In a recent entry on Daily Kos, blogger devilstower compares the visits to Berlin of Kennedy ('63), Reagan ('87) and Obama (this week). S/He (my apologies: I'm not sure the blogger's gender) describes the state of Europe at the time of Reagan's visit as follows:

When Reagan visited Berlin in 1987, the Soldiarity union was already seven years old. It had been formed in the strikes at the Gdańsk Shipyard, struggled through a period of martial law in which Soviet forces were expected in Poland at any moment, and lived on to begin negotiations with the collapsing communist government. Pope John Paul II had stepped back into his native country four years before Reagan came to stand next to the wall, widening the cracks that were radiating through Eastern Europe.  Gorbachev had been at the front of a crumbling Soviet leadership for two years, and it was increasingly apparent that he could not hold the faltering empire together either militarily or economically. Protests in Czechoslovakia had led to invasion in the 1960s, but this time it was obvious that the tanks weren't coming. How could they?  115,000 Soviet troops were still tied up in Afghanistan that summer, the seventh year of their costly invasion.  The cost of that war -- in men, in reputation, and in rubles -- was the heaviest straw on the back of a Soviet camel already on its knees.

Emphasis mine. No further comment.

Okay, the question of why we don't desalinate ocean water to solve water-shortage crises has often come to mind.  The short answer, provided by Scientific American in this recent article, is that it takes an astounding amount of energy to do, and is thus very expensive.

It seems that a plan to build a solar power collection grid in the Sahara to meet European energy needs (greenly, I might add), might take the energy cost out of that equation.

And given the needs in Africa itself for both clean water and cheap energy, I would think diving into both projects sooner rather than later to be the better idea.

My nieces went to surf camp ("Surf Divas") a couple weeks ago - this photo's of the younger one.

There's something so beautifully retro (surf camp) and 21st century (for girls) at the same time about this particular experience.

Appeals court reverses ruling that a woman in tight jeans cannot be raped


(Follow link above for rest of article)

And I'd have to agree with that 'about time' part.

3rd November Ahoy Rotterdam!!!


Woot

ETA: Okay, Pollstar lists it, but the Ahoy web site doesn't have it yet and the Leonard Cohen Files isn't listing it either.

But... leonardcohen.com lists it with sale date tba.

For Prague readers, HC Sparta on 27 September, on sale date also TBA.

US readers - nothin' yet. Blarg. Perhaps he'll play Obama's inaugural and sing Democracy has come to the USA.

Free goodies from Tor.com

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=577

Below the books are some cool wallpapers as well.

I've been outta the sci-fi loop for a long time - might one of my friends (frumiousb, notinventedhere, perhaps) recommend one or two? Cheers!

The Good



The Bad
On the other hand, we have to note the death of Turkish physics student, and gay community leader Ahmet Yildiz, perhaps the victim (as the Independent notes) of Turkey's first gay honor killing (good lord, but I hate that term, as if honor and murder had anything in common).

Don't be fooled - it's only the thinnest skein of law that keeps certain segments of the US and European populace from the exact barbarism displayed in Yildiz' murder.

The Pathetically Sad
Courtesy L Magazine: 10 Mispselled Tattos

LGG and my folks and I wandered about Delft today. It was quite lovely, but we got rained on some.

Had lunch at Stadscafe De Waag which didn't seem large at the time (about 2pm), but we've not actually recovered from it.

Odd.

We bought flowers and stroopwafels and other goodies, came home and collapsed.

For my part, this might have to do with last night's storytelling adventure in Amsterdam from which Cara and I didn't return until after 1. (Once a month at an Iranian tea house in the Jordaan, a bunch of folks get together and tell stories. There's a Dutch night as well, but I'm not there yet. The host's parents who came over to the Netherlands 25 years ago own the place - it's very sweet.)

