What were we talking about just the other day? The need for a national water policy? How about just a little common sense? Ahem:

ATLANTA, Oct. 22 — For more than five months, the lake that provides drinking water to almost five million people here has been draining away in a withering drought. Sandy beaches have expanded into flats of orange mud. Tree stumps not seen in half a century have resurfaced. Scientists have warned of impending disaster.

And life has, for the most part, gone on just as before.

The response to the worst drought on record in the Southeast has unfolded in ultra-slow motion. All summer, more than a year after the drought began, fountains blithely sprayed, football fields were watered, prisoners got two showers a day and Coca-Cola’s bottling plants chugged along at full strength. In early October, on an 81-degree day, an outdoor theme park began to manufacture what was intended to be a 1.2-million gallon mountain of snow.

In late September, with Lake Lanier forecast to dip into the dregs of “dead storage” in less than four months, the state imposed a ban on outdoor water use.

Like lots of women, I’m a worrier by nature. I’ve been concerned about gas prices since OPEC was a new player on the scene, throughout the era of ’70s road boats and ’90s road freighters. I was an early adopter of recycling. Jimmy Carter didn’t have to tell me to turn down my thermostat; it was already lower than he recommended. So the idea that an area can be in a drought for two years and no one even considered whether it’s wise to keep watering lawns simply baffles me. (John and Sammy, my friends there, have been gray-watering for months, so I know at least some people have the sense to pay attention to the world around them.)

People have pointed out, correctly, that too much caution is as much a handicap to success as heedlessness, but I yam what I yam. My parents were Depression babies, and “waste not, want not” is part of the Midwestern DNA. It drives me nuts to see automatic sprinklers going in a downpour. I say, “Were you born in a barn?” And if my local landscape included sights like this at the reservoir that served us all, I wouldn’t be standing by smiling while someone tried to make snow on an 81-degree day.

I had a job interview a few years ago in Houston. People there crowed about how they had “air-conditioned the outdoors.” Never have I been so glad to not get the offer. Place would have made me insane.

We continue to keep our fingers crossed for our friends and readers in SoCal, no matter what idiots with a national platform say about the place. Three hundred thousand evacuations is quite a lot. Having lived here all my life, it’s hard to get my head around the conditions that could lead to such a disaster, and I give the WashPost credit for some pretty good description of the strangeness of the weather there: The winds were the Santa Anas that routinely sweep into Southern California from the northeast and funnel through its canyons, gaining speed, heat and dryness as they descend and compress. One gust was clocked at 112 mph, which I imagine would be like a blast in the face from a giant hair dryer.

I once asked a native why you couldn’t keep a house safe in a fire like that by, essentially, turning on a roof sprinkler. What if every house had a built-in water line that followed the peak of the roof, and when fires approached, you could attach hoses to the master line, turn them on, and keep it soaked down, the way firefighters will pour water on structures adjacent to out-of-control fires, so they don’t get engulfed, too?

I gather, from his reaction, that it was perhaps the stupidest remark possible, but only now do I fully understand why it wouldn’t work — the conditions are simply too super-dry and super-hot for water to do any good at all. You just have to wait for a break in the weather.

Well, it’s raining here. If I could, I’d send humidity your way.

Our friend Ashley is attending to family business today, but if he were here, perhaps he’d make the obvious New Orleans native remark: Let’s ask ourselves, is it wise to rebuild San Diego? I mean, isn’t it simply inevitable that another fire will come along someday and burn these structures all over again? Isn’t it foolish to develop areas that nature is programmed to clear out with fire every few years? Really, does it make sense?

I’ll leave you to think on that one.

In the meantime, it’s only stuff, folks. Although it’s hard to remember at a time like this.

OK, here’s some good stuff:

If you are tired of family-values Republicans being exposed as vile hypocrites you’re not going to want to read the WashPost’s detailing of Richard Mellon Scaife’s divorce woes. If, however, you agree with me that this sort of thing never, ever gets tiresome, well, you’re going to lap it up like sweet, sweet cream. Sex! Money! Six pairs of sterling-silver asparagus tongs! A Lab named Beauregard!

