Frontier Former Editor

Now heah this, now heah this!

2007-01-28T13:17:00.000-05:00

Folks,

I've gone and done it - I'm transitioning over to a Wordpress blog this week : http://frontiereditor.wordpress.com/

I'm keeping this blog open as an archive/conceit/open-source of blackmail material.

Come on over if you like. I'll still pop in some stuff here occasionally.

Mike

Another sign that we're living under a (hopefully fading) neo-fascist government

2007-01-28T11:43:00.000-05:00

Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Indefensible

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, January 23, 2007; A17

"On the cold moonlit evening of March 5, 1770," writes David McCullough in his magisterial "John Adams," "the streets of Boston were covered by nearly a foot of snow." A crowd set upon a lone British sentry at Boston's Province House, taunting him. Quickly, reinforcements arrived, and so did a larger crowd. Soon the crowd hurled snowballs, chunks of ice, oyster shells and stones. The soldiers, now nine, opened fire, killing five Bostonians -- "bloody butchery," Samuel Adams called it. Only one lawyer would defend the British soldiers. He was a different Adams -- John Adams, a good man on the path to being great.

I resurrect this tale about Adams because it is sorely needed. Just this month, an official in the Bush administration, a deputy assistant secretary of defense named Charles D. Stimson, suggested that lawyers who defend terrorism suspects being held at Guantanamo not only should not do so but that their firms ought to be blackballed as a result.

"I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms," he said in a radio interview. You may want to read that again.

more . . . .

Ah, the age-old debate of art and patronage . . .

2007-01-27T21:09:00.000-05:00

Ah, the age-old debate of art and patronage . . .
Filed under: Uncategorized — Frontier Former Editor @ 2:07 am Edit This
As tempted as I was to exclaim ‘what in hell,’ the historian in me quickly recognized the time-worn debate over art, patronage and government involvement.

Just consider this article in the Wilmington Star another Hummel figurine in the display case of human idiocy.

Article published Jan 26, 2007
Republican: Scripts need reviewing
Movie prompts lawmaker’s film incentive idea

Raleigh | Citing the controversy surrounding the Dakota Fanning film Hounddog, the leader of the state Senate Republicans says he wants the government to review scripts before cameras start rolling in North Carolina.
That system, said state Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, would apply only to films seeking the state’s lucrative filmmaker incentive, which refunds as much as 15 percent of what productions spend in North Carolina from the state treasury.
“Why should North Carolina taxpayers pay for something they find objectionable?” said Berger, who is having proposed legislation drafted.
It is not known whether Hounddog’s producers have or will apply for the incentive. A call Thursday to the N.C. Department of Revenue, which oversees incentive payments, was not returned.
Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover, one of the backers of the new law that created the current incentive system, said she couldn’t say much until she saw Berger’s proposal in writing.
“There’s no bill yet to take a look at,” she said. “But I am always willing to consider reasonable ways to improve the program.”
She did say she thought looking at scripts before shooting starts might be meaningless because a script could be changed during production.
“We should consider the end product,” she said, “which is what our current system is designed to do.”
State law denies the incentive to films that are obscene. In state law, obscenity is defined as depicting sexual conduct presented in an offensive way that appeals to prurient interest, lacks any “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value” and is not free speech protected by the state or federal constitutions.
Berger said the film-incentive ban should be broadened to include material considered objectionable. He said there should be no First Amendment concerns because the producer would be seeking money from the state government. But he did say that if constitutional questions confused the matter, it would be better not to have a film incentive at all.
Berger has not seen the movie. He said his opinions were formed by what he has read about it.
The Fanning film, which is playing this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, has been a flashpoint of controversy since it was filmed on locations in New Hanover and Brunswick counties last summer.
The movie tells the story of Lewellen, a girl played by 12-year-old Fanning, who is growing up in the 1960s South.
In one scene, the character is raped. The scene lasts a few minutes and is not graphic, according to The Associated Press. There is no nudity, the scene is darkly lit, and only Fanning’s face and hand are shown.
Criticism and questions began even before the first screening of the film. A group called the Christian Film and Television Commission claims Hounddog breaks the federal child-pornography law, according to the AP.
Last year, a complaint reached the New Hanover County district attorney, who issued a letter saying he saw uncut portions of the film and found that no crime had been committed in his jurisdiction.
The film’s publicist took a request for comment Thursday afternoon but did not return it before press time.
Under the current system, the process begins when producers make inquiries of local film commissions or the state film office to gauge whether their project might be eligible.
But to claim the credit, the producers must file a state tax return. The N.C. Department of Revenue examines the return and judges whether all the criteria in the law have been met. The refund can be as much as $7.5 million per film.
Berger pointed to South Carolina, which requires up-front applications from producers, who must attach a copy of their script.
Even so, said Jeff Monks, South Carolina’s film commissioner, the state does not assess the content of a proposed movie.
“Censorship is not part of our activity,” he said. The purpose of asking for the script is to see whether it conforms to the budget and schedule information producers are required to provide.
“We want to see if this film is doable and a good investment for the people of the state,” he said.
Mark Schreiner: (919) 835-1434
mark.schreiner@starnewsonline.com

Ye of little faith . . . .

2007-01-21T15:12:00.000-05:00

Just taking a philosophical moment before I dive back into an online Linux test this fine, chilly, wet winter afternoon.

Driving by the local Baptist church this morning (it's hard not to - it's a block from my house), I had a strong flash of why I'm an agnostic. The elders of this same church decreed, and the congregation assented, that an acquaintance's son could not lie in state there for his funeral because he had died of AIDS and had been gay.

Whether or not you might agree with one's choice of life (to an point - I still feel that Hitler, Stalin, Mao and their political and philosophical ilk through the ages should roast in hell like an overdone side of beef), doesn't there come a time when we all should show some humanity?

I can't help at laugh at a church (institution and locality) which states that getting down on your knees and reciting a prayer wins you instant salvation, yet at the same time forgets the concepts of forgiveness and loving one's fellow human.

Several times a week, I pass by that church and see people attending Sunday services, Sunday school, youth groups, Wednesday gatherings and other functions. I see the pastor oversee the care and lawn grooming of the church. I see the congregation with their noses out of joint because nearby residents dare park their cars on the adjacent street and deny God's children a place to park their SUVs and sedans near the church doors.

I think of a church which places great mystical stock on taking a dip in water while calling other churches which place great stock in a bite of wafer and a drink of wine or juice heretical. And it works both ways.

And then I think of a father who's told that his son isn't good enough for a church funeral because he contracted AIDS.

And that's why I'm an agnostic.

First amusing story from my new job . . .

2007-01-14T22:50:00.000-05:00

Two of my male counterparts were coming back to work after lunch Friday, and one was heard across the rather large work area to ask the other: "Are you in yet?"

SCIIII-ENNNNNNCE!

2007-01-13T21:29:00.000-05:00

Jusr finished my first quiz tonight - UNIX is sooooooooooo much funnnnnnnnnnn . . . . .

Now I know what Thomas Dolby felt like . . . except for the fashion sense, of course.

Does this compute?

2007-01-07T22:21:00.000-05:00

Lemme tell you what fun is. Try switching from 14 years in a career based on words, wheedling info out of unwilling subjects, explaining complex situations in 20 column inches or less on deadline and generally living on everything that's bad for you to a whole new career based on logic.

That pretty much sums up the last four days as I try to comprehend two courses in UNIX/Linux programming and Java language. It's a hell of a shift in routine - kind of like popping the transmission in reverse while rolling downhill at 80 mph - but after a day of general frustration in getting the first assignments down, I kinda like it.

As I told my instructor in an e-mail today, I think I was having a liberal arts moment.

Who knows - after a couple of months of this, I may be writing my own template code. Or then again, I might not know my posterior from a hole in the ground which, by the way, is a comparative study course later in the program.

At least it keeps me from thinking too much about our not-so-esteemed president.

So, how are YOU doing?

I swear to God that not all of Virginia is a bunch of numbnuts, but . . .

2007-01-04T00:02:00.000-05:00

former state legislator and current Congressman/village idiot Virgil Goode is getting exactly what he deserves with this - a well-deserved softball bat across his goofy-assed grin:

Congressman to be sworn in using Quran (link)
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago
The first Muslim elected to Congress says he will take his oath of office using a Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson to make the point that "religious differences are nothing to be afraid of."
Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, D-Minn., decided to use the centuries-old Quran during his ceremonial swearing-in on Thursday after he learned that it is kept at the Library of Congress. Jefferson, the nation's third president and a collector of books in all topics and languages, sold the book to Congress in 1815 as part of a collection.
"It demonstrates that from the very beginning of our country, we had people who were visionary, who were religiously tolerant, who believed that knowledge and wisdom could be gleaned from any number of sources, including the Quran," Ellison said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
"A visionary like Thomas Jefferson was not afraid of a different belief system," Ellison said. "This just shows that religious tolerance is the bedrock of our country, and religious differences are nothing to be afraid of."
Some critics have argued that only a Bible should be used for the swearing-in. Last month, Rep. Virgil Goode (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., warned that unless immigration is tightened, "many more Muslims" will be elected and follow Ellison's lead. Ellison was born in Detroit and converted to Islam in college.
Ellison said an anonymous person wrote to tell him about the Quran, and he arranged with the Library of Congress to use it. The chief of the Library of Congress' rare book and special collections division, Mark Dimunation, will walk the Quran across the street to the Capitol and bring it back after the ceremony.
Ellison's decision to use Jefferson's Quran was first reported by The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Jefferson was born in Albemarle County, in what is now Goode's congressional district in central Virginia. Goode's office did not return phone and e-mail messages left Wednesday.
An English translation of the Arabic, Jefferson's Quran was published in 1764 in London, a later printing of one originally published in 1734.
"This is considered the text that shaped Europe's understanding of the Quran," Dimunation said.
It was acquired in 1815 as part of a more than 6,400-volume collection that Jefferson sold for $24,000 to replace the congressional library that had been burned by British troops the year before, in the War of 1812.
"It was a real bargain," Dimunation said.
The Quran survived an 1851 fire in the Capitol. Dimunation described it as a two-volume work, bound in leather with marble boards.
"As a rare book librarian," he said, "there is something special about the idea that Thomas Jefferson's books are being walked across the street to the Capitol building, to bring in yet another session of governmental structure that he helped create."
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I love it when an anti-intellectual fuckwit masquarading as a philosophical heir to Thomas Jefferson is shown to be a cheap pretender. It happened to George Allen last year, and Virgil Goode is most deserved of the treatment in 2007.

For a view of the text of Goode's brilliant observations, see here.

Don't laugh yet . . . .

2007-01-01T21:07:00.003-05:00

As we get ready for Gerald Ford's funeral tomorrow, I started to remember what it was like as a pre-teen and teenager while he was President (and notice that I use a capital P when talking about Ford and not Shrub).

It was a big hit to a young'un's world view when I watched Nixon give his resignation speech on TV. So much for all those civics and government classes in elementary school.

But as Ford's impromptu presidency wore on, I realized that the world hadn't come to an end (as long as one doesn't count several disco acts).

