Bedtime story

I'm a Cancerian (7/14) and Cancer being a water sign, I've always had a certain affinity for water.
I chose an apartment and later, a condominium, because they were on small lakes. I've always felt a sense of exhilaration and awe whenever I see a large body of water, be it an ocean or one of the Great Lakes - anytime I can see water all the way to the horizon I feel strangely at home.
So it should be no big surprise that I was the first of my friends to have a waterbed when they showed up in the early 1970s.
My first wife (there were times when I called her that while we were still married) was, to a certain extent, a good sport and she went along with a lot of my ideas that she doubtless questioned and later probably regretted. Our first waterbed was just a big vinyl mattress that we filled with water. No internal baffles to inhibit wave motion, no liner, no frame and no heater. Just a big bag-o-water on the bedroom floor with enough blankets on it to insulate us from the chilly water within. We even used it to bring down our 2-year-old son's fever once - just laid him down naked on the vinyl and let the water draw the unwanted heat from his body.
Eventually, we built a frame, then stuck padded rails on it.
Hey, it was a new technology and we didn't really know what we were doing.
About 15 years later, in a moment of whimsy, we replaced it with what could only be described as a bordello waterbed: massive pine headboard and footposts supporting an overhead frame filled with six mirrors. I sat on a platform that afforded a half-dozen drawers and came with a heater.
When the marriage came unraveled in the late '80s and my soon-to-be ex found herself with a free hand to decorate as she chose, the monstrous bordello bed went to my son in Cincinnati. He and his wife still have it, sans overhead mirrors, in one of their guest bedrooms.
I bought a more conventional waterbed that I used in two apartments and a condo and eventually moved to the house my new wife and I occupied four years ago.
Over the last couple of years, we noticed the quality of our sleep declining. We'd both crawl out of bed in the mornings stiff and sore. My wife developed a work-related back and shoulder problem because of horrible desk ergonomics at the Gannett newspaper where she worked. It was further aggravated by injuries she suffered in a head-on collision with a blind woman a year ago.
I found I developed back pain if I stayed in bed too long.
We decided it was time for a new bed.
After shopping around and looking at all kinds of exotic and trendy beds - four-posters, sleighs, you name it - we decided we would be better served to put our money into a good mattress and then worry about the furniture side of the equation.
We ended up at the major furniture store in the state where the sales guy gave us a general overview of what they had, then suggested we consider Kingsdown.
Kingsdown has a pretty impressive sales system that includes a pressure sensitive pad you recline on to determine where your individual pressure points are and where you fall on the Kingsdown continuum of softness and firmness. My wife tested as a 2 and I tested as a 3 so the sales guy recommended we flop down on examples of each of the five mattresses to see if those numbers felt right to us.
We agreed upon a #3 kingsize with a basic metal frame.
And we swallowed hard at the final price of about $2,600. It comes with a 70-year warranty, so I figure I'm covered until I'm 129 years old.
It was delivered three weeks ago and I can say in all candor that we've both slept better during this period and anytime we can remember, individually or collectively.
My wife's shoulder pain, which she thought was a permanent feature in her life, is gone. We're both sleeping through the entire night with virtually no flopping around or tossing and turning. And if one of us does roll over or get up, the other remains blissfully unaware of it because there is no motion transfer.
And, of course, our dog loves it (see photo below).
The waterbed went out the second floor bedroom window in pieces and from there into the trash. I can honestly say there isn't anything about it that I miss.

Ruthie, who was allowed to nap on our bed this morning because she did not roll in poop after her morning constitutional. BTW, Maria made the quilt. 

You gotta see this

In case you missed it, NBC Nightly News had a story last night on a project undertaken by a jailer with the Multnomah County Sheriff's Department in Portland, Ore.
Jail Deputy Bret King, working the late shift, started looking up the mugshots of meth addicts. Since methamphetamine users tend to compile lengthy arrest records as the drug drags them down to an early death, the department's mugshot collection gives a graphic illustration of each person's disintegration as a functional human being.
It's absolutely stunning and horrifying and every kid or adult who thinks they can do meth and survive needs to see these photos.
They're on the sheriff's department website, along with text from part of the Portland Oregonian's stellar series on meth: Click on this link, check it out and pass it on to all of your friends. You may save a life.


http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/sheriff/faces_of_meth.htm

Ooops, she did it again

Ruthie the Wonder Dog is making me wonder.
I'm beginning to wonder what it will take to make her link the act of rolling in shit in the backyard with spending a lonely day in her kennel, followed by a bath.
I had a long soulful conversation with her this morning about how this disgusting practice makes everyone, including her, unhappy.
I think what she heard was, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
When I called her in from her morning constitutional in the back yard, she bounced up to the back door with an uncommonly large amount of dog poop matted into her fur.
So, while I wait a guy in Arlington, Va., to return my call to check quotes he gave me for that long-procrastinated airline story, Ruthie languishes in solitary.
Anyone have any dog training insights about how to stop this behavior?

A day for venting

I knew it was going to be a bad day when I caught a whiff of Ruthie the Wonder Dog returning from her morning constitutional in the back yard.
The brown smudge on her light yellow coat told the story - she'd been rolling in shit. This apparently is her idea of perfume - something she can do to make herself more interesting. She's done it at least three times in the past month, each time necessitating a bath before she's cleared to roam the house and share the furniture with the rest of us.
Today, she had the misfortune to do it on a day when the high temperature was only 52. The last time anyone bathed Ruthie in the house, we had to buy an auger and snake out the bathtub drain. From then on, all dog washing has taken place on the deck behind the house. I had plenty to do this morning and no desire to wash a dog in such chilly weather, so Ruthie was banished to her kennel in the kitchen.
Everytime I stirred from my office upstairs, I could smell her stench at the top of the stairs.
I doubt that she knows exactly what she did wrong, but she has a guilty look that tells me she knows she committed some terrible transgression.
I spent a fair portionof the morning editing images from an engagement photo shoot Maria and I did Saturday for a coworker of hers. It's a freebie - we're shooting the wedding gratis also - but once the CompactFlash cards are downloaded to my computer, it falls to me to color correct and size them, something I find increasingly annoying since we're hemhorraging money again.
The rehabilitation of our rotting front porch, which was estmated at $4,000 last summer, is mostly done and I have the contractor's bill for $5,975. Yes, that's a 50% cost overrun and if I didn't like the guy and his work, I'd be freaking livid. He explained that the cost of lumber has risen by 30% since last fall and reminded me that they had the unexpected task of shoring up the foundation where it was blowing out under the porch.
On top of that, they found an active termite colony under the porch. I called the exterminator and their guy estimated it would cost $1,200 to treat the whole property. When I gasped, he explained that it's company policy to do a complete treatment, whether it's needed or not. And then he quietly let me know, based on his inspectiono of the property which turned up no other infestations, that he thought all I needed was about 5 poison traps arrayed around the outside of the porch. And he happened to have a whole bunch of them in the back of his truck and his employer is very loose when it comes to inventory. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. I got his drift and asked if he could be persuaded to treat the porch at a reduced rate and not tell his boss. Sure, he said. So we agreed on $200 cash and I watched him install the termite poison traps.
Of course, there's no warranty here and all I have is his word as a 17-year bug man that it'll solve my problem. But then he has to trust me not to rat him out to his employer, too, so I'm counting on that bit of leverage keeping him honest with me.
I'm unaccustomed to under-the-table deals. The idea makes me very uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as writing a $1,200 check when I hadn't planned to.
So I edited images and paid bills and stewed about our cash flow this morning.
Just before I left for the bank to shift some money from savings to checking and then on to lunch with Maria, I decided to run some food waste down the garbage disposal. When I turned off the water, I heard major spashing in the basement, a sure sign that something very wrong was going on.
I discovered to my horror that the PVC pipe running straight up from the sump pump to the pipe carrying kitchen sink/dishwasher outflow had broken at a joint midway up and all of the kitchen waste was falling straight down into the sump. Left unaddressed, it will create a terrible rotting stench that the furnace will suck up and distribute throughout the house. So we're cleaning out the sump and repairing the pipe this evening.
And, oh, did I mention that there's a leak somewhere around the downstairs shower? Maria mentioned seeing water on the basement floor after her son Austin showered the other day. I have no idea whether it's a caulking issue or a problem with the drain.
Take all of this stress and pile on top of it the fact that Maria's paper is shortstaffed and she may not be able to take a vacation this summer.
Maybe Ruthie has the right idea.
Maybe I should go out into the back yard and roll in dogshit and see if that makes me feel better. It seems to work for her.

That's me in my then-new Nepenthe shirt in a composite shot with Maria at a seafood restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. 