HT to Lawyers, Guns and Money, who also claims to have turned up another reason to hate the Yankees — Derek Jeter, aka Herpes Harry.

(Herpes is making a real comeback, it would seem. All those who are free of this scourge, kiss your faithful partner, and make a note to talk to your kids about it. Valtrex or not, ewwww.)

Department of Looking on the Bright Side: At least the hand-wringing about Chief Wahoo is over for at least another year. In the meantime, for those of you who can’t leave the Cleveland Indians’ mascot alone, a modest proposal for a makeover. (Note: I have no idea how long the modest proposal’s been out there, so this may be older than dirt. I just like the idea of a ballpark with vindaloo available at the concession stand.)

Ellen DeGeneres, serial dog dumper?

Bow your heads for the Malibu Castle Kashan, destroyed by fire yesterday. And let’s all send good thoughts to L.A. Mary, Danny and our other SoCal readers who may be in harm’s way.

Going to Canada via the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. Clear sailing to Canada, bumper-to-bumper to Detroit. The falling dollar is very good for Canadian shoppers.

I have a framed photo on my desk of three people, standing on a corner in Stratford, Ontario — Alan, and a couple who would come to be known far and wide in blogdom as Lance Mannion and the Blonde, although then I knew them by their pre-internet names. It wasn’t our first trip, after which Lance was inspired to make the Blonde a homemade birthday card, but it was a while ago. Lance, the Blonde, Alan and I and sometimes others used to go every year around this time, drawn by the Stratford Festival, one of the best Shakespeare repertory companies in North America. (We women had a secret reason to go — Colm Feore — although “secret” implies we kept it to ourselves, and we jabbered about his strange stage magnetism non-stop.) We’d leave on Friday and come back Sunday, seeing two or three plays in that time, one or two of Will’s and usually another; the bill in most seasons is only about one-third Shakespeare and the rest other classics, including at least one musical.

We were so kulchuhed by the end, we made Lance drive all the way home, seven hours back to Indiana. Not that he ever gave up the wheel willingly.

But those were good times, and I look back on those fall weekends with great fondness, even the one where I got into a fight with Lance’s poet friend Steve, without quite knowing we were fighting until he stomped out of the room. That was the weekend we stayed in a B&B and it was Canadian Thanksgiving, and the owners of the house had their family home for the holiday. The family slept in sleeping bags in the parlor and scowled at us, the Yanks, the usurpers. Scowl at your parents, folks — they’re the ones who chose commerce over family.

Anyway, the bad thing about the trip was the drive, which could never be made less onerous. So when we moved to Detroit, effectively slicing it in half, I thought we’d be at Stratford more often. And then 2005 passed without a visit, and 2006, and I vowed 2007 wouldn’t get away from me, and it nearly did anyway. With the season dwindling, it was time to pull the trigger for at least an overnight stay, with the kid, and so we snatched up the last tickets to “Oklahoma!” and booked a room. It would have been nice to see Brian Bedford in “King Lear,” but even a good-tempered 10-year-old would balk at that one. I considered a Sunday matinee of “To Kill a Mockingbird” to round out the trip, but seeing two classic American stories produced by Canadians seemed a little strange, and besides — sold out.

So it was one night, one play, one theater. This one:

It’s a great stage, a thrust stage, not huge but perfect for Shakespeare, with a balcony and two downstage entrances, a trap door and everything else you need for ghosts and lovers and swordplay. But it’s really amazing what a good director can do with a musical, even a rowdy, dance-y, busy one like “Oklahoma!” In 1996 we saw “The Music Man” there, and it was glorious — if there weren’t 76 trombones onstage, it sure seemed that way.

