Ursus Pacificus

In 1996, when I learned of Carl Sagan’s death, I was bummed. Sagan was something of an intellectual and philosophical role model for me. Kinda like a dad. I had a dad of my own, and he was about Sagan’s age… and Sagan’s death got me thinking that my own father might not be too far behind.

Being an atheist, not believing in immortal souls and afterlives (or past lives, for that matter), I was content to know that Sagan was a smart (but imperfect) guy, from whom I’d learned a lot and his voice had been silenced. Sagan’s voice, fo me, had been one of wonder and discovery… an invitation to ask deep questions and seek honest answers. My dad introduced me to the works of Carl Sagan, and I am still grateful.

About 11 years later, my own father died, and, again, I was content to know that he was a smart (but imperfect) guy from whom, I’d learned a lot, and his voice had been silenced. His was a voice of hard-won wisdom and unrelenting acceptance of me and my unorthodox views, interests and motivations. My father was kind without fawning, gentle without being a pussy, and right a lot of the time without being pompous. I thank him for all he did for me, and I miss him.

Now, George Carlin is dead. My father also introduced me to the works of George… which may seem a little strange, as I was pretty young, and George’s material, even then, was targeted mostly at an adult audience. George was, in effect, the prototype of my own absurdometer. Sagan talked about using the tools of science and reason as a “baloney detection kit”… Carlin came right out and called bullshit bullshit. Carlin rarely failed to get laughs from me, no matter how disturbing, sad, depressing, scary or ridiculous he subject matter was. He made light of rape. … and he got laughs. There was a brave man. He wasn’t just brave; he was right.

I’ve seen George in concert 4 times, including on his most recent tour. Sure he was aging, sure he was slowing down and looking a little weaker, but he never stopped being relevant.

George Carlin never retired, either. He died, having worked, essentially, until his last day. …and he made a living doing something he loved to do, and further something he was exceptional at. His career in stand-up comedy ran over 40 years.

Thanks, George. For the laughs, for the insight, and for the unflinching bravery in the face of oppression. You’re already missed.

Hi…

Well, the big day looms large in the headlights. The bathroom’s not complete, yet, but I HAVE to get out of that apartment!

Part of the move is getting my Cox business account moved to the house from the apartment. Well, Cox needs 5 days to do the move. That’s 5 business days. grr. What does that mean?! Well, I have to get the machines moved out of the apartment, so Ursus Pacificus will be going dark for a few days, while I wait for Cox to turn on my new service at the house. I expect the new service to be on early next week. So… Don’t worry… I’ll be back! Soon! Reall!

–Paul

It’s been a long time coming, but the flooring contractor finally showed up Wednesday morning and got cracking.

Fishtank stain. Nice… Oh, and dog pee. Sweet.

More dog pee. Did they ever let the dog out?!

Yeah. The dog peed EVERYWHERE!

Wow. I never thought it was possible. The Tank stain is GONE!

…and the pee stains… GONE!

Sanding finished. Getting ready for first coat…

First coat, then next day

FINALLY! Pretty. Oh, so pretty!

The only drag is that I can’t really work on the bathroom this weekend, while the floor cures. Grr. I guess I’ll use the time to get moved out of the apartment.

Yesterday, the flooring contractor stood me up. Not the end of the world, but it does set me back a day. They’re supposed to start today. We’ll see how that goes

Finally. FINALLY, I say.. Roughed-in plumbing is inspected. Drywall is up. First coat of mud is on!

The drywalling went as well as could be expected given my amateur status. I didn’t sever any fingers… I only have a little joint compound in my hair. I managed not to completely ruin anything. So… I’ve got that going for me I did manage to mess up the cutout for the ONE outlet in the bathroom… DOH. I think I can make it OK, tho. So tomorrow will be mostly getting everything off the wood floors in advance of the finishing dudes coming on Monday. I’ll prolly run a couple truckloads of junk up to the house from the apartment, too… Then, in the late afternoon, it’s Mud Wars Episode II: Attack of the Bubbles.

This Slashdot article points to a bill that passed the House a couple days ago which would, if enacted, create an Intellectual Property Czar, whose job it would be to break down your door and seize your computer(s) if there is any suspicion that you are involved in copyright infringement, or could be, or have thought about it, or… basically, if you have a computer, and someone doesn’t like you, the IP Nazis can come and seize your computer, until you can demonstrate you weren’t doing anything illegal… which is pretty damned hard without access to your computer.

Yeah… The bill was introduced by House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers Jr. last December. He’s a Democrat. The House is Democratically controlled. This “business-friendly” bill passed. Yes, the Democrats are just as much in the pocket of BigBiz as the Republicans.

The House Judiciary Committee is supposed to provide Congressional oversight of the administration of justice by the Federal Courts. I thought the founding principle of the justice system in the United States was the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Has that officially changed?… and what about the 4th Amendment to The US Constitution? The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee INTRODUCED this bill. I don’t know about you, but I’m utterly horrified.

This article on Billboard.com states that no companion bill has been introduced in the Senate. Let’s hope it stays that way.

This is a review of the Caedmon unabridged audio-book version, as performed by Jay O. Sanders.

Catch-22
by Joseph Heller

Somehow I managed to escape childhood, adolescence, and a stint in the Navy without being exposed to this classic.

Catch-22 is the story of John Yossarian, a US Army Air Corps bombarier during World War II, and the absurd, murdurous cruelty of wars and the people who run them.

