Trying to Understand Evil

We had another bizarre murder in the Madison area of late. A 23-year-old woman, Ashley Robinson, two months pregnant, was the victim. A Brandon Skinner, 24, has said he shot her in the head, at close range, with a shotgun, by accident, and then shot her again to put her out of her misery. Four other people, ranging in age from 27 to 18, are accused of conspiring to murder the girl. The story is that they threw the victim's body in the Ohio River: it has not yet been found. The five people have been locked up without bail. The incident is said to have occurred in a remote river bottom that I drove to once, a place that I thought was a little bit of paradise -- instead of the hell these people turned it into.

I said "another" bizarre murder. I'm still haunted by the Shanda Sharer homicide in the 1990s, perpetrated on that 12-year-old girl by four other girls. They tortured this child one night, all night long, sodomizing her with a tire iron and setting her body afire. These children, now women, will actually be eligible for parole not so long from now. Not fair: I am an opponent of capital punishment but I do believe in life imprisonment without parole for certain people, based on how heinous the crimes they have committed. The two most culpable of these women should never be in a free society again -- ever. I fear for the lives of my loved ones should they come back here.

As a once-upon-a-time psychologist, I never understood the nature of evil -- not the kind involved in these two crimes. And I've never been impressed with the explanations of profilers and great psychologists. Why are we so indifferent to the suffering of our fellow human beings?

Sorry, Subject of Smoking Again

Just want to call folks' attention to this essay in the New York Times today.

Welsh Roots

Looking at biographical information on the internet, I observe that Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins were Welsh. Hopkins is up there in my top ten favorite movie actors. I pray that I, as an Evans, am more like him than like his countryman Burton. The two are as different as night and day. I've liked about everything I've seen Hopkins in. An exception is The Desperate Hours remake, so vastly inferior to the original that starred Bogie and Frederic March. I've enjoyed a thing or two with Burton, but it would have been nice to see the bastard smile once in a while. He always seemed to take life and himself so very, very seriously. (I recall E.L.Doctorow, novelist, writing that Dick thought he was important, that his farts were important.) Hopkins obviously does not take himself seriously. If you want to see him playing himself, study The World's Fastest Indian.

I was delighted that the Evans forbears that I know of date back to at least the eighteenth century on this continent, knowing that I have a great-great grandfather named Charles Evans. I really like that name: Charles Evans. These folks were hard-working dirt farmers in Kentucky way back then. Charles was born in 1794 and married Lena Palmer in 1814 in Cynthiana, Kentucky. Lena was also born in 1794 in good old Kentucky, that "dark and bloody ground," as one translation of the name renders it. (Perhaps daughters of the American revolution are not all that hard to come by!) Charles and Lena moved to Trimble County and propagated, among others, James T., my great grandfather, who went away to be a corporal in the "Orphan Brigade" of the CSA, and then came home to beget with his wife Jo Agnes, John Thomas Evans I, my namesake. JTE1 was born during the American Civil War and died in 1916, 23 years before my birth, at the age of 56. My dad did not like his father but the baby, Roy Thomas, said that "Tom" was (1) not alcoholic and (2) was a very loving and not at all harsh father, as my dad had read him. Brother Bud told me that Tom had come to Madison before his death and was fascinated with the horseless carriages and telephones and electric lights of that big city.

Well, I guess Kentucky is far from Wales. One thing the two lands have in common is coal mines, but in the case of Kentucky they are far to the southeast, in the mountains, and my forbears settled in the north, where growing fruit (apples and peaches) and sot-weed (that's t'backer) are the agri-products.

And so to bed.

I & I

I talk a lot about having been in the Army. I'm not a "veteran," according to the official definition, because I was in the reserve, for six months active duty only. I did six years, almost, of enrollment in the reserve, and I was not called up to active duty that whole time. The luck of the draw: my brother Bud was called up during "the Berlin crisis," during the Cold War, "mobilized" for a hot war we might be getting into with the USSR. (No hot war: else you wouldn't be reading this.) For that, he was made officially a "veteran," eligible for VA benefits and all of that.

I'm not. Moreover, I spent most of those years, from 1958-1964, not going to drills or summer camp. (I was never AWOL. That is only the prerogative of Presidents.) Of course I spent two of those years in the Peace Corps. I was nevertheless honorably discharged from the United States Armed Service on 29 January 1964 with the rank of Private First Class. I recall seeing that document many years ago and to my dismay it seems to have disappeared from the earth. My dismay is compounded by the fact that my Army records were destroyed in a fire at their repository in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Oh well.

I recall this and that from my Army days. I just wanted to share with you one little witticism from a drill sergeant (Korean veteran , he) -- the military has all kinds of little acronyms and abbreviations. One is for a short leave: R & R = "rest and recreation." Sergeant Delaney from Brooklyn (who was always going to put a "boot in your ass") said an alternative name for that leave was I & I: "intoxication and intercourse."

Intelligent Remarks About Tolerance

Saw Hate Crime, to wit, the murder of a gay man (Robbie) by a judgmental man (Pastor Boyd). The movie was disappointing for a number of reasons, but the main one was that the enemy was painted in black and white only, with no allowance for shades of gray, and the movie was a failure as a result.

Roger Ebert reviewed this movie and I like some of the things he said:

"Yes, there are plenty of fundamentalists who believe homosexuals (and many others) are on the highway to hell. Yes, they are intolerant and extreme and do not do unto others as they would be done unto themselves. Yes, they talk a lot about Jesus but seem unable to practice his principles, especially those involving charity. Yes, Jesus in their theology is not a spiritual leader so much as their spokesmodel on reactionary social and political issues. To drive its point home, the movie counterpoints Pastor Boyd's hellfire and brimstone with the gentler Christianity of Robbie's church.

"But there are other fundamentalists, a great many more, I believe, who are gentle and humane, positive and well-meaning, and although I may disagree with many of their beliefs, well, there are a lot of religious beliefs in the world and most people disagree with most of them. (my italics) In a sense, Pastor Boyd and his team represent Islamic terrorists, and most fundamentalists are like most Muslims, religious but not extremist, valued members of the community, good citizens and neighbors."

I post this because I need to remind, not inform, myself. For better or worse, the world is not a dichotomy of black and white, it is a continuum of many shades of gray.

ClaraBel Smoot Jones, 1916-2007

Rosie's mother passed away in the early hours of March 2, 2007. Born in Henry County, Kentucky, she grew up near Lockport, on the Kentucky River, eventually moving to Indiana and graduating from Hanover High School. She turned down a scholarship to Hanover College to marry Howard Lawrence Jones, who was a meatcutter and manager for the Kroger Company most of his life, while Clara was a homemaker. They were married for over seventy years. Howard survives her; so does their only child, Rosalie Jones Evans. Also surviving her are her sister, Rosella, and her brother, Edwin. Clara was an accomplished seamstress, making, for example, her daughter's wedding dress; and she was a quite good cook. (She made a great pot of Great Northerns and ham! And her angel cakes were excellent, even for one who prefers devil's food cakes.) Clara's mother was a one-room schoolhouse teacher, her father a farmer. Clara was a character, stubborn and opinionated, a storyteller, devoted wife, mother, and grandmother. She spoiled hell out of her three grandchildren, David, Brian, and Suzy, and they are better people for it. She raised a truly exemplary daughter somehow, who became a nurse and has been involved in ministering to literally thousands of people in Jefferson County, Indiana. She could make her daughter mad as hell, especially in her last years, but all in all she was a damned good old girl. ClaraBel, R.I.P. I'm sure you're up there now giving St. Pete his marching orders!

Only Two Years To Go

You thought I was talking about the Bush administration, didn't you? Yuk yuk yuk, I was referring to the campaign for the next president. Think about it. No, wait a minute. Maybe it would be better not to think about it.

Things have heated up: (1) David Geffen, a Hollywood mogul (in case you wondered who in hell he was) just disowned the Clintons by raising a million-plus bucks* for Barack Obama. (2) Mr. Geffen, formerly a fast Friend of Billary, took the occasion to denounce Hillary as "polarizing" and not to be trusted. (3) Hillary's spokesman said that Barack should apologize for Geffen's remarks. (4) Not unreasonably, Barack wondered why he should be asked to apologize for somebody else's remarks.

Only two years to go. Anyone for Dennis Kucinich?

*A million bucks would buy health insurance for a lot of poor people, many of whom I actually know.

Fog It All

Tonight Rosie started down the street in the red rocket and ended up in a neighbor's yard on the left side where the road curves, her left front wheel mired in mud so bad that we had to call a wrecker to pull it out.

I could not fault her for the error: this is absolutely the thickest fog I've ever seen in Indiana to my recall. I once was stuck for a couple of hours in a coastal fog in California that was about as bad but I think this present one topped the past one. I could not see the road-hazard flashers of Rosie's car until I got within twenty feet of it.

After dithering around about what to do I called both a tow-truck and the cops. Three squad cars showed up (they have to do something for excitement on such a slow night). The first cop was to my delight a woman -- at last little old Madison allowed a woman to break the gender barrier -- and adding to my delight was the fact that said peace officer was really cute. That never hurts anything.

With all the red, blue and yellow flashing lights we had a regular little festival of lights, making me want to break out the coffee and doughnuts to celebrate. Fires and accidents and the like are social occasions for the dear hearts and gentle people here, especially if no one is hurt or deprived all that badly. And you can count on these people to help.

As for the local literati, of course, yours truly being one of that number, it gives us something to write about.

In Heaven's Waiting Room

I like that. Heaven's Waiting Room. A new (to me) nickname for Florida. I also like the alternate name for the Gulf Coast: The Redneck Riviera. Anyhow, it doesn't feel much like the Florida with which I was familiar, i.e. the really warm one.

