Staying Out of Jail

Years ago, when I was a smart-assed teenager, barely getting passing grades in High School, smoking half a pack of Winstons a day and hanging out with what my parents thought was a "bad crowd", my father - during one of those vocational father and son chats - once articulated that he would be happy if I would just be able to stay out of prison. Now, I am well into my sixth decade, and I am pleased to report that Dad would be proud of me - on that score at least.

But, I have to report that staying out of jail is not as easy as it used to be. A few weeks ago, we got a notice from the local Animal Control Officer (ACO) notifying us of a fine for $50 for not getting our cat in on time for her annual rabies vaccination.

Now, I will admit that we are well aware of the local ordinance which compels all cat owners to keep their pets legally inoculated against rabies. I think it is a good idea, just as I believe that noise ordinances ought to be enforced to keep the racket of incessant building projects limited to daylight hours on weekdays. At the same time I accept that there are occasionally mitigating circumstances which may result in the occasional failure to obey such rules.

For example, we are very willing to bring this cat into the Animal Hospital to get shot up - even at the exorbitant cost of $85. We are committed to the health and welfare of all of our livestock (consisting presently of 2 Siamese cats). The problem here is the lack of cooperation by said cat, who I will call 'Madclaws' to protect her real identity - as she is still a minor having attained a mere 9 years of age*.

Madclaws hates to go to the Vet's. She is smart too, if she even suspects that you want to put her in a cage, she will run away and hide. She knows places in our house where we cannot find her. If you trap her in a small space, she will literally climb the walls to escape your grasp. Then if you should manage to grab her, she will attempt to claw and even bite you (I have a scar to prove it) in her frantic attempts to escape.

In the past, we have been quite traumatised by the experience, and perhaps it is not too inconceivable that we have a tendency to procrastinate when it comes to the annual rabies shot. Madclaws is an inside cat - and always has been inside. Even if offered an open door to go outside, she will run upstairs and hide.

Then a few days ago, an envelope arrived in the mail. Inside was a notice that a criminal complaint had been filed by the ACO for (I shit you not) "an unvaccinated cat." The hearing would be held next month as to why we should not be found guilty of a misdemeanor. Is this the same system that refuses to arrest illegal aliens who are stopped on the highway for driving infractions?

So, when we asked the Vet why the ACO is so anal about the annual inoculation, this is the rationale we were given: "A rabid bat might fly into the house either through an open door or window, or even down the chimney. Said bat might bite a cat, infecting it. In turn, the now rabid cat might bite a human in the house with fatal consequences."

I am not exaggerating. This is what I was told by the Vet with an absolutely straight face. I asked about the statistics on such an unlikely scenario.

I was told that there are approximately 70 human deaths per year in the USA attributed to being bitten by an animal infected with rabies. Unfortunately the stats do not break down to identify how many of the deaths occur ed in homes where the pet was bitten by an intruder bat. And besides, what would keep the rabid bat from biting the human directly rather than going through the cat as a middleman? My questions were viewed as smart-assed, I am sure.
"Why take chances?" I was admonished.
When I wondered aloud how many people were killed each year in auto accidents caused because the driver was distracted by the high decibel yowling of the uncooperative feline in the cage on the back seat, I got a look of disapproval for my dumb questions.

Anyhow, I managed to stay our of jail by pleading the case to my humorless Vet who reluctantly gave me some sedation pills for the cat. I ground the pill into a powder and fed it to the cat mixed in with the morning meal. It worked enough to slow the cat down. I got my heavy gloves out, sneaked up on her while she slept in sedated kitty dreamworld, grabbed her by the nape of the neck and wrestled her into the carrier. The rest was easy. Situation resolved. I made it back to the vet's without crashing the van, and the cat seems no worse for the experience.

So, Dad, wherever you are, you can still be proud. I'm not going to the hoosegow - this time. And we can breathe a sigh of relief that the only Rabies deaths that occure in our home will be from bat bites, not cat bites.


*I do not find it comforting to know that some Siamese cats can live for up to twenty human years.

Cranking it up

I was reading about a new search engine that is available as an alternative to Google and Yahoo. This one is aimed at the 50+ crowd. It's called cranky.com (go ahead and click on it for a sample view.)

Cranky bills itself as the "first age relevent search engine" but it seem more like a devious facade for boomer friendly marketing.

Of the 10 "Most popular" searches, I checked out the piece labeled "working after retirement" and got an article from a 1999 issue of Business Week. (Gee! That was valuable.) The "Work At Home" search was filled with offers to sell you advice about how to avoid scams. How cynical can you get?

One of the most common work-at-home schemes/scams is Envelope Stuffing.
These scams usually incorporate a "registration fee" which must be paid before work begins. Once this fee has been paid, the "employee" is asked to post an ad -- often the exact same ad that the "employee" responded to -- using his or her own contact info. Once the "employee" receives a response to their ad, he or she will stuff an envelope with information/instructions on how to get started and mail it to the new applicant. The victim is "paid" based on the number of responses/registration fees received from the ad she placed. It's just a variation of a chain-letter concept.

