Reflections

As the new year dawns and the old one drops away, newspapers, magazines, talk shows, and, yes, even blogs are expanding the list of "ten's." My local paper had the ten top news stories of the year nationally, statewide and locally, which is really 30 in all. Then there are the ten best people and the ten worst, the ten best TV shows, and the ten we would like to forget quickly. The ten best movies and the ten that went straight to DVD in the middle of the night. Look long enough at little league, high school, colleges and even the pros and there is an endless list of tens just below the surface. My dentist, and probably yours as well, could come up with his/her ten best and ten worst mouths of the year. The possibilities are without limit. It is akin to staring into a black hole. I started to write my top ten list of the major personal events of the year but they turned out to be depressing or fleeting or fell into the "who the hell cares?" category. Just let me say my wife is doing fairly well in her Assisted Living facility; I have our house on the market and hope to join her on the same campus (in an Active Lifestyle apartment) in 2008. Our children and grand children are all doing well. We appreciate the many cards and well wishes received from so many good and long time friends throughout the year. We wish one and all a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

By-pass Japan - save time!

If you are planning to visit Japan after November 20 be prepared for a long wait at the airport or seaport. The country will begin finger-printing and photographing all visitors from that date. This is somehow supposed to increase security in that country. Sounds to me like a real pain in the a**, especially if you have a visa you obtained from one of their embassies or consulates outside the country.

Champions, Again

Jonathan Papelbon jumped for joy after striking out the last batter in the last inning of the fourth and last game of the 2007 World Series. The Red Sox closer got the final five outs in the game played Sunday night in Denver and won by the Red Sox 4-3 for their second World Series championship in four years after waiting 86 years. The flag on the Green Monster honors the 2004 Championship team. Another flag is in order and will likely be unveiled soon.

Why Al Won't run

Al Gore is unlikely to run again (for the Presidency). His ideas are catching on, but people still don't want to pay for them.
"Besides Mr Gore, however, no plausible candidate of either party favours a carbon tax, the most efficient way to tackle emissions. (Chris Dodd, a Democrat, does, but he surely won't win.) Voters prefer solutions that are either cheap or that they think will be paid for by someone else. A poll for the New Scientist magazine in June tried to quantify this, with sobering results. Only half of Americans would favour rules to force power companies to emit less if that raised their monthly electricity bill from $85 (the average in 2005) to $155 (an estimate of the hike needed to lower American emissions by 5% by 2020). And only 37% could stomach a tax that raised petrol (gasoline) prices to $4 a gallon. That would be an unprecedented hardship for Americans but barely half what the stuff now costs in Britain.
"This is why Mr Gore talks more bluntly now than he ever did on the campaign trail, and why no serious presidential contender echoes him. You cannot win the White House by telling Americans that they must pay more to drive, or by telling Midwestern coalminers that their industry must clean up or die. But if candidates do not prepare America for the cost of tackling climate change, the next president will have no mandate to impose it. Now that's an inconvenient truth."
(The foregoing, excerpted from The Economist, October 20, 2007, pg. 48, sums up, in my opinion, why Al Gore won't run again.)

Sign says it all

Unbelievable

So help me Jesus, this is from The New York Times, Oct. 18, 2007: "The Portland (Maine) school board on Wednesday approved a measure allowing middle-school students to gain access to prescription birth control medications without notifying parents." About five of the school's 500 students reported themselves as being sexually active. What are we coming to?

South Carolina's Congressional Scrooges

One need not travel to Washington to learn how their congress person votes on critical issues. The results are announced immediately over the airwaves (and usually on the following Sunday The Post & Courier runs a graph reflecting the votes.) On Thursday next there will be one of these important votes when the House of Representatives considers President Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The President says the current version of the bill is too expensive to continue. He doesn't remind us of his (and other Republican scrooges) philosophical opposition to all government-run health care. (Look up who voted against Medicare forty years ago.) SCHIP only happens to be their latest victim. When he was Governor of Texas, Mr. Bush unsuccessfully sought to limit access to the original SCHIP. In other words he has a track record against helping needy families with insurance coverage for children. By-the-by, during the period 2003-2005, Texas had the highest rate of uninsured children among the states. These numbers started growing long before 2003.

I will bet you right now, however, that the four Republican congressmen from South Carolina on Thursday will again buy into the President's nonsense and vote against needy children and families. They did so when the bill was originally passed in the House, and they voted 'Nay'. They will give a Scrooge-like kick in the pants to needy children, and hope for a photo-op at the next White House barbecue standing next to the 'compassionate conservative.'

It is difficult as hell to understand how Republicans claim they are for less spending and smaller government and yet have spent more money in the six years they were in charge of the White House and congress (2001-2006) than the Democrats did in any corresponding six years when they had control of the White House and the Congress. The Party of reduced spending and limited government has turned out to be afflicted with the same spending-like-a-drunken sailor mentality as any other political party. I believe this has to do with the idea that when you are in power your supporters (e.g. insurance companies, doctors, banks, etc. ) expect to be rewarded. Too bad needy children can't vote.

Waste not, want not

This morning when I sat down with my coffee and newspapers I decided to also have some toast and jam to enhance the start of a new day. A loaf of fresh raisin bread was waiting to be opened. I bought it yesterday with the anticipation of how good it would taste this morning. Right beside it, however, was a wrapper holding only the two crusts from a loaf of whole wheat bread that I have been eating on this past week. This loaf of bread had passed its sell-by date on Mahatma Gandhi's birthday (October 2). What to do? Give in to my hedonistic nature, or remember the words of my late mother: "Waste not, want not. Clean your plate. Children are starving in Ethiopia and China."

