From The Ridiculous To The Sublime To The Sad To The Silly

I see that Omaha is getting more national attention for an odd local robbery . . . or more correctly, for the odd local robber. He recently broke into a Tobacco Hut by kicking in the glass. When he crawled through the opening he'd made, his pants must have snagged on some of the shards. Security tapes show him scuttling around the store on his knees with his pants down and his rear assets visible. [I can't help but think of an old "Designing Women" episode, wherein Annie Potts's character talks about plumbers and notes that they give the newspaper headline "America's Crack Problem" a whole new meaning.--Ed.]

He has been nicknamed The Bare-Bottom Bandit. Local TV newscasters are asking anyone who recognizes either end of the bandit to notify Omaha police.

The local NBC affiliate won't air the security tapes, saying they are not fit for broadcast TV. The local ABC affiliate, on the other hand, aired them with strategic pixel distortion. The local CBS affiliate showed the tapes with a fuzzy spot in the critical area. I was too afraid to see what the local Fox affiliate showed.

* * * * * * * * * *

I am still reeling at the news of the deaths of baseball Hall-of-Fame outfielder Kirby Puckett from a stroke and Dana Reeve, widow of Christopher Reeve, from lung cancer. Puckett was a geniuinely talented fireplug of a player and a truly nice guy. Dana Reeve had marvelous courage in the face of the crap life threw at her: her husband, paralyzed in a horse-riding accident, used his fame not just to fund spinal cord research but to speak out about the inequities of the US health care system (and she was 100% by his side as he did so); a life-long non-smoker, she contracted lung cancer and knew she was going to die; she knew she would leave behind a teen-aged son . . . and yet her spirit and optimism never wavered. She was an inspiration. Somehow I think her son will be just fine.

Billy Joel was right. Only the good die young.

* * * * * * * * * *

The jury must NOT give Zacarias Moussaoui the death penalty for his being an adimtted Al Quaida member and alleged co-conspirator in the 9/11 attacks. (He claims he was training to fly a plane into the White House on a different day. Like that should give him brownie points.)

All his antics during his trial have been calculated to tick off the jury and get him the death penalty so that he can become a "glorious" martyr for his "cause." He has repeatedly ignored instructions from the judge, repeatedly condemned his own attorneys, and pumped his fist in apparant satisfaction when the horrors of 9/11 were recounted to the jury.

The LAST thing we need to do is make him a martyr for radical Islam. Let's give him life in prison without parole and see how he likes it as his name and deeds and intended deeds fade from the collective American consciousness. Being forgotten but not gone would serve him right.

* * * * * * * * * *

The weekly Bellevue Leader includes a column during the school year called "KIDspeak." Local elementary school students are asked a question, and nine of the best/most typical/most interesting responses are published with the students' names and pictures.

Sometimes the questions and answers are cute. For Valentine's Day, for instance, many of the kids said their mom was their favorite valentine. But this week, the question was "What makes a perfect husband or wife?"

After reading the responses, all I could think of was "it starts early, doesn't it?" The boys all thought that part of being a perfect wife was doing the cleaning and other chores and catering to the needs of the husband. One of them even said that included financially, as she was supposed to have a good job in addition to feeding him and keeping the house and laundry clean.

The girls, on the other hand, thought the perfect husband would gladly help with the chores and raising the children and generally be kind and caring. One went so far as to say that the perfect husband would also be rich and take her shopping. (No, her name was not Anna Nicole.)

I think they ALL need a reality check.

One Ringy Dingy . . .

Lily Tomlin's Ernestine must be waxing rhapsodic. AT&T has just reached terms to buy out Bell South, reuniting virtually all of the old Ma Bell under one corporate roof--and thus undoing much of the judicial decision in the 80s to break up the Bell monopoly.

I, for one, have been on record for years stating my belief that the Bell system shouldn't have been broken up in the first place. "But don't you believe in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?" you ask. Yes, I do. But I also have always believed that telephones are in fact (though not in name) a utility, not an optional household expense. Try having a medical crisis and getting help without a phone, if you doubt that a telephone is a necessity in the modern world.

Still, I am not sanguine about this merger. I realize the business climate for telephone systems is not the same as it was in the 80s (due largely to the break-up of Ma Bell to begin with) and I know that there are economies of scale that only enormous companies can attain. However, less competition is in general not a good thing. Besides, the tendency lately is for companies to use the cost savings they gain by mergers to improve their bottom line, not decrease costs to their customers.

True, that is not a bad thing from the corporation's viewpoint. The corporation's goal is to maximize return for its shareholders. That's its job. But there are larger societal implications than making the most money possible. There are not-necessarily-tangible gains to be had from running a business with "enlightened self-interest." Maybe the corporation makes a little less money in this fiscal year--but then it also stabilizes its existence and ensures a steady, long-term income stream by maximizing the number of people who hold jobs, and who thus can afford to buy what the corporation sells.

For the same reasons, I have shaken my head in disbelief at (for just two examples) both the proponents of extreme logging and the airline pilots who propose striking Delta right now. Once all the trees are gone and once Delta ceases to exist, none of them are going to have any jobs. What is wrong with giving a little to get a lot more over the long term in return?

Of course, this all goes back to the current political climate. An awful lot of people who hold powerful political positions seem to have forgotten that the genius of the American system is compromise. They all want their own ideas implemented 100% and don't seem to be willing to give an inch. On ANYthing. Which is downright unAmerican, if you ask me.

Have none of you heard of the concept of a pyrrhic victory? What's the point in winning a short-term goal if you all ultimately go down in flames?

How can you tell if a compromise is a good one, anyway? Simple: if everybody is mad, from the farthest right to the far-outest left, you've achieved a workable solution. Not necessarily the best solution, but a workable one. And that historically is what has made America function.

Our collective loss of memory about the viability of compromise threatens our system, our safety, our security, and our whole way of life far more than Al Qaida ever could. We need to relearn why America survived its first two hundred years and get back to implementing what has made America work if we are to survive another two hundred.

Baked Beans Are Off

I hope you have been watching "Monty Python's Personal Best" on PBS. It is a real joy to see humor that has stood the test of time. So far, individual episodes have focused on Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, and Terry Gilliam. I know many people who watched Monty Python when PBS first aired it in the 1970s and who enjoyed it just because it was silly . . . but there's much more to it than that. Monty Python aired some of the most potent social satire of the day. And while some of the political references may be dated (e.g., "Margaret Thatcher's brain"), the sketches are still funny.

Some of my personal "best of the best" sketches that have already aired include "The Lumberjack Song," "The Philosophy Department at the University of Wallamaloo," "Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge" (Eric Idle); "The Dead Parrot," "The Penguin on the Telly," "Spam" (Graham Chapman) [How can you NOT love a sketch that gave a name to a whole category of unwanted internet emails?--Ed.] ; "Confuse-A-Cat," "The Upper Class Twit of the Year" (John Cleese); and the entire hour of animation, but especially "Conrad Poohs and His Dancing Teeth" (Terry Gilliam).

One oddity: 3 of the 4 episodes aired so far have included "The Fish-Slapping Dance." Don't get me wrong: I adore "The Fish-Slapping Dance." When viewed in the context of other great confrontations, like Bugs Bunny's "The Rabbit of Seville," "The Fish-Slapping Dance" comments succinctly on the futility of arms races. But is it the best Monty Python sketch of all time? It's the only one so far to be included in its entirety in more than one episode. Maybe saying it's "the best" is a bit strong. Perhaps saying it's the "all-time favorite" of the Pythons themselves is better.

I eagerly await "Hell's Grannies," "The Killer Joke," "The Piranha Brothers," "The Spanish Inquisition," and "Election Night Special," among other gems yet to air. Heck, just thinking about them makes me giggle.

"Monty Python's Personal Best" also reminds me that: (1) "Saturday Night Live," notably in its first incarnation with the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, among other shows, owes an incalculable debt to the Pythons; and (2) even the Pythons owe a debt to Ernie Kovacs.

Kovacs did it first; Kovacs did it better (just imagine what he'd have been able to accomplish had he lived long enough to use more recent technologies); Kovacs knew whereof he spoke when he said "Television is a medium because it is neither rare nor well done."

"Monty Python's Personal Best" may be television, but it is rare, and it is very well done indeed. If you haven't been watching, see the additional airings. You won't regret it.

The Debate Is Settled

One of the great questions of the day is whether Dubya and his minions are evil or just stupid. I haven't commented much on Dubya's administration's antics of late, because it seems as though no more can be said, but after what I heard on NPR this morning, I just had to say this:

They definitely are clueless, if not outright stupid. True evil is in general not so bumbling.

What did I hear, you ask? A recounting of Dubya's trip to India, wherein he said in his own words that India is "a great democracy where people of different religions live side by side in peace and harmony."

All I could think of was, "Oh, so that explains Kashmir."

But then again, I tolerate irony better than a lot of people.

Dubya went on to talk about how the outsourcing of US jobs to India is good for trade, thus good for us. I'd like to see him go into an American town and say that to the workers who've lost their jobs due to outsourcing. Or to those of us who have suffered through nearly incomprehensible customer service calls routed to an Indian telephone center. Between bad phone connections and too heavily-accented speech, such calls are not worth the time they take and the frustration they cause. Let's face it: Indians who speak English well and clearly are in professions, such as law or medicine. They are not slaving away at a cubicle in some sweatshop call center.

And don't even get me started on the putative UAE-company-[read "UAE," as the company is owned by the government--Ed.]-managing-the-the-US-ports deal. This is truly delicious for those of us who enjoy the taste of irony. Dubya may very well be right on this one, but he has handled it so-ham-fistedly that he's turned it into yet another strike against the competency of his administration. And for him to be complaining about people judging others based on racial/ethnic/religious stereotypes after some of the things he's said and done is entirely ludicrous.

