Happy Memorial Day

 

Family pets

Johnny Virgil reminisces about his youthful pets.

The toilet was my mother's solution to not just fish, but all pet funerals. I swear she would have tried to flush cats and dogs if she thought it wouldn't involve hacksaws and plungers. If it would fit, it got flushed.

They must have had sturdy plumbing in Upstate New York in those days.

We in Ohio confined the toilet obsequies to fish, but we did a big business in backyard funerals for poultry.

Every Easter, the local Woolworth's store would sell baby chicks, some of them dyed blue, pink, and green. They were a pretty sight in the store, little balls of pink, blue, green and yellow feathers, and we all fell for them. All the kids in the neighborhood got them. I don't remember what we fed them, but at night we put them in the basement with a hot water bottle, where they cheeped unremittingly until morning, keeping the whole household up. The next day, many of them were dead, and subsequently they all died, mourned by the whole neighborhood.

So we neighborhood kids did bird funerals. There were some doctrinal differences among the group, which almost led to fistfights, until we came up with the world's first ecumenical funeral service. These funerals were very sad.

I guess this got old among the adults, because the next few chicks to disappear were delivered to a local farm, where they could lead long, happy and productive lives, according to my mother. She even showed us which farm, on one occasion when we were driving in the country. I wanted to drop in and see that our chicks were being properly cared for, but mother said there was no time. Anyway, how would I knew which chick was mine? Easy, I said, a green chicken would stand out in any barnyard. Some other time, said my mother.

I believe the sale of baby chicks to kids was subsequently made illegal, at least in the State of Ohio. Anyway, they disappeared from the local stores, mourned by none.

Our next pet was a dog, given to me and my brother by Uncle Doc, who I guess had a spare dog lying about. I believe he wanted to teach us good citizenship and responsibility, and had high hopes of the two of us feeding, walking, and grooming the dog. If he had these hopes, they were disappointed. Almost the first thing my brother did with the dog was to send him down the laundry chute. The dog didn't seem to mind all that much, but when Uncle Doc heard about it, he was miffed and retrieved the dog. The dog was in our care for so short a time that I don't believe we had thought of a name for him before he disappeared.

Our subsequent pets were all cats, which were easy to care for--a good thing, for my mother didn't have too much time, and if any feeding, etc, was done, she had to do it

Uncle Doc didn't care for cats, and didn't care whether we took care of them or not. To him the cat was a disappointing animal.

What's wrong with the immigration bill?

Bill Whittle explains:

Large numbers of non-citizens want to live in the United States. Large numbers. A society can only assimilate so many people in a given year. If millions and millions of people come here illegally, they are loading the system to capacity at the expense of the honest, decent people who are doing the right thing by applying to immigrate legally. If we reward illegal immigration with amnesty, we have allowed the illegals not only to screw our own people and laws, but even more so they harm their own countrymen who are trying to get here by cooperating.

The biggest losers in our inability to control illegal immigration are the legal immigrants. What benefit do these honest people gain from playing by the rules?...
And, by allowing this to happen, you also set a precedent, which I think is even more destructive: you are saying not only to the illegals but to the entire society that laws are for chumps. Cheaters win. How much of this do we need to be immersed in before everyone realizes the smart move is to flip from cooperation to betrayal? How much damage does it do when the very people sworn to uphold the law – uphold the rules that allow this amazing cooperation game to continue -- are the ones who seem most enthusiastic to reward cheating?

This article is so perceptive, it deserves to be read in its entirely.

This just in!

May is drive like an a**hole month in Ohio.

It's widely celebrated the length and width of Delaware, too.

My last job

For 13 years I was director of the #&$^&! Library. Each year brought challenges. There was always some damn thing to prevent me from hanging out in my office, relaxing, with my feet on my desk.

Year I. Year of the dragon, personified by a superannuated secretary who had been there so long she thought she owned the place. She did exactly as she pleased. Of course, I wanted to do as I pleased, since I was director, so we locked horns. She also had her fans on the library board who she tattled to.

The largest issue between us was the giant word processor which loomed in a corner of the secretarial office. The thing was a dinosaur, but she was attached to it. I wanted her to learn to use a computer. She was determined not to. When I found out that she had spent $1,200 for a one-year service contract on the dinosaur, I went ballistic. Even in those days, you could buy a computer for $1,200. I finally killed her with kindness and she retired. As soon as she retired, she bought herself a computer. I'm not kidding.

Year 2. Year of the crazy person who thought he had been discriminated against and brought his entire family plus the neighbors to the board meeting. He had a way of dropping in on board members at home and plying them with information on how we had done wrong by him. The town finally paid him off.

During this year, the board and staff decided to look into a complete redesign of the main floor of the building. We hired a consultant, had lots of meetings, and submitted a revised plan to the governing body.

Year 3. Year of the ex-librarian. This man--I will call him Howie--had been a librarian somewhere and offered us his expertise and his services free of charge. He decided to show the board how to save a lot of money by firing the entire professional staff and not buying books or magazines. Also a regular at board meetings, he always dropped by after a snow day, wanting to know why we were closed.

The town council approved my request for a redesign of the main floor and appropriated the money. The board and staff then decided they preferred the main floor the way it was. I then had to explain to the mayor and council that we didn't need the money, thanks all the same.

Year 4. Year of the leaking roof. The mayor and council kept insisting that it didn't leak, and of course, it never did when they were around. It only leaked when it rained or snowed. They only dropped by on sunny days. I retaliated by closing the library when the floor was covered with water, snow, or on one memorable occasion, ice.

Year 5. Year of the bathroom lady. Our next regular visitor at board meetings was a crazy lady who used to, among other things, lock herself into the ladies room, make up her face, wash the makeup off, and cry. This took ages, and the other patrons had to stand outside the bathroom with their legs crossed for hours, which does not work for young children. Bathroom lady also did not care for the quality of the soap we provided. So we began to keep small cakes of soap--the kind hotels supply to their guests--behind the desk. We gave her a fresh one every time she came by. That worked for a while. She still locked herself into the bathroom, however.

Year 6. Year that the staff joined a union. For years it had been a complaint of staff that the other people who worked for the town made more money, and this year the resentment boiled over. The board thought it was better not to involve me in negotiations, possibly believing that I showed too much sympathy for the staff, so I was totally in the dark. The staff, meanwhile, thought I was a tool of the bloated capitalist board. They were not actively hostile, but there are plenty of passive-aggressive ways to make yourself unpleasant.

Year 7. The head of circulation retired and we were not allowed to fill the slot while negotiations went on. And on. And on. Finally, the state sent a mediator whose considered opinion was that they were all nuts. Still, negotiations went on, and would be going on to this day, except that the Mayor locked them all in a room at the town hall--two years later--and wouldn't let them leave until they reached an agreement. Even so, the deal was not sealed until about 6 in the morning. But that was in the future, far far into the future. Meanwhile we had...

Year 8. The year of Eddie. Eddie was the only applicant for the job of head of circulation, which we decided had to be filled. The salary was abysmally low. How can I describe Eddie? He was a world-class slacker, who was never anywhere to be found when there was work to be done. He was also a liar and a suck-up. Every day or so I had to have a talk with Eddie about something he had done or not done. The worst thing about Eddie, among a lot of bad things, was the giant smile he always greeted everyone with, the hypocrite. It was the kind of smile you would see on the face of an alligator who was getting ready for lunch. Just seeing him smile ruined my whole, subsequent, day.

There was a window of opportunity during which I could fire Eddie with impunity, so I did. Eddie was the only person I ever fired who I didn't feel bad firing. The thought of putting up with him after he became a permanent employee and became fireproof, so to speak, was all the spur I needed. It was him or me at this point. Of course, then we had no head of circulation, but that was actually preferable. Yes, it was preferable to have the job vacant than to have Eddie filling it, that's how bad he was.

Year 9. The board treasurer becomes paranoid and decides that my new secretary-bookkeeper, now in place for 8 years, wasn't doing her job properly and goes after her, mainly because he holds her responsible for the union. The stick he chose to beat her with was me. I declined to be his hatchet woman so he turned his ire on me. Every statement was questioned, every piece of paper sent back. A lot of this could be attributed to the fact that I was a woman. A man would have beaten him to a pulp.