Frankly, President Ford did pretty good given the hand dealt him. And tell me the last time you saw a presidential press secretary host Saturday Night Live while his boss was in power.

I ran across this column by Georgie Anne Geyer today while engaging in terminal historical analysis:

GERALD FORD SHOWED US WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AMERICAN

WASHINGTON -- Even in death, Jerry Ford did one more favor for the country he gave so much to. He died just at the moment when, with his country riven by a vicious and irrelevant war and American public culture filled with vulgarity, his memory could recall for us what America once was.
The 38th president personified, in the very best sense, what it meant to be American. He was a big, handsome, warm man, and perhaps that helped him be as modest as he was. He was honest, honorable, loyal and, above all, commonsensical. We could compare Ford, born and raised in Michigan, to Lincoln of Illinois -- except that Ford's favorite (and contestable) saying was, "I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln."
Even Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, which surely cost him the presidency in 1976, showed the type of principles that seem to fare so badly in today's America. He pardoned Nixon because he knew the country could not bear years of court cases and more strife. He never was sorry for it, and he was surely right.
Odd, isn't it, that this fine, quintessentially Midwestern American should choose to leave us at probably the most dangerous moment in our recent national life. When our leadership is so intemperate about searching for world domination, when institutions like our Congress appear so dysfunctional in the light of American history, and when the common values of a Grand Rapids, Mich., man seem to have faded from the national screen.
As we mourn this good man and remember his remarkable wife, Betty Ford, and as we face 2007, President Ford's passing, at the grand old age of 93, presents us with some serious internal questions. Do we still have in us the old American principles of honesty, loyalty, authenticity, sincerity and simplicity that the Fords exemplified? Or has the country truly changed, perhaps into a nation of humans disconnected from one another by everything except land mass? Is there a truly American creed anymore, or are we simply a "nation" of individual anomies?
Because this moment is so precarious, I think we can look at 2007 and say, This will almost surely be our defining year. This year will tell us what we still are -- and what we no longer are. It will say whether there is, indeed, any real American exceptionalism left.
What we have seen this last year is not promising. Every month of 2006, the Iraq that we set out to "save" has broken down more irrevocably, until we see today a decimated state of our making, and we blame it on them. Our worst leaders are given medals of honor in the White House, while the wisest ones go unheard. Small guerrilla units that could have been contained in one or two countries now span the world -- can you believe, Somalia, AGAIN? We talk about bombing Iran, when we know that its oil wealth is going down so drastically that it will not even be a regional power in a few years.
Even the planet Pluto, poor Pluto, the little guy out there, was downgraded in 2006 from a full planet to a "dwarf planet."
Twenty years ago this new year, Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev came to Washington in December to hang out with President Ronald Reagan. The mood was euphoric, as Reagan told four of us columnists that the Cold War was over! The first President Bush picked up the mood of the era beautifully, and we were well on our way to a successful post-Cold War period. It seemed like a new age had dawned, but President Bill Clinton did not follow up aggressively on the end of the Cold War, and President George W. Bush has lost whatever hope was left for rebuilding the world with his wanton and indiscriminate war-making.
Meanwhile, on both of these presidents' watches, because of lack of interest and competence, the international organizations built up after World War II were left unreformed and untended. The awful little wars popping up everywhere, with no one to intelligently address their causes, are echoes of the emptiness inside of organizations like the United Nations and regional organizations, which have foundered without American leadership.
Iraq will tell the story in 2007. There is little chance that there will be even a stable government in Iraq, though that is the best that can be hoped for. The worst possibility would be an all-out retreat, which would bring forth the rage of the Iraqis and leave the United States scarred forever.
So how we act this year -- what leaders and thinkers we pick to guide us, which of our historical concepts we cling to and which we discard, whether we are able to reinvigorate Jerry Ford's Americanism in this new era -- is going to decide our future. Happy New Year!

COPYRIGHT 2006 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE "

I wish our current supposedly-elected, terminally numbnutted government could take the hint from the old-timers

Almost time to call it a year.

2006-12-31T20:32:00.000-05:00

It's 2118 local time here, and it looks like the year's about to wrap up with a minimum of muss and fuss.

It's already wrapped up for several tens of thousands of my fellow American citizens, all of whom I truly hope have some peace and safety in the new year.

For our illegally and improperly elected president, I hope 2007 brings him and his coterie of scumbag and pseudointellectual toadies a conscience. Not that it would be in time for the almost 3,000 men and women in arms who have died and countless family and friends who have suffered thanks to their collective and individual stupidity, hubris and arrogance, but maybe it could save hundreds or thousands of others.

For all of my friends and acquaintances - electronic and in person - I hope that humanity wakes up and takes a badly-needed break from the sheer idiocy, fanaticism, blatant materialism and lack of respect for one's fellow man, woman and child to see what is important in life.

I, for one, am incredibly thankful for having made it through this year with a new opportunity to make something of my life for my family and I. I'm also glad I decided to make the leap into blogging this year, since it has forced me to sharpen my thoughts, re-evaluate my beliefs and stand to be judged by you all. I hope I haven't been too lacking.

And finally, I found something small, insignificant and - for the last six and a half years - profoundly frustrating.

Yes, I finally found a copy of Astrud Gilberto singing a cover of 'Beginnings' by Chicago. I'd heard it while on a bender in a pub in Richmond in Fedruary, 2000, and had not been able to find the record in the intervening years.

Beats trying to get a cost plus award contract to build unfinished schools and police stations in Iraq any day of the week.

Thank you for a year to remember, and all of you have a hopeful year to come.

And a wonderful new year's present for the National Command Authority and chief Decider . . .

2006-12-29T13:44:00.000-05:00

I'm sure Dubya is thrilled to be as revered as Nixon was 32 years ago . . . (here)

U.S. President Ranks as Top Villain and Top Hero of 2006
America in No Doubt of 2006’s Celebrity Role Models – Oprah Regaled as the Best; Britney Declared the Worst
DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new poll from The Associated Press and AOL News has discovered that Americans are torn in terms of their perception of President George W. Bush and his performance in 2006. When asked to name the past year’s biggest villain, Bush was far and away the #1 choice, commanding 25% of the vote, distantly trailed by Osama Bin Laden (8%), Saddam Hussein (6%), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (5%), North Korean leader Kim Jong II (2%) and Donald Rumsfeld (2%). Satan only took in 1% of the vote, as did Hugo Chavez, Tom Cruise, Dick Cheney, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Rosie O’Donnell, among others.
On the flipside, Bush also claimed the top spot when Americans were asked to name the year’s biggest hero, but with only a trifling 13% of the vote.

Hey Raincoaster . . .

2006-12-29T09:46:00.001-05:00

Edged you out by three percentage points . . .

From Wandering Coyote, via Raincoaster

Another cool blast of irony . . .

2006-12-28T04:34:00.000-05:00

Read the byline on Mr. Ford's obituary, then quickly scroll down to the end

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/27/AR2006122700528_pf.html

Sorry for the disappearance . . . .

2006-12-21T12:34:00.000-05:00

It's been a rather full two or three weeks here, what with the new job and getting my baggage together for a return to studenthood.

And then there's the new Blogger, but I'll reserve my bile and venom for after the new year.

I could also go on at great length about the new adventures of my worthless National Command Authority, but I shall also reserve that for after the holiday season. Suffice it to say for now that I would be embarassed if Josef Mengele got to stay in Paraguay with no fuss and that my daughters were asked to leave.

First and foremost, I want to thank all of you for even bothering to stop by this den of inequity, philosophical liberalism and Burke-ian irony, and generally unfocused rambling. I never thought I'd convince myself to start blogging, and I'm still convinced that I'm in the lower circle of hell when it comes to untalented bloggers, but I've met some good people here in the last nine months. You all can wrench your shoulder patting yourselves on the back after you're done reading this.

Vicus, Pam, Anna, Cherry, Gautami, HE, WW, Raincoaster, Wanda, Miss C, Miz B, Awaiting, Kindness, Ziggi, Mark, Tom, Richard, Daphne, Carmenzta - I don't really care what are your religious or philosophical stripes. But I do wish you and others a good end to this year and a better year than before.

Hopefully I'll be back on more frequently now.

Mike

She's 70, but her beauty is timeless

2006-12-08T11:20:00.000-05:00

A work like this depresses me then inspires me to do at least half as well . . . . (read more here)
(Image courtesy of Hyperscale and David Glen - www.hyperscale.com )

It's a cruel summer down under

2006-12-05T12:53:00.000-05:00

Bananarama seizes Fiji in bloodless, catchy coup

SUVA, Fiji (AP) - Eighties vocal group Bananarama announced Tuesday it had taken control of the country from the elected government, confirming the South Pacific country's fourth coup in less than two decades.
"As of 6 o'clock this evening, the military has taken over the government, has executive authority and the running of this country," current Banarama frontwoman Sara Dallin told a news conference broadcast nationally.
'Now we're your Venus," added Keren Woodward, the other half of the once-popular, once three-member standby of British and American pop of the mid-1980's.
Dallin and Woodward said they had invoked special powers under the constitution to assume some powers of the president, and were using them to dismiss Prime Minister Rick Astley from office and appoint an interim replacement.
Astley, despite earlier claims that he was never gonna give them up, said he would surrender the presidential powers next week, and would ask the country's Great Council of Chiefs to restore them to 1980's pop hitmakers Stock Aitken and Waterman, who he expected would then appoint a full caretaker government.
Elections to restore democracy would follow sometime after that, he said.
Bananarama said they were compelled to act against Astley because the government was backing bills that undermined the core of early and mid-1980's pop contruction and lyrics. They cited the country's drift toward Pearl Jam, Blink 182 and Rolf Harris as evidence of the need for military intervention.
Former Banarama member Siobhan Fahey immediately condemned the takeover.
"Those sluts have been riding the coattails of my musical talent for two decades and now have now indulged in a very serious criminal act of crass commercialism, and . . . we are not going to support this faux Bananarama in this regard, because it is unlawful," Fahey told the Legend radio network.
Fiji's mostly unarmed police force has said previously it can't challenge SAW's might, and Malcom McLaren said police opposition would be limited to refusing to hand over royalty checks to the new ruling duo.
Armed troops locked down the capital, Suva, on Tuesday, setting up checkpoints outside government buildings and at other sites. Troops surrounded Astley''s house, blocking roads with tire-bursting spikes, with the prime minister holed up inside with his family and a handful of ministers.
"My impression is that I am under house arrest," Astley told reporters hours before Bananarama's declaration. "What happens next is anybody's guess."

I feel pleasantly deranged tonight

2006-12-02T21:04:00.000-05:00

I feel so much better these days that I'm going to tell you a little story.

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were at the Double R Bar Ranch one fine evening, watching the sun set. Roy had just been breaking in a new pair of boots that day, and he left them on the porch before they called it a night.

A lynx sneaks up on the porch after Roy and Dale were asleep, and the critter rips, gnaws and shreds the boots.

Roy wakes up in the morning, realizes he forgot his boots, and goes out on the porch. He goes ballistic. He gets his guitar, his Winchester lever-action and saddles up Trigger before riding off into the sagebrush.

Roy's gone for five days, and Dale waits anxiously for every one of them.

