Venusberg | That's not your heart, it's a piece of helicopter casing

Friday, February 28, 2003

Speaking of marrying Legolas, I remain fascinated by fanfiction of all shapes and forms. This is partly because of the samizdat quality of appropriating corporately owned narrative, but also stems form the extremity of it - some of it is very good indeed, some of it astonishingly bad. I realise that I am not claiming any new ground here. However, every so often something comes along that completely redefines your relationship with the world and every object in it.

Such as this. Hermione Grainger is secretly an elf. A pointy, pointy little elf. Pointy, pointy. And she's married to Legolas. Oh yes.

Fuck my third uncle. Some days you come home from what has turned out to be, although a rather exhausted and loud-music-bars night (they played Operation Mindcrime in Garlic and Shots. Operation Goddamn Mindcrime! The War Against Terror and/or Iraq and Generally Against Bad Shit and Did I Mention that Saddam Hussein Gassed His Own People must immediately cede forebrain territory to the far more important War Against the Hair Metal Revival. If it weren't for those twerps singing don't ever trust the needle I'd be a kick-ass knitting guru by now), also a very lovely one, switch on the computer for a quick Hotsync and suddenly the world is made a more frightening place.

Brad Pitt to star as Achilles in Troy: The Movie. The fact that this nugget of pure Hell has managed to occlude even the casting of Sean Bean as Odysseus - we're not leaving without that fookin' bow, Philoctetes, and you can like it or bloody well lump it - is a testament to its sheer improbability. As Callimachus said:

I despise the cyclic epic,
But by Zeus I wouldn't wish Brad Pitt on anyone.

Ah well. That's the wheels torn off the epic fantasy bandwagon, on the continuing jones for which this attempt to harvest the entire cast of Lord of the Rings is clearly based. Expect a wisecracking Patroclus, probably played by Chris Rock.

Thursday, February 27, 2003

Awaking early, and with the tiniest smidgeon of a hangover, I get a call telling me that the meeting I was up in order to make had been cancelled. But that's all cool because, as my boss pointed out, it meant I could check out the state of the art on shitty early morning televison, RI:SE. The last time I had confronted this shoggoth of breakfast time evil had been last May Day, when the combination of unexamined Evening Standard thinking ("So, you're going to be cycling slowly to work along with other cyclists to impede traffic and protest at the lack of cyclepaths in London - do you expect to kill any policemen?") and sheer ineptitude made me bleed from new and exciting orifices.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He interviews me, stuttering, corpsing, choking.

All of which meant that all I could stomach was five minutes, in which I finally got to see what Tom was so excited about in the pixielike Scots form of Fame Academy's Ainslie. I don't see it myself, I have to say.

I had the strange fortune to see the Fame Academy final (and no other part of it previously) in the company of a teenaged girl, which reminded me that these thing matter, God damn it. It's too easy to lose sight of that simple but salient fact with the endless pressures of daily life. Then again, my next foray into reality TV sent me shrieking into the woods with the image of the one from The Salon who resembles a bewigged attempt to breed the Mekon out of a local MP prevailing upon an innocent victim to submit to the back, crack and sack wax.

I have bad luck with mass media. What can I tell you? What I can tell you is that I was, however, surprised and delighted to find that at least this section was being hosted by light entertainment godesses Mel and Sue. All hail!

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

Small posts for now, for I trust the new, improved GoogleBlogger not one whit.

Speaking of which, is anyone amused by the Stalinist control of information those freewheeling fellows at Pyra Labs maintain? Blogger is hacked comprehensively - not a whistle. Blogger is consistently unusable - all is quiet. Less than reassuring.

Meanwhile, Hammersley wants fanfic. He is so marrying Legolas, it's not true. Which Bloggers would you like to slash? Tell me.

Friday, February 21, 2003

Avon: less human than the aliens (he thinks)

AVON:
"I relied on other people." --

You perfected the snarky, amoral geek act when
Seamus Harper was still a zygote. You've
always got an eye out for number one, and you
don't even try to hide your contempt when your
coworkers can't keep up. Yet, somehow, you
keep on coming through for them in the end.

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Meanwhile, what does the new year, as we settle into the awkward contentment of the university years, mean for you?

