Archive - Mar 2007

Some of the most best moments of my life took place at the Guthrie Theater during productions of Skakespeare comedies. Their productions of both A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing made me laugh harder than just about anything I have ever seen.

So when I heard that the Guthrie is again running A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2008, I was thrilled. We'll have to wait a year because it doesn't start until April, 2008, but it will be worth it!

In the more immediate future, Christoper Buckley is coming to the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul. Buckley wrote some great books and would likely be well worth seeing if the tickets were cheaper (and not via TicketBastard). On top of it, his speaking engagement comes in the middle of a hectic last month of school, so I won't be able to see him.

I loved living in Oregon. I miss the people I met there and hanging with Adam and Ildiko and the weather and the mountains and ocean. But Oregon (at least the area in which I lived) suffers from a distinct lack of big thunderstorms.

I just heard my first rumbleCRACKrumble following a flash of light. It's thunderstorm time! I missed the boomers last year and hope to make up for that this year.

Bring on the horizontal rain and thunderous booms.

Russell's Teapot offers a six frame comic that perfectly summarizes the problem of a literal Biblical interpretation and the unquestioning nature of many religious people.

If you have had email for more than 3 days, you have probably received solicitations from the famous Nigerian scammers. You know the ones - you send them a little bit of money now so they can get their massive assets out of some unfortunate scenario and they will send you millions later.

Some Michiganian genius used public funds to get-rich-quick via this scam. This is stunning stupidity. It is one thing to send your money to scam artists. It is another to steal money from your community and give it to scam artists.

County officials first suspected something was amiss late last year, when bank employees informed them Katona had sent eight payments totaling $186,500 to overseas accounts, six of which were associated with peddlers of the Nigerian scheme. He stepped down in November as authorities commenced an investigation.

They found that bank employees had warned Katona that the investment was a sham, but the treasurer ignored the warnings. An audit eventually showed that more than $1.2m was missing from county coffers. It remains unclear how much of that was paid to the scammers.

Wow. That is stunning. If you have the time and patience though, you can have fun with these scammers by scam baiting - where you pretend to be interested and always be about to send them money. We used to do this with telemarketers when they would call the bookstore I worked at. We would see how long we could keep them on hold for without them hanging up.

I sure hope the St. Paul police will have as grand a plan to spy on Americans as did the NY police leading up to the Republican Convention in 2008. Turns out the NY Police spent a lot of time and effort on spying on people who disagree with the Republicans.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

Lest you think that they were only worried about the potential lawbreakers among the protesters,

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

Not only do such investigations waste the time of a police force that should be intent on enforcing laws rather than certain political viewpoints, it demonstrates one of the major reasons people in authority should not be vested with greater powers to prevent terrorism - they will abuse the powers and use it against those they dislike rather than terrorists.

The operation was mounted in 2003 after the Police Department, invoking the fresh horrors of the World Trade Center attack and the prospect of future terrorism, won greater authority from a federal judge to investigate political organizations for criminal activity.

I remember watching news coverage of the convention in '04 and being stunned at the trumped up charges police used to justify arresting many people who were not breaking laws - chief among them, a person who was arrested on charges of graffiti because he was writing political messages on sidewalks in chalk. I wonder how many of these people were targeted prior to the convention and tagged to be arrested on the flimsiest of pretexts.

The Republican convention comes to Saint Paul in '08 and I was figuring to largely ignore it because I don't want to be mistaken for a supporter of Democrats by protesting the friggin R's. But now I feel much more compelled to voice dissent to this political system that so consistently punishes dissent while bragging about being the most free country in the world.

If you have not yet seen the amazing overtime Gopher goal against North Dakota in the conference (Western Collegiate Hockey Association) championship last weekend, you should follow that link and watch it (thanks to Walchka for linking to it).

The Gophers were underdogs against a fierce North Dakota team. They dominated the game, but only put it away on that huge overtime goal.

Under what circumstances should humans genetically engineer a mosquito that will be fitter and outbreed its brethren? I suspect most Minnesotans would answer that it would NEVER be a good idea.

