The United States used to pay tobacco farmers to not grow tobacco. This was a kind of redneck welfare commonly called the "tobacco alotment" or in redneck-speak, "backalotment". It had to be administered by somebody. For a while in the early 1980's it was administered by a friend of mine. We had been grad students in Agricultural Economics together. He went to work for the USDA & I became a computer geek.

Then we lost touch for several years. Until I read his name in the New York Times, when all hell was breaking loose because congress had voted to phase out tobacco allotments and farmers who had been used to getting a large check in the mail for doing nothing every year were seeing the size of their checks shrink and shrink, and they were going batshit crazy about it.

Inside: Hands off my innernet!

I took the train from Boston down to Philadelphia to hang out with all the lefty bloggers at Eschacon. Had dinner with the Shrill One himself, Paul Krugman, who had been on a panel on economics earlier in the day.

As I was walking to the entrance of the Stop & Shop yesterday evening, I found a folded $20 bill on the ground with a $1 bill folded inside it.

Rosa Barks
January 21, 1993 -- March 9, 2008

One hell of a dog you was.

I was pulling into the parking lot by the A&P last night thinking about emphemerality. Well not actually the A&P, but that A&P "annex" store where they sell medicine and suntan oil & stuff next to the Midnight Farm, the furniture store which Carly Simon used to own in the building where Shirley's hardware store used to be until they moved up to State Road near where Louis's restaurant used to be until it closed after 20 years.

When I say "A&P" of course I mean "Stop & Shop". The two grocery stores on our little island changed hands 5 years ago, but us locals still use the old name. I was going to buy some benedryl for my dog Rosa, who may be dying.

I went to the FCC hearing on why Comcast sucks yesterday. Report here.

Cannot tell you more about it here, lest Hulver hunt me down and kill me for cross-posting!

But it would be OK, I think, if you read my most excellent report and we discussed it here.

A few months ago, Cortez the Killer, explorer, conquistador, poet, bookseller, teacher of Spanish as a second language, bricklayer, songmaker, ship's wright, cartographer, philatelicist, public relations and media strategy consultant, dogsbody, rag merchant and wine taster was laid off ("made redundant") from his most recent mercantile job, viz, House Imperialist for Fitzcaraldo, inc. It is generally understood but not ever publicly acknowledged that his job entailed working as an upcountry guide & translator for a tiny subcontractor to the "Cultural Outreach" arm of Blackwater, Inc, primary contractors on a Pentagon contract said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to, quote, "steam that paddlewheeller as far as you can upriver until the Amazon shall turn into a mudpuddle and find and civilize whatever pre-Columbians as you shall there encounter," unquote. Cortez, a proud man of Latin persuasion was not happy to sign up for the dole, viewing it as an insult to his manliness. But, ever the pragmatist, he came round to the point of view that "you do what you gotta do". After all, he was broke.

I voted today in the Massachusetts primary.

I voted for Chris Dodd.

That'll show 'em!

admit it.

But also I'm generous, maybe?

Comments welcome, but be kind, OK? I may not be a true power geek, but remember, we're not that other site. Are we?

Went to Arisia last weekend.  Sat on a few panels, in exchange for which I got free admission to the con & a ticket to the free food in the Green Room (which is a suite on the third floor where all the exalted panelists & guests get to hang out. It's generally pretty messy and filled with people I don't know who all know each other.) The con was pretty interesting and fun. By some definition of "pretty" and "interesting" and "fun." Otherwise it was "meh", but not in a bad way. I did spend time with a writer whose work I like, so that was a plus.

Micro report inside.