Author: Dan Brekke

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Annals of Fine Writing: Craigslist Ads Remembered

Every once in a while, we have recourse to Craigslist to unencumber ourselves of some surplus piece of furniture (“What’s that futon still doing here?”) or other once-loved possession (“When’s the last time you rode that bike?”).

For me, the best part of the Craigslist experience is writing the ad. I’m not sure the writing really matters — I think an item’s three top characteristics are price, price and price — but it’s a challenge to try to turns something recently ruled to be terminally unwanted into an attractive must-have.

I’m getting ready to write an ad for a chicken coop and run we want to sell. In the process, I read a couple of my old ads. Here’s one that was fun to write. The item moved right quick, though the buyer failed to comment on the quality of my prose:

Ikea Henrik student desk, $60

An Ikea classic that may or may not have been named after a famous Scandinavian literary figure. This desk played a prominent role in a student’s career at Berkeley High School and may even be partly responsible for his successful completion of studies at the University of Oregon.

Features:
–Classic Ikea design: a Scandinavian thought this up. ‘Nuff said.
–Classic Ikea construction: manufacture of this item caused minimal rain forest destruction
–Conforms fully to U.S. and international safety standards, including Newton’s laws of motion

And check out these extras:
–Recently dusted
–Family friendly
–Desk chair may be comfortable for hours on end

Plus: We will consider delivering this item right to your home.

(And we’ll note one flaw in this stunning piece: The computer keyboard tray lacks a stop and may slide all the way out if you’re unwary.)

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Solar Eclipse Countdown: Out There in Flyover Country

2017 EclipseLike many another skywatcher who has never seen a total solar eclipse, I’m scouting places to see the big event that will, failing a world-ending electoral event in the interim, occur a year from now.

For Californians, Oregon is the natural eclipse-watching destination. The path of totality will cross the Beaver State just north of Bend, east of the Cascades and an area that’s reliably sunny.

Lots of people have figured out that this part of Oregon is strategically located. The owner of a 72-room motel in Madras, along the line where totality will be longest in the area — 2 minutes and 3 seconds — says his place has been booked for more than three years.

I admit I can imagine a crowd descending on the area and the roads resembling something like rush hour here in the Bay Area. It’s not an inspiring thought. Still, we’re checking to see what lodging alternatives there might be up there.

My thoughts also tend further east. Maybe to the High Plains. It’s a different world out there. In noodling around looking for places one might stay out in flyover country, I happened across the following description of a tiny hostelry in a very small town. It’s one of the best things I’ve read today. Here it is:

There is a very slim chance that you are going to visit the Longhorn Motel in Tryon Nebraska. There are several reasons for this, chief among them that almost no one lives in Tryon, and it is not on the road to anywhere. The Longhorn’s primary mission in life is to serve as an overflow bedroom when more than one relative comes to visit a resident of Tryon at the same time.

You will not break down in or near Tryon because, as noted above, it is not on the road to anywhere.

Should you need to visit in Tryon, the Longhorn is the ONLY place to stay. That is literally the truth. The rooms are quite small but very clean. Your hosts, Mr. and Mrs Pyzer, are without a doubt the friendliest motel hosts in the business, There is a small TV in each room connected to the satellite system, so there is a wide range of programing available. If you want coffee in the morning the Pyzers will give you the fixins before you turn in. Even though they have a bona fide monopoly on rooms to rent, $40 will get you the finest room in the place.

Sadly there is not WIFI hook up, but all is not lost. One block west on the other side of highway 92/97 sits the McPherson County public school. The school has a nice strong signal to which you can connect if you park near the handicapped parking spots along the highway in front of the school.

The Longhorn does not provide breakfast but just a block and a half west you will find Aunt Bea’s Restaurant. Aunt Bea is a middle aged gentleman who fires up the grill about 9 each morning and can whip you up a sausage breakfast that should make Ronald MacDonald hide his head in shame.

As I said before, you are probably not going to be in or near Tryon, but if you are, you will experience first hand the friendly nature of the folks who live in Nebraska’s fabulous Sandhills. If you do not know what the Sandhills are – you do need to get out more.

