Churchill loses in court of appeals

Apparently those "good vibes" Chutch attorney David Lane got from two of the three judges during arguments last month were just gas. The decision was unanimous: Churchill's firing was legal and by the book. Here's the decision (pdf). Just skimming it right now, but if anything stands up and pokes me in the eye I'll update.

(via PB)

Update: Here's the Post story. Couple of typically circumspect Lane quotes.

Update II: The ACLU, AAUP, and someone representing the Center for Constitutional Rights, Latina/o Critical Legal Theory, Inc., National Lawyers Guild, and Society of American Law Teachers filed Amicus briefs.

Update III: Loved this part:

[Churchill] states that the investigation caused him to miss deadlines and to default on unspecified book contracts. He also claims that third parties cancelled speaking engagements and the alumni association withheld an award from him. As to the former contentions, the record is devoid of any proof of damage or causation. As to the latter cancellations and the withholding of the award, the University did not take these actions and therefore they do not constitute an adverse employment action.

No award! Call the wahhhhhhmbulance! (Yes, that one should be honorably retired.) As for the alleged book contracts, I vaguely remember Wart saying (apparently not at trial) that he had four books in various stages of writing which the investigation and trial had prevented him from completing. Now it's been over a year and a half since his trial ended, and all he's produced is a foreword or two, one for a comic book. I doubt he's spent the time looking up case cites for Lane.

Update IV: Caplis: "Tremendous cause for celebration." That's it? Bleh.

Update V: Oops, spoke too soon. Lane is gonna be on next.

Update VI: Rats, had to take a phone call, but could kind of half-ass listen. Caplis let Lane keep the focus completely on the jury when at this point their verdict is kind of, you know, moot. Not one question (that I heard, anyway) about qualified immunity. Good job, Dan.

Update VII: Here's the podcast of Caplis's interview with Lane. It starts about 11:33 in.

Update VIII: The Gamera's story; CS Gazette; 7News. None has much new info, but the Wart-love in the comments is fun. Fave comment so far is at the 9News site: "A great picture of Ward. He looks exactly like an old Romanian woman who lost her donkey cart. What a stooge."


Update IX: The Little Churchills at the Wart Slobidarity Network have Churchill's reaction (though it isn't in quotes) (and no permalinks either, the morons):

Ward Churchill summarizes the ruling:
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is wrong.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is wrong.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is wrong.
The ACLU of Colorado is wrong.
The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) is wrong.
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is wrong.
The National Coalition Against Censorship is wrong.
Latina/o Critical Legal Theory is wrong.
And Federal law doesn’t apply in Colorado

Aside from that last, yup.

Abstract(s) of the Week!

You know, I really do look for absurd abstracts in fields other than womyn's studies, and sometimes find them. Unfortunately, they're almost never as good as the stuff one finds in journals like, say, Feminist Formations. So screw it. Here are a couple from that seminal publication.

Navigating Public Spaces: Gender, Race, and Body Privilege in Everyday Life

Samantha Kwan

Borrowing from and refining Peggy McIntosh's (1988) ideas on white privilege, this article introduces the concept of "body privilege" and examines how a lack of body privilege materializes in everyday life. Interviews with forty-two "overweight" women and men reveal a body privilege continuum distinctly patterned by gender and race. Specifically, while a majority of participants are not able to experience a level of comfort when navigating public spaces, women generally report more instances of body nonprivilege. Moreover, a number of Hispanic and white women experience a heightened level of "body consciousness" that leads to some form of "body management." This article documents and discusses this body privilege and its racial and gendered embodiment, along with differences between body privilege and McIntosh's original concept. It also discusses how body privilege sheds new light on crucial debates regarding cultural ideals, women's bodies, and agency.

