I'm watching a 57 year-old episode of Dragnet on a $1 DVD I picked up at Dollar General. It's called "The Big Seventeen."

Upper middle-class teenagers in Los Angeles are going crazy. They trash a movie theater, beating up the manager and pushing a young man through a plate glass window. Sargeant Friday must get to the bottom of what is causing this to happen.

Jack Friday and his partner do some penetrating interviews with the parents of suspects after stopping for a lunch of hot dogs and milk.

Dragnet: The Big Seventeen

To read the new Vanity Fair article by Todd Purdhum that many are saying has something to do with Sarah Palin's reasons for resigning as Alaska's governor, click It Came from Wasilla. Also worth a read is Did a Scandal Sink the U.S.S. Palin? in The Daily Beast.

I've now been here in Pittsburgh for two years. Around this time on 7/4/07, I was boarding a plane in Lubbock with joethecat, ending an unhappy and ill-considered six months in Texas, ending a year and a half of being hundreds of miles away from my son. We were met at the Pittsburgh airport by son N and his mom, and it felt good. I'm very glad to be here.

Grande Salsa Limon Tortilla Chips w/Valu Time Medium Salsa

&

Looza Apricot Nectar w/Kasser Vodka.

Palin resignation shocks Alaska, nation

By SEAN COCKERHAM and ERIKA BOLSTAD
Anchorage Daily News

(07/03/09 11:38:44)
Gov. Sarah Palin stunned Alaska and the nation today by abruptly announcing her resignation from office. Palin will be governor only until July 26, when Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will take over.

Palin made the announcement at a hastily called press conference held at her Wasilla home as the holiday weekend began.

Palin said she first decided not to run for re-election next fall when her term is up, then figured in that case she'd just quit now. Palin said she didn't want to be a "lame duck," a political phrase for an officeholder approaching the end of their term and losing clout to get their political agenda through.

"Many just accept that lame duck status and they hit the road, they draw a paycheck. They kind of milk it. And I'm not going to put Alaskans through that. I promised efficiencies and effectiveness," she said.

But Palin could have waited until next year to announce her plan not to run for re-election. Her explanation makes no sense, said state Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, a leading critic of her. CLICK for full article

(My guess? I'm assuming she's going to open the Unlucky Wolf Hunting Lodge and make a mint.)

Pet Policy

Anthrocon does not allow pets. This is for the protection of the pet, the pet owner, and our attendees as a whole. Service animals are permitted in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Yes, Anthrocon 2009 is happening here in Pittsburgh. KDKA TV featured it on tonight's 11 O'Clock News.

June 30, 2009, 2:27 pm
Court Rules Franken Has Won Senate Race; Coleman Concedes
By Kate Phillips
Updated The Minnesota Supreme Court has just issued its long-awaited judgment in the Senate race, declaring that Democrat Al Franken is the winner. And Norm Coleman, his opponent, at 4 p.m., announced that he had conceded and contacted Mr. Franken.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/court-rules-franken-has-won-senate-seat/?hp

I really like this image. I think it's the steps leading up into the interior of the nearest windmill that appeal to me. I found it at Wisdom Publications.

Man recovering after being thrown from bridge
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 9:49 AM CDT
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A 28-year-old St. Louis man is recovering after being thrown off the Poplar Street Bridge into the Mississippi River.

The man's name has not been released.

Authorities were called Saturday night after witnesses reported seeing two men throw another man from the bridge. The victim was found about 10 minutes later about three miles downstream. He was hospitalized with minor injuries.

He told police he had been drinking with two men earlier in the day on the Illinois side of the river. As the three drove across the bridge, the other two men stopped the car on the bridge and threw him off.

The victim told police he had passed out before being thrown into the water. He said he has known the men for about three months, but doesn't know their names.

Yes, it's very easy to get spammed on Twitter by people who want to "follow" you.

This morning, I woke to news that I am being followed by a certain Melony Pruitt.

She says of herself, "I've got a big ass that just needs to be slapped around!"

And then supplied a tinyURL to show evidence.

A very good article to read about schizophrenia in a very young child is in today's Los Angeles Times. See Jani's at the mercy of her mind.

