I am writing today to warn everyone in every U.S. city, and perhaps every city on Earth, of impending danger and doom from above.

But first, some lengthy historical background:

In Lawrence, Kansas, in front of Strong Hall on the University of Kansas campus, there sits a 600-pound bronze sculpture that has been displayed on campus since 1958 and has been in its current location since 1975. This bronze, created by sculptor Elden Tefft, is ostensibly of that mythical flying creature (and KU mascot), the Jayhawk.

But everyone at KU refers to the Strong Hall Jayhawk as “the Pterodactyl” – perhaps because of its strong resemblance to the non-mythical (yet extinct) flying creature of that name, or perhaps simply to distinguish it from the various other Jayhawks to be found all over campus.

The night after the Pterodactyl first appeared at KU, the Mystical Oracle of Mount Oread (MOMO) convened at midnight at the Rock Chalk Cairn on the hill above Memorial Stadium in order to determine what unearthly powers the Great Bronze Jayhawk might possess, and how MOMO might shape them. For if MOMO did not do so, then the sculpture might shape its own powers – ensuring that havoc would ensue.

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Tomorrow morning, bright and early, Avocado and I go off to St Louis for the ISI Synchronized Skating Championships. What the hell is synchronized skating, you may well ask? You can bet I’m not the one out there on ice skates. But Avocado, Ms. Dauntless of 1947, is. She can do things–gossip with friends while skating backward and fixing her ponytail–that I can barely do while standing on two unbladed feet. With the Tremors, her synch team, she lunges, dances, weaves, circles, and makes like Esther Williams–except the water is frozen and she’s on blades. Watching her reminds me of that old saw about Ginger Rogers, who could do everything Fred Astaire did, backward and in heels… The Tremors are actually three separate teams, with increasing levels of complexity in their choreography. Avocado is in the junior-most (I still can’t sort out the ISI level designations, which make my head hurt).  This in no wise reduces the level of skill and potential for chaos inherent in this sport.

The photo above is not the Tremors, though it could be. You get the general idea.

Synch skating, like regular figure skating, is not for the work-averse or the frugal. What with required practice dress, costume rental, skates, team sweatshirt, practice T shirt, required makeup and hair accessories, bits and pieces here and there, we figure it costs roughly the same to have a kid in Tremors as the GNP of–I dunno, Lichtenstein? And yet–there’s the work ethic thing, and team bonding, and working with kids she doesn’t adore, and the exercise. And she loves it. So we sell Lichtenstein; what with fuel prices what they are, we weren’t getting over there as often as we used to.  The kid is missing two days of school, which lends a tone of glamor and urgency to the whole event.

So, if any of you Brains are near St. Louis/St. Peter Missouri this weekend, drop by the Rec Plex and see the kids whiz by.

By the time Jack Williamson was my age he had published over 29 novels and over 73 short stories. He then went on, before he died, to publish almost as much again, be awarded the second ever SFWA Grand Master award and then, in this decade, won the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell awards.

So, it is with a great deal of humility (and a severe case of imposture syndrome) that I let you know I will be Special Guest of Honor at the 32nd Williamson Lectureship at Eastern New Mexico University.

Also speaking at the lunch will be special guests Christopher Stasheff and Connie Willis. In the morning before the luncheon there will be a presentation on the physics of both the novel and movie versions of Jumper by Alberto Rojo, recent Jack Williamson Endowed Chair and associate professor of physics at Oakland University. In the afternoon there will be panels at the University Library

2:00 Tribute to Fred Saberhagen
3:00 New Directions: SF and Fantasy
4:00 PG for Violence, Action and Scary Creatures: SF and Film

At 4:00 pm on Thursday the 10th, Connie Willis, Walter Jon Williams, and I are also doing a “Young Readers and Writers” event at the Portales Public Library.

Click the pic for the official Lectureship site.

From National Geographic, an amazing time-lapse video of a glacier near Valdez, Alaska between May and September of last year. Watch as it retreats a half mile or more:

Global warming is a topic I follow pretty closely, as I have mentioned before, but I haven’t posted on it in a long time. The real reason, I confess, is that there is so much bad news, and I felt worried that I’d chase readers away. (“Oh, God, there’s another grim post about the climate from Morgan.”) And maybe I feel a little overwhelmed, myself.

But the problem hasn’t gone away. Two weeks ago, a portion of the Wilkins ice shelf the size of Manhattan broke off and floated away. The rest of the ice shelf is barely hanging on, and only the fact that winter is coming to Antarctica may save it.

As the New York Times puts it:

Nothing dramatizes the urgency of global warming quite like a fracture of this scale. There is nothing to be done about a collapsing polar ice sheet except to witness it. It may be too late to stop the warming decay at the boundaries of Antarctic ice, yet there is everything to be done. Humans can radically change the way they live and do business, knowing that it is the one chance to find a possible limit to radical change in the natural world around us.

