I just noticed in the current Cialis campaign that one of the listed interruptions that could ruin the possible moment for, say, mere Viagra users is "an unexpected visit home from college".

Rather than selling me on Cialis, this just leads me to think, "Thank God the kid didn't arrive home half an hour later to find Mom bent over the butcher block, with Daddy - trousers around his ankles - banging away at her hindquarters." To me, this is more an ad for years of therapy and anti-psychotics than for an erectile dysfunction tablet.

Tags: business as usual, media
humour: entertained

So Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz is the new Premiere of Cuba - at the age of seventy-seven. Damn - he's older than McCain. I guess he won't be trotting his aged mother out to public events like his American equivalent, though. She died in 1963. Whatev - looks like it's going to be pretty much business as usual under the "new" regime. Raúl may be less confrontational, less rigid, more "moderate" than his elder brother, but the US government hasn't changed.

Elsewhere in the world we have the newly independent Kosovo. The US, of course, is doing its Independence Dance and Bush recognized the new state within nanoseconds. Russia, a longtime ally of Serbia, is vehemently opposed, no doubt fearing the encouragement of secessionist movements in general (Chechnya, anyone?). China is "seriously concerned" and feels there should be formal negotiation between Kosovo and Serbia.

The US continues to stir up anti-Russian sentiments in Georgia, the Ukraine, and Belarus; Russia has recently accused the US of militarizing space; it looks like the arms race is back on - and there's still no change regarding Cuba. I guess that's what happens when you look too deeply into someone's soul.

Didn't the Cold War used to be over? Just askin'.

Tags: business as usual, politburo
humour: nostalgic

Adapted from a question in the current New Yorker's 2008 Campaign Quiz:

Who said what?

1. John Edwards 2. Hillary Clinton 3. Barack Obama 4. John McCain 5. Mike Huckabee 6. Bill Richardson 7. Mitt Romney 8. Rudy Giuliani

a. "Americans are looking for a change." b. "Our time for change has come." c. "I believe deeply in change." d. "Look, what we need is change, no question." e. "I know that I have been an agent of change." f. "I want to make change, but I've already made change. ... I embody change." g. "Not only can I talk change with you, I've lived it." h. "We don't mention September 11th nearly as much as people think."

Okay, the Giuliani punchline is relatively hilarious, but does anyone remember the 2004 campaign? Wasn't Bush's campaign slogan "Steady Leadership in a Time of Change"? How the stubborn have fallen!

Of course, the Champion of Change has become Barack Kumbayama, who wears the mantle of mutability as though it were a campaign platform, and who hasn't got much of a chance of beating John McCain. Hmmn... one wonders where all the Republican financing is going during the primary cycle. They're sure not giving it to McCain or Huckabee - and Romney wasn't exactly the beneficiary of GOP charity. One also wonders where Kumbayama's monthly $30 million is coming from. Maybe someone wants to make sure Hillary doesn't get the nomination because they suspect she could defeat the moth-eaten maverick, even with Hopalong Huckabee as his running mate.

Whatev. Despite all the talk, we're not going to see much change following the next election. The candidates' rhetoric may be as fluid as quicksilver, but the policies of those with a chance of winning are same ol' in abundance. Plus ça change as As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr used to say.


Oh - and the answers are: 1-c, 2-f, 3-b, 4-e, 5-a, 6-d, 7-g, and, uh, 8-h.

Tags: business as usual, politburo
humour: complacent

Okay, I suppose it's finally about time to explain the lengthy hiatus. Or start explaining it, anyway. The only problem is where to begin. Probably with where I am.

I find myself in my (deceased) parents' rather unwieldy house in the middle of Pennsylvania, living with Sean, and running a cave. Yeah, a cave.

How I got here? Well. Last December, I got an email from my brother letting me know that a cousin-once-removed had submitted a proposal for running the family business. All right, a bit about that first. In 1928, my grandfather acquired a cavern which he opened as a show cave on June 15, 1929 - a few months before the stock market crash. The business survived the Great Depression (barely) and has been in the family since, mostly being operated by my father and grandfather.

On my grandfather's death, the property was left to my father and my aunt and the business to my father. On his death, the business was left to my brother, my sister, and I - none of whom were all that interested in operating it. So, for the first couple of years, it was being run by my nephew. While he enjoyed it, he didn't really feel he had the aptitude for being a small business owner and, having got his teaching certification and so on, decided to try running the business (which is pretty seasonal anyway) while teaching. Which didn't work out.