Anyway, I was not terribly impressed by Crankydotcom. But it gives me an idea for other audience-relevent search engines:

1) Catpoop.net - "An online meeting place where cat owners can gather to discuss litter box habits of their furry friends."

2) Ifwedidit.com - "Accused murderers and rapists need a community to share the pains and joys of indictment and possible incarceration."

3) Coloradoblizzard.org - "a blackberry network where stranded homeowners can exchange anguished thoughts with stranded travelers who are stuck at the local airport.

4)Dontmakemeshootyou.net - "a search engine that gives the home address and photo of anyone who sends you a pop-up ad, so you can hunt them down and slay them."

These are just a few that come to mind. I'm sure you can think of others.

Not Finished Yet

Today, the Careerbuilder website cites a study that predicts the creation of 1.5 million new jobs in 2007.

You are probably thinking, "This is just blog fodder. Why do you give a crap? We thought you were retired, anyhow."

Well, faithful reader, I need to remind you that this forum has always interested itself in the world of employment and the meaning of work in our lives. So I do give a "crap" - as you put it so indelicately. Besides, I have never declared myself to be "retired". I just said I was "on a sabbatical" or "Not currently Employed" (NCE).

I don't like the sound of the word "retired." It sounds so old-guyish, so end-of-the-line, so out-of-the-game. When you see an old guy walking down the steet during a weekday morning, you can usually tell the retired guys from the ones who are on vacation. Retired guys don't shower and shave every day. They tend to wear dark colors, old un-ironed sweatshirts, or gray chinos, and maybe a baseball cap. They probably need a haircut. They shamble grimly toward their destination (odds are, it's the Quickimart to buy a paper and a lottery scratch ticket.) They seldom make eye contact with others.

Old guys on vacation are usually clean shaven, appear to shower with regularity and are typically dressed in newer, brighter colored clothes. They are often smiling and appear to be interested in everything around them.

So, that is why the Careerbuilder piece caught my eye. I was interested to see that there will be more work opportunities. Granted, the chance that one of these new gigs might meet my stringent requirements is remote, but still, the odds have improved ever so slightly.

So, yes, I am still in the marketplace for a job. The other day in the paper there was an article about Sheraton's search for a National Beer Officer. The person would be responsible for tasting and ensuring quality at the bars in Sheraton hotels, and going to Octoberfest. Despite the fact that it was a nonpaying position they had about 5,000 applicants from thirteen countries. Including mine.

I can hear you thinking, "Wait, I thought that you were abstaining from alcoholic beverages." Ok, that is technically true. But I have continued to be a fan of beer. And I would consider an exception if selected for this position - a lifetime dream job if there ever was one.

More than likely, if I go back to work, it will be in one of those humdrum jobs doing database conversions and snoozing through monthly staff meetings.

A note on the blog: to those of you who still check it, I have resolved to be a better blogger this year. I plan to visit here regularly, you should too.

Hype Fatigue

I don’t know about you, but I am getting real tired of being assailed by companies that seem to spare no expense when it comes to marketing. It isn’t enough that they insert themselves into nearly every page of every newspaper and magazine and web page. They harangue us for 20 minutes out of every hour on the radio and TV. They hire people to accost you in the mall. They incessantly deliver unwanted (and unread) sheaves if slick ad copy to your mailbox, or annoying automated calls to your voice mail.

You cannot even escape at the beach. Your placid moment on the sand will be disturbed by the droning of a single prop ww2 vintage fizzlewhacker with a banner trailing behind to announce the wet tee shirt contest and one dollar for frosty 12oz drafts at the local beer joint.

We are forced to pay extra for software to prevent pop-up ads from taking over our PC’s and even then you cannot view a blog or a searched page without some adware jiggling or twinkling to catch your eye. AOL makes a big thing out of preventing pop-ups, but allows insidious – and I reiterate UNWANTED - ads to appear in the middle of the screen and move through your field of vision, then disappear. If these are not pop-ups, what are they?

Even PBS programs – which are billed as “commercial free” give lengthy and blatent advertising plugs for high level donor companies. If these aren’t commercials what are they?

Apparently, the companies who spend all this money on advertising don’t care how effective it is. In fact, the jillion dollar “knock-off” industry sells products that are just as good as the “genuine article.” They let the big company spend all the money to hype the brand and then sell their look-a-like product cheaper and reap a high margin.

So my point is that I am annoyed. I decry the pollution of every media platform and venue with constant and repetitive advertising. I also object to the portion of each dollar spent that goes to pay for the promotion of the product.

There are many companies that would be on the list of blatant offenders – who spend an obscene amount of money on advertising and charge outlandishly for their products. Two are in my sights this morning: BOSE and OMAHA STEAKS.

