Jack Danforth

Former Senator, former UN Ambassador, former Missouri Attorney General spoke yesterday evening over at the Village Presbyterian Church. He drew a large and mostly liberal crowd (judging from the questions they asked, and from the fact that they looked and behaved like nice people). He's out promoting his book, Faith and Politics: How the "Moral Values" Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together.

I've always like Jack Danforth, to such an extent that I have even forgiven him for backing Clarence Thomas. He's a Republican from before the Republicans went crazy - he believes that the party should stand for pro-business policies, an engaged foreigh policy, and small government. He was moved to write his book after the Terry Schiavo affair, which he felt showed that the Republican Party had been completely taken over by the Religious Right.

I may post more about it after I've read the book, but I hope his message against divisiveness takes hold among those right-wing, Bible-thumping bigots in the Republican party.

(Update: I've been told my humor above is too subtle. Hmmm. Maybe things are as bad as Danforth thinks . . .)

Blogging and Journalism

Bloggers have a tendency to take themselves seriously as news sources and opinion-influencers. Yesterday, I received a phone call that reminded me of the distinction between bloggers and real journalists.

Dan Margolies of the Star called and inquired about whether I had support for my premise for Monday's post about Kobach teaching immigration, like a published class schedule or something. In other words, did I have a reliable source for the simple proposition that he is scheduled to teach that course? And the answer was no - I received an email from someone I don't personally know, telling me that Kobach is scheduled to teach Immigration Law in the Spring Semester. I did think about whether the information was true when I wrote my post, but it sounded right, since he is a professor at UMKC and knows a fair amount of immigration law. And, besides, I figured that I would probably hear from someone if it turned out to be false, and I could just put an update on my piece correcting the information, and probably including something snarky for good measure.

That's one of the differences between a blogger and a journalist. Carefully checking facts and getting reliable and verifiable sources is hard work, and good journalists do it every day. God knows how many good and true stories wind up not making it into print because they could not be verified properly by a good journalist. I'd love to know just a fraction of the true stories that Dan Margolies has tucked in his brain about the Kansas City legal community - stories he did not publish because they did not meet his standards of journalism.

I am not a journalist. I admire journalists and appreciate their work - and get angry when they do it poorly. Their insistence on getting to primary facts and checking them out goes miles beyond what I and most bloggers do most of the time, which is to find something on the internet and run with it if it sounds right.

Bloggers who take themselves seriously and consider themselves "citizen journalists" need a reality check. Unless you're doing the ground level development of sources and documentation, you are playing at journalism. The phone call I received yesterday was a friendly reminder that real journalists work on an entirely different level.

I want this blog to be fun and thought-provoking, and an outlet for occasional creative flashes. I'll use it to gather news from various sources. But, please, never make the mistake of thinking that this site is real journalism. I happily leave that job to the professionals.

T.S. Eliot was Born on this Date

What is it with birthday posts this week? I guess it's a counter-balance for the surfeit of recently-passed musicians featured over at the always-worth-a-visit There Stands the Glass.

T.S. Eliot has been my favorite poet since high school days, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (complete text below) is the poem that saved my appreciation of poetry.

Even as a high school student, I could recognize that this poem is the straight stuff. The rhythm and rhyme, the literary allusion, the mood, the meaning, and even the subtle humor were something different from anything else I had ever read.

In college, I studied the poem again with Professor William Murphy, and he helped me appreciate the poem's elaborate structure, and further appreciate the rhythm.

As I've aged, I've found fresh enjoyment every time I read the poem. From the startling first three lines and their juxtaposition of romanticism and a near corpse, to the haunting closing lines ("We have lingered in the chambers of the sea/By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown/Till human voices wake us, and we drown"), the poem is simply fun to read out loud.

What does it mean? Ahh, the eternal question for great poetry. It portrays an insecure man afraid of his own mortality. It portrays a society that deadens, but does not quite kill, passion. It portrays a mystical world where birth and baptism are as fruitless as abortion. It portrays despair.

It is all of that, and beautiful. A great poem holds multitudes and layers. Its words reinforce themselves and they mean more together than their summation. Take a few minutes and read it aloud. I hope you find some of what I have found in it.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock


S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Kris "K" Kobach Teaching Immigration?

