Lap Dogs Come in All Sizes

This would have been a fine picture of Ryan trying to evict Lucy from the couch had I not cut off the top of his hair and magnified his right knee. 

Jeff's Computer Does Tricks

I, Sheryl and Jeff go all Warholly 

Life-Affirming Photos from my Weekend in Rhode Island

Trixie now gardens, to the bewilderment of everyone who knew her before she could garden. Here she has just come in picking her lilacs in a heavy rain. 

Feeding the hounds of the Baskervilles. 

Dad with the picture caddy. He invented the device to hang pictures on the wall above his reach. We dismantled it and used is constituent parts to build a bookcase. I can make furniture now!

Me doing Rosie the Riveter in front of the bookcase Dad and I built (with hair falling out of hard hat as usual). 

Herring and Cheez Whiz

I'm on my own again this week, what with Anna back east and the sports schedule hitting a dead spot. Without work to keep me busy, I've been scrounging to find enough stuff to keep myself occupied between the exquisite torture these Pistons games have taken on. I fear they are finished, but I don't actually believe that the Heat are better than Detroit, so I have no clue at all what will happen.

So in bullet form, here's what I do when I'm alone and saving money:

--I've dusted off a number of my old recipes, including a success in making real-bacon carbonara. Of course, after having it for dinner and then breakfast I still have about a half-pound of it left. And, out of fear using so much bacon it would overwhelm the dish, I fear I didn't use enough. So now I'm reaching around and trying to conserve it. I have one more dish planned, sausage a la/Annie's Mac-and-Cheese, planned for later in the week, assuming I can polish off the leftovers.

--Yesterday, I spent three hours in Borders sipping an iced coffee and reading Wonkette's novel. I loved her blog, but can't quite recommend the book. It's so plot-driven that some of the relationships come across as two-dimensional. You understand why Melanie and Jules get along, but have no clue why exactly she feels so much for Rick. Also, everything is so slightly altered from real life that I imagine the story is a scream to read in Washington. I was laughing at the stuff I recognized, which has to be just a fraction of what there is to understand.

--On demand TV is pretty good, and there are lots of HBO series to watch.

--Kvelling over the Tigers while maintaining my fantasy teams.

--I checked out the show Footballers' Wives on BBC America last night and it really is quite trashy. Also, I think, cheeky. I enjoyed it. It's an interesting counter-balance to Desperate Housewives, probably because there's not as much of the free-floating religiosity going on in England. Plus, part of the shock of Housewives is that evil in the suburbs plays against expectations. Among the famous and rich, you expect a ton of intrigue. I'd actually be interested if someone made a show about a similar concepts in American sports (Hello NBC, you steal everything from the BBC, why not this) because the media climate is different.

I am leaving for New York tonight for a week, and some time sooner rather than later both Mike and I will return to posting about public health, sports and the general aspect of our own navels. I just want to say a few words about all the people who have made their way here searching for Tiesha's name. I feel privileged that so many have come to read and in some cases share their feelings and memories. I also want to say, though, that I wasn't Tiesha's closest friend, and that as much as I cared for her there are people who cared still more, who knew her better, and who have beautiful words to consecrate to her. I'm just the one with the blog. I hope everyone who remembers her finds a way to honor her so that the picture of Tiesha that we all keep is that much sharper. It's not enough of course, but it's all that's left to us.

My husband is not much for prayer or spirituality of any kind, but he does recite the Secular Humanist meditation for the dead, "The memory of good people blesses us." I believe that the memory of Tiesha Sargeant blesses us.

Tiesha Sargeant, as Best I Can

We haven't posted anything since Monday night, which probably gives the impression that I'm still too angry to talk about Tiesha. That's not how it is, though. I've been off in my own world mostly, I guess, adapting. I've thought about her almost continuously, but I just haven't been able to summon appropriate words to honor her. The last time I saw her, last summer, I was going to take her picture before we parted ways for the night, but my camera ran out of batteries and I hadn't brought spares. I remember the picture I was trying to take, though; in fact I was convinced for a time that I had really taken it. I hadn't, though, and it doesn't really exist.