For me, a lot fo things, but right now blood. Blood wanders across my face as I sleep. I wake with blood withdrawn. Blood calls out for help, and the fingers on my right hand lose their contact. And between my fingers first, and now across my hands, the blood pulls back, keeps warm, and the skin slows, stiffens, cracks. Outside is warmer than in, right now.

Thursday, February 20, 2003

Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)

Some people feel that heaven is a cake shop where you can eat as much as you like without putting on weight. It isn't.

Pretty much covers it. Victor has the stars in her eyes on the UpsideClown. George, meanwhile, has abandoned horoscopy for numerology:

Three used to be the number for a family - one plus one makes one - but in these perspex cloning days of Dolly the sheep and cc the kitten, the magical three has been reduced down to the binary, dualistic, black/white, good/evil two. Out of one comes one. This does not bode well.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

This is perhaps the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. All hail Dr. Eric.

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

And, continuing the preamble to yet another set of identical peace march reminiscences, I'm amused by the fact that a number of people here seem to be congratulating Tom on talking perfect sense, and then expressing an opinion utterly unlike his own. It seems that we may be coming hard up against the limitations of weblogging as a way for nation to speak peace unto nation. But it was your big ugly Nazi dog that started it, anyway. Munich-style. Oh yes. Munich-style.

For myself, I am entirely cognizant of the moral case for war. Cruel dictator yadda yada yadda gassed his own people blah blah tried to kill my dad p'ching p'ching. No worries. What I want is a pragmatic case for war and/or régime change, or more precisely a pragmatic case for war as a means of ensuring that weapons of mass destruction do not fall into the hands of groups likely to use them against civilians. By which, of course, I mean British civilians, and specifically me. Just to clear that up.

Meanwhile, though, it is good to see the US taking an active role in international affairs, thus belying those timorous souls who feared that the Bush presidency would be an isolationist one. I hope soon to see them helping out with the AIDS crisis.

Well, there's a start. On the day that Blogger is bought by Google, it crashes and eats my big "what a lovely day we had on the anti-war march" post. Ah well - later, maybe. This, in the meantime, is a poking of the head above the parapet to see if it works.

Friday, February 14, 2003

DeLay is trying a more personal approach. "I was at a celebration of India's Independence Day," he told reporters, "and a Frenchman came walking up to me and started talking to me about Iraq, and it was obvious we were not going to agree. And I said, 'Wait a minute. Do you speak German?' And he looked at me kind of funny and said, 'No, I don't speak German.' And I said, 'You're welcome,' turned around and walked off."

Fuck me....

This is the House Majority Leader, kids. This is his idea of a) the right way to conduct oneself and b) a really clever way to win an argument. Join us next week when George W Bush tells Gerhard Schroder that if it wasn't for the USA, Schröder would be speaking German.

Incidentally, anyone wishing to attend the march tomorrow may wish to alleviate the endless milling with some Socialist Faction I-Spy.

More bloggy goodness, this time from Vaughan : the real time map of the London Underground. Now, with nothing more sophisticated than the refresh button, you can see our capital's infrastructure slowly blossom into a bursting profusion of colour and non-functionality. I'm actually tempted to follow the march tomorrow by staying at home and watching this...

Dude, it's a bildungsroman.

(via Sashinka)

Woah. Mothninja leaps to my aid by suggesting the most expensive slippers in history. Fortunately, they are backless, and as such not to be trusted. I'm looking for maximum toasty here, and my heels demand love.

Were my feet smaller, I could follow Robyn (who is virginal and wide-eyed, the sort of bride an evil old man would search for) into the world of toe socks, but no such luck. The dilemma continues.

What? War? Whatever are you talking about?

She quickly set about disassembling my assumptions about the world. "What's going on with football?" she said. "It's a bunch of blokes going to watch other men in shorts, wearing the men's names on their replica shirts, and swooning at their performances. And they hug each other a lot." I had to admit she was interesting.

It's a new low for Valentine's Day journalism. I loved the quirky way she didn't understand football. Fuck my boots. Fuck my football boots.

On other news, my slightly-too-small slippers have succumbed at last to the power of toe. I swear, the big toemail of my right foot is harder and sharper than diamond. This may sound like a very minor matter, but has occasioned much jubilation. For it means that I can head on out and equip myself with the coziest slippers ever. I'm on a mission. Do you know cozy cozy slippers? Tell me.