In conversations with friends and strangers over the past twenty years since I turned 50 I have been amazed to hear played back to me some of the same admonitions and bromides that were pounded into my head by my mother. (My father took French leave when I was a small child.) I wonder if my grandparents pounded these things into my mother's head? Worst, did me and my wife do the same thing to our children? The burden of it all. Some of these things hack at you more than the Ten Commandments. Everyone breaks one or two of those occasionally but you can tell God you're sorry, do a little penance and get back in His good graces. But the starving children in Ethiopia are always with us. When I was a youngster I could not understand how children could be starving in Ethiopia, a country that whipped Mussolini when he was at the height of his power. But here this morning in the early days of the 21st Century those starving children haunt me still. As a child I wouldn't dare tell my mother (unless I was already on a plane and it was airborne) "send them this food." But I'll be damned if today I wasn't still in the clutches of those anonymous starving urchins.

Into the shelters - not me

Perhaps you are old enough to remember newsreel pictures of Londoners (men, women and children) seeking shelter from German bombs by sleeping in subway stations (the tube in London-speak) night after night, huddled on thin mattresses, fully clothed, side by side, from one end of the platforms to the other, breathing each other’s air. Probably two to three hundred people in each station. Alternatively, you may have seen such scenes in movies.

All this comes to mind as I read (The Post and Courier, Sept. 28, 2007, pg 1AA) the story and view a picture of a 10 acre underground quarry being readied in Huntsville, Alabama, to shelter 20,000 people from the threat of nuclear terrorism by al-Qaida or some other terrorist group. Even if I move to Alabama (highly unlikely) I am not crawling into some hole with 20,000 other people, probably mostly strangers, not one-percent of whom are on my Christmas card list and sharing this cave with them and the colony of bats currently in residence. I only intend to be with 20,000 people in above ground, open venues such as Fenway Park or Lambeau Field. I stopped going to the North Charleston Performing Arts Center some time back because the place - in my opinion - is a fire trap. The 24 rows in the auditorium are too long (they progressively widen from 30 to 66 seats) and lack intervening front to rear aisles to facilitate orderly, expeditious entering or exiting.

Officials in Huntsville are using $70,000 they got from Homeland Security to kick-start this project; despite the fact that Congress cut off funding for shelters after the fall of the Soviet Union and the federal government hasn’t published its latest list of approved shelter in 15 years. What has gotten into these people, those who dreamt up this asinine project and those who funded it? Congress ought to put a stop to this right now before a couple of million dollars is requested and awarded to carry this project forward. Are you listening Representatives Henry Brown and James Clyburn, and Senators James DeMint and Lindsay Graham?

How did she know

Every since I hooked onto the internet eons ago my e-mail inbox has received SPAM messages touting alleged sex enhancement products. Lately they come with an opening line to wit: "My wife complained my Johnson was too small. Look at what I did." I don't do much looking but instead send back queries along the lines of, "How did she know? Who was she comparing you with?"

First sight - only 10 days after Labor Day

I went to Wally-Mart today and while shopping for toothpaste the sound of a child's laughter attracted my attention. When I turned my eyes blinked quickly at the first sight this year of Christmas decorations: Santa Claus, elves, snowmen, reindeer's; plastic and rubber, blown up, some twirling around, ready for your front or back yard and entertaining greatly a little boy riding in a shopping cart being pushed by a couple of women who were enjoying his excitement and peels of laughter. Christmas goods are coming out earlier each year. It is only ten days after Labor Day. Prediction: by 2010 merchants will start the Christmas season on the Fourth of July!

Integrity remains in fashion

Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, might have more Super Bowl rings than Vince Lombardi but he trails far behind the legendary NFL coach of an earlier time in integrity. I believe he also lacks the self-confidence Lombardi had in himself. When the unknown Lombardi was announced as the choice of the Packers screening committee, a member of the executive board asked , "Who the hell is Vince Lombardi?" When he showed up for work, Lombardi said, "I want it understood that I'm in complete command." And he never looked back, and he never covertly spied on the opposition.

Living with solutions is tough

It is 8:10 on Monday morning, the 10th of September. I have been up three hours, read two newspapers, had two cups of coffee, two slices of Rye toast with strawberry preserves and a lemon tart, put in a load of clothes to wash, taken my exercise walk of 2.9 miles, transferred the clothes to the dryer and am now writing this blog, drinking some water and contemplating the day ahead.
Less than three weeks ago Mary, my wife of 53 years, went to live in an Assisted Living facility where there are good people to give her the medical and physical attention she requires on a 24/7 basis. Since last November when she had her first stroke I have been her primary caregiver. The last ten months have taken a toll on her and me, despite the paid help who came into our home five days a week. Moving Mary into Assisted Living was not an easy decision but it was in her and my best interests and one based on medical recommendations.
A woman I have never met, Jo Horne, has written a nine-point "Caregiver's Bill of Rights" and number one is: "To take care of myself. This is not an act of selfishness. It will give me the capability to take better care of my relative." I never thought of this before my wife got sick. After all our life income was structured so she would be comfortable if anything happened to me. That is if she was up and about and could fend for herself and not have to live with the effects of two strokes and Alzheimer's problems.
The days, weeks, months, and years ahead, will be different from any of life's earlier experiences for Mary and I and our family. These are unchartered waters for us. Thousands of others have dealt with similar problems. We can learn from their experiences and the literature in the field - but these are no guarantee for successfully coping.
"There are no perfect solutions for Alzheimer's problems" and today's decision may look doubtful tomorrow. "Solving problems is easy. It is living with the solutions to those problems that are tough." (Duke Family Support Group, Duke University)

Off we go into the wild blue....