Shirt tale

I'm wearing my Nepenthe denim shirt this morning because it makes me happy.
My girlfriend - now my wife - bought it for me in July 1997 when we were on our first real vacation together.
Nepenthe is a restaurant along the Pacific Coast Highway about a half-hour south of Monterey. It's a magical place along what I've come to call the Holy Road - the most scenic stretch of highway I've found in my roughly 300,000 miles of motorcycling around North America.
The shirt is faded and frayed and Maria won't let me wear it outside the house anymore but I love the look and feel of it. Here's what I wrote about that trip a few years ago in Motorcycle Tour & Cruiser magazine:
I first visited this magical area in 1986 for a BMW motorcycle rally and I've returned several times in recent years, drawn back by that fabulous twisty road between Monterey and Ragged Point.
It dives and soars along the cliffs where the mountains march down to the surging sea in a collision of shapes and colors. The images never fail to amaze me.
Whenever I return to Big Sur and the majesty of this spectacular place, I always long for someone with whom to share the experience.
The longing was fulfilled in 1997 when Maria flew out to join me in Monterey.
I was already a dozen days into my Annual Midlife Crisis Tour at this point. I'd visited my son Sean in Portland, Ore., and we'd done a camping loop of the lush green Olympic Peninsula. From Sean's house, I tore down I-5 on my ’91 BMW K100RS in a two-day run to Palm Springs to visit an Internet friend.
It was early on a Tuesday morning when I rolled out into the mid-80-degree Palm Springs predawn darkness to make my rendezvous with Maria in Monterey.
Weeks earlier, I'd used the Internet to book a room at the West Wind Lodge in Monterey. As I rode through the empty streets of Palm Springs, I knew Maria was already in the air, winging her way west.
The sky was beginning to lighten when I blended into the stream of westbound traffic on I-10.
As I crested the pass at Banning, the temperature dropped about 15-20 degrees and I pulled in to a gas station to put the liner into my jacket. The attendant came out to chat and observed that mine was only the second BMW motorcycle he'd ever seen. I smiled and decided against commenting on his powers of observation.
The freeway traffic slowed to a crawl somewhere around San Bernardino. I sat in line briefly, resigned to my fate. Then a motorcycle shot past along the line separating the left two lanes, reminding me that lane-splitting is a way of life for L.A. area riders.
I watched closely, noticing the car drivers seemed to be cooperative. After another rider flashed past, I gingerly eased into the “bike lane” and headed past the slowed or stopped cars and trucks. It got a little tight in places and I took an occasional break by easing back into a lane, but over the next several miles, I figure I saved myself a half-hour or so. Sometime after I-210 swung west, I picked up the Ride Share lane and it was clear sailing all the way back to I-5.
I gassed a short time later and rode over the mountains that form the northern ramparts of Los Angeles, stopping for breakfast at Grapevine where I-5 descends to the floor of California’s great Central Valley.
After consulting a road map, I took Calif. 46 west to U.S. 101 at Paso Robles. It felt good to be back on El Camino Real and I relaxed into the ride up to Salinas. I found the connector route to Calif. 68 and soon motored past the Toro Place Cafe and Laguna Seca Raceway – places I'd gotten to know in 1986.
After a little fumbling, I found Munras Avenue and the West Wind Lodge. Checking in, I was pleasantly surprised to learn Maria was already here. As I dropped the sidestand in my parking place, my lady emerged from the room to greet me with a very welcome hug. We did a brief soak in the motel hot tub, then set out for Maria's first visit to Calif. 1 and Nepenthe, my all-time favorite restaurant.
Leather-clad and eager for the ride, we got onto southbound Calif. 1 and the road I dream about all winter.
The Carmel Highlands were in fog – it was about 4 p.m. by now – but it was still a glorious ride and we soon broke into bright sunshine.
Summer in Big Sur means fog much of the day. It’s not unusual for the coast to be shrouded in marine fog until midday, when the sun burns through, only to yield to fog again as afternoon becomes evening.
Nepenthe is a rare delight – a casual restaurant with a great, affordable menu and a spectacular view of the mountains and the Pacific. It grew out of a getaway Orson Welles built for himself and Rita Hayworth, but the two divorced before they got a chance to use it. The rambling complex that is Nepenthe consists of the Phoenix gift shop, surmounted by the Cafe Kevah on an expansive open deck cantilevered over the cliff. Up the hill from the cafe is an upper restaurant that offers a mix of outdoor and sheltered dining. Over the years, I’ve come to treasure Nepenthe as a perfect spot for a meal or a break. The place takes its name from the mythical Greek drug of forgetfulness and it's a perfect moniker.
The relaxed atmosphere, enhanced by the tinkle of wind chimes and soft New Age music and the subtle scents of sea and shore always lifts my spirits. It helps me shift gears from the rush of the road to reconnect with the silence within and the beauty around me.
The lower cafe at Nepenthe was closed for the day, so we went upstairs and had a wonderful dinner seated outside and facing the sea. I had salmon steak fresh from Monterey Bay and Maria ordered a shrimp and scallop salad. Nepenthe was the perfect welcome back to Big Sur and it put us in a mellow mood.
The ride back was one of the most amazing I've ever had. The fog was rolling in and every bend in the road brought a new fantastic scene: fog spilling into a sun-filled canyon to our right or plumes of mist welling up like geysers over the cliffs to our left.
We got back to the room happy but very tired – we'd both been up since well before dawn and Maria, especially, was running on empty.
We took our time about getting up the next morning, then hiked down Munras Avenue to Denny's for breakfast. We walked down to the harbor where we watched a sea otter preening himself in the water just below the harbor master's office. Leaving our furry friend, we strolled west along the shore, stopping to explore some of the shops at Fisherman's Wharf and sharing a peach frozen yogurt cone.
We continued on through Cannery Row to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where we marveled at the world class displays of marine life from the microscopic to the huge.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a must-see attraction for any visitor to the area. We stood mesmerized for what must have been a half-hour, peering through the largest aquarium window on earth at the giant fish that flourish in the million-gallon tank that replicates the offshore world of Monterey Bay. The place also features a spectacular multi-story kelp forest and an always entertaining colony of sea otters.
After a soak in the motel hot tub, we rode back down to Fisherman's Wharf for a generous seafood dinner at Rappa's Seafood Restaurant at the end of the pier. I was reminded anew that the seafood is yet another reason I love this place so much.
We rode back to the motel and bagged it about 9 p.m., very full and very tired.
We were up early Thursday morning and rode out to the Toro Place Cafe for breakfast. This is a pleasant little eatery near Laguna Seca. They serve a tasty breakfast and I love the eclectic décor, highlighted by an old-fashioned glass-topped gas pump that is home to a family of goldfish.
After topping off the tank near Laguna Seca, we returned to Calif. 1 and headed down the coast. The light fog soon yielded to sunshine and we stopped often to admire the colors, examine the plant life and take pictures.
This is not a road for hurrying. With some of the most glorious scenery in North America, this is a road to be savored – a ride to be stretched out as long as possible. The road cooperates with twists and turns that snatch you back from cliff’s edge, deep into a creek-cut canyon before hurling you back up the mountainside to yet another breathtaking view of wave-dashed rocks and swirls of blue and turquoise and aquamarine.
Mother Nature and the Pacific don’t want this road to be here and periodically they conspire to blast it with winter storms and landslides that carry away great chunks of it. The El Niño storms of 1998 were particularly bad and closed the road from February to May. Glancing down and to the right on the last tight switchback south of Ragged Point, we were startled to see a semitrailer truck on its side in the ravine – a grim reminder of why you seldom see big trucks on the Big Sur stretch of Calif. 1.
We made quick work of the 40 miles of sweepers north of Morro Bay and began looking for lunch. We chose the Galley for its view of the harbor and Morro Rock. Lunch was cheerfully served fried shrimp and clam strips. We watched the gulls and pelicans swoop and dive in the afternoon sun from our table by the window.
After lunch, we visited a nearby gift shop were Maria bought a ring for her daughter, Morgan. Standing by the bike, I heard Maria shriek and turned to see her splattered with pelican poop. It caught the right shoulder of her leather jacket, a dab on the top of her head and splashed onto the tank, fairing and handlebars of the bike. One whiff made it clear that pelicans like seafood, too.
We got some paper towels from the gift shop and cleaned things up as well as we could before gassing and getting out of town. The ride north went quickly because Maria was getting more into leaning into the turns. We stopped at Lucia for iced mocha and iced tea before pressing on north.
We reached Carmel and the beach near Point Lobos in time to dance with the surf and watch a golden sun set on a near perfect day.
After shedding our leathers, we walked down to a liquor store and picked up a six-pack of Pacifico beer, a bag of Tostitos and some jalapeno cheese dip for a few hours of television watching.
Another splendid day!
We returned to Denny's for breakfast the next morning and ran into two couples on matching white Honda Gold Wings from Tennessee.
Today's ride would be an inland exploration. After breakfast, we headed down Carmel Valley Road – a county road separated from Highway 1 and the ocean by the coastal mountain range. Lying in the lee of the ocean breezes, Carmel Valley is usually free of chilly maritime fog this time of year. About 10 miles down the road from Calif. 1, we shed our jacket liners.
As we cruised south, the road plunged into twisty canyons, following creeks and over-arched with ancient oak trees. I felt as if I had been transported back to old Spanish California as we rode mile after mile in the dense woods, seeing only the occasional car or pickup truck. We passed an isolated ranch with curious-looking signs requesting, “Please avoid newts crossing the road.” A little further down the road, a sign advised: Cattle Guards Next 11 Miles.
Eventually, the road climbed out of the canyons over vast brown grassy hills, affording vistas that opened onto mountains and valleys for miles. The road was designated G16 and, on an impulse, I turned right at a bridge and followed G17 toward Greenfield, past fields of grape vines flying silver ribbons to scare birds away from the ripening fruit. At Greenfield, we picked up U.S. 101 and rode north a few miles until I saw a sign directing us to Soledad Mission.
We found the mission a short time later west of the main highway. A BMW K75 belonging to another couple out for a day ride leaned on its sidestand in the parking lot.
The day was warm, but it was comfortably cool inside the thick adobe walls of the restored 200-year-old mission. After exploring the mission and wondering at an improbable statue of the Virgin Mary dressed in black lace, we lit a couple of candles and returned to G17. We followed the road north and west through more agricultural land where farm workers were packing lettuce in the fields.
Picking up Calif. 68 just west of Salinas, we returned to Monterey and the West Wind Lodge. We changed clothes and rode down to Fisherman's Wharf for a delicious dinner of seafood provencal at Ablonetti's followed by ice cream cones for dessert.
Even though it was a low-mileage day, these were quality miles.
We gathered up our dirty laundry and spent about an hour at the Del Monte Shopping Center laundromat, then capped the evening with a soak in the hot tub.
We rolled out about 9:30 Saturday morning and headed down Calif. 1 for one last coastal ride.
It was chilly and foggy and delightful.
We passed a large herd of Herefords on the plateau sweeping down to the sea just north of Big Sur. In a corner of the field were a couple of herdsmen, dressed as cowboys – one of them wheeling his mount in clockwise circles as we flashed by. We gassed at the BP station at River Inn, paying a stunning $2.30 a gallon for 92 octane premium.
Then, it was on to Nepenthe where we arrived moments before a large contingent of the California Pantera Club, out for a Saturday morning drive. Intent on beating the car club crowd, we hustled up to the Cafe Kevah, where I had an omelet and Maria had a tostada. We fed much of our sourdough toast to the Steller's Jays and the crows that patrol the cafe deck looking for leftovers or handouts.
We stopped a couple of times to take photos, finally drawing rein at Lucia for drinks and a $3 chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie. There we passed a pleasant half-hour in conversation with another motorcycle couple from Indiana. Finally, we took our leave and headed back north, stopping a couple of places for Maria to get pictures of me on the bike with the coastline features in the background.
As we approached Carmel, we found ourselves in s-l-o-w stop-and-go traffic, stretching all the way past Carmel Valley Road. After several minutes of crawling, we were passed by a Harley rider on the berm and followed him past scores of cars to the open freeway.
Back at the room, I called a Yellow Cab while Maria changed and we packed her leathers. The cabby arrived within minutes and I followed the cab to the airport, catching up with Maria halfway through the terminal.
We hustled her to the gate and she was off to Los Angeles, Chicago and home.
I rode back to the Lodge, read some of Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels, watched some TV and dined on pizza and Diet Coke from Domino's.
It was a hurried conclusion to a my best-ever visit to my favorite places and I realized that night that it would be a hard act to follow. I hit the road early the next morning for a ride home that took me through Yosemite, the deserts and canyonlands of Nevada and Utah and the mountain majesty of Colorado.
Solo travel has its merits, but once you find someplace special, it's even better when you can share it.