All the same, it's great. John and I drove to Dunedin this beautiful, sunny afternoon and walked from the small-town downtown to the coast. (Bay? Whatever. Big body of water.) Entertained there by a placid pelican who was entirely comfortable around human beings. He stood on a rail casually taking in the passing parade.

Or at least that's what I thought he was doing because he was turned half away from the water. Sunning himself after lunch, perhaps, and observing the curious creatures so unlike him.

As always, he turned out to be a far better fisherman than any hairless bipeds with poles, lines, and hooks and, they think, superior intelligence. We walked to another part of the pier where a man casted for a few minutes, then gave up his spot and moved elsewhere.

We started to leave. We saw Mr. Pelican on the surface of the water with his pouch distended, obviously consuming a catch. As we were leaving, he flew over to the rail where the frustrated man had been.

I think I heard the bird say, "OK. Let me show you a thing or two about catching fish. Losers."

Oh, John! Oh, Rupie!

Newly minted presidential candidate Barack Obama replied yesterday to the Australian prime minister, who declared that Al Qaeda is rooting for Obama.

"I think it's flattering that one of George Bush's allies on the other side of the world started attacking me on the day after I announced," Obama said of the low blow from Down Under.

Prime Minister John Howard said Obama's plan to withdraw troops by March 2008 would play into terrorists' hands. "If I were running Al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama but also for the Democrats," Howard said.

Obama noted that Australia has only 1,400 troops in Iraq.

"If he's ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq. Otherwise it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric," Obama said.

Obviously the Illinois senator can take care of himself.

But you think there's any chance John Howard and Rupert Murdoch could go to Iraq? They could be foxhole mates. It would solve a LOT of problems. (Hitler was sexually frustrated too.)

Oh of course, it's all true about Barack and the Dems and the Commies and shit. For the straight dope (and a laugh), read this post.

Alberta, Clip Us! Clip Us!

This I eviscerated from the Mount Washington Observatory's Weather Notebook: "You may not know that its capital is Edmonton. You may not care that it's as big as Texas. But if you live east of the Rockies, you've probably heard the name Alberta on your local weathercast. This Canadian province exports a particular kind of snowstorm to the U.S. It's called an Alberta Clipper, and it brings to the Great Lakes much of their annual snowfall.

"An Alberta Clipper is born on the high plains east of the Canadian Rockies. The average clipper then dives southeast, into the Dakotas and Minnesota, and then arcs eastward across the Great Lakes. On this track, a clipper stays hundreds of miles away from the mild waters of the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico. This means your average clipper is moisture-deprived, so it won't drop huge amounts of snow. Instead of two or three feet, it'll leave just a few inches on a narrow track that goes by places like Milwaukee or Detroit. ...

"You'll likely see more clippers than usual during La Nina years, like this one. That's when the jet stream often dives south across the Great Lakes. This year, the Lakes were one of only a few spots in the nation where people actually saw a white Christmas, thanks to the Alberta Clippers."

My recall of first hearing that term was from Mark Eubank, a colorful (for Utah) meteorologist. I thought "Albert Clipper" was Mark's exclusive coinage, since he appeared to be the one who named a hot Great Salt Lake desert wind a "hatu," which sounded exotic, like the Chinook winds of the east slope of the Rockies, or the Harmattan winds of the arid northern region of Nigeria, or the Santa Anas from the Mojave -- but turned out to be "Utah" spelled backwards.

Tom Wills, our non-colorful (but my favorite because of his competence in spite of his "pallor") Louisville weathercaster, has been talking about Alberta Clippers frequently of late, and it is colder than blue Billy be damned right now. Last night Stephen Colbert in his Bill Orally guise said, "It's freezing cold right now. See? There's no global warming."

Of course only three days ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued an unequivocal report on the existence of the phenomenon of global warming and was just as unequivocal in attributing it to human activity. And Exxon has offered $10,000 to any scientist who will rebut that report. Which goes to show that we still have the best science that money can buy (and religion will allow).

For some reason, it's always been good for my morale to experience a little winter. I got the snow shovel out of the shed a while ago on the advice of Tom et al. that we are to get four to six this evening. So: Alberta, clip us! Clip us!

More on Molly, Goliath-Slayer

I lifted the following from Paul Krugman's column on Molly in the NY Times today (I'd link you to the column but it's available only for a price):

"[O]bituaries that mostly stressed her satirical gifts missed the main point. Yes, she liked to poke fun at the powerful, and was very good at it. But her satire was only the means to an end: holding the powerful accountable.

"She explained her philosophy in a stinging 1995 article in Mother Jones magazine about Rush Limbaugh. 'Satire ... has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful,' she wrote. 'When you use satire against powerless people ... it is like kicking a cripple.'

"Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: rulers lie, and the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it’s most important to do just that."

That column by Molly was the first I recall reading, and I immediately became a fan. Even when I had trouble getting it online, Mandy would provide it for me in LEO, the Louisville Eccentric Observer. The column had an accompanying cartoon of Limbaugh fitting perfectly into the lard-assed Nazi butcher Hermann Goering's uniform. The resemblance is striking, physically and otherwise. (In case I'm being too subtle, I invite you to conclude that I despise Rush Limbaugh.)

That column, in which Molly likened Rush's idea of sport to "kicking a cripple," was inspired in part by Rush's stunt on his (now happily discontinued) TV show: he said that the Clintons had not only a cat (remember Socks?) in the White House but also a dog. Silence. Then he held up a picture of Chelsea Clinton. She was thirteen then.

I know that there are two parallel universes of American politics. But I can't imagine that Al Franken, the nearest counterpart to Rush in this, the good universe, would ever attack Barbara and Jenna Bush (who some would not hesitate to call the First Sluts). It's conceivable that Al would poke fun at them now, but they are, as many a blogger likes to say, quite eligible to serve in Iraq instead of globetrotting and carousing and making ugly faces at photographers, and, at their age, fully capable of defending themselves.

I've always favored the underdog, and Molly always took on George Dubya Shrub, from the time he was top dog in Texas, pointing out his mange, rabies, and distemper, in spite of his supposed pedigree. Molly was the David to his Goliath.

I urge whomever might read this drivel to reflect on what Krugman said was one of Molly's "eternal truths": "the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it’s most important to do just that."

What are we waiting for? Let's have an impeachment -- a series of them. And let's not make them "non-binding."

Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

The little circle of my readers, I think, know how fond I have been of Molly Ivins. Here is her obit -- a surprise to me -- in the NY Times and a really sweet one by Arianna.

Here, also, is her last column.

Molly Ivins. Truly a national treasure.

Belated Kudos

It had been only three weeks after I'd had major surgery when Stephen Colbert made his roast of George W. Bush and of the press at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on April 29, 2006. So it is quite belatedly that I finally watched that 21-minute performance on the internet, read the excellent entry about it in Wikipedia, and have now watched it several times.

Of course it won't happen with this president, but awarding Stephen with the Medal of Freedom is entirely in order.

Stand Down, Lt. Bush

Please read the op-ed column by Gary Wills in today's New York Times about the distinction of "commander in chief of the US armed forces" and "commander in chief of the US," including each and every civilian. The current CIC probably doesn't understand the distinction. Or if asked, he would say what he said about Saddam's having weapons of mass destruction as contrasted with being suspected of having the capacity to make WMDs: "What's the difference?"

Have you ever been in the army? Having that man--or anyone, for that matter--as your military commander as though you were conscripted into some kind of militia is a terrifying thought. In the military, dissent is mutiny. You can be hanged for that -- or shot, under battlefield conditions. In this simplistic, my-way-or-none mentality that has come to prevail, it's either you're as safe as if you're clearing brush in Crawford or you're breaking down doors in Baghdad. With us grunts, it's the latter. We're in combat. All of us. Therefore we can have G-2 (military intelligence) secrecy instead of full disclosure. We can have unwarranted searches and seizures. When we are commanded, we have the option to salute and move out or go to the brig. Or the firing squad. For the duration.

It's going to be a long war.

TV Commercials

"The standard half-hour of television contains 22 minutes of program and 8 minutes of commercials - 6 minutes for national advertising and 2 minutes for local. ... Highly-watched programs can command rates in the millions of dollars. For example, a 30-second spot during the 2005 Superbowl sold for $2.4 million. Commercials during less-watched programs are more affordable, but the cost of those commercials may still run in excess of $100,000 per 30-seconds." from Gaebler Ventures

I watch entirely too much commercial TV. I'm "watching" now as I write this and the fare at the moment is not very appetizing: Keith Olbermann and Maria Milito are ridiculing the contestants and judges on "American Idol." A show the viewing of which I've never had the pleasure. I do not arrogate superiority to myself for not having watched it. I confess that I watch a lot of commercial TV -- mea culpa.

TV from the consumers' viewpoint is a medium for entertainment and information. From the entrepreneurs' perspective, TV is money. Come to think of it, considering today's "free market," I find it remarkable that there aren't double or triple the commercials there are. I suppose diminishing returns would take their toll after a while: there are people who would watch TV if it were 75% commercials but I suspect they wouldn't have much buying power -- correlating to their lack of intelligence -- therefore the industry folks run as many commercials as they can. It's supply and demand -- wouldn't that be it? As I've confessed, I'm far afield when I dabble in economics.

When there's something on TV I really want to watch, that figure of 25% or so seems quite small. But I'll take the quotation above as accurate. I've often taped TV shows and FF'ing through the commercials it takes forty-some minutes to watch the show. Yet, I remember TV in the fifties, and one-minute commercials then occurred about every fifteen minutes. The good old days are gone, long live the good old days. On the other hand, there was no cable then (that is partly why Madison kept such a large part of its historic district intact, in my theory), no remotes, and no VCR/DVDs. Things have their tradeoffs.

