No wonder

Not to belabor this Larry Craig story, but I thought this quote from the airport police officer during the interrogation (when faced with Craig's denials) was just classic:

"Embarrassing, embarrassing. No wonder why we're going down the tubes."

Give this woman a map!

I know most of you have probably seen this, but still, I just had to post it:

Q: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?

During the pageant: "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, um, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future."

Update, from Shannon.

Foot-Tapping Fool

Has anyone else wondered exactly what Senator Larry Craig — a conservative Republican who has voted against gay marriage and opposes hate crimes legislation that would extend special protections to gay and lesbian crime victims — did in the bathroom of MSP airport? Something lewd, yes. But what?

Here are the details from the incidence report, which I find kind of sickly fascinating:

According to the incident report, Sgt. Dave Karsnia was working as a plainclothes officer on June 11 investigating civilian complaints regarding sexual activity in the men’s public restroom in which Craig was arrested.

Airport police previously had made numerous arrests in the men’s restroom of the Northstar Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal in connection with sexual activity.

Karsnia entered the bathroom at noon that day and about 13 minutes after taking a seat in a stall, he stated he could see “an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall.”

The man, who lingered in front of the stall for two minutes, was later identified as Craig.

“I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes,” the report states.

Craig then entered the stall next to Karsnia’s and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door.

“My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall,” Karsnia stated in his report. “From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me.”

Craig was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes.

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could ... see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”

Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it.

“With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit. Craig responded, ‘No!’ I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. ... Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn’t want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom.”

Sounds pretty clear to me! If he wasn't propositioning the guy, what was he doing? It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't yet another example of blatant hypocrisy!

Sounds Good to Me

The Person I Want to Bring into This World

by Laura Shipler Chico

Laura Shipler Chico works in cross-cultural communication and trauma recovery. She helped convene survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda for intensive community reconciliation processes. Chico's first child is due later this month.

All Things Considered, August 27, 2007 · I am pregnant. In the brief moments between dramatic dashes to the bathroom and just as dramatic raids of the refrigerator, I sometimes sit and philosophize about what kind of person I would like to bring into this world.

"If we had to boil it down to three basic personality traits," I asked my husband, "what would they be?"

I thought if I could name those three qualities, I could identify my own belief about what I value most. Just three, because I figured we'd be lucky to even get those, given our limited control over whoever pops out.

"Honesty," he said, without hesitating. That was first on my list, too. I believe that when you're honest, you're less likely to end up in jail. And when you're honest, you're willing to take the harder path sometimes, and so you're always pushing yourself to grow. When you're honest, people trust you, and so soon you start to trust yourself. And when you can really trust yourself — well, I believe that that is the foundation for all the rest.

After a pause, I said, "Caring about other people." Honesty all on its own can be a bit harsh, but when an honest person cares about other people, that's a powerful combination. When you care about other people, you're (hopefully) not as likely to land in jail, and more likely to become a responsible world citizen. You're less likely to be mean and more likely to have deep friendships. And when you care about other people, they tend to care about you, and pretty soon you start to care about you, too. Oh, and I almost forgot: When you care about other people, you are more likely to know how to really love, and how to be loved back.

Now, for the third: This was harder. This was when we started to get greedy, as though having a baby at all, and then having a healthy baby, and then having a healthy baby that grew up into an honest, caring person wasn't enough. A long list of qualities vied for our vote: industrious, adventurous, creative, smart, kind, playful, and so on. But most of the qualities could still be traced back to our first two or, if not, they seemed less fundamental somehow.

And then I remembered what my grandmother taught my father and my father taught me: "You should always be able to laugh at yourself." I believe that if you can laugh at yourself, it probably means you like yourself, deep down inside, and you know that you're no better and no worse than anybody else. You'll probably have fun in life. And most importantly, you're more likely to forgive yourself when you're not always honest and you're not always caring.

And finally, we thought, even if you do land in jail, at least you can laugh at your own stupidity for getting caught.

Three Months Old

All is well in the Elbert household. Madeleine can be a little bit of a prima donna (when she wants something, she REALLY wants it, and now!) but she's also a real sweetheart. And perhaps all babies are prima donnas to some extent. She's even sleeping through the night ... about half the time.

The newest international hottie...

