Campanastan

Closeout: Trained Drinking Badgers!

From Kate Zeigler's FB page. 

Coming soon: wolverine model!

“Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing.” - Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Miss Korea 2013 Finalists: Saving Faces

Here are the finalists for Miss Korea 2013. They are converging on the same face, thanks to plastic surgery.

Thanks to Joe Dellapenna, oroginally from this source - the International Business Times.

 Scary...

"I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware." - Joan Rivers

Thanks, Cuz: Some Southern Comfort from Iain Matthews

Sirius XM DJ Bruce 'Cousin Brucie' Morrow played this version of Joni Mitchell's Woodstock a few days ago. The version most familiar is the one by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but I like Matthews' Southern Comfort version better. I just hadn't heard it in years. 

Love the steel guitar. 

Thanks, Cuz!

 

"My son was conceived at Woodstock. He turned out to be fat, stupid, and ugly. So much for Woodstock." - smokiebird06 (commenter on YouTube)

George W. Bush Library: Is 'The Pet Goat' There?

Here is Mike Luckovich's editorial cartoon from The Oregonian. 

What can I say? A picture is worth 1000 words, perhaps more in this case.

Wonder if there is a copy of The Pet Goat in the library?

Enjoy!

"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures." - President George W. Bush

Why North Korean Leaders Are Belligerent, Cranky Recluses: Bad Haircuts

The North Korean leaders are terribly misunderstood. They are not warmongers, nor are they anti-social. The reason they keep to themselves and are so cranky and belligerent is simple: they are terribly self-conscious because they have really bad haircuts.

Yes, take a look at Kim Jong-il, the departed Dear Leader. Would you have gone out much if you had had his haircut? Would you have been a benevolent, generous leader when you knew your own people were secretly laughing uncontrollably at the mere thought of your hair? You'd also have a huge internal security apparatus and prisons everywhere. And could you present a serious proposal to world leaders when you looked like you were sporting a bad fright wig? You'd be cranky, too! 

But this is not their fault; a few years ago it was discovered that North Koreans lack the gene that enables a person to give good haircuts to men. You remember one of my Vienna Reports (go back and read Vienna Report 7 now) in which I described my encounter with Azerbaijan's Minister of the Interior, who had a really bad haircut. Turns out that Azerbaijan barbers were trained in North Korea!

Realizing that Mother Nature had dealt them a bad hand, the North Koreans recently asked the Japanese if they could borrow a few thousand barbers. But the Japanese are understandably reluctant to do so because the last time the North Koreans "borrowed" some Japanese, they forgot to return them for about 30 years. And when they did, they had bad haircuts!

As for Kim Jung-un...well maybe some improvement is in the offing. He's still a young-un, and he did go to school in Switzerland.

Let's send him some Italian barbers.

"Don't I look like a midget's turd?" - Kim Jong-il to a kidnapped South Korean actress (alleged)

The Best Gun Control Commercial Ever!

From SUPGV.

 

“They must accept responsibility, recognizing that responsibility is not the same as culpability.” - Stephen King

The Second Boston Massacre Won't Be Forgotten Either

From Dan Wasserman of The Boston Globe.

The USA's Civil Rights Era Began This Day in Brooklyn,1947

Sixty-six years ago today, on a cold Tuesday in Brooklyn, Jack Roosevelt 'Jackie' Robinson took the field in a game against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field. He was to face Johnny Sain, one-half of the legendary "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain" pitching duo of the Braves.

Robinson didn't do too well that day: grounded out, flied out, hit into a double play, reached on an error. But his feat went far beyond what he did at the plate or in the field. He became the first African-American since the 1880s to play in a major league baseball game, and entered the history books. We didn't know it at the time but the USA's civil rights era began that day.

Jackie Robinson was a great athlete, but he proved to be an even greater man. Robinson endured a lot of crap (a euphemism) from other ballplayers, the public, sportswriters, and fans. He was a proud man, but had promised Dodgers owner Branch Rickey that he would hold his tongue and his fists for two years. Rickey feared that if Robinson proved to be too combative right off the bat, naysayers would proclaim 'I told you so!' and the cause of major league baseball integration would be damaged.  

I like this 1997 passage by Ira Berkow, in which he talked about Robinson and Dodger teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese, a Southern boy from Kentucky who was the Dodgers' captain at the time Robinson came to the big leagues.

The first of the two incidents occurred at the beginning of spring training in 1947, when Robinson had been called up to the Dodgers from Montreal, Brooklyn's top minor league team, on which Robinson had starred during the 1946 season. A petition was drawn up by a group of mostly Southern Dodgers players that stated they would not take the field with a black man.

