ABULAFIA






		2 0 0 3 OCTOBER 01 SEPTEMBER AUGUST 02 AUGUST 01 JULY 02 JULY 01 JUNE 02 JUNE 01 MAY 02 MAY 01 APRIL 02 APRIL 01 MARCH FEBRUARY JANUARY L I N K S AAA Abulafia Boardwalk Bread CHN Christ Lutheran Church Neighborhood Research Institute Old Oaks Olde Towne Polyphony INTP Business First Business First Daily Edition Call and Post Columbus Alive Columbus Dispatch Columbus Free Press Columbus Post Communicator News The Daily Reporter Inner Art The Lantern The Other Paper Suburban News Publications Short North Gazette NBC4 Columbus WSYX 6 10TV WBNS ONN BBC World Service CNN Christian Science Monitor The Guardian IndiaTimes New York Times StarTribune Washington Post Washington Times AfricaPundit William F. Buckley Jr. Command Post Cronaca Crooked Timber Daniel W. Drezner John Ellis David Frum Hit & Run Instapundit Mickey Kaus Little Green Footballs Joshua Micah Marshall The Note PaleoJudaica Virginia Postrel Wes Pruden Jim Romenesko Andrew Sullivan Volokh Conspiracy Day by Day Doonesbury Ted Rall Peter Steiner Tom Toles Tom Tommorow Rob Pegoraro Matt Drudge Communication Arts Acme Art Company Ballet Met CCAD Columbus Arts Columbus Arts Festival Columbus Metropolitan Library Columbus Museum of Art Columbus Symphony Dialogue Franklin Park Conservatory Glass Axis Music in the Air Opera Columbus Thurber House Wexner Center City of Bexley City of Columbus Columbus City Council Columbus Police Columbus Public Schools OTENA egroup OTENA-NIC egroup OTENA-tours egroup OTENA-trustees egroup Old Oaks egroup Ohio Parsons Blockwatch egroup				> OCTOBER 02 w O C T O B E R 1 5 , 2 0 0 3 Deadline day Late, late, late stories t O C T O B E R 1 4 , 2 0 0 3 2:30 a.m. The windows are rattling. I can hear the wind whipping the trees. I get can't go back to sleep. I get up, throw open the sash, and sit on a pillow on the shelf under the window. I wrap myself in a blanket -- the wind is biting. "all alone as i've learned to be in this mess i have made the same mistakes over and over again" Ben Folds Five, Mess It is a very bright night -- there is little dark about it. The street is enveloped in a yellow haze. I watch the waves of air sweep from tree to tree. The porchlight across the street sways and rocks and shakes, its rays cresting and falling like a ship on the high seas. "Goodnight, goodnight sweet baby the world has more for you than it seems goodnight, goodnight let the moonlight take the lid off your dreams" Ben Folds Five, Lullabye I'm trying. Gray, windy, Raining, lonely, ... A second opinion Tom Tomorrow on the Wilson-Plame affair. m O C T O B E R 1 3 , 2 0 0 3 A story For Amy HOW THINGS CAME TO BE Once upon a time, the story begins, for that is how stories begin in these parts; once and only once they happened, sometime but not this time, somewhere but not here, because everything now has already happened and thus is a story. There was a family of beautiful aafbirds, so named by their “aaf aaf aaf” cry, a sharp, short, jeering, mocking cry, that left an unpleasantness behind the ears of any creature they sent it out after. This family of aafbirds lived in a nest, on a far outstretched branch of an old oak tree, far out over the banks of the Plain River. More ... This story was composed to explain why it was exactly that I had once labeled "zebra" what was obviously a picture of a giraffe. I have told it before, some time ago, but here it is written down. Being so old as I am, I was simply recalling that time before "things had come to be." -j. Posted photos AESQUE \| Link Loud Out tonight -- revellers along the street, the police helicopter circling above, the breeze blowing highway sounds this way, trash collectors down on Main St., ... Not enough information I can't begin to tell from the story whether or not there is anything more to this than Kroger bought the land, asked for a rezoning, and got it. WBNS 10TV A concise overview Tom Toles Of the Wilson-Plame affair. A bad day Some days the medicine makes me better, some days it gets the better of me. This was one of the latter days. Hard to get up, hard to move, hard to leave the house, hard to talk. I could not talk properly the whole day. I felt unwell, and very unhappy by the end of the day. Thankful to skip meetings I should have gone to, thankful to finish HomeFront (whether well done or not), upset to have annoyed Janet by forgetting our Book of Lists schedule, ... n O C T O B E R 1 2 , 2 0 0 3 A Walk in the Woods Finished reading the book. Much as I like walking, I don't think the Appalachian Trail is for me. For