The Air Force is 60 years old this year. Congress and the President made it an independent service in 1947, co-equal with the Army and the Navy. I visited the Air Force memorial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Memorial last weekend and came away much impressed. The memorial is a delight to visit and the Air Force band performed in the cool of the evening before a crowd of several hundred. The band members were neat, trim, slender and sharp in their summer uniforms and the music was delightful. Even more impressive was the high enlisted rank held by the musicians. Two soloists were introduced and each had a masters degree in music and song. With this kind of background it is easy to understand why the Air Force has promoted these enlisted persons into the top ranks.

An old friend from my Air Force service days (1951-1959) accompanied my son (also former Air Force) and my daughter-in-law for the evening. It is a new and exciting Air Force today I am sure, but I am proud to have been a member in those early days that were also new and exciting for us. The Air Force is also where I found my wife of 53 years, and we treasure the memories that bought a Yankee from Lowell, MA, and a shy, Southern girl from Georgetown, SC, together.

Sin pays and viewers enjoy it

I was relaxing at the kitchen table yesterday with a cup of coffee and having already gone through the morning paper I idly re-turned the pages until my eyes focused on a rundown of nine well known "soaps". I started reading and soon I was going through all the summaries. I discovered that the continuing story lines are based on seven cardinal sins widely committed ever since Adam was a lad. Each of these fictional dramas has gone on and on for years, undoubtedly snagging a lot of money for a lot of people - and giving a wierd vicarious experience to what has to be a strange, insatiable audience. I recall my grandmother listening to Stella Dallas on the radio, and there was probably a lot of double entendre that didn't register with a young boy, but I don't believe lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride were as openly paraded as in today's TV offerings. And, of course, radio was a listening experience requiring imagination whereas TV is a visual medium leaving little to the imagination.

Hospitality is lacking in some

A small minority in Charleston has forgotten its manners and run attack ads against Hillary in this morning's paper. Tonight the Democratic debate will be held at The Citadel and feature the leading eight Democratic candidates. This will bring nationwide attention to Charleston, the military college and several hundreds of thousands of dollars to the local business community. This is the first time such a debate has been held in Charleston's long and varied history. It calls for all Charlestonians to be on their best behavior and gracious even when they disagree with a candidate.

Not so for something called the National Black Chamber of Commerce (probably made up of outsiders and a few local folks) which took out a full page ad, complete with spiteful, out of context use of photos, to critically allege and charge Hillary of playing politics with AIDS relief. A ridiculous charge on its face. Her and Bill's efforts to combat this disease are a helluva lot better than most other public personalities.
The other, and smaller, ad by a couple of local citizens asks if Hillary will give Obama a 20 point lead in the Democratic Primary since she supports the University of Michigan which gives a 20 point advantage to applicants whose ancestry is considered desirable for diversity.

I am not going to the Democratic debate tonight and tomorrow when President Bush comes to speak at the local Air Force Base I will also stay home and keep my mouth shut, even though I disagree with him on several matters. For some of us, displaying hospitality is not a major sacrifice.

The cat who ignored me

This morning as I was rounding the far turn on my exercise walk I spotted a cat, light brown and white in color, squatting on her haunches on the cement sidewalk ahead of me. She sat right at the line where the sidewalk joined the residential lawn still wet from the night's rain. She stared straight into the street. As I got closer she turned only her head 90 degrees to the right and looked briefly at my ankles. Satisfied that I was not a four-legged threat she turned back to the left and continued staring into the street. I passed and she did not move. After about ten feet I looked back; she had not moved nor turned her head again. I felt like a commoner passing the royal coach whose Queen would not acknowledge her subject with so much as a glance.

Aim and Fire for $50 mil

A newspaper story this morning reports German people lifting a beer or lingering over a strudel at dessert are likely debating the question if a German soldier sees Osama bin Laden should he arrest him, call an American or aim and fire? Germans remain sensitive to the callous disregard for human life during the Hitler years and don't want to be seen as instant life-takers. In this scenario, however, let's give the whole German nation absolution in advance and urge option three: aim and fire. In fact, if Osama is with some of his buddies throw a grenade and take out the whole bunch. I believe the $50 million reward the American congress has offered for Osama would be payable to a German. As a public service a picture of the $50 mil target is shown here.

For two dollars

"A young man walking up the stairs to a bordello encounters his father coming down the stairs, "Dad" he says, "What're you doing here?" "For two dollars," his father replies, "why bother your mother?" (Joseph Epstein, reveiwing Sin in the Second City, The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2007, pgP8.)

Mail delivery could be cut, curtailed

The federal government's three primary duties are: defend the shores, deliver the mail and get the hell off our back. Now if they are going to stop delivering the mail (AP story, The Post & Courier, Sat. July 7, 2007) then we ought to see a major reduction in our taxes, not that paltry average $34 we got the last time we were supposedly unburdened.

Happy Holiday

Happy Independence Day to one and all. No matter what comes or goes, America is the greatest place of all!

Oceans 13

It is Sunday morning. I have taken my exercise walk. It is humid this morning and the real feel temperature will be 105 around noontime. On my walk I thought about last night and I am embarrassed that a man of my age would fall for the latest hype, glitz and glamour of Hollywood. I went to see "Oceans 13," the Clooney, Pitt, Damon, etc. sequel to the sequel. What a farce. What a waste. Better I stayed home and washed my socks. (That's a question the CIA asks applicants: would you rather go to a party or stay home and wash your socks?) No one in the film ever breaks a sweat. Geppetto, of Pinochhio fame, could have made wooden dummies for this film. Al Pacino is the bad guy, Willie Bank. He screwed a friend of the Danny Oceans' (Clooney) gang. There is something about men who "shook Sinatra's hand" are not supposed to screw each other. What passes for action is a bunch of guys sitting and standing around talking about taking "revenge" on Pacino (who in any other crime scenario would have shot the lot of them.) Julia Roberts (congratulations on the new baby) is to be admired for having the good sense to stay out of this "Oceans" film. She was in the two earlier films. Ellen Barkin, a one-time sex pot in films and on TV, sadly comes across as a post menopausal broad with large mammilla and she gets turned on because Matt Damon has some scent around his neck. It is hard to believe Barkin and Damon (think mother and son) in a sex scene. The music is good, "Lara's Theme" is part of it. The best, however, is the ending when we hear Sinatra sing "This Town."