Room Tip: All the rooms are good but #3 is the best among equals!

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Rules

924 Gilman, Berkeley.
924 Gilman, Berkeley.

From 924 Gilman, Berkeley’s landmark all-ages music club. Among the rules:

  • No violence.
  • No fucked-up behavior.
  • No racism.
  • No misogyny/sexism.
  • No homophobia.
  • No transphobia.

These would work just as well outside the club, too.

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Mapping a Mosquito

Recently, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC, for short) publicized statistics and maps on where the Aedes aegypti mosquito is found across the United States; or rather, where the species has been found in monitoring going back to the mid-1990s.

Aedes aegypti is in the news because it’s been identified as the primary vector of the Zika virus. (Among things I didn’t know until I sat down to write this just now: The virus was first detected in a rhesus monkey in Uganda in 1947; the first human case was reported, again in Uganda, in 1952, and the first major outbreak was recorded in 2007 on the Pacific island of Yap, about 1,200 miles east-southeast of Manila (or 4,300 miles west-southwest of Honolulu, if you want to get all America-centric; it is a very big ocean out there).

But back to the Zika and the data the CDC put out. The statistics, compiled by a team of researchers from the CDC and Colorado State University, showed that Aedes aegypti had been found in 13 of California’s 58 counties since 1996 (in fact, all the reports appear to be from 2001 or later). In most cases, the mosquito has been found in just one or two or three years. In one case — Los Angeles County — Aedes aegypti has turned up in nine years since 2001, including every year from 2011 through 2015.

Anyway. Why was I paying attention to this? A colleague at work wanted to make a more informative map than those published along with the Oxford Journal of Medical Entomology article that carried the CDC data. I sort of pointed her to what she’d need to do, and another staffer helped her make a finished version.

Me? I started noodling around and came up with the very slightly refined map above.

Of course, looking more closely at what the CDC scientists had to say, I see there’s another mosquito I should be mapping, too: Aedes albopictus. As The Atlantic reported in May, scientists in Mexico recently detected the Zika virus in this second species.

Has it been found in California? Yes. According to the CDC researchers’ data, Aedes albopictus has been found in eight counties since 2001. In rough south to north order, they’re San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Kern, Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Joaquin. Notable: This mosquito was found in Kern, L.A., Orange, San Diego and San Bernardino counties last year; it hasn’t been detected in the more northerly counties since 2003. (The California Department of Public Health has published a map, which is says is updated weekly, of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus detection sites from 2011 through this year.)

Maybe I’ll do a map with layers so we can see both species. That’s a project for another day, though.

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Same Store, New Location

For years, this blog has been hosted on Typepad. The virtue of publishing it there has been I could pretty much write my text and slap my pictures into a post editor, hit a button, and forget about everything. The service has always worked reasonably well and in recent years seems to have had far fewer of the outages and hiccups that once afflicted it.

And I’m not sure why I’m going away from it now, except for the monthly bill of 13 dollars and something. Do I  really need to spend that money, or could I do better?  Especially when I, like so many people, have moved to other platforms for sharing our favorite links, insights, bons mots and car-crash videos. I’ve thought about going to WordPress, and today and tonight, that’s what’s happened. I opened a web hosting account, installed WordPress there, and am in the process of importing my Typepad files there.

And speaking of those files: I am hardly the most prolific of diarists or bloggers, but the posts go back to November 2003, and there are 2,600 of them, along with 3,600 comments. If nothing else, a pretty significant chunk of history. For a while, anyway, I plan to keep it going. Maybe this will just be an archive, or maybe I’ll figure out some other direction to take this long, long project.

Thanks for still reading.

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Heat

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

— Raymond Chandler, “Red Wind”

***

“It was past noon, and very hot. The bar was full of reflected river light, with dancing veins of gold. … The light was the light of the very early afternoon — everything stoked up, the blaze got truly going, but with a hint of the blaze about to consume itself.”