one thing, it seems to require far too much planning. How wonderful traveling is when you know that should you forget something, you can always stop at the next exit and find a McDonald's and a gas station. I was never one to pay enough attention to what mountains require, having once begun to climb one without the necessary warm clothing. Beautiful and breathtaking as Merapi was, I don't feel the need to try that again. I'm probably much more out of shape than I was then, too. And I have absolutely no desire to meet up with a bear in the forest. Small dogs are enough of a challenge. Hammock A little cooler today, I brought out a blanket to curl up in. Yesterday a leaf would fall here, and then a leaf would fall there. Today the deluge began in earnest. Difficult morning Hard to get up, hard to get to church, hard to make the sounds to sing Nonetheless, we sang "Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying," a wonderful piece, quite well. Lunch afterward in Bexley. s O C T O B E R 1 1 , 2 0 0 3 R vs. D Plenty of thoughts today on the venality of various Republicans in powerful positions. No, I'm not becoming a Democrat. And I'm fairly sure that were there Democrats in powerful positions, the posts would most likely be about the venality of various Democrats. Cool cities Christian Science Monitor Columbus (28) beats Cincinnati (39) and Cleveland (37). But still, 28? Maybe we should move to Washington (4) or Raleigh (9). (Minneapolis (16) would still be a tough sell, huh?) Still out there Still a problem for the White House Washington Post "Administration sources said they believe that the officials who discussed Plame were not trying to expose her, but were using the information as a tool to try to persuade reporters to ignore Wilson. The officials wanted to convince the reporters that he had benefited from nepotism in being chosen for the mission. "What started as political gossip and damage control has become a major criminal investigation that has already harmed the administration and could be a problem for President Bush for months to come." Some people seem unable to separate their own political goals from the needs of the country and realize which ought to come foremost. Knight Ridder "Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush critic Joseph Wilson, was a member of a small elite-within-an-elite, a CIA employee operating under "nonofficial cover," in her case as an energy analyst, with little or no protection from the U.S. government if she got caught. "Training agents such as Plame, 40, costs millions of dollars and requires the time-consuming establishment of elaborate fictions, called "legends," including in this case the creation of a CIA front company that helped lend plausibility to her trips overseas. "Compounding the damage, the front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, whose name has been reported previously, apparently also was used by other CIA officers whose work now could be at risk, according to Vince Cannistraro, formerly the agency's chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis. "Now, Plame's career as a covert operations officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations is over. Those she dealt with - whether on business or not - may be in danger. The DO is conducting an extensive damage assessment." (Article via Talking Points Memo, which is pushing the investigation hard. The article itself is authored by Warren Strobel, a reporter I remember writing for the Washington Times when I was in DC -- so again, hardly a frothing-at-the-mouth liberal). The confusion between political goals and good governance is rife in the political mileiu from which the president (and some key staffers) emerged. Joseph Wilson, the career diplomat that the White House was trying to discredit, appears to have been well-qualified for the job and not at all antagonistic to the Bush administration (he donated $1,000 to the campaign; hardly the Democratic über-partisan that administration sources see). Moreover, there is absolutely nothing now to indicate that Wilson was wrong. In a misguided attempt to smear someone who did nothing but do the job well he was asked to do, partisans have destroyed his wife's career and continue to disparage him at every turn. This is something that the president needs to deal with now, publicly, and far more forcefully than his recent saturnine comments. The New World (dis)Order? NY Review of Books One of those great articles that lead me to really want to resubscibe. This