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| Excerpt: "Everybody enjoyed it." -------> REMINDER: Today is the last day to write a note or email if you, like me, want to support a local train stop in Ypsi! (see post below for email mailto link). American journalist Dahr Jamail reports on events in Baghdad and Fallujah. Journalist Naomi Klein reports from Baghdad; good globalization faqs and links on her site. Journalist Andrea Schmidt, affiliated with Montreal group The Iraq Solidarity Project, reports from Iraq. Iraqi blogger Raed In The Middle. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-11-1:57 p.m.:   CALLED "THE 'BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE' OF FAST FOOD," the Sundance-wowing film "Supersize Me" chronicles what happens to filmmaker Morgan Spurlock when he eats only fast food for a month. Aside from his worried doctor telling him "Your liver is sick. It is now like pate," and violent mood swings, vomiting, loss of interest in sex, and general wanness, he gained 25 pounds. "Supersize Me" ("a film of epic portions") also analyzes fast food marketing. Coming to the Michigan Theater in late May.The film's website. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-11-11:49 a.m.:  GRATUITOUS CUTE PHOTO.Happy Bunny Day, people. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-10-6:20 p.m.: AN ANCHORAGE CHICKERY is churning out multicolored chicks for Easter. Not sure if I should be charmed or alarmed. The full story. (via metafilter) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-09-7:12 p.m.: EAT YOUR LAWN: Many weeds in your lawn are food plants brought over by European immigrants that escaped into the wild. What looks like an ugly invader to you would look like a nutritious and tasty dinner to earlier Americans. I am a lawn-eater, and I'm not dead yet. So why don't you try a few of the food plants I'll be describing this spring in the YPSIDIXIT EAT YOUR LAWN series.Today's pick is Lamb's Quarters, also known as Pigweed or Goosefoot. This guy pops up in disturbed soil (it's everywhere in my yard in summer) and can grow up to 5 feet tall. USE: When the plant is under a foot high, use it whole as a salad (tastes like a milder form of spinach) or simmer it till limp in a bit of water for a side dish vegetable like cooked spinach. Better yet, cut a few strips of bacon into pieces, saute them, and then limpify the lamb's quarters in the resulting grease. With older plants, just pick (unblemished) leaves. Don't use the plant if you fertilize or put pesticides anywhere on your lawn (I do not). NUTRITION: Lamb's quarters contains high levels of calcium, potassium, vitamin A, and phosphorus, and also has minerals, protein, trace minerals, B-complex vitamins, iron, fiber, and vitamin C. DISCLAIMER: It's best to make a positive ID with a field guide, like Peterson's Guide to Edible Plants. If in doubt, don't eat it. Duh. More pictures of lamb's quarters. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-08-9:59 p.m.: READ "EMPIRE NOTES"'s analysis of Sunni and Shi'a groups as seen through the lens of unconsciously colonialist attitudes, versus the actual situation in Iraq. Eye-opening. There's no trackback for this post but it's the one from April 8, 2 p.m. Empire Notes is an Indian journalist on the ground in Baghdad. Noam Chomsky links to Empire Notes from his blog. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-08-8:48 p.m.: SHORT-FUSE MCSWEENEY'S-AFFILIATED SATIRIST NEAL POLLACK'S take on the Condi testimony. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-08-7:51 p.m.: CHRIS LEHMANN posts a frightening, powerful letter from a contractor working in Iraq who wrote his wife in Florida a day after last week's events in Fallujah.(via Atrios) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-08-7:08 p.m.: UPDATE ON CROWN PAPER MILL DEVELOPMENT: The city has given Ohio developers Edwards Communities a $1.5 million tax break to build student housing on the Crown paper mill site 'cause the site is a brownfield, an AA News story says.Considering the large scale of the project, I don't think this is unreasonable. There's a provision in the deal that in the future, regardless of ownership, the city will continue to receive taxes from the property (if not for this provision, if EMU bought it, it would be removed from the tax rolls because it's university property, although why university property isn't taxed escapes me). I don't like an out-of-stater profiting from Ypsi development, though. I hope they were the low bidder in a competitive bid, at least. Bye-bye, 1867 paper mill... ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-08-11:31 a.m.: DIXBORO BRIDGE REPORT: What a mess. The big piles of broken trees are gone and the hills on either side of the river have been shaved down to scraped ground. Big machines with tracks and clawlike things are parked around the dam and growling up and down hills at precipitous inclines. Two huge concrete pads now sit smack dab in the river, northeast of the current bridge. A big trench was dug between--tightly between--the tracks and the other riverbank. These two sites will apparently support columns. This bridge is going to be both incredibly high--scarily high--to clear the train, and quite wide as well. It's also being built directly over an electrical transformer station, which I don't think is too great an idea. No, I'm no fan of this project, clearly. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-07-8:43 p.m.: IRAQI BLOGGER "BAGHDAD BURNING"'S post from today gives her side of the recent turn of events. Read it. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-07-11:13 a.m.: AN OPEN LETTER TO BLOG NAMERS: Diaryland allows its users to create ad banners, which they then run on the members' page. Well and good. But why do so many bloggers 1. create salacious blognames and 2. think that that is attractive? It sure isn�t, and not just to dried-up old prudes like me, either. Here�s one: �I Must Have Booty Call Written On My Forehead.� Lovely. Would Noam Chomsky title his blog that? I think not. Diarylandsmen! Tone it down just a wee bit please. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-06-6:01 p.m.: YOUR EMAIL OR LETTER, ADDED TO MINE, CAN HELP BRING PASSENGER RAIL SERVICE TO YPSILANTI! Train fans, sit down. Yes. It's true. There are plans afoot to bring passenger rail and make a Depot Town railroad stop connecting to Metro Airport and other useful locations. This is such a good idea for six million obvious reasons that you should already have your notepaper out. Or send an email. Ann Arbor people, you, too--think of how easy and fun it would be to hop to Ypsi on the train! DEADLINE IS APRIL !5!Excerpted story: "Excitement is building with the potential for returning passenger rail service to historic Depot Town! Hopes are high that the final application to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to be submitted in April will include an Ypsilanti � Depot Town stop on the proposed Lansing to Detroit commuter rail line. Other proposed station locations are Lansing, East Lansing, Howell, Central/South Livingston, Ann Arbor, Merriman Road - Detroit Metro Airport, Dearborn, and Detroit........ "How can you help? Letters of support for the project and the inclusion of the Ypsilanti � Depot Town station are needed from community groups and individuals to demonstrate a high level of community support. Letters should be submitted to the YDDA office by no later than April 15th. Contact the YDDA at 734-482-1410 or by email at [email protected] for more information." The full story. (about 1/3 of the ay down the page). LETTER-WRITING TIPS (not that you need them): Make your letter concrete. Describe specific ways you'd use a Ypsi stop, and how often. Describe two or three specific ways you think this would benefit Ypsi, especially financially. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-05-9:56 p.m.: REVIEW OF SHANNON LAWSON ARK SHOW: Fiery fun. This rising Kentucky-born country singer-guitarist with a voice like a ribbon of polished brass and feet firmly planted in Kentucky bluegrass beamed enough energy from the stage to give each of the 30 audience members the equivalent of a chest X-ray. I wanted to leap to my feet when he launched into �Smokin� Grass,� a funny sketch of his musical childhood. This was music that should be blasted out in front of a roadhouse full of frenetic dancers. I sure wanted to dance. I surveyed the stolid Michigan crowd sitting there like a frieze of petoskey stones. It took a while for Lawson and his bandmates on drums, bass, and an electrified mandolin (ugh--the last instrument that ever should have been electrified), to ignite us, but we were whooping and yee-hawing, to some degree, eventually.Wearing a blue T-shirt, jeans, and a cream cowboy hat bedecked with floppy feathers, Lawton recalled the time he�d played as the only white musician in an all-black blues band. �That was a real education,� he gravely observed, before launching into a jaw-dropping version of Marvin Gaye's R&B classic "Let's Get It On" that catapulted his yearning, ringing tenor firework-like through the Ark�s colored lights and black ceiling straight out into the sky over Ann Arbor. When it fell back to earth, he ripped out the rest of the song in a churning bluegrass version. Lawson covered �Burning Ring of Fire� but played mostly originals, such as the enjoyably cornball �Redneck Love Gone Bad� and a few more-ballady songs on love gone wrong. At the end of the show, his whack bass player, who�d humorously played up the redneck stereotype with dopey comments between songs, coaxed the scattered audience members into a bunch and took a picture of us. �We�ll put �er up on the Innernet,� he announced. �To remember our time in Ann Arbor.� As we settled into new seats in an intimate pool, Lawson played a final encore set. There shouldn�t have been so much room to move around�Lawson deserves, and will get, next time he comes to town, a much larger audience. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-04-11:16 p.m.: AN EXASPERATED VEXILLILIC AESTHETE has given a letter grade to each country's flag. To my unsurprised Dutch-American satisfaction. the Netherlands' flag scores an A+. Those in the failing grades category were downgraded for such debits as "too many stars," "colonial nonsense," or "hideous colors." Losers include Zimbabwe ("features a hawk sitting on a toilet"), Mozambique ("automatic weapons on a flag are especially bad"), and (pictured at right) the Northern Mariana Islands ("appears to have been constructed from clip art. Truly awful.").
