Unclean! Unclean!

Here's something I never thought I'd say: I find myself agreeing with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas about something.

>>>cough<<< >>>choke<<< >>>gasp<<< >>>wheeze<<<

He wrote the dissent in the Court's recently published decision allowing people convicted of a crime overseas to own a gun in the good ol' US of A.

The vote was 5 to 3 . . . Chief Justice Rehnquist was receiving chemo back in November, when arguments in this case were heard, and did not participate in the decision. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority decision. Joined by Justices Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg, he said that a US law prohibiting felons convicted in "ANY court" (emphasis added) from owning guns applies to domestic crimes only. The majority thought that since protections for defendants are fewer and less effective overseas than they are in our own court system, it would be unfair to hold that against them here.

If Congress wanted the law to apply to foreign convictions, too, it should rewrite the law to say so, Justice Breyer concluded.

Justice Thomas, rightly in my opinion (and majorly shocking to me to admit that), said "any" means "any," which includes foreign courts. If Congress had meant for foreign courts to be exlcuded, it would have said "any domestic courts" (emphasis added). His exegesis of the statute's language certainly is less tortured--and less tortuous--than the majority's, and therefore preferrable to it. [It's rulings such as the majority's in this case that fuel the fires of complaint about "activist" judges. Why do we have to give the neocons ammunition? They shoot anyway. Making it easier for them to make their case is just plain stupid!--Ed.]

God help me, but he's right on this one!

The humor/irony/weirdness of the ruling in this case comes from this: the majority, with the exception of Justice O'Connor (who hails from Arizona, where bars have signs outside saying "Check your weapons at the door"), normally would be expected to limit gun possession wherever possible. The dissenters, on the other hand, usually prefer to felicitate access to guns, given their interpretation of the Second Amendment. The respective opinions in this case ensure the opposite real world outcome of the various justices' previously-acknowledged stances on gun control.

To further the humor/irony/weirdness, the felon in question answered "no" to the question whether he'd ever been convicted of a felony on the federal form he had to fill out to get his guns in the US. At the time he filled out the form, he'd just been released on parole from prison in Japan, where he'd--get this!--done time for violating Japanese gun laws.

Should anyone with so little respect for law anywhere have any access to guns? I would hope not! The alternative makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

While the Supremes' majority decision in this case overturns our felon's conviction for possession of the guns, I do not know whether it had any effect on his conviction for lying on the form. The news reports once again were woefully inadequate. >>>sigh<<<

Sp the real world fallout from this case, while alarming, has yet to be fully felt. Nevertheless, it already makes me think of Cornwallis's army band playing "The World Turned Upside Down" at Yorktown. Or REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." Except I don't feel fine. I feel as though I've fallen through Alice's looking glass into a wonderland where the Mad Hatter is named Breyer.

Existential Blues

Thus beginneth the great experiment. I prefer to have my thoughts in some semblance of order before posting, but at the moment, I have a lot of apparently unrelated things eating at me, so . . . here goes a probably lame attempt at stream of consciousness.

The deaths of Pope John Paul II and Terri Schiavo, and my own saga of debilitating health problems, have got me thinking about "The Nature of Life." I frequently wonder why our drive to survive is as strong as it is, given the general crap up with which we must put on a daily basis. In my own case, I think it's because I was a cat in a former life. Thus I cannot abide by not knowing how everything turns out. (Or one of my professors was right: I am a born historian.)

In my own case, when I am feeling the weight of the world, I surprise myself by the depth of my desire to survive. After all, I have been betrayed by my (now former) spouse, my (now former) employer, members of my family, some "friends," indeed, by my own body. It would be easier to just let go, it seems to me . . . but I am fiercely, viscerally, determined to go on.

Maybe I am just a glutton for punishment. Maybe I am just cussedly stubborn. Maybe I just have a good dose of that ultimate mystery of life: the will to survive. I just wish I knew whence it came.

***

I must confess to having had the peckish thought that the new pope should have adopted the name George Richard (i.e., Ringo).

***

I will lament the lament of Cubs fans everywhere: why the heck is it that the more things seem to change, the more they stay the same? I watched the debacle against the Cardinals yesterday, wherein Dusty Baker put in the pitcher Mike Remlinger against a Cardinals hitter with a lifetime .444 average against him, and of course he hit a home run that broke open what had been a 1-0 tight pitching duel in the bottom of the 8th inning, sparking the Cardinals to win 4-0.

Ugly.

And mystifying. What the heck was Dusty thinking? WAS Dusty thinking?

I apologize for not stating the Cardinals' hitter's name. At the moment, I cannot remember if it was Todd or Larry Walker, or someone else entirely.

Anyway, the Cubs are only 8-8, they are losing to the teams they have to beat if they want to make the playoffs, and the major causes are what they always are: bad managerial decisions, a weak bullpen, and spotty hitting in the clutch.

BTW, I have to crow a bit about calling Nomar Garciaparra's injury correctly in the precedding game about 5 minutes before any of the TV crew broadcasting the game did. They kept saying it was a hamstring, but I could see what parts of his anatomy he was clutching, and I knew it was a groin muscle tear.

I shouda been a sportscaster. Alas for me, I was born about 4 years too early for that to have been a viable career option for me to have pursued. Just my luck. I was born too early to get a posting to the Air Force Academy out of high school; I was born too early to have taken advantage of many of the modern improvements in dental hygene and care; I was born just late enough to take advantage of advances in medical technology--not late enough to be cured, mind you, but late enough to be kept alive with a debilitating and ultimately fatal pulmonary condition.

My dad always used to say if it weren't for bad luck, he wouldn't have had any luck at all. I seem to be in the same boat.

