Metaphor Country

Treatment for Those Boils: Does Job Use Dove Bodywash?

I'm a bit floored by this.  I was rereading Andrew Sullivan's 2007 debate with Sam Harris on Beliefnet, came to this page, and scrolled down to the word Job - as in "Book of Job," a little more than halfway down.  The name is underlined, and I rolled my mouse over it to see what the inline link would produce.

It launched a video for Dove Go Fresh, which is apparently a bodywash.

Message?  That Unilever products are best for boils?

It's either a moment of random Internet brilliance, or a really subversive online marketing strategy.

If the former, then mark it "to be filed under 'You can't make this stuff up'" in... you know the Zone...

EDIT: When I clicked through to the page again, the link had vanished and others had appeared, none as good.  I guess you had to be there.  Or it was a fleeting glimpse of a meaningful universe. 

Clearly, either God or some marketer has a wicked sense of humor.

Back in Business

We're back - with a bit more focus.

Enjoy.

Drawing the Line

Obviously I'm running behind in getting this site revived.  Unfortunately am still directing most of my energy over here.

But I thought it was past time to draw a line on the site and say - everything below this entry represents the past.  And it sure was nice being a centrist for a while.  And even sometimes a right-centrist, who thought it was a good thing to carry the war to the Islamic world et cetera et cetera yadda yadda yadda.

As an ex-New Yorker I think I can say with some justification that in the wake of the events of September 11 and so forth we all lost our collective minds.

Nothing like a few years as an Alzheimer's caregiver to re-radicalize you and shift you back to the left.  Because all that free-market, power of the individual, "Hey, you're on your own - good luck with that!" doesn't get you very far in the Alzheimer's caregiving business. 

Nice broken-down excuse for a system we've got here.

I'm trying to be non-doctrinaire (it's a Zen thing) but count me in the Obama camp - when I can spare the time for ideology, that is.

So now you know.  Read the stuff below the line and enjoy yourself.  I'm not going to blow it up because things are what they are and things were what they were.

More soon.

All Unquiet on the Alzheimer's Front

Sorry -- still fully engaged on the Alzheimer's front.  The latest here.

No time or inclination to be clever or verbose or issues-oriented.

Am working up some photographs which I'll post shortly.  Photography is keeping me going.  Looking at things has an appeal at the moment that words, and opinions, and trying to impress you with my critical faculties can't quite match.

Back soon.

Is the Engine Supposed to Look Like That?

Have been continually busy in the Alzheimer's cockpit but I took a minute today to glance out the window and noticed that the presidential election is a year away and Pakistan is collapsing and outside my window it's November 5th and the leaves are still green.

Some of these things should not be.

I'd really better start paying attention -- before this turns into one of those "controlled flight into terrain" episodes that you sometimes hear about...

More Housekeeping

Now that the Alzheimer's blog is up and running (click on "Dementia Nights" at left if you're curious), time to get this one back to its original focus, which is (was/will be) issues in communications.

Some of the other specialized topics will move offshore soon. 

Meanwhile, back to our regular programming, already in progress.

Live From DC...

Yes, a change of venue.

Short version -- Mrs. Deconstruction (spouse) took a position with the SEC in DC.  So we've decamped.  Which explains the latest round of silence -- as pilots like to tell you over the PA in thunderstorms, it's been a little busy up here.

There's also the element of culture shock.  Details will almost certainly follow.

And because life still isn't rich enough or full of incident... the Alzheimer's blog will be up and running shortly.

Back later...

Suicide by Hypothetical Ancient Bolivian Reed Boat

I live in Jersey City at the moment, right on the Hudson.  Which means that yesterday -- I guess as a warmup for the Independence Day festivities -- this guy went sailing by.

Or more accurately, this guy went wallowing by.

For more detail -- if you're morbidly curious, or just morbid, or just curious -- here's a New York Times article (restricted to Times Select members).

Now, speaking as someone who's done a little sailing -- that boat was not a pretty sight.  As in, lumbering up the river, with the wind behind it, down at the bow and doing some nasty rolling...

Unfortunately the guy's got passengers -- who didn't look all that comfortable either.

And if that's the Hudson, imagine what the North Atlantic will be.

Best case outcome -- he gets the thing pointed out through the Narrows, it catches the first ocean swell... and falls apart.  Still in view of land, where the Coast Guard and the NYPD Harbor Unit can get at it.

Because if it holds together 'til it's halfway to the Canaries, we're talking Darwin Awards here.

So hope for visible ignominious failure -- which in this instance would be sort of a good thing.

More lessons in the interdependence of good and bad perhaps to follow.

Elderlaw

Complicated, this elderlaw business.  Am fresh (if that's the word... no, it probably isn't) from yesterday's consult.  Lots of new options to consider and a big new project to manage.  Which, of course, comes as no surprise.  Except that it does.  It's easy to anticipate abstractions ("things will be complex") and always stunning when reality shows up ("the complexities are here and there are dozens of them and every one of them has 15 documents attached...")  Ach.  But then, it's life.  So will manage it.

Details, some of them at least, to follow.

Meanwhile. a muscial note, here.

Futzing

Am reading the VNS write-up about my father (oriented as to person and place but not time, ah, check) -- seems well thought-out.  Off to the elderlawyers tomorrow.

Meanwhile, trying to come up to speed on the faith-off, and am coming to terms with my failure to come to terms with my photography.

Whatever we lack for, it isn't excitement.