At least one of Tiesha's friends has done better than I; she has posted a collection of pages about Tiesha. I don't have access to most of them though, besides this one. Chinara, if you find your way to this page, let's find a way to communicate, okay? Someone else has posted a story I just love; on closer inspection I realized it was the mother of that same friend. That made me feel responsible for populating the internet with stories that tell how wonderful Tiesha was, what a rare wit and a true friend, the kind that will call your bluffs. I've made life decisions based on conversations I had with her, because she was one of the few people really capable of changing my mind. But I keep drawing a blank. All I can remember at the moment are faces she made when she was laughing, or poking at me, or stressed out or riled.

Searching for mentions of Tiesha's name on the internet earlier this week, I came up with only pages about things she had done, places she had worked, activities she had pursued in college, pieces she had written, and so on. Gradually, they are being supplanted in the search engine ranks with news stories about her death and memorials to her. Normally I get excited when our blog is on the first page of a google search, but not this time. Especially since I didn't really write anything about her at all.

Initially a friend of a friend of hers posted about how little coverage Tiesha's death received on Monday. Eventually all the city papers ran the story, from the Sun to El Diario, but it wasn't really about her. I felt the same way. In fact I was so upset that I contacted Mike's old friend Jon at the Daily News and wound up talking to a reporter. They were already planning a better story, and since then, the Daily News has covered Tiesha all week. Eventually the Post followed with its own story along similar lines, proving that when the Post needs a story they run out and buy an early edition of the Daily News. I'm also curious to know where the Post got that semi-provocative picture of Tiesha--I think she would have had a lot to say about that editorial decision. Someone from Wesleyan, where she went to college, posted on a blog a few days ago that the University hasn't released anything about her yet, but I suppose we'll see.

It is good that so much attention has been paid. It is good that there are already two funds that I know of being set up in her name. It is appropriate. But at the same time, Tiesha had so little use for euphemisms, for visible delicacy, for indirection, for elephants in rooms--for bullshit of any kind--that I really wish I could get her opinion on how she is being remembered. I know she would make me laugh about it, if only as a coping mechanism.

I find I'm not strongly concerned about the outcome of the police investigation. I want a conclusion mostly so that I'll stop having terrible, unfair suspicions. But I don't think I'll feel, for my part, satisfied by any notion of justice. I can't think of anything that would balance the loss and the unfairness of all the things I will get to do, including typing right now on this keyboard with my neck resting uncomfortably against the couch arm and my eyes itching from the conjunctivitis I have improbably contracted, that my friend never finished doing, or that she never started. That last time we had supper she joked with me that her grandparents all lived into their 90s, so she had the genes for health and longevity. She had a great capacity for laughter, for joy, for criticism and clarity. No action can justly balance the reduction of all those gifts to mere potentialities, companions to the years she probably would have lived.

Tiesha always seemed so fearless, she was so often the one with the right thing to say, so strong and thriving and lovely, that it could be hard to see her wholly. Most people either believed she was immortal or purposely hunted her vulnerabilities to comfort themselves. I think both exhausted her. The current spin on her story is that she was successful in every area but her relationships with men, and it makes me want to scream. She wasn't successful in everything, in fact she was seldom satisfied with herself. And she was no pushover when it came to men, even if the men she cared for weren't as amazing as she was. Who hasn't made mistakes with the people we love? Who could ever have been good enough for her? If she had an enduring flaw it wasn't in how she saw men but in how she saw herself. She was the one person who couldn't fully appreciate the worth of her gifts and the slenderness of her shortcomings. She loved herself, but she hadn't yet grown into a full, ripe self-love. It's a small flaw, one that may be common to all women, and I think she would have learned with time and labor to change even that. She would have moved on to bigger and better flaws. I am still angry, and grieving, that she did not have time enough to finish changing.

I feel frustrated that even in the act of memorializing Tiesha, we are turning her into a character instead of the dauntingly complicated woman she was. But I'm not a good enough writer to take little stories about her and build them up into a biography, or even a sketch. The last time we met, she taught me how to eat the sugar cane that came in my drink. Another night she showed me that I didn't really think having children was a bad idea. Once, when we were students, she broke down in tears at the thought of her college applications, telling someone who tried to console her with the reminder that Bill Gates didn't graduate from college, "But Bill Gates dropped out of Haaaaaarvaaaard!" and burying her face in a pillow. I always wished she had applied to Columbia because we had identical outcomes at the four schools we applied to in common; her boyfriend at the time filled out an application just for kicks but she was tired and didn't. Once she and another girl were playing catch with a notebook and it hit Tiesha in the eye, and when she screamed with surprise and pain a teacher came in to tell us to keep it down. I know she thought often about a girl who graduated two years ahead of us who died in the World Trade Center. I used to be so intimidated by waiters that I was embarrassed to ask for doggie bags until Tiesha gave me one of those looks and got a doggie bag for me in a fancy restaurant, upon which of course I could see that it was perfectly normal. She was usually forty minutes late to every date we made. I won't breach politeness by telling you some of the female oral tradition she passed on to me before and after I lost my virginity. She almost broke my arm twice--once when she was so angry at another person that she could hardly see me and later couldn't remember doing it, and once in sheer exuberance over Larenz Tate and the premiere of Love Jones. I choreographed a dance for her and three other girls once, in which she was meant to represent Maturity, but we didn't rehearse it enough and you could see on stage that she was struggling to remember the steps. She told me once that she could be my friend because she never felt like she had to teach me anything, and I was flabbergasted, because she had taught me so much.