BOSE: they make a fine product. But I see their full page ads in every paper nearly every day. They advertise on every radio station I know of. They are in magazines. They send expensive glossy direct mail pieces every couple of weeks. I would never buy the product because I don’t want to pay for the heavy advertising costs that drive their prices to premium level. There are high quality knock-offs (see Cambridge Soundworks) for half the price.

OMAHA STEAKS: They produce delicious looking pictures in their brochures. They package-up what looks like a real great deal. Then you get the shipment and are disappointed that the steaks are small and thin and not even close to the flavor and juiciness of a fresh steak purchase from the meat guy at the market. I was disappointed but wrote it off to experience. Yet they will not leave us alone. We get offers in the mail every week and constant calls from telemarketers in Nebraska. Their Hype is annoying. I will not buy their products again.

Ironically, the one product ad that has appealed to me lately is for the new High Definition radio sets which are hyped largely on the basis of being “commercial-free”.

Come to think of it, I am having second thoughts about the complaint about arial banners at the beach. How else would you know where to go for those one dollar frosty draft beers?

When Do I Start?

A few weeks ago I received an email which had been forwarded through several degrees of separation, from the original sender to one of the ladies in my wife's book group. Thence to me.

It was a announcement of a temporary, part-time job maintaining the membership database for a non-profit organization. "Maintaining" is just a high-falootin way of saying "mostly data entry." It sounded like your basic clerical type function entering data from new and returning member forms. Pretty mundane for a world class Systems Analyst, you say...but a real challenge for a recently retired fellow who types like a crow pecking at an ear of corn.

But, this is the difference between you and me. Where you see a boring, low level job, I see a portal of opportunity: an entree to an organization, where you get to do paid research, meet people, look for problems to solve....

Besides, the magic words were: temporary, part-time, local and $20/hr. (Higher wages than his last retail job, he thought to himself).

Anyhow, I responded to the mailing, and was rewarded with an in-person interview. After a few pointed remarks by the director it was pretty clear that she did not regard me as the best candidate, since they were really looking for a person who typed very quickly and was also not distracted by any real thoughts about what she was doing. I guess that should be perceived an implied compliment to my creative thought process. I hastened to assure her that I could be as vapid and thoughtless as the next guy, er girl, or whatever. Too late, the damage was apparently already done. As we exchanged pleasantries, I could sense that I had been figuratively crossed off the list.

Maybe they really thought I was "over-qualified" The Director seemed perplexed that someone of my qualifications was interested in doing clerical work. My response that all work is clerical, and I need some extra spending money to pay overdue library fines was not well received. Perhaps the Director needs to believe that some work is indeed more important than "menial" tasks. (I should have pointed-out that even the most gourmet meal needs to be served on clean plates.)

I waited in vain all all last week to hear from them. Today I got the idea to appeal to their sympathies. I decided that they probably would choose someone who really needed money. Here is the text of my letter:

Dear Emily,

Just wondering if you’ve made a decision yet on the enrollment data base job. It would really help me to know, as I am in the process of budgeting for the coming year.

1) Thanks to generous bribes offered to the parole board, mother will be getting out of prison in April ( for good behavior) and I was hoping to get her a new motorcycle. She so loves the fresh wind in her hair. But a new Harley can cost over $20K. Let’s hope she stays out, this time.

2) As one who loves fine cheese, I recently bought a goat on E-Bay. Now, the guy is asking for his money.

3) In a moment of utter optimism, I purchased charter tickets on a flight to Mars, which is scheduled to leave Cape Canaveral in the Spring of 2045. I also bought these tickets on the Internet (brooklynbridge.org) for a discount price. The bill is due in a few weeks.

So, you can see that I really could use a bit of extra spending cash. This is not to imply that my revenue needs should affect your hiring decision, mind you.

Unless you were thinking of hiring some other – less needy - person.

Please let me know soon if you have decided to hire a less gifted and needy individual, as I do have another offer pending. My brother-in-law needs a partner on a project that involves “soliciting funds at banks, gas stations and convenience stores in the Boston suburbs.” I really would prefer to work in an environment where I do not need to carry a mask and a weapon, so I am giving you folks first refusal.

Best wishes for the Holidays

Day of Infamy

60 years before 9/11, there was the sneak attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor on this date in 1941. It was the event launched the US into the war that was already raging in Europe and Asia. The enemy powers were nation states with uniformed armies, territorial ambitions and nationalistic missions. It was the defining and unifying moment in the lives and minds of many Americans who were alive at the time. Every thing was suddenly changed, just as the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City has impacted the lives and thoughts of all of us who are alive today. That event forced us all to stop in our tracks, to realize that we had more to worry about than the rising costs of health care or how to maximise the return on our IRA accounts.

Yesterday, during our weekly Tea (these days we actually drink tea instead of beer), my friend George lamented that we are not unified as a nation the way we were in WW2. The topic under discussion was the announcement of the findngs by the Iraq Study group that we need to do something differently in Iraq. Even if you are a Bush hater, you cannot feel happy about the fact that we are in yet another nasty mess - one that we will always look back upon as a huge mistake.