Patriotism and getting the message across

Two lawyers for the ACLU, Steven Watt and Ben Wizner, write in a letter in The Wall Street Journal (June 19, 2007, pg A15) that "defending human rights...is not an act of disloyalty in a nation committed to the rule of law" and that recent Supreme Court decisions squarely repudiate the government's position in three 'war on terror' cases. These are not cases involving mere legal technicalities but violations of American core values, according to the writers.

Americans are pre-occupied with salesmanship. Case in point. Gen. David Petraeus, the Army's top man in Iraq, says that sending military officers to civilian universities for Ph.D study opens their mind to four or five sides of an argument. A retired Lt. Colonel says anything beyond a Masters degree risks hurting an officer's battlefield judgement. He says such training led another Lt. Colonel to leave out of a counterinsurgency manual what he felt was an effective tactic: strapping dead insurgents to the front of tanks for locals to see.

# of book readers declining?

Has anyone but me noticed that Time and Newsweek do not regularly have a "Books" section any longer? Both mags review movies and have something called "Culture." I am not sure exactly when "Books" officially disapppeared but after searching several back issues of the two magazines its disappearance is obvious. Perhaps my not missing "Books" earlier exemplifies why it is missing. According to a recent article I read, many daily newspapers have also cut back on the space they devote to book reviews, especially in their Sunday editions. Does this mean the number of book readers is declining? Are TV, CDs and DVDs eclipsing the printed word? I hope not.

Al is on the job

The Paris Hilton saga gets more bizarre. This week, the Rev. Al Sharpton will meet with the sheriff, (who released Paris to home confinement for some unexplained medical reason before she was ordered back to jail by the sentencing judge,) to insure that all prisoners - not just the rich, but the poor, the wretched refuse and the tempest-tost - will get the same consideration if they suffer from unexplained medical problems. Only in America! Ain't this a great country?

Back in the slammer again

Remember Gene Autry's theme song, "Back in the saddle again"? The judge who sentenced Paris Hilton to jail originally must have been humming that as he ordered her back to jail - overturning a decision by the sheriff's office to let her serve her sentence at home. Following my blog item on her release from jail, I heard from four readers to wit:

Money talks in America

I for one am so relieved that poor Paris will do the rest of her time from home. I understand that shecould not even use a face moisturizer during her confinement. Perish the thought.

PLUS--they gave her a whole day off her time for Sunday, when she arrived just before midnight, and yesterday, when she left just after midnight!! So after spending 3 days in the slammer, she gets credit for having served 5. Yikes! Preferential treatment, who would have thought?!

It’s been standard knowledge for many years with working people that the law is made for the poor. Very few rich serve time and if they do, it’s in a luxury prison such as one at Elgin AFB and another one I know of in Louisville, Ky. They have them all over where the VIP's go. I hope the Judge tomorrow makes her serve her time. Otherwise, if I am ever sentenced I will tell them I may not be as rich but I'm a much better person than the tramp called Paris and want the same sentence she got.

California - A Soft Touch

So Paris Hilton, celebrity prisoner of the week, has been released to home confinement after only a couple of days in the lockup in Southern California. Reports are she cried her heart out all the time she was in her 8 x 10 cell, (with commode and sink.) I worked for six years in the South Carolina Department of Corrections and crying never got an inmate a release nor anything else.

Gone with the wind

The storm during the night of June 2, 2007 took this branch off a neighbor's tree (Bradford Pear) and brought it down on mail and paper boxes on the roadside. The good neighbors, Randy and Judy Burbage, have already cleared the road.

Upgrade is truly an upgrade

Lowcountry blogroll, a daily compilation of the offerings of bloggers in and around Charleston (aka: The Holy City) and the South Carolina "Lowcountry", has undergone a simple, sharp, clear, open-faced, easy to read upgrade. The sidebar listing of linked Lowcountry blogs has been doublespaced and moved to the left side of the frame; this permits American's natural reading practices to kick in. Bloggers in other parts of the country and the world can get fresh insights into Charleston and Southern ways via Lowcountry blogroll.

Ted Kennedy - A Little Republican Respect

In a recent speech to a Mississippi civic group, Sen. Trent Lott brought up Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's role on important domestic legislation, including Kennedy's latest push to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.
When Lott was finished, a man in the audience came up to him and said: "You did real good. But that part about Kennedy -- don't say that no more."
"He is the number one boogeyman for conservative Republicans," Lott said later of the longtime Democratic senator from Massachusetts. But, Lott added, "he is a good legislator, and you can't take that away from him." Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, May 30, 2007; A11.

Catch 22, Texas Style

Down in Austin, Texas, a majority of the State House of Representatives is highly dissatisfied with the speaker and would like to replace him. To oust the speaker before his term is up, a lawmaker must make a parliamentary maneuver known as a motion to vacate, and a majority of the House must vote in favor of it. It's called a privileged motion, and a lawmaker must be recognized by the speaker before he or she may speak to the House to make such a motion. The speaker won't do this and claims there is nothing anyone can do about his refusal. The House members were yelling and screaming and fighting with the speaker Friday night until about 1:30am Saturday morning. The parliamentarian and his deputy reportedly resigned.