So what's to be done about commercials? Enjoy them, I guess. At least some of them. At first I didn't like the one with the insomniac, Abe Lincoln, the beaver, and the astronaut. Now I look forward to seeing it. I also like the offended Seinfeldian caveman and the cockney Geico gecko. My favorite of last year was the elephant dancing to "Singin' in the Rain."

My favorite one right now is the one for The Nation, the print magazine for these times. It wasn't expensive to make, I'd guess (other than, perhaps, having Sam Waterston as the unseen narrator). It's just front covers maneuvered by computer graphics, I guess, with the assurance that there's "no White House spin, just the straight dope (W's face always appears at the utterance of that word) and it contains "that famous media liberal bias." Covers have included W. as Alfred E. Neuman (the resemblance is striking) and W. with a long Pinocchio nose. That's my favorite.

Mundane Musings

The wife can be droll. Neighbors and family give her amusement. Mother Jones (doesn't print much news but does raise hell) is a hoarder and a clutterbug. Karletta, M.J.'s grandson's girlfriend, who's really a can-do person, has been hired to help Mrs. Jones (a nonagenarian) with housekeeping. The other day Karletta removed three 42-gallon garbage bags of groceries that needed removal (bulging cans? oozing? -- you get the idea).

After all that, an inventory revealed there were still sixteen cans of green beans. Prompting Rosie to sing:

Sixteen cans and whaddaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St Peter don't-cha call me cause I can't come,
I owe my soul to the old folks' home.

Later, she reminded me of two neighbors. One is a man who was found to be keeping a horse in his house. The city finally persuaded him to find Dobbin a nice pasture. No charges filed, commitments to the insane asylum, or anything like that. The other is a gentleman who for a while was riding his bicycle around the drive, a back pack on his back, waving to one and all. What is strange about that, you ask? The man was naked. Yep, not a stitch.

This evening we watched Written on the Wind (1956), which neither of us had seen. I was reminded of The Carpetbaggers (I'd actually read the novel by Harold Robbins in my drinking days, when I was a lot more masochistic than I am now). It also reminded me of the nighttime soaps, Dynasty and Dallas, which I didn't watch but heard enough about.

Written on the Wind is a melodrama, and it is hilarious. Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, and Robert Stack were perfectly casted and a hoot. Everything -- acting, dialogue, scenery, the fantastic score by Frank Skinner, and of course the quite nice song in the opening titles sung by the Four Aces, were perfect. And perfectly ridiculous. It makes me want to watch Some Came Running again, for laughs.

Hoo Wee, Hoo Ray and Yay Raw for the Methodists!

One of my favorite monologues of the movies is when Hedley Lamarr dictates to Taggart the list of dangerous outlaws and criminals for his SURGE into Rock Ridge:

"I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists."

Methodists. Methodists?

Well, I don't know about the laity of the (mainline) Methodists, but what some of the Methodist preachers are doing is priceless!

Check this.

Courage to Change the Things I Can: Impeachment

Friends and loved ones, it is time for all good people to act.

In spite of all our material blessings and this wonderful land and freedom to come and go and privacy and civil rights as long as we conform and don't rock the boat, we are now a nation with a man -- two men -- who are determined to defy the will of the majority and usurp more and more power and privilege and secrecy, imperiling this nation. We are fast approaching a dictatorship.

Gary Hart sums up the status quo well:

"The endless Iraq war is decreasingly about Iraq and increasingly about the U.S. Constitution.

"President Bush's decision to escalate the war, and to further Americanize it, is based on his flawed and dangerous theory of the 'unitary presidency,' a theory under which, once war is declared, the president as commander in chief can ignore constitutional checks and balances, disregard the bill of rights, suspend accountability, and concentrate dictatorial power in his own hands."

[Huffington Post, 1.9.2007]

We can act as individual citizens to initiate the impeachment of George W. Bush. I have decided to do just that. The means is laid out in this link. Please explore this option. I am as serious as I can be. I implore you: please consider this action. Read all of the procedure and the arguments for and against impeachment. Then act.

You can make an individual petition yourself. All that is involved is downloading, printing, and filling out the form and mailing it to Nancy Pelosi. Even if there were a great deal more involved than this simple procedure, I am convinced that it is the just, honorable, sane, and moral thing to do.

And urgent. We need to do it now. We can hang out and pretend that initiating impeachment is something reserved for the lunatic fringe, for Cindy Sheehan (I don't believe Cindy, who lost a son in Iraq, is crazy, but Fox and Friends have said she was) and Michael Moore (yep -- he's fat and needs a shave, but he's right on this one), for the lady with the frivolous sign at the rally, for celebrities who are not making asses of themselves otherwise.

But I say the situation has gone much further than that. Senator Ted Kennedy gave a speech yesterday at the National Press Club about a bill he is introducing "to reclaim the rightful role of Congress and the people’s right to a full voice in the President’s plan to send more troops to Iraq."

In the speech, Ted read quotations which he had to identify as those of Lyndon Johnson because they were indistinguishable from the remarks of Bush. "We shall stay the course" is not original. Ted said that "Iraq is Bush's Vietnam."

Now, that Vietnam. I didn't go there, thank God, but I was here and aware of what was going on. I had completed my Army Reserve obligation by the time of the first big escalation, and was already crazy enough from my Peace Corps experience! But I was here, and I soon began to oppose it. I was a lefty and a peacenik and a hippie (without the appearance of one), so I was in the vanguard. It was a long, long time before the rank and file opposed it, before we finally concluded that over 58,000 American lives weren't worth it.

And of course there are those who have never come to the decades-later conclusion of Robert McNamara, the Donald Rumsfeld of that day, that "We were wrong."

Does anybody recall the sojourn in hell that we spent here and there in Vietnam? And how long it took us to get out of there?

JFK started sending "military advisers" there soon after he took office. (We young men wore flat-tops then and there was a universal draft.) Then there was the "Gulf of Tonkin resolution" that LBJ used in 1964 as his casus belli (think of Colin Powell's "aluminum tubes" speech at the UN). Then LBJ chose to quit after his term because of the unpopularity of the war in 1968.

Tricky Dick said, "I have a [secret] plan for ending the war" and people bought it enough without reading the fine print to squeak him into the White House. Then, whatever the plan was, it didn't materialize for the next six years and, while the brilliant Henry K. was "shuttling" here and there pursuing "peace with honor," we started [secretly] bombing Cambodia and Laos as well as Vietnam.

And after Nixon resigned in 1974, we still didn't rescue the last American in Vietnam via helicopter until 1975, during the Ford administration. So we were there for a good twelve years, with strong opposition from I'd say 1967 on.

And the kids then were opposed to the damned war. There was none of this YouTube and iPods and laptops for everybody and what is Britney Spears doing and that kind of crap. These kids were taking it personally. In 1971, four of them were actually shot to death by soldiers at Kent State -- that's a state college, where freedom of speech is supposed to be championed, not punished by death -- for demonstrating against the war. The kids then were beginning to think it was just as dangerous to oppose the war here as it was to fight it there. And the parents finally climbed on board with the kids, after the Kent State stunt.

In spite of all that, we were there twelve years and lost over 58,00 lives. How long is it going to be for Iraq? Four years and 3,000 and counting. Don't forget the billion a week we spend there. Act, friends. For the love of God and America and your loved ones, act.

Do Something!

Dear Baron:

Congratulations on your rightful return to Congress! I campaigned and voted for you and I thank God you’re back -- as a competent, good, and honorable man, and as a reasoning opponent to this wrongheaded regime now in control of the executive branch.

I am enclosing the latest column by Molly Ivins, who warned us before November 2000 of what we would have on our hands as a nation if we elected George W. Bush. Her assessment of what kind of president he would be, based on what kind of governor, businessman, and student he had been, has proven to be dead on. I ask you to take a few minutes to read her column.

I can’t say it better than Molly has, but I will say how I feel: Mr. Bush and his little gang are holding all of us hostage by “staying the course” (although Tony Snow doesn’t dare call it that anymore!), hell-bent on “victory” in this immoral, insane war. “Victory” for him means self-destruction for us.

Because we are surely being destroyed
* soldier by soldier in this Iraq madness;
* dollar by dollar in out-of control spending and favors for the ultra-rich;
* our honor among nations and among ourselves with the closed-minded arrogance and militancy of the Bush gang;
* our civil liberties and privacy, supposedly because we are “in a war on terror.”

The list, I wish I could say, ends there, but of course it doesn’t. I’ve already said too much in this one letter without mentioning our need for
* universal health care;
* campaign finance reform; and
* reversal of destruction of the environment.
For starters.

I love this country and tried to serve it with honor as a reserve soldier and as a member of the Peace Corps. A true patriot wants what is best for his country. Patriotism and fighting a war—any war, including the wrong one—are not one and the same.

* As a patriot, I say: End the madness.
* As a patriot, I say: Get our brave, loyal, honorable, patriotic soldiers out of that shooting gallery, that killing field. For the love of God, please don’t send more in!
* As a patriot, I say: Let George W. Bush and his flock of chicken-hawks go fight their own war for the sake of their own egos.

I no longer want to be a hostage in my own country. This is supposedly a representative democracy, and my one recourse was to vote for you and support you. I want you to tell the president for me that this war is an outrage against humanity, reason, sanity, morality.

Let us oppose this president at every turn. Let us get him out of power. Let us impeach him. One president was impeached for a lot less. The articles of impeachment for George W. Bush would fill a book.

Please help us, sir. You are our honorable man in Washington.