Unmirroring Pedagogies: Teaching with Intersectional and Transnational Methods in the Women and Gender Studies Classroom

Dawn Rae Davis

As the U.S. academy increasingly markets "the global" and "diversity" for undergraduate student consumption, feminists face new challenges with respect to the decolonizing goals of teaching. Analyzing race, gender, and culture intersections that inform epistemological desires in the Women and Gender Studies classroom, this article examines the potential of a "pedagogy of unmirroring" to engage students in a decolonizing process of learning that facilitates intersectional and transnational feminist methods. The analysis draws from personal teaching experiences to argue that the languages of postcolonial feminist studies can be applied to a politics of knowledge in the classroom by rendering self–other relations of empire visible to the "mirror" of student perceptions in ways that help them confront epistemological desires rooted in imperialist assumptions.

Update: The pirate whose parrot cussed out a TSA employee the other day has an abstract every bit as goofy as these, and Wart-related to boot. He also notes that the Colorado Court of Appeals apparently will publish its decision in the Wart case tomorrow. Can't wait.

Quote of the Day!

“Changing attitudes towards climate change is not like selling a particular brand of soap – it’s like convincing someone to use soap in the first place.”

That'll win friends and influence people. It's from "The Rules of the Game: The principle of climate change communication," by a PR firm called futtera sustainability communications (note lowercase humbleness). The whole website is kind of a (dismal) hoot. Here are some of futtera's "leading projects." Slow travel. Jesus.

Had a McRib today

First time ever. Don't know why I got one, except that commenters at AoSHQ keep raving about it (not all of them, to be sure).

It was the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten. A quarter-inch-thick rectangle of graymeat covered in a sickly sweet red liquid substance and topped with onions and pickles (pickles?), all ensconced in a doughy, wet bun. And somehow, notwithstanding that it probably came from five or six different pigs (?) and was squashed into a fine mash before the stamping process, the meat was tough. Couldn't choke down half of the horrid thing.

Update (from Billy Bob): Two "thumbs" up!

Update II: This post is like an extended tweet, isn't it? Sorry. Next up: D-blog takes a bath!

'Round and about Coloradoo

All from the Post.

Moron shoots park ranger in Utah canyon country:

MOAB, UTAH — Officers searching for a gunman in a rugged Utah canyon Saturday were believed to be closing in on the suspect accused of shooting and critically wounding a park ranger, authorities said.

Grand County Sheriff James Nyland said officers were able to pickup the man's footprints and found his rifle and backpack along the Colorado River, about 22 miles southwest of Moab.

Nobody knows what happened yet. The officer is in critical but stable condition, which usually means he'll be okay, and they found the suspect's car.

Still, I think the cops should BOLO Aron Ralston's hand.

Remember how the Colorado ski industry was going to be killed by global warming? For a while you couldn't line your bird cage without seeing a piece on how the mountains would no longer get snow once AGW really got going. Oh, wait. They're still doing it. February 2, 2010: "Colorado groups says climate change endangers skiing." (No link because it's already down the memory hole. Anyway, a story today:

Big storm could disrupt mountain holiday travel

A huge snowstorm will dump up to 4 feet of snow on south-facing slopes in the San Juans this week but shouldn't impact Thanksgiving commutes across the Denver area.

Or this, also teased on the front page:

Early storms lift skier, industry hopes as snow proves deep and powdery

COPPER MOUNTAIN — Snowstorms measured in feet. Powder. Avalanches. Bustling villages. A series of bountiful storms has catapulted Colorado's ski hills deep into winter. For many hills, this is the best opening in the past decade.

Actually, the skiing has been excellent for the past three or four or five years.

Darwin Award honorable mention:

Loveland beekeeper stung by his own shotgun booby trap

A Loveland beekeeper fell victim to his own sting and was wounded by a booby trap he set to protect his hive from a bear.

Police said John Frost, 68, suffered injuries to his left hand and left lower leg after an improvised shotgun booby trap he made went off Nov. 4. . . .

He lied about it, badly:

The [police] report said that his injuries did not appear to match his story and that Erbelding [Frost's girlfriend] said she never saw Frost with a shotgun.

Deputies said Frost gave them permission to investigate his property.