He always claimed that he never received papers that were faxed to him, and since he was treasurer, we needed him to approve, or at least look at, lots of papers, budget, expenditures, etc. So I started sending the papers personally, via his nemesis, the aforementioned secretary treasurer. He still claimed he did not receive anything. So I mailed the stuff to his office, registered, return receipt requested. For some reason this made him crazy. I mean, crazier than he was already.

Year 10. The stickwoman with googly eyes becomes board president. If every stick has a wrong end and a right end, she always firmly grasped the wrong end. The union contract is finally signed, and the staff discovers that their cumulative raises are mostly going to the federal government in the form of income taxes. Consternation all around. Several staffers resign or retire. Stickwoman decides that new programs have to be financed with new money--i e, that I have to raise money for ESL and Korean books. I take to the streets with a begging bowl. Meanwhile, stickwoman hires a pal of hers to give a children's program which costs $2,000 and involves 20 children, including two of hers.

Year 11. Pettifogging lawyer is hired by the board, comes to board meetings, wasting time with inane suggestions, and incidentally charging a lot of money. One of his inspirations is background checks for all new hires, including 15-year-old high school students who are employed as pages.

Year 12. Board starts to hold secret meetings before the board meetings, in contravention to state law. When I explain that this is a no-no, the board president says, "So arrest me." Since I had left my junior G-man badge at home, I didn't take him up on this.

Year 13. I started having anxiety attacks, especially before, after, and during board meetings. Fearing that if I didn't retire, I was either going to die or kill one or all of the board members, I retired. I immediately had a total knee replacement, which believe me, though painful, was more enjoyable than board
meetings.

Year 14. There is life after retirement. I become a blogger.

US Christians get their own mullah

The new message: confound the plans of your duly elected successors. Accuse them of bad faith.

"Apparently, Sunday mornings in Plains for former President Carter includes hurling reckless accusations at your fellow man," said Amber Wilkerson,
Republican National Committee spokeswoman. She said it was hard to take Carter seriously because he also "challenged Ronald Reagan's strategy for the Cold War."

Next week's sermon: let's all go out and kill us some Jews.

courtesy of Rachel.

Another thing you can't put into the disposal

Rice. Who knew?

I am in awe at the number of things you can't put into the disposal. Rice! Every time I see my son-in-law he comes up with something else you aren't supposed to put in there. The list so far:

meat
bones
celery
asparagus
banana peels
rice
oatmeal

That's all I need is a finicky, temperamental household appliance. Does the vacuum refuse to pick up cat hair? Does the washer put the kibosh on washing socks? Will the printer decline to print on blue paper? Nosiree, these household helpers valiantly do their jobs without complaint. After much head-scratching, I consulted the manual for my new disposal to see what this dainty object will accept. Here's what the manual advises:

You can put bones in the thing, but only if you first break them up into teeny, tiny bits (not bloody likely in my case). You can also put pits in, but nothing larger than cherry pits, so if you think you can get rid of peach pits, you're crazy. In fact, it likes pits, they scrub the interior of the unit. But only little ones. It also likes to be fed an orange once in a while. The disposal goddess who lives in there really enjoys an occasional orange, and will reward you by smelling nice.

So now you have two garbage systems: 1) the disposal, a nearly useless object; 2) the actual garbage. Add to that recycling glass, paper, aluminum, and cardboard. All separately. Then there's the hazardous stuff. Don't you dare throw away printer cartridges, household paint, batteries, or computers. They must be delivered personally to some remote location only known to the elect.

In addition, we are not allowed to send our yard waste--leaves, grass clippings-- to the local landfill. The powers that be suggested that they be used for compost.

Could garden waste be placed in the disposal? Just asking.

Jimmy Carter spews his usual hatred

The country's worst ex-president is interviewed by BBC Radio.

I won't trouble you by quoting Jimmy's self-serving criticism of Tony Blair. What has me going is the fact that the BBC interviews this disgruntled loser. The one-term president has certainly got brass balls to criticize the man who saved the British Labor Party and served as Prime Minister for 10 years. Carter undoubtedly envies Blair his successes. He himself has been a failure at everything he ever did, and is a liar to boot.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. He's so crooked that I doubt he ever hit a nail straight in his volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity. Have any of the houses he built fallen down yet?

Ht to astute blogger.

Expiring underwear

The 18-hour bra.

Free range eggs

I yield to no-one in my consideration for baby calves: they're cute, they have big brown eyes; therefore I don't eat veal. But that's as far as I go in my concern for farm animals. I don't want them to suffer needlessly, of course. But I eat them, and I plan to continue eating them as long as I can afford to.

So when I saw that eggs from free-range chickens were $3 more than plain eggs from--what must I call them, captive chickens?--I decided to go for the latter. Only there weren't any. I asked them to look in the back of the store and see if there were any stashed there. There weren't. So I didn't buy eggs yesterday.

It's really a stretch for me to care about the welfare and personal life of a chicken. Again, I don't want them to suffer. But what's suffering to a chicken? We're not talking the Einstein of the barnyard here. When not in captivity all they do is run around aimlessly, scratch in the ground and make stupid noises. Maybe the average hen would prefer to sit on her duff and get fed three squares a day without going to the trouble of ranging freely looking for grub. Who knows? The chickens aren't talking.

Prince Harry is not allowed to go out and play with the other boys...

he might get hurt.

Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier and afeared?

Yep.

What has happened to British pluck? First the 15 sailors and marines who were captured by Iran, and now this! If Prince Harry is to be in uniform, why can't he risk his life just like his mates? Is one soldier worth more than another?

Harry ought to resign his commission and be a useless twit like his father.

Saving the earth

Some interesting observations:

I took the Earth Day Foot print quiz and guess what? If everyone lived like me we'd need 7.5 Earths to accommodate for all the natural resources that I consume....

This isn't good but I know a way that we can all make a difference: From now on, all of you walk when you go places. Me? I'll still drive. That way you're more than compensating for me.

Now I know some of you are going to think "Why does he get to drive" or "Why is he so special?" Well, I'm not really. The reason is that I don't feel in the least bit guilty because I'm a bad person, and to be honest I'm cool with that, so you guys and gals with all this eco-guilt are going to have to take up the slack. Sorry, them's the breaks. On the plus side, you'll lose a few pounds walking....

Sunday at the Hagley

We visited the Hagley Museum on Sunday. It was a beautiful day for being outdoors. I thought my 5-year-old grandson might enjoy the museum, and he did, although much of it was over his head.

The Hagley Museum includes a gunpowder factory which operated on the site for over 100 years; a machine shop where tools were made; a school attended by the children of the workers, and a two-story cottage which had been restored to demonstrate how the workers and their families lived in about 1850.

A little old lady in period costume explained how things worked in the cottage. She showed us the stove which the lady of the house used for cooking and heating water. There were buckets to bring water from the pump a few yards from the house; she allowed my grandson to try to lift one of these buckets. It was apparently very heavy. We saw the irons which were heated on the stove and used to iron clothing for the family. As we were about to leave, she asked if there were any more questions.

One of the visitors asked, "How many bathrooms were upstairs?" No, she was not joking.

Best tail

There's a woman who goes to my gym regularly. She has a remarkably youthful figure which does not go with her unremarkable middle-aged face. I would place her age as somewhere between 55 and death. Her workout garb calls to mind the hookers plying their trade at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. She wears skimpy little outfits which show a lot of skin. Her blonde hair is worn in two pigtails, a la Shirley Temple as Heidi. You might call her mutton dressed as lamb.

I don't quite know how to think about this woman. On the one hand, she deserves admiration for the hard work she has done to preserve a youthful figure. On the other hand, she looks, well, stupid. However, she is a heartbreaker among the geriatric set. Some of the older men consider her quite irresistible and vie for her favors. I have heard of fights breaking out in the parking lot over her, proving, if any proof were needed, that there is no fool like an old fool.

