Hiatus

I'm taking a little rest from most things internettish. If you want me, catch me old school, e-mail or telephone. Stop in even. I'll be back before you've missed me. Promise.

Yet Another Reason to Read Sunday's NYT

Though I fantasize about spending part of every Sunday reading the NYT and sometimes buy one, it was probably 1998 when I last actually did it.

Articles like this one about the Obamas' marriage by Jodi Kantor make me think about ways to put the Grey Lady back in my weekend. This piece reads a bit like an episode from "West Wing."

The opening 'graph:

Another Washington dusk, another motorcade, another intimate evening played out in public view. On Oct. 3, just a day after their failed Olympics bid in Copenhagen, Barack and Michelle Obama slipped into a Georgetown restaurant for one of their now-familiar date nights: this time, to toast their 17th wedding anniversary. As with their previous outings, even the dark photographs taken by passers-by and posted on the Web looked glamorous: the president tieless, in a suit; the first lady in a backless sheath.

Facebook Blues

Won't go into detail. Suffice to say I had a junior high-esque meltdown at the hands of a "friend's" unintentionally hurtful post and now can hardly bear to look at the pale Wedgwood blue blocks and lettering.

Coincidentally, this morning I was dismayed to learn from NPR that those stupid quizzes people send around are designed to strip information from your FB page. Mostly I ignored them and am generally not that squeamish about sharing information online. That said, I'm not a fan of the under-cover-of-quiz m.o. of the Facebook information gathering.

See ya Facebook. If it weren't for the pictures, I'd delete my account altogether in a minute. May yet.

Swine Flu Beats Vaccine to Maine, Schools Hold Fire

Whether Maine school employees are holding fire, in denial or simply coping as best they can has yet to be determined. In any case, today's news that swine flu numbers are increasing daily accompanied information that less than half the vaccine needed for high risk cases will arrive by early December.

According to the MPBN report, more vaccine will arrive in the first of the year, but the way I'm seeing kids suffering and staying home looks more like mid-winter and the virus is just now getting rolling. Despite my faith in influenza vaccines, I worry that depending on the vaccine alone may not be enough to protect our children. I hope state and federal health officials consider additional methods to mitigate the clearly wicked contagious virus.

It may be we in Maine should not complain. Southern states have been handling the epidemic for weeks with no hope of imminent vaccine.

[update: 16.October.09] Apparently the NYT figured it out too.

Super Local News--Practically Gossip

The Wiscasset Community Center, also to be known, for reasons too Byzantine to explore, as the Wiscasset Recreation Center, has a new website. What is particularly new and wonderful about the site is it appears to be accurate and up to date. Seems like a miracle.