Buddha Da

I'd just boarded the plane and pulled out my book and headphones. I cracked the book open and was faced with this paragraph:

MA DA's a nutter. Radio rental. He'd dae anythin for a laugh so he wid; went doon the shops wi a perra knickers on his heid, tellt the wifie next door we'd won the lottery and were flittin tae Barbados, but that wis daft stuff compared tae whit he's went and done noo. He's turnt intae a Buddhist.

"Oh, no," I thought to myself. Surely the author was not going to go in this vein for much longer? I flipped the pages to the middle of the book.  The dialect was still in full force.  I glanced to my right, hoping to quickly grab another book from my backpack, but there was a well-built person already sitting down in the aisle seat. I didn't feel like asking him to move just so I could get a more amenable book.

So, with nothing else to read on the plane journey, I did end up reading Buddha Da.  The dialect that was initially so off-putting turns out to be crucial. You never lose track of the fact that this was a working class father who upped and decided to become a Buddhist.  It turned out to be a wonderfully observed, funny book.

Look who's running for a third term!

This showed up in my email box just as I was ready to head out to the gym:

OU students, faculty and staff and the public are invited to a forum with former President Bill Clinton speaking on behalf of Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign for President ... the University has extended an invitation to all Republican and Democratic candidates for President or leaders in their campaign to speak on campus. Earlier Gov. Mitt Romney spoke on the OU Health Sciences Center campus and General Jerry Curry spoke on the Norman campus on Jan. 23.

Now, Mitt Romney is running. I don't know who Jerry Curry is, but a Google search brings me to a website that says he's a candidate for president too. The university has weasel wording in place ("or leaders in their campaign"), but you can draw the inference yourself.

I've pointed out before that Hillary Clinton is not like Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher or even Angela Merkel. She's more like Ma Ferguson.

Witty department store

A witty Dutch department store site.  Click on the link and wait a few seconds:

http://producten.hema.nl/

The younger generation gets it

While the New York Times ties itself in knots trying to endorse Clinton, the Harvard Crimson lays out a concise and positive case for Obama:

From starting as a community organizer, to working as a constitutional lawyer and law professor, to serving as a Ill. State Senator, and, finally, as an United States Senator, Obama has achieved before the age of fifty what many would aspire to do in a lifetime. The judgment and perspective he has acquired in these roles are qualities that are necessary in a leader, particularly at the highest levels of government

And, then horror of horrors, they actually endorse him issue-by-issue. For example, on health-care:

Obama's healthcare program, for instance, guarantees universal healthcare for minors but allows adults to choose whether they are covered ... Its significant efforts to subsidize and provide and universal access to all Americans is unparalleled in the Democratic field, and, perhaps, represents the most pragmatic solution

climate change:

To help reduce carbon emissions and help fight climate change, Obama proposes a cap-and-trade system and the corresponding reduction of emissions to 80 percent below the 1990 levels by 2050. Vaulting the U.S. into a leadership position on climate change is a goal that should figure prominently in any presidential candidate's decision-making. Obama has shown that he cares about the issue and will take it to the White House as a high priority if elected

and education:

he has a holistic plan to reform the entire system, from infant healthcare through higher education. Highlights of his plan include reforming No Child Left Behind, addressing the high rate of dropouts, and quadrupling funding for Early Head Start programs that form the youngest generation of students

Read the whole thing.

Update: Found out after I posted this that Obama had won the S. Carolina primary and caught his acceptance speech online. It's a beaut, even better than the 2007 one I was raving about earlier:

How to remember where you parked and other uses of a cell phone camera

So if my cell phone pictures are so lousy, what's the point of a cell-phone camera? I've found several uses so far:

(1) It's an easy way to remember where I'm parked at the airport. Three, four days later, it can be very helpful to simply browse the phone images and find out the lot my car is in. I used to write the information down on slips of paper and put it into my wallet, but this is a lot more convenient and a lot quicker.

(2) A way to quickly take photos when there's nothing else on hand -- a bad photo is better than no photo. For example, this weird cemetery in New Orleans that we were driving past -- the graves are above ground! Turns out it's an old Spanish custom that works well in areas where the water table is high.

(3) Use the camera phone for candid shots. Useful for subjects (usually my kids ...) who change their behavior when they spy a camera. To protect their privacy, I'm not posting any examples.

New Orleans, in pictures

These pictures are all from Wednesday. They're not great quality, since they were taken with my cell phone.

T. and I sneaked out of the official banquet (an aside: how overcautious and fearful of causing offense do you have to be to serve chicken breast and caesar salad at a reception in New Orleans?) and took a cab to a Hornets game. We got to see the second half. The Hornets played in Oklahoma City for a couple of years after Katrina and even played one game in Norman. But it took a trip to NOLA to see my first pro basketball game. The game was a blowout, but the thing that stands out was how every second of breaks in the game (commercial breaks, timeouts, etc.) was filled with on-court antics.

We took a stroll down Bourbon street. Bourbon street was very much alive, but mostly with middle-aged tourists. Mardi Gras is next week, maybe it'll be a younger crowd then.

We also spent some time in a jazz club. They were playing blues. Quite well, too. Although T. spoiled it a bit by pointing out how many times the singer said "baa-by". And then all I could do was to wait for the singer to say the word again. He seemed to be averaging 5 babies a song.

Football crazy town

I'm in New Orleans for an American Meteorological Society meeting.  The first billboard I noticed on the way from the airport yesterday was for Louisiana State University: "A Championship Experience" it proclaimed, with a triptych  that had the LSU football team prominently in the middle.  Isn't Baton Rouge a hundred miles up north? Why proclaim the college spirit in New Orleans?  I've studied at two football-crazy universities (Ohio State in Columbus and Oklahoma in Norman), but neither Cincinnati nor Tulsa carries Buckeye or Sooner billboards.

Of course, the reason I'm offended may have more to do with the fact that two of LSU's championships came against OU and OSU.