The younger men think she is repulsive, which is unkind of them, and think she should be forced to wear more clothes. Some of them feel quite offended by her. I think they would not be so riled if she dressed her age.

Of course, she wears the shortest of shorts. One of these pairs of shorts has emblazoned across the seat, "Best tail."

Jerry Falwell dies

I confess to having a sort of a sneaky liking for Falwell. You see, I (alone in the world, it seems) read his autobiography. It seems Falwell's daddy was a flamboyant, rip-roaring drunk, who advised the younger Falwell:

"Don't be a preacher, sonny. Folks will talk funny when you walk into a room."

True enough. I had a dear friend, who I will call the Reverend Alfie. Alfie joined the Rotary or Kiwanis or some such organization, to get away from his congregation, who tended to talk funny when he came into a room, and be an ordinary guy among the guys. One day, however, he was seated at a table with a couple of men he did not know, one of whom was boasting about his extramarital affairs. The man next to the braggart kept poking his in the side, but he did not take the hint, until his neighbor whispered in his ear and looked meaningly at Alfie. The man then blushed and changed the subject. Of the entire crowd, Alfie was the only one who was not embarassed.

As Alfie said, he gave the gift that keeps on giving, guilt.

Are New Jersey residents rude?

Mamacita thinks so.

Maybe. They certainly can be aggressive. But, having lived in Delaware, I can attest that Delaware drivers appear to be operating under the influence of some powerful, but not necessarily legal, substance. They do not seem to be fully awake and conscious.

You drive down a main road and some fool comes darting out of a side street to make a left turn inches in front of your car. They don't necessarily do it fast, either. I've got a message for these Delaware dreamers:

Where are you going in such a hurry? Are you off to discover a cure for cancer? Or to prevent a third world war? If not, how about obeying the rules of the road? My brakes may not be good enough to save your life, or mine.

Ethics, New Jersey style

Jim McGreevey instructs New Jersey youth.

James E. McGreevey, who resigned the governorship under a cloud of scandal, has a new job teaching law, ethics and leadership at one of New Jersey's public colleges.

McGreevey is now an "executive in residence" -- a combination teaching and consulting post -- at Kean University in Union, where he is earning $17,500. The former governor came on board without any announcement on Nov. 1, Kean officials said, and the university makes no mention of his role on its Web site or faculty directory.

Suggested next course: Criminals teaching ethics to police.

Ht to New Jersey guy.

What happened to the ozone layer?

Is it still a problem?

When is the last time since they banned R-12 that you've heard about the Ozone hole?
The thinning Ozone layer?

Ok, did we fix it? or did the greenies get their way with bogus science, and then swept the story under the rug?
If we still have the problem, it wasn't Freon- was it? If the Ozone is growing back, shouldn't we have heard something about it?

While we're at it, whatever happened to the population bomb that was supposed to cause mass starvation by 1984? Nuclear winter?

Being an environmentalist means never having to admit you were wrong.

Banquet--what a misnomer

I went to a banquet tonight which in no way resembled the Roman banquets of song and story. I know what you're going to think: bitch, bitch, bitch, that's all she does, I bet it's not that bad.

It was.

First crack out of the box, a piece of flatbread which converts your mouth into a branch of the Saharah Desert, Junior Division. So I take a sip of water. Lukewarm. No ice. I go over to a drinks station. You understand that this is a Jewish function, so no liquor is expected or provided. That's okay, I can live with that. But no diet soda! Jewish women live on diet soda. It is what bread used to be to the ancients, a sacrament, practically. I've only met one Jewish woman in my life who drank non-diet soda, and she bought her clothes in JCPenney's. And no ice. Lukewarm non-diet soda, yum! I can hardly wait to see the rest of the dinner.

Now Jewish food, with some honorable exceptions, isn't too great, and Israeli food isn't much better, consisting I believe of stuff invented by Arabs who passed along the recipes but left out one crucial ingredient just to be spiteful. And these caterers aren't too hot with regular Jewish food but are serving an Israeli meal here.

Here it was: Some kind of watery salad, with all the vitamins leached out into the water in which it floated; couscous with the consistency of wet bread. A woebegone-looking tray of sodden grilled vegetables. Baked ziti! I ask you! This is not New Jersey, there is no excuse for baked ziti, the New Jersey national dish. It only tastes good in New Jersey, anyway.

I don't expect miracles, like sauce with flavor in it, but is it too much to ask to boil the pasta only until it is soft, rather than for 24 hours? The answer, in a word, is yes, at least for these caterers.

Then there is some chicken to be stuffed into pita bread with fake yogurt sauce. This was actually edible, so I ed it.

The festive meal concluded, tea, coffee and dessert were provided. Excuse me, coffee, caf and de, and tea bags. No hot water. Eventually a waitress showed up with hot water, which I requested that she pour over my teabag, since both my hands were full. She fixed me with a look of pure loathing, but she did it. Dessert was some marginally acceptable pastries, which I scarfed down.

I am now going to go into my kitchen and have myself some ice cream with fudge sauce. I deserve it, damn it.

My mother the lawyer

(recycled)

 

My mother hated to be photographed. She always wanted to put it off until she lost 10, or 20, or 30 pounds. Consequently we have very few pictures of her. This is one I like.

Thanksgiving always makes me think of my mother. Thanksgiving was a big deal to us. We used to celebrate her birthday, and my Uncle Moe's on Thanksgiving. It was a Russian custom, or a Jewish custom, or just our family custom to celebrate birthdays in conjunction with some holiday. Mine was Purim, my cousin was Rosh Hashonah. Perhaps the family were just bad at remembering dates.

Re-importation of drugs from Canada is a bust

But you'd never know it from the US Congress.

Many of the very senators who supported or co-sponsored Ms. Snowe's amendment to change federal law and allow Canadian imports hail from states that have seen their own high-profile programs wither or die. That includes Wisconsin's Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, Missouri's Claire McCaskill and Dick Durbin of Illinois

.

Re-importation has not been a success in States where it's been tried.

Three years ago, grandstanding governors and mayors vowed to break federal law and set up state-run drug import programs, giving millions of citizens the "opportunity" to buy cheap Canadian drugs. The media showered these souls with headlines, praised them for being on the side of poor, strapped U.S. consumers--then forgot all about it. Today, most state-import programs are on life support, while some have closed completely. Never mind all Washington's hifalutin arguments about intellectual property, free trade and safety; the overwhelming majority of Americans appear to have little use for import programs that offer few drugs at long wait times, under suspect safety conditions and with minimal savings.

I could never quite figure out how sending pharmaceuticals on a round trip to Canada would lower prices. It seems to me, yes, stupid.

Naturally, the United States Congress enjoys posing as the friend of the consumer and the enemy of Big, Bad Pharma. As long as nothing changes.

A thought that often occurs to me: If these are the people who won the election, how bad could the ones who lost it be? We elected the better person, didn't we? Didn't we?

Shopping with Mother and Bubbe

I really dreaded going shopping with my mother and her mother, my bubbe, especially in classy, high-toned stores. For one thing, mother and bubbe used to talk Yiddish very loudly to one another, deprecating the merchandise on offer and the manners, morals, and appearance of the other shoppers.

I hated to be seen in public with these back numbers who spoke a foreign language which I was sure sounded low-class to everyone else (why couldn't they speak French?). I also feared that someone would understand what they were saying about the fat lady in the tight pants who was in front of us in the escalator. It was a lose-lose situation. Either we appeared to the other, high-toned shoppers like a bunch of huddled masses waiting to be processed at Ellis Island, or someone would actually understand what they were saying and see what low minds we had.

Also, bubbe appeared to believe that she was in a souk, when in reality she was in one of Columbus Ohio's premier specialty shops. She showed no respect.

For instance: we are looking for a blouse. The saleslady brings out a few, I try them on and decide on one. Bubbe grabs it and scrutinizes every inch of it, looking for flaws. She finds a speck of dirt on the collar and attempts to bargain with the snooty saleslady while my face turns red down to my toes. I try to pretend I'm interested in the scarves in the next display case, but in any case, try to look like I'm not with them.