If I weren't so afraid for my country and its future, I'd be ROFLOL.

I am quite sure that Dubya stopped paying attention to American history after he learned that Calvin Coolidge said that "the business of America is business." Someone needs to remind Dubya that just because a president said it doesn't make it right. Or true.

That same person also ought to remind Dubya that just because a president did it doesn't make it right. I do dearly wish Dubya's defenders would stop pointing to Abraham Lincoln's abuse of civil liberties in the North during the Civil War as justification for Dubya's illegal NSA wiretaps and whatnot. Lincoln is criticized to this day, and rightly so, even though he had much more justification than Dubya could ever muster for his excesses in the name of the "War on 'Terra.'" [Thank you, Molly Ivins. Not only did you capture the essence of the accent, you made a multilingual pun that accurately describes what Dubya and his gang are really doing.--Ed.] After all, Lincoln's governmental capital was located in essentially hostile territory. Not to mention all the other differences others have rightly elucidated.

But Dubya's belief seems to be that all is OK if pursued in the name of Free Trade. Thus his continued insistance on tax cuts for the rich in the face of truly ridiculous budget deficits--run up by him and his minions, to boot. All I can say is that anyone who clears less than $75,000 a year who buys into that is delusional. Don't kid yourselves, folks. The economic class divide in the USA is real, and widening. And if we get more and more "concealed carry" gun laws passed, the economic war may turn into a shooting one . . . on ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves.

That most definitively is NOT what Lincoln was thinking about when he wrote the Gettysburg Address.

Bragging Rights

I see that the University of Nebraska College of Law is trying to get a special program in space law set up/endowed. More power to it--but I must note that back in the Dark Ages (1978, that is), in an undergraduate International Law course, I wrote a term paper on aspects of space law.

Yes, I got an "A," even though everyone in the class, the instructor included, thought I was nuts.

'It's not easy to be a visionary," she said, tongue imbedded firmly in cheek!

Running Rings 'Round The Omaha World-Herald, Logically

In a recent (Sunday, February 26) editorial column, the Editor of the Omaha World-Herald opined that a main engine of ever-rising health care costs is "Americans' preferences[.] We as a society avoid shopping for care (because we want constancy in our providers) and have distorted insurance from a backstop against disaster into a 'prepaid medical' plan."

WRONG.

What acutally has happened is that technology totally outstripped planning. Illnesses, accidents, and assaults that used to kill people--and quickly--now can be managed medically, as chronic medical conditions [consider Lee Harvey Oswald: if he'd been shot nowadays, he'd not have died from a single gunshot to the abdomen.--ed.] . . . which means continual care, which means high long-term costs. None of the health insurance plans I know of were created in this context. Medicare, for just one example, will pay for a lot of procedures when done to someone who is an inpatient, but will not cover the very same things when the patient is at home. The costs of being an inpatient are much higher, as they include the hospital room, meals, and a lot of other things that the patient is already covering as ordinary costs of living while living at home.

This obviously makes no sense. To some degree, Medicare and other insurance plans are beginning to recognize this, as they are modifying and adapting their coverages to include certain preventative care tests and procedures because a problem caught early is, as a rule, a problem less expensively resolved than a problem caught late. But getting the insurance industry as a whole to totally revamp itself is a haphazard hope at best.

Besides, the people most often in immediate need of health care are not in a position to shop around for it. If one has spiked a fever of 103°, one isn't going to go calling everyone in the phone book to find the cheapest treatment: one is going to the first place one finds. One doesn't have the luxury of taking the time to shop around.

Furthermore, who has a crystal ball to determine in advance what kind of health care/insurance one needs? My own example is telling: I, a lifelong NON-smoker, have a chronic and ultimately terminal pulmonary disease. Before I was diagnosed, if I were shopping for health insurance coverage, I would not have chosen a plan with a lot of pulmonary coverages had it been cheaper not to include that in the plans from which I was able to choose. And I'd have been sunk once my disease manifested. Which I nearly am as it is, so I know whereof I speak.

Thus is revealed the fallacy of running health care as a for-profit business. The free market is not a panacea for every economic problem plaguing mankind. When one is talking about health care, one is talking about life itself, the most fundamental of our inalienable rights. Second, the people who need health care the most (especially under the current system, where preventative care and early detection are not necessarily covered) are the least able to afford it--for they are already ill.

The entire point of insurance is to spread the risk so broadly that everyone's costs come down. This won't happen under present "health-care reform" suggestions like health savings accounts (HSAs). Those who don't need health care will amass savings, while those in the most dire need are unable to, because whatever money they have is already paying for prior health-care services rendered. The net result? A segregated society: those who have good health and money on one side; those who have poor health and no money and declining care due to same on the other. In the long run, this will be slow genocide, or Social Darwinism run entirely amok.

If the goal truly is to solve the problem, a national health insurance plan that covers everybody is inevitable. That is the only way to spread the risk widely enough to ensure that no one is bankrupted by one debilitating, chronic illness . . . which is all too often exactly what the chronically ill are forced to suffer now. Which means no more "for-profit" health care, which means government must run the program. (1) National problems require national solutions; (2) "government" is not a dirty word; (3) therefore, if we truly are united in society to further our collective rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," we need to start thinking and working together to solve the problem instead of limiting ourselves to letting "the market" literally kill off the unlucky.

An Olympic Observation Of Little Or No Consequence

Did anyone notice that the Italian National Anthem sounds an awful lot like an opera chorus?

Actually, I thought the Italians did a lovely job of hosting the recent Winter Olympics. I just couldn't help but giggle quietly to myself whenever their anthem played. I kept expecting to see "The March of the Toreadors" from "Carmen" . . . or Spike Jones's version of same . . . or PDQ Bach's "Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, An Opera In One Unnatural Act" . . . or Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd performing "The Rabbit of Seville."

I am totally ashamed of myself.

As well I should be.

I'm continuing to giggle anyway.

A Darwin Award Candidate In Omaha

OK, so technically the guy doesn't really qualify as a Darwin Award candidate. He destroyed neither himself nor his ability to produce progeny. Still, if he keeps doing the kinds of things he recently did, he'll get there soon enough.

Our hero was working on his car in his detatched (thank goodness) garage one recent morning. It was cold, and he had a propane heater on in the garage. He decided to warm a can of red (of course) spray paint before using it to touch up the front end of his car by leaving it atop the propane heater.

You can guess what happened.

The can exploded, knocking the garage off its foundation, buckling the garage door, displacing part of the garage roof, giving our hero second degree burns on his hands and face, and imbedding itself into a cross beam in the garage's ceiling.

The warning on the can that its contents are both flammable and under pressure is easily read on the part of the can protruding from the cross beam.

Masking tape that our hero had placed on parts of his car also caught on fire, which our hero dutifully extinguished before he was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center by ambulance.

He is lucky to be alive. The auto insurance industry is again vindicated in its collective decision to charge drivers of red cars higher rates, as they tend to take more risks than most people.

I wonder whether our hero's vechicle was a sports car, a truck, or an SUV.

In any event, if the rest of us are lucky, we won't (literally) run into him when he decides to make his candidacy for a Darwin Award more than the "honorable mention" kind.

Some Questions I'd Like Dubya To Answer

So the State of the Union is very good? Which Union is that, anyway? Certainly not the one I'm living in.

Dubya said last night that the US economy was robust and that our collective economic endeavors more than doubled those of the EU and Japan combined. And that we created an ungodly number of new jobs in the last year.

OK. But is creating a bunch of minimum-wage, no benefits jobs really better than losing all the high-tech jobs that US companies are outsourcing to other countries?

And is our economic performance so great when everyone I know is saying that they are having to work harder and harder, and do more and more tasks, in less and less time and with less and less support and benefits, just because the corporate powers that be are trying to improve their bottom lines?

And why is it that executive compensation packages keep getting better and better while more and more and more companies are announcing plant closures, layoffs, and other cutbacks?

What about the drag the federal deficit is putting on the economy? And why is it better to whittle away at the edges of the deficit by trying to minimize, restrict, or even curtail the already too small programs that really help people and then undoing any miniscule good that that might have done by increasing tax cuts for the already very, very rich?

And why is a 4% COLA in Social Security benefits such a good thing when the costs of things like Medicare premiums is at the same time raised by more like 33%?

Why is it that you persist in saying the free market is the best way to run health care, when it obviously does not work? People can't shop for medical procedures the way they can shop for cars--when they need services, they are not in any position to take their time, shop around, and bargain for the best price. The free market may work for people who are in excellent health and who just want to get the least expensive health care policy premiums possible, but in this day and age, with the very medical technologies we have to save and prolong lives that just a few years ago would have been lost, does that description even fit a majority of the population?

I'll say it again: health care, because it deals literally with people's lives, is part and parcel of the most important of our unalienable rights--those being "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"--thus it violates our birthright as Americans to put health care on a "you can get what you can afford to pay for" mentality.

It may not be a conscious decision, but to act in ways that will eventually limit health care to those incredibly lucky few who do not need it will have the same effect as out-and-out euthanizing the entire population of the disabled. Talk about Social Darwinism run amok!

(Silly me--I thought Social Darwininsm had been thoroughly discredited as a way to run a society.) Welcome to George Orwell's Brave New World, indeed.

Everyone Knows It's Wendy's

(With apologies to The Association)

Wendy's got a lot of sympathy last year once the news was out that the "finger in the chili" was a fraudulent extortion attempt.

Wendy's just wasted all that sympathy--and more.

Dan Mirvish, former Omahan, former speechwriter for US Senator Tom Harkin, and current independent film producer, recently got royally dissed at a Wendy's in Park City, Utah. He was there to host his annual Slamdance Film Festival, in conjunction with the more well-known Sundance Film Festival. He's also in a wheelchair at present, thanks to a broken leg.

