Someone wrote this letter to Salon:

The recent media focus on Rosa Parks reminds me of the shock I experienced in college when I first learned that prior to her moment on the bus, Parks had been an activist with her local NAACP, and had attended the renowned Highlander School for civil rights leaders. Since then, I have felt there was something insidious about the portrayal of Parks as a simple seamstress who was too tired to move to the back of the bus - that as a child, I was denied a lesson about the power of political organizing, and about the intentionality and autonomy of a brave young civil rights leader, in favor of a quaint fable about a humble Negro who accidentally caused change to happen.

Yes. Yes. It was a planned action. People had been acting up on public transport in Montgomery at least since black soldiers returned from fighting in World War II and were forced to defer to white civilians. Parks had a history of activism. This wasn't some happy accident. Of course she was still very brave, and a wonderful symbol of the movement. But I couldn't agree more with that letter-writer.

(The fucking Neville Brothers. Shitty song *and* bad history.)

When you think nothing can shock you any more... that nothing else can make you laugh in incredulous disbelief at its profound cheesiness... that nothing about western society has the power to make you blink twice... don't give up! Look at this:

The Holy Land Experience.

A Floridian theme park in which Christ's crucifixion and resurrection are reenacted every three hours. Make sure to stop by the Jerusalem Street Market for souvenirs, and the Oasis Palms Cafe for authentic middle eastern cuisine...

Just... wow.

I don't know what 'Primary hard disk drive not found. Fixed optical drive not found. No bootable devices' means, but I'm willing to bet that it's really really not good at all. And that repetitive clicking thing? Funky, yes, but not encouraging.

Sigh. Live, laptop! Live!

Maybe it's just been a long day of work (on Labour Day, no less!) and baseball tragedy, but for some reason this thread is amusing me no end.

Rage Against the Miami Sound Machine. Ween Latifah. Hee!

So my laptop has gone a bit bung, and I had to reinstall Windows, and it's still giving me quite a high proportion of blue screens of death, and it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps I should back that thing up before I lose every photo I've taken for the last four years. I was burning a CD of all the photos and discovered, in one of those weird outer rim areas of the computer, an entire folder of our LA/San Diego trip in 2002 that I'd totally forgotten about!



It's me! Live! At the Hollywood Bowl!

Don't get me wrong. Baseball is my favourite American sport. I watched the Ken Burns baseball series twice. In my ill-fated years of grad school, I wrote an essay which was partially about the role of ballparks in the growth of mass urban leisure in America in the early twentieth century. I have teared up more than once when watching a group of paunchy, goateed men jump up and down in unison on a pitchers' mound. Today, I was nauseous for three straight innings, and thrilled that my predictions about the Astros' rough-as-guts Dust Bowl Migrant pitcher, Roy Oswalt, came true. I'm happy for Biggio and Bagwell, who have played for the team for so many years with so little reward. I'm happy for Houston, who didn't have the luxury of a curse or the comfort of having any kind of mystique about their forty-five year losing streak. All of those things make me feel good.

But really, what I'm happiest about is that Brent doesn't have that awful, haunted gaze into the middle distance any more. That 'Houston Sports Fucked Me Again' stare. It's hard to live in a house with a Baseball Goth, and the past two days have been tough going. So thank you, Oswalt. I am very grateful.

New Yorkers! You need meat pies!

I'm 31.

The inevitable and particularly wondrous birthday handbag:



Come back, Danni! Come baaaaaaaack!

Last night we saw the new Supergrass video for 'Low C'. It is set in the Weeki Wachee Springs mermaid park in Florida and is so hugely adorable that I thought I would burst with glee. I once saw a documentary about older American roadside attractions that lost a lot of their business when the interstate highways were built, and Weeki Wachee featured prominently. It's been one of my 'I wish I could see that someday' destinations for some time.