Tiesha Sargeant 1980-2006

Last night, my friend Tiesha Sargeant was killed. I wanted to post something like an obituary here, but I'm not up to it. I'm too angry for rational writing. I want the entire world to feel the inappropriateness of dying violently at the age of 26. I loved her very much.

Pool Party

The NCAA is holding its women's water polo tournament in Davis, which is actually a nice break from the day-to-day drudgery of covering baseball in May. I have octupled my live water polo experience in about two days. The game is entertaining to watch -- a mix between basketbal and hockey. There are power plays for more brutal looking fouls.

So far, I'm having a hard time figuring out just how offenses are supposed to work. Everyone talks about post-ups and cutters after games, but every post player is nearly drowned on every entry pass, and the offenses only seem to use bad passes to move players around in the pool. And this is the highest level. I spent much of Friday trailing Lisa, Davis' resident water polo expert, trying to pick up terms and strategy hints. By Saturday I was throwing around terms like double-ejection and bar-down and probably sounding like an idiot to the coaches and players. Probably the fans too, given the Davis is a savvy water polo town. I'll have to see what the e-mail is like.

Professionally, this has given me an opportunity to see how the NCAA conducts a team championship from a media angle. The NCAA has tons of media polices, meaning there are designated press areas on the pool deck and a nicely constructed tent that only allows the sun in for about an hour between 3 and 4. There are also mandatory press conferences after each game, so we're getting enough access.

The only thing missing, is media. There are two newspaper reporters covering the event, me (for both my paper and the AP) and a dude from the big paper across the river. There are lot PR types poking around as well. The ones from New York are happy to be in town, the ones from Hawaii and SoCal could have done without this trip. I've covered the NCAA track finals in the past, but the press requirements during the preliminaries are more forgiving to the athletes. That's funny because there are about 100 credentialed media members at that event.

Anyway the finals are today at 8 Eastern and if your cable system gets CSTV, look for me on the pool deck.

Yiddishkeit for the Blogosphere

I've finished my first book of the summer (calm down, I read it on the train over the past week after I ran out of homework that could be accomplished away from a computer). Recommended to me by a professor, Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books, is a good read and very interesting. Mike is making his way through it now. Jeff might be interested to know there's a chapter titled "Ostroff! Sea Gate!"

I bring the book up here primarily to point out that I now have support for the position that "far" is a legitimate transliteration of the first syllable in farcocked and farklempt and farshteyt and fartootzt. About a year ago Fritz insisted that it should be spelled "ver" and I capitulated. The author of Outwitting History, Aaron Lanksy, is a Yiddish scholar and a recipient of a MacArthur genius grant, and he spells it "far." So there. I am choosing to ignore the fact that his system also generates the transliterations tshatshke and mentsh.

I was highly gratified last year when we helped Alex and April move and I came across a box labled "tchotchkes," though April continues to pronounce it "ta-chokes."

Finals Week Reports

I've been seeing a lot of Cookie Man recently because I've been hanging around the computer lab in various attitudes of despair while I attempt to finish his final exam. A few weeks ago he diverted some of us from our homework to show us the microwave detector he got off ebay. He had been taking some flak from other faculty members for always leaving the Epidemiology lounge when the microwave was in use, and he was determined to prove that the danger was real. He went down to conduct his experiment and returned in triumph. There was significant leakage in and around the lounge. Master's students aren't allowed in the Epi lounge, so we spend most of our time pretending to be Social Welfare students cause their lounge has no lock. When I explained that, Cookie Man went down to check out the Social Welfare microwave, and pronounced it even worse. Then he said, "Now you can put this on your blog," words that ensured that eventually I would.

