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| France has been restricted to exporting its cheeses exclusively to the Netherlands, while the Belgian chocolate industry has been taxed into bankruptcy so that Dutch chocolate can dominate the market. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, three of the newly admitted EU nations, have been kicked out of the EU for being diddly no-'count countries--Estonia, in particular, with an economy based on trading shiny rocks, always seemed a poor EU candidate, one the no-nonsense Dutch clearly won't tolerate. In a surprise move, Poland was annexed by the mighty Dutch army to provide a flood of Dutch citizens, now emigrating from their crowded country, with a bit of backyard. Also, Slovenia has been plowed from border to border for the already-sprouting cannabis fields. All these quick, efficient changes bespeak the hard-working, down-to-earth, independent-minded Dutch nature, from which the EU will clearly benefit. This reminded me that there are serious privacy concerns with Comcast, as humorously summed up in this other rant, "Comcast Devours Your Life." EXCERPT: "Comcast is not on your side. This is the bottom line. They represent the latest breed of secretive megacorporate info-glutton, a cross between a Homeland Security soul vacuum and Microsoft and that disturbing guy on Friendster who you've never met but who somehow knows your nickname from third grade and wants to buy your underwear." "I have an Ypsi question that I hope you can help me with. I'm wondering if you remember a bar in Ypsi Twp called "T.R.'s Place" that was around in the late 80s and early 90s. Do you perhaps know where it was located, who owned it, and what kind of place it was?" Excerpt: (from para 25): "Cheney, who visited both clubhouses after batting practice, watched part of the game from the box of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and part from a first-row seat next to the Yankees dugout, where he sat between New York Gov. George Pataki and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Cheney was booed when he was shown on the right-field videoboard during the seventh-inning stretch." One person on a local discussion board described his friend calling him from the game: "Even as my friend Michael called me from his seats at the game, God Bless America was still playing in the background. During the 7th inning stretch at Yankees Stadium, they play God Bless America and show on the big screen pictures of anyone famous who's in the audience that night. Dick Cheney is apparently in the audience, and as soon as his face went up, the entire crowd started booing! As my friend Michael tells it, this is the blue-collar Bronx we're talking about, and Cheney is still getting booed not a good sign for the Bush-Cheney ticket." So...Ypsi kids can't go swimming (and I want to go to the Rutherford pool but don't know if it's open or not) because we want to make condos in an unwalkable area out of ped reach of the downtown. Got it. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-29-9:02 p.m.: YPSIDIXIT FELT READY FOR THE APOCALYPSE after riding home from AA to Ypsi on her tried-and-true route: down the Fuller Rd./Medical Center hill, into Gallup Park, all the way down the path to the dam, up the diabolical hill to WCC, through the placid St. Joe's campus, south along the EMU stadium to the secret path, through the EMU campus and whiz down Cross into Depot Town and then home. Time: 75 minutes, a mere 15 minutes longer than it takes on the bus, but with the fact that I leave work at 5 and wait for the 5:15, it evens out to the same time, which means that biking home is a painless way to build exercise into my schedule that I'm too lazy to do otherwise.