He wanted a hamburger before going to attend one of the several late-night parties associated with the festivals, and the parking lot was icy, so . . . he wheeled up to the Wendy's in his chair. The dining room being closed, he did what any hungry and enterprising soul would do, and moved over to the drive-up window, which was still open.

The cashier then informed him they weren't allowed to serve "walk-ups" at the drive-thru. [What's wrong with this picture?--Ed.] So, he went off to his party, gathered together several of his filmmaker friends--with cameras--and then returned to the restaurant, whereupon restaurant manager "slammed the window literally in our face," according to Mirvish.

As if that weren't bad enough, the manager had also called the police, who drove up, lights flashing, and demanded that "You in the wheelchair--pull over!"

The police thereupon ordered Mirvish and his companions to leave.

Mirvish is considering filing some kind of complaint or lawsuit against Wendy's for violating the Americans With Disabilites Act. I say more power to him!

It would have been different had the Wendy's dining room been open, but under the circumstances, it's a slam dunk that Wendy's failed the ADA's requirement that commercial establishments provide "reasonable accomodation" to those with disabilities.

Wendy's spokesman Bob Bertini only made matters worse when he tried to defend the restaurant manager's behavior by saying that the "no walk-ups" policy had nothing to do with the ADA, and that it rather was a matter of public safety and security "particularly late at night, for employees and customers as well." [How nice that he included customers in his comments, considering that customers are the entire driving engine of Wendy's business.--Ed.]

Everything Bertini said is probably true, but is so insensitive as to be absolutely crass. I, for one, no matter how much I like Wendy's chili on a baked potato, will not buy from Wendy's again. Please join me in my boycott.

Back To The Future . . . Again

Did you watch "Lincoln" on the History Channel last Monday night? It was a 3-hour psychological biography, an extravaganza of speculation with a paucity of documentable fact. Still, it did have some good points. The most notable of these was Gore Vidal pointing out that Lincoln's abrogation of civil liberties during the Civil War was valid and genuine (after all, the Union's capital city was surrounded by if not "officially" enemy territory, "enemy sympathizer" territory). Most unlike Dubya's so-called War on Terror, making the point that citing Lincoln's behavior in support of Dubya's illegal wiretaps and other present excesses is both improper and invalid.

(Are you listening, Dick Cheney? Probably not, but that's OK. Jay Leno noted last night that having a bad boss increases one's risk of heart attack by about 33%. Cheney is certainly in trouble now.)

Anyway, back to the History Channel. I found a lot of things NOT to like about the program, the least of which was the use of wrong pictures to illustrate battlefield horrors. An oft-published picture of dead Confederates at Gettysburg was used during talk of the battle of Cold Harbor, for instance. There also was entirely too much MTV-type camerawork, hand-held and shaky, ostensibly giving us what Lincoln himself saw on the last day of his life. Trying to outdo Ken Burns, are we? This is not the way to do it.

My most serious complaint, however, is the amount of time wasted on speculating whether Lincoln was gay. The world was a very, very different place in the 19th century; the fact that two males shared a bed for years--and were open about it--most emphatically proves they were NOT gay. All things sexual were taboo in the Victorian Age. The very fact that we know Lincoln and Joshua Speed shared intimate quarters establishes that there was nothing at all sexual in their relationship. Besides, many practical reasons existed for sharing sleeping quarters in those days: heating systems were not so good as they usually are now, for one thing. And in hotels and rooming houses and the like, it was much more affordable to share a bed than to rent two. Heck, we have copious examples of Victorian Age men and women sharing beds without the benefit of clergy, and we know there was absolutely nothing sexual about it in those cases, either. Why should this be any different? To interpret this one case differently because a venerated American was involved smacks more of the interpreter's political agenda that it does of valid historical exegesis.

As for the admitted sentimentality and emotionally open nature of their personal correspondence? Well, again, the 19th century was a different age. Sentimentality was a prized Victorian Age virtue. The fact that men could express their emotional attachment for one another does NOT indicate that they had some deep sexual relationship. It means they were best friends during the middle of the 19th century.

Our rush to put a Freudian interpretation on everything does not serve us well. It speaks volumes about our own collective hang-ups and enlightens not at all when applied to history. We need to remember that Groucho Marx was right: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

I must admit that the History Channel did include one historian who noted that all this business was speculative and in the eyes of most traditional historians not worth much, as it has little (if any) support in traditionally-used documentation/evidence. This opinion was, however, insufficiently emphasized given the overall perspective of the program.

One final complaint. The program glossed over much too glibly about how Lincoln had to struggle to get ahead of the curve of public opinion on the issue of slavery and the rights of American blacks. It suggested that Lincoln was always opposed to slavery per se, which is not true. He began his political career opposing not slavery, but the expansion of slavery into what were then US territories. He most emphatically hated Stephen A. Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened the slavery can of worms in territories North of the Mason-Dixon line, undoing the infamous Missouri Compromise of 1820 and ultimately precipitating the Civil War, which actually if not officially started in "Bleeding Kansas" in 1857.

Lincoln's own pre-1860 speeches and writings establish that he did not consider blacks either the social or civil equals of whites. That Lincoln moved so far ahead of popular opinion in such a short time, and in fact by the end of his life supported voting rights for blacks, was not given enough attention. The program implied he was there from the beginning, and that just isn't correct.

Still, I can't complain entirely. The History Channel did note that it was Lincoln's final public speech, from the balcony of the White House shortly before he was killed, advocating giving voting rights to blacks (OK, black men), that got Lincoln killed in the first place. John Wilkes Booth was there; he heard that speech; he was an avowed racist; he thereupon said that that was the last thing Lincoln would ever say on the subject; he then carried out his heinous plot to assassinate the president.

I must also note that the (mostly black) historians who castigate Lincoln for not being totally against slavery from Day One are just as wrong as are those who omit the evolution of Lincoln's opinions on the matter and who call him the Great Emancipator from Day One. Lincoln was a product of his age, after all. He was born in a slave state (Kentucky); he had his prejudices and misconceptions, as do we all.

Nevertheless, he learned. He grew. He changed his mind as he realized the greater significance of events. Furthermore, he was willing to say so unambiguously and in public. This is what sets Lincoln apart, and this is why I for one admire him so much. He was not perfect. No one is. [As my mother is fond of saying as she stretches her arms from side to side like a cross, "Remember what they did to the last perfect person."--Ed.] But he embodies that striving for "a more perfect Union" that is the very underpinning of the American Experiment.

So the History Channel program was worth watching, and I do recommend it to you when it re-airs, but please: watch it with a sufficiently skeptical eye and your mind engaged.

Riddle Me This

I was watching The Tonight Show last night, which featured Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segment. In case you don't know, this is where Jay goes out on the streets of LA and asks people questions. The answers (the ones aired, anyway) are usually ludicrous, and very often really, really dumb.

There is some greater significance behind this, however. I'm just not sure what it is. Is Jay implying that this is OK because the viewing audience can pat itself on its collective back for being way smarter than these people? Or is Jay implying that it's OK to be a total idiot because it will get you on TV?

I do not think that the people "featured" are just smart-mouthing stupid answers to get their 15 minutes of fame. Frankly, none of them look smart enough to be that devious/clever.

No wonder Dubya is president. >>>shudder<<<

Puh-leeze!

Craig Ferguson (The Late Show, on CBS) has called the History Channel "The Hitler Channel: All Hitler, All the Time." That, I like. It's funny. But then, so is most of Craig's stuff. Nevertheless, it is not in the strictest sense true. For example, the History Channel frequently airs various programs explaining and extolling the virtues of the so-called "Bible Codes."

I don't pretend to understand the details, but these "Bible Codes" have to do with groups of connected words found hidden within discrete biblical passages when one uses a computer search engine and considers letters a set distance apart. (The searcher sets the distance in each instance; the only rule is that once the distance is set, it cannot be changed within the confines of that search.)

Proponents of these "Bible Codes" say that they are so complicated and detailed that they cannot be accidental, that the hand of God is obviously at work, and that no other literary work can duplicate or even come close to producing similar results. I know of at least one group of scientists who disproved this last point using Moby Dick, but there are substantial other reasons to doubt the presence of the hand of God in these "Bible Codes."

For one thing, just because we can look at clouds or stars and see pictures, patterns, or constellations, does NOT mean that those things are there. They came from our own individual creativity/imaginations.

For another, I cite the magician Penn Gillette, who said (regarding Nostradamus, but the point is just as well taken in reference to the "Bible Codes") that if these things were really there, we should be able to use them to predict, and thus forestall, impending disasters. But if we can see the events only after their occurrence, we again are imposing our vision on something that may or may not--but most probably does not--predict anything.

Hindsight is, after all, 20-20.

So why is it that the History Channel can go from running the occasional informative, smart, and insightful program to running this crap over and over and over? Doesn't anyone there exercise any editorial discretion?

* * * * * * * * * *

I do not frequently find myself in disagreement with Rainbow Rowell, but her column in today's Omaha World-Herald disappointed me. The students at Bellevue East (my alma mater when it was just plain Bellevue, by the way) staged a protest when the faculty and staff started strict enforcement of the school's dress code, and last Friday sent home everyone wearing ripped jeans.

The poor babies! About 200 of them staged a protest on Monday. While I do agree with Rainbow that their organizational skills are impressive, I find I have absolutely NO sympathy for the students and their alleged plight.

I guess I am turning into an old geezer or an old coot, but I remember when the Bellevue Public Schools dress code would not let females wear pants--even in freezing cold weather, girls were not allowed to wear pants while walking to school, even if they changed into proper dresses once at school.