So, which country's flag do you think is especially hideous or well-designed? I've always been partial to Wales' flag--nice crisp colors, big red dragon! Former colonial island entities seem to have the absolute worst flags--busy and full of Union Jacks and cluttered crests.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-04-3:42 p.m.: WEEKLY MEIJER GARDEN CENTER REPORT: Regular readers of Ypsidixit will recall that in last week's report, some good-looking roses and $10.99 flats of pansies were on sale. They're still there, but the season is starting, people, and the Carpenter Rd. garden center is filling up! Slowly, but surely. To my delight I found mulch there, and loaded up on that. Mulch fans, of which I am the staunchest, may be interested to know that big bags of pine mulch are on sale for a measly $2.41. Some nice-looking outdoor containers are 20% off. And edging materials are to be had. Plus a sprinkling of slightly anemic-looking trees with too-small rootballs--I'd skip those if I were you. It's all there, waiting, at the Meijer Garden Center.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-03-11:42 p.m.: PHOTOSHOPPING HISTORY: Which version of the Madrid train bombing photo did you see? The real photo, with the severed limb in the foreground? The version in which the limb is Photoshopped into an unnoticeable grey lump? Or the version in which the limb is removed entirely? Different papers ran different versions, as this newspaper designer's blog illustrates. Anyone else troubled by this? Or by the blase attitude of one of the editors who ran a sanitized version?
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-03-10:30 p.m.: PRUNING A TREE IS MY YOGA. I pruned for hours today and loved it. Most of pruning is looking at the tree, studying the branches, comparing the tangle of twigs with the utopian could-be tree shimmering in mind. The looking part is focused and calming. The cutting part feels like sculpture. My briar-patch cranberry becomes airy and graceful. The straggly peach becomes compact. The motley maple becomes symmetrical. Snarled apple trees open up. The knot tree sheds its crown of whiplike switches. When the cuttings are raked into a big brush pile. I�m left with nine graceful trees ready to explode into leaf in a few weeks. One of the more satisfying ways to spend a sunny April afternoon.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-02-10:23 p.m.: 
Not so, say scientists who found a missing link in a rock by the side of a Pennsylvanian road, of all places. Turns out arms originally evolved to enable primitive fishes to scoot around more efficiently on lakebottoms. Much later, hey, presto! turns out these scooter-limbs were mighty handy on land, too. How weird and interesting! Once again, the glorious higglety-pigglety Rube Goldberg intricacy that is evolution is revealed, to my ongoing wonderment. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-02-8:01 p.m.: THE PRICE OF GAS IS NOT A POLITICAL PLATFORM, IDIOTS! I can't stand it anymore. Here's my simplistic reaction to current campaigning. I am just sick to death of Bush trumpeting his measly tax cuts as some kind of God-given blessing. My own share of the tax cuts was a pitiful $200. The average amount was around $500, I read somewhere. Big goddam deal. Both Bush and Kerry are now solemnly swearing that they'll protect Americans' holy right to artificially cheap gas, when most of the rest of the world is paying $5-$7 a gallon. Oh, it's sickening to see such outrageously petty non-issues become part of a CAMPAIGN PLATFORM! Where's the vision? Where's the big spirit, the humanity, the heart, the integrity? Are we going to pick a leader based on who's gonna leave 25 more cents in our pocket at the end of the day? The shallowness and pandering on these two idiotic non-issues when so many important things are being overlooked is just DRIVING ME WILD! ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-02-7:00 p.m.:  THEY'VE INVENTED A NEW CAT, I found out while looking up a local cat show. Called the American Bobtail, this chunky new breed is said to be smarter than usual and very loving.Quote from a Bobtail site: ""An American Bobtail is somewhat like potato chips. Very addictive--sweet, loving, chin-lickers and lap-sitters." I also found out there's a Friendster for pets, called Petster. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-02-1:17 a.m.: IRAQI BLOGGER "KURDO'S WORLD" reports the alleged escape of Saddam Hussein. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-01-11:47 p.m.: IRAQI RESPONSE TO THE EVENTS IN FALLUJAH: I read all of the 21 Iraqi blogs and all of the 9 soldier's blogs listed at Iraqi blog Healing Iraq, looking for responses to the events in Fallujah.Of the Iraqi blogs, most of which are not updated every day, 4 had a response. All condemned the killings. The 4 responses: Fayrouz says, "What hurts me the most is people reading the report and watching the video...would think most Iraqis support those criminals' acts and views." Iraq the Model says, "What happened in Fallujah yesterday...was more than I could take. I felt extremely angry, disgusted, frustrated, and desperate." Iraq and Iraqis says, "I was so shamed and didn't know what to say...but let me tell you this, the people who stood there even to watch what is going on are not human. It's really difficult to describe what I felt, but I will try: I felt anger, disgust, terror, depressed, pain in stomach, and even guilt..." A Family in Baghdad says, "and, you can check what does raed think of Al-Falluja events [link] killing American civilians is not justified in anyway and anytime." None of the soldiers' blogs, some of which are outdated, comment on the events in Fallujah. However, the recently stateside Captain Wiggles says, "After returning from a year overseas, while dining at a popular restaurant along the LA coast with my son, several things came to mind as I watched intently at the patrons, who were all busy eating and socializing. I know that life goes on for most Americans while soldiers are off in a distant land putting their lives on the line. Most citizens of this great country hardly miss a beat in their daily lives, as they continue to be caught up in a whirlwind of capitalism, materialism, and commercialization of life.�"I saw them with their fancy cars, their name brand clothes, their vain and selfish efforts to look their best, with the latest in hair styles, facials, breast jobs, designer nails, tattoos, body jewelry and piercings. I hesitate to speak for the fear of seeming judgmental but superficially it appears they have little awareness regarding what is really going on in the world and what is really at stake. I am sure it is not totally the case, but it seems for the most part that people go on with their self serving life styles with little more than a limited awareness that another nameless soldier was killed today." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-04-01-9:31 p.m.: WARNING: VET AND DOUBLE-VET YOUR YPSI-OBNOXIOUS ITEMS BEFORE GIVING THEM TO PARENTS! My sister and I went to Toledo today to celebrate my 77-year-old dad�s birthday. Tucked in my bag of presents was a two-pack of Ypsi-centric coasters I�d bought at Henrietta Fahrenheit�s the other day. �Ypsi Attack.� Water towers. Cool. Fun. Offbeat. Such was my line of thinking.My dad unwraps the coasters and removes the rubber band. He looks at the bottom coaster. I blanch with horror. What do I see but a giant �water tower� with the screaming logo, �YPSIFUCKINLANTI!� God in heaven! With lightning reflexes I whisk the item from his hand and retreat away from everyone, apologizing as fast as I can talk. Now my face is burning red�dear God, why didn�t I CHECK THIS FIRST??? It�s as if I�d been sitting around musing, �Hmmm�what would be nice for my septuagenarian dad�let�s see�hey! I know! An obscene coaster from a town he doesn�t live in! Yeah!� Everyone clamored to see the coaster. �Never!� I said, stuffing it into a bag. �This coaster will go down in history as the coaster that nobody saw.� I was teased about this for the rest of the night. Later in my driveway my sister wheedled it from me and took a look. We got stomach cramps from laughing for a good ten minutes. God help me. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
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