So, who's next?

How to manufacture sympathy

2012-02-03T18:59:00.000-08:00

One-sided journalism has become the way of the world.

I read a "report" about some guy in Sacramento, CA., who got fired for feeding feral cats on company property even though the company apparently warned him it was against policy and that if he didn't stop, he'd get the pink slip.

He got fired.

After that, the hundreds of saddened supporters who read about it wanted to boycott 7Up, the evil company. All these folks knew was that the report was written by somebody who claimed to be presenting news. Here is part of the report:

As if it weren’t bad enough that the 7Up Bottling Company fired Larry Ottoviani for engaging in the responsible care of feral cats, the truly heartless thing is that they couldn’t have picked a worse time to do so. His wife is under treatment for a debilitating illness that has required lots of hospital visits; he’s taking care of a profoundly disabled adult son; and Ottoviani himself has had his share of medical problems. He had to have a kidney removed when doctors found a tumor on it.

He says he didn't do it on company time. That's refreshing.

I guess I am all for people getting the right treatment from The Man, but when The Man tells you to stop or get fired, maybe feral cats aren't worth it.

Especially if you have ... tons of bills, a sick wife at home, a disabled kid and some tumors in your body. Perhaps all the whiners who think 7Up is so damned evil could go take care of the cats and let Larry take care of matters at home.

More from the report:

Now, if the dude had come to work drunk every day, for example, I’d understand why he had to be fired. And his bosses would probably be more compassionate about it, too. But Ottoviani is just a guy with a whole lot of heavy-duty crap going on at home, who found a release from his anxiety in the care and feeding of needy cats.

So ... I see ... it was home pressures. Damn, I hate when companies are this insensitive. And when their employees are this frickin' stupid.

Cough it up

2011-12-27T16:08:00.001-08:00

The FDA has decided to get tough with the tobacco industry by pushing for macabre and painfully illustrative cigarette packaging.

The tobacco industry is going to court over it and the judges and lawyers are all licking their lips over the amount of money they'll make for this judgment.

It's hard to tell who's going to win.

The tobacco companies have questioned the constitutionality of the labels, saying the warnings don’t simply convey facts to inform people’s decision whether to smoke but instead force the cigarette makers to display government anti-smoking advocacy more prominently than their own branding. They also say that changing cigarette packaging will cost millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the FDA has said that the public interest in conveying the dangers of smoking outweighs the companies’ free speech rights.

The FDA thinks standing in front of the bullet after the gun has been fired is the way to prevent killings. These idiots don't get it. They never did. Tobacco gets it. Nobody is forced to smoke but it's a mother bear trying to quit. All the same, it's a choice, the insurance agency tells you. Tobacco is trying to make a profit. The government subsidizes tobacco as a crop. The FDA is a government agency.

Meanwhile the FDA, a bunch of brainless idiots, thinks mean old cigarette packs will stop people from smoking. Hint: Freedom of speech DOES take precedent over the FDA's silly little cartoon promotional agenda. The dangers of smoking? The FDA wouldn't know which end to light.

Tobacco will keep this tied up in lawyer heaven for another 5-6 years. Meanwhile the FDA will still be clueless.

What's the Reason for the Wheezin'?

2011-12-24T19:36:00.000-08:00

I'm still slightly ill at ease at the abundant number of Christians who are getting bent completely out of shape because somebody has the audacity to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry CHRIST-mas."

Why is anybody upset because we don't feel the compelling need to say Merry Christmas? Like, get over it. It's not a sin to discuss the pagan holidays without reference to the Big X being missing.

Man, talk about a pissed-off bunch of Christians ... like, lighten up. If somebody wishes you "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," just tell them to get fucked ... in the true spirit of the Jesus season.

Happy goddamned New Year. Now let's all get drunk and be somebody.

Uncle Mitten, our hero

2011-12-18T15:23:00.000-08:00

As of Christmas 2011, the Republican Party has decided that Mitt Romney is the man who will lead the nation out of a pit that the Obama administration apparently dug in an effort to rescue poor people from even more poverty. Mind-boggling, isn't it?

It's all be a bundle of joy listening to these political assholes all pointing to this economic indicator or that entitlement program, all the while trying not to refer to poor whites as trailer trash or poor blacks as welfare coons.

Uncle Miltie and Texas Gov. Rick Perry look so much alike that I think one of them ought to be forced to wear a blue tie. What separates them is that Mitt is serious about being president; Perry is just clueless.

The latest guy to boost Romney is ol' Sen. Bob Dole, who ran for president back in 1996 because nobody else would.

Newt Gingrich got some support from New Hampshire, one of the "states" that uses the economic credo of "spend your money here, then get the hell out."

Nobody likes Michelle Bachmann besides me.

Michelle and I plan to meet up at the trailer park and play horseshoes. I didn't say I would vote for her.

What I meant was ...

2011-12-11T12:03:00.000-08:00

Remember back in your college days when black people would talk about "soul" and make it a point to say that white people didn't have it and didn't understand what it meant. You are white, you have no "soul" and can't possibly ever have it.

Yeah, that.

We whites all sat around and nodded our heads, blissfully ignorant of the fact that getting "soul" was not as simple as saying "right on, brutha" and buying the latest James Brown record. We even learned to speak ebonics around blacks because they wouldn't understand us if we spoke white English. "How you be, bro?"

Turns out, they were all bull-shitting us about that and we fell for it. The "black" definition of "soul" was never fully discussed and basically all it meant was, white people don't know what it's like to be black.

Evidently, blacks figured they had a pretty good idea of what it was like to be white, so long as they could define it as "racists, bigots and oppression."

After all this time, I find the memory of it all to be slightly amusing. Some of my best friends had "soul" and I thank them for sharing it with me.

Now, would it be all right if we speak English?

Statistics, lies and more absurdity

2011-11-27T15:14:00.000-08:00

I've read, for better or worse, another series of how-simple-was-that anal-is-eez all suggesting that the current economic problems are caused by:

1. Greed
2. Incompetence
3. Global conditions
4. Transformation to a service economy
5. Stupid consumers who assumed that we were entitled to have a good life.

Shame on us for not really knowing what this pundit or that expert finally realized: That there were too many fuckin' thieves out there and too many investors who said that cutting costs raised profits.

Hell, one guy even offered the basic concept that all our jobs have been replaced by computers. Why didn't I think of that one? Wow, I must have been sleeping when that poignant 2,000-word missive was ground out.

Here's another example of the simplified approach to understanding our dilemma:

No matter how popular it is to bash Wall Street, no one forced American consumers and European countries to borrow money. And no matter how popular it is to rail about deadbeats and the loss of personal responsibility, no one forced Wall Street to make all those dumb-ass loans.

The last time you and the Europeans had so much in common was during the last great world war.

Trying to read these ever-so-simple diagnostic reports? Here's a hint: Skip to the last paragraph. It will tell you that corruption won out over people who were given credit cards instead of pay raises, unpaid days off instead of promotions and threats to be replaced by a wedge once we taught the fuckin' tool to answer the phone in English.

What you won't read is the easiest part to understand: Our cost of life in America is too high. The rent is too high. The cost of a car is too high. If you don't have cash, you have to borrow for that. The alternative is the nearest corrugated drainage ditch. Take a number.

Yep, we borrowed too much (how sick was that?) and expected to pay it back, but we couldn't because we had to take a pay cut to keep the company afloat. I recall my last weeks of work when 10 percent of our company was canned so that the company could survive. The people who advertised their products found still another chunk of the public who couldn't afford their merchandise because we didn't have a job.

How dare we ask for health insurance?

Now we are out of work and the blame is being placed on the segment of society that bought on credit, forgot to ask if the lender was crooked and is being told that tax cuts won't matter anyway, but we're going to give the guy who owns a yacht a break. The yacht owner, after all, owns the company and will trickle down some goodies.

God bless us all, even you, Mister Scrooge.

And we can blame the corrupt people on Wall Street if we want. It's like yelling "hey, stupid!" as you're driving past a cow pasture. It just seems that the rhetoric that tries to explain all this gets around to nothing.

The cows don't much care. They just graze along at their own speed. They don't have to buy on credit.

Child's play

2011-11-26T11:48:00.000-08:00

A HOLIDAY POEM

What a sight it was to see
His face, that very special glee
When we lit the Christmas tree.
So many colors, reds and greens
With silvers, whites mixed in between
Even purples could be seen.
A lad of two, and all so bright
This would be a special night
And oh, such an exciting sight.
I found a box all wrapped in blue
Held it up for him to view
Then I said, “This one’s for you.”
He giggled, jumped and took the box
Sat on the floor, pulled at his socks
Shook his gift, it went “tick tock.”
We tugged at paper, then the bow
He hugged the box and said “I know.”
But he didn’t, though.
Finally the gift, revealed
He laughed and pointed, then he squealed
All rules of sadness thus repealed.
The little train had brought him joy
A treasure for a little boy
Some things you cannot destroy.
He tugged the train but by and by
The wrapping paper caught his eye
I knew at once, could not deny
Sometimes adults can be so blind
That even gifts, one of a kind
Are not the ones tucked in the mind.