Who puts these lists together

Some people have the knack for getting right to the bone. Consider Mr. Benjamin Woods of Menlo Park, California. Time published a list of who it considers the 100 most influential people in the world. In Letters to the Editor some agreed, others disagreed and a teacher, understandably, bemoaned the absence of any educators on the list. But Mr. Woods had the last say: "These are supposedly the 100 most influential people in the world, but not a single professional bowler? Who puts these lists together?"

Is it worth it?

A news report tonight said scientists have proven mice can re-grow hair and this offers hope to men losing (or who've lost) their hair. It may not be worth pursuing, however, if you have to grow a tail, crawl around on all fours and rummage around garbage dumps.

The evil ones

David Letterman: "They had another Republican candidate presidential debate last night. Did you see those guys? Did you see the Republican candidates? I mean, they looked like the evil law firm in a John Grisham movie."

Faced with defeat GOPers will desert

A group of 11 moderate Republican congressmen went to the White House yesterday and told President Bush and some of his closest advisors the war in Iraq is hurting GOP chances at the polls in November 2008. Unless the situation improves by late summer or early fall he will begin to lose big support in the House of Representatives, they said. The one cardinal rule all politicians follow is "survival." You can bet your best underwear that any Republican congressman being challenged in November will jump off the ship in a heartbeat when faced with voter disfavor over continued support for a civil war. If the Iraqi assembly takes two months off this summer it is a foregone conclusion the situation in the fall will be no better than it is now: miserable. Our SC 1st district congressman, Rep. Henry E. Brown, was not among the moderates at the meeting. He has been issuing press releases accusing Democrats of undermining the troops in Iraqi by refusing to give President Bush another $100 million without strings. He ignores the fact that the Pentagon has enough money to keep things going well into July and a bi-partisan deal is in the works to provide funding through September when the next appraisal of the war will be made.

The three Cs.....

Something smells. Is it coincidence, collusion or conspiracy that the three strips on the front page of the Sunday comics (The Post & Courier, May 6, 2007) were each about dogs. I have nothing against dogs so long as they stay at home and off my lawn when nature calls. Charles Schultz is dead and the paper is running Classic Peanuts so we can't drag him before the court of public opinion. The other two need close watching. Jim Davis is the creator of Garfield and Lynn Johnston does For Better or For Worse. This is not the first time the leading three strips have had similiar themes on the same day. I don't believe in coincidence any more than I do the Easter Bunny (no Jelly beans arrived at my house this year until after Easter when I bought some on sale at Wal-Mart.) Collusion is a concept better associated with Exxon executives than cartoonists and conspiracy is a Washington beltway trait. Nevertheless this is a matter for serious attention among comics readers and if it happens again soon it might warrant a call to Homeland Security or Al Sharpton, which ever number is in your rolodex.

How success is measured

I thought David Letterman had the best line: the government hasn't caught Osama yet but they caught the madam who was allegedly running a network of hookers. And, one might add, they also have not caught James "Whitey" Bulger.

Death by gunfire

"Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century. In 2005 more than 400 children were murdered with guns."
If these two sentences from The Economist, April 21, 2007, (pg 11), don't surprise, shock, enlighten, and make you wonder if we will ever come to our senses about guns in America, then you must be brain dead or callous to the extreme.

Disappointed at dinner

Last night I took a party of seven to the Outback in North Charleston and came away disappointed with the food. This was my favorite restaurant in the North Area for years. For openers the bloomin' onion was overcooked or fried in grease long past its shelf life. It was dark brown and hard, almost brittle, more so than I ever recall.

I ordered my usual - the New York Strip Steak, which is usually rectangular and anywhere from 7/8s to and inch and a half thick (depending on the quality of the restaurant) with a thin strip of fat along one side. (See picture from www.lacensebeef.com/shop/steaks/new-york-strip).

The steak I received was flat like a small pancake and about one-half inch thick, more like a sirloin or rump steak. I sent it back and several minutes later a woman supervisor brought me another identical steak. When I complained this was not a NYSS she told me it was and it looked as it did because of the way I ordered it: "medium well, with just a slight touch of pink in the middle". In 50 or so years of eating New York Strip Steak, I never heard this idiotic comment before.

Food probably lousy, but bombing?

A bomb exploded in the Iraqi Parliament's cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone Thursday, killing eight people including three lawmakers.
The attack came hours after a suicide truck bomb blew up a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.

The little engine who could

In France the railroad set a record of 357.2 mph for a train zipping through the countryside from Paris to Strasbourg as Frenchmen cheered along the route. In Hanahan, SC, where I live, the total speed for the three to six trains a day plodding through the countryside doesn't reach 357 mph, as drivers wait at the crossing and file their nails. (The Japanese hold the record for train speed having reached 361 mph some time ago.)

As if we did not.......

As if we did not have enough distractions in traffic, now there is news of a cell phone on which the almost brain dead can watch any one of hundreds of inane offerings on some two to three inch screen. DVD players are already in cars, though usually for viewing by children in the back seat. There is a serious effort underway to take phones to the next level: real-time TV shows. For several weeks now when I stop at traffic lights I look to the left and right of me to see if drivers of other cars are on the phone. The vast majority of them are. I can hardly wait until they can watch some TV show. And how thrilling will it be for all of us when the mentally challenged speed across the Ravenel Bridge at 95 miles an hour while watching some NASCAR event live from Florida.

The ? of a pardon

After Dick Cheney resigns the vice president's office then President Bush ought to pardon Scooter Libby. We need a quid pro quo.

SecArmy and Walter Reed Commander fired

(Photograph postcard, ca. 1930s.)