“Oklahoma!” didn’t disappoint, either. That’s the thing about these old Broadway classics — even if someone’s having a bad night, there’s enough buoyancy in the rest of the production to carry it along. And no one was having a bad night, although Aunt Eller’s understudy was taking her part, and she was not only young enough that she looked like Laurey’s sister, she was pretty hot, too. Dan Chameroy was an excellent Curly, with a nice rich tenor and the requisite curls. (As a former bad girl and pervert, of course I found Jamie McKnight’s Jud Fry much more appealing, but I can understand why a blonde virgin like Laurey wouldn’t want him.) Kate, who had to stay up a whole two hours past her bedtime to see the whole thing, was only politely approving, but I caught her humming the main theme the next day, so I have to assume it was a success.

Of course, travel is very broadening, and always in an unexpected way. Kate spent the weekend being amused that the Cheetos bag from the vending machine described its contents as “soufflés.” Canada is a bilingual country, don’t you know:

And then we were headed home. I remember, back in those pre-9/11 days with Lance and the Blonde, sailing through customs at the border. Ah, no more. It was a 45-minute backup at the Blue Water Bridge, at Sarnia/Port Huron. At least the view is prettier than the tunnel:

It’s good to be home. Bloggage later. Time to go pick up the dog.

UPDATE: Lance reminds me he wrote about our Stratford trips a couple years ago, and remembers an incident I’d pretty much forgotten — the time we ran into Colm Feore on that wide green lawn in the picture above. Bonus: Picture of me c. 1995, wearing some hideous pink thing.

I don’t go to Halloween parties anymore, but if I did, I know who I’d be. Woo, scary.

Lately I’ve been collecting short passages of unbearable poignance. I think this is the saddest widdle two-sentence paragraph in the whole, sad world:

(“Miami Vice” actor Philip Michael) Thomas also invented the phrase “EGOT”, meaning “Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony”, in reference to his plans for winning all four. Thomas achieved a People’s Choice Award and a Golden Globe nomination but lacked even a nomination for any of the aforementioned awards.

Here’s the runner-up:

Jon-Erik Hexum (November 5, 1957–October 18, 1984) was an American actor and model, best known for accidentally killing himself on a television set. …Hexum died after shooting himself in the head with a prop gun loaded with blanks on the set of the CBS series Cover Up, a program about a pair of fashion photographers/models who were actually secret agents.

On October 12, 1984, after finishing a scene in which he fired several blank rounds from a .44 Magnum revolver, Hexum’s character was supposed to unload the gun and reload it with inert dummy rounds, which was required for the next scene in the script — a procedure that Jon-Erik was not familiar with, and which was usually done by the prop masters. The shooting of the next scene was delayed several times. While waiting for the prop masters to unload the blanks from the gun, Hexum jokingly put the gun up to his temple and allegedly said, “Let’s see if I get myself with this one.”

Hexum apparently did not realize that blanks use paper or plastic wadding to seal gun powder into the shell, and that this wadding is propelled out of the barrel of the gun with enough force to cause severe injury or death if the weapon is fired at point-blank range, especially if pointed at a particularly vulnerable spot, such as the temple or the eye.

No, I think I found the saddest part:

The same month that Hexum died, an issue of Playgirl magazine came out, featuring a photo shoot that Hexum had done shortly before his demise.

Stay away from Wikipedia when you’re depressed, man. You’ll start drinking at noon.

On the other hand, there’s something about the phrase “a pair of fashion photographers/models who were actually secret agents” that is just too ’80s for words.

I didn’t have a TV that functioned properly for much of the ’80s, so I missed “Cover Up.” I did watch “Miami Vice,” though. Everybody did. Friday night Vice, then out for an evening of fun. There was a copy editor in Fort Wayne who hosted MV parties, and one of the earliest clues to what I’d just moved from the big city for came when the wife of his boss fretted that these parties were “a bad influence” on the young, single people on staff. And there weren’t even any drugs! Fort Wayne in those days was truly the land that time forgot.

