Runaway bride

She didn't wait till the altar call, and did she ever run.

Don't cross L.A. County.

Please. Another bogus "historical" claim to send us further down a dangerous road.

UPDATE: In related news, a Cupertino teacher claimed that he'd been denied his first amendment right to teach the "history" of the "Christian" founding of our country. He lost in federal district court. Opinion available at How Appealing.

Good news story

Jeff Pomerantz has the key links on the dramatic rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker. But he doesn't have the audio. (Thanks Russ.)

More from the Sign Museum

Why am I so fascinated with all this Googie kitsch? (Well, it is more interesting than filling out orders for textbooks for the fall.) This image from the American Sign Museum's "On the road" section is yet another ghost ad, another "metaphor for survival."

Signs of the American Century

The American Sign Museum in Cincinnati is officially opening. Take the virtual tour (RealPlayer available). "[T]he first in the nation devoted exclusively to signs."

"Devotion" seems like an understatement.

"Soul Notes": Reprise

CDs are now available for the original cast studio recording of Creighton Irons' fabulous musical "Soul Notes." "Amazing," "fabulous," etc. seem lame words to describe Creighton's talent as a composer (and ear-trained pianist), his passion for his subject material (race), and his ability to pull this remkable student cast together to bring the story to life.

Whenever you have a spare 30 minutes, treat yourself to the RealAudio video of highlights from the show that was taped at a Johnston Center preview.

Creighton is graduating soon from UNC, but he has taken time out from a busy schedule to take on the musical programming for the May 8 celebration of the dedication of the new Martin Luther King Blvd. He's done a great job with that too.

Congratulations, Creighton! When I first saw you perform at Phillips Middle School as the Cowardly Lion I knew you had promise, but you're exceeding expectations.

Dream tour tonight

The Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission's annual community project, "Dream," is on display at eight venues around town. Tonight, all of them are staying open till 9 p.m. to give folks an opportunity to take a dream tour. (The exhibit runs through May 27.)

Andrew Ross' nifty online gallery will get you in the mood.

What would Jesus eat?

Fish and healthy grains (light on the starch).

Not all scholars seem to agree, however. (Via Kottke.)

But what would Jesus say to a contemporary man about how much his size really matters? Not to worry, concludes religion writer Jeff Sharlett, as long as they guy's a good head of household.

New urban blues

Convinced that Democrats swarm to transit-oriented developments like moths to a flame, turf-minded Republican congressman Tom Davis is taking steps to downsize such a project planned in his northern Virginia district. Oh by the way, he supported TODs when he was chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

A "new form of redlining" indeed.

Just follow these links.

All I wanted to do in my lost post was to refer you to Marty Lederman's great discussion of a debate between John Yoo and Columbia professor Jeremy Waldron, as we mark the first anniversary of the Abu Ghraib photos. That's it, torture: the story that refuses, against all odds, to die. "When we lose our sense of outrage, something else is lost as well," says the Heretik.

UPDATE 4/28: Jack Balkin reprints Sen. Kennedy's powerful speech on this subject, juxtaposing it (comic relief? unfortuantely not) with Limbaugh's response.

Kennedy:

Sadly, a recent National Defense Strategy policy contained this remarkable statement: "Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism." Who could have imagined that our government would ever describe "judicial processes" as a challenge to our national security-much less mention it in the same breath as terrorism? Such statements do not reflect traditional conservative values, and they are clearly inconsistent with the ideals that America has always stood for here and around the world.

. . .

Never before has torture been a Republican versus Democrat issue. Instead, it's always been an issue of broad consensus and ideals, reflecting the fundamental values of the nation, and the ideals of the world.

. . .

9/11 didn't nullify this consensus. We did not resolve as a nation to set aside our values and the Constitution after those vicious attacks. We did not decide as a nation to stoop to the level of the terrorists, and those who did deserve to be held fully accountable.

And the NYT reports that the Army is issuing a new training manual.

I need Bloggy!

Sure could have used some reliable help today. Blogger was not my friend. I lost the most amazing post . . .

Broken highways, broken dreams

I couldn't tell you the plot of Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins, it's been so long. But the one image I remember from this dystopic, slightly hallucinatory novel, published in 1971 and set in the near future, is that of an interstate highway with grass growing up in it. Could never happen, in my innocence I must have thought, and that must be why I remember it so vividly.

