Monthly Archives: March 2016

The reader continues the Marty discussion:

The movie suffers from being too long, and too “Hollywood.” Borgnine is too charismatic if not too good looking for the role. Also I like the feel of the teleplays from that era, which were broadcast live, warts and all. Feels more “real.”

I look forward to finding time to see it. Although I wonder that Rod Steiger doesn’t come across as charismatic. I actually found Ernest’s performance, when his mouth takes off and drags him along, as being almost repulsive in some ways.

Variety reports Georgia has run into a roadblock when it comes to passing “religious freedom” laws: a behemoth named DISNEY.

The Walt Disney Co. and Marvel Studios indicated opposition to a Georgia religious liberty bill pending before Gov. Nathan Deal, saying that they will take their business elsewhere “should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law.”

With generous tax incentives, Georgia has become a production hub, with Marvel currently shooting “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” at Pinewood Studios outside Atlanta. “Captain America: Civil War” shot there last summer.

“Disney and Marvel are inclusive companies, and although we have had great experiences filming in Georgia, we will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law,” a Disney spokesman said on Wednesday.

The MPAA is in the same corner. From the March 17 edition of myAJC (paywall) comes a summary of the bill, as well as reaction:

The Georgia Legislature’s sudden passage of a bill intended to shield opponents of same-sex marriage from last year’s landmark Supreme Court ruling ignited a fierce and growing pushback from corporate leaders and gay rights activists urging Gov. Nathan Deal to block the bill.

Some of Georgia’s most influential companies warned of devastating consequences if Deal were to sign the “religious liberty” legislation that swept through the statehouse Wednesday in mere hours, and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed warned it would cause “terrible harm” to the state’s business reputation.

At the same time, supporters rallied behind the measure. Religious conservatives showered the Legislature with praise, and the state GOP, noting that its activists overwhelmingly passed a resolution supporting the bill, applauded lawmakers “for listening to grassroots Republicans and for working together to pass this vitally important piece of legislation.” …

On Thursday, the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition launched robo-calls urging people to call Deal’s office and tell the governor to support the bill. Virginia Galloway, the group’s Southern regional director, rejected as “hyperbole” statements by the business community and others that the bill allows discrimination.

“It is very reasonable and it respects the rights of all people,” she said.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber, the state’s most influential business voice, said the measure is “in conflict with the values of diversity and inclusion that Georgians hold dear” and could erode the state’s business reputation. The Georgia Hotel & Lodging Association called for the “best legal minds” to examine the potential unintended consequences.

“At the end of the day, it hurts Georgians because it impacts jobs,” said Larry Gellerstedt, the CEO of Cousins Properties and a recent past chairman of the Metro Atlanta Chamber’s board. “I don’t know how anyone can disagree with that.”

Governor Deal, term-limited, has not yet disclosed whether or not he’ll sign the legislation.

It’s been dismaying of late to witness the lack of GOP adherence to any principle, their party principles or to American principles. Now, granted, some principles grind on the nerves of some Americans simply because we are not a homogeneous, coherent whole, but rather a collection of disparate groups, defined in many different ways and inevitably finding some of our founding – and, providentially, legal – principles to be incompatible with the modes of thought employed by these groups. It is up to these groups to discover ways to adjust their ideologies to the overarching framework provided by our legal and cultural systems.

But, as Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog points out, the GOP is having troubles with their own principles:

About a month ago, Birmingham, Alabama, decided it was time to give the city’s low-wage workers a raise. Local officials approved a minimum-wage increase, that would apply solely to Birmingham employers, to $10.10 an hour.

Just two days later, Alabama’s Republican governor and GOP-led legislature decided to undo what Birmingham had done. The state passed a law, which applied retroactively, prohibiting cities from raising their own minimum wages, even if they want to. In all, 17 Republican-led states have approved measures to block local control in this area. …

Responses like these to local control continue to amaze. As we talked about a month ago, contemporary conservatism is generally committed to the idea that the government that’s closest to the people – literally, geographically – is best able to respond to the public’s needs. As much as possible, officials should try to shift power and resources away to local authorities.

Except, that is, when communities consider progressive measures Republicans don’t like, at which point those principles are quickly thrown out the window.

This is not an isolated incident: Michigan and Oklahoma have also seen such breach-of-principle. It’s a little appalling: just as the States serve as laboratories of democracy, the cities within those States should have a similar role in exploring policies as experiments which can be easily retracted after appropriate appraisal of their results. As Steve points out, local control should really mean decentralization; the use of the State power to control city policies should be verboten according to this principle.

But failure to adhere even to American principles does suggest something of a lack of understanding of those principles. A very recent example, supplied by NPR, from a Ted Cruz press release:

In a statement released Tuesday morning, Ted Cruz said America must secure its southern border to prevent “terrorist infiltration.” He also suggested heightened monitoring of Muslim neighborhoods, saying, “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.”

Along with his repulsive remarks about carpet bombing ISIS held territory, which would result in the deaths of millions of civilians, these remarks betray a remarkable lack of understanding of American principles of, well, from the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Insofar as the remarks about “Muslim neighborhoods”, he later clarified them as follows:

He instead compared it to ridding neighborhoods of gang activity and law enforcement’s efforts “to take them off the street.”

A gang is a group of people who have come together with a primary purpose to commit crimes for personal aggrandizement. Suggesting the same tactics used to repress them be used in Muslim areas is a clear implication that Muslims are illegal.

Wrong answer in a secular nation such as ours’. Back to the after-school chalkboard for Cruz.

These are all particulars of a more general problem, fear of the outsider, especially when fringe elements espouse our destruction. This does appear to be a problem characteristic of a lot of conservatives, as we saw some sixty years ago when Senator Joe McCarthy began the persecution of home-grown Communists, or anyone who could be so construed. I’m reminded of this due to the recent viewing of the Jim Carrey movie The Majestic. He plays a new screenwriter by the name of Peter Appleton (one movie to his credit), whose new screenplay happens to mention the travails of coal miners and views a coal mining union in a positive light: thus he comes into the cross-hairs of a Congressional anti-Red committee. As those machinations occur, he has an accident, loses his memory, and is mistaken by a town for a lost World War II hero by the name of Luke Trimble, finally returned. Eventually recovering his memory and found by committee investigators, the committee orders his appearance, where Carrey delivers a speech on the subject of fear and its impact on freedom. All YouTube videos of the speech have been withdrawn by Warner Brothers, so I’ve assembled the speech from fragments found on the site Script-O-Rama:

Committee Chairman: Just read the damn statement.