According to the report, police followed a trail of blood droplets which led them to a "suspicious-looking box" with a pipe protruding from it near the beehive.

Deputy Andrew Weber, who filed the report, said he recognized the box as a booby-trap shotgun. The report said that the pipe appeared to be attached to a tripwire. Upon dismantling the device, police reported finding one spent shotgun shell.

According to the report, a hospital staff member became suspicious when he asked Erbelding what happened and Frost allegedly said: "Shut up, we talked about this." . . .

Why?

Parents arrive from Australia as investigators confirm identity of dead twin

As officials confirmed the identity of a twin killed in a suicide pact, the women's parents arrived from Australia to be with their wounded daughter,

The Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office on Friday said Kristin A. Hermeler, 29, was the woman who died Monday at the Family Shooting Center at Cherry Creek State Park.

Family Shooting Center. Well . . . But again, why?

Perea [a cop] addressed media reports that a link to the 1999 Columbine killings was found among the women's possessions. He said the link consisted only of a photocopy of a Time magazine cover, from May 3, 1999, that depicted shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.

"There were no other clippings or documents, nothing else on Columbine," Perea said.

Candice denied any interest in the case, and there was no other evidence to suggest a link, Perea said.

When investigators asked Candice about the magazine cover, Perea said, Candice replied: "I don't give a (expletive). It happened a long time ago."

Weird. If Caz checks in maybe she can shed a little light on the case. Don't think the story says it, but I think the twins were from Melbourne.

Update: Post this Sunday A.M.:

Twins in suicide pact had contact with Columbine survivor in 1999

The Hermeler twins' interest in Columbine High School grew from their experience as victims of bullying, as suggested by their phone calls and 11-year-old letters to a Columbine survivor.

Kristin Hermeler, the 29-year-old sister who committed suicide Monday at an Arapahoe County gun range, called herself "someone who has been rejected, victimized and ostracized" in a letter to Columbine survivor Brooks Brown. . . .

Update II: Commenter "Hinckley" notes another twin suicide pact, in California last month. Let's not start a fad, guys. (Though isn't this how they ended the Patty Duke show in the 60s?)

D-blog threatened by solicitors

With a defamation suit. No, really.

Backstory: Last April I posted on Sally Weintrobe, a psychoanalyst who was to read a paper to an organization improbably called "The Tavistock and Portman," and titled (allegedly), "Heads in the Sand: What's mad about Climate Change."

According to T&P's press release announcing Weintrobe's appearance,

The overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion is that the warming the Earth has observed over the last 50 years has been due to an increase in greenhouse gases directly caused by human activities. Predictions for the likely effects of this warming vary from the disastrous to the apocalyptic.

People 's reaction to potentially hazardous problems [NOT doughnuts] are often acute and even exaggerated. Predicted pandemics such as Swine Flu cause panic and induce rapid changes in people's behavior. Yet faced with overwhelming evidence of a likely global catastrophe the vast majority of populations have their heads in the sand. Why is this?

Is it ambivalence and apathy? Or, are people paralyzed by feelings of anxiety and helplessness? What are the barriers to individuals taking action? WE [sic] must look at the reasons people are not acting in order to understand how to get people to act.

Unfortunately for T&P, what our Sal originally submitted as a promo blurb or whatever read simply:

Some problems engaging with Climate Change: A psychoanalytic perspective

Using psychoanalytic ideas, Sally Weintrobe will explore some of the underlying reasons for the current level of denial of climate change and will suggest ways forward towards greater engagement.

Somewhat less strident (if perhaps equally dumb), wouldn't you say?

Turns out T&P added all the other garbage, and then failed to run it by Weintrobe before publishing.

Well. On being informed through Weintrobe's solicitors, Gillhams, that she was pissed, T&P fell down two flights of stairs in their rush to apologize, starting with this explanation:

After reviewing the material, the clinical director who commissioned the talk decided to amend the draft with an eye to what he thought would improve the marketing of the seminar and attract a larger audience. . . .