Meanwhile, good thing - new Get Your War On.

Neither good nor bad thing - vocabulary test.

Ambiguous thing - Heather Alexander. I have just experienced a renascent intrerest in the endless variegation of folk music. But there's something evil about Heather. Maybe it's the way that she credits her version of Yeat's "Stolen Child" to Yeats/Alexander. Maybe it's just the hair. Disturbing.

Very scary thing - Blakes 7 Jerry Springer.

Thursday, February 13, 2003

I knew this would happen. It always does. I start off being utterly apalled by something, then I get angry, then I start to find it apallingly, horribly amusing. And then the calcified idiocy of the language surrounding it starts to get to me, and before I know it the whole thing becomes an exercise in grim and entirely less than side-splititng joking.

For example, this latest skirmish between warbloggers and...what is the antonym? Peacebloggers? Conchybloggers? Or does "warblogger" describe both pro- and anti- war bloggers who are just talking about it a lot? Anyway, it's a lambent example that the first casualty of war, apart of course from lovely warm hugs, is language. I just find myself caught on Brasseye phrases like maybe what you did to Poland, Czechoslavakia, Coventry (one of the great tricola of our age) or your big ugly Nazi dog. I'm tempted to ask what the German for "your big ugly Nazi dog" is, so I can use it the nest time I visit the Munich petting zoo.

However, there is a ray of light emerging like a crisp, plump tomato from this rather unappetising word salad, and that paragon is "Munich-style". I love it. I love it to pieces. Just...."Munich-style". Roll it around the tongue. Don't be afraid to fall in love with it.

Try it out. Go and make a cup of tea - Munich-style. Have a sandwich - Munich style. Later, you may wish to make love Munich-style. It rocks so fucking hard I could cry.

On a more grounded note, there's an interesting piece on the comparisons of Munich and Tikrit here, but at present I am still fascinated by the war of words. Will "Munich-style" be the "High jack this fags" of 2003?

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Grice's cooperative maxims are the unsaid norms. When I ask What are you doing tonight?, not only do you reply with an informative and cooperative answer (Oh, nothing much), but I can make the assumption that you're being informative and cooperative.
That is, that you're telling the truth.

Matt's thinking operates so beautifully sometimes, I just want to keep him under glass. His thesis on The Role of Cooperation in Human Interaction is simply delicious, and makes me want to write more and better. And eat his brains. Tasty tasty brains.

nerdslut

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Busted.

Reasons why I am thinking of attending the anti-war protest on Saturday:

I am a huge coward, and I figure that, in these days of heightened security and constant threat, the one place you can be assured of being pretty safe from Metal Gear Solid Freestyle antics is at an anti-war rally. For starters, lots of police. Furthermore, why exactly would any terrorist want to blow up a random sampling of the Muslim League, the yoghurt-knitting social conscience brigade and Tony Benn? You try getting served at the local Working Mojaheddin's Club after that.

This is not so much a question of "not in my name" as "not in my face".

Second, I am an enormous coward, and I figure that, since links between Iraq and al-Qaida are at best tenuous at present, probably the monies that would go towards a mass deployment against Iraq unsupported by the UN could be better spent on bribing people and buying nice kettles and gift certificates for the Pakistani intelligence services. Also that aggression against a nation likely to inflame anti-Western sentiment and activity only makes good sense, from my "enormous coward" point of view, if that nation is currently providing material support to factions acting to attack the West. So far little evidence to that effect has been forthcoming.

Third, and perhaps most germaine, I am a great big fuck-off coward. I would like nothing better than to see Saddam Hussein removed from power in Iraq, and replaced by a elected leadership with popular support and an army intent on maintaining rather than replacing the nascent democracy. I would like to see that followed up by a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, in which the UN declarations on Israel's illegal behaviour are enforced by a US that has lost patience with the UN's failure to back up its own decisions and rhetoric. I would then like to see this US, with the UK as its staunch ally, put its considerable might into rebuilding Afghanistan,and supporting the claims of the new independent Palestine to self-determination, reducing tensions across the Middle East through a combination of aid and highly specialised military intervention in specific areas when borders are placed under threat.