In waking life this morning, there's a rather pleasant weather condition outside my window. And a small, round fan is sitting on my window sill, bringing in some reasonably fresh and cool air. That same air, and dawn light must have been seeping into subcutaneous layers of my consciousness a little while ago as I dreamed of walking on a beach in what I sense was along the Gulf coast of Texas, maybe Corpus Christi, a place I've never been. I was needing to catch a plane out of there at 8:30 a.m., but I was also waiting for a small appliance store to open up so I could hopefully get replacements for a number of items that had been lost by that store after I had taken them there on a previous day for repair. One was a radio, very much like a tabletop model I bought at a Radio Shack in New Orleans around 1978, but which finally gave up the ghost just a few years ago; it had really good sound quality, so I was sorry that it stopped working. And there were also some TV rabbit ears, but one of the ears was missing, and the store was going to replace it. And then there was a large plastic bowl, not something you'd really expect to find at an appliance store, but nonetheless they were going to fix the rim, which had gotten broken off at some point.

The store was opening at 8 a.m., but in the meantime I was down at the beach with gulls that were flitting about, picking up stray bits of trash like drinking straw wrappers from the sand. The water looked very inviting and warm, and I wanted to take off my shoes and socks, roll up my pants, and wade out into the surf. When the store finally opened, it was being managed by the little guy who now runs the union phone bank where I'm now working. Alas, it seemed that not only did they have no record of having received my radio there for repair, they had no equivalent radio to replace it. Ditto on the large plastic bowl (which I always had some affection for, as it had a green, marbled design that I found attractive, and rather comforting).
( Read more... )

Pittsburgh is a northeastern industrial city in America with streets, tunnels, and bridges that have been around for quite a long time. Nothing compared to many in European countries and in other parts of the world, but their age is evident. Today, I decided to drive over to the neighborhoods of Brookline (where my son and his mom now live), Carrick, and Beechview; all of them smack up next to each other. Previously, I had been riding a light rail train over there, and it's so much easier. Driving there from my little community of Swissvale first requires going over various twisty, hilly streets through neighborhoods on this side of the Allegheny River. I then had a choice of bridges to get to the other side, and I chose to go across on the Hot Metal Bridge (built in 1887) and into the neighborhood known simply as the South Side, down Carson Street, making a left on Tenth Street and curving around on a confusing little intersection where, if I had made the mistake of being in the right lane, would have taken me back across the river on the Liberty Bridge and into downtown Pittsburgh. Being in the left lane, I correctly turned into the Liberty Tunnel that that goes through Mt. Washington and then into those aforementioned neighborhoods. And then I turned onto Pioneer Avenue which, for some distance, truly does have a 19th-century look to it with stretches of unkempt forest but then abruptly becomes a community of early 20th century homes. I guess I could get used to it but if I move over there, I'll most likely park my car in front of my home and leave it there, using the light rail train and buses to get to work and back.

For some rather entertaining reading--if you like reading about tunnels and bridges--you might click on Tunnels & Bridges of Allegheny County and Pittsburgh, PA for more information. Ah, and don't forget to click on "Inclines."

Thanks to one or more of you who've posted this morning about the found_magazine community. I've re-posted an image there of a 1940's vintage matchbook cover I found inside a book from 1945.

Something I'll be reading, soon:

Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times

From The New Yorker
According to Ross, job insecurity became commonplace long before the current financial debacle. As economies shifted from industry to information, the benefits and securities of the Keynesian era quietly gave way to a workforce of temps, freelancers, adjuncts, and migrants. Ross finds that city fathers are more interested in Olympic bids and stadium projects than in sustainable employment, while corporations spend more on “social responsibility” public-relations campaigns than on addressing worker complaints, and activists are too focussed on narrow concerns to find common cause with natural allies. Given the urgency of the subject, it’s a pity that Ross didn’t give more space to European developments, such as the colorful “precarity” protest movement and the discussion of policies that could extend labor rights to all workers.

I miss having a few hours a day to do much writing and reading here.

Bless your bones. Bless your low forehead and round elbows and flowing tresses. Bless your eyelids, my beloved. Bless your knees and elbows. Bless you ever and ever and all over

--Richard Brinsley Sheridan, quoted in Love Affairs of Some Famous Men, extracted from closings to letters from Sheridan to his second wife, Hecca