Opinions! . . . What Opinions?

I have spent a lot of time inside my head recently. Wandering down endless corridors with an infinite number of doors to an infinite number of rooms. Most of them were locked.

They had signs on them that said things like: Someone Else's Opinion and Under Consideration. One locked door said: Liberals I Would Vote For. That door was locked, the hinges were rusted and I had to use my sleeve to clean the cobwebs from the frosted glass just to read the sign.

There were a few doors that appeared to be unlocked but only moved a few inches before becoming stuck. They had signs that said things like: News Outlets I Respect and Currently Working Actors I Admire. They were right next to another stuck door that said Currently Working Actresses That I Recognize.

Some of the doors, however, were wide open. A couple were just big openings into cave-like walls and had labels such as: Things I Find Funny and People I Don't Like. There were other unlocked doors with well oiled hinges that had signs declaring: Reasons Why Global Warming Is A Crock and Black & White Movies I Love.

Every now and then I would turn a corner and find a row of little, tiny doors. I would get down on my hands and knees, kneeling in the dust, and squint at the teeny, tiny lettering until I made out the inscriptions: Opinion Of Tom Cruise and Reasons To Care What Oprah Thinks.

But the thing that scared me the most was an entire section of halls and corridors blocked by a velvet rope with a placard that read: Reserved For Future Occupant.

This Just In . . .

I awoke this morning to find out that St. Louis Has Been Named the Most Dangerous City. What I want to know is why do these things always happen at night? I can't tell you how many times I wake up to the morning news and something news worthy has happened overnight.

I usually go to bed around 11 PM and I check the Internet headlines just prior to that. When I get up the next morning there is a whole new batch of headlines. Things like: IBM Still Profits From Giant Mainframes. Did some insomniac publicity agent for IBM decide that 2 AM is the time to let that cat out of the bag? Or: Caffeine-stoked Energy Drinks Worry Docs. So much so that they had a press conference while I was sleeping? Or is the story about the Docs being worried because they, themselves, are stoked up on the caffeine energy drinks? Either way, why are the reporters awake at that time of night?

I can understand reading a morning headline about Bomb Rips Through Shiite Slum because somebody once told me about how it is daytime in other places when it is nighttime here. But how does Book Paints Escape-artist Houdini as Spy become news worthy in the middle of the night? Is this new information about Houdini? And why didn't we know about this book yesterday?

My news reader tells me what time a story is posted to the Internet and I've got to wonder why we need to be informed Rosanne (Barr) Comfortable With Her Weight at 3:46 AM. If it were the nightly news I could understand it. The talking news head touches his finger to his earbud, listens a moment, and announces to the world, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have just received late word that Rosanne Barr is comfortable. She could use another pillow and a bowl of popcorn but says "Don't worry about me -- I'll be OK." We will keep you informed as this story develops." That is definitely prime-time news. But at 3:46 AM? C'mon!

Now, back to St. Louis and it's overnight status as the Most Dangerous City. Apparently the rest of the overnight polling is in and Las Vegas has been voted Most Popular and Wheeling, West Virginia has been voted Most Likely to Divorce a Cousin.

Internet Rumor of the Day: Is it true that Rush Limbaugh has a Michael J. Fox bobble-head doll on the dashboard of his car?

Greetings From the Recent Past!

The first thing I asked my wife when I woke up this morning was, "What time would it have been yesterday at this time?" After some swift mental calculations it appears I have arrived at my destination.

You see I am part of a small group of scientists who have actually broken through the time barrier. We have spent endless hours of intense dedication; depriving ourselves of even the most basic of human needs; slaves to achieving a goal that others have merely scoffed at. We are a team of three men and seven women, a ratio I naturally decried considering women-kinds track record for getting anywhere on time. But given enough time (ha-ha-ha-ha) we were able to overcome even that!

Where do I start? Let's see. Oh . . . we initially set a modest jump goal of just one hour. This way all of the principals would be in place, the synchronometers could be synchro-whatevered and we'd kinda know if it worked. After much discussion we decided a trip backward one hour would give us the most information. This was so because we could have one of our team, and all of his future knowledge, reporting directly back to us from the past. That and we were afraid that if we sent someone one hour into the future, they may not recognize us when the rest of us got there the old fashioned way.

My first impulse, upon waking, was to throw open the sash and shout down to the newsboy, inquiring to as to the date. But I live in a single story house in the country and none of that stuff is there. So I sprang to the Internet instead.

We had had many discussions prior to my momentous trip into our recent past. They went something like this:

"So, if I make it, safely, one hour into the past, will it get light earlier or later?'

"Earlier." Larry said.

"Later." Steve insisted immediately.

"Guys . . . Guys!" I shouted. "We will have plenty of time for you two to wrestle with your conflicting time theories, later."

"Yeah," said Maureen. "At least an hour."

"You see," Steve snapped back. "She is always taking his side!"

"Gentlemen, ladies, perhaps we should begin with an easier problem." I tried to reason with them. "If I am successful, I expect to relive the hour I have traversed and to see everything you have seen again. At some point, our time-lines will merge and I will be able to rejoin you. When that happens, will it get dark later or earlier?"

"Earlier," said Larry

"Later!" Steve insisted again.

I saw I was not going to break this deadlock of powerful wills any time soon. Nina looked at Maureen and said, " 'At least an hour.' I just got that!"

"Look," I said. "Every time we all get together we always get bogged down in your complex theories. Earlier! Later! Is it not possible for us to come up with a Unified Theory that takes the best of both arguments and . . . I don't know . . . unifies them?"

It was like a bomb went off in the room. Everyone was silent for a moment. Processing my bold new suggestion. Thinking. Suddenly three people sprang to their white boards and began scribbling frantically. Two others were typing rapidly on their notebook keyboards. The rest of us held our breath. Praying.

"I have it!" Larry and Steve shouted simultaneously.

"What?" I cried out for the rest of us. Anticipating. Hoping.

"Well," Larry began. "You really gave us the idea." he said looking at me. "Your so-called Unified Theory got me to thinking that we should take into account space as well as time. "

"And mass." Steve interrupted.

"Yes." Larry answered. Peering at Steve over the tops of his reading glasses. "And mass. But for any of this to work we must hit the window precisely. No variations. According to my calculations . . . that window will be . . . " He continued to scribble his neat little hieroglyphs as he spoke. " . . . at 2 AM on October 29th. And . . . " he wrote a few more lines, "when you arrive . . . It will still be night." He stood back, replacing the marker in the wooden trough and re-examined his work. "It will still be night," he repeated.

"So should I prepare to see dawn earlier or later?' I queried.

"Earlier." Larry said with finality.

"Later!" Steve insisted -- yet again.

"Listen to me, everybody." Maureen spoke up. "I have listened to your theories all night. Sometimes we just have to take a desperate leap into the unknown and see what life throws at us. Steve, if we are successful, Johnny can leave a note for our future selves and we can get the final pieces of the puzzle through real-time, scientific data. Until then, we need you two to work together. Johnny is willing to risk his life for this. It has to work!"

So that was pretty much how it happened. At precisely 2 AM on October 29th, 2007, I became the first man to travel back into the mists of time. At least I think I did. I sorta fell asleep around 1:30 and when I woke up it was 6:40 and the sun was already up. All I could do now was to try and blend in and wait until night fall.

I didn't know if that would occur closer to 5 PM or 7 PM. But, either way, I must leave a note for Steve. I owe him that much.

In the mean time, I'm thinking about calling someone in Arizona to find out what time it would be if they were here.

This Blog is Based Upon Actual Movies

I love old black and white movies. One of the reasons I like them is realism. Yeah, I know they can be a little hokey in special effects and the moralities are outdated but they also didn't depend upon $200,000,000 special effects budgets to carry the lame ass actors through an otherwise empty suit of a script.

