Stuff and Nonsense

Not a lot new on the personal front. I'm a week out from beginning rehearsals for "Vial", with a full cast and most of the tech stuff all lined up. Angela, Mayuko and I went and saw Kodo Taiko at U.C. Berkeley on Saturday, which was awesome and reminded me that I really need to keep abreast of what is going on at Berkeley. Much thanks to Eric Katz for sacrificing his ticket so that Mayu could attend. Also, Jeffrey Bihr has fired up Suzuki classes again, which I drug Mayu (willingly) to. I'm thrilled to be resuming this work, even if it is on Sunday mornings.

A few random thoughts on the news:

A man wanted internationally for bombings, espionage, attempted murder, and hijacking was elected to Iraq's parliament fourteen months ago. We just realized it. I wonder if his career of violent opposition to Kuwait and America was part of his election campaign process. If not, obviously his opponents didn't do their job in exposing his past very well. What ever happened to modeling their election process on ours?

The big news today is about the astronaut who went all Jerry Springer on a perceived romantic rival. It's about time that the sciences began to compete with professional sports in the area of scandal and lame ass behavior. I'm just glad that astronauts have to go through all that psychological testing before they get sent into space so that they don't go bug fuck crazy up there . ... wait a minute....

Tony Blair accused Iran of "a strategy to create maximum trouble" in the Middle East. Interesting comments from the largest supporter of America's violent invasion of an Arabic nation. Seriously, what grounds do America or England have in claiming that Middle East nations are trying to create maximum trouble in the Middle East while we're invading, stationing military bases in foreign lands (whether they want us there or not), detaining foreign citizens in countries that don't belong to us, and generally poking the hornet's nest with a big stick while chuckling imbecilely? What amazes me even more is that this kind of comment after one of Iran's diplomats was kidnapped by what appear to be US backed Iraqi special forces. Is Blair suggesting that Iran kidnapped it's own people in an attempt to justify a war with the U.S.?

I have to wonder, in the case of the friendly fire incident, where American pilots opened file on a British convoy, if Iraqi families whose families are killed "accidentally" get the same rights of inquest as British families. Or are the Iraqi people not our allies? This is not to say that it's not horrible that we killed our own allies, because it is. But I suspect that we kill a lot of people who are not trying to kill us and I'm asking more and more what makes "news" newsworthy, and why this death is more sensitive than the deaths of the people that we are supposedly there to protect.

and now, an atrocious picture of a young Neil Gaiman. I hope I never get so famous that people take pleasure in pointing out how bad my hair used to be

.Finally, it looks like you'll be able to download movies and television to your car in the next few years. I remember as a kid, we had a van for trips that had a little television in the back. The reception was absolutely terrible, but we watched it. It had shag carpeting, and two fancy seats with cup holders, a little kitchen sink and a fridge. The back seats folded down into a bed. Ahhh, the 70's.