After that, it would be nice to see real pressure brought to bear on the states neighbouring Zimbabwe to exert pressure in turn on Robert Mugabe first to cease his war of extinction against his own nation, then to abdicate and possibly share asylum with Saddam Hussein. This in the context of massive investment in building infrastructure in Africa, along with pressuring pharmaceutical companies into allowing further generics of their HIV medicines to be produced and distributed widely. Then perhaps we could look at defusing tension between India and Pakistan, persuading North Korea to scale back nuclear experimentation in exchange for food aid and a guaranteed border, isolate and confront China on its human rights record...hey, if we're going to police the world, we really ought to make a go of it, eh? I'm sure the UN would stop lollygagging after a while and join in...

Unfortunately, I'm a coward. I just don't dare to dream.

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

Meanwhile, back at the "we're all going to die" party, the leader of al-Muhajiroun has warned us to stay away from government buildings and financial institutions.

Dude, absolutely. I mean, I do that anyway. Unless somebody decides to get Metal Gear Solid Freestyle on my local Barclays, in which case they really need to start thinking seriously about whether they want to get off the international terrorism practice slopes.

I am reassured, at least , by the knowledge that, Eco being Eco, he doesn't actually intend these marginalia to mean anything, per se.
Speaking of meaningless, a heartfelt "but why do you hate us?" cry from another misunderstood American:

A large number of you hail from the 51st state that we used to call England. And your attitude towards America as a whole, and particularly the white middleclass non-mind has grown both vicious and unrepentant.

With good reason.

But I grew up inside that non-mind, my parents are Literalist Christians, white and they vote Republican when it doesn't hurt their conscience to much. They could be a symbol of this hated oblivion we call the American Dream.

I know no better people.
Their only fault is ignorance, they have a genuine love for their fellow humanity that I don't think I could ever feel. America has become the Roman empire and it sees itself surrounded by savages it doesn't understand.

And every empire falls, but it is never a good thing.

That's nice, dear. I like the way that America here is portrayed as "surrounded by savages". Because, you know, Arabs and Europeans are savage. And they're surrounding the US. With their tanks, and their guns, and their guns, and their bombs. Oh yes. In my head. In my head. They are fighting.

But let's stick to the facts, here. Continuing on a theme, the Roman empire didn't fall. It resigned.

As occasionally happens, somebody IMed me today asking for a translation, in this case a translation of a bit of unerased Latin from Umberto Eco's Baudolino. The passage was given as "ncipit prologus de duabus civilitatibus historiae AD mcxliii conscriptsaepe multumque volvendo mecum de rerum temporalium motu ancipitq", which confused the Hell out of me.

Once I worked out that there was a space between "conscript" and "saepe" life got easier, but the fact that the Latin was meant to be 1000 years or so later than the Latin I learned was confusing me, a confusion partly resolved when I looked up the original and saw it as:

ncipit prologus de duabus civilitatibus historiae AD mcxliii conscript

saepe multumque volvendo mecum de rerum temporalium motu ancipitq

It's incomplete - the verb at the start is presumably incipit or ancipit. I've never heard of ancipit, but I assume it is a medieval form of incipit - it begins. conscript is missing a couple of letters - at a guess -us, to agree with prologus. There may be a conjunction before saepe - possibly et - and ancipitq is presumably ancipitque. So that's a start.

anceps, genitive ancipis, means two-headed, and about a hundred other things, but I think that's a false trail.

So, incipit - begins. prologus.....The preface of this history about two (civilitas - an art of government? A state? Later, and rarely, a friedliness) systems of government, written (chosen? ordained? beaten?) in 1143 AD, begins....(and) often and much (is that volvendo dative or ablative? does it go with motu, or is it absolute? And what the fuck is motu - ablative form of motus, but there is no fourth-declension motus in Lewis and Short, only second-declension motus as the perfect participle of moveo. volvo means to turn or roll, but also to consider, to turn things over in one's mind....is the gerundive indicating something needing to be considered (or rolled) or is a gerund describing an act of considering?)...

The preface of this history about two arts of politics written in 1143 begins, and begins by frequent and great consideration with me about the movement of temporal things

That's assuming the sentence ends there, and that there was an et before saepe, and a number of other guesses, and it could stil be utterly wrong. It could just as well be

The preface of this history about two politenesses, chosen in 1143, often and greatly begins with me by the movement, that must be considered, of things relating to the temples (of the skull)

before we even start thinking much about agreements, or whether the word preceding saepe might be in

The preface of this story about two forms of politics, written in 1143, begins often and very much in the contemplation of the motion of temporal things with me, and begins....