Yesterday I yelped for his help because--actually why don't I not go into detail on what the trouble was with my program. Suffice it to say that as he took command of my terminal I watched as four large chunks of my data disappeared, reappeared and then disappeared again. "What's happening?" I squealed. Cookie Man turned to me with wildly wide eyes and said, "We're on acid!" before making them reappear again. I figured he was at least as punchy as I was with the end of term, but later he apologized to all of us computer lab squatters for "editorializing," which he claimed was a side effect of the sedative he had taken that morning. Then he added, "Want one?" Though I assumed he was joking, it's just as well that one of the other students protested that she was pregnant, as I might seriously have considered saying yes.

Like Steve McQueen

This whole driving thing has been such a disaster. It was just as I'd feared: I've opened the floodgates and now I can't seem to stop myself from driving into Berkeley every time I don't feel like fitting my schedule to Amtrak's. Obviously, I suck, but I have to admit it. I like driving.

No one is more shocked than I. Until recently I identified more strongly with Sheryl's post on 34 about accidentally winding up on the freeway than I did with, say, Howards End. But once I had driven into Berkeley the first time, I realized that I could do it and that it wasn't very scary. Then the second time I made the trip in 58 minutes, which was terrible news because every time after that I've felt the impulse to speed because what if I could make that time again? I confided all this to Jeff, who was horrified. "Don't speed!" he implored me, "It's not safe." "I have to go with the flow of traffic," I equivocated, "Going slow isn't safe either." "Cars are not safe!" he reminded me reproachfully.

My dad, notably, has no such protective instinct. "So, my daughter's a speed demon, ay?" he said, obviously beaming with pride. "Nah, Dad, I just like to hover around a nice comfortable 75 on the freeway," I said. "Well, there's nothing wrong with that," he assured me with the telephonic equivalent of a thump on the shoulders, "Your mother likes to go a nice comfortable 55 on the freeway." The problem is, it's no longer true. On an open, straight road I prefer to go around 80. I'll go 75 if that's how fast the person ahead of me in the left-hand lane is going, but if there isn't a big string of cars ahead of that person I will, if possible, pass. If passing is impossible I will most likely curse involuntarily at the next driver, who might be a retired art therapist or a family court judge, in a combination of English invective and Sicilian gesturing. The worst, obviously, are drivers who change into my lane without my permission. "Nice driving you fucknut!" I heard myself screaming at such a person on Thursday, seemingly against my will. It's terrible. I've become one of those people who need a protective metal-and-glass bubble between them and their fellow commuters just to prevent the collapse of the social contract. I've become Californian.

The other day as I was driving home I noticed I was running low on gas, so I pulled in just before Fairfield to an Arco station that looked like a jelly bean in an anthill. Cars were pointed every which way around the pumps with no perceptible system for ranking whose turn was next, such as a line. Probably because they were selling gas for $3.07, which passes for a bargain around here--I have chosen the worst possible time to start driving. There were four pumps that in theory I could pull up next to and have the gas door on the correct side, but three of them were occupied by cars pointing the other direction. The fourth was technically free, but was practically blocked by cars using other pumps. My New York sensibilities reviving for a moment, I decided to shove my way in between them. I started to pull in and instantly realized why nobody else had adopted this plan. It was impossible to fit a car in that space. I started cursing again, but then a tattooed and grease-covered passenger in a baseball cap alit from one of the other cars to wave me through, and by gum I made it. "I appreciate it," I called to him, "Thanks." "Looks like you've done that before," he said approvingly. I had, of course, since our apartment has the least reasonable parking system I have ever seen. But hell if I didn't sing all the way home with pride at the stranger's feedback.

Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage...

Alexia, an old friend from high school, got married recently in some idyllic beach setting. Idyllic beach weddings are one of the perks that come with opening and then selling New Zealand's only pilates studio. This was one of the photos she sent me, and obviously my favorite. Hers too I suspect. She dared me to use it in my alum notes column. More specifically she dared me to send it to a certain member of our school's alumnae association, with whom my name is already several grades worse than mud ever since I accidentally sent her an email regarding her son's high school sex life. Well, I'm not brazen enough to take Alexia up on her dare, but I feel that posting the picture here will still demonstrate the value of not daring me.