Peter Appleton: “I, Peter Appleton. . . . ”

Committee Chairman: Mr. Appleton, the Committee’s patience is wearing thin.

Peter Appleton: I understand that, Mr. Chairman. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It occurs to me there’s a bigger issue than whether or not I’m a Communist.

Committee Chairman: Bigger issue? There is no bigger issue.

Peter Appleton: Actually, not to be contrary, I think there is. Gosh, I don’t quite know what to say. Fact is, l. . . . I’ve never been a man of great conviction. I never saw the percentage in it. And quite frankly. . . I suppose. . . I lacked the courage. See, I’m not like Luke Trimble [WW II Hero]. He had the market cornered on those things. I never met the guy, but I feel like I’ve gotten to know him. The thing is, I can’t help wondering what he’d say. . .if he were standing here right now. I think he’d probably tell you…the America represented in this room. . .is not the America he died defending. I think he’d say your America is bitter. . .and cruel and small.

Committee Chairman: Come to order!

Peter Appleton:I know his America was big. Bigger than you can imagine! With a wide-open heart! Where every person has a voice! Even if you don’t like what they say–

Committee Chairman: Enough! You are out of order!

Peter Appleton: If he were here, I wonder how you’d respond. . .if you could explain to him what happened to his America.

Committee Chairman: You are skating on the edge of contempt!

Peter Appleton: That’s the first thing I’ve heard today that I agree with!

And then it moves off the point. But what Peter says is important and focuses our attention: since when did we become small and afraid?

Since we abandoned principles.

See, a principle is not an object for mere lip service, nor is it a bit of dead air which everyone edges around nervously. Principles certainly guide our actions, but more importantly, they are our moral and intellectual tools. They are tools for properly handling all situations which we may encounter. Properly put, they should guide us while answering questions of why they are principles, and why they should never be abridged; through this combined how & why, they should illuminate how to use them to resolve situations to our advantage.

When the GOP pronounces a guiding principle of decentralization of political control, they believe that local can govern more effectively (by which I mean humanely and efficiently) than can the bureaucrats in some place far away. This is a reasonable principle to at least try out. And when they abridge their principle, they lose that advantage; now we shout at the legislators at the State capitol rather than the national capitol. Thus they lose the advantage conferred, if any is indeed conferred, by application of the principle because they turn around and obviate it. The damage to their intellectual reputations are cumulative and difficult to repair.

When we abandon principles of international bearing and renown, we lose advantage: our principle of accepting desperate refugees, our principle of not committing torture, a dozen others. Each of these are neither dead words nor burdens we bear, but rather principles that confer advantages on us. When Trump demands we torture prisoners, be they criminals or opposition soldiers, he throws away the advantages that principle gave us: to not be barbarians and do the same things to our brothers, sister, aunts and uncles; to not delude ourselves into thinking we have actionable intelligence, as the CIA confirmed in their seminal report; to signal to the world of intelligent people considering emigrating here that we are safe, that you need not fear torture and persecution.

This is what we lose when we abandon our principles to the pressure of the disaster of the moment. The Democrats, I notice, have not renounced important American principles, but the GOP seems to have trouble keeping the course. And a significant portion of the electorate just doesn’t seem to understand the importance of keeping principles.

This time a movie not quite so old: The Old Dark House (1963), a horror-comedy (parts cleverness, parts farce) with a clutch of character actors of the time: Tom Poston, Robert Morley, etc. This is a fairly mundane, sometimes excruciating story of an American in Britain who, at the call of an odd friend, goes to the man’s home, a small mansion in a marsh. There he finds the man dead, and all of his relatives as dotty as they come, from the mother who is not particularly upset at the passing of her son, to his twin, and various cousins and uncles; we find an ark in the backyard, a fierce collection of firearms, including one jury-rigged to assassinate the prime suspect in the first murder, and a lass with an execrable obsession with explosives. The humor is fairly standard for the era, thus my itching teeth.

But what twigged my interest was the theme. The plot mechanism is that there is a fortune associated with the mansion, with everyone in the family an heir to it, but with the stipulation that each must be present in the mansion at midnight; the family gathers in a given room at the as the clocks strike twelve, and if one is missing, why, they’re out of their inheritance.

And, often, their life.

But the theme, yes, the theme is how wealth, with its tempting fragrance of lifelong leisure, can twist people into madness. The first member of the family we meet may have been the sanest, escaping to London most days to gamble, and engaging a small airplane to fly him home before midnight; his mother is engaged in knitting, measuring her useless accomplishments by the mile, and behind her facade of English gentility may be the maddest of them all. The gun aficionado is relatively sane; another uncle is busy constructing an ark in the surrounding marsh, which is, perhaps, a trifle artificial. The femme cousins (I apologize for the harsh pun on the family name, the Femms) appear distressed but otherwise mildly harmless.

I suppose obsession with wealth has been around for almost as long as humanity has conceived of possessions, but this movie does an interesting job of pointing out how much humanity wastes on the chase after wealth, as the walls of the mansion become obstructions to seeing anything but that wealth. Where are the visitors, the socializing, the enterprise essential to human nature? Gone, stolen by the mansion’s wealth.

This is moving as it addresses one of the more important questions of the age.  It’s by Nadia Drake on the National Geographic blog No Place Like Home. It starts out,

Paris was horrific.

And later…

I stewed and stewed, and stewed some more, and emerged briefly and wrote to Kareem Shaheen, a friend who’s based in Beirut and covers the Middle East for the Guardian.

“I wish there were something I could do to help, or something that would at least make a difference. Want to swap jobs for a bit?” I suggested, half joking.

His response was, in a nutshell, that science has the power to redeem and inspire, and that casting our eyes to the stars can unite every human on Earth. Then he echoed a sentiment I’d heard a day earlier: Keep writing about science. It’s important, and it’s inspiring.

“There’s a unifying beauty to it–you can appreciate the stars and planets whether you’re Sunni, Shia, Hindu, Christian, Jew, atheist or Wiccan,” Kareem said. “Finding new things to discover, wondering at what could be up there, us being the universe contemplating itself, setting our sights at conquering a new frontier, that’s what we should be doing.”

If you’ve wondered how to focus everyone on any particular human disaster, then read it. It reminds us that the disaster of the moment, as horrible as it may be, will pass, but our communal building of the knowledge base, well, that brings us together, it unites our spirits, and moves us forward to a better future.

And may explain why ISIS engages in destruction.

(h/t The Planetary Report, print edition)

Draper • Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told Utahns on Saturday that the biggest danger America faces is career politicians who no longer listen — and he relishes battling them for the people.