- John C. Updike, 2011

In time for Christmas

2011-11-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN

A story that you might believe,
This happens every Christmas eve
It’s when the winner gets to drive the sleigh.
After all the daylight’s gone
Just before there’s any dawn
These two meet up without the need to play.
No cause for fear or false alarm
For down the road from Tucker’s Farm
One of them is going to have his say.
It seems this most amazing duel
That happens every frosty Yule
Is quite bizarre in nearly every way.
The story that my father told
Long ago, ‘cause now I’m old
Was, “Santa doesn’t always drive the sleigh.”
One night, I wandered to the farm
Hoping that I’d face no harm
And what I saw, I must explain today.
To the left, old Santa stood
As though he were a block of wood
His face a somber shade of pewter gray.
Not far away, up near the oak
Adjacent to a gleaming cloak
Frosty mulled this moment, said “OK.”
Santa hunkered by the fence
As now the battle would commence
And I could tell that this was hardly play.
The man in red would move about
And I could sometimes hear him shout,
“You haven’t got a chance, you frozen dray.”
The stoic statue seemed inert
Insisted that it didn’t hurt.
“That all you got, you rotund speckled splay?”
The moon rose full, the shadows spread
Suddenly I began to dread
Knowing that the snowman had to pay.
Santa launched another round
Then moved to even higher ground
Castigating Frosty all the way.
“You’ll never get to drive the team,
“You pile of frozen winter steam.
“And here’s one more to fully wreck your day.”
Frosty, battered, shelled, yet absolute
Suddenly was very mute
Santa knowing that he’d won the day.
For many years, this competition
Established Christmas Eve tradition
The winner was the one who drove the sleigh.
Frosty never had a chance
In fact, he couldn’t even dance
Compared to Frosty, Santa could ballet.
The man in red wiped off his coat
With cherub face, his eyes agloat
Chided Frosty: “Gonna melt today?”
Frosty’s eyes turned black as coal
It seemed for once he had no soul
“Just one favor ‘fore you go away.”
Santa was a jolly man
Doing what a good elf can
“Sure, anything, you mangled white display.”
Frosty pointed to the ground
There the cloak lay, safe and sound
“Place it on me when you go away.”
Santa saw no harm in that
Even fixed old Frosty’s hat
Then turned to make adjustments to his sleigh.
As Santa turned, a blast of white
Frosty heaved with all his might
Santa, smitten, now oh-for-one this fray.
Frosty said, “This is no joke,
“For I have known about the cloak,
“I’m very happy that it came today.”
Face down in snow, old Santa lay
Frosty winked and did parlay
Good fortune and the right to guide the sleigh.
Santa hobbled to his feet,
Realized that he’d been beat
And vowed he’d fight again some other day.
So if you get a purple tie
Cantaloupe instead of pie,
The rules have changed for just this Christmas Day.
I left the farm that fateful night
Knowing I had seen the fight
And realized that anything you can imagine is possible.

-John C. Updike, 2011

Water weenies

2011-11-19T10:34:00.000-08:00

I almost laughed when I read this the other day. If the government can't find a way of worrying, they will invent a way to worry about something that's really not worth worrying about.

(Reuters) - Federal investigators are looking into a report that hackers managed to remotely shut down a utility's water pump in central Illinois last week, in what could be the first known foreign cyber attack on a U.S. industrial system.

The November 8 incident was described in a one-page report from the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center, according to Joe Weiss, a prominent expert on protecting infrastructure from cyber attacks.

The attackers obtained access to the network of a water utility in a rural community west of the state capital Springfield with credentials stolen from a company that makes software used to control industrial systems, according to the account obtained by Weiss. It did not explain the motive of the attackers.

I am disappointed that this hacker attacker didn't go for something really important -- like the Yahoo news site. Can't drink the stuff anyhow.

Anybody seen any flying saucers lately?

Penn State

2011-11-16T18:24:00.000-08:00

I have been reading this, that, the other and everything in between about who is or isn't to blame for what did or didn't happen and who did or didn't know it about the child abuse scandal at Penn State U.

What tends to suck about this is the posturing of people who say that the coach, Joe Paterno, should

a. be fired because he knew about it
b. not be fired because he was a great coach

What should have happened the very first day was that Paterno, the players, the coaches and the university should have said:

"Abuse a child and we will get together and kick the living shit out of you and you will wish like hell you'd died because after you recover, we are going to do it again. And the next son of a bitch who wants to abuse a kid will get the same treatment."

That's called prevention, folks.

Railroads

2011-11-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

Had occasion the other weekend to stop in a place called the "Monon Connection," a railroad museum connected to a little restaurant called the Whistle Stop.

It's on U.S. 421 between Monon and Francesville in downtown central cornfield Indiana.

Who knew? This place is fabulous and if it were in Chicago, they'd need a bigger place for all the people who would go there.

Another surprise on the way to the end of life. Go there. Several times.

Fall, colors and Halloween

2011-10-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

I take time to check the local reports around the country for their version of the fall colors. I guess I have too much time on my hands. Usually, it's the same story, depending ... not enough rain will make the colors dull ... too much heat will delay things.

If your perspective is to look up at the trees, you might wonder how long it's going to take you to rake them - if they ever decide to fall.

Which they will.

I have an oak tree out back that is losing its leaves and I've learned to be patient. Leave them in place. By November, a big wind will come along and ... whoosh! Leaves are down the block.

Fall is a nice time of year if it doesn't rain.

A story worth repeating

2011-10-07T12:10:00.001-07:00

Evidence that other-world creatures have indeed come to Earth has been deciphered. At first, it made no sense. Naturally, the creatures speak and write in a different language. But the small bits of paper came together nicely for the students at Brainard College, N.D.

Apparently, on one cold December night in 2002, the ship landed quietly in a bean field not far from where its inhabitants believed was a source of civilization. The lights in the distance were bright. Machines were moving about rather freely. The place was a 24-hour convenience mart.

As it turned out, the bits and pieces of paper that were picked up by a group of Scouts who were cleaning the North Dakota roadside were unique enough that they caught the eye of their faculty adviser. He turned the scraps over to the Humanities Department at Brainard.

Eight years of work have paid off. Here's what the scraps said.

"We came to Earth in search of intelligent life and, finding none, we returned to our ship. Our commander asked how we were able to discern this information and we replied: We asked them to take us to their leader. They refused. We asked again. They refused. We have determined that Earth inhabitants do nothing all day but stand around with their penises stuck in their ears."

Bankers vs. The Rest of Us

2011-10-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

In what seems to be the newest version of "I Sparticus" being played out in real-life underdogs-vs.-The Evil Empire ... we have decided to Occupy Wall Street.

Some folks who live too far from Wall Street will just Occupy the Administration Hall of their university. The rest of us will occupy a parking space. Occupation being what it is, typically the occupiers are not the legitimate occupants, which creates a bit of friction.

And of course the usual propaganda that comes with being Sparticus, the underdogs, the victims, the downtrodden ... the stuff that makes up Americana.

PEACEFUL is the adjective the protesters are likely to use.
CORRUPT is what they call Wall Street.

This doesn't include all the "things" that our elected officials have become as the 21st century finally dawned on all the people who borrowed thousands for college, decided to not pay it back, spread it out over 500 years, then got their first credit card ... a wife, two kids, a house in the 'burbs, two SUVs, a condo deal in Cancun ....

Need I go on? What most people from the '90s who got college loans ended up with was borrowing more money than their educations were worth, combined with moving into the fast lane of suburban life ... finding they owed more than they could afford ...

Now they are blaming Wall Street for corrupt banking practices.

The same folks who would make dozens of new dollars daily by investing in investments that Wall Street presents are saying the system is broken. Fine, fix it and give back those dozens of daily dollars.

No?

If you borrowed $50,000 for a college education, you borrowed too much money. If you are making minimum payments, you should have paid attention when the terms of the payback were discussed.

Wall Street isn't broken. It may need reforms and the bankers are probably doing what bankers do -- make lots of money for their clients.

Congress isn't going to fix it. Stop borrowing every fuckin' nickel you need in life. If you can't afford it, don't finance it.

How weird we can be

2011-10-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

I had occasion the other day to visit the pharmacy in town and while I was waiting for the woman to process my order, an older lady next to me was questioning the clerk about her prescription. In essence:

The woman was told to take 50 mg of such-and-such every day but she noticed that the tablets were 100 mg dosages, twice as much as she was told by her doctor to take.

Now, anybody would think that you just get a pill slicer and cut them in half, move on with your day. Plus, the clerk explained, the 100 mg tablets were less expensive.

No, the woman told her ... because she had "read somewhere" that cutting the pills in half diminished the dosage because of the crumbling effect.

In other words, that 100 mg pill, sliced in half, would yield a pair of 49.9998 mg tablets.

I thought about this for a minute, decided NOT to say something (not usually my way) and wondered ... it's not that this woman was so silly, but it's that somebody out there had the audacity to publish information that even remotely suggested you were getting screwed on your dosage by using a pill slicer.

If you have one, you know what I mean.

And you can do like we did as kids ... that's why you have a tongue. Lick the crumbs off the plate.

The advice we get from the magazines in the doctor's waiting room ... no wonder we're a bunch of chicken-shit hypochondriacs.

And no, you don't get the flu from licking an envelope.

A novel in time for Halloween ... and I wrote it!

2011-10-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

Years ago, while driving home one night in the fog (not in a fog, THE fog) I got the weird sensation that, what-if, just what-if ... a werewolf jumped out in front of me.

Why a werewolf? Well, to make the fog scarier, it needed to be a werewolf. About 40 years later, I decided to write the novel. It was on the back end of a different story I had just finished as part of my participation in National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. In fact, the story was more a product of leftover writing energy than desire to create the yarn.

But I was able to finish it without trouble, largely because I had remembered that night in the fog and the story that came to mind at the time. I just needed to flesh out the characters.

Pakwa was born. Truth was, I didn't see any reason to make the story any longer than it needed to be, as I knew -- as the author -- I could "kill" the creature anytime I wanted, finish the story and move on. But that ain't how Pakwas die. It takes a village to be terrified.

Finally, I got the book off to an online publisher who agreed to sell it for me. She retitled it, gave it a "cover" and a spot on the listing under the HORROR genre. We even gave me a different pseudo. (Reasons for that make sense to the publisher.)

I like the story on a number of levels.

"Hades Hill" was a lot of fun to write and it allowed that story to get out of the fog after more than 40 years. GET IT AT RENEBOOKS.COM.

Jesus and the poor

2011-09-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

Apparently there's a debate afoot about whether America, as a "Christian" nation, is not doing the Christian thing by ignoring its poor. The premise, according to a comment by TV personality Steve Colbert, is that this isn't what Jesus would do.

The conversation, I suspect, comes back to the Tea Party, which considers itself either Republican or part of the Christian Right, neither of which connects very well to poverty, according to liberals. Liberals, according to the Christian right, are actually "niggers and wetbacks." They don't actually say that because even the Christian right occasionally demonstrates some restraint.

Truth is, nearly everyone born in this country in the 20th century is aware of the principles of Christianity. Part of that is connecting the religion to the lives of the poor. Generally, however ... and correct me if I am wrong ... the main goal is salvation of the soul. Needing a sandwich at the time is optional.

My knowledge of biblical events is sufficient for me to understand how this happened and why it's become similar to "feed a fever, starve a cold." In other words, the Christian thing to do has been reformulated to say it's the Charitable thing to do. Christianity's origins have a vague relationship to helping the poor.

