"Take Away Books That Nerds Don't Deserve"

As a nerdette, bookworm, and nerdcore fan, I am loving this video!!!

"See a nerd reading a book, whatcha gonna do??
 Whomp that nerd!"

Summer Finally Arrives in Seattle

(Picture of musical sculpture at Volunteer Park Conservatory taken by me. For more pix of Seattle, see my photostream.)

So, I was thinking I should write about what I've been doing lately - aside from my favorite 'sport' of staying up way too late, and reading depressing stuff on the internet about politics, economics, energy, and climate change.

I recently went to this terrific event called "The Round" at The Fremont Abbey, right across the street from my condo. It would be like walking from my house in CT across the street to my neighbor's house, in distance terms. Except it was like Beatnik night, at an oh-so-cool former church, with 3 local, talented singer-guitarist-songwriters, a poetry slam winner doing live poetry, and a guy painting live during the music. It's just amazing to me that I could walk out my door and go to something of this quality - without even taking a bus into downtown Seattle. The musicians were really good. The place was packed.  Apparently, it's becoming quite the popular event.

Here's an article about it. I recommend the place to anyone visiting Seattle. I've also seen a great sitar concert there, and am looking forward to finally catching "Tuning the Air".

We recently had more than a week of rain, general gloom, and record-breaking low temps - excellent weather for reading serious books in coffeehouses. Did you know, BTW, that the Chinese both had a major naval fleet centuries before the Europeans and they had solved the naval scurvy problem by packing raw beans, which they sprouted en route, the bean sprouts being high in Vitamin C ? Well, not only do I know it, courtesy of the Jane Jacobs book that powered me through the gloomy weather, and now you know it, but I made sure the barista at Cafe Lladro in Fremont, who had innocently expressed interest in the book, knew it, too.  Because that's how I rock my dorkiness... Nerdcore For Life, Baby! ;-)

Check out my favorite quote from that book; "Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of American communities. Highways and roads obliterate the places they are supposed to serve." I was so stunned with the sheer genius of this quote when I read it, that I shared it with the barista, too. I'm sure he thought I was crazy, but he did a good job of fronting like I wasn't.

And, no, I wasn't tying to book mack him. He wasn't my type. Plus, I think he was gay.  I was just all impressed that he had noticed the book, unprompted, and volunteered that he was a fan of Jacob's "The Death and Life of Great American Cities".

But, anyway, now the sun and the warmth are back and I appreciate them more than ever! It's beautiful weather for taking the #10 bus up from 3rd and Pike to gorgeous  Volunteer Park, like I did the other day. Most Seattle-ish park moment; seeing a 20-something guy, sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the grass, wearing headphones, knitting something - using black wool, of course.  This place is just crying out for someone to market a boutique line of organic, Kurt Cobain-inspired yarn, with emo color names like, "Black ... like my soul".

When you're finally ready for a break from the heat, walk down the block and hang out in ultra-cool Victrola Coffee, on 15th, reading The Stranger and watching the local hipsters, with their de rigeur white Macbooks. ( Do they not sell any other laptops in this town? ) Then, it's a nice stroll back down Capitol Hill. Actually, if they hadn't been closed, I would have hit the Seattle Asian Art Museum, in the center of the park, and the well-reviewed Volunteer Park Cafe - oh well, next time. It was more of an outdoorsy day, anyway.

After hanging out at Victrola, I walked back down Capitol Hill, towards Town Hall, on 8th and Seneca, to hear Ahmed Rashid speak about Pakistan and Afghanistan - and how we eff-ed up there.  That was kind of so-so. He is very much a voice of the establishment. He didn't have anything particularly new to say, or any unexpected insights into the recent Taliban jailbreak and Kandahar offensive in Afghanistan.

