Few of the people I know around here pilot boats on the high seas, but if you’ve been out on anything bigger than a gravel pit you ought to know what makes a boat seaworthy.
For instance: Lake St. Clair, where we sail, is very shallow. Which makes it choppy, although you’d have to ask a hydrologist precisely why. I figure it has to do with how water moves when it has nowhere else to go. It’s also busy, which adds to the chop.
Hardly anyone skis on this lake, and even small boats tend to have deep V hulls — Boston Whalers, Sea Rays and the like. When you’re waked by a plutocrat, heedlessly plowing toward lunch at the yacht club in his 40-foot aquatic Bulgemobile, you come to appreciate a low center of gravity. A little junk in the trunk, so to speak.
I thought about this when I read about the deaths of 20 old people in New York, when their sightseeing boat capsized in Lake George. How does this happen? Those boats go out constantly, all summer long. Surely they’ve been waked before; how does a 40-foot boat just tip over, no matter how it’s rocked from side to side? It makes no sense.
I guess it will when the investigation is finished. Until then: Cruel, cruel fate. And a few heroes.
Bloggage: I didn’t follow the Broussard/Russert thing post-Katrina all that closely, other than to note that Russert was a jerk to the end. Read this. I think it sums up the set-to pretty well:
Russert had Broussard on the ropes, but Broussard didn’t get it. None of this ‘Russert’s game, Russert’s rules’ for him. He came out of his corner, jabbing, and he connected with every punch. ‘What kind of sick mind, what kind of black-hearted people want to nitpick a man’s mother’s death?’ Recognize yourself, you prick? ‘That wasn’t a box of Cheerios they buried last week.’ Chew on that, you heartless, coffee-drinking, toilet-equipped bastard.
Beyond the sheer thrill of watching an unranked club fighter pound the hell out of the champion was the meta-drama: Broussard took a factual error and showed it for what it was�not the kind of lie that Administration officials have told without significant challenge on “Meet the Press” for almost five years, but a tiny shard of a larger story that was truthful in every other way.
On the psychological level, what Broussard did was even more astonishing: Just as he did on his first appearance, he jumped into the moment and relived it. Like a flashback. Or, to use a term of art, abreaction. And when he came out of it, he wasn’t dazed and blinking�he was breathing fire at the sick son-of-a-bitch who, with people dead and displaced, would cook up an exercise like this.
Sounds about right.
Also, sisterhood could be more powerful, at the DetNews.
alex said on October 3, 2005 at 11:40 pm
The appeal of Bush�like the appeal of Russert�is swagger. And those who are suckers for it are those who don’t know their own minds, much less their own hearts. Truly no president has ever exploited human weakness more than this one. I have no doubt Mr. Bush leads an entirely unexamined life, and he’s going to leave it that way. When it all comes crashing down, his most fervent admirers will still be enraged that anyone is picking on the little puny dumb guy. Where’s the “affirmative action” sentiment when you really need it?
535 chars
brian stouder said on October 4, 2005 at 9:39 am
�Sisterhood could be more powerful�, indeed. Gotta ask, Nance – was it really a wise choice to single out the hapless Bonnie-of-the-DetNews-Blog, though? As you say in your piece, any number of Big Time Media Sisters are already �on it� (regarding Harriet�s makeup), and now you will almost surely draw a sibling-like retort from sock mouthed Bonnie-of-the-Blog as soon as she sees any opportunity. (You can almost hear DetNews-Dad in the front seat warning you both that he�s going to stop the car if you can�t behave), and this will not advance Sisterhood one scintilla!