What it did have was a story, a schtick, a promotion, a gimmick. The religion needed numbers and, guess what? Lots of poor, even in the days of Jesus. They were getting the crappy end of the stick back then too.

So Jesus, who wasn't a Christian but was generally interested in forming his own religion, agreed that helping the poor would be a good idea because he believed God would be pleased with that. Something about the Meek inheriting the Earth ... or the story about the rich man, the eye of the needle, the Kingdom of Heaven. All subtle comments that said the wealthy were pretty well screwed because God didn't approve of that sort of lifestyle. (I wonder if the Russian czars thought they were actually "poor" compared to other people.)

The poor, naturally, found this Jesusian attitude to be a pretty good idea as well and decided to become Christians because, well ... Christianity promised that helping the poor would get everyone closer to Heaven. That's a nice side benefit for tossing an extra sheckel toward the poor. A free lunch AND eternal harp music.

As time turned, Christianity became more popular and the poor continued to join up, accepting what later became the Catholic Church's definition of heaven. As time went on, Protestants bought into the Catholics' description of the hereafter, only not drinking quite as much wine. (I have no idea if other people agree on this, but the non-Christians of America are fucked, as I see it.)

So here we are, saying Christians should be helping the poor and wondering why the Teabaggers are against that. It's a nice gig, condemning people who don't have a good way of defending themselves.

What goes around, comes around and Jesus recognized that. If he'd promoted a religion that only the rich could join, well ... who'd join that?

But I do have a thought. We build six more aircraft carriers, hire poor people to keep them clean and operational ... and make really good use of our money. After all, it says it right on the front: In God We Trust.

Charting my fame

2011-09-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

Most of the time, I believe nobody actually sees this blog, not that in the course of human destiny, it will matter. I lament sometimes that I think my best writing occurs on the blogspot pages.

Recently, I took to trying to see who was looking at this blog and where they came from. Not surprisingly, most of it comes from the Fairfield website. A couple of other places yielded some returns, only after I asked folks to click on the site, providing them with the link.

Curious, one of the hottest links is a place called Yandex.ru, which is "something" in .ru, which is the suffix for Russia. It's all in Cyrillic, so I have no idea who they are, why they are reading MY blog and what they got out of it.

I don't intend to explore it beyond that.

But I did notice that the little PacMan pie chart isn't being kind to MacIntosh.

Stubbs goes down swinging

2011-09-21T17:02:00.000-07:00

Reds manager Dusty Baker says his strikeout-prone center fielder Drew Stubbs will get some help this off-season. My question is, why does he need to wait until the off-season to consider this?

If you are spending more than you make and have money problems, do you wait until you are completely broke before you go see a financial adviser to ask what you should have done? Or do you, upon realizing you have an income-outgo problem, deal with it while you can still afford to talk to the financial adviser, who will charge a fee.

Stubbs knows from the results of his ABs, that he is doing exactly what we all see. Hell, just look at condensed games on MLB.tv, Drew ... and see what the rest of America observed. Failing that, the team has game films. They break it down, a nano-second at a time. They can film the rotation of a curve ball. They can chart the flight of a piss-ant from 420 feet from home plate, or the distance a Bronson Arroyo curve ball travels when struck by a 35-ounce wooden bat.

Now, knowing this ... Dusty says he will wait till the off-season to help him. One wonders if Dusty's opinions will conflict with hitting coach Brook Jacoby's or the notions of optometrist Dr. I.C. Greatnow ... who could be asked to see if young Stubbs, 26, can actually SEE what he's swinging at.

There literally is no excuse for this man to have accumulated more than 200 strikeouts.

Tats and the beauty of them (not)

2011-09-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

The number of women who are going into full-body tattoos these days ... well, maybe it's something that I just don't "get" or is this a whole society of people who really fucked the pooch after they got old enough to make adult decisions?

I emphasize that I can't be sure if these are "full-body" markings or just "anyplace that doesn't have too much hair on it."

We laugh and wonder what these women will look like when they are as old as I am. What this means to me currently is that I am of the age where the types of women who appeal to me are slightly more "wrinkled" than they once were.

If those wrinkles came in several colors, sorry. No woman of mine will look like a carnie worker. Wrinkles, I can abide.

Sadly for us purists, a lot of women don't see it that way. It's dumb enough that men have covered their skins, maybe as a way of being sorry they were born white ... that's another rant for sociologists. In any case, I wonder why they cover it all with ink.

Animals as we know them

2011-09-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

What I've learned about most creatures on this planet, maybe humans too, is that when they come up against a rival species, or one they can't easily understand, they seek a secure environment and go from there.

Mostly, the secure environment was assured before the creature ventured forth. As in, a squirrel isn't usually too far from a tree or a groundhog too far from a hole in the ground. Snakes usually can slither to cover.

Chipmunks have some interesting skills, though, and one of them is their quickness. They dart for cover and when they are in the open, they move very fast.
They can even climb.

Mostly they are wary little buggers.

And they know a good thing when they see it. Yeah, he's afraid of me. But he ain't stupid.

Punkin season

2011-09-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

Back in the day, we were zealous in hewing out the goop and seeds from a pumpkin, not really caring what became of that stuff. How, we wondered, can you make a pie out of punkin guts?

Never really getting an answer, we went about the business of hacking some triangles into the gourd in hopes of creating the most frightening jack-o-lantern in town. Yep, with a candle inside it, it glowed.

Just like all the other jack-o-lanterns in town.

Today, you can get kits to make carvings in pumpkins, all of which is a bit disconcerting to those of us who believed creativity came at the end of a 6-inch blade.

Then again, Michael Myers ... what would HE do if he had to dig all that goop out?

Now what?

2011-09-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

Baseball season officially ended on Tuesday when St. Paul beat my RailCats 9-7 in the 100th and final regular game of the year. No playoffs this year for the Gary team.

My first baseball love, the Reds, have managed to starve themselves out of the season by playing like the Reds we have known over the years. More bad baseball was played in Cincinnati this summer than in the last 5 years at U.S. Steel Yard in Gary.

Most people don't care why the team played so badly and even the fans are consigned to finding some other reason to care about October.

I might recommend the Parke County Bridge Festival.

Me? I am going to hang out at Valparaiso University and watch college football.

Or not.

The search for serious porn

2011-09-01T14:21:00.001-07:00

I've been asked by various females over the years if I am like most men, addicted to porn. And like most men, I deny that I am addicted to porn. Having denied it means I am lying. Had I admitted to it, I'd be described as "sick" and in need of some therapy.

I always say it's better to deny it and have them claim they can tell you're lying. It makes the conversation last longer and might get you past the really sinister looks.

"Porn," of course, is that user-defined industry that most women ridicule as being "abusive toward women." The fact remains that the people who promote "porn" are pretty good at it and make it easy to search for images and videos. I'm not sure how much surfing is necessary before one qualifies as "addicted," but I'd guess that more than an hour a week would be adequate.

Hint: If it takes you an hour to find what you want in a porn search, you truly do need some therapy.

But when I do search for porn, I go here: www.sexyandfunny.com

Do I recommend it? Hell no. But there is a lot of interesting stuff at SnF.com and the proprietors have a level-headed approach toward the notions that make us men and women in the modern era.

Whupping up on Connersville

2011-08-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

If you are from Brookville, the second-best thing that can happen to you is to brag about how much fried chicken they cooked last weekend. Otherwise, beating Connersville in anything is a nice objective.

Again this year, the Wildcats, who should still be the Greyhounds but haven't got the guts anymore to be that, beat the Spartans, who ought to be just known as the Spittoons.

Connersville, as a place, is an infrastructure version of road kill. Brookville is just older with better trees.

But the football team from Connersville is America's worst.

40-0.

How to manage the truth and other lies

2011-07-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

I find American apologists to be almost as annoying as the public agenda strategists who seem to think they can have it both ways.

I suppose it's the Gluttony Generation that believes you can lose weight, still eat anything from the menu and still have the energy to raise 4 kids, climb the peak and be back in time for the latest Simpsons.

In the past several years, I've grown bellyache weary of the really bull-crap comment that "I support the troops but I don't support the war."

Oh, well, that makes sense. We'll give the soldiers all the toy guns and toy tanks they need to practice being an army but we won't actually send them any money to fight the war.

Folks, you CANNOT have it both ways. If you don't want your soldiers to die in a war, then stop having a war.

Lately, another phenomenon in the outrageous town of Zion, Illinois, where a chicken-bleep baseball team is being run by a scoundrel. The premise is that they support the players but hope they get a new owner for the team.

As if the owner was going to just hand it over to somebody else.

What happened has gone viral. The team didn't pay its players, then released all of them, hired a bunch of scab replacements, finally paid the players it released and everything now is apparently all hunky-dory in Zion, where fans of the team will believe almost anything. Just web-search for the Lake County Fielders for as much as you want on this contrived truth.

Not much about this makes any sense other than the Zion fans believe that supporting a team of scabs is fine, even after they learned the original team was actually fired. They felt bad for those guys but, oh well, they could sign with another team.

This new operation, though ... well, let's not lose these guys. After all, the franchise is at stake. We assume the new team is being paid, but I'd guess that if they aren't, they'd better shut up. The good jobs are already taken. Did I mention the people who work in the team's front office were also being stiffed on their pay? The check is in the mail ... so often that it got too late for any of them to find different summer jobs.

Meanwhile, back to the war.
Go team go.

Speaklish portendo kuklamondo

2011-06-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

I spent the better part of a year last weekend in various airports, buses, restaurants and venues on America's "Left Coast." Interesting places to see, not much real history, certainly forgettable in most cases once you get indoors. Seen one mountain in the distance, they all look alike.

What I didn't admire was that nearly everybody there speaks something of a language that entitles them to not understand what I said. I have some ideas on how this happens in a place that's inundated with the fear that not being inclusive somehow will exclude you permanently from participation.

So all the stores and eateries that are owned by people who don't speak English are hiring the college-age (read that: cheap) labor that speaks "some" English, which is interpreted by the non-English speaker as being "enough" English.

Hey, I speak enough Spanish to ask somebody how to find somebody who speaks English. I can also, in Russian, ask a Russian where a U.S. bank is located. There, I assume, somebody speaks English.