***

But I don't want this to sound like a pity party. I believe firmly in making lemonade when presented with lemons. I should open a stand. I could make a lot of money! (I have a lot of lemons!)

***

One of the great sadnesses of my life is that almost no one seems to get the strong irony in most of my humor. For even being aware of that, I cannot stop myself. The irony flows from me in rivers, in torrents.

Must be the Irish in my genes. I just saw a lovely epitaph: there were a lot of dry eyes at the moneylender's funeral.

***

One of my other most favorite Irishisms is this: every Irishman (and woman) is born with an abiding sense of tragedy which sustains him (and her) through temporary periods of joy.

***

Isn't it odd how doing something one enjoys, even when one is not looking forward to that particular instance of doing that thing, elevates one's mood? Ferinstance: I have been mulling for weeks over a lot of what I am saying right now, knowing I needed to post it for my own peace of mind, and yet dreading the process for some reason. But now that I am in the midst of it, my mood has brightened considerably.

***
I haven't posted anything about the cats in a while. It's past time I should. There is a tom cat in the neighborhood, about 3/4 grown, who is a lovely slim thing: he's primarily white, but in all the places where Siamese would have points, he is orange tabby--a pale, Creamsicle color. He seems to be well-cared for, though I question the wisdom of anyone who will let a housecat roam around outside. My kids are 100% indoor beings. Not that they always agree with that, but I do enforce it.

Anyway, I have some ground level windows, and I have seen this neighborhood tom sitting outside them, communing with my cats, which are sitting inside them.

Well, Lucy is communing. Linus seems ready to pound the little beggar.

Getting to watch this from outside the other morning was vastly entertaining. Linus' general posture was one of hunkered down hostility. I have now taken to calling him "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Doofus."

Lucy is more inscrutible. I cannot discern whether she is flirting with the tom or is luring him into a false sense of security so that she can pound him, too. My kids understand that the yard is their territory, even if I do not let them out into it.

***

I am suddenly drained of all punditry. I have not spoken recently of Washington politics because I am at the point of overload/crash and burn. I am thrilled, for example, that I got to watch the official dedication and opening of the new Lincoln Museum and Library in Springfield, Illinois this past week (C-Span, what would we do without you?)--but I found myself so distressed at some of Dubya's remarks trying to spin Lincoln into a fan of his that I had to turn off the sound.

I maintain that as a matter of principle, if Lincoln were alive today, he would NOT be a member of the GOP.

George Orwell must be laughing his head off somewhere (if he's not crying). He got the year wrong, but the heart of what he predicted in "1984" has most definitely come to pass.

Dubya has been tooting his own horn for his Clear Skies Initiative, especially today (Earth Day), but the substance of that Initiative is to let industry pollute more than it does now.

Black IS white.

***

And don't even get me started about the new bankruptcy laws. Let's see, we're going to take people who are already in crisis--mostly due to outrageous medical bills, according to several recent studies I've seen--and we are going to make their burdens more onerous by working them to death to make them pay, even under Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which was designed to give them relief. At the same time, we are not going to demand of the super rich in our society that they pay even a marginal share of what they ought to keep our country running. What the heck does it matter that our society made it possible for them to accumulate their riches in the first place? Everyone seems to be pushing for rights without responsibilities, which is just plain wrong.

The Founding Fathers knew some things, including: (1) there is much to be said for self-restraint--just because you CAN do something does NOT mean that you SHOULD do that something; (2) we are all in this together--to be a society means that everyone has obligations to everyone else. Call it the social compact, the social contract, whatever you want, but it is there. Or else we are no longer a society and no longer deserve to survive.

***

But isn't that what the neocons want? Since they have the money, they are perfectly happy with instituting an "every man for himself" system, because they know it's to their advantage. That's why they are so eager to dismantle everything FDR did, and why they hate FDR and the Kennedys so much: they regard them as traitors to their (monetary) class. But FDR and the Kennedys are much more in line with the Founding Fathers than the neocons every could be.

The student of history in me tells me the pendulum will in fact swing back to at least the center, and that the destruction Dubya and his ilk are attempting will not in fact happen. But the pessimist in my wonders whether the pendulum will swing back in time, or if it is already too late.

As a lawyer friend of mine has said, "Even Rome fell." My answer remains, "Yes, but does it have to happen while I am around?"

A Postscript

Terri Schiavo has died. No real surprise there. The doctors said she'd last about two weeks without any nutrition or hydration, and she died 13 days after her feeding tube was removed at her husband's insistance.

I remain entirely skeptical of his claims to have been acting in accordance with her wishes, for reasons I've already posted, reinforced by seeing his behavior at and after her death. He would not let her parents be in the room with her when she died. He insists that her post-autopsy cremains be buried in Pennsylvania, not in Florida (her parents wanted to be able to visit her gravesite easily . . . his decision puts an end to that). His words, through his spokesman/attorney, maintain that his sole concerns were to follow her wishes and give her peace and dignity. His actions, however, contradict that claim at every turn.

The whole thing leaves me very, very sad. No one should have to die by being starved and dehydrated to death. It is a matter of simple human dignity. We wouldn't let someone do that to a house pet; we certainly would prosecute anyone who did that to an enemy combatant, even a proven terrorist; how can we just look the other way when someone wants to do that to a spouse?

Everyone must eat and drink to live. If withholding food and water is the only thing that will kill someone, that someone has a life beyond machines, and that life should be allowed to continue till its natural end--not hastened by cruel starvation.

It would have been much different if Terri had been on a ventilator. In that case, she would not have been able to breathe without mechanical assistance . . . and in that case, I'd have no quarrel with removing the artificial stimulus keeping her alive. She would then either die or breathe on her own--a natural death or survival. Nobody needs a ventilator to live in the "regular" world. A decision to "pull the plug" in that case is understandable and defensible.

