The Starbucks closing list is now public, and I’m pleased to see our local isn’t on it. I’m generally pleased with Starbucks, except when I am not. I won’t rehash all the standard bitching about the mermaid, because it doesn’t matter; Starbucks introduced dark roasts to much of America, and give them that at the very least. If it’s much more difficult to palm off a watery brown tincture as something worth your $1.25, then they’ve done the world a service.

Of course there’s a downside. I saw it last week in the Las Vegas airport, on a short layover when all I wanted was a great big cuppa strong black coffee, and got stuck in line behind the eight pickiest people in the world. When one opened with, “I’d like two tall skinny soy lattes, one just a tad cooler than the other,” I threw up my hands and sought out a fast-food place down the row.

Once upon a time America drank coffee. And America was strong. An America that drinks tall skinny soy lattes — one just a tad cooler than the other — is an America that is, dare I say, French.

Ah, well. I have bigger fish to fry today. Picked up the dog yesterday, and could feel his bones poking through his coat. He’d been off his feed most of the week, the vet said. OK, can’t blame him — abandonment in one’s dotage is probably grounds for a hunger strike. Since he’s gotten home, he’s done nothing but eat. And then sometime last night, he got up and pooped on the dining room floor. Which is either the beginning of the end, or just evidence of a senior citizen’s discombobulated constitution. I’m going with the latter. Poor old man. In seven weeks, he’ll be 17. Deaf, mostly blind, but still swingin’.

Speaking of dogs, let’s swing into some tasty bloggage today with one I’ve been carrying around a while. I don’t know how many of you read the NYT’s magazine cover story weekend before last, the one on psychotropic pharmaceuticals for pets, but it made me laugh so hard I nearly had my own dining-room accident:

Aggression is a feline problem too. A few weeks after visiting Dodman, I went to the home of a man in West Los Angeles whose pet was on Prozac. The owner, Doug, asked me not to use his last name because he didn’t want business associates to know about what he called his “cougar psycho little miniature stalker” — Booboo the cat.

Booboo was apparently poisoned by an unfortunate dried-flower-eating incident, which led to the onset of, I dunno, catzophrenia:

From then on Booboo was different. He would periodically ambush Doug. Over time, Doug noticed that attacks were more likely if he smelled at all abnormal — for instance, if he had been near a woman wearing perfume — so he would take a shower after coming home and then change into his designated cat-wrangling outfit.

…Doug led me up the stairs in his house to the second floor. He donned a pair of khakis that he had lined with heavy-gauge ballistic nylon and washed up because he had shaken hands with me. He crept toward the master bedroom, where Booboo was permanently quarantined behind a door that had been remounted to swing outward to facilitate quick escapes by Doug. “Just behind this door lurks the Tasmanian devil,” Doug said before slipping inside. I squatted at ground level and watched through a transparent doggy door. The 400-square-foot room had a walk-in closet, a four-poster bed and a floor-to-ceiling view of Beverly Hills mansions dotting a scenic canyon. The suite belonged entirely to Booboo, though Doug said he was now able to sleep over a few nights a week. Booboo slinked past the window and gave me a steady gaze. He had a tuxedo coat, mostly black but with patches of white on his feet, underbelly and forehead. Doug scooped him up and they nuzzled face to face. “He’s just warm, soft and fuzzy, and he purrs, and he’s cuddly,” he murmured.

The theme of the story: These critters wouldn’t need all these drugs if we, their owners, weren’t quite so crazy ourselves. Good reading.

Those who can get back to the land, do. Those who can’t, delegate. Another reason to hate California foodies:

Eating locally raised food is a growing trend. But who has time to get to the farmer’s market, let alone plant a garden? That is where Trevor Paque comes in. For a fee, Mr. Paque, who lives in San Francisco, will build an organic garden in your backyard, weed it weekly and even harvest the bounty, gently placing a box of vegetables on the back porch when he leaves. Call them the lazy locavores — city dwellers who insist on eating food grown close to home but have no inclination to get their hands dirty. Mr. Paque is typical of a new breed of business owner serving their needs.

Here’s a story that’s been getting some play here of late, about a Michigan woman who escaped from prison in 1976 (drug charges), went straight, assumed a new identity and was found 30 years later living the good life in the suburbs of San Diego. The question is, of course, how do you treat a self-rehabilitated soccer mom whose original crime was non-violent but whose escape from custody remains unpunished? As one, the howl goes up in Michigan: Send her back to prison, for a very very very long time!