But I ask for a pizza on America's "Left Coast" and the kid looks at me as if he didn't understand what I wanted. In truth, he DIDN'T. Don't even try asking somebody a question over the phone. You can't just say, "I don't understand you," because the person on the other end doesn't understand you well enough to say "Oh, let me get somebody who speaks English better."

It's "Ve don um yeah, no I taw my supuhvish huh? No, yeah, oh, OK. Tangs."

Just being available for work ought to come with something that resembles qualifications. Then again, a person who speaks no English at all would be impressed with a dog that can "ralph or roof" with any regularity.

Hire the fuckin' dog. At least it will come when you call it.

Earthquake quacks

2011-05-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

Somebody in Italy is pissed off because seismologists didn't predict an earthquake that killed several people. I suppose had they predicted it and the folks had died anyway, well ... science is wonderful.

I am thankful that the Italian legal system is more absurd than ours, though I suspect the profits aren't as great.

Who needs god when we have a courthouse?

QUAKIN' AND BELLYACHIN'

So, what's the news?

2011-05-22T17:26:00.001-07:00

A woman says she was paid to make up a story about injecting her child with Botox.
The reporter says, yes ... money was paid but nobody made anything up.
Journalism that I used to know and love is full of crap.

First off, everybody involved here is conspiring to create a theater of mistrust so that everyone involved makes a profit.

Off the kid.

Maybe the kid should have to pay taxes. Here's the story. Not as bad as the kid in the runaway balloon.

BOTOX MOMMY

I hope someone reads this

2011-05-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Penning my thoughts before the Rapture, wondering if there were people I have offended, cheated or dismissed as being irrelevant. Probably. For that, I am deeply sorry.

I know in my Heart of Hearts that I should have been Saved, but after the hospital did such a nice job on me last year, I thought I was in the clear. Guess not. I need to scurry down to the bank before noon to open my account that the church can draw off its 10 percent. They will need that as the zombies come to the door, all seeking handouts.

The Rapture has been forecast for some time, but like driving down the highway being alerted that the left lane ends in a mile because of road work, we ignore it, hoping somebody will let us in.

Well, now it's too late. Nobody will let us in.

The Time has Come to shake hands with Mister Demise. The pretty ones will get to be with Jesus. The rest of us will just sit around and sort socks.

Socks.

What a nice thought.

Wait ... wait ... what? No Rapture. It didn't happen. Here I am, 8 hours later, still thinking ... anyway, screw all that about me being sorry. %$@* off, everybody!

Why yes, this is what they call fun.

2011-05-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I have had the chance to rail on about morality, and it's not so much morality as stupidity that drives this one.

For the record, I find this entire episode more amusing than sad, stupid instead of revolting. But it proves something:

Never do this sort of thing without turning off the lights in the off-chance that somebody wants to film it. (They can't see your face in the dark, get it?)

Everybody films everything.

So what is it? A teacher in Texas, married mom of three with hubby overseas in military, gets horny and calls up five kids from the senior class and ... well, let me tell you, this was one swell party.

The story calls them sex crime victims. I'm thinking, yeah, I'm 18, horny as hell and me and four buds are gonna get us some teacher tail. How can life get any better than that?

Here's the link:
/www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20110516-kennedale-high-teacher-accused-of-having-sex-with-five-students.ece"

Basketball Jones

2011-03-18T22:12:00.001-07:00

Having watched the same-old, same-old NCAA basketball flutter over the past few days, going on year after year, a few notions strike me as peculiar.

1. Does anybody realize that you can't really drive the lane when four opposing players are standing in it?
2. Are all the players black and all the coaches white ... on purpose?
3. Do the announcers take an oath that they will scream loudly into the microphone on every single play?
4. Is it apparent that the have-nots are in this thing because the haves need an easy game or two to create the illusion that competitive basketball is being played?
5. What the hell is the CBI doing?

I've seen the future

2011-02-20T12:45:00.000-08:00

I decided about a year ago that if my workplace didn't get better, I'd just retire.
A week ago, I decided to retire.

Frankly, I hope the newspaper industry gets what it deserves. It's been sold out to assholes who have no concept of reality, no notion of what the business was, or why.

These are fruitcake nationalist wannabes who seem to think that if you give people no choice, they will learn to love their mundane existence.

I think the protests are about to start.

Lucky for corporate America, it will have demolished the one set of checks and balances that could have led to conversation, sensible debate and compromise.

Frankly, I hope the revolt succeeds. I have all I need. Just don't leave your paper cups in my front lawn.

Interesting, how this will play out. The three or four Benedict Arnolds who run our company will find work at the end of it. Eventually, they'll be cast adrift and freed to latch on as some sort of emissary with some social organization.

Fuck the rest of us, right?

Winter, 2011

2011-02-07T13:45:00.000-08:00

I spent the entire summer not doing this blog for reasons that really aren't clear.

Well, yes ... the reasons are clear. I didn't want to mess with it.

But now I'm back, just to let YOU know ... and no, we will not go into a stupid Contours song from a stupid movie that wasn't at all about the title.

So just getting warmed up here for the Big Spring.

How 'bout them Lions?

Highways

2010-05-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

I realize that half of America has to merge into the left lane for about 80 percent of summer because a road crew is patching something, repaving something or replacing something.

Call me dense, but when the sign says "merge left" is it really necessary to stay in the right lane up until the last possible instant, hoping somebody will let you in?

I don't let them in unless I think it's a traffic hazard.

Which it is because the damned closure is at an exit ramp which the morons forgot to close.

Highway construction is really not what it used to be.

And the repairs take even longer, like ...

THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Merge left.

Pump 'er up, gals

2010-03-11T22:03:00.000-08:00

AP takes us to West Lafayette, where big doin's are afoot.

It seems Purdue University sociologist Elizabeth Hoffmann is recruiting Indiana mothers to take part in a study about breast milk pumping in the workplace.

In what has become one of the 21st century's top social issues, it's refreshing to see that Hoffman has taken on the challenge.

The Purdue report says Hoffmann is conducting a study on the issue to better understand the obstacles and challenges that women face.

We don't learn if the Purdue project is going to address the problems men face with this, or your grandparents or your grandchildren. After all, it's about Mommy.

The pump. Anyway, in the off chance a Mommy reads this: purdue.qualtrics.com/

Old, who me?

2010-02-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

This would be amusing on some other levels, but the report that New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, 86, plans to continue working despite being diagnosed with stomach lymphoma -- well, I am not really surprised.

What I would like to know is ... WHY?

What we need in the Senate, according to somebody, is an 86-year-old sick man who will be on pills, treatments and fairly extensive care, all the while apparently still trying to do the work of Congress.

Whatever that was, Evan Bayh wondered.

Frank, just retire, OK?

The interesting part is that all the softballs that were thrown at the docs surrounding this announcement bordered on ... yeah, they were laughable.

AP reported:
"Independent doctors agree that Lautenberg's type of lymphoma is usually treatable."

This blob of hysteria really tripped my trigger:

"I wouldn't be too surprised to soon hear how he's once again outpacing younger aides as they walk through U.S. Capitol building," said state Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver, a Democrat.

Term limits aside, why doesn't Lautenberg, his family, his staff, the Senate, and maybe the goddamned Democratic Party, just send the guy some flowers, a paper to sign saying he will spend the next 86 years of his life recovering ... oh, well ...

Old and in the Senate is what we do.

Byrd
Thurmond
Helms
... is Ev Dirkson still living?

HE said, SHE said, etc.

2010-02-05T22:15:00.000-08:00

Bubbling up down South was the almost ritualistic "how stupid can schools be" moment.

A Louisiana high school student says he was sent home for wearing an Indianapolis Colts jersey after the principal encouraged students to wear jerseys supporting the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl.

Yep, you figured it out: The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana jumped right in and faxed Principal Steve Vampran a letter supporting 17-year-old Brandon Frost.

Later in the day Friday, the school said it hadn't booted Brandon but told him he had to wear black and gold because the school's dress code had been relaxed for the day to include only those colors, which are the Saints colors.

Brandon pitched a bitch instead of just taking off the shirt.

The principal fell for the age-old gag that any school administrator who tries to one-up the ACLU is asking for a ration of crap.

We're handing it out.

Well, at least it wasn't the prom.

Some baseball thoughts

2010-02-03T09:49:00.000-08:00

If you're old enough to remember Crosley Field or have an Uncle Riley who does, some of these names will make you smile. The rest: W.G.A.F. That's not the objective. Google "slow, dull baseball players" and come up with your own list. The point is: How champions are made, one Aaron Miles at a time.

The 1950s were the years when "big," "red" and "machine" were usually associated with Soviets, tanks and old communists waving to the crowd while standing atop Lenin's tomb. Cincy baseball was a second-division team, seldom in the hunt. Hunt for Red October was a movie. By 1960, the whole thing bottomed out.

So begins the story. On Dec. 15, 1960 (or so legend has it) the most unpopular three-way trade in history occurred. The Redlegs sent the awesome shortstop Roy McMillan to the Milwaukee Braves for pitchers Juan Pizarro, a lefty, and Joey Jay, a righthander who was the first Little Leaguer ever in the big leagues. So we had that going for us. Pizarro saw on a map where he was headed, got adjusted and spent the next five minutes being traded to the White Sox for a lumbering third baseman named Gene Freese.

Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuscahoma McLish was in one of those deals.

A few months earlier, the team had seen the error of its ways and managed to get Wally Post back in a trade with the Phillies in a series of deals that included Walls, Haddix, Gonzalez, Anderson, Hopke, Dewey, Cheatham, Howe, Butcher, Baker, Candelaria ... the list is endless. "Wally, you and Gus Bell will play left field. Corey Patterson will play center next to that Robinson guy."

Corey quit the team and we hired Vada Pinson.

A bunch of other stuff happened and Ed Bailey, the greatest catcher in history, was traded to San Frankinsoco, thus pi$$ing off the rest of the Reds fandom. But we got Don Blasingame and eventually Roadblock Sherman in exchange. Then we told Elio Chacon to suit up.

So on and on we go and Hutchinson says, "OK, it's time to win a gosh-darned pennant here."

And off we went.

If for those of you who have never experienced a pennant season, I can safely say that my fondest baseball memory ever was the day the Redlegs won that 1961 pennant.

How? Nobody knows. It was a team that would not lose. Forgotten for Reds fans was the awesome year of Maris and Mantle and the Yankee steamroller.