But to starve someone to death? That cannot be OK, even when done to someone supposedly in a persistent vegitative state. Look: her brain function was not entirely gone, else she would have needed a ventilator. Maybe she didn't have much if anything of higher brain function left. She had enough to be awake and to live without abnormal, intrusive, extraordinary mechanical assistance. Struggling through thirteen days of slow death by starvation and dehydration is neither peaceful nor dignified.

All our lives have been cheapened by what has befallen Terri. Beware! If you suffer a catastrophic injury, you might be next! After all, the first people the Nazis systematically destroyed were the physically and mentally ill.

Seriously: make and keep an up-to-date living will. Ensure that everyone knows about it. Don't just keep it in a safety deposit box--append it to your medical records at every place you have them. If you travel, take a copy with you. Remember: the reason they're called "accidents" is that they are not expected.

Hard Cases DO Make Bad Law

Terri Schiavo's plight is heart-rending. She is the Florida woman who suffered bleeding in her brain some 15 years ago, and who has been the source of a battle between her putative husband and her parents ever since. He says she is in a persistant vegitative state, and that she wouldn't want to be kept alive like that; her parents say she is in fact responsive to them, that she would not want to die, and thus should not have her feeding tube removed so that she can essentially be starved to death.

The courts have consistently ruled in favor of her husband. First the Florida legislature, and now the US Congress, have tried to intervene on her parents' behalf.

Let me say that I do not at all trust her husband's claims in this matter. He has had several affairs, including at least one that produced a child, while his wife has been afflicted. He just wants out of an increasingly burdensome (to him) marriage. [Why doesn't he just file for divorce? Perhaps under Florida law he cannot as long as she is unable to respond due to her medical condition. Or maybe he's waiting to collect on her life insurance.] There is no independent evidence supporting his claim that Terri would not want to be kept alive this way; there is a lot of film and videotape of Terri responding to her parents and other visitors . . . and indeed, if one looks into her eyes in those films and tapes, one can see that despite her difficulties in communicating, the lights are on. Terri is at home.

One thing I have not seen in any of the news coverage of this situation is whether anybody has thought to get Terri a guardian ad litem, someone who could give the court independent advice and information. Perhaps that was her parents' original legal tactic, but since they have an obvious interest in the case, they were not sufficiently independent and disinterested themselves to be named Terri's guardians. Why no one else has been appointed [and whether that's even been tried], I do not know.

The news media have neglected to report many pertinent facts about this case. It is certain, however, that the state and federal legislative attempts to rectify the situation are unconstitutional. They have been drafted to deal strictly with Terri's plight. Furthermore, they violate the separation of powers under our system. The legislature is not supposed to adjudicate, any more than the judiciary is supposed to legislate. A better legislative attempt to help might be to change Florida law to give the parents of anyone in such a situation equal say-so with that person's spouse as to what will or will not be done medically.

At the heart of the matter, in any event, is this: in Terri's case, removing her feeding tube is cruel. It will cause her a slow and painful death. Given the visual evidence of her condition, starving her is just plain wrong. Her husband should not be allowed to throw her away just because he has the legal power, being her husband, to do so.

Therefore, while I do not agree that either the Florida legislature or the US Congress has the power to intervene in the ways they have tried to do, I agree with them 100% in terms of morality. Terri Schiavo should not be condemned to die by having her feeding tube removed. Someone needs to find a legal way to get it reinserted before even more unnecessary damage is done to this poor woman.

That's The Way It Is, 24 Years Later To The Day

Tonight marks the final night, 24 years to the day whence he started, that Dan Rather anchors the CBS Evening News broadcast. It's been an occasionally bumpy ride, hasn't it?

Still, I'd rather (pun intended) not see Rather's legacy besmirched by the controversy over last year's debacle about the alleged documents concerning Dubya's National Guard "service."

The documents' authenticity has been successfully challenged, thus producing the debacle. But what everyone seems to be forgetting is that the veracity of the documents' contents has never been in doubt. Indeed, the secretary who informed Rather that the documents were not genuine went out of her way to note that what they had to say was, however, accurate.

And that those contents established beyond doubt that Dubya's service in the National Guard was less than sterling; further, that he received special treatment and protections not afforded to the average National Guard enlistee.

And we thought Ronald Reagan was the Teflon president!

Even A Stopped Clock Is Right Twice A Day, . . .

so I guess I should not be surprised when I find myself agreeing with an editorial in the Omaha World-Herald. But I am, for the paper's editorial policies tend to remind me more of Attila the Hun than of reasoned discourse.

Anyway, the subject of my astonishment is the choice of the design for the upcoming Nebraska state quarter (to be released approximately this time next year). The four final choices are: a Conestoga wagon crossing the plains, with Chimney Rock in the distance; the state capitol building in Lincoln; the Sower (the statue atop the capitol building); and Chief Standing Bear, a Nebraska denizen and the catalyst for the US Supreme Court ruling that "Indians are people too."

The World-Herald's editorialist favors the Chief Standing Bear design over the others, and so do I. The Conestoga wagon and Chimney Rock have become passe cliches--Nebraska can do better than that! Besides, Chimney Rock has deterioriated so much over just the past 36 years that I doubt any Oregon Trail travellers of the 1800's would recognize it today.

The state capitol building is a marvelous and unique bit of architecture, but its nickname (which I won't repeat here) is rather off-putting. And the Sower, while a graceful statue, seems too esoteric and limited a design to represent Nebraska to the rest of the country as the best thing we have to offer.

