Creature of Mad Enthusiasms

I couldn't be more thrilled to be hearing the news about Richard III. A bigger triumph of history, research, forensics, determination, genetics, and archaeology I cannot think of. We don't think he might be RIII, we've proven that he really most sincerely is RIII.

SCIENCE ROCKS!

Serious articles with pictures include:
After 500 years, Richard III's bones yield their secret | Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/04/us-britain-richard-idUSBRE9130BW20130204

Bones Under Parking Lot Belonged to Richard III - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/world/europe/richard-the-third-bones.html?_r=0

Richard III: skeleton is the king - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9846693/Richard-III-skeleton-is-the-king.html

But in many ways, the best part for me has been the wit that's sprung up around it. I passed on the Facebook meme of Blackadder saying "Really? Under a car park? That was your cunning plan, Baldrick?" K posted "he's parked in my spot."

But the best, THE winner hands down is the LJ-less JBM with "They paved Plantagenet and put up a parking lot."


PS - If you have never heard the complete and utter crack that is Big Finish's The Kingmaker, now is the perfect time to either dust it off or download it. Doctor Who, Shakespeare, Richard III, and history itself all go through the grinder, with hilarious results.

Having had a chance to look beyond my own front yard, I'm gobsmacked at the state of America after Sandy.

15 states, from North Carolina up to Maine, from Delaware across Ohio, affected. THAT'S OVER A FIFTH OF THIS ENTIRE COUNTRY!

12,000+ without power in my area.

Blizzards to the west of here from the inside edge of Maryland to Kentucky because of the screwed-up weather.

New York City is devastated; one of my friends up there is comparing it to 9/11. Fires are raging in Brooklyn and the trucks can't get through. The subway system is 4 feet under water and flotsam. All Chunks of Manhattan lost power last night.

The Atlantic Wire has photos and news. Including a photo of a tanker beached by the waves.

More photos from The Atlantic. The ones of Ground Zero, the subway flooding, and the underground parking lot give me chills.

After a brief bobble, the court passed the Affordable Care act. That was a really touch-and-go thing, and I've got to give Obama huge props for getting it passed: this is something the Democratic party has been trying to do since Truman.

I know that the opposition is still gunning for "Obamacare," especially now that it's being equated with taxes, but me? I kinda like the idea of the mandate being lumped in with taxes. Because that is the first fractional step towards single-payer, tax supported health care. I would love to see that come to my country in my lifetime.

In the meantime, I don't know what is more tragicomic: all the people squealing that they're so horrified by health care reform that they're going to emigrate to Canada with its single-payer "socialist" health care, or that Romney's official platform is now "Vote for me; I'm the only one who can stop the health care reform that I initiated."

It says everything that needs to be said when someone at the knitting store looked at her iphone and announced the news to us, that when I came home I dialed up the Apple website on my ipad, and that I showed it to M while she was syncing her ipod.

That I'm typing this on that ipad. That if I wasn't, I'd be typing it on Windows, which was created to emulate the Apple interface. That I write software manuals explaining how to use a GUI.

And if I was relaxing, I'd be knitting while listening to an audiobook, a format Neil Gaiman has said was dying until ipods resurrected them. Or I'd be listening to a podcast. Or maybe writing to one of my friends from Staggering Stories, who I met through their podcast.

Steve Jobs created the world I live in and the tools I use.

Yes, I got up to watch it. It's news that doesn't involve bombs; celebrity that doesn't involve being a drunken, stoned Hollywood has-been. That's the kind of history I like to witness.

The dress was perfect. Streamlined, flattering - and classic enough that nobody's going to be pointing and laughing 20 years later, plus it'll look good on most of the body types that'll be emulating it.

And my favorite crowd moment? The sign being waved that said "Checkmate, Kate, You've Taken the King."

Today was my generation's "Do you remember where you were when you heard?" moment.

I was at my first job, in a big open space with four desks in it (I would, over the course of my career there, sit at all 4.) Because this was when indoor smoking was still allowed, I was probably hunched over a fan, which I ran every day to try to cope with the chainsmoker who sat at another of the desks. I was probably wrestling with the office computer, a command-line DOS beast.

All I clearly remember is one of the bosses coming out of the window offices ringing our open area and saying in a hushed voice, "Challenger blew up. I heard it on the radio." (Only management was allowed stuff like that.)

I refused to believe it until I got home and saw it on the news. And then I still didn't believe it. I didn't want to.

We had plans. We really did - but you know what they say, plans never survive first contact with the enemy. That enemy being defined as DC's completely back-asswards version of crowd control.

( Getting there was not half the fun )

Before the formal Inauguration they replayed the We Are One concert on the jumbotrons. Then they showed a lot of "backstage" footage of people walking through the Capitol to get into place... along with some misplaced live mikes of Congresspeople talking to each other "I came back," and worse, the Secret Service. "Junior is on his way; Junior is in the elevator."

suricattus hates Rick Warren; she turned her back on him and recited a Hebrew prayer while he prayed. I cracked her up by muttering "sports nuts" into her ear.