This is funny. UMKC, while working on the one hand to reduce racial tensions and minority feelings of exclusion, is having none other than Kris "2000 mile wall" Kobach teach Immigration Law at the School of Law. While Kris has many foolish right-wing positions, he has achieved his greatest fame by being an insanely anti-Latino cretin, going so far as to claim that we need to build a wall along our southern border (but not the northern border - Canadians are mostly white). The guy that UMKC is having teach Immigration Law was endorsed by a group that wants to end immigration entirely. On the other hand, I guess it's better that he teach something most lawyers don't deal with, like immigration, rather than something like Civil Procedure, an area that he clearly knows nothing about.

In light of the fact they have an anti-immigration whacko teaching Immigration Law, I started thinking about other classes that UMKC might be offering in the coming semester.

* Introduction to Prescription Regulation, Professor Rush Limbaugh, College of Pharmacy.

* Driving School, Professor Ted Kennedy.

* Strategic Planning, Professor Donald Rumsfeld.

* Ethics in Government, Professor Roy Blunt.

* Civil Engineering - Special Topics in Bridge Building, Professor Ted Stevens.

* History of Religion, Professor Mel Gibson.

* Physical Fitness, Coach Mangino.

* Public Speaking, Professor George W. Bush.

* Ethics in Journalism, Professor Bill O'Reilly.

* Christian Theology, Reverend Fred Phelps.

Are there any other classes you want to see offered?

Happy Birthday, Sam

Today Sam is turning 21. Yesterday evening, we realized that he had already turned 21 a few hours earlier - he is in Prague for the semester, and is visiting Krakow for the weekend. He is 7 hours ahead. As I write this, at 6:30 in the morning, he may be visiting Auschwitz on his birthday. It seems like only a few years ago that we threw him a nifty party with a Star Wars theme, and gave him Legos.

I excel at focusing on the positives of growth, change and life experience for my children. Others ask whether I feel like Sam is safe in Prague (or New York), and they ask the same about Ali in New Orleans. They're fair questions, but they come at me from a direction I tend not to look. Sam and Ali are where they want to be. They're smart and reasonable - they'll take care of themselves. People asked the same question when we sent them to the Kansas City public schools, and we have no regrets.

Sam's childhood has now ended, both here at home and 5,000 miles away from home, where he is seeing the land my mother's family left generations ago. They never returned home; Sam will return before Christmas. But we won't be giving him Legos, and he won't wear Star Wars pajamas on Christmas morning.

It's been fun, and I know it will be fun in the future. I will be a superb grandfather, when called to that role. I don't ask that the clock be turned back, or that Sam give up his NYU dreams for a UMKC reality. This is all what I've wanted and dreamed for him - I could not be more proud and happy and excited. Truly.

But a part of me is wishing I could go upstairs at this early hour and see him sleeping peacefully, soon to wake up with wide-eyed excitement about a birthday with a single digit. I would really like that. And sitting here, in the same dining room where we celebrated those birthdays, it almost seems possible. It almost feels like the time has not really passed, and that they are both nearby and children.

Tulips on Troost Sucks - How About a Little Help

The Tulips on Troost website is lame. It takes guts for someone using a blogger template and a technically adept son to run his own website to start wailing on another site, but there it is.

Fortunately, Durwin Rice agrees, and wants to fix it up a little bit. Nothing fancy, just a little tidying up and improvement - just like they want to do for Kansas City's nascent coolest street - Troost Avenue. And they'd love to get it done ASAP, since they have a big meeting on October 2, and they want to have their website looking better before the meeting.

Does anybody out there have a little time to make a big difference? Tulips on Troost is about making a corner of the world look nicer for the people who visit it. That's pretty cool, don't you think?

If you can offer a hand, please give Durwin Rice a call at 816.812.8530 or email him at durwinrice@durwinrice.com. Heck, let me know you've done it, and I'll buy you some of the best tamales in the world - on Troost.

