I can see why PETA’s not protesting because Sherpas aren’t animals, but come on, now. Where’s the love for those porters of pitons?

Democrat Robin Carnahan’s official campaign bio catalogs her feats in flying (she’s an instrument-rated pilot), endurance (five marathons) and farming (she runs the family cattle ranch).

Nowhere in the U.S. Senate hopeful’s list of achievements are voters told about her efforts leading a group of underfunded advocates that took on — and defeated — one of Washington’s most powerful special interests.

In a year when even veteran office-seekers such as Carnahan are running against the political establishment, such a David-versus-Goliath tale would make prime grist for an outsider’s campaign narrative.

But not when the issue is guns — and Goliath is the National Rifle Association, known for its deep pockets and long memory.

Eleven years ago, Carnahan led the successful opposition to a statewide ballot issue backed by the NRA that would have changed Missouri law that, at the time, prohibited carrying concealed firearms. The victory was pivotal to Carnahan’s political development, yet also short-lived: Four years later, the Legislature overturned the results of the vote.

Hey, thanks for reminding us. I wonder if Jake Wegman is trying to gin up some grassroots support for Carnahan by reminding them she’s really leftist or if he’s engaging in some real journalism here. However, only in a journalist’s prose does a citizen organization become Goliath and the government and a daughter of a political dynasty represent David in metaphor.

(Cross posted at 24th State.)

Sounds like a hook-ready project to me.

This is a collection of original short stories including Dick Tracy written by a number of popular authors of 1990, or at least people Max Collins knew. It was released to ride the success of Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy film (which also starred Madonna–good Lord, has it been twenty years?). As such, it’s a mixed bag. Most of the stories are tolerable, but one of the volume is darn near unreadable as it goes into very heavily cinematic action and the writer can’t capture it well in the text.

Sometimes I get the urge to read short fiction as my primary fiction book because I think how easily I can put it down when it’s time for bed. That’s a double-edged wrist radio (sorry, I should have issued a spoiled metaphor alert). It makes it too easy to put down sometimes, and this book is a good example of that.

I suppose the book is more worthwhile if you’re a big Dick Tracy fan, but what person under the age of fifty is. I mean, really.

On a personal note, someone ran a contest tied into the movie where you could win a yellow trenchcoat and fedora like Dick Tracy. I entered the contest, and that’s when I started thinking of myself in a trenchcoat and hat. A couple years later, I got my first trenchcoat for Christmas and then my first fedora from Donge’s on Third Street in Milwaukee. Twenty years later, I still affect that look.

This book collects a couple of the projects I recognize from the show and some I don’t. As always, the crafts work with a variety of media and do some creative repurposing.

So I have nothing snarky to say about the book. Really, I only browse these to get ideas, so I don’t get to into the individual steps of the individual projects. This book is good fodder for the imagination, so it suited my desires.

Two years into the age of Obama, America may be about to change course.

The hope and optimism that President Barack Obama stoked into Democratic control of Washington two years ago has faded.

Great seizer’s ghost!

Correct me if I’m wrong. I realize that two years ago was BAO, Before the Age of Obama, but wasn’t the election sort of close? 7 percent? And of that losing side, weren’t a whole hell of a lot of us somewhat concerned about what the election meant? A couple percent of us, those who sort of listened to Obama’s rhetoric before he toned it down for the gulls, might have suffered from some particularly acute dismay.

But in this “analyst”‘s opinion, it was the dawning of the Age of Hopechangius (Let the Sun Shine In), and that’s fallen off because of factors unrelated to Obamus Magnus.

Because when you’re being self-indulgent and opulent, you need to feel as though you’re doing good.

I lived in Lemay for a couple years in the middle 1990s, when the Naborhood Link News still existed (it ceased publication in 1996). This precedes my interest in reading up on the history of the region where I live, so I overlooked this book at that time. But Lemay has a far greater history than Webster Groves, word. Currently, the Lemay area is kinda defined as a portion of the unincorporated area in South St. Louis County where they tried to make Southpointe (with an E, like the car dealership whose owner led the charge) and that the small, 900-resident Bella Villa, best known as the eight-square-block speed trap on Bayless Avenue, helpfully offered to annex about the same time. However, historically, the Lemay area used to include Affton, Lakeshire, St. George, and a bunch of other municipalities that later made their own little town halls to…well, I suppose, impose a subdivision’s will on neighboring subdivisions.