point, from one of the books on review, is, however, a common misperception: "... while United States expenditure on defense is incomparably higher than that of any other nation or group of nations, its expenditure on development aid, one tenth of one percent of US Gross National Income (GNI), is by far the lowest of any industrial country. (Denmark's development aid budget is 1.6 percent of GNI.) At present, [Kennedy] comments, in the debate on impoverishment and despair the United States is "away on crusade." The U.S.'s not inconsequential trade deficit must be considered, too. This is money that goes not to (often corrupt) governments or (administration- and management-heavy) NGOs but directly to foreign industry and workers. Counties become prosperous and grow when their citizens have jobs; they become less hospitable to terrorists when there is a solid middle class and everyone has a stake in the stability of the country. Those who can see only government mandated aid fail to understand the U.S. and how it works -- foreign aid is yet another area where the U.S. is remarkably decentralized. The aid comes from individual consumers and reaches individual workers. And that is the most effective aid that there can be. "Prestowitz is concerned with the growing alienation of the United States from the rest of the world, the reasons for it, and what can be done to remedy it. He puts America's choice in simple, well-worn images—to be the bully on the block or the city on the hill. He feels that inconsistency, self-righteousness, and ignorance now play a far larger part than they should in the formulation and execution of United States policy and that Americans have become bad listeners. He comments in passing that the doctrine of military supremacy and preemptive attack outlined in President Bush's June 2002 West Point speech and in the September 2002 document National Security Strategy of the United States strikes at the heart of three fundamental texts that should be guidelines for foreign policy: the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which set forth the principle of respect for national sovereignty and noninterference in the affairs of other states; the UN Charter, which bans the threat or the use of force except in self-defense or under a Security Council mandate; and the Nuremberg judgments, which treated pre- emptive attack as a war crime." Amen. Many very good points. The item I disagree most with in the article's gloss of Prestowitz is the assertion that the United States should get its occupation of Iraq over with quickly. I can't believe that the U.N. would do a better job than the U.S. (they don't exactly have an exemplary track record), and to simply abandon Iraq at this stage would be foolhardy. Pizza for dinner Amy's sauce is so much better No more teal? CNN But I like teal. It's blue. NB: Interesting cutline. "The Crayola name comes from "craie," the French word for chalk, and "ola," from "oleaginous." Crayola color history Cerulean: America's second favorite color Via Crayola "Personality Traits calm, soothing, relaxed Cultural Meanings The Aztecs believed this light blue color to be protective, so they used the stone turquoise in their shields. Fun Facts It is believed that owls are the only animals that can see the color blue. There really are no blue-colored foods, even blueberries look purple. Blue is the least attractive color to use with foods and people will eat less from a blue plate." So theoretically, I shouldn't eat so much, huh? From the periwinkle page, though it doesn't seem to refer specifically to that shade of blue: Fun Facts Honeybees prefer blue flowers. Philosophy graduates’ tassels are blue because the color represents deliberation, introspection, and conservatism. So doesn't that somehow invalidate the "owls are the only animals that can see the color blue" theory above? If honeybees can't distinguish it, how can they prefer it? There must be a better way When redistricting comes down to crafting districts for the benefit of the friends of powerful people, it is not working. It is a failure. "In the case of the Texas GOP plan, the analysis described how steps were taken to try to protect the plan from legal challenge under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but also how minority voters would be shifted into Republican-dominated suburban districts and how a new district in West Texas was crafted to meet the aspirations of a friend of President Bush." Washington Post To push this through in a partisan