Sorta wish I had gone to Kung Fu Grindhouse at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard, instead. But, usually I've hit really good lectures at Town Hall. I'm looking forward to seeing Jeremy Scahill talk about his new book about the "controversial" (i.e. skeezy) private defense contractor Blackwater, on the 18th. Although I might do some Solstice parade volunteering, instead, as the parade is almost here, and much remains to be done. 

Oh, and I couldn't resist, so here are some links to stuff I've been reading. Because reading is a big part of my life, and of what I'm "doing" whenever I have some free time;

Gloom and Doom stuff;

One Simple Question
"It started with one simple question posed by [VT] Senator Bernie Sanders to his constituents in an invitation to a town meeting: What does the decline of the middle class mean to you personally?

Over 700 people replied.

A second question was asked in his e-newsletter, The Bernie Buzz: Do you have a story to tell about how gas prices are affecting you?

Over 1200 responses.

“The volume of responses was stunning,” Sanders told me. “Most people in my state — especially in rural areas — do not feel comfortable telling people about their struggles. ‘He has it worse than I do, I’ll be fine. Thanks for asking.’ It’s just not a natural thing [to share these struggles]…. The other point that has to be underlined — this is not an interview at the homeless shelter. These are letters from working families, from middle class families… [and] people who’ve worked their whole lives who expected to have a minimal degree of economic security but are now finding themselves with nothing.”
...
"Sanders has read some of the letters on the Senate floor. He says, “This is simply an effort to bring a dose of reality to the floor of the Senate. It’s not just Vermont. There are other areas of this country that are worse off. It’s important for us to respond to that with appropriate public policies to address this crisis.”

Sanders notes that corporate media has completely dropped the ball in informing the citizenry of the staggering economic inequality of our times. “When you talk about the collapse of the corporate media in terms of responsibility,” he says, “it’s not just the War in Iraq. The other huge story that they have missed is the collapse of the middle class — the fact that we have tens of millions of people working longer hours for lower wages; that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. For the first seven years of the Bush administration, [the media was] simply the stenographers for what the President was saying: ‘The economy is robust. We have strong economic growth. Unemployment is reasonably low.’ The metaphor is — it’s like the operation was a success but the patient died. The economy is doing great, except for 90% of the people in the economy. The reality is that we have the hollowing out of the American economy. Median family income declined by $2500 in the last seven years. 8 million people lost their health insurance. 3 million people lost their pensions. This is a strong economy? You’ve gotta be insane to believe that. And yet that is what the Bush Administration was talking about and that’s what the corporate media kept on talking about.”

Sanders believes the mission of progressives at this moment is twofold. “Number one, we have got to let the American people understand that they are not alone,” he says. “What ends up happening when the media doesn’t talk about the reality facing ordinary people, then people think ‘I must be failing, why can’t I make it?’… And the second thing… we have to come up with a progressive agenda which begins to address this economy.”

Reverse Henry Fordism
"...Under Bush, the cost of food has doubled, and of gas has tripled. (Neither food nor fuel are counted in Bush’s phony Consumer Price Index, which consequently understates the gravity of current inflation)..."

Insurance fraud
The lack of transparency in the US healthcare industry means insurance companies can abuse patients by denying their claims

"...Insurers don't generally give out the basis under which they deny claims. Nor do they generally reveal how often they deny claims. How can a person intelligently decide between insurers if they don't even know how likely they are to see a claim denied?

This is not the only information that you won't get from your insurer. In most plans, when people go "out of network", insurers reimburse an amount that is 70-80% of the "reasonable and customary" rate. Typically your insurer will not disclose in advance their customary and usual rate, so patients will not know how much a trip to the doctor will actually cost them until after the doctor submits the claim. In addition, the insurer is free to change their reimbursement rate at its own discretion. It can also, at its own discretion, change what procedures are and are not covered.

The current law basically gives insurers a free hand to abuse patients. It is equivalent to handing over a $12,000 check to a contractor to repair the plumbing and electric in your house and then leaving it to the contractor to decide which repairs they want to do. A contractor that fixed a few pipes and then skipped out would be prosecuted for fraud. An insurance company that effectively did the same thing, by denying care to policyholders, would be paying big bonuses to the CEO..."