I'm sure this used to be easier. Point is, it isn't like translating French. Some of these words mean nothing, some of them mean dozens of things, and some are used maybe three times in the canon of Classical Latin. Plus, at least prologus has, I suspect, a specific meaning in Church Latin.

Or, to put it another way, wingardium fucking leviosa. That sound is my brain leaking out of my ears.

Monday, February 10, 2003

via Matt, this fantastically intricate site devoted to Victorian London. Facinating to see the mappings - it feels as if we're still slowly tearing away from the Victorian ideals, but it's taking a very long time. But then, I'm in no position to judge. While lying around on my misson of recuperation at the weekend, an article in the Observer or Sunday Times on how not to have an affair (reference, anyone? Tell me). One of the golden rules was not to meet friends of the opposite/same sex (depending on taste), unless accompanied by your partner. Surely the guide to not having an affair is one line, one sentence, "Don't have sex with other people". I'm not saying I'm blameless here, but at least I am now grown-up enough to realise that this was not " a lapse", it was a very specific instance (or rather, in each case a different specific instance) of two people behaving badly and justifying this behaviour to a greater or lesser extent with reasons of greater or lesser weakness. Possibly "don't meet friends of the opposite/same sex whom you want to have sex with, and who you think might want to have sex with you, in situations where you are likely to be a) drunk and b) late for your last train/tube/rickshaw/hansom cab home", but even still...this idea of imposing special conditions on your friends as a result of the sexual danger they may pose seems to me a very strange thing. And what on Earth do you do if you or your partner is bisexual?

All very peculiar....

Well, how very refreshed I feel. After a bout of itchy-skin exhaustion at the end of last week, much of the weekend was spent most agreeably asleep. Perhaps not thrilling, but completely necessary, and I don't think I would have been able to function otherwise. This, by the way, is why I looked like such utter pigshit, and wandered about so profitlessly, at the mmmmblogmeet on Friday night. Hopefully there'll be another one soon where I will not be a wraith-pale loon. For the rogue's gallery, check Cal's site.

Still, although devoid of wacky weekend anecdote, I am at least human again, or a reasonable approximation thereof. And as such, I must once again reinvolve myself with the great questions of the day. In this case, I must ask myself what to do with my hair. What do you think? Tell me.

Friday, February 07, 2003

so Orbyn is off to see Daredevil, which has got me thinking about old horn-head. As he is actually known. No, really.

First up, as we all no doubt know by now, Matt Murdock lost his vision in a chemical spill which also gave him uncanny senses, allowing him to perceive things as well as any sighted man. That is to say, his disadvantage and his new power cancel each other out entirely. He's just a guy who works out.

What that? Radar sense? He can tell what's going on behind him? I have something that lets me do that, too. it's called turning round. No mess, no fuss, no problem.

Second, Daredevil, for all his vaunted radar sense, is nonetheless still blind. Which means that, assuming his identity is a jealously guarded secret, which I think we can, he must have had an absolute bugger of a time making the costume, and even having made it he has no clear knowledge either of what colour it is or of what it actually looks like, beyond its topography.

I sincerely hope that this point will be addressed in the movie by Daredevil stopping in mid-pursuit with the first five or six bad guys and enquriing earnestly, "So, the outfit - too much? Be brutal." But I don't see it happening myself.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh FUCK.

Thursday, February 06, 2003

I don't have any kids but I know what those monkeys think. It's a relationship that I have with them. I know how to calm them down and I know how to make them mad. It's like I know what they want.

It sounds like a quote from Martin Bashir's interview with Michael Jackson. In fact, it's worse. Far, far worse. via Ben.

Wednesday, February 05, 2003

At the risk of appearing unduly epizootic, I must query the premise of Anna's fascinating piece on the Childnet awards. Are the kids alright (the hideously ironic titoe of the album by the Who), or are the kids, conversely, all right (the English usage)?

It's a tricky one. Go for accuracy and you betray the reference, go for fidelity and it's epizootic time. Fortunately, there exists an easy fix for this; Julie Burchill chose "The Kids are All Right" as the title for one of her articles. Where all else is equal, Julie Burchill is wrong. QED.