Your constituent,

Epiphany + 1: 13th Day of Xmas

A few weeks ago we bought a ten-dollar fiber-optic "tree," between two and three feet high, for the holidays. It has a cheery little twinkle of spectral colors, especially when the living room is dark. According to tradition, we should be taking it down now. January 6 is the holy day known as Epiphany, and December 25-January 6 comprise the 12 days of Xmas. (Partridge in a pear tree or not. And I'd rather hear "Jingle Bell Rock" sung by Brenda Lee than that asinine song.) But I do love the multicolored lights of the season, and I'm always let down a little when people put their lights away for the year. Seems I recall the perennial holiday lights in the living room of our Ogden friends, Afton and Beverly McKell. Seeing those lights went along with the taste of the little chocolate-covered orange sticks they always had on hand. Which causes me to associate to the chocolate-covered cherries that my Grandma Annie always had during the Yule season.

Anyhow, guess we'll put the tree away until next year, along with Christmas Vacation and It's a Wonderful Life.

Oater Day and Last Laugh

We have coughy colds and the weather has been soggy and dreary. The Frankenstein Drive Moles have built a city in the backyard, and just under the surface they must be riding around in gondolas rather than burrowing.

Today watched too many oaters on TCM: Duel at Diablo with Jim Garner and Sid Poitier (really like the Neal Hefti score!); Bend of the River with Jimmy Stewart, directed by Anthony Mann; Sons of Katie Elder with the Duke and Dino Crocetti (? hint: he sings "That's Amore"), score by Elmer Bernstein;* and Will Penny with Charlton Heston in one of the best performances I've ever seen him in, the lovely Joan Hackett, and Donald Pleasence as a convincing villain. This evening saw Another Woman, by Woody Allen and starring Gena Rowlands. Finally, we saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a wonderful escape and a really sweet movie. Not one ugly moment in the whole thing. Everybody in this is a hero and likable. Highly recommend. I liked it better than Moonstruck, which it resembles.

*Oh yes, Martha Hyer, of Some Came Running, was in the Katie Elder flick, and she was the most ravishing I've ever seen her.

Finally, the best news story of the day for me, an op-ed in the NY Times by Chevy Chase about Jerry Ford:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/opinion/06chase.html

Mars Attacks!

Cool! On Turner Classic Movies. A cross between Dr. Strangelove and It's a Mad Mad ... World. Has cathartic value, affording fantasies of the demise of a rotten-assed president. I'd take Jack Nicholson anytime over the Current Occupant, of course. Or Donald Trump, or Kevin Federline, or Michael Richards, or Danny DeVito, drunk or sober. Alack, must go to bed. It gets even better after this: two Pam Grier movies, Coffy and Foxy Brown. Keep cool, my babies.

2007, and 3,000 GIs Dead

Past midnight. Happy New Year, you guys.

Switched boob tube to CNN and watched Anderson Cooper and a foxy roving reporter (Robin somebody) making happy chatter with the drunkards indulging in their last bat for the year.

Happened to see the running headline at the bottom of the screen:

3,000 SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ.

So it goes.

Happy Hillbilly New Year

It's going on midnight and we're watching and listening to Emmylou Harris on a live show from Nashville, Tennessee on PBS, hosted by Gary Keillor. She sings beautifully and she is beautiful.

We're trying to make it to midnight. Not that it's all that important. Tomorrow is just another day.

There was a group earlier that I liked best: they had a banjo player who was about as unanimated as I could imagine, still as a statue, deadpan, holding the banjo in one position only -- except if you looked closely you could see that all his fingers, both on the frets and the strings, were moving rapidly and deftly -- and as for the banjo! It just talked, sang, danced!

It will be good to wake up in the morning and be able to eat breakfast. Lord willing.

Happy New Year.

We're in the Wrong War!

The government prescription drug uninsurance program and I just tangled: it was a draw for now. Figuring out what Lobby-gov would cost versus what drugs from Canada would cost for 2007 was a challenge, something like doing my own income tax, and I might have made a big error, as I often have done with taxes. But if I was reasonably accurate in my calculations, I'm better off to ride with the Canadian Mounties on this one. In either case, my drug bill is now thousands of dollars annually; but if I stick with the Texas Rangers instead of the Mounties, the difference will be more than twice as much.

I left a message with the insurance agent that I am canceling the uncoverage. He soon called back, warning me of the cumulative penalty I'd incur if I left the program and decided to come back, and telling me the horror story of customs people seizing Canadian drugs at the border.

The penalty is peanuts compared with the price difference, in my case. But, true, there's a risk of having my legitimate drugs "confiscated" by "jackbooted government thugs." (Ha! Stole that inflammatory epithet from ya, NRA psychotics!)

I'm going to get Canada drugs anyway.

Here is how I calculate the risk: the crowd who brought on this giveaway to the drug-"health" insurance-government complex is on its way out.

At least the government portion of it. There is cause for a not entirely irrational belief that the government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations might not always get its way on this one. The pendulum might just swing back to the people's side -- after it tipped over the whole clock on big business's side.

There has already been word from above to the customs agents to cool it on stopping drugs from Canadian pharmacies. And that was before we threw the elected rascals out! I think the new regime might make some humane adjustments to the regulations now in effect. I'm willing to bank on it.

This was just this joker's skirmish with the Big Boys, the Fat Cats. I guess we're a little like guerrillas, the underground, fighting the Wehrmacht in the war, the Class War. It's us vs. the likes of Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay and Ken Lay, way I see it.

We're going to win.

Xmas Eve with Family

It's been a good day. While Rosie went to look in on her old parents I washed dishes, Hoovered the carpets, and showered and dressed in a red T-shirt, khaki slacks, and a long-sleeved green plaid shirt, consciously trying to look Yuley. Found out that Amanda was free for a few hours this afternoon and so drove to Louisville to visit her. Our reunions are always good and this one was no exception. This kid always cheers me up and makes me laugh. One thing she is good at is anthropomorphizing pets, attributing human words and behaviors to them. Parker, a neighborhood dog (got a glimpse of him dashing across his yard, guessing from his animation and white coat that he is yet a pup), had walked into a school as if he was going to put his lunchbox down and learn to spell. Mandy gave me a button which I pinned proudly to my shirt; it states "Happy Hollandaise." (That's a sauce, and it's less offensive, I hope, than "Happy Holidays," which Bill Orally and John Gobson have made fightin' words to distract people from more important things Christ would have us fight for.) We got some cheese and crackers and ginger beer and vegan "meat"-balls and went back to the apartment where we ate them and watched Christmas Vacation. I laughed harder at it than I ever have, I think. Clark, Cousin Eddie, Aunt Bethany, Uncle Lewis, the scene at the department store, the home movie in the attic, the speeches, Todd and Margo, Snots and the squirrel -- everything was better than ever. I came home and David and Karletta were here and we visited a little while and then Rosie and I watched It's a Wonderful Life. Great Xmas Eve.

A Modest Proposal: Leap Xmas

This was not my idea but it's something I think about every year at this time. By the 1970s, we had shifted several federal holidays to be observed whenever possible on Fridays or Mondays, for the convenience and pleasure of all the citizens.

Christmas was excluded. It had to be on December 25th. It had been observed on that date as early as the fourth century, and from long before the time that North America became a British colony. Independence Day had been observed on July 4th for only a few hundred years and its observation had to remain on that date. Both dates were too sacred to be messed with, I suppose you could say.

An early church father, Origen, denounced "as sinful the very idea of keeping the birthday of Jesus 'as if he were a king Pharaoh.' Thus it was important to the early Christians not to have indecorous parties on that day, but to keep it a time of devotion, reflection, and communion." (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, author of the article unknown)

But Christmas became a Christian feast day in the early church, and it was convenient that the date fixed upon by church authorities coincided with the "pagan" winter solstice celebration, "Yule," in cold northern Europe.

Before any fundamentalists who might read this holler -- or cluck their tongues with sanctimonious scorn, which seems to be more in keeping with their erstwhile behavior -- let me state that nowhere in the Bible, Old or New Testament, is the date of the birth of Jesus explicitly given. So it would not be "unbiblical" for the government to choose another date.

For that matter, it would be in accord with separation of church and state if the government chose another date without consulting with Christians at all. It might hurt some feelings of some church people who like to call the shots. In fact, you might say that you can make book on their raising holy hell, saying to hell with separation of church and state, if the official date were changed for the convenience and pleasure of all the citizens.

But I think it would be worth it.

Which gets me to the proposal a writer made (in The New Yorker magazine) in circa 1970-something: change the date of "Christmas" to February 29th. That date (which the Current Occupant, Yale and Harvard alum that he is, has indicated he does not know) comes once only every four years.

Before you gasp at this modest proposal, let me quickly remind you that the First Amendment protects your right to worship the birth of Jesus the Messiah (translated: Christ) on December 25th. That holiday (holy day) would do what we have been lamenting for as long as I can remember: "Put Christ back in Christmas."

Which means we would have to go through this commercial catastrofreak only one-fourth as often as we now do!

That Toddlin' Town

Zipped up to Chicago to visit Natalie and Jerry in the quarter-million-mile wonder wheels. Started Monday morning, returned this (Wednesday) afternoon. From Madison you traverse the state from south to north, going through farm fields and woodlands, passing through North Vernon on Indiana Road 7, Columbus on US 31, and Indianapolis and Lafayette on I-65. I always get there as quickly as I can, then return in no hurry. The weather was drizzly starting from Madison but was fine when I got to Chicago. I defied the standing warning from N & J and came via the toll-free road, and traffic was dicey with the wall of trucks on either side but it kept moving and I was soon in town. It is always worth it.

Coming up the Dan Ryan, I never fail to marvel that there's a rapid transit system that works, serving the needs of people many of whom have sense enough to use it, running right through the median of the freeway, and I'm always wishing that I could park my crappy car somewhere outside the city and use public transportation. My children in Shy are devoted to riding their bicycles as much as they can and that is a sensible form of getting from A to B too. But even when they can't, they can walk two blocks or so, get on an el train, and go just about wherever they want.

