Is there anything about this guy that DOESN’T rock?

It even looks like he drinks real beer.

pic from HuffPo

Shouldn’t That Be “Baby Giant Anteater”?

Giant baby anteater goes on display today at Audubon Zoo

Either way, I’ll bet it’s cute!

I Agree, Peter, and You Still Suck, Tracy

Peter King, a distant but sincere Saints supporter, included two entries in his column that ought to give us hope:

3. I think the Saints have absolutely zero worries about Reggie Bush resuming his career and playing well in 2009 after what was announced as microfracture surgery on his knee by the renowned Dr. James Andrews after the season. “Microfracture” is a scary term. It’s used to describe a surgery in which there’s significant bone-on-bone contact with little cartilage left to cushion the contact, and the surgeon attempts to regenerate cartilage and increase blood flow in the affected area. “In Reggie’s case,” coach Sean Payton said over the weekend, “all Dr. Andrews did was prick the bone three times during the surgery [to regenerate blood flow]. He doesn’t think it’s the classic microfracture. I fully expect Reggie to be ready by June 1.”

4. I think, speaking of the Saints, I don’t like the naming of Gregg Williams as defensive coordinator. I love it. He’ll bring toughness and an accountability I didn’t see with the New Orleans D last year.

Within a week of the inauguration of Barack Obama, we received another sign that the world is moving toward some sense of righteousness and justice.  I’m speaking, of course, of Chris Paul being catapulted to Western Conference starting point guard in the All Star Game.  This is such a no-brainer that we could have sued if he hadn’t won, but it’s especially gratifying that he beat out Tracy McGrady.  I hate Tracy McGrady, partly because of this line from ONE year ago:

“If I don’t feel that I’m going to be safe, if I am on that team, I will look into probably not even going,” McGrady said.

Gee, it wasn’t really a problem, since you had a booboo anyway, but it’s beautiful that CP3 once again beat out this chump from Houston.

“Katrina. Next.”

The most telling part of this from McSweeney’s.

I’ve been intrigued by the recent resurgence of Katrina to the forefront of political discussions lately.  If you haven’t seen the Katrina statement on the White House page, it’s appropriately harsh.

But where was the discussion during the campaign?  And why is it something people are talking about again?

Ashley was for Edwards in the primaries because he was the only candidate bringing it up, and I regretted that Obama didn’t bring it up as much as I’d like.  I’m glad we’re talking about it again, but can’t tell exactly why.  Maybe it’s because we’ve begun the recap and post-analysis of Bush’s terms of destruction.  Maybe it’s because it’s like shooting fish in a barrel to commit to doing a better job.  Either way, it was probably irrelevant during the campaign because LA and MS were never really in play.

It may have been a decision made for expediency, but let’s hope all’s well that ends well.

Me and My Coccyx

So on 12th Night, I was dutifully putting up our Mardi Gras decorations, and I took a bit of a spill.  Everyone says I fell off a ladder, but it would be more precise to say that the ladder dropped me.  Here’s what happened.

Several months ago, our insurance company required us to install a handrail on each set of steps on our front porch.  It was expensive, but we’d wanted to do it anyway, so fine.  Well, even though for 8 1/2 years I’ve been leaning our ladder against the columns to put up the stuff several times a year, the new handrails screwed up the angle at which I lean the ladder.  Well, in a bit of a fluke (unless you buy the conventional wisdom that I’m just a klutz), it started raining as I was on the last column, with the ladder leaned at that precarious angle.  Well, a little wiggle from me was all it took, and the ladder slipped out from under me, and I landed–ass-first–on that handrail.

I find it ironic that the safety device ended up causing me incredible pain.  Yeah, I could’ve been more careful, but that kills the beauty of the story.

Anyway, it’s been almost 3 weeks, and I’m still in some real pain.  We left the Crosstown Classic (congrats Nuggets & Rush!) early because I couldn’t sit any longer.  I can’t lie on my back, and any exercise starts to hurt.

The problem is that I’ve dislocated my coccyx, a useless part of our bodies that’s the end of the vertebrae.  My doc says this is a new one for him, in that the nature of the dislocation is unlike any he’s seen from trauma.  So we’re not sure what to do, but because I seem to have reached a plateau in my recovery (it’s a hell of a lot better than it was, when I couldn’t stand without wincing in agony, but still I won’t go on like this if I can help it), I expect to have surgery to remove it.  They don’t think they can get it back in place.

The coolest thing about that is I’m hoping they’ll let me keep the bones to make an earring.  Anyway, here’s the CT scan, and the damage is at the bottom in the right-hand 3rd of the image.  I think it’s supposed to be lined up with the rest of the white stuff, but I’m no Alfred Einstein.

