If Not For You

This one's been a long time in coming, and I see he's grown a beard in the interim. A good cover of a Bob Dylan song, by David Bertsch, a student at Elon University.

I liked his earlier work, but I really like the arrangement here.

A cool iPhone app, for the ossaphile

I've been playing Speed Bones lately, the lite version (although I sprang for the fancy $0.99 version, too), and I'd give it the thumbs up (yeah, yeah, I know, first digit).

I've borrowed a picture to give you an idea, but the name pretty much says it: You have to quickly! identify bones and bone structures, from the skull to the distal phalanges. It is most definitely fun, and it seems to work. I've gone from a pitiful score starting out to being able to handle the first eleven levels (from general bones to pieces of arms, legs, shoulders, backs and noggins).

Very cool! By the way, I always get way more than 1699 for the clavicle. Too easy. The channel for the carotid? Welllll, working on it.

12 questions

Got this idea from the biz-to-biz publication my employer puts out each month:

1. What brought you to Walla Walla? Originally, college. This time, a good job in a small city with great weather where work and a lot of other destinations are a short walk from my house, which is pretty much downtown.

2. Favorite memory: How to choose! Honestly, though, I look forward, not back. If I had to pick one, maybe having dinner with new friends in Redeyef, Tunisia, with the butterfly lady.

3. Current favorite song/CD: CD? What's that? Current song: Carvel, by John Frusciante.

Album: Sea Sew, by Lisa Hannigan


Favorite movie: The Deer Hunter, but it depends on the day. Maybe Heat, maybe Romeo + Juliet.

Favorite food: Well, that is an impossible question, isn't it? I guess it is a tie: Pastrami and swiss on rye with Russian dressing and sauerkraut or peanut butter and jam on country white.

Favorite book: Only one? Wind, Sand and Stars. But seriously, only one?

Favorite hobby: Bird watching. First easy question!

Favorite place in Walla Walla County: In the wheat fields east of the city, in the hills that overlook the valley.

Most recent local purchase: Two delicate drinking glasses with dragonflies from Willow of Walla Walla.

Worst job: Depends on how you look at it. You might imagine the curséd cannery, the miserable mill or the horrible hospital, but you'd be wrong. Worst job? Working at Roth's Vista Market as a box clerk, where the owner would drop by now and then to patronize his low-paid workers and exhort us to run, run, run when bringing those shopping carts back in from the lot. What a jerk. One of my jobs in New Hampshire was pretty high on the list, too.

Dream vacation: Beats me. How about three months in summer to complete the New England 67? (That'd be summiting the 67 peaks in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine that are over 4,000 feet). I'm between a third and halfway done now, but they're a long drive these days.

Person you'd most like to talk to: Cate Blanchett :)

A piece!

Fidelity board opposes human-rights proposal

I got a proxy voting notice today from Fidelity, offering me a chance to sign off on a board of trustees and - if they had their druthers - oppose a shareholder proposal that certain funds divest of/refuse to invest in companies that the board can reasonably link to governments that support human rights abuses and genocide.

I'm not impressed. I mean, I am, but not in a good way.

Anyway, the proxy notice says nothing about which trustees support the idea and which oppose, but here's who the board wants to elect trustees: James C. Curvey, Albert R. Gamper Jr., Abigail P. Johnson, Arthur E. Johnson, Michael E. Kenneally, James H. Keyes, Maria L. Knowles and Kenneth L. Wolfe.

I figure, if you're standing for election to a body that doesn't give a damn about human rights, you're probably guilty of something.

Beeswing

Here's another great cover, of a Richard Thompson song. I'd pay to hear her.

Great cover of a great tune

Not tooooo many people are likely to have heard this particular Dylan song, but it is great, and this guy's cover is, too. Well worth a listen.

Should read: Military agrees to not stage coup

USA Today carries one of the embarrassing stories about the potential abandonment of the don't ask, don't tell nonsense used by the military to keep non-straight people in check. But although the story is pretty silly in the big picture of civil rights (and seriously, if you want to go to war, I don't really care who your legal sex partners are, I'm just thankful you choose to serve), the headline and the point of the story are absurd:

Mullen: Military to comply if gay ban law changes.

And the Mullen in question, Adm. Michael Mullen (chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, if you're keeping score at home), says exactly that: The military would go along if the laws governing its rules change.

Well no shit, Sherlock. The only other option is a coup, which of course would mean the military is the enemy, which of course would mean all those "assault" rifles we're discouraged from owning would come in pretty damn handy.

What really blows my mind is that someone appointed to be the ultimate (OK, penultimate. Obama runs the place) voice of the military thinks it is necessary to explicitly state that the military would abide by the rule of law. Seriously, I'm pretty sure they're the people we need to be worried about the least.