"I'm not signing that," Reese told the ringleaders, who included Dixie Walker, Kirby Higbe and Bobby Bragan. "No way."

Reese, the soft-spoken but respected team captain, with a Southern upbringing, perhaps surprised the petition-carriers. "I wasn't thinking of myself as the Great White Father," Reese says now. "I just wanted to play baseball. I'd just come back from serving in the South Pacific with the Navy during the Second World War, and I had a wife and daughter to support. I needed the money. I just wanted to get on with it."

But there was more to it than the money.

And Reese's refusal to sign the petition, many believe, meant the end of the matter.

Robinson played, and endured vicious abuse from opposing teams, from beanballs and spikings to racial epithets and spitting. Robinson had promised Branch Rickey, the owner and general manager of the Dodgers, that for at least his first two years in the major leagues, he would hold his tongue and his fists, no matter the provocation. And one day -- it was probably in Cincinnati, Reese recalled, in 1947 or 1948 -- the attack was so nasty that Reese walked over to Robinson and put his hand on the black man's shoulder.

"Pee Wee kind of sensed the sort of hopeless, dead feeling in me and came over and stood beside me for a while," Robinson recalled, as quoted in the forthcoming biography "Jackie Robinson," by Arnold Rampersad (Alfred A. Knopf). "He didn't say a word but he looked over at the chaps who were yelling at me through him and just stared. He was standing by me, I could tell you that." The hecklers ceased their attack. "I will never forget it," Robinson said.

After reading that pssage I gained a huge amount of respect for Pee Wee Reese. He could have easily gone the other way, but he did the right thing. Not easy for a white guy from Kentucky in the late 1940s.

Jackie left us at the all-too-early age of 53. What he endured no doubt contributed to his untimely death. Robinson was a truly remarkable man who rose to a challenge few of us could ever imagine, much less face with such grace, strength, and courage.

At the tender age of 8, in 1956, I saw him play against the St. Louis Cardinals and Stan "The Man" Musial at Ebbets Field. He was nearing the end of his Hall of Fame career, but still went 2-for-4. My father attempted to explain to me the significance of what he had done, but I was too consumed with hot dogs and cotton candy to comprehend. Later, I understood, and realized that what Robinson had done helped free us all. He is now one of my all-time heroes, right up there with Nelson Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Arnold Rampersad wrote an excellent biography, Jackie Robinson. Read it. Never mind that you're not a sports fan. It is not a sports book; it's about a courageous man, a hero for all, who just happened to play baseball.

And don't forget the new movie, 42.

"Some numbers will always be associated with an athlete; '42' will forever be associated with a movement." - John Saunders, ESPN

End of an Era: El Paso's ASARCO Stacks Come Down

Although the ASARCO (originally known as 'American Smelting and Refining Company) copper smelter closed in 1999, two of the stacks remained until yesterday, when both came down. The taller of the two was 828 feet; the other was 612 feet. ASARCO decided in 2007 that it was  not worth reopening the smelter after more than 100 years of operation so it was time to dismantle things.

Here's a good story on the smelter's legacy - not all of it good - from the El Paso Times, with more videos and stills.

I recall first seeing these in summer 1970 en route from Virginia to Tucson; I believe there were three at the time. They were hard to miss from Interstate 10 on the west side of El Paso. Impressive!

Nothing like watching big structures coming down!

 

"I and others are sick, especially those who come from the younger generation." - Charlie Rodriguez, 63, former ASARCO worker 

"I was fortunate to have worked at ASARCO." - Miguel Beltran, 85

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX): 'If Babies Had Guns, They Wouldn't Be Aborted'

From Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) via Huffington Post:

They might also shoot moronic Congressman.

"And he's even using children! It reminds me of Saddam Hussein would use kids to..." - Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), referring to President Obama

The Big Gulp Gives Mayor Mike 'The Big One'

From the Funny Times.

"Size does matter." - Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Monday Musings: Mad Men, Movies, Mouseketeers, Maggie, and Miami Morons

With one week left until tax day in the USA, here are some thoughts.

1) Mad Men's season 6 premiered last night. You can read various expert opinions here and here. Thoughts about people of color here. Not sure what I think about my once-favorite show. I do know one thing: I'm liking Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) more and more. And where is Betty (January Jones) headed?

2) I'm not the world's greatest moviegoer but I always enjoyed the late Roger Ebert's reviews and disagreements with the late Gene Siskel, whom he delighted in criticizing and belittling. Rest in peace, Roger. 