Matt talks about the WikiWorld here. The map of the world the size of the world crops up in Borges; the problem is, if you unfold it to find out where you are, you cover the Earth, and only find out that you are where you are standing anyway. It's a manifestation of the same complication that means I can't accurately point out Coalville from here.

The first instance of this topos that I can think of offhand is in Sylvie and Bruno, one of Lewis Carroll's less well-known works. Anyone got anything earlier?

(0) comments

There's a genius pisstake of the interview between Tony Benn and Saddam Hussein at the Guardian:

TB: And I do not want a world which is safe only for oil companies and motor companies, but which is dangerous for my grandchildren.

SH: I too am a grandfather. I too think of my grandchildren, Raghda and Rana's fatherless children.

TB: Fatherless? What happened to their fathers?

SH: I shot them. But there were others I didn't personally shoot, you understand.

Bless. Anthony Wedgwood Benn - dupe of a corrupt and inhuman regime, or man of conscience putting aside all fears of personal safety in an attempt to provide a clearer picture? Search me. Tell me.

Tuesday, February 04, 2003

After the Columbia disaster, my life would have been so much poorer if I hadn't found a family-run local restaurant that delivered irony.

The crew of the Columbia were incredibly well-trained, highly-qualified, at the top of their professions and with not just the idealism of a nation but also a spectacular amount of expertise, technology and cash behind them. Over the weeks and months to come, we will no doubt find out more about why they died.

Brandon Vedas, it seemed, died as a result of negligence, cowardice and idiocy. What he had to look forward to in life is anyone's guess, and now entirely academic. Attempts to apportion blame could settle on the tendency of US doctors to prescribe pharmaceuticals without taking the time to examine underlying causes, or on authorities apparently blind to the fact that one of their own was getting regularly blotto on embrocation fumes. In fact, any number of people, all of whom had his name and address, and in some cases who shared that name and that address, might possibly have noticed that the boy was depressed or dumb (or both) enough to be a serious danger to himself. The whole situation is just an enormous WTF, even before you encounter the chat logs, in which general conversation goes on as his buddies discuss how to alert the authorities without telling them anything about a) themselves or b) the person earmarked for saving. Certainly if I am ever seized by the urge to drink my own bodyweight in Kalpol I'll try to find some less camera-shy pals to share the experience with.

But where I really get lost is this comment, posted to the apparently well-meaning User Not Found:

Brandon was a good friend of mine for a long time. Over seven years, actually. I hung out with him every day for a good portion of those years. Brandon wasn't committing suicide. Brandon was clowning around. He was showing off. And he fucked up. Speculate no longer.

Considering how my boy spent his life, I'm not surprised that he went out as a media spectacle. So enjoy your little sensationalist story, make sure to cover the crazy suicidal online geek isolated from the world angle, despite the fact that you have no evidence to support it, and enjoy. But understand that it's untrue. And while you don't have to deal with the consequences of your actions, like his mom crying to me because everyone thinks he offed himself, some of us do.

I don't get it. I just. Don't. Get. It. Do you get it? Please tell me.

Things to do in Sweden when you're dead; our foreign correspondent brings news of Sweden's state-owned alcohol monopoly. It's an interesting idea - rather than taxing the free importation and distribution of alcohol through premises licensed for off-sales, just take control of the whole darn thing. It also has the advantage that it makes drinking much harder - if the offy is only open 9-5, Monday to Friday, you don't find yourself, presumably, wandering down to the local 24 hour place to get a carefully-concealed bottle of white wine at 2am because your party has run out of booze but you can still walk.

It is, of course, a block on free trade, but then if Europe had embraced free trade whole-heartedly we wouldn't be the nanny-needing sissy-boys that the warbloggers have so correctly identified us as being. Then again, it turns out that, as a nation, Sweden could drink any steak-eating New Yorker pantywaist under the table. 46 litres of spirits a year? Dude!

Monday, February 03, 2003

Given the connection between weblogging and technology, it's hardly surprising that the Columbia disaster has been covered extensively and movingly. Most affecting, perhaps, of the online commentary was the Washington post's article on the Columbia's safe return, up on their site as the shuttle broke up.

Columbia Streaks Toward Florida Landing

Saturday, February 1, 2003; 8:28 AM

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. �� With security tighter than usual, space shuttle Columbia streaked toward a Florida touchdown Saturday to end a successful 16-day scientific research mission that included the first Israeli astronaut.

