It’s not so bad if other bloggers have posted it, right? No, there are no excuses. Head up high, I’ll be burning in hell for this one. Presenting Terri Schiavo’s blog. [via Doctor Grosz and Dharmabums]

Laughing at the closed-minded idiots in the news tonight.

First, from Indiana, a local crackdown on nekkidity in art. Personally, I’ve had problems with Michelangelo’s David for years. Not because of his genitals, but those damn unattainable abs. Art should make me feel good, not like an aging slacker.

But of course the big winner in tonight’s post is Salem, Oregon, high school principal Cynthia Richardson. Because of her school’s zero-tolerance policy on guns, she refused to allow a student to post a picture of an alumnus, a U.S. Marine serving overseas, who happens to be holding a firearm. What’s more scary than the policy is the fact that she probably does try to enforce it. She probably does try and teach WW2 and the Holocaust without photos of weapons. Can’t let the little one’s see that pesky picture of Washington crossing the Delaware with big, bad muskets either. I’ll be she’s there with her Sharpee removing offensive images of weapons from the textbooks and cutting the pictures out of Time and Newsweek to protect the delicate little minds in her charge. God forbid they be exposed to the real world (or even classical art) before they turn eighteen.

Swerdloff‘s back!

Yeah, just the kind of analysis I want to wake up to on a Monday morning. Especially as I still wait for BorgHealth to tell me why I was under the weather last week [lab results pending]. Read the article; it’s a good one.

But while news of the Orlando symposium being reported was interesting, the comparisons of prostate cancer funding and advocacy to that for breast cancer in the article put me off a bit. Earlier this year I left a fundraiser for another cancer after the organizer made an off-the-cuff remark that his fundraiser was necessary because HIV/AIDS was getting all the government funding. True or not, advocating for one disease’s programs by running down other disease’s research programs just seems a bit untoward. On top of that, while I have a vested interest in massive research and funding into the causes and treatment of prostate cancer, I’m also still the guy looking for the medical research clause in the Consitution as he wonders why the federal government is in that business in the first place.

I’ve been remiss in not posting an update to the post on Cal’s men at the Pac 10 swimming championships. Cal went on to place fourth in the NCAA’s in Minneapolis this last week.

The San Diego Crew Classic is here again next weekend. Good food, fun people, and of course, Cal’s rowers winning many, many, races in the sunshine at Mission Bay. This will be my fourth year attending and it’s the only big alumni function I regularly get to, so I make the most of it. Definitely looking forward to having the new camera there for this one, though the results from 2003 and 2004 using the old Minolta turned out all right.

Go Bears!

So, why can’t BorgHealth just lie to me and give me a big, fat placebo instead of running tests and trying to actually diagnose diseases and stuff? Haven’t they learned by now I just want to feel good? No news remains good news, and time out of the cube is good time, even if the time is spent at the BorgHealth waiting room.

Despite the fact that I know better, I don’t currently have an Advance Health Care Directive. That’s the California term for a document that tells people (broad definition meant to include BorgHealth) when to pull the plug and who gets to do the pulling. After reading and hearing way too much about Congress and the courts and poor Terry Schiavo in Florida, I still know I should but haven’t done it. I’ll admit I have issues with both mortality and trusting people, and neither of them play well in trying to put my desires into words.

But let it be known to all here present, blah, blah, blah, and duly witnessed by the spambots assembled amongst us, that my parents, siblings, any currently unidentified future spouse or even some one-night-stand with delusions of caring for me until death do us part should feel free to fight amongst themselves over the issue, BUT my congressman absolutely has no say in the matter. None, whatsoever.

[A] cellphone to me is a secular form of purgatory — merely a subtle, more nagging version of the electronic ankle bracelets that perverts and felons have to wear.

A brilliant observation by Paul Theroux in this morning’s New York Times, leading to several rambling, probably incoherant, thoughts.

First is the unfortunate reality of that statement as I spent the last week (Friday to Friday) attached to one of the electronic tethers. I’ve spent time on call for the cube people before, but until last week they provided a pager. Now, at least one week out of four, they force me to be one of those people I normally pity – those who carry their cell phones everywhere. Ready to annoy and insult those around me at a moment’s notice. Nope – ten minutes to find a private spot to return a page isn’t the excellent customer service we provide, so instead I have to content myself with a silent protest and take ten minutes to return a voice mail message, feeling nostalgic for a small, vibrating pager as I carry a cell phone that I refuse to answer at the gym, at the pool, while walking the dog, etc.

The article, the main point of which was the author’s use of short wave radio during his year’s of traveling overseas, also brought a bit of nostalgia on those points as well. I remember the BBC broadcasts in pre-Internet Togo. Reliable, unfiltered news in English. While I certainly have no need for that now, it did bring up some good memories and got me thinking about a question several people have asked me recently: do I miss the overseas traveling?

The answer is no, not really. There are still places overseas I want to go, but in the nine years since I left the Foreign Service, I’ve been to many places in the western United States and developed some great memories of little known and under-visted places there. Depth, not breadth. Nissantruck offers comforts that business class can’t touch and Pongo certainly prefers riding shotgun to riding cargo. And that doesn’t even get to the fact that I have no desire to subject myself to TSA screening in this new post-9/11 world.

So, on a beautiful Sunday 3 1/2 years into my stay in San Diego, I am feeling a bit nostalgic today. But its a good Sunday. Good coffee, good paper, just a bit of work. Not as good as if I were just basking in the sun all day, but a pretty good Sunday.

Sorry, that’s it. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. If you want some green, you’ll have to go over to the photo gallery.

OK, so I took a long lunch to go swimming today. I deserved it after getting very lucky with some recent litigated stuff, and besides, the weather today is wonderful and my tanlines are in serious need of repair. I even brought work home with me – documents that needed to be reviewed with ringing phones or cube distractions – and telling myself I could work late if needed. The reality is I’ll need to work late because I’ll need to have these docs ready before a meeting with our attorney tomorrow.

So what happens? The forces of evil conspire with the shipping gods of Amazon to deliver both Buffy: Season Five and The Incredibles to my doorstep this afternoon. How am I supposed to get any work done now?