“The biggest divide we have today in politics is between career politicians in Washington — in both parties — and the American people,” he said. “Our freedom is at stake. Our nation is dangling in the balance.”

Cruz said he has been ridiculed and attacked by such politicians for fighting “Obamacare” and defending the Constitution, but he — and his friend Utah Sen. Mike Lee — are “holding Washington accountable.”

— The Salt Lake Tribune

I also gotta say, if the greatest danger to the nation is career politicians, then what is he to make of Trump? Perhaps God sent Trump to show Cruz that he’s wrong?

Well, it’s all evidence that the human race is mostly made up of drama queens.

(h/t Sydney Sweitzer)

WorldPress.org relays a worry from across the Atlantic:

United Kingdom – The Guardian, March 5: Barring an unforeseen disaster on either side, Clinton and Trump are now on a collision course for the presidential election on 8 November 2016. The bombastic, swaggering, sometimes vulgar billionaire has stunned the political world, plunged the Republican Party into civil war and, among the pundit class, relegated the prospect of the 240-year-old republic’s first female president to a footnote. … The outside world, overjoyed by the election of America’s first black president just eight years ago, is asking: how did it come to this? …One chilling statistic for Clinton stands out: more than 8 million voters took part in the Republican Super Tuesday contests, while the Democratic turnout was around 5.5 million. … Clinton is compared to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; Trump is compared to everyone from Benito Mussolini to Juan Perón to Silvio Berlusconi.

Harry Enten @ FiveThirtyEight addressed this worry a couple of days ago:

But Democrats shouldn’t worry. Republicans shouldn’t celebrate. As others have pointed out, voter turnout is an indication of the competitiveness of a primary contest, not of what will happen in the general election. The GOP presidential primary is more competitive than the Democratic race.

Indeed, history suggests that there is no relationship between primary turnout and the general election outcome. You can see this on the most basic level by looking at raw turnout in years in which both parties had competitive primaries. There have been six of those years in the modern era: 1976, 1980, 1988, 1992, 2000 and 2008.

Primary turnout isn’t related to the general election outcome

			PARTY WITH HIGHER PRIMARY TURNOUT WINS …
YEAR	DEMOCRATIC	REPUBLICAN	POPULAR VOTE	ELECTORAL COLLEGE
1976	16.1m	10.4m	✓	✓
1980	18.7	12.7
1988	23.0	12.2
1992	20.2	12.7	✓	✓
2000	14.0	17.2		✓
2008	37.2	20.8	✓	✓

As first written up by PolitiFact, the party that had higher turnout in the primary won the national popular vote three times and lost three times. If you look at the Electoral College, the party that had the higher turnout in the primary won four times. That can hardly be described as predictive.¹

The article covers more such questions in loving detail – each indicating primary turnout is not predictive. Back to the WorldPress.org viewpoint collection, another entry makes a possibly telling point:

France – France 24, March 2: Senior Republicans are running out of options in their race to stop the Donald Trump bandwagon. Whether or not they succeed, the battle is likely to prove costly for the Grand Old Party. … Josh Kraushaar, a political editor at the National Journal… noted that while Trump’s poll ratings are on the upswing, surveys also show that a quarter of the Republican electorate “won’t vote for him under any circumstances,” while some would even cross over to the Democrats, provided they pick a moderate like Clinton. … “The emerging scenario in Washington is that the Republicans are going to take this to a contested convention,” Kraushaar said, suggesting an ugly showdown between the pro- and anti-Trump camps was a likely outcome. “If Trump doesn’t come out as the nominee his supporters are going to be furious, but if he does then you have about a quarter of Republicans who won’t vote for him,” he said, describing the conundrum as a “no-win situation.”

And this could have down-ballot consequences as well. The real question, assuming the Republicans lose the election and the Senate, is whether or not the loss will have real consequences for those who’ve fomented this revolution – or if they’ll continue to be respected members of a conservative side of the United States that’s acting as if it’s out of control – or deeply over-controlled.

¹H/T Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog.

Via WorldPress.org, NACLA‘s Sara Kozameh writes about Argentina’s new government, led by President Mauricio Macri, noting the abrupt change in various policies and immediate public sector layoffs, with more projected, thought to be aimed at supporters of previous President Kirchner. Then this interest tidbit comes up:

Those who stand to profit from these new policies include many in Macri’s inner circle. He has stacked his cabinet with businessmen and former CEOs, and at the provincial level, the new minister of agriculture for Buenos Aires Province—now also governed by Macri’s party—is a former regional manager for Monsanto. The media has reported that since the election, the sale of Monsanto products like GMO corn seeds and herbicides have jumped. Questions of conflict of interest, though, do not seem to concern Macri, who seems intent on bringing a new “managerial ethos” to Argentina. Other corporate executives whom he has appointed to cabinet positions have had close business relationships with his family, who themselves are often criticized for having greatly profited from ventures during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. If government policy is going to have the same “ethos” as scandal-plagued companies like Monsanto, Shell, JP Morgan Chase and General Motors—some of the corporations that Macri’s new cabinet members have previously worked for—then it is no wonder that so many Argentines are worried for their country.

The return to a “business-oriented” economic regime under Macri will likely include returning to increased dependence on foreign creditors and the same multilateral organizations that led the country down a turbulent path to economic collapse in 2001. An important component of his business-friendly model is Macri’s vow to renew ties with the IMF and end the conflict with “vulture fund” holdout creditors. In January, after 13 years of Argentina’s absence, he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, as if proudly debuting the country’s young, new economic orthodoxy to an eagerly awaiting business world.

This seems reminiscent of the United States – putting businessmen, who basically know nothing about government in charge, and watching the sky fall in on us. Will this happen with Argentina? The counter-argument, of course, is why should we, or Argentinians, trust professional politicians? And it’s a fair question. For example, the Presidential mini-dynasty of the Kirchners, Néstor and his widow, Cristina, gives me pause as it echoes the American Bushes and Clintons.

I look forward to hearing if the Argentinians regret their choice of party to lead them into the future – or celebrate it.

A reader writes that Marty has appeared in more than one form:

The original Paddy Chayefsky teleplay starring Rod Steiger was much better, IMO: http://youtu.be/5kL2afMZ9SQ

Gotta say, that actor to the left of Steiger looks like the guy who played Angie from Borgnine’s Marty.  Joe Mantell’s the name.  And, indeed, it is Mantell, he did the role in both the teleplay and the movie.

I will have to find time to see this. Does the more compact form make for better drama?