I am not among those howling. Of course she deserves punishment; the state has to do something. But jailing her again seems pointless, and what’s more, I know of a punishment that will a) hurt; b) hit her where she lives; and c) help the state of Michigan. Among many other things. And it is? Ahem. Fine her.

Fine her big. If her family wants her on the outside so bad, make them pay a hearty sum. Half a million, say. Or more. Why is this so hard? You’re welcome. Just call me Solomon.

Off to the gym, which I am dreading.

The other day I was listening to a story on NPR, about people stuck driving the guzzliest gas guzzlers, and what they were doing about it. I was struck by one man’s interview. He drove a Ford Excursion, the biggest SUV evahr, the station-wagon equivalent of an F-350 SuperDuty pickup truck. The man explained that he needed an extra-large vehicle; he and his wife had five children between them, “so we had no choice” but to buy the Excursion.

Five plus two is seven. That’s how many seats he needed. By my reckoning, that means he could have chosen just about any minivan, and a large number of other SUVs with third-row seating, nearly all of which get better gas mileage than the Excursion. But he had no choice.

Of course, as all adults know, there’s always a choice. It’s just difficult to make sometimes. For instance, yesterday I could have chosen to have something lean and protein-y and vegetable-heavy for lunch, but instead I had a cheese quesadilla. Then I had two Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux cookies for dessert. If only it had been mandatory, but it was a choice. Some of you are feeling smug and superior, the same way I felt about Mr. Excursion. If it makes you feel any better, I went fiber-heavy for dinner (black beans) and took a long bike ride in penance. That was a choice, too.

I hate choices. I especially hate the way they’ve become the behavioral equipment of fiber. Been in an elementary school lately? “Make good choices” is the new “eat from all four food groups.” Earlier this year Kate was scolded by a teacher for the following: A boy threw down a book, and it took a funny bounce and hit a girl in the leg. She gave out a loud, cartoon-y howl of pain, hopping around on one foot, and Kate laughed. Laughing, the teacher said, was “a poor choice.” I wonder what George Carlin would do with that one.

We rail about wanting more control over our world, which means more choices. And then the vacuum cleaner dies, and we go to Sears. First we choose a price range, then we choose a brand, then we choose bagless or not, onboard tools or not, upright or canister, until our heads spin and we howl with pain and go eeny-meeny-miney-moe. There have been times, while buying a household appliance, that I wished I lived in the old Soviet Union. I would have happily gotten on a list and stood in line for five hours if, at the other end of the line, there was one vacuum cleaner, and the choice was: Take it or leave it.

Grumble, grumble.

OK, bloggage:

A particularly smelly Metro Mayhem today: Boy, 1, shot during fight over glasses. Eyeglasses, that is. (Huge, heavy sigh.) And they were probably knockoffs.

Christopher Hitchens speaks ill of the dead, and boy did they deserve it. Jesse Helms, of course.

Oh, and if you have time, prepare to waste it now: Look at what everyone’s uploading to Flickr, in real time, on a rotating globe. Don’t blame me when nothing gets done. (HT: Vince.)

Now, I choose to go to work and write more mediocre prose. Leave a better comment. (It shouldn’t be hard.)

The trip to Cornerstone went well, if you were wondering. As Jeff commented in an earlier post, Cornerstone isn’t really your typical Christian music festival. It’s more…alt-Christian. Multi-colored hair, much body ink, piercings, ear grommets, you know the drill. The mood was much closer to this…

…than, say, Up With People.

(Man, I just realized how little I know about contemporary Christian music.)

But the talk went well, and I had an interesting chat with Jane Hertenstein, who is a member of Jesus People USA, who put on the festival. It’s JPUSA for short, pronounced J’poosa. J’poosans live communally in their very own 10-story apartment building on the north side of Chicago, kind of like those FLDS compounds, but without the wack hairdos, child abuse, plural marriage, raids by the feds and, of course, a scary prophet. If it sounds a little hippie, I guess it is — they admit their roots are in the Jesus-freaky movement of the late ’60s and ’70s. I read a little in their website and, while I can no more imagine living communally than I can living in, say, Kabul, I can see its appeal, and they truly do seem to be doing their best to imitate Christ.

Their festival is certainly tolerant of all types:

Not sure what this guy’s journey was, but he was eye-catching.

