I've recently been enjoying reading this series of articles written by "The Frugal Traveler," aka Matt Gross of the New York Times, as he travels east through the Balkans, the Caucasus and now into Central Asia. This week, he is writing from Kyrgyzstan and he's heading into Xinjiang Province, China.

Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!! We finally have an apartment in New York City! Now I just have to find a way to pay for it in addition to my tuition...

A bit of poetry that I've always thought was great-- a propos of nothing...

THE CREMATION OF SAM McGEE
by
Robert William Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold
The Arctic trails have their secret tales that make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen strange sights, but the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge when I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam Mcgee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the south to roam round the Pole God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Through he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze, till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and, "Cap," say he, "I'll cash her in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'taint being dead, it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on the streak of dawn, but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror driven,
With a corpse half-hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake LeBarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum:
Then, "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked," ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close the door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold
The Arctic trails have their secret tales that make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen strange sights, but the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge when I cremated Sam McGee.

This is a really cool image from a postcard from around the turn of the last century. In the middle of nowhere in central Maine, Mt. Kineo was once one of the largest hotels on the East Coast. Take a look at the whole page on Mt. Kineo at http://www.baharris.org/historicpolandspring/MtKineo/MtKineo.htm 

This is just awesome!!!

3-Year-Old's Birthday Party Theme: 'NewsHour'

'Jimmy Jimmy BoBo' Lehrer Makes Birthday Party Newsworthy

This was just too good not to share with people:

From a British Parish Magazine:

After his cat got stuck in a tree, a minister in South Africa decided to mount a rescue operation. He climbed a ladder as far as he could, tied one end of a piece of rope to the tree's narrow trunk and attached the other end to his car bumper.

As he drove forward, the inevitable happened. The rope broke, catapulting the little kitty into space.

A couple of weeks later, the minister was in the supermarket where he saw one of his parishoners buying cat food. "I didn't know you had a cat," he told the parishoner.

"Minister--it's quite a miracle, really. About two weeks ago, I was having picnic on our lawn with my daughter. She said, 'Mummy, I'd really like to have a cat.' I told her she'd have to ask Jesus for one.

At that very moment, this cat came flying through the air, and landed on the lawn. It has been with us ever since."

From a November 1998 episode of The News Quiz, produced by the BBC.

The other night I dreamt of a parallel world where American cowboys from the great plains and Kiwis (New Zealanders) had discovered a portal to an uninhabited largely old west/badlands-style parallel universe and had gotten themselves into a nuclear standoff with material stolen from the "real world" and assisted by the former-Soviet Russian nuclear engineers everyone is speculating is now working for terrorists.

It sounds like the plot for a c-level sci-fi movie or book. But I scratch my head as to what it means for my psyche.

Maybe I should lay off Cold War military strategy as a subject for bedtime reading.

Symi, who sent this article to me, had only one thing to say about this-- "Wow!"

I'm inclined to agree with her.

Tale of a Lost Cellphone and Untold Static
The New York Times
June 21, 2006

I'm also surprised to see that there wasn't any real discussion about people purchasing stolen property. How many people can honestly say that something they purchased on the subway platform isn't stolen?

And this Ivanna comes across as quite clueless, too. This line at the end of the article sums it up:

"People are not nice," she added, referring to Sasha. "Why?"

You ever had one of those days? (New Yorker-- June 5, 2006) 

The Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom recently celebrated the hatching of a pair of critically endagered Egyptian Tortoises. The baby tortoises are tiny, weighing only about 7 grams each and extremely cute! 

I just got this from Arnie Witt, a friend of mine, via Symi. It's great!

---

US Presidential Position Outsourced to India

Congress today announced that the office of President of the United
States of America will be outsourced to India as of April 15th, 2006.

The move is being made to save the President's $400,000 yearly salary
and also a record $521 billion in deficit expenditures and related
overhead the office has incurred during the last 5 years.

"We believe this is a wise move financially. The cost savings should be
significant," stated Congressman Thomas Reynolds (R-WA). Reynolds, with
the aid of the Government Accounting Office, has studied outsourcing of
American jobs extensively. "We cannot expect to remain competitive on
the world stage with the current level of cash outlay," Reynolds noted.