In the ensuing decades, the dress codes have gone from being overly strict to being utterly non-enforced. Now, the pendulum is swinging back to center, and the students of 2006 are paying the price.

Even Rainbow had to concede that jeans so ripped that one's "unmentionables" were visible should not be allowed. I hope that she'd further stop to think that there's no easy way to draw up a dress code that would allow for SOME but not all ripped jeans . . . and so the smart and simple thing to do is to ban ripped jeans, period.

OK. I know the ripped jeans of the "Oughts" are the long hair of the Sixties. Still, long hair could be kept neat and clean, which by definition is impossible to do with ripped jeans (clean, maybe . . . neat? No). I also know that kids want to bug their elders, that they need to bug their elders, and that every generation finds its own "badge of honor" with which to do so.

Doesn't mean I have to like it. I think ripped jeans show an incredible lack of respect for not only the school and one's fellows, but mostly for one's own self. I am appalled that these kids' parents are supporting them and casting aspersions on the school.

On the other hand, I have always said that the Baby Boomers did a generally horrid job raising their children . . . mostly because we wanted to be their friends, not their parents (which doesn't work), and now our children's children are even worse off than we made our kids.

I thus am now officially a coot. Does this mean I have to relocate to Possum Lodge?

(In any case, I still don't see what's wrong with wanting to present oneself with a little dignity, class, and good taste. In that respect, at least, as compared to the students of 2006, who want to be different just like everyone else, I am still an iconoclast. Thank goodness!)

My Best Christmas

In the winter of 1964, when I was 7 1/2 years old, my parents and I lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Every Christmas we spent there was glorious, but 1964 was my favorite. You see, that was the year I first started having doubts about the existence of Santa Claus . . . and my parents conspired to reinvigorate my belief in that Jolly Old Elf . . . and it worked.

One of our family's Christmas traditions was to drive around town after dark on Christmas Eve, looking at everyone's lights and outdoor displays. In 1964, just as we climbed into the car, my dad ran back into the house to get his wallet (or so he said). He was gone for no more than one or two minutes, I swear. (Remember, being a Type A baby, I have always had a very accurate sense of time passing.) After he came back, he drove us throughout town, and finally up into the mountains to look over the entire city. It had snowed quite a bit that year, and it was beautiful, ethereal even.

Lo and behold! When we got back home, all the presents were under the tree!

I confess to being dumbfounded. My belief in Santa was solidified, for at least another year.

I found out only years later that my mom and dad had prepared all the presents and hidden them very close to the tree (which mystifies me to this day, as there wasn't really any place in the house we lived in to do that), and Dad had just moved them under the tree in one swoop whilst allegedly getting his wallet.

It was a magical Christmas, and to this day, remains my personal favorite.

I wish you all equally wondrous holidays!

This May Be Why Shakespeare Said "The First Thing We Do Is, Let's Kill All The Lawyers"

Have you been following the US Supreme Court case about whether colleges and universities can keep military recruiters off their campuses because of the military's policy of excluding openly gay people from service . . . without having to give up the federal funds and research grants they receive?

I do not like the military's main argument on the subject, which comes down to "you cannot discriminate against us just because WE discriminate." I do, however, confess to having some sympathy with the notion that the universities do not have any entitlement to get federal funds if they don't let the military recruiters do their jobs on campus on an equal footing with other potential employers.

The only possible saving grace for the universities' position is Justice David Souter's key observation that governmental restrictions on giving federal monies to universities which wish to protest the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy infringe on First Amendment free speech rights.

Still, it's a post-9/11 world, and a Neocon Gilded Age to boot. Methinks the putative free speech rights of a bunch of allegedly "wild-eyed" left-wingers will be trumped by the practical reality that no institution has a RIGHT to get research grants and funds from the federal government. This is not unlike the case of unfunded federal mandates, wherein the government threatens to withhold, say, highway funds from any state not participating in some grandiose federally sanctioned goal, like "No Child Left Behind." No one is required to participate, but no one who refuses to participate gets any of the goodies tied to participating. It's the state's or university's choice. [Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.--Ed.]

Of course, as a further practical matter, no university can afford to forego the massive amount of federal funding it receives. The federal government pumps something on the order of $35 billion--with a "B"--into supporting American colleges and universitites every year.

So the federal government's position is little more than legalized extortion. The most amusing aspect of this is that the Neocons don't like unfunded federal mandates--when the mandate is for something the Neocons disagree with on a philosophical level. Despite what they claim, they are not opposed to unfunded mandates per se.

Another hard case is going to make bad law. First Amendment considerations should be paramount, but since the military is involved, and we are in a post-9/11 world, national security and the adverse effects of the universities' stands on military recruiting may tip the balance. I can see the Supremes ruling in favor of forcing the universities to shut up and accept the monies and the recruiters, or to keep protesting and take a catastrophic hit in their budgets.

What we really need to do is elect people who can force a change in the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. How many "Rs" are in "fat chance"?

Requiescat In Pace

Last night's Omaha World-Herald reported the death, at age 89, of Dr. James A. Rawley, professor emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I am deeply saddened by this news. I took a 400/800 Civil War seminar from Dr. Rawley in the second semester of my junior year at UNL; his own specialty was Civil War politics, and one of the requried books for the course was his own analysis of politics in bleeding Kansas between 1857 and 1860. He was an exceedingly kindly human being with a beautific smile, but a tough, tough instructor.

He bled red ink all over my term paper for that class, wherein I had explored whether Lincoln had maneuvered the South into firing the first shots of the Civil War, and whether it was a good or bad thing that he did so. I came to the conclusion that he didn't, but that the question was actually irrelevant anyway, and supported that notion with a great deal of deductive reasoning from the evidence I'd discovered in the source documents I'd used in my research.

Despite the red ink, Dr. Rawley gave me an A, and told me I was a born historian . . . doubtless the greatest compliment I've ever received in my life.

He was a treasure and an inspiration. He will be missed.

You Are Sixteen, Going On . . .

Stupidity. My apologies to Rogers, Hammerstein, Julie Andrews, and all the other cast and crew of The Sound of Music.

There's been a bit of a dust-up in the Letters to the Editor of the OmahaWorld-Herald lately, all about whether there exists any right to privacy in our system of government.

While the consensus seems to be "No," and while that concensus is wrong, the arguments for and against it are both totally incompetent.

This is news?

One writer claimed there should be a right to privacy because no one needed to know or care about what prostitutes do . . . and the stinging reply, from a 16-year-old girl, says that since no one wants to commit crimes except in private, "of course there is no right to privacy."

Both writers missed the point. Criminal laws, enacted by the legislature of the appropriate jurisdiction and enforced by the police apparatus of the said same jurisdiction, supercede any right to privacy that exists for those activities.

However, there are in addition many, many things that people want to keep private that are NOT statutorily defined crimes, and thus are protected by a right to privacy that I, for one, believe exists. (More on that in a moment.) I don't want anyone watching me while I am doing my business in the bathroom--no one else wants to watch, either, believe me--but that does not mean that I have no right to privacy in that space, as long as what I am doing has not been statutorily defined as being a crime.

In other words, it works very much like the 10th Amendment: whatever is not specifically defined and allowed or defined and forbidden is left to the people.

The Founding Fathers did not live in the 21st century: they did not think with a vocabulary that included "privacy" the way we use it nowadays. That does NOT mean, however, that they did not intend for us not to have any right to privacy. Consider the Bill of Rights. If one looks at govnermental behavior that is prohibited, a lot of it has to do with intrusions on an individual's home or person. If the government cannot force you to house soldiers without your consent, and if the government cannot force you to testify against yourself, that means that you can keep the government out of aspects of your life (that aren't specifically defined as being criminal, that is). What is privacy if not that?

Besides, there's always that pesky 10th Amendment to consider. And since "privacy" is nowhere in the US Constitution mentioned as being subject to governmental restriction, it therefore is left as a right to the people. How's that for using the argument of "original construction" against those who mistakenly perpetrate it today?

If the Constitution cannot live and breathe, it can no longer govern us effectively. It is not the same world it was in 1789; unless you're willing to go back there, in ALL things, you cannot restrict the document to what its words meant in 1789 . . . the Founding Fathers were not omniscient, and they, at least, were smart enough to know that. Which is precisely why they drafted the Constitution as they did, so that it could flex and grow and still be relevant as the world changed around it. Heck, if we are going to limit ourselves to original intent, we do not need a judicial system at all. Why people like Antonin Scalia cannot figure that out is beyond me.

Miscellaneous Musings, Part Deux

Kansas (Kansas!) whomped Nebraska last Saturday, 40-15, in Lawrence. As my eldest cousin from Salina said, "Rock, chalk, Jayhawk!" Or, as I said, "Ick poo."

The general tenor of the letters to both the sports and main editors of the Omaha World-Herald is that if Frank Solich, 9-3 in his last season as Nebraska head coach, with a bowl game to show for it to boot, was mediocrity, what in the heck is this? After all, this is the first time Kansas beat NU in Lawrence in something like 36 years. The team is now in serious danger of going 5-6 two years in a row. People are saying that the 40+ year Memorial Stadium sellouts record will go next. Nevertheless, a stadium addition is already under construction.

Athletic Director Steve Pederson says that fund raising for the addition is on track, even though only about 40% of the projected total has been pledged. The director of fund raising, whose name escapes me at the moment, is complaining that the fans aren't supporting the team. Head Coach Bill Callahan is under so much stress that he got fined and reprimanded for making a throat-slashing gesture to an official during the Oklahoma game. (Could you see Tom Osborne or Frank Solich doing that? I don't think so.) The current crowd running NU football is living in a fantasy world weirder than even the one Dubya inhabits. And NU is the poorer for it.