But Standing Bear is of great significance--after all, Nebraska's state motto is "Equality Before The Law" (honored more in the breach than in the keeping, but that's a subject for another day)--and Standing Bear's Supreme Court suit proved it. Plus, none of the other state quarters that have so far been released have had a Native American as their subject matter. Thus, the Standing Bear quarter would be a standout from several perspectives.

Still, the final decision is up to the US Mint. Let's hope the people there want to do more than perpetuate cliches.

Even More Random Observations On The Passing Scene

It will never cease to amaze me that in the United States of America, the world's bastion of anti-Communism, nearly 70% of the people polled consistently think that our Constitution includes the dictate "[f]rom each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

All Hail Marx and Lenin! (Karl and Vladimir, not Groucho and John--Lennon, that is--and with apologies to Firesign Theater.)

But there is a reason that Marx, Karl, was wrong: he never bothered to answer or even consider the question "Who decides?"

One person's evaluation of his talents and needs can differ markedly from another person's assessment of same for that first person. It's not going to happen that we all happily agree 100% on these assessments for everyone, including ourselves. That's just not human nature. So the person who gets to make the determination is the person with the power . . . and that way lies dictatorship, not the withering away of the state. It's more like the concentration of the state.

So either people simply do not understand what Marx meant, or they have a major mental disconnect between believing in what Marx was getting at but still voting for people like Dubya.

If you've read "What's The Matter With Kansas?" by Thomas Frank, you'll become a firm believer in the disconnect.

I am trying to take comfort in the fact that Dubya really is officially a lame duck, and that since even his staunchest allies in the GOP-controlled Congress all eventually have to face reelection, Dubya's perceived power will wither away quickly in this, his second term . . . but I don't know. Everything has been going so wrong for so long that I am of two minds: either the pendulum will swing back, or we'll go over the edge and all will be lost forever.

***

The entire debate on Creationism (or Intelligent Design, or whatever you want to call it) vs. Evolution is a false argument. There really is no serious conflict between science and religion if one thinks clearly: they are not designed to answer the same question. Science asks "How?" Religion, "Why?"

But the continued popular confusion/fuzzy thinking on this and other such matters just illustrates another of my fundamental tenets: there is a reason that a grade of "C" is average. The vast majority of the world's population is operating at that level or below.

***

For once, the Super Bowl was better and more interesting than the vast majority of the commercials debuting during the game. I have to confess to liking the Budweiser commercial wherein all the wild animals come to audition for spots on the Clydesdale hitch, with the driver saying to the little burro, "See what you've started!"

***
The publiciation of Jose Canseco's book (with all its allegations of steroid use by both current and former players) has been timed to coincide with the beginning of Spring Training. How original! (She said, sarcastically.) I wonder just how much of what he is claiming is true. I usually try to evaluate someone's credibility by asking myself which party in a dispute has more to GAIN by lying, but here, the equities are about equal. Jose will get a lot more sales by asserting his lurid claims of players helping each other shoot up steroids; but the players named have a lot to gain by denying the truth of Jose's claims.

In fine, it's just plain sad. Baseball deserves better.

Bright College Days?

I have been following, with some trepidation, the newest Far Right assault on Life, the Universe, and Everything . . . also known as the college educational experience.

(And behavior like the Colorado professor who asserts that the victims of the Twin Towers assaults on Sept. 11 deserved it don't help. >>sigh<< As the late, great Jeff MacNelly once noted in "Shoe," "If you're going to have freedom of speech, you have to put up with a lot of dumbness of speech.")

It seems that college is nothing more than an indoctrination into left wing politics. And students who disagree live in constant fear that if their opinions become known, they will be failed by their Machievellian/Marxist professors, and thus not get their coveted sheepskins.

Furthermore, it seems that colleges and universities are havens for the left wing because they are the only places where it is acceptible to be left wing. Birds of a feather flocking together, I guess.

My somewhat peckish thoughts:

(1) If college is so dangerous intellectually, why is a college degree still so highly valued?

(2) Is it just possible that left wing views tend to prevail in colleges and universities (IF they do--I am not about to concede that point without a lot more evidence than some Neocon's assertions) because (>>gasp!<<) education opens one's mind?

(3) Since the prevailing attitude in child-rearing in this country currently seems to be to teach children WHAT to think, and not HOW to think, what in the world makes anyone think that 18 years of indoctrination at home can be erased by a mere 8 semesters of exposure to different ideas?

Unless, of course, those 8 semesters of exposure to different ideas show the utter bankruptcy of the ideas one entertained in the 18 years coming in?

I guess it's really not unlike the Neocons' collective attitude toward government: they say "Big Government" is bad, but what they mean is that "Big Government" is bad only when its aims, goals, and programs disagree with their preferred aims, goals, and programs.

Look at Dubya's just-submitted budget if you doubt it. Isn't the Republican Party the supposed bastion of fiscal responsibility? And yet we are running record deficits under Dubya. The defecits would be even worse than they appear if certain aspects of the budget, like Iraq and Afghanistan military spending, would be put in with the main budget instead of continuously being hidden in supplemental budget requests . . . which are supposed to be used for unforeseen emergency spending needs, like the recent tsunami disaster, not for foreseeable expenses like ongoing military expenditures.

I am beginning to think I can understand how Lord Cornwallis felt at Yorktown when the band struck up "The World Turned Upside Down."

More Random Observations On The Passing Scene

Sammy Sosa playing for the Baltimore Orioles?!? No one named Caray doing Cubs play-by-play in the WGN TV booth?!?!? What is the world coming to????

Ann Coulter is blond. Res ipsa loquitur.