Mr. Bush was informed by email this morning of his termination.
Preparations for the job move have been underway for sometime.

Gurvinder Singh of Indus Teleservices, Mumbai, India, will be assuming
the office of President as of April 15th, 2006. Mr. Singh was born in
the United States while his Indian parents were vacationing at Niagara
Falls, thus making him eligible for the position. He will receive a
salary of US $320 a month but with no health coverage or other benefits.

It is believed that Mr. Singh will be able to handle his job
responsibilities without a support staff. Due to the time difference
between the US and India, he will be working primarily at night, when
few offices of the US Government will be open. "Working nights will
allow me to keep my day job at the American Express call center," stated
Mr. Singh in an exclusive interview. "I am excited about this position.
I always hoped I would be president someday."

A Congressional spokesperson noted that while Mr. Singh may not be
fully aware of all the issues involved in the office of President, this
should not be a problem, because Bush was not familiar with the issues
either.

If only... (from the New Yorker 052906) 

This is an interesting article if only for the social commentary and criticism of the "self-help culture."

Dear Postindustrial Capitalism

from In These Times Magazine -- March 24, 2006
By Jessica Clark

Can I resign as the CEO of Brand Me, Inc? While profits and productivity are up, and product recognition is on the rise, the worker is complaining of long hours, tension headaches and job insecurity. Please advise.

Since early January, to the horror of my inner artist, slacker and cynic, my “inner executive” has been consulting a personal productivity advisor. David Allen, the mastermind behind Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, which recently hit No. 1 on the Business Week paperback bestseller list. Allen sports a tie and wire-rimmed glasses, and spouts a brand of management-speak that would set most lefties’ teeth on edge. Yet, his hippie past peeks through—Allen defines the goal of implementing his persnickety efficiency tactics as achieving a “mind like water.”

To help you reach that crystalline consciousness, GTD (as the book is known to acolytes) employs a bottom-up approach to dealing with all the junk that’s bugging you now—the crap on your desk, the nagging voices in your head, your closet clutter and your unrealized ambitions. Each of these unprocessed items, says Allen, represents an “open loop,” a commitment that your unconscious will hound you about until you record or reckon with it.

Once collected, this crud must be molded and sorted into categories: “trash” (the most satisfying), “reference” (sort of soothing) and “projects” broken down into “actionable items” sorted by “contexts” like home, office or phone. Allen then prompts devotees to review this project list—the backbone of the system—each week. Performed religiously, this routine transforms an adrenaline-fueled daily grind into a game of strategy that reformats dead time into do-time. By emptying your “psychic RAM” into this system, Allen argues, you free your mind for creative thought and arm yourself for rapid response to the changing exigencies of life.

With clients ranging from the U.S. Air Force to Lockheed Martin to the American Red Cross, Allen has hit it big in the business-consulting world. He’s also attracted a slew of less-conventional followers. The self-proclaimed “geek” world is enraptured by GTD; cult metaphors abound in the dozens of blogs, Wikis and software projects devoted to dissecting each phase of his method (check out http://del.icio.us/tag/gtd for a sampling). Wired writer Robert Andrews calls Getting Things Done, first published in 2001, a “holy book for the information age,” while blogger Anil Dash praises Allen for delivering an “aspirational digital lifestyle.” The GTD-infused word “lifehack” has become so popular that the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary selected it as a runner-up for the 2005 Word of the Year.

Why has GTD generated such adulation? Merlin Mann, whose blog “43 Folders” has become a hub for the GTD community, provides some insight.

“Geeks are often disorganized or have a twisted skein of attention deficit disorders,” he writes. They also “crave actionable items and roll their eyes at ‘mission statements’ and lofty management patois,” and “have too many projects and lots and lots of stuff.” Sound familiar?