Mark Forsythe - Right for City Council

I met Mark Forsythe for coffee yesterday at the Roasterie. The guy is on fire - well-versed on what the city actually does, how the council functions, and what issues matter to his future constituents. He cares much more about being straightforward than about treading lightly around political minefields - he knocked one of my favorite local politicians for demagoguery. I admired him more for stating his opinion clearly and persuasively than I resented him for not agreeing with every position I hold.

At the same time, he's not a prima-donna who expects that he will get on the council and have everybody fall in line behind his agenda. He knows he needs to persuade other council members to support his efforts. He dismissed prior council members who acted as though being on the losing end of a 12-1 vote meant that they were taking a courageous stand. "That's just stupid, and a failure," Mark says, shaking his head.

I don't know whether anyone will be able to accomplish very much on the City Council, with its warring factions and entrenched interest groups. But I do know that Mark is an honest, hard-working, determined voice, and he will give it his absolute best shot. If you're in his district, and you vote, you should meet him and vote for him. I'm going to.

Overlooked Again

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation issued its "Genius Grants" yesterday, and, once again, they overlooked me. I'm okay with that - I know that my special form of genius sometimes doesn't correspond to traditional measures. It's more of a free-form, amorphous kind of genius, and, to be honest, getting a $500,000 unrestricted grant to pursue it could be dangerous.

That said, I'm shocked that Jeff Varasano of New York did not get one. How could they overlook his boundless drive to make the perfect pizza? Surely, when they saw that he actually hacked his stove so that he could use the self-cleaning cycle to bake a pizza, they knew they had found a man of genius . . .

Local Right-Wing Blogger Wants Judge Callahan Dead?!?!

I just posted the item below on Judge Callahan's Voter ID decision, and checked out some of the other local views. It appears that at least one local blogger has gone off the deep end. Little Miss Chatterbox has posted an image of a wanted poster with the caption "Wanted Dead or Alive - Activist Judges". In case you miss the death threat, she generously provides crosshairs on the picture of the judge.

She doesn't explain how a judge ruling on a case he is paid to decide constitutes "activism", or why such "activism" justifies death threats, but I think the local right wing has hit a new low . . .

Judge Callahan's Voter ID Decision

I voiced my disapproval of the Missouri Voter ID law, and of Governor Blunt's disgusting refusal to fund efforts to provide the poor and disabled with the required identificaiton. Now, as a public service, I'm happy to provide a link to a pdf of Judge Callahan's decision overturning the law.

It's a good, clear, well-written and well-reasoned decision. I am confident that the Missouri Supreme Court will affirm it.

They're Fine, But Come On . . .

President (God I miss him) Clinton hosted a get-together for a bunch of bloggers (my invitation must have been lost in the mail), and this group picture was taken.

Sure enough, the repressed right found something upsetting about the event. But guess what it was . . .

10 points to whomever noticed that the woman in front of President (God I miss him) Clinton has breasts!

No, I'm not kidding. That pair of breasts ignited a firestorm of tut-tutting from the right.

Talk about making mountains out of . . .

NFL's Overtime Rule Needs to Change

The NFL's current overtime rule, under which 28% of the games are won on the first overtime possession, is a joke. They ought to either go ahead and decide the victor by coin toss, laying aside all illusions of competitiveness, or go with a college-style approach, where each team gets the opportunity to run its offense.

I know that people like Phil Simms disagree with me on this, but those people are wrong.

Too Much Tolerance at MSU

One of Matt Blunt's goals when he took office was to elevate Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) to a "separate but equal to Mizzou" status within the Missouri system of public universities. Now that he has accomplished that goal, he is furious at his handiwork, because MSU is starting to act like a real University.

This past week, the Board of Governors clarified their non-discrimination policy to include the following:

In addition, the University does not discriminate on any basis (including, but not limited to, political affiliation and sexual orientation) not related to the applicable educational requirements for students or the applicable job requirements for employees.

Unfortunately, this clear statement of tolerance sent Baby Blunt into a hissy fit. Apparently, he thought that the whole point of elevating SWMSU to MSU status was that he could have his own Redneck U., right there in his hometown.