The Army briefly stiffed wounded servicemen late this week but on Friday Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and President George Bush struck back and kicked Army Secretary Francis J Harvery out of office and fired the one-day temporary commander at Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, who had been in charge there in the 2002-2004 period. Kiley recently put down the Washington Post revelations of horrific living conditions and complaints of veterans and parents and others about inadequate services to wounded servicemen returning from the battlefield as one-sided and inaccurate.
My earlier blogs on Walter Reed include: Feb. 24, March 1, and earlier today, March 2, on the shocking appointment of Kiley who veterans groups and others said had been told about some of the problems as far back as 2004.
All over America people are upset about the situation at Walter Reed. It's incredibly arrogant that Harvey and top Army generals allowed Kiley to be put back in charge of Walter Reed. Did these dummies believe Americans would sit still for such goings on?

Army to wounded - take this

The Washington Post reports in a front page story that the "appointment of Kiley, (Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Command), who had earlier been the facility's commander (2002-2004), surprised some Defense Department officials because soldiers, their families and veterans' advocates have complained that he had long been aware of problems at Walter Reed and did nothing to improve its outpatient care." The Washington Post criticizes Kiley in an editorial: "The evidence compiled so far suggests that Gen. Kiley has been more complicit in the scandalous neglect of Walter Reed's outpatient facilities for longer than Gen. Weightman has been. It also indicates that the Army's reshuffle is really about projecting the appearance of accountability, not punishing those most responsible."

He's gone

The Army brass today (March 1, 2007) fired Maj. Gen. George Weightman as head of Walter Reed hospital in Washington, DC, after troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were found to be living in shoddy conditions and struggling with a complex bureaucracy. Good. Now straighten the place out.

Heads ought to roll

It was absolutely mind-boggling ridiculous that The Washington Post had to turn its guns on Walter Reed hospital to get repairs underway on a building where recuperating GIs are housed. I cannot believe the senior military officers responsible for the terrible shape this building was in could not have seen it until the Post made an issue of it. This is another example of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld Department of Defense having enough money to shoot up three-quarters of Iraq, but not enough for the Army to fix up a rat and bug infested housing unit. Secretary of Defense Gates (who took over from Rumsfeld in December) ought to fire the senior officers involved. It would be interesting to know if the Walter Reed annual budget request to the Department of the Army included a line item for repairs to this disgraceful building and in what years and, if so what happened to those requests. If there were no such requests for funds made, then the General in-charge ought to be publicly sacked.

David Rattray, 48, dead - murdered by Zulus

David Rattray, 48-years old, master-storyteller of the Zulu War, died January 26, 2007, murdered by a gang of six Zulus intent on robbing him at his home at Fugitive's Drift in South Africa. Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote in 2003 after my wife and I completed an independent, self-guided, two month, driving trip around South Africa:
“At Fugitive’s Drift camp, a small isolated camp in the Karoo (bush country) that uses generators for electricity, we stayed with a dozen tourists, mostly from England and Northern Ireland. One asked Mary at dinner, “When did you book?” Mary said we had not booked, just drove up and asked for a room. (It was the last one available.) Our new British friends commented about “impulsive Americans,” and said they had booked seven months earlier.
“David Rattray, owner of Fugitive’s Drift, is a native of the area. The Anglo-Zulu war is a major event in the long history of South Africa, and Rattray’s lifelong interest. He lectures at the British War College on this subject. On a late Sunday afternoon sitting under trees in folding chairs at nearby Rorke’s Drift, we listened to him for more than two and one-half hours on how 135 British soldiers, on January 24, 1879, successfully held the small camp at that site against more than 2,000 Zulu warriors, some with guns, most with spears and long killing knives. The assault lasted from four in the afternoon until four the next morning. Earlier in the same day the Zulus had savaged the British Army at Isandlwana. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded the defenders at Rorke’s Drift, more than in any other single battle in Britain’s long history.” (see African Adventure-2003 )
The Economist (Feb. 10, 2007) said, “As his stories unfolded, battle-hardened generals would find themselves in tears.” Rattray was a voice for reconciliation in South Africa. Natives in the KwaZulu-Natal called him friend and a “White Zulu.” All the more awful, then, that he was killed by Zulus, who went away empty handed.

No Senate Seat for Bill

The speculative idea floating in some political circles about appointing Bill Clinton to fill the vacancy in the Senate when Hillary is sworn in as president is a waste of the man's talents. The country would be better served if he was Secretary of State in the new (2009) administration. This would apply even if Hillary is not elected, (are you listening Al Gore?).

One man's (blank).....Redux

Viewers added these to the catalog of One man's (blank) is another man's (blank):
One man's junk is another man's treasure. (2 nominations).
One man's right is another man's wrong.
One man's beginning is another man's ending.
One man's charity is another man's love.
One man's solution is another man's dilemma.
Does anyone know what you call these phrases?

One man's (blank) is another man's (blank).

A blog had this recently: “One man’s blog is another man’s message,” and it got me to thinking about this phrase “One man’s (blank) is another man’s (blank)” and I wondered how many such phrase’s are out there. Here are some I have heard (quote marks ignored):

One man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot.
One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
One man’s loss is another man’s gain.
One man’s addiction is another man’s profit.
One man’s woman is another man’s tryster.

If you have others please send them to me and we will add them to the list. If you don’t wish to comment here e-mail them to archinsc@knology.net and I will post them anonymously.

Letters from Iwo Jima

If Clint Eastwood's latest, "Letters from Iwo Jima" is such a hot film and collecting kudos all over the place, how come it is only playing on one screen in one theatre in the greater Charleston, SC, area? There are ten theatres with almost 100 screens in this area.