To calculate fat and calories burned and pounds of toxic emissions saved during biking, fill out the "Bike Power Calculator" (ypsidixit: 409 calories (!), .12 pounds of fat, .25 pounds toxic emissions). ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-29-7:27 p.m.: FOLLOWING LEIGHTON'S AND MARK MAYNARD'S REACTIONS to Fahrenheit 911, I'd like to add a few words of my own. [WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD]Made by an ideologue and polemicist, this powerful movie doesn't present a balanced view but succeeds in its mission. There are some masterful strokes, such as the black screen, with just sound, when the planes hit the World Trade Center--a horrible, visceral moment. When Lila, Flint mother of a son killed in Iraq, visits DC she breaks down in front of the White House, near a bed of young tulips just sprouting. And Moore's comparison of two documents, one with one additional blacked-out name, is effective. The movie moves along well in its daisy chain of questions, suggestions, and implications, but getting slammed in the face with certain gruesome images--like wounded people and a room full of businesspeople baldly discussing how to profit from the war--is its real power. Ypsidixit was glad to note that the Michigan Theater is apparently not enforcing the R rating, which I understand is voluntary for theaters--whole passels of under-17 high school kids were entering. When Ypsidixit left, the line for the next show stretched down Liberty to Wizziwig...on a Tuesday night. A range of opinions at a discussion forum at IMDB. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-28-10:27 p.m.: CRAYOLA WANTS TO KNOW WHAT COLOR YOU THINK THE "MICHIGAN" CRAYON SHOULD BE: Crayola is coming out with a special box of 50 crayons, one for each state. People are invited to suggest a color to represent their state. Cast your vote here ("you have a chance to shape Crayola history.") This subject is near to Ypsidixit's heart. When she was a tad, she'd make stapled booklets and put a crayoned/scissored-out patch of color on each page, then name it. She thought being a color-namer, like at a cosmetics firm, would be the coolest job ever. She still thinks so, and is baffled by one co-worker's inability to recognize fuchsia as something other than pink. MY VOTE: Ignoring the obvious range of blues to designate the Great Lakes, Ypsidixit nominates the edgier "rust," as in belt, for the Michigan Crayon. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-28-6:43 p.m.: ADBUSTERS CALLS FOR CULTURE JAMMERS TO FLY THE ANTI-CORPORATE FLAG JULY 4TH. It's eye-catching, no doubt about it. But Ypsidixit wonders if it's just preaching to the choir, considering that this flag is unaccompanied by something like "10 tips for subverting corporate culture and consumerism." Ypsidixit can attest that flying this flag in her flag-heavy working-class neighborhood wouldn't, um, fly. In lieu of possibly alienating some neighbors and being a hypocrite (Ypsidixit buys used whenever possible but has a cozy relationship with a mortgage corporation that she doesn't want to relinquish) Ypsidixit's solution is to fly this $25 flag in her mind only while continuing to try and dodge consumerism. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-27-11:40 p.m.: BOOKS READ: Albert Goldman's scathing 1981 bio of Elvis, "Elvis." Despised by Elvis fans, this portrait of a drug-addled, selfish, dirty, nouveau-riche hillbilly Elvis makes for gripping reading, for the same reason people slow down when passing car accidents. Despite its vicious tone, the 700-page book's painstaking level of detail, based on over 600 interviews, gives it an appearance of authority. Great summer read for Ypsilantians cooling their heels on their patios after a hard day of aimless puttering while grilling bratwurst-tomato-onion kebabs on a BBQ improvised from a bundt pan and an oven rack. [image courtesy the New York Review of Books].
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-25-8:34 p.m.: GLORIOUS, GLORIOUS: Ypsidixit is drinking in the beauty in her flower gardens. Now blooming: giant daylily in orange, magenta, and yellow; shasta daisy; deep red Asian lilies; potted topiary hibiscus; pink and orange lilies; wild geranium; magnificent gloriosa daisy (like black-eyed susan except with a cinnamon-red heart around the seedpod); yarrow; black-eyed-susan, helianthus, clematis, impatiens; Star of Malta; lantana; verbena; and pink and red poppies. Plus milkweed, which Ypsidixit is allowing to colonize her Daylily Hill for the sake of monarchs. Milkweed is actually a stately and attractive plant, it turns out. Quite pretty. So what's blooming in your garden?