Sixty five years ago we had a clear enemy. Every family in the USA was personally touched by the war because sons, fathers, brothers and uncles went off to fight. Today, hardly any of us know someone who is stationed in Iraq. Hardly any of our political leaders have a relative in harm's way.

As painful as it is for us to watch the casualty numbers of Americans on the evening news, we cannot help but compare the staggering cost of past wars compared to Iraq. Most of the current deaths are civilians, in a culture that does not seem to value human life.

I wish I could propose a solution to this mess. We cannot pull-out without leaving a power vacuum that would almost certainly make the situation and US security worse that when Saddam was in power. We cannot stay and remain the magnet for world acrimony.

I only hope future leaders will learn from this situation. Democracy cannot be imposed on people who do not value individual freedom and do not recognize the rights of people who believe differently.

Well, enough of this -- who has their Christmas shopping done?

Nostalgia and Tradition

'Tis the season, a time for memories. Around this time of year, we start hearing those old Christmas Carols and we remember those halcyon days when our parents and other adult relatives were still alive. Grandpapa strumming his old guitar and mother at the blonde mahogany spinet, singing Deck the Halls.

They were indeed wonderful times, and I am pleased to be able to recall those memories still. (Even the time when uncle Harry arrived drunk, and then and fell off the sofa on the floor where he lay unconscious - to the utter horror of mother as well as the new neighbors who had come over for a glass of cheer. All very entertaining for a young lad.)

But alas, (in the words of one of my favorite modern visionaries) Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

A good friend of mine has recently taken to wallowing in the past on a public forum.

He laments the loss of decadent traditions that he and his Ivy League cronies had in their callow youth. He sees the relentless tide of progress as a bad thing. He wishes he could travel back to those prime times and relive the frivoloties of carefree college fraternal glee.

Most of us in the post war pre-boomer generation do not share those fond memories. We went into the service or to commuter colleges or joined a union and went to work after high school. We were definitely not the intellectual elites. Unless we had been star athletes in high school, we had not yet peaked. We were always looking to the future with optimism, because we believed that things would get better. (And they did.)

My friend notes that I am the founder (and still President) of the local Here and Now Society. We go around picketing historical sites. We proudly display plastic signs on our homes that show that they were built after 1960.

We accept, nay welcome, the tide of progress. We buy lottery tickets and go to casinos because we believe that luck can level the playing field that was unlevelled by fate. We don't spend time bitching about what's the matter with kids today. We look to the future with optimism and hope.

We love our fond memories, but do not wish to go back to the days of yore, before micro-brews and MP3, those black and white test pattern days when everyone smelled funny. We embrace reality with eyes wide open and welcome the adventure of each day.
That is here and now.
Who wants to join?

Botched Joke - Inconvenient Truth

The other day, John Kerry showed again why he should not be his party's nominee for the office of President in 2008. Speaking to a group of college students, he made a lame comment about how you should stay in school and be smart or else "You get stuck in Iraq."

Opposition opinionaters went into a feeding frenzy declaring that Kerry had maligned the honor of the US military by insinuating that they were all dunderheads. Even President Bush declared that the Senator from Massachusetts should apologize to the brave troops. Kerry, of course, went to the media to explain that what he said was not what he meant. In a display of even more pretzel logic, Kerry said that his remark was just a botched joke that was aimed at the current administration's failed enterprise in Iraq. Nobody believed him.

What everyone took out of the comment was the underlying truth that the people who end up fighting in wars are not the "best and the brightest" minds in our society. Check out the number of sons and daughters of our political leaders who are over there laying their asses on the line. Not too many eh?

Never mind that, say those who want to skewer Kerry, and they trot out some statistics that show that our current military is smarter than the group who fought in Viet Nam. Apples and oranges. Remember that during the Vietnam conflict we had an involuntary draft system in this county. If you could get into college you could get a deferment and avoid the unpleasantness of getting shot at by jungle snipers or being shredded by mortar blasts. Drop-outs and the less academically inclined tended to be the ones on the line.

This ain't WW2 either. In today's Army and Marine corps, the enlistment rolls are chiefly made up of people without better prospects. Duh - Would you sign-up for a chance to become a casualty if you had the option of having a nice peaceful day working at a job where you don't need a gun, coming home to dinner with your nice family? Chances are, you would opt for the lesser risk. The fact is that many of the guys who are there were called up from reserve units. These folks did not join the reserves thinking that they would have to go into battle, and we all know that.

The uplifting fact is that most of these soldiers have accepted their duty and are serving their country honorably - even heroically. Along with an uncomfortable number of GI's who are not doing things that make us proud. If Rumsfeld ever lets the reservists get out, the pool of replacement recruits is embarrassingly uneducated and unskilled - people who have few other choices. This is just the truth, folks.

It is not un-American to recognize that smart people tend to avoid military service. And it does not malign all GI's to note that they might have preferred to go to college and study philosophy, but they couldn't get in. It does not say that they aren't salt of the earth guys you would want as your friends and neighbors. It is what it is.