On the sixth day, Roy comes riding in, the now-dead lynx hanging from Trigger's saddle horn. Just as Roy rides up and gets ready to tell how he avenged his boots, Dale interrupts and says, "Pardon me Roy, is that the cat who chewed your new shoes?"

If I had any doubts when I voted for Jim Webb earlier this month . . .

2006-11-29T11:41:00.000-05:00

they're gone now. I'm so glad I was able to help fire George Allen before I resigned my job.

From The Hill
"Son also rises in testy Webb-Bush exchange
By Emily Heil

President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats.

Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing."

And from The Washington Post . . .

My president is a scumbag.

I am just so damn proud of Dubya . . .

2006-11-26T14:02:00.000-05:00

The boy finally carried through on one of his promises about the Iraq war - he established a true market economy there!

From The Washington Post

"BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 — The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded."

Way to go, F'in Idiot!

Take my life, please!

2006-11-26T01:41:00.000-05:00

After a delightful period of being able finally to post comments on others' blogs, a brief, non-intimate encounter with Vicus and Ms. Kindness at her blog brought back a wonderful tale by Jackie Mason.

So, in close paraphrase:

[Frank Sinatra saved my life. One night at the Sands, four guys started beating and kicking me within an inch of my life. Just when I thought I was going to die, Frank walks by and says, "That's enough, boys."]

Nothing like a career shift to readjust one's perception

2006-11-23T20:06:00.000-05:00

First, thanks to everyone for your concern. Mrs. FE's doing much better, except for the part of seeing more of me around the house. And I've felt a lot better with regular sleep - forgot what it was like to get seven hours a night.

I've also embarked on a fiction-writing career, or was that my resume? Fourteen years and nine months in the journalism biz. Damn shame, because I enjoyed doing it. I'll cry about it in a few more years, but it still hits hard when you spent that much time in a profession and have to leave it.

After I posted about my new job, I got another offer two days later with better benefits. Being a black-hearted, mercenary sort, I accepted and start next week. If all goes well, next week I'll be getting some of my state tax money back with 34 weeks of paid-tuition programming training starting in January. It's weird having covered all these programs and now to be starting one. Nothing like a workout for one's sense of irony.

And - not having to worry about laying out a weekly paper that draws the scorn of semi-illiterate, hateful, old, pseudo-patriotic blue-haired Daughters of the American Revolution and/or Confederacy - I've been able to let my thoughts wander a bit.

Listening to National Public Radio one morning, I heard a spot on linguistic heritage that reminded me why British aircraft manufacturers have always been far more literate and poetic than their American counterparts.

Case in point: the announcer launched into a brief discussion of the word 'welkin,' which happens to be a derivative of the old English world for cloud. As my synapses are wont to do, they provided a mini-epiphany answering the question I've had for decades - why in hell this was named as it was.

I think even Vicus might agree with me on this one.

I'm going back for another piece of mince pie now. Sorry if I haven't been able to post comments on your pages lately. My version of XP seems to have a twitch in it that keeps some comment pages from opening properly, but I'm overhauling another computer and should have full smartass capability back soon.

I am mercifully free of the ravages of employment

2006-11-17T22:09:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's true. As of 1109 Eastern Standard Time, 16 November 2006 anno domini, I am no longer in the editorial biz.

The short form is this: On the way to work Monday, I crippled my vehicle when I struck a rather sizeable and dense groundhog and caused damage to my oil pan. After limping home and garaging my van, I began utilizing the array of networking software installed in my laptop for just such an emeregncy so I could coordinate and build a newspaper from the discomfort of my own home.

Said software and network connections began displaying a series fo cascading failures in the subsequent 20 hours, including corrupted photo and page files, disappearing files, locked-up connections . . . . basically a house of horrors that I had warned about since last March.

After going to out flagship daily to get their IT people to fix my problems, I was able to put the papers to bed 10 hours late. I got home at 12:05 a.m. Wednesday after 36 hours straight of sheer terror, frustration and work.

Three hours after getting home, I had to take my wife to the emergency room for an excruciating bout of back pain. She was downed by the doctor for three days and put in line for an MRI next week. I took Wednesday as a sick day to care for her.

Upon my return to work Thursday, my group editor arrived 20 minutes later to inform me that our group publisher was on the way to fire me and that I should resign to ensure my re-employability with the corporation on the advice of the regional publisher. This I did, after consultations with the regional editor and assurances that I would be given preference for one of the hire-frozzen positions at the daily once they became thawed.

That evening, the regional publisher called me to ask about the situation that led to my resignation. After hearing how I was edged out - apparently without his knowledge as told to the contrary, how computer problems had gotten that bad without his knowledge, and how the group publisher had ordered that we editors were to post reports with only glowing positives of how we were improving things, he was not particularly amused and said he would investigate and see what this would hold for my future.

So, armed with questionable assurances of a better day and somewhat stronger assurances that the group publisher now faces the loss of a significant quantity of flesh, I have managed to find a job as a dispatcher for satellite TV technicians - a job that could allow me - if successful - to apply for and enroll in a free 34-week college program in computer programming tailored to Northrop Grumman's specific needs for computer programmers in our region.

And if there's any justice in the cosmos this month, my former group publisher will also be reconsidering his professional future.

Physically, this is the best I've felt in more than a year.

CRY HAVOC AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF BAD SONG REDUX!!!!!

2006-11-11T18:44:00.000-05:00

HE made the challenge a few days ago, and now I've reverted into a level of sociopathy adequate to this task.

Ground rules: The following songs have already been wielded (in much the same way as hazardous waste) as examples of the worst to offer in pop music, so please don't bother bringing them up in this post -we're looking for all new bad stuff:
Achy Breaky Heart
Ice Ice Baby
Show No Mercy
Barbie Girl
Having My Baby
Copacabana
Mandy
Daybreak
Karma Chameleon
Pico and Sepulveda
Anything by William Shatner
Macarena
Who Let the Dogs Out
Bad Blood
Muskrat Love
I Go to Rio
I Will Always Love You
My Way
Sometimes When We Touch
Lyin' Eyes
FUNKY TOWN
Ebony and Ivory
anything by Lionel Richie
Do Ya Think I’m Sexy

Otherwise, anythng goes. Bring on your worst >%^D>
And now, to get this little corner of perdition rolling . . .

Cool Places

RUMSFELD'S OUT!!!!!!!

2006-11-08T13:51:00.000-05:00

Read it here, folks!

I hope Robert Gates hasn't changed a lot from his CIA days. He had a fairly good rep as a stand-up guy who thought a lot before opening his mouth to say so much as 'good morning.'

I'm making the cheese ball. Who's brining chips, crackers, dip, beer, booze, etc?

Just sign up here.

YESSSSSSSS!!!!! One worthless bastard down and several more to go!

I only wish that more folks had gotten out and voted, but

2006-11-08T07:41:00.000-05:00

A great big swipe of gratitude to everyone who did, regardless of your political or social stripe!!!

Sitting here in Virginia, I'm glad that the Senate vote so far shows such a close margin between Webb abd Allen. First, it shows that Allen knew not of what he claimed about Virginia being solidly behind his version of traditional family and social values. When half of your participating electorate says 'blow it out your ass!' then it's time to realize just how divisive a numbnuts you've been.

If, by some stroke of fate, Allen pushes for and wins a recount, then it still ought to be a solid gut punch against the asinine, dismissive, 'with-me-or-against-me" attitude he's shown as governor and senator. Well, what goes around comes around and usually with an extra hundred knots of velocity.

It's also good for Webb, if the numbers hold, because it reminds him that he's got to be a senator for all Virginians and for the entire country as well. Somehow, I think he may well know that and this Commonwealth will be better off for it.

And for my country? I'm glad that it's such a close split and that some of the worst offenders against centrist government - Rick Santorum, there's a good reason why there was a movement to make your name into jargon for a disgusting byproduct of some recreational activity - bit the big one.

I'm going back to work - see y'all soon.

More reasons to get out and vote Tuesday . . .

2006-11-05T10:58:00.000-05:00

I wish Molly Ivins was in my family.

http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv

"With pundits in Washington, who just a few weeks ago were claiming the Democrats would likely take the house by a razor-thin margin, now victoriously claiming they all along knew it would be a wipeout, I just feel that overconfidence juice starting to kick in. "Maybe 20 seats, maybe 40 seats" ... yeah. People could think: "So that's settled. I don't even really have to vote." Folks, step up and make sure there's some control on this regime.

May I remind you what this election is about? Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, unprecedented presidential powers, unmatched incompetence, unparalleled corruption, unwarranted eavesdropping, Katrina, Enron, Halliburton, global warming, Cheney's secret energy task force, record oil company profits, $3 gasoline, FEMA, the Supreme Court, Diebold, Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004, Terri Schiavo, stem cell research, golden parachutes, shrunken pensions, unavailable and expensive health care, habeas corpus, no weapons of mass destruction, sacrificed soldiers and Iraqi civilians, wasted billions, Taliban resurgence, expiration of the assault weapons ban, North Korea, Iran, intelligent design, swift boat hit squads, and on and on.

This election is about that, but much more -- it's about honor, dignity and comity in this country. It's about the Constitution, which gives us this great nation. Bush ran on a pledge of "restoring honor and integrity" to the White House. Instead, he brought us Tom DeLay, Roy Blunt, Katherine Harris, John Doolittle, Jerry Lewis, Richard Pombo, Mark Foley, Dennis Hastert, David Safavian, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove and an illegal and immoral war in Iraq. People, it's up to you."

A little Sunday morning breather

2006-11-05T09:40:00.000-05:00

Despite my knuckle-dragging, American ways, I still occasionally enjoy something a little less intense than running around calling for the legitimate, Constitutional overthrow of the current administration.

So enjoy a little Paris Combo before the final sturm und drang of the midterm elections . . .

Living Room

Attraction

Get off your asses and vote!!

2006-11-04T11:05:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be working 70 miles from my home voting precinct on November 8, so I got up Saturday morning and cast an absentee ballot at my local registrar's office. She looked as bored as the Maytag repairman until I showed my ugly-as-a-dog mug at her office door, and I know enough about voter turnout in my burg to know that there's plenty of business for last-day absentee voting

Whether you're going to be in town and near your polling place on Nov. 8, or out of town that day, you still have an opportunity today in most U.S. states to make sure you still have a say in your local, state or Congressional races. I don't care about your views - just make damned sure you vote!

and at Cherrypie's insistence, People Collection facts

2006-11-01T21:12:00.000-05:00

I just about pulled a muscle trying to think of five facts about me, but here goes . . .

1) Despite being a professional journalist, I have never taken a journalism class in except for a school newspaper elective in seventh grade.

2) I met George McGovern when I was in grad school - it was pretty underwhelming.

3) I had a beer with Tiny Tim as he played and sang a few bars of "On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine." This was a year before he experienced a career resurgence as a Diet Pepsi spokesman and then died in his sleep. I wasn't around for that, however.

4)I started out my higher education career in pre-engineering with the idea that I'd join the Air Force as an electronic warfare officer in Wild Weasel flak supression aircraft. That career choice would have entailed being the willing target of surface-to-air missiles while having the attitude that I could spoof them with gear from the same company that made TI-30 calculators. Luckily I couldn't hack calculus, even with the help of a TI-55 calculator.