The oil we eat:
Following the food chain back to Iraq

Useful stuff;

Best and Worst Cities for Your Job
Think you're on the top of the heap? It's possible you could be making more money and enjoy a better quality of life somewhere else

Are You in the Best City for Your Job?
A high salary goes only so far if the cost of living is even higher. If you want your dollar to go further, maybe it's time to relocate

Interesting stuff;

Guerrilla gardener movement takes root in L.A. area
"...Scott is a guerrilla gardener, a member of a burgeoning movement of green enthusiasts who plant without approval on land that's not theirs. In London, Berlin, Miami, San Francisco and Southern California, these free-range tillers are sowing a new kind of flower power. In nighttime planting parties or solo "seed bombing" runs, they aim to turn neglected public space and vacant lots into floral or food outposts..."

Tale of the Tracks
"If you live in Seattle's South End, you might encounter postcard-size flyers, photocopied from handmade linoleum prints, advertising Seattle Train Yard Bike Tours. Beginning at Georgetown's All City Coffee, you'll be guided on a three-hour tour led by Cameron, a 30-year-old self-taught train aficionado. By the end of the tour—which snakes through SoDo and along the waterfront, past the grain elevators near Elliott Avenue, and ending up in Interbay—you'll know how to read the trains. You'll be able to tell a road engine from a yard engine, you'll know what The Stinker is and where it's headed, and you'll get a glimpse into the workings of our
economy, based on what's moving where along the rails..."

Corrupticut

I am sooo going to be in shock when I get back to CT and start buying gas and paying utility bills again. (Utilities come free with the housing as a travel nurse, and I am currently living without a car in a community with great public transportation.) Interesting that we have the second-highest gas prices in the nation, as we also have the 2nd-highest electricity rates, right after Hawaii. And, if you look at the link to the left on most expensive areas to live in the nation, you'll see that the Norwalk-Stamford area in CT is #1, in terms of rental prices, ahead of even Honolulu!

O.K., and the reason someone would prefer Stamford to Hawaii would be....???  Beats me.

It sure ain't the scenery.

"Connecticut already has the second-highest gas prices in the country, behind California. AAA says the average price of regular gas in Connecticut is about $4.30 a gallon."
Connecticut gas prices stand out
By ConnPolitics.tv Staff, on Jun 8, 2008

I'd love to know where the hell our gas taxes (which are - you guessed it -the 2nd highest in the country) are going. They sure don't seem to be going into repairs for the heavily-used, incredibly decrepit stretch of I-95 that runs through Southern CT, where the word "pothole" serves as a euphemism for an 18' by 18' foot hole that goes through the entire thickness of a bridge deck. Ummm, that's not a 'pothole', people - that's a freaking game of Russian Roulette!

I'd like to put former mayors Giordano and Ganim, former governor Rowland, and current douchebag/senator Lieberman to work doing some honest work for a change. Like repairing that "pothole" ... by hand, in 95-degree heat, with 70-percent humidity. From what I hear about the weather, they could start this weekend.

Are You Better Off Now Than You Were 8 Years Ago?

(Photo of Ballard business taken by me. For more photos, see my Photostream.)