The B&W movies had real actors. People who weren't afraid to take on difficult character studies. They immersed themselves in a role. And the minor actors weren't all cookie cutter simulacrums of one another, as they are today. They were true character actors because they had true personalities.

They knew how to present psychological thrillers. Hitchcock knew that the ticking bomb would build suspense but he also knew that the true devastation was not in the explosive special effects but rather in the reactions and acting abilities of his actors.

And I am aware that there were some truly dreadful B&W movies made. But there were some real classics that stand the test of time, as well. How many true classics have been released recently? If you listen to the media hype for the Oscar Race you would think they were all classics. But if you strip away the rhetoric and just watch the movies you will be sadly disappointed.

I was watching a movie called 14 Hours yesterday. It was a psychological suspense movie about a man on a ledge in New York City. The movie took place in and was filmed in 1951. It starred Richard Basehart, Paul Douglas, Agnes Moorehead and Howard DaSilva. I thought it was a great movie.

As I was watching the opening credits, I realized another difference between the old B&Ws and modern movies. The old movies often had similar notices to this one:

The events and characters
depicted in this movie are entirely
fictional and any similarity to actual
occurrences or with actual persons,
either living or dead, is not intended.

In other words, the story telling and the acting were so realistic that the producers were afraid someone would be too upset by its true-to-life portrayals. On the other hand, I notice this warning at the beginning of movies now-a-days:

This story is based upon actual events.

The difference being, in most cases, that the load of crap they are trying to sell us is so unbelievable that they feel a need to say, "Hey, it could happen!"

So, yes, I do enjoy the black and white movies more. These may have been some of the reasons why I do. I am sure there are others. But I am also sure of something else. "They just don't make 'em like that, anymore."

The Straw Dog

I heard that Michael J. Fox had the shakes the other day. Then I heard that Rush Limbaugh accused Fox of not medicating to appear shakier in some political ads he was filming. I guess, when it comes to under- or over-medicating, Rush would know what he's talking about. I thought the "I'm carrying someone else's prescription Viagra at the airport" incident was funny. Taking someone else's Viagra seems a little to me like wearing someone else's black socks during sex.

But back to Fox. I don't know what the big deal is. Most of the Democratic campaign ads seem a little shaky to me already. What's their new campaign slogan, anyway? "Vote for our spaz so you won't end up like this one!" It's kinda catchy. I think I like it.

Since Rush Limbaugh seems to think that Michael J. Fox is putting his talents to poor use by filming campaign ads promoting stem cell research for the Democrats, I got to wondering what other jobs would better suit Mr. Fox. Here are a few in no particular order. (They are funnier if you try to picture each one.)

• sniper
• defuser on the bomb squad
• waiter in a coffee shop
• the guy who points at the graph during business meetings
• touch typist
• makeup artist
• model railroad builder
• dance instructor
• high wire performer
• sales clerk for fine china
• tailor
• diamond cutter

Oh, and just in case any of you are getting confused by all the rhetoric. The Democrats trot out former celebrities like Chris Reeves and Michael J. Fox to tug at your heartstrings. Just remember, the stem cell research debate is not about saving lives or curing disease, it is about abortion.

ADDENDUM: I just thought of another one.

• piano tuner

Special Victims

At what point does something quit being someone else's property? I was watching a TV show last week about some artwork looted during WWII in Nazi Germany. At issue was the authenticity of a painting once owned by a pre-war Jewish family that is now owned by an museum. The painting had been seized by the Nazi government and disappeared after the war.

What I am curious about is the claim the Jewish family currently has on the painting.

If I were mugged coming out of a casino and robbed of $10,000, and they later caught the thug and he still had the $10,000 dollars on him, I think I would have a legitimate claim on the money. If, instead, they caught him two years later and I was able to identify him but, of course, he no longer had the money, I would be shit out of luck. If it were a valuable wristwatch instead of the money and it turned up as stash at the muggers lair I would probably have a legitimate claim on the watch. If I spotted the watch on someone else's arm ten years later, and it had been through several legitimate owners by then, I think I would be out of luck. If it were a $10,000 Rolex I am sure I would get more of a hearing than if it were a $30 Timex.

So, I've asked myself, what is the main issue here? Is it the value of the item stolen? Is it the way the item is stolen? Is it how long ago the item was stolen? Is it by whom the item was stolen? Or is it from whom the item was stolen?

Presumably, the value of the item stolen should have the greatest weight. At least as far as the effort put into finding and retrieving it is concerned. Police would spend far less time looking for the guy that stole my Timex than for the guy who stole the Rolex. They would put more effort into solving a museum heist than who stole my lawn gnomes. And, my guess is, that they would look longer for the more valuable stuff than the cheaper stuff. So it seems that more value = more effort. Fair enough.

As a footnote to the value topic, there is also the idea of relative value. This could mean something may have sentimental value to the person who lost it. This could result in the victim not understanding why the police aren't putting more of an effort in the case. There is also the idea of inflated value. Let's say a painting is valued at $500 in 1939. It may be worth $3,000,000 today. Is the victim from 1939 out $500 or $3,000,000?

What about the way an item is stolen? Does that make its recovery and/ or restitution more imperative? If it was taken at gun point, or by a sneak thief in the night, or by government edict, is the loss any greater or less? Does it affect the victim's claim on it?

And how about when it was stolen? Is there a legal difference between something stolen last week and something stolen 65 years ago? And if there isn't, where should it end? Is 100 years fair game? What about 1,000 years? What land or buildings or fortunes or artwork cannot be trace back to some unfair exchange or unlawful taking? Isn't that why we have statute of limitation laws?

Or is the issue by whom it was taken? Are there different quality of thugs? Is it better to be robbed by the neighbor kid in the middle of the night than by a professional burglar while we are out to dinner? Does it matter if the thief wears a disguise or a uniform? I am thinking the latter one does. But again, for how long? Does personifying the evil (in this case the Nazis) make the crime more heinous? Or is a thug, is a thug, is a thug?

Or is the main issue from whom the item was stolen? If the item was stolen from a business, after a while it would be written off. If it were stolen (as an isolated incident) from a private individual, would it have any relevance 65 years later? Is it only important because it was taken from people who belonged to a group who were systematically and unfairly brutalized and "not forgetting" is the central issue?

As sad and unfair as it seems, I don't believe the last statement has much more weight than the sentimental value argument. Many bad things have happened to many good people over the course of history. And some atrocities should never be forgotten. Death and misery and loss of property are always unfair . . . and painful. But life does -- and must -- move on.

We, as a society, are leaning towards a dangerous precipice. We are creating special classes of victims and special categories of crimes. Hate crimes are a good example. If a person unlawfully assaults another person, what is the difference why he did it? He broke the law and should be punished. Why is hate a more heinous motive than greed or jealousy or misplaced patriotism in an evil Nazi regime? Is the next step thought crimes?

And why are some victims considered more import than others. Nameless street people suffer and die daily while the nation is riveted to the TV because a movie star is accused of killing his wife.

We, as a nation and as a people, might be inclined to believe the Jewish family is somehow more entitled to restitution for artwork stolen 65 years ago during the war than a man who lost a watch during a mugging, but both are victims and both lost property. This is why Lady Justice is portrayed as blind. It should be a matter of law not sentiment.

To honestly expect to recover artwork after that many years under those circumstances presupposes we single out these victims and put them in a special category. Isn't that what they were trying to avoid in 1939?

I've Got Those Transanimation Blues

I've been thinking about reincarnation recently. Personally I think it is a dreadful idea. First off, is it supposed to be a reward or a punishment?

What if, in you're next life, you had to be reincarnated as the opposite of what you currently are? Does that mean Einstein would come back as a climatologist? Or that Tom Cruise would be reborn as a great actor?