Is the momentum continuing behind this idea? Walter Einenkel @ The Daily Kos reports that New Zealand may be moving towards UBI:

New Zealand’s Labour Party is considering the concept of a basic “citizen’s wage.” Andrew Little, leader of the Labour Party, confirmed this as the result of the potential for higher unemployment in in the coming months and years. “Citizen’s income” is also known as Universal Basic Income (UBI). The idea is that everyone gets a basic amount of money to live off of, like a wage, and benefit systems are gotten rid of.

In October 2015 Keith Rankin contributed this observation from the inside of the movement:

With a UBI, taxes are simple, high by neoliberal standards, and everybody (subject only to age and residency criteria) claims an equal share of that public revenue as a basic income. While a UBI should never be understood as the only form of publicly-sourced cash income (some ‘needs-based’ transfers will always be necessary) – and is a dividend rather than a ‘hand-out’ – for a substantial majority of the resident adult population, it would be their only publicly-sourced income.

A UBI on its own is not a cure for poverty. Rather, it’s a public-property-rights-based payment that incidentally serves as a hand-up rather than as a handout. Of particular importance is the additional bargaining power it gives to the relatively poor. It tides-over people during spells without income – like ‘strike pay’ once did – enabling them to hold out for fair private-sector wages; and it reduces pressure on self-employed people who might otherwise under-tender to get work. Of equal importance is the way it addresses the low-income poverty trap that accompanies all forms of targeted redistribution. The GMI accentuates the low-income trap. The UBI eliminates it.

I have some difficulty buying the use of the term ‘dividend’ in this context, as dividends usually refer to the profits spun off from a business back to the shareholders, although occasionally a dividend is funded buying borrowing money against the prediction of future profits – which sounds like a little nutty to me. Back to the point, mixing private sector terminology, even as merely analogies, worries me as it tends to let private sector practices to leak, perhaps inappropriately, into the public (government) sector. See here for that discussion. Keith concludes with the obligatory claim of Paradise.

On its own a universal tax-benefit regime cannot end poverty. Rather it creates a power-balance; and a dynamic that confers dignity and puts an end to poverty traps. It enables people to say ‘no’ to exploitation, and ‘yes’ to private initiatives that contribute to social and economic wellbeing; to initiatives that, among other things, raise productivity and thereby raise the future level of universal basic income payable.

Sounds good to me. Keith has an additional, more recent piece in the Evening Report here. Geoff Simmons at Gareth’s World has a list of the ten categories of people in New Zealand who would benefit from this scheme. The big winners are #5 on his list:

The working poor would be the biggest winners under an unconditional basic income. They wouldn’t lose their unconditional income as they work more, so the working poor would be better off than they are now, and definitely better off than people who chose not to work.

For low-wage earning couples currently receiving Working for Families, most would still receive more money if both adults received an unconditional basic income. More importantly, they wouldn’t lose this income as they earned more, so they have a stronger incentive to work harder and smarter than they do now.

The rich? Not so much.

A behavior which I’ve read about and observed via news reports, but have never personally observed, is fanatical efforts to avoid taxes. I’m not referring to tax evasion, which by definition is illegal, but efforts that may border on illegality, and are sometimes in quite bad taste. The efforts imply a certain crass materialism on the part of the tax(not)payer, a desire not to contribute to the communal good, although the actor would not agree. If of a libertarian bent, the counter-claim would involve the considerable amount already contributed to society through the implied productivity which generated the income in the first place, or, if of an older generation, the endemic corruption of government, and associated waste of funds; another popular claim is the alleged immorality of the government. An example might be the notorious, late Marc Rich, who escaped the United States just prior to the filing of charges (by Rudy Giuliani), and never returned, despite an ill-advised Presidential pardon from Bill Clinton.

So how would this behavior change if UBI were implemented in the United States? Assuming a more or less standard definition, the government stipend would be tax free. A flat tax of 33% might be enough to fund government operations, assuming all welfare was abolished and military spending was finally brought under control. One has to wonder if Social Security would disappear as well.

So my point would be that there would be some obsessive (but trivial) calculations of when one transits from benefiting (paying less tax) from the government stipend to paying for the lazy bums (as the unfortunate would no doubt be characterized) would be performed, and no doubt many folks, indifferent to the many benefits government brings, would gnash their teeth as they inadvertently helped the less fortunate begin to escape the traps they are so often within. Such is our fascination, even idolatry, this country has to do with personal wealth.

I look forward to hearing how New Zealand does with this new notion. The law unintended consequences is always fun, but, to grab one more item from Mr. Simmons’ list of benefiting people …

In fact, some young entrepreneurs believe an unconditional basic income would be one of the most business friendly policies around. It would provide some secure income as entrepreneurs during the all-important start up phase.

If you want to sell UBI in the United States, a form of that paragraph is the place to start. Right next to money in the idolatry list is the phrase free enterprise.

In Marty (1955) we’re introduced to Marty’s (Ernest Borgnine) Italian family, where, for the elder generation, marriage is the only thing, having a son is a close second, and the bitterness of no longer being useful is brought forcefully to the fore. In the background, an argument, centering around the lustful, dishonorable urges of wolfpacks of young men, is made for the importance that everyone be married, for otherwise the emotional pain of objectification and consequent cessation of social bonds will come to the fore; it’s an interesting argument, but given our knowledge of social heterogeniety, perhaps not as forceful as it once was.

But Ernest gives a fine performance as the butcher taking care of his mother and, for that matter, the rest of the family. The unhappiness of a branch of the extended family in having the mother living with the young married couple with baby is examined in fine detail as the young people show their problems in superb, yelling fashion: his concern that he’s abandoning his mother and blaming it on his wife, while she is not amenable to the constant criticism and micromanagement of her mother-in-law, who happens to be a hyper-competitive flying witch on wheels.

They don’t make movies like this anymore, and probably thank goodness: a less than excellent version of this sort of movie would be a failure and make my teeth itch. But this is Marty, a 4-star effort which will repay a close viewing with insights, laughter, and a real empathy for all the characters who are not part of a wolfpack.

The effect of big predators on the web of life makes the page in NewScientist (27 February 2016):

Predators don’t control populations of their prey just by killing them. They also paint what is termed a landscape of fear, inhibiting prey from feeding and turning parts of their habitat into no-go zones. Now it appears that this has far-reaching effects throughout the food web.

Domestic dogs are the main predators of raccoons on the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Canada. Justin Suraci and his colleagues at the University of Victoria in Canada wondered what would happen if they stoked the raccoons’ fear of dogs without increasing predation. They set up speakers along the shoreline on two islands and played either the calls of dogs, or of seals and sea lions, which also live here but are not a threat to raccoons.