decree is shortsighted on the part of the Republicans -- leaving aside ethical considerations, this is not the way to choose successful legislators. In time, this the Democractic Party will be in the ascendance in Texas, and they will not forget. This is bad governance from any point of view. So much of the country is being turned into "safe districts" that fewer and fewer can be contested by moderates, and radicals from the right and left and polarizing the legislature. Of course, the "radical" rightist rumored to be the driving force behind the redistricting is Tom DeLay, House Majority Leader. Ben Sargent Free trade in the far east Guardian "Ten south-east Asian nations yesterday signed a landmark accord to turn their vastly disparate states into an integrated, tariff-free trading and economic community by 2020 that would resemble the early embodiment of the European Union. At a summit on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, the Association of South-East Asian Nations also agreed to complete deals with China, India and Japan by 2012. The pact with Beijing would create by far the world's largest free trade zone." Interesting people Madeliene Albright NYT Unfortunately not a terribly interesting article, but I should read the book. Hammock The leaves on the gum tree are tinged with red and yellow across the top of the tree, but the leaves tucked underneath the canopy are still a vibrant light green. The pear trees are taking the opposite approach -- underneath some few of the leaves have begun to turn bright yellow, but on the top and outsides of the branches the leaves remain deep green. The redbud tree is light yellow with traces of light green remaining. A Monarch butterfly danced among the overhead branches of the sugar gum, flitting between crisscrossing utility wires and swooping lazily onto the butterfly bush. A squirrel leapt from the pear tree to the sugar gum, crossed several branches up down and sideways, and came to rest on a large branch that juts off toward the butterfly bush. There it lay, stretched out, with one eye warily watching me from above, for quite some time. A little brown bird twittered about in a rose of sharon bush, then half jumped, half flew into the tomatos and ivy in the back corner where it got lost. All five goldfish are accounted for, swimming happily through the sunlight's rays over the pond. Contemplated moves: (this was active as I got today -- contemplating) rose campion out of the ever-deeper shade it finds itself in; the big bleeding heart, from tucked between two arbor vitae to a more prominent location. Photographs The back garden, October. AESQUE A glorious fall day Warm, blue skies, yellow leaves out the front window, ... A musician at the recreation center plays and sings "You got to wake up in the morning, you got to wake up you got to wake up ... You got to get up in the morning, you got to get up, you got to get up ..." Doors open and close, gates swing, dogs bark, the music plays ... f O C T O B E R 1 0 , 2 0 0 3 HomeFront Challenges Gladioli Dug up the ones that had remained in the back garden for three or four years. They are supposed to be dug and brought in every winter, but I had never managed that before. The shoots were multiplying prodigiously although ever fewer actually bloomed. The number of tiny little bulbs was amazing -- they must split off tens of bulbs every year. I doubt it is worthwhile to hold onto the little ones -- how many years would it take before they were bing enough to bloom? Much noise from Monroe tonight. Even as it grows dark, the sounds of children playing do not abate. It had been fairly quiet through the week, but all the sounds come out on Friday night. r O C T O B E R 9 , 2 0 0 3 11 p.m. And I just want to be home and asleep. Choir rehearsal Intimate gathering -- no other tenors In Bexley for awhile afterwards, helped put up towel rods in the bathroom and discussed kitchen paint colors. Richard Rorty Vs. the Matrix ... maybe lime green looks different to men and women ... (I'm still considering) :) Gray A beautiful morning and afternoon suddenly grayed and turned to light rain. The pineapple sage has branches almost six feet tall and splendid flower spikes. The chrysanthemums are in bloom, a chinese lantern has two, now very orange, blooms. A number of bees are still around, but nothing like the insect calvalcade of a few weeks ago. The windows are open wide to the pleasant Indian summer. All-staff meeting Minus Don -- Dominic officiated. w O C T O B E R 8 , 2 0 0 3 A