Planet Utah

Where is Mike?

Anonymous Mike over at Zonitics hasn't posted since September 11, 2007. You still with us, Mike?

Footnote: I tried desperately to come up with a word that I could put in front of "Mike," a word that had four syllables and sounded something like "Anonymous," a word that would suggest that Mike had gone missing or had been the victim of foul play or was otherwise caught up in mysterious events. Couldn't pull it off. Here are a few of my mis-fires:

• Catatonic Mike
• Androgynous Mike
• Diaphanous Mike
• Deminimis Mike
• Oblivious Mike
• He's-gone-from-us Mike

You see the problem? None of it quite works, and some of it is downright insulting, which wasn't my intent. I'm just throwing it out there in case anyone can come up with a word that fits my criteria. If so, I'll use your word in the headline (and give you credit, of course).

Amazing

It's been ten years, and the Diamondbacks have won four division titles. Well done indeed.

UK Trip, Part 8

Harrowing. That's the word I would use to describe my driving experience in Scotland. I flew from London to Edinburgh and "hired" (that's how the Brits say "rented") a car to drive to Glasgow, and then up into the highlands. So, imagine driving an unfamiliar car, driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, in a strange land, in the rain. Scary. I'm not kidding. I was lucky to make it through the first hour alive. I couldn't see out of the fogged-up windows, I drove the wrong way into roundabouts, I ran red lights because I saw other people doing it. Even after three days, I never got over the fear of a head-on collision. It just feels WRONG to be on the left side of the road. To add to the discomfort, the roads in the Scottish highlands have no shoulder, and they are open to cyclists. Periodically, then, a group of cyclists, your car, and an eighteen-wheeler are all packed onto the same narrow strip of road. If you're lucky, you've got six inches of clearance on both sides.

The one smart thing I did was to "hire" a talking navigation device. The navigator lady turned out to be a fickle mistress, though. There were times when she clearly didn't know where we were but was too embarrassed to admit it. There were times when I needed instructions--"what do I do at this intersection?"--but she was silent. (Every time this happened, I would say, "Talk to me, Goose!" Amazingly, I never failed to laugh at this.) There were times when you could hear the frustration in her voice after I missed yet another turn: "Recalculating...again." All in all, though, I was glad she was with me. I wouldn't have wanted to try to navigate Scotland on my own.

Calling Michelle

Hey, Chelle-bell: my emails to you keep getting sent back to me. Not sure what's going on...

UK Trip, Part 7

This is going to be a short one. In my writing about my trip, I'm actually getting ready to leave London and head to Scotland. (Don't worry, though -- I come back to London again before the trip is finished.) Before I go, though, I need to share with you the most amazing story I heard in London. It's about a guy named Michael Fagan who broke into Buckingham Palace in 1982 and ended up having a nice chat with the queen at the foot of her bed. Below is the Wikipedia version. It makes you wonder -- where was Hollywood with the movie?

Michael Fagan was the intruder who broke into Buckingham Palace and entered Queen Elizabeth II's bedchamber in the early hours of July 9, 1982. The unemployed Irish father of four children managed to evade electronic alarms, palace and police guards.

This actually had been his second successful attempt to break into Buckingham Palace. Upon his first attempt, he scaled a drainpipe, briefly startling a housemaid. She called security, but they decided not to act.

He entered through an unlocked window on the roof and spent the next half hour wandering around. He tripped several alarms, but they were faulty. He viewed the royal portraits and rested on the throne for awhile. He entered the Post Room, where he drank half a bottle of Californian white wine before becoming tired and left.

On the second attempt, an alarm sensor actually had gone off upon detecting him. A worker in the Palace thought it had happened by accident, so he silenced the alarm, Fagan having gone unnoticed.

On his way to see the Queen, he had broken a glass ashtray, lacerating his hand.

The Queen woke when he disturbed a curtain after which he sat on the edge of her bed talking to her for about ten minutes; the Queen was only able to raise the alarm when he asked for a cigarette. She calmly called for a footman who allegedly held the intruder until police arrived. The incident happened as the armed police officer outside the royal bedroom came off duty before his replacement arrived. He had been out walking the Queen's dogs.

The incident caused shock to all, as one unarmed man could manage not only to enter the Palace but even went as far as to see the Queen herself while she was asleep. However, the Queen's calm nature had become better noted. She was calm even upon seeing in her room a strange man with a bloodied hand, and remained calm while conversing with Fagan for about ten minutes.