This is what Happens, Larry

Dara and I ate lunch in the sun today. I had my sun gear: hat (check), shades (check), water (check). Can you tell from this picture what I forgot? Funny, I didn't feel like I was burning. I unearthed a swimsuit I haven't worn since the Clinton administration to demonstrate the vivid contrast between the skin that was under my shirt and the skin that was out of it. I trust you're all enjoying the high-quality self-posed photography, too. 

In Memoriam: Floyd Patterson

Mike came home from work telling me that there was an AP news alert with a New Paltz, NY dateline.

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. (AP) - Family member says former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson has died.

"Did you know him?" Mike asked.

I did, actually, when I was a kid. My grandmother drove to mass every morning in her electric blue volvo, and sometimes took me with her. One of the few other parishioners to attend mass during the week was Floyd, an exceptionally gentle, nearly silent, middle-aged man whom I remember always wearing a jacket at the old-school standard of elegance. If I remember correctly, he usually passed around the collection basket, but he may actually have been a lay brother too. I don't think he ever read during mass. My parents told me at some point that he was a world champion boxer. My dad must have recognized him (he used to box in his youth, and at one point had a cat named Dempsey). Or maybe it just kind of made the rounds that Floyd was famous, but I'm not sure if everyone actually knew of his past career. I'm pretty sure he would never have told anyone so himself.

I didn't know Floyd Patterson well; I was a shy child and he was a shy man whom I mostly viewed with childhood detachment as just one of a large cast of local adult characters. But I do remember how thrilling it felt just to know I was in the same room as a champion, even if I never thought about boxing again till the next time I saw him. And it was also thrilling to be one in the know, one who could appreciate that I was in the presence of greatness.

He died of Alzheimer's, among other causes, as did my Nana--perhaps. One obituary described him as a gentleman boxer, and that's how I remember him. Here was a world champion who was infallibly gallant to my grandmother, and who introduced himself to children by his first name.

My Anglophilia Multiplies

34 is not the only place to read about British television.

On Demand cable has a full compliment of BBC America shows. Anna and I have started to watch Coupling, which includes someone from the probably-soon-to-be-defunct Teachers (another BBC knockoff, I think). NBC tried to bring Coupling to America and that was a spectactular failure. NBC actually seems very eager to bring British shows across the pond with varying degrees of success. The Office seems to have succeeded (although given NBC's ratings meltdown, maybe succeed is too strong a statement. Let's go with, is not crashing and burning). The rest, not so much.

I've also started picking up a show called Murder Prevention, which is sort of what passes for gritty on BBC. The show follows a police unit that tracks people who it believes are capable of murder, sets up a controlled operation (without telling the intended victim) where the hopeful killer springs his attack and then arrests said-killer. It's sort of like Medium (which is, incidentally also on NBC) meets cruel violence fantasies.

For what it's worth, we're also reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which American copy editors say is funny but irrelevant to writing for a U.S. newspaper, but which is a scream. That's surprising, given that the book is actually about punctuation. But that's the British for you.

On the Other Hand, Some People are Very Good at Social Marketing

Andy alerted me to this adorable short animated film promoting the use of condoms for lovelorn boys. It is only slightly marred by its French creators having misspelled AIDS as AIDES. Mike says I have to warn you that it isn't safe for work. You're lucky Mike has your back.

One of our Neighbours has a Really Cute Bumpersticker

For your reference, these are our bumper stickers. Note the scratch-marks where Mike tried to remove the top one to preserve his journalistic ethics until he gave up.

The Midnight Recoil

I am up late finishing a term paper for the morning. I was going to brush my teeth as a diversion when I opened the medicine cabinet and found a large, spry waterbug cavorting about the nozzle of my spray-on conditioner. This is the grossest thing I have seen since leaving New Mexico, capitol of the recently-imported mutant flying spotted gigantic talking roach world. One of the nice things about Davis is the relative freedom from disgusting bugs of that family. But this is the second waterbug sighting in a week. This now means that 1) we will have to get roach traps, which means having pesticides in the house, which is a bummer 2) I will have to wake up at five tomorrow to get a new toothbrush across the street because the toothbrushes live in the medicine cabinet, along with the eyedrops and the steroids I put up my nose for rhinitis, though the last two are thankfully covered. In New York when you got someone else's bugs you knew who to blame, i.e. whoever lives underneath you. Now I have no idea who's breeding the bugs crawling up my waterpipes. Not that I don't have downstairs neighbors, but I like them and they've been here longer.