Pay attention

I guess it is my own fault, obviously paying too much attention to clipping my toenails or pulling lint out of my navel, to keep up with the Anna Nicole Smith story. My appreciation therefore to E Online for informing me this afternoon that: On Monday morning, the Tribune of Nassau published two front-page photos featuring Smith and Shane Gibson, the nation's chief immigration official, lying fully clothed in bed in romantic embraces. Gibson has been widely criticized for reportedly granting Smith special treatment in her application for residency and for allegedly speeding up the processing of her paperwork.

Drinking, judging and watching

Being a water conservationist and a dog owner can be a tricky balancing act. In a segment of the HBO series Six Feet Under a woman living in a cabin in the woods had a sign in her bathroom to wit: If it is yellow let it mellow, if it is brown flush it down. David Frei, in his 18th gig as the on-air commentator for the The Westminster Kennel Club's 131st Annual Dog Show, says that the dogs people see on the show drink out of the toilet.

Given the course of events in the Libby trial it is near impossible to believe the jury will exonerate. Of course that’s what most everyone believed in OJ's trial.

Was I ever wrong back in 1995. My wife and I were in a cinema in Paris (had to purchase reserved seats) and watched several commercials for various products before the movie played. It was a first time experience and I said we would never see this in American theatres. And yet ads in American movie theatres are showing surprising strength, according to The Wall Street Journal, and movie-goers are sitting through them; apparently preferring them to staring at a blank screen waiting for the flick.

Sex plays

A NEWSWEEK poll found 84 percent of adults said sex plays a bigger role in popular culture than it did 20 or 30 years ago and 70 percent thought this a bad influence on young people, especially girls. It is also an influence on older people, including, obviously, doctors. I have been in two different doctor's offices lately and observed seven drug reps making their rounds. They were each female, young, tall, thin, great hair, wide toothy smiles and dressed to attract the eye of even a blind man. I bet the caption over the employment office at their companies reads: Roseanne Barr types need not apply.

Who in their right mind...

A House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is pursuing investigations of fraud and abuse by the federal government and its contractors in Iraq. Chairman Henry A. Waxman, (D-Calif.) said he found it remarkable that the Bush administration had decided to send billions of dollars of American currency into Iraq so quickly after the United States occupied the country.
The committee calculated that the $12 billion in cash, most of it in the stacks of $100 bills, weighed 363 tons and had to been flown in on wooden pallets aboard giant C-130 military cargo planes. “Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?” Mr. Waxman said. “That’s exactly what our government did.” (By the way, no one knows what happened to the money, where it went or who got it in the first place.)

Microsoft's Vista and its critics

I do not have the latest Microsoft operating system, Vista, installed on my PC yet, but I am amazed at the griping by so-called PC experts (who enjoy the privilege of magazine and newspaper columns), most of which involves the continued use of older programs, printer drivers, and the like. Such people certainly ought to be smart enough to recognize the responsibility of each product manufacturer to provide updated drivers to assure continuity of use with any new operating system. When the first system was put in use manufacturers wrote their drivers, why shouldn't they do the update? Program and equipment manufacturers have had more than a year to update their drivers to work with Vista and some have failed to do so. I've used the Microsoft operating systems since day one and am generally satisfied, even though I had to work on some problems. Over the years, I have had more bad meals in restaurants and problems with other equipment than with Microsoft. Some of the complainers remind me of the man about to be executed by firing squad who complained because he wasn't being shot with new bullets.

Gore and Favre - Coming back in 2007

Rolling Stones says that central to Al Gore's "newfound appeal is his impassioned environmental activism, which thanks to the success of his documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth' has made him into a surprisingly cultural icon," and some political strategists say he is biding his time, letting the front runners bleed each other, and will get in the presidential race. This type of scenairo played well for Richard Nixon in the '60s.

On the football front, Brett Favre is coming back in 2007 (for his 17th NFL year) with the Green Bay Packers, a team that may not make it to the promised land in this year - but will give football fans everywhere some exciting moments.

Political trifecta

The Presidential "surge" plan for 21,000 combat troops may actualy require 48,000 when support units are added to the mix; additional costs may be as high as $10 billion this year raising the total Iraq cost to $27 billion over the next 12 months...meanwhile prosecution witnesses continue to drive nails into Scooter Libby's legal coffin, the latest being an FBI agent who testified against the former chief of staff to VP Dick Cheney...Al Gore has been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize for his environmental efforts - a nice thing to have on his resume when he runs for President in 2008. (All of these matters being addressed more fully in daily news reports.)

A gallant lady has died

Remembering Molly Ivins
John Nichols
Washington Correspondent, The Nation, Jan. 31, 2007 (web only)
Molly Ivins always said she wanted to write a book about the lonely experience of East Texas civil rights campaigners to be titled No One Famous Ever Came. While the television screens and newspapers told the stories of the marches, the legal battles and the victories of campaigns against segregation in Alabama and Mississippi, Ivins recalled, the foes of Jim Crow laws in the region where she came of age in the 1950s and '60s often labored in obscurity without any hope that they would be joined on the picket lines by Nobel Peace Prize winners, folk singers, Hollywood stars or senators.
And Ivins loved those righteous strugglers all the more for their willingness to carry on.
The warmest-hearted populist ever to pick up a pen with the purpose of calling the rabble to the battlements, Ivins understood that change came only when some citizen in some off-the-map town passed a petition, called a Congressman or cast an angry vote to throw the bums out. The nation's mostly widely syndicated progressive columnist, who died January 31 at age 62 after a long battle with what she referred to as a "scorching case of cancer," adored the activists she celebrated from the time in the late 1960s when she created her own "Movements for Social Change" beat at the old Minneapolis Tribune and started making heroes of "militant blacks, angry Indians, radical students, uppity women and a motley assortment of other misfits and troublemakers."

The country has lost a journalistic treasure in the passing of this brave and beautiful lady. And that's my opinion.

