The Genealogue

The Genealogue is a great blog. And funny. Check out the "Top Ten Genealogy Websites of 2050." My favortite is #6 "Iraq War Service Records, 2003-2038."

This Blog is Hysterical

The Banterist: "From New York, a weblog of original humor by Brian Sack. Subject to all the flexible quality standards of internet self-publishing."

You're in for a treat if you real his eBay listing for a pair of leather pants.

The Effect of Country Music on Suicide

This article won the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Publication Information: Article Title: The Effect of Country Music on Suicide. Contributors: Jim Gundlach - author, Steven Stack - author. Journal Title: Social Forces. Volume: 71. Issue: 1. Publication Year: 1992. Page Number: 211.

Complete lists of Ig Nobel winners.

One of my favorite Ig Nobel winners is the one for LITERATURE in 2005, given to "The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters -- General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others -- each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them."

Billingsley Wins Booker Worthen Literary Prize

September 19, 2005
A Prized Evening Honors Three Arkansas Authors
by Carrie Snodgrass

The Central Arkansas Library System will host A Prized Evening honoring three Arkansas authors on Thursday, Oct. 6 at 6:30 p.m. in the Main Library’s Darragh Center.

Shirley Abbott will receive the Porter Prize for her works of nonfiction, Constance Merritt will receive the Porter Prize for her works of poetry and Carolyn Billingsley will receive the Worthen Prize for her book, Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier. Events for the evening will be award presentations, readings, book signings and a catered reception.

The Porter Literary Fund Literary Prize is presented annually to an Arkansas writer who has accomplished a substantial and impressive body of work that merits enhanced recognition. The prize was established in memory of Ben Drew Kimpel, Ph.D., who asked that the prize be named for his mother, Gladys Crane Kimpel Porter. Established in 1984, the Porter Fund is a non-profit organization supporting Arkansas writers and poets. All contributions are tax-deductible and can be made by contacting Phillip McMath at (501) 396-5416. Co-founders of the Porter Prize are Jack Butler and Phillip McMath.

CALS honors the memory of William Booker Worthen, grandson of the founder of the former Worthen Bank and Trust Company and 22-year member of the CALS Board of Trustees, through the Booker-Worthen Prize Literary Prize. The award for the best work of either fiction or nonfiction for adults or children is presented annually to an author living in the CALS service area. The Booker Worthen Endowment was established in 1985 by friends and family of Booker Worthen. Contributions are tax-deductible and can be made by contacting the Central Arkansas Library System, 918-3086.

Tickets for A Prized Evening are $50 per person and proceeds support the CALS Endowment Fund. For information or to make a reservation, please call 918-3032.

Bush Happy with Rita Photo Ops

By Andy Borowitz
Newsweek
Sept. 27, 2005

Another insightful article by Borowitz. One can only hope that the rest of American can see as well as Borowitz that Dubya is more concerned with illusion than reality.

Lethargy Alert

Although this piece by Andy Borowitz is tongue-in-cheek, a goverment lethargy alert would certainly do a hellava lot more good than the terror alerts we've been subjected to for the past three years. Seems like the Bush adminstration only acts when the scream of public opinion penetrates their little bubble of insulation.

Agassi over Blake in Five Sets

Did you watch the Agassi-Blake match tonight? I was like totally in to it, Blake wins first two sets, looks hopeless for Agassi. But NO, Agassi keeps playing and Blake fades a bit. AGASSI wins next two sets! Fifth set. Tied. The tension is incredible.

Then, the damned coverage on USA is over and they start showing Law and Order! Go to your CBS affiliate station, they say. I go. CBS here is showing David Letterman. I freaked.

I couldn't stand it and I called J even though it was midnight CDT (and he usually goes to bed before 10), but he was still up watching the tennis. I made him stay on the phone for twenty minutes, telling me what was happening, until it was over.

Agassi won in a tie-break in the 5th. Marvelous. Amazing. Incredible. My feel-good moment for the whole US Open. And I MISSED IT. Damn. Shit. Hell.

PS: An hour later CBS showed the rest of the match from the point of interruption. It was beyond words -- Blake was serving for the match and Agassi broke him. Then Blake almost broke him back. But he couldn't.

It was like two heavyweight boxers in a championship match. Amazing tennis.

Then Agassi was down in the tie-break, 0/3. But still, Agassi won. Blake was awesome -- power, grace, and agility. Agassi was Agassi -- calm determination and gasp-inducing shot-making. The most beautiful kind of tennis from start to finish.