3) Sad to hear that original Mouseketeer, Annette Funicello, died today at age 70 after a quarter-century battle with multiple sclerosis. She got her start on the iconic Disney TV show, and progressed to a recording career and starring with Frankie Avalon in those 'beach blanket bingo' movies. Annette, you have no idea how many boys imagined you as the object of their affections. Wonder if Roger Ebert ever reviewed any of her movies?

4) Margaret Thatcher, the 'Iron Lady', former UK PM, died today at age 87. Fascinating person who remade Britain. For better or worse? Don't ask me, but I suspect it was a little bit of each. Seems like many people either loved her or hated her; I'm in neither camp. Factoid: she was originally trained as a chemist.

5) Ah...morons! Power couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z (no, they are not the morons) celebrated their fifth anniversary by heading to Cuba, that evil island of '57 Chevys and the Castro brothers. BFD, right? Well, no. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, Florida Republicans who are Cuban-Americans, have inquired about the nature of the couple's trip.

That doesn't surprise me, as the two Miami Morons are still fighting the Castro brothers and supporting the USA's cockamamie embargo that has empowered the Castros and their fellow travelers. Thanks to people like the Miami Morons and their ilk, Fidel became the darling of misguided lefties all over the world. The embargo prolonged his oppressive dictatorship and brought misery to the Cuban people. And yet the Miami Cuban-Americans sent money home to Cuba, which helped prop up Castro. Way to go, guys!

Bite me! 

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't." - Margaret Thatcher

Wishful Thinking...Hitting Forty (But Not Home Runs!)

Hitting forty is perhaps wishful thinking on my part, but certainly not on the Yankees' part. This New Yorker cover (8 April 2013) says it all. Mark Ulriksen did the cover of 'Medicated Row'.

From left to right: Andy Pettitte, Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Ichiro Suzuki, and Mark Teixeira.

But 'old guys' Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera beat the Red Sox tonight!

Hey, where's Curtis Granderson? well, he's injured but he is a youngster compared to these guys - only 32. But so is Teixeira. No African-Americans? 

“I’m not a Yankees fan per se, but I’m a New Yorker at heart, and I can say the Yankees are sure old and beat up. In this lineup I put together, I added the ages of all the players and found the average was forty. And forty in baseball is old.” - Mark Ulriksen 

Wait Till Next Year...

Love this kitty!

"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." - Unknown

1 April 2013: The Most Important Kazakhstan Report - Really!

The Kazakhstan Report

 (being a semi-truthful account of my travel adventures, designed to amuse, befuddle, and to be read with a dose of skepticism)

 
Kazakhstan. The name conjures images of Mongol horsemen sweeping across the steppes. The Silk Road. Majestic mountains. Silos brimming with Soviet nuclear-tipped missiles. The movie Air Force One. Borat. But University of New Mexico professors? Yes, in our never-ending search for contracts, grants, and indirect cost return, several of my colleagues (Tim Ward, Bruce Thomson, and Greg Gleason – none of whom had anything to do with this report) and I are working with the Eurasian National University (ENU) in the capital city of Astana to help faculty there develop a Master of Science degree in Environmental Management and Engineering. Bruce (a civil engineer), Greg (a political scientist) and I just returned from a visit from there and have much to report, some of it actually true.

Kazakhstan is a former Soviet republic, which found itself thrust into independence in late 1991, when the Soviet Union broke up. It also found itself, along with Ukraine and Belarus, a major nuclear power overnight, as the Soviets kept a lot of their missile silos there (better Kazakhstan get nuked, right?). Wisely wishing to avoid the infamous “WMD/Axis of Evil” tag, Kazakhstan, with our blessing and to our relief, decided to dismantle the nukes. When asked by Congress if all of them were gone, George Tenet, then CIA Director, enthusiastically uttered words that would return to haunt him: “Yep. It’s a slam dunk!” Kazakhstan faced an immediate crisis, however – what to do with hundreds of empty missile silos. Ingenuity quickly surfaced, and the silos are now used for landfills and for “retraining” political prisoners. It is said that spending a couple of cold, dark months in the bowels (remember that word) of a silo has a way making people “see the light”. But enough about Kazakhstan already.