I think this van belonged to Brother Ray:

Brother Ray wandered into the speakers’ hospitality trailer. Most people would notice his yard-long gray dreadlocks, but I was intrigued by his feet, which looked so toughened by exposure to the elements they were more like paws. If that is his vehicle, I suspect he propels it Flintstone-style.

It was a nice trip. A lot of travel for less than an hour of work, but what else is summer for but crashing in your friends’ guest room, driving far up into the wilds of east-central Illinois, crossing all the swollen rivers and creeks, hanging with the Christians for a few hours and then doing it all in reverse? I’m sorry I missed most of the speaker who followed me, from Exodus International. I could scarcely believe this crowd was swallowing it, but I also noticed the speaker didn’t wear a wedding band, so it’s possible she was selling the 20-percent-less-offensive alternative of celibacy for gay people, rather than full-out joining the other team. Dunno.

Anyway, that was my weekend. How was yours?

(Note: He didn’t. But he tried.)

Bloggage:

I don’t truck much in the workings of the blogosphere, mainly because it’s a huge waste of time. The oh-no-you-di’n't between the right and the left can go on forever, and frequently does. But I still read it from time to time, and if I recall correctly, wasn’t there a dust-up about so-called liberal photojournalists altering photos to make smoke blacker or some such? I guess the practice is catching on, only in a more chickenshit sort of way. Embedded video has the visual evidence. (Gawker has it in a one-stop, non-video graphic, too.) The NYT has picked up the story, and notes the network’s defense that “altering photos for humorous effect is a common practice on cable news stations.” I’m calling bullshit on that — there’s obvious Photoshopping and there’s this kind, which is just nasty. Note that one of the victims is Jewish; couldn’t they fit a few dollar signs on his eyeballs?

Lots to catch up on today, and I’ll be back later. Enjoy Monday. If you can.

My internet connection is spotty here, so just a couple of quickpix in advance of a bigger report later.

My friend Vahe Gregorian is a sportswriter in St. Louis. He saves stuff. Like, for instance, all his credentials:

It’s funny — I’ve always been a credential-saver, too. Of course I don’t have a fraction of Vahe’s. My guess is, he’s saving them to sell on eBay in his retirement, to supplement what’s left of his pension when the entire industry implodes.

Meanwhile, at the Cornerstone Festival, the alt-Christian culture is in full flower:

If they’d had a T-shirt of this, I’d have bought it. But they didn’t.

More next week. Enjoy your holiday.

A few short items this morning before I start packing for the Christian Burning Man:

We’ve been visiting our lake cottage in Branch County less and less over the years, and perhaps you’d like to know why. OK.

Our next-door neighbor there, who bought the cottage built by Alan’s uncle, tore it down this year. No harm in that — it’s small and had a powder-post beetle infestation at one point. It probably needed doing. Of course we knew they’d put up something much bigger, but we were hopeful it would be, er, in character with the neighborhood. They decided on a prefab Swiss chalet. Other houses on the strip had been brought there in pieces, so there was a precedent. Can they get the truck to the lot without major damage? Oh sure, no problem.

The chalet went in this week. Their truck driver backed his semi across our front lawn and without so much as an oops, flattened two 10-year-old river birches Alan planted when Kate was a baby. Number of profuse apologies that have arrived at this address, or that of my sister-in-law, in the interim: Zero. Simple acknowledgment? None.

That’s it, in a nutshell.

We’ve told Spriggy that if he’d care to entrust us with his share of Leona Helmsley’s $8 billion, we’ll take very good care of it. Jeez, what a bitter old crone — $12 million for her own Maltese wasn’t enough, I suppose. I love dogs as much as you do, maybe more, and let me tell you: $12 million for a single dog deeply misunderstands the nature and needs of all dogs. You can argue with the foundation setup — I suppose there’s always someone who needs to hear the spay/neuter argument again — but at its heart it’s the work of a true misanthrope, in love with the poochies but not a dime for humanity. You know what I think? I think it’s because LA Mary couldn’t get her the strawberry preserves she wanted for her hotels. It queered her on two-legged creatures once and for all.

Inside baseball: Hank Stuever on why Clay Felker mattered:

Appreciate Clay Felker? It’s all anyone ever did, who wanted anything to do with magazines. Was it emulation, or was it envy, or was it a fantasy — working for the perfect place, the perfect editor, at the perfect time?