— V.S. Naipaul, “A Bend in the River”

***

“Gimme Swelter”

— New York Daily News

***

BERGEN-EASTERN PASSAIC-ESSEX-HUDSON-UNION-

1142 AM EDT TUE JUL 18 2006

AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM EDT THIS EVENING.

HIGH TEMPERATURES WILL TOP OUT IN THE UPPER 90S TO AROUND 100 DEGREES TODAY…WITH HEAT INDICES REACHING 105 TO 107 DEGREES DURING THE AFTERNOON. MAKE PLANS TO CHECK ON THOSE MOST SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE HEAT SUCH AS THE ELDERLY AND VERY YOUNG. PETS WILL ALSO NEED YOUR SPECIAL ATTENTION DURING THIS TIME.

AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN HIGH HUMIDITIES ARE EXPECTED TO COMBINE WITH HOT TEMPERATURES TO MAKE IT FEEL LIKE IT IS 105 DEGREES OR GREATER. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS…STAY IN AN

AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM…STAY OUT OF THE SUN…AND CHECK UP ON RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS.

— Excessive Heat Warning for northeastern New Jersey

***

URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOUNT HOLLY NJ

342 PM EDT TUE JUL 18 2006

…EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM EDT THIS EVENING…

A VERY HOT AND HUMID AIR MASS WILL REMAIN OVER OUR REGION EARLY THIS EVENING. THE COMBINATION OF THE HEAT AND HUMIDITY WILL RESULT IN DANGEROUS CONDITIONS. THE HEAT WILL DIMINISH AFTER SUNSET. HOWEVER, HUMIDITY WILL STILL REMAIN UNCOMFORTABLE. …

STAY PREPARED FOR THE HEAT. WEAR LOOSE FITTING AND LIGHT COLORED CLOTHING. DRINK PLENTY OF NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES TO PREVENT DEHYDRATION. IF POSSIBLE, AVOID STRENUOUS ACTIVITY DURING THE

HOTTEST PART OF THE DAY, WHICH IS TYPICALLY BETWEEN 1:00 AND 6:00 PM.

REMEMBER THAT THE ELDERLY, THE INFIRM AND THE VERY YOUNG ARE MOST SUSCEPTIBLE TO HEAT RELATED HEALTH PROBLEMS. BE SURE TO CHECK ON YOUR ELDERLY NEIGHBORS AND RELATIVES.

MAKE PROVISIONS FOR PETS AND ANIMALS BY INSURING THAT THEY HAVE PLENTY OF COOL WATER TO DRINK AND SHADE IN WHICH TO REST.

— Excessive Heat Warning, Philadelphia Area

***

URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC

334 PM EDT TUE JUL 18 2006

… THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER WHEN THE WEATHER TURNS HOT IS TO DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS. WATER IS YOUR BEST CHOICE AS IT PREVENTS DEHYDRATION. IF YOU ARE WORKING OR EXERCISING OUTSIDE AND FEEL DIZZY OR ARE GETTING MUSCLE CRAMPS…STOP IMMEDIATELY AND SEEK MEDICAL HELP. THE ELDERLY AND YOUNG ARE MOST SUSCEPTIBLE TO HEAT RELATED INJURIES…CHECK ON THEM OFTEN. NEVER LEAVE PETS UNATTENDED IN AUTOMOBILES – TEMPERATURES CAN SOAR TO 130 DEGREES IN A MATTER OF MINUTES.

–Heat Advisory for Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area

***

URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WAKEFIELD VA

1136 AM EDT TUE JUL 18 2006

… A HEAT ADVISORY MEANS THAT A PERIOD OF HOT TEMPERATURES IS EXPECTED. THE COMBINATION OF HOT TEMPERATURES AND HIGH HUMIDITY WILL COMBINE TO CREATE A SITUATION IN WHICH HEAT ILLNESSES ARE POSSIBLE. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS…STAY IN AN AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM…STAY OUT OF THE DIRECT SUNLIGHT…AND CHECK UP ON RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS.

