Quick grin

From an agricultural cousin of herself, this funny vid.

On finality

You get to a certain point and you start to think about check-out time, not necessarily morbidly but with some close attention. Everyone I know of a certain age will tell you that the desideratum is not to avoid dying but to avoid dying slowly and miserably in the grasp of doctors and hospitals. If you've ever wondered how doctors feel about shuffling off, an essay in Zócalo Public Square by a doctor, Ken Murray, enlightens and maybe suggests a good idea for that next tattoo should maybe be 'NO CODE' across your sternum.

Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds—from 5 percent to 15 percent—albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as good as possible. Several months later, he died at home. He got no chemotherapy, radiation, or surgical treatment. Medicare didn’t spend much on him.

Read all here. It's really interesting.

Election season

Looks like a long, painful year for citizens of the republic, what's with the intensifying of the interminable presidential election. The two candidates are so annoying that the one I like least is always the last one I saw on TV. Obama's little back-door immigration stunt was a cheap play that particularly irritated. Mexico is in a presidential election now, but no matter who wins down there, the next Mexican president will continue unwonted meddling in American immigration policy. An engineer friend sends along an interesting vid on a border tactic with possibilities.

1K

I just noticed that this is Post #1000. Whoda thought it was gonna go on that long? Anyhow, this video tickled me inordinately; in a world of ugly, stupid public exhibitions, it's a lovely thing.

More crossdressing

Not up there with the lovely Miss Bayrat, a rather unattractive professor in Georgia has been popped for trying to peddle his wares – rather cheaply – while dressed up all girlie. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 'A highly acclaimed University of Georgia German professor was arrested Thursday for prostituting himself for $60, authorities said.' Read it all here and pipe the pic. Guy's got tenure; they probably can't do anything to him.

Water Safari

The first boat in, #314, came across the choppy bay to arrive at 11:30 p.m., Sunday night. Number 314 was a chalk bet if you could've found anybody to fade the action. Two of the paddlers are pro paddlers from Belize, the brothers Cruz, on the near end of the group pic. They are so well conditioned that one year I was down there, they were kicking a soccer ball around on the grass of the bayfront after they dragged the boat up the steps. Always an entertaining thing, watching the first boat come in. Guess we've had about all the excitement we can stand until next year. Had a small chat with the official photographer of the Water Safari, a nice girl from Austin. She isn't paid for the job but can sell pix if she gets buyers. Just the job for somebody with, maybe, student loans. She is married to a musician … a perfect Austin story if only the guy were her boyfriend and not her husband and not just a musician but a drummer.

Big weekend in **Adrift

This is our big-deal weekend here – Shrimpfest Friday & Saturday, followed by the Water Safari boats coming in late Sunday. Shrimpfest seemed a little repressed and smaller, maybe because a lot of the usual food vendors may have gone down the coast to bigger and more lucrative pickings in Rockport. It was still fun. The beauty above was the winner of the Miss Bayrat contest, usually good for a grin or two. My wife caught the shot before the contest. There was only one other contestant, but there is no doubt that this lovely could have swept a much larger field, given such attention to dress and makeup. Shrimpfest is always fun. A piratical pair from Houston joined us, the principal pirate being a qualified local. He found many, many old acquaintances to chat with. The first mate of the pirate crew held up with her usual dignified restraint. Music played until late, and I had a couple of you-kids-get-off-my-lawn moments with all the traffic and people parking on our street.

PoMo goo

If you occasionally have the misfortune to read anything current of academic writing in the squishier fields, you will – or at least I will – shake your head at the ornate, obfuscatory density of it all. Try this:

1. Smith and Lyotardist narrative In the works of Smith, a predominant concept is the concept of postconceptual culture. But Foucault’s model of capitalist nationalism suggests that language may be used to marginalize the proletariat, but only if the premise of postdeconstructivist dematerialism is invalid; if that is not the case, narrativity has significance. The main theme of the works of Smith is the role of the participant as poet. Sontag uses the term ‘neocultural discourse’ to denote a self-supporting totality. Thus, the subject is contextualised into a postdeconstructivist dematerialism that includes art as a paradox. An abundance of narratives concerning Lyotardist narrative may be found. But Lyotard promotes the use of predialectic textual theory to challenge hierarchy.

But, wait … the whole thing is a shuck. Thing is, it reads like stuff that is published and taken seriously. The excerpt is taken from an entry in a site you'll find here, The Postmodernism Generator. Go there and snicker at the PoMos. A note at the bottom pages refers to a fine joke, a bogus article by a physics professor – that's a real field – that was accepted by a cultural-criticism journal. Those people are so annoying and grotesque.