So far, the news reports about what Condaleeza Rice said about Iran have emphasized that we are not going to attack. Shouldn't they be emphasizing what she added, to wit: "at this time"? (emphasis added)

For Dubya's proposed private investment accounts for Social Security to do as well as the benefit structure currently in place, the economy will have to do so well that we won't need to tweak the Social Security system to protect against the so-called coming catastrophe in the first place. Yet there seems to be a lot of support for Dubya's proposal. Step right up, folks! Smoke and mirrors work as well here as they did for the WMDs in Iraq. And they reflect the truth about as well, too.

Just because someone cannot identify an object flying by doesn't mean that that object necessarily is manned by members of some advanced alien civilization. Heck, we dealt regularly with unidentified frying objects in the high school cafeteria. We never turned into or got eaten by BEMs.

Dogs are pack animals, which crave leadership and tight social structure. Cats are independent and solitary hunters. Neocons love dogs. People who aren't afraid of people who don't think just like they do love cats. As a rule. (There are always exceptions.)

Every state has its own requirements for qualifying for Medicaid. In Nebraska, for example, your income is judged against a master expenses list. Your actual rent is not allowed. If you are paying more than $385/month for your lodgings, only $385 is subtracted from your income to check your qualifications. In other words, you are SOL. One of the Omaha-area Medicaid reps confirmed for me recently that that figure has not been adjusted at all, for inflation or otherwise, since 1985. In 2005, I doubt that you could rent a single garage stall for $385/month or less, let alone an apartment/house. So it becomes virtually impossible, as a practical matter, to qualify for Medicaid. And yet Donald Trump can declare bankruptcy many, many times and he never seems to be living on less than $100,000.00 or more per month.

Just another shining example of my current maxim for life: Them what has, gets; the rest of us get screwed.

What with the federal gov't budget deficits, changes in tax laws to favor the rich, deregulation of securities markets and utilities, and the like, 90% of the wealth in this country is now concentrated in the hands of fewer than 9% of the population. This is the worst it has ever been, even worse than during the 1880s and 90s. I love history, but except for the chance to talk to Mark Twain, I never wanted to live in the Gilded Age!

A friend shrugs his shoulders and says philosophically, "Well, even Rome fell."

OK, but does it have to happen while we're around?

The Cliche Every Editorial Cartoonist Will Reject Today, I Hope

I can see it now: St. Peter, swinging wide the pearly gates and proclaiming, "He-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-re's Johnny!"

There will certainly be more laughter and sparkling conversation in Heaven today; on Earth, however, there is less.

God be with you, Mr. Carson. You did Nebraska proud.

It's About Bloody Time!

Ryne Sandburg has been selected to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. The only other player inducted with him this year is Wade Boggs . . . not bad baseball company, but surely two very different styles of player! Sandberg was noted for his cool calmness; Boggs for his intensity. Yet both have achieved the ultimate measure of success. Their accomplishments are about to be recognized as being among the very best of all those who ever played the game.

Boggs was a first ballot inductee. It took Ryno three tries to be voted in. That's a shame; he's a first ballot quality player, too, and did not deserve to be shunned twice before being ushered into baseball's Promised Land.

He was the premiere second baseman of his era. He excelled in all aspects of the game. Offensively, he hit more home runs than any other second baseman ever, 277 (till Jeff Kent broke his record just last season)--including 40 in his MVP year. Defensively, he holds the major league record for consecutive errorless chances at his position (something like 123 games in a row) and his career fielding percentage is the highest ever at second base, .989. He also was a nine-time Gold Glove winner.

He also was a threat on the basepaths: he stole a lot of bases, scored a lot of runs, and generally did everything in his power to make the Cubs a winner. It certainly wasn't his fault that the Cubs had only sporadic success in the 1980s. Besides, he was the National League MVP in 1984, the first year in a lo-o-o-o-ng time that the Cubs made it to the playoffs. [Darn those San Diego Padres and Tony Gwynn, anyway! -Ed.]

Now if we can just get the Veterans Committee to vote Ron Santo in, all will be right with the world.

Sandburg was also very popular--he was a starting All-Star something like 10 times overall, 9 of those in a row. Most importantly, he was (and is) a genuinely nice guy and a real class act. It has been suggested that this worked against his getting voted into the HOF because he didn't do a lot of self-promotion. Frankly, I'd rather have him as he is, exuding quiet excellence, than being a lot of talk and no real action, the way too many professional athletes in all sports are these days.

[I'd also like to start a petition to get ugly sports events off TV, like last night's Orange Bowl. Whatever happened to the Oklahoma Sooners? I think they got kidnapped and some stringers were put in their uniforms just so USC could beat the living daylights out of them. The final score in that game was on the order of 55-19 . . . I'm not sure I have it right because I had to quit watching. It was making me ill. -Ed.]

Anyway, I look forward to hearing his speech at the induction ceremonies later this year. The juxtaposition of Sandburg and Boggs must be the best one in contrasting styles since George Brett and Robin Yount in the class of 1999.

Here I am, stuck at home in the middle of the worst snowstorm we've had in eastern Nebraska in years, and I am dreaming of the Hall of Fame and the start of spring training. I must be a real baseball addict!

Anyway, congratulations, Ryno! You richly deserve all the accolades you're getting. It's more than about time!

From The Land Of Sky Blue Water

From the Memphis, Tennessee, Commercial Appeal (via Parade magazine):

"[A] black bear was found passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort near Concrete, Wash., surrounded by 36 empty beer cans. It had gotten into the coolers of some nearby campers, who had stocked up on both [Ranier and Busch] beer for their trip.

"Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Sgt. Bill Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest. The beast then consumed all the campers' Ranier.