I had to fly the Kazakhstan national airline, Air Astana, from Almaty to Astana after taking KLM from Amsterdam. I was ready to trash Air Astana, figuring it was like the Chinese domestic airlines (flying those wonderful old Russian TU-154s) or Airzena, the Georgian national airline, which flies planes (2, actually) the likes of which I’d never seen before. But Air Astana was a treat – new 757s, free newspapers, attentive flight attendants (I knew I was not in the USA), on-time departures/arrivals, no scimitars allowed, etc. Air Astana is owned by the government and the UK firm BAE, and recently brought in a Brit, Sir Hugh Jeego, with 35 years of BA experience, to be its President.

Astana has been the capital since 1998. The president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, decided to move the capital from Almaty, the major city and financial and cultural center, to Astana, which was in the country’s interior, on the steppes. By contrast, Almaty, with its beautiful tree-lined streets, was located in the south, near other countries, and framed by the gorgeous Tian Shan Mountains. So how do Astana and Almaty compare? Think Brasilia vs. Rio de Janeiro; Albany vs. New York City, Sacramento vs. Fresno, Cheyenne vs. Laramie. In other words, no comparison. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

President Nazarbayev, who bears a resemblance to Tom Ridge, is the former Communist party chief who miraculously became a democrat (that’s with a small “d” – a very small“d”) overnight. But he doesn’t appear to meddle, acting more like a father-figure (remember Ward Cleaver on Leave It to Beaver?) and stepping in when the “children” get a bit unruly. He apparently takes this father-figure business seriously, as the new board chair of Air Astana, an attractive young woman, is rumored to have a son who looks like Mr. Nazarbayev (or Tom Ridge, if you catch my drift).

I had been warned about Kazakhstan’s national dish: horse-bowel sausage with noodles. I managed to avoid it until two days before departing, when we had a sumptuous lunch in the Rector’s (that’s rector, folks) office. Towards the end of lunch I was breathing a sigh of relief, when the door flew open and the University’s Research Director brought in a steaming plate of the morsels. My first thought? Finally – a good use for a university research director – waiter. My second thought? Unprintable. But actually the stuff wasn’t bad, and I would not have known it was horsemeat (it was, right???) had I not been told.

Since the Rector had us around, he decided to show us off and invited us to a conference ENU was hosting the next day. We could not decline, although it sounded like a psychobabble-type meeting dealing with anomie, dysfunction, isolation, etc. The keynote talk was something like Grieving Towards Healing or some such. We thought of a couple of talks we could give, providing a vantage point from our professions. How about Extreme Social Isolation: The Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator, or The Loneliness of the Stream Gauger; or A Modern Societal Dilemma: Why Sanitary Engineers Are Civil But Civil Engineers Are Not Sanitary.

Let’s get serious for a moment. Remember every so often you’ll hear of an incoming international flight diverted to some place like Bangor, Maine, because a suspected terrorist is on board? This happened last year to Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens), when the DHS realized he had not written a decent song since Here Comes My Baby in the late 1960s and wisely put him on its “no-fly” list. So why was he allowed to board the plane at Heathrow? Because the airlines do not have to check passenger lists against the no-fly list until the plane has departed. I am not prevaricating here, folks. Do you believe this? In fact, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has pressured DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff to change this. Chertoff said he would address this as soon as he finished listening to Tea for the Tillerman backwards, a record reputed to contain encoded terrorist messages. One Chertoff admonition: don’t play Shirley Ellis’ The Name Game with Schumer’s first name.

Traveling overseas is usually enjoyable. Lately I have taken to wearing my IAEA logo T- shirts, which gets me lots of airline upgrades and approving nods from the Euros. The IAEA still has cachet, and as long as I don’t tell people what the IAEA really does in Vienna I’m okay. I would not wear such a shirt to Iran and thought better of wearing it to Kazakhstan. I used to wear National Geographic shirts, given to me in quantity by my late younger sister Ann. I always thought that doing so would have some benefit till Ann told me that she never wore them, especially on certain foreign airlines, because some of the NG photographers had really bad reputations as prima donnas (“What? No chilled Tanqueray gin?”, “Pretentious? Moi?”). But then again, I don’t fly the kinds of airlines she did, which had names like Aeromuerto (Paraguay).

No doubt you are all as relieved as I to learn that we are no longer fighting a Global War On Terror, but a Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. No more GWOT; it’s GSAVE from now on. I feel so much safer!

With that, it is time to go. Till next time.

"You can train a puppy and it will later bite you in the calf; you can train a blind man how to shoot a gun and he will later kill you." - Kazakh proverb

"Kazakhstan is the greatest country in the world; all other countries are run by little girls." - Borat 

Happy April Fools' Day!

(written: 2 August 2005)