Stupid reporter tricks

There was a bank holdup Tuesday morning in a small town in the coverage area of my wife's newspaper.
The reporter for the competing daily - a pathetic, ineptly run rag that began publication about 5 months ago and only has a circulation of about 400 - is a clueless young woman in her first newspaper job out of college.
Rather than checking with police outside the bank, the girl walked into the bank, getting her fingerprints all over the place and pretty much mucking up the crime scene.
For those of you who don't know, this is a professional blunder of epic proportion. Any competent reporter knows you don't violate the integrity of a crime scene and that the worst thing you can do is interfere with investigators doing their work. Conversely, competent police investigators recognize that reporters also have a job to do and take care to give them whatever facts they can divulge without compromising the investigation. The detective handing this case for the local sheriff's department has an exemplary record of cooperating with the media, especially with reporters (like my wife) who have a proven record of accuracy and trustworthiness.
The detective gave the girl his card and asked her to call him on Wednesday to arrange to come in and be fingerprinted - just like all of the bank employees - so investigators could eliminate their prints and perhaps isolate those belonging to the perp.
Wednesday passes and she doesn't call.
This morning, she calls the detective to ask questions about the case. He says, "I thought you were going to call yesterday and arrange to come in and get fingerprinted."
Silence.
He goes on to explain in a non-confrontational way that she's not a suspect and it's just part of the normal procedure of eliminating all of the irrelevant fingerprints.
She finally tells him her editor said she didn't have to do it and if he has anything more to say about it, he should say it to their attorney.
No apology for compromising the crime scene or for not calling yesterday - just a brutally stupid refusal to cooperate.
I fully expect her and her paper to try to frame this situation as a Freedom of the Press issue. However, there is absolutely no basis in First Amendment free press rights or any other traditional journalistic practice to justify her non-cooperation.
In fact, she could be charged with tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice. And nobody, not even the American Civil Liberties Union, will be able to mount a credible defense.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Happy Birthday, Doreen Tracey! 

M-i-c, k-e-y...

Doreen Tracey, one of the original Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeers, is 62 today.
We've been acquainted since I did a story on her for my newspaper about 30 years ago.
I just got off the phone with her and am delighted to report she's happy and healthy and living large in her hometown of Burbank, Calif.
She's got a few pages in Paul Auster's book of true life stories titled I Thought My Father Was God. Auster, you may recall, has a program on National Public Radio.
Just for the record, Doreen says she doesn't plan to start drawing Social Security for another five years, even though she became eligible today.

Me and my 10-month-old granddaughter Lisa. 

Procrastination

I’m procrastinating and I know it.
I accepted a freelance writing assignment a month ago to do a piece about the future of airlines and how that will impact the myriad businesses that serve the airlines.
We’re talking about folks who build and sell airplanes, dealers in avionics equipment, spare parts, food suppliers – all the people the airlines turn to for the stuff they need.
Even though I have an American Airlines frequent flyer Master Card that earns me a frequent flyer mile for every dollar I run through it, I’m nowhere close to what you would consider a frequent user of airlines. I know very little about airlines and the problems they face, much less have a crystal ball to divine their future.
In short, I don’t know Jack about airlines.
But I do know about words, so I figured this is just a simple piece of journalism – figure out who has the information I need, call them on the phone and ask them to say a few words on the subject, lash the quotes together into some kind of coherent narrative, e-mail the sucker off to the publisher and watch my mailbox for the check.
But (at least) one thing is holding me back: fear of embarrassing myself with a piece that betrays a lack of knowledge of the subject. The last thing I want is to write something that will cause people in airline-related businesses to chuckle over my ignorance.
So, I’ve been putting off making those calls to high-level management types in the airlines – guys whose biographies have appeared in Fortune magazine. I hate to admit it, but it’s just flat intimidating.
I realize that they’re just people – mostly my age – who happen to have specialized in something outside my scope of knowledge. I expect I know more about motorcycle safety, long-haul motorcycle touring, journalism, the edged weapons of the Third Reich, and certain forms of meditation than they will ever know.
But I remain stuck and use other tasks and responsibilities to avoid making those calls.
A contractor was scheduled to have a crew here this morning to begin rehabilitation of the porch and balcony on the front of my 1903 Queen Anne Victorian house. The previous owners had a penchant for using untreated lumber, which led to water damage and rot that must be dealt with before the porch disintegrates.
Consequently, I waited and I waited, reasoning that I don’t want important telephone interviews interrupted by a contractor punching my doorbell button.
Well, the crew showed up about a half-hour ago and went to work without bothering me. I can hear the sound of nails being pried loose and of boards being ripped off and tossed to the ground.
Now that they’re here and the work is underway, I need a new excuse not to work on the piece.
I’ve run out of ideas for blogging, so I’ll have to look elsewhere for important alternative jobs.
Oh, yeah. I need to go to the bank and the postoffice.
That’s the ticket.