The book tells anecdotes about Jefferson Barracks, how the villages that came to comprise Lemay were founded, the origins of Lemay Ferry Road and Telegraph Road (this last used to be called “El Camino Real” because it was built when the area was under Spanish control, which preceded French control, which preceded the Louisiana Purchase). A restaurant my wife and reviewed for our wedding rehearsal dinner dates from the 18th century; Lafayette purportedly stayed there once. Lemay was once considered for capital of the United States (story here.

And so on. Of course, the stories are all told informally with a lot of basis in recollections of the locals and some recourse to Missouri history periodicals. However, it’s best not to take them as the gospel truth. Still, good starting points for historical research or, at the very least, good legends to pass on.

I didn’t live in Lemay for that long, although my mother, the former owner of the book, lived there for much of her life, so I drove down some of the streets mentioned in the book (often accompanied by parentheses and “Now called Orient Avenue” or “Now called Ripa Avenue”). I sort of wish I was still in St. Louis so I could go look to see if many of these locations remain after the sixty years between the book’s publication and now.

As I mentioned, I inherited this book from my mother, who might have inherited it from her sister or mother. I wonder if my mother read it. I wish I could ask her and talk about it with her. One of the things I used to do on Sunday mornings was to have breakfast and coffee with her and regale her with stories and histories from books I read. This would be extra poignant as it is a book about her town.

The book chronicles the eras in Vargas life and selective art from each period from the collection of Vargas’s nephew. There’s plenty of text to tell the sad story of Vargas, from his start doing promo portraits of Zeigfield girls, to his rise when discovered by Esquire, to the final contract at that magazine that rooked him into indentured servitude, his break with Esquire, the lawsuit over the contract and its aftermath, and then his return to publication with Playboy.

He had a rough life, fiscally for sure, but he produced some great work. I cannot help but compare his life with that of Frederic Remington, whose art book I expect to complete during the Packers game next Sunday. Remington lived a generation before Vargas, and his work came from a life that was pretty cush and unfraught with drama. It puts lie to the hypothesis that great art must come from rotten lives. Sometimes art comes in spite of surroundings. Which is what I tell myself since I live a pretty cush life, which contrasts with my most productive writing period.

Although, to be honest, the Great Playboy Caper brought me more fiscal reward than my creative writing has.

So this book is worth a look if you’re not too embarrassed to buy it or be caught reading it. Because the other Republicans might ostracize one who knows who Vargas is or has an event in one’s life called The Great Playboy Caper.

An Urban Chicken Rescue Organization.

Throughout Missouri and probably the nation, people are deciding that they want to raise chickens in their suburban and urban backyards (see stories in St. Louis and Springfield). These people are doing it as part of an environmental nutbar fad and they’re doing it with a bit of Internet research and without any experience in farming or treating livestock qua livestock instead of livestock qua food-providing-pet.

Ergo, when their circumstances change, when they get tired of them, or when they reach the end of the hens’ productive years, people are going to need to get rid of these damn birds. Are they going to slaughter them? Of course not! They’d just as soon slay their bichon frise or lifestyle accessory only child.

That’s where my UCRO steps in. It will give them a conscience-friendly way to get rid of their chickens without having to turn them loose on the streets (although there wouldn’t be much of a pack of stray chickens problem if there are any stray dogs or cats about or foxes, coyotes, or automobiles). UCRO can save cities from the dreaded Giant Chickens in the Sewers rumor, too, although to be honest, I’d rather help perpetuate that myth.

So send your checks and money orders as soon as I get my 501(c) status and start paying myself a hefty salary to help young green hipsters out of their foolishness. For a fool and his chicken will soon be parted for a small gift to my forthcoming charitable organization.

UPDATE: Hey, thanks for the link, Ms. K. If you readers are in IT, don’t forget to check out my QA blog QA Hates You.