**********

Speaking of fantasy worlds in football, Philadelphia Eagles receiver (and all around pain in the neck) Terrell Owens finally apologized yesterday for both physically and verbally beating up on his teammates last week. Or, at least I think it was supposed to be an apology. All he seemed to say was that he was a complex person, yada yada yada. His agent had to get up to the microphone and explain that Terrell was in fact apologizing.

I got news for you, honey--if you have to explain that it's an apology, it ain't no apology.

(Pardon the bad grammar there; it was intended for effect/emphasis.)

At least the Eagles have (finally) seen the light, and will not have T.O. play for them ever again. The real sorrow of the situation is that there is some team out there in NFL-land desparate enough to win to think it can put up with T.O. and his bulls*** to get victories. Don't these people ever learn?!?!?!

**********

And now for something completely different: after seeing a repeat of an "Austin City Limits" broadcast a couple of weeks ago and after having listened once again to "Mellowgold," "Mutations," and "Odelay," I have come to the conclusion that Beck is either channeling Jim Morrison or is Jim Morrison reincarnated. He even looks like the infamous Doors' frontman.

Maybe you had already figured that out, but it was a revelation to me!

**********

One of the more amusing local controversies lately has been all about reported sightings of mountain lions--IN town, be it Omaha, Papillion, Ralston, wherever. Every single sighting was unconfirmed, however. The police and the Humane Society personnel responsible for dealing with the reports have pooh-poohed every claimed sighting, too, saying in print that people were most probably "see[ing] a bobcat or a big dog like a retriever."

Right. Now that a dead mountain lion (hit by a car or truck, most likely) was found over the weekend along I-80 by the Gretna exit, all those who reported sightings feel vindicated, and the police and Humane Society personnel are saying they really do "take every report seriously." But given their earlier published statements, that's hard to believe. Further, the cop who went to get the mountain lion carcass on Sunday admitted that while he was on the way to its location, he was sure he was going to find a dead deer. With friends like these, . . .

In case you'd like to know, the mountain lion was a young male, around 2 years old, 6 feet, 6 inches from nose to tail, and weighed about 100 lbs. He had porcupine quills stuck in his legs, so the police believe he traveled all the way in from Colorado or Wyoming. Porcupines are not common in Nebraska, you see. Hmm . . . neither were mountain lions--or so I thought.

**********

And now for something else completely different: recent scientific studies confirm that men's and women's senses of humor are quite diverse. As the Associated Press reported yesterday, "[a] research team led by Dr. Allan L. Reiss of the Stanford University School of Medicine reported its findings in [the November 8] issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The researchers were surprised when their studies of how the male and female brains react to humor showed that women were more analytical in their response, . . . with the aim of determining if [something] was indeed funny. . . . Men [use] the same network in the brain, but less so . . . . Men are less discriminating."

Dr. Reiss went on in a telephone interview with the reporter to note that men love the Three Stooges, while women gravitate more toward humor in narrative form and stories.

I wish I could talk to Dr. Reiss. I think he's onto something, but has missed the exact center of the target. I like slapstick as much as anybody, but I don't care for the Stooges. They're not funny--they're mean! Compare them to Laurel and Hardy, who could put together extreme slapstick themselves. The Stooges don't have any underlying caring or affection for one another, unlike Stan and Ollie, who obviously cared about each other even when Ollie was in the midst of smacking Stan upside the head and giving him holy hell about something.

Besides, some of our greatest humorists in terms of narrative and story-telling have been men: Mark Twain, Bill Cosby, Garrison Keillor--even Steve Martin has grown into it, with stories like "Shopgirl."

I dare to suggest that further research would probably show that it's factors other than the type of humor per se that mark the differences in the sexes' reactions to same.

**********

While we're on the subject of humor: (1) Dubya's command that everyone in the White House, even Karl Rove, take an ethics refresher course. That's a knee-slapper! I've taken a few ethics courses. Most of the guys in them have seemed to be more interested in finding out how to skirt their ethical obligations without getting into trouble than in learing how to live up to said obligations in the first place.

(2) Dubya's nomination of Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court. There's a real "be careful what you ask for, you just might get it" moment for everyone who opposed Harriet Miers's nomination--other than the neo-cons, that is. George Orwell would have loved those guys. Black is white, up is down, striking down laws passed by Congress is not judicial activism . . .

As I have said before, judicial activism takes place only when the judges involved rule counter to your wishes. When they agree with you, they are interpreting, not legislating from the bench. Yeah. Would you like to buy a bridge in Brooklyn? I have one for sale . . .

(3) The creationists are at it again, trying to insert "intelligent design" as a required teaching element of science classes. Eight of the nine old white men who tried it back East somewhere (I apologize for being fuzzy on the details--I wasn't fully awake when I heard the news this a.m.) got voted out of their school board positions as a result. The ninth was not voted out only because he wasn't up for reelection.

And it's back in the curriculum in Kansas . . . will these people ever realize that "intelligent design" by definition is NOT scientific and therefore has no place in a science classroom? ("And yet the Jayhawks stomped on the Huskers, so what does that say about us Nebraskans?" she added, tongue planted firmly in cheek.)

Do the proponents of "intelligent design" even have a clue as to the damage they are doing to the future of this country? If we raise a generation or two of people who can't tell religion from science, we are going to lose our place as a leader in research and technology . . . talk about stupidity in action!

Then again, I shouldn't be surprised. These are, after all, the same people who say that just because the exact phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, it is not a constitutional mandate. And then they quote the First Amendment part that says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" ostensibly to prove their point.

I'd sure like to know what drugs they are taking. I could use a break from reality myself.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

If I didn't know better, I'd begin to believe that my name was Alice and I have found myself down a rabbit hole . . . because there seems to be an ever-increasing disconnect between reality and how people are reacting to certain events of the world.

Ferinstance: the White Sox?!?!?!? In a sweep!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Ferinstance the second: Harriet Miers's withdrawal of her nomination to the Supreme Court. I never found her lack of judicial experience a flaw--the Constitution does not require that judges only are eligible for selection to the highest court in the land. Heck, the Constitution doesn't even require that nominees be attorneys!

The Founding Fathers were onto something there. The Court could use a non-lawyer or two. And I am speaking as someone who graduated in the top 10 (not top 10%, top ten) of her law school class. Lawyers get so caught up in the niceties of the law that they can forget how reality works. An example: there is a legal concept that someone who is drunk has diminished capacity and thus is less responsible than a sober person would be for his actions which resulted in harm to another. As a purely intellectual exercise, I understand that. However, as a human being I object to the entire concept. No one poured the booze down the drinker's throat. Why can't it be said that since the drinker knew he was drinking, which by definition put him at risk of drinking to excess, he assumed the risk of having to take full responsibility for whatever harm he caused while drunk?

Anyway, I seemed to be in the minority, but I actually thought Miers's lack of ivory tower experience in exchange for "real world" experience was a plus for her. Oh, well. It's moot now.

My objection to Miers was that she seemed to be the sort of person who would say whatever she thought her audience wanted to hear . . . and that she didn't seem to have a serious grasp of certain Constitutional issues and principles to boot. In a written questionnaire submitted to her some time ago by a right wing group, she said she would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Yet some time later, in a speech before a women's group in Texas, she said she would work to protect a woman's right to choose. I do think that, lawyer or not, judge or not, someone who is nominated to sit on the Supreme Court ought to have a basic philosophy of life other than (and higher than) naked expediency.

As I said, however, it's moot now. But before I thank the gods for that, I must warn us all to brace ourselves--because whomever Dubya nominates now may be 1000 times worse than Miers ever could have been. I sense a "be careful what you ask for" moment coming. That leaves me in a state of generalized dread.

Another, but milder, disconnect: "Scooter" Libby has been indicted, not for violating any laws about revealing the name of a covert CIA agent, but for lying about whether he revealed the name. As with Watergate, it's not the act, it's the coverup, that's going to bring the bad guys down. And yet Karl Rove remains unindicted . . . for the moment. Don't get me wrong: I understand entirely prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's rationale for indicting Libby as he has. Fitzgerald knows he can prove the lies, which constitute perjury, making false statements, and obstruction of justice; he doesn't yet have the evidence, largely because of the lies, to indict for the underlying violation. Emphasize yet. I hope he doesn't stop there, despite what George Stephanopolous said about Fitzpatrick's body language indicating that he's done, because there is obviously more dastardliness to be revealed.

Will the true believers get it, however? No. They are still claiming that Dubya was not wrong to go into Iraq because "the intelligence was faulty." They are conveniently ignoring the fact that Dubya knew the intelligence was faulty and insisted on using it anyway, but that's because that's not what they want to hear.

And more than 2000 of our precious troops are dead. I agree with John Kerry on this one. It's time to get our act together in terms of pulling out. The Iraqis have their new constitution; let them fight it out amongst themselves as to what final form it will take. The longer we stay, the more we are naught but a recruiting tool for Al Quaida.

And a few random disconnects to complete the missive: have you ever noticed that the people who assure us that "money isn't everything" are the people who have all the money?

Likewise, the people who say "money can't buy happiness" are in complete denial about the misery that the lack of money can cause--especially when the lack of money interferes with getting decent health care or other basic necessities of life.

Likewise, the people who squawk the most about people needing to take "personal responsibility" for their actions are the ones who won't take same for their own misdeeds. Whenever this is pointed out to them, they switch to the tactic of blaming the victim. Neither leopards nor cheetahs (say it with a Bostonian accent to get "cheaters") ever change their spots, apparently.

And now for something completely different: God bless Rosa Parks. I'll bet she's sitting at the very front of St. Peter's bus.