Alas, it could happen.

Congested highways, overflowing sewers and corroding bridges are constant reminders of the looming crisis that jeopardizes our nation's prosperity and our quality of life.

That's the cheerful beginning of the 2005 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. Hopes for improvement in water and wastewater treatment are going down the drain. Transit generally has gone from bad to worse.

But all the rusting bridges and seeping sewers in the world fail to strike me as quite as sad as this once-upon-a-time.

Believe it.

Elizabeth Kolbert talks about her series in The New Yorker on global warming.

I think there is a surprisingly large—you might even say frighteningly large—gap between the scientific community and the lay community’s opinions on global warming. . . . I spoke to many very sober-minded, coolly analytical scientists who, in essence, warned of the end of the world as we know it. I think there are a few reasons why their message hasn’t really got out. One is that scientists tend, as a group, to interact more with each other than with the general public. Another is that there has been a very well-financed disinformation campaign designed to convince people that there is still scientific disagreement about the problem, when . . . there really is quite broad agreement. And third, the climate operates on its own timetable. It will take several decades for the warming that is already inevitable to be felt. People tend to focus on the here and now. The problem is that, once global warming is something that most people can feel in the course of their daily lives, it will be too late to prevent much larger, potentially catastrophic changes.

The first installment is online, and I presume the others will be too eventually.

Illusions

Optical. Cool.

Test your climate-change literacy

From Grist magazine in belated honor of Earth Day.

Email worse than marijuana, study says

The distractions of constant emails, text and phone messages are a greater threat to IQ and concentration than taking cannabis, according to a survey of befuddled volunteers.

Looking backward, not forward, at WTC

From up close, it's a construction site. But step back a little: there's more going on than meets the eye at the ground zero. It's not just physical forces that are shaping the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. Early ideas for transforming the site in ways that would promote social justice, the environment, and vibrant new civic initiatives, already compromised by economic realities, have taken another turn. The proposed performing arts center is not to be, reports Ada Louise Huxtable:

The final betrayal of the plan for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site--the news two weeks ago that the performing-arts center has been dropped from the $500 million fund-raising campaign for the memorial and museum--was consigned to an inner arts page of a Saturday edition of the newspaper of record, where weekend stories go to die. Picked up by an astute reporter, Robin Pogrebin, the latest development in the downward slide of the ideals and aspirations embraced for Ground Zero was buried in the hoopla of the announcement of the fund-raising committee.

The death of the dream has come slowly, in bits and pieces, not as a sudden cataclysmic event. It has not been a casualty of the more obvious debate over whether the replacement of the lost 10 million square feet of commercial space demanded by the developer is an economic necessity or the defilement of the land where so many died. This has been a subtler, more insidious sabotage, through the progressive downgrading and evisceration of the cultural components of Daniel Libeskind's competition-winning design.

. . .

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. has just issued a detailed report on how carefully it has listened to the public in the disposition of its funds. Clearly, some voices have been louder than others. The most vocal and best represented are those calling for restricting the fund raising to "9/11 related" elements of the plan. That is an abdication of the need to temper an unrelenting drive for commercial maximization of the site with something more than an aching emptiness at its heart. The slurry wall is now a relic, its relevance as history and metaphor replaced by an enormous competition-winning void within the Twin Towers' footprints, a memorial so vast few accurately understand its size.

Because the entitlements of loss and grief are the third rail of the rebuilding effort, no one has challenged the subversion of the aims and intent of the plan. The parts that speak of hope and the future have not been able to survive the pressure for a singleminded commitment to the tragic past.

Ten steps to better places

More good advice for Lots 2 & 5.

A movie category you might not have known you appreciated

Ever thought about the "planning movie"? Think Blade Runner, Amelie, Edward Scissorhands, Pleasantville, Citizen Kane, American Beauty, The Truman Show. A planning movie "should not just be set in a particular locale but must demonstrate the influence of the built environment on its characters." We're left on our own to discern the "instincts and hidden goals of planners."

Fingered

Accuser in Wendy's case becomes the accused. Turns out she skipped a step: cooking the evidence.