Having not taken a poll of Minnesotan opinions, scientists have bred mosquitoes that are fitter and have glowing eyes to boot. The purpose is to reduce malaria in Africa.

The scientists, led by Dr Mauro Marrelli from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, suggest that the transgenic malaria-resistant mosquito could one day be introduced into the wild where it would outbreed natural mosquitoes and reduce the spread of malaria.

If it worked, this would be a great, low cost way to deal with a problem that no one has yet figured out because of the inability for effected communities to pay for more expensive solutions to malaria. However, I fear the protozoa would find ways to evolve and we would be stuck with a malaria-carrying eyes-glowing blood-sucker.

But then, ya never know.

The University of Minnesota is getting Tubby Smith, former coach of the Kentucky Wildcats, as men's basketball coach. The Gophers have had a struggling team ever since Clem Haskins left the program when violations of NCAA rules were made public.

I want to be a big fan of the Gophers and I think Tubby is a good coach with a proven track record. My concerns with the Gophers are that they develop into a winning program and increase the basketball player graduation rates. Tubby's record at Kentucky for graduation isn't great, but isn't rock bottom either.

Apparently, he'll be getting a ton of money - so I hope he earns it. The majority of respondents to this Strib poll welcome him, so that is nice.

Due to my enjoyment of outdoor activities like rock climbing, some people have asked me about my opinion of the search & rescue for the climbers lost on Mt Hood last December. Outside Magazine had a great, short article on the situation in the March, 2007 issue.

What occurred on Mount Hood was a routine mountaineering accident, yet it somehow generated almost 1,000 newspaper articles in December alone, and flooded network and cable news shows with a nearly continuous loop of interviews with tearful kin and stoic rescuers. It was a high-altitude Amber Alert, the facts and spirit of which were neatly summed up by the New York Post's screaming front-page headline: DEATH ON THE MOUNT. By comparison, the search for Sue Nott, one of America's most prominent mountaineers, and her climbing partner, Karen McNeill, of New Zealand, who disappeared on Alaska's Mount Foraker last May, went almost unnoticed by the national media.

One of the biggest concerns is the costs of such search and rescue attempts. Outside tackled this head-on.

Why should taxpayers foot the bill for the rescue? Fox's Bill O'Reilly brought Outside executive editor Michael Roberts on his show, complained about how his tax dollars were being spent on "thrill seekers," and suggested that Oregon close down Mount Hood in winter.

Bill, you listening? There's a reason this country established the world's first national park, and it wasn't to jump-start the postcard business. Self-reliance in the wilderness is part of our national heritage. We don't need to close trails; we need to encourage more people to use them. As for cost, mountain rescue is a bargain compared with the $730 billion outdoor recreation pumps into the economy each year. And 90 percent of search-and-rescue personnel are volunteers who provide their own equipment and training. When military helicopters are called in, the operations usually double as training missions and are thus covered under existing budgets.

The entire article is well worth reading for some perspective on that situation. The bottom line is that many outdoor activities are inherently dangerous. Some less than others, but merely going on a hike can put you at risk. We take these risks on because they tend to be worth it.

Stunning... who gets purged from the U.S. military? Gays are purged while neo-nazies and felons enlist.

The Army has decided that it's okay to allow convicted felons and neo-nazis to serve, and its been loosening recruitment standards for years in order to patch together a surgeable workforce. (The Army now allows clinically obese plebes to enlist and and for the first time ever recruits with recent asthma and ADD.) All in the name of Army Strong.

In fact, the military has granted a record number of "moral waivers," handed out to one in 10, 8,129, new recruits last year. In the past three years more than 125,000 moral waivers, for everything from vehicular manslaughter, to DUI, to robbery and assault, were granted throughout the four branches of military service. So having 125,000 new enlistees who have immoral conduct on their record is fine, but enlistees who say they are gay is not?

I want to again hear some small minded homophobe justify discrimination against gays because they are lacking moral fiber. Exactly what evidence is there for homosexuals lacking morals? Even if we accept the faulty interpretations of the Bible that brand homosexual sex to be immoral, where does that rate when compared to felons and neo-nazis?