...is Vladimir Putin? Who knew? (Perhaps "hottie" is too strong a word, but he's got a pretty impressive bod for a major world leader.) With his KGB background, maybe he'll be the next James Bond.

Back to the Ranch

Well, maybe not the ranch. More like this office building in downtown Minneapolis. And perhaps not "back," since I've been working part-time, but back five days a week. This past week was my return to work full-time, and it was busy but good. My editors even got me flowers, which I thought was really sweet and thoughtful. After Matt's rough start with Madeleine last week (she resisted taking her bottle and cried nearly all day), this week was a big improvement. Yesterday I had Friday afternoon off so the three of us grabbed fish tacos at Lake Calhoun and walked around the lake. It was lovely.
(The other thing that's lovely is a sleeping baby in a swing. I have a new appreciation for a quiet, rainy Saturday morning.)

Wisconsin Baby Fun

We had a great time this weekend in Wisconsin, where Matt's sisters Sarah and Emily and his mom threw us a lovely baby shower. It was fun to see family and friends and be able to bring the little peanut to a shower, where she got LOTS of diapers and fun books and outfits. It was especially fun to introduce Madeleine to her cousins Lilly and Isabelle, and she seemed just as intrigued by them as they were by her! She was quite well behaved at the shower, and even better—she slept during the whole five-hour drive down there and nearly the whole way back. Ka-ching! Her dad thinks we need to buy an RV and just keep moving, like sharks. The only downside to the weekend was getting home to discover our electricity had been off for 24 hours after strong storms in our neck of the woods. We headed to my parents' house and managed to salvage some of the white gold from the freezer. The electricity finally came back today and we are at home and relaxing it up.


What a cake! One layer lemon pound cake with lemon curd and ginger, and the other orange cake with an orange mousse filling. Delicious. No wonder there was a cake frenzy!


Lots of baby experts!

Bonus: My dad went outside this morning to look at the dent in the Volvo, came back in to get a crowbar and managed to bend it back into place in about three minutes. It still ain't that pretty, but at least you can open the passenger door.

Happy Girl

Perspective

It's been quite a week.

After getting upset because we had to put $1,000 into our 1998 Volvo (which requires duct tape to keep the inside back door panel in place) for an oil leak, the 35W bridge collapse happened, and it made our problems seem pretty minute. Then, after getting rather worked up yesterday because our other car was requiring some expensive maintenance, and after discovering that someone had just hit the Volvo, making it comically hard to open the passenger door, I found out some additional news that again put things into perspective for me. (Funny how easy it is to keep gaining and losing perspective, but I suppose that's what being human is all about.) After nearly three years of trying to get pregnant, a good friend of mine found out that she and her husband have succeeded, naturally. It is absolutely wonderful news.

Finally, this morning I got the news that a former co-worker died yesterday. She had had some problems, and I don't know the circumstances of her death. But she was a wonderful, kind person, and her loss is a tragedy and a waste.

Many of you know that Matt has been laid off. His last day is tomorrow. But there are even good things about this. Matt will get to stay home with Madeleine, at least in the short run, and he will no longer be spending long days at a job he had come to strongly dislike. He is already a happier person.

We really are a lucky family.

Tragedy

Thanks for all your e-mails and calls. The Wyatts & Elberts are all ok, as are our friends. What a freak disaster. A reminder not to take anything for granted.

Man vs. Wild ... say it ain't so!

Matt is usually the nature show aficianado in our family, but we're both fans of the show "Man vs. Wild" on the Discovery Channel. Basically, a former member of the British special forces is dropped into some remote place (the Rockies, Alaska, the Amazon), with literally nothing (yes, other than a camera crew with whom he can't interact), and he has to find his way back to civilization using his skills as a survivalist. The man, Bear Grylls, has an insane amount of knowledge about the wild and is pretty cool, too, and kind of cute. But this story in Hollywood Reporter, citing a TV report, is making us all question the show after all ... with reports that Bear checked into hotels (!) when he was supposedly sleeping in the wild and other deceptions.

If it's true, it's depressing!

Killer Ferret

I have to admit, I thought this commercial was hilarious. I don't know why, but it made me giggle. And then a few minutes later, I giggled some more. Each time I thought about it, I had to laugh. You probably won't think it's that funny, but I thought I'd share in case you haven't seen it on TV:

Mountain Dew's Killer Ferret