Eh. Been thinking about that place too much lately. Let’s turn our gaze forward for a change:

Came across this photo of Flickr; it’s an aerial photo of Windmill Point, the terminus of many of my bike rides. You can always tell when you’re approaching the Detroit border, because the trees thin out so quickly. Detroit hasn’t had the resources to properly care for its arboreal resources in some time, and it shows in this photo, where you can pretty much trace the Grosse Pointe/Detroit border by where the greenery deepens. The tidy little marina at lower right is Windmill Point Park, in GP; the rectangular patch immediately to its left is Mariner’s Park in Detroit, where I usually turn around. The next photo in the series shows an area south of there; I added a note. Those twin canals are where I learned to row (and decided rowing wasn’t for me, at least not at 5 a.m. on summer mornings). The Fisher Mansion is now owned by Hare Krishnas. A previous owner of the mansion filled in the water garage where Fisher kept his yacht; during Prohibition, he and his guests would climb aboard, motor out and drink legally on the Canadian side.

Guess who bought the house for the Hare Krishnas? Alfred Ford, Henry’s great-grandson, and Elizabeth Reuther, Walter’s daughter. Both were Hare Krishnas. Will children ever stop disappointing their parents? Not bloody likely.

Oh, on the peninsula in the middle of those two canals is an upscale new housing development — gated, of course — called Grayhaven. Every house has water access; go out your back door and you’re on the Great Lakes. Parts of this city are a well-kept secret indeed.

Do we have bloggage? Not bloody much, but let’s see how we can do:

Does the world really need another take on Caligula? Well, we can’t let Bob Guccione have the last word, can we?

Why the internet ROOOLZ: Men who look like old lesbians. Found via Simon Doonan, who gives us a few amusing new sobriquets for power dykes: “the Muffia,” who live in “Carpet Village.”

Well, that oughta keep you folks busy. If you haven’t died of boredom already. I have an interview in eight minutes, so I best be outta here.

When I was apparently the only Democrat living in northeast Indiana, I longed for a day like today, when I would wake up to read a story like this…

More than a third of the top fundraisers who helped elect George W. Bush president remain on the sidelines in 2008, contributing to a gaping financial disparity between the GOP candidates and their Democratic counterparts. Scores of Bush Pioneers and Rangers are not working for any Republican candidate, citing discontent with the war in Iraq, anger at the performance of Republicans in Congress and a general lack of enthusiasm. More than two dozen have actually made contributions to Democrats.

…and then a story like this…

In a strong repudiation of a fellow Republican, Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, yanked his support Tuesday from GOP mayoral candidate Matt Kelty, who is under indictment on perjury and campaign finance charges. “My endorsement of Matt Kelty does not stand,” Souder said in a two-page statement released shortly after 7 p.m. He painted a picture of spurious statements from Kelty’s inner circle and said the “indictments were substantial, not superficial.”

…and then a story like this…

Fred Thompson got into the Republican race with great expectations. And sure enough, just after he got in last month, polling showed Thompson and Rudy Giuliani were just about tied for front-runner. But since then, Thompson’s taken a lot of flak for a lackluster campaign from party activists in Iowa and New Hampshire. Support for his campaign has also wavered.

…and I would think I had died and awakened in the Land of Just Desserts, or that I’d lived long enough to see the pendulum finally come swinging back. And I would pour a great cup of coffee and wander around crowing at random Republicans, “sucks to be you!”

But I don’t feel like doing that. What is this strange thing inside me that stops me from gloating? I believe it’s called “empathy.” We Democrats are long on empathy; it’s what makes others refer to us as bleeding hearts. Well, my right-wing friends, be grateful for that big leaky muscle today.

Actually, the story that most interests me is the second one, the one about the Fort Wayne mayor’s race. It’s instructive to my vast international readership (“16,836 visits came from 96 countries/territories” — Google Analytics), so please, don’t skip down to the bloggage just yet. What’s happening in that mid-size city far off the beaten path is a microcosm of what’s happening elsewhere in the party; the insulting cake is sort of a local, sweeter version of the war in Iraq. And what’s happening is this: The GOP is finally coming to grips with who’s been living under their big tent with them, and screeching, “There goes the neighborhood!”