The dog sounds cut the raccoons’ foraging time by 66 per cent over the course of a month. They also led to a rise in the abundance of crabs, fish and worms that raccoons feed on in the intertidal areas, and in turn, to a decline in numbers of those animals’ prey and competitors (Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10698).

It’s work like this, in which the logical chains of reaction, behavior, and its effects on population dynamics are explained in a logical manner, that does two things for me (besides giving me a thrill down my spine).

First, it documents how important the large predators are to a geographical area. Their presence, or absence, affects their prey, the resources their prey use, the physical nature of the land used by their prey, and then rinse and repeat with those prey, now as predators in their turn, as all those numbers change and resource usage changes. This understanding of the underpinnings of what poets dream about has its own magic, its own manifold, tangible meanings, and these central logical connections do not exist in a vacuum, but they instead affect us as well – because we are intimately connected to that landscape.

Second, it permits a more essential and understandable ecological advocacy. While some folks, with a superfluous understanding of ecology, may merely shrug and advance the notion of ‘circle of life’, and suggest that commerce must come before ecology, this sort of deep understanding permits the inversion of such arguments. How? By the important understanding that we are tied to the landscape we live on. Even us software engineers, we have to live somewhere, and if we do not put our understanding of our real-life surroundings into a central place in our society, we risk ending up like the folks who have – and are – building houses near the coastline (see the section on Science & Government). That is, doomed to lose our houses, our belongings, even our lives, to the subtle forces of Nature, and how we have changed her. Despite our attempts to live apart from Nature, she is always there, always around us – and, unless we want to live in the E. M. Forster’s Machine, giving up all control, then we need to think about how that ecology works, and give it prime place in our society – with commerce a good second. So when someone advances the notion of commerce first, suggest that perhaps their commerce will self-immolate if mature thought is not given to the effect they will and are having. If they’re exterminating big predators, for instance: what if this destroys half the town in 20 years? (What? Patience. I’ll let an expert cover this in a moment.)

But there’s one more reason I like this article, and that’s this: it reminds me of a wonderful video which really illustrates the entire effect of big predators. It’s logical, it’s full of facts, and it’s gorgeous. Not in a visual sense, but in the entire gestalt of senses, and with the added informational load and logical chains, it’s really a wonderful riposte to those who believe they can exist apart from Nature. Click and enjoy.

Shouldn’t have pushed her off that wedding dress, Mz Arts Editor….

Since weather forecasters never promise anything, their wedding ceremonies must be kind of a bummer.

A conservative is terrified of the future and clings to the past for its comfort and wisdom, even if it must be imagined.

A liberal is horrified at the injustice of the past and looks to transform society in order to void the presence of those injustices in the future, even if the results of the changes are speculative – at best.

We need both conservatives and liberals, for otherwise our lifeboat will tip over and drop us amongst the sharks.

Of, perhaps, the breakup of the conservative media bloc as journalists who understand the importance of ethics engage in critical actions. From CNN/Money:

Reporter Michelle Fields and at least three other staffers have resigned in opposition to [Breitbart News‘] coverage of Trump and to its handling of an alleged assault on Fields by a top Trump aide.

Fields, who has claimed that she was yanked and bruised by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and Ben Shapiro, one of the site’s top editors, told BuzzFeed late Sunday night that they would be leaving the company.

Then on Monday, Breitbart editor Jarrett Stepman and national security correspondent Jordan Schachtel announced they were also resigning in protest.

“Today I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation,” Fields said on Sunday. “I do not believe Breitbart News has adequately stood by me during the events of the past week and because of that I believe it is now best for us to part ways.”

When old Pravda is used in comparison, you have to wonder just how big the lies have grown.

Of course, there’s a practical component as well. If they do not exercise their ethics, they risk their careers as the lies become more and more brazen. For those Breitbart News employees they leave behind, the risks become even greater as the publicity of their former colleagues becomes well known. They must fear becoming known as hacks, as journalists in only the loosest sense of the word.

American civil society is not built for cultural warfare as has been advocated by those on the fringe right; it is constructed such that disparate groups that obey a common ethics, often defined by the law, can live side by side with minimal friction. That is the goal of the Founders. When Breitbart News breaches journalistic ethics to the extent that top people begin leaving abruptly, all in the name of propelling a chosen candidate onward to a nomination with little concern about truth and honesty, by the Founders’ rules, Breitbart News risks being tarred with disrespect, with the tar that stinks of distrust, and a tar that sponsors may abhor.

I’ll be fascinated to see Breitbart’s fate. Fox News reportedly is losing influence in the race as Rubio fades and no other candidate particularly cares about them. Is Fox now too liberal for the candidates? Or do they not trust Fox, an organization whose concern for fair and accurate reporting is so poor that it must proclaim its adherence to it from the rooftops?

A few nights ago we finally finished watching the classic Zorba the Greek (1964), starring Anthony Quinn. Without a doubt, Quinn deserved the Oscar nomination for Best Actor, as his Zorba displays and embraces character faults that might sink a lesser man.  The film is luxurious, never hurried, exploring nooks and crannies that a lesser work would have shunned as superfluous; through these metaphorical treks, Zorba’s lack of education may limit him in some ways, while letting him see reality so much more clearly in others, and this we get to see in all the nauseating detail one might imagination. We squirmed in our chairs and sighed away the disappointments.

And the film is … bothersome. The gentle sex gets short schrift in this slightly maniacal commentary on Greek tribalism, as one woman is stoned and then has her throat fatally slashed, while another, the gentle Boubalina, is mislead, misused, and ultimately dies of a fatal fever. As she lingers, the vultures gather: the old ladies of the village, clad in black cloaks from brow to toe, some even worse clad in apparent dementia, wait with little patience for the demise of the gentle B, and even as she sings her final swan song, the bald birds begin the clatter of greed and disagreement, fighting in their old women ways over towels, rugs, frocks, and other incidentals, shrieking and cackling with no regard to the woman from whom they steal, for she is not of their village, not of their island, indeed, a consorter with foreign Admirals, is she not?

It is an impressively repulsive scene, worth catching for its wonderful staging.

Zorba works for an Englishman, a withdrawn writer with some Greek in his background, who has come to Greece to claim an inheritance: a plot of land containing important minerals. He hires Zorba on impulse to run the mine, and then compulsively clings to his view of life as something to fear and handle with extreme care; Zorba, his opposite, plunges through life like a mad bull chasing a cap clinging to its horn, spinning and kicking as men, women, and mad Englishmen fall into its path, feel its pummeling feet, and drag their battered bodies back to the walls to watch him continue his dance. For but a moment a drag on a cigarette, and a play on the Greek mandolin, and then back to the dance, the drink, and the women.