Then, horror of horrors, she pretends to walk away! I could die! (I'm around fifteen at the time.) The snooty saleslady calls her manager, and they do a deal, but by this time, my self-esteem in destroyed. What if someone I knew had seen us? I'll never live it down.

When I was smaller and couldn't protest, bubbe and mother bought my clothes much too big in the hopes I would grow into them. Then they took them home and altered them to fit me, sort of. The idea being that the clothes could be let out next year. They never were, though. I wore them out first. But I went through childhood looking like I had borrowed my wardrobe from a larger child.

Of course, with maturity I could see where she was coming from. This was a woman who split one can of sardines among her three children, while she and her husband made do with dry toast and tea for supper. Fancy salesladies held no terror for her.

Wanted: more amusing families

I have gotten lots of comments (well, three or four) from people who have enjoyed my posts about my family, asking for more. I'm sorry to say that I believe I have exhausted--for now--my family's amusing antics. The rest of their activities are pretty dreary. Most of them are from Ohio, you know.

So, until I remember more and better anecdotes about my family, I am going to have to borrow someone else's amusing family reminiscences. Does anyone have any amusing family anecdotes they could contribute to my blog? Just until someone in my family does something entertaining?

Letter to an ex-bank

Dear Chase/Morgan/Bank of New York/National Community Bank:

It is time for the stalking to stop.

I am sorry that our relationship has to end this way. You have served me faithfully as a bank for a number of years, and I was hoping our parting would be conducted in a civilized way. Alas, that was not to happen.

When I moved to Delaware, I started courting another bank. After a decent interval, Wachovia and I consummated our relationship, and I didn't need you any more. I called the bank and told them I wanted to close my account. I was informed that I had to take all the money out, which I did. I thought. Unfortunately, there was 10 cents interest credited to my account which I had not known about.

You guys just wouldn't let go. Every month you sent me a statement showing 10 cents still in my account. I was hoping you would forget about me and go after other customers, but it hasn't happened.

The latest escalation in our troubling relationship occurred when you sent me a bank debit card for this account. I then called the bank, trying to end our affair once and for all--a clean break. But the lady who I spoke to told me I could not close the account over the phone. I had to write you a letter. She gave me the address.

Well, of course, I lost the address immediately, having jotted it down on an expired 20 percent off card from Macy's, which I discarded when I cleaned off my desk.

So my only recourse is to hope you read this on my blog and accept your dismissal with a good grace. Our relationship was rewarding, but it is time to Move On, as George Soros would say.

A role model for our time

Snoop Dogg is a busy guy.

Barred from Australia, banned in England, just arrested in Sweden, persona non grata in Canada, and convicted in California on drug and weapons charges. Snoop Dogg, one of Al Gore's hand-picked crew of rappers against global warming, is sure racking up a series of criminal offenses on his way to performing a July 7th "Live Earth" concert for carbon depletion.

He's just a high-spirited youth who undoubtedly means well.

The real first folio edition of Romeo and Juliet

A more true to life version than the one we are taught in school:

In this First Folio version Romeo and Juliet do not fall in love, for at the most tender moment of the balcony scene we have these immortal lines. ‘…would a rose by any other name smell as sweet…. Actually thinking about it I could just fancy a kebab and chips. Hang on, love, I’ll be back in a bit.’

But, of course Romeo never does return. Instead he meets his mates down at the kebab shop and by the time they have managed a swift pint or twelve it is far too late for Romeo too call back on Juliet.

Read the whole thing. It's quite poignant, really.

WRTI has a fund drive

I listen to WRTI all the time. They are a classical and jazz radio station sponsored by Temple University. When they had what I thought was their annual fund drive last fall, I stepped up to the plate and gave an annual donation of $120. Now they are having another fund drive. Do annual fund drives take place twice a year? I'm not giving them any more money until my year is up.

I'm fed up with these charities. They follow you around like little puppies who whine until they are given something.

Try this. Donate some money to, let's say, the Americans Against Disease Society. Practically by return mail you will get another appeal. Send another check. You now have a friend for life. You need never be lonely again. The folks at Americans Against Disease Inc will write you, call you, and e-mail you. You will never see the end of them.

These annual fund drives should come annually, dammit! Send me a letter once a year, and I will give you your annual stipend. No more until next year! And if you annoy me, you won't get anything next year either.

Want the government to handle health care?

This horror story might change your mind.

Carnival of Insanities strikes again!

Can sanity be restored?

Removing people from photographs

According to this N Y Times article, technology has advanced to the point where images of unwanted mates or former friends can be edited out of photographs.

The restoration artists are also able to edit people in to and out of photographs. Many customers ask the services to edit former husbands or wives out of cherished family photos.

I employed a similar but low-tech solution to getting rid of pictures of former boyfriends or bad dates. I simply cut their heads out of the photos, leaving a picture of myself looking gorgeous on the arm of a headless guy.

Will there always be an England?

Not if these people have their way.

A magistrate writes:

Not for the first time I have sat on a case in which shopkeepers, most of them Asian, seem to be living in a state close to siege. In the latest, a normal-looking parade of shops in an otherwise respectable suburb of London is beset by an amorphous group of locals, mostly but not exclusively young, who hang around doing nothing much apart from giggling, shuffling, and leering. These people routinely steal from the shops, intimidating and occasionally assaulting the owners. In evidence, the shopkeeper who had been assaulted said that assault contempt and abuse was just part of running the business, and that when people steal goods his only priority is to get them back. Often, a trader confronting a thief is surrounded by a jeering and threatening mob, and retreat to the store is the only safe option. There is an obvious racial subtext here, based on the loathing felt by the underclass for brown people who have the cheek to work hard in crap jobs in order to get on in life. This loathing does not prevent the oppressors from buying their cans of Tennents from the despised shopkeepers, and the fact that the shops take their cash serves in some way to reinforce an unjustified feeling of superiority to the 'Pakis'.

Wally Schiarra has died

He was an astronaut. These men were fascinating to me, as much for who they were as for what they did.

Look--either you think the space program was exciting, or you don't. The consensus of liberal opinion at the time could be summarized like this: you could have a space program financed directly by exploiting the poor, taking bread out of their mouths, or you could forget the space program and eliminate poverty. Jesse Jackson, I seem to remember, was of the latter opinion.

If the idea of a human being walking on the moon or orbiting the earth or exploring far-distant planets is a snooze to you, you're entitled to your opinion. But I found when I was doing research on the lives of African American astronauts that many of them were inspired by the space program. According to Charles F Bolden, a retired Marine general, the first Apollo and Gemini space shots took place when he was a boy and excited him:

I was interested in being an astronaut when I was young, but I didn't think it was possible. I put it out of my mind....

I think every kid has an interest in space.... It makes kids want to study, excites them , gives them a desire to be somebody...and that's something no other program can do.... If we want to look to the future, space is it....And that excites people from kindergarten through college; it excites me.

I'll take my religion straight up, with a twist

Commitment to Judaism runs very low in my father's side of the family--it is like a low-grade infection that sometimes causes an outbreak of religion, or Zionism, or both.

My dad believes in the Democratic Party, social justice, good SAT scores, and getting into Ivy League colleges. He once bitterly complained that everyone in his housing complex is a gentile and Republican. I don't know which he minds most. All his friends are atheist Jews like himself.

My older brother, who was raised by my mother, is religiously observant, as is his wife. They are observant in the way that people in Ohio of a certain age are--they try to keep a low profile and look like everybody else. No kippahs and payes in public, please.

They are, however, observant, sent their children to Jewish day schools, keep Kosher, don't answer the phone on Shabbat, etc. They also believe in good SATs but are fine with sending the kids to Ohio State. In fact, going to Ohio State is another tradition deeply honored by this branch. Their three children, however, are not religious at all. The eldest, Sam, is studying Arabic (at Ohio State, of course), and wants to go live in Jordan or Syria to perfect his grasp of that language. The other two, who are girls, have that valley girl thing down pat. My sister-in-law says: "I raised three goyim."