"Wildlife agents used a large, humane trap to capture the bear, baiting the trap with the usual: doughnuts, honey, and, in this case, two open cans of Ranier.

"That did the trick.

"'I've known them to get into cans, but nothing like this,' Heinck said. 'And it definitely had a preference.'"

All I can add is that either the Hamms Beer Bear has come out of retirement and wants a new gig, or else he ought to be suing someone else for copyright infringement.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

I am having a real "Alice Through The Looking Glass" moment right now. I just heard a report on NPR about a slew of internal FBI memoranda documenting prisoner abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq. These memos date back to at least last July according to the New York Times, and are disturbing not only for what they do report, but for what they don't, and why.

The agents doing the reporting specified types of abuses they witnessed, including prisoners having lit cigarettes put in their ears, being forced to stay in one position for hours on end, and being chained to floors so that they'd have to lie in their own urine and feces.

But what the FBI agents were concerned about was not that these actions were wrong; what they worried about in print was: (1) THEY didn't get to do these things, so why should the military?; (2) military interrogators doing these things were telling the prisoners that they were FBI, thus leaving the FBI "holding the bag" if the news got out, when rightfully, the Department of Defense was to blame; and (3) any evidence obtained would be useless in a court case against the prisoners, as it had been coerced.

What is wrong with this picture?

Where do I begin?

First, these memos document actions taken AFTER the initial publicity (including photographs) surrounding the Abu Ghraib abuses, meaning that no one learned anything from that debacle . . . except maybe how to cover his/her tracks a little better. (Besides, professional jealousy about who gets to do what to whom is so petty, she said, irony dripping from her voice.)

Second and of even more import, these FBI memoranda were addressed to people high up the chain of command, including the FBI director, and were also marked "urgent," meaning that more and higher up gov't officials were aware of the extent of this mess for quite some time . . . and apparently did nothing about it.

Third, and what prompted my "through the looking glass" feeling to begin with, was that no one paid even lip service to the obvious problem that torture does NOT produce reliable intelligence information. People being tortured will eventually say anything to get the torture to stop. They know (or at least have some sense of) what their tormentors want to hear; at their personal breaking point, they'll give it, true or not, just to get their torment to end.

Finally, and most disturbing of all, was that no one (at least, according to what's been published) made any kind of moral condemnation of the very fact of the torture--and this from an administration that professes to be "Christian."

Oh, you say that's not a problem because those being tortured are Muslim infidels who would do the same to us if they could? Oh, now I see! (She said, extremely sarcastically.)

After the presidential election results, I confess to having considered moving to Canada for about 5 minutes. I then decided that that would be more trouble than it was worth. But I don't know what to do now.

This administration's tacit (until we find a smoking gun, anyway) approval of such unconscionable behavior makes me sick to my stomach. I don't want to be associated with an "America" that tolerates such things. It makes a mockery of what America is and should symbolize to all the world.

Yes, I voted. Like it made a difference. Dubya claims he has a mandate, so we aren't going to see any changes for the better in his administration's actions.

So, since I am not moving to Canada, I'll do the next best thing and take a Canadian's advice: as Red Green advocates, since all else has failed, I'll just play dead.

Random Observations On The Passing Scene

Random Observation the First:

Michael Crighton, M.D., author, screenwriter, producer, and bon vivant, has just published a new book, State of Fear. He also has recently opined (in Parade magazine) that we must stop listening to the doomsayers, the predictors of defeat and dispair, because they do nothing but add to our stress levels--besides which, their dire predictions don't come true anyway.

That's OK as far as it goes. Nowhere in his article did I see even a hint of an acknowledgement that maybe the reason that none of their dire predictions came true was because they warned us and thus someone did something to change what was about to happen. Furthermore, given the title of his book, Crighton seems to be making money off the phenomenon, so how can he complain?

Personally, I'd rather have people aware of potential disasters and preparing for them or working to prevent them than sticking their heads in the sand. With the possible exception of the next topic I am about to raise, that is.

Observation the Second:

I for one am getting seriously tired of all the yapping at this time of year about "they [whomever "they" are--Ed.] are taking Christ out of Christmas."

People can observe or not, as they choose--the only prohibition is on the government doing anything that looks like IT is favoring Christianity (or any stripe thereof) over any other religion, or favoring any other religion over any (or every) stripe of Christianity.

Granted, there are a lot of people out there who will not get the distinction . . . and some of them are erroneously trying to stop other individuals from expressing their personal faith . . . which is not just wrong, it's dangerous.

But we cannot have any branch at any level of government giving even the appearance of favoring one faith over another, for then we have a clear violation of the First Amendment. If we want America to remain America, we collectively cannot stand for anybody violating the First Amendment.

Observation the Third:

Even when the College Football Bowl Championship Series (a misnomer if there ever was one--there's no series, for one thing) seems to work, someone somewhere is going to carp about it.

We do have a matchup of #1 vs. #2 in this year's designated championship game: USC vs. Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, on January 4th. [A quick aside: isn't drawing this out till January 4th a bit much? I know, I know. It's the money.--Ed.] Nevertheless, there are a total of 5 undefeated teams right now, and the three that have been "locked out" of the championship game are not happy campers.

It may be unfair, but it's not going to change. Money talks, and there is too much money involved in the Division 1-A bowl games as presently constituted for the institutions involved to switch over to a true playoff system . . . even though a playoff works for all the other divisions in the NCAA.

But that's OK, because it gives people something to carp about other than the unseasonably warm weather we're having right now in eastern Nebraska. At least my heating bills aren't going to bankrupt me . . . yet!