This was a team put together by front-office genius (or luck) or something. Bits and pieces blended, long before the days of computers and acronymns defining real value vs. perceived replacement value or comparative worth, grass or turf, day or night.

The point: Ya kneffer nose.

RV madness

2010-01-30T22:33:00.000-08:00

This out of Indianapolis AP

RV Industry representatives and lawmakers are urging the U.S. to send thousands of trailers left over from Hurricane Katrina to Haiti even though some could be contaminated with formaldehyde.

OK, as far as it goes, that's a nice gesture. Dying of some chemical seems the lesser of many evils for Haitians, who never would have had it so good as to get a real live RV made in Elkhart, Indiana.

What's amusing is that this ain't about having a place to live. It's about the RV industry worrying that a government notion that auctioning off the 100,000 trailers would further depress their industry. This stuff was junk in the first place and now the industry is worried it will be put on the regular market.

Haitians are pissed off because they say it's an example of the U.S. dumping inferior goods on them.

As if a pile of rubble is superior housing.

I worry that we won't have enough trailers left over when the next hurricane hits.

Is anybody ever really happy about anything?

Some photos are just funny

2010-01-30T22:09:00.000-08:00

In or out of context, this couch, on a sidewalk in Philadelphia, just seems ... so ... um ... Philly.

I love it.

For the 1.9 trillionth time!

2010-01-20T22:13:00.000-08:00

It's always nice to know that somebody is trying to help us turn macro-government into something we can really call "useful" in our daily lives. The AP is noted for this when it tries to explain just exactly "what is" a zillion or a billion or a trillion. It usually comes in the number of football fields that it would cover.

Not that you can envision ... say, 100 football fields all in a group.

The latest is exactly "what is" 1.9 trillion dollars.

AP uses these comparisons, as if miles and dollars somehow connect to the rampant insecurity that guides the average journalist these days.

* A 1.9 trillion-mile trip is about the same as 8 million trips to the moon. Since you and I have often been to the moon, consider making 8 million of them and you come up with ...

* 1.9 trillion feet would take you to the top of 29,000-foot Mount Everest 65 million times, or to the bottom of the 36,000-foot Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the Pacific, about 53 million times. Again, been there, done that ... so I can relate.

What does it buy, you ask? Let's get real here.

OK, AP says we can get 422 Nimitz Class aircraft carriers, lots and lots of money for school and ... if time counts, 1.9 trillion seconds adds up to about 60,000 years. AP says that was about 1.9 trillion hours ago -- 220 million years -- dinosaurs were just beginning to dominate the Earth.

About that time, somebody should have alerted AP that these comparisons are a waste of it.

Advice and other vital data

2010-01-17T17:52:00.000-08:00

I click on the Yahoo main page on Sunday evenings just to see if I've missed the latest rocket attack on Kabul or any of a dozen other news events.

Mixed in there this weekend were:

Stories on the Haitian earthquake crisis;

The president's battle with Congress over .... fill in the blank .......;

What celebs are doing this weekend ...

.... and the obligatory list of "ten things" about ... yep, you guesster Chester ... relationships.

I have no idea why all lists have to contain "ten" of anything but we are stuck on saying we need at least a few more than a bunch or it's not a list.

This latest list is directed at she-mates, who are desperately trying to NOT lure men into their lives because of reasons that just escape me totally ... like, um ... you know.

Some of this crap is amusing and all of it is actually pretty sensible.

Here's the link: xox

Good luck, girls.

Gumby

2010-01-09T22:09:00.000-08:00

Art Clokey, the creator of the greenish clay figure Gumby, has died at age 88.

I don't have much discernible memory of Gumby and his claymation pal Pokey, but I do remember the early days of the art form on television. Clokey and his wife Ruth were innovators, according to the obituary.

Life stretches across a framework of time and space, depth, dimension, sound, all part of our imagination. Pleasures of childhood, lost to time. Recaptured only by news of the death of one of the people who gave us reason to grow up. Art Clokey is just a guy you never heard of.

Cartoon characters, hand puppets and Howdy Doody on a series of strings ... all seemed so exciting to us in 1954. Now it all seems so silly.

I think that if I had to choose a time to be a child, I'd pick 1954 over 2010. Ain't but one Gumby.

Beer helps

2010-01-08T09:58:00.000-08:00

Hayley Mick at the Toronto Globe and Mail reports in a Scripps Howard yarn that new research is afoot, contending to seek the greater answers to the greater secret about why some folks get lucky in the rack more often than others.

Wait, I meant something else. Like, um ... well, the research in Canada, where beavers are animals and hockey still gets pucked frequently, old nosy people have dredged up four decades worth of probing and, essentially being nosy about girl parts. They want to know, yes:

Why is there a difference between women and men when it comes to sex?

Yep, they are still seeking the answer to that question. Hell, it's because men are from a sports bar and women are from the laundromat, silly.

The findings were published online this week in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, Hayley Mick tells us. So we many want to meander over to that great gossip column on the Internet and explore those really sensitive issues.

A lot of this stuff is a really convenient excuse for "mature" people to use erection, vagina, clitoris and orgasm in a news story without feeling pink in the face when their editors ask "can we use a different word instead of 'hard-on' in that last graf?"

In the story:
Alexander McKay, Toronto-based research coordinator, says people shouldn't get too hung up on deciphering subtle body changes in their partners, anyway. "The person who is relying on physiological cues to try and pick up whether a partner is keen ... is a person who is barking up the wrong tree. In modern culture, a person signals a readiness for sexual activity through a whole range of cues aside from a purely physiological response."

It took the Canadians 40 years to come up with this.

* * *

BTW, the archives are under a general listing of "springer.com" and with that in mind, anything goes. I checked it out. It's not smutty at all. In fact, I suggest you skip it completely and do some porn surfing on your own.

Facing the facts

2010-01-07T21:59:00.000-08:00

AP is reporting that the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, which bans students from wearing clothing such as burqas and face veils, as well as ski masks and scarves, is apparently deciding to finally grant a “religious exemption” to Muslims.

My hunch is that it only affects the Muslim women who live in Boston, visit the campus, work there or are enrolled as students.

Most Muslim men, you see, don’t wear burqas, even in America. My questions are fairly less intelligent, such as, why did they have this policy in the first place?

And exactly how many Muslim women are enrolled at the Mass. College of Pharmacy who insist on wearing burqas to class? Are we talking … one, two, or several hundred? I don’t know if regular Americans who wear burqas to class would be exempted or not. It’s a fashion trend whose time has truly come. You see it a lot these days.

America’s university mind is a terrible thing to waste.

I kind of get it about the ski masks, though.

Be my Bharrat, por favor

2010-01-06T21:52:00.000-08:00

I guess I am never amazed these days at the lack of humor in reporting what seems obviously too damned funny to just ... well, not guffaw about.

The AP, in its infinite ability to dredge up news that the rest of us would say "that's dumber'n hell," has informed us that Bharrat Jagdeo isn't looking for Facebook friends. In fact, Bharrat probably doesn't even know you. I am certain he has never met me, though that's my loss. He is the president of Guyana.

For the challenged, it's a little sliver of country in the northeastern corner of South America. I can't tell you much more about the place, other than it has "officials" there who are warning us that Bharrat Jagdeo's office is not sending out invitations to join him in friendship on Facebook.

So if you see this, it's probably a scam, the AP says.

What amuses me is that it's being treated as though millions of people will suddenly get an epiphany moment and say, "I thought that was funny about Bharrat wanting to be my friend. I mean, Guyana and all. It just didn't add up."

Somebody in the country (or Nigeria or Bahrain or Taipai or Tangiers) is trying to con you out of money.

This isn't the first time it's happened. A year ago, somebody else pulled the same hoax with our pal Bharrat at the core of the joke. The man says he is far too busy to be involved in social networking.

Who knew?

Wock and woll

2010-01-05T08:49:00.000-08:00

Or, as they called it back in 1957, the Devil's Thumbprint.

I've had the opportunity lately to go into the iTunes library and find some oldies radio stations. No shortage of them, and while they all play generally the same thing, the scope of "the same thing" varies broadly.

You will hear the songs that were popular in the 60s or 70s, a lot of Motown, Beatles, Rolling Stones, the same over-and-over that you hear on mainstream chicken-s**t FM stations. The iTunes portfolio goes considerably deeper. You will hear songs you didn't remember or know existed. Or maybe a cover version of the original. Lots of stuff by the Platters, for example, or Perry Como.

But on much closer inspection, several facets emerge that I hadn't originally remembered.

1. Most of the music from the mid-50s on into the early 60s, or generally anything not Elvis or not Beatles, falls into three categories: do-wop, rockabilly and R&B. It can be argued that gospel, jazz, folk and big band are in the mix. In truth, it's homogenized.

2. Most of the songs from those days were only a couple of minutes long, or about a third what they are today or have been since the MTV video was introduced.

3. A lot of it was BAD. Real bad, terrible. The singers were flat with no range, many of them too young. The studios must have been someone's cannery. With do-wop, a drum is the only instrument, unless it's qualified as good music. The Drifters count here. The Belmonts do not.

4. And the lyrics to much of this stuff is astonishing. Dickie Lee talks of committing suicide in "Patches" and almost all of them plan to get married right after their parents say it's OK. Being "in love" meant so much to these young singers. It was forever, even at 16, and if you messed with her boyfriend, expect a sock in the chops. A ditty called "My Toot-Toot" explores the notion that someone's face could be broken.

Now, not all of it is terrible, but the branding for most rock 'n roll of that time is starkly on the side of the notion that not buying it is the better part of common sense. Lucky for me, the iTunes directory has 80-some stations so I can move in and out of the trauma.

I don't listen to modern music, since I don't connect to the songs or singers. There isn't much talent out there, I fear. But guess what? There never was much talent in popular music. Creative talent, plenty of that. Creative energy, no shortage.

But a lot of it was crap.

This is stuff the local radio stations wouldn't play, depending on where you lived. Most likely, you got your share of movie themes by Percy Faith or maybe even Mantovani. Or (gasp) Lawrence Welk and his orchestra. If your parents liked it, the radio station played it.

I cringe when I recall that Ferrante & Teicher were probably leading the charts ahead of "You're A Nag," by the Halos.