Can't find an account of the talk, don't know if it even came off. But that director should be on Mad Men, huh? Sell, sell, sell! Onward:

I am aware of your view that the changed title for your lecture, which includes the word “mad,” may be interpreted as provocative. I am also aware of your view that the description of your lecture is not reflective of how you, as a professional psychoanalyst, would approach your practice, this subject matter, or the public. Some of the blogs suggest you were motivated by financial gain [not me! I just suggested she was a dimwit] to give the lecture. On behalf of the trust I would like to make it clear that it was never intended that you would receive remuneration for giving the lecture, nor will you be offered any in the future.

Unless, of course, Weintrobe decides to sue. Anyway, after some really gross Weintrobe-licking:

The trust therefore unreservedly apologises for changing the proposed title for the lecture and the advertising material that was published without seeking consent, and for any distress suffered or any damage to your personal and professional reputation. We are now actively taking steps to notify those in control of websites making potentially defamatory comments in respect to you and/or your intended lecture that such comments should immediately be removed from their web presence.

My august web presence, if you please. Of course, I never heard anything from them.

After reviewing all this, Gillhams turns their attention to your darling defamatory D-blog, noting first that his post ("the Post") is one of a number of "agitated responses of the public" (yeah, sure) to T&P's press release, and listing the "possible defamatory meanings of the Post," among them,

a) Our client is crackpot psychoanalyst [sic], who should not be taken seriously . . .

c) The implication that our client is not a credible member of the profession of psychoanalysts [oh, no, she definitely is] . . .

e) The implication that our client is incompetent . . .

And so on. Finally,

Our client is of the view that the Post presents an unfair portrayal of her professional standing, reputation, and approach to treatment of individuals. Our client has never exploited those who may be in need of treatment, including those who would be the subject of the seminar to be presented on behalf of the Trust.

That's a relief. I was getting ready to seek help for my extreme AGW skepticism, but hesitated because I feared just such exploitation. Upshot of the whole lamebrain thing:

10. While our client is reluctant to do so, she reserves her rights against you for the defamatory content contained in your Post.

So I wrote them a nice note, mocking them for thinking (which I doubt they seriously do) that there are actually grounds for a suit against me, especially in the good 'ol USA. But being an honest bogger (what?) I said I'd post a correction. Here it is.

More personally, Sally, dear, I apologize for T&P not having the brains God gave a salted slug. Hey, maybe this episode will cause you to contemplate changing the focus of your psychoanalytics, perhaps toward people who are such AGW fanatics that they recklessly, not to say defamatorially, add their own paranoid fantasies to your words. I doubt it.

Update: T&P wiki; T&P website.

Update II: And Gillhams? The original post stays up. Yep, I'm an internet tough guy.

Update III: Though to be fair, I'll add a note to the original referring to this post.

Grauniad stuff

Just a couple of things. Teased on the front page, a parody, or something (I thought parodies were supposed to be funny) of GWB's Decision Points. Typical kneeslapper that also Really Makes You Think:

Quitting drinking was the toughest decision I've ever made. Those closest to me were begging me to carry on. "Think what you're doing, George," they cried. "If you do get sober, you'll go on to be president and wreck the lives of countless people. Do us all a favour and keep getting legless." I'm happy to say the only legless people these days are the US servicemen returning from Afghanistan.

Accompanying art. I don't get it.

Most of the comments add up to: haaaaaaaaack.

On the environment page, an interview (from a forthcoming piece in Nature) with Dr. Phil Jones (say it like Tommy Lee Jones says "Dr. Richard Kimble" in The Fugitive) on the anniversary (almost) of the release of the Climategate e-mails (which were stolen, by the way). (Too many parentheses in that sentence.)