When I started freelancing, I had a simple goal: To do as much work as possible for editors who could help me improve. Needless to say, I never met Clay Felker.

Metro mayhem: Someone stole the copper plumbing from one of the city’s most visible landmarks. A six-figure repair bill for a few bucks in scrap metal.

John Scalzi printed one of his famous sunset pictures and included his cat, so I LOL’d it. No one will get it:

Bonus: Stay at Scalzi’s for a little perspective on the military service/electability track record.

That should keep you. I’ll be in and out until I leave for the airport, so, y’know, whatever. Oh, and thanks for all the SF recommendations, folks. I neglected to mention, this trip is basically a rerun of our honeymoon lo those many years ago. (Alan: “You sure you don’t want a diamond ring?” Me: “I want a two-week honeymoon more.”) You brought back memories and gave me some new ideas. You guys are the best.

It’s raining outside my window, not too hard, but a definite get-wet-if-you-stepped-outside sort of rain, going pitter-pat on everything, and it sounds wonderful.

It’s 8:54 p.m. The sun is trying to break through in the west, real golden-hour light, even though the rain isn’t abating at all. It’s almost, but not quite, Hollywood rain, the kind created by an industrial sprinkler on a bright Los Angeles day. I can hear a cardinal singing somewhere. If I weren’t sitting here, I’d go outside to look for a rainbow, but I’m enjoying the sound and the light filling the room too much to move.

The rain is harder now. Not a breath of a breeze; it’s falling straight down. Very very nice.

I know I’ve been bitching a lot lately, but today I am happy to be a work-at-home freelancer (even thought I have to go to work in, um, two minutes). But I’m working in a chaise in my own bedroom, on my laptop, enjoying the rain and the light and the cardinal. I just left Alan sitting over the remains of dinner — grilled salmon with cucumber-dill sauce, mixed green salad with herbs from the garden, Swiss potatoes — and he informed me he intended to listen to the rain for a while, too.

(Later.)

I don’t know why, but just sitting there enjoying the moment reminded me of something I heard on NPR — you know, that elitist radio network — a few days ago. Margot Adler’s story is headlined “Perfecting the Art of Frugal Living in NYC,” but it really should be called Perfecting the Art of Living, period. It was about a study of New York’s most endangered species — its starving artists, the people who in large part give the city its character and flavor, but who are also the ones least able to live in its staggeringly expensive apartments.

Wary of using too much in fair use, I urge you to click over and read the story of Hank Virgona, visual artist, who typically makes less than $30,000 per year, but still has the world’s riches outside his front door:

Virgona says when people come to see his art he never asks them if they’d like to buy anything.

“I talk about art. I talk about my love for art,” he says. “I talk about how a walk down a quiet street — especially toward dusk — is as good as going to Caracas or Venezuela or anywhere. It is nourishing. That is part of art’s purpose.”

Joan Jeffri, who directed the study for the Research Center for Arts and Culture, says for these creative people being an artist transcends every other identity — race, education, gender.

“They don’t ever think of giving up being artists,” Jeffri says. “If they have arthritis, they change their art form. They don’t retire.”

Jeffri believes these artists have wisdom to impart about living and aging. In a sense, she says, they are role models.

And what are the first programs to be cut when schools have budget troubles? Anyone? Yes, the arts. This has been your moment of Zen.

Jeez, it’s a hot one today. Of course, the hottest part of any day is late afternoon, which is when the (outdoor) kickoff party for the film festival starts. On a rooftop. Oh, well — if this day goes like the last 60 or so, it’ll be raining by then.

Some bloggage:

Of interest to media types only, a WSJ piece on the widening rift — there’s a piece of journalese, ain’a? when was the last time you used “widening rift” in casual conversation — between member papers and the Associated Press.

In the right blogosphere, Roy finds growing anxiety over “what the inaugural ball will be like” if Obama wins. I’m hoping for a five- hour set by Parliament Funkadelic, with lots of “get up offa that thang!” from the stage.

Color me astounded: Madonna’s teeing up a divorce filing. She’s said to be getting the best legal talent to preserve her giant pile of money, wherein live the souls of the men whose essence she extracted, creative succubus that she is. I think her husband’s best strategy is to go limp: Walk into the first negotiation and say, “I don’t want a dime. I won’t take a nickel. I’m off to live in a garret while I try to regain the semblance of originality and creativity I once had before you entered my life. I’m getting some futons from Ikea for the kids to sleep on when they visit. You are a curse and I am fortunate to have escaped with my life. Have a nice one of your own, what’s left of it.” And then walk out. She’d be running after him stuffing a check for $100 million in his pocket.

