Shutter Bugs: How I Lost My Photographic Eye

An off-topic post on one of the websites I frequent caught my attention; this one about the demise of the 35mm film camera. Sigh. Ever