Walk in the Woods Rediscovering American on the Appalachian Trail Bill Bryson Began reading it this evening. Neot Kedumim The Biblical Landscape Reserve ... looks worthy of putting on an itinerary. The website identifies common Biblical passages with which certain plants are associated. Now if they only had pictures of all the plants they name ... Jerusalem Post A horrible day. Couldn't get up, couldn't get together, back pain, speech mangled, stomach displeased, lunch weariness, ... t O C T O B E R 7 , 2 0 0 3 Schwarzenegger elected governor of California He received more votes than Gray Davis did in last year's gubernatorial win. He received a greater number of votes than those opposed to Gray Davis' removal from office. That's quite a mandate. Not a bad example of democracy, rather than the travesty of such the Democrats wanted the electorate to believe. Normal politics had led the Republicans in California to nominate far-right candidates not once, but twice, against Gray Davis. They both lost. The recal process actually allowed a Republican to run who could probably not have won a party primary, but could nontheless take the state. In this case, politics-as-usual was the anti-democratic force, and the recall, the democratic antidote. Washington Post The sum total May get you threre ... "The injury happened at about 10:30 a.m. near 5th and High streets." NBC4 High and 5th Sts. do not intersect; they run parallel for quite a number of miles. The story does specify the south side, but even that hardly narrows it down very much. "It happened on Fornoff Rd. in South Columbus ..." WBNS 10TV Now we have the cross-street, but no mention of High or 5th. And I would dispute the capitalization of "South," but it really doesn't seem worth it when there are so many other more substantive things to criticize. " " WSYX 6 (The local ABC affiliate's web people apparently couldn't find any news in Columbus today). m O C T O B E R 6 , 2 0 0 3 Why they don't hire graphic designers This Slate article, which purports to argue in favor of using graphic designers to lay out ballots, is actually a good argument against it. Or at least two of the three designers whose sample ballots they feature. The challenge, in this case, is how to display the one-hundred-and-thirty some officially qualified names on the California recall ballot. (The story gets off to a bad start by suggesting that after Arianna Huffington withdrew, there would be one fewer candidate on the ballot. She may have withdrawn, but her name stays). "Ballot B," one of the suggested "better" ballots, is labelled "Hugh Dubberly narrows the field." He designed a better ballot by tossing out all the minor candidates, which certainly made it a lot simpler to navigate. Perhaps he should be designing ballots for Vladimir Putin in Chechnya, who might better appreciate his skills. Ballot C used color to orient the voter. This could be somewhat problematic for those who are colorblind, and is against almost all state codes, but could be, with care, reasonably incorporated into ballot design were the laws competantly rewritten. The point of designing is to work within constraints. Sometimes these constraints are loose, sometimes tight, but without a constraint there is nothing to design. The constraint on use of color may or may not be a necessary constraint, but surely Slate could have found one additional designer who did not feel compelled to single-handedly change, ex post facto, the requirements for appearing on the ballot. That surely feels like a necessary constraint to me, and one which, when violated, makes the designer and writer frivolous. Awoke Less defeated than usual n O C T O B E R 5 , 2 0 0 3 Amy to Akron Colors Lemon Grass, Golden Cricket, Lime Zest, Ballroom Blue, Brass Mesh, Belgian Waffle, Spring Waterfall ... Bathroom, bedroom, kitchen (Southern Sunrise) Dinner in Bexley With M, Grandma, Stephanie s O C T O B E R 4 , 2 0 0 3 Jewels BalletMet Emeralds, rubies, diamonds Manifest in the costumes, but the three acts evoked classical French, 1920s, and High Russian ballet. I favored the music of the ruby and the dance of the emerald; Amy favored the diamonds. I have to rremember that I like Stravinsky. In cooperation with the Cincinnati Ballet. Slate Run Farm Cute pigs, amusing cow moos, f O C T O B E R 3 , 2 0 0 3 Difficulty sleeping Headaches Amy to Columbus r O C T O B E R 2 , 2 0 0 3 Wedding music Met with Bea after choir Procésion Alegre, Garry Cornell Now Thank We All Our God, Arr. Diane Bish 3rd Organ Sonata, Adagio