Gov. Matt Blunt called the clarification of Missouri State University's non-discrimination policy "unnecessary and bad." His spokesman, Spence Jackson, added that any time spent on a non-discrimination policy protecting gays and lesbians is "too much time." No, I'm not making that up. He really said that.

As for the gay community in Springfield, they are ready and eager to welcome 18,000 new bears.

I Don't Mean to Laugh at Someone's Death, But . . .

If I die from eating a freakin' spinach salad, I'd expect everyone to laugh at me.

Heroes of Hush!

Some heroes dive on hand grenades. Some heroes rush into burning buildings and save children. Some heroes, though, are librarians. Seriously, if you're interested in reading about guardians of the intellect, go read that article about some librarians who have done the right thing.

Then, after reading that article, go read about Kansas City's Coolest Librarian (a unanimous selection by the Kansas City Librarian Ranking Society, for 4 years in a row now), Alicia. She reads and reviews more books than anybody I can imagine. She's my librarian hero.

I Think I'm Turning Republican

This morning, I did a post backing Bond and Talent in their efforts to get the new Cape Girardeau federal courthouse named after the non-druggy Rush Limbaugh. This evening, I was all set to do a massive smack down on Baby Blunt's ugly and blatant cronyism, for breaking his word and working to replace a competent tourism director with a donor whose only experience is serving as an advistory board member for Precious Moments. Please bow your head for a moment in honor of the aborted fun I could have had with Baby Blunt and Precious Moments.

What's causing me to cap my sarcastic pen, and write two pro-Republican posts in a row?

Matt Blunt appointed Dan Scott to the Southern District Court of Appeals today. He made a wonderful appointment, and he's earned my respect for a day.

I don't really know Dan's politics - I would guess that he is a sensible Republican.
But I've known him for almost 20 years, and his common sense, quick wit, and respect for others makes him an ideal judge for the appellate bench. He's smart, dependable, and immensely likeable. I know he will decide cases on the law and facts, and not on political considerations or personalities. I've had the honor of serving on the Missouri Bar Young Lawyers Section Council and the Missouri Bar Board of Governors with him, and he was one of the people everyone respected, and everyone listened to. I didn't always agree with him, but he often influenced my thinking.

Dan is probably around 50, and will be able to serve Missouri for another 15 years. We are fortunate to have him on our bench. Thank you, Governor Blunt.

Rush Limbaugh Courthouse

Missouri Senators Kit Bond and Jim Talent, and Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson are seeking to name the new federal courthouse in Cape Girardeau after Rush Limbaugh, the grandfather of the racist, fact-challenged, drug-abusing entertainer. Understandably, the thought of a Rush Limbaugh Federal Courthouse has some of my fellow liberals mildly upset.

I'm with the Republicans on this one. In an era when almost all federal capital improvements bear the name of someone, the Rush Limbaugh they are honoring is deserving of the honor. He practiced law with integrity until he was 104. I remember hearing him speak at bar meetings, and he was a link to a distinguished past, with a warm regard for the future, as well. He was generous with his time and advice.

It's true that his grandson has brought disgrace to what should be an honorable name. It may even be true that some supporting the new name are doing so in a deceptive attempt to associate the courthouse with the draft-dodging, dishonorable grandson. I look at it, though, as a way of rescuing a good man's name, and rebuking the grandson whose has sullied the name with the lack of all that his grandfather stood for.

Blog Friend

A friend I've never met suffered the loss of her father earlier today.

Bush Since 9/11 - A Great President

Five years after 9/11, the world is surprisingly peaceful. President Bush's pragmatic and bipartisan leadership has kept the United States not just strong but unexpectedly popular across the globe. The president himself is poised to enjoy big GOP wins in the midterm elections, a validation of his subtle understanding of the challenges facing the country. A new survey of historians puts him in the first tier of American presidents.

A look at what could and should have been, by Jonathan Alter.

This Says it All

Bush stepping on our nation's flag while commemorating his first huge failure. Perfect.Thanks to Yahoo for the photo of the Desecrator in Chief. (Can you imagine the yiping outrage if this were either of the Clintons?)

Pictures from Prague

Sam and a bunch of his NYU friends have a group blog documenting their various terms abroad at Europa the Cow. To summarize, it's not a bad thing to be 20 years old and travelling to cool places. Pictures from Prague are here and here.