I can't for the life of me figure out why the press refers to James Blake as African American. He more than 50% white. His mother is as blonde and fair as they come. All his friends are white. His girlfriend is the blondest of the blonde. And yet, he's still, apparently, black. I wonder what it takes to make a person white in our society?

Reason Gone Mad

Read Bill Shein's blog for some pertinent comments about the Bush Administration and their handling of Katrina. In Shein's email notice, he writes:

"It's been a tough week, and there's not much I can say about the unfolding tragedy that hasn't already been said -- and felt.

"My column from yesterday's paper is now on the Reason Gone Mad site, and it's a non-comedic take on why I believe we need leaders who are not anti-government, particularly at times when effective administration of
the tools of government could save thousands of lives.

"I also tried to funnel some of my anger and frustration into a humor piece, "White House is Declared a Federal Disaster Area," which I posted in the blog at http://www.reasongonemad.com/blog"

TV Show House and Hugh Laurie

Last season, House was my favorite show and Hugh Laurie my favorite man to watch. It was kind of surprising to find such a good show on Fox.

Rhetoric Not Matching Reality

This article shows that at least someone can see that the Emperor has no clothes. Bush is all hat and no cattle, as Texans would say. The US is supposed to be prepared for a devastating emergency -- in the last few years the government has formed a Homeland Security division and spent billions of dollars in preparation for another disaster like 9/11. So what's the deal taking FOUR days to get help to a devastated city and the people of New Orleans. It just doesn't make sense unless somebody, aka the Bush administration, is woefully unprepared to handle reality. Are we safer? Nope. If the administration can't even handle Katrina and the flood, how can they possibly be ready to handle a terrorist attack, when things would be even more chaotic?

Another article from Newsweek illuminates how Bush is more about image than substance. He was sitting at his ranch with his thumb up his butt when one of his advisors must've decided he needed to look like he was actually doing something about Katrina.

The Roots of Racial Profiling

By Anita L. Willis

Ms. Willis is a writer, researcher, and genealogist, and author of the forthcoming book, Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Color: Colonial Virginia, 1650-1850 (March 2003).

Willis's article is thought-provoking and if her book poses similar arguments, I think it would make worthwhile reading. Here's a quote from "The Roots of Racial Profiling".

"Although racial profiling is not backed by written statutes, its roots are in the laws enacted during colonial times. Racial profiling, for want of a better term, is a Gateway Act -- an excuse used to approach citizens assumed to be criminals."

Wilis describes what happened to Mary, a seven-year-old girl in 17th-century Virginia, who was taken to court, judged to be mulatto, and then sentenced to a thirty-year indenture with the Washington family. Willis writes: "Because of her mixed race status, Mary had no rights in her community. Today , because of their appearance and ethnicity, citizens are being stopped, searched, and arrested. Were Mary to return to modern-day America she might pause to wonder if she was in the 18th century, not the 21st."

I think the foregoing is a bit of hyperbole and grossly overstated--does she really see but little difference between the plight of 17th- and 21st-century blacks or mixed race/non-white people in the US? -- yet I think her assertions provide some interesting grist for the mill in our study of the history of race relations in the South.

[Be sure to read the very polemical comments(arguments) asccessible through the link at the bottom of the article page.]

[See also "ANNOUNCEMENT OF BOOK RELEASE - NOTES AND DOCUMENTS OF FREE PERSONS OF COLOR: COLONIAL VIRGINIA 1650-1850 (#5499) by Anita Wills on December 7, 2002". Note that Ms. Willis's book is published by a genealogical publisher, rather than an academic press.]

The Sin of Blasphemy

Pat Robertson gives Christianity a bad name. I used to watch his 700 Club television show decades ago when I couldn't sleep and there was nothing else on TV (pre-cable or -satellite era). Watching it made me lose faith in all of humanity. How could so many million people watch that propagandist drivel week after week and even send this anti-Christ their hard-earned dollars? If the average American (or even a hefty percentage of average Americans) is a supporter of Pat Robertson, then this country is really in a world of hurt.

The Sin of Blasphemy
Pat Robertson’s latest remarks have our columnist wondering: What does it really mean to be Christian?

