Dismantling Ted Kennedy's playhouse

The green paint, green carpets, sailing mementos and elegant armchairs gave it the feel of an upscale clubroom:

Located on the third floor of the Capitol building, it offers easy access to the neighboring radio and television press gallery and the Senate floor.

The memorabilia is now gone, and Senate custodial staff hauled away the furniture after Kennedy died in August 2009. The walls have been painted white and the floor is now varnished wood. It seems more like a Protestant chapel.

Solstice

It's the longest day of the year.

When gentlemen didn't read other people's mail

On July 11, 1941, with the United States not yet at war, F.D.R. created the post of Coordinator of Information, and inserted Donovan into the position. The job description was a little vague, which suited both men. At first, Donovan reported directly to the President. Spying was still regarded with distaste by many people in the foreign-policy establishment: in 1941, while Hitler was overrunning Europe and threatening Great Britain, the State Department had eighteen people working in intelligence.

Here people run for president who deny science; there we mock him for driving a Dodge Dartre

Only in France:

In 1964, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, but he refused it. When he died in 1980, 50,000 people turned out on the streets of Paris to pay their respects.

Time spins, doesn't it?

Time flies- Ronald Dworkin has another book out. And he's nearly 80.

Related articles

• Ronald Dworkin: Lessons in morality (guardian.co.uk)
• The Intellectual Dishonesty of the Conservative Majority of The Supreme Court (firedoglake.com)

A good business model

IBM just celebrated its 100th anniversary.

IBM isn't in the headlines every day for its innovations, but it's an idea factory. For 18 years, it has received the most patents of any company. In 2010, it received 5,896 in all -- 16 patents a day.

Its current success is its ability to make use of those ideas, and to apply technology to help its customers, rather than trying to manipulate situations to convince those customers to buy specific products that might soon be outdated in a rapidly shifting environment.

Time out

Not that anyone will particularly care, but I anticipate a break in posting as I relocate. Back, well, eventually.

Who knew?

Back when I had a really good health care plan, I was scheduled for a physical.

It took all day.

Among the features of the experience was an electrocardiogram. That's where they put electrodes all over you and twist dials and something results.

A small Asian woman came in to prep me. She had trouble pasting electrodes on me. "You so hairy," she complained.

I apologized. It's one of many things I wasn't consulted on before I was born. Until I hit high school, I had no idea it would become an issue.

Apparently, in the offspray of Weinergate, it is.

Homelandzombie Security

For a blogfriend who's a part-time zombie, a warning: they're onto you guys:

The oncoming zombie apocalypse might sound like the chance to write off your debt and be the badass you were always born to be, but for fans of stuff like "not killing loved ones" and "still having skin" it's going to be a rough ride. So what have you done to prepare? Hell, what has the government done? These guys can't even handle the living, never mind the undead.

These were the thoughts of a concerned citizen from Leicester who, through the Freedom of Information Act, forced his city council to reveal it was woefully unprepared for a zombie uprising. "Having watched several films," he wrote, "it is clear that preparation for such an event is poor and one that councils throughout the kingdom must prepare for." You tell 'em, concerned citizen.
Leicester city council could, of course, take some tips from America's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, whose Ali Khan recently issued a zombie survival guide in order to publicise its site. But with its tongue so firmly in cheek, can people really trust such advice? No, but you can trust us. Here are five tips:

1. Be prepared with supplies

An obvious point to start off on, but essential all the same. Every house by now should have a "zombie emergency kit" that consists of food, water, medication, gas, duct tape, a battery-powered radio, clothes, copies of important documents, first-aid supplies and guns – lots of guns. Remember: fail to prepare and prepare to be eaten alive, screaming.
2. Get out of town.