On Hurricanes And Other Actors On The Human Condition

I have been overwhelmed by the events surrounding hurricanes Katrina and Rita and their aftermaths. And yet the natural disasters just keep coming. New Jersey and New Hampshire, among other places along the Atlantic coast, presently seem to be under water . . . Pakistan is shaking itself to pieces, literally; it's already snowing blizzards in Colorado; and we're experiencing long-term drought in eastern Nebraska.

Right after Katrina, a lot of "pundits" wrote letters to the editor of the Omaha World-Herald, suggesting (often in impolite terms) that New Orleans did not deserve to be rebuilt and that it would be a waste of money to do so.

If we followed that philosophy, no one would be able to live anywhere. We'd have abandoned San Francisco in 1906 (and 1988), Tucson in 1983 (flooding), Galveston at the turn of the last century, much of Florida after hurricane season (pick your year), Grand Island, Nebraska after the night of the 9 tornadoes, and so on.

Face it, folks. Life is risk. There is no place 100% safe to live. [Personally, and after having lived in/near all of the above-mentioned areas and in Southeast Asia besides, I prefer to stay in Nebraska: if a tornado comes, one has a possibility of NOT being smacked, but when any of the other named natural disasters occur, if you're where they are happening, you are smacked.--Ed.] Besides, we need to live in these "dangerous" places: they have ports, natural resources, gorgeous scenery, and other advantages we deem necessary for modern life.

What we need to stop doing is trying to control nature, for that seems only to increase the magnitude of the inevitable disasters when they occur. We must not destroy our wetlands (indeed, we must restore them), we must work to stop global warming, we must build with known technologies (and also develop new technologies) that let buildings survive earthquakes, storm surges, mudslides, and the like . . . and we need to remember that we are all in this together. More cooperation and less sniping are always in order.

If we'd learn to build and inhabit with nature and each other in mind, we'd better survive the storms of life, and better preserve the planet for our progeny to boot.

* * * * * * * * *

Coincidentally, I've just finished reading two books with widely divergent subjects, yet each deeply resonant after the present spate of natural disasters. The Children's Blizzard, by David Laskin, recounts the events and aftermath of a blizzard that hit the northern Midwest on January 12 and 13, 1888, wherein an inordinate number of children died because the storm came up suddenly just as they were leaving their rural schools for the day. "In three minutes, the front subtracted eighteen decrees from the air's temperature. Then evening gathered in and temperatures kept dropping in the northwest gale. By morning on Friday, January 13, 1888, more than a hundred children lay dead on the Dakota-Nebraska prairie . . ." (emphasis added)

The Great Mortality, by John Kelly, tells "the intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time."

Both books are so well-written that they read like novels, not like dry, dusty, self-important "History." Both books reveal the spectrum of human reaction, from selfless bravery to selfish venality, in the face of nearly incomprehensible events. And both books in their analysis show that some things don't change, no matter the time, the place, or the circumstances.

In The Children's Blizzard, one of the sub-stories is that of the fledgling federal weather service, some of its members' interactions with local bigwigs with clout, and those members' ouster in the face of the need always to find and punish scapegoats while letting the real architects of disaster off the hook. [Whatever happened to 'the buck stops here,' anyway?--Ed.] In The Great Mortality, one of the sub-stories contrasts what happened in the aftermath of plague in England as opposed to on the continent, concluding that "[s]ocial cohesion is a complex phenomenon, but applied gently--with respect for the vast differences in time and place--the Broken Windows theory of human behavior may speak to the relatively low level of upheaval in Black Death England.

"The theory, which informs much modern police work, holds that the physical environment buttresses the psychological environment the way a beam buttresses a roof. Why? Broken windows, dirty streets, abandoned cars, boarded-up storefronts, empty grass- and refuse-covered lots send the message: 'No one is in charge here.' And when authority and leadership break down, people become more prone to lawlessness, violence, and despair."

Eerie, isn't it? The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I read that, because the reported chaos in New Orleans fit that description exactly.

And yet, I wonder. Does the theory drive our perceptions, or do our perceptions drive the theory? After all, much of what was alleged to have happened in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina in actuality did not--I refer to the rapes, the robberies, the massively reported looting, and the shootings and beatings and what not. As more time passes, and better perspective is gained, we are finding that members of the Fourth Estate were so eager to get scoops on the air that they didn't check their facts first. And then the alleged horror stories took on lives of their own, and became embedded in our memories AS IF they were 100% fact, when they were in fact mostly false.

We have a microcosm of the birth of an urban legend here, methinks.

Don't misunderstand me. I do think the Broken Windows theory of human behavior is a good one. I've seen it myself. Neighborhoods that clean up and erase gang-related graffiti quickly after it appears have much less trouble with gang-related crimes than do neighborhoods which allow the graffiti to stay and besmirch them. But it's like any other stereotype: rooted in an observable fact, it can and has become so distorted and rigid that it becomes 100% true in people's minds despite being an incomplete description of isolated, specific behavior in one particular instance. So, did we see the rampant violence and lawlessness in New Orleans because that's what we expected to see, or did what we (thought we) saw shape our interpretation of events?

I am not sure what all this means. Every generation bemoans the declines in civilization and civility it sees as its children and grandchildren take over running the world . . . and this has been true for thousands upon thousands of years. Seems to me that we'd have hit bottom long ago if the naysayers in the older generations were completely right.

We must remember that difference does not inevitably equal decay.

And yet, when I compare "Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!" to "Who let the dogs out?" I wonder.

What I Did On My Autumn Vacation

Mens sana in corpore sano.

Well, those of you who know me know that I was forced to give up on the corpore sano part quite some time ago . . . but I am doing my best to maintain a sound mind. Believe it or not!

How do I do that? I like to do the NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle--in ink. My goal is not just to finish it, but to finish it without making any errors. I have even achieved that goal more than once. I would have achieved it even more than I have if I were more careful about making sure I was entering answers in the right boxes.

I recently got hooked on the new puzzle craze, Sudoku. I completely wrecked 2 of the first 5 puzzles I tried, but I think I have the hang of it now. The goal is to enter each of the numbers 1 through 9 into a grid of 81 squares (subdivided into 9 three by three mini grids) so that each number appears once and only once across each row of 9, down each column of 9, and in each mini grid of 9. A few numbers are already filled in to get one started.

It's really a process of elimination. My approach is to figure out what numbers can possibly fit in each open square. This is done by seeing what numbers cannot be entered because they are already in the intersecting column, row, or mini grid. Then, looking at each available possibility, one will find at least one open square that has only one possible entry. Enter that, then remove it as a possibility from each other open square in its column, row, or mini grid, and so on and so forth.

If you get stuck, look at a row or column that has most of its numbers entered, and figure out what numbers must be used to complete the 1 through 9 sequence. That will eliminate certain other possibilities (which still must be used in the appropriate mini grid), and allow you to enter another number or two.

And you proceed, thinking outside the box while working within the boxes, until you get to a point where there's only one possible number left for each open square, and then complete the puzzle.

But my real passion of late has become the three dimensional jigsaw puzzles known as Puzz 3-D.

Alas, my kitties like them too. The foam on the back of each piece, which is what makes it suitable for 3-D construction, is wonderfully firm yet chewy. So I must be very careful about when and where I construct, and I have to keep my finished products in a room closed off from the "kids."

I've done the Cologne Cathedral, Notre Dame de Paris, Neuschwanstein (that was close to being irritating: just how many subtle variations in the color white are there, anyway?), the Sistine Chapel--which is neat because many of the pieces have pictures on both sides, so that you can open the roof and see Michangelo's famous ceiling and his Last Judgment--a Bavarian wall clock, with working clockworks, a mini (33" tall) grandfather clock, also with working clockworks, the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the London clocktower we Americans mistakenly call Big Ben, and la piece de la resistance, "New York, New York."

That's the largest and most complicated Puzz 3-D of all, with over 3100 pieces, and it includes not only the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, but the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

It took me the better part of two weeks. It was worth every second.

I wonder if I'll live long enough to be able to transplant my brain into a working body.

Please Don't Tell Me You Didn't See This Coming

Dubya wants to pay for reconstructing New Orleans (and by extension, everywhere along the Gulf Coast damaged by Hurricane Katrina) by cutting spending to other federal programs. He has rejected outright raising taxes, and he does not want to increase the federal deficit beyond its already (thanks largely to him) astronomical levels.

The majority of Americans apparently agrees with him. Two polls discussed on NPR this morning reveal that the public also believes cutting other federal spending is the way to go . . . though when given the choice of which federal spending to cut, most Americans say cut spending on the war in Iraq. Somehow, I don't think Dubya will go for that one.

The problem is that many in Congress, including Republicans, think there's no more fat to delete from the federal budget.

You know what's coming, don't you?

Wait for it . . .

Ah, it will be the end of the dreaded social programs, a/k/a entitlements, which is what Dubya's goal has been all along.

So we are going back to the Gilded Age in more ways than one. The stable middle class will disappear, and we're going to wind up with a permanent underclass--and eventually, I fear, a shooting war, right here in River City. And that's Trouble with a capital T and that rimes with P and that stands for Phooey.

I will not make the claim that Dubya is responsible for the hurricane itself, though his head-in-the-sand approach to clear evidence of global warming hasn't helped. He sure knows how to take advantage of an opportunity when he gets one, though, doesn't he?

This is mostly old news to those of us who have been paying attention. My current outrage is at the pollsters, who seem entirely incapable of asking questions to get the answers that really reflect what the public thinks and not just reflecting what the pollsters want to establish.

