Bullpen Catcher

Beware the ides of July, the day before you leave for Chicago and the day where every minute will be twice as long as they were yesterday. And the day after... before the airport, every minute thrice as long as even today. Logarhythmic expansion.

And at work there's too much to be done. Self-imposed deadlines the I am trying to shirk. Trying to just cruise into it all, to not have an all-nighter like I seem to always have when getting ready to depart for a few days.

The upcoming New Yorker cover and its consequent fallout is a shame. I would totally expect the reaction that the Obama campaign is having from a conservative candidate in his shoes. After all, they have done all that they can to discredit the "liberal media" (i.e. media not controlled by conservative owners and organizations) over the last decade or so, so much so that people are not sure what is real information and what is purely myth, as attested to by the purely-myth, conservative mass email that was forwarded to me today about all of the ways the Democratic party has screwed the American people over Social Security over the last few years.

Hollywood's Hero Deficit -- The American, A Magazine of Ideas

The article's basic gist is that "true" heroes have disappeared from American cinema in the last few decades, or when they do exist, they are relegated to "a world far, far way":e.g. Star Wars, Superman etc. It downplays what it calls "victim heroes," which it says characterizes all of the heroes from films in recent years: e.g. Erin Brockovich, Michael Clayton... The author states that Hollywood fails to give us such "true" heroes, even though audience obviously want such heroes, although the author fails to provide a source for this matter of fact.

If you cannnot tell from tone here, I think this is a load of horseshit. So, tipped by the add for a Newt Gingrich book on the same page as the article, and remembering my college conservative news rag's (The Duke Review) proclivity for printing photos of John Wayne, I decided to do a little research.

What is poetry? And does it pay?
This story in Harper's may call into question all of the most recent statements I made about poetry and its importance. The writer goes to an annual meeting of the "Famous Poets Society." One which happens at the Gold Nugget in Reno, of all places. Top prize: $25,000. I laughed out loud several times while marveling at the author's ability not to completely come unglued at certain of the goings on.

I'm having the after lunch cigarette and reading my book about the 60s around-the-world sailing race, when he walked up, looking like he had taken a hammer rather than a toothbrush to his teeth.

"What's that book about?"

I show him the cover, A Voyage for Madmen.

"Ah... vo...age...for...madame... What's it about?"

"About these Europeans who raced each other in a solo non-stop sailing race around the world in the 1960s."

"Sailing?"

"Yeah, with boats that have sails on them?"

"Oh yeah, that reminds me of... what's his name?... You know who I am talking about... What's his name?"

"I don't know."

"You know!... What's his name?.... It's uh... It's uh... Oh, that's right... Columbus!"

"Well he was an explorer and sailor. Not really in a race around the world. But I see what you are saying."

"Yeah, Columbus. Just like him. Have you ever raced an ostrich?"

"An ostrich? No."

"What about an elephant?"

"No not an elephant either."

"A horse?"

"I've ridden horses before, but not in a race."

"I've raced all three."

"Really!?!?!?"

Yesterday I heard a co-worker that sits near me, who I don't really know, was speaking frankly with someone on the phone. From the best I can tell the person on the other end asked one of those simple questions like, "So, how are things going?" I guess we most of the time fall into the pleasantries of saying, "Things are going fine," but that's not where Peter went:

Well, Katie and I are getting a divorce, and my brother calls everyday and he's losing his mind. Says he needs to check into a psychiatric ward. Wants to know what I think, but won't tell me what all is going on.

Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens
I don't know how I missed this story, but it's good one. Just reminds me that I am not the only one who acts like a child some times... but these guys aren't drunk, or at least they are not supposed to be.

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
Interesting essay by a Yale English professor that has been known to not mince words when giving his opinions. I didn't go to any of the Ivys that he mentions in the article, but Duke is close enough. I agree with much of what he says about the state of the academy, even back when I was in school. I especially find his idea that elite schools are virtually becoming glorified vocational schools now. I don't agree with the part that elite education making a person an elitist:

The story that broke over the weekend about Bush/Cheney escalating covert activities in Iran, possibly indicating a build-up to armed confrontation with the country is not surprising, is it? Especially interesting is this quote from the article:

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.

Haven't we heard it all before? The President's logic seems to be, "I understand that we spend big bucks on all of these intelligence operations, recruiting and training smart people to carry them out, but in the the end, Dick and myself and our buddies are a lot smarter than all of them." It's infuriating to see the U.S. embroiled in the war in Iraq, having gotten there on false pretenses put forth by the administration, and then to see the same thing happening again now. Now, just as with the Iraq invasion, you can't help from feeling that ulterior motives are involved.

In this case, it's hard to believe that the November election is not fully part of these new activities. So far the polls are pointing to a decent Obama popular and electoral lead. The rhetoric coming from both sides of the race is the same that we have always heard. The republicans will try to paint Obama as too inexperienced to handle military matters, McCain's veteran status and tenure as a politician will be cast as the obvious antidote.

I have a VHS tape of me winning the silver medal in a wrestling tournament in high school before the nerves got to me and stopped that sport, I never could do anything like this though.