The smartest guys are generally officer rank, and not the guy with the gun, looking for IED's and enemy troops. Most of us would not want our loved ones to be over there - no matter how honorable. "Stay in school," we warn them "or you might get sent to Iraq."

How much more we would have admired Kerry, if he had the ability to articulate his point of view. Bush, for all of his elocution faults, lets us know exactly where he stands.

The World She Will Grow up in

I was lamenting to one of my friends - who happens to be a NeoCon sympathizer - that I shuddered to think of the world that my new grand daughter would be growing up in. I was painting a fairly bleak picture of a nation overrun by illegal immigrants, subject to frequent bomb threats and actual random terrorist attacks, gasoline prices shooting above $5 per gallon, a populace whose freedoms would be tightly controlled by a totalitarian government that brooked no dissent. OK, I was admittedly playing the literary license card to advance my own personal agenda which is to throw the current rascals out of power.

I am mostly an independent - which annoys both sides. The cons call me a "flipflopper" and the libs call me a "tool." I subscribe to the political sentiments that I hear from a lot of Brits: "Governments are like a baby's nappys; they need to be changed frequently - and for the same reason."

So, this is why I am willing to help defeat the incumbent party in the next election. The Cons say that Bush administration has protected us. Well, I'm not seeing it. The borders are still as porous as a knitted doily. Nobody thinks the rail system or ports are safe from people of bad intent, with a decent plan and destructive means. Homeland security is a joke that has no one LoL-ing. Kim IL Jong thinks we are a pussycat. Chavez can come to the UN and act like an asshole and get a standing Ovation. (Maybe it doesn't matter if a bunch of boogerglob 4th world countries think he's funny, but I find it annoying - even Nixon was treated better in South America.)
The Republicans have simply failed on all the measures where they had previously claimed the high ground.

• Fiscal Responsibility - check out the national debt; look at the earmarks; look at the Budget! We in the middle class are being crushed by the profligate spending of the current, irresponsible house and senate. What happened to 8 Billion cash "lost" in Iraq? They gotta go!
• Moral Superiority - : Mark Foley Scandal; lobbyist Scandal; Indictments; Earmarks for indefensible projects.
• We won't Cut and Run - The fact is, and everyone knows it - they are looking for a way to do just that - despite the contrary protestations of Mr. Bush. He can't commit us beyond 2008. Anyhow.

So what is the world that my grandchildren are to inherit? Let us also pray it is NOT one presided over by a bumbling John Kerry or a shrill Hillary Clinton, nor a frantic global-warming-warning arm-waving Al Gore. These people need to get off the stage and make room for a sane version of Ross Perot.

A Grandaughter

It's a girl. Mom and daughter doing fine. Here is a picture that looks a lot like her.

The Sky is Falling Part 2

As if to make my point about the difficulty in getting the Truth on this data rich world of ours, I just had to shut off the TV in frustration because the BREAKING NEWS BULLETINS were interrupting all the other programs on all stations to show the same poor quality film clip of a building that was burning in New York City.

The reports had almost no real factual data except that "something" apparently had crashed into a high rise building near the river. The speculation was that it was a small plane or a helicopter. Astoundingly, in the city of 10 million people, a full hour after the incident not one eye witness could be found to say what he or she observed. There seems to be no debris from the crashed aircraft. One neighbor says she heard an explosion, but did not see any aircraft.

So I am frustrated that the news people are in such a hurry to bring us the non-news and to fill our heads with non information (speculation) that I had to shut the damn TV off. Why can't they wait to find out what happened? I am willing to wait for the facts, believe me.

It would be like me posting the news that my expectant daughter is at the hospital in labor. You don't really need that information until we know that the baby has been born and all the attendant facts. So I would never post that sort of information prematurely, even if it were true,
which it is.

The Sky is Falling

It is difficult to sort through the welter of information that is drifting around the cyberverse these days, especially if one is seeking to know the Truth.
There was a report of a study the other day that purported to make some useful conclusions about the personal hygiene of our fellow Americans.
Although 92% of the people polled said that they always washed their hands after using the bathroom, The Soap and Detergent Association reports that a 2005 study it commissioned shows that only 83% of people washed their hands after using a public restroom.
How is the discerning reader to make any sense of this type of sloppy research and reporting. In the first case the question is about all bathroom usage. One can assume that the respondants were thinking about the primary site of bathroom use - the home. In the second case, the observation is specifically about public bathroom usage. Cripes, at least a third of the public facilities in the USA do not have fully functional sinks or towel dispensors. And for guys, if there is any sort of a line, well....

If you asked me if I always washed my hands after using the rest room, I would say yes 100% of the time. Yet, I have noticed that a lot of my fellow males skip this importance phase of the rest room visit. This has created a certain amount of anguish for me.
What is the point of me gallantly washing the germs off my hands if I am going to have to open the door using the door handle that is clearly infested and probably infected with the teeming bacteria of the non-handwashers?
People look at you like you are a wierdo if you just stand around in the men's room waiting for someone else to open the door. Until someone invents the self sanitizing door handle I shall be forced to use the paper towel to open the door.