Not that anyone asked me.

OK, you all — work to do. Play nice.

It wasn’t until I saw the flag box in the grocery store vestibule that I remembered how patriotic this part of the state is. A retired mailbox, it was repainted white and emblazoned (in red and blue, natch): DEPOSIT WORN-OUT FLAGS HERE FOR PROPER DISPOSAL. I own a flag, but it’s only been flown on patriotic occasions, so I figure it’ll last a lifetime. I can’t imagine going through so many that I’d need to use a special flag-disposal box, but like I said, Mio, Mich. is a patriotic place.

We were in Mio to launch the boat for a little downstream floating, part of CampFest 2008, the first of three planned summer trips. Somehow, two people who rarely passed a year without a camping trip managed to give it up entirely when the kid came along. (Wonder why? Wonder no longer than it takes you to imagine changing diapers in a tent. Keeping toddlers happy in a tent. And so on.) So this was Kate’s first, but not her last. At least, I hope so. We had torrential downpours both nights, our campsite was invaded by tent caterpillars, the mosquitos were vicious, and there was a war going on across the river, and she still had fun. Fingers crossed.

Yes, a war. We camped in Grayling, home of Camp Grayling, and as usual, maneuvers were under way. The town was clogged with camouflage, and at night, the sound of machine-gun and artillery fire rang through the woods. It’s actually not objectionable at all — it wasn’t terribly loud, they’re good neighbors, and the plug is pulled at 10 p.m., which, at this time of year and at that latitude, isn’t even full dark.

Most people around here know the charming story of the Kirtland’s Warbler, an endangered little songbird once thought extinct, until a few were found nesting near the National Guard’s firing ranges. KWs nest in jack pine forest, but only in trees about head-high; they need a recently burned landscape to survive. In the years of vigorous fire suppression, they lost habitat, and only found it in the places where artillery shells had started small fires, stimulating regrowth. And so the wee birdie found refuge with the big soldiers, and if we could add some kittens and rainbows to this story, we would.

Actually, we can. This was Saturday:

Yep, that’s a threatening sky. I’m just glad the hailstorm came when we were in the car.

More video later. I have a busy morning, and then a busy week. I think I mentioned this once before, but lo it has come to pass: I’m on a team participating in the Detroit-Windsor International Film Festival Challenge, which takes place this coming weekend. Everybody meets at a central location, and each team is given a genre, a location, a line of dialogue and a prop, and we’re given 48 hours to make a four- to seven-minute film incorporating all four. The location has already been leaked — the Ambassador Bridge. There are six possible genres, which means I (the writer) have to have at least six vague ideas for short stories in each one. That’s not too daunting, is it?

Also, a final note: I freely admit to being the most out-of-touch writer in the world, but even I was amazed at the Princess Diana-ization of Tim Russert’s death. My last media intake was Friday night, after midnight, when MSNBC was still live “Remembering Tim Russert.” When I resurfaced Monday, glancing at the headlines in USA Today at the Grayling McDonald’s (did I mention I forgot the coffee in the camp kitchen), there were stories about sudden cardiac arrest and “what it means for your health.” It must suck to be famous. Is there really a demand for this? Judging from some of the vox populi out there, a lot of people felt personally connected to the guy. I don’t get it, but I’m sorry for the loss.

Back in a bit.

I know you guys have come to expect something fresh and new every day here, but the day’s tasks are piling up like cordwood and something’s gotta give.

What’s more, NN.C is taking a brief road trip to a primitive land with no wi-fi, and will not be back until Monday. I’ll leave the doors unlocked here, and y’all can play. Something we might talk about:

More discussion of Obama’s bike helmet.

Habeus corpus — not dead yet.

You’ve all seen that human-ovulation-caught-on-film thing, right? Well, if not, here it is. Shy little ovum!

Mischa Barton: Why?

Finally, a dispatch from our Wisconsin correspondent, in the western suburbs of Milwaukee:

i spent a lovely 15 minutes or so in the basement today with the boys while we waited for the latest tornado siren to stop howling. i’m not complaining, mind you. in greendale’s R section, close to the root river, water levels were up to the bottom of the stop signs. a small town south of here is just waiting for its dam to break–it’s not a question of if it happens, just when. westbound I-94 to madison is closed because one of the rivers is flowing onto the freeway now. (earlier this week, they closed that stretch down and parked semis loaded with sand at regular intervals to provide downward force to offset the upward force from the floodwaters directly beneath.)

but: not complaining. our basement, for the moment, is dry. still, we feel a little shellshocked.