Outside the morning birds are singing:

Doo ree doo, doo ree doo, ree doo, ree doo, doo, doo, ree, ree, ree.

Not trailing off in a doppler way, but in a song of their own. I should not be up this late. Should be asleep. Faced too much art market, divorce market, break-up market, make-up market. Too old to spend this time in bars. In bars, as most of us, looking for connection, love, acceptance, novelty.

I start with birds. I end with me. Women can do anything that the boys can do. Insulate me from this world. Show me your paintings. Let's love one another in a melting igloo, or at least, let's love each other.

My therapist has not called me back. It's not that I need it. It's like a friend said, "you go to it because you like it more than you need it." I agreed at the time, but I cannot underestimate the benefit of a weekly unloading of all of the "snakes in my head." There's always a peaceful serene feeling when leaving, even when I am leaving in tears.

He hasn't called though, and I am worried. I guess you may thing that's selfish. He was diagnosed with lung cancer a couple of years back. Has been receiving aggressive therapy, and generally seems to be doing okay. I guess it wouldn't be right for him to let on otherwise. I just don't know.

I went so far today as to search the obituaries on the newspaper web site to see if there was any news there. I was glad to find none. Even given my problematic relationship with God, I have spent time praying for him on my nightly rituals recently.

Today I daydreamed as I was driving home, dog-tired, what I would feel like if I found out he was no longer with us (can't even say the words). I started to weep in the car. Like I had lost a friend. I pay to go see this person once a week and he knows more about what goes on in my head that anyone else in the world (including myself), I know nothing of him except I think he has grand kids, and a daughter, possibly a wife, and this growth in his lungs of which I am not sure the state. Yet, I am crying like my best friend is gone.

Leroy came by today. He fixed the flat on his bike so he's back rolling rather than walking, although he still hasn't started to put on weight. I gave him a handful of change because he said he was hungry. He's always hungry. I guess that's the nature of living like he does.

We also finally interviewed the woman from Houston today, and when Kristie wrote, "Do we love her?," I responded, " I believe we do." That might mean some relief at the job if it all works out. I just don't know how long it takes to get someone to Atlanta from Houston. How long does it take to pick up your life? She's younger, less encumbered.

And the wart that's been gone from my left upper arm for several years now is coming back. WIth the workplace stress, and some of the issues going on in friends' lives, it very well may be a worry wart. I am chock full of the old "imposter syndrome" lately. Feeling that I haven't paid my dues, nor do I have the skills and training, to be where I am. It just feels like I work hard and a lot, but I don't feel like I accomplish much. I am not sure how to measure success as a manager. I talk a lot to people. Make long-term plans. I seem to stay bogged down in the day-to-day grind. The list gets longer. Never shorter. Maybe if we can get the Houston girl, since I hunted her down, that will be some small victory and will put things into place for better progress.

The screaming you hear is coming from me, down here, on the first floor of the news room. The terrorist stands on the mezzanine level and she, yes SHE, begins to speak. The voice bounces off of the ceiling and even a whisper can be heard as in the Capitol Rotunda. The threat comes and sounds like this:

I went to a baseball game yesterday, and I did not watch one play of the game, I cannot tell you who won, or who was really playing, but it was really fun. It was just like a big party.

Please! Let the terror stop! Workplace waterboarding, 8-hour-a-day Mexican pop music, or every-minute spoonfuls of wasabi would be more welcome.

Getting into the shower tonight I had a flash of junior high. The humidity and temperature the last few days has been mild. Today's temperature was too, but the moisture built up throughout the day and made it so that the temperature clung to you, inside and out. Impossible to not immediately sweat while outside, shivering inside in the conditioned air. Getting into the shower with a chill and feeling the contrast of the hot water and cold skin took me back to when I was a child, showering at night in preparation for school the next day. I could smell the hallways, feel the fear of girls, the rubbery smell of the wrestling mat, the taste of trough water during football practice. It's an emotion that is discomforting and nostalgic at the same time.

Sometimes I forget what those days were like. I think my life to be so complicated now in comparison. During the flashback, I was reminded of the complex internal and external negotiations that made up everyday school life. The fear of girls mixed with the hormonal longing for them. The lack of any experience to that point that would allow me to navigate through those rough waters. The chuckle that Coach Webb got when I called my lower body garment "breeches." Now I realize that the joke was largely on him. He was a gym teacher after all. I wonder what became of him. Probably 30 years old at the time. Younger than I am now by 4 years. If that was 1988, he would be 50 or so now. Does he still torment his players? Does he have players? Did he know that I skateboarded 10 hours a week despite his prohibition of such things? We were never state champions. Never even close. Beat Lowes Grove once on a day when I got to play defense as well.

Did he and Ferko realize that I would still laugh at the embarrassment they inflicted upon me while reenacting me getting plowed over on kick return during the previous weeks game? An even that was played out three times: once on the field when it happened, once when we had to watch the video of the game (yes, we had video of junior high football games), and the third time when the coached did their little act, full with description of the large grass stain left on my ass from the contact and subsequent contact with the field. I tell the story to get a laugh, but that it stuck with me for so long is not purely because of its humor potential. It's not even that funny of a story. It's how you tell it.