If pollsters would either (1) ask open-ended questions, instead of making people choose among too-limited options, and/or (2) give complete options if they must use multiple-choice questions, I think the pollsters would find out that almost no one wants to cut assistance to the elderly and disabled or to the truly poor and destitute, and that no one wants to wipe out all the safety nets currently in place in federal law, like effective and enforced clean air and water standards, safe working conditions and livable union wages, automobile safety and fuel efficiency standards, and the like. Yet these are the very things that Dubya already is attacking in his quest to pay for Reconstruction, Part Deux.

But if someone just says, "Do you want the government to pay for this by cutting other spending or raising taxes," of course people are going to choose cutting spending. No one wants to pay more than they now pay, even though in many cases what they now pay is simply not enough.

People forget that "taxes are the price we pay for civilization." Thank Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes for that astute observation. Cut taxes enough, and civilization will eventually disappear in a hail of gunfire.

People also forget that we formed the United States in the first place to create "a more perfect Union." OK, so originally that meant that we adopted the Constitution because the Articles of Confederation were not strong enough . . . but stop and think about that for a minute. Why should we go back to a type of Articles of Confederation system in fact though not in name?

The short answer, of course, is that we shouldn't. It would mean the end of the United States, again in fact if not in name. But that's what is going to happen if Dubya gets his way on how to pay for Reconstruction, Part Deux.

When are people going to realize that the past was no idyllic Golden Age? Not for Joe Schmoe, anyway, even if it was for the Morgans and the Vanderbilts and their ilk.

Consider, however: even if it were for Joe Schmoe, there is never any going back. I liken this to being a college student vs. being a job-holding adult who then loses his/her job. College students, most of whom have never had significant money, have no problem with living on a minimal budget. But once they've had a job and have had a serious, steady income, cutting that income makes their lives much harder. It is always harder to give something up than never to have had something to begin with.

Thus, if Dubya doesn't get his way about further cuts to federal spending, we're just going to run even bigger deficits than we do now. Unless the populace gets religion, that is, and realizes that it's well past the time to pay the piper. An old Fram oil filters advertising campaign had it right: "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later." Later is always more expensive, be it in time or money lost, options lost, mutual goodwill lost, or (most frighteningly) social cohesion obliterated.

Are you quaking in your boots yet? You should be.

M-V-P! M-V-P!

It's that time of year again, when those of us with nothing better to do (or even if we do have better things to do) start debating the annual baseball individual all-season performance awards, such as the Most Valuable Player in each league, National and American.

To me, the MVP is the player whose presence made the biggest impact on the success of his team, not just the player with the gaudiest statistics. In the National League, my MVP is Andruw Jones of the Atlanta Braves. So many Braves players were injured at some points during the season that the team was fielding 7 rookies in its starting lineup . . . and yet Andruw Jones made sure that Atlanta got to (and stayed in) first place in the NL East by his defensive prowess, his offensive skills, and his sheer leadership.

I know that several people want to give the MVP to Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals. He's a stellar player on a stellar team, and over the past several years has been overshadowed in the MVP voting by Barry Bonds, the epitome of gaudy statistics; so, it has been said that Pujols should win because he's deserved it for so long.

However, the Cardinals would most probably be exactly where they are (in first in the NL Central) whether Pujols was there or not, so I don't think he should win the MVP this year. Now, the Roberto Clemente award for community service, that's another matter. Pujols' work with Down's Syndrome and other disabled kids is fabulous, and deserves more recognition than it seems to be getting.

Some folks are even rooting for Derrick Lee of the Chicago Cubs to get the MVP. It's true that Lee is having a career year--he was in the lead in all 3 of the vaunted "Triple Crown" categories (home runs, RBI, and batting average) for most of the first half of the season, and is still in first, second, or third place in each of the categories as I post this)--but the Cubs are mired in the miasma of 4th place, about two games under .500. Thus, Lee's performance this season, as great and sustained as it has been, is not to my mind MVP calibre. The Cubs are just too miserable and underperforming a team this year.

So let's just give the NL MVP award to Andruw Jones and be done with it.

I do not follow the AL as closely as I follow the NL. I'm with Crash Davis: Congress ought to pass a constitutional amendment against artificial turf and the designated hitter rule. Nevertheless, my personal favorite for AL MVP is someone who's done mostly designated hitting this year, to wit: David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox.

"Big Papi," as Ortiz is known, has hit more game-breaking home runs in his limited playing time than anyone else I can think of in recent memory. His bat has kept Boston in first place in the AL East, ahead of the dreaded NY Yankees, nearly every time Boston has seemed like it was going to slip out of the lead and thus make defending its 2004 World Series Championship less and less likely.

I can't even think of anyone else in the AL worth considering for the MVP right now. I do not think pitchers should be in the running for the MVP, mostly because they have their own Cy Young awards to compete for.

And that's the news from Lake Wobegon.

A Tidbit

I am sick to death of getting emails from friends with maudlin stories about how the whole world is turning out with Stars and Stripes awaving to honor our military dead from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why? Because the moral of those stories seems to be "aren't we so wonderful for the way we support the troops!" and to my way of thinking, that is NOT how best to support them.

You want to support the troops? Don't sit around and forward emails and wave your flag and say you are supporting our troops.

Rather, press Congress and especially the President to make sure those troops have enough of the proper equipment and supplies to do the jobs given them; make sure their pay and benefits are not cut to the bone behind their backs; give of your time and energy to the families left behind by baby sitting, sharing a meal, or running some errands; and make sure all our elected representatives know that we won't put up with them talking a good game--we want substance, not style.

Did You Miss Me?

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything. Not because I haven't had anything to say . . . quite the contrary. I am so overwhelmed by all the things rattling around in my brain that I am having trouble sorting them out to make a sensible, readable post. Nevertheless, I will now attempt to clear out the clutter and comment on Life, the Universe, and Everything . . . or at least, the NCAA, the hurricane aftermath, and the nature of history.

But first, an aside: I believe there is a great cosmic significance in the close time proximity of the deaths of Bob Denver and William Rehnquist. What that significance is, however, I do not want to know.

On the NCAA

The NCAA, in its non-infinite wisdom, recently issued an edict forbidding schools in any NCAA playoffs to use mascots or nicknames that are stereotypes or otherwise offensive. Read: you can't use any Native American symbols/names/themes.

Several schools, most prominently among them Florida State, protested. After all, Florida State's nickname, the Seminoles, and its mascot, Osceola, have been carefully constructed with the help of Florida's Seminole population not to be stereotypical, but to be accurate and positive images. Since Florida's Seminole population largely agreed with Florida State, the NCAA relented and gave Florida State a waiver from its new policy.

And that is as it should be. If we are outlawing stereotypes, accurate and positive portrayals are by definition exempt. Besides, what's the point of banning the use of such stereotypes only during NCAA playoffs? If the stereotype is offensive, it's offensive 100% of the time. [You want to get rid of an offensive nickname? Make the Washington DC NFL team change its name. "Redskins" is offensive, period. After all, you wouldn't call a team the N*****s, now would you?--Ed.]

I, for one, might be happy to see the NCAA ban the use of the "Fighting Irish" leprechaun at Notre Dame. The belligerent little fellow w/ his fists and his shillelagh is not my idea of an accurate and positive image at all. On the other hand, I feel about it not unlike how Whoopi Goldberg feels about bad ethnic stereotypes in old advertising and the like. She collects examples of such stereotyping to keep everyone's memories alive as to how bad it was, to show how far we've come, and to acknowledge that history cannot be changed to make it pretty. It is what it is.

The Hurricane Aftermath

First, let me say I am glad to see that the vaunted generosity of the American public deserves its reputation. The outpouring of help and support so far has been enormous, as it should be. And it extends not just to the people devastated by Katrina, but also to their pets. The Humane Society is making huge efforts to find and rescue pets lost to their families because of the storm, and to give them necessary medical treatment and to try to reunite them with their humans.

I am particularly pleased about that because I believe that since pets cannot speak for themselves, if we do not care for them, we reveal ourselves as lesser beings by our indifference.

I guess it's part and parcel of the notion that how great a society is becomes plain when examining how that society treates the least of its members. By that standard, the federal government has failed miserably along the Gulf Coast.

A right-wing friend (yes, I have them; it is important to keep the lines of communication open. Besides, we all have more in common than some of us might be willing to admit) sent me a email positing that the reason for all the looting and violence in New Orleans was because the welfare state has created a permanent underclass that acts and reacts more like Iraqi insurgents than like human beings trying to cope with a crisis.

I knew at some fundamental level that that was just wrong. It not only blames the victim, it smacks of racism. But not until this morning did I realize WHY that reasoning was wrong: the looting and violence did not start until AFTER it was clear that the federal government and just about everyone else was blowing off helping these people. It is akin to the news photos of white people and black people in the aftermath of the storm: white people were said to be finding food; blacks, on the other hand, were said to be looting.

Do not get me wrong. I know there is truth to the looting reports. But it started only after several days of federal inaction had passed. If the National Guard had been put in place right away, as it would have been had, say, Kennebunkport been devastated by a hurricane, the total breakdown of the social compact that we saw would not have happened.

And why weren't National Guard troops put in place right away? Because most of them were off fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why did the flooding happen in the first place? Because the budget for levee maintenance had been siphoned off to finance the so-called war on terror.

I heard in an NPR report this morning that Republicans are saying that there was more than enough money given to infrastructure maintenance in Louisiana even though the money spent was less than 1/3 of what the Army Corps of Engineers said it needed. Why was it more than enough money? According to one of the Republican Congressmen who made the decision, Louisiana got $.4 billion more than California, and "California has 7 times the population."

What's wrong with this picture? You don't base infrastructure spending on the size of the population most immediately affected. You base it on the need. I daresay that Louisiana has at least 7 times the risk of flooding from hurricanes as does California.

The congressman in question also implied that the money that WAS given was not all spent where it was supposed to be used (remember, Louisiana still has a lot of Democrats in official positions in high places, like the governorship).