Since it was then a civil wrong rather than a criminal offence, Michael Fagan was not charged for trespassing in the Queen's bedroom.

He was however charged with theft (of the half bottle of wine, value £3), but the charges were dropped when he was committed for psychiatric evaluation.

Dumb quotes

Here's the first one, from John Edwards:

"I have no intention of giving George Bush the authority to take the first step on a road to war with Iran," Edwards said, pointedly mentioning that two other candidates on stage, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden and Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, had voted against the measure.

Maybe nobody told Edwards this, but once you leave the Senate, you don't get to vote on Senate stuff any more. So even if he had EVERY intention of giving George Bush the authority to take the first step on a road to war with Iran, there wouldn't be anything he could do about it.

And here's Bill O'Reilly talking about a night out with Al Sharpton:

"[W]e went to Sylvia's, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful. They all watch The Factor. You know, when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like a big commotion and everything, but everybody was very nice.

"And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship.

"There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."

But wait, we haven't even gotten to the dumb part yet. That came when O'Reilly tried to defend himself against claims that he was possibly the teeniest bit racist (you know, for suggesting that blacks, unlike their more civilized white brethren, engage in swearing and "craziness" out in public). Here's what he said:

"If you listened to the full hour (of the radio show on which he made his comments), it was a criticism of racism on the part of white Americans who are ignorant of the fact that there is no difference between white and black anymore."

But the restaurant quotes demonstrate that O'Reilly is one of those Americans. He just exited the no-spin zone.

Did Michael Vick just blow his second chance?

As you probably read, Vick tested positive for the hippy lettuce while awaiting sentencing on his federal conviction, AND while facing indictment in Virginia. In addition to being just plain stupid, this gives lie to Vick's claim that he's ready to put his life back on track. He still seems to think that the rules don't apply to him. It's a shame, because that attitude is going to cost him his career and a good part of his fortune.

UK Trip, Part 6

"There is no six." Those four words sum up my maddening trip to the British Museum, where I managed to see the entire three-million item collection in a record time of 12 minutes. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I was trying to make decent time through the museum, as I had another stop that day. Accordingly, I rented the "50 highlights" audio tour, which directs you to 50 of the coolest things in the museum's collection. Sure, you're going to miss a few billion other items, slightly less cool but still very cool, but those are the trade-offs you have to make when you're traveling.

The first stop was the Rosetta Stone -- something to behold. It was in remarkable condition. I will always have a special place in my heart for the Rosetta Stone, because it demonstrated that Joseph Smith's "translation" of the Book of Abraham was a fraud.

Time for Stop #2. This is where the trouble begins. I can't find Stop #2. It's in the same room as Stop 1, according to my map, it's very near the Rosetta Stone, and it's even got a #2 label on it. But I can't find it. Eventually, I give up and ask for help. I am directed to Stop #2. Why couldn't I find it? Because the room is huge, the map is lousy, and the #2 label on the case is about the size of a postage stamp.

It takes me several minutes to find each of Stops 3, 4, and 5 -- even though I've got a map, even though they are labeled, and even though they are in the same room. They are not arranged sequentially, however. Stop 3 might be down a corridor to your left, while Stop 4 is 50 feet behind you, and Stop 5 is in a little alcove right next to Stop 3. No rhyme or reason. I eventually do find these three stops, however.

Stop 6 is a different story altogether. I simply CANNOT find it. After 10 minutes I break down and ask a guide for assistance. She looks at my map, looks out at the giant room, looks back at my map and says, "There is no six. We've had six removed."

Ah, well, that makes perfect sense.

Trouble is, she was wrong! Six is just upstairs, in another room, reflected on a different page of my map. (Later I would find that Stop 14 was the one that had been removed.)

This is how it was all day long. Spend 10 minutes looking for Stop 8. Ah, there it is -- see the little postage-stamp-sized label? Okay, now let's move on to Stop 9. It's three floors up, obscured from the front by a giant Buddha. Walk behind him and look four feet due south of his butt. Fine, done. Now for Stop 10 -- it's in the basement, right next to Stop 46. Naturally.