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-25-6:45 p.m.: BIKERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROADS IN WASHTENAW COUNTY: from the "History of Washtenaw County Roads":"The impetus to improve roads in the late 1800's and 1900's was led by the demand for bicycling, and the Michigan State Highway Department was formed in 1905 in response to bicyclists demands for an improved road system." Geez. With that legacy, you'd think they could simply paint a silly old bike-lane line on each and every road connecting my home in Ypsi to my workplace in AA (I'd love to have one on Washtenaw). But no. Biking between Ypsi and AA, which I've done, boils down to getting frenetically honked at by cell-chatting SUV matrons while clinging desperately to the righthand two centimeters of gutter, taillight a-flashin', or clanging over butt-bruising bumpy sidewalks. Nevertheless, Ypsidixit toughly perseveres. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-25-5:53 p.m.: IF YOU'RE A TRAIN NUT LIKE ME, you might like to know when to expect the 6 Amtrak passenger trains that pass by the Sidetrack every day (weekends also). They are:1. 8:13 a.m. the westbound Wolverine, #351, from Pontiac to Chicago. Ypsidixit has discovered that if she takes the 5:15 p.m. #3 bus, gets off at EMU, and instead of biking up Forest cruises down the new odiferous asphalt Farmer's Market driveway, goes behind Aubree's, and pretends to fiddle with her brakes for 2 minutes at the Sidetrack, she can catch the Twilight Limited heading into Ann Arbor. Ah, simple pleasures. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-25-12:33 p.m.: FREE PRESS'S "TECH TODAY" REPORTER MIKE WENDLAND SEEKS BEST BLOGS: Send your blog name, http address, and a contact phone # to mwendland(at)freepress(dot)com. He's gonna check 'em out & publish a "Best of Michigan Blogs" article. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-24-8:33 p.m.: THE TERSE BLOG (paper variety) of early Ann Arbor area settler John Geddes, who surely never imagined we'd be poring over his jottings on new-fangled light-boxes 150 years hence. 1845 "This District discharged their teacher, Mr. Willson, for want of food in the school." 1846 "Last day of good Sleighing this winter." 1847 "This day is appointed to try Dr. Thomas Blackwood for breach of Seventh Commandment by the Sessions of Ypsilanti M. Church." 1848 "Wife weighed 92 #. Wife's mother weighed 103 #. I weighed 148 #. Rachel weighed 23#." 1849 "Smith Botsford left his fathers house without telling where he was going. He got on the Passenger train about ten O clock going west. He took $200 in money..." More years of diaries (at bottom). ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-23-9:48 p.m.:
HUMAN ACTIVITY HAS CHANGED EVOLUTION:---Formerly rural mice faced with the growth of Chicago actually evolve a nw genome in a mere 200 years: "This replacement in a population of one genome by another is the modern definition of evolution," says one scientist. ---Red squirrels genetically push their breeding date up 18 days in response to global warming: "For the first time ever, a University of Alberta researcher has discovered that an animal species has changed its genetic make-up to cope with global warming...the first time...a species has responded genetically to cope with environmental forces." ---soapberry bugs evolve new proboscises in response to new plants used in landscaping (scroll 1/4 way down). ---bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics due to antibiotic discharge into water (scroll 1/4 way down): "Of bacteria isolated from sludge remaining after wastewater treatment...46.4% were resistant to multiple antibiotics. Sewage from hospitals and pharmaceutical plants has been shown to contribute to antibiotic resistance..." ---Bats, kites, and egrets adapt to urban Singapore (scroll down to "Episode 6.") ---Gulls and raccoons become urban dwellers. (thanks to an idea suggested by leighton) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-22-9:46 p.m.: PAPER MILL DIARIES: Ypsidixit has been too down over the wholesale destruction of the paper mill to post much about it lately. However, today as she rode the usual Huron River #3 bus into work, she heard a (loud) conversation the female bus driver had with a rider as the bus cruised by the crumbling ruins."Yep, my grandfather worked at that mill. He was hired in 1938. Worked there all his life," stated the bus driver. Ypsidixit watches the destruction of this monument to thousands of blue-collar lives with sadness as she bikes home every day past the plaqued, preserved precious historical homes of the erstwhile moneyed Ypsilanti elite. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-22-9:03 p.m.: THE FOURTH OF JULY IS A TWO-MONTH CELEBRATION in Ypsidixit's neighborhood, with sporadic fireworks starting up in June and continuing well into the dog days. Ypsidixit was just startled out of a gloomy meditation by a fusillade of bangs a couple minutes ago, and last night her dog practically went into conniptions on an evening walk as folks on a neighboring street set off bangy flashy things as Ypsidixit and dog walked by.Ypsidixit loves fireworks, but in her fogeyish way doesn't understand why people can't set off a bunch of them on the 4th and be content with that. The sticking point is the confluence of flammable asphalt shingles and the popularity of bottle rockets, which litter Ypsidixit's yard in summer. Ypsidixit doesn't want to spend her summer evenings manning the hose while certain neighbors ignite every flammable sparkly flying thing known to man. Grouchy old Ypsidixit. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-22-7:22 p.m.: MOURNING DOVE HUNTING UPROAR: Granholm's decision to allow limited hunting of mourning doves in a few southern lower-penisula counties strikes the non-hunting and animal-loving Ypsidixit as a shrewd political move that has won approval from hunters without outraging dove fans too much. Nevertheless, the move predictably inspired a whole page of indignance in today's Free Press letters section. In such outraged responses, Ypsidixit notes the illogical species favoritism that flares up over this edible bird but which apparently is content with the fact that plenty of other animals are regularly hunted in Michigan. One writer noted, "the bird is the symbol of peace!" It's not. The white dove is the symbol of peace. And even if it were, so what? It's illogical, not to mention patronizing, to declare that because one species arbitrarily dubs another as a symbol of peace it's any more worth protecting. One particular warlike mourning dove at Ypsidixit's feeders is a bossy rude cuss. Last, Ypsidixit notes that in her experience many if not most hunters are acutely aware of and respectful of their effect on the environment, and hunt responsibly. Ypsidixit must recognize that, given that humans are and always have been omnivores, an accurate, quick shot to a vital in an animal that will be consumed is probably a whole lot more humane than the atrocious conditions cows suffer every day in Michigan CAFOs before heading off to crowded slaughterhouses. Anyone who eats a burger at a cookout this weekend has no logical base from which to protest the hunting of mourning doves. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-21-7:45 p.m.: MOST BUTTERFLIES LIVE only a week or two. Considering the entire 3.5-11 month lifespan from egg to winged adult, the winged adult represents the senior citizen stage of a butterfly's entire life. The 2003 Washtenaw County butterfly survey reveals that almost 100 species may be seen in the county, some of the most common being the cabbage white, the clouded sulphur, the alfalfa butterfly, the silver-spotted skipper, and the pearl crescent. Plus monarchs of course. And the queen of Michigan gardens and my favorite, the glorious eastern tiger swallowtail (pictured). Short list of the Michigan-suitable plants you can plant to attract caterpillars and adult butterflies. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-21-6:27 p.m.:
BIGGER FIREFLIES: SEVEN VISIBLE SATELLITES are passing over Ypsi tonight, veiled by the rainclouds unfortunately. Use this page* on a clear night to see what's going overhead. Of course there are 180 degrees in the visible night sky, so if the forecast says 30 degrees NE, just imagine the sky as a protractor. *if asked: username: Laura Ypsidixit. password: ypsidixit ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-20-10:23 p.m.:
ENTRANCED BY FIREFLIES, Ypsidixit watched the green blips of stationary females and the J-shaped lime-light swoops of searching males in her backyard. Two males zeroed in on a female near Ypsidixit's maple tree. Ypsidixit got so interested she lay down in the grass to observe. The female clung to the tip of a blade of grass while the males fumbled hither and yon, up and down on adjacent blades of grass, sending out questioning flashes as if to say, "Um, sorry, where were you, again?" The seemingly exasperated female responded with increasingly short, curt flashes--"I'm RIGHT HERE, idiots! On the same blade of grass I've been all evening!" One male wandered off on a tangent and the other fell onto the ground. Not having seen such a bumbling attempt to mate since her own erstwhile marriage, Ypsidixit took pity on the nookie-challenged insects and bent a blade of grass so that one male could reach the female. He found her and much antennae-waving took place--until, overcome by excitement, they both fell off the grass blade into a tangle of weeds. At this point Ypsidixit threw up her hands and gave up on her attempt to ensure future firefly generations. There's only so much I can do.