Not quite a tongue-bath, surprisingly, but obviously on Jones' side. I'd forgotten this, but back in February Jones said he would submit a correction to Nature about data from Chinese weather stations they'd published back in 1990. Now he takes it back:

Jones now says that is unnecesary. He said that he had been under pressure to concede errors earlier this year and had been on medication when he had given the interview to Nature in February. The idea that measuring stations had moved in China had been misinterpreted, he said, because his paper had talked of 84 stations from a larger group of 265. For his paper, Jones said he had chosen those measuring stations that had moved the least.

Oh, well then. Why didn't you say so? On the e-mails:

Jones also insists that he did not delete any emails that had been requested from him through the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. Pre-emptive deleting of emails that might be requested in FOI requests in future is not against the law but the Muir Russell report pointed out that such actions went against the spirit and intent of the regulations. And that there was some evidence that this had happened at the CRU.

"You can't second guess what's going to be requested," said Jones, "I deleted them based on their dates. It was to keep the e-mails under control."

Most damagingly, in one email Jones urged colleagues to delete messages in which they discussed the preparation of a report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

When asked why he did it, he told Nature: "That was probably just bravado at the time," he says. "We just thought if they're going to ask for more, we might as well not have them."

But they weren't, you understand, actually deleted.

Update: WUWT has a post on Jones' "rehabilitation" based on the Nature piece itself.

Wart and pedophilia--sounds familiar somehow

Chutch lawyer David Lane was just on Caplis and Silverman talking about the book The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure, which Amazon was forced by public pressure to pull today.

Slightly surprisingly, Caplis didn't know whether publishing such a book is legal. (Anarchist's Cookbook, anyone?)

Lane set him straight. More important, Lane said the Chutch decision should come down in the "next couple of months." Caplis asked him if he had gotten a feeling which way it'd go from the judges' questions.

"I got a bad vibe from one judge and okay vibes from two. And all we need is two."

He also predicted that, no matter what happens at this level or the next (the Colorado Supreme Court), the case will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

At least he wasn't wearing a helmet

A kid just went by riding his bike no-handed.

Well, he kind of had to. After all, it takes two hands to text.

The amazing thing about this story

Is, it's in the reliably leftie Denver Post. "Rising fees for utilities may be slowing recovery, economists say"

Welll, duuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Wait, needs a little more: duuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. There.

Even in one of the most contentious election cycles in recent history, most politicians agree on one thing: It's a mistake to raise taxes during an economic recession or early in a recovery.

Make it most Republican politicians, and I might agree.

But equally mandatory fees have quietly and relentlessly crept up in Colorado and across the nation, and economists say they could be slowing the economic recovery. . . .

Read the whole thing. It kind of dribbles off into a discussion of the reasonableness of pay raises for utility workers during a recession. But notice how three little initials are never mentioned with regard to Xcel, the power company: A. G. W. The adoption of belief in it sparked unnecessary initiatives like conversion of coal-fired plants to gas, "investment" in "renewables," etc. Idiots.

Update: Forgot I wrote this same story (a little more angrily, no doubt) a while ago.

Update II: What enviros will say to this piece: Well, duuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh. But they'll add that it's life or death so, suck it up, Shriner.

Voting Riport

buy Charly (not smart yet).

You've probably noticed how many people have said, "I'll crawl through broken glass to vote this time around." Well, I literally did.

Okay, I drove through broken glass. Still sucked.

First, I screwed up, assuming that the polling station in this area would be Rude Rec Center, as it was last time. So I tried to drive down there. Major construction everywhere around the place. Shovel-ready, no doubt. It was almost impossible to get there, but I did.

Wrong place, this year. The woman told me voting was at Barnum elementary.

Where is that, again? She didn't know.

Back home to look up where Barnum is (we're talking less than a mile one-way or whatever so I didn't insult Gaia too much, though I wanted to).

Barnum. Got it. Drive over. Wrong. They had no clue, and looked at me like I was a perv (as Wart will tell you, I am). Back home. Where the fuck do I vote?

Turns out, after a rudimentary tube search, Riverside Baptist Church (separation of C & S, y'all!), which is three blocks from my house.

