Nicole Collins
Archive for August, 2007
Alberto Gonzalez Resigns
"Alberto Gonzales is the first Attorney General who thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth were three different things. The President should nominate a new Attorney General whose loyalty to the Constitution is greater than his loyalty to the Republican Party." -- Rahm Emanuel
Blakey Likes to Point a Moral at Times
Blakey likes to point a moral at times and that evening in the hotel -- our last in Santa Fe -- she outdoes herself. As I maunder on about the day, my mother and the odd vagaries of taste, she delivers an irresistible challenge: name ten female artists of the 20th century who are better than O’Keeffe and I will clean up all the dog and cat poo in the backyard for ever. I start off confidently enough: Agnes M. (natch), Popova, Goncharova, Sonia Delaunay, Hannah Höch, Eva Hesse, umm . . . Living artists aren’t permitted, or photographers, so, gosh, Louise Bourgeois and Imogen Cunningham and Berenice Abbott and Kiki Smith and Cecily Brown and Marlene Dumas and Ida Applebroog and scores of others get knocked out at a stroke. (Nicole Eisenman – please know I worship you!) Marie Laurencin seems far too feeble to mention; so too, I’m afraid, does Vanessa Bell. Gwen John? Not exactly a she-titan of the brush. Elaine de Kooning? The canonisation of wives has never seemed to me an effective feminist strategy. Dame Laura Knight? I love her, but does anyone else? Joan Mitchell? Marvellous but . . . uhhh . . . I peter out at Number Seven or Eight in a welter of anguish and indecision. If only Kandinsky or Andy Warhol had been a woman.
-- Terry Castle, "Travels with My Mom," London Review of Books 29, 16 (August 16, 2007).
Food for Travel
When planning long travels far from shops, there is a selection of basic foods which can be taken along, all long-keeping and light in weight. They should be packed individually in brown paper bags, not in plastic, and then finally in a waterproof rucksack.
All of the flaked cereals, oats, barley, corn, etc.; toasted wheat flour (ready to eat, merely to be mixed with milk or water; grated raw carrot, sterilized by roasting, and packed into jars; dried fruits, especially raisins, dates, apricots, and prunes; (also the dried dom fruits, from the dom tree or Christ-thorn, a small berry-fruit which is almost always on the dom trees, and which keep indefinitely after easy drying. It is carried by the Bedouins on their travels, and was used as a travel food by Christ. A shrub-tree, it is abundant in Galilee.); shelled nuts and pine kernels; sunflower kernels; black olives (dried); a jar of honey; wholewheat biscuits, or sundried or fire-rusked slices of wholewheat bread; dried powdered spices as flavor and tonic for use with the cereals, etc., such as marjoram, thyme, sage, rosemary; raw groundnuts (peanuts) and also raw peanuts ground into flour; carob pods; and of the dairy products, dried milk -- dried milk in cones (sold in Arab shops for travelers) keeps indefinitely, and when crushed into water makes a good milk mixture for eating with the flaked or powdered cereals; also hard cheese and Balearic type cheese . . . salt and cayenne pepper and the common peppers.
--Juliette de Bairacli Levy, Traveler's Joy: A Personal Guide to the Wonders and Pleasures of Gypsy and Nomad Living (New Canaan, CT: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1979), 158-59.
Hello Kitty Armbands for Thai Police
No matter how many ribbons for valor a Thai officer may wear, if he parks in the wrong place, or shows up late for work, or is seen dropping a bit of litter on the sidewalk, he can be ordered to wear the insignia.
"Simple warnings no longer work," said Pongpat Chayaphan, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok, who instituted the new humiliation this week.
Lake Street Bridge Collapse, Minneapolis, 1989
The current Lake Street Bridge replaced the previous bridge, a wrought-iron span built in 1889. The previous bridge was the second-oldest bridge in use over the Mississippi, next to the Eads Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri (built in 1874). At the time, the Minneapolis Tribune opined that the new bridge was a "foolish extravagance," since there were already seven bridges over the river. However, the Lake Street Bridge became a major connection between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Before the construction of the freeway system, it carried U.S. Route 212 over the Mississippi River.
When construction on the new bridge started in 1989, the builders built the first half of the new bridge while keeping the old bridge in service. Unfortunately, an accident ended up delaying construction. The falsework for one of the arches collapsed, causing the arch itself to collapse and killing a construction worker. Later, when it came time to demolish the old bridge, crews tried to take it down with explosives, but the first effort didn't bring the bridge down. It took another, more powerful batch of explosives to bring the old bridge down a few weeks later.
35W Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis
The eight-lane bridge on Interstate 35W, part of a major artery between Minneapolis and St. Paul, was being repaired at the time, and a witness told MSNBC that he had heard a jackhammer being used on the roadway just before the collapse about 6 p.m. Central time. Witnesses said the bridge, which was built in 1967, collapsed in three sections, sending a plume of smoke 100 feet into the sky.
The collapsed section of the bridge, which was about 1,000 feet long, had been supported by a steel structure.
Divers and rescue boats continued to search the river and the twisted wreckage of the bridge, with darkness setting in and rain beginning to fall. The Minneapolis Star Tribune said some people were seen floundering in the river, calling for help.