Republicans, like Democrats, have always fallen into subgroups that have less in common with one another than perhaps was evident back when they were winning elections. For every country-club Republican who thinks some taxes are necessary and abortion should remain legal, there’s one who would happily turn every street into a toll road rather than pay for ones s/he never uses and throw women in jail for using birth control. Until recently, they thought they were all on the same team. Turns out they aren’t. Hence, delamination.

They need a Sister Souljah moment, stat. For now, I’ll just sit back and watch the show.

Anyway, none of this matters, because the deadly bacteria is going to get us all. I read about this stuff every night when I’m combing the globe for health-care news, and let me tell you, it can affect your outlook. The other day I was passed by a car with a vanity license plate: MRSA. All I could think was, “Why would someone get a plate commemorating methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus?” I was home before it occurred to me that it might have been some lady proud to call herself Mrs. Adams.

So, bloggage:

Why do I keep getting 20-percent-off coupons by mail for a chain store in Michigan, when I lived about the same distance from an identical store in Fort Wayne and never got anything? Zipskinny will tell you why. Try the comparison feature and see whether you’re moving up in the world. (And note how numbers lie; according to stats alone, the Zip code for the University of Michigan is one of the poorest in the country. I guess when you consider work-study incomes of dorm residents, sure. But please. Forest, trees, etc.)

NFL wide receiver says he never tips the pizza delivery guy, is challenged to do the job for a shift, accepts. I’m sure he got a real sense for what the job is like, what with all those TV cameras following him around.

I am refusing to root for the Tribe because that will curse the Tribe. So I am not rooting for the Tribe. But on behalf of my long-suffering, Tribe-loving friends and colleagues, I am cautiously hopeful for a pleasing outcome.

How’s that for weasely? Have a swell day, all.

The Eastern Market is my favorite place in Detroit. Every Saturday morning, thousands of shoppers from city and suburb converge on the gritty urban space to buy cheap vegetables and flowers, meat and whatnot. I have a procedure: I find a parking place at one end, walk through on a reconnaissance pass, then walk back, shopping. I know who’s selling what and who has the good stuff, but this gives me an excuse to walk through twice.

Also, there’s a surprise every week.

I’ve spent my life living in pretty homogeneous places, and at midlife, I’ve had enough of that shit. When I walk through the market stalls I can pretty reliably count on hearing at least six different languages (three of which I cannot identify, all fricatives and coughing), seeing women in saris and hijabs and men in turbans and skullcaps, being offered the Final Call, being asked to sign a petition in support of impeachment or medical marijuana or Al Gore for president, being panhandled by a pathetic homeless guy asking for “just enough to get a coney for breakfast,” and witnessing at least one purchase of live poultry, usually by an Asian man who carries the birds away by the feet, suggesting he is not buying pets.

Over at Bert’s Marketplace, they have outdoor tables set up, a giant barbecue going (manned by cooks wearing T-shirts reading, “Why you all in my grill?”) and karaoke that always seems to have a singer, even before the lunch crowd arrives. A couple of weeks ago Kate and I heard the voice of a black gospel singer belting the last lines of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Our view was blocked by a truck, and as we passed we saw the black gospel singer was actually a skinny white guy, comin’ for to carry me hoooooome.

When I’m done getting my vegetables, I cross the freeway on the pedestrian bridge, which is hung with the goods of hawkers pitching shea butter from the motherland and T-shirts with Marvin Gaye’s picture. Also, CDs that look suspiciously bootlegged, framed posters and lots and lots of incense. On the other side is the Gratiot Central Market, a mall of meat, one building for all your protein needs. It’s loud and rowdy — the clerks behind every counter encourage anarchic, step-right-up ordering, but it works, and you rarely have to wait more than a minute. Nothing is yuppified or gourmet, and in fact, there’s a fishmonger selling buffalo at something like $1.49 for four pounds. Everything is cheap, though — you can buy whole beef tenderloin for $6.95 a pound, and they’ll cut it to your order; the going rate at the upscale market close to my house is three times that.