Brother #2, however, is not even slightly religious, nor was his first wife. It was therefore surprising when she asked him, on her deathbed, to make sure that their son had a bar mitzvah.

Wife number 2 is a really nice woman but not one to lose sleep over observance. She is enthusiastic about Judaism in a "Isn't Chanukah fun? Let's have a party!" kind of way. They also sent their children to Jewish day schools, as did all their hip, cool and groovy friends, all Jewish, all progressive as all get-out. They live in California, for God's sake. At wedding #2 (second brother, second wife) we sat with a man who said his aunt had known my stepmother in New York, where they were both members of the same Communist cell. Is that progressive, or what? They share the family commitment to good SAT scores and Ivy League colleges.

However, the son of this family seems to have contracted the Zionist bug. After high school graduation, he spent a year in Israel, and he is active in a Zionist organization (but it's the furthest left one there is, according to his stepmother).

My mother's side of the family have a stronger Jewish commitment. My cousin Bernie is deeply devout and conducts services at the local nursing home every Saturday. His three daughters all married Gentiles and are not raising their children as Jews, which I know he minds, although he never complains. His sister has a son who is very religious, lives in Israel, and has a large family.

Where am I going with this? Bless me if I know. I am certainly a Zionist, but I don't know whether this is from Jewish commitment or from being a rabid right-winger. I am actually kind of the oddball. I not only didn't go to an Ivy League college, I didn't even go to Ohio State, but to some forgettable college no one ever heard of. And I voted for George Bush.

Don't tell the rest of them. I could never live it down.

A sign spotted at the side of the road, Wilmington, DE

BARBARA
MUHAMMED
for school board

I guess the lady doesn't want to emphasize her last name.

Finicky but religious actor

Some of us would like to hang around John Travolta and take his used shirts when he is finished with them.

Travolta, as it happens, is one of the least profitable actors to appear in movies. Among his more unreasonable contract demands is to receive 8 Armani T shirts ($200 to $300 each) every day of filming. The reason: he is religiously opposed to wearing washed clothing.

I, on the other hand, am religiously opposed to wearing unwashed clothing. Maybe we could do a deal?

What would happen if they gave a Parliamentary (or Congressional )committee hearing

and nobody came?

Perhaps some work might get done.

Cribbed from djomama.

Innovative treatment

by injection.

Stolen from purple avenger.

My aunt Liz--a love story

My Uncle Doc first saw his future wife at a party, and asked someone to introduce him to her; "I'd like to meet that tall blonde. Do you think she'd go out with me? Will she think I'm too old?" He was 31, she was 19. Obviously, the age difference was no barrier. They were married for almost 40 years.

I adored Liz when I first met her, when I was 5 or 6. Though not actually pretty, she had an aura of glamor about her. She was blonde, blue-eyed, beautifully dressed, and smiled a lot. She was feminine, smelled of perfume, and wore makeup. Neither my mother nor my grandmothers wore makeup, so I thought she was sophisticated as all get out. Adding to her aura of worldliness was the suspicion that she colored her hair. (She did.)

As a child, I was crazy about her, and she treated me almost like another daughter. I loved the way she decorated her house, with shepherdess figurines on glass shelves and lamps shaped like statues of princesses, with pink lampshades. She had a rose-colored satin bedspread, and lots of little pillows. She was the first person I ever knew who had toilet paper to match her bathroom fixtures, which I thought quite elegant. In our house, everything was quite utilitarian, and the toilet paper was whatever was on sale at Kroger's. I aspired to be just like Aunt Liz when I grew up.

My grandmother was a woman who thought very little of her children's choice of mates, Liz included. One of my cousins was also very disapproving. From something Liz said, I knew she was aware of this, but if she minded she didn't let it show. Another problem was Doc's medical practice. He spent long hours at his office and at the hospital, and if his patients called, he went. On many an evening she went out to dinner with him and returned with other friends because he had been called to the hospital for an emergency. She made friends, and a life, for herself, because he had very little time to give her.

I eventually stopped being a sweet adoring little girl and became an insufferable adolescent who scorned the empty materialism of Liz and her friends, women who were content to be wives and mothers, who played cards and golf, who decorated their homes in what I learned to call Jewish Renaissance style and had no true intellectual interests. Of course I still loved Liz and Doc, but I was able to look down patronizingly at their empty, vapid lifestyle.

In due course, Uncle Doc got sick. He was forced to abandon the practice of medicine. The police found him out driving around aimlessly and brought him home in a police car. That ended his driving career. I still visited them often, and sometimes he would make sense and then he wouldn't, quite. Gradually he became weaker and weaker.

Aunt Liz was the same as she had always been, though, always welcoming me and anyone else who dropped by with a smile. She was fortunate in that she was able to hire people to be with him at times, so she could have some semblance of a normal life. She could hardly have kept him at home if she hadn't had help, as he was totally unable even to walk toward the end. She told me later that she had gone to the nursing home to see about getting him admitted, but just couldn't do it. He died not long after. He had been sick for six years.

She is quite old now, walks with a walker, and no longer colors her hair. She speaks softly and tires easily. But she is still her smiling, gracious self. When I look back on my relationship with her, I realized that I seldom heard her say a mean or unkind thing. I didn't notice this quality when I was young, she made it seem quite easy.

Uncle Doc gave me a sage piece of advice when I was a teenager: "You should never marry unless you can better yourself. I married up. I improved myself." I thought this was really cute of him at the time, but didn't take him seriously. But now I see that he was absolutely right.

All men are brothers, except if they are not muslim

The RoP strikes again.

[A] Muslim student set off a debate when she sent an email to the mailing list of a Muslim students' association (rabitat al-tullab al-muslimin) at Virginia Tech asking the students to pray that Allah have mercy on those killed and wounded in the shooting attack at the university.

According to Aafaq, the dean of student affairs at American International University, Abu Hamza Hijji, responded, writing that Allah the Most Merciful forbids praying for mercy for the non-Muslim dead, or even for the non-Muslim living, and that it is only permitted to pray that they be rightly guided. He added that what happened was a sad occurrence, but that does not give Muslims the right to transgress the laws of Allah the Most Merciful.

Nice. Remind me again why we need to live under Sharia law?

Hollywood celebs embrace the simple life

Life in a state of nature is not nasty, brutish and short, it's fun! It's awesome!

[Drew] Barrymore, apparently enthralled by the lack of a modern sanitary facilities, gleefully bragged, "I took a poo in the woods hunched over like an animal. It was awesome."

Of course, she gets to go home to flush toilets. The natives, unfortunately, continue to crap in the woods, faut de mieux. They probably don't have toilet paper either, not even one square per "sitting." I guess they can wash their behinds in an unspoiled stream and send the germs downriver to cause a plague somewhere else.

I am very sensitive to toilet paper issues, and very proud of my country's leadership role in providing the best toilet paper ever! in the whole world! Why, in some countries in Europe, the toilet paper is absorbent on one side only!

My God, you call that civilization?

I knew the Soviet Union was doomed as a political system when I read about a bunch of Soviet tourists in Africa, stopping at a rest stop, who stole all the toilet paper. No nation can long endure that cannot provide adequately for their people's toilet paper needs. A society lives and dies by the quality of their toilet paper!

My uncle's theories of raising children

My uncle Doc was my favorite uncle because he liked to roughhouse. Kids love that. On Saturday nights when I stayed over my grandmother's house, he would bring over a jar of pickled herring and we would share it. But while he was fond of me, he totally disapproved of the way my parents were raising me. I was, said Uncle Doc, spoiled rotten.

His kids, he declared, would be so in awe of him that they would run and hide behind the piano when he came in the door. Need I add that he was a bachelor at the time?

Fast forward a few years, to the time when Uncle Doc and his wife's serene abode was invaded by three little but fast-moving barbarians. They fought with each other 24/7, chasing each other up and down the steps with murder in their eyes. They screamed, whined, and complained. They took each other's toys and did not share. Uncle Doc's solution to this problem was to yell at them. The more they continued their antics, the louder he yelled at them. Threats of death were made, but did nothing to reduce the tumult. At last my aunt would go to bed with a migraine headache and he would stomp off to his office, leaving them in possession of the wreck which the household had become.