It should. In many ways, “geeks” are the canaries in the New Economy’s coalmine. Programmers and knowledge workers often operate as free agents in the digital economy—self-employed or contract workers with little job security and a constant need to reinvent themselves for new employers. Working at home or remotely, they are overwhelmed by a barrage of e-mails and media inputs, lack the structure and community provided by conventional offices, and must erect or erase hard boundaries between their personal and professional lives. Such a vacuum of external supports and structures means that such workers must find new systems for setting goals, defining next steps, and managing the “project” of life.

In 1950, sociologist David Reisman noted a major cultural shift in his influential book, The Lonely Crowd. He argues that over the years, Westerners’ social character has gone through three stages: the tradition-driven mode of the pre-modern era, the “inner-directed” style associated with industrialists and pioneers, and the mass-society “other-directedness” of the peer-driven consumer and office worker. GTD is a system that supports the emergence of yet a new character—what one might term the “self-directed” global creative.

Increasingly missed by social safety nets, unbound from traditional familial and cultural ties, atomized by free-market philosophies and awash in a sea of niche-defined consumer and lifestyle choices, the “self-directed” are wracked with anxiety. GTD supplants what Reisman described as the “gyroscope” of the inner-directed—an internalized set of values inculcated by society—with an inner index of individualized choices, projects and goals. This portfolio can then travel with you across jobs, cities, families, subcultures and life stages, absorbing anxiety along the way.

As Allen puts it, GTD trains your “inner committee”—providing “organization development from the inside out.”

Now, usually, at this point in a progressive critique of a business book, my inner satirist would be mocking Allen and his readers as bourgeois, work-obsessed drones lacking the requisite class consciousness to understand their plight. But such a critique is both facile and unimaginative.

The personal empowerment genre does present real dangers, as NYU sociologist Micki McGee points out in her recent book, Self-Help, Inc. “The capitalist demand is that one ‘be all one can be’: human capital, as with any other natural resource, is to be developed and exploited,” she writes. Yet, at the same time she continues, “The democratic demand—and promise—is that one will get to ‘be all one can be’: a human being reaching his or her greatest potential in association with others.” She goes on to note:

If one imagines self-help culture not only as a means of social control but also as a symptom of social unrest that has not found a political context, then, given the exponential growth of self-help reading, there is no shortage of unrest or dissatisfaction. Understood in these terms, self-help culture could potentially offer an enormous opportunity for cultivating social change.

It is this promise that attracts me to GTD, and to helpful and optimistic lifehackers like Mann and Ethan J. A. Schoonover, a freelance photographer and global gadabout who has come up with his own GTD twist at kinkless.com. While Allen’s system might read like a hybrid of soulless corporate disciplines like Total Quality Management and the deracinated Zen of stress-management retreats, it is surprisingly effective, and often fun. As a recent article in the Guardian notes, the initial “mind sweep” of projects “can be both traumatic and oddly liberating.”

These are tools not just for creating new ways to work, but for carving out time for leisure, action and reflection. As a self-proclaimed geek who straddles two increasingly volatile and insecure vocations—journalism and progressive politics—how can I resist? And then, there’s the lure: “mind like water.”

“Before GTD I used to have a really hard time getting to sleep,” says Schoonover. “My head would hit the pillow and my brain would start cycling through all these ideas. With GTD I do a much better job of capturing ideas as they come to me throughout the day. The improvement in sleep alone is worth the price of admission.”

Jessica Clark is the executive editor at In These Times.

Incredible... for all of those who deny that Iraq is a boondoggle.....

U.S. Plan to Build Iraq Clinics Falters

Contractor Will Try to Finish 20 of 142 Sites

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 3, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD -- A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.

The contract, awarded to U.S. construction giant Parsons Inc. in the flush, early days of reconstruction in Iraq, was expected to lay the foundation of a modern health care system for the country, putting quality medical care within reach of all Iraqis.

Parsons, according to the Corps, will walk away from more than 120 clinics that on average are two-thirds finished. Auditors say the project serves as a warning for other U.S. reconstruction efforts due to be completed this year.

Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps commander overseeing reconstruction in Iraq, said he still hoped to complete all 142 clinics as promised and was seeking emergency funds from the U.S. military and foreign donors. "I'm fairly confident," McCoy said.