I had to work today. The normal Sunday guy couldn't be there so I was covering the desk today. In on the bike by 9 a.m., leaving around 5 p.m.. Bicycling in after taking last week off from the bike commute even though the weather was much more welcoming to such a thing. Lungs still straining on the hills and the constant replay of, "I must quit smoking! I must quit smoking!," only to arrive at the office and realize I did not have any cigarettes, all of them having been consumed last nigh - birthday party, beers, pizza, back home, conversation, cigarettes and cigarettes and cigarettes. I had to launch a search for nicotine in downtown on a Sunday morning. Amazing how addiction works. How easily your mind can change with absolutely no conscious effort.

The excursion took me by Sean, who I just met today. Fresh out of 7 months lock up at Fulton County Jail where, apparently, he awaited trial, failing to make bail, until the identity theft charges were finally dropped. That was his story. It all started with him helping to fix a guys car. There was a check that bounced, and then the trouble came. That was about as much as he wanted to tell. He had come back to God in jail as many inmates do, or so we are told. He had been praying a lot lately, explaining that 7 months is just long enough for you to lose all of the life you had before you went in.

He told me that $33 could change his life. It would get him a state ID card that would allow him to get out of the bad shelter and into the Salvation Army shelter where they would help him get a job, and would let him work in the thrift store until he found solid employment. The usual Korean market was closed, but he took me to another store that he walked past earlier that he knew was open. He waited outside. I bought the Winstons with a twenty dollar bill and gave him the $15 change. I tried to shake his hand, which he grabbed and used to hug me. He told me that he had prayed about this and talked to a preacher friend. The friend had told him to go today somewhere where there was people and that the Lord would provide. He told me no one had stopped until me, that I was the answer to his prayers. The weight of that I would rather not think too much about.

It's hard for me to imagine that $33 could change someones life, much less $15, but it seemed like he thought it meant that his whole life would be different in just a matter of days. He told me I would not see him on that corner again. I told him I better not. I try not to think too much of what the real story might be. I would prefer to believe his story, to believe that the hug was sincere, to believe that God was watching over him. I am trying to live outside the cynicism that has characterized much of my adult life these days, to live in the world as I would like for it to be, even if the evidence and accumulated facts seem to point to something different.

Ultimately it makes things different, less stressful, and less complicated. Talking to girls is easier now, and I don't have to deal with junior high school football coaches any longer. I do what I want and feel mostly good about it. The nostalgic simplicity that I imbue my memories of childhood with seem false. On the bike ride home I did not regard those children leaving the basketball game with the jealousy that I normally do. I wouldn't want to go do it all again. I am fine where I am.

The days are getting shorter, and as this one came to an end, there was the threat of thunderstorm that ultimately never came.

1) Grateful Dead - some of the songs are classics. If you think I am a fool, you are not listening. You are more afraid of being considered a "deadhead," being part of that culture, than just plain disliking the music. Most people who claim not to like the music cannot name a single song even though they know 20, much less say why they don't like it. We're too old for this. Get over it.

2) Dirty Dancing - I was forced to watch it as a teenager by my, now dead, chorus teacher on days that she did not feel like teaching. Saw it again over the weekend and it's a good movie. The main characters all show substantial growth. They are all sympathetic. And it's a coming-of-age story: Jennifer Gray's character has to deal with growing up and dealing with a world that she know nothing about. I prefer my coming of age stories to be about boys, as it is easier for me to identify with, but thankfully this one is not a male coming-of-age story.

She said she liked patriotic marches, so he bought a sousaphone. They marched around the backyard, sometimes naked, she the drum major, he carrying on the bass line for a melody to be imagined. It could irritate the neighbors. He liked to drink while they played these games. She put up with it as long as the marches could continue.

It was then that she decided that bluegrass was the new sensation. He grew a beard, wore overalls, bought a mandolin that would keep the neighbors up all night.

Next it was jazz and the laborious move of a grand piano and the purchase of a used baritone saxophone. During this phase they entertained more. The neighbors, once their enemies, became newfound friends.

Soon they started going to galleries and museums and she read artist biographies: Van Gogh, Gaudin, Picasso, Raushenberg, Warhol. They filled what was supposed to be the nursery, or so they thought when they bought the place, with canvasses. She took to drinking. Posing nude for him to paint her. Hours-long sessions would end with sex on the drop cloth. They talked of buying land, starting a commune. They didn't see much of the neighbors during this period. When they did choose the be around others, it was always with the new friends in the city.

My landlord's got a new girlfriend and I can tell she's trouble. I saw them walking down the road tonight to get a slice of pizza. She was in these black skin-tight shorts and he was in that same old baseball hat that hugs the skull like balding dudes like me and him like to wear these days. She kept on having to pull the little black shorts out of her crack as they walked ahead of me. I just paid the rent yesterday, so now he acts like he doesn't know me.