Historic Oil Jump Causes Fears Of $5 At The Pump
"Oil had its largest one-day jump ever on Friday.
Oil prices made their biggest single-day leap ever Friday, dragging the Dow Jones industrials down nearly 400 points and raising the once-unthinkable prospect of $150 oil and more record gas prices by the Fourth of July.
The meteoric rise of nearly $11 for the day piled atop an increase of almost $5.50 the day before, taking oil futures more than 13 percent higher in just two days, easily a record on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
And those weren't the only stunning numbers of the day: The government also reported the nation's unemployment rate zoomed to 5.5 percent in May, a monthly rise of half a percentage point, the biggest in 22 years. Oil settled at $138.54, a rise of more than 8 percent. The surged came after Morgan Stanley analyst Ole Slorer predicted strong demand in Asia and tight supplies in the Western Hemisphere could drive prices to $150 by Independence Day, when millions of Americans take to the roads.
That means no end in sight for spiraling gas prices, already above $4 per gallon in much of the country.
Even longtime market observers were shocked by the magnitude and speed of oil's rally.
"We're into unchartered territory, and somewhat off the map as far as historical precedents are concerned," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Ill.
Besides the jump in the unemployment rate, the Labor Department said employers had cut 49,000 jobs in May, the fifth straight month of nationwide losses. Job losses for the year reached 324,000."

A City Where Hospitals Are as Ill as the Patients
"For thousands of residents of South Los Angeles who had depended on the large county-run King-Harbor hospital, the past 10 months have been a grueling exercise in cobbling together medical care. When King-Harbor was shut by federal officials, it became the 15th general acute care hospital to close in Los Angeles County since 2000, about half of which served residents in South Los Angeles...
...“We have an all-out crisis here,” said Carol Meyer, the director of governmental relations for the Los Angeles County Health Services Department. “In terms of lack of access to care, emergency room overcrowding and total underfunding of the health care system.”
In many ways, the woes of South Los Angeles mirror other poor urban health care systems. Medical centers in Philadelphia, Washington, Cleveland and elsewhere have closed or fallen into bankruptcy in recent years, leaving patients scrambling.
Also, Medicaid reductions in recent years have helped contribute to the rising tide of the uninsured — roughly 2.2 million more in 2006 than in the previous year — largely because of a decrease in employer-sponsored insurance and Medicaid reductions.
“Over the course of the last 10 to 15 years, there are entire populations that have been wiped off Medicaid,” said Larry S. Gage, president of the National Association of Public Hospitals...
...From 2000 to 2006, the number of Medicaid-covered patients using the South Los Angeles hospitals on Medicaid increased 18 percent and the uninsured ranks rose more than 20 percent, while patients with commercial coverage fell 20 percent, according to the hospital association’s figures.
As a result, many hospitals in the South Los Angeles area are unable to stay afloat, and centers that once served 100,000 patients here have closed.
“I don’t think we have seen that many closures occur in any part of the U.S. in the last 25 years,” said Jim Lott, vice president of the Hospital Association of Southern California. “We have less than one hospital bed per 1,000 residents here compared to 4.3 per 1,000 in the U.S. When you add up all the forces, the price of indigent care is putting people over the edge.”

Tight Rein on Blood Sugar Has No Heart Benefits
"Two large studies involving more than 21,000 people found that people with Type 2 diabetes had no reduction in their risk of heart attacks and strokes and no reduction in their death rate if they rigorously controlled their blood sugar levels...
...Diabetes researchers say that the message is that patients should obtain at least moderate control of blood sugar to protect against eye, kidney and nerve disease. But for heart disease, they say, the only proven method of preventing complications is to give statins to control cholesterol, drugs to control blood pressure and aspirin to control blood clotting, and encourage people to lose weight and exercise...
...Younger and newly diagnosed patients may be a different story, she said, adding, “That’s the great unanswered question.”

Comic Relief;

The 10 Most Worthless College Majors >

Best of Craigslist;
It's me! Every girl ever.
"I fucking love candles!"

Obama clinches nomination with 2119 votes!!!

I think his acceptance speech was very presidential - i.e., it was classy, unlike some of the behavior we've seen from other candidates.  He showed respect and courtesy to his opponents - like a real leader. Michelle reminds me of Jackie Kennedy in this picture.

Here's a quote from his speech that I like;

"The other side will come here in September and offer a very different set of policies and positions, and that is a debate I look forward to. It is a debate the American people deserve. But what you don't deserve is another election that's governed by fear, and innuendo, and division. What you won't hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize. Because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans, but we are Americans first. We are always Americans first."