Another loose end accounted for

It’s hard for me to stay on track when I write.
I think of tangential stuff that might elucidate or amplify a point I’m making, but I worry that it actually detracts from the piece because it can spiral off into infinity.
So when I wrote the post about my first real girlfriend turning 60 this month and my fondness for connections with my past, I was tempted to throw in this story to illustrate the point:
Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for the spring of 1956. (Yes, I know that was almost a half-century ago. And yes, I realize that a reference to the 1960s cartoon series Rocky and Bullwinkle is lost on younger readers. And yes, I know this is one of those parenthetical digressions.)
I was recovering from a broken leg – the consequence of an unfortunate bicycle-car encounter in which my left femur was broken on the front bumper of a doctor’s Cadillac.
I was in plaster from waist to left ankle and spent the final month of my fifth grade year at home.
I don’t recall who it was but some friend of my parents decided I could use a pen pal to occupy my time. They hooked me up with an Australian kid named Winston Sleaford who lived in Kabra, a short distance from Rockhampton, which is situated where the Tropic of Capricorn crosses the east coast of Australia.
It was about as far away as one could be from my small Midwestern hometown – a land of exotic marsupials where everyone except a few Aborigines conveniently spoke English. Being about a year older than I, Winston was born during World War II and was doubtless among tens of thousands of boys throughout the British Empire named for wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
I don’t remember much about our correspondence other than that his first effort was on a commercial note card with a pen and ink sketch of a koala on the cover and that he included about a dozen eucalyptus leaves. I’d never seen or smelled eucalyptus leaves before, so it was pretty cool.
We corresponded for a year or two before he got busy with other stuff and stopped writing.
Over the years, Winston’s name and simple address - Kabra via Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia – popped into my consciousness whenever I thought about that part of the world.
Then, around Christmas 2000, I got an e-mail from Winston. He’d tracked me down with an internet search engine, apologized for being the first to stop writing and was eager to catch up.
He’d had a career with the Postmaster General's Department in Australia, had a wife and kids and grandchildren and was enjoying his retirement. I responded with a catch-up e-mail and photos of myself and my family.
Since then, we’ve exchanged holiday e-mails and I get the feeling that the re-connection has given him the same sense of tying up a loose end that it has for me.
How often do you get to renew a 50-year-old friendship with someone you’ve never met?

Remembering the first girlfriend

My first real girlfriend, the first girl I ever kissed, turns 60 this month.
As Hunter S. Thompson liked to say, it gives a man paws.
(I’ve got three months left in my 50s, but that dubious milestone has been looming large in my awareness lately.)
Her name was Ann and we met on Monday, July 9, 1959. I know the date because I kept a diary during that period.
We were at a Presbyterian youth camp and it was the summer before our freshman year in high school. I was from a small rural county seat town of 2,500. She lived about 20 miles away in a Big Ten college town of about 25,000. My dad was an independent insurance agent and Realtor. Her father was a professor of agronomy.
I had no way to know at the time, but the relationship formed the template for a series of unfortunate long-distance relationships later in my life.

But I was a week shy of turning 14 and all I knew was that I liked her looks and personality and we found each other interesting enough to begin a correspondence at a time before Zip Codes when First Class postage was a measly 3 cents.
We saw each other only rarely, being too young to drive and being at the mercy of our parents for mobility. My parents had relatives and shopped near where she lived, so I’d call her on the phone whenever I was in the neighborhood and got the chance.
Later it was car double-dates with older buddies who had a driver’s license, then solo car dates and “parking” at the university football stadium lot – a popular make-out location where you could steam up your car windows without fear of interruption by police.
We dated off and on until about the middle of our sophomore year when I got distracted by a girl who was a Candy Striper (volunteer nurse wannabe) in the hospital where I had minor surgery in October. The Candy Striper went on to become a nurse, my wife for 26 years and the mother of my two sons.
So, yes, I dumped Ann. I’m not proud of it. I’ve never taken pride in hurting people’s feelings.
We had a high mutual regard, but we just weren’t on closely parallel life paths.
The last time I saw her, she was a senior at a Quaker-founded college and I, having flunked out of college twice and earned a medical discharge from the U.S. Air Force, was in my first real job as a reporter on a small-town daily newspaper.
She married a college football star who went on to be a banker in a major – make that the major – Midwestern city. And she became an ordained Presbyterian minister and counselor.
My somewhat more profane path led me to a 34-year career as a journalist at the largest evening daily in my home state. I also renounced my somewhat nebulous Presbyterian faith and converted to Catholocism 12 years ago this Easter.
Some time ago, I Googled her up by doing a search for her rather unusual German surname. I found she's kept it, forming a non-hyphenated double last name including her husband’s more common surname.
I found her brief biography and a photo on a counseling center website and, despite the nearly 40-year span of time, immediately recognized her.
One of my most sharply defined Cancerian traits is my attachment to the past and to the significant people of my past, even if I lose contact with them for decades.
I’m fighting a strong urge to send her an e-mail, just to say, hello, happy birthday and remark on what a long strange trip it’s been.
I have no desire to see her or even have a phone conversation – just an impulse to check in and report that I’m still on the planet and that I remember her.
Should I let this blogpost serve as the resolution to that impulse or should I dash off an e-mail? Anyone out there have an opinion?

More encouraging words out of Iran

The deadly (to despots) contagion of freedom continues to spread:

Iran Press News: According to received reports from various cities in Iran, today which marks the first celebration of the Iranian New Year's Festival of Fire was met with celebrations as well as huge protests and demonstrations against the Islamic regime of Iran. The protestors chanted: "We need no Sheikh or Mullah, we curse YOU - RUHOLLAH!"

A report from Tehran: Young celebrants today set scarecrows in the likeness of various Mullahs, such as Khamenei, Rafsanjani, Khatami, Sharoudi, Jannati, etc. on fire in the streets. They cried out slogans such as: "Referendum, referendum, this is the people's dictum."

In various parts of the capitol, celebrations and parties rage on. As a part of this celebration which is held on the very last Tuesday night of the year, dry bundles of bramble and shrubbery are set on fire and people jump over them. This is in order to purge their spirits of all the sins and tribulations of the passing year, in order to start the new year, with a pure heart. This is an ancient Persian (Zoroastrian) tradition, one that the Mullahs have done their best to eradicate since their takeover in 1979.

An eyewitness reported that despite severe crackdowns by the Revolutionary Guards and storm troopers, people bravely came out of their homes to celebrate. The sound of bursting firecrackers (which is a part of the celebrations), fireworks, toy rockets, confetti and various other celebratory trajectiles can be heard all over Tehran and smoke has filled the streets.

In one of the grassy knolls, in a suburban area of Tehran, large bonfires were lit and people danced around it and continued chanting the various slogans in defiance of the Mullahs and their henchmen. It is reported that the local Mullahs in various areas of several areas have locked themselves in their mosques fearing the crowds who continually and collectively shout out their slogans.

In several other parts of Tehran, revolutionary guards who have blocked off roads in order to stop cars carrying passengers of various groups from joining others. However people have begun parking their cars and have joined their fellow celebrants on foot. The guards however have become frightened by the force of the people. In this specific area several non-Iranian journalists were also present with their film crews, reporting.

In another area of the city people took to setting the French flag on fire while chanting: "Europe is finished and so are their Mullahs." OR "Bush, Bush, where is Bush?" (In Persian this rhymes: Bush, Bush, kush, kush!).

Like last year's celebration, the brave women who also participating in the celebrations removed their headscarves, stomping and dancing.

In the town of Karaj, near Tehran, people chanted: "Death to Khamenei" as the brutal revolutionary forces took chains and batons to people, severly beating and injuring many.

In the Southern city of Ahvaaz, on the Iran/Iraq border and the surrounding townships celebrants also came out in droves, confronting the regime's thugs. In the Shi'ite holy city of Mash'had, the city closest to the border of Afghanistan, where anti-regime and anti-Mullah fervour has always been most impressive, large groups of celebrants were arrested and detained.

My Amish niece Mary being delighted to have a glamor photo of herself in shades and fuzzy turquoise slippers. 

My maternal grandmother. She died six years before I was born. Cover one half of her face, then the other - two different faces. I wish I had known her. 

Maybe they'll fix it themselves

I just read a report about the Pink Revolution in Iran in which more and more Iranians are expressing their disapproval of their Islamist rulers by adopting colorful clothes and styles and mannerisms more suited to the modern industrial world than to Middle Eastern feudalism.
Those brave folks who defy the mullahs must surely be encouraged and inspired by the democratic elections next door in Iraq.
With any luck at all, they'll throw out the Islamists and install a more enlightened (maybe even democratic) regime, thus ending the developing need for us to step in and shut down Iran's nuclear program.
One can hope.