The Law Requires . . .

I was in a meeting yesterday with 5 very smart people, working on hiring an Executive Director for a nonprofit. We were discussing setting up interviews for each of the candidates, and the consultant who we are paying good money to just tossed out there, "The law requires that you ask each candidate the same questions."

This is one of those things that is like fingernails on a chalkboard or squeaking styrofoam to me.

What?!?!

"Where is there such a requirement?," I politely asked.

"Oh, it's in the employment laws," she replied, as confident in her bogus knowledge as she could be.

I suspect that some sweaty, overpaid associate in some office tower somewhere wrote a memo that said that one way you can avoid even the mildest hint of discriminatory intent is if you asked the every candidate for a job the exact same questions. And someone told someone else that this nonsense is required by the law.

I think that I'm going to start telling people that the law requires that all interviewers should wear blindfolds, too. How long until my halfwit idea will be cited to me as a legal requirement?

The Death of Cynicism

Bush has now announced that the United States, once the land of the free and the home of the brave, is now a corrupt Soviet-style police-state reliant on a network of secret prisons instead of a system of laws and justice.

May God have mercy on his twisted soul.

Cynicism can not survive in a world where reality so closely matches our nightmares. When I was growing up, a nation that spied on its own citizens, that locked people away in secret prisons, that employed torture to extract information, that attacked countries which had not attacked it, that rape-murders families in a country it is occupying - such a nation was an abomination. Such a nation was an enemy to the good and upstanding nations of the world.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

What's left that we can consider cynical? Is it cynical to believe that corrupt corporate entities would doctor electronic voting machines? Is it cynical to believe that 18 families have bought enough Republicans to get the estate tax repealed? Is it cynical to believe that political hacks would use a national security warning system to manipulate our fears for short-term political gain?

Whatever you think of these claims, you can no longer say that believing them is unjustifiably cynical. No. Not in the brave new world where the American flag flies over secret prisons. Not in Bush's America.

Cynicism requires a certain innocence to define itself and contrast with. Cynicism can only exist where the conjecture is beyond reasonably justifiable expectation. Bush and the Republicans have destroyed that innocence. Bush's sick, Stalinistic impulse to imprison people in secret prisons deprives us of any reasonable belief that our nation is better than that.

Republican Fear is Dangerous, Not Funny

I did a first draft of this post, and I started it with a clever knickname for frightened Republicans. I deleted that, though, because mocking the Republicans may amuse me, but it really is not funny. We have a serious problem here in America, when the majority party is eager to aggressively expand the role of government and police in our society. A new survey by Zogby International confirms some of my worst suspicions about Republicans and their level of fear.

Here is a sample of how far the Republicans are willing to go to shift the balance between liberty and security in our still-great nation. The following numbers reflect the percentage of Republicans who agree with the respective police measures, with the corresponding number for Democrats in parentheses.

Would you favor allowing these methods if it meant increased protection from terrorist acts?

* Allowing your purse, handbag, briefcase, backpack, or packages to be searched at random anywhere: 66 (45)

* Allowing regular roadblocks to search vehicles: 62 (38)

* Allowing your car to be searched at random: 60 (37)

* Allowing your telephone conversations to be monitored: 56 (20)

* Allowing your mail to be searched at random: 49 (26)

These numbers reflect a collective loss of nerve I never could have imagined in America. Maybe it is because I grew up in cold-war America, where an essential part of the definition of America was that we are free, in stark contrast to the spied-upon police states of the Communist world. Now that we have outlasted the restrained and restricted Reds, the Republicans want to become them.

Can you imagine regular roadblocks to search vehicles, and random pull-overs to do the same? In America?

American Republicans, who are you? Why does this seem like a good idea to you? Does this really sound like a fitting response to a few threats? This, from a nation that once prayed for the enslaved people of the Soviet Union and Cuba?

I'm not mocking the Republicans for their fear. I am afraid, too. I fear the authoritarian impulses of our own government and the corruptible people within it, though, more than I fear what terrorists can accomplish in the face of a determined and courageous nation.