Some of my friends - especially the dog owners* - think I am a bit too obsessive about germs. But, once the bird flu gets to be a pandemic, the non handwashers will be sneezing their eyeballs into the sink; clean people like me will be the survivors.

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*If you want and education, google this phrase: "Dogs like to eat and roll in feces"

Being Nice

I saw a piece in the paper this week about a book that was just published entitled "The Power of Nice." The authors are advertising execs who claim to have become successful by being nice instead of being cut-throat, backstabbing sharks.

This Being Nice philosophy is somewhat counter to the popular culture of competitveness, being the best, doing what Machievelli would do. I like the sound of it, but I am a bit skeptical. If I had to compile a ranked list of factors for success, "niceness" would appear very near the bottom, if at all.

In my experience I have noticed that not many nice people get put in charge of things. The rewards system of most organizations favors the individual who can concentrate on a single-minded organizational goal without sentimental regard to personal/human considerations. Like a good chess player, the future leader must sacrifice some pawns to capture a knight. And so on.

I am not saying I like it. I am just saying that's how it is.

And Your Hat looks Funny Too!

News Report: Gunmen firebombed five churches in the Palestinian territories Saturday over remarks by Pope Benedict XVI this week that outraged Muslims around the world who interpreted the Pope's words as criticism that Islam endorses violence.

Why would Anyone think that Muslims endorse violence?

Off to Bonny Scotland

I'll be taking the high road for the next few weeks and will not have time for blogeries, so get your fix somewhere else for a change. See you back here sometime around the ides of Sept.

Confessions

I have never disclosed this before to anyone, but since one can get a lot of unwarranted attention, free food and air travel by admitting to old unsolved crimes, I want to be the first to admit that I was the real Boston Strangler. BTW, I thought Tony Curtis did a great job in the role, although I am much better looking. Of course I am long since retired from such shenanigans.

My last slaying was a fat chipmunk about two weeks ago who went for my tomato-baited rat trap. I was hoping to exterminate the marauding squirrels but they are too quick for the traps. I felt bad about the chipmunk, so I put the traps away.

I may have found a new solution: at the take-and-leave section of the dump I found a discarded (never opened) motion sensor alarm. It was one of those electronic gimmicks from Sharper Image that plays the sound of a dog barking and growling when it senses movement nearby.

I'm sure there is an interesting story behind it: eg, Somebody probably bought it for their poor widowed mother to make her feel safe living alone in that run-down apartment in a bad section of the city, rather than having her moving-in with the family in the toney suburbs, like she's been begging to. But, before she could get out to the drugstore to buy the 4 "D" cell batteries (not included) she was probably strangled by some pervert.

I loaded it up with fresh Duracells and it worked fine. The contraption seems to keep the squirrels away from the tomatoes - for now. Funny how one person's loss can be another's gain.

As I look out on the garden this morning, I realize that we are less than two weeks from Labor Day, which is considered the potential First Frost Date here in new England. And I am just now picking the Early Girls. The Jet Stars are still the size of eggs and green. Naturally, we will be in Europe when the Jet Stars ripen. Feel free to come over and pick some for your dinner salad.


The old e-mailbag has been overflowing with at least one inquiry about my health.
Thanks - you know who you are. I hope the rest of you do not feel guilty. My courageous battle against ulcers has been tough and lonely, but it has been a journey of hope and inspiration.

Ok. That was a lie. I never knew I had ulcers. I have been taking 2 Aleve on a daily basis for jillions of years (at least 5), for my arthritic and old age pains. I just noticed that there is a warning on the label on a bottle of ALEVE in the smallest typefont known to modern man, it warns that if you drink 3 or more beers a day it could result in stomach bleeding. Which leads to "pernicious anemia."

Perhaps the Aleve (Naproxen) served to dampen any ulcer pain. It should also be noted that I have a cast iron stomach and have only been sick enough to regurgitate twice in the past 40 years. Once in 1972 when I ate too many hot dogs for dinner the night before passing papers on our first house (nervous, no doubt, at the burden of amassing a staggering debt of $22,000). The other time was in 1999 when I got food poisoning. I have always associated ulcers with stress.
In recent years, I have often boasted that I had all but eliminated stress from my life - mainly by reducing my commute time and also being more proactive in avoiding toxic work venues and the assholes who dominated them. So the ulcers are a puzzle to me.
Not so much of a puzzle to my doctor who blames alcohol all of my health problems, including the psoriasis. Fuck him, what does he know?


Anyhow - just to keep the peace around here, I am not drinking (nor taking Aleve) for the foreseeable future. They consider me in a detoxification stage, and are prescribing me a nice cocktail of tranquilizers and nap-inducers. I wait until late in the day to take these; otherwise, my thought processes are like sausage.