The early morning fog burned off as the sun rose, and Mission Control gave the seven astronauts the go-ahead to come home on time. "I guess you've been wondering, but you are 'go' for the deorbit burn," Mission Control radioed at practically the last minute.

Ilan Ramon, a colonel in Israel's air force and former fighter pilot, became the first man from his country to fly in space, and his presence resulted in an increase in security, not only for Columbia's Jan. 16 launch, but also for its landing. Space agency officials feared his presence might make the shuttle more of a terrorist target.

"We've taken all reasonable measures, and all of our landings so far since 9-11 have gone perfectly," said Lt. Col. Michael Rein, an Air Force spokesman.

Columbia's crew � Ramon and six Americans � completed all of their 80-plus experiments in orbit. They studied ant, bee and spider behavior in weightlessness as well as changes in flames and flower scents, and took measurements of atmospheric dust with a pair of Israeli cameras.

The 13 lab rats on board � part of a brain and heart study � had to face the guillotine following the flight so researchers could see up-close the effects of so much time in weightlessness. The insects and other animals had a brighter, longer future: the student experimenters were going to get them back and many of the youngsters planned to keep them, almost like pets.

All of the scientific objectives were accomplished during the round-the-clock laboratory mission, and some of the work may be continued aboard the international space station, researchers said. The only problem of note was a pair of malfunctioning dehumidifiers, which temporarily raised temperatures inside the laboratory to the low 80s, 10 degrees higher than desired.

Some of Columbia's crew members didn't want their time in space to end.

"Do we really have to come back?" astronaut David Brown jokingly asked Mission Control before the ride home.

NASA's next shuttle flight, a space station construction mission, is scheduled for March. The next time Columbia flies will be in November, when it carries into orbit educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan, who was the backup for Challenger crew member Christa McAuliffe in 1986.

Is it cold in here?

Taking a slightly different tack, Jack Fear, hot and chilly as a scoop of pepper ice cream, is upset. But not for the standard reasons. He's upset because these people died performing a meaningless task in antiquated technology. Because they were stuck in that antiquted technology because of the power of the industries that profit from the continued use of an obsolete, expensive and most of all dangerous technology.

This article has more.

The perceptive listener may be noticing slowly that my grip on sanity, generally tenuous at best, has been slipping badly lately. I blame for this a combination of American McGee's Alice and blognobrot. Allow me to clarify. For some reason, webloggers have been forcing me to think about their naughties lately. Now, for some of the more beautifully formed webloggers this is a positive pleasure. Wil Wheaton wearing naught but a slinky thong and a Klingon mask, singing a happy tune as he searches for the PAX network on an enormous remote control, will bring only pleasant dreams, of course.

But in rapid succession lately our poor headses have been forced to cope not only with lovely naked Gerard's devotion to Sleepy Sex, and a series of revelations about size and usage from another weblogger so soul-blasting that I actually can't bring myself to link to it (all I'm saying is, it's pretty small), but now Ed has broken surface to tell us about his algolagnic bloodletting. No, of course he doesn't call it that. This isn't Flowers for Frigging Algernon you know.

And I just had this stomach lined, too. Fair play and much credit to these honest explorers into what we might describe as the theory paper, though.

Incidentally, I did go for a walk in the snow, and saw a fox. I know that the traditional thing to do when reporting such things in a weblog is to say "yesterday, I hunted a fox", and then segue into a tale of how I hunted the fox.....with a digital camera! Do you see? DO YOU?

But no. Alas, I had no SDC with me. So instead I watched it as it wandered across the snow, trying to work out how the whole urban fox thing works. On the bright side, presumably they help to keep down other vermin, like pigeons and rats, the pigeons and rats in turn cutting down the amount of rotting food, big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, world without end, dulce et decorum est pro Sphacteria mori, that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it. On the other hand, they do apparently tear open binbags. Or is that badgers? I've always suspected that underneath their big-arsed stripey cuteness badgers were ready to mix some pretty fucked-up shit.

Anyway. Wandered in the snow, and saw a fox. I was amazed at how close it let me get to it. We were sharing a lot, really personal stuff. They do seem to be getting tamer. I want an army of tame foxes to pull my chariot.

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