THE ELDERLY…YOUNG CHILDREN…PETS…AND LIVESTOCK ARE THE MOST LIKELY TO BE IMPACTED BY HEAT RELATED ILLNESSES AND DEHYDRATION. CAUTION SHOULD BE EXERCISED IF YOU PLAN TO BE OUTSIDE. DRINK PLENTY OF WATER. LIMIT YOUR EXPOSURE TO DIRECT SUNLIGHT…USE SUNSCREEN AND WEAR LIGHT COLORED CLOTHING.

Heat Advisory for central and southern Virginia and North Carolina

***

URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE KANSAS CITY/PLEASANT HILL MO

118 PM CDT TUE JUL 18 2006

.HIGH TEMPERATURES HAVE BEEN IN THE 90S SINCE LAST WEDNESDAY… AND VERY HOT AND HUMID CONDITIONS WILL PERSIST THROUGH TOMORROW AND THURSDAY. THE LAST TWO DAYS HAVE BEEN ESPECIALLY BRUTAL… WITH MANY LOCATIONS IN KANSAS AND MISSOURI REPORTING 100 DEGREE TEMPERATURES WITH HIGH LEVELS OF HUMIDITY. WITH DAY AFTER DAY OF EXCESSIVE HEAT… THE CUMULATIVE EFFECT OF THE OPPRESSIVE CONDITIONS WILL TAKE ITS TOLL ON THE ELDERLY AND PEOPLE WITH POOR HEALTH. …

AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN THE COMBINATION OF HOT TEMPERATURES AND HIGH HUMIDITY IS EXPECTED TO RESULT IN HEAT INDICES EXCEEDING 105 DEGREES FOR AT LEAST 3 HOURS…FOR THREE OR MORE CONSECUTIVE DAYS. AVOID PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO THE HEAT…AND BE SURE TO DRINK PLENTY OF WATER. ALSO AVOID ANY STRENUOUS OUTDOOR PHYSICAL ACTIVITY…PARTICULARLY DURING THE HOTTEST AFTERNOON HOURS.

CHILDREN…THE ELDERLY…AND PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC ILLNESSES…ARE USUALLY THE FIRST TO SUFFER FROM THE HEAT. HEAT EXHAUSTION…OR IN EXTREME CASES HEAT STROKE…MAY RESULT FROM PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO THESE CONDITIONS. BE SURE TO PERIODICALLY CHECK ON PEOPLE WHO ARE MOST AT RISK. SEEK OUT AN AIR CONDITIONED LOCATION DURING THE HOTTEST PART OF THE DAY. IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW DOES NOT HAVE ACCESS TO AIR CONDITIONING…CONTACT YOUR LOCAL OFFICIALS TO INQUIRE ABOUT THE AVAILABILITY OF COOLING CENTERS IN YOUR AREA.

Excessive Heat Warning, Kansas City area

***

URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ST LOUIS MO

457 AM CDT TUE JUL 18 2006

… FOR THOSE LIVING IN NON-AIR CONDITIONED BUILDINGS…THE DANGERS OF HEAT RELATED ILLNESSES WILL BE INCREASING DRAMATICALLY OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS BECAUSE OF THE PERSISTENT HOT AND HUMID CONDITIONS. FROM TIME TO TIME…BE SURE TO CHECK ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES THAT DO NOT HAVE AIR CONDITIONING…ESPECIALLY IF THEY LIVE ALONE. OPEN WINDOWS AND USE FANS TO MOVE THE AIR…AND IF POSSIBLE TRY TO GO TO AN AIR CONDITIONED LOCATION FOR A FEW HOURS EACH DAY TO GIVE YOUR BODY A BREAK FROM THE HEAT. …

IF YOU HAVE AIR-CONDITIONING…USE IT! IF COST IS A CONCERN…UTILITIES AND OTHER LOCAL AGENCIES WILL BE ABLE TO HELP WITH THE ADDED EXPENSE. FOR PEOPLE IN THE ST. LOUIS METROPOLITAN AREA NEEDING INFORMATION ON COOLING CENTERS OR ENERGY ASSISTANCE RELATED TO THE EXCESSIVE HEAT…YOU CAN CALL OPERATION WEATHER SURVIVAL AT THE UNITED WAY OF GREATER ST. LOUIS. THE NUMBER IS 800-427-4626.