I got off the freeway at 22nd (I think they call that Cermak Road, named after a mayor; I used to give directions to natives when I lived there at age 19, but I've begun to slip a little on remembering all the street names). I went over to Lake Shore Drive and north to Fullerton. As I say, it had become an excellent day and Lake Michigan on my right was showing off that beautiful shade of blue-green under the sun and the sky was a bluer blue above. Of course there were all the magnificent buildings on my left.

Natalie and Monty were at home and we had a sweet meeting. We chatted with Jerry on the computer and then we went to get Monty some kibbles and ourselves some tacos. Come to think of it, ate Mexican the whole time. We all talked Macs Monday evening and watched a DVD of Reno 9-1-1, a spoof on Cops and then some. I'd seen it on Comedy Central and didn't like it but this time I watched it with the kids and enjoyed it. I told J that I always get "high" when I am around them, i.e. elated. Everything we do together is more fun than doing it alone.

Natalie and I went downtown on Tuesday. She had a meeting on research she'll be doing and showed me her building where she works then I went to the Tribune Tower and visited Jerry in his office overlooking the lake. He intro'd me to his congenial colleagues. We fooled around and shot the bull and then Natalie came back and we went to lunch at Frontera, having mucho bueno Mexican food there. Then we walked my legs off in the downtown. We went to Shedd Aquarium and decided it was kind of pricey so we came back home. I took a nap and I think Natalie had a little one too, certainly being entitled. I woke to the smell of roasting garlic. We had Mexican again. We had homemade cornbread in there somewhere. I forgot to say the night before we had white chili that was delicioso. In the evening we watched the rest of the Reno cops spoof and then most of The Last of the Mohicans. Natalie provided me with a cozy blanket, which I slept under in the cool room. Love to sleep in a cool room.

We parted as sweetly as we met. Traffic was great all the way home too. I just came directly back the way I'd gone. It was a nice little outing. I love my kids. Amen.

Sunday, Sweet Sunday

In Flower Drum Song, a number I liked was "Sunday."
"Sunday, sweet Sunday,
With nothing to do,
Lazy and lovely,
My one day with you.
...
While all the funny papers lie or fly around the place
I will try my kisses on your funny face."
(I especially liked those lyrics for some reason.)

As I write, a musical by a duo other than Rodgers and Hammerstein, namely Lerner and Loewe, is on Turner Classic Movies. It's the big one, My Fair Lady. My brother Bill loved Alf Doolittle, as played by Stanley Holloway. He got to see Stanley live at the Schubert in Chicago in the fifties and was thrilled with his numbers "I'm Gettin' Married in the Mornin'" and "With a Little Bit o' Luck." Bill especially liked the latter because of the good-natured rascality Alfie embraces, in the tradition of his namesake as played by Michael Caine in the movie of that name, and of Andy Capp, the cartoon character (what I didn't like about Andy was that he was mean to his wife, but...). Bill loved a rogue. So do I. Have a good Sunday.

Footnote: Probably more movie trivia than you wanted to know: I wondered if "Freddie," played by Jeremy Brett in My Fair Lady, did his own singing. (I knew long ago that Marni Nixon dubbed the sainted Audrey Hepburn's songs whereas Julie Andrews, who sang quite well and who had played Eliza on Broadway, was aced out of the movie part by Audrey for petty reasons).

On Bill Shirley: Singer and actor who appeared in second-string Republic Pictures musicals during the wartime 40s. His career went nowhere and he became a better behind-the-scenes singing double.

Best remembered for providing Prince Phillip's singing voice in the animated classic "Sleeping Beauty," Bill also sang Freddy Eynsford-Hill's vocals ("On the Street Where You Live") in the film version of "My Fair Lady." Actor Jeremy Brett, who played the role of Freddy in the film, long claimed that he himself sang the role but that Bill merely "sweetened the high tones." Brett finally admitted years later in the 1994 documentary "More Loverly Than Ever: The Making of My Fair Lady Then & Now" that Bill indeed supplied the singing voice.

Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Bill attended Shortridge High School. (Yay, Shortridge! A high school that published a daily newspaper! Alma mater of Kurt Vonnegut, Dan Wakefield, and Dick Lugar, among others.) Buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis.

My comment on Bill's rendition of "On the Street Where You Live": stirring, almost to tears. (It's that time of year.) When I was a pimply-faced adolescent, I liked the single-hit version by Vic Damone, the guy who sounded a lot like Sinatra but was a nice guy, unlike Sinatra. (I forgive Sinatra his sins: somebitch could sing.) I imitated Vic's version while I sang it loud as Freddy, while I was alone, out on the deserted streets of little old Forlorn River (freezing in my suede jacket with no hat on my flat-topped head).

On Jeremy Brett: played Sherlock Holmes in a TV series on, I seem to recall, HBO, when I had that luxury. I thought he was the quintessential Holmes, equal to Basil Rathbone. He was a decent chap, born and died in England, schooled at Eton, did Shakespeare. Concerned that kids who watched the TV series might be misled by Holmes' coke habit, got the writers to have Sherlock kick in one episode. And according to IMDB, "he was dubbed [as I said above], in spite of the fact that his singing was actually remarkably good."

Saturday Sermon

I’m perturbed by the goings-on of today. There's a domestic situation close to me that is a disaster slowly dragging itself out and it will happen as sure as the earth will turn on its axis. And I have to just stand by. I have to watch this played out.

There’s a parallel between the man in question and his family, and between Little George Bush and his administration. Absolute disaster must occur to the villains in each case, taking every innocent person in their universe down with them. I have to watch the Bush catastrophe play out, just as I have to watch the other catastrophe play out. In each case, to the bitter, god, damned, end.

After the first of the year, Bush will send 50,000 troops to Baghdad to try to occupy it. Many of them will die. Many Iraqis will die. It's all about this little Texas frat-boy's ego. He doesn't want to "lose."

And we can't do a damned thing about it. We have a military dictator who is not a bit better than Kim Jong Il. This man is a monster. His vice president is a monster.

Lord? Will You please do something? But why should I ask you to do something on our behalf? On my behalf? You are God -- which means “good” -- and yet You let evil triumph over good every day, all over this tear-stained, grief-stricken, atrocity-laden ball.

What do You have to say for Yourself? How can the evil not come from You? Preachers say that evil comes from people -- or from Satan -- "the evil one," as Jesus calls him in the modern translations. Jesus says that only God is good.

But You, God, are the author of all, aren’t You? So didn’t You create evil? Whether in the form of people -- a more “parsimonious” explanation -- or Satan? You let Idi Amin and Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler and the butchers of the Sudan and Papa Doc Duvalier and Slobodan Milosevich and yes, Saddam Hussein, and God knows how many other monsters come to power: why then should I be surprised that You have let George W. Bush and Dick Cheney come to power?

As Bob of God, the Devil and Bob cries out, looking up into the sky from a rainy, rubble-filled field in Detroit, “What kind of God are You? You’re a deadbeat dad!” Why do You allow all the misery and injustice and murder and mayhem to just go on and on and on and ON?

I know there are people, good people -- some of whom believe in You and some of whom do not -- and they keep on trying to do the good and decent and just and merciful thing at every turn and with every person they come in touch with, and I admire them, and sometimes I even try to emulate them to the best of my sorry ability. It is enough to try to emulate good people -- there are many good ones in this world; even some who are not born-again, Bible-bopping, church-chained Christians.

I am not amoral. I believe in doing always the good, just, kind, loving action. Even if I don't always do it myself. I believe in love.

But what of You, God? What of You?

The Straight Story: Beautiful Film

Watched the story of Alvin Straight (1920-1996), who as a poor-sighted, lame old man, goes to visit his brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) who has had a stroke. His mode of transportation is an old riding lawnmower, which he uses to pull a trailer with his camping needs. "Alvin" is one of my favorite actors, Richard Farnsworth. (You girls will remember him as Matthew Cuthbert of Anne of Green Gables. We had the pleasure of seeing that wonderful movie set on Prince Edward Island, surely one of the most enchanted places on this earth. I loved it all over again. Rosie loved it: who wouldn't?)

The Straight Story couldn't have a simpler "plot." An old man wants to make up with his brother before they die and goes on a heroic odyssey to meet him. Does he make it? It's a bittersweet, poignant movie. I can hardly believe that the director is David Lynch, he of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. Nothing surreal or outre about this movie that I could detect. Lynch teamed up with composer Angelo Badalamenti; they'd collaborated on Twin Peaks. Angelo included a song by Jo Stafford, a favorite artist of mine, an apropos jukebox tune while Alvin and another WWII vet reminisce over a beer.

Everything in this movie pleases. I'll have to file Alvin and Lyle along with Amarante Cordova and the Senile Brigade of The Milagro Beanfield War, Garth and Hub of The Secondhand Lions, and Burt Munro of The World's Fastest Indian in my pholder of all-time phavorites of phellow olde pharts!

Countdown

You really must see Countdown with Keith Olbermann, kids. It's on MSNBC at 8 p.m. Even if you don't care for the more or less serious political stuff -- lefty Keith is wicked in his scathing criticism of Bush and the more vicious elements of the radical right -- his "Oddball" and "Worst Person in the World" are fun. He starts out at the beginning of the hour with gravity or outrage over the political or military developments of the day and the levity gradually rises to the top over the hour, ending with a spoof, usually with Mo Rocca or Michael Mesto. On Oddball, Keith's always recounting the capers of people committing crimes and getting caught for their incredible stupidity; their fiascoes are told while a cartoon guy in prison stripes, a ball and chain on his leg, and a glum emoticon face :-( is displayed on the screen. "COPS 1, DOPES 0." Strong recommend: George Clooney makes sure to TiVo (sp?) the program every day.