And what about this whole cow thing? They say they worship cows because they are, or could be, people from past lives. They also believe you can be reincarnated as anything: a bug, a tree, a dog, a middle-aged-white-conservative-blogger, a cow, etc. But they don't worship all of those other things -- they worship the cows. So that must mean that although you can come back as anything, cows have always been somebody else. But I guess that also means that when cows die they can become people again. Maybe that explains why so many fat women insist on wearing leather.

If Karma has a role in what people come back as in their next life, we would all be screwed. But what I'd really like to know, is how bad somebody had to screw up to have come back as Hillary Clinton?

And if we have all been reincarnated from previous people, where are these extra souls coming from? The USA just went over 300,000,000 former cows or dung beetles or whatever? Personally, I don't believe everything in the universe is equal with everything else. Except for some liberal politicians and certain kinds of tree fungus. But there are exceptions to everything.

Which leads me to my final thought on this subject. Since they claim we have all lived as something else before, would a good definition for reincarnation be: a womb with a vu?

A Loaf of Bread, a Bottle of Wine and, um, that Black Kid . . .

I keep bumping into the Madonna Adoption story. Apparently, she went to some African country named Malawi to adopt a little black kid because all of her friends were doing it. Being the big deal, hot shit that she thinks she is, she thought it wouldn't take any longer to do than to pick out a new diamond bracelet or a can of spermicide.

Once she discovered how inconvenient it would be to wait around for silly things like government approval and, oh . . . I don't know, things like the parents being down with it, she said "If you need me I'll either be in the car or New York." So she left without her "precious."

Once she was gone, all of the black people looked at each other and said, "Who was that and who the hell does she think she is?" Of course, her lawyer stayed behind to smooth things over with a few strings of beads and a "fire-maker." But even he could not explain who the hell Madonna thinks she is.

Also, it seems that the father of the newly acquired property ( . . . I'm sorry, child) didn't realize what was being asked of him. He claims he had no idea he would never be able to see his son again when the crazy American woman with the bad British accent gave him the autographed CD. The next thing he knows, his kid is being bubble wrapped and air-freighted to New York.

So, now I see Madonna is going to "explain herself" on the Oprah show on Wednesday. That's like Clinton explaining the blow jobs to the Democratic National Committee. But, to be honest, Oprah must be really torn. Does she continue to pretend she supports the plight of poor Africans everywhere or does she kiss her celebrity friend's white feminist ass? What does a millionaire icon phony do? She is a modern day goddess wrestling with the two sides of her conflicted nature. Black vs. White. Good vs. Evil. It's daytime TV at it's best.

In the meantime, I wonder what Lardass thinks of her little brother?

How's the Writing Coming?

People often ask me, "How's the writing coming?"

The short answer would be, "Pretty good."

But most people would find that too vague. So I usually tell them about the outlines I have going for several stories or novels and how, in my work style, writing is not a linear process. That it is all about the outline and structure of the tale and that once I get that where I want it, it is just a matter of writing scenes to flesh it all out.

But most people's eyes glaze over after I mention "outlines." So I've taken to telling them about my daily blog to give them something concrete to deal with and I mention that I have several bigger projects at various stages of development.

"Um, . . . bigger than the Internet?"

"No. Bigger than my blog."

"Oh. Uh, . . . so, like, um . . . when're you gonna have a book published?"

"That's a very good question, ' is my usual response to that. The truth of the matter is that I don't know when I will have a book or a story published or, at this point, how I will have it published.

I have a lot of projects that I am working on and I need to focus on just one or two of them. I am not sure if I will initially go with the typical submission, editor, publisher route or if some of the newer Internet or Publish On Demand options make more sense.

But all of this is putting the cart before the horse . . . sort of. I probably should decide upon a mode of publishing so as to tailor a project to it. On the other hand, I could just let the story go where it does and then decide what is the best means of publishing.

As you can see, I have a lot of options spinning around the ol' noggin'. As well as the couple of dozen new story ideas and the outlines and chapters that I have finished. I know, it seems like chaos, but I do have a sense of order and a plan. It just seems like chaos right now. Like a house that is half built; with open framing and unfinished stairways and workmen running everywhere and decisions to be made and trucks parked in the mud that will someday be a lawn. It just seems like chaos.

So that's why when people ask me, "How's the writing coming?" I am inclined to just shrug and say, "Pretty good."

So, like . . . umm, I dunno. What do you think?

I have noticed recently that people are talking and writing more in cliches than actually participating in meaningful discourse. Perhaps it is easier it the weeks before an election to have surrogates speak in catch phrases and slogans than to actually look a voter in the eye and speak from the heart. But this phenomenon is not limited to politicians.

The advertising world is, obviously, replete with examples but that is their entire purpose. Isn't it? Picking a catchy phrase, evoking an image, associating a catchy little tune with a product and saturating the airwaves/print media/internet. Communicating through minimalism.

As a result, meaningful human discourse is suffering. Stock questions invite epigrammatic answers. "'Morning, Joe. How you doin'?" "If I was any better -- I'd be you, Bill." is a typical exchange. No one really answers questions anymore. And, sadly, no one asks questions for which they care to have an answer. It is just that people are expected to talk to each other so they do . . . after a fashion.

I spend a lot of time talking to people on vacation and I understand that they want to leave their day-to-day stuff behind, but I overhear and am involved in the most inane conversations you could imagine. And the thing is, they seem to be pre-packaged conversations bought at some wholesale opinion store. I have joked around about deja vu in this blog but I swear I've had the same word-for-word conversation with ten different people. Doesn't anyone have an opinion of their own, anymore?

People used to tell stories, reminisce, philosophize, teach. We used to honestly seek out others ideas and view points. Now we are divided into camps of pre-packaged thoughts and opinions. But, worst of all, they aren't even our own, well thought out, struggled over, weighing the issues and consequences, heart-felt opinions. They are someone else's ideas that we pass off as "what we believe."

Schools dispense pre-packaged, sanitized, politically correct factoids to the students and hotly debate, outside the classroom, whether conflicting ideas or theories should be taught. Shouldn't some of that intellectual energy be going on inside the classroom? If the students never hear about conflicting theories, how will they learn to think for themselves?

We have the ability to live in a golden age of enlightenment. Communication is instantaneous. Our body of knowledge is broad and deep. Yet, our experiences and intellectual pursuits are shallow and repetitive. We live in a world that tries to niche people for marketing purposes; controlled by politicians who demonize conflicting viewpoints and are educated by politically motivated teachers who try to limit free thought.

No wonder I can't find a decent conversation any more.

His Sex Life is Going to the Dogs

I ran across this story this morning that I found funny on many different levels:

Man accused of having relations with dog

(AP) A man accused of having sex with the family dog has been charged under the state's new animal cruelty law which makes bestiality a felony, a prosecutor said.

Michael Patrick McPhail, 26, of nearby Spanaway, pleaded not guilty Thursday to one count of first-degree animal cruelty in Pierce County Community Court.

McPhail posted $20,000 bail on Friday.

McPhail's wife told investigators that she found her husband on their back porch Wednesday night having intercourse with their 4-year old, female, pit bull terrier, the Pierce County sheriff's office report said. The dog was squealing and crying, according to the charging papers.

The woman took photos with her cell phone and called the sheriff's office.

The bestiality law, which took effect in June, was prompted by a case near Enumclaw in which a Seattle man died after having sex with a horse. Before the law was enacted, Washington was one of 14 states where bestiality had not been explicitly prohibited.

The story prompted the following observations and questions:

• Dogs are man's best friend after all.
• Sex will always ruin a friendship.
• Technically speaking, did he plead not guilty to (just) one count of animal cruelty or is he thinking it wasn't so cruel?
• I'm thinking that for $20,000 he could have gotten one hell of a good pit bull blow up doll and avoided this mess.
• If the wife's first instinct was to take pictures, I'm guessing they already had issues.
• Is it technically cheating if it's the family pet?
• In dog years, is 4 years old under-aged?
• "The dog was squealing and crying . . ." Even the dog doesn't want to have sex with him? Maybe he's doing it wrong.
• Is the wife pissed off because he would rather have sex with a pit bull than her?
• What a great ad for MCI's Friends and Family program!
• Was the guy in Seattle pitching or catching?
• The other 13 states are West Virginia.