Excessive Heat Warning for east-central Missouri and west-central Illinois

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A Teacher (2)

A few years ago, another former teacher of mine, Mort Castle — also a longtime friend of G.E. Smith — helped G.E. pull together the hundreds of poems he had written since he was a boy in central Illinois and select some to be self-published in what turned out to be a pretty hefty volume called “Long Trails from Pleasant Hill.”

Longtrails
At various times, G.E. talked about his youthful ambition to be a writer. Most of the time he was dismissive of his own efforts, though occasionally he would talk about the factors that led him in other directions. For instance, that other writers had already said what he wanted to say, except better (published writers are the ones who realize this and keep going anyway). More significantly: His teaching absorbed so much of his time, intellectual energy and creative attention he didn’t really have the resources to follow his writing seriously. That was not an excuse: He poured all of himself into his classes and students, to the point where the demands he placed on himself brought him to and beyond the point of exhaustion. As Mort remembered in his little introduction to “Long Trails”:

“In 1968, I was Smith’s student teacher. I saw him in action, ‘grading papers,’ and it was not a quick-scrawl ‘Nice figure of speech’ here and ‘comma splice’ there. Not infrequently, a student who handed in a two-page paper received four pages of comment, comment not limited to correcting apostrophe goofs and refining expression, but personal commentary, a Smithian response to what was said and how it was said.”

Still, G.E. had the 800 or so poems, maybe in a picturesque heap that he thought of as organization, probably piled in the post-World War II semi-finished concrete-shell basement of his co-op apartment unit at 134 Dogwood in Park Forest. They probably would have stayed that way except for Mort and a change in G.E.’s own thinking about what his writing represented. “After I left college, I had no interest in publishing my poetry,” he wrote in his book’s preface. “It wasn’t until I began to think, as a genealogist, about how anything written by ancient relatives — even in signature — was (or could have been) so extraordinarily precious that I decided to consider publishing. I realized that I, too, someday, would likely be a long-ago ancient relative to someone who was pursuing my family history.”

So he and Mort brought out the book. I’d like to say that when it arrived here in Berkeley a few years back, I dove into it. But I didn’t. G.E. wrote a long inscription that thanked me, for among other things tracking down a copy of an obscure futurist novel that he had read while sailing from Europe to the Pacific as a Navy Seabee during World War II. I flipped through the book and stopped at a few of the poems. I probably found the project of reading more than a little overwhelming; and I’m sure I also had a tinge of envy and regret that I was holding yet another book by someone I knew while I myself had produced — what, exactly? (If I had ever said anything like that to G.E., he would have had something reassuring to say, then maybe started a conversation about why exactly I thought writing a book was important. Mort would have just said to sit down and start writing if I wanted to publish a book.)

G.E.’s funeral is tomorrow, down in the town where he went to and first taught in high school, Lexington. Afterward, I imagine there will be a long, long procession out to the tiny cemetery in his real hometown, Pleasant Hill, about three miles away. It will be by far the biggest event that would-be city, which started withering when the railroads bypassed it in the 1850s, has ever seen. G.E. and his grandfather and probably many others to whom he unearthed family ties have been cemetery caretakers there; we visited the spot together a couple of times a good 30 years ago; I think I was aware even then, when he was younger than I am now, that this was where G.E. hoped to come back to; not a patch of dirt in a swath of farm and prairie, but a place where his people were.

Feeling sad about the prospect of missing G.E.’s funeral, I picked up his book of poems. I thought, there’s got to be something in there where he talks about his own passing. I turned to the back of the book, to the section whimsically titled “Fear, Aging and Death.” And found this, dated 1990:

Grave Notes from the Underground

When I am dead,
who will enter this quiet sanctuary
and, speaking softly,
(Don’t shout!
I’m not deaf, you know.)
tell me the news I want to know?

Did the Cardinals win last night–
and who was the winning pitcher?