Then again, if you hear them both, maybe the answer should be fairly obvious.

A couple of places you can go to hear this stuff:

www.richbroradio.com
www.radiobop.com

(Image taken from amazon.com in a search for "doo-wop" music.)

Resolved

2010-01-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

I can't say I truthfully ever did make any New Year's resolutions, other than the usual ... avoid prison, pay taxes on time, cut down neighbor's annoying locust tree. Not much actually got accomplished beyond the notion.

I don't have too many resolutions worth pursuing these days. I gave up cigarettes long enough ago that I occasionally remind myself that I used to smoke. I can't even stand the thought of drinking alcohol, though I'd have a beer if somebody offered it under the right circumstances.

I don't have enough money to have the sort of habits that are worth breaking, but I could drop a pound or two. Actually, dieting is completely alien to my lifestyle, so I probably will just buy bigger clothes to meet my needs there. I also happen to like potato chips.

So, I guess it's up to me to concoct a New Year's resolution that is truly worth the time.

Think big, I always say.

See ya!

Asteroid preparedness training

2010-01-01T09:04:00.000-08:00

We give lip service to asteroid preparedness training, mainly because the government tells us to do the drill every year and send in the forms saying we've completed it.

What? Your company doesn't require it?

The interesting notion about space spending is that governments fund their space agencies, who have smart people sitting around deciding how that money can be spent wisely. At times, we watch helplessly as these agencies decide for us what is or isn't smart spending.

The Russians are apparently convinced (or at least one of them is) that the asteroid Apophis is a big enough risk in 2032 that a deflection is needed. NASA people, contacted for support on the matter, don't generally agree. The debate rages in the darkened hallways in little caves and tunnels in places where you need golf carts to reach.

It's maddening.

As it turns out, there are a lot of ways we can be brutalized by the scraps of space matter that come roaring across the horizons every so often. Anatoly Perminov has told Golos Rossii (Voice of Russia) that "hundreds of thousands" of people are in peril unless something is done about Apophis, which could come as close as ... well, hell ... your neighbor's apple trees.

But as a NASA guy said: "While Apophis is almost certainly not a problem, I am encouraged that the Russian science community is willing to study the various deflection options that would be available in the event of a future Earth threatening encounter by an asteroid."

It's comforting to know that I'll be well past my prime when this risk becomes real. I look forward to the moment. I hope the Russians get talked out of their plan to divert the little asteroid. There is so damned little these days that excites me.

Amusing

2009-12-31T08:26:00.000-08:00

The FW ... of emails never ceases to amaze me. It seems that everything goes around and around and back again. This one, however, was new and amusing. It comes from that vast netherland of whobeyons.

The topic was that the people you always need to call when your techno-problems are out of hand are usually in that faraway land of India, where the high-technos are waiting.

This particular photo (one of three but representative) is allegedly from India. And we wonder, the story continues, why we bother.

Perhaps it's better in the suburbs.

Sis boom bah

2009-12-29T09:57:00.000-08:00

I confess to having almost no fan loyalty to the National Football League.

I guess the closest I ever got was in the 1950s when the old Cleveland Browns were on TV every Sunday. Black and white and not much fanfare. Jim Brown was a bulldozer. Other teams, other cities. We got the Browns, or else.

Now, I have no idea which team would qualify as my favorite.

I know one that won't and another that gets my support, just because of the former.

I'm rooting for the Jets this year. The Colts gave up and tanked their game and gave NYJ a chance to make the playoffs. What justice might occur this year if the Jets survive this absurdity and go on to win the Super Bowl?

If you can't root for the underdog, why bother? The Colts are an embarrassment.

Peculiar if true

2009-12-18T22:48:00.001-08:00

This is one of those made-for-CNN stories that just always seems to happen someplace in Nebraska or Kansas. It hasn't fully played out and I'll keep an eye on it.

Kansas girl says Superman lifted vehicle off her

OTTAWA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas mother is praising a neighbor as a "Superman" after her 6-year-old daughter told her he somehow found the strength to lift a car off her.

The alleged "Superman," Nick Harris, 32, insists he doesn't know how he conjured up the strength to save the girl, who didn't require much medical treatment. It's usually called adrenaline. The car somehow backed over the girl in the driveway and pinned her. Other details were not so clear, as to who was driving and how Harris happened to be nearby.

In any case, the cops think the story is legit and believe the girl, whose parents would naturally be inclined to smell a national TV camera crew heading their way.

Or the National Enquirer.

Little Ashlyn Hough becomes America's newest sensation. Fame is fleeting, Ashlyn.

As for Harris, he needs to be aware that the media can prop him up... and drop him like a golfer in a sand trap.

Baseball

2009-12-17T15:39:00.000-08:00

I generally pay attention to baseball, generally because the game is slow enough and patient enough to let somebody like me catch up to it. Baseball is not unlike a soap opera. What happened 30 years ago still is being considered as a part of the plot.

There is a blogger who goes by the handle of riverfront76 who has somehow crunched the numbers (either he did it or he used somebody else's methodology) to construct a list of the top 100 Cincinnati Reds players of all time.

I have no idea how this was done but it includes some guys named Hippo and Doc, Huey, Dewey and Luis ... people who played before I was born. Others, guys you probably heard of.

The No. 1 player in Reds history is predictably Pete Rose, ahead of Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Barry Larkin and Frank Robinson, in that order.

I doubt we needed the list as compiled by a saber-metrics operation to come up with this group of names, though Edd Roush and Heinie Groh are also in the top 10. Huh?

You need to know your Reds history to care about these men. All in all, the list was a revelation and a refreshing trip back through the baseball path. When I got to Vada Pinson, I remembered that ... yeah, baseball is like a soap opera. Not so long ago, it was.

Just yesterday.

http://www.sbnation.com/users/riverfront76

Aw, the kid is soooo cute ....

2009-12-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

There's a battle going on again between some parents who are standing up for the fragile underdog (their own kid) against the evil Nazi regime (the school) and ... by GOD! ... they don't think they need to yield on principle.

It's about little Tater Tot, (Taylor) whose long flowing hair violates school policy. Ma and Pa say the dress code violates the kid's freedom of choice and he agrees, despite being 4 years old and not quite ready for kindergarten politics.

BALCH SPRINGS, Texas (AP) The parents ... are battling a suburban Dallas school's decision to segregate their son because his long locks violate the district dress code. Taylor Pugh again found himself facing in-school suspension. The Mesquite school district is keeping Taylor in the library apart from his classmates because his floppy hair falls in his eyes and extends below his earlobes and shirt collar.

There are significantly fewer episodes of victim abuse than we really believe, but there are as many out there as we choose to create. The kid's dad bellyaches that there has been no effort to reach a middle ground on this. The school says its policy is sound.

I just love rooting for the underdog. Go, Tater Tot, go! Show 'em who's boss. Stand 'em back on their heels. "The day my mamma socked it to the Harper Valley PTA."

Four-year-olds. Today's breed is as tough as nails.

Right, Dad?
Mom?

My Christmas bird poem

2009-12-13T21:10:00.000-08:00

A few years back, I endeavored to create an original Christmas story every season. Along the way, I gave up on that and the reasons escape me. But this is one that I saved.

THE GREAT CHRISTMAS BIRD/2006

Long, long ago, perhaps you have heard

The story they tell of the great Christmas bird.

His feathers were white, his beak it was full

In truth, he was simply a lonely sea gull.

Each winter, they say, more often than not

He’d fly over rooftops to see what was what.

He ranged up and down and from far and from near

Just checking to see if we had Christmas cheer.

He swooped down this chimney and sooty and black,

Crashed in like a dummy, fell flat on his back.

He sat there in darkness, a pitiful sight

Couldn’t tell him from the dark of the night.

No tree in the foyer, no lights in the hall

No holiday spirit, no … none at all

He brushed himself off, aimed for the sky

He’d be out in a minute, at least by and by.

He flapped his great wings, set his compass for North

He’d get there the third day, or maybe the fourth

He had to reach Santa, with no time to spare

So stockings could be hung by the chimney with care.

With ice on his wings, a cold wind in his face

He hoped he could somehow find Santa’s place

He saw the horizon, bleak white with snow

He noticed the ground, four inches below.

In a blizzard he landed, said “That was hard,

I should have sent Santa a holiday card.”

He knocked and he waited, waited some more

Finally, somebody opened the door.

“Oh, Santa,” she cried, “Oh, my precious word,

He’s finally made it, the great Christmas bird.”

Our hero was welcomed with cookies and tea

Which he accepted with unbridled glee.

The bird talked to Santa of places he’d been

Big houses, small houses, those in between

Of places where Christmas would be lots of fun

And of others where probably there would be none.

Santa sat back and rubbed his red nose

Then he got up and went for his clothes

He went to his stable and hitched up his team

Said he’d deliver a holiday dream.

Like a rocket, the sleigh roared into the night

Santa, the reindeer, an unusual sight

A special delivery, not often we see

The calendar read only twelve-23.

Santa dropped in, decorated the room

With lights and a tree to replace all the gloom

“That bird knows his business,” he said with a smile

“He’s been helping me out for a really long while.”

The bird was relaxing with hot cocoa mix

When Santa returned, having made the great fix

The bird said to Santa, “I don’t need a gift,

But when you go back, could I catch a lift?”

Most of us know that Santa is wise

But when we look up to the cold winter skies

We see the white seagull, with soot on his wings

Sometimes it’s why the cheer Santa brings.

Oh, the duckmanity

2009-12-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

This just in from New Bedford, Mass.

It seems that witnesses were abundant and video cameras trained to catch the horrible, despicable crime just as it occurred. Nope, Joshua Linhares couldn't avoid his fate. And well he should not. After all, he was accused, convicted and condemned for ...

running over and killing a mother duck walking her 12 ducklings across a Massachusetts mall parking lot.

Somebody actually counted the little ones. Josh gets a year probation and the life-ending scar of having been ridiculed as perhaps one of the most evil people since the Salem witch hunts of 1988.

Witnesses say Linhares deliberately drove at the ducks, turning sharply and speeding up. Surveillance video from nearby stores supported their account.

Mr. Stalin ... er, Linhares said he didn't see the ducks because he was distracted by a woman waving her arms at him. He says he left the scene because he panicked. I know I would if I'd just run down a mother duck in a parking lot. What exactly did Josh have in mind that fateful day?