5) The index, middle and ring fingers on my right hand are parallel even when moderately splayed. This comes from having been an archery enthusiast in my teen years. I didn't have the wrist-finger coordination to use a hook-loop release and thus induced a minor deformity from having to shoot with a three-finger pull and release.

Cherry - I actually enjoyed this little exercise but I'll deny it up and down to everyone else ;^D>

It's a weird, manic, exhilarating time

2006-11-01T20:35:00.000-05:00

Or else I'm really turning into an asshole.

Monday - In the morning I'm covering the investigation of a man who mamaged to shoot his three brothers-in-law with two 12-gauge shotguns at a range of 30-40 yards before the men manage to get more than a few feet out of their pickup truck. One died at the scene, another died a short while later at a local hospital, and the other survived. At that point I'm not sure whether to be horrified at the carnage or be impressed with the suspect's artistry with a shotgun at that range.

Monday night - I'm supposed to be finishing off a newspaper, but instead I'm standing in the middle of the wreckage from a collision between a Chevy Blazer and a Dodge pickup, covering the death of an apparently stupid young man whose dead hand was still clutching the cell phone he was using when he crossed four lanes of traffic. Five members of the family in the truck survived. The four-month old daughter in the truck died Tuesday morning.

Tuesday - Despite having to stay up till 3:45 a.m. that morning since I had to play reporter and layout editor, I was feeling pretty decent because I actually got three hours of sleep before I had to make a 70-mile drive to send pages to the press. And despite four different kinds of software glitches, the paper actually sent to press. I made it home by 9 p.m. without killing any trick-or-treaters either.

Wednesday - I wielded my staff like a claymore (either imagine me swinging a big honkin' sword or turning my newsroom properly with "this side toward enemy." Needless to say, we'll have a full paper and, if all goes well, a local electoral board member will have massive heartburn and look especially stupid.

And now I've finally gotten my laptop rigged for satellite radio and I'm listening to Astrud Gilberto and Walter Wanderley.

This is one of the stranger three-day stretches I've had in a while . . .

Only one problem with this . . .

2006-10-26T22:19:00.001-04:00

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions.
You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

I wear orange on St. Paddy's Day just to be different >B^D>

Thanks Laura E - who's yer daddy?

And since it was recenty brought to my attention that the McCartney-Mills split is coming to a rolling boil, here's a quick retrospective from my May archive:

Top ten specifics of Heather McCartney’s divorce filing:

10) Paul mocked me by buying me a DVD remastering of “The 39 Steps”

9) Kept snickering when he said “this lager doesn’t have enough hops in it.”

8) Inflicted mental cruelty by repeated playing of “Band on the Run”

7) Said he married me because he was a leg man

6) Said on several occasions that there was something wrong but that he couldn’t peg it.

5) Pet name for me: Ahab

4) Friends made cryptic “Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo” remarks in my presence (go watch the movie – it’ll come to you.)

3) Opened lingerie drawer – half my stockings tied off

2) Told me I was a natural for base 5 arithmetic.

1) Said we were a natural for the three-legged race at the Apple corporate picnic

I'll be at the tenth circle of hell if you need me . . . .

The dangers of electric corkscrews and Brazilian racetracks

2006-10-23T14:14:00.000-04:00

I blame (or maybe credit?) Ziggi and Vicus for inducing a chronic case of smutmongery in myself.

Point in case, while trying to lay out an impromptu 'hunting page,' I stumbled across this tidbit from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries website:

"Peak gobbling in Virginia would normally take place in early May based on gobbling surveys taken before we started spring gobbler hunting. Peak gobbling typically would coincide with peak nest incubation. However, gobbling rates decline as the spring season progresses because of harvests and reduce gobbling due to hunting pressure."

Thank God I wasn't doing a birdwatching page with a section on swallows . . .

Okay, enough with the fatigue . . .

2006-10-19T23:25:00.000-04:00

It's 11:20 p.m. EST, Thursday, I've spent enough time going bleary-eyed with work.

I came home today and realized that I'd damned near become one with the work computer, so I did the male equivalent of knitting. I sat down with two ziploc bags of roadwheels for a model tank, sanded and scraped off the molding seams and them proceeded to chop, scuff, scrape and chip the "rubber" parts of the wheels to make them look like tank wheels look like after a few days in the field.

And now I'm here, back, slightly refreshed and slightly less undead than I was two days ago. Amazing what some quality time with a knife can do, as Jack the Ripper probably once said.

And, to get in the Halloween spirit, may I recommend that you go to show.com and watch the two free episodes of "Dexter"? They were hilarious, warped, dark and in the end just like a Superboy comic book.

The next few moments may seem like free verse or stream of conscious, given the catching up I've done with the world today.

Kim Il Jong says he's sorry he detonated the bad nuclear device and that he wants to kiss and makeup with the round-eyed devils - namely us. Somehow I think the conversation between the PRNK and the PRC delegate yesterday went something like . . . . "You nutty little Stalinist s**t! Set off another of those g*******D and YOU'RE going to know how the Americans felt in 1951 when they got too close to the Yalu!"

And after Dear Leader had a hairbrush taken to his ass, Jong probably snuffled a bit for being such a bad megaomaniac.

Return here for the nexr episode of "I gotta get a real job."

Thanks to Vicus . . .

2006-10-18T21:28:00.000-04:00

for highlighting the "One Day in History" project.

In the last few days, I have had a 73-year old woman accuse me of being most un-American and unappreciative of how good I have it in America for my printed comments expressing a severe lack of confidence in my national leaders and their choices of international action. I have also been challenged to pray for my leaders, the soldiers they send into harm's way for whatever reasons they chose, and for my country.

While I won't submit the above to the One Day in History site, I will submit the following.

After a day in which my patriotism and support for our armed forces has been questioned, I remembered a day in Cornwall 38 years and six months earlier.
I was just shy of six years of age, a student at Trebisker School near the closed RAF St. Eval, and the son of a U.S. Navy petty officer stationed at Naval Weapons Facility St. Mawgan.

April of 1968 was also the end of "Prague Spring" and the beginning of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

At the time, I wondered why my father disappeared for a couple of weeks and was told by my mother that he had to work and would be home soon.

Naval Weapons Facility is another way of saying 'nuclear arsenal.'

It wasn't until I was just starting high school in Virginia in 1976 that the significance of April 1968 really appeared to me. The stories I heard when my father saw me looking at a picture of a nuclear weapon in a modeling magazine added an extra chill as he recalled how he spent those days in April helping fuse and arm nuclear torpedoes and depth charges for loading on a round robin of U.S. Navy patrol planes cycling through St. Mawgan and back to places north to begin covering the North Sea.

That's my day in history - a little reflection and a strong instance of pity for some ignorant old woman who thinks blind faith and patriotism are far more acceptable than a desire for the truth.

Tomorrow, when Vicus does regale us with a story about men with rectally-borne turnips, I shall have a historical account of Romans, statutes against adultery, and black radishes.

And I'll still pity that woman, for she knows damn little of whence she speaks.

A nice, long week

2006-10-14T10:17:00.000-04:00

For those who were checking on me, thanks.

Monday went off to a 'wonderful' start - we had a local kid killed in Iraq a week ago today. That threw work into an extended tailspin.

Fast forward to Friday. I'm finishing off a special section that got advanced a week. I get an e-mail from upper management that a person - an unspecified relative of an employee at my paper - had called to complain about my column on the dead soldier and how he had shown devotion to duty but that our current leadership was undeserving of the sacrifice and sense of duty show by our soldiers.

The employee who took the call - I have no idea if said employee was related to the caller - was asked to be referred to my supervisor. Instead of referring the caller to my group editor, the employee referred than to the regional publisher.

Draw your own conclusions - I'm still thinking.

The notes of that conversation - attached to the e-mail - acuused me of being un-American and that I should be sent by boat to North Korea. The management sending the e-mail said he tended to agree, and that he was inviting the person to write a letter to be published to that effect.

That e-mail was the first inkling I had of this. No discussion. No request for information from me.

Happy Friday the 13th.

Hey everybody, party at my country!!

2006-10-08T20:42:00.000-04:00

I wish I'd known this so I'd have time to make one of my famous cream cheese-dried beef-chopped onion-chopped pecan-Worcestershire-garlic-Tabasco cheese balls, but . . . .

There's $20 million in the U.S. FY 2006-07 budget for an Iraq victory celebration!!

Yes, I heard it from National Public Radio this weekend, even if Fox News says they never get anything right because they use basic tools like journalistic integrity, multiple sources, fact checking and interviewing all sides in a story.

Give me a couple of secs to stop laughing . . . .

$20 million for a victory party. When's the Nuremburg party start? And where's Albert Speer, Jr. going to build all the memorials to the Republicans? Hope he's got plenty of statues of nubile young male pages to inspire future generations of molestation victims working to further the Reich's . . . oops, I meant the Republic's fight for traditional family values and against child predators . . .

I kill myself . . . .

I tag every American citizen reading this blog to . . .

2006-10-07T09:01:00.000-04:00

post the embed to this clip (Thanks, Rain) on their websites and to tag other bloggers to post it, and so on.

Here's the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Vbe2w18s8&eurl=

Copy and paste the embed link on your Blog, and paste the YouTube link above with it so others can find it and embed it.

Whether you're a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or any other stripe, if you believe in the fundamental freedoms and rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, I fail to see how you can argue with what Keith Olbermann says.

This is not a chain letter. I fully agree with what Olbermann says on this, as an American citizen first, a parent a close second, and a journalist a close third.

Dance Party, 10-06-06: Geeks and glasses

2006-10-06T18:22:00.000-04:00

Although with a theme like that, dese guys'd probably kick my expansive posterior.

Marshall Crenshaw

Elvis Costello "Chelsea"

Donnie Iris

According to the news . . .

2006-10-06T18:20:00.000-04:00

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's supporters are rallying around him amid calls for Hastert's resignation.

Let them rally - it makes a bigger target.

Any more tags and I'm going to have to get a bigger ear . . .

2006-10-05T09:03:00.000-04:00

Ziggi put me on the musical spot, so here's 10 songs - not necessarily favorites and with the thankful omission of "Having My Baby" - that have some meaning in my cold, gray, insignificant life:

"The Third Man" theme - Anton Karas
I first saw the movie on PBS in high school, and I just got caught up in how the music mixed with the images of a post Hapsburg Vienna and the hunt for Harry Lime.

"The Girl I left Behind"
As I got immersed in getting my history degree, "Breaker Morant" was among the film list for my British imperialism course. This late 19th/early 20th century tune - the equivalent of modern-day pop as were so many other pieces in the movie - made me realize that really not all that much has changed in popular music. And it's still a catchy little song a hundred years later.

"The Fez" - Steely Dan
Listening to this as a 14-year old, one wondered with not a little salaciousness just what it was that Donald Fagen wasn't going to do without the fez on, no no.