My experience with the landlord is that he has a bluebird made of plaster on the back wall of his front porch. He also has a kitchen sink, and easy chair, and a large roll of copper tubing on the same porch. Once a month I go to his house across the street, usually in the cover of darkness, and leave the largest check I write every month in his mailbox, in the process committing a federal crime.

His experience with me is that I leave that check and he let's me live in this house that he got for a steal, and that he occasionally fixes a leaky faucet.

Under my landlord lives a British guy named George of whom I know little. He loves Princess Diana and hate Charles and Camilla. He takes my recycling out to the curb, usually three days before the city picks it up.

George works for the landlord and, according to the neighborhood homeless guy, handed in his two-week's notice a few days ago and is moving on to greener pastures. What I know of George, he was likely semi-homeless once as well, and he is recovering from colon cancer.

After being beaten decisively in N.C. and not winning by the desired or expected margin in Indiana yesterday, Hillary Clinton today vows to fight on, stating in so many words that "she must continue to stand up for what she believes in."

Is it me or has what either of the candidates "believes in" become more and more difficult to discern as this campaign has gone on?

We know that both candidates are solidly "democratic" in most of their stances, but, as far as I can see, there's little that separates either of them on most of the issues. They have similar approaches to many issues (e.g. health care), and both have yet to propose any substantive plans for other issues (e.g. the economy).

As the campaign has gone on longer, issues have taken a back seat to personal attacks. The energy put forth by both campaigns is purely being used for spin, media manipulation and smear. That energy could, and should, be being put toward developing a real platform and agenda that can be used to defeat McCain in November.

It's time for Hillary to step down and let the general election campaign to begin in earnest. It's time to start making plans and figuring out how we are going to really handle the mess in Iraq, the failing economy and it's international ramifications, the economic disparity between the rich and (increasingly) poor, environmental protection, etc.

For Hillary to continue the contest at a point in which it is mathematically impossible for her to get the nomination (unless she manages to pull strings within the party and gain an overwhelming majority of the remaining superdelegates, which would run the risk of alienating voters by making them feel disenfranchised), is just an act of too much pride on the part of Sen. Clinton. Sen. Obama has the lead in pledged delegates and overall delegates, his speeches are more inspiring (and despite this being downplayed by his opponents, inspiration is sorely needed in the current domestic environment), and there's not much that separates either candidate on most of the issues.

It's time to stop the insanity, save that $6.4 million of her personal money, and get on with the business of beating McCain in November.

Please, Hillary, please... just let it go.

A man walks into a bar; this not a joke. He first asks the bartender for a glass of water, at which point, the bartender explains that if you ain't paying, you ain't drinking. The man bursts into tears. The bartender asks why the long face. Really, this is not a joke.

It seems that the old guy's wife had run off with another guy, leaving early this very same morning while he was still in bed. If that wasn't enough, the Camaro-driving sonofabitch ran over his what-would-be-best hunting dog, if only he ever hunted. The dog could climb a tree and throw the raccoon to its death, or say he said.

So his old lady is gone, and his favorite dog is dead, and all he can think to order is a glass of water, because she took the money in the Maxwell House can in the kitchen that they had been saving for a trip this summer to Panama City Beach, and she took the bank card from his wallet on the dresser, and the checkbook which was also on the dresser, and the credit card was long overdrawn, and to top it off, it's Veteran's Day, a fucking bank holiday, and the old guy fought in the first Gulf War, and through much VA therapy had just learned to manage his PTSD, but he couldn't get any cash out to buy a drink after his woman ran off with another man, who ran over his favorite dog, as they made their getaway.

Lord knows how he's going to afford the colonoscopy and all, especially after being laid off down at the factory.

This wasn't the shittiest day ever, or even week. This is the shittiest life on record.

The bartender acquiesces and gives him the glass of water, and a shot of Kentucky Gentleman chaser on the house. That was about the time the Asian geisha-style siamese twins walked in with the midget, but we will save that one for later.

Then this leather fag walks into the bar just like it's 1980 and it's San Francisco, which it isn't. He's got brass knuckles on one hand, and a cricket bat in the other just to increase his odds. He stomps over to the guy, who's now in the middle of his first house gin and tonic, and smacks him square in the jaw with the knuckles and then square on the knee with the bat as he descends from the stool to the floor.

The dude asks what the fuck did you do that for, and the queer says that's because your daughter ran off with my old man.

The midget with the four gold rings in each ear plays a song on the juke box.

He says that wasn't my daughter, that was my wife. Mr. Castro feels so bad he buys the guy a Grey Goose martini and they spend the next half hour licking wounds and talking about what they lost. Then they talk about church and childhood. Then about the rough start the Astros are off to. They talk about the midget and the siamese twins, and Mr. Tightpants says he almost switched sides for some Arabic siamese twins that he ran across while trying to figure out something to do during the first Gulf War. The two realize they have something in common - the Gulf War - not the siamese twins or wishy-washy sexuality.

