I haven’t felt well the last couple days; it’s either a low-grade bug or allergies. I suspect the latter since everything in the world is blooming right now. I went to Target (a mile away) around noon to get cat food and litter and so forth. Normally on Sundays I do that kind of errand in the mid-afternoon, and I also needed to hit the grocery store and MicroCenter over on the Kansas side, but the cat food was kind of urgent. So I blew off the other two stops until later, did my daily Target run early, and a couple hours later laid down on the couch and fell asleep. I played a really smoky bar Friday and Saturday nights, didn’t get much sleep, just didn’t feel good, so that was it for about an hour and a half.

Some time in there I heard a whole bunch of sirens. I woke up enough to think, “Man, that’s a lot of sirens,” and conked back out again. Not long after I woke up, Elise called, worried and making sure I was okay.

It turns out there was a gunman over at Ward Parkway Shopping Center, where I shop at the Target every day. As Elise said, “Naps are a good thing!” If I had been on my usual schedule, I’d have likely been at the mall around then, especially if I had done the other stops first.

I went ahead and did those other errands a little while ago. I have to drive by Ward Parkway mall to get to those other places, and State Line Road is still blocked off from 85th to 89th. All the mall entrances are blocked, there is yellow tape everywhere, a helicopter was hovering overhead (hmm, that was probably a news copter, since there was a weird little boom on the underside and I bet that’s a camera), and a camera crew was interviewing somebody by the side of the road. Traffic coming up State Line was diverted to Ward Parkway (the street on the east side of the mall—State Line is the west side). Still, it’s Sunday evening so there wasn’t a huge amount of traffic.

I watched one of CNN’s video clips about the shooting. Ah, the inanities of the 24-hour news cycle: the CNN interviewer was talking to an eyewitness, and after getting her story asked something like, “So things are usually pretty calm at that mall? Is that some place you feel safe as a shopper?” Whaddya think, woman, this is Kansas City! We have tanks and bazookas rumbling down the aisles, grenades rolling between the cars. I have to take a steel umbrella every time I go to the store, because otherwise the shrapnel fills up the sacks before I can get back to the car! Good grief.

I get so sick of the networks having to wring every ounce of drama out of every little thing. There are three people dead. I think that’s enough drama.

Posted by pat at 08:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Good news for Mac users from a blog on IT-Director.com, which concludes that, based on first quarter sales figures in the US, Vista is not helping PC sales and is not hurting Apple Mac sales. I’ll quote a bit:

…The sale of Apple Macs grew by 30% in the quarter as they have in quarter after quarter for quite a while now. In other words Vista made no competitive dent whatsoever in the sale of Macs—and that (sic) very bad news for Microsoft.

We are witnessing a tipping point in the PC market. Apple now has 5% of the US market, which may seem small, but that 5% punches well above its weight because Apple focuses on the home market—that 5% is more like 15% of the people that actually choose their PCs (in the corporations you get what you are given) and at current rates of growth that 15% will be 30% in the US in about 2 years, unless Apple's momentum slows….

Apple's momentum has not been stopped at all by Vista, and this is ahead of the release of Apple's answer to Vista—the Leopard version of OS X. Let me just speculate a little on that. I think Apple put back the release of Leopard because it concluded that it didn't need to worry about Vista.

I couldn’t speculate on what Apple knows or plans or how long its momentum might last. I just know that my Windows-using friends groan whenever Vista is mentioned. I believe one called it “a giant steaming turd.” Another, forced to use Vista on his new laptop, said, “Everything I can do on Vista I can do on XP, only faster and with fewer annoying intrusions.” (I believe he was referring to the security alerts).

I also know how much I love my MacBook Pro, and that seems to be the way everybody who has one feels about theirs. Mac users are satisfied customers, by and large, and that says an awful lot.

Posted by pat at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

I meant to watch Bill Moyers’ Buying The War on PBS Wednesday night. I heard him on Fresh Air Monday and it was a riveting interview.

Buying The War doesn’t really break new ground. Anybody who’s been paying attention has been aware that misplaced “patriotism,” the buying out of news organizations by giant corporations and concomitant rise of “star” journalists, the politics of access exacerbated by the secrecy of the Bush administration—all this and more has contributed to the way the media was asleep at the switch during the runup to the Iraq war.

I remember feeling helpless as it happened, how even though I would read the occasional report that the aluminum tubes made far more sense as parts for conventional missiles than centrifuges, that CIA and other operatives were complaining about being forced to only report intelligence which supported the case for war, that these were tiny blips, flotsam in a giant tide of conventional wisdom that war was inevitable and just. Those of us with doubts could only hope the war went well, because it was coming no matter what.

Well, we all know how that turned out.

As it happens, if you missed the show Wednesday night, it is available online in its entirety, in both Quicktime and Windows Media formats. Buying The War is excellent journalism through and through, though if you suffer from high blood pressure you might want to be careful. I was furious all over again, watching it.