But there's no sense in finger-pointing and making accusations against the Bush administration's inadequacies, because we have a job to do, and we cannot afford to be divisive when there is so much work to be done.

Talk about "Things That Make You Go Wha?!?!?!"

We are not all incapable of multitasking. Furthermore, we need to assess what went wrong, why, and who is responsible, so that we can keep it from happening again. If we wait until the clean-up is done and everything is back to normal, two things will happen: (1) no one will care any longer. Americans do have notoriously short attention spans; and (2) those who should be held accountable will get off scotfree.

And that tain't right, Magee.

It is not impossible to examine what happened and make corrections and assign blame where needed while at the same time working to help those whose lives have been demolished by the storm. And I don't mean poor Trent Lott and his "beautiful house" that was destroyed by the storm--you know, the one Dubya is going to help him rebuild so that he and Lott can sit on the porch together. It's not exactly as if Lott has no other home to go to, and no job because the storm wiped out his place of employment, and no other income or resources on which to draw.

The Emperor is still naked. It's long, long past the time we faced up to that and dealt with it.

The Nature of History

I've been discussing with a friend what is the nature of history. Humans have an inborn need to organize and categorize things, and the way we choose to organize our history reveals much about ourselves.

(OK, I should say most humans have a need to organize. One of my best friends rightly says his desk is "The Black Hole of Calcutta." I cannot work in such clutter and chaos; it seems to short-circuit my brain cells, and I literally cannot think amongst such a mess. He, on the other hand, thrives on it. Chacun a son gout.)

The Victorians gave us the notion of history as inevitable progress. This notion was majorly discredited in the wake of things like the sinking of the HMS Titanic and the publishing of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but its echoes can still be heard, especially in elementary and high school history textbooks.

Some believe that history is a cyclical thing: "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." Just compare the attitude of those in power in the federal government now with that of those in power in the 1890s if you doubt it. Others think history moves like a pendulum: every generation reacts against its parents, so the 60s begat the 80s, 90s, and 00s (think "Family Ties" and Alex P. Keaton), and with any luck, the 80s, 90s, and 00s will beget a revival of the best attitudes of the 60s somehere down the road. (And I'm not talking Lava Lamps, people.)

My own take is that aspects of all these things are true, as long as one is able to add a pinch of irony. Lincoln wanted a "soft" Reconstruction of the Union, but his assassination made that impossible-yet his assassin's goal and aim (pun intended) in killing Lincoln was to help and protect the South. JFK wanted civil rights legislation, but didn't push hard for it, and it wasn't going to pass even if he had--until he was assassinated, that is.

I don't know. Maybe history is on an ever-downward spiral. (I cite the existence of Gangsta Rap in support.) No, I don't seriously believe that. But I do believe (as the two examples in the previous paragraph attest) that history has a large measure of "be careful what you ask for, for you just might get it" kind of a "gotcha" karma to it. Part of me wonders why we have to put any characterizations on history at all, but the better part of me knows that human nature makes it inevitable that we do so.

Here endeth the lesson.

Pondering Some Imponderables

Or, I didn't steal this from George Carlin, honest! These are all my own thoughts. Can I help it if great minds think alike?

(1) Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Obviously, the egg. Something that was not quite a chicken laid an egg that hatched a chicken, or so evolution suggests.

(2) What's more important, great hitting or great pitching? Harry Caray and Steve Stone used to argue about this all the time on WGN-TV broadcasts of Cubs' games. I forget which of them took which side, but for my money, the answer is simple: great hitting. To win a game, you have to score at least once. While there are ways to score without getting a hit, all you can do with great pitching is to keep the other guy from scoring. In that case, if everyone plays to his/her best, you'd wind up w/ a 0-0 tie. Great pitching cannot give you a win; it can only keep you from losing. Great hitting is they way to go.

(3) I wonder why all the fundamentalists out there who refuse modern medical treatments have stopped to consider that the treatments they are refusing may well be the miracles God promised them in the first place. Where is it written in stone that the only things that can be miracles are totally out-of-the-blue and off-the-wall? Why can't miracles be things God's wisdom has inspired mankind to develop?

(4) [A bit of an Andy Rooneyish observation for varied flavor.--Ed.] Don't you just hate getting a fortune cookie that contains advice instead of a fortune? When did that change, anyway? Probably had something to do with oversensitivity to "political correctness," I'd guess. I about fell out of my chair last night when I got a fortune cookie that had a real fortune in it: "You will soon find someone sympathetic to your cause."

I have no idea which cause is meant; I am just thrilled that it's a fortune and not some wimpy "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" advice for a change.

The "Lady" Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks

Do you remember Katherine Harris? She's the erstwhile Florida Secretary of State (who threw the 2000 FL election results to her boss's brother, Dubya) and currently a Congresswoman who is now running for a US Senate seat from the Sunshine State.

Maybe a visual will help: she's the one who was all over the TV news in November, 2000, wearing positively garish makeup much too heavily applied. She looked like a cartoon. Or a strumpet. My mother thought she was a "forty-plus" something trying--unsuccessfully--to look like a college-age sylph. I can agree with that.

Well, she doesn't like that image of herself, poor thing. Judging from the black and white news photo accompanying the AP article in yesterday's paper, however, nothing has changed. Her lipstick is way, way too dark in color value, and even in black and white, her blush is visible.

But she claims that the newspapers "colorized her photograph[s]" and that she does not actually wear her makeup in the gaudy way "the Democrats" have lampooned. [How does one "colorize" a black and white photograph that way, I wonder?--Ed.]

She apparently never saw any rebroadcasts of her live TV appearances in 2000. If she had, she'd realize she couldn't use the "they colorized my photograph[s]" excuse. Her makeup was way too obvious, and way too heavy . . . while in contrast, absolutely everyone else on screen looked entirely normal. So my TV color wasn't out of adjustment, either.

Who is she trying to fool? Is she that clueless? Or is she angling for the "poor me, I'm so put upon" sympathy vote? I find it impossible to believe that anyone with even 1/2 a brain will take her seriously, but then again, P.T. Barnum was right: no one ever went broke underestimating the taste [read that "sense"--Ed.] of the American public.

Robert Burns must be laughing his ghostly head off over this! ("Oh would the power some giftie gie us, to see ourseles as ithers see us.")

Happy Cows No Longer Come From California

OK--let me begin by saying I was half asleep when I heard what I think I heard on NPR this morning. So, what I am about to say may be merely the product of my fevered imagination. Nevertheless, . . .

Some group of scientists has tested the amount of pollution (methane, mostly) produced by cows in California, and determined that cows pollute more than cars now do.

As a result, the state is going to implement pollution-control requirements. Expensive pollution-control requirements. And the dairy farmers are most emphatically not happy about it. It may cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars, each, to comply.

A lobbying group for the dairy farmers has started lawsuits challenging both the measurement methods and the results in the hopes that the proposed requirements will not be forced on them.

Several Central Valley dairy farmers are threatening to take their cows and the jobs their farms provide and leave the state.

If this isn't "real California cheese," I don't know what is!

The Bad News Bears Have Nothing On R. Palmeiro

I have been following the steroid-use controversy concerning Rafael Palmeiro with trepidation. Let me say first that when Rafael came up w/ the Cubs, I thought he was going to be a really good ballplayer, and I never did understand why the Cubs traded him.

My respect for him dwindled when he started hawking Viagra a few years ago.

My respect regrew once he quit doing that and when I realized the record-breaking hitting achievements he'd posted in the interim.

I was entirely stunned to learn of his suspension for steroid use. After all, back in March during the Congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball, he was adamant that he was not a user, despite what Jose Canseco wrote in his book. [I now hear echoes of "I did not have sex with that woman."--Ed.] At the time, I was not the only one to think that Palmeiro's stature increased to the same degree that Mark McGwire's decreased when contrasting Palmeiro's statements with McGwire's evasive testimony.

I was willing to give Palmeiro the benefit of the doubt about his testing positive: perhaps it was due to a minor ingredient in an over-the-counter concoction he'd taken. I knew he had nothing to gain and tons to lose (especially at this late stage of his career) by taking steroids and getting caught . . . and then I learned that the steroid in his system was stanozolol, the same steroid that felled Olympic and world-champion sprinter Ben Johnson. It is not something that just shows up in trace amounts in anything OTC.

The very next day, a Seattle Mariners pitcher (whose name escapes me at the moment) was also suspended for testing positive. He offered the same increasingly-lame-sounding explanation: "I have no idea how the steroids got into my system."

Right. And all unicorns will be destroyed if the guy doesn't share his Emerald nuts with his little girl.

All the facts must be revealed and evaluated in each and every case before we simply choose to ignore the accomplishments of the current major leaguers. Every little relevation, however, especially about someone so high profile due to his on-field exploits, chips away a bit more at my resolve to hear all the evidence before making up my mind.

Palmeiro eventually may still be elected to the Hall of Fame, but certainly not on the first ballot. Maybe not on the first five or ten ballots. Of course, if even more bad news comes out about his steroid use, he may have demolished his chances to be enshrined at all. We can but wait and see.

Contrast the weekend induction of Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandburg into the Hall. Boggs's tribute to his mentor, his father, was incredibly moving. Sandburg's speech, focusing on how he approached everything he did to show his respect for the game, was genuinely inspiring. (I know the already-inducted HOF members liked Sandburg's speech a lot. They were nodding in agreement all the way through it.) Boggs was only the 41st player to be voted in on his very first eligibility; Sandburg should have been voted in on his first appearance on the ballot. Nevertheless, they both embody what baseball can produce when those who play the game play it right.

This week's suspensions cannot sully or tarnish the weekend's ceremonies, but they sure do muck up the game today.