They Missed It By THAT Much!

When I saw the following headline I was very excited -- so I asked her to stop doing that and to let me read the paper first:

Scientists Create Cloak of Invisibility

Scientists are boldly going where only fiction has gone before — to develop a Cloak of Invisibility. It isn't quite ready to hide a Romulan space ship from Capt. James T. Kirk or to disguise Harry Potter, but it is a significant start and could show the way to more sophisticated designs.

In this first successful experiment, researchers from the United States and England were able to cloak a copper cylinder.

For their first attempt, the researchers designed a cloak that prevents microwaves from detecting objects. Like light and radar waves, microwaves usually bounce off objects, making them visible to instruments and creating a shadow that can be detected.

Conceptually, the chance of adapting the concept to visible light is good, Schurig said in a telephone interview. But, he added, "From an engineering point of view it is very challenging."

The first working cloak was in only two dimensions and did cast a small shadow, Smith said. The next step is to go for three dimensions and to eliminate any shadow.

So . . . if we ever need to hide a copper cylinder from aliens who only see things in two dimensions in the microwave portion of the light spectrum and are easily confused by shadows, I guess we're all set.

Man! When I read this headline I really thought somebody had invented something. We are in the 21st Century, God damn it! Where is all of the cool stuff?

Announcing that scientists have created a Cloak of Invisibility based upon these specious results is the same junk science that allows them to link snow storms to Global Warming. Or a monkey fossil to modern man. Scientists claim to mostly be athiests (which could explain why Hollywood and the media are so quick to accept anything they say) but it seems to me that their A to Z leaps require more faith than if they just believed in God.

Based on these results I would have to conclude that Maxwell Smart is alive and well. What's next? Are these guys going to work on the Cone of Silence?

But, to be fair, these scientists aren't really all that dumb. I heard they took the 7.5 million dollar grant for this project and outfitted their lab with a plastic microscope from Toys 'R Us, a box of paper clips, a can of hairspray and a copper cylinder.

They used the rest of the money for a house in Malibu, a case of Goldschlager and abortions for their girlfriends. Oh, and four tickets to a George Clooney movie (the low budget equivalent of a liberal fund raiser).

I guess eventually, with enough money and enough junk science, we will someday be able to cast a Cloak of Invisibility to shield us from a division of tanks and a squadron of war planes.

And if you find that hard to swallow, would you believe . . . three Girl Scouts and a flock of seagulls?

No? Well then, how about . . . a blind man and a stuffed parrot?

The Near Collision Menace

This is the blog that will label me as an "old man". Principally because I intend on using the phrase "Why, I remember when . . . "

I was reading a story about school officials at an elementary school south of Boston who have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban. This follows several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 people, who took aim at dodge ball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous.

Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyoming and Spokane, Washington also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, South Carolina school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports.

Celeste D'Elia, a parent at Willett, said her son feels safer because of the new rule. "I've witness enough near collisions," she said.

I know I will take some heat for it, but I blame idiot women for this. I will guarantee all of the principal people instrumental in all of these airhead bans are women and I can even tell you why.

Women have convinced other women that they can have it all. A career, a marriage and children. All of this is some post-feminist ideal. The only problem, as far as they can see, is one of timing. They believe that if they get on a strong career path until their mid thirties, get to a point of power or at least prolonged competence so as to be difficult to replace during the six weeks of maternity leave, and find a good nanny or day care center, that they will have it all.

Once the child is in school they have to "show they care" by being involved in little Johnny or Susie's education. But since their career makes it difficult to actually be involved in their child's life by doing things like homework and school projects and birthday parties and days at the zoo, they do the next best thing (in their eyes) and create a situation whereby they are perceived at involved. They kick up a fuss at school because they care so much.

The other reason they are so over-protective is because they started so late in life to have children. Older, career parents view their children as another status symbol or possession to be maintained in pristine condition and trotted out at the appropriate times to feed their ego. Like the Lexus or the Prada. Or the good china.

Younger mothers aren't used to exercising that much control in other areas of their lives and are enjoying their children. They are more relaxed and winging it. They are more likely to have all the neighborhood kids playing in their back yard than to be organizing a committee to study the harmful effects of keeping score during soccer games.

Why, (here it comes) I remember when kids could ride their bicycles without the state requiring them to wear protective helmets.

So, we may be living in a brave new world where women can have it all -- but the consequence is becoming a generation of kids who have nothing -- compared to those who came before them.

The Black and White War

Sometimes it pleases me to have an alternate view of reality. This is because I do not take everything I see on face value. This does not make me a conspiracy theorist because I believe we are dealing in something bigger than a theory here.

Today's topic is World War Two. Many years ago I came to the conclusion that I don't believe in WW II. Now, I know what you are thinking -- tomatoes would be more attractive if they had eyes -- but, please, try to stay on topic. The reason I don't believe in WW II is that it is too black and white. The issues were too cut and dry. The good guys were too good and the bad guys were too bad. It all sounds like a Hollywood B movie.

Take any other war in the history of the world and you will see what I mean. What about the conquests of ancient Greece or Rome. According to history, the conquerors were the "good guys" yet they raped and pillaged and stole and amassed unbeatable armies and untold treasures at the loss of their helpless victims. Yet, Alexander the Great is not lumped in with Attila the Hun in the history books. Rome was the greatest civilization the world had ever seen, built upon bloodshed and barbarism. What I am saying here is that the "good guys" were bad people and the "bad guys" were hapless victims in many cases. There were shades of grey on both sides.

In modern warfare there is no end to the nay sayers inside and outside of our country. Supporters of our sitting president are vulnerable to attack ads just because they are supporting their nation at a time of war. Political agendas have clearly outweighed the welfare of this country's national security. These are clearly shades of grey.

But not so WW II. The Allies were the Good Guys. Through and through. The Axis Powers were the Bad Guys. To their rotten core. It was a no brainer. The Nazis and Japs had to be stopped at any cost. And the US and England and our allies were the only people to do it. We had to do it. We could not lose.

The issues were so cut and dry and so black and white that I find them very hard to believe in. There were no shades of grey. There was no one protesting our evil government or president. There were no rallies. We were united in a single effort to rid the world of totalitarian evil.

This is what I think happened. One day someone in Hollywood decided to make a big war movie. They hired extras from all over the country and started up a bunch of old factories to build planes and warships. The politicians saw the boosts of the local economies and decided that the whole country needed a war to pull the USA out of our the post depression blues. So the politicians got together with the Hollywood moguls and filmed the greatest series of war movies mankind has ever seen. The entire nation got involved. By the time it was over, everyone was a little embarrassed about what to tell future generations and the Great Lie was born.

"We'll just tell them it was real. There are plenty of photos and film footage to back us up and if we all stick together they will never know!" This explains why I know my dad was in Europe during WW II and spent some time in a British hospital but I could never get him to give me any details of his war experience. I always thought it was too painful to talk about. Now I've come to realize he was just on location.

So the next time you are browsing through your set of Time/Life World War II books or are watching some old black and white WW II movies, just ask yourself if maybe the issues aren't a little too black and white.

And how is it that John Wayne won the war in Europe and in the Pacific? C'mon, people. Think!

The Golden Dawn

The old man reflected upon the time before The Golden Age. Before the comet, before the Awakening, before the Super Heroes. When men were just men . . . waking . . . working . . . loving . . . living . . .

He was a young man, seventeen, when the Midas Comet came so close to Earth and the entire world held it's collective breath -- not knowing if it would hit or not. When it didn't, they all celebrated. From Beijing to Kazakhstan, from New York to LA., from South Africa to Australia, they partied like there almost hadn't been a tomorrow. Sometimes he thinks it would have been better if there hadn't been.