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Patti Davis
Newsweek; Updated: 3:27 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2005


Aug. 23, 2005 - Pat Robertson considers himself a man of God, a Christian, a preacher of the Gospel. To all of these aspects of his self-delusion, the only appropriate response is: Huh? His latest suggestion, as this self-proclaimed man of God, is that Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, should be assassinated. On his “700 Club” TV show, Robertson said Chavez could turn Venezuela into a safe haven for Communist and Muslim extremists. "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," said Robertson, who founded the Christian Coalition. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

True men of God, of course, do not entertain such notions. They certainly don’t preach them. Men of blasphemy do.

Did Robertson lose his Bible? Or has he simply rewritten it in his own language? What happened to “Thou Shalt Not Kill?” This is not the first time Robertson has expressed a fondness for assassination. In October 2003 he suggested that nuclear weapons be dropped on the State Department.

Have any authorities checked his basement?

Here’s what I’m curious about. How does someone who has wrapped himself in the cloak of Christianity for decades come up with such ideas and express them with such ease? Does he pray first? Does he get on his knees, close his eyes and say, “God, I really want to take a few people out here. I know we’re all supposed to be your children, but there are some bad ones in the bunch and I’m figuring they probably got through by mistake. So how about culling the herd?” And then does he actually imagine God answering him and saying, “Go forth, my child with whatever weapons you can find. If you can’t scrounge up any yourself, spread the word. Preach to the masses. Someone will pick up the sword, pull the trigger or drop the bomb.”

At the risk of sounding quaint, this is just not the God I was raised with, and it certainly isn’t the God who answers me. I close my eyes sometimes and say, “God, I gave someone the finger today when I was driving. I know I shouldn’t have.” And what I hear back is something like, “I saw that. And I’ve told you before, that was a child of mine too. A tailgating one, but my child nonetheless.”

I’m actually feeling a lot better now about my temper flares in traffic. At least I’ve never considered using weaponry.

I’m sure the members of the Christian Coalition won’t take my suggestions, but they might want to consider making a rule that anyone who calls himself a Christian has to have some passing acquaintance with the teachings of Jesus. I’m no Biblical scholar but I am absolutely sure that Jesus never suggested assassinating anyone.

When I lived in New York City, I used to give money to a homeless man who stood on the same corner of Columbus Avenue every day, rain or shine. He was never pushy, he was always polite, and I just felt like giving him money. One day, I saw a man in a business suit getting right in this man’s face, waving a Bible at him and telling him he was a sinner and he had to accept Jesus and ask forgiveness for his sins. I walked up, gave the homeless man a five and said to the sidewalk preacher, “You know, Jesus would never do what you’re doing.” I walked away quickly before he could hit me with his Bible. And I walked away feeling very sorry for Jesus. People keep doing things in his name that are so un-Christianlike.

Well, if I felt sorry for Jesus then, I feel like weeping for him now. Shouldn’t people like Pat Robertson just go start their own religion and leave Jesus out of it?

I found another quote of Robertson’s from several years ago. He said that feminism encourages women “to kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

I would respond to this but I have to go boil some eye of newt, lizard tails and pig blood. And I am so behind on my schedule to bring down the bastions of capitalism. I got delayed because I was flirting with this cute girl down the street.

Davis, the daughter of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, is a writer based in Los Angeles.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
© 2005 MSNBC.com

Resource for understanding DNA testing

Kerchner's DNA Testing & Genetic Genealogy Info and Resources Page

Charles F. Kerchner Jr. offers links to information about understanding DNA and DNA testing, including his recommended reading list of books.

Secret Jews

Many people of Spanish ancestry now living in the Americas are Jews who have hidden their Jewishness since the time of the Spanish Inquisition in order to avoid persecution. DNA can sometimes provide a clue to Jewish origins but in most cases cited in this newspaper article, the secret has been handed down secretly from generation to generation.

DNA Sheds Light on North American Migration

Dental DNA reveals our ancient roots
By Leigh Fenly
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 24, 2005

JAMES DIXON
/ University of Colorado, Boulder
A cast of the human jaw found in On Your Knees Cave on Prince of Wales Island in southeastern Alaska. UC Davis researchers have sequenced DNA from two of the teeth - - the oldest ever extracted from ancient American remains [Photo]

Politics plagued bones of Kennewick Man

ASHLAND, Ore. – Paleontologist Timothy Heaton was used to finding 35,000-year-old remains of brown bear, black bear, hoary marmot and antelope in On Your Knees Cave, a tight opening tucked in the dense hemlocks of Alaska's vast Tongass National Forest. But on the last day of excavation in 1996, as Heaton was filling a final bag of sediment, he came upon something quite different.

A lower jaw. A pelvic bone. Obsidian worked into a spear point.