"On Broadway"
Even though I was 6, I still remember the television commercial for - was it Radio Free Europe or Voice of America? - with the eastern European expatriate walking the streets of New York and coming into work to read the news to secret listeners behind the Iron Curtain. George Benson really screwed that song up when he remade it.

"Tradition" - from 'Fiddler on the Roof'
I'm not much on show tunes, but I've always liked this one. Hearing Topol sing it again at Wolf Trap in 1989 just made it better.

"I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You" - Patti LuPone, from "Evita"
I never liked the movie version of Evita - it was too wrapped up in its stars and not in the creepy, Gothic mystique of Eva Peron, but the original stage version and soundtrack were like a Faulkner story or something out of Tennessee Williams. Again, I'm not a big show tune fan per se, but how could one not be enthralled by this combination of the erotic and Machiavellian cynicism? It certainly crystallized my view of much of what I see.

"Aja" - Steely Dan
My first serious girlfriend kept my copy of the album - we played the title track a lot when we were alone.

"Onward Christian Soldiers"
I spent second grade in a Christian school in Florida, and we sang this every morning after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I remember it was hard to sing then, and 39 years later I still wonder just how the title reconciles with what Christianity is supposed to be. One's sense of irony needs a workout whether young or old, I suppose. the song gave me no comfort then and it gives even less comfort now.

"All Day and All of the Night" - The Kinks
This is what I think of when I think 'rock and roll' Less than three minutes long but with more energy and everything that scares one's parents than any album length drum and guitar solo. Every time I hear it I still feel the same as if I was a teenager again.

"In the Hall of the Mountain King" - from "M"
In the movie "M," Peter Lorre plays an overcoat-and-fedora clad child molester/killer who whistles this piece as he searches for his victims. The whistling builds as he gets closer to his prey. To this day, I think of this piece when I see or hear news of a missing, molested or dead child.

That was a cool breeze from hell . . .

After the last three days, it just seemed so appropriate . . .

2006-10-05T00:13:00.000-04:00

Everybody sing along now . . . . .

This is what's going in my paper this week.

2006-10-02T22:03:00.000-04:00

I've been a bit manic the past day or two as I was thinking this over . . .

It was an autumn day in 1976 and I was sitting in our high school library in Norfolk, reading a magazine.
Since it was in a Navy town, the school had a pretty good-sized JROTC program and the library reflected it with some professional journals such as the Naval Institute Proceedings. I was reading a copy that day and paying special attention to a piece based on interviews with several POW's who had returned from North Vietnam the previous year.
Among those interviewed were Everett Alvarez and John McCain, and they and some others described just what it was like to be beaten, stretched into unnatural positions, malnourished and used as propaganda material.
One of the former prisoners illustrated the article with the starkest, most frightening pen-and-ink drawings of American prisoners being bound, beaten, having their arms stretched out of their sockets, shackled into excruciating positions. The words from those prisoners made the illustrations even more sickening.
In later years, I read more on how prisoners of war and captured 'enemy combatants' found themselves beyond the pale of international protections - black American soldiers and airmen who disappeared in the 'custody' of the SS; American prisoners tortured and brainwashed by the North Koreans; mass graves in the former Yugoslavia; and eventually Abu Ghraib and 'rendition' of terror suspects to countries with supposedly less respect than we have for the niceties of international law.
And after all that time, I still remember that magazine article and its sketches.
Anyone who hasn’t been away on a wilderness hunting trip or in a coma the last few months has probably heard Mr. Bush demanding the authority to decide who’s an enemy combatant, what’s torture and what’s not, and whether a prisoner has the right to contest his or her confinement.
And during that debate, I’ve still remembered those sketches of American pilots trussed up like poultry and pulled and stretched until they screamed and passed out before they were awoken and given the same abuse again and again.
Now, our Congress has given a sitting President a power that no president in my lifetime has had so openly - the power to judge just how much pain constitutes torture.
Sixty years ago, America, Britain, France and the Soviet Union put Nazis to death at Nuremburg for crimes against humanity. Scores more were convicted and imprisoned despite their defense that they were following orders.
Out of the Nuremburg trials came a fundamental priciple that American soldiers had a duty to refuse unlawful orders when they violated American or applicable international law. Yes, there were violators, but there was a system to make some attempt to bring them to justice.
Now that system is a pen-stroke away from disappearing.
I think I’m going to see more pen-and-ink drawings in the coming years.

What's a grecian urn?

2006-10-02T19:06:00.000-04:00

100 drachma on a good day.

On Mohandas K. Gandhi

2006-10-02T10:42:00.000-04:00

Gandhi, as most of you well know, was a powerful advocate of non-violent civil disobedience and much of the backbone of de-colonization in the 20th century.
Gandhi’s personal life after his initial years as an attorney speaks volumes of his commitment to basic human justice. From making his own homespun for his clothing, his decision to go barefoot or with extremely simple footwear took its toll on his feet. He embraced the Hindu religion and beliefs, using its symbolism and mysticism to reinforce his message of human rights and justice for all. Adopting the traditional diet of India’s lower castes also affected his personal hygiene and physical health to some extent, but his sincerity and commitment to his religion and way of life left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was a super-calloused, fragile mystic blessed with halitosis.

It's Monday, and if I have to suffer . . .

2006-10-02T06:29:00.000-04:00

John and Martha meet and Martha is overwhelmed by John's sense of poetry; especially his love for the Romantic movement.

Martha swoons as John recites Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Shelley, and the two soon wed.

John's poetic commitment at first sustains the love both feel for each other, but after a few months, the constant recitation starts to wear thin on Martha.

One morning, things came to a head as Martha came down for breakfast and John was in the middle of perhaps his 1,000th recital of "Ode to a Grecian Urn."

"Can't you stop it and speak in prose for once in your infernal life?" Martha screams.

John replied: "If you can't stand the Keats, get out of the hitchin'."

Dance Party 09-29-06

2006-09-29T19:44:00.000-04:00

I could somehow try and tie tonight to the events of yesterday, but screw that idea.

Anyway, how about a mini ELO-fest after last night's almost-a-documentary?.

Dreaming of 4000, from "On the Third Day"

Strange Magic, from a PBS concert show five years ago

Nightrider, from "Face the Music"

Evil Woman

Showdown

Tighrope

I'm not ashamed of my country, but I'm ashamed of . . .

2006-09-29T07:39:00.000-04:00

what was done - supposedly in its name - last night.

Congress finally let the Presidency take this country into a dark, evil abyss. Now he gets to decide what is torture. Look at the last five and a half years and then ask me why my faith in his ability to make such decisions is nonexistent.

I know we've had fun with bad music . . .

2006-09-27T21:39:00.000-04:00

over at HE's the past two days, but the last two days I heard three of the most wonderful and saddest pieces of music on our local public radio station.
Tonight, on the way home, i listened to Shostakovitch's musical adaptation of the poen 'Babi Yar.' Just go google 'Babi Yar' first and then imagine what a Russian felt.
And yesterday, the station's afternoon Americana music program played two songs that caught me really short after a 20-hour day, two hours of sleep and another six hours of work.

Johnny Cash - obviously in his later years and probably before June died - sang the cleanest, clearest, minimalist, most gut-wrenching "If You Could Read My Mind."

And a few minutes later, they played a bluegrass version of "Eleanor Rigby" mainly with mandolin and dulcimer but with no vocals and even sadder than the original.

I'm going to go have my tear ducts removed.

Racism - ain't it just so adorable?

2006-09-26T00:45:00.000-04:00

Today, I had the questionable pleasure of, on one hand, listening to George Allen go on the defensive over new revelations that he is a stupid thug with a complementary racist streak.

On the other hand, I had the equally questionable pleasure of listening to a sales rep in my office talk about going to church and being invited to another church. As she described the "black church" to my news clerk, I listened from my office as she tried explaining what she thought it was going to be like.

"You know how black folks are," the rep noted at one point.

No, I don't know how black folks are. I do know that, as white bread as I may appear, I happen to have some black and Cherokee ancestry. I also know that, after becoming intrigued about that, I did a little research and found that if I had been a resident of the old Republic of South Africa, I was legally 'colored.'

I certainly have few qualifications to 'know' what it's like to be black, but I think I have a pretty good idea what dumbassed white folks are like.

In memory: Danny Flores

2006-09-24T20:15:00.000-04:00

If you've ever watched the first Pee Wee Herman movie or got drunk at a frat party, you already know Danny Flores without knowing his name . . . . .

TEQUILA!!!

Danny died last Tuesday. In his honor . . .

God bless, Danny

I'm getting into this Marxist-Lennonist stuff . . .

2006-09-24T12:20:00.000-04:00

Homo Escapeons has given me a new lease on life with his Marxist-Lennonist synthesis of the material dialectic!

As his newly appointed Kegcommissar, I shall travel in my armoured brewery to all parts of the front to enforce the iron discipline needed for the Party to meet its objective conditions for success and peace.
Namely, anyone not fulfilling their duty to the Party and the State will be compelled to crack another keg!

Za brewiya'!! Za HE!!!!

Oh, and Salma's booked through January.

My sleep cycle is really messed up . . .

2006-09-24T01:58:00.000-04:00

For the last three months I have not been able to sleep more than three hours straight. Tonight, I called it a night around 10:30 p.m. It's now 1:45 a.m. local and I'm sitting at the kitchen table wide awake doing this. This is actually a record length of time for me to sleep, and I'll probably be back under in an hour.

By the way, remember the possums of July? Two of the buggers showed back up Saturday evening, leading to the merriment of a marsupial hunt. Both were bagged safely and released a suitable distance from Case del FE.

I wish I could get a straight eight on the weekends. Just one night would be great.

Dance Party, 09-22-06, with a nasty, mean streak . . .

2006-09-22T19:22:00.000-04:00

Blame Raincoaster - she accused me of my pic looking like I was a member of A Flock of Seagulls. Yeah, I ran . . . . my a** >B^D>
Now for a taste of fluffed-hair, Izod-wearing hell:

Man, I gotta take a shower with Lava soap and kerosene after this

Far be it from me to remove a tag, or to refuse a good tagging . . .

2006-09-21T13:52:00.000-04:00

Gautami either showed extremely good manners or poor judgment by tagging me for something called a book meme. So those of you who may have questioned my literary tastes, here's a little ammunition for you:

One book that changed your life?
Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny – it brought together so many themes in life – loyalty, understanding, duty, conscience, personal choice, pettiness – and how those themes interact so often in a tragic manner. To call it a war novel is to ignore its depth. I consider it a blunt commentary on leadership and humanity.

One book you have read more than once?
Bernard Fall’s Hell in a Very Small Place – good history and another tragedy that goes beyond the military setting to examine human folly, frailty and failure.

One book you would want on a desert island?
The Boy Scout Fieldbook (not the handbook) – Everything you need to know about surviving in the wild anywhere, and it’s big enough to make a handy pillow or to kill a small edible animal with its sheer mass.

One book that made you cry?
Richard McKenna’s The Sand Pebbles

One book that made you laugh?
1066 and All That – if you’re a historian, you’ll appreciate it. If you’re a teacher, you’ll take its style as a cautionary tale

One book you wish had been written?
Richard McKenna’s next book – he died before he fully realized his talent for telling a good story.

