Urban Oasis: Internet Tubes

Saturday, June 28, 2008

An Inauspicious Anniversary

I was recently reminded by my "Bush Countdown" calendar of something that happened two years ago today ... the (in)famous rant on the "intertubes" by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Lunatic, AK). By the way, at the time he was the Chairman of Senate Commerce Committee which has jurisdiction over internet "net neutrality." Fortunately, after the 2006 election, this wingnut was ousted as Chairman, but still remains as ranking member. He is currently under investigation (on multiple counts) for bribery and corruption charges (along with several other members of the Alaska delegation), is facing an unusually competitive (for AK) race for re-election. With any luck, the good people of Alaska will wake up and get this embarrassingly corrupt Senate member out of office, sparing us any further of his many insane antics.

Here's an excerpt of his rant on the Senate floor, June 28, 2006.

"I just the other day got, an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. ... The Internet is not something you just dump something on, it's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled, and if they are filled when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

Absolutely insane, yet sadly hysterical. That's our Ted!
You can listen to the entire rant here on Youtube. And Here's Jon Stewart's hilarious take on it on The Daily Show on July 12, 2006.

I'm not quite sure how one might "celebrate" this anniversary, but I guess I'm contributing my part to the "tubes" with this post ... "Enjoy!"

Transforming one urban corner, one season at a time

Welcome to our little corner of the Plant Universe!

I started Urban Oasis almost three years ago with the intent of both chronicling the seasonal changes of our gardens, as well as to serve as a kind of "rough draft" for a gardening book I've been wanting to write for about six years now. Well, the book remains unwritten, but readers will still find in these pages, the seeds of what it may eventually become when I'm gifted with adequate time and resources to really apply myself to writing it....

When we moved into our house in 1998, (affectionately dubbed Casa IVG), it was a practically barren garden canvas just waiting to be reborn. Our urban transformation project began in earnest in Spring 1999, and continues to this day, with some major changes occurring along the way (such as the boulder beds in 2003) ... and the evolution continues to this day.

Urban Oasis itself has evolved too, from its original exclusive focus on the plants to postings on some of my other more personal interests, such as Politics, International and Independent Cinema, and one of the enduring passions of my life: our dogs. 2008 was a year of many transitions for us, the saddest of which was the loss of our beloved Pepa and Rolly in December.

But, as in any garden worth its petals, we are now experiencing a joyous renewal with the recent adoption of our new pup, Hanna, who will be appearing regularly here as the seasons progress. She'll never truly replace Pepa as the official "mascot" of the blog, but she's an eager "intern" who will go far in filling the enormous paw prints left behind by her predecessor ... and fill them well, she will!