“who sings, "live on the edge" for pontiac commercial.”

Why? Because the commercial in question is a Ford ad, Sparky.

I loves me some Site Meter!

I forgot to make another entry in the “nothing lasts forever” department this past week. This time it was my beloved trusty HP LaserJet 5P printer, a device that made no demands, worked first-time, every time, was economical to operate, and so on. Until about a month ago, when it refused to power up when I hit the switch. No blown fuses or other obvious indications of ill-health, just a quiet death. That printer served me quite well…for well over ten years (more like 12), as a matter of fact. But it’s gone now, replaced with a shiny new HP D7360 ink-jet photo printer, which will do double-duty printing the odd document here and there, like the annual 1040s or directions from Google Maps. And the price was more than right, too: only $129.00 at Office Max. I’ve wanted a photo printer for the longest time. And now I finally have one. This time the philosophical “nothing lasts forever” statement was good news.

The weather is always good for a paragraph or two when all else fails, and it’s gonna be pretty good today: partly cloudy with a forecasted high of 67. That sounds like top-down weather, doesn’t it? I think I just might get out in it today and see if I can’t get a February sunburn. That would be interesting, nu?

Today’s Pic: Granddaughters Anastasia and Amanda running to avoid getting wet while SN2 looks on, as a very cool fountain in Seattle dances in time to classical music. The girls unsuccessfully avoided the water, I should add: they got soaked. There are speakers arranged around the periphery of the fountain, and the music varies from up-tempo classical to pop (technical details here). The water jets in the fountain are choreographed to “perform” in conjunction with the music. Way-cool. Way-wet, too!
June, 2000.