Things I Didn’t Know til Yesterday

I watched WAAAAAY too much inaugural coverage, but of course this was the first time I was truly excited about it.  Still, I should have turned off the tube a lot sooner, given the level of crap that was repeatedly thrown at us.  Here’re some tidbits that may surprise you:

1. Rosa Parks was a hero for not getting up on a bus in Birmingham, so they had that famous Birmingham bus in the parade.  And here, I always thought it was the Montgomery bus boycott…
2. Clarence Thomas was the first Black member of the Supreme Court.  Jeez, I seem to remember someone named Thurgood Marshall, but I must be imagining…
3. Barack Obama, presumably because he’s Black, loves to dance and has rhythm.  Someone named Hilary Rosen said repeatedly, to the delight and concurrence of her colleagues, that she was glad to have a president with rhythm.  And here I thought that the fact that he can’t dance (and clearly doesn’t really like to) and doesn’t clap to the beat of the band meant that he didn’t have rhythm, but apparently I’m wrong.  I guess I’m not letting my preconceived notions of his race help me see him for who he is–just a guy to reinforce my stereotypes; after all, he IS good at basketball.

Welcome, President Obama

I can’t add much to what everyone else is saying.  I’m elated, relieved, enthusiastic, and optimistic.   I know it’ll be a tough road, but he’s the one for the job, and I’m ready to be a part of the new US.

The racial implications of this event are obviously huge, and two things keep coming to me in this regard.

One is that it’s impressive how diverse the crowd in DC is.  I’ve wondered how many prior inaugurations would have to be put together before this number of African American participants accumulated.  This is important if you consider that research consistently shows that African Americans identify more strongly with their race than their nation, whereas the opposite is true for White people. This will change the way that everyday Black people see their country and their role in it.

The other is the impact of Sasha and Malia growing up in the White House.  Modeling is huge, and Black kids can hear every day that they have a chance to be president, and so on, but seeing these two girls actually living there and being a part of the events we’ll see on tv will have a monumental impact.

We can speak of breaking barriers, achieving the unimaginable, and so on, but to me, the real significance is in these two more mundane developments.

Students Can Surprise

A few years ago, a student of mine I’ll call Del graduated.  He took several courses from me.  In fact, he took a couple of them multiple times, if you know what I mean.  Still, Del was a good guy, and I got a bit of a kick of his informality with me.  He’d say stuff like, “Hey Doc, do you have a minute, or were you about to get your walk on?”  He was funny and pleasant in class, but he had a knack for flaking out at the end of the semester.

Eventually, we talked about depression (I’m careful not to try to diagnose someone, but he clearly wasn’t right), which I suspected from his lack of effort late in the semesters, he got some help, and he did graduate.  I was happy for him, and now he’s a detective with the police department.  I’ll bump into him from time to time and enjoy catching up.  Good guy, Del.

One time, he asked me, “Doc, do you always have a student like me?”  I asked what he meant, and he said that he meant a student who was a pain in the butt.  I told him, honestly, that he was never a pain in the butt, and I explained why.  As I told him, he never tried to blame me for his problems.  If he struggled, he knew I was there to help, but he had to take initiative.  He never brought a bad attitude to class to infect other students, and he was always pleasant with me.  So I was serious when I told him that he was the least of my problems, and I was glad to have him, and I was proud of him for graduating.

Well, last month as we were on our way to a Hornets game, we stopped into Slice for some dinner and bumped into Del.  He was eating there with some colleagues, we caught up for a few minutes, and went back to our dinner.  Comes time for the bill, our server told us that it’d already been paid.  I was really surprised, and that kind of gesture makes me tear up.

I bumped into him a week ago and thanked him and told him how unnecessary it was.  He told me how important what I’m doing was and that I deserved it.  When you know you’ll be making enemies of some of your students when exams and papers start coming due, that kind of thing can keep you going.

So thanks again, Del, and what you’re doing is pretty damned important too.

N.O. News Roundup

A few notable NO News items that I’ve meant to post for a while, but something else, like work, always interferes:

The New Yorker loves Prospect.1.

Kimberly Rivers Roberts, Muses’ honorary Melpomene weighs in on what she’s learned in Esquire.

Strangely enough, HGTV ranked NO the #1 Christmas Town!  And here I thought it might be a place where it actually snows.  Thanks, Papa Noel!

More later…

I Voted Katrina

But most people didn’t.  Of course, deciding on W’s biggest failure is a touch call.