Yanked back

I had lunch with a longtime friend yesterday - a guy named Skip who started his career at "our" newspaper in 1967, the same year I did. He's a fellow Cancerian, also divorced from a Scorpio, who will mark his 67th birthday within days of my 60th this July.
Skip died about a year ago. Really.
He had a bizarre heart episode in which his heart suddenly jumped from 72 beats/minute to 270 bpm. Minutes after his wife got him to the ER, his heart spazzed out, went into flutter mode and then flatlined.
The ER doc hit him with 100 volts across the chest to no effect. Then she recalled reading about the effectiveness of putting one paddle on the right side of the chest and the other on the left hip.
She cranked the machine up to 200 volts, yelled, "Clear!" and let him have it. His wife said he leapt about six inches straight up and, when he came down, his heart started beating again.
His next recollection was waking up much later with tubes down his throat.
But, as you might expect, he had an interesting experience during that period he was without a heartbeat - a point where a lesser doc would have called it and declared him dead.
His recollection is of a white featureless background out of which his long-dead father emerged.
Skip's dad died an old, enfeebled man, ravaged by diabetes that cost him a leg. But the father Skip saw was as he looked in his 40s - muscular and fit and in the prime of life. He stood there at a distance of what seemed like 20 yards, staring at Skip with his arms crossed over his chest. Neither spoke a word.
Then Skip's dad turned to his left and stepped into the white nothingness.
Presently, he reappeared with Skip's maternal grandparents, looking as they did late in life. The three of them stared across the void at Skip and he stared back, no one speaking. Then they turned and walked into the whiteness.
"Those were the three closest people to me when I was growing up," Skip said, adding he spent every summer on his grandparents' farm in southern Illinois.
The next impression he can retrieve was of a gray iron bar about 2 inches thick and 18 inches shooting through his chest and another piercing his left hip.
The point of our lunch meeting - I hadn't seen him since our paper was chloroformed by the parent corporation in the late 1990s - was to talk about motorcycles. Skip had bikes when he was in his 30s and is getting back into motorcycling. He wanted my thoughts on what bikes might be right for him.
He's signed up to take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's novice rider course next month and I'll bet he's the oldest student they'll have this year.
But my friend Ted Simon rode a BMW R80 G/S around the world - yes, around the entire planet - in the two years following his 70th birthday.
I think Skip will be just fine on a bike and I hope to ride with him this summer when he decides on a machine.

Apropos of nothing

I've got a Gibson without a case,
but I can't get that even tanned look on my face...

The tide is turning

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote about conditions in Lebanon last Wednesday and included comments from the leader of the Lebanese intifada, Walid Jumblatt.

Jumblatt, he said, "is the patriarch of the Druze Muslim community and, until recently, a man who accommodated Syria's occupation. But something snapped for Jumblatt last year, when the Syrians overruled the Lebanese constitution and forced the reelection of their front man in Lebanon, President Emile Lahoud. The old slogans about Arab nationalism turned to ashes in Jumblatt's mouth, and he and Hariri openly began to defy Damascus..."

This paragraph virtually leaps off the page:

"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblatt. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

Bad acid flashback

There are few things more odious than having to endure a performance review by someone who is your professional and intellectual inferior.
Most journalists who have worked for Gannett know what I mean.

What he meant

Washington Times
February 7, 2005
Pg. 19
'Intimate Killing'
Close combat and the art of war
By Robert H. Scales

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on the future of warfare. Marine Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis was one of the panelists. During his remarks he made a statement about the pleasure that young soldiers and marines feel when killing in close combat, a statement that seems to have gotten him in trouble with the fourth estate — prompting an apology and some counseling by the Marine Corps Commandant.

First, a confession: I know Gen. Mattis. He is a central figure in the book I coauthored with Williamson Murray, "The Iraq War: A Military History." For those of you who might have the image of a knuckle-dragging troglodyte, let me assure you that he is one of the most urbane and polished men I have known. He can quote Homer as well as Sun Tzu and has over 7,000 books in his personal library.

Jim is the product of three decades of schooling and practice in the art of war. No one on active duty knows more about the subject. He is an infantryman, a close-combat Marine. He is one of those very few who willingly practices the art of what social scientists term "intimate killing." Those of us who have engaged in the act understand what he was trying to explain to an audience of defense technologists and contractors.

Intimate killing is a primal aspect of warfare unchanged since the beginning of civilization. It involves a clash of two warriors, one on one, armed with virtually identical weapons. The decision goes to the soldier with the right stuff, the one with the greater cunning, strength, guile, ruthlessness and will to win.

For a moment put yourself in the place of a young soldier or Marine fighting house to house in the mean streets of Fallujah. Burdened with over 60 pounds of gear, sweat dripping constantly into your face, you can't stop shaking from the fear of what the enemy has in store for you around the next corner. Just ahead is a darkened house with doors and windows closed and shuttered. The only sound is the crunching of your boots on the trash and broken glass as you move in slow motion to surround the dwelling. You watch as the sergeant signals you to cover a side entrance. Through the faint haze you can see your buddy kick in the door and immediately come face to face with an insurgent who greets him with a burst of AK-47 fire that tears a hole in his chest. Your buddy doesn't die. The terrorist wants him to live just long enough for his buddies to rush in for a rescue and become additional trophies to be laid at the altar of heaven.

Now, it's your turn. You use your superior discipline and skill to approach the insurgent such that you're detected just at the last second. Both of you raise your weapons simultaneously and open fire in a crushing tear of bullets that scatter and ricochet wildly across the room. One bullet finds the bad guy and he falls in a bloody lump just inches from your boots.What exactly do you "feel" at this moment? Relief, to be sure, but also something else that cannot be explained to anyone who hasn't committed an act of intimate killing. It's not joy, exactly, more like exhilaration and an enormous sense of self-satisfaction that in one of the most primal challenges — where all the satellites, planes, ships and smart weapons are of no use whatever — you prevailed, one on one, over a diabolically evil enemy.

Who should be offended by the emotions of "joy" or whatever one feels at the moment of a successful kill? It's a fair fight, you win and the bad guy loses. It's that simple. One more terrorist will not threaten your unit or your buddies. Remember, this isn't a reality show. There are no retakes. Donald Trump doesn't fire you and the price for second place is death.

My point simply is this: We must celebrate the fact that we have men like Jim Mattis willing to devote (and give) their lives when necessary to commit an act that most of those in our society would be horrified to even contemplate. If you are offended by these emotions, then seriously consider joining an Army or Marine infantry unit so that you can demonstrate how to kill an enemy in a more humane and politically correct manner.

Until such an unlikely day occurs, we must all remember that leaders like Gen. Mattis and the men he commands are the rarest commodities that a protected society like ours can produce. All they want is the opportunity to serve a country that truly appreciates the difficulty and dangers inherent in the duties they perform, duties that very few are willing even to contemplate.

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales is a former commander of the Army War College

Tower Talk

Delta 351: "Give us another hint! We have digital watches!"
==========================================

"TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 Degrees."

"Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?"

"Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"
==========================================

From an unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff queue: "I'm
f...ing bored!"

Ground Traffic Control: "Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!"

Unknown aircraft: "I said I was f...ing bored, not f...ing stupid!"
==========================================

O'Hare Approach Control to a 747: "United 329 heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, three miles, Eastbound."

United 239: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this...I've got the little Fokker in sight."
==========================================

A DC-10 had come in a little fast and thus had an exceedingly long roll out after touching down.

San Jose Tower Noted: "American 751, make a hard right turn at the end of the runway, if you are able. If you are not able, take the Guadalupe exit off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return to the airport."
==========================================

There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked." Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two, behind an eight-engined B-52 that had one engine shut down.

"Ah," the fighter pilot remarked, "the dreaded seven-engine approach."
==========================================

A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent) "Because you lost the bloody war."
==========================================

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency 124.7"

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff behind Eastern 702, contact Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern 702?"

Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger...and yes, we copied Eastern. We've already notified our caterers."
==========================================

One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee. Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said, "What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"

The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I'll have enough parts for another one."
==========================================

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a
short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."

Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."

The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"

Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, and I didn't land."
==========================================

While taxiing at London's Gatwick Airport, the crew of a US Air flight departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a United 727.

An irate female ATC ground controller lashed out at the US Air
crew, screaming:

"US Air 2771, where the hell are you going?! I told you to
turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it's difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!"

Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting
hysterically:

"God! Now you've screwed everything up! It'll take forever to
sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?"

"Yes, ma'am," the humbled crew responded.

Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of mind. Tension in every cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high.

Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone, asking:

"Wasn't I married to you once?"