The cyclical nature of the novel can be a bit disconcerting, as the reader may feel, like some of the characters, that he’s been here before.

Yossarian spends much of the novel trying to avoid flying more (and still more) combat missions than are required by top-level orders, while his immediate superiors repeatedly raise the number of missions needed, in order for men to be rotated out.

While Yossarian and his fellow aviators deal with their demons, the commanders scheme to improve their own images, and Washington Irving, pointless death and Nately’s Whore seem to be lurking around every corner.

I realize this book was published decades before Terry Gilliam’s Brazil was released, but, since I was exposed to the two works in reverse order, I found the themes of bureaucratic absurdity and individual futility deeply reminiscent of Brazil.

The character of the central plot device, “Catch 22″, is revealed bit by bit, in seemingly unrelated situations, sometimes explixitly, and sometimes implicitly. The case of the dead man in Yossarian’s tent is a prime example of Catch 22 making an unannounced appearance.

All in all, Catch 22 is both darkly humorous and deeply sad. Yossarian seems to represent the struggle against imaginary constraints imposed by “so-called superiors”… like an elephant tethered to an inadequate stake by a flimsy rope or chain. The elephant has been conditioned to believe in the futility of struggle, and so, it does not struggle. Yossarian, too, spends much of the novel weakly tethered to norms and expectations he knows are insane, but he has been conditioned not to struggle against them.

Yossarian, though, is the aparently sane one in the bunch. He merely want to be left alone to live his life. He has no desire to hurt anyone. His world is populated by a wild array of megalomaniacs, introverts, weak innocents, tortutred souls, scheming savants, and self-serving climbers, and all but a precious few are busy telling him he’s insane, which he’s perfectly willing to admit, if it’ll get him out of flying more missions. …but there’s a catch. Catch 22.

As it turns out Yossarian thinks he’s the only sane one in war, but there’s one among his colleagues keeping his sanity a secret.

The Audio Book, performed by Jay O. Sanders is well done. Sanders’ mostly subtle voice characterizations help keep the vast cast of characters organized during the novel’s many involved passages of dialogue. The pace is good and the tone of the performance is consistent across the book’s 15 CDs.

The only thing that bugged me about Sanders’ performance was the way he pronounced around 30% of the “f”s in the book. It sounded like either 1) he normally wears dentures and forgot to put them in, or 2) he was trying not to pop the microphone with the “f”s. Trivial? Perhaps.

All, in all, I give this work a 4.5 out of 5 rating.

It’s been a long time coming… now that I’m tearing down the studio (yet again) to move (yet again), I though it might be a good time to snap a few pix. You can see them on the Studio Equipment List page.

There’s also some old pix from the old studio page to flesh it out a little. I plan to replace them, tho, once I get settled in the new place.

OK, well, I broke down and hired real, proper plumbers to run the drains for the bathroom. Why? Well…

I had the City of Warwick plumbing inspector come in to look at the supply plumbing I’d done, and go over what I was planning to do with the drains. Well, he said all the drains had to be separately vented. sigh.

Inspection is scheduled for Wednesday.

So here’s what they did:

New vanity drain and vent. They also re-stubbed the vanity supply lines.

Vent for the shower drain, going up the back wall cavity.

Roughed-in shower drain and vent (in the basement)

Stack connections

Stack connections (detail)

Clinton Now Supports Obama?! After around 18 months of telling us Barack Obama is unqualified to be President, Hillary Clinton has decided to abandon her quest to be President, and stand behind Obama.

So… does this mean she was wrong about him? Does it mean she was lying? Does it mean that she was right and telling the truth, but the American people are gullible idiots? If any of these three is true, then what makes her think she has the credibility to be his running mate?

1. If Clinton was wrong…If everything Clinton said to discredit Obama was inaccutare (but she didn’t know it) then how can she be trusted to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency? How can she be trusted to make sensible decisions about war and peace, about healthcare and education, about jobs and the economy? She is apparently incapable of surrounding herself with good people, and does not, herself, fact check. No matter how subtle her ad hominem attacks against Obama were, they were still ad hominem attacks, and therefore, invalid, logically (to say nothing of being dirty politics).
2. If Clinton was lying…I think we’ve had enough time spent with a pack of liars and theives in the halls of government. I think Barack Obama would be a fool to take on Hillary Clinton as his running mate if she was trying discrediting him and his positions on issues with lies. It seems to me that Obama represents fundamental change, away from “politics as usual”, and Clinton represents what Obama is trying to do away with. For him to then validate her position by taking her on as his running mate would be a change in position, and would be counter to the rhetoric that got him the primary victory in the first place.
3. If Clinton was right…If Obama is indeed unqualified to be President, and/or wrong in his positions, then she would be a high-order hypocrite if she now pursuded the Vice Presidency as Obama’s running mate.

…and, anyway… Since Obama is the presumptive nominee, shouldn’t HE decide who he thinks is qualified to be his running mate and carry on his program of change if he is somehow rendered incapable of serving as president? I seriously doubt that Hillary Clinton is that individual.

Personally, I think the best and most honest thing Clinton could to to support Obama would be to go back to the Senate, and support his initiatives there.

Finally, the fearmongering in which she engaged is something I’d expect from Microsoft… or George W. Bush… not from, a “progressive” Democratic candidate for President against an esteemed member of her own party. That’s just stupid.