Prosecutors requested jail time but the judge was all Christmas-ey about it, I suppose.

Now, this is the part that blows my mind.

The ducklings were adopted by a family and then were released into the wild.

Exactly what did the family do? Rehabilitate the little critters?

You never hear about this sort of crap in places like Yemen or Moldavia.

Don't hear much at all from Moldavia, for that matter.

Quack.

Killer pets

2009-12-05T22:09:00.000-08:00

Consumer group Good Guide contends that Zhu Zhu Pets hamsters are unsafe. They could be killers.

Apparently the consumer group says the toys have too much antimony in them even though the manufacturer Cepia LLC of St. Louis, says that's a crock.

Of course, the toy (aimed at 3 to 10-year-old kids) would be the most popular on the must-have list this winter. Good Guide says it's flat-out dangerous because of the antimony, one of those chemicals that hangs around wherever consumer groups exist. Careful, some of it could be on your shoes.

Or your cat's fur.

Or in the paint that's on the toy that your kid shouldn't be eating.

GoodGuide CEO Dara O'Rourke said his group bought three of each of the year¹s 30 hottest toys and tested them multiple times. Antimony was measured at 93 parts per million in the hamster's fur and at 106 parts per million in its nose. Both readings exceed the allowable level of 60 parts per million.

O'Rourke also suggested the Zhu Zhu's could contain phthalates.

OH NO, NOT THAT!

I guess I'm happy Ralph Nader and his group invented consumer awareness, but if this toy were a box full of plastic clothes pins, would it be dangerous? Careful, you'll put your eye out.

(The little critter illustrated here is copyrighted, so don't be tryin' to make a profit off it, OK? They let me use this one because I am a nice fellow.)

Holiday hoopla

2009-12-05T11:24:00.001-08:00

The annual holiday season comes complete with a long list of "we wish you a happy ...

(then they fill in) whatever, depending on your religion."

Say, just because your religion decides to celebrate the holiday season during the holidays, doesn't mean you have to pretend you give a damn about Kwanzaa, Hannukah, Hoopteedoo, or the more fashionable Interstellar Let's Be Ethnically Equal Promotion of Warmth and Joy.

Better known as "the intrinsic period just after Black Friday."

It is about the money, isn't it?

Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year.
Refinance now while our low rates apply.

Hey, it's the phone company!

2009-12-01T21:36:00.001-08:00

Verizon sends out an amended terms of agreement article for all of us. We are more than just a little happy they made this decision, and I wonder how many witches gathered around the cauldron to construct this major policy edict.

1. If you are on a term plan and Verizon ceases offering service to your location prior to the end of your term commitment, you will not have to pay an Early Termination Fee.

Darned nice of them, I say.

Really stupid awards from dull people

2009-11-30T16:28:00.000-08:00

This is the kind of drivel that keeps the print media alive. When no real news occurs, and god forbid we'd go looking for some, we wait for the annual press handout from an organization that ...

believes bad fiction writing not only deserves to be recognized and honored, but bad sex in fiction is even more compelling.

LONDON (AP) A cringe-inducing passage which compares a sexual encounter to battle with an one-eyed mythological monster was awarded Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction Prize on Monday. The editors of the Literary Review magazine said best-selling American author Jonathan Littell won the prize for describing a sex act as "a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg." The offending passage compared female genitalia to various Greek fiends, including the mythical monster Gorgon and "a motionless Cyclops whose single eye never blinks."

(I guess it's better than calling it a beaver, huh?)
The story goes on to say that Littel had no comment.
He probably thought the whole event was absurd. I know I did, except for the boiled egg part. That was pretty clever. Literary Review people ought to get out and enjoy life instead of reading about it in bad fiction. Then again ... why?

I have no idea why I decided to illustrate this article with a woman holding a coffee mug, other than to emphasize that she is otherwise not wearing a blouse.

PETa my foota

2009-11-26T21:25:00.000-08:00

PETA would be better served if it tried to be slightly more mature.
It's hard to tell which is dumber -- the turkey or the people who defend its constitutional rights.

Also remember that PETA was once on record as saying we needed to use human breast milk to make ice cream because milking a cow was cruel. I go along with that one.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Four NBC affiliates broadcasting the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade are banning a commercial promoting veganism sponsored by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The commercial depicts a young girl saying grace at Thanksgiving, giving thanks for "the turkey farms where they pack them into dark, tiny little sheds for their whole lives."

Allah vs. God

2009-11-21T07:59:00.000-08:00

Another awe-inspiring report, this one out of Terre Haute, also known as ... well, never mind. It seems there's a battle of vocabulary going on between a "horrified" Muslim and a completely clueless Baptist preacher.

The sign outside the Bible Baptist Church was recently posted with the message, "Jesus died and rose and lives for you. What did Allah do."

Saagarika Coleman says she was horrified when she saw the sign on her way to school. She says the message seems like an unchristian challenge to Muslims.

Pastor Bob Parker (said) the sign wasn't meant to be derogatory toward Islam. He says its message simply meant that "the founder of Christianity still lives."

Hint to the Muslims: Get over it.
Hint to the clueless preacher: If you meant something else, then say what you mean.

Santa, baby

2009-11-19T08:15:00.000-08:00

Another AP gem, this time reporting on the Post Office's decision to scrap Santa letters.

This is another zero-tolerance event that reminds us Dilly Do-Gooders of the need to be careful about what we wish for.

I am amused by the entire episode. It's what we deserve.

NORTH POLE, Alaska (AP) The Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks.Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the individual could answer a child's letter, but the Postal Service viewed the episode as a big enough scare to tighten rules in such programs nationwide.

People in North Pole are incensed by the change

North Pole Mayor Doug Isaacson agreed that caution is necessary to protect children. But he's outraged North Pole program should be affected by a sex offender's actions on the East Coast — and he thinks it's wrong that locals just found out about the change in recent days.

Priests and the really big abuse lie

2009-11-18T10:31:00.000-08:00

I saw this obscene report on the Associated Press wire.

I thought it was against church policy to be gay, but all the same, they acknowledge it.
Nothing directed toward perverts in this report, just gays. The "hetero" priests are just as likely to fondle young boys. (Yeah, I know that a lot of hetero guys tell me they have this secret fantasy. Not.)
I suppose the girls didn't get abused. Then again, that's what the nuns are for, right?
Catholics in America really piss me off with their confined manipulation of the truth.
"Many experts" is one of those "trust me" sort of concepts.
And of course, gay advocates have no agenda either. Let them be priests, all.
This entire story makes me sick.

BALTIMORE (AP) A preliminary report commissioned by the nation¹s Roman Catholic bishops finds no evidence that gay priests are more likely to abuse children.
Researcher Margaret Smith from John Jay College of Criminal Justice said the study so far has found no connection between being gay and an increased likelihood of abuse.
Questions about any link had been raised widely in the church because most of the known victims were boys.
Gay advocates and many experts on child sex abuse have long held that there is no link.
The final report is expected at the end of next year.

Welcome to the show

2009-11-14T08:06:00.000-08:00

I have decided to invite my friends to visit the blog. This didn't come as much of a shock to me, once I realized I needed to establish a definition of "friends" that could loosely be associated with an opinion blog.

Blogs are rather curious tools that feed our own sense of security in the world. When nobody else is paying attention, we've written down our thoughts, posted them on the ever-permanent Internet and left them there for everyone to see.

Everyone, dammit. That means you and you and you and the entire population of Nigeria, Switzerland, Rhodesia, Indochina and Budapest. (Where in F... is Rhodesia, he asks?)

Just so you know, I get lots of FW ... emails from my friends, some of them old stuff, some of them retreads, lies, amusing cartoons drawn by folks who have even more time to squander than I do.

If I really wanted to get your attention, I'd post the photos of the Internet model named September Carrino. Women would be offended, I think.

I will post this cartoon instead. I have no idea where it came from. It's not all that funny anymore but if I had a nude photo of Sarah Palin, you'd be either amused or offended. Frostbite huh?

Let's be smug, shall we?

2009-11-10T07:57:00.000-08:00

I came across this bit of tangible drivel the other day and found it worth adding to my up-till-now useless blog. It's from the livescience.com online news journal:

Though you might not be able to run away from your problems, moving to another state could be good for the soul. New research suggests U.S. states with wealthier, better educated and more tolerant residents are also happier on average.

The reasoning is that wealthy states can provide infrastructure and so it's easier for residents to get their needs met. In addition, states with a greater proportion of artists and gays would also be places where residents can freely express themselves.

On average, well-being was highest in the Mountain states and West Coast states, followed by the Eastern Seaboard and then the Midwest and Southern states.

The researchers note that because a state scores high or low doesn't mean you could pluck out a resident and expect that person to be appropriately cheery or depressed. And not every state in the union sits exactly where you might expect on the list.

"We can only make generalizations about groups of people," said study researcher Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in England. "These results don't say wealthy people are happier than unwealthy people, [or that] people who live in areas where people are wealthy are happier."

What is curious to me is that the researcher is denying his own data with this comment. Wealthy people are the ones who pontificate on this stuff and they are the ones who do the research. They justify their own results because that's how they see life. Being happy is the result of being in a system where happy people (meaning: well-paid) reside.

Rentfrow doesn't get it because he doesn't have to make choices that the middle class finds abundantly available.

This is how we pawn off a lie.

Folks who live in trailer parks don't send their kids to Cambridge.

They may not be unhappy about that but Rentfrew wouldn't know.

Seasons

2009-11-07T22:02:00.000-08:00

In story, song and concept, we live out the seasons. They all mean pretty much the same thing to everyone, even if we express them in different ways. I have discovered as I mature that I enjoy autumn perhaps the best.

I think it's just prettier.

I got to thinking recently that if you were given a choice of two months during a year that you could live, which ones would they be? One rule would be that only so many people could actually occupy that month, so if it was full, you'd need to select an alternate.

Most of us would probably choose May, or perhaps June.

I'd go for October, with June a close second.

A lot of folks like the holidays, so they'd go for December. I doubt anybody would select January or February. Maybe February, if you have a Valentine's sweetie.

The worst month is August. It's seedy, hot and buggy.

November and April are the wild cards. Unpredictable but interesting because of that.