Stay dry, Deb. Good thoughts to all of you caught in the deluge. Me, I’ll be back late Monday/early Tuesday.

EDIT: Oh, this is nice — Ashley Morris, David Simon and tomorrow’s commencement speech at DePaul, from the ChiTrib.

At 5:20 a.m., my neighbor goes out.

“Vroom!” goes the full-size SUV under my bedroom window, open to the cooling breezes of late spring.

At 5:30 a.m., someone drops off a child across the street; this neighbor baby-sits. The two adults stand in the driveway having a conversation. Their voices aren’t raised, but in the still morning they might as well be in bed with me.

Ten minutes after this, an automatic sprinkler system erupts. Sure, we’ve had rain out the wazoo these last few days, but those things are on timers and not easily overridden. “Hisssssss,” goes the sprinkler head. “Ticka-ticka-ticka.”

Sometime after that, my neighbor returns from his morning errand. The V-8 conquerer of highways comes back up the driveway. And a few minutes after that, my mattress dips. It’s my wonderful child, crawling in for five minutes of cuddles before we both have to get up, because it is, after all, a school day. Time to get up.

I have to change my life. Have. To. Change. By Thursday I’m so sleep-deprived I’m nearly hysterical. I feel as though I spend my life catching naps, which are invariably interrupted. You might have read about recent storms in the Midwest? Storms are followed by chain saws and wood-chippers. You’ve heard of the green revolution? That means three rounds of big trucks rumbling through the neighborhood on trash day (garbage, recycling, yard waste). Every lawn service uses gas-powered blowers, edgers and weed whips. Don’t get me started on the ice-cream truck.

And on those days when everything comes together for me, when I can sleep through the sprinklers and the SUV and everything else? Sometimes this requires me to go sleep in the guest room on the other side of the house. Those neighbors have a sprinkler, too, but sleep later. But there’s a line of arbor vitae along that side of the property, excellent nesting habitat. One blue jay greeting the day is all it takes.

Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just ranting. And starting tomorrow, my life will be changed. Yes, at long last, EndofSchoolFest 2008 is over, and I can sleep until I feel like getting up. Learning effectively ended a week ago, and since then it’s been party, party, party. Today, the last day, is a half day — it’s all over at lunchtime.

“Why are they even having school today?” I said over raisin bran at 7:30. Grumpily. (Yeah, go figure.) “What on earth are you going to do?”

“There’s a breakfast, and then a helicopter lands on the playground.”

Jesus Christ, and then what? Hannah Montana steps out and plays a four-song set? Bill Graham presents the Playboy Bunnies? No, it lands, everybody gets to look at the instrument panel and ask questions, and it takes off. One of her classmates’ father is a Coast Guard officer on the rescue chopper, and it’s just a treat for the kids. This is its second visit in three years. I talked to the Coastie’s wife at a school function a while ago. What sort of missions does that thing fly? I wondered. She said they evacuate a lot of sailors with chest pains from Great Lakes freighters, a procedure that, if you did it to me, would push me from mere chest pains to a full-blown heart attack. Nothing like being hauled up to an orange chopper in a basket to make a day interesting.

The promotion ceremony was sweet, though. And no one said a word about the flip-flops.

So, bitching aside, howzabout some bloggage:

Michelle Obama, “baby mama.” Yup. First the crazy negro fist bump, and now this. That clip of the Fox News host asking if the Obamas’ knuckle punch was “a terrorist fist jab” is overused — find it yourself on YT; I’m sure there are eight billion copies up there — but it reminded me of the first thing I ever read about this greeting. It was a story in which some baseball player was quoted as saying his secret to toughening up him mighty man-paws was soaking them in his own urine. The team’s manager was asked for a response, and he said, “Oh, no one really cares. Although no one shakes his hand anymore, either. We mostly just give him the fist.”

Personally, I’m all for handshake alternatives. In the labs at the Centers for Disease Control, I’m told, it’s considered very bad form to offer a handshake; the preferred greeting is the elbow bump.