One book you wish had never been written?
These days? The book that codifies any religion, because any of them is so often misinterpreted that it drives man to tears if not open warfare against anyone with a different book.

One book you are currently reading?
Unfortunately, InDesign CS2 for Dummies – I’m becoming less of a journalist and editor and more of a technician.

One book you have been meaning to read?
Since this afternoon, I've expanded this to four:
Stephen King’s On Writing
Daniel Schorr's Staying Tuned
Charles Shields' Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee
Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - I barely remember seeing the movie on television about 33 years ago, but I remembered it wasn't an overromanticized story. In fact, the ending shook me pretty badly at first.

Can't help myself

2006-09-20T20:28:00.000-04:00

What goes clop clop clop clop clop BANG clop clop clop clop . . . .?

An Amish drive-by shooting

Nothing like this to bring down the proud and mighty . . .

2006-09-20T18:03:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if I should be all that proud - a C in grammar.

Your English Skills:

Punctuation: 100%
Vocabulary: 100%
Grammar: 80%
Spelling: 80%

Does Your English Cut the Mustard?

Sunday evening exhibition

2006-09-17T17:27:00.000-04:00

Night sky, Russell County, Va.

Back street, Appalachia, Va.

Sunset in Abingdon, Virginia

The Barter Theater

I took this one at my first newspaper - I wish I had the negative instead of the scan I have.

Colors

FE's Dance Party, 09-15

2006-09-15T19:18:00.000-04:00

After shaking my self silly, getting back on a semi-even keel and finding myself once again into the breach that is Wytheville, please allow me to put up a few off-the-wall tunes for the evening . . .

Been looking for the original video of this - nothing like good pop music (as contradictory as that phrase sounds) along with some sense of humor about dadaism.

Pop quiz: Is Jools Holland playing Rene Magritte or Jean Arp?

Not sure which is funnier - Joel Veitch's mash with this tune and Red Army kittens, or Laibach's own Slovenian industrial deconstruction.

Patently nonsensical, self-indulgent and with a good beat, but I laughed long and hard when Beavis and Butthead added their commentary to this little ditty . . .

A phone call

2006-09-13T18:03:00.000-04:00

At 5:15 p.m. today, I got a phone call from the family of an 18-year old girl who died in a car collision Monday.
I'd written the story bare-bones from the state trooper's account, and jumped the story to an inside page with a black-and-white photo of the two cars - no blood or bodies; just the wreckage.
At the time, I told myself it was newsworthy and important to tell that someone died in a type of collision all too frequent in this area - driver runs off side of road, overcorrects and runs into obstacle/oncoming vehicle/off other side of road. One of my neighbors lost her daughter in a similar accident last month, and I hold this hope that someone might get the message from reading and seeing the danger.
For five minutes, two family members cursed me, accused me of upsetting the girl's mother, and promised that they would be there to take photos when my child gets in a car accident.
The cursing progressed. I said that I couldn't continue the conversation if that's how it was going to continue. I knew from how things were going that there wasn't a thing I could say that even would begin to address their concerns. They got more upset. Finally I told them that I couldn't argue with them and that I would have to hang up.
I still think I did the right thing in running the photo. I don't feel particularly satisfied or smug about it, and I didn't when I laid out the page.
I don't expect sympathy or agreement. If you have an opinion, feel free to say what you think.

Early Dance Party, 09-08-07

2006-09-08T07:45:00.000-04:00

I got on a little Siouxsie and the Banshees kick while surfing through the 'Tube this week, so . . . . .

Jeepers creepers . . . .

Hard to believe that 30 years ago she was hitting on Sid Vicious. No accounting for taste, I suppose . . .

Moody, self-indulgent bastidges . . .

You'd think this was inspired by Pompeii or something . . .

I'm taking an informal survey . . .

2006-09-07T22:51:00.000-04:00

since my so-called President is saying that we don't torture people and that his standing definition of torture is only something that causes major organ failure or imminent death.

1) Is my President . . .

A) a blithering idiot?

B) lacking complete touch with the world?

C) a total fuckwit?

D) thinking that membership in the SS is still open?

More than 30 years ago, I thought the world was balanced on its pointy head because our then-soon-to-be-ex-President lied to Congress, covered up a break-in and kept an enemies list with the intent of sending G. Gordon Liddy and others out to keep its members in line.

Now I have a President whose attorney general has a demeanor quite similar in banality and lack of moral fiber to that of Heinrich Himmler. I wonder if Alberto got himself through law school raising chickens, and if Karl Rove got special shoes to clear up that club foot?

Philosophy lesson

2006-09-06T20:49:00.000-04:00

Always be ready to be questioned, and be sure to consider your answer carefully.

Today, one of the better pieces of e-mail in my 'box' was a request from an advanced placement English student. No, it wasn't anything illegal or immoral, but it made me think.

Her e-mail:

"Dear (middle-aged gasbag),

I am taking AP English and Language this year, at ******* High School. My teacher, Ms. **********, has given us an assignment; she requested that we e-mail a local editor, with the following questions. It would be greatly appreciated if you would please read and answer the following questions for me. Please return them to me at *****************. Thanks again!

Charity M--------

What responsibility or responsibilities does the editor/reporter/writer have to his or her reading public?
What do you consider to be the three most important elements of a successful newspaper article? Please explain your three choices.
How do you determine which information is newsworthy enough for publication?
What are the main criteria used for determining which Letters to the Editor the paper publishes on a daily basis?
Do you often receive responses from your readers?"

I read her e-mail and it struck me that it had been a long time since I'd tried to articulate what my job and responsibilities are.

Here's my reply. Feel free to ridicule at your leisure.

"Charity,

Thanks for your e-mail, and I'd be delighted to answer.

A reporter and editor first and foremost must ensure that what is published - electronically or in print - is accurate, truthful and relevant to the community. News is not a sporting event to snipe at people, but neither is it a place where punches should be pulled when the public's interests are at stake. Ultimately, the responsibilities of an editor and reporter are to do their best to make sure that the community knows as much as possible - good and bad - that affects its quality of life and prosperity.

The elements which make up a good news story are theme, clarity and precision.
In news writing, you've got a limited space for your story. This forces you to make some hard choices: What's important in the story? How do I explain what happened? How do I word it?
Every story has to have a theme - either it's about something that draws the reader into the story, or it's just a list that forces the reader to dig or just lose interest.You have to do some editing just as a newspaper reporter in order to pick out the most important theme in a story.
Clarity and precision go hand in hand. If you can't explain the story in a way your readers can understand , then you've failed. You have to be able to describe and explain exactly what happened, quote or paraphrase accurately what was said, and turn that into a story that makes sense and pulls in your reader. Everything else flows from those elements.

Newsworthiness is a shifting sea that depends on what is important to the community. Even though community importance may change over the years, there are some fixed horizons to guide decisions on what's news.
- Is it fair, whether it puts someone in a good, bad or indifferent light?
- Is it for the public good, or is the public being hurt?
- Is something being hidden that may affect the public's well-being?
- Is justice being served, or is there an injustice?
- Is it something unusual or different that may interest the readership?
- Is there a lesson to be learned that will help the public?
- Has someone made a notable achievement?
- Does it help the community better understand itself?

Regarding letters to the editor: I have included below the letters policy that we use in the ------- ----- ------ and the ----- ------- ----.
"Letters: The ------- ----- ------ and The ----- ------- ---- encourage readers to submit letters and e-mails for publication. All letters and e-mails must be signed and include a daytime telephone number and complete address. Letters and e-mails should be no more than 350 words in length, and may be edited for grammar and length. The newspaper reserves the right to reject letters of a defamatory nature, and to publish letters verbatim as they are received. Get in touch with us at ****************; by mail at: ***********************; or via e-mail at **********************."
During election seasons, we will cut off political letters about two weeks before the election to avoid being used as a surprise mudslinging forum.
The only other guideline we use is to give preference to letters from our circulation area first when space is an issue. Otherwise, letters are run on a first-come basis. Long community thank-you letters are run in a periodic community thanks section as space allows.

We often receive responses from our readers on a variety of topics from presentation to stories to editorial opinions, and they range from bad to good. The important thing is, people care enough about what they are reading to respond. As an editor, I make an effort to contact those who respond to ensure they know that we appreciate their opinions whether we agree or not.

I hope these answers have helped.

Regards,

(middle-aged gasbag)"

I doubt I'll be invited to speak before her class, but maybe we both learned something today.

Vicus, I believe I've found Blair's inspiration for his choice of podium . . .

2006-09-06T17:26:00.000-04:00

One Mister Whippy of Chincoteague Island. This humanoid life-form, like Mr. Blair, has an initially pasty-faced yet charming impact that soon shifts to something frigid and - given the 97-percent fat free content of Whippy - lacking in substance despite its attempt to demonstrate good taste.

Not to mention the disturbing effect of two living things trading on the novelty of hiding behind cone-shaped exteriors.

I suppose that, with a little investigation, both could be found to a have a Cherie on top.

It doesn't bother me one way or the other . . .

2006-09-04T00:32:00.000-04:00

but if anyone stil has any trace of interest after my self-serving round of modeling posts from a couple of weeks ago, I decided to create a shadow blog on that theme here.

Not visiting it won't hurt my feelings a bit.

Almost forgot . . . FE's Dance Party, 09-02

2006-09-02T22:55:00.000-04:00

It's Labor Day Weekend here in the states, so why not a Dance Party with a vaguely disturbing socialist theme? That ought to make this short and bittersweet . . .

Nothing like ripping off Falco and copping that eastern European commie vibe to get on MTV

A little Internationale never hurt anybody . . . too much.

Gotta give dem crazy Soviets credit - they carry off the epic national anthem bit with some class. Besides, this was the best part of "Hunt for Red October" after Sean Connery's toupee'.

The times, they're a changin . . .

2006-09-02T10:30:00.000-04:00

Ziggi hit me with the news earlier this week: Airfix is damn near dead.

My Commonwealth friends will especially commiserate with me, but a lot of Americans in my general age group (30-60) are probably shaking their heads and wondering why as well.

As a youngster, I got hooked on modeling thanks to Airfix, Heller, Monogram, Revell, Aurora, Hasegawa, Tamiya, MPC, JoHan, LifeLike and a host of other companies that have merged, faded, or gone under.

Monogram once was a Mattel division, then it went independent, then it merged with Revell, and so on.

Airfix was a part of my life from the time my dad built me an Airfix Westland Whirlwind of the same type that was often seen rescuing stupid climbers from the Cornwall sea cliffs in the 1960's. From then, I was hooked.

I went through my store of model kits today and found a brief history of the company, from an old Catalina flying boat to a Folland Gnat and a Lockheed Hudson and a Sopwith Pup and a Spitfire Mk. V. I also remember my first BIG scale aircraft model - an MPC/Airfix P-51 in 1/24 scale.

As I developed my skills, Airfix forced me to learn some hard lessons as I made the jump from slapping kits together to turning them into something more like the photos of the real things. But they were still fun, and learning the black art of making them a little more accurate merely added to their value (except for that hateful little Mk IX Spirfire they kept trying to re-release and make appear as a new molding, but that's another story . . .)