My wife and I have discussed the very real possibility that it may be too dangerous for me to continue in retirement. Left to my own devices, I tend to thrash. I am prone to getting into trouble, hanging around bars, going to casinos and racetracks. Running with a disreputable crowd. Having impure thoughts. Lunches, beers with the gang, fishing and not catching. Not that these things are morally bad, but they seem to be bad for my health.

It seems that I need external structure, agenda and a place to go. In other words, I need a job. This is a profoundly disappointing thing to discover about oneself. But, what is one to do, but face up to the truth?

Blackout

The sound of the fan stopping woke me up this morning. The swishing blades were still barely moving when I looked at my bedside clock and saw that the power had gone off. How magnified are my senses these days with the boutique chemicals rambling around my medula oblongata. Sounds do not awaken me. The silence is what lassoed my attention.

I sit on the edge of the bed and look out the open window. It is raining. The Sunday paper is lying in the driveway, too close to the gutter. It is double wrapped in plastic, but history has proven that it will get soaked if left to sit as the water rises. I hate trying to read a wet newspaper, so I put my pants and socks on and pad downstairs in the semi darkness. My wife is still asleep, but the cats - who have been waiting impatiently for someone to arise and feed them - follow me down the stairs. The battery-powered clock in the kitchen says that it is 7:53.

I retrieve the paper and then divide a jar of the expensive strained turkey baby food that the cats have come to expect for breakfast. We pamper them and in return they do not puke on the rug.

Everything we have is electric, so I cannot make coffee or read the paper inside. I take my morning mix of pills with cranberry juice and take the paper out to the porch where the light is better. I turn the overhead fan switch on, so I will know when the power comes back on.

We live in perilous times. Any moment, life as we know it may suddenly change because of terrorists or exploding volcanoes or raging atmospheric storms. We are on high alert. The brain is beginning to plan for an extended power outage: This time, I will eat all the Edie's lime-flavored fruit bars before they melt!

Shortly, the fan starts up. Crisis averted. I trundle around, resetting the digital timepieces on the microwave, oven and radio. Then, Coffee!

What caused the blackout? Probably we shall never know. I like to think it was Homer Simpson getting donut jelly stuck in one of the keys at the municipal light plant, but more than likely it was a burnt-out transformer. Somebody got some extra OT pay, the Edie's Fruit bars are intact and our cease-fire with disaster seems to be holding.

The Healing Process

Day by day we heal ever so gradually, even as we acknowledge the road to dusty death lies visible before us. And we must steel ourselves to pack-up and set-out to begin again on tomorrow's long journey into night.

Entropy, thou witch, has cursed our bones and flesh. We crawl to the edge of the oasis of good feeling and then the mecacah toss us rudely back on the stinging sand, laughing at our pitious moans. They tell me it's the drugs; but I know evil spirits when I feel them gnawing on my soul! The real question; Were they really Doctors or intergalactic Aliens intent upon harvesting my essences?

I lie in bed with my eyes shut against the pain, wondering when the rude experiments they are performing will end. The probes, the tubes, the suction machines and I open my eyes to recognize that it is our Brazilian cleaning ladies who are violating me as I lay helpless. They seem to be talking to each other in a language I cannot understand. They are giving me a sponge bath. The young one with long dark eyelashes is unsure how to procede. They point at my privates and tell her "pretend he is your boyfriend." She completes the hygiene in a most satisfying way. I want her for my nurse.

But once again, it is likely just one of the thousands of daily drug-induced screenplays that occupy my mental viewing screen. Don't get me wrong, it beats working, but I am not sure it beats drinking.

A True Story, Honest

The other day I got an email from the library telling me that I had two books that were seriously overdue and generating fines. If I did not return the books I would be remanded to a maximum security prison where the guards are hired because they score above the 98th percentile of the DeSade profile. (Many of them had been rejected by administrators Abu Grhaib because they were too violent). The notice assured me that no one had ever escaped and no one was ever released. There were no visitors except for mean little children who came to throw rotten eggs and bags of dog feces at the inmates as they whooped down the halls.

The note told me that I could avoid this hassle by simply bringing the books back and paying the fine. I decided upon this course of action and presented myself at the "Miscreant Borrower" desk at the main branch. A stern uniformed woman looked me over, as if wondering what size orange jumpsuit I would be wearing when I was convicted. "Double XXL, I should imagine."
"What?" I asked.
"Pay no mind, patron, I was just thinking out loud. Now, then. What are we trying to pull?"
"Pull?"
"Yes, PULL! Keeping these books overdue! Certainly you are aware that we have RULES..."
"Well, actually, it was an error." She rolled her eyes dramatically as if to say I've never heard this one before... "I was actually in the hospital for a few days and..."
"In the Hospital for a few days, were you?" she clarified
"Yes, Mam, and the meds they sort of got me confused about the days..."
"These books are six days overdue!" She glared at me like where the fuck have I been? Didn't I understand priorities? How can we run an efficient library if people are going to keep books out overdue?
I felt pretty bad about it all. Inconsiderate. Bad citizen.
Then her face seemed to melt into a friendly, forgiving, almost motherly smile.
"Drugs, did you say? They have you on meds?"
"Yeah, I'm in a fog half the day with this Ativan." A barely perceptible brightening of the smile. "Yah, 2mg 3 times a day - I'm like a zombie."
"Oh poor dear. Sometimes they over prescribe those tranqs. We have a program where we distribute them to needy nervous people you know." I noticed a mild tremor in her hand which she disguised by tapping her pencil on the counter.
"Ok, let's deal." I said.