Not only is it important retroactively, understanding how we got in this giant mess which is going to hurt us for decades. More importantly, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, the same practices continue today, because the Beltway media don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. They are so comfortable in their bubble of access and privilege and conventional wisdom, they think they’re doing a fine job!

Even if you don’t want to watch web video, be sure and catch the debut tonight of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, with Jon Stewart as guest. That should be extremely entertaining and interesting. I’ve got a gig but I’m going to tape it.

Posted by pat at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

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I don’t want to diminish how utterly horrific the Virginia Tech shootings were—they are everything the national media are making them to be. But for a little perspective here, Juan Cole notes that in Baghdad, on average there are two Virginia Tech incidents every single day. Those Iraqi dead had friends and families just as the American students did.

Second, while the L.A. Times reports that most gun-rights supporters are (sensibly) “keeping their heads down” as Virginia Tech dominates the news, some right-wing commentators apparently decided this is just the time to pipe up. There are apparently quite a number, but I’ll just mention two that caught my eye:

Instapundit laments that students are forbidden to carry concealed weapons on campus so that someone else could have taken the shooter out. Personally, if I were still in school I’d be more than happy that every time a couple of liquored-up frat boys let their testosterone get the better of them that it doesn’t lead to a firefight, or that professors have to worry about posting a bad grade in case the recipient is packing. But I guess I’m just a hippie musician, not a big tough pundit.

Here’s the Man With the Big Balls, though: at National Review Online, John Derbyshire wants to know why nobody rushed the shooter! Seriously. “At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren't very accurate, even at close range.”

Apparently they are accurate enough to kill about half the people he shot, but again, what do I know? Based on my experiences of 9 am classes, I would have been sitting there half-asleep and possibly half-hungover, eyeing the female students and taking desultory notes. Apparently I should have been morally and physically prepared to leap to Defend Truth, Justice, and the American Way, rather than, say, taking immediate steps to Remove My Young Ass from Harm’s Way.

It takes Big Balls, or at least an over-arching machismo, to be a conservative commentator (as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out). Sadly, none of them was on campus yesterday morning to show the rest of us how a Real American would act.

My heart goes out to all who have been hurt by the Virginia Tech tragedy. But I can’t help wondering why we think college students are more important than Iraqis (or maybe residents of New Orleans, hmm?), or decide the meaning of isolated incidents involving deeply disturbed individuals is that more of us should carry guns. Or, like that Derbyshire idiot, have the unspeakable arrogance to presume that someone caught in that horrible situation should have acted differently than they did.

Posted by pat at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

This is hilarious. Remember Flo and Eddie (aka Phlorescent Leech and Eddie)? Actually named Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, they were the main voices in The Turtles, also played with Frank Zappa, even did some stuff under the name Flo & Eddie if I remember right.

In this YouTube video, the pair explain the horrendous history of The Turtles’ management problems, which persisted even as the band put out a string of classic hits such as “Happy Together,” “She’d Rather Be With Me,” She’s My Girl,” and two of my all-time absolute favorite songs, “Elenore” and “You Showed Me.” Plus many others…. Anyway, the video is really, really funny.

Chet Nichols posted this link to a mailing list I’m on. Thanks, Chet!

Posted by pat at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The best Kurt Vonnegut tribute I’ve read.

FWIW, I blogged about his last book here.

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I tried and tried to convince myself that even that overstuffed dolt David Hasselhoff is self-aware enough that this remake of “Secret Agent Man” was meant to be campy.

Nope. Just can’t do it. He really does suck that much.

The YouTube comments are pretty funny as well, to an old fart like me. Some point out that this song goes all the way back to a 1995 Austin Powers movie. (Gasp!) The Very Dawn of Time!

Posted by pat at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just saw an online ad for a company called Boost offering cell phones for a very low price.

Isn’t “boost” a slang term for “steal?” Didn’t these guys ever think it might sound like they’re offering cell phones that “fell off a truck?”

I don’t know anything about the company, just that the first words out of my mouth were, “What the hell were they thinking?”

Posted by pat at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wednesday April 4, or 4/4, was Common Time Day! It’s a musician’s holiday to celebrate the time signature for probably 95% of the music of the world. One, two, three, four; one an two an three an four an; one an uh two an uh three an uh four an uh—it’s all 4/4!

Other musician holidays include Waltz Day, March 4; Take 5 Day, May 4; Slow Blues Day, June 8 (purists celebrate it December 8); Eight To The Bar Day, August 8; and Mission Impossible Day, October 8. Not to mention a very brief celebration on February 4, Cut Time Day. I’m sure there are more.

Please note that in Europe, most of these holidays are celebrated in April and August, i.e., Waltz Day is 3 April and Slow Blues Day (known over there as German Drinking Song Day) is 6 August.

Of course you do realize I am making all this up. At least, as far as I know.

Posted by pat at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Two of the most disgusting people on TV nearly come to blows. I have to say, I’m with Geraldo on this one, which may be a first. Still, I couldn’t help laughing as I watched the video. If only they had bitten each other’s head off! It seemed like a real possibility.

Posted by pat at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)