Mega-Thumbs Up! Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

On Saturday, we made our first visit to the Tivoli since the passing of Bob Smith, and saw Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.

It's a simple, humane movie that may be the first and only example of the "old chick flick" genre. An old woman moves to London and finds herself ignored by her grandson. She meets a gallant young man who is similarly lonely, and they form a rich friendship, enriching both their lives.

I don't claim to be competent at assessing male beauty, and I try to avoid opining on things I don't know, but I'm pretty certain that Rupert Friend is ridiculously attractive. This is his first lead role, but I think the female public will be clamoring for more.

The movie is intelligent and sure of itself. The characters are likeable and compelling, and the writing is crisp.

It's also nice to be 46 in a movie theater and bring the average age down.

Sader Family Update

Some blogs thrive because they are definitive sources of certain information. If you want up-to-date political news, there are several sources in my blogroll. If you want info on Bolivia, I have a link for that. Books, food, music, etc., all have great blog-homes on the internet.

Other blogs, though, feel more like a visit to an old friend where you don't know what the conversation will be. Local politics, kid pictures, you just never know. One of the best of this variety is Janet, Keith, Matthew, and Josie - The Sader Family blog.

Unfortunately, they've had to change their domain name from saderfamily.org to sader-family.org, because the people at Register.com are horsing them around. So, if you, like me, enjoy the Sader Family, update your links and vow to never use Register.com.

Will the Real #2 Stand Up?

One of the odd recurring themes in Bush's mistaken war on Iraq is the fact that every couple months or so we capture the second or third most important terrorist in Iraq. Being the second or third most important terrorist in Iraq must be the most dangerous position in the world. Somehow Osama bin Laden continues to wander around the world, but his underlings are picked up with shocking regularity.

Oddly, if you google the latest #2 captive, you wouldn't find his name ANYWHERE. Until this morning, the second-most important terrorist in Iraq was less famous than almost anyone I know. Strange. It's almost as if someone in the Bush administration is trying to spin unimportant captures into chimerical "successes".

Blog Blasts from the Past

Blogs exist mostly for their front page. The archives exist in cyberspace, able to be resurrected if necessary, but mostly just sitting there, unread, like that college essay I wrote on William Blake's The Sick Rose that I keep in a drawer somewhere. Not entirely forgotten, but only dimly recalled.

Some blog entries, though, take on a life of their own, and draw comments and attention long after I have moved on to other issues. For example, almost a year ago, I opined that the Second Amendment had outlived its usefulness in "Second Amendment - 18th Century Wisdom in the 21st Century." In the couple weeks after I posted it, discussion centered on the political reality that regulation was probably sufficient, and much more realistic. It was a good, lively and mostly intelligent discussion, and most of us moved on to other topics.

This week, however, saw an inexplicable resurgence in commentary on the post. The post is mentioned in Wikipedia, but that generates only a couple hits per week. Someone, somewhere, must have posted my thoughts on a site popular with gun-nuts, because over the last week or so I've received almost 20 comments on the year-old piece. It's funny to see a fresh storm of commentary on a post I had pretty much forgotten about.

Even more amusing (unless you find terribly upset, high-pitched, tough-talking gun nuts even more funny than I do) is the consistent reaction I get to my brief post on "Florida's Culture of Life", which reads, in its entirety:

The right wing, fresh off demonstrating that they value "life" so much that they will threaten to kill people who allow someone to die according to her wishes, are now loosening up the restrictions on when you can pull out your gun and shoot somebody. Somehow, it's easier to attack Michael Schiavo than it is to ignore the NRA.

Despite the coincidental reference to guns, my commentary here seems to come from the fact that if you google the words Florida and culture, my post shows up in the top twenty or so results. As a result, I regularly receive comments from horribly upset and profane high school students who are dismayed that my post does not help them with their school work. On Wednesday, for example, Anonymous left me this vivid insight into the world of a frustrated procrastinator: " . . . i have a fucking project due tomorrow on fucking florida and there's no fucking information on florida's culture shit!!!!!!!1"

It's an odd twist of fortune that this blog, while intending only to dispense wisdom, has caused so much turmoil to gun nuts and procrastinating Floridians.