My people are good. A big chunk is now down at the lake with my grandparents (I'm sure I've told y'all a billion times about our little "family compound" that consists of half a dozen double wides on a dirt road near Toledo bend. They're staying in the ones with extra rooms or the extra trailer we had.) Cyn and her husband are either in Houston or Alabama right now visiting relatives, but when they're done with that, a friend has offered them his house in Gainsville to live rent free until they figure out what to do. The Silversmith's is still paying Cyn and Cobalt is still paying Kevin, so they'll be fine.

We have, I think, 23,000 evacuees here, many of whom have called my work looking for help. One of the agencies who are supposed to be helping them called the other day to offer us pamphlets listing services and what to do and stuff. The lady asked how many I might need 500, 1000? I told her at least 1000, so then she said she had them in English and Spanish, and might I need any Spanish. I said, maybe some, but Cajun French might be more helpful. She said they didn't have any in French, but that she'd pass it up that they might need some. I look like a goddamned Klingon from whapping my head on the desk.

While I was gone, my Tivo decided I wanted to see a Nature program about John Denver rafting the Colorado River and composing a song.

Short.Bus.Tivo. IJS.

I am all about Rome, The Wire, Six-Feet Under, and Deadwood.

I am HBO's willing bitch.

What do you like about Rome, Gus? It's getting decent reviews but I don't have a sense of it. Which era is it set in?

All I know about Rome is that it involves togas, and frontal nudity, and possibly prancing.

Someone on my LJ friendslist asked whether people in the Roman era really shaved their armpits, e.g., and the classicist who is also on my friendslist noted that the Romans did not shave; mostly, they plucked body hair or singed it back to the root to get that cool, hairless look. Yipe!

Of course, these were also people who had no problem with barfing. Historical folks, they are strange.

Salon article: Let's Iraq and roll

In a surreal twist on the public demonstration, the Pentagon put on a show Sunday to mark 9/11 and honor U.S. troops serving in the war.

OK, this part disturbs me:

The march started at the Pentagon and went across Arlington Memorial Bridge to a site adjacent to the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial, where country singer Clint Black serenaded the crowd with vague, seemingly nostalgic platitudes of word and song.

Black told the crowd he's not a politician. "I'm gonna let the music do most of the talking," he said, before he launched into a new song with the refrain: "The code of the west is black and white, the good guys and the bad. You always know who's wrong or right, by the color of their hats."

So, um, he's saying that people fall neatly into two categories, 'good' and 'evil,' and that it's easy to tell who is in what category? and he's saying this, what, without irony?

I get the sense (I may be wrong) that country music really isn't about the irony.

What do you like about Rome, Gus?

Sweaty humans, engaged with the issues that will effect their lives.

Sweaty humans, engaged with the issues that will effect their lives.

Sweat = dramedy gold. (cf., Body Heat, 12 Angry Men)

Sweat, and skirts! Short skirts, if I remember Spartacus aright.

Also, possibly, some depravity.