So, last year, my brother and sister-in-law, assisted by my sister and brother-in-law, tried running the business from a distance, hiring a couple of part-time managers and so on. This was relatively okay, but with no on-site administration or oversight, the business was languishing. That was when the proposal from the cousin-once-removed (my aunt's grandson) arrived. Sadly, the proposal didn't quite live up to its title: it was more a list of demands for coming in and bailing the business out - and was grossly unrealistic (he was, for example, looking for more in his personal salary than was paid to the entire staff the previous year). At the same time, my siblings were a bit burnt out with trying to run the thing long-distance on top of their regular jobs and so on.

Meanwhile, there I was in hideous central Florida working on the lowest possible level of management at the Virgin Megastore under some of the worst managers the world has ever known. I was becoming increasingly disgusted by the crippling incompetence of my "superiors" and had been considering my foray into the retail trade as a temporary measure anyway, so I decided that relocating and trying my hand at the cave business would be better than trading the family legacy for a mess of pottage - especially as it looked extremely likely that the cousin in question would run the business into the ground in no time at all. If you know me, it should suffice to mention that he has an MBA. If you don't know me, then - briefly - this degree is evidently reserved exclusively for those who are totally unequipped to contend with anything more complex than a fork. Don't get me started on MBAs.

Fortunately, Sean (who was hating Florida even more than I was - and, yeah, he had been living there for close to a year at that point) was more than willing to join me on this minor adventure and has been working as our Business Manager. I totally would not have been able to do this without him - and it's about the first time we've fully collaborated on a project since we left the arts center in Waterford over ten years ago, so that's cool. We've decided to give it three to five years to see if we can grow the business enough to support the sort of "proposal" the cousin-once-removed had in mind, should he or anyone else want to take the thing on after our tenure. We'll see.

In the meantime, the cats are loving central PA. Favorite pastime? Chasing chipmunks into the house and tearing after the speedy little devils, bouncing off the walls, for a few hours. We'll find out soon enough how they adapt to snow...

Anyway, that's the tedious stuff out of the way - and quite enough for now. Adventures with bikers, Mennonites, nature photography, the Arts Conservatory of Central Pennsylvania, rural internet access, Russian tour guides, and so on can wait for future posts. I'll leave this with a few photo collages I put together as separators for the semi-revamped web site.


a few chambers and passages


a few shots of the grounds


a few speleothems


some local flora and fauna
There are more pics and stuff at the web site itself.

By the way, in the event that any of you even remember who I am at this stage, leave a comment with an update of what y'all have been up to - please.

More to follow...

Tags: business as usual, photo/graphic, social and personal, speleological
humour: quixotic

Voting machine key cut from photo on Diebold's web site. And, as an added bonus, the same key opens all Diebold voting machines.

Tags: business as usual, politburo
humour: astonished - sort of

US Vice President meets with failed Israeli leader to plot World War III,

Quetta, Islamabad, and Lahore shut down by general strikes,

Iran flouts punitive UN Resolution,

Congress to ignore the economy, immigration, lobbying reform, prescription drug relief, and the 2007 budget in order to address non-existent terrorist threat,

but the big story here on Action News is...


Australian killed by fish.



So, yeah, we're back from the road trip and I'm back at work - and we're back to business as usual in terms of nuking Iran in order to salvage the mid-term election. Details (and photos) of the trip to follow as soon as I get a bit of time...

Tags: business as usual, politburo, social and personal
humour: annoyed

But, uh... the US Board of Education commissioned a Spanish-language version in 1919. That version (plus four additional Spanish translations) appears at the US State Department's web site. Here's the title page from the original edition:


Oh, and look - here's Jon Secada singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish at the White House for Cuban Independence Day on May 18, 2001:


Mr. Secada also sang the national anthem in Spanish at President Bush's 2001 Inaugural. This should come as no surprise, really, since the President himself has sung the national anthem en Español. From Kevin Phillips' American Dynasty, p. 142:


¡Ai, ai, ai, ai! Here's el presidente with "Viva Bush" at one such event:



¿Hipocresía much?

Tags: business as usual, photo/graphic, politburo
humour: unsurprised

It looks like the GOP can't even do internal elections without irregularities. According to Roll Call, "House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting." Is there an election they don't try to fix??

Tags: business as usual, politburo
humour: totally unsurprised