In the end, Zorba outplays his boss in this movie; the English repression is too strong, even if he finally relieves himself of its reins in the end. Did the failure of the mine mean anything? Did it mean anything to work it, to dream of riches? Was it all an illusion, the illusion of material riches when people are dying around you from the illnesses of the day? Even Zorba cannot know all the answers.

But we watched in dribs and drabs; some of it was genius, some of it was hard to watch, and some was both.

An uproar has erupted, as NewScientist (27 February 2016) reports, over anti-Female Genital Mutiliation (FGM) strategies:

Two US gynaecologists have proposed legalising some forms of female genital mutilation. They argue this would protect girls from more extreme operations.

Worldwide, around 3 million girls every year undergo FGM. The practice can range from cutting genitals to removing the clitoris and labia then stitching up most of the vagina.

The practice is illegal in the UK and US, but Kavita Shah Arora and Allan Jacobs argue that attempts to clamp down on FGM haven’t succeeded, and can be viewed as racist or culturally insensitive.

Instead, they suggest doctors should perform operations that they think will not affect women’s ability to have children or sexual satisfaction (Journal of Medical Ethics, doi.org/bcqw).

The actual article, written by Kavita Shah Arora and Allan J Jacobs, is here:

Procedures that surgically alter the external genitalia of children are quite common throughout the world, though the distribution varies greatly by geography. The majority of male children in America are circumcised.1 While non-therapeutic female genital alteration (FGA) procedures in children are unusual in the USA, an estimated 80–140 million women throughout Africa, the Middle East, India and South-East Asia have had such procedures.2 ,3 The WHO, American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) have policies in place to support circumcision; however, FGA has been deemed a human rights violation by these same organisations as well as by the United Nations.2–4 In fact, the US government has expressly outlawed any procedure that incises or changes a female child’s external genitalia in the absence of medical indications.5

While years of advocacy and legislation aimed at eliminating non-therapeutic procedures on female external genitalia has resulted in a decline in the prevalence of the practice, the magnitude of this decline has been soberingly small. In Egypt, the percentage of women who had any procedure that altered external genitalia performed on a daughter only fell from 77.8% to 71.6% over 5 years from 2006 to 2011. This relatively small decrease in prevalence was associated with minimal change in attitude towards the procedures.6 In a study in Somalia, the country in the world with the highest prevalence of these procedures, 81% of subjects underwent infibulation and only 3% did not have FGA. Eighty-five per cent had an intention to subject their daughters to an extensive FGA procedure, and 90% supported the continuation of the practice.7 There have been some more encouraging studies, however. In Kenya, for example, prevalence has dropped from 49% in women ages 45–49 years to 15% in girls ages 15–19 years and in Liberia, the prevalence has dropped from 85% to 44%, respectively.8 ,9

With this background:

Immigrants to Western nations may continue to subject their daughters to genital alteration,10–12though the frequency is difficult to assess. While laws enacted in these countries make procedures that alter a female’s external genitalia illegal, they may in some instances worsen health outcomes by driving the practice underground by sending female children to Africa or by inviting circumcisers to the West.11 Making the practice illegal also hampers the ability to study the actual incidence and effects of these procedures, limits an open dialogue regarding changing the practice, and may impede efforts to voluntarily reduce the incidence of these procedures (thereby improving public health).13 ,14 This local culture of silence is due to a distrust of the global eradication campaigns as being ‘sensationalized, ethnocentric, racist, culturally insensitive and simplistic’.15

So they propose permitting harmless forms of FGM (or FGA, for Alteration, as they prefer) “… in recognition of its fulfilment [sic] of cultural and religious obligations …“, as a practical approach to minimizing the harm to children, where harm is a wide ranging term referencing not just physical health, but the consequences of jailing or otherwise penalizing parents responsible for the infliction of FGM on the children.

It’s an fascinating article which raises many interesting points, including the non-equivalent treatment of male circumcision in the West, a re-examination of the several methods of FGM and how they range from barely a nick to severe impairment of function, the impact of penalties on children, the impact of Western campaigns on other countries, how higher portions of women vs men are in favor of FGM as this gives them power over there bodies, and much more.

I have a lot of reactions as I read through the article, starting with the standard Western “ewwww” reaction. For all that Western nations have not treated women equivalently to men throughout history, at least we’ve not inflicted FGM on them.

I can see the point of controlling your own body, and using FGM to symbolize that control, rather than allowing a patriarchy to decide whether or not FGM is appropriate; I do not necessarily agree with the position. I see the equivalence of FGM and male circumcision, and equivalences with cosmetic surgery and FGM.

Enough of boring equivalences. The primary goal of the West has been to stop the practice of FGM; this may be usefully transformed to the confrontational statement “Is FGM a positive or a negative for societies?”, although I suspect anthropologists would wince. In this new light, it would not be improper to suggest that acceptance of the proposal to permit the least damaging FGMs would constitute a victory for the pro-FGM forces in the confrontation over FGM: a major power (the USA) forced to permit FGM is certainly a noteworthy event. This may indeed happen as the authors of the article suggest the primary legal bulwark against FGM in the USA, the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act, is unconstitutional as it tramples on religious freedoms. (One wonders how Donald Trump would react to a question on this subject in a debate, or indeed any of the GOP candidates.)

As a citizen of one of the more extreme Western countries, I have to be aware that individualist tendencies are a matter of cultural inculcation, so when I state that I have deep concerns about the involuntary infliction of FGM, even in its least damaging forms, on young girls, I need to be aware that I’m not being entirely objective. In this country we have a strong belief that the individual should control what happens to them when they are adults, and that children must be managed responsibly; we occasionally see clashes when the religious sensibilities of parents are not compatible with the laws currently governing the raising of children. A similar problem, with different origins, has been seen recently with respect to the anti-vaccine sentiment that has appeared. In other cultures, the individual’s worth is more deeply discounted, and within that culture the use of FGM, voluntary or not, serves a useful purpose.

But this lets us transition back to the point of the article: the use of FGM in the USA. My position is that the underaged should never be subjected to it, voluntarily or not, because we are an individualistic culture, and individualism requires a degree of mature and responsible thought on the part of the individual, which is not likely to be found in those less than the age of majority (yeah, yeah, even that’s arbitrary, but forcing people to pass a test before they’re considered adults would just result in riots). Once the age of majority is attained, then medical procedures by surgeons may be permissible; I have trouble finding an objection. I do object to a religious figure having any meaningful part in the procedure, on the other hand.