Murphy's Laws of Combat

1. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
2. Incoming fire has the right of way.
3. Don't look conspicuous, it draws fire.
4. There is always a way, and it usually doesn't work.
5. The problem with the easy way out is that it has already been mined.
6. Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.
7. Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous.
8. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions:
when you're ready for them.
when you're not ready for them.
9.Teamwork is essential, it gives them someone else to shoot at.
10. If you can't remember, then the claymore IS pointed at you.
11. The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack.
12. A "sucking chest wound" is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
13. If your attack is going well, then it's an ambush.
14. Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you.
15. Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing.
16. If you build yourself a bunker that's tough for the enemy to get into quickly, then you won't be able to get out of it quickly either.
17. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
18. If you're short of everything but the enemy, you're in a combat zone.
19. When you've secured the area, don't forget to tell the enemy.
20. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
21. Friendly fire isn't.
22. If the sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
23. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep.
24. The most dangerous thing in the world is a second lieutenant with a map and a compass.
25. There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.
26. A grenade with a seven second fuse will always burn down in four seconds.
27. Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.
28. If at first you don't succeed call in an air-strike.
29. Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan.
30. Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the colonel's HQ.
31. The enemy never watches until you make a mistake.
32. One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many.
33. A clean (and dry) set of BDU's is a magnet for mud and rain.
34. Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on ammo, you can't hit the broad side of a barn.
35. The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.
36. Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
37. Interchangeable parts aren't.
38. No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill.
39. If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove ANYTHING.
40. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. (in boot camp)
41. The one item you need is always in short supply.
42. The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it.
43. The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon's operator.
44. Airstrikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short.
45. When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most important ones are always illegible.
46. Those who hesitate under fire usually do not end up KIA or WIA.
47. The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don't know what they want, but they know for certain what they DON'T want.
48. To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.
49. The weapon that usually jams when you need it the most is the M60.
50. The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet is filled by someone else.
51. When you have sufficient supplies & ammo, the enemy takes 2 weeks to attack. 52. When you are low on supplies & ammo the enemy decides to attack that night.
52. The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the Congressional Medal Of Honor.
53. A Purple Heart just goes to prove that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.
54. Murphy was a grunt.

My Florida friend Susan. For 8 years she was the chief financial officer of the fastest-growing, most affluent community in Indiana. She was also the most honest, straightforward, no-bullshit elected official I covered in my 34 years in newspapers. 

This one always creeps my wife out. An audiologist is injecting a silicone compound into my ear canal to make custom molded in-ear stereo speakers for use when riding my motorcycle. My wife can't stand anything in her ears. 

I covered a rural house fire last evening. Here's the photo that ran big on the front page this morning. 

Here's another. 

After being inundated by Valentine's Day crap - weddings, proposals, fawning couples - on the morning TV talk shows, this is how I feel about V-Day. 

Shot from the pier at Flagler Beach, Fla., last Thursday. It was a chilly, gray, windy day but perfect for surfers. I didn't expect to see wave action like this on the Atlantic coast. 

Wrong number

I just got a wrong-number call on my cell phone from a woman at 317-357-1121.
Feel free to call her and say, "Oooops. Sorry, wrong number."

This is Florida?

It's 57 degrees, but the wind chill makes if feel like 52, with a heavy overcast and spitting rain here in beautiful Palm Coast, Fla.
Sunshine State, my ass.
It was like this yesterday and will be this way tomorrow.
If I wanted sunshine, I shoulda gone to Colorado.
The Honda del Sol performed splendidly on the drive down, delivering 34.6 miles per gallon. The addition of XM satellite radio to the entertainment options made the trip an easy one, even with a 45-minute crawl through a construction zone on I-75 north of Valdosta, Ga.
I'd envisioned driving around down here with the roof panel stowed in the trunk, but that's not gonna happen until Friday at the earliest and maybe not at all.
Took my friends to see Sideways last night. I enjoyed it and would give it at least an 8 on a scale of 10. It goes deeper into the dynamics of relationships than most movies do and is considerably more thoughtful than 99% of the films out there today. At the same time, there are outrageously funny moments. Whether it's Oscar material is another matter entirely, especially if The Passion of The Christ doesn't even make the nomination cut.
Whatever. It was worth the price of admission.
When we stepped up to the ticket booth, the cashier - a woman I'd judge to be in her 60s - asked if we wanted the senior citizen discount. I glanced up at the ticket price list and noticed the cutoff was 60. Only one of us - Susan's boyfriend - is over 60 and Susan just had a facelift that makes her look early 40-something, but I thought, "What the hell? Why not?"
Judging from the other theater patrons around us, I figured most of them got in at the geezer rate.
So our three tickets came to a modest $18.
I spent much of yesterday helping Ed, Susan's boyfriend, research ways to get his neighbor to stop parking his electrical contracting business vehicles in front of his (the neighbor's) house.
It's obvious the neighbor is running his business out of his home and, under local regulations, that means he cannot park vehicles with painted business signage, in front of his home.
We've determined that he has his business registered at an address in St. Augustine. Turns out he owns several residential rental properties in a white trash neighborhood up there, but our reconnaisance determined there is no electrical contracting business being done at any of them, including the one listed on his St. John County (St. Augustine) business permit.
This scheme to get around Palm Coast ordinances is made all the more interesting by the fact that the guy serves on a town council-appointed technical board for construction review.
So what he have is a government official flaunting the laws of his own community.
My suggestion is to pull together all this information, along with photos of the offending vehicles parked illegally in front of the house, and turn it over to some eager young newspaper reporter.
In the meantime, I need to get out and do some photography for our stock photo business.
*********************
I just answered the doorbell - Ed is out rescuing a buddy whose car broke down on I-95 a few miles from here - and found myself being schmoozed by a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses women. I closed the door in their faces as pleasantly as possible, explaining that I'm Catholic and am quite satisfied with my religion.
Crappy weather, evangelists, strategizing against a sleazy neighbor and now I have a sinus headache. What next?

Florida-bound, weather permitting

The flu hung on a day longer than I expected, but I'm back to about 95% and will head for a week-long photo expedition to Florida tomorrow.
I'll spend tomorrow night at the home of a seldom-seen cousin south of Nashville, Tenn., then on to the home of friends in Palm Coast, Fla., Monday night.
Watching the snow falling outside my office window makes it an easy decision to throw my gear into the trunk of my del Sol, crank up the XM satellite radio and head for the tropics.
Unfortunately, my wife can't come with me. She's saving her vacation time for later in the year and also wants to stay close to home because her Amish sister-in-law is expecting a sixth (!?!?!) child any day now.
So I'll just have to e-mail her photos of palm trees and me driving around with the top off of my car in the balmy Florida breezes.
If I have anything interesting to report, I'll blog it from Florida.

Goddamned flu

I have the flu.
I woke up yesterday morning feeling ever so slightly queasy and the condition intensified through the day. Lunch was a toasted cheese sandwich and cup of soup. By mid-afternoon, I'd run out of stuff to write and edit at my wife's newspaper where I was filling in. I felt sufficiently crappy that I came home and went to bed with body aches, chills and fever.
My wife and stepdaughter had bouts with this or a similar bug in late December and I had been congratulating myself on avoiding it. Obviously, my luck had run out.
My wife was laid low for nearly a week and her daughter was flattened for about three days.
Despite a fever of 100.4 last night and an inability to venture far from a toilet today, I feel pretty good and should be back to normal tomorrow.
It's been a couple of years since I've had so much as a cold, so I guess I shouldn't complain about a 24-48-hour knock-down.
I called my daughter-in-law the doctor when my wife was sick and got very useful advice - drink at least 8 ounces of fluid per hour. I kept the wife and stepdaughter loaded up with Gatorade and have been slugging down lots of the stuff myself. I have no science to back it up, but I think it does a better job of flushing out the debris and keeping me hydrated than does plain water.

Time Marches On

I'm reading proof and writing editorials today at my wife's newspaper.
The editorial page is where they run the "Today in History" and celebrity birthdays and I was startled to discover that Eddie Van Halen tunred 50 today. Now he can join AARP and get senior citizen discounts at Motel 6.
Welcome to the downhill slide, Eddie.

No good deed goes unpunished

This post by a U.S. Navy officer aboard the U.S.S. Lincoln was copied from the Soldiers for The Truth blog: sftt.org
01-20-2005

Guest Column: No Relief in Sight for the Lincoln

By Ed Stanton

It has been three weeks since my ship, the USS Abraham Lincoln, arrived off the Sumatran coast to aid the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami that ravaged their coastline. I’d like to say that this has been a rewarding experience for us, but it has not: Instead, it has been a frustrating and needlessly dangerous exercise made even more difficult by the Indonesian government and a traveling circus of so-called aid workers who have invaded our spaces.



What really irritated me was a scene I witnessed in the Lincoln’s wardroom a few days ago. I went in for breakfast as I usually do, expecting to see the usual crowd of ship’s company officers in khakis and air wing aviators in flight suits, drinking coffee and exchanging rumors about when our ongoing humanitarian mission in Sumatra is going to end.



What I saw instead was a mob of civilians sitting around like they owned the place. They wore various colored vests with logos on the back including Save The Children, World Health Organization and the dreaded baby blue vest of the United Nations. Mixed in with this crowd were a bunch of reporters, cameramen and Indonesian military officers in uniform. They all carried cameras, sunglasses and fanny packs like tourists on their way to Disneyland.



My warship had been transformed into a floating hotel for a bunch of trifling do-gooders overnight.



As I went through the breakfast line, I overheard one of the U.N. strap-hangers, a longhaired guy with a beard, make a sarcastic comment to one of our food servers. He said something along the lines of “Nice china, really makes me feel special,” in reference to the fact that we were eating off of paper plates that day. It was all I could do to keep from jerking him off his feet and choking him, because I knew that the reason we were eating off paper plates was to save dishwashing water so that we would have more water to send ashore and save lives. That plus the fact that he had no business being there in the first place.