Currently reading and enjoying Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and contemplated replacing my current user info page with this fine business plan warning:

EXTREMELY SERIOUS WARNING (printed out on a separate page, in red letters on a yellow background): Unless you are as smart as Johann Karl Friedrich Gauss, savvy as a half-blind Calcutta bootblack, tough as General William Tecumseh Sherman, rich as the Queen of England, emotionally resilient as a Red Sox fan, and as generally able to take care of yourself as the average nuclear submarine commander, you should never have been allowed near this document. Please dispose of it as you would any piece of high-level radioactive waste and then arrange with a qualified surgeon to amputate your arms at the elbows and gouge your eyes from their sockets. This warning is necessary because once, a hundred years ago, a little old lady in Kentucky put a hundred dollars into a dry goods company that went belly-up and returned her only ninety-nine dollars. Ever since, the government has been on our asses. If you ignore this warning, read on at your peril -- you are dead certain to lose everything you've got and live out your final decades beating back waves of termites in a Mississippi Delta leper colony.

I may yet.

Wednesday's adventure included another trip to Amsterdam with the folks to visit Anne Frank Huis - left sort of late, had an hour's wait in queue to get in (not unexpected). It's a little more turned on than when I visited in '89 - video screens and the like - I felt far less of the claustrophobia one should feel there, but that might have to do with having lived most of the past year in a Dutch house.

There was a suggestion to walk back down to the Rijksmuseum, but given that it was getting on in the afternoon, lunch was in order - Bakkerswinkel treated us right, and then we walked around the red light district before hauling back to Leiden for salmon salad, duck feeding and lovely cake from the afforementioned bake shop.

Yesterday the folks went to Brussels for a night and will be back this afternoon, should the trains be kinder today than yesterday (when it took two hours longer than planned to get to their destination.

Recent listening has included the CBC Between the Covers podcast of the novel All Hat by Brad Smith, which I quite enjoyed in a Canadian horse-thieving kind of way. Download the podcasted episodes here. Apparently there's a movie too.

If any of my fine readers are interested in strange old movie soundtracks, I've posted five or six goodies over at Gott Milk?

The best news is that we continue to have a poet laureate at all, but the latest is a gay woman from California, which I continue to find pretty nifty.

Niftier still is that the NYT article mentions the poet's partner in a comment about half way through the article.

From the NYT: Kay Ryan, Outsider With Sly Style, Named Poet Laureate.

The Other Shoe:

Seeing as how I had today off, it's a good day for a quick update.

Hung out in Leiden yesterday - wandered about, took a lovely boat ride along the canals and Walt barbecued in the evening (thank heaven for Spar open on Sunday until 6!). Went to bed very late, got up very late this morning.

Mom and Walt and I walked a huge chunk of Amsterdam today - Prinsengracht from Centraal to Museumplein, and back. Very sunny very hot.  Long queue (expected) at Anne Frank House - they'll go later in the week, I suspect. Lovely lunch at Hans and Griete cafe. Stopped in an antique shop in Jordaan that's always closed when I'm there. The 'rents bought a lovely stained glass and I bought a book of cocktail recipes in Dutch, PK Dick's Solar Lottery in Dutch, and a lovely selection of Virgil including the Eclogues and much of the Aeneid in Latin. For 1 euro each. Score.

The last time we visited the Rijksmuseum, I fell in love with the Nachtwacht Watch (right), and gave in this time.

Too cute by half, I'm sure.

Right. Time to make some supper.

thisc0rrosion is right - Leonard Cohen was fantastic. A wee transportational screwup (missing a train and expecting an opener per 2 web sites) had us miss the first couple songs, but O gracious, what fine musicians, what great music.

For some reason, the high point for me was several thousand Dutch people singing along to So Long Marianne.

And Closing Time

And Hallelujah (better than any recorded version of his, bootleg or otherwise, that I've heard)

And Democracy (written at the end of BushCo v1, even more appropriate at the end of BushCo v2)

And Gypsy Wife (an odd selection, but beautiful)

And If It Be Your Will.

And and and...

Getting home was also wee bit issue-laden. A free bus service ran concert patrons to and from the train station. Except for the bus back that we were on (full to the brim, like a brand new tin of sardines) went over a curb and caught a flat. Oops. Walked half way back and then caught a bus and a train and were in bed for about 1AM.