Pet Peeves

A. Please don't take this too seriously.
B. These are in no order. Here we go.

1. Not giving turn signals. Especially when the drivers are coming at me from the opposite direction and we're at a stoplight or stop street. And then turning left, nearly colliding with me as I try to go forward.

2. Smoking in the air I breathe. (I'm a recovering alcoholic but I am a reformed smoker. Oh do I wax sanctimonious about the kind of thoughtless behavior that I indulged in all those years.)

3. Caviling about no-smoking laws as an infringement of the "right" of people to smoke in the air others breathe.

4. Yawning without covering one's mouth.

5. Drinking beer from a bottle. We've got the Europeans doing it now. (We've got the English saying "ass" instead of "arse" and the French eating Big Macs and the Germans listening to atrocious music. That last is OK just as long as they don't listen to and sing along with the "Horst Wessel Song" (atrocious and a pretext for genocide).

6. TV commercials for prescription drugs, ranging from those for ED (look it up) to urinary incontinence to the little cartoon gremlins representing foot fungus, mucus, and migraine pain. (The cartoon characters are at least an improvement upon the actors reciting side-effects of the drugs. Give me more of the elephant dancing to "Singin' in the Rain"!)

7. Talking on cell phones in cars (especially SUVs) and public buildings.

8. SUVs.

9. Blog comments full of grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors. (Nothing said about errors of fact.)

10. Buzz words and catch phrases as substitution for clear thinking, reasoned argument, and fresh speech. Here are a few (again, in no order):
a. "It's right out of ...'s playbook."
b. "...on a slippery slope"
c. "...within the parameters" (especially when the speaker means "perimeter," i.e. boundaries)
d. "arguably (the best, etc.)" (You can make a cogent argument that it's the best? Or that it's easily disputed?")
e. "That's history"
f. "That's a no-brainer"
g. "That's a slam-dunk"
h. "win in Iraq" = "stay the course" = "don't cut and run"
i. "No problem."

11. People sitting in their recliners pontificating about everything and using the internet for broadcasting their bulls.*

Have a nice day! Be adequite! (This was written with my blackbury jam while I was tird and in a hurry to meat my fans.)

This list was not meant to be exhaustive.

J-5-8

We kinda wanted to watch some crime dramas on WAVE3-TV this evening but were frustrated because the Louisville NBC affiliate is dedicated to telecasting all University of Kentucky basketball games and tonight a UK game ruled. Go 'Cats.

It passed through my mind the other day that I might watch more basketball this year. Five minutes would do it. I'd been disillusioned with the sport since Kareem was Lew Alcindor and John Wooden was coach at UCLA. And Indiana had a single class state tournament.

I do recall a world series or whatever you call it when the Celtics (Larry Bird, Robert Parrish, Kevin McHale, Tiny Archibald) beat the Lakers (Kareem, Magic). Seems I watched that in the basement of our house at 2564 Tyler in Ogden, Utah, so that's been a while.

Basketball hasn't always been a spectator sport for me. Although I wasn't good enough to make the varsity and the varsity wasn't good enough to make it out of the sectional, I played in a lot of pickup games on outdoor courts up to when I went in the Peace Corps. The thing I did best was pass the ball to the open man.

I was pretty sneaky about it. But I wasn't very graceful. Anyone remember "Ollie" of Hoosiers who dribbled the ball off his foot and out of bounds? Ich bin Ollie, Schatze. Then there was the time I nearly croaked after playing a full-court game with a bunch of old Logansport jocks and my kids on Thanksgiving.

But I liked watching the game when I was a kid. The year we won state, I had a season ticket in the Brown Gym behind the press box. The seat was in Section J, Row 5, Seat 8. I was ten, in the sixth grade. Always a fat little nerd, I made up my own spiral-bound scorebooks and kept score with a Scripto mechanical pencil. I did well for the first quarter or so but I'd get excited and forget to put down O's and X's for baskets and foul shots attempted and made. Then there were the fouls. Boy, could I have used a cam-corder!

That was a fabulous year for basketball. The MHS Cubs were a really strong team (there is no I in team, yada, yada, yada, but in this case it was really true). The teams in the sectional tournament, the first of the four competitions (sectional, regional, semifinal, final) that eliminated all but one team, were nowhere near a match for the big guys. We beat one team 103-39. The basketball was smokin'.

That sectional was spectacular. In 1950 there were 757 teams to start and most of them were in the Madison sectional. All the rural one-room schoolhouses had high schools and some kind of gym. North Madison, "Central" (Ryker's Ridge), Dupont, Deputy, Saluda, and Hanover comprised the schools of Jefferson County, and schools from other counties competed too -- Paris Crossing, Cross Plains, Lexington, Moorefield, Brooksburg, Foltz -- hell I don't know. Everybody. And what the players lacked in skill they made up for in the color of their uniforms -- one I recall had highway yellow underwear with crimson trim. And their nicknames. Well, those weren't all that inspired: Lions and Tigers and Bears and Wolves and Snakes and ... No. No snakes. Just kidding. None of the other, either. I liked the Paris Crossing Pirates. You have to go north to get some really good names: the Frankfort Hot Dogs, the Logansport Berries, the Rochester Zebras. I love that! Zebras.

The games started on Wednesday afternoon and we were out of school (!) from then through Friday. I don't remember that occurrence before or after. I think the expectation we'd win state this year was high: we'd lost in the final game last year 62-61 to Anderson and nearly all the guys from last year were back. Deadeye Dee was gone but he was well supplanted by five excellent players -- even the bench was strong. We were dismissed from school and told to go to the games to support our troops.

Freedom of speech is exciting when it's exhibited in a sweaty gym where Hoosiers are practicing the state religion. A teacher once had us imitate a crowd by half of us repeating "hubbub" over and over while the other half said "soda water bottle." That's what it sounded like there between plays and when the plays got exciting the crowd sounded like three choirs singing in round with three 32-stop organs with all stops pulled out, playing Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, Widor's Toccata, and Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d. The spectacle of all the people made it worthwhile even if you couldn't see the game. The place would get hot and they'd open the big transom windows at the tops of the bleachers. The litter of popcorn boxes and Coke cups would abuild and it was OK as long as it didn't get on the playing floor. A morose janitor with a 4' -wide fleece dustmop would go around the edges of the floor at the half.

We went on to win that year. We had another squeaker with Anderson, in the afternoon of the final four weeks after that sectional. That night we romped over Lafayette Jefferson, 67-44.

I recite these numbers from memory. My M-1 rifle's serial number (1958) was 5735825. I kid you not.

Max Clooney R.I.P.

George Clooney's pet potbellied pig, Max, passed away. As Kurt Vonnegut used to say, So it goes.

Noah Wyle and Reminiscing

Sort of watching The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines on TNT, starring Noah Wyle, Gabrielle Anwar, Jane Curtin, Bob Newhart, and Olympia Dukakis. It's a kind of Indiana Jones adventure on Xanax. Wyle is pronounced "wily," as in coyote. Noah was born in 1971 -- a glorious year for people to be born. His month is June, so he's just a little older than my two fine offspring born on that blessed unseasonably warm November night in Columbus, Indiana -- the night I felt lightheaded when David Ryan, M.D. said, "Get the other warmer ready. There's another one coming." Earlier we'd heard Doc Ryan on the floor underneath us practicing "Would You Like to Fly in My Beautiful Balloon?" on his clarinet. Best Xmas presents I ever had.

The Alcoholic Card -- It Worked for Mel G. and Mark F.

A friend who happens to be a member of AA called this to my attention:

News Item: Lindsay Lohan [movie star] has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, HER PUBLICIST SAID Friday... She said Lohan, 20, made the decision on her own to attend meetings, although Sloane [the publicist] added: "And, by the way, she's not saying ... she'll STOP DRINKING TOMORROW." [my screaming letters!]

"It's a place to go and feel safe," she said. "No one judges her, and it's going to be a slow process. But, to me, the fact that she's seeing that there's something not right makes her smarter than the next person." ...

Sloane said she thinks the press was unfair to Lohan by ridiculing a statement the actress wrote following last week's death of Robert Altman, who directed her in "A Prairie Home Companion."

A sad Lohan wrote the rambling letter "on the fly" on her Blackberry, Sloane said.

The letter, in which Lohan signs off with "BE ADEQUITE," has been criticized by a number of media observers for its grammatical errors and misspellings, among other things — including exploiting Altman's death for her own publicity purposes.

"I want everyone to leave her the hell alone," Sloane said. "I'm so bored of this with her. No matter what she does, it's never good enough for everybody."

[Her publicist tells the media that Miss Lohan is attending Alcoholics Anonymous so people will leave her the hell alone?]

My friend says the approach to a drinking problem in AA is generally to try to abstain -- NOT drink -- TODAY. "Tomorrow" never comes.

Tradition 12 of AA: "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities."

(Come to think of it, I'm bored of this with her too.)

Dubya Library!

I would never try to top this.

The Elephant in the Living Room

While I've been indulging in frivolity here, all the while I'm thinking: the war, the war, what can we do about the war? We the people of Rock Ridge have spoken, and it just goes to show that you are the leading ...

No, no, no, I must be serious. We the electorate by somewhat of a majority have told this president that we do not want him to stay the course or stay until the mission is complete or however he chooses to put it. We want out, one way or another. How? In God's name, how?

I've ranted enough about how these people will not listen to reason and how all they care about is saving face and looking tough and PR hype and they truly don't care about human life -- compassion my ass. This man is sleeping like a baby at night, planning his presidential library funded with 500 million dollars, while Iraqis and his countrymen and women are dying daily in droves.