Obviously I woke Mike up to kill the roach. Yes, he has to be at work at six. Yes, I'm a bad wife.

Okay, back to work.

I am Easily Impressed

Driving home from work last night, the local Sports talk radio station announced some portion of its staff would be at a local strip club if people wanted to hang out. This is largely unremarkable given the target audience (especially those losers listening to sports talk radio at 11 p.m. on a Saturday). But I was not ready for the last line of the ad, that the strip club was actually running a canned food drive, and that bringing a donation would get you a reduction on the cover charge. You don't expect something so socially conscious and life-affirming from a business where people pay to watch other people take their clothes off and pay even more to have said naked people actually rub up against you.

Addendum to the Boycott

By the way, I never posted about the rally on Monday as promised because by the time I finished class it was over. In retrospect I'm a little sorry I went to class. Peer pressure, you know.

Public Apology

It is finals week. My current state is best described as drowning. I have grown frightened of my Inbox, and am ignoring it beyond making Mike check it for me just to make sure the city of Berkeley hasn't been buried in an earthquake. Under the circumstances, any really interesting blog posting would be a public record of unpardonable procrastination. Sorry, folks. I'll be back on the horse in a few days.

One Short Post to Tide you Over

Genetic Epi was my penultimate class, and we had a guest lecturer who included a slide devoted to Harry Potter's pedigree. The lecturer argued that family history pointed to wizardry's being an autosomal recessive trait. Being a giant loser, I raised my hand to object "What about squibs?" Turns out that was they guy's last slide. Environmental factors do often mediate genetic expression. The lecturer suggested that Argus Filch's mother drank too much Butter Beer when she was pregnant and prevented the expression of his wizarding genes.

Event Listings

Akil is going on a European/Japanese Tour this summer. Before he leaves, however, he is putting on a farewell show in New York. Being on the West Coast, I cannot attend.

Here's the info:
Akil Dasan & Friends

When: Tuesday May 9th, Meet and Greet 5:30pm, Show at 6:30pm
Location: The Delancey (168 Delancey btw Clinton and Attorney - J to Essex or F to Delancey)

There are a number of performers listed on the e-mail, but I've never heard of them.

Just figured I'd throw that out there.

Television Goes on the Offensive

Many people know of Anna's plan to phase television out of her life. Thanks to a traitor in her midst (me) that plan isn't going well. Now there's this. Yesterday afternoon, we noticed that there was a new choice on our digital cable menu. So we checked it and learned that we now have On Demand cable, which means that we can watch anything we want whenever we want, to a limited to degree. As HBO subscribers we now get a whole library of that network's original shows. There are extended highlights of NBA games. It's really pretty intense.

Or as Anna put it: "I'm never going to get anything done ever again."

I suppose the next question is, if you're controlling when you watch something and picking it out like you're at a video store, is it still television? Or maybe you have so altered the fundamental nature of the traditional transaction that we're edging our way into something else. I'll leave that for the philosophers.

This Day in Activism

A Latino woman in our ad department arrived in the office wearing white and packing salsa today. She was not planning on striking, but did want to do something to show solidarity with those who did. The salsa was delicious. Me? I wore a red shirt in honor of May Day. The school district here saw a ton of absences and I heard that tons of businesses were shuttered in San Francisco and closer to the Bay Area. I didn't even bother to check if my favorite Mexican restaurant in town was open.

I'm interested about the political implications of the immigration issue. Some have suggested that it splits the Republican coalition, but it seems to be that this issue sort of splits both of them. My belief is that it worse for the GOP because the current incarnation of the Republican coalition is actually built on Nixon's Southern Strategy (i.e. veiled racism). No one is in favor of people breaking the law. But when you're talking about solving actual problems it's always smarter tailor an approach to how things are rather than how you would like them to be. Anna and I are basically on the same page when it comes to immigration. My belief is that free trade only makes sense when you have the free flow of human beings as well. If nations had to compete for population (and therefore tax dollars and a labor pool) you would see a liberalization of repressive governments, because people could repatriate at will. Uprooting a family is different than uprooting money and investment, but it's the principle of the thing.

I spent the day mostly trying to support the strike by not putting much money into the economy. I ended up spending exactly $4.50, Itemized that was $3 for the toll on the Benicia Bridge, $1 for an aborted attempt to purchase some parking time from the University of California and $.50 after giving up on that and finding a meter. At least it all went to government entities.

Viva la revolution.