The upcoming new release I'm excited about

Peter Himmelman's album The Pigeons Couldn't Sleep will be in stores on 7/24! Woohoo! Of course I'd be more excited about this if I had the money to buy it (and a little bit of net searching shows that I missed a local performance this month too), but new Himmelsongs are a cause for joy.

He was at the Rams Head in Annapolis and that article reminds me once again that I wish I my radio with the usable antenna still worked because I really miss listening to WRNR.

Brief Washington Post article. "Yet there's no stopping him, even if he's convinced that the difference between 'dreaming a dream and pursuing a dream is that the pursuit involves dragging a lot of people down with you.'"


For those of you more interested in the release of a children's book, I've got music for you too. Or rather, Moosebutter has a couple of free tracks for you.

Ahh, Clarity

For those of you who aren't avoiding LJ in an attempt to avoid Harry Potter spoilerers: You probably already know that lj_biz issued clarifications about LJ policy yesterday, but you should also be aware that they have since clarified the clarifications. Yeah, HP fanfic authors are going to be so pleased when they get back.

On Tuesday, US President George W. Bush unveiled a new executive order, Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq. Associated Press article about it is here; Shakesville clarifies.

Here in the DC area, temperatures have finally gone from sickeningly hot to reasonably pleasant, considering. Does this mean summer's worst is over? Clearly not.

(no subject)

In spite of the fact that I woke up early this morning (or perhaps because of that fact), I've been moving much too slowly to do the thing I wanted to do before going off to do that other thing I want to do. So instead, I'm reading stuff online and wondering when the tea will kick in.

One thing I ran across is an article challenging guidelines on teen depression. I can't actually tell you what the article says, though, because my attention has been eaten up by the fact that the UK really does have an organization with the acronym of NICE. "NICE is an independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on promoting good health and preventing and treating ill health." People who remember the C.S. Lewis book That Hideous Strength will understand my problem here.

In other news, languagelog has a post with some fun fruit fly gene names.

Man with tiny brain lives entirely normal life. Insert your own commentary here.

Gosh, this is a surprise: "Body image was significantly more negative after viewing thin media images than after viewing images of either average size models, plus size models, or inanimate objects. ... Results support the sociocultural perspective that mass media promulgate a slender ideal that elicits body dissatisfaction."

"The Pentagon told Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton that her questions about how the U.S. plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq boosts enemy propaganda." My main question is still why Hillary Rodham Clinton is the front-runner when nobody actually wants to vote for her. But anyway, "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton hit back Friday at a Pentagon aide who charged that her questions about Iraq withdrawal planning have the effect of helping the enemy - calling the accusation a spurious dodge of a serious issue."

How much does this stuff matter in the grand scheme of things? Well, size isn't everything, but Universcale may still give you a sense of perspective.

Word of the Day

Or maybe it was the word of yesterday. Honestly, I don't care which. From the wordsmith_daily feed:

This week's theme: Words from the writing of Judge Bruce M. Selya.

resipiscent (re-si-PIS-uhnt) adjective

Having returned to a saner mind.

[From Latin resipiscere (to recover one's senses), from re- (again) + sapere (to taste, to know). Ultimately from Indo-European root sep- (to taste or perceive) that is also the source of sage, savant, savvy, savor, sapid, sapient, and insipid.]

"I am a recidivist, frequently guilty of overwriting and overciting. But I am at least a resipiscent recidivist. I have come around to the view that, though it may take discipline to cut more quickly to the chase and to doff the security blanket that writers weave from string citations, we, as judges, must dedicate ourselves to the task." Excerpt from Hon. Bruce M. Selya; In Search of Less; Texas Law Review; Volume 74, 1996.

I very much need to find reasons to use this word in conversation.

(Yes, I'm spamming this morning, but at least I'm not writing about Harry Potter.)