The homo says he has to leave to throw his ex's shit out into the street so the whole neighborhood will know what an asshole he is, and thus will know that a period of mourning will ensue behind the doors of his house. Don't come asking for a cup of sugar.

That's when the ducks come in, and man were these some rich ducks. They start ordering rounds of drinks for the whole house, but being ducks they were lightweights, and most of them started passing out under tables, on the bar, in the toilet. One was even found asleep floating around in the bathroom sink. He was a small duck.

The bartender brings three of the leftover duck drinks to the old guy and he drinks them all: peach schnapps, amaretto sour, shot of Jaeger from the duck with the frayed Astros hat.

About this time the bartender says something along the lines of last call, only to be followed by you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here, or if you don't work at the bar, or you are not fucking someone who works at the bar, get the fuck out, or something like that. The guy thinks briefly of propositioning the bartender - a feeble attempt at eeking out a few more moments here and a few less moments at the house that was once their home.

The siamese twins leave, each trying to weave in an independent direction. The midget follows trying to push his face into the unified ass of the twins. The ducks all start to awake and stir and depart the bar in a V formation. Quack, quack.

Then there's the veteran, the man, now alone. He thinks of the street girls out on the boulevard. He thinks of the all-night liquor store. He thinks of his 10-years-his-junior wife on the way to Panama City Beach with his Panama City Beach money and a guy in a fucking Camaro, with t-tops. He thinks of how easy it is to be a drunk when your life has gone to the crapper, and how being drunk at such times, can make the whole world seem new again.

He thinks he shouldn't have mixed all those drinks, but beggars can't be choosers.

Tornadoes tore through downtown and a few surrounding neighborhoods here in Atlanta last night. My experience with it was just of some hail falling at my house with heavy rain, a cancelled trip to the bar, and not much else so far. Apparently my office, the CNN Center, was heavily damaged, but when I checked my work email just a few minutes ago, I was told that we would be back open for business on Monday. I hope all of the news will just hold off until then. If you were planning to do something newsworthy, please wait.

The upside of this is that the electricity at my house did not even blink during the storm. This in a neighborhood where the whole power grid will often fail when just one neighbor adjusts his or her thermostat in the summer. Not even a flicker during this storm and it was one of the worst I have seen in the 4 years I have lived here.

And now, since it is an election year, we have to find someone to blame for the storm, and I am pointing our finger at the Georgia Governor, Sonny Perdue. If you do not recall, back in November the governor held a prayer vigil on the steps of the capitol to pray for relief from the drought that is going on in Georgia.

A few days later, lo and behold, it rained. My friends joked that of course Sonny had consulted with weather.com before deciding when to plan his vigil so that he could increase the likelihood of his "rayers" being answered. It all seemed a fluke.

But wait a few months, it seems as if his prayers have been answered now. Just a few months later. God works in mysterious ways. At the governor's behest, He has been sending us enough water in a 48 hour period to singlehandedly cut the drought damage in half. In the process, it took part of the roof of the Georgia Dome, the World Congress Center, windows at the CNN Center, and 20 houses in the Cabbagetown neighborhood.

Thanks Sonny! Be a little more careful with the state-sponsored prayers in the future.

After much thumb-twiddling and general time-wasting at my new job, I was called into duty last week just days before I was to head off to the warmer climes for a few days of spring training baseball (more on this coming soon). The result of a couple of full-day-late-night-early-morning shifts is CNN's delegate counter game which launched sometime late on Monday or early on Tuesday morning of this week. It allows you to speculate on how the democratic race for the nomination is effected by different outcomes in each of the remaining primary states. I was not at work on Monday or Tuesday, but while at home on Tuesday I was floored early in the morning to see the thing being used live on the CNN TV broadcast. As I am a TV virgin this was a total thrill to me. In addition, when I checked the traffic numbers we have had to the game so far, we are nearing one million visits. Considering that most of my projects at the AJC were lucky if they received traffic in totaling 5 digits, this is a much bigger stage. So, check it out and make it one million one visitors.

Addendum: So I don't try to toot my own horn too much, but I haven't been feeling as naturally full of myself since starting the new gig, so I will use the blog here to inflate my ego.

When I arrived at work yesterday, the second in command for CNN.com had left a thank you card and a $50 gift card to Ted's Montana Grill on my desk. That's 4 delicious bison burgers if my math is correct. Now my gut can expand as my head does.

Also, a co-worker who worked with me on the project did a little googling to see what was coming up in the blogosphere about the the game. Here are some links:

• One digg
• Political Inquirer
• Karmic-Dragonfly
• Kirk Caraway
• barackobama.com
• Way Beyond The Beltway

That was then and this is now. Five years or more.
It happens in a bowling alley, or at the end of a night.
There's this water flowing freely under a bridge.
There's Christ and good and something in between.
That all happened before now, and so much has happened since.
I like to think we have all moved on. I think we have.
We have to have. People of my life unite.