A month after the Midas Comet had passed people began experiencing the Awakening. Out of the blue, men and women began performing super-human feats of strength; lifting entire automobiles; inadvertently tearing doors from their hinges;throwing footballs into orbit; flying, unfettered, like a bird.

But people experienced the Awakening to different degrees and on different biological or genetic schedules. So for the briefest of times, perhaps several months, there was an actual Golden Age of Super Heroes. When a blessed percentage of the Earth's population had "powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men." Men could fly. FLY! Robberies were foiled, wars were stopped in their tracks and legends were born. Over three hundred men claimed the title of Superman and there was almost a small war over that. Then Ultra-man came on the scene - upstaging the best of the Supermen with his enhanced powers.

People had super-speed, super-strength, super-hearing, invulnerability. But then the strangest thing happened. The Unaffected began developing powers as well. Within months everyone on the entire planet was as strong and as fast and as smart and all-powerful as Ultra-man. Everyone was super. No one had the advantage. Nobody was special.

Nobody could die . . .

Naturally, civilization almost collapsed. Not all of the new supermen were pure of heart. Honor and integrity were not affected during the Awakening. Men and women were still men and women. What is the downside for a petty thief who can suddenly take anything he wants, who cannot be stopped, cannot be jailed and cannot be harmed or punished in any way? The formerly mild-mannered became assertive, realizing they no longer feared as they once did. People quit their jobs by the millions. Free of the need to serve and service others.

But then what? There is only so much to steal. How many super-powered-fights-to-a-draw can there be before a certain sense of futility settles in? How much loot was destroyed in the chaos. Who would make more? How could all mankind be truly equal? No one to serve, no one to perform menial tasks, no one to live a life of privilege? Who would till the soil, entertain, prepare the food, clean up after us? How could anyone ever have the upper hand again?

Somehow super-mankind survived and the Earth abides. Men became loners or lived in small communities. They sought out fellowships of like interests and . . . continued. The world is a smaller place now and all Men are equal but it is not a paradise. Just as the Midas Comet affected everything it touched so, too, were we reminded that the Midas Touch of mythology was also the Midas Curse.

For of what value is gold when everything is gold?

Pseudophobic-hypochondria

I believe I have a condition called dys-lepathy. It is a combination of dyslexia and telepathy. It basically means I can read minds but I usually get it wrong.

This condition is common among men who have been married for extended periods of time. You know you have been married a long time when your memories can be organized into eras. We had our Hippie Clothes and Mutton Chop Side-burns Era, our First House/Money Pit Era, our Her Mother Won't Talk to Us Because Nina Quit College and Got Married Era, our Retail Sales Era, our Nina's Pregnant and How the Hell Am I Going to Support Three People Era, and so on and so forth.

Dys-lepathy is common among long-time married men because, as men, we think we can figure anything out (given enough time) so after some point we believe we know what she is thinking but, being men, we are also wrong. Considering the nature of things, the older we get -- the stronger this condition becomes until, one day, we die from frustration. They say heart disease is the silent killer. I believe it is frustration brought on by dys-lepathy.

Just when I think I have her figured out she tosses me a change-up. She will have the same reaction to something twenty times in a row so I begin to feel comfortable with that response to that situation. As soon as I begin to anticipate the response she will no longer respond that way. When questioned about it, she will say something like, "Oh, I thought you liked it" or "No. That wasn't me. You must be thinking of someone else." In other words, she develops the companion syndrome to dys-lepathy called selective amnesia.

Now, I will admit to having had several odd maladies over the years, Besides dys-lepathy I have had eroticomatosis, the condition whereby there is literally only enough blood for an erection or higher brain functions, causing me to pass out whenever I become aroused. This led to the Narcoleptic Swinger Era.

I have also suffered from precognitive amnesia. This is a condition whereby I cannot remember the future. This disease accounts for missed appointments, forgotten birthdays and anniversaries and incompletely filled shopping lists. It is a handy one to have around.

Of course my wife says I don't have precognitive amnesia, eroticomatosis, or dys-lepathy. She claims I have pseudophobic-hypochondria. This is a condition whereby I suffer from mostly fake conditions.

I knew she was going to say that.

I wonder if this qualifies me for handicappped parking?

Principal - 2, Kittens - 0

When it was all over, the smell of cordite hanging in the air, the kittens lay in a pool of their own blood, eyes lifeless, and the words of the school principal echoed down the empty corridor, "Nine lives, my ass! Bwa-ha-ha-haaaa!"

I was shocked and saddened to read the following news story:

INDUS, Minnesota — A school principal has resigned and could face felony firearm charges after he shot and killed two orphaned kittens on school property last month.

Wade Pilloud, who resigned as principal of the Indus school, 40 miles west of International Falls, said he shot the kittens to spare them from starving to death after their mother was killed in an animal trap.

Pilloud said the shooting, which occurred on school grounds, endangered no one.

"I have bred cats, and I currently own two myself," he wrote Friday in an e-mail to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "I am not a cat hater. I did not want the animals to suffer."

The incident happened Sept. 21, and several students still on the grounds for after-school activities heard the shots. The school has students from kindergarten to 12th grade — about ages 5 through 18.

"There were parents who felt, apparently some rather strongly, that there were concerns about the safety of their children," said Joseph Flynn, an attorney for the South Koochiching/Rainy River School District. "The district's position is that safety was not compromised."

John Mastin, acting sheriff in Koochiching County, said Pilloud could be charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property and reckless discharge of a firearm, a misdemeanor.

County Attorney Jennifer Hasbargen said Friday that the case was under review.

Mastin said the shooting put no one in danger but said Pilloud used "poor discretion and poor timing," especially amid the growing fear of gun violence in schools.

The district put Pilloud on administrative leave after the incident. Flynn said Pilloud agreed to an undisclosed settlement and resigned.

First off, the story called the kittens "orphaned" because their mother was killed. Don't both parents have to be dead for them to qualify as orphans? Or are we just to assume that these are black kittens?

The story goes on to say that Pilloud shot the kittens to spare them from "starving to death." So apparently they were living in or near the school cafeteria. More than likely, the animal trap the mother was killed by was a giant rat trap set by the cafeteria workers.

The account claims that Pilloud could be charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property and reckless discharge of the weapon, a misdemeanor. I understand, in the current climate in which we live, why even having a firearm in a school would be a felony, but why is shooting one a misdemeanor? Is it, in the eyes of the people who wrote the laws, worse to actually own a gun than to use it? It seems like the second part would be more dangerous. And why are they calling it a "reckless discharge"? He hit the kittens didn't he? That sound like an accurate discharge to me. If the story said he hit a third grader, a dissected frog and "wounded" one of the kittens -- that would be a reckless discharge.

And the thing that cracks me up is this idiot principal who lost his job over this. Did he get up that morning, strap on his side arm and mutter between clenched teeth, "It's me or those kittens today!" Or did he get up, put his gun in his briefcase, like every morning, ready for some snot-nosed third grader to lip off again and the kittens just got in the way? We may never know. I doubt that when he was going to the Frostbite Falls Teachers College he ever thought it would end this way. Unless he was plagued by kittens back then, too.

Finally, I got a kick out of the name of the county. Koochiching. It sounds like the noise a cash register would make in a strip club. Koo-chi-ching! Kittens and strippers.

I hope nobody thinks the strippers are orphaned.

Zen and the Art of iPod

O.K. I admit it, I'm weird. I cannot relax. I try really, really hard to relax but then I realize that the effort is self-defeating for this particular goal. I am always doing something. When I am watching TV, I am also flipping through a magazine or reading the newspaper or checking something out on the Internet or discussing tomorrow's plans. I multi-task.