Of course, if Fox News existed in Canada, we could fine them into the stone age. Not a good idea.

Bobby Jindal rides the Catholic Crazy Train all the way to Exorcism Station:

Whenever I concentrated long enough to begin prayer, I felt some type of physical force distracting me. It was as if something was pushing down on my chest, making it very hard for me to breathe. . . Though I could find no cause for my chest pains, I was very scared of what was happening to me and Susan. I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone in an attempt to find peace for myself.

Now I kinda hope McCain does ask him to be his running mate; this could be fun.

Guess what I can hear? A helicopter! Time to get to work:

You can’t get out of school without a final rule being shoved down your throat. The final rule of today’s Promotion Ceremony was handed down yesterday — no flip-flops. Screw it. Our student has a special new pair of flip flops with sparkly straps to go with her new dress, and she’s wearing them, and if anybody makes a stink about it they’re going to be dealing with me, and mama don’t take no mess. There’s a point at which all the stupid rules of school become unbearable, and they don’t even apply to me. I’ve sat silent through No Squirt Guns at the Class Picnic (violation of the weapons policy) and No Untwisted Paperclips (ditto) and a punishment system that frequently involves writing, but on this one I’m a scofflaw.

(The punitive-writing thing bugs me in particular. Say you’re, oh, a software designer. Were your child to misbehave while in my care, I would not make him or her design software as a punishment. And yet, teachers think nothing of assigning painful essays as punishment for breaches of conduct large and small, and then wonder why kids despise writing.)

I shouldn’t complain. I don’t have to wrangle a few hundred kids who’d much rather be at the pool. I frequently marvel that teachers stay sane at all, and don’t begrudge them two or three end-of-day cocktails one little bit. Keep in mind this is a middle-class suburban district where kids are, generally speaking, still respectful of adults (in public, anyway) and will behave if ordered to do so. Still. Squirt guns? Please.

In other domestic news at this hour, we have a resident wild thing — an opossum. (The writer within insists I call it by its formal name on first reference.) I think it’s living under the deck by day and it needs to be removed, but I caught a glimpse of it in the driveway last night and damn — it’s the size of a Ford F-150. For once I was grateful for the dog’s ailing eyesight, because I was able to call him inside before he saw that mofo lurking out by the birdbath. A fight between those two would have been ugly. Alan has a live trap at the lake house, weaponry from last fall’s Groundhog Wars (score: Groundhog 1, Humans 0), and it’s coming here a.s.a.p. I like to live in peace with the natural world, but I’m wary of the damage a beast like that can do. And I read that in possums, “senescence is rapid.” I don’t want that sucker dying under my deck.

A quick skip to the bloggage, then:

I’m sorry, but when I see a headline reading Baby born with penis on back, man oh man am I clicking that one. If more babies were born with extra penises growing out of their backs, the newspaper business would not be in the fix it is today. For the squeamish, this appears to be one of those incompletely-absorbed-fetal-twin situations, and the kid seems to be fine after surgery, even though he lost a second career as a coat rack.

My favorite blogger, Roy, is taking a few days off to have eye surgery. This seems as good a time as ever to re-promote “Detached,” our friend James Burns’ graphic novella about his own eye surgery.

My congresswoman, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, is the Detroit mayor’s mother and is, I have assumed, as cemented into the job as my last congressman. The Free Press says maybe not — her son’s troubles have given mom some challengers, one of whom released an ad on the internets this week. In typical old-media fashion, the Freep didn’t provide a link. I’m going to assume it was an oversight, but here it is, and it’s a goody. (It uses the infamous “y’all’s boy” meltdown, seen in longer form here.)

You’ve probably all seen this by now, but just in case not, the NYT looks at the popularity of re-virginization surgery among European Muslim women. Show me a culture that values chastity over everything else in young women, and I’ll show you a sick culture. Nothing in this story changed my mind. Funny line:

But hymen repair is talked about so much that it is the subject of a film comedy that opens in Italy this week. “Women’s Hearts,” as the film’s title is translated in English, tells the story of a Moroccan-born woman living in Italy who goes to Casablanca for the operation.

One character jokes that she wants to bring her odometer count back down to “zero.”

I’ve always thought you could judge a group by what they compared their women to — cows (as in why buy one when you get the milk for free), shoes (you wouldn’t buy a pair without trying them on) and now cars. I ask you.

Off to walk around threateningly on the deck. Maybe I can scare the possum away. Ha.