We have a lot of extremely important issues we need our political leaders to address. Climate change, because it is such a big issue, and so complex–and most importantly, a problem whose worst effects won’t be felt for decades–gets crowded out of our consciousness. But we really do need to act now. Our next president’s actions will have a real effect on whether global warming is a big problem we managed to tackle, or one we let run away from us.

Individual actions help, and collective action helps even more. Al Gore is gearing up for a major new campaign to push the fight against climate change to the front of the public consciousness. We need our political leaders to actually, y’know, lead on this one.

Come on, Clinton; come on, Obama*. Step up to the plate. Show us you have what it takes.

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*I’d name McCain, too; global warming affects everyone, and I’ve known plenty of Republicans who are concerned about it. But the far right seems determined to try to make climate change a partisan issue, and McCain will be too beholden to them to be effective on this issue, even if he wanted to. Yet another reason to vote Democratic this coming November, if you needed one.

Damn. How did this slip past without us noticing it?

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BoxOfiiceMojo, of course.

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I am a fan of cheese, especially a nice creamy-and-stringy mozzarella. So I was saddened to read of the current buffalo mozzarella contamination crisis.

However, I don’t believe I’ve ever had real Mozzarella di Bufala Campana, which has been made in southern Italy from the milk of Asian water buffaloes since the twelfth century. And I’m positive that I’ve never had the version made from unpasteurized buffalo milk, which must be consumed within twenty-four hours of its creation. That cheese is widely regarded as the best mozzarella in the world, a true delicacy, and you pretty much have to be in southern Italy to get a taste.

But until the current dioxin-contamination problem is solved (or proven to be not-all-that-bad), it may be that not even Neapolitans will be able to enjoy unpasteurized buffalo mozzarella.

The silver lining to that dark cloud, however, may be that the world will finally rediscover Mozzarella di Mammotha Titana.

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Via Cory at BoingBoing, E30Tech at BMW Sports Touring Forum shares these great pictures of the shuttle and payload assembly process. They showcase the full process of assembly. Like Transformers meets X-15. Fun!

Other than it being April 1, what was up today? I took Sarcasm Girl to the pediatrician (I thought it was bronchitis; turned out to be an ear infection–how did I confuse the two?) and there was not only nowhere to park in the lot outside the medical building, but several cars were circling around, vulture-like, to be the first to any spot that opened up. I dropped the girl off and parked on the street. No harm, no foul.

After the doctor’s visit, we went up to the shopping center in Diamond Heights where our pharmacy is, to pick up medications (as a sidelight, I’m considering writing a children’s book to be called More Drugs for Betsy! or something like that. At the moment it’s a title-only project, but if anyone wants to collaborate, let me know). And here the problem was less that there weren’t any spaces than that people had parked in such a way as to render the adjacent spaces unusable except by motorcycles or palanquins. It’s not that I haven’t seen bad parking before, but I’ve rarely seen so much of it at one time.

Is it National Entitlement Day and I didn’t get the memo? I tend to check where I’ve parked when I get out, and am not above getting back in the car and repositioning it if I feel I’m too close to the next guy. (Too, we have a Honda Civic, which is a little smaller than an Escalade Pick-Up*.) But the cheery assumption, by the driver of the white Mazda convertible, that it was really not a problem if she parked diagonally across a space, fascinates me. I watched as the young woman (mid-20s, I’d guess) zipped into the lot, tore down one lane and up another, and swerved into a spot so that her front left bumper was about six inches from the car already parked in the left-adjacent slot, and her right rear bumper overhung the dividing line for the space by a good eighteen inches. Then she bounced out of the car and sauntered into the Safeway.

Okay, this is partly envy on my part: I can’t get away with this sort of behavior, not just because I’m not a cute blonde in my 20s with a Mazda, but because of my early bad training in not taking up other people’s space. Actually, I think that was, at least as far as parking is concerned, pretty good training. And the Cute Blonde isn’t alone, of course (or at least she wasn’t today).

So I ask again: was today National Park Like an Asshole Day?

*and why in God’s name would anyone who really wanted a pickup truck buy one from Cadillac? They look like tanks, but if I’m going to spend $66K for a vehicle, it’s not one I’m likely to be hauling ladders and paint and construction debris in. Or even mountain bikes or Jet Skis, which leave their own mechanical slime trails. I’m just sayin’.

From Locus:

Panic, hysteria, depression, and mass suicide struck the offices of Bantam Books today when New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin turned in a manuscript for the final book of his A Song of Fire and Ice series that came in at a concise 87 pages.

“As I sat down to write the book, I suddenly realized that I could tie everything up in a satisfying climax at novella length,” said Martin in a prepared statement. “Brevity being the soul of wit, I decided to do just that. I think all the fans of he series will be very pleased with the way it turned out.”

“The world is a black, hellish nightmare of unceasing despair and endless sorrow!” cried Martin’s editor Anne Groell, rending her garments as her editorial assistants stood wailing around her. “A stygian darkness descends, blotting out all life and hope! O Tempora! O Mores! My life work reduced to ashes before my eyes, leaving not but a voice and bitter weeping! Oh cruel fate! I die!” she declared, just before committing seppuku with a letter opener.

Read the entire story.