Unmistakable evidence of an ancient human.

Since, the effort to tease clues from the 10,300-year-old remains – the oldest ever found in Alaska or Canada – has involved myriad research laboratories, most recently the Molecular Anthropology Lab at UC Davis.

A tooth from On Your Knees Cave Man – wrapped in cotton and shipped via Federal Express – arrived there in 2003. Brian Kemp, a Ph.D. candidate, removed the tooth's crown and hammered out a quarter-gram portion of root. He subjected it to bleach, a decalcifying chemical and a protein-devouring enzyme. With a silica extraction, he got the tooth's DNA to jump out of the solution.

With the same process forensic scientists use to link DNA to criminals, Kemp tricked the purified DNA into copying itself millions of times. The resulting sequences – the oldest DNA ever extracted from human remains in the Americas – revealed some of the old man's secrets.

Graphic: Kinship with On Your Knees Cave Man

Kemp's analysis, which he will submit to Nature, confirmed the Ice Age remains as male and established his maternal ancestry as Asian.

From differences in the genetic sequences, Kemp is now able to argue that the cave man's DNA represents a new ancient lineage in North America. Comparing that DNA to modern-day sequences, he also is suggesting changes to some scientists' estimates of the time of the first migrations to the New World.

In the months to come, the results will likely be strenuously argued. Less debatable is the fact that Kemp's work gets us closer to understanding who first peopled North America and offers a glimpse at the tantalizing future of genetic anthropology.

The human genome stores vast amounts of information on the movements, relationships and adaptations of past populations. In the last decade, after some embarrassing missteps and exaggerated claims, DNA technology has begun to reveal some of that dormant information.

The promise is huge, says Nina Jablonski, an anthropologist at the California Academy of Sciences. "As the early problems get solved, we're going to have the framework to learn about relationships among ancient people. DNA is going to answer all our questions about who is related to whom."

DNA's promise

At the moment, Kemp is relating to a cup of coffee. He's joined by his peers: his adviser, David Glenn Smith, the respected director of Davis' Molecular Anthropology lab; Ripan Malhi and Jason Eshleman, former students of Smith's and partners in science and business; and John McDonough, Smith's jovial lab manager.

They are earnest, confident, energized. Smith alone – who brought them all here, literally and figuratively – has a quiet air.

Earlier this morning, each had muscled through PowerPoint presentations describing their work at an American Association for the Advancement of Science seminar at Southern Oregon University in Ashland. Now, in the sleek new, brick library on campus, they are warming to shop talk. Teeth, for instance, and contamination.

JAMES DIXON
/ University of Colorado, Boulder
The entrance to On Your Knees Cave in southeastern Alaska. A lower jaw, some pelvic bones, ribs and backbones of a 10,300-year-old skeleton were excavated from the cave in 1996. [Photo]

The field is so new, it's only now becoming clear that teeth are more likely than bone to give up their DNA. The difficulties recovering any DNA from ancient material are vast, since DNA begins to degrade immediately after death, as water, oxygen and microbes attack it. But teeth, encased in enamel and partly protected by the jaw bone, are turning out to be better harborers of DNA. They have become the prizes in the DNA lab.

"In my 200 samples, I didn't have a single tooth," laments Eshleman, drawing a face.

Malhi ribs him. "Oh, it's OK, Jason."

Eshleman's DNA studies – using bones – are helping make sense of California's huge number of Native American languages. He's also found new evidence of a very early coastal migration down the West Coast.

Similarly, Malhi is using DNA data to measure the impact of European contact on the genetic diversity of Native Americans who populated the Columbia Plateau.

The two have also founded Trace Genetics Inc., in Richmond, a private company that has helped 1,000 people determine their Native American ancestry. For one woman, adopted as a child, this was the first time she'd known for sure: She is Native

In all such work, the single biggest hurdle is defeating contamination. The PCR process, used to create millions of copies of DNA, has been compared to a Xerox machine, although Malhi prefers to call it a "contamination factory." "Lots of times I've done a sampling and gotten my own DNA sequence," he says wryly.

That's because DNA is lying about everywhere. "What is it – we each shed millions of skin cells every day?" wonders McDonough. Each DNA-rich cell – lying on a lab bench, tucked into a glove – is waiting to hook onto an ancient, degraded sample.