I haven't followed that closely this whole "race-baiting" thread that's been going back and forth between the Obama and Clinton camps that much. To be honest, it doesn't really interest me that much other than it did not raise it's head until now, when we are about to head into the Nevada caucuses and the SC primary, the first two primary states with substantial enough minority populations for race to be a factor. But today I read this article about good ole New York Rep. Charlie Rangel. He was once the man that I took the unpopular stance among my friends to side with over the issue of reinstating the draft. The way that issue got portrayed was that he was saying the draft is pure good and that we need it, when he was actually saying that if the sons of politicians were eligible to be conscripted, the congress might not take so lightly the decision to declare war. I understood this logic. But today I am baffled by his statements supporting Hillary Clinton's recent MLK faux pas.

(As an aside, I am not so sure that I still agree with Rangel's idea to reintroduce the draft. Upon further consideration over the last couple of years I have realized that the rich and powerful have always figured out ways to keep their kids from having to really be in the shit - e.g. our president (W))

Whereas the subsequent fallout of the Clinton MLK/LBJ statement does seem a little overblown to me, I do believe it is validly available for critique. She was being a politician, a white politician, and a white politician trying to win minority votes in the upcoming primaries. I do not disagree with her ends, I do disagree with the means. Stating that none of MLK's dream would have been realized without an LBJ signature on the Civil Rights Act etc. is historically true. But what is also historically probable is that no white politician would have ever pushed for such legislative measures had MLK and others not put their lives on the line in creating the groundswell of support and indeed need for such measures.

All of the actions that MLK took (marching in Alabama and on the mall in DC, supporting the strikers in Memphis etc. etc. etc.) were selfless, heroic and courageous efforts. Whereas LBJ's signing of the Civil Rights legislation could be considered all of these things given the political climate of the times, it cannot be said that all of his actions were as such, nor that they were done to nearly the magnitude and potential (and ultimate) cost to self that MLK did.

For Hillary to state things the way she did is reminiscent of all of those Hollywood movies about apartheid and South Africa in the 80s and early 90s. There always is a heroic black figure fighting for the rights of the people, but there is an even more empathetic and heroic white figure through which the American movie-going public can empathize with the effort and understand it's importance. I am not saying that LBJ is a bad man. What I know of him I like (outside of the Vietnam stuff). But this many years on, we can recognize the LBJ efforts while recognizing that it pales in comparison to the civil rights efforts of MLK and his like. To state it like Hillary did is politically and rhetorically awkward and likely irresponsible.

With that said, I don't think it really should be a factor in the upcoming primaries. I think that both Clinton and Obama have the best interest of the poor, the needy, minorities etc. in mind far more than most of the candidates on the Republican ticket do. All that they are able to talk about lately is tax cuts (how you can decide to take a pay cut when your credit card debt is as high as America's is baffles me), 9/11, and how cool war is. I don't imagine the plight of the poor, needy and minorities being any more improved by a Hillary or a Barack in the White House. I think they both mean well and will do all that they can.

So back to Rep. Rangel. His statements today wreak of so much political bullshit. Realizing that neither Hillary nor Bill can seem to fix this thing, and realizing that as the Nevada and SC primaries are approaching they don't want to appear as still being on the attack, you get Rep. Rangel to do your attacking for you.

I did not agree with his statements in the article at all, but I was willing to take them as simple matters of opinion until I got to the end where he is quoted:

"I assume that the book was not written for political purposes. It was honest….It was a big mistake for him to have done it [used drugs.] For him to be honest enough to write about it, I guess he thought it might sell books."

What would you rather him do Charlie? Would you rather him not addressed the drug-use issue in his memoir and just wait until the election where it would have likely arisen and then have to be addressed (surely better than the awkward "i tried but didn't inhale" defense of Bill Clinton, or the outright denial and "will you shut up about it now" defense of our current president). Surely if this information would have been kept out of the book and revealed now, it would've been just the ticket to get Hillary to the general election most expeditiously. In it's absence, Charlie's left beating the dead horse that he hoped Hillary would use to take her there. Who looks stupid now?

So I just started this week at a new Job with CNN, and whereas it has been an interesting start, I have kind of had to do a roll-your-own training schedule that has left me with lots of time to check out the site and keep up with the daily news, even down to a granular level.

So today I am looking and I see this story about Ron Paul being a racist, or about some old remarks attributed to him, or some other sort of thing.

The story didn't startle me as much as it may have others. I do believe Paul when he says he did not write the things that are being attributed to him, but they apparently were written under the banner of a political newsletter bearing his name. Regardless of whether he wrote it or not, he should have protected his "brand" (his name) a little better.

But all of that is neither here nor there, the real question is whether or not the Internet will shut down if Ron Paul does not receive the Republican nomination for president?

An acquaintance of mine recently boldly stated that the Internet would indeed shut down if Paul does not get the nomination at his house one night after he had imbibed at least a couple of pints of Irish Whiskey.

I do not know this person or his political views very well. I do know that he is smallish, has a tendency toward a Napoleon complex at times, and that if he has an opinion at all about something, it is a STRONG opinion.

I really didn't engage him in a debate about the merits, or not, of Ron Paul but I did ask him why he thought Paul's failure to get nominated would cause the Information Superhighway to come to a screeching halt.