I bought an Apple iPod a few months ago thinking how relaxing it would be to just sit back and listen to a few of my favorite tunes. I now have 598 albums, representing 150 artists in 17 genres that includes 8,007 songs that would last 23.5 days to listen to it all. I still have about 150 classical music albums to copy onto the device.

Once I had all of my CD's copied onto my iPod I got to thinking, "Maybe I can make better use of the bookshelves" in the living room where I have had all my music stored and displayed. So I backed up my digital music from the iPod (just to be safe) and boxed away my CD collection. When the bookshelves were empty, I thought they looked a little old and dinged up and decided to get new shelves because here was an opportunity to get the rest of my books out of the attic.

So we went shopping for new bookshelves. While we were at it, we bought a new couch and chair for the living room and a new bed frame for the spare bedroom. I decided to buy four foot high book cases for the living room and to use the top of the cases as a mantle which required me to repaint the wall that was behind the old bookshelves. Now that we had some wall space above the new book cases I moved a painting from above our bed in the master bedroom to the new honored position.

This left an empty space above the head of our bed. While we were looking for something to fill that space we ended up buying a new bedroom suite so naturally we had to paint the entire bedroom.

Since I had an opportunity to unpack the last of my books stored away in the attic, I now had a choice of which books to have in the living room and which ones to have in my office. By the time I was done I had moved every book I own (14 book cases or 70 shelves of books).

This all brings me back to the iPod. I was looking at the other things it does besides play music. One of its neat features is what they call Podcasts. These are little, several minute, syndicated radio and/or video type shows that you can download from the iTunes store (for free). I thought I would like the humorous ones so I subscribed to six of them. I figured it would be a hoot to listen to a few minutes of silliness every now and then. They automatically download every day. I am currently 111 podcasts behind and the pressure of "getting to them" is driving me nuts.

I can't honestly say my new iPod has helped me relax. But then again, I'm a little weird.

To Dream, Perchance To Sleep

I was having this really weird dream this morning. I was dreaming that we had moved into a new house. It was a huge place with many porches and entrances and stairways and big rooms with furniture I had never seen before.

In the dream I walk onto the deck and wonder why it looks so big and open when I realize that the table and chairs are missing. I look into the house, through a wide set of veranda doors and see the deck furniture is in the formal dining room. I remember thinking that my wife must have put the furniture inside for the winter but then I wondered where our regular dining room furniture was.

I began searching the house for the "missing" furniture. There were rooms with huge fireplaces and a library room like the rich people have in the movies that I can just barely afford the ticket for. And there are staircases going everywhere.

Apparently, my wife was away during the dream because I was batching it. I remember walking up this wide staircase, picking up clothing that I had left strewn around from previous days. As I'm doing so, the staircase begins to narrow and narrow until I am actually walking on the railing. Still picking up clothes while precariously balancing on a sloping wrought iron rail while thinking how inconvenient it was to get to the second floor.

I have never liked house pets. In my dream I sleep every night with a little kitten nestled in the crook of my arm. I can feel it purring contentedly. I remember, in the dream, having to get up in the middle of the night to pee. While I am peeing, many dogs and cats are wandering around me and rubbing against the backs of my legs. I am peeing into a plastic laundry basket. (The kind that looks like it is woven from something but is just molded white plastic with square holes where the fake weaving leaves gaps.) For some dream-reason the basket is 3/4 full of pee (despite the open design of the weaving) and I am thinking Nina better get home soon.

As I head back up the stairs and railing to the second floor I hear a stranger on the floor below me. I turn from my hand-over-hand ascent of the stairway to see an attractive woman looking up at me. I am marginally embarrassed because I am naked but mostly because of how I have to get to the second floor. She looks up, as if to speak, then turns and walks into another room. I yell down to let me know if she finds the dining room table in there.

The next thing I know I am back in bed, holding the kitten in the crook of my arm, when I hear a scampering noise coming up the stairs. It is a small black dog that jumps up on the bed and starts licking my face. As I am wondering why I have a dog and how it got up that railing-thingy it occurs to me that I didn't feed the animals yesterday. I better get up and do it now.

When I sat up, it was in my bed, and the weird dream was over. I had awakened at exactly 6:30 AM (without the alarm) and it was time to write my daily blog.

A Little Strange Pussy

I was amused by a story about a cat cloning company that has gone out of business. Genetics Savings & Clone (I'm not making that name up), a San Francisco biotech company that sold cloned pets, sent letters to its customers last month informing them it will close at the end of the year because of little demand for cloned cats.

Apparently, $50,000 for an identical clone was too expensive when you can get a "pretty close one" at the pound for free. That and you still had to teach Mr. Scruggins II his name, he needed potty trained again and, even though Mr. Scruggins I was neutered, it seems that stuff grows back during the cloning process.

And isn't that a puzzling little bit of pet ethics? Why would anyone pay to have their pet spayed or neutered and then pay again to have it reproduced? This one must keep Bob Barker awake at night.

As a purchaser of the cloned cats I think I would want to look behind the counter to see if there wasn't just a box of kittens that they were charging $50,000 each for.

And how did the process work, anyway? Did they give the cat in question a kitty porn magazine and a plastic cup and send him off to a private room? Or was it the pet owner's responsibility to whack off the cat manually? And how would the clone turn out if some of the owner's spit got mixed in with the sperm sample? I'm just wondering, is all.

Besides, if you had an extra $50,000 laying around the house and you were thinking about cloning the cat -- wouldn't that money be better spent on a shrink?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,219957,00.html

More BS From B.S.

The following AP news story ran on the Internet yesterday:

Streisand has outburst at NYC concert

The most riveting moment of Barbra Streisand's Madison Square Garden concert was one of the only unscripted ones. Streisand endured jeers as she interjected a political skit into Monday night's show, exchanging zingers with a celebrity impersonator playing George Bush as a bumbling idiot.

Though most of the crowd offered polite applause during the slightly humorous routine, it went on a bit too long, especially for those who just wanted to hear Streisand sing.

"Come on, be polite!" the well-known liberal implored. But one heckler wouldn't let up. And finally, Streisand let him have it.

"Shut the (expletive) up!" Streisand bellowed, drawing wild applause. "Shut up if you can't take a joke!"

With that one F-word, the jeers ended. And the message was delivered -- no one gets away with trying to upstage Barbra Streisand, especially in her hometown.

You know, you won't hear me say this very often, but I agree with Barbra Streisand.

It is totally rude to continuously heckle someone when they are trying to do their job. Sure, the odd too-loud negative comment or even a direct cat-call or insult might be acceptable. But to keep it going, to constantly harangue and interrupt and try to disrupt and throw a person off stride in hopes of making them look bad -- is just wrong.

So I agree with Barbra Streisand. President Bush is just trying to do his job and all of the poor sport, liberal losers should just sit down and "shut the fuck up!"

And that goes double for Barbra Streisand.

Bicentennial Blog

I've never been a fan of celebrating minor events. Things like, "Mark and I are going out to dinner tonight. Today is the three month anniversary of our second date." How do you respond to something like that? So, I look at her and mumble congratulations and I look at him and give him one of those "Dude?!?" guy looks.

My mother used to get really pissed off if I didn't send her a greeting card for every holiday. I'm not talking about Christmas and birthdays and Mother's Day. I mean things like Easter and Columbus Day. And the really funny thing was, she would get mad at my wife for not sending a card -- not me. She always figured it was the wife's responsibility to make sure her husband signed frivolous holiday cards. One time, she wouldn't talk to Nina for months because she didn't get a Memorial Day card. It actually turned out to be a pleasant summer.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have two adult sons who completely missed our 25th and 30th anniversaries. I blame their wives.

Today is a minor milestone. In level of importance, it falls somewhere between Darwin trying to explain away his vestigial tail and something called roach paste. Today marks the publishing of my 200th blog. I have published a new, original, at times marginally entertaining blog every day for 200 days straight. I haven't missed a day.