Why I Blog

I enjoy the stimulation that comes with writing.

The brain is a muscle and, like more physical muscles, will suffer from overuse, misuse or under-use. Reading a book, doing a puzzle, playing card games, learning new songs, and writing are a few ways to exercise the memory and the brain. And all of these things can be done at home and cost next to nothing.

Writing my blog requires me to think about a subject, maybe do some research, learn something new, compose thoughts and put them in logical sentences and paragraphs. Doctors, scientists, and other practitioners in mental health, tell us this kind of mental exercise will help keep the memory sharp. Mentally active people, it is said, live longer and more meaningful lives than those who sleep-walk through the “golden years.”

Frequently people who read my blog agree or disagree and say so, often putting forth new thoughts or insights on the issue. I enjoy these exchanges with people, some of whom I know, others total strangers. Occasionally, a man (judging by the handwriting) from the Charleston, SC, area sends me an unsigned, no return address, letter and dresses me down in intemperate language, casting aspersions on my sanity, politics, and/or heritage. I always enjoy his scribbling and wonder what his room number is at the mental health facility.

Gay Sheep

Among the many things we know that we don’t know all there is to know about the subject is that there are gay male sheep out there and researchers are experimenting to discover why about eight percent of rams choose sex with other rams. Logically, it would follow if one can learn why; perhaps one can amend the reason and turn the rams into heterosexuals. This might lead to some sort of antidote for future moms having male children and wanting to insure they are straight.

(Which invokes memories of Brokeback Mountain: did the two cowboys give the rams some strange ideas or learn from the rams.)

You can learn more on this fascinating, albeit low priority, subject at the PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) website (they are against the experiments), or, for some lighter reading on the sex habits of rams see, John Cloud’s article, “Yep, They’re Gay,” (TIME, February 5, 2007, page 54.)

John says “Zoologists have known for many year that homosexuality isn’t uncommon among animals,” and his cat has raised suspicions ever since he tried to mount a male dachshund. Also, irreverent comedian George Carlin a few years ago sent out a Christmas card featuring a picture of his male dog trying to do the male cat. He called it “Piece on Earth.”

The fork in the language road

Yogi Bera is credited with saying, "When you come to the fork in the road, take it."

Jeff E. Schapiro, Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist, wrote about Virginia Sen. John Warner (R) on Sunday (1/28/07): "He responds to the whims of a state that in his 79 years -- he turns 80 on Feb. 18 -- has transformed from ducal agricultural backwater preoccupied with race to diverse suburban dynamo where, in some neighborhoods, one might hear 21 foreign languages."

This weekend former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, (R), a presidential candidate, pushed for English-only in educating the country's children. To be successful in this country kids "need to speak the language," he said. (The Post & Courier, 1/28/07, pg 16A)

I believe language is going to be one of the major issues of the 2008 presidential campaign.

A WOW feature

When reading an editorial in The New York Times I found this "tip" at the end of the article: -
"To find reference information about the words used in this article, hold down the ALT key and click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry. "
I tried it and it works. This is my first experience with this capability and for now it seems to be peculiar to the Times editorial. How far will this capability spread? What will it take to make it universally available? I consider this an amazing feature, worthy of at least one big WOW!

Can you believe this?

The Boston Globe (1/26/2007) reports "Vice President Dick Cheney orchestrated his office's 2003 efforts to rebut assertions that the administration used flawed intelligence to justify the war in Iraq and discredit a critic who he believed was making him look foolish, according to testimony and evidence yesterday in the criminal trial of his former chief of staff."

As the Charleston vapors lady would say, "Lordy, can you believe this?"

Say it ain't so

Can you imagine the White House making Lewis "Scooter" Libby the fall guy to protect Karl Rove so the president's advisor could be around to shepherd the 2004 re-election campaign? This is what Libby's defense attorney claimed in his opening statement. I imagine some Charleston matron with the vapors will exclaim, "Oh, my goodness." Stay tuned.

Press '1' for English

A Hometown Newspaper

Many years ago an observer asked Tom Landry, then coach of the Dallas Cowboys, what he thought about the Green Bay Packers having their own Hall of Fame. Landry said, "They might as well, they got their own newspaper." This came to mind today when Elsa McDowell replied to a critic of The Post and Courier who complained that The Citadel "does not have a hometown newspaper."
Back in the 1920's the publisher of the Green Bay newspaper told his staff the paper would always stand by the Packers' come hell or high water because if Green Bay ever lost the team they would never get another one. To this day this is the paper's position.
Elsa said the P&C recognizes The Citadel as significant but reports the news - good and bad.

On the obit page

Politicians (and I used to be one) cannot choose on what page the local newspaper will print articles about them. It has to be nerve-racking, however, when you are recovering from surgery and the paper reports it on one of the two obit pages - as was done with North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey today (The Post & Courier, Charleston, SC,January 17, 2007.)

Congressman votes against people's interests

All you South Carolina workers out there earning minimum wage or slightly higher ought to take a look at how your congressman in the First District of South Carolina voted this past week. And those in Medicare ought to look up as well. The people hoping stem cell research might some day lead to a cure to their debilitating diseases would also do well to look at his conduct.
It is not that he, Henry Brown, (R), Hanahan, has deviated from his first term promise to not vote against the (Republican) leadership. This past week he voted with other Republicans (whose leadership in the House was rejected at the polls in November) against the majority passed legislation to raise the minimum wage, to require Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, and to promote stem cell research.
These are bread and butter issues to a lot of Lowcountry workers and one would hope their congressman would have their best interests at heart. Like other legislators who think we are asleep at home he voted for alternative GOP proposals he (and they) had to know were doomed to failure so he (and they) could cover their butts.