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A Blogging Milestone

This week we have reached a numerical milestone for this little blog. As of Friday morning we have topped the ten thousand page views per month level. This means that 10,000+ computers logged into the blog last month. Each unique log-in counts as one, so I don't actually have ten thousand readers, you probably account for multiple hits yourself. 

I have excluded from the automatic counter my own computers and any commercial hits, like those from Google or Yahoo. Also excluded are hits of less than 10 seconds, no sense in inflating the numbers with lost surfers.

The bottom line is a big thank-you to those who read my scribbling. I appreciate your time and your interest.

PAGEVIEWS LAST MONTH
10,040
Friday Sept. 16 10:40 AM PDT
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Thinking Outside the Box

Today we cogitate beyond the cubic






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Reagan's 1984 Landslide

One of my favorite political exemplars when I argue for third party participation is the 1984 election - Reagan vs. Mondale. This was the most recent "landslide" in a presidential election. Reagan won, of course, but how you report the numbers can tell several very different stories. The way most of the media reported it was this way:

Reagan -   58.77%
Mondale - 40.56%

That's the total popular vote and yup that's a landslide. But what if we take a look at registered voters, then whopping winning number of 58%+ becomes:

Reagan - 43.8%

A landslide sounds like a huge win, a mandate from the people. Yet only 44% of the registered voters came out to support Ronald Reagan in his big win. I know, this is where someone says "Decisions are made by those who show up" or "If you don't vote, you don't get to complain afterwards." My alternate interpretation would be that the political process in 1984, so turned off 25%+ of the registered voters that they basically voted 'None of the Above'.

There is one more significant way to look at the final numbers in 1984 and that is the percentage of the Voting Age Population who supported Reagan in his reelection bid. Of those over 18 years of age the numbers are truly abysmal:

Reagan - 31.2%. Hail to the Chief!

 .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

The last time I trotted out those numbers in a political discussion, someone asked me if current voting numbers were better or worse today. Being that this is a political question, I felt perfectly justified in ignoring the actual question and instead supplying a talking point from my crack campaign staff. Here it is just for you:

2000 Presidential Election

Popular Vote
Bush - 47.87%
Gore - 48.38%

Registered Voters
Bush - 32.02%
Gore - 32.46%

Voting Age Population
Bush - 24.12%
Gore - 24.38%


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The Vast Wasteland


The Boob Tube, The Idiot Box, White Noise, The Glass Teat, A Vast Wasteland. Criticizing television is the ultimate low hanging fruit. Even if you do have your own personal tv favorites, that still leaves you hundreds of channels and thousands of shows to loath.

Back in Berkeley my onscreen guide shows only the channels I receive. Yes, I am one of those types who actually reads the manual and does the full setup on my electronic toys. No shopping channels, no cartoons, block the foreign language channels, CMT is out; well you get the idea. My friends here in Lake Shastina have a satellite dish and their guide shows every channel with the all the channels they don't get dimmed but still readable.

The other day I was familiarizing myself with the options for evening surfing when I saw a listing for Perfect Boobs. What the hell could it be? A reality show? The Surgery Channel? Perhaps, a workout video. Turns out it was an infomerical for a revolutionary bra. But really can you imagine a time when Perfect Boobs might have caused an uproar in certain places if used in a tv guide? I went through the entire scroll for a Tuesday evening and found the following uplifting titles. None of these are porn channel offerings.

Brazilian Butt - another infomercial

Look Good Naked - exercise DVD

Sleep Sex - I have no idea

Drinking Made Easy - it was difficult because?

16 and Pregnant - reality show

I am not a fan of censorship in any form. I sympathize with parents who wish to protect their kids from certain content but I generally come down on the side of a free and open market of information. But should someone wish to make such an option available to parents would that mean having to censor the tv guide? I mean paid cable channels sure, even selected shows of course, but the channel guide? 

Perfect Boobs really??? Next thing you know we will have little plastic containers full of unknown liquids that plug into electrical outlets and vaporize the chemicals to add odor to your house.
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Lucubration



lucubration \loo-kyoo-BRAY-shun; loo-kuh-\, noun:
1. The act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation.
2. That which is composed by night; that which is produced by meditation in retirement; hence (loosely) any literary composition.


About a third of my writing is done in the dark. Well at least at night if not actually in the dark. I discovered years ago that what I produce in the wee hours is of a different quality than my work product in the bright of day.


Sheer numbers tell me that I produce a lot more words on the page when writing during the day but they are of a very different flavor than my night writing. The emotive content, the big twists and turns come at night. Moving the story along filling in the linear details is a daytime activity.


Nocturnal work also contains a lot of marginalia both on previous sections and notes for future writing. There are times when the fingers just can't keep up with the ideas so I take lots of notes. This nearly always happens at night. 


A new day of writing generally begins with reading yesterday's work. Words produced after dark often require a fair amount of daylight editing if only to fill in all the linkages for a potential audience. It's not stream of consciousness writing, well most of the time it isn't but methinks the collective unconsciousness rises closer to my waking world when the sun is on the far side of Gaia.
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Silverhill Road

Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot.

My brief shining place was a stone cabin in Michigan located in the middle of a 20,000 acre state wilderness park off Silverhill Road. If you go there now a three mile section of that road has been returned to wilderness, grown over and grown in. The cabin is gone, torn down my the state just after I abandoned Michigan for California in 1975. But for two years, it was my Camelot.

Back in 1973 a good friend was living there, he was a park ranger. The plans to level the old cabin were in the works but until then someone got to live in the near idyllic setting. My friend was transferred and I got the cabin until the state brought in the bulldozer. 

The old stone structure hugged a central stone fireplace that ran up through the second floor bedrooms. Across the narrow dirt road and far down the hill was the Crooked Lake campground. We were sheltered from even minimal intrusion of civilization by a huge hedge of violet lilacs, the smell in early summer was nearly overpowering as I lay in the front bedroom.

There was a small garden less successful than the wild asparagus patch nearby. We inherited a sheltie collie named Heather and my roommate brought his shepherd, Bo. I soon had Sam, Heather and Gisele who produced 9 kittens the second spring. Sam was the feline who trained me to pet him during the night. 

When the trees were fully leafed out in the summer, the final two miles to the cabin were inside of a green tunnel with the trees on either side providing a complete canopy to Silverhill Road. In the fall the tunnel would darken and then burst into yellows, reds and silvers. There was a fairy circle of mushrooms in the meadow and a stand of lonely birch trees in the high pasture.

We had several big summer parties but the real highlights were the quiet nights in the spring, summer, fall and yes even Michigan winter. All the lights would be extinguished and the stars would burn brightly down on the small rise behind the cabin. I remember that rise for another reason but that is a story for another time.
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Oreo Cameo

Take a good long look at this cameo. Then read the title of today's blog again. Yes, that is the carved cream of an oreo cookie. 

Here's another one, although I object on moral grounds to a non-chocolate cookie. These come from an artist named Judith G. Klausner, you can find more of her work below and on her website

We know moths are attracted to light bulbs, then again. 
She can be a most interesting artist.

Flora Dentata (Tooth & Nail)
-made from fingernails and baby teeth

She has some other works with praying mantis and a series on toast embroidery. I personally liked the oreo series, more my taste so to speak.
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