That�s the thing about Sisterhood � and brotherhood too, for that matter � it COULD be intrinsically more powerful but it never will be. Not as long as we have to sit together
771 chars
mary said on October 4, 2005 at 1:43 pm
The statement about W being the most brilliant man she’s ever met is far scarier than the bad eyemakeup. Maybe the eyemakeup is disturbing because we’d like to think that someone of her accomplishment would have gotten past the eyemakeup style affected by eighth graders who apply their makeup in the girls’ room at school. It looks like Lois Botnik’s makeup to me. Lois was an older tough girl who smoked in the locker room and wore white frosted lipstick in 1966. Girls who wore makeup like that were not good girls in that era. It was immediately followed by the black eyeliner topped by white eyeliner phase. I was one of the hippie chicks Ann Coulter mentioned, so I didn’t wear makeup.
695 chars
Nance said on October 4, 2005 at 2:38 pm
Tell the truth, Mary — you not only didn’t wear makeup, you probably didn’t shave your legs, either. Lesbian!
I know an ex-hippie chick who liked to dress, every day, in a tube top and overalls. She didn’t shave her pits, and loved to wave her hand in the air and gross out the sorority girls. I’m sure one of them grew up to be a nice Republican lawyer, and recalls the incident with horror.
396 chars
Dorothy said on October 4, 2005 at 3:45 pm
For fun I Googled Lois Botnik and came up with nada. First time I ever Googled someone and it yielded nothing. Hmph.
117 chars
basset said on October 4, 2005 at 9:31 pm
That whole thing is just a little too pundit-y for me.
Do I care whether some TV talking head “connected with every punch” in an argument with some other talking head?
Does it make the slightest bit of difference to me, or to the people of New Orleans, how the “Broussard/Russert thing” was resolved?
More importantly, do I give a rusty f**k what Broussard, whoever he might be, or Russert think about anything at all, ever? And do their opinions or the results of their little set-to mean anything at all outside the world of people who watch that bullshit and think it’s important?
No. Not in the least.
Hippie girls in tube tops and overalls, on the other hand, will command my attention for as long as there’s one in range.
Go down to the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, right now, this minute, or for that matter go pretty much anywhere between Gulfport and Baton Rouge, and tell the first person you see that “Russert had Broussard on the ropes.” I’m sure he, she, or it will be greatly impressed.
1025 chars
mary said on October 5, 2005 at 12:03 am
Living in Denver during my hippie stage, I usually wore Frye boots and Levis. You’re right about the not shaving. I was not into the ladies, though. I appreciated those dongs in life drawing class.
200 chars
mary said on October 5, 2005 at 12:03 pm
I decided that Harriet Miers is a sacrifice bunt of a nominee. The Christian right came out too loud, too strong and too fast against her. She’ll get shot down and Bush will nominate someone like Janice Rogers Brown. I’m taking bets under 1 dollar.
251 chars
brian stouder said on October 5, 2005 at 3:03 pm
“I’m taking bets under 1 dollar.”
Dunno.
I watched several hours of Roberts’ confirmation hearings, as they replayed on C-SPAN – and that guy was flat-out brilliant. He could discuss whatever past case the Senators referred to at length, and without notes – to the point that the Senators were wanting him to pipe down!
Agreed that Harriet looks very like a sac-fly down the right field line (had to switch away from the bunt to work in the ‘right field’). One suspects she will end up saying she ‘isn’t familiar with that particular case’ a lot, and she will suffer in the comparison with Roberts.
BUT – her rejection by the Senate will, if it comes to pass, lead to W hobbling around and quacking like the lame duck that he will have been shown to be!
And if W follows up with a red-meat righty at that point, then the group of 14 in the Senate headed by John McCain (who wants to be president) will reject that person, too – betcha a dollar!
Bottomline – leading with Harriet looks like an even dumber move than usual by W, to me.
1051 chars
mary said on October 5, 2005 at 7:34 pm
I guess we agree that the nomination doesn’t look like it’s a straightforward deal. Something is afoot. Either that or he didn’t feel like looking too far for a nominee. As Jon Stewart said, “she’s the most qualified person within a hundred feet of his desk.” She was the person who headed the search committee that found Roberts. Remember Cheney was the search committee for a VP candidate, and he found himself.
419 chars