I walked out of the library with a clean record and a receipt for fine paid. The librarian was probably in the back room popping at least one of the half dozen pills of Ativan. Good, she needed to chill out a bit.

Two versions of last week

Version 1 : I have a great excuse for not getting the blog updated.
On Tuesday I was forced by my wife to get checked-out for some minor health issues.
The Local Animal Dr/HMO surgeon recomended that we go to the ER for faster test results. Obediently, we go to the hospital but before I can explain that this is no big deal, I feel fine, this is just a test. . I am wearing one of those assless pajama tops with tubes and wires up into everything. People sticking things everywhere, intimately, and without so much as an introduction.

You start to worry when you look down at the foot of your gurney to see a youngish looking black Doctor - i swear the kid looked younger than Doogy Hauser - and he is looking at my chart through thick plastic rimmed glasses and yelling "Holy shit! Code Blue! Sombody get the difribbukator! Where are my paddles?"

I'm panicked by then - just as one zaftic black lady appears and grabs him by
the arm and says, "Com'on, Leroy! You not sposed to be bodderin' the sick
mens..." She smiles at me like 'he was just funnun ya'.

Fucking hospitals. Then another kid in a green doctor suit wants to
stick his purple gloved finger up my ass ostensibly to check my prostate.
"You won't like this" he says. But the drugs are dulling my rapier wit.
"How can you tell I might be gay?" I smile agreeably. He grimmaces at my bad sense of humor.
He says that my prostate isn't "all that big", Then confirms the worst diagnosis:
most definitely "blood in stool". Enough discussion on how this is determined. eh? I cannot think of a worse sounding symptom.
>
So internal bleeding. The best case is bleeding ulcers; the worst case is bullet to the abdomen, middle case is colon cancer. With no reason to suspect bullet holes we have a tossup which I am rooting for theulcer. A literal army of people come in and out of my "room" in the ER. Some are just looking for supplies which are stored on the shelves. The pull back the curtain look at me, look around and close the curtain. i am like a Panda in the zoo, viewing is available for all who pay the price of a ticket,

Apparently, I am being examined in a part time storage room. Still it looks a lot like the exam room on the TV set. I am wired to a heart machine that beeps encouragingly and displays my life line om a small monitor; my temp and pulse rate are being tracked by a wired clothespin on my index finger. An automatic blood pressure cuff is attached to my upper arm. Periodically it inflates and deflates to record the vital measures of my blood pressure - which is probably hitting the roof because I am convinced this is the Hotel California (You can check out but you can never leave...) , and I am most certainly doomed.

As I try to write this I am under the influence of too many drugs to recall what has transpired in detail since Tuesday. Spent two nights being monitored and getting (probably contaminated) several blood transfusions. I was released on Thursday and when I saw my doc on Friday he said I was going to be fine, but that I should never to take Aleve or - drink anything alcoholic again (ever) - he has me on an alcohol withdrawal drug - probably the same one they are giving to Mel Gibson. I hope he doesn't have as much tyops as I do.

Version two - cleaned up
Anyhow, it's been a hard week. On monday, I was not feeling so good. Not to be indiscrete but my bowels were not behaving "normally"; I was feeling lightheaded as I worked around the yard. it was hot, so I attrinuted the lightheadedness to heat exhaustuion.

On Tuesday, My wife pursueded me to call our HMO for a looksee. They thought I sounded anemic and that I needed a test that could best be done as an outpatient, so I endup at Brigham and womens ER. Long story short: I am bleeding from ulcers. The give me two units of blood to raise my blood count. I stayed there tues and wed night (this was the first time I had been in the hospital overnight since my birth.)

I am now on a coctail of drugs that makes typing werds almost impossible. One of the drugs is attipan which seems to simulate the effects of drinking a qt of vodka. They (The young fellows dressed in green clothese who call themselvbes DR seem to think that my bleeding ulers are caused by a combination of too mucn naproxin (ALEVE) too mutch scotch and Gin. Maybe caused by bargain priced no name tonic water.

Today - Saturday (what happened to Friday?) I am feeling fine and beck to my normal routine - except for the Alevel and alcohol both of which I am on an indefinit prohibition from. This thursday I am checking my self into the mel gibson rehab clinic, sounds like fun.

more news when i can tyoe bettr