Molto, Alexandre Guilmant w O C T O B E R 1 , 2 0 0 3 "Just a spoonful of sugar ..." The Great Communicator [Reagan] was extraordinarily humble. Even while in office, he would take hours out of his day to hand-write detailed and earnest replies to complete no-bodies. Even the crackpots who vented at him received polite and gracious counter-arguments. I loved this opening sentence to an angry woman in 1977, when he was recovering from his failed first run at the presidency: "I have been informed of your complaint about my broadcasts and your suggestion that they be taken off the air. I'm sorry you feel that way and hope you won't mind my writing a few words in my own defense." Why didn't he just throw the hate-mail in the dust-bin? Or in another missive, he could find a gentle way to inform a correspondent that his idea was preposterous: "I found your suggestion very interesting and yet as I turned it over in my mind it had a drawback - at least in my opinion." How's that for letting someone down gently? And remember that this was a nobody who had written to him, no one he had to impress or cajole or flatter. To a critical teenage girl who was president of her school, he concludes the letter, "We presidents must stick together." -- Andrew Sullivan Turning to more literal medicines ... Charlie's "sugar" is peanut butter. He should be recovering from his allergy reaction with the help of some medicine. I don't know what my "sugar" is, but I sure could use some. Having taken this medicine for a week, the dose is to be doubled. Starting yesterday evening. I felt it all day today. My stomach was quite unhappy. I had a salad for lunch and felt absolutely horrible afterward. It grabs hold of my throat and jaw and I feel I speak like a gorilla, without the proper control to form the sounds I want to form. I'm glad choir rehearsal is not tonight. Yesterday and tonight it gave a sharp stab to my forehead not long after taking the medicine, though thankfully the headache didn't last. The medicine must be powerful -- it lets me know it is with me all the time. I don't like it, but I hope it works. Back to the metaphorical ... t S E P T E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 0 3 Interesting people Joseph C. Wilson IV "...his days in Baghdad, where he was acting U.S. ambassador. In 1990, while sheltering more than a hundred Americans at the U.S. Embassy and diplomatic residences, he briefed reporters while wearing a hangman's noose instead of a necktie -- a symbol of defiance after Hussein threatened to execute anyone who didn't turn over foreigners. The message, Wilson said: 'If you want to execute me, I'll bring my own [expletive] rope.'" Washington Post This is the diplomat who objected, on the op-ed pages of the New York Times, (on the grounds that he had previously been asked to investigate the claim, had done so, and found it nonsense), to the "sixteen words" in President Bush's State of the Union speech which linked Saddam Hussein to a looming nuclear threat. Poll watch: 85% of public believes George Bush's approval rating fell in last month The Onion "I'm not surprised," said Barry Amodale, a Plano, TX, systems analyst. "I had a feeling that Americans were feeling that way. I heard that the voters were wondering how the average citizen thought Bush would explain his $87 billion request to the taxpayers, too." Habermas and Derrida On September 11 University of Chicago Press Derrida is adrift in seas of words of many languages. Adrift My word for the day (Merriam-Webster) &-'drift Function: adverb or adjective Date: 1624 1:without motive power and without anchor or mooring The clouds appeared adrift upon the skies. I feel adrift in this city. Moving pictures As I woke up, I watched the clouds moving through the picture frame of the window, colliding, rushing onward, separating, thinning, pure white wisps masking bright blue sky. Beautiful, calm, peaceful. The air was brisk, the breeze had a bite. It's threatening to frost tomorrow night (so early, the jetstream has taken off on an unseasonable southerly vacation). I don't think it will, but perhaps it is time to bring in some of the houseplants on the patio. The chrysanthemums are just starting to bloom. The perennial plumbago is in full bloom, and the pineapple sage is just no showing red on its unfurling spikes. The wave petunias did not weather September well; they are barely hanging on. The impatiens are still blooming, though legy and a little sparse. One of the delphiniums appears set to rebloom. > SEPTEMBER