Meanwhile, Rome keeps on burning...

(Car in Fremont Center, Seattle - photo by me.
For my latest photos, check out my photostream here.)

Listening to;

WE FUNK Podcast, Show 493
Favorites;
"Brown Wind and Fire" by Brownout
( I must see this band live! They are actually going to be in New Haven, CT, as Grupo Fantasma, at the International Festival of Ats and Ideas in June, but before I come home. Plus, I'd have to come home so early that I'd miss the Solstice Festival that I'm volunteering for in Seattle.)
"Escape-ism" by James Brown
(First time I ever heard the full, unedited track in all its glory).
"Coolie High" by Camp Lo
But just about every song is good. Warning, a few songs have extremely graphic language and probably will be offensive to some. Most don't/won't.

Reading;

Getting Rich at New York Presbyterian Hospital
"Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer revealed publicly last year a well-kept secret, that New York Presbyterian was paying its top eight executives an annual aggregate salary of over $20 million. He cited 2004 figures, which today are undoubtedly higher. The CEO, Herbert Pardes, netted over five million, which means that the next ranking administrators netted an average of over two million. This must be far and away the most extravagantly paid hospital leadership team in the world."

War Abroad and Poverty at Home
"...Before Bush began his wars of aggression, oil was $25 a barrel. Today it is $130 a barrel. Some of this rise may result from run-away speculation in the futures market. However, the main cause is the eroding value of the dollar... Currently the desperate Bush Regime is trying to cut Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled..."

Cartoon : "How to React to Good News That is Actually Bad News"

Corporate executives forced pro-Bush, pro-war narrative

Looking forward to;

Tne Black Angels w/ The Warlocks
June 11TH 10:30 PM
Neumo's 925 East Pike Street, Seattle, WA 98122
"Noise for the Needy" benefit for Urban Rest Stop

Talib Kweli, Common Market, Gabriel Teodros, Grayskul
June 15th, 9:00 pm
Showbox in the Market 1426 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
"Noise for the Needy" benefit for Urban Rest Stop

The Last HOPE - July 18-20, 2008 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City

He Read Too Many Of My Clippings

(Picture of sleeping guy at Seattle festival by me. For more, see here.)

Give My Stimulus Check to the Rich
Bush has favored the wealthy throughout his administration; why stop now?

Watch Out For C. Diff
"The number of people hospitalized with a dangerous intestinal superbug has been growing by more than 10,000 cases a year, according to a new study...the spores are difficult to kill with most conventional household cleaners or antibacterial soap [or Purell!]..."The nature of this infection is changing. It's more severe," said Dr. L. Clifford McDonald, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert...the study concluded that 2.3 percent of the cases in 2004 were fatal — about 5,500 deaths. That was nearly double the percentage of C-diff-related cases that ended in death in 2000..."

I Heart Richie Blumenthal
Hartford (AP) _ Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is suing the nation's largest pharmaceutical distributor on allegations it illegally inflated wholesale drug costs.
Blumenthal says the scheme by San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. resulted in Connecticut consumers and state-funded health care programs paying millions of dollars more than they should have for many brand-name drugs, including Lipitor and Prevacid.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Massachusetts federal court accuses McKesson of violating federal racketeering and state consumer protection laws.

Maybe This Explains Those Crappy H$R Phones
Trial Begins in Siemens Bribes-for-Biz Scandal
"...Europe’s largest engineering company, Siemens, which is embroiled in what could be the largest corporate bribes-for-business case ever..."

Cranio-Rectal Syndrome
Who do you think are the most cynical people in the world? Cops? Executioners? Or maybe prostitutes? Clowns?
We're thinking it's doctors. If you want proof, check out some of the horrifying-yet-hilarious slang they use around the office. Yes, these are real.

How to Make a Schadenfreude Pie
My word, what is this dark and vaguely sinister-looking pie you see before you?