(The following is cleaned up for clarity and because this is a family establishment and because my writing skills are not sharp enough to adequately do justice to the drunken blathering my ears heard.)

"Have you seen Slashdot? The programmers and web developers are going f%$*king crazy over Ron Paul. He's the best f%$*king candidate out there. He's f%$*king incredible. F%$*k Hillary. I will kick her in her f%$*king teeth. If he doesn't get the f%$*king nomination, and get elected president, the f%$*king web people will revolt and the f%$*king Internet will shut down. I f%$*king mean it."

Or something about like that.

I didn't really engage after that. I know, and knew, so little about Paul other than his belief that all currencies should be legal and viable in the US which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me, but I am just a web designer, not a developer, so obviously I cannot understand the higher points, indeed the internal logic, of the Paul-ian platform. I just politely waited for the right moment when I could escape from the porch to back in the house.

I didn't really think about much, but as the weeks have gone on it seems more and more people are drinking Paul's Kool-Aid. They are coming out of the "f%$*king" woodwork. There are on the corner of Moreland and Freedom Parkway on the weekends. Homemade stickers and grafitti tags are popping up on city buses. I hear stories about campaign staffers surveying land in Ghana in case the election doesn't work out so all of the web developers will have somewhere to take the Internet when they shut it down.

After reading the article about the racist remarks today, I started thinking about Mr. Paul again. It may me think of Lyndon Johnson wanting to perpetrate a rumor that his opponent had sexual congress with barnyard animals just so the opponent would have to publicly deny it. Once a rumor is released to the major press, whether it is true or false, the damage is usually done. Or is it in this case?

Since the Internet is apparently nearly totally run by Paul supporters, don't they have the means of quashing this rumor before it gets out of hand? Can they not easily spread rumors just as bad or worse about his opponents? I f they have the power to shut down the Internet if he does not get the nomination, then the least they could do for their leader is help a brother out in a time of need.

So I decided to do a search of the FEC campaign contribution database at washingtonpost.com. I inserted "programmer" for the "occupation" and chose different candidates from the "candidate" dropdown menu. Whereas I realize this is less than scientific as there can be other "programmers" than "computer programmers, (I am sure that Paul's supporters could provide a much better algorithm and statistical model for determining this info) scanning the list seemed to reassure me that most programmers were the ones that my drunk, angry friend seemed to be referring to.

Close scrutiny and a little basic math showed led to some frightening observations. Indeed, my little, napoleonic, angry, drunk friend might be right. Paul far outdoes his other Republican candidates when it comes to geek contributions. He even far outdoes the Democrats except Obama who he is still beating by a decent margin. See the chart below for the actual numbers I found.

I am amazed that a drunken, off-the-cuff comment seems to be backed up by freely available information.

I am also scared though, because if the geeks revolt, and shut down the Internet, where will I get my porn, or send emails to mom, or waste time at work, or watch all of those "must-see" YouTube videos? Not to mention, what will I do for a living?

Maybe run for president?

So many friends of mine here in my space tonight, some that know me, many that do not. I will soon post the favorite albums (CDs) of the year post. We should all wait it out till morning. We should all love each other and suffer in the morning. We need that commitment to one another, since we have nothing that equals it in our past or current life. I love each and every one of you. I do. I promise our parents will ever know the difference.

And she keeps hitting me in the fucking kidneys. And I like it. No I don't. He's kicking me in the teeth. I am sorry. No teeth. No luck. All sorrow. Good weekend. I just want to read that book that yo wrote back then.

There's a drunk and another drunk at the bar and they are both failing horribly at telling the punchline to some jokes that they earlier have practiced way too much. He's Andre and she's sally. The people on TV are talking too much about porcupines.

If I could bite off the ass of a porcupine it would mean so little. I would still just be the guy who bit off the ass of a porcupine. It would not win me points on match.com. It would make me pariah amongst the friends.

I could love though. Mouth full of quills.

Quills inmy mouth, writing the things I cannot say on my own.

I miss so much.

I don't like writing about the good stuff. Not necessarily the bad stuff. Just the difficult stuff. That is what I prefer.

But tonight driving through this town tonight, during this time of the year that I have a psychologically disposition to breaking down, was like flying. I have laughed until my sides hurt. I have realized there is someone that knows the ends of all of my family stories when the beginnings are told.

I think there are songs that can and will be sung.

I think I will make it through these holidays, and the rest will become easier.

There are soldiers out tonight, even in this city. I have seen them in their clandestine suits. I have wondered about them through dreams.

Tomorrow will be another dream day for this fallen one. I am not broken or foresaken. Just fallen at this point.

From the top of the hill over there the scout can see everything and with that everything he cannot move. He want to tell his comrades what there is to come, but he just stand still and the whole world passes, at once, through his eye.

That is the nature of the scout. He has to understand it all. The soldier should understand very little if anything. There is this and there's the hospital. There's a nurse with a tender touch, or there's another day.

When they saw the whites of the eyes the muskets came ablastin'. The scout dreamed, closed his eyes and composed letters to his wife.

