For the record, I really wanted to be on Blogger, but after only one post, it became obvious that their setup was so buggy as to be unusable. And the energy inside their discussion boards was unbearably negative, which indicated the bugs wouldn't be fixed on any kind of speedy schedule. So TypePad it is.

By subscription. I'm taking donations if you have any money you want to throw at me.

Oh! but sadly, I just found out Melt! is closed!

There's still Thursday Grilled Cheese Night at Campanile here in Los Angeles, if you don't mind a little wait and a $14 sandwich.

"Military leaders in Thailand have staged a coup, suspended the constitution and declared martial law.

"Army chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin said the military leadership had formed a council for political reform and ousted the Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

"The coup leaders say the cabinet and parliament have been abolished, but power will be returned to the people."

"It is the first coup attempt in 15 years in a country where they used to be commonplace. There were 17 of them between 1932 and 1991."

Interesting development. Thaksin was very unpopular. Glad not to be in BKK this week...

The LA Times has done an in-depth series of stories on the world's seas called Altered Oceans. It's absolutely worth reading.

Here's a summary of the series:

On Sunday, July 30, the Los Angeles Times will publish a ground-breaking five-part series, "Altered Oceans," that looks at the man-made interlocking stresses that have created more than 150 known "dead zones" in the world's oceans. Those stresses have led to a reduction in marine life, an ever-increasing injury and infection rate among marine mammals and fish, and the dramatic growth of the types of toxic bacteria and algae that ruled the oceans at the dawn of evolution.

The series was written by Times staff writers Ken Weiss and Usha McFarling, and features photography and video by Times' award-winning photojournalists Rick Loomis and Brian VanderBrug.

If you are an educator interested in the series, I encourage you to contact the LAT to inquire about copies or reprints in the series. (213) 237-5000

(A detailed writeup at the jump.)

I heard the loud bang of a small wreck in front of the house, then wondered why my car was shaking. Crap. The man driving the mustang, who was on his way to pick up his daughter from school, apologized and explained he was avoiding a blue SUV who was barreling up the street near the center, and had to choose between hitting the SUV and driver or try to get by my car. His judgement—or should I say, his margin of error—was off by about 6 inches, it seems.

His wheel broke off. We exchanged information and he called AAA to get his car towed home.

There are two creepy things about this, in addition to it being a complete pain in the ass. Yesterday I read Black Cowboy, Wild Horses to the class, and a student had asked what mustangs are (the wild horses are central to this story about a cowboy who had a gift for rounding them up). Before I could answer, a girl spoke up and said they were a car. Everyone laughed because it was clear there were no cars in this book. I explained that they named the car after wild horses (well, actually they first named it after the P-51, a US World War II fighter plane, which was probably named after the horses, but close enough). She suddenly remembered the little horse logo on the car, and I had a picture of my all-time favorite car, a '69 Mustang, in my head.

Then, 24 hours later, one broadsides my car.

If my high school crush—the guy who used to drive the '69 Mustang—turns up in the next week, I'll be a little freaked out.

I was having trouble working it yesterday (somehow the Bluetooth function in the phone had been turned off, so the headset had no one to talk to), and it was cracking G up listening to my end of it. All he could hear was:

CALL. MOM. (and the nice lady in the phone would say, Did you say, Call Mary?)

NO.

(Did you say, Call Tom?)

NO.

I hang up and try again.

CALL. MOM. (Did you say, Call. Mom.?)

YES. (Dialing: 1-3....)

Then I realize it's 2am where my mom lives and I hang up.

I tap the button again.

TEA. EARL GRAY. HOT.

I started giggling. G never watched much TV, so he didn't really get it. I didn't get a potted plant, but I was cracking myself up.

There's more on the naming ceremony here. Here is a summary of the Objibwe ceremony, from the FBFW website:

The Naming Ceremony gives us our "Spirit Name" which gives us recognition with the spirit world. It is said that it is easier to find the name for a young person because the name is close by - as the child has just come from the spirit world. As you get older, however, your name drifts farther away and is more difficult to find...Four male and four female sponsors who stand by the person being named in the ceremony have the responsibility of walking alongside this person during his or her life. They act as advisors or confidants through good times and bad, and publicly vow to support and guide the person being named. The Spirit World, hearing the name, then accepts and can recognize the face of the child as a living thing for the first time. The Spirit World and the ancestors then guard the child and prepare a place for him or her when their life ends.

