A word or two from 1886

Bizarre. Been reading a lot of nattering about the lawless conditions in the disaster area. Some of what's going on, sure, it's over the top. But did I really hear people proudly chiding (presumably from their nice, comfy, non-flooded homes) about looting in New Orleans, just now?

A word or two, from 1886:

What is hateful...is not rebellion but the despotism which induces the rebellion; what is hateful are not rebels but the men, who, having the enjoyment of power, do not discharge the duties of power; they are the men who, having the power to redress wrongs, refuse to listen to the petitioners that are sent to them; they are the men who, when they are asked for a loaf, give a stone.

— Wilfrid Laurier, commenting on the Riel Rebellion

Or, translating for the 21st century:

After two days without fresh water, my kids clutching at their throats in the heat of the gulf summer, figuring I've got maybe another day, tops, before I'm too dehydrated to piss, and still wondering if anyone in the rest of the world gives a rat's ass I'm up to my ankles in sewage, you bet your ass I'd loot a Safeway.

And honey, you would, too.

Seriously. This ain't no time to be commenting on anyone's manners. Apart from the twits shooting at rescue crews (now there's a survival strategy), I'm at a loss to figure why anyone gives a shit what anyone still in there is doing with their apparently ample free time. Get 'em out of there, is all.

(All that said, I really should say something about the good people who are actually getting it done now. Something like: good for you.)

Been quiet...

...I know.

Apologies. I'm fine. Just busy. And a bit stunned.

Bodies rotting in the heat. All a bit much.

New Orleans is sinking

(Alternate title: Hindsight 20/20)

Substantive article over at Scientific American from 2001 on the subject, on why the coastline is degrading and why it's worth trying to put the delta right.

Sad day.

Cleaner fusion

Okay, it sounds like it's even farther from viable than what they're planning on doing at ITER, but a Russian team is now reporting they've come up with a cleaner way to do fusion...

Neat. Nice to see the neutron flux might not be, after all, an unavoidable thing. And nice to know the folks I read saying so earlier weren't all about wishful thinking.

Paul Myers walks into a bar...

... and writes a far more worthy piece than some twit apparently being paid by the Washington Post to do so.

Justice would be that Myers' piece winds up being more widely-read than the ill-considered nonsense the Post hack drew a cheque for. Hereby doing my bit to make it so. Go. Read.

I'll be flying to the DC area in a few hours. Memorizing Ms. Jenkins' mugshot. If I see her, I'll make a point of laughing. Derisively. And loudly.

Home bleak home

In the

course of redecorating my study a week or two back now, I made a few changes to the hanging art. Wasn't so much a matter that the stuff that was there wasn't lovely. But after I'd painted the walls a deep, dark blue, some of what had worked with lesser colours didn't work quite so well any more.

As a for-instance, the lovely little photo to the left—a framed print of which, before the redecorating, hung behind me when I sat at my desk—looked, well, a bit like black on midnight next to the new paint. Little too dark for the overall scheme, which I figure now calls for the bright and zany, art-wise (see, if you're wearing a really, really dark suit, oftentimes, we're talking bright funky tie; it's much the same principle).

This hurts a bit, tho'. Thing is, that's a photo I shot must be most of a decade ago now. Still more than a bit fond of it, and I've always felt bleak is what I do best...

Fun fact: a friend once, in a moment of single malt-induced madness, asked me to shoot his wedding. My portfolio at the time, as you might expect from the sort of work I was doing, and the landscape in which I was doing it, mostly consisted of (i) accident scenes, (ii) house fires, and (iii) land-and-cloudscapes kinda like today's subject.

So I ask him: umm... so you genuinely want your nuptials to look like this?

He declined. Probably wisely.

Anyway, seein' as I've nowhere to hang it any more, I figured I'd post it. So here it is. Click for larger file. 150kB-ish.