I could look in your face
for a thousand years
it's like a civil war
of pain and cheer


Karin Davie, Distraction, 1999

* From Harper's December 2010:

-- Value of economic-recovery bonds the State of Louisiana has sold since Hurricane Katrina : $5,900,000,000

-- Percentage of the revenue that has been spent on projects in New Orleans: 1

-- Percentage spent on the Lower Ninth Ward: 0

-- Percentage spent on the state's oil industry: 29

-- Percentage change in the U.S. suicide rate for every 500 meters above sea level: +17

-- Number of poisonous dead mice the USDA airdropped into Guam this year to eradicate an invasive snake species: 316

-- Number of episode of Happy Days that aired after the one in which the Fonz jumped a shark: 164

* “It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of our national stupidity” -- Frank Zappa