This reminds me a little bit of formal Hebrew naming ceremonies that occur on the 8th day after birth at the bris (for boys), or in the synagogue (for girls). During the naming ceremony, the parents explain why they have chosen that name for the child, and the mother and child are blessed.

Six years ago, an oil spill in Australia killed three-fourths of the Fairy Penguin population on Phillip Island. An environmental rescue group used doll sweaters to insulate the penguins who had been de-oiled but weren't producing their own oils yet. News spread on the internet, and pretty soon the penguins were getting handmade jumpers from London to the Latter Day Saints.

Well the project "went viral" via sites like this one and the group collected 15,000 penguin sweaters. The Tasmanian Conservation Trust doesn't need any more jumpers for its birds, but it does need help protecting them from getting squashed by cars.

The same knitter pointed me to an original tree-hugger sweater, with a link to a pattern, even!

Actually, now that I think about it, it's not actually Chapstick, but Blistex lip balm. I think they are made by the same people, anyway.

It's hard to find info online for removing the stains, so I wrote the company. Hopefully they'll eventually post instructions on their own website. If you need to know how to do it, click to the jump.

bid on me!

My knitting group's auction of a gorgeous handknit child's sweater ends in just two days! We're raising money for Tsunami Volunteer in Khao Lak, Thailand, where I volunteered for a few months earlier this year and in 2005.

Check out the auction!

beanies.DSCF2340

I've been trying to wrap up some projects with my knitting (and crochet!) group, Knitzilla!, before all the teaching madness begins.

Here's the good news:
Our Afghanalong for hurricane survivors brought together 36 knitters across the country to make 43 blankets, 31 hats and 33 scarves to send to the Gulf Coast! I wrapped the project up, since it's about 80 degrees there now.

We also sent 16 Rad Bad Beanies to Colorado, to support urban teens on wilderness outings. My goal was to collect 250 hats this spring. Oops. We spent time sending blankets to Katrinaland instead. Luckily the outings are in groups of 5, so what we do send can be split up in a fair way. We're continuing this project for a while, if you'd like to help out. (We'll also take donations for postage and packing tape.)

And, we're raffling a handknit girl's sweater on eBay until May 19th! All proceeds help Tsunami Volunteer!

Even more impressive is their support of the field by keeping the paper privately owned— forming a not-for-profit instead of selling the paper for cash and watching it get eaten by a major corporation.

Sometimes doing things the old-fashioned way makes more sense than "progress."

And I'm not saying that just because Greg worked on it. Really!

It's a lot of fun, especially if you love animated films, like I do!

We have seen a narrowing of the purpose of the newspaper in the eyes of its owner. Under the old local owners, a newspaper's capacity for making money was only part of its value. Today it is everything. Gone is the notion that a newspaper should lead, that it as an obligation to its community, that it is beholden to the public.

This phenomenon he illustrates is one of the main reasons I wasn't sorry when the LAT gave me the boot in a ploy for higher profit margins. Companies with this philosophy staff departments that have to live by this philosophy, even if they don't believe it themselves. The result is fewer staff, overworked staff, vicious inside politics, increasingly low morale, and often a diminishing product (albeit with occasional rays of light sparked by the kind of creativity required to accomplish Good in a limited situation).

He goes on to point out that due to capital gains tax laws, it's more advantageous for corporations to trade large companies for stock, than for an individual buyer to buy outright and get hit up with hefty tax.

Carroll recommends The Elements of Journalism, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, as a clarification of journalists' beliefs, in the face of impersonal corporate moneygrubbing.

By the way, have you ever wondered about the diversity of journalists and newsrooms? They aren't. A recent ASNE study puts minorities at 13.87% of newsroom staff, with one quarter of US newspapers staffed wholly by white journalists. On the upside, this is up from 3.95% in 1978. (Also via Romenesko.)