Your first instinct when the news of a zombie uprising breaks will be to get the hell out of town – after all, the countryside is less populated than big cities and will be easier for survival. This is fine, but if you're in a big city it creates a problem: with everyone rushing to escape at the same time, it will cause a deadlock – only this time with more emphasis on "dead". Plan your route out of the city in advance to avoid traffic.
3. If you're staying at home or are stuck somewhere else, then fortify your base.
If you're put in a siege situation, you better make sure your hideout is defended. Barbed wire, weapons and gas-filled bottles are all very useful along with alarms – which can make with some cans and pots on a wire. A word of warning though: you only survive a siege if there's a possibility the invading horde will stop, weigh up the pros and cons and leave – but zombies don't do that. Zombies do not tire, nor can they be reasoned or bargained with. They are relentless and will not leave your base until your supplies run out and you die a horrible, horrible death.
4. Search for survivors.
Safety in numbers: when you can, make sure you are part of a group or let other people know you're still alive – if you remain on your own you will, eventually, go mad. Be careful about using big signals though – you may attract unwanted attention. And finally ...
5. Relax – it'll all be fine.

Have you noticed that in most zombie films, by the time we join our heroes, the military and government are already wiped out and the streets are lost? The reason for that is because what with so many natural predators, the armed forces and biting being a rubbish way spreading disease, zombies would probably all be re-dead before we know it. So don't be too worried, Concerned Citizen of Leicester – it might not be so bad after all.

25 years ago this weekend, Ferris Bueller's Day Off opened in theaters.

A Washington Post article picks some of the lasting cultural effects of the film:

15. A preview of things to come for Charlie Sheen.

“Why are you here?” “Drugs.”

 

Back then you could wear your uniform to school and not be ridiculed

I became an Eagle Scout in 1970. Things under the BSA's policy shift of the 1990s has hollowed out the once vibrant organization:

BSA membership, 4.8 million in the 1970s, slipped last year to 2.7 million. It is difficult to see how much longer the Scouts can hold onto the past when open-minded youth and parents increasingly cross off from consideration organizations that openly discriminate. Last year alone, the number of Cub Scout leaders dropped nearly 6 percent (full disclosure: I am a Scout volunteer).

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom Scouting Association enjoyed its biggest single-year increase in 38 years in 2009 with a comprehensive strategy of making outdoor activities cool again and saying clearly that scouting is for every child, including girls and gay youth. UK chief scout commissioner Wayne Bulpitt recently did a video for an anti-gay-bullying campaign.

Marking time

So it's been thirty years since AIDS assumed a form that warranted a diagnosis.

There's been an odd sort of commemoration, largely by medical professionals and long-term survivors. There've been no end of movies.

But if you had to live through it, these three decades were an era of indifference, and occasional hatefulness, among the general population.

The government didn't really recognize the disease back then, and the flip side was people in power wishing more of "them" would die.

In the early 80s people suddenly got sick and in a few weeks they were dead. As time went on and the drugs got a little better, people got diagnosed and killed themselves.

I went to a remarkable number of funerals.

I couldn't tell where I was going at work. It'd get me fired, even when I was a partner in my own business. Just a funeral, I had to say. The law had nothing to say for me. Got handed my hat by my church.

Then in the 90s people took longer to die. I remember a couple coming for lunch in the late 90s. One had been sick for a long time and it was clear to me that we'd never see Gene again. He was there for short periods, and then gone from the conversation.

In a few weeks he was dead.

Over the decades I've had people urge me, somehow, not to get infected, and other, less charitable sorts, urge me to get it and die. Sooner the better.

Family- well, no need to get into all that. Some good, most not so good.

Thirty years.. So many lives.

Matt Dillon needed all those comps at the Long Branch

Over the years, the marshal was shot 30 times.

Those were the days, my friend

A remembrance of a great writer I once knew.

Headline of the Day

Toronto man accused of beating raccoons with shovel

Take THAT, Bruce Chatwin-

Travel writer Paul Theroux has a fascinating article in The Financial Times on travel books- some written by people who were clearly mad, others who made the most of being trapped in awful circumstances, some who manufactured challenges as though they were a theme park ride.

But he makes it clear what sort of travel narrative he prefers. A must read article:

The world is full of jolly places but these do not interest me at all. I hate vacations and luxurious hotels are no fun to read about. I want to read about the miserable, or difficult, or inhospitable places; the forbidden cities and the back roads: as long as they exist the travel book will have value.