Courtesy of Betsy over at IAmTRex:



Thumbs up to the ACLU for taking on the FISA sellout.

For anyone who reads this journal for such info.

Mom & Walt arrived safely and we've had a lovely evening and are off to bed.

My parents are coming...My parents are coming...My parents are coming...
My parents are coming...My parents are coming...My parents are coming...
My parents are coming...My parents are coming...My parents are coming...
My parents are coming...My parents are coming...My parents are coming...

They arrive this afternoon.

And indeed we're entirely ready for them. Gonna be grand.

And I don't mean mismatched footware.

Provided by The Carpetbagger Report:

Jukebox John changes his tune every few minutes

Give it a look.

Ethel Rosenberg's sister-in-law, who testified that it was Ethel who transcribed the Manhattan Project notes that were passed to the Soviets, died in April. Ruth Greenglass' obit, including a suggestion from an interview with her husband that it was Ruth herself who transcribed those notes appears in the NY Times.

Ethel and her husband Julius were sent to the electric chair in June, 1953.

Note the following details from the above-linked Wikipedia article (yes, I know, Wikipedia is not the end-all in such matters, but still):

It is believed that part of the reason Ethel was indicted along with Julius was so that the prosecution could use her as a 'lever' to pressure Julius into giving up the names of others who were involved. If that was the case, it did not work. On the witness stand, Julius asserted his right under the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment to not incriminate himself whenever asked about his involvement in the Communist Party or with its members. Ethel did similarly. Neither defendant was viewed sympathetically by the jury.

The role played by Assistant U.S. Attorney Roy Cohn, the prosecutor in the case, is controversial, since Cohn stated in his autobiography that he influenced the selection of the judge, and pushed him to impose the death penalty on both Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

Such a history our country has in such matters.

From frumiousb:

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List 5 songs you like that start with that letter
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions.

1. I married a monster from outer space (John Cooper Clarke)
2. It is not enough (Gang of Four)
3. I heard her call my name (VU)
4. Indiscipline (King Crimson)
5. a)If it be your will/b) I left a woman waiting/c) Is this what you wanted (Leonard Cohen)

And one (more) to grown on: In C (Terry Riley, the 25th Anniversary version featuring Kronos Quartet for preference)

( the original list )

In 8th grade, I changed schools from the West Side junior high I was attending to a private school in the Valley where my stepmother taught math. I commuted with her each day until our relationship went sour in the third semester I attended. It would take some serious memory searching to recall just what the issues were. I've a feeling the hatred she and my mother had for one another (and about which my mom had no trouble expressing her feelings) had much to do with it. I was a snotty kid, to be sure, but who isn't at that age (13 or so)? I'm pretty sure she wanted what was best for me, but those two hours a day stuck in the car with her just got to be miserable. I was never sure if she would lay into me for something. And of course my behavior in all my classes was a known quantity to her, something I couldn't really abide.

Sometime in that third semester, I arranged to take the school bus by talking directly to someone in the office, who of course spoke to Carol, there was no getting around that. I just withdrew entirely from the relationship with her, and from my relationship with my dad for the next several months. I'm sure dad just bit the bullet and paid for the bus, but it was another strain on his relationship with Carol.

I went back to that West Side junior high for the final semester and went to public (in the US sense) high school as well.

I've no idea why this situation (which I've not examined in many years) comes to mind right now. My relationship to dad, which many things strained in the years before and after, improved somewhat that summer when he (without Carol) took my sister and me on a vacation to Oregon where we went whitewater rafting and he told us he was getting a divorce. I never learned the details, as Carol continued to be my closet boogie monster for years to come, and dad died a couple of years later. (I've always blamed his eight years with Carol for his early demise, though I'm sure his resistance to visiting a physician didn't help matters.)

Looks like I'm rather late to this game which began in 2004, but for all the Doctor Who fans (link courtesy of the Guardian Music Blog), this here link is to what looks to be 100+ Doctor Who theme remixes. http://whomix.trilete.net/?wmid=music

Shweet. Might even be better than Tom's Album.