Splendid place, by the way, though it's quite ugly on the outside.

Anyhow, when I was there (a little before one p.m.), there were three (count 'em, 3) other voters, in a deep, deep blue place in a very populous neighborhood. They had set up for like 20 at a time. I asked one of the poll ladies how turnout was, and she gave me the meh hand-waggle, and I heard somebody on the phone saying 209 for the turnout up to that point,

Very bad. For Dems.

The ballot itself. Too lazy (I say that a lot, don't I?) to find out if this is a statewide thing, but it was paper. First time I've voted with a pencil since the 70s. You had to connect little arrows. First time, also, that I voted a straight party ticket. I'll let you guess which.

Weirdest thing on the ballot? Initiative 300. Hey, if the UN wants it, why not Denver?

Everywhere she goes, she gets banned

Took me years to finally and irrevocably take the step, and WUWT is also notoriously reluctant to ban people, but skimming through this thread I noticed:

Snapple says:

October 31, 2010 at 3:57 pm

[Snip. Calling people 'denialists' is against site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]

First comment I've seen from her over there. Good work, Snaps! Let's see how long it takes before they can't stand your craziness, like everyone else who's had intertube dealings with you.

Inexplicably

The stands are still full at Mile H--Invesco Field--at the start of the fourth quarter, with the Broncos suffering probably their worst loss (59-14 at the moment) in franchise history--against freakin' Oakland. I predicted 8-8, but, no way. Let's just call it rebuilding and be done with it. Go Rockies!

Oh, wait.

Update: Yep, the TV guys say worst loss ever.

Everybody's sick of them

But one thing about the Chllean minors, er, miners: the taking oot of Allende was the best thing that ever happened to that country (note passive voice).

Together at last

Russell Means and Alex Jones. Too insane to quote. Just listen. Perfect example of Blair's Law. Apparently Russell has been on Alex's show a number of times.

(h/t Ingrid at PB)

We're never gonna run out of anything

Especially idiots. Good thread over at WUWT; or, at least, it chills out a couple of my pettest of peeves--the hysteria over alleged overpopulation, and the all-too-common claim (both advanced even by AGW sceptics) that we're running out of (fill in the blank). There's a guy commenting there under the nom de doof "GM" who is a Malthusian's Malthusian. He thinks human population should be 100 million or less and constantly uses my new-fave meaningless term: "ecological overshoot."

The (Julian) Simonists tear him up. Not, like the Black Knight, that he notices.

Letter from Obama

John --

No "Dear" again. Starting to piss me off.

I come into this election with clear eyes.

Uh-huh.

I am proud of all we have achieved together, but I am mindful of all that remains to be done.

"Mindful." Another word I hate.

I know some out there are frustrated by the pace of our progress.

Yeah, that's what the frustration is about.

I want you to know I'm frustrated, too. . . .

Contributing frustration: no more handjobs from the Wookie.

Neither one of us is here because we thought it would be easy. Making change is hard. . . .

As one who, like you, almost flunked Consumer Math, I agree.

The very special interests who have stood in the way of change at every turn . . .

Very special interests? Are you calling them 'tards?

. . . want to put their conservative allies in control of Congress. And they're doing it with the help of billionaires and corporate special interests underwriting shadowy campaign ads. . . .

There is no better time for you to start fighting back -- a fellow grassroots supporter has promised to match, dollar for dollar, whatever you can chip in today.

Please donate $3 -- and see who wants you to re-commit to this movement.

Three bucks? That's it? Hell, I can do th--oops, tapped out. Just gave my last buck to another bu--homeless person. Get a job, sir. I love this part:

I know that sometimes it feels like we've come a long way from the hope and excitement of the inauguration, with its "Hope" posters and historic crowds on the National Mall.

Yes, a loooooooonnng way. All down. "Hope" posters and historic crowds. Gad.

I will never forget it. But it was never why we picked up this fight.