I do recommend the article, not only for the subject matter, but also because it’s a good example of taking apart what appears to be a simple subject and displaying the complications that are its constitutional parts.

A related post on boys is here.

Professor Brent Hecht of the University of Minnesota introduces Atlasify:

In Hecht’s announcement on the GroupLens blog, he describes Atlasify as “a system that lets you make a map of almost anything.”

And when Hecht says “anything,” he means it.  The examples he demonstrated during a recent interview with CS&E ranged from “badminton” and “country music” to “World War II” and “Star Trek.”  Additionally, he showed many more sample queries that he and his team have set up on the Atlasify homepage so users can see the search engine in action.

Unlike many popular search engines that generate a list of hyperlinks, each Atlasify query generates its own, unique interactive heat map for users to explore.

“Atlasify allows you to create maps there are no atlases for,” said Hecht.  “For example, there isn’t an atlas for ‘ice hockey,’ but we can make one—in fact, we made one.”

(University of Minnesota’s Computer Science & Engineering newsletter)

I mucked about with it for a few minutes.  It’s a neat concept that needs some refinement. For example, the Geography category is … too political.  That is, information is mapped to political boundaries, rather than discovering a more information context.  In the below sample, I asked for the Geography of Iron Ore. Here in Minnesota, iron ore is a big part of our history, but only up in the Arrowhead section of the state, in the northeast; the mined material would then be sent to Duluth for shipping. So I’d like to see a gradation of the green (indicating ‘relatedness’) from northeast to southwest.  The difference on the map from Minnesota to North Dakota is misleading at best.

Or here is a Geography of oil production:

But these are recommendations for refinements, not condemnations. I look forward to seeing how the project evolves and how the bright and creative reach out and make this a useful tool in their own endeavours.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=3xWW4sTp4wA%3Frel%3D0

… is not the fossil fuel industry.  It’s lack of wind, and NewScientist (27 February 2016) is on it:

The first half of last year saw the lowest average wind speeds for almost half a century across much of North America. The electricity output of US wind farms fell 6 per cent despite their capacity increasing by 9 per cent.

Now, weather watchers say the wind drought is back. “Low-wind conditions have returned to the US,” says Michael Brower of AWS Truepower, a wind-power consultancy. “The possibility of a prolonged wind drought is on the minds of many in the wind industry.”

So far, the wind drought hasn’t had a significant impact on investment in wind plants, says Daran Rife of energy consultancy DNV GL. But he adds that “investors naturally want to understand what happened in 2015, and what to expect in the future”.

The same issue notes the impact of tropical cyclone Winston on Fiji – the strongest tropical cyclone, and second strongest storm ever recorded with 300 km/h (186 mph) wind speeds.

A reader writes about new construction:

Tornado-proof-ness is my concern. I like wood. But concrete seems sturdier. I am building a home.

It’s an interesting point – just how likely is any given home in the United States, or in tornado prone areas, to be hit by a tornado?  I did a little poking around the web and ran across this page from 2005 by Chuck Doswell, who, according to Wikipedia, is

… an American meteorologist and prolific severe convective storms researcher. Doswell is a seminal contributor, along with Leslie R. Lemon, to the modern conception of the supercell, which was developed originally by Keith Browning.^[3] He also has done research on forecasting and forecast verification, especially for severe convective storms, and is an advocate of ingredients-based forecasting.

So, with those credentials, Doswell leads us through a calculation of probabilities given a number of very rough assumptions.  His conclusion?

If I assume that the figure of 1 chance in 10 million annually is crudely representative of the odds of experiencing F4-F5 winds, then what about over the lifetime of a family’s residency in the home? I’m going to assume that lifetime is about 30 years. [some pointless nattering about binomial distributions removed – Hue] … In 30 years of living in that house, there are roughly 3 chances in 1,000,000 of having that home flattened by the F4-F5 winds in a violent tornado. This is important, because for frame homes that are secured to their foundations, the chances of riding out (i.e. without serious injury or death) a tornado up to F3 intensity in an interior room of the home are pretty good … interior walls should still be standing. It is only in F4 and F5 tornadoes that avoiding becoming a casualty during a direct hit by a violent tornado when aboveground in an interior room (provided the home is reasonably well-constructed and secured to the foundation) becomes doubtful. Having a special shelter built into a new home to withstand violent tornado hits aboveground costs about $1000-$3000. Retrofitting such a shelter into an existing home would be more expensive. Assuming it’s possible to build a below-ground tornado shelter near the home, it probably would be cost roughly $1000-$3000, as well. Given the low odds of experiencing a violent tornado, it is not obvious how to make the decision to have or not to have a tornado shelter built. The decision has to be a personal one. Peace of mind might be worth something to you, even though the odds of actually experiencing the violent winds in a violent tornado are pretty tiny.

There might be local “tornado alleys” or other factors where the chances might increase by as much as another 2-3 orders of magnitude, although there is no objective evidence for this at the moment. If over the 30-year lifetime of your house, you had about 3 chances in 10,000 of having your home wiped off the foundation by a violent tornado, would you buy a shelter then? What about with 3 chances in 1000?

I’ll not pretend this is anything like a full analysis, for which I’d want to consider subjects such as structure survivability comparisons of the two materials, climate change gas emission comparisons, and how well home replacement insurance stacks up against climate change gas emissions.  But it’s an interesting start, as is the paper.

Yes, a little bit of a giggle, a little bit of shame. Not a great deal. On Lawfare Michael Adams comments on the very serious topic of a 2015 data breach:

The Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) data breach involves the greatest theft of sensitive personnel data in history. But, to date, neither the scope nor scale of the breach, nor its significance, nor the inadequate and even self-defeating response has been fully aired.

And it’s filled with good information and opinions, which I’d expect from a Lawfare contributor. So it’s a little jarring to run across this:

Although the theft of fingerprint data has been widely reported, there is still another critical component of the adjudication dataset that has been largely overlooked. Certain types of security clearances require the individual to pass a polygraph examination, which can be extraordinarily intrusive and far exceed the subject matter of an SF-86. One former U.S. official noted that “a polygrapher once asked if he’d ever practiced bestiality.” Another said that “he was asked about what contacts he’d had with journalists, including in a social setting. All of the data collected during a polygraph is part of the adjudication data set. While we do not know where and how the full set of polygraph data is stored, adjudication data does include at least some polygraph information and officials have confirmed some polygraph data is shared with OPM.