My attitude towards these unwanted no-loads grew steadily worse that day as I learned more from one of our junior officers who was assigned to escort a group of them. It turns out that they had come to Indonesia to “assess the damage” from the Dec. 26 tsunami.



Well, they could have turned on any TV in the world and seen that the damage was total devastation. When they got to Sumatra with no plan, no logistics support and no five-star hotels to stay in, they threw themselves on the mercy of the U.S. Navy, which, unfortunately, took them in. I guess our senior brass was hoping for some good PR since this was about the time that the U.N. was calling the United States “stingy” with our relief donations.



As a result of having to host these people, our severely over-tasked SH-60 Seahawk helos, which were carrying tons of food and water every day to the most inaccessible places in and around Banda Aceh, are now used in great part to ferry these “relief workers” from place to place every day and bring them back to their guest bedrooms on the Lincoln at night. Despite their avowed dedication to helping the victims, these relief workers will not spend the night in-country, and have made us their guardians by default.



When our wardroom treasurer approached the leader of the relief group and asked him who was paying the mess bill for all the meals they ate, the fellow replied, “We aren’t paying, you can try to bill the U.N. if you want to.”



In addition to the relief workers, we routinely get tasked with hauling around reporters and various low-level “VIPs,” which further wastes valuable helo lift that could be used to carry supplies. We had to dedicate two helos and a C-2 cargo plane for America-hater Dan Rather and his entourage of door holders and briefcase carriers from CBS News. Another camera crew was from MTV. I doubt if we’ll get any good PR from them, since the cable channel is banned in Muslim countries. We also had to dedicate a helo and crew to fly around the vice mayor of Phoenix, Ariz., one day. Everyone wants in on the action.



As for the Indonesian officers, while their job is apparently to encourage our leaving as soon as possible, all they seem to do in the meantime is smoke cigarettes. They want our money and our help but they don’t want their population to see that Americans are doing far more for them in two weeks than their own government has ever done or will ever do for them.



To add a kick in the face to the USA and the Lincoln, the Indonesian government announced it would not allow us to use their airspace for routine training and flight proficiency operations while we are saving the lives of their people, some of whom are wearing Osama bin Ladin T-shirts as they grab at our food and water. The ship has to steam out into international waters to launch and recover jets, which makes our helos have to fly longer distances and burn more fuel.



What is even worse than trying to help people who totally reject everything we stand for is that our combat readiness has suffered for it.



An aircraft carrier is an instrument of national policy and the big stick she carries is her air wing. An air wing has a set of very demanding skills and they are highly perishable. We train hard every day at sea to conduct actual air strikes, air defense, maritime surveillance, close air support and many other missions – not to mention taking off and landing on a ship at sea.



Our safety regulations state that if a pilot does not get a night carrier landing every seven days, he has to be re-qualified to land on the ship. Today we have pilots who have now been over 25 days without a trap due to being unable to use Indonesian airspace to train. Normally it is when we are at sea that our readiness is at its very peak. Thanks to the Indonesian government, we have to waive our own safety rules just to get our pilots off the deck.



In other words, the longer we stay here helping these people, the more dangerous it gets for us to operate. We have already lost one helicopter, which crashed in Banda Aceh while taking sailors ashore to unload supplies from the C-130s. There were no relief workers on that one.



I’m all for helping the less fortunate, but it is time to give this mission to somebody other than the U.S. Navy. Our ship was supposed to be home on Feb. 3 and now we have no idea how long we will be here. American taxpayers are spending millions per day to keep this ship at sea and getting no training value out of it. As a result, we will come home in a lower state of readiness than when we left due to the lack of flying while supporting the tsunami relief effort.



I hope we get some good PR in the Muslim world out of it. After all, this is Americans saving the lives of Muslims. I have my doubts.



Ed Stanton is the pen name of a career U.S. Navy officer currently serving with the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group. Send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.

What worries me tonight...

I don’t think of myself as a worrier, although my wife and my sons might have a different view.
But I’m starting to get seriously worried about the epidemic of methamphetamine use and meth-related crime I’m seeing.
It seems that almost every crime and aberration that crops up in this semi-rural part of the state is linked, somehow, with meth.
We live in a town of about 1,500 surrounded by farmland. An abandoned railroad right-of-way runs behind our house and on the other side of it is the local Farm Bureau Co-Op with three or four huge storage tanks full of anhydrous ammonia.
At various times during the year, area farmers apply ammonia to their fields using “nurse tanks,” big white torpedo-shaped tanks on wheels that they pull behind a tractor or a truck.
For the uninitiated, ammonia is a component used to manufacture methamphetamine. Of all the ingredients, ammonia is the only one that meth makers can’t walk into Wal-Mart and buy. So they have to steal it.
The tricky part is that guys who make meth are more often than not meth users, which means they spend a lot of time under the influence of this insanely addictive drug. That means we have inherently stupid people who have further impaired themselves with dangerous chemicals trying to break open valves on big tanks full of a highly toxic substance.
One night during the summer of 2003, one of these morons got in over his head trying to steal ammonia from the Co-Op and left a valve on a nurse tank open. My wife arrived home from work about 7 p.m. and noticed a strong smell of ammonia. It got progressively stronger to the point where we had to go inside and shut our doors and windows to keep it out. A Little League baseball game was in progress a block down the street on the opposite side of our house from the Co-Op. The town marshal called off the game and evacuated the ballpark.
The ammonia finally dissipated, but the episode left us with the disturbing realization that we could all be gassed in our sleep by some imbecile trying to filch ammonia to make meth.
A little reconnaissance revealed there is virtually no security at the Co-Op. No night watchman, no security light, no high fence. The nurse tanks are lined up in an area that opens onto a soybean field. Some bold meth head could easily drive through the bean field some moonless night, hook a nurse tank to his vehicle and make off with several thousand pounds of deadly anhydrous.
Now, I could go off on a homeland security tangent here and suggest that our nation’s unsecured agricultural ammonia supplies are an easy target for terrorists, but let’s stay with the meth angle for now.
I wrote earlier about a cop friend who was involved in a police action shooting that killed a young man who was spun on meth and made the fatal error of pointing a pellet gun at an officer in pre-dawn darkness.
Hardly a week goes by in the nearby county where my wife’s newspaper is based that a highly volatile meth lab doesn’t blow up and damage a house or some other structure. During the winter, meth makers look for abandoned structures or the homes of people vacationing in Florida to break into and set up their labs. I read a police report this week about a guy and his son who were making meth in the crawlspace under a stranger’s house. I saw another report about a 19-year-old and a 22-year-old – both meth heads – who decided to support their habit by passing bad checks. Now they face a combined 19 felony counts of forgery.
My pharmacist has a sister-in-law who is hopelessly addicted to meth – been in and out of rehab countless times but just can’t stay away from it.
Cops will tell you that almost all identity theft is meth-related.
My stepson’s cousin lives by himself in his great-grandmother’s house and my stepson says he’s starting to hang out with the meth crowd.
This week, my wife’s publisher had to fire the best photographer who has ever worked at that paper because of meth.
The guy and his wife moved here from the south a few months ago, pretty much dead broke because – the story goes – they spent the last year or so caring for the wife’s dying mother.
The guy went to work, shooting excellent news photos. It was immediately clear that he had the makings of a top flight photojournalist.
However…
His wife was a dirtbag slut. Soon after they arrived, she started hanging out in the sleazier bars and less than a month later, she disappeared with hubby’s car, having run off to Nebraska with a construction worker.
The photog moped around for a few days, then got back to work and was turning out some brilliant photography – spot news, features, illustrations, you name it – until the wife called and tearfully told him the boyfriend had beaten and abandoned her.
However talented the photog was, he had absolutely no judgment when it came to relationships. He drove to Nebraska and brought her home.
It was all downhill from that point on. Coworkers said they saw the couple out partying all night every night. He was later and later getting to work every day.
A couple of weeks ago, at a time when a nasty flu bug was running rampant in the newsroom, he called in sick on a Monday. His editor checked on him daily until Wednesday when his wife said she’s keep the office apprised of his condition. But there was no call on Thursday and by Friday morning the sports department was getting nervous about whether he would be available to shoot weekend sports or whether they needed to hunt up photo stringers.
My wife, having a good rapport with the police department, called the cops and asked them to drop by his apartment and do a welfare check just to make sure he was still alive.
A short time later, the photog called the newsroom – barely coherent but with his wife screeching in the background. It took the editor a good 15 minutes to explain to him that nobody was angry with him, they just got worried and also wondered what plans to make for the weekend. He didn’t have a phone and had turned off his company cell phone.
So fast forward to Wednesday morning when the folks in the newsroom hear police radio traffic mentioning the photographer’s name and something about a portable police scanner radio belonging to the newspaper.
The editor was off with the flu, so my wife and the publisher went to the police station where they identified the scanner radio as the one they had issued to the photographer.
Seems it turned up in the apartment of a meth dealer. Further investigation revealed that the photographer had earlier sold the meth dealer his Ford Explorer for two grams of meth. The closest we could get to an explanation of how the scanner radio got into the meth dealer’s apartment was that the photog said he’d given it to his wife while he was off shooting a high school basketball game because it’s impossible to hear the scanner in a noisy gym. So we’re left to suppose the wife went visiting and accidentally left behind a device that would be extremely useful to a criminal who wanted to know what the local police were up to.
My wife finally reached the photographer at his apartment – after he had been questioned by police – and told him the publisher wanted him in the office immediately. He tried to beg off, saying he was “too freaked out” at the moment. An hour or so later, the publisher ordered him to report to the office with all of his company-owned equipment within 25 minutes. Otherwise, the publisher would call the police and report the equipment stolen.
A staff member saw the photog park his car in front of the office with the left rear tire up on the sidewalk. His wife was in the car, applying makeup.
He turned in his stuff and was terminated.
His Nikon D70 had a 1 gig Compact Flash card that held 86 photos taken between 7:04 and 7:38 a.m. that same day. Most were of his wife posing seductively by candlelight. Since sunrise wasn’t until a little after 8 a.m., it was obvious that they had been up all night. It was equally clear that they were oblivious to the shit storm gathering around them.
It’s impossible for me to see this stuff happening around me and not be concerned.
What happens when the stepson’s cousin gets seriously spun on meth and tells his buddies about the burglary opportunities at my house? What happens the next time some idiot decides to crack a valve on a nurse tank behind my house?
Like I said, I don’t think of myself as a worrier, but I do have a heightened sense of danger.