We learned before W. ever got to Washington (or Austin for that matter) that his pattern was to get involved in some enterprise, mess it up, and have friends of his daddy bail him out. Molly Ivins told us all about him and some of us were wise and voted against him -- good that it did us.

Jim Baker,who bailed him out with dirty tricks in Florida when he lost the election in 2000, hurting us in the process, is back to bail him out of this war. Why am I apprehensive over what this Baker commission will come up with? I know that the redoubtable Lee Hamilton is co-chair but somehow that doesn't reassure me as much as I would like it to.

In any case, I believe that whatever they come up with, particularly if it is anything other than "stay the course" or some verbal variation of I'm the decider and I'll do as I please because I can and because you have to know that fact, regardless of what it costs in life and resources to you. I don't know you and I don't care about you. I won't listen to you if you differ from what I have already made up my mind to do.

Senator Joe Biden of Delaware is talking about encouraging partition, i.e. three separate states, one for the Sunnis, one for the Shia, and one for the Kurds. Pundits are curling up their lips in scorn, but why not explore it? Put each warring faction in its own zone with demilitarized zones in between and enforce those DMZs with the UN and of course -- since we have to atone for the sins of Junior and clean up his shit, as people have always had to do -- include a large proportion of US military forces in the peacekeeping force. The critics will say you can't manipulate these people like puppets and make them go where you want them to go and do what you want to do. They are speaking from bitter experience, given that their misadventure in the first place did not turn out to be a "cakewalk" and our troops were not "greeted as liberators." And the Iraqis they encountered were not puppets and the "liberators" could not make them go where they wanted and do what they wanted the Iraqis to do.

We should announce how long we will continue with our military presence of foreign troops in the crossfire of a civil war -- hell, calling it a "civil war" is a euphemism for what it really is -- total anarchy. Chaos. Bedlam. Pandemonium. Hell on earth. We should announce how long we are going to stay and then promptly get out. Take French leave. Just hop on a bus, Gus. Then let go and let Allah.

Since Junior won't go along with that, since he would have to admit he was wrong, which he has never done in his life, and that he has been defeated by the terrorists -- he really believes this is what it would mean -- we shall just have to impeach Junior and try -- try -- to get him out of office before he breaks any more toys. Because his toys are the people of the United States and the people of Iraq.

God -- Allah, Yahweh, HP, Whoever -- help us. I ask this as an earnest prayer. God deliver us from this insanity. Amen.

Basil Poledouris, 1945-2006

I just found this out. Basil Poledouris, movie composer, died November 8th. He did the kind of stuff I like, e.g. Lonesome Dove and the movie that first caught my attention, Quigley Down Under. I loved the scoring that combined banjo and trombone, two of my favorites, with a big orchestra in the Quigley themesong. When I was in show business -- so I was foolishly deluded at the time -- I downloaded a CD of Basil's music in a certain radio station's library, and I'm glad I did. Other great stuff Basil did was for Conan the Barbarian, Free Willy, The Blue Lagoon, and The Hunt for Red October. Basil was from Kansas City, Mo. He was 61.

Nostalgic about Sidekicks

"Fuzzy pants!" Saw that on my son's girl's blog and it brought up one of my "clang associations" (see schizophrenia) from the past -- from the last century, from the medieval ages. My dad (who Johnnie is a lot alike in temperament and character -- that's a compliment -- take my word for it) used to tease me about going to B-grade westerns on Saturdays. The formula for those included a funny "sidekick" for the hero. (Johnnie has a photo of Rudy and his sidekick, Xena.) Lee "Lasses" White (slow as molasses --in January, as I think the cliche goes) was the sidekick of Jimmy Wakely, a troubadour (who really sang quite well and wrote some nice old country standards, including "Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes"). My dad would refer to "Lasses White and his fuzzy pants" and I would crawl under the couch with embarrassment. I didn't like Jimmy Wakely because he sang. I liked the cowboys who were no-nonsense, always winning fistfights, always shooting the gun out of the villain's hand, who didn't sing, and who never kissed girls. Nowadays I like kissing at least as well as fighting. My favorite sidekick now (at least in retrospect) was Smiley Burnette, who split his sidekicking between Gene Autry and the Durango Kid. Smiley sang well, played violin (OK, fiddle, he wasn't Nathan Millstein), and wrote a lot of songs. And he was really funny. I miss him and his gentle kind. I think he might have been the composer of the song that has the chorus:

"Oh what a face! It's a disgrace! To be showing it in any public place!"

(I know the tune. I can still hear Smiley and his country swing band, decked out in ten-gallon hats, western shirts, and string ties, singing it with big grins. The supposed hatchet-faced lady was mercifully absent, in fact nonexistent. Those guys weren't mean. Not a mean bone in all of their bodies.)

Bear with me. Just an old coot with his memories...

Nuck Fewt

Regarding the speech by Newt Gingrich on abridging FREE SPEECH: You can't save the Constitution by destroying it. You're a bigger terrorist than Osama, you little butterball. It gives me great comfort to know that you are close to the bottom of the list of public figures who have presidential pretensions, right down there with John Kerry and Bill Frist (another comfort). I'd be really comforted if you were in jail where you belong. I know I'm subtle but maybe you'll get the point. Just hope you get it in Uranus. That would be a good place for the rest of you, along with your head.

Love Feast

Our House is a movie on TV this afternoon starring Doris Roberts in a role slightly different from Ray Romano's mom. She is a filthy rich old lady who takes a bunch of homeless people into her Beverly Hills residence after one of them rescues her from suicide.

It's fantastic, of course, and by now formulaic, as such movies are, but it's a kind of parable. Its based on Jesus' parable about the wedding feast that the king first offers to the "respectable people" and when they spurn it, tells his lieutenants, " 'Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.' And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests." (Mt. 22:9-10)

The Book of Bebb by Frederick Buechner is about the life of a weirdo preacher who, among other things, holds a "Love Feast" for the poor and homeless. It's an intriguing idea.

I'm not preaching any sermons. I confess that I don't minister much to the poor and homeless. I contribute a little to Salvation Army and of course, as those of you who read this, I try to afflict the comfortable more than comfort the afflicted with my harangues about tax cuts for the rich and all of that.

But literally feeding and housing and providing medical care to the less fortunate -- it's an intriguing idea.

Happy Thanksgiving and go with God.

Letter to Mo on "Squeaker of the House" (11/18/2006)

Letter to Maureen Dowd re. her New York Times column on Saturday 11/18/2006)

Mo (May I call you Mo? Call me JT.)

I got a comment on my blog from a frequent anonymous poster, one who feeds daily on Rush and Bill-o and Sean and Ann. Following? He said that "Pelosi" and the "demo-craps" would louse things up, starting with her endorsement of "that crook Murtha."

My dear Mo, and you really are dear to me -- because you are, as you said your detractors call you, a "liberal slut" (your words, I forget which interview) -- Mo, Mo, Mo, why did you have to trash Ms Pelosi for the first mistake she makes? One week after lauding her as a liberating Valkyrie?

Do you know what she and the Democrats are trying to liberate us from? Do you know you aid and abet "Anonymous" and his dreadful mob when you attack the good guys? Yes, Nancy messed up. I hope she learned from it. Your writing in high dudgeon about "throwing like a girl" and "Playskool telephones" and petty motives and catfights between her and Jane Harman (about which you know no more than I, an old fart from a small town in Indiana) is, as you like to say, kerfuffle.

I know, dear Mo, you are at the top of your game when you are trashing somebody, but for God's sake, pick your battles. I remember all the silly crap you were writing about Al Gore's "earth tones." Sorry now? (No, I guess not. You'll say your ridiculing him along with the rest of the morons (you're not a moron) wasn't the deciding factor.)

Choose your battles, Mo. We're at war. And I'm not talking about the godforsaken misadventure in Iraq. While you're devastating Nancy Pelosi, Bush-Cheney-Rove-Gonzales et al. continue to mock us and drag us down in the muck. Pick your battles, girl. And stay focused. I love your work when you're trashing the bad guys. I also like it when you write lovingly of your mother and your Catholic upbringing. (I don't know why, I'm not Catholic, not even a very good Christian.)

Affectionately but pissed, J.T. Evans

Anonymous Comments on This Blog

To those few "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" who read my blog:

I just changed the "comments" feature of Window on JT's World so that only "registered users" may comment. This is pending further communication and deliberation and I may change it back.

For now, if people who read the blog have trouble commenting, please send me an email.

Thanks.

JT

More on David Kuo's Book, "Tempting Faith"

People who are looking for the confessions of an outright defector from the religious right in this book will be disappointed. I would deem it less valuable in exposing the Bush administration if Mr. Kuo had renounced his beliefs entirely and went into a Kitty Kelly type of smear from a newly adopted "liberal" viewpoint. But this guy worked for Bill Bennett and John Ashcroft and thought Chuck Colson was the cat's meow at one time. All three of those folks have an emetic effect on this observer, but that is beside the point -- which is, I have inferred thus far, that you cannot serve God and Caesar any more than you can serve God and Mammon. He quotes from C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, in which "Screwtape" tells his subordinate tempter (whose goal is, of course, to lure the Christian into hell) the following (the quotation comes directly from Kuo's book):

"Let him begin by treating patriotism ... as part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. [My italics] Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the 'cause,' in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce ... [O]nce he's made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing."

Seems that Jesus put this point more succinctly with the words: "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?"

More to come. I haven't read all of the book. It's quite thought-provoking. And enlightening.