Did the bluebirds sing this spring
on the trail along Bluebird Lane?

Has the Big One ever struck
San Andreas or New Madrid faults?
(And am I safe in Pleasant Hill?)

Have politicos on Capitol Hill
yet understood the limits …
… and limitations … of capitalism?

Do my friends I loved so much
… just once in a while, perhaps …
call or visit each other?

From the knoll and the gnarl of Old Flat-top,
does anyone ever watch, as I once did,
the sunsets west of the sanctuary?
Or the April sunrise on the trail
as it enters Canary Clearing?

Does a cool breeze still stir the air
under the sinuous branches of Old Flat-top?

Do Browns and Boggs still gather
for reunions in July?
(Or do they go their separate ways,
ignorant of the roots that nourished them?)

Is warmth still there at one-three-four
on Dogwood Drive?
Is someone nurturing those
in need of nurturing?

Who came to say goodbye
as I lay freshly dead?

I know, I know.
I can’t reply.
Nothing has really changed.
I rarely had a chance,
when lifeblood-flowed and tongue was ripe,
to sneak a word in edge-wise.

Hey, take it easy there.
Your clomp’s so hard it’s apt to wake the dead.

More on G.E. Smith
Happy 80.5, G.E.
A Teacher
In Which We Gather by the River

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24 Jones Street

“24” is back. Despite past seasons of carping about it, I spent two hours in front of the tube tonight watching (well, less than two since we recorded it and blasted through the commercials). No less august a chronicler of important stuff than The New York Times saw fit to run three — three! — features on the new season since Friday. (The considerably less august San Francisco Chronicle had a big season-opener on Friday. The reviewer, TV critic Tim Goodman, botched one detail. He suggested episode one took 10 minutes before it headed off into unhinged crisis mode; in fact, it took much less time: The opening credits were still rolling when the first high-profile character — “former President David Palmer” — was dispatched by an assassin.)

The Times ran a piece today on Carlos Bernard (aka north suburban Chicagoland native Carlos Bernard Papierski), who plays Tony Almeida, the durable and always-dependable sidekick to Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer. What he’s loved for best in these parts, of course, is his display of a Cubs mug every season; he even drank beer out of it last season to dramatize how depressed he was with life as a disgraced counterterrorism agent. The mug showed up tonight in his very first scene in episode one, an hour that was kind of rough on him (13 minutes into the new season, mere minutes after brandishing the Cubs mug, his wife was killed by a car bomb. Tony/Carlos was badly injured in the blast).

Cubsmug

(Carlos Bernard/Tony Almeida in intimate Cubs mug moment.)

In other “24” news, the bad guys got things rolling in a big way. As usual, they’re omnipotent. As usual, they love L.A. The terrorist scenario this year involves some pissed-off Russians who look to be staging a Beslan-style hostage incident at the airport in Ontario. It’ll get really ridiculous soon — maybe even during the second two episodes, to be aired Monday. Thank goodness for the Cubs mug.

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Luminaria ’05: Maps

Lummap

Last Christmas, I printed out a topographic map from a piece of software I have and traced out a map of the North Berkeley luminaria neighborhoods; I used different color inks to show the various years different blocks joined in. It’s not a presentation that translates to a digital format, so I’ve been thinking about how to do a map I could put online this year. There’s got to be something a semi-literate hack like myself can use to make a beautiful souvenir luminaria map; while I have faith that such a product exists, I haven’t found it yet. So back to the drawing board.

The map above is from the same software, Topo, that I used for my printouts last year. The streets that do the luminaria are traced in red using the software’s route tool. The big drawback to using the USGS maps for this purpose is that few streets are labeled. The resulting maps only make sense if you have an idea what you’re looking at to begin with.