I managed not to cry. It was damned hard and I sobbed a few times, but I managed not to cry; in that cold, my tears probably would have frozen. The first was the line about "A voice from the Lincoln Memorial has found its way across the Mall to the Capitol." The other was the oath itself, or more accurately, "Congratulations, Mr. President." Y'know the end of Air Force One? ( spoiler ) Yeah. Like that.

I was going to come home and google how many wingnuts thought the oath wasn't valid because Obama got the words wrong, but M (who was home watching in the warmth with commentary) says it was the Chief Justice who got 'em wrong!

The speech was excellent, hitting all the right notes. We'll see how much is followed up on, but it's about damned time that the President admitted that those who do not believe as he does - who don't believe in any religion at all - have a place at the table. That's a lovely change from Bushes H.W. & W saying that we aren't citizens or patriots. I think that "We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist" is this generation's "Ask not what your country can do for you."

Y'know what surprised me? They sang My Country Tis of Thee twice and we never heard the national anthem. If ever there was a day for the national anthem... It was played after we had left earshot of the jumbotrons.

I wonder if Bush saw people in the crowd waving as his helicopter went overhead. I'm sure the rotors drowned out the singing: "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah, hey hey hey, goodbye."

Getting out is something best veiled over; it involved climbing a barrier to get back to 18th St. and not being permitted to walk over to 19th to try to circumnavigate the crowds. Nor could we walk north up to Dupont Circle, because streets north of K were also closed off!

So we walked along K and looked at the vendors - I succumbed to the "FEMA Emergency Repair Kit" and suricattus melted with glee at the vendor selling Obama's Senate seat (a small toy, with certificate.) We also lucked out massively in finding a restaurant that hadn't immediately filled up and had a good lunch and a chance to warm up before heading home.

Today I've met Australians, Canadians (there was one Canadian flag waving in the sea of American ones), an expat Frenchman, and Americans from Alaska to Florida. I've been a part of I don't know how many millions experiencing history live.

And now I never have to do it again. Because y'know what? When you're standing for hours thinking about how cold you are, you never even notice how stiff you are... until you have to climb over a barrier and walk 20 blocks. (The crowd laughed bitterly every time they said "take your seats.")

And now to hit "post" and see if anyone's got an estimate of how many people were on the mall.

ETA: I spent a great deal of time picking out a book to take. It had to be something I hadn't read in a while to hold my interest during the early morning. It had to be a duplicate and of bad quality in case it was ruined. Good thing I picked something disposable, because it went missing almost instantly...

suricattus is here, safe, and curled up on the couch checking her email. Right now our plan is to spend much of the next three days writing, then head downtown early on Tuesday. The American History museum opens at 8 a.m. and they have a new Lincoln exhibit, so even if we run away from the cold, the crowds, and the pickpockets, we'll have had something to see. And if we don't run away, we'll try to elbow our way to a jumbotron to see, and maybe check out the Pompeii exhibit too.

In the meantime, Inauguration insanity is proceeding apace.

The bad kind. The link that's all over my flist, of the anti-abortion group that is having hysterics because Krispy Kreme "is honoring American’s sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20." And we all know what being free to choose REALLY means. Won't someone think of the CHILDREN?

The good kind, although equally insane, are the number of things that are being branded with Obama's face. Metro has put him on the farecards. (This is actually an amazingly sly way of getting extra cash, because you have to have a credit on the card to get to keep it at the end of the ride.) And I took Suri to dinner at the District Chophouse, who are selling commemorative "Barack Bock" pint glasses.

A seven-year-old memory: M and I sitting on the couch, practically in the fetal position, staring with wide horrified eyes at each other as we heard a jet scream low overhead. It was late in the day, and the local Air Force Base was scrambling.


Seven years later, I still get apprehensive when I see a jet low in the sky, especially if it is coming in for a landing.


To the 3,000 gone.


To the 4,000 and climbing in the war that has yet to bring Bin Laden to justice.

Yesterday, a maniac shot up Virginia Tech. I didn't talk about it then - was deliberately avoiding it - because we didn't know what was going on. We still don't know why.

This morning, Fred Phelps and his kickline of bullies that calls itself a church has announced that it will picket the funerals of those children and teachers to draw attention to themselves the evil of homosexuality. This joins Ken Ham blaming "evolutionists" and at least one right-wing talking head originally blaming Muslims but now backpeddling to say that the tragedy is why we should shut down immigration. I'm not providing links because they don't deserve the attention. 32 human beings slaughtered, and their first instinct is to shout their old, tired talking points without a pause to mourn or commemorate.