Observation the Fourth:

There are actually some television commercials that are entertaining. They do not get aired nearly as much as they ought to be. There are also the vast majority of commercials that are obnoxious in the extreme, and they are ubiquitous.

Wazzup with that?

I thought we were past the days of "remember me well or remember me ill, just remember me."

Observation the Fifth (get it?):

Froeliche Beethovens Geburtstag!

In honor of the 234th anniversary of Ludwig's birth, please go listen to one of his masterworks, especially as conducted either by Arturo Toscanini or George Szell. You'll be glad you did. (My personal recommendations are Toscanini's interpretation of the 9th Symphony and Szell's of the 5th.)

Gin Rummy

Of all the gin joints . . . in all the world, why did [Rumsfeld] have to walk into mine?

I see that Sec'y of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tried to offer information, comfort, and support to our troops in Kuwait who are awaiting further deployment to Iraq. In this observer's not-so-humble opinion, he did not do a very good job. [Yet he is the one Cabinet official Dubya is adamant about keeping. Makes you wonder, I hope.--Ed.]

When asked why the soldiers had to sort through scrap piles to get metal to use as armor-plating for their vehicles, two of the several answers Rummy offered were: (1) you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want; and (2) you can put all the armor in the world on a vehicle and it can be blown up anyway.

>>ahem<< This is leadership?!?!?

I have an acquaintance who considers things like this, shrugs his shoulders and says, "Even Rome declined and fell."

True, but does it have to happen while we are alive?

We can do better, people. We'd better, if we expect to survive the next four years and beyond.

Excuse me, but I am going to go cower in the corner for a while. And maybe have a gin or two. Or three. Or more. I, for one, am afraid. I am very afraid.

Talk About Kicking People When They Are Down!

I have it on good authority that the lovely 8th Circuit Court of Appeals (which circuit includes the state of Nebraska) has ruled repeatedly on the Americans With Disabilities Act in such a way as to have gutted its intentions, basically.

Instead of protecting disabled employees from being fired for no good reason except some supervisor's whim, the 8th Circuit has decreed that as long as the employer (or his agent) had a colorable economic reason to do so, firing a disabled employee does NOT violate the ADA. This includes situations wherein the employer has advertised vacancies which the disabled employee is qualified and able to fill. I thought the ADA was supposed to give some shelter to disabled employees, not make it easier for their employers to get rid of them.

Maybe my sense of smell is too acute, but that has the distinct aroma of three-day-old fish. In short, it STINKS ON ICE.

I'll bet none of the 8th Circuit's judges has ever tried to find another job while disabled. It's nearly impossible. The laugh is that the disabled person is told that if s/he feels s/he is not being hired because s/he is disabled, s/he can sue under the ADA. But the burden of proof is on the disabled person to prove s/he wasn't hired due to his/her disability, and not for some other valid reason (such as that another applicant was more qualified). All the records are in the employer's hands. It is nearly impossible to prove there wasn't some colorably valid reason not to hire the disabled applicant. Proving a negative in impossible. Talk about kicking someone when s/he is down!

I must confess to having to laugh nevertheless. Every time I hear people ranting about not wanting any activist judges who interpret the law instead of applying it, I marvel about the sheer volume of ignorance in our society.

All judges interpret the law; it's inherent in the nature of the beast. What the ranters are upset about is judges whose interpretations disagree with theirs. So I guess in this instance I am a ranter and the joke is on me.

But it's still wrong to make it even harder on people with disabilities to survive economically than they already have it. I am beginning to think that while most of this country professes to be Christian, Christ's teachings largely have not rubbed off on most of this country. Whatever happened to compassion, to the notion that what one does to the least of one's brothers one is doing to Christ Himself?

We trot it out during the holiday season and make a big show out of giving Toys For Tots, pennies to the Salvation Army (don't even get me started on Target's policy this year), and canned goods to the local food pantries. But doesn't it seem to you that we still somehow collectively look down upon the less fortunate, that we feel they brought their problems onto themselves, and that if they only weren't so lazy/drunk/drugged out, they'd be doing OK?

Shame on all of us, for our collective sense of smug superiority. And God forgive us, every one!

Beisbol Been Bery, Bery Bad

Gee, just when I thought baseball had finally gotten over all the bad effects of the Pete Rose debacle and of the 1994 strike, testimony was leaked from the San Francisco Grand Jury investigating steroid use connected to Balco . . . and Barry Bonds' spokesman is now saying not that Barry never took steroids, but that he never knowingly took anything illegal.

Does this not strike you as akin to those who say that having oral sex is not having sex? I mean, come on! The word sex in the description of what is being done should give you a clue.

I was afraid of this. I had the same bad feeling last summer when it was revealed that Jason Giambi was being treated for a rare tumor usually associated with steroid use, but that Jason never took steroids. Well, thanks to other SF grand jury leaks, we now know that wasn't true either.

>>sigh<<

As if that weren't enough, ESPN has released an unscientific poll of its viewing audience claiming that they think steroid use by Bonds and other players is worse for baseball than Pete Rose having bet on baseball, by a 63-37% margin.

Well, those of you who know me know that I will disagree with that. Pete Rose was a player-manager when he was betting on his own sport--and while he finally admitted that he'd bet on baseball, he said he'd never bet against his own team . . . but don't you think there are times when he didn't place bets involving the Cincinnati Reds at all, thinking that the Reds probably wouldn't win those particular games? Bookies are no dummies. They'd have picked up on Rose's betting patterns right away. So even not betting against your team influences betting, thus injuring the whole sport.

But steroid use is a different matter. It's dangerous, and foolhardy (just look at what happened to Lyle Alzado if you doubt it). But it cannot make someone a better hitter--it can only improve the distance of the hits they'd already get. So I don't think it adversely affects the whole sport the way betting by players can.