There was 30 shot initially, and one when they came face to face. Was it brothers? Of course it was. In some place or not with a name or not. No names on placards or plce cards. There would be no wedding or funeral. Just some dirt sifting through fingers.

One last look at the moon.

My point being that the man who took the bullet and the one who sent the bullet are one and the same.

Interesting Op-Ed piece on nytimes.com today by Paul Krugman called "Gore Derangement Syndrome". I mean, I've never claimed to be the biggest Gore fan, but he has turned out right a lot more than he's turned wrong in recent years (besides the, possibly urban legend, claim of inventing the Internet).

Favorite quote:

"So if science says that we have a big problem that can’t be solved with tax cuts or bombs — well, the science must be rejected, and the scientists must be slimed."

Okay, I don't usually do this but I started reading this article and got sick to my stomach. I mean, I've all but shunned the Marxist leanings of my past, but a huge political and cultural issue that is completely flying below the radar in public and political debate is the economic disparity between the richest in the country and the rest of us.

Check out this article about Forbes magazine's richest 400 Americans.

Especially interesting (sickening) was this sentence:

The minimum net worth for inclusion in this year's rankings released Thursday was $1.3 billion, up $300 million from last year.

Holy shit, at a time when most of us are not getting raises, or anemic ones at best, and more and more homes are going into foreclosure because people can't afford their mortgages, yep!, indeed the rich are getting richer.

I know I can't blame it all on the President or his party, even if I am inclined to do so, but something has to change - with tax policy, corporate culture, most American's way of thinking...

Supply-side economics sure as shit doesn't seem to be working unless you are one of the 400 on the list and their ilk.

Those people stand out there as a carrot to all of us, making us think that with hard work we can all make it their one day. That's an illusion. It helps keep us with our nose to the grindstone thinking that the reward for all of the labor is just around the corner. It's not coming folks, at least not in the present economic climate. (I guess I have yet to kill the little white-bearded bastard inside of me after all.)

I am glad I wrote this at work. The two head honchos of the company I work for are on that list of 400.

You don't realize when your neighbors are gone. Not in a city like this. You've never met them, but one day their car is not parallel parked across the street and you missed the end of the month move-out. Were they really there for a year or had they made different arrangements with the landlord? We all pray to a landlord here.

The tall girl I took for an actress because she lived next door to the playwright is gone now. I don't really know how gone she is, or where. I never knew her. I know I saw her sitting out on the patio one night with said playwright until they went in and for once she did not shut the blinds and I saw them in an awkward one night embrace. He has to be her senior by 10 years I would say.

She always was up and out before me, leaving for work in her pickup truck and a semi-pants-suit, which belied my illusion of her being an actress, and an actress only.

I have been here for over 3 years now. Longer than I have lived anywhere other than my parents house. I don't want to leave, but what I fear more is that if I do, the neighborhood will not miss me.

There's evil little spiders about tonight and the girl want the other boy, the movie star, to come and kiss and play games and then move on. We are trying to save our friends from destruction of themselves, and possibly others. Don't play Jesus, you will surely be disappointed with the results.

On the outskirts of town the Marxist are meeting and the thought of the meeting makes me feel a bit out of sorts. What secret upheavals are being planned. They don't show this part in the movie.

They also don't show the part where the brother of the protagonist makes a face, says something funny, asks where that one went, and why it didn't all work out in the end, and the protagonist says, "It got too hot, the summer, it was too hot, our brains started to boil in our head, we ate chemicals and didn't know it, there's nothing really to explain it all, we don't live in this different time and space and place, we don't live her on this farm, and this family. We live in the city and things are difficult."

And the brother says, "Oh, now I see. I didn't know."

It's been a week now since the news came down that one of my colleagues at the paper, Diane, had died of bile duct cancer. She found out about 3 weeks prior and it was too late. Single and 42, she was in the process of trying to adopt a child from China, and had a self-help book for women dealing with stalkers coming out soon. I can't say that I knew her incredibly well, yet I found myself incredibly moved, disturbed, distraught over the news. Although it sounds a bit cliche, I guess events do come around with some frequency that throw you on your head, with sorrow, doubt, confusion, analysis etc. Viewing my life through the lens of what I now know about Diane's, and her early demise, has led to some severe existential dilemmas that cut across all parts of my life: work, romance, happiness and it's pursuit, the future, the past...

But a week that began with such bad news could surely not continue in such a way. This was also the week that Barry Bonds would tie Hank Aaron's home run record, A-Rod would hit his 500th home run, and in the waning hours of the week that began for me last Monday, Tom Glavine would get his 300th career win.

It was also the week that I would spend every night trying to finish the never-ending freelance project that seems to grow every time I touch it. It was a week without therapy, a week on new medication, and a week that I ended in Chattanooga where I finally saw Rock City, hated my way through the Incline Railroad again, and got my beard trimmed at the minor league baseball game, during the 6th inning, right before the hometown team lost and we would receive Sara Lee 100% Honey Wheat bread loaves while exiting the stadium.