At night the bedlam continued, as each of the girls considered it her sovereign right to sleep with the parents. After one or two of them had joined the parental bed, my aunt would get up and go to sleep in any bed which happened to be vacant. You never knew who was going to be in what bed in that household. I was only a few years older than the girls, but I found it impossible to sleep at their house with all the coming and going.

The girls turned out all right. They grew up, graduated from college, stayed out of jail, got married and in due course had children of their own. My oldest cousin raised her children like a Prussian drillmaster. They dusted, swept, put away their toys, and made their beds like little automatons. The only thing missing was the snappy salute. She confided in me that she could never have raised her children the way she was raised, it would have made her crazy.

Listening to kids

Or not.

Children are cute and precocious and they sometimes say adult-like things. But they do not know their asses from a hole in the ground. Everything they say and do should be viewed as something said by a cute little person who is practicing being a grown up- someone who someday will have an opinion that I will give a damn about.

I know, I know, there's that old, "out of the mouths of babes" thing. Out of the mouths of babes come the following: cute little phrases, attempt to sound like adults, heart breaking claims of their love and affection, whining, complaining, temper tantrums, screaming, and vomit. Beyond that, they have little to offer in the way of contributing to decisions that adults make.

I should add that when they make statements about Global Warming or World Peace or the Importance of Recycling, they are little puppets expressing the views of their parents.

Here's to more and better size inflation

Since I myself am inflating, size inflation works for me. It's the only way I can ever fit into a size 10. Ha! In your dreams!

When I was young, back in the 20th century, 6 was about the smallest size you could find, and only rarely. Even 8 was hard to find. 10, 12, 14, those were the sizes of normal young women. Even 16 was not unknown. I weighed 116, had a 25 inch waistline, and wore a 12. I weigh, er, considerably more now. Let's not get into specifics.

Now that American women are fatter than ever, size numbers are smaller than ever. What's wrong with this picture? How much lower than zero can you go?

That's our girl!

A former Miss America defends herself:

When Venus Ramey caught a man she thought was stealing from her farm in south-central Kentucky, she shot the tires out of his vehicle so he'd be stuck there until police came.

Ramey, who was crowned Miss America in 1944, was on her Lincoln County farm last week feeding a horse when she saw her dog run to a nearby building where she stores old equipment. For some time, thieves had been breaking into the building to steal the machines to sell for scrap, she said, so she decided to investigate.

When she confronted a man she found on the property, he said he would leave, she said.

"I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and I shot their tires so they couldn't leave," Ramey said.

She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.

Thanks to Frau Budgie.

.

Good advice for John Edwards

He won't take it, though.

The comments are funnier by far than the video. Lighten up, everybody.

Summer comes to Columbus Ohio

When I lived in Ohio, I thought poets had made up all that stuff about Spring--poetic license, you know. We always went directly from Winter into red-hot Summer. Actually, Spring started this year on April 21, at 6:30 p.m., and by 7:20 it was all over. We were in the torrid zone.

Every flower possible springs out of the ground with a big shout and the sun bears down like in those movies about mad dogs and Englishmen.

When I lived on the east coast, I saw Spring in all its subtlety; first the hibiscus, then the forsythia, then a few tulips tentatively stuck their heads up. Vernal breezes blew, mornings were a little chilly, and you could wear a sweater in the evening. It made me understand what Will Shakespeare and the guys were going on about. Sweet. Subtle.

Columbus will always be familiar territory to me because it is in my bones. Beneath these freeways that zoom from one corner of the city to the other are the ghosts of the neighborhoods where I lived, played, and went to school. The ruined slum on the corner was once a corner grocery, and the rickety deserted movie house was once bustling with kids every Saturday, rain or shine. One of my aunts lived on this corner. Another was down this street, and my grandmother was about half a mile away. All gone now. My aunts were like boulders, landmarks which would always be there. Only one aunt remains, and she is frail and elderly.

How can I possibly live with absolutely no aunts? Cousins are a poor substitute.

My aunt Ellen loved the cemetery, particularly the spot where her mother was buried. It was a nice spot, shaded by a small tree. She once suggested setting up a card table and four chairs near the grave so the girls could play bridge while keeping their mother company. When that idea fell on hostile ears, she kept right on visiting, advising the cemetery staff on proper maintenance and upkeep, no doubt to their great advantage. Now she can spend quality time there, since she was buried there last December.

5 college girls from the 20th century

I am the second from the right.

Imus brings up sensitive hair issues

Not that I'm a ho--can a granny be a ho?--or because my hair is nappy. But I do have hair issues. Very serious hair issues. All my life my hair has been coarse, wavy, and there was too much of it. I had surplus hair. I had hair extensions before hair extensions were invented. To be more precise, I had 200,000 cowlicks. Each hair went its own way.

The ideal in the suburban high school I attended was straight, lanky hair. Parted on the left, usually, although some free spirits may have parted it on the right. Curled up at the ends, if you must. A small bow or barette was permitted. And that was that. I differed greatly from this ideal. It made me feel, as George Gobel used to say, that the world was a tuxedo and I was a pair of brown shoes.

My aunts felt for me and took me to hairdressers, who would clip, crimp and tease my hair into some semblance of the current style. After my next shower, the status quo ante was restored.

I wonder how much money has been spent on making curly hair straight, or straight hair curly? I do know that Madame C J Walker, the first 20th century African American woman to be a millionaire, made her fortune in hair products.

And so--to quote someone else who has been in the news lately--it goes.

Voting

Yesterday we had a special election to fill a vacant seat for state representative. We went to the school where the polling was taking place, and as we got out of the car a very nice man stopped us. He told us he was the father of the Democratic candidate, and asked for our support. Very politely.

I felt embarassed. I'm a Republican. I came to the polls precisely to vote for the Republican candidate. And I didn't want to lie to the man. I didn't want to be put in a position of having to lie to him in order to spare his feelings. Like I was doing something wrong. I'm a Republican, dammit. And I'm allowed to be a Republican. It's legal.

The reason we have the secret ballot in this country is so that no-one has to tell anyone else who they are voting for.

End of sermon.

I found it on E-Bay

Actually, I didn't. I didn't find it on Google either.

Start at the beginning. I lost my cell phone. Went to Best Buy. They looked up my phone number on their computer and discovered I was eligible for an upgrade for one cent. So I got a new LG phone which includes a camera. Good. I like to take pictures, but never have my camera with me, so I will take pictures of all and sundry with my cell phone and upload them to my computer.

Not so fast. I have to have something that hooks my camera to the computer. So I am looking for a cable to perform this humble task. I went to Best Buy. They don't do peripherals for Cingular, and recommended that I go to the Cingular Store. So I did.

Amy, who was sitting at her desk apparently in a trance, interrupted her communion with her Inner Amy to assure me that the Cingular store doesn't sell stuff like that, I should try the Cingular or the LG website, and resumed her reverie.

So I looked on E-Bay. E-Bay sells all kinds of LG goodies, but not that. I googled it. Google has bigger fish to fry, namely selling expensive phones and bluetooth attachments. And other stuff which should interest Martians, but not me. I can't even program the cell phone. I can't even download a ringtone. And I don't want to be walking around talking to someone invisible. I talk to myself already, I don't need to be in touch with someone else.

So I am in the twenty-first century, trying to use twenty-first century gadgets, but with a brain that is stuck in the 20th century.

High honor accorded American Senator

Los Angeles, CA. The coveted Dreidel Award, honoring the American Jew who has best embarassed his country, was given to SenatorTom Lantos. The award was conferred by Barbra Streisand, who praised Lantos for his unwavering courage in implementing a distinct foreign policy aimed at subverting that of the mass murderer and civil rights destroyer, George W Bush.

In his acceptance speech, Lantos informed an appreciative crowd that as a Holocaust Survivor, he has undeniable moral authority and that other Jews should shut up when he talks. His speech was met with thunderous applause.

Among the celebs present to honor Lantos were Stephen Spielburg, Larry David, and Senator Barbara Boxer. The Dixie Chicks provided the entertainment.