I didn't run for president because I wanted to do what would make me popular. . . .

Working better than you thought, ain't it?

You and I are in this because we believe in a simple idea -- that each and every one of us, working together, has the power to move this country forward. We believed that this was the moment to solve the challenges that the country had ignored for far too long.

That change happens only from the bottom up. That change happens only because of you.

From the bottom up. Hahahahahahahah--oops, my colon just prolapsed.

So I need you to fight for it over the next 26 days. I need your time. I need your commitment. And I need your help to get your friends and neighbors involved.

Not looking to get shot, pal. But look how the buy-in has gone down. Used to be, "Donate $25, $50, $100, whatever you can afford." Now:

If you bring in a new donor today, your $3 donation will become $6. And our Vote 2010campaign will have twice the resources to make important investments like putting staff on the ground, providing materials for volunteers, and turning out millions of voters come Election Day.

Please donate $3 -- and renew your commitment today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/OctoberMatch

https?

If we meet this test -- if you, like me, believe that change is not a spectator sport -- we will not just win this election. In the years that come, we can realize the change we are seeking -- and reclaim the American dream for this generation.

Thank you for being a part of it,

As usual, you're welcome.

President Barack Obama

"I" count: roughly 15, in what, 300 words?

Clever Hans sucks

Looking for a review of the movie about the great racehorse Secretariat and found a Google ad: "Secretariat signed photo." Wow. I'm buying.

Update: What a come-on. Turns out it's signed by the jockey who rode Secretariat. Hope I can get my $99.95 back.

Forgot all about it

Denver's Columbus Day parade, that is. Until yesterday, anyway. Put in a call to Rick SaBell, the organizer, to see if anything was up, protest-wise (nothing was posted on the Colorado AIM site), but he didn't return it. Luckily, the Post has an anemic account of an anemic parade:

Denver's Sons of Italy Columbus Day Parade, scheduled to go as long as four hours, lasted barely 40 minutes this morning.

There were a few protesters:

Even the group of protesters was on the smallish side and were difficult to hear across Broadway except for a few with microphones.

Did Benjie get arrested?

Sons of Columbus President Rick SaBell said the parade was larger than past years and broke a record for the number of parade entries.

"We've got all three ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria," he said. "We're gaining momentum. Our goal is to restore the history and luster of the parade." . . .

Only been to one, and that was in the heyday of the protests, but the parade itself was pretty unlustrous.

The most prominent feature of the parade were columns of gleaming motorcycles, from classics to elaborate custom-built bikes, that revved their engines to drown out protesters.

Yeah, they did that in 2005 too.

A ring of police surrounded the small group of protesters on Broadway.

"Kick cracker bums off Indian land," said one sign.

"Columbus go home," a few dozen people chanted.

Here's a little Malkin-fodder:

Protester Antonio Moreno said Colorado is occupied Mexican land.

"This isn't your land white man," he yelled into his
microphone. . . .

Yeah, racist. But the parade was so boring the reporter had to focus on some woman's apparently gimped-up little dog:

Connie Truax's toy schnauzer Lacy was terrified by the cannons [at least they weren't crap cannons] just before the parade started. But when it got moving she charmed the few people scattered along the parade route.

A Tom Tancredo supporter, Truax pushed a wheelchair with Lacy and a stuffed Uncle Sam aboard.

"He needs a little help now-adays," she quipped.

"Now-adays"?

But her favorite candidate for governor was also under the weather.

"Tom couldn't be here. He has a terrible cold," she said.

Fascinating.

Update: Did Benjie get arrested?

Tasty

Just making some sauerkraut and ribs. Ever had those? Old German recipe. Anyway, I was stabbing the ribs with a two-pronged fork to make the deliquescence quicker when I thought of the The Manson Family, and then of Babe, both movies I've seen recently. Fatal Attraction fits in there too, somehow.

Michael Douglas, by the way, had big ol' jowls even back then.

Many people think I'm getting smarter with age.

Update: Dig it!