Far-fetched, but an amusing thought...

Has U.S. threatened
to vaporize Mecca?
Intelligence expert says nuke option is reason bin Laden has been quiet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Posted: January 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Why hasn't Osama bin Laden's terror network executed an attack on U.S. soil since 9-11?

Simple, says Dr. Jack Wheeler, creator of an acclaimed intelligence website dubbed "the oasis for rational conservatives": The U.S. has threatened to nuke the Muslim holy city of Mecca should the terror leader strike America again.

On his website, To the Point, Wheeler explains how the Bush administration has identified the potential of wiping Mecca off the map as bin Laden's ultimate point of vulnerability – the Damoclean Sword hanging over his head.

..snip...Writes Wheeler in his members-only column: "There has been a rumor floating in the Washington ether for some time now that George Bush has figured out what Sword of Damocles is suspended over Osama bin Laden's head.

...snip...Completely obliterating the terrorists' holiest of holies, rendering what is for them the world's most sacred spot a radioactive hole in the ground is retribution of biblical proportions – and those are the only proportions that will do the job.

"Osama would have laughed off such a threat, given his view that Americans are wussies who cut and run after a few losses, such as Lebanon in 1983 and Somalia in 1993. Part of Bush's rationale for invading Afghanistan and Iraq – obviously never expressed publicly – was to convince Osama that his threat to nuke Mecca was real. Osama hates America just as much as ever, but he is laughing no more."

Wheeler says bin Laden is "playing poker with a Texas cowboy holding the nuclear aces," so there's nothing al-Qaida could do that could come remotely close to risking obliterating Mecca.

How bizarre

Ever stop to wonder how an aggregation of chemicals and subtle electrical impulses (you) have the capacity to wonder about anything? Or to know anything, much less have memories, emotions and values.
Pretty damned uppity for a wheezing bag of protoplasm, don't you think?

Also...

Oh, and by the way, the dirtbags kidnapped the Catholic Archibishop of Mosul today.
The sight of The Most Reverend Basil George Casmoussa, 66, in an orange jumpsuit getting his head hacked off is an image that would have cataclysmic consequences for Islamic fundamentalists everywhere.
It's hard to imagine a better way to set off a genuine take-no-prisoners 21st century Crusade.

Who needs an exit strategy, Part 2

Back on Oct. 20, I made this observation:
Has it occurred to anyone else that an unstated objective of the Iraq campaign was the acquisition of bases from which we could better deal with the rogue states of the region?
Naturally, it would have been foolish to state this up front as a reason to remove Saddam and conquer Iraq, but it’s looking more like a brilliant move with every passing day.
Yes, the insurgency in Iraq has made things a little messy and a short-sighted media has fixated on it at the expense of seeing the big picture.
Kudos to the Bush administration for thinking more than one move ahead in this chess game we dare not lose.
Another astute blogger pointed out this week that we have a 25-year-old score to settle with the mullahs of Iran - a little matter of Americans held hostage because a Democrat president couldn't command their respect. Or fear.
As I've said earlier, those who seek to destroy us should understand that - with our use of precision munitions and our concern for civilian casualties - what the world has seen so far is "us being nice." They don't ever want to see "us not being nice."

This story ran in today's editions of The New York Daily News:

Yank commandos already in place, mag says
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - U.S. commandos are hunting for secret nuclear and chemical weapons sites and other targets in Iran, and have a plan to turn the hard-line Islamic country into the next front in the war on terrorism.
"It's not if we're going to do anything against Iran. They're doing it," an ex-intelligence official tells this week's issue of The New Yorker.

Since at least last summer, the U.S. teams have penetrated eastern Iran, reportedly with Pakistan's help, the magazine said.

"Iraq is just one campaign," the official told investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. "The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."

The aim is to rid America and its allies of a major state sponsor of terrorism, Hersh writes.

"We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy," the official tells Hersh. "This is the last hurrah - we've got four years and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom President Bush has asked to stay on in his second term, has been jockeying for more power to conduct covert ops without nagging congressional oversight.

"It's a global free-fire zone," said one Pentagon adviser.

Iran has fought tooth and nail demands that it open its nuclear energy program for inspection, fueling suspicion that the charter member of President Bush's "axis of evil" is up to no good.

That same secrecy also has heightened tensions with another axis member with nuclear ambitions, North Korea.

Pentagon neoconservatives - hard-liners who include Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz - believe that surgical strikes on a small list of military targets will minimize civilian casualties and may spark an uprising by reformers against the ruling fundamentalist mullahs, current and ex-officials said.

Hersh told CNN that if targets are lined up by this summer, U.S. attacks could soon follow.

They "want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible," a Pentagon consultant told Hersh.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz believe that, just as with some Soviet-bloc countries, "the minute the aura of invincibility the mullahs enjoy is shattered ... the Iranian regime will collapse," the consultant said.

Yet Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) of the House International Relations Committee said, "I wouldn't assume the Iranian regime will just collapse."

With combat operations still raging in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the hunt for weapons of mass destruction came up empty, Bush would have to explain fully a new call for military action against Iran, King said.

"He'd have to get the people behind it," King told the Daily News. "But you'd have to factor in that the American public would be somewhat suspicious."

But Bush aides are "compulsively optimistic" that the mullahs have a fragile hold on power, and they are sure to strike soon, predicted defense analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org.

"I think they're going to do it," he told The News. "I'm skeptical that diplomacy will succeed."

While presidential counselor Dan Bartlett complained that Hersh's story was "riddled with inaccuracies," he notably did not outright deny any of it.

"No President at any juncture in history has ever taken military options off the table," Bartlett told CNN's "Late Edition." "What President Bush has shown [is] that he believes we can emphasize the diplomatic initiatives that are under way right now."

This Made My Day

Dirty Harry’ star Clint Eastwood told an awards ceremony in New York that he would “kill” Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker Michael Moore if he ever showed up at his front door with a camera, according to a report on Ananova.com.

With Moore sitting in the audience, Eastwood said, “Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common - we both appreciate living in a country where there’s free expression.

“But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera — I’ll kill you. I mean it.”

Eastwood, a Republican, made the comments at the National Board of Review awards held in New York where he picked up a Special Filmmaking Achievement prize for Million Dollar Baby.

A report in the New York Daily News, said Moore, who received a special “Freedom of Expression” award for his anti-Bush documentary, appeared to laugh off Eastwood’s comments.

Reason #726 why it's safer to live in the Midwestern United States. 

Favorite Bumper Sticker

Give France back to Germany

A brief lament

The last quarter of 2004 saw my two favorite businesses go under.
The local BMW motorcycle dealer closed his doors, largely because of idiotic policies of BMW Motorrad USA forcing him to take new bikes faster than he could sell them.
And Galyan's - a broad-spectrum sporting goods and adventure outfitter that started several years ago in Plainfield, Ind., and eventually expanded into several states nationwide - fell on hard times and was gobbled up by aptly-named Dick's.
My New Year's wishes are for a new BMW dealer and new stores by REI and/or Cabela's.

Makes you proud

The U.S. and the Australians are doing all of the heavy lifting and providing the quickest and best response to the needs of the tsunami victims according to reports on The Diplomad, a blog by career U.S. Foreign Service officers.
This, according to Diplomad, is occurring against a background of United National floundering and attempts to take credit for the hard work of the Yanks and Aussies.
Read all about it here:
http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/