I feel like Hallmark should have a new category. I'm not sure but I think this qualifies for bonus miles on my oral sex punch card. I want to do something special but all of the nudists are gone for the season. I feel like Punxatawney Phil when he sneaks out for an early morning piss and a thousand TV cameras capture the moment. It's just so exciting!

I'm not really certain what is special about 200. I guess it's a nice round number and sounds like it ought to be a big deal. But don't worry about me. I promise to stay grounded and sensible. I'm just going to spend the day puttering around the house, doing a few chores, running out to the cleaners to pick up my tux. Things like that.

I wonder if I can get my card punched in the back of the limo?

Medicine Man

Have you ever put off a project -- basically forever? Well, the forever part is an exaggeration but I am talking for a long time. Some projects automatically fit in this category. Like clearing the treeline behind the garage of poison ivy. Or raking out the gravel in the parking area. Jobs that are unpleasant or way bigger than you'd like to tackle.

At the other end of the spectrum are projects that are so piddling small they are almost not worth getting the tools out for. Like oiling a squeaky hinge or tacking down a piece of wood trim that only needs one finishing nail but keeps moving when you bump it so you push it back into place and tell yourself, the next time you are in the workshop, you have to get a hammer and nail and actually fix it.

Some projects are obvious. Like the painted trim on the office door is peeling and flaking and needs to be stripped, sanded, primed and repainted. And you walk through the door every day and every day one of the more reasoning voices in your head tells you it must be done.

Have you ever put off a project for a really, really long time and it has been so long that the length of time you haven't done it is suddenly a factor in whether to do it today or not? As in, "Well, I've waited this long. What's a couple of more days . . . or weeks?"

Or has it been put off so long that it has become a running joke around the house? And now you don't want to do it because, Lord knows, you could use all the humour you can get.

Well, I have several of these overdue projects that I have been putting off for an embarrassingly long time and this is the week for them. I have a medicine cabinet for the master bath that I have been putting off hanging for over two years, now. It has been so long that I have to check the date on the back to make sure the oak hasn't passed its "best if used by date." But today is the day. I am going to hang the medicine cabinet!

I also have that office door frame to repaint. I have some wainscoting trim that needs tacked down. I have a wooden door frame for the sliding door onto the deck that needs stained and polyurethaned. I have a bedroom closet that needs reorganized. And this is the week!

All of the excuses are gone. All I have left to do is to pick up the tools and begin . . . the time has come and the mood is right . . . all of the planets have aligned . . . I am ready . . . . . . I wonder what's on Turner Classic Movies today . . .

The View

My house is built on a hill. There is a treeline at my back boundary. Beyond the treeline is, what most people consider, a beautiful view of the mountains. This view is visible from mid-fall until early spring because of the leaves falling off of the trees.

Every guest we've had here comments on the view. They all love it. I think it's O.K. but I am not overly impressed. That's because I've been to the mountain in question. It is a blasted, decimated, barren, slag-heap where only scrub brush will grow. This area was once big in zinc mining or something and I guess, back then, they didn't have a policy of putting things back. To make matters worse, the mountain in question has a double turnpike tunnel going through it and all of the displaced dirt and rocks are scattered over the mountainside, as well.

Up close it is one of the ugliest views I've ever seen. From a distance (say my back deck) it is really quite lovely. Apparently, enough distance will make anything look presentable.

My wife has excellent distance vision but up close she can't see anything. I figure this makes my similarities to the mountains more tolerable to her.

Indian Giver Summer

Last night we had a full moon. This particular full moon is the one referred to as the Harvest moon. If you follow moon stuff you know that, astronomically speaking, summer is defined as the period from the summer solstice (the longest day of the year) to the autumnal equinox (when day and night are equal length). The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox and is so named because farmers relied on its light to harvest all night.

There is another event coming up that I've always wondered about. It is called Indian Summer. According to the dictionary, it is "a period of unusually dry, warm weather that occurs during late autumn." Except it happens every year -- so I'm not sure what is so unusual about it.

I think it is named after the tee-pee kind of Indians -- not the Slurpee kind. I also think it was named Indian Summer because of the other formerly common phrase Indian Giver. You don't hear that phrase much any more, but it always implied a person who gave you something and then took it back. I'm just not sure if Indian summer was named, because we are given another taste of summer that is then taken back, after the Indian giver reputation -- or if Indian givers got that reputation from the previously named Indian summer and that somehow they became falsely associated with that kind of behavior.

These are the kind of questions that serious people don't want to discuss and not-so-serious people have trouble following. It is kind of frustrating because I'd like to know.

Another problem is that all the serious people insist on using politically correct phraseology, which just further complicates things. Here is my attempt at asking the question using the politically correct terms:

Is Native American Summer Solstice to Autumnal Equinox named after the alleged behaviour of Native American non-permanent providers or did Native American non-permanent providers unjustly obtain the aforementioned reputation due to the temporary nature of the Native American Summer Solstice to Autumnal Equinox?

I can't make it any clearer than that.

Test. Test. Is This Thing On?

I hate clutter. I think everything should have its place. And if it is not important enough to have its own place it ought to be thrown out. I guess I'm a neat freak.

For example: When I get the mail every day I put it on the kitchen table for my wife to see when she gets home. The mail typically consists of bills, ads and magazines/catalogs. It has never been my intention to have the kitchen table be the final resting place for every bill, ad and magazine/catalog that enters the house. I put that stuff there as a courtesy. But the piles just keep growing.

And here's the thing. It's not like these things don't have a place of their own. I have a complete office with filing cabinets and vertical IN/OUT trays on the desk and my wife has a file folder in her briefcase for the bills. The waste basket is a fairly convenient place for most of the ads. I have a place in the office for the magazines we subscribe to and another place for the current catalogs. But for some reason the stacks of mail will stay on the kitchen table for weeks at a time.

Now, I know what you are thinking. "Why doesn't he sort the mail and put it where it belongs?" I could easily do that. But when I did, bills didn't get paid, I'd throw out the wrong advertising flyers (coupons, etc.), subscription renewal dates would get missed, and she likes to look at some of the art catalogs.

So, I'm not sure there is a solution. I hate clutter and she gets to the stacks of mail on some biological schedule that I have been unable to decipher. We have talked about this many times and nothing has ever changed.

Why am I writing about this today? I got to thinking that maybe this is one of those subjects that her brain automatically opts out of. You know, I start talking, her brain identifies the subject and suddenly all she hears is, "Blah, blah, blah." Maybe she can't even help it. It might be a conditioned reflex. Maybe she doesn't even know this is bugging me.

So I decided to try a different sensory input. I know she reads my blog every day. (Hi, Nina.)

My next attempt will be a message in alphabet soup. Maybe she'll taste the clutter.

The MEMORY Boxes

Now that we are deep into the fall season, the varicolored leaves emblazoning the trees and beginning to swirl around underfoot, I am doing some spring cleaning. I know, I know, you are asking yourself, "How can a busy guy like him be working on next year's projects already?" Actually, I'm doing this one 31 months late (give or take).

I am currently working on cleaning out the attic. You know, the room that looks like the final scene in that Indiana Jones movie? You would think that after thirteen moves we would have our portable junk whittled down to a manageable size but we spent thirteen years in the last place and raised our boys there. When we moved here we weren't sure how much room we would have, which junk to hang on to and which to jettison.

And as anyone who has ever moved will tell you, the things that seemed invaluable in the old house (that perfect nik-nak, a piece of furniture, a wall hanging, the kids) sometimes just don't work in the new place. You just can't bear to let it go when you are packing and it never fits in when you are unpacking. But you still have fond memories of it from before. So it goes to the attic. The place where hard decisions are made later.

One of the rules of attic cleaning is that it is not a team effort. I will never have her sentimental feelings for a cracked teapot and she will never understand that the next time I buy a '66 Malibu I am going to need those hubcaps. So we have a division of labor.