More on the Peace Corps

We did a lot of partying when we were training for the Peace Corps and after we arrived in Nigeria. This was before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and during the continuing hateful resistance of whites to integration, particularly in the South, but also in states like Indiana -- especially Indiana. Martin Luther King Jr. was leading the movement, and his approach was modeled on the non-violent resistance of Ghandi. When demonstrators sat in at lunch counters and so forth, they would often sing. I regret that I was not one of the Freedom Riders of the early 1960s. One of the songs they sang was "We Shall Overcome." We sang it in the Peace Corps, though. I am very fond of that song and believe fervently in what it stands for. We still need that song and our non-violent resistance that the song symbolizes, resistance to the hatred and bigotry which is dying but still resides in the hearts of cowards who hide their identity. "Black and white together, black and white together / For deep in my heart / I do believe / that we shall overcome some day..."

See, Sah! I Tink You Are One of de Peace Corpse

A pleasant interlude this evening: I had a date with a Hanover coed! Her name is Casey, and she is writing a paper on the Peace Corps for her senior sociology class. She is from a small northern Indiana town, where her father is an elected public official. Casey has brown hair and green eyes, and yes, for the record, she is quite cute. She was attentive to her personal appearance but not fixy -- which I guess is my way of saying that her shoulder-length hair was squeaky-clean and combed but not fussed with, she wore casual but not slouchy clothes, and if she used makeup it was not detectable. She rode off on a bicycle after our interview. I didn't ask her if she has a Greek affiliation. I hope she doesn't. (Natalie will appreciate my sentiment on that.)

I met Casey at the library and she asked me lots of questions about my experience as a PCV in Nigeria and took down more than a page of densely written notes. One of her motives is to find out if she might like to volunteer herself. She majors in sociology and minors in Spanish, and she obviously has poise and sociability, so she might be a very good candidate indeed for one of the Central or South America countries.

She had met Emeka K. and Julie B., two other returned PCVs in our area. Emeka (pronounced Eh-MEK-ah: he was given an Ibo name by his RPCV parents, whose tour of duty in Nigeria overlapped mine a little) went to Guinea, and Julie served in Panama. Casey also interviewed a Hanover professor, Daryl K., who was a member in, I believe, a sub-Saharan African country. She asked me for names of other RPCVs in the area and I promised her I would try to get them to her. She is going to have more than enough material for her paper.

I told her that I am very proud and grateful to have been one of the earliest Peace Corps Volunteers. And so I am. I wear a cap from UCLA, the place where I had my training in 1962. I taught physics and math at a girls' secondary school in what was then the Western Region of Nigeria, and which is still the land of the great Yoruba people. When I went out of the school "compound," I would hear calls of "Oyibo!" (European) and bold young men who would walk up to me and say, "See, Sah! I tink you are one of the Peace Corpse." Then we would have a conversation about world politics, in which they were disappointed when they found out I was no expert. (I was never asked if I was a CIA agent, although some of my colleagues got that question from time to time.)

Let's just say that events that occurred there led to my life vocation. Casey asked me if I was glad I joined the Peace Corps and if I thought that the Peace Corps was a good thing. My answers to both were an unqualified "Yes."

Bumper sticker to be read by Bush and the Bushies

BISPARTISAN THIS!

THIS JUST IN!

Baron Hill recaptured his seat in Indiana's 9th District! John Yarmuth defeated Ann Northrup! The Democrats have taken back the House of Representatives! After six years of unopposed power leading us into the horrible mess we are in, the executive branch is for the first time at the least going to have some checks on it. Thank God for that. Amen.

Die-Hard Yellow Dog, Yours Truly

This morning I went to the home of my good friend John Collins, who is running for the Madison school board, to get another yard sign. Then I went to Democratic headquarters and got a slew more of signs for my candidates. Then I went to the library and got two books, Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Can Take It Back, by David Sirota, and Conservatives Without Conscience, by John Dean. Then I went home and put my signs out in the yard. There are more than there were before. Brian, here to get his firefighter's uniform pants that his mother had hemmed, asked me how it was going as he left. I said, "I'm just exercising my right as a United States citizen to campaign for the people I believe should be in office." I didn't have to defend my action to Brian, but I was feeling paranoid at the moment. That saying about defending to the death my right to say what my opponents don't want to hear seems kind of remote in the current political climate. I think we're going to win a few this time. I feel it.

Southpaw Stew

An old whiskered sidekick in a B-oater of yesteryear (think Gabby, Hayes or Johnson, or Fuzzy St. John -- he was the sidekick of Lash LaRue) was cooking a pot of something in one of the comic relief scenes where Roy or Bart or Lash wasn't chasing or shooting or fistfighting. Roy-Lash asked him what he was cooking. He said, "Southpaw stew." (Why do you call it that?) "Cause it's made of whatever's left." (Yuk yuk yuk!)

Which is my way of segueing into a potpourri, olio, olla podrida, slumgullion of this and that about everything and nothing. Mostly nothing. This week we visited friends at their home in Bay Village, Ohio, which is on Lake Erie. They are dear people and three of the four of us go back to MHS Class of '56 so we had plenty to reminisce about. They lost an adult daughter to cancer earlier this year and we talked about it and it was good and I hoped it helped them -- it helped us. We took a walk in a beautiful little park beside the lake and other than freezing our asses loved it. We went to Kohl's, which had a sale of 50% off on some items and 15% more off for seniors and we didn't buy a thing. (We can get the same thing at a much lesser "full" price elsewhere with no "discounts," way I see it.) We went to an Italian restaurant and had delicious chicken entrees. We dipped real bread in herbed olive oil, etc. The music was Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc. I expected Al Pacino to pop in. The atmosphere and service were great. It was an honest-to-god restaurant, for a change. We wandered through Ohio and Indiana on the way home.

I'd started to write a couple of other things for the blog and decided not to finish or post them. I wanted to comment on The Grapes of Wrath, which we finished reading and followed up by watching the 1941 movie with Henry Fonda, and I was writing a treatise on economics,which I know nothing about. It is a beautiful, elegiac book and I think its views of socioeconomics are still essentially true today. I also started to discuss an article by Paul Krugman in which he urged Democrats "not to make nice" with the opposition, as the Dixie Chicks sang in their first album after they'd been accused of treason for simply saying they are ashamed of the man who happens to be the president and then being subjected to a Krystallnacht of burning their CDs (incited by rightwing media owners, for the most part).

When we got back from Ohio we discovered that our candidates' yard signs were gone. I did a little Sipowicz work this morning and have some of the Franks Drive Irregulars on my short list of suspects. Nobody will 'fess up even though I don't want to get any kids in trouble. Yet I don't approve of that kind of vandalism. Bottom line: I'd rather it would be the kids with no political agenda than a Republican dirty trick.

Rosie's son, Brian, who is a volunteer firefighter, had a close friend die in a fire this past week. Firefighters from all around are going to attend the young man's funeral and Brian will be among them on Sunday. He obtained a pair of black firefighter's uniform trousers for the occasion and Rosie hemmed them for him.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have campaigns in which the candidates seriously debated the issues and didn't have multimillion-dollar TV ads that distort the truth and smear their opponents -- because the big bucks were truly forbidden to pay for them?

Campaign finance reform, anyone?

Film Music Revisited

This evening Turner Classic Movies is showing The Heiress, directed by Willie Wyler, starring Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift, with the musical score by Aaron Copland. I wish I had learned enough about music -- wish I hadn't run away from Laura Bach (her real name) and Becky King, piano teachers, when I was a spoiled little brat (as opposed to the big spoiled brat I am now) -- so I knew and could talk intelligently about keys and scales and arpeggios and diminished chords and stuff. And "bitonality" (the characteristic of the music of Bernard Herrmann, I read, as used in, among other movies, North by Northwest). I sort of remembered that Copland was the composer for The Heiress but I knew he was after two minutes of listening. (I've never seen this 1949 film and happen to be taping the rest of it at this moment so I can watch The Colbert Report). But I don't know how to describe intelligently what I am hearing to pedants, who will be listening to my show (it's comin', folks, it's comin', soon's I can figure out all this iPod stuff). But I listened to an Adventures in Good Music show in which Karl Haas featured film music, and I was not a bit intimidated at the prospect of having a show along the lines of this one episode by the master of the genre of music shows. And who knew enough about music that he could play piano. No, what I will have to bring to such a show is my enthusiasm and love and listening ear, however untrained, and my willingness to learn and share what I've learned with others and perhaps open up a new world to them.

(1) Kuo on Xns and GOP; (2) Sweeney on Clean Campaigns

(1) Except from Richard Wolffe's Newsweek interview with former Bush White House aide David Kuo, who has written a book critiquing the Bush administration's emphasis on faith-based initiatives. The book is called Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction.

Wolffe: Are Christian leaders being naïve in their dealings with the White House or do they understand the nature of the exchange?

Kuo: It's a little bit of both. In some ways White House power is like [J.R.R.] Tolkien's ring of power. When you put it on, it feels good and it's dazzling. But after a while it begins to consume you in ways you don't realize. That's the nature of White House power. I have no doubt that Christian political leaders have gotten involved for all the right reasons. I just think over time it becomes harder and harder to stand up against that ring of power and the White House, to say no and walk away.

The Christian political leaders have been seduced. If you look at their comments that they know what they're doing, I'm not quite sure how to read that--is it wonderful or a little troubling? That's one of the reasons I call for this fast from politics. I'm not saying that Christians shouldn't vote, which is going around on Christian talk radio. But for a period--I personally think it should take two years from after this election to the presidential election--evangelical Christians should take a fast from giving their money to political causes and from giving much of their time as well. Take that money that is currently fueling all those wonderful hate-filled ads, the hundreds of millions being spent, and spend that money on the poor and inner-city kids. Instead of spending time lobbying, spend your time with your neighbor, saying love your neighbor as yourself.

(2) "Running with Blinders" by Kevin Sweeney about abstinence from negative campaigning is worth a look:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/opinion/16sweeney