I'm not exaggerating (okay, maybe just a little). I did about 20 audio tours on my trip, and this was by far the worst. Most of them walk you in a logical, sequential pattern from one stop to the next. You look at Stop 1, you walk 30 feet and come to Stop 2. Stop 2 has a giant sign that says "This is Stop 2." Walk another 30 feet, and you're at Stop 3. There's no doubt it's Stop 3. Etc. In the British Museum they seem to have had themselves a good British giggle: "Let's just distribute the stops at random around the museum, and then put teeny-weeny labels on them to anger the Americans! Tee-hee!"

Well, it worked on me.

Footnote. You want to know my biggest disappointment? The Elgin marbles were not actually marbles.

From the man who brought you the 1996 Dole campaign...

Annoyingly, Scott Reed has been showing up as an on-the-record source in more and more recent presidential campaign articles. You may remember Reed as the guy who ran Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign -- one of the worst of the 20th century. Reed is the guy you interview when you want to find out how to run a LOUSY campaign. You don't look to him for insights on how to succeed in a presidential election. But that's exactly what the media are doing.

Here's the conversation Reed should have had with Bob Dole in the early summer of 2006: "You are going to lose this election. That's what the early polling says, that's what history says, that's what my gut says. Bill Clinton is a master politician, and he's got peace and prosperity on his side. If you run a conventional campaign, you will lose. In fact, it won't even be close, or interesting. Your one and only chance is to be an oxymoron -- a radical conservative. You're going to have to come out in favor of the flat tax, and U.S. withdrawal from the UN, and free trade with Cuba, and dramatic entitlement reform, and an end to political action committees, and five other things I haven't even thought of yet. That's your only chance -- capture the imagination of the media, and the public, and see if you can get a prairie fire going. If you run a predictable Republican campaign about cutting taxes and spending, and honoring traditional values, you might as well not bother. You'll be headed back to Kansas. I have no interest in running that kind of campaign either, by the way, because it's a stone-cold loser. So if that's what you want to do, then I'm afraid today will be my last day as your campaign manager."

But that's not what Reed did. He helped Dole run a conventional GOP campaign, with an entirely predictable outcome. And he cashed a big paycheck along the way. So remind me again, why do I need to read quotes from this guy?

UK Trip, Part 5

As you've probably heard, the English are unfailingly polite. They don't like conflict, embarrassment, tension, or trouble. Sometimes, this manifests itself in frustrating ways. When I flew from London to Edinburgh, for example, I was supposed to take a 45-minute train ride to Stansted airport to catch my flight. Well, when I got to the train station, I was directed to hop aboard a bus instead. Apparently there was some track maintenance going on at the designated station. The bus, therefore, was going to take us to the next station down the line, where we'd pick up our train. The driver explained it to us once we were on board: "We've just got to make our way to the next station. It's only about ten minutes away."

Forty minutes later, we were there. And that was forty minutes in ZERO traffic, too. The station was clearly forty minutes away, not ten. So why not just say forty?  As I said, the English don't like conflict, embarrassment, tension, or trouble. (They're quite different from the Scottish this way. In Glasgow, I was warned not to make extended eye contact with young men on the street, lest I get a swift head-butt to the nose. In a bar in Edinburgh, a drunk old Scotsman threatened to punch me in the "fookin" mouth when I asked if he knew any Scottish songs. (He had been singing "California, here I come...") My bus driver in Edinburgh, too, had little patience for anything or anyone -- "Move to the back, wouldja?" And the B&B clerk at the place I stayed in Glasgow threatened to call the police on me several times within a ten-minute span. Long story, which I may or may not share later...)

One other funny story before I sign off for the evening. The British Library holds some of the great literary treasures of Western Civilization: originals of the Magna Carta, one of the earliest complete Bibles, Shakespeare's first folio, a number of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, etc. Naturally, I signed up for a tour. When I arrived at the library on tour day, they told me that I was the only one who had bought a ticket. I said, "You're kidding me." They said, "No, do you still want to go?" I said, "Yes, of course." I couldn't believe my good fortune. My own private tour!

Well, the tour guide came and found me, and within minutes I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. The library doesn't actually offer guided tours of its holdings. Instead, it offers guided tours of the library itself, as in, "This is where you apply for a user card," "This is the bar code dispenser that we use to attach labels to all of our buckets," "This is where the security guys eat their lunch." Etc.

Magna Carta? Yawn. Tell me more about the Dewey decimal system!