We each have our own group of boxes that are verboten for the other to mess with. Everything else is fair game. Among the detritus of our lives are two boxes marked MEMORIES. These would fall into the hyper-verboten category. These boxes are, apparently, so sacred that neither one of us remembers what is in them. They are triple sealed and have the single word "MEMORIES" neatly marked on either end of the box.

I have studied the handwriting and I can't honestly say whether she or I wrote it. The boxes are moderately heavy like they contain papers or photos or books rather than dolls or clothing. And every time I talk about getting rid of the old junk that we no longer need or use, one of us always adds, "except for the MEMORIES boxes."

I have to be honest here. I have no memory of what is in the MEMORY boxes. I don't remember when they first joined our little traveling road show and I don't remember having any experiences that were so memorable that we need two boxes full of stuff to commemorate them.

I never look inside of them for several reasons. (a) I am usually too busy moving other crap around when I come across these boxes to stop and deal with them. (3) They have achieved the coveted hyper-verboten status which means I can never do anything about them, anyway. And (d) I'm afraid to look in case the junk inside is as useless as the junk in all of the other boxes I keep shuffling around.

I'd like to think that we really did make some memories that were so special that they can only be properly honored by sealing them up in boxes never to be seen again. . . . if I could only remember what they were.

More Odds and Ends

I found some more BS in the headlines today and thought I'd share some of them.

Droughts will double to hit half the world by 2100

According to the story and the main scientist quoted, these predictions are based upon insufficient data over too short of a period and that the definition of a drought could mean anything from car washing restrictions to not enough water to survive. But it does make for an inflamatory headline.

George Clooney Wants to Outwit Paparazzi

"Here is my theory on debunking photographs in magazines, you know, the paparazzi photographs," Clooney says in the November issue of Vanity Fair, on newsstands Oct. 10. "I want to spend every single night for three months going out with a different famous actress. You know, Halle Berry one night, Salma Hayek the next, and then walk on the beach holding hands with Leonardo DiCaprio."

Perhaps he should have had this interview with OUT Magazine. It sounds to me like the women are just a cover for his gay activities. But I really don't mind this level of idiocy coming from Clooney. As long as he's staying busy trying to "outwit" some cheesy photographers, he's not out spewing his liberal brand of political bullshit.

NewsHour' faulted for lack of diversity

PBS' NewsHour tilts too heavily toward Republican white men in its sources and needs to do a better job promoting diverse points of view, a watchdog group said in a report issued on Tuesday.

Two-thirds of the partisan sources appearing on Jim Lehrer's nightly newscasts between October 2005 and March 2006 were Republican, and 82% were men, said the liberal advocacy organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

The show works hard to reflect diversity, PBS spokesman Rob Flynn said. But with Republicans in power in both the White House and Congress, it's only natural that they will be seen more in a news program, he said.

FAIR's researchers found minorities used as sources 15% of the time, even though they make up 31% of the population.

This one is almost too dumb to comment on. We are talking about the news here, not some poli-sci experiment. If the news is being reported about the people making it, whose fault is it that a low percentage of minorities are being used as news sources. Maybe they aren't in the center of things during that news cycle. So What?

As long as these "watch dog groups" exist a larger problem will also exist. These people are the racists that they claim everyone else is. We have people dying in Iraq and others being uprooted by hurricanes and other people suffering in countless ways. But these people will never see the humanity first. They will always try to spin the news into a devisive racial incident for their own political purposes. That, ladies and gentlemen, is Racism.

The Back Side of Pleasure

I have always thought that the back of things were sexy. I am mostly talking about female things but I will admit that the back of a $100 bill is kinda hot, too.

Now, before I get too far into this I want to be on record as saying I dig the front of women, too. I'm not into some weird fetish thingy or anything. Its just that there are certain spots that I find especially attractive. And they are all on the back of stuff.

I enjoy the back of the knee. There is that little dimple right where everything bends that is so soft and smooth and . . . I just think its really cool.

Another spot is that ridge of muscles going down either side of her spine. They flex and turn as she moves and I love running my fingers along her back . . . as she moves . . . and she rocks forward . . . and back . . . and . . .

I love the back of a girls neck. That spot where the final wispy hairs taper into a smooth expanse of beautiful skin that is just begging to be kissed. I also love to grip this same spot while our tongues explore each other's hungry mouths in deep, breathless passion.

But my favorite place is the small of her back; the velvety concave at the base of her spine; that downy soft area just above the curve of her delicious ass. I love to stroke that spot as we slow dance into the night and I live to tenderly caress it with lingering kisses and to explore it with my fingertips as we lay spent . . . afterward.

I guess if I had to explain it, I would say I enjoy these secret places because they are off the beaten track. They are the places where women aren't normally touched and that being allowed access to them demonstrates her trust and provides both of us with a greater intimacy.

That and they are also the spots where girls are the most ticklish.

Taking a Little Me Time

I've decided to take the day off to re-organize my antique surgical instrument collection. It has been quite a while since I have been able to decently display the 18th century scalpels and I have no idea where I'm going to put the porcelain blood letting trays.

I suppose I will have to clear one of my bookshelves. Maybe I'll pack away my Time-Life series on Vivisection for Fun and Profit, although I will miss the color photos. But it is true what they say, you can only learn so much from books -- if you really want to learn something -- you have to get your hands dirty.

You know, I've always enjoyed this time of year. There is just something special about that curious blend of Autumn aromas; the crisp, clean smell of burning leaves and the coppery scent of a fresh kill. It is the kind of sensory input that triggers memories of other places and times.

I also like the Fall because the little ones are back in school and the mommies are free to wander the malls and run errands. Usually, when I find one to follow, there is no one else home for most of the afternoon . . . and I do so like to take my time. Sometimes it cracks me up how most of them think if they cooperate I will go easy on them or something. It's nice to think things.

Well, I don't have much time to write today. I'm still trying to find my Civil War era bone saw and there is a mommy named Debbie that goes to Starbucks everyday at 11:00. I don't think she's going to make it tomorrow.

Free Will vs. Determinism

Here is a puzzler for you. I occasionally read the Scott Adams (Dilbert) blog. For a funny guy he has some pretty screwy ideas about things. He is obsessed with the politics of the Middle-east, he is a vegetarian, and he does not believe in free will or in God.

I call them screwy ideas only because I don't agree with most of what he says in the blog. That does not make him wrong and it does not necessarily make him actually screwy. He is certainly entitled to his opinions and it is his blog so he can say anything he wants. But from my perspective he is a loony-toon.

The part that puzzles me is the concept of determinism. Determinism is the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions.

According to Mr. Adams, we are nothing more than a collection of chemicals and electrical synapses (a moist robot) who's actions are pre-determined by genetics, environment and other moist robots. Deciding when to get up, what to wear, what to eat, who to marry, what career to pursue, which questions to ask and whether there is a God or not are all out of his hands. He is no freer to make choices on any of those things than a light bulb is free to turn on or not once the switch is thrown.

Hyper-Calvinists believe in this degree of determinism but they call it pre-destination. They believe that God has decided before all of creation everything that would eventually happen (short version).

I have found that most people who deny the existence of a God are usually independent thinkers who do not want the moral restrictions of a religion to interfere with their personal choices. But their BIG thing is that they have choices. Determinism does not allow for individual choices. Without free will we really would be moist robots.

I guess what I am saying (and what puzzles me the most about this concept) is that I always thought the battle was between those people who thought everything was God controlled and the Free Will proponents. I don't understand how you can deny God and give up your free will at the same time. What does that leave you?

I'm sure the idea that not being held morally responsible for your actions must seem attractive to some people but giving up your free will to get there seems like a high price to pay. Try using that defense in a court of law.

Here is a discussion question: If you were to completely eliminate God from the discussion, is it possible to argue whether we have free will or not?