And they had been putting out new models in recent years that brought back some warm, fuzzy memories, like the EE Lightning, the Buccaneer, and the TSR. 2 - all fire-breathing, hairy-chested jets that oozed brute force and Britain's unique outlook on aerodynamics.

I guess it's like anything else as you get older, but you still shake your head and ask 'why?' . . .

I'm going to go sit in a corner for a bit and cry.

A brief history of Airfix here

News on Airfix's receivership here and here

Thank you Raincoaster . . . Thunderbirds Are GO!!

2006-08-27T14:51:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Rain, I had a tres cool flashback to my youth.

Yeah, Jonny Quest was pretty cool (especially with his dad having worked on the Nuremberg tribunal and all that) but that was nothing compared to "Thunderbirds Are Go!"

And the live-action movie pretty much sucked air . . .

I need to be reacclimated to society

2006-08-26T22:13:00.000-04:00

Last night, I almost told a fellow band parent to - in a polite paraphrase - to bugger off in an autoerotic manner.

For the last six weeks I've effectively worked seven days a week because of changes in our publishing system. Despite finally being able to take my July 4 holiday day this past Wednesday, I've still pulled about 60 hours of work time not counting 10 hours of commute time.

Friday, I actually got home around 5 p.m. and expected to go watch my son's band play at a high school football game.

As I sat down in the bleachers with my wife and prepared to enjoy a couple of hotdogs with chili, mustard and onions, the 'la presidenta' of the band booster organization appears over my shoulder like a dark, ugly harbinger of doom and asks "Can you help in the concession stand?"

The only thing thrusting its hand between the hammer of my brain and the pistol of my mouth was my wife quickly interjecting; "Oh, I forgot to tell you I signed you up for that."

I did the band booster presidency gig last year, despite working a job 75 miles from home. Somehow I managed to ensure that wieners and chili were thawed in time and in sufficient quantity to feed hundreds of people; that candy was ready in amounts adequate to rot out the dental work of a town's future generations; that cold sodas were available by the hogshead, and that pizzas would arrive on time to satisfy those too uncomprehending to realize that pizza by the slice is not the best delicacy to obtain at a football field concession stand.

And somehow I managed to cajole sufficient parentage to join me in these twice-monthly logistical operations and sometimes return for a second and third turn on the line.

Now for this past Friday: We couldn't have held off a Daughters of the American Revolution tea party. Soda coolers were half filled at best. There were enough wieners cooking to hold off maybe 15 minutes' worth of customers, and the reserve supply was barely enough to fend off a second wave.

And I was so well dressed for the evening's festivities: my dress shirt and t-shirt from work and jeans. Thanks to a parent who lacked even the sense of hope to run screaming, we made 200 hot dogs in 30 minutes, distributed 25 pizzas at 12 slices per, sold off about 300 sodas, and got just enough reinforcements to drive off a Red Chinese regimental assault . . . wait, that was the nightmare I had later that night.

And I'm pretty sure I sweated off 4 pounds.

My wife saved my two hot dogs - they got fed to the dog when I got home. I'm not showing up for another home game this year.

Would you like chili and onions with that?

FE's Dance Party, 8-25

2006-08-25T22:41:00.000-04:00

Since arrogance seems to be back in style . . . . it's eclectic night (translation: screw any pretense of a theme)

Oingo Boingo

A little Steely Dan, with David Palmer on lead vocals. Wonder why he didn't survive the lineup . . . .

Never cared for the video, but what a wonderfully apt way to describe my summer

The video's the equivalent of a band wearing its own t-shirts on stage, but the tune's catchy enough . . .

And if we're gonna listen to pop, why not Nick Lowe?

And let's round out the night with a long-haired, overfed leaping gnome . . .

Speaking of hot air . . .

2006-08-24T10:34:00.000-04:00

I have to apologize to everyone for my spottiness the last few weeks. Work has spiraled into a sea state 10 situation and just finally smoothed out this week – thus the uneven state of my blog presence and visits.

Of course, the first thought after I wrote the above paragraph was, “you arrogant ass.”

Actually, I should care more about what you all write and post than what I do. This blog for the last few weeks has turned more into an ‘I love me’ wall than any sort of attempt to maintain mutual conversations with my friends and acquaintances – all of whom are far more interesting than me.

So, if I tend toward the arrogant and self serving here, please feel free to hit the emergency deflation button.

Laura E asked, so . . . .

2006-08-19T14:00:00.000-04:00

Spitfire link

Mosquito link

Winter link

FE's Dance Party, 08-18

2006-08-18T19:59:00.000-04:00

I just found out I get to spend my Friday evening in beautiful downtown Wytheville, Va., so here's a late Dance Party.

I have to admit a small place in my black, evil editor's heart for vintage techno, so let's kick off this week's collection with a couple of oldies . . .

Kraftwerk, in deference to Wanda Harland

and Gary Numan

Now for tonight's main course: big horn bands of the 60's and 70's

Ignore the retro space video and enjoy The Ides of March

Chicago, without so much horn in it . . .

And proof that even the later Chicago lineups couldn't screw up a decent tune

Blood Sweat and Tears - I still groove on it

P Funk

And for dessert . . . . British girl singers!

It makes me feel very, very, very old to know this was big when I was 3. Even older when I remember liking hearing it.

Why more cowbell? How about more Petula?

And some Dusty - jeez this makes me feel older and older since I was 5 then

And to compound the feeling of shambling toward old age . . . Lulu.

One of my less admirable peccadilloes (extra pic)

2006-08-17T22:20:00.000-04:00

I'm an inveterate model builder and modelmaker. I can't help it. I was infected at the tender age of 8 and it's been a parasite worse than tapeworm (not that I've ever had tapeworm, mind you).

I prefer my social commentary bitter and frustrated . . .

2006-08-17T19:14:00.000-04:00

so here's a little Lewis Black while I tweak a football special section and decide what Dance Party is going to look like tomorrow.

One last rivulet of coherent thought for the night

2006-08-16T23:12:00.000-04:00

What's used to launch Bugs Bunny's nemesis into space?

Why, an Elmer gantry of course

Mildly disturbing things to hear on television . . .

2006-08-16T23:06:00.000-04:00

Heard while my son was watching "Mythbusters":

"There was nothing to direct the salami's thrust."

Pick me, ooh pick me!!!

2006-08-16T20:55:00.000-04:00

Vicus might appreciate this one, or he might refer me back to his rather coherent post on physics.

At any rate, we seem to be on the verge on a revision on the size and membership of our current solar system.

I also heard mention of this last night on one of the various and intellectually stimulating local news programs (watch the dripping sarcasm, please - it's both corrosive and stains synthetics). The talking head mentioned that a scientific committee was considering whether to add the three celestial objects onto the solar system's rolls.

If it's an American committee, the process could very well end up like that of a country club. In that case, if these new objects are black, Jewish or Hispanic, they'll probably be rejected unless they have Hollywood connections.

And for the less sophisticated visitors to this blog (not a commentary on my guests and friends thus far), that was a shot at American white males, not ethnic or religious groups.

You pays yer money, you takes yer chances.

and now, since YouTube doesn't seem to have any clips from "That Was the Week That Was," you'll just have to settle for this homemade clip with Tom Lehrer's take on Gilbert and Sullivan. No, not Gilbert O'Sullivan . . . .

A great synthesis of my hobby, Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris

2006-08-13T18:43:00.000-04:00

Can't beat a good airplane song, so . . . . .

And so you can sing along . .

Red Staggerwing (feat. Emmylou Harris)
If i was staggerwing plane
A staggerwingpainted red
I'd fly over to your house, baby
Buzz you in your bed
If i was a taperwing
A taperwing painted blue
I'd be barrell-rolling over you
You're gonna need a rider anyhow
Let me be your rider now
If i was a maserati
A red 300s
I'd ride around to your house, baby
Give you a driving test
If i was a mustang racer
White with a stripe of blue
You could ride me,baby
Whenever you wanted to
You're gonna need a rider anyhow
Let me be your rider now
If i was a fender guitar
A fender painted red
You could play me, darlin'
Until your fingers bled
If i was one of them gibsons
Like a '58 or '9
You could plug me in
And play me anytime
You're gonna need a rider anyhow
Let me be your rider now
If i was a motorcycle
A vincent red rapide
I'd ride around to your house, baby
Get you up to speed
If i was short track racer
I'd be an indian
You could ride me around
And ride me round again
You're gonna need a rider anyhow
Let me be your rider now
You're gonna need a rider anyhow
Let me be your rider now

When memories come back, they come back thick and fast.

2006-08-12T21:10:00.000-04:00

I'm not being facetious here. First, apologies to Anna and anyone else who might think this post is a sign or warmongering. It's not. It's just what I grew up with.
In everyone's childhood there's some neighborhood landmark they remember. It could be a park, a bakery, a school, something that was part of your daily life.
As a preteenager and teen, my neighborhood included Naval Air Station Norfolk, and one of the landmarks on the weekly or daily drive to the Navy Exchange or base commissary was the hangar for Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 774.
I covered an air show today and, as it turns out, HMM-774 was among the displays. More specifically, two of 774's CH-46E Sea Knights or, as they were somewhat affectionately known, 'Battle Frogs.'

Many of you in my general age range - 40 to 50 - may remember seeing these on TV quite a bit in the 1960's and 1970's. They've been the standard battle taxi for Marines since Vietnam and for both Iraq wars.

The two 'Frogs in this photo are only seven years younger than me. One still bears some sheet metal work from Vietnam. At least one of them was in the dark gloss green finish I recall seeing 'Frogs in in the 1970's. One just got out of rework after a year in Iraq. There was a strong possibility that I'd seen one of them while growing up.
The command pilot told me that they had just retired one of the 'Frogs to be sent to a museum. That particular ship was the U.S. ambassador's last ride out of Saigon in 1975.
At the other end of the airport, Francis Gary Powers, Jr. was talking with folks along with three of his father's sisters and his brother. Before either of us was born, my mother was typing up the final letters that Oliver Powers sent to Nikita Khrushchev asking that his son be released from a Soviet prison.

A lot of stuff has happened in 46 years. Powers Jr. said to me that most people under 40 just give him blank looks when he asks if they ever heard of his father or of the U-2.

Make of all of this whatever you will.

FE's Dance Party 08-11-06: Funk and Big Strawberry Blond Dutch Girls with Horns

2006-08-11T06:04:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's been that kind of week folks, so the afore-mentioned theme actually evolved quite naturally. Not to mention that 'Big Strawberry Blond Dutch Girls wirh Horns' could very well draw more hits than Vicus' reference to 'stilleto heels,' which is actually a rather frightening thought.

It was 1984, and my grad school colleagues couldn't keep from laughing ourselves silly at "Purple Rain" (the semi-thinking man's 'Rocky Horror Picture Show') On one night of drunken rage, a buddy decided he was quite capable of singing 'Jungle Love.' I decided at the same instant that I was capable of being his tubby white manservant Jerome, which thankfully only involved my removing someone's door mirror and a ridiculous moment of fully-clothed, non-erotic dancing and no toast or umbrellas or newspapers or water pistols.