Coming with little public warning, the 86 percent shortfall of completions dismayed the World Health Organization's representative for Iraq. "That's not good. That's shocking," Naeema al-Gasseer said by telephone from Cairo. "We're not sending the right message here. That's affecting people's expectations and people's trust, I must say."

By the end of 2006, the $18.4 billion that Washington has allocated for Iraq's reconstruction runs out. All remaining projects in the U.S. reconstruction program, including electricity, water, sewer, health care and the justice system, are due for completion. As a result, the next nine months are crunchtime for the easy-term contracts that were awarded to American contractors early on, before surging violence drove up security costs and idled workers.

Stuart Bowen, the top U.S. auditor for reconstruction, warned in a telephone interview from Washington that other reconstruction efforts may fall short like that of Parsons. "I've been consumed for a year with the fear we would run out of money to finish projects," said Bowen, the inspector general for reconstruction in Iraq.

The reconstruction campaign in Iraq is the largest such American undertaking since World War II. The rebuilding efforts have remained a point of pride for American troops and leaders as they struggle with an insurgency and now Shiite Muslim militias and escalating sectarian conflict.

The Corps of Engineers says the campaign so far has renovated or built 3,000 schools, upgraded 13 hospitals and created hundreds of border forts and police stations. Major projects this summer, the Corps says, should noticeably improve electricity and other basic services, which have fallen below prewar levels despite the billions of dollars that the United States already has expended toward reconstruction here.

Violence for which the United States failed to plan has consumed up to half the $18.4 billion through higher costs to guard project sites and workers and through direct shifts of billions of dollars to build Iraq's police and military.

In January, Bowen's office calculated the American reconstruction effort would be able to finish only 300 of 425 promised electricity projects and 49 of 136 water and sanitation projects.

U.S. authorities say they made a special effort to preserve the more than $700 million of work for Iraq's health care system, which had fallen into decay after two decades of war and international sanctions.

Doctors in Baghdad's hospitals still cite dirty water as one of the major killers of infants. The city's hospitals place medically troubled newborns two to an incubator, when incubators work at all.

Early in the occupation, U.S. officials mapped out the construction of 300 primary-care clinics, said Gasseer, the WHO official. In addition to spreading basic health care beyond the major cities into small towns, the clinics were meant to provide training for Iraq's medical professionals. "Overall, they were considered vital," she said.

In April 2004, the project was awarded to Parsons Inc. of Pasadena, Calif., a leading construction firm in domestic and international markets. McCoy, the Corps of Engineers commander, said Parsons has been awarded about $1 billion in reconstruction projects in Iraq.

Like much U.S. government work in 2003 and 2004, the contract was awarded on terms known as "cost-plus," Parsons said, meaning that the company could bill the government for its actual cost, rather than a cost agreed to at the start, and add a profit margin. The deal was also classified as "design-build," in which the contractor oversees the project from design to completion.

These terms, among the most generous possible for contractors, were meant to encourage companies to undertake projects in a dangerous environment and complete them quickly.

McCoy said Parsons subcontracted the clinics to four main Iraqi companies, which often hired local firms to do the actual construction, creating several tiers of overhead costs.

Starting in 2004, the need for security sent costs soaring. Insurgent attacks forced companies to organize mini-militias to guard employees and sites; work often was idled when sites were judged to be too dangerous. Western contractors often were reduced to monitoring work sites by photographs, Parsons officials said.

"Security degenerated from the beginning. The expectations on the part of Parsons and the U.S. government was we would have a very benign construction environment, like building a clinic in Falls Church," said Earnest Robbins, senior vice president for the international division of Parsons in Fairfax, Va. Difficulty choosing sites for the clinics also delayed work, Robbins said.

Faced with a growing insurgency, U.S. authorities in 2004 took funding away from many projects to put it into building up Iraqi security forces.

"During that period, very little actual project work, dirt-turning, was being done," Bowen said. At the same time, "we were paying large overhead for contractors to remain in-country." Overhead has consumed 40 percent to 50 percent of the clinic project's budget, McCoy said.