In the 1990s, it was contaminated samples that led to false claims for DNA sequences of dinosaurs and million-year-old plants and insects. Smith's lab at Davis, one of the largest in the country, is a model for containment and sterilization processes. Access to the lab is strictly limited. Equipment is bleached and decontaminated on a regular basis. On file are the DNA records of every employee, past and present, to compare to new results.

Whenever possible, Smith recommends duplicating the work. Kemp sequenced a second tooth from On Your Knees Cave Man (OYKCM) in the lab of Malhi and Eshleman. "When it came up the same," he says, "I knew the results were true."

Mother lode

To follow this conversation for long you need a vocabulary word: mitochondrial DNA.

Most people are familiar with nuclear DNA – our genes that come to us courtesy of our mother and father, when the sperm fertilizes the egg and both sets of genes mix.

As a tool for genetic anthropologists, nuclear DNA is troublesome because all that reshuffling of genes makes it tough to trace a direct genetic line from individual to individual.

But the mitochondria, the cell's energy-producing bodies, also have tiny genomes, and these are inherited only from our mothers. Because there is no mixing with male genes, Smith explains, mitochondrial DNA stays the same from generation to generation, except when random mutations occur.

And mitochondrial DNA is abundant in cells compared to nuclear DNA and therefore more likely to be extracted. It will never be enough to clone an early cave man, but for Kemp, Smith and other genetic anthropologists, mitochondrial DNA is the mother lode.

"This is what's allowing us to construct a history where there is no written record," Smith says.

The reason they can do this is because the rate of mutation in mitochondrial DNA remains constant over time – in each individual, from prehistory to modern-day, changes occur at the same rate. That rate of change is used as a measuring stick for time known as the molecular clock.

To make sense of all the mutations, scientists group individuals with similar sets of mutations into families known as haplogroups. Haplogroups are further divided into smaller groups called haplotypes. OYKCM belongs to haplotype D, one of five founding lineages that appear in North America. But his haplotype is rare.

"When I first saw it, I wasn't sure what I was looking at," Kemp says. "He was D-something else."

The D-something-else genetic sequence is like a fingerprint of inherited mutations. Kemp wanted to find out if anyone living today had anything similar. From a genetic database of 3,500 Native Americans, he found 47 individuals living in North and South America who belong to the same haplotype. These are the cave man's relatives, inheritors of his same fingerprint of mutations.

The 47 are widely spread, from California to Tierra del Fuego. Some belong to California's Chumash tribe, Ecuador's Cayapa tribe and the Tarahumara in Mexico. This wide dispersal is an important clue to the geographic reach of the cave man's family and the migratory routes they might have taken.

Beyond migration questions, haplogroup studies can indicate conquest, assimilation and language development – filling in a broad canvas with small strokes. "It's easy to get seduced by the big questions," says Smith, "but what we're interested in are the smaller questions of what happened after the peopling of the New World. We're interested in the intricacies."

One example is Eshleman's studies showing haplotype A occurring primarily in British Columbia and the Channel Islands – suggesting an early southerly migration along the West Coast.

Mitochondrial DNA creates a partial record, to be sure, because it only traces female populations. (The male trademark Y chromosome is notoriously difficult to sequence in ancient samples, although Kemp was lucky to identify it in OYKCM.)

Even so, DNA data may clarify the contentious debate surrounding the timing of the first migrations to the New World.

Parallel dates

Here Kemp has tread, too.

In the late 1990s, scientists used DNA studies to propose that people first advanced upon the continent from Asia as much as 40,000 years ago. But data from numerous archaeological sites across the Americas have placed the migration at closer to 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

Kemp has used OYKCM as a measuring stick to come up with dates much closer to the archaeological record. "Because we know that this guy represents the oldest known example of this lineage, that places a minimum date on the emergence of the lineage," he explains.

In other words, OYKCM represents one end of the measuring stick. At the other end are the 47 people who belong to his haplotype. According to the rules of the molecular clock, this makes it possible to measure the genetic changes between OYKCM and the modern samples and calculate the time it would have required for those changes to occur.

"My calibration shows that the changes were occurring two to four times faster than previously thought," Kemp says. "It means some people have overestimated the time. It wasn't so long ago."

That makes some of his colleagues wrong – and previous DNA data flawed – but Kemp is satisfied. "I hope the impact of my paper will be to bring the molecular timing more in line with the archaeological record," he says. "This is what you want your work to do."
{The orginal article has a great map showing probably migration patterns based on DNA matches]

Mitochondrial Eve

This is the discussion page about the Mitochondrial Eve entry on Wikipedia, addressing some of the issues in constructing an accurate entry.