A reminder why I quickly picked up on Parliament Funkadelic in high school:

Hey Ziggi, they're playing our song!

OOH! YEAH! UNNH!A little Ohio Players for da house!:

And lest you thought I was copping out on tonight's theme . . .

And . . . it shows how old I'm feeling that Candy looks more lifelike on stage than does Sheila E . . . .

Somehow I just never pictured the phrases 'North Sea' and 'jazz festival' together in the same string, but what the hey?

And to round out tonight's set:

Strange yet haunting love songs . . .

2006-08-09T23:35:00.000-04:00

This one goes out to everyone who thinks Thomas Dolby could only sing "She blinded me with sciiience . . . ."

Fatigue is getting me this week. Thank god for Minute Maid Lemonade and Gilbey's. All I need now is a seat at the Chestnut Tree Cafe . . . .

Ain't fatigue-induced paranoia wonderful?

2006-08-07T19:31:00.000-04:00

Taking a break from my wonderful, life-affirming profession (watch it, sarcasm is messy so don't get any on you), I'm reminded of a drink recipe from the esteemed Rip Taylor (see grotesque image above):

Vodka
Gelatin
Tomato juice

It's called a blood clot.

BadadaDUM!

It's the heat AND the humiduty . . . .

2006-08-06T16:38:00.000-04:00

First I post a picture of Albania's last worthless Stalinist leader Enver Hoxha because saying his name is almost as funny as saying 'Frau . . . . BLUCHER!'
And this afternoon I look down to see what looks like a focused beam of sunlight on my pants. Focused as in "let's try and catch thi son fire with this magnifying glass."
I wave my hands between my pants and the window, to no avail. Then it hits me. The cell phone in my pocket happens to have a built-in flashlight.
I wish it was a phaser. It might have come in handy earlier in the week.

Since this week's "Dance Party" went over like a lead balloon, here's something a little lighter and off-the-wall:

Beats Prince's version 30 ways to hell and five back.

And now for a posthumous appearance by that wacky Stalinist . . .

2006-08-05T22:18:00.001-04:00

let's give it up for . . . . . . Albania's ENVER HOXHA!!!!!

And why a dead Stalinist? Ask Raincoaster . . .

Frontier Editor's Dance Party - August 4, 2006

2006-08-04T18:41:00.000-04:00

Richard's words are best deferred to tonight:

"The reason Rory Gallagher is by turns spoken of in terms of hushed reverence or sadly not even known of is because he never glorified drugs; never caused a drive-by shooting; never spawned a clothing fashion any more offensive than a plaid shirt and plimsols; never attacked anyone at an airport and I only once ever heard him swear (and even that was debatable). He gave out nothing more or less than pure enjoyment. You didn't go to a Rory show to make a political statement or to navel gaze; you went to tap your feet and clap your hands. And anyone who thinks he was Liam and Noel's dad deserves a contemptuous slap."

Without further ado, Rory Gallagher.

And to round off tonight's show, a smattering of British pop from across the decades:

Next week: Something odd, I'm sure.

Hey, it's Ed. Any messages?

2006-08-03T22:47:00.000-04:00

That was the punchline to one of my favorite prank calls.

Apologies to my legion of fans, detractors and morbidly curious for my extended absence, but let's just say work called . . . at 7:30 p.m. at the motel, and again at 10:30 p.m., and an e-mail at 2:30 a.m. . . . .

Anyway, there's so much to tell, so much to say . . . hmmm, I'm having a vintage Dave Matthews lyric moment.

So, let's indulge in a little rambling.

One of the good things about driving in the mountains of Southwest Virginia is being able to watch the sun rise and set and rise and set again in the morning. On the way to my pseudo-mercenary editor gig this week I got to watch seven sunrises and six sunsets.

And then there was the layover in the motel. Said motel is undergoing a substantial facelift including an enlarged parking lot and construction of a new wing. Apparently, the site preparation around the building has induced a slight warpage of the building. All the room doors seemed to have a slight gap between frame and door.

And, while enjoying having my sleep interrupted by a crazed pressman Tuesday evening, I finally wandered the hall to the soda machine, ice dispenser and travel brochure center, which induced me to write this particular piece of prose:

Things to do in Wytheville when you're dead

I'm spending my third consecutive Tuesday night in a motel in Wytheville, Va. as I continue my saga of work-related . . . . well, work.
While playing the role of business traveler, I feel a certain responsibility to offer a few tips beyond Vicus' own rules for survival in Missouri.

In-room coffee makers: Don't use them, or at least not for coffee. Interesting fact that I learned from a colleague who did a story on methamphetamine abuse: you can use over-the-counter cold medications and a few household chemicals to cook your own meth in a handy motel room coffee maker.

The National Firearms Museum: Thanks to the convenient travel brochure rack on the third floor of this motel, I found that I can take a leisurely six-hour drive after work to the afore-mentioned museum in Fairfax, Va. From the museum's handsome four-color brochure:
"See historical treasures such as a firearm brought to America on the Mayflower, the firearms of the Buffalo Soldiers and the Wild West, and the firearms that went up San Juan Hill! Inspect the firearms owned by notables such as Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, sharpshooter Annie Oakley, General Douglas MacArthur, mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner, and presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan."

According to the television commercial just on, joining the Army Reserve is not the same as joining the Army, despite the father's skepticism and the son's eventual admission that enlisting means getting Army training even though it's the Army Reserves.

William Shatner's getting roasted on the Comedy Channel soon.

Did I mention don't use the coffee maker?

Bck to Thursday. While driving to pick up my son from golf team practice, I saw something rather unusual and delightful on the trip down the valley: two mountain goats enjoying a roadside salad. I cursed myself roundly for not having a camera on hand.

Anyway, tomorrow night will be episode two of Frontier Editor's Dance Party inspired by Richard with liner notes from one of his recent posts. Enjoy.

A cautionary tale of drunken revelry . . .

2006-07-30T21:03:00.000-04:00

I told Laura E I'd publicly humiliate myself with this little trip in the wayback machine in return for her own drunken confessional.

One fine spring evening while I was in grad school in Richmond, Va., some of my friends noticed the general finals-induced malaise about my person and invited me to go drinking.

To set the scene, the bar was Max's and scenically wedged between the life-threatening Oregon Hills neighborhood and a downhill view of the old Virginia State Penitentiary (also know as Castle Dracula on the James). We often went there because it was a rather fast-paced execution scene in Virginia in the mid-1980's and it was a great view of the pro-death and anti-capital punishment demonstrations associated with those days.

On this particular occasion, my general attitude led me to start with a vodka gimlet and a plate of battered, fried mushrooms. After three gimlets and the mushrooms, I felt that the ice and lime twists were getting in the way of perfectly good Absolut, so I started ordering shots.

My memory of the ensuing 45 minutes is still fuzzy 22 years later, but I do remember a table full of shot glasses and the irresistible urge to question the manhood of several frat boys at a nearby table.

My next memory is that of flying through the hall of my dorm while hearing voices above me.
At about noon the next day I regained consciousness. The hangover was actually relatively tolerable since it was vodka-based and not whisky induced.
After showering and returning to he room to pass out, one of my drinking buddies came back by to fill in the blanks.
After standing up to offer some observations of the fraternity gang's ability to coexist in a manly world, I passed out, fell across the table and let the mushrooms air out, so to speak.
We had ridden to the bar in a pickup truck, and the driver apparently threatened to drive it through a car wash with me sprawled in the back like a sack of potatoes, although the rest of the group prevailed on his humanity.
The flying sensation came from being carried, face down and by each extremity, by my compatriots.
As I heard my tale of woe, I noticed that my glasses were missing. I asked if we could go back to the bar to get them.
"That's not a good idea," he said. "You're banned from Max's."
He did go get my glasses, returning with a colorful and hilarious account of the bartender's reiterated stance on my return to Max's.
Later that night, I consumed two greasy, wonderful cheeseburgers with onions and mustard and two vanilla cokes.
The State Pen was demolished a decade later. Max's was razed to accommodate urban renewal. And I sit here, gray-haired and alive to tell the tale.
The moral? Don't mix Absolut and mushrooms.

And to cap this evening's story, enjoy a little Frank Zappa. Somehow he fits the situation.

Frontier Editor's Dance Party, July 28

2006-07-27T23:21:00.000-04:00

Yes, for the most disjointed (I wouldn't insult anyone by calling it eclectic) musical taste every weekend, it's Frontier Editor's Dance Party!

Enjoyed the pokes at it in "Sean of the Dead"

What's a little 80's between friends?

At least it isn't his git sons

Sorry, but Astrud Gilberto is a weakness of mine . . .

A little Dave Edmunds . . .

We're headed to hell in a Volkswagen bus, as my grad school roommate always used to say . . .

You can tell me maybe . . .

Sorry, but on a bad day, Carl Perkins does it better than Elvis did.

Always had a crush on Kate Bush.

Who says we can't have romance in a post-Bush apocalyptic world?

2006-07-27T22:35:00.000-04:00

And when you thought I was a calm, rational adult . . .

2006-07-27T22:13:00.000-04:00

A good old-fashioned American love song

2006-07-27T21:09:00.000-04:00

Level 42

2006-07-27T20:59:00.000-04:00

Once you get past the 80's clothing, some decent 80's pop

And the coolest TV show theme ever . . . period

2006-07-27T20:54:00.000-04:00

One of the coolest TV show themes ever

2006-07-27T20:50:00.000-04:00

And a little Squeeze . . .

2006-07-27T20:42:00.000-04:00

And a final dash of the Davies brothers.

2006-07-27T20:28:00.000-04:00

And it's pronounced 'Davis'

More Kinkiness

2006-07-27T20:26:00.000-04:00

Working out the Kinks

2006-07-27T20:22:00.001-04:00

Yeah, the Beatles were great, but how many time have you caught yourself singing along when this pops up on some oldies station?

Eine kleine nachtmusik

2006-07-27T20:17:00.000-04:00

I think Mark had the right idea, and I'm going to shamelessly copy it for a few hours:

Don't have to comment if you don't want to, but just enjoy.

Thank you Cherry for inspiring this bit of nostalgia . . .

2006-07-27T18:46:00.000-04:00

Only moments after hitting the publish key on my previous hateful whining, I remembered Cherrypie's observation on childhood toys and other things and remembered with a big crap-eating grin a couple of my adventures with toys.

For my American brethren, when my family was stationed in England, boys my age played with Action Man. Action Man was merely the English market name for Hasbro's G.I. Joe, with some suitable Commonwealth accessories added to the American G.I accessories.

I had a British Red Devils demonstration paratrooper Action Man with working parachute, but what fun is a working parachute after a few lob tosses in the air. It was far more fun to have the Red Devils paratrooper with working malfunctioning parachute with no reserve.

And there was the Action Man deep sea diver with working pressure hose. As long as one blew into the hose's mouthpiece, Action Man stayed on the bottom of the tub. But abruptly stopping the pressure meant a new toy: Action Man deep sea diver with working bends face pressed against the diving helmet's faceplate.

And then there was Action Man Mercury astronaut and space capsule with damaged heat shield on re-entry, but that's for another day . . . . .