Also present was George Soros, who received a lifetime achievement award for his devotion to overthrowing the evil capitalist system and eliminating the State of Israel.

A poem by William Blake

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire in thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art?
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand, and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb, make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

It's still poetry month--and I was an English major.

McCain takes a stand

He defies majority rule:

The most revealing exchange came when Mr. Pelley, [Scott Pelley, of 60 minutes]in all apparent seriousness, asked the Senator "at what point do you stop doing what you think is right and you start doing what the majority of the American people want?"

Answered Mr. McCain: "I disagree with what the majority of the American people want. I still believe the majority of the American people, when asked, say if you can show them a path to success . . . then they'll support it." Later Mr. Pelley observed that Mr. McCain was betting his entire campaign on the success of the current "surge" strategy in Baghdad. The Senator replied that he'd "rather lose a campaign than lose a war."

The media seem to have lost sight of what representative democracy means. It means we don't hold a plebiscite on every issue and then obey what the majority want. Rather, we elect representatives who are supposed to use their own judgment. (Stop laughing now. Now, I said!)

The media, on the other hand, seem to believe that majority will, as expressed by polling, is the be-all and end-all of politics, and some of our representatives--Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi spring to mind--agree with them. Reid, in particular, seems to believe that he has been ordered to stop, or at least sabotage, the war in Iraq. He interprets the 2006 election result as a direct order from the public, the kind of order a general gives a private. George W Bush is popularly supposed to take his orders directly from God. Reid takes his orders directly from the American people.

But who knows what the outcome of an election means? It is just as easy as knowing the will of the almighty. Maybe people were fed up with the Republicans. Maybe they merely disliked the Republican who was then representing them. Maybe it was raining on election day. Or their car wouldn't start. Or something. After World War II, the British people voted Winston Churchill out of office. Were they mad about how he handled the war? Did they decide they would rather be governed by a thinner politician? Or what?

Reid and his fellow Democratic hacks and timeservers (and the Republican dimwits who aid and abet them) were elected to do their job--pass legislation--and leave the President to perform his Constitutional duties. Bush will not be president forever. But while he continues in office, he is Commander in Chief.

The reliance on majority rule, as expressed by polls, is touching, if a bit pathetic. Polls cannot be the basis of policy. If the American people believed 70 to 30 percent that the mountains are going to fall into the sea, would that make it true?

The over-riding issue of our nation, I would say the only issue, is the conduct of the War on Terror. If we lose that, it won't much matter what our leaders think about stem cell research. Gay marriage? I believe the term loses something in translation to Arabic.

That is why McCain or Giuliani are acceptable candidates to me. Both would prosecute the war effectively--that is to say, they would continue to fight until they had won. At one point I would have said Hillary Clinton was acceptable on the basis of her views on this topic, but she has been all over the map lately, to the point where she seems, at times, out of her mind.

Hat tip to Rachel.

Is April really the cruelest month?

Frankly, has T S Eliot ever tried November? Or Frbruary?


APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering 5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie, 15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

This April is the cruelest etc. wheeze posits people with souls so delicate and sensibilities so esquisite that they cannot withstand tender feelings. It is better (for them)to feel nothing than to suffer the pangs of love. One might be disappointed in love, you see.

As for me, I'll go with Shakespeare: Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

Kissing Sharpton's er, ring

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Imus said something tasteless and offensive... Why start apologizing now?
[H]is apology led directly to his appearance on Al Sharpton's radio show. The apology gave Sharpton and the other racial hucksters their wedge.

I've been meaning to put in my two cents about Sharpton for a long time now, so here goes. Sharpton is a bright,funny, witty man, obviously intelligent, who has cynically chosen to use his abilities for his own self-aggrandizement.

He is capable of so much better than this: he was the only non-dead speaker at the Democratic Convention. Compared to the rest of the clapped-out political hacks, he was lively and engaging. But the man has no morals whatsoever; as the saying goes, he would sell his own grandmother and deliver someone else's.

Does he have even a speck of conscience? Does he ever wake at three in the morning feeling sick and ashamed of the evil he has done? Has he ever done anything out of a worthy motive? He's a rev--I assume this is a religious title. Does he ever exhort his listeners to love one another?

I fear that the answer to all these questions is no. Al is for Al.

Radnor PA police decide not to charge out of towners for service

I am not making this up.

RADNOR, Pa. - Officials will stop enforcing an ordinance that raised motorists' ire by attempting to bill out-of-town residents for township police services at accidents.

After adopting the measure in April, Radnor Township was inundated with complaints that a collection agency overstepped its authority by trying to collect payments from motorists themselves when insurance companies would not pay.

"Obviously, this ordinance was not functioning the way this board intended," board of commissioners President Hank Mahoney said at a meeting Monday night. However, he defended the law as "legally sound."

Nancy Pelosi's headscarf

In all the fuss about Pelosi's headscarf, no-one has sought the answer to the most important question:

Where did Pelosi get that headscarf? I'm sorry, but this is a woman who wears pearls around her neck worth more than my entire yearly income, and she wears a schmatta like that? For shame. It's a shanda for the goyim.

I believe she borrowed it from her cleaning lady.

Now Mozilla is driving me crazy

All my bookmarks are gone! Curses!

I've always wondered...

why so many people want to live in California.

[W]ho on earth first got there and said “This looks like a GREAT place to raise fruit trees?” It’s a moderate miracle of human ingenuity that the place is the fruit basket of whatever percentage of the world. California consists of huge swaths of dreary, punctuated by breathtaking, with pockets of green and growing that still manage, somehow, to be dreary when compared to the cornfields of my Midwestern youth.

I've always wondered why people want to be surrounded by brown hills. The aforementioned hills remind me of piles of dirt excavated from a strip mine in West Virginia. Pennsylvania is 10 times prettier. Even New Jersey (in the right places) looks better--greener, lusher. But many people disagree with me, including lots of members of my own family, who can't get enough of the place.

Now that the surge is well under way...

public approval is rising.

Since the preliminary successes of the surge, support for the war has gone up 10% from 30% to 40%.

The idea that all Americans are against the war may not be correct.

Americans may be against losing.

Rosie exposed

Some little known facts about Rosie:

9. Rosie’s burka size is “3-Tent.”

I just happen to have a picture of Rosie in the aforementioned garment:



A real improvement, isn't it?

What would you do if captured by the enemy?

The behavior of the 15 British hostages made me uneasy. I know it is a terrible thing to be deprived of your liberty. I don't know how I would have acted. But they did not exactly cover themselves with glory.

Fred Cherry, an African American pilot, was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. He was beaten, tortured, his wounds left untreated, starved, and endlessly interrogated. His captors wanted him to urge other African Americans not to fight. According to Cherry's own account: "When they would beat me, I always kept in mind I was representing 24 million black Americans....I'm just not going to denounce my government or shame my people."

Cherry spent seven years in captivity, 700 days of it in solitary confinement, and suffered permanent physical damage, including deafness, vision problems, and the after-effects of of fractures that had been neglected and could no longer be remedied.

He was installed in the Hall of Heroes in the Pentagon in 1981.

A book, Two Souls Indivisible, is the story of Cherry's relationship with Porter Halyburton, a white Southerner who cared for him in prison camp and is credited with saving his life. The two men have been fast friends ever since.

The Second Coming

by William Butler Yeats

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.*

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

*Your assignment: name three examples of the worst.

A German leader with backbone

Does Maggie Thatcher ride again?

Palestinian Authority officials have accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of "offending the Palestinians' feelings" during her visit earlier this week to Ramallah, where she met with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

The accusations, the first of their kind against a European leader, were made by top PA officials only hours after Merkel and her entourage left Ramallah on Monday.

"She did everything to provoke the Palestinians during her visit," said one official. "She showed no understanding for the plight of our people. On the other hand, she appeared to be very biased toward Israel."

The official claimed that while Merkel refused to meet with families of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, she focused during her talks with Abbas on the need to release kidnapped IDF Cpl. Gilad Schalit, who has been held in the Gaza Strip since last June. In addition, he noted, Merkel met with the families of missing IDF soldiers during her visit to Jerusalem.