After the meat, if it’s not too hot and I don’t have a reason to return home quickly, I allow myself a little me-time. If it’s close to lunch, a slice at Flat Planet Pizza. If Kate is with me, we buy bulk cherry sours and gummy worms at Rocky Peanut. If I wanted to, I could even get a pair of balls, but so far, I haven’t needed any.

Usually I park near a storefront that’s been turned into a rehearsal space for an African dance group. Anywhere from three to six men beat drums while women dressed in sports bras and kente cloths do the moves. It’s hard to tell if they’re rehearsing for something, holding a class or just working out; they don’t seem to mind onlookers, but they don’t explain or introduce anything, and they don’t have a bucket out for thrown dollars. They just drum and dance. The vibe is old-school black pride — long, graying dreadlocks, rasta tams and the like. Last week three young men stood on the sidewalk, watching from the other end of the fashion spectrum; they were all the way hip-hop, with the baggy pants, cocked ball caps, lots of attitude. The drummers barely gave them a glance, which seemed deliberate, or maybe it wasn’t. It takes lots of concentration to keep a steady dancing rhythm among two or three others. After a while the hip-hop guys moved on, and the dancing continued.

Sometimes people ask, “Do you go every weekend?” I reply, “As often as possible.” No one ever asks why, but if they did, I’d tell them.

Bloggage:

Why “drop a load of barrels” may replace “take a dump” in American slang.

Weingarten’s got a great poll this week, in which we are asked to judge the Style Invitational, aka The Contest For People Much Cleverer Than You. The challenge was to “take any word, remove its first letter, and redefine the result. You were allowed to insert spaces or punctuation, but not to alter the order of the letters.” The results in the poll are all pretty good; I don’t know how I’d choose between Riskies: A brand of pet food made in China and Unich: German city voted World’s Safest Town for Women.

Why I would hate to investigate traffic accidents. I read once that for all the attention homicide detectives get, the ones with the really strong stomachs are the ones who clean up our blood-slicked highways. No surprise there.

Work beckons. Have a swell day.

It’s just that some of us…

…have different influences than others:

All your pre-season publicity for “The Wire,” in one place:

The New Yorker profile of David Simon.

An AP story on a news nugget that emerged from the profile: Next stop, New Orleans. I’m sure Ashley’s available as a technical consultant.

Kiss my ass.

And when you’re done back there, check an atlas. I know your chances of being elected president are approximately equal with Mike Gravel’s, and I know you may well have your own reasons for telling sympathetic western audiences we need a “national water policy,” because states like yours are parched and some, “like Wisconsin,” are “awash” in water. Great Lakes residents recognize this for what it is: Pouting, and a longing for a very long drinking straw. But sorry, you can’t have it. No pipelines for you. Even if every resident of Michigan, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana thought it was a great idea to, say, sell New Mexico water at a nice fair price of $3 a gallon or so, it wouldn’t work. You know why?

BECAUSE WE SHARE THE GREAT LAKES WITH CANADA, YOU DOLT.

Lake Michigan is fully enclosed by the U.S., but it’s all part of the same basin. There’s this thing, you could look it up, called the International Joint Commission. Hardly anyone outside of the eight states with Great Lakes shorelines has heard of it, but lo, it exists. From its Who We Are page: The International Joint Commission is an independent binational organization established by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. Its purpose is to help prevent and resolve disputes relating to the use and quality of boundary waters and to advise Canada and the United States on related questions. Key word: International.

Sorry to shoot down your little trial balloon, but really, you need to get a grip. Also, build fewer golf courses.

UPDATE: He takes it all back. That is all.