Kinship Studies

Much of my work is based on kinship theory, mostly from the field of anthropology.

A site by Tim Roufs -- "Cultural Anthropology" (University of Minnesota at Duluth) -- has good basic definitions for kinship terms and groups. It has an index to Marriage, Kinship, and Descent. There are no doubt many others with this type of information, but this is the first one I came across when I was looking for good general information. I'll add more as I find them.

Went to attorney

Went to visit an attorney in Benton this afternoon, about suing the pool contractors. I'm quite stressed out now.

But at least I have electricity.

Billingsley Lane didn't get power back until 4:30 this morning. Sarah said there were four big trucks and lots of loud men outside her house in the middle of the night, so she and Carrie gave up on sleeping (it was too hot anyway) and went and sat on the front porch to watch the show. When they replaced the fuse on the pole, it made a big explosion, with a shower of sparks. So they had to send another crew out to replace the transformer. Blew out her computer, her garage door openers, her fax, and her AC. J fixed her AC this morning though, so at least she stayed cool today.

My grandson Jeff found the missing cow after school today, and got into plenty of brambles in his search. She was well hidden. But she had her calf OK. Four of the five cows have calved and all four have been bulls. Shoots the law of averages to bits (yeah, yeah, I know all the reasons statistics don't work that way; and maybe next year we'll have five heifers). We'll definitely be eating home-grown, organically raised beef this time next year. (In case you don't know, you castrate the bull calves and either sell them or feed them out for beef; you raise the heifers to increase your herd. Unless you don't think they have the makings of a good cow, in which case you sell them too. End of cow lesson.)

I got a call in the middle of the night (yes, I was still up) that my Dad had activated his Life Alert button. Turns out he had chest pains and irregular heartbeat, so the paramedics took him to the ER, but once they got his heart beating right, he refused to stay and went home. Says he's OK today. But he was talking about re-making his will. (My brother told my father not to leave anything to him because he didn't need it and I did.) So that's probably not a good sign. I wonder how I'll feel when my father dies. I don't even LIKE the man, but people tell me it'll still affect me. Curious.

Nothing else new. (Actually, me being stressed isn't new either.)

Fucking Rotten Day

Fucking rotten day. Had to go check on a cow who's about to have a calf, but couldn't find her after 45 minutes of searching (they go off and hide to give birth). I knew she was somewhere deep in the woods where it's swampy and I wasn't about to put on my hip boots in this heat and go tromping around amongst the chiggers and ticks to track her down. I hope she had her damn calf safely. Should've shut her up in the lot by the barn but I knew she'd be unhappy about it.

Then a big storm blew in, for which I was initially grateful, but we only got .25" of rain in the deal, all in less than 30 minutes, while the lightning struck all around (made my phones ring every time one hit close by, which was about 10 times), blew a big limb across the road to my house, washed out part of the road to my house (again). That amount of rain only delays the worsening of the drought. Settled the dust for about an hour and that's all.

And then the power went off. And it stayed off until 10 PM. I was cut off from the WWW. It was awful. The power was off only at our end of the road. I went up about five houses down the road and THEY had power. The farm is the end of the line. The people to the north and west of us had power because they're on Benton electricity instead of Little Rock. The people up on the highway had power. Just this little patch of folks out in the hinterlands were powerless. I put in underground utilities all over the farm but it doesn't save my from the exposed power lines further up the road.

The sky stayed black for the rest of the day even after it quit raining and I couldn't even see to read. Had to go sit in the car and read a book, until J made me get out and go to Home Depot and Wal-Mart, so at least I got those chores done.

But then it was really dark. I was trying to read the newspaper by candlelight and it's a wonder I didn't catch myself on fire. Finally I gave up on that and went swimming. At least there I could light a couple of torches and have a little light, although I had to use a flashlight to change into my bathing suit in the pool house.Finally I saw the gate lights come on across the pasture, so I knew I could go home.

Funny thing is, everybody got power back except Billingsley Lane, which is just J and my daughter Sarah. He was pissed -- still didn't have power at 11 PM. I wonder if they'll send somebody back out on overtime for just two customers?

So I pretty much lost the whole day. Except for getting my grocery shopping done at Wal-Mart and buying some new light fixtures for my house at Home Depot.

Why Do Men Have Nipples?

"Why Do Men Have Nipples?: Hundreds of Questions You?d Only Ask A Doctor After Your Third Martini," published by Three Rivers Press. Funny interview with one of the authors.