[]

"We were hoping to show her the wall that Israel built around Bethlehem, but she refused to go there," he said. "President Abbas was hoping to draw parallels between Israel's wall and the Berlin Wall. He wanted to remind Merkel of the days when she lived in East Berlin."

Merkel, according to the official, also turned down a request to meet with church leaders and representatives of Palestinian civil societies. "Almost all the European leaders meet with Christian leaders and representatives of civil societies," he pointed out. "But Merkel refused to do so. She did not offer any explanation and that's why we are very disappointed with her and the German government. This behavior is completely unacceptable."

The Palestinians are also angry with Merkel for visiting the Hebrew University, where she received an honorary doctorate on Sunday, while refusing to tour the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

PA officials were hoping to escort Merkel on a tour of the Arab neighborhoods to show her how Israel was "changing the Arab and Muslim character" of the city.

"This woman is trying to be more Israeli than the Israelis," the official said. "During her talks with President Abbas, she totally ignored major issues related to the peace process and chose to focus on the case of Gilad Schalit.

Good for her.

Another poem

I love this poem, written by an anonymous Irish monk in the 8th century:

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

Pangur ban means white cat in Irish.

Poem by William Shakespeare

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies not plenty;
Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

Poem by Robert Frost

SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice, 5
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Grandmothers

I (like everyone else, I guess) had two grandmothers, who were as different from each other as chalk from cheese. Of the two, bubbe, my mother's mother, was closer to me. We all lived in the same town, for one thing, which allowed bubbe to edit our lives and tell us what we were doing wrong. She never told us when we did something right: we were expected to do the right thing always.

Bubbe was a pretty austere character, who had been through a lot. Her father was a prosperous landowner, and she went to the Russian church school in her village, along with the priest's sons. She came out of this experience literate in several languages and with an extremely low opinion of Russian Christians. The languages came in handy as she was living in Russian Poland, and every time the area was conquered everyone spoke the new language, that of the victorious conquerer. The family lived on or near a river, and she had fond memories of boating parties as a child.

She did not have an arranged marriage. My grandfather, a young scholar, met and was smitten by her and sued for her hand. Sometimes, when I listened to their impassioned arguments, I found this hard to believe, but my mother assured me it was true. My grandfather always lost these arguments, as he was a sweet person who believed in peace at any price, while she believed that winning was everything, like Vince Lombardi. As she had a quick tongue and ready wit, she seldom lost an argument with anyone.

As a young mother, accompanied by my grandfather and two small children, she came to the new world. We are not sure why they left Russia--one story is that my grandfather had already served in the Russian Army and was about to be drafted for another term. Anyway, with the traditional diamonds sewn into the hidden recesses of her wardrobe, here she was, and there was no going back.

I don't know the details of their journey, but it was fortunate she had the diamonds, as my grandfather became sick shortly after they arrived and was unable to work. Bubbe scraped up $10 and opened a grocery store in the front room, or parlor, and they earned a meager living. She also had a sideline, preparing boys for bar mitzvah. My grandfather rolled cigars in their home to augment the family income, and eventually became a Hebrew teacher when his health improved.

They lived in a hellacious slum. I know this because I saw it with my own eyes, before it was demolished to make way for a highway.

They had five children, two of whom did not make it to adulthood. These two were never mentioned, but perhaps she remembered them, because from time to time she would light a yahrzeit candle for someone unknown to me.

She almost lost a third child, to influenza. To save him, they took him to the synagogue and renamed him, the idea being that when the angel of death came to get him, he would be unrecognizable. It worked, and he grew up to be my beloved Uncle Doc.

Bubbe didn't believe in a lot of frippery. Personal adornment she had none, but she did eventually have lace curtains and a few nice pieces of furniture, and a piano. My mother took piano lessons, and was not allowed to go out and play with her friends until she had completed her daily piano practice. Bubbe and my grandfather also managed to educate three children through college and professional school.

Bubbe had the goods on all our neighbors and friends and politicians and had no illusions about anyone. The only politician she admired was Harry Truman, because he recognized Israel. This in a family every other member of which worshipped FDR.

Oddly enough, she had a romantic streak, and used to read the Yiddish equivalent of Barbara Cartland in the Yiddish newspaper. My mother told me this. No signs of romantic inclinations were apparent to me.

But she was a lot of fun for a grandchild. I used to love spending the night with her. I would sleep in her bed with her, and she would teach me songs from the old country, and tell me stories of the fun she had as a child and young girl, living on the river. She loved boating. When her children were small she would take them to the park, rent a rowboat, and take them out on the pond. (My grandfather was afraid of the water, so he wouldn't go.)

My other grandmother was a different kettle of fish, and I don't know that much about her. As a young woman, she had trouble bearing children, and as a consequence became very religious. This did the trick, and she had four. My father was the youngest and puniest, and was not expected to live. After his birth, she became ill with some mysterious disease, perhaps tuberculosis, and turned the baby, my father, over to his elder sister, Julia, while she went into a nursing home for six years. Consequently he did not really get to know his mother until he was six. They had a stormy reunion.

She was a pretty woman, but very strict, and not warm to her children. My uncle Ed claims that she never liked him because he was born on Yom Kippur. She spent a lot of time on her high horse. For instance, her children were not allowed to refer to her as "she" when she was in the room, but had to call her "mother." You could not say, if she was at the table, "Pass her the maple syrup." It had to be, "Pass Mother the maple syrup." I don't know where she got this rule, but she was insistent on it. She wanted children, including me, to say, "May I go out to play?" instead of "Can I go out to play?"

I was not her favorite grandchild, and she was not my favorite grandmother, but they lived out west, and who knows? If I had lived closer to her, I might have grown fond of her. As it was, her few visits to our home took on the quality of State Occasions, with everyone nervous and afraid of committing some faux pas.

A vacation from politics

The political scene lately has puzzled me. For instance, what is this fuss about 8 prosecutors? I simply can't pick up on the subtleties of this. Bush has the power to ask them to resign. He did. End of story. Obviously there is something here I'm not getting.

And then there's Scooter Libby. He lied to someone about something when there was nothing to lie about. So now he's going to jail. Again, puzzling.

The Dems voting for a bill for money to prosecute the war which they are confident the President will veto. Along with money for spinach farmers, Katrina survivors, the halt, the lame, the blind, the greedy. Why didn't they just stay home and watch their soaps?

Why does everyone have to have health insurance? Or health care? Aren't some of us healthy, or at least not sick? Why is health insurance a must for a 25-year-old man or woman who has never been sick a day in his/her life? Is this the ultimate 21st century accessory? Just asking.

These strange manifestations of politics have always puzzled me. I still haven't figured out why the Republicans broke into Democratic headquarters in the Watergate, back in the day? What were they after, the name of George McGovern's tailor?

All this just seems like someone no rational being would waste one minute of their day on. So I am going to take a vacation from all that and stop straining my brain. Wake me up in '08.

A California town, destroyed

Maywood, CA has its own foreign policy.

Maywood has declared itself a sanctuary city and closed its traffic division at the urging of illegal aliens and their supporters after too many cars were being towed because those stopped didn't have driver's licenses. There are also pushes in the community to rename elementary schools after former Mexican President Benito Juarez. Maywood also had police stand by during an anti illegal immigration rally as Mexican reconquistas and illegal aliens raised a Mexican flag over the post office.

When immigrants, both legal and illegal, come here and don't assimilate, they bring their form of "justice, law and government" with them - all of which are corrupt in their home countries.

The Times story focuses on the 37 member all male police department, they deem as a "haven for misfit cops" and found that a third have previous criminal histories or suspicions of such, but the problem is obviously widespread throughout the community. Other law enforcement communities refer to Maywood police as the department of "second chances".

There's more, and worse, in the rest of the article. Read it and weep.

Another poem for poetry month

The Oven Bird

THERE is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.	5
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.	10
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing. RobertFrost

It's National Poetry Month

Post a favorite poem:

AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;	10
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces. Gerard Manley Hopkins