I would expect Mr. Adams to be a trifle more sophisticated. Polygraph tests, despite their highly questionable use by government agencies, do not have a history of success. Skeptical Inquirer has published a number of articles on the subject (most are offline, unfortunately), referencing academic studies indicating a failure rate in excess of 50%. They do have a recent press release here:

… Morton E. Tavel of the Indiana University School of Medicine lays out a sobering case for its outright abandonment by law enforcement. He cites studies in which nearly half of subjects are falsely judged to be dishonest and points out the lack of any studies that show lying can be linked to any measurable emotional response.

Considering the impact the perception of having lied to law enforcement can have on a person’s life, be it legal jeopardy or social stigma, Tavel asks, “How can we, as a society, react to such a perversion of science? The logical solution is to completely abandon this method of testing.”

Also weighing heavily on our criminal justice system is its reliance on the human memory, something that cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has shown is troublingly malleable. In her address to Goldsmiths College at the University of London, reprinted in Skeptical Inquirer, Loftus explains how entire events can be implanted into people’s minds through such pseudoscientific means as “recovered memory therapy,” making them believe they have had experiences that never occurred, such as abuse by relatives or having been in a Satanic cult, “accusations that can cause untold misery for innocent people and their families.”

And there’s this gem from Alan P. Zelicoff (M.D. and Ph.D. in Physics, according to SI’s biography) in the 2001 July / August edition of Skeptical Inquirer:

The secret of the polygraph-the polygraphers’ own shameless deception-is that their machine is no more capable of assessing truth telling than were the priests of ancient Rome standing knee-deep in chicken parts. Nonetheless, the polygrapher tries to persuade the unwitting subject that their measurements indicate when a lie is being told. The subject, nervously strapped in a chair, is often convinced by the aura surrounding this cheap parlor trick, and is then putty in the hands of the polygrapher, who launches into an intrusive, illegal, and wide-ranging inquisition. The subject is told, from time to time, that the machine is indicating “deception” (it isn’t, of course), and he is continuously urged to “clarify” his answers, by providing more and more personal information. At some point (it’s completely arbitrary and up to the judgment of the polygrapher), the test is stopped and the polygrapher renders a subjective assessment of “deceptive response.” Even J. Edgar Hoover knew this was senseless. He banned the polygraph test from within the ranks of the FBI as a waste of time.

Much like the fallacious case for torture: the process does not guarantee true information. Indeed, it discourages it from the most interesting targets, those who know they may be subjected to it. I cannot help but wonder if, in both cases, it’s really about making the users of the process feel like they’re doing something. Alan continues,

The truth is this: The polygraph is a ruse, carefully constructed as a tool of intimidation, and used as an excuse to conduct an illegal inquisition under psychologically and physically unpleasant circumstances. Spies know how to beat it, and no court in the land permits submission of polygraphs, even to exonerate the accused.

So I’m a little ashamed, because Mr. Adams is making great points about an important subject, but I’m laughing because here’s a simple fact of the matter: whoever broke into that database is now dealing with a shitload of polygraph data. Of data of extremely dubious usefulness. Someone or some entity put themselves at risk to suck up data from a technology which never passed an academic analysis and failed many.

And do they even know it?

It’s great schadenfreude. Hell, if they know that some of the data might be bad, then they have to ask if the rest of the data is of similar quality. There’s a qualitative difference between simple data like credit card information, and fuzzy information such as that collected with a polygraph – or means that are similar, such as, say, surveillance, where truth values may not be entirely clear. I know I’d be nervous if I was the project leader. The implication of intellectual lack of discipline on the part of my target would taint all the data, ruining its future usefulness for the circumspect. Only the bold would be willing to use it…

Really, my life is not a cascade of fiascos – it’s just one of those weeks.

Our beautiful black long-haired cat, Mischief, has come down with an aggressive carcinoma in her lungs and chest, which will probably kill her, according to the vets at Blue Pearl (described by a former vet tech friend as “the Mayo of veterinarians”). They tried to surgically remove the tumors, but they were too well entrenched, and proved inoperable. A call just a few minutes ago suggested a possible chemotherapy approach, but that’s for a different story…

So, fiasco, part 1: my beautiful long hair black princess of a kitty has this … bare spot on her flank.

Just for fair and balanced reporting, I present an opposing view:

We brought her home from the surgery this last Tuesday, along with a clutch of pain meds, and we stayed up with her for part of the night, but eventually we did go to bed. The next morning it was time for her first med. She was entrenched in her traditional resting place, which is on top of some of my Art Editor’s artwork underneath the pool table in the basement (you can see parts of it, above). Thus, we hauled out the artwork, grabbed her, and unceremoniously squirted her mouth with the med.

An hour later, it was time to give her a second med. Alas! She had disappeared!

Eight hours later, she was Still Missing. We knew she wasn’t outside, and we were afraid she was hiding in the ceiling of the basement. Our two original cats (Mischief and Mayhem) access the ceiling in several ways, but their favorite is a hole in the wall of the laundry room, since patched:

The white square is foam core now covering the hole. The shelf is reached via washing machine, so our freshly stitched kitty attained security in 3 pretty large jumps.

Indeed, we did eventually discover her in the ceiling – by first hearing her wheezing pathetically.  We verified her presence by ripping down some of the paneling visible above, but could not reach her from our small access port.

Then came Phase II: Recovery.

It didn’t go well.

Six hours of requests, begging, calling, waving tuna fumes in her direction, poking with a tape measure (quite gently), and the occasional frustrated screech could not dislodge her from the top of the (warm) vents upon which she was resting or entice her to any opening.  We pulled down more paneling, sawed holes in the sheet rock and unscrewed ceiling access panels, but we were never able to reach her.

Finally, the basement in a shambles and with horrid visions of having to retrieve her body from the ceiling in a few days, I halted my proceedings, and left a light on in the basement for her.  I went upstairs exhausted and frustrated, and drowsed on the couch as a rerun of Family Guy played on the TV.  At midnight, deep in depression, I fell asleep.  Startled suddenly awake, I heard Deb hiss at me:

“Hue! Look!”

Mischief was sauntering across the living room, with nary a cobweb in sight (Deb & I were filthy by comparison).  She walked right across to Deb, jumped into the chair, and settled in her lap.

So, fiasco part 2: Two adult humans are defeated by a partially bald, very ill, elderly small cat, who, having achieved her aims, finally comes out to applause and adoration.

Sheesh.

Deb transferred our little furry fink to me, then spent the next hour boarding up all the access points in the ceiling so that, hopefully, we don’t have to repeat this process ever again.