Unless, of course, the steroid use comes to be revealed to be much more widespread than I at present suspect it is. In that case, ALL bets are off.

These are indeed dark days for the baseball fan.

(I do confess to a great curiosity about the identity of the person(s) who leaked the Grand Jury testimony . . . and why s/he or they chose to do it now. Maybe this doesn't rise to the level of Watergate's Deep Throat, but it sure is something I'd like to know!)

Nebraskans In The National News--What's All This, Then?

I just heard that Prez Dubya has nominated Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns to be the new Secretary of Agriculture. Maybe I've not been paying attention, but I am somewhat surprised by this development.

Why, you may ask, am I surprised? Well, let's start with the fact that the first Nebraska name bandied about in connection with this nomination was US Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE). Now that would have been a masterstroke if Ben had fallen for it. It would have gotten another ostensibly Democratic vote out of the Senate, and since Ben is a DINO according to many people around here, it would not have been bad for Dubya's ag policy, such as it is. Besides, it had the color of making good on Dubya's promise to be a uniter and a healer for the country as a whole. [Editorial comment, as if you needed it: NOT.]

Exact events are not clear: Ben is saying nothing; his staff is saying he was offered the job and turned it down (ever savvy, our Ben); Dubya's staff is saying the job was never offered, and that all the speculation was just Beltway nose-picking.

But Ben is facing reelection in 2006, and the word around these parts was that Mike Johanns was being groomed and in fact was already hand-picked to be Ben's opponent. After all, if Mike Johanns could win election as the mayor of Lincoln (which he did and was before he became Governor), the most liberal city in the state [Editorial comment: this is all relative, you understand], he most certainly could beat Ben in a Senatorial contest.

Doesn't becoming Secretary of Agriculture take Johanns out of the loop? I am mystified about the whole thing.

Perhaps some of my Lincoln friends will edify me by posting comments and details. Methinks we just aren't getting the news in the metro Omaha area that we need to understand this development.

In the meantime, hail and farewell to Tom Brokaw, who got his start back in the early '60s at the Omaha NBC affiliate. Network news has not been the same since Walter Cronkite retired, but Brokaw will be missed.

Unaccustomed As We Are . . .

Welcome to my looney bin!

I don't know exactly where I will be going with this blog; in the past, on other sites, and under another name, I have posted political commentary, satire, news analysis, and the laments of Chicago Cubs fans everywhere.

I imagine that I will cover everything from accountability issues to zoos. For I believe in being interested and informed about just about everything under the sun.

You may expect from me bad puns, obscure movie references, stories about my cats, and my honest efforts to analyize news topics of interest.

I hope to get a lot of feedback, for what I most hope for is to exchange ideas.

It may be corny, but let's sit down together and learn from one another--and especially share a hearty laugh or two.

My motto, a la Groucho Marx, is that "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member."

I will begin with a story or two about my cats, because we are approaching the two year anniversary of the revelation I am about to share, and because it's funny. At least, I think so!

A little more than two years ago, I adopted two black and white, half-Siamese kittens from an area animal shelter. I was told they were the last two sisters in a litter of 8. I never bothered to check independently. After all, the animal shelter staff knew what they were doing. In any event, the kittens had green eyes and adorable personalities, so how could I not take them both?

I named them, brought them home, and did my best to make them comfortable in the face of the hubub of the holiday season.

They each liked to take turns sleeping on my left shoulder. (They still do, which is a problem now that they are full grown and the size of small ponies.) One night, one of them was circling around, trying to settle, and thus waving its butt in my face, and I realized something: there are a lot of things I do not know, but I do know that THAT is not a girl!

So, it turns out I have a brother and a sister. I renamed them Linus and Lucy, and nothing has been the same since.

(The humane society people, by the way, were as startled to learn this as I was. I had my vet send independent confirmation when I had them spayed and neutered in accordance with the humane society's policies. One of the staff called me and asked me if I were sure! I'm sure.)

Linus apparently has gender issues; he is bound to prove at any given moment that he is all boy. He likes, for example, to do a tightrope walk on my living room wrought iron balcony railing. And then to chase his tail when he is out over the "deep end," as it were. In short, he needs to prove every day that he has a full component of testosterone, giving me heart failure in the process.

He also likes to climb more than any other cat, Siamese blood or no, I've ever known. I regularly find him on top of my china hutch, skulking amongst the soup tureens. He also enjoys breaking things if I am not paying sufficient attention to him at any given moment. And for the longest time, nothing would deter him--not even a squirt of pure vinegar (water had absolutely no effect on him whatsoever). He has finally learned, however: now, I just have to point the squirt bottle at him when he's doing something I don't want him to do, and off he'll run. It's just that he has short term memory loss, or something, because a few hours later, he'll try again.

But he has the tiniest meow and the most delicate purr, and the pinkest of pink noses . . . so maybe he's not 100% certain about his gender issues either! In any event, I cannot stay mad at him, for he loves to cuddle and purr. Especially now that the weather is getting colder, I can find almost nothing better to do than curl up w/ the cats, a cup of tea, and a good book.

Lucy, on the other hand, has a black Groucho mustache over her nose and upper lip; a meow like a foghorn, and a motor like a '68 Dodge Hemi with no muffler. But she also has the most silky fur of any cat I've ever encountered. She likes to cuddle, too, but she's not as "in your face" about it as Linus literally is.

I'll try to post a picture or two someday. They are truly adorable, especially when they both try to curl up together and snooze in my bathroom sink. They could do that when they were little, but now, let's just say it's more than a bit of a tight squeeze.

Here endeth today's lesson. Let the fun and games begin!