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-20-2:29 a.m.:  TOP 100 BRITISH ALBUMS: The Observer's Music Monthly surveyed 100 musicians, music critics, and DJs to find the best 100 British albums of all time. The Beatles get as high as #2 with "Revolver." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-19-10:55 a.m.: DEATH BY IPOD: In other Mathers news, a Ms. Mathers of Memphis blugeoned her boyfriend to death with an iPod after he protested her illegally downloading music. Jeez Louise. Note that the "Related News" advertisement on the news story page is for great deals on iPods. Wow--the "Headlined News.com" ad dept. sure has its eye on the bottom line--never mind taste. (via metafilter) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-18-6:29 p.m.:
DESPITE LAST-MINUTE PAPAL LOBBYING, no reference to God will appear in the new EU constitution. Problems selecting an EU head continue, the voting system (which seeks to ensure smaller nations won't be steamrollered by big-population states) is mind-boggling, and there's disagreement as to whether the EU is just a trading bloc or a cozier system with an integrated EU-wide military and other functions. But if everything's ironed out, the EU will have financial, political, and military clout comparable to the US. Two superpowers?(via the guardian) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-18-5:24 p.m.: ART FAIR UPDATE: A couple days ago AAIO posted an Mlive story detailing the theme for this year's Street Art Fair (the one ignominiously kicked off South U and banished to Ingalls Mall by Burton Tower). I got curious, so I checked out this artist. A sample of her work for the Fair is at right. Now, I'm just a layperson, but I find this unappealing, unartistic, and uninspired. It is not art. It's creepy-looking. I don't like the other works by this artist, either--I find them unattractive to say the least. I'm not here to gratuitously slam on this person or the fairs. I actually enjoy the art fairs, in measured doses--I'm just surprised that this Fair would choose this as the theme for an art fair. As an old linguistics prof of mine at EMU used to say, "It's FLAT BAD." Vent your Art Fair rage here. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-18-12:28 p.m.: JIMMY BUFFETT THREATENING TO SUE LOCAL PLAYWRIGHT: Jimmy Buffett doesn't like that local playwright Barton Bund's current play is called "Margaritaville". Free Press story. In his own emailed press release today, Bund notes, "It's no joke. The Blackbird Theatre has received threatening phone calls all week from Jimmy Buffett's attorneys." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-18-8:34 a.m.: FOX NEWS: THUMBS-UP FOR "FAHRENHEIT 9/11": Fox gives a very positive review of the film. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-17-9:53 p.m.: YPSIDIXIT is delighted to see that the latest Ypsi Courier contains a column written by Onyx, Judy Busack�s cat (renew my subscription!) No sarcasm: any paper that has a cat-written column has my vote.Onyx grouses about that dog in the news who learned over 200 words of English. But there�s a conundrum: Onyx sneers at the supposed virtue of using words, and yet has just written a whole column, using words. Presumably she means WRITTEN words are OK. I was a tad confused, nonetheless. At any rate, I�m wondering if your pet is similarly gifted. My pup understands the following phrases: �Time to go to bed� (go into the garage and her Dogloo when it�s time for me to go to work) �Want to go in the car?� �Want to take a walk?� and �D�you want some food?� What does your creature understand? ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-17-9:33 p.m.: YPSIDIXIT IS HEARTENED TO SEE that as of Thursday evening, the top 2 forwarded NYT stories in its "Most Forwarded Stories" list relate to the 9/11's commission's findings that there was no link between Saddam H and Bush'd decision to go to war. She hopes this represents a growing awareness of how fraudulent is the basis for this "war."1. The Plain Truth 2. Smack That Cheney-Bot! Sonic Youth: "Secret Girls" Kate Bush "The Sensual World" Jefferson Airplane "Rejoyce" Lou Reed "My House" BLOOMSDAY is the only quasi-holiday I can think of that celebrates the day on which a work of fiction is set. Ypsidixit read most of Ulysses in a daze and a kayak under a willow tree in a pond in a Girl Scout camp in Indiana, where she was a counselor one summer during college. Her experience with Ulysses included dropping it in the pond, after which it was mercifully too moldy to finish. Ypsidixit hadn't tried to understand it, just read and read till she felt like a tiny leaf floating on a mighty torrent of words. Years later Ypsidixit assailed this work once again. Never made it past the kidney-frying scene, around page 12. Tied with Moby Dick (which Ypsidixit loves with a passion) as the least-read great work of literature, Ulysses is generally viewed as being either a timeless work of genius or completely unreadable. Vote please (have you read it?) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-16-12:58 p.m.: EMINEM'S EX ARRESTED AT ANN ARBOR HOTEL: Mathers Left Court-Ordered Drug Treatment Program. "The former wife of rapper Eminem was arrested at an Ann Arbor hotel on Wednesday, according to police." Story.____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-16-12:40 p.m.: EMU PRESIDENT RESIGNS, WITHOUT RETIREMENT WORRIES: "Eastern Michigan University President Samuel A. Kirkpatrick will step down July 31 with a resignation package that will cost the school more than $470,000." Story. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-16-8:27 a.m.:  ROMANCING THE STONES: "Julian Cope may well be the only antiquarian researcher to have appeared on Top of the Pops while stoned on acid. He talks to John Vidal about why we venerate landscape, the politics of heritage, shamanism, and the prehistoric nature of football worship." Story.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-16-8:23 a.m.: YPSIDIXIT CLAIMS TITLE for best salvaged item, ever. Peacock chair. Beat that. THE STORY: Ypsidixit was quietly biking home as usual from EMU and was diverted to Cross Street due to all the uproar on Forest. After laboring up the hill and noting for the fifteenth million time that the burned-out house in back of the Thompson building is still burned out and hideously unrepaired, she stopped to cross the street. Ypsidixit beheld a wicker peacock chair sitting amid garbage bags. She rushed to investigate. Surely it had its seat broken out or had some other major flaw. But no. It was perfect. On a bike, what to do? CHAPTER TWO: Blessed with MacGyver-like ingenuity, Ypsidixit quickly figured out a way of carrying the lightweight wicker chair home on a bike, but vetoed this plan as she didn't want to look like a complete idiot. Instead, she carefully lay the peacock chair down, camouflaged it with garbage bags, and sped home to fetch her car. CHAPTER THREE: Who knew a peacock chair could fit in a wee Sunfire? Not Ypsidixit. But miraculously, it did. As Ypsidixit left the scene, she noticed a white car in her wake whose occupants stopped and searched the site dejectedly. Quick action gets the prize--that's Ypsidixit's motto. ADDENDUM: Now Ypsidixit wants to know what's the most fabulous freebie you've ever found? ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-15-8:53 p.m.: "YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT IRAQ" for seventeen searing and accurate reasons, says Chris Bowers. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-14-10:55 p.m.: THE MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA HAS SLAPPED "FAHRENHEIT 911" with a potentially market-limiting "R" rating. The film's distributors, Lions Gate and IFC Films, have filed protest, and Michael Moore responded with a typical Moorsian quote:"It is sadly very possible that many fifteen and sixteen year olds will be asked and recruited to serve in Iraq in the next couple of years. If they are old enough [to serve], they certainly deserve the right to see what is going on in Iraq." A co-worker asked me what the grounds were for the "R" rating. "Violent and disturbing images and for language." He remarked, with some amusement, "Oh, they mean the word "war"? (this was posted on metafilter but I heard about it from someone who works at a local theater). ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-14-12:02 a.m.: HE PREDICTED IN 1929 THAT ONE DAY "great transcontinental roads for motor vehicles crossed and crisscrossed by thousands of good roads in every other direction will in turn revolutionize the social and economic habits of all the people in North America."--Dr. Frederick Cook, discredited "discoverer" of the North Pole, She was delighted. There's an outdoor area with a good variety of sun and shade perennials and annuals. The indoor area has every sort of garden doodad ranging from cutesy garden frogs to elegant wooden birdcages and a wrought iron bird bath in the shape of a crane. Most of the garden decorations were too froufrou for Ypsidixit's rough-hewn tastes, but she noted the shop as THE place to go for a unique gift for a gardening friend. In particular, Mantis has a collection of vintage salvaged wrought iron gates that would be perfect as elegant trellises. Ypsidixit bought a flat of lantana and one of blazing red verbena, sunflower seeds, a giant suet feeder and suet cake, and a dog collar and leash. She met the shop's creaky yet friendly 22-year old cat, Thomas, and chatted with the very pleasant guy who apparently runs the place, who provided attentive service not to be had at Meijer's. Highly partial to shops with resident cats, (like Bicycles in Town, which has a sweet kitty) Ypsidixit is making Mantis her primary gardening shop from here on out, and she thanks readers for directing her to it. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-11-10:50 p.m.: REAGAN�S DEATH SHOWS YPSIDIXIT HOW POINTLESSLY POLARIZED this country has become.Instead of a nation of independent thinkers who could weigh the good and the bad of Reagan�s presidency with some measure of thoughtfulness and regard for the big picture, she sees only hagiography and grave-pissing. The hagiography is undeserved, and the grave-pissing is crass and wholly unbecoming. There�s a difference between hating bad political policy and hating a person, one likely with a similar measure of good and bad as oneself. One who endured unknown torment as he witnessed his periods of lucidity alternate more and more with bewilderment and terrifying alienation. Such a fate does not excuse hideous political policy, likely engineered by shadowy lackeys but overseen by the president. But Ypsidixit sees callous, gratuitous disrespect as not only pointless, but more of a comment on the knee-jerk disrespecter than on the subject. Ypsidixit has plenty of shortcomings and a few particular bad weaknesses. But she�d like to be remembered as a person who loved her family, friends, animals, and the Earth, who added more leaves to the surface of the planet, and who in general minded her own business. Quote: ��in terms of international politics, there is no man who can be credited with more to do with the fall of the communist dictatorships (the big one where I was born, and smaller ones as a result) than him (gorby and thatcher notwithstanding). And for that I will always hold him in high esteem. And on a personel note, I will always remember the gatherings of adults in our kitchen in Moscow, who would listen to the (forbidden) Radio Liberty and say �may he be the most uncompromising man ever and win over the criminals that run our half of the world.� [comment on metafilter]. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-10-10:33 p.m.: ALL THE TALK ABOUT PUTTING REAGAN ON THE DIME has Ypsidixit thinking about money.The US has the world's ugliest money. I�m looking at a $20 right now. A weirdly encephalitic Andrew Jackson is flanked by a hideously deformed blue eagle and wobbly script proclaiming �TWE�USA�USA�NTY.� Rendered in mold green with a hideous peachy sheen, this item is UGLY. Ypsidixit proposes that the entire paper bill system follow the quarter�s example and go to a state-based system of 50 individually designed bills of each denomination. Each state would start with a nationwide template that could be read by any bill-accepting vending machine or parking meter. After that, each state could choose one native plant, bird, and animal to decorate its bill. Skip the dead white guys. Yes, we're all deeply reverent towards the country's founders and all, but--they don't figure much in the modern popular imagination anymore. Ypsidixit is in favor of a system of money that resembles nature trading cards, in the naive hope that people will take more pride and interest in their local environment, will take interest in learning about other states� environments, and will forget the TV/buying plastic crap/cocooning in McMansions for five seconds to calm their minds and attune a bit more to the natural world. In contrast: some of the world's most beautiful money. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-06-10-5:48 p.m.: MT. RUSHMORE-REAGAN WARS: YPSIDIXIT HAS NEWS for the dopes who want to carve Reagan into Mt. Rushmore. There isn't enough stone left. There was just barely enough outcropping to carve the four faces there now. But, ever the peacemaker, Ypsidixit offers a solution. Sure, go ahead & carve Reagan--just make him the size of a baseball. Park him on Lincoln's neck, like a mini-goiter, and install a few ReaganScopes so that you could see it from the viewing platform. Problem solved. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
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NETHERLANDS ASSUMES THE 6-MONTH EU PRESIDENCY ON JULY 1 till the end of 2004. Mindful of the near-impossibility of getting any goddam thing done in six measly months, practical Dutch officials have quickly enacted sweeping changes, inspiring admiration from this Dutch-American observer. 
COMCAST RANT: The top of my co-worker's head blew off today and hung spinning in the air like a UFO as steam poured out of his head, just like in the cartoons, as he ranted about Comcast's inept attempts to fix a broken cable. They have an outpost on South Industrial but after sending a truck they still couldn't fix it...and refused to pro-rate his bill for the days he was without service. 