September is rather interesting and it's back to school. For the university student, that should be a wonderful time. I always liked the fall. Many of my most pleasant memories occurred during the first weeks of autumn at the university.

March can go out like a lamb it it likes. I endure it.

July would be nice if it were quiet.

NaNoWriMo

2009-10-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

The title rings true for thousands and thousands of folks who think writing a novel is as simple as joining a Web site and coming up with a nifty title for a book.

Then, a month later you cook it and eat it.

Well, it's possible.

The trick is coming up with the nifty title, and most of mine usually end up being one word. My 2007 entry, "Pakwa," was appropriate if you like werewolf stories. Later, I did "Bunny Ball," which remains my favorite story ever for reasons that make no sense to anybody outside this room. It's also two words, so never mind.

National Novel Writing Month is worth a look. It's refreshing to come in contact with a few hundred thousand people who believe that joining a Web site and coming up with a nifty title for a book can actually work.

Ya never know.

Breast cancer

2009-10-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

I find it curious - October is deemed Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Why is that important?

First off, not to diminish the nature of the illness and the need to find treatments, cures and possible ways of preventing it, why is this particular form of cancer more public than some others?

Maybe it's not more public, but it seems to be more interesting. Even men wear pink armbands to play pro football. Kids wear pink shirts to volleyball games and items are being sold with the pinkness all around, all deeming interest in breast cancer.

Second, one wonders if what we see is what we get. Just saying you are aware of breast cancer doesn't mean you plan to contribute to the fund. So you can sell something in a pink wrapper, say you are supporting breast cancer awareness ... and go on about your life.

And, third, I also think men are behind this because it caught their attention. It's about the boobs, isn't it? T-i-t-s.

Cervical cancer doesn't stick out quite as far. We could promote lung cancer awareness, but it doesn't look quite as nice in a tight sweater.

Whatever it takes, I suppose, should be our mantra. Sex sells and most men, be damned, would not want to see their women's hooters dismantled.

None of this is amusing, but it is curious.

I support breast cancer awareness. I hope everyone does.

I also suggest that everyone quit smoking.

Hope

2009-09-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

Hope is a curious emotion, one that hangs around even when most or all of it is gone.

I think we sustain hope because it allows us to connect our future to our present in an exciting fashion. We hope for good things, usually, and in the case of our enemy (or rival, to be more gentle) we hope for either misfortune or bad luck.

Hope, they say, springs eternal. I am more inclined to believe that it's something that never goes away. It drives us to get up every day and start the process of moving forward.

On the back side of hope lies the other version of it. That would be our memories, which connect our present to our past. Inside that are the subtitles of fulfillment and perhaps regret.

Had we known where we'd be when we had all that hope, we could understand our memories. Maybe if we did that, we could make sense of our present.

Happy, sappy

2009-09-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

A recent conversation with an acquaintance about the relationship between happiness and wealth yielded the predictable response.

Money can't make you happy.

This, of course, coming from somebody who doesn't have to worry about that problem.

Poverty can't make you happy either.

What we are about in life, generally, is our ability to make choices. That's why we cherish our American way, calling it "freedom" but meaning something else. What it means is that we aren't required to be peasants just because we were born under the sign of peasantry.

Choices.

Stupid people have stupid parents.

Given the choice, most folks would choose intelligence over stupidity, unless they didn't know the difference. At that point, they'd say they were blessed with "common sense," a vague way of rationalizing their unwillingness to understand anything beyond what their minister told them.

Most Americans ("most" being a term loosely connected to our government's definition) have choices about most of their future. For the wealthy, paying for it is a lot easier. The rest of us queue at a lender's desk and end up paying three times what it's worth.

That's called debt and when we get too much of it, we find ourselves making choices.

The wealthy don't understand.

Happiness gets to pay cash.

Wildlife

2009-09-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

In varying degrees, all forms of wildlife come equipped with a cuteness quotient. I presume that's a form of protection from people. I doubt other animals relate to cuteness. I don't speak for them, but my assumption is that most animals see other forms of life as either:
a. their potential to threaten
b. their general ability to provide food.

In the case of this particular chipmunk, I found him cute. He sees me as an endless source of unsalted peanuts. As of this photo, he'd stashed about 2 pounds somewhere in the back of the yard.
By now, he's taking them from my hand, staring into my face begging for more and is generally becoming my personal rodent welfare case.

But he's small and has a very high cuteness quotient.

Of course he has a name. He just isn't telling me what it is.

As life goes by

2009-09-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we are reminded that we need to be careful what we wish for.
But I do have to admit that a warm Saturday morning in September, just over my house, quietly drifting along ... I wished I was someplace else.

Kitchel had its moment

2009-08-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

Why this stone is curious depends on your origins.
It's from the non-descript, really tiny hard to find and outlandish town called Kitchel, Indiana, about 3 miles north of Liberty just off U.S. 27 (eastern Indiana.)

The school has been closed for years, yet the gym still stands, mocking time, glaring back at the future. The place was once the playground of the Kitchel Cowboys, a high school team from Harrison Township. This monument boasts that the Cowboys won the Connersville Sectional in 1942 and again in 1943.

I have no idea about this team, why it was successful for those two years or how bad/good it was afterward. I recall the last years of Kitchel. They had maybe 80 students, played the game with enthusiasm, and like everyone else, got beat in the sectional.

Except those two years. I can speculate why the gym still stands and probably none of it is connected to those '42-'43 teams. Then again, who knows?

For a snapshot in time, the Cowboys ruled.

Never throw away your memories.

EDIT: I have since learned that both sectional championships, victories over Connersville, were double-overtime wins, Kitchel winning by 1 point each time. In those days, the second overtime was "sudden death." That meant Connersville had taken a 1-point lead in both games. The first 2 points wins in sudden death, according to the rule of that era.

Thrilling. I wish I could have seen that.

Blog journalism

2009-08-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

I am a member of the print media and I am concerned for its future.

I actually fear that it will survive. Frankly, what we do in the name of news is sinful. It's time to let the newspaper die.

Why?

Because it's about blogging now. Writers are writing for themselves, for each other. They're wordy, unclear and far far too opinionated.

The problem is: their opinions are based on the fact that they listen to one side of a story and come away believing it. They write that, post it on a blog and ... off they go.

What has endured as the staple of print journalism is connected to something so far out of date as to be rendered virtually useless.

News journalism as we know it needs to die.

Soon.

Throw the baby out with the bathwater. The editors of these rags can go too.

All of them.

Credibility

2009-07-12T17:07:00.000-07:00

I generally believe that everyone is lying. To be less cruel about it, everyone has a version of the truth. Part of that truth is based on fact and part of it is based on fact as was told by someone else, who could indeed be fabricating the truth.

The nice thing about writing is that truth and lie can be easily identified. Delivery is, however, a manifest of semantics, vocabulary, punctuation and sentence structure. The coach who tells the interviewer that he intends to take his team to the championship game could very well be telling the truth.

Even if it's to watch.

So you need to know which questions to ask.

Men are less inclined to be credible than women for a simple reason, a woman once told me: Men don't pay attention.

I told her that women were more inclined be deceptive.

Now one of us was lying.

Health, it's what's for dinner

2009-07-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

I hope to get myself up to speed on this blogging thing soon and at that time, I hope to share myself with people who can do me the most good.

That would be either a publisher or an agent.

In the meantime, I have an idea or two about a story or two that could be interesting for a couple of reasons.

One of those ideas is about health.

I mean, my own.

Where do I intend to be in the next 4 years, 14 years?

Next month.

My doctor is optimistic.

Sadly, at the end, not much gain is noticed.

What we leave behind needs to matter. I'm working on that.

Once I find a publisher or an agent who knows a publisher.

I think I have something worth reading.

Why write?

2009-06-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

A larger question, if questions come in sizes, is probably why do I write? Most of us write, in a form or other. Some of us put it on paper. Virtually speaking, it's paper, this electronic sheet I'm filling now.

Writing is essentially the organization of thoughts that occur in random fashion over the course of the day, week, month, year. The longer the time period, the less connected the thoughts. In a short frame of time, our ideas can be edited for clarity, meaning and substance. When we think in a sensible way, we are "writing" it down, on that electronic sheet of paper inside our heads.

Writing, as a hobby or as a form of self therapy, should be rather easy, alleging the scope of the effort connects to a useful vocabulary and functional grammar. Putting ideas on paper is useful, even if it becomes a wad of waste, tossed into the trash can.

If it goes beyond that, writing takes on a new meaning.

Real writing is hard work.

But it's worth the work.

I've been writing since I was 12 and I don't intend to stop.

I wrote another novel today, in my head. Tomorrow, another could pop out.

That's seven this week.

Who's Jay Hughes?

2009-06-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

Jay Hughes is my nom-de-plume, my pseudo, my writer's name. It generally means "JU's" and was/is essential because my name and that of the late more famous John Updike were problematic for at least one of us.

Establishing my own identity was more fascinating than I originally imagined, but once the character became upright and slightly believable, he became somewhat charismatic.

Jay is about being honest, slightly confused, a bit on the naughty side and inclined to be clueless to the point of having the onions to "figure it out" on his own.

The character has matured, generally, in the past few years, and I suspect that's along the lines of my own sense of maturity. We all eventually see where we've been, what may or may not be a discernable future and the capability to expect that nothing we plan will always go as we planned it. The adventure is what Jay is about, recognizing that -- in the story -- nearly everyone gets what everyone deserves.

There are seldom real rights and real wrongs.

Just our association with a set of social standards that we believe are admirable.

All societies have them, and we've gone to war with some who thought their own standards made more sense than ours did. Some, we even derided as evil. At the time, they didn't see it that way.

In the case of Jay Hughes, the protaganist, the rights and wrongs are connected to the deeds and thoughts of people who either are victims or beneficiaries. The onlooker is a party to one or the other, either by acceptance or lack of understanding.

If any of this makes sense, welcome to the World of Jay Hughes, who has some curious stories to tell. One or two, you might believe.

Who's next, he asked ...

2009-06-03T08:37:00.000-07:00

To win the championship, you don't have to beat everyone.
You just have to beat who's next.

Having established that, we come across the bizarre world of irony, absurdity and peculiarity.
I love these three words.

I love many words.

I won't go much beyond that for the moment. It's pleasant outdoors and my flowers want to sprout.

The flowers have made that perfectly clear.

Later.