In 2005, plans were scaled back to build 142 primary clinics by December of that year, an extended deadline. By December, however, only four had been completed, reconstruction officials said. Two more were finished weeks later. With the money almost all gone, the Corps of Engineers and Parsons reached what both sides described as a negotiated settlement under which Parsons would try to finish 14 more clinics by early April and then leave the project.

The agreement stipulated that the contract was terminated by consensus, not for cause, the Corps and Parsons said.

Both said the Corps had wanted to cancel the contract outright, and McCoy rejected the reasons that Parsons put forward for the slow progress.

"In the time they completed 45 projects, I completed 500 projects," he said. Parsons has a number of other contracts in Baghdad, from oil-facility upgrades to border forts to prisons. "The fact is it is hard, but there are companies over here that are doing it."

Bowen called the outcome "a worst-case scenario. I think it's an anomaly." He said, however, that U.S. reconstruction overseers overwhelmingly have neglected to keep running track of the remaining costs of each project, leaving it unclear until the end whether the costs are equal to the budget.

"I can't say this isn't going to happen again, because we really haven't gotten a grasp" of the cost of finishing the many pending projects, Bowen said.

---

Correction to This Article
An April 3 article quoted Stuart Bowen, the top U.S. auditor for reconstruction in Iraq, as saying, "I've been consumed for a year with the fear we would run out of money to finish projects." Bowen actually said, "I've been concerned about cost-to-complete for a year, and the reason I've been concerned about cost-to-complete is the fear that we would run out of money to finish projects, and so I can't say that this isn't going to happen again because we never really did get a good grasp on cost-to-complete data."

A release from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission:

UPDATE ON PROGRESS AT THE DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER MEMORIAL COMMISSION

The Eisenhower Memorial Commission has recently taken a big step toward creating a permanent national memorial to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Earlier this week, Congress passed Joint Resolution 28, a resolution granting permission to create an Eisenhower Memorial within the boundaries of "Area I." Area I is an area of Washington, DC reserved for memorials whose subjects are of pre-eminent historical and lasting significance.

On February 2, 2006, the Secretary of the Interior and the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission recommended to Congress that the Eisenhower Memorial be allowed to locate within Area I. On April 4, 2006, the Senate passed by unanimous consent a resolution to approve the recommendation. On April 25, 2006, the House of Representatives unanimously approved this resolution by a vote of 411-0.

The effort to pass this legislation was completely bipartisan and was supported by the entire Kansas delegation, as well as a number of World War II veterans, including the Commission Chairman, Rocco Siciliano, the Commission Vice Chairman, Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), and the Commission's senior Republican, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK).

The Commission selected a preferred site in June 2005 that is partially located in Area I. Now that Area I location is approved, the Commission can move forward with the site approval process, including presentations to the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts.

The Eisenhower Memorial Commission is very pleased with the swift passage of this measure and appreciates the work of everyone who made it happen.

Please share your thoughts and ideas on our continuing progress. Contact us by e-mail at info@eisenhowermemorial.org or call (202) 296-0004.

 

Two more photos of my adorable nephew-- the second one is with Daniel-- his father and my brother. It's not fair how photogenic he is! 

Here's something that surprised me. Can you say cognitive dissonance? 

I was listening to a very interesting Sherlock Holmes story-- "The Saviour of Cripplegate Square" of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes written by Bert Coules (based on cases Holmes mentions in passing during the actual Conan Doyle mysteries)-- and heard some extremely interesting and useful quotations.

The following quotations are taken from an exchange between a young Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Nathaniel Collington Smith, a librarian in the British Library reading room, during a flashback in the story:

Smith: "Librarians don't read books, Mr. Holmes. They simply know about them.... "

......

Smith and Holmes are discussing a book that Smith alleges might be unsound in its reasoning.

Holmes: "Take it [the book] back."

Smith: "Why?"

Holmes: "I have no wish to clutter my mind with useless information."

Smith: "My dear Sir-- Your mind may not have elastic walls but it does at least have an entrance and an exit. Read the book. Decide for yourself what to retain. One can learn from the unsound as well as the sound, you know. Surely they taught you that at the university."

This last pearl of wisdom should be kept in mind more often in our modern lives.

I thought this was worth posting too :-)