My second option was to figure out how to present the luminaria using Google Maps. The maps are clear and easy to use and users can toggle back and forth between a regular street map and satellite pictures, or view a hybrid version. But making a Google Map from scratch using the available development tool would require more time to waste than even I have. So I decided to try to use an already-existing tool, the excellent Gmaps Pedometer, to trace out the luminaria street. As with the Topo versiion, that requires a lot of retracing to include every one of the contiguous blocks. But the result is pretty clear and you have the advantages of zooming in or out on the resulting map, and you have a very clear idea of what street is what. (Holly is in the northwest corner of the outlined luminaria streets). The biggest drawback is that the Pedometer doesn’t let you stop tracing in one spot and begin again in an unconnected spot. That means that I’ve left out several streets (shown in red on at the top of the Topo map above). This Gmaps tool also lacks any capacity (yet) for marking routes in different colors or for adding labels, so there’s no way of doing color-coding

So I’m playing with one more option: A site called MapBuilder.net that lets you build your own Google Map without recourse to any JavaScript or XML coding or access to a Web server to use the Google development resources. So what I came up with there is a Luminaria map (see if this link works: that highlights the chronology of the event (click on the arrow); and gives some idea of the geographic extent without showing all the streets involved. This is just a first try.

More later.

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‘Spectator Patriotism’

By way of my brother John:

Christopher Dickey, a Newsweek columnist and thoughtful critic of the Iraq war (translation: I agree with him) has a good piece this week reflecting on John Gregory Dunne and Dunne’s interest in patriotism:

“John was interested in patriotism. He was fascinated by the real substance of it, which he saw as diametrically opposed to what he called “the spectator patriotism” exploited by the Bush administration as it went looking for wars. There was something (it took a while for John to put his finger on it) in the fact that several people he knew had children on active duty: historian Doris Kearns had a son, John himself had a nephew, I had a son. We had people we loved in uniform doing what they saw, and we understood, imperfectly perhaps, as their duty to defend the values and the dreams that are the United States of America. But why were there so few from this circle of acquaintances if the cause was so great?

“John would rage. He was articulate and funny then and always, but such was his passion that I remember him as almost inchoate when he talked about the bastards who wouldn’t end their Global War on Terror, which was conceived in rhetoric and dedicated to their re-election, yet would send America’s sons and daughters on futile errands of suffering and slaughter.

From past experience, I’ve seen evidence that Dickey actually reads the responses to his columns. So I spent some time writing one. The inequity of sending our military volunteers to suffer the consequences of their leaders’ ineptitude and dishonesty is an unresolved problem for the entire society and one we’ll be living with for decades (just as we’re still living with the legacy of having sacrificed so many conscripted soldiers in Vietnam). My “answer” to Dickey:

“I think Dunne’s sense of this issue, and yours, is spot on as far as it goes. Sacrifices must be shared. We must not fight wars to which we’re not fully committed (though bear in mind that that standard kept us out of World War I for nearly three years and, absent Pearl Harbor, probably would have kept us out of World War II indefinitely).

“But what do we do with that knowledge? Do we get behind people like John Conyers and Charles Rangel and demand the draft be reinstated? There’s an attractive school of thought that a universal draft — if one were started, I’d hope that women would be conscripted, too — would give everyone a personal stake in the war in Iraq and make the civilians who launched this thing more accountable. I’m not sure I buy that — more than half the Americans who died in Vietnam were killed *after* the Tet offensive, when the anti-war movement was already rolling along. Yet, a fair draft, perhaps with a national service alternative, *could* democratize the war and perhaps counter a tendency, which Bush encourages with no shame or sense of irony, to lionize the warriors, cozen up to them, and cast those who don’t support his military adventure as fifth columnists.

“Here’s the thing: I have two draft-age sons. I don’t know how I’d sleep if they and their friends were under arms now and their commanders were as casually deceitful and incompetent as the crew we have in charge now. For me, the principle of the thing — that it’s unfair and undemocratic to impose the war sacrifice on a small slice of society, even if they volunteered for service — is at war with my personal horror at the further ruin of young lives to so little apparent purpose. I also wonder about the equity of codgers like me (my draft number was supposed to come up in 1972, but it was never called) sending the young ones off to kill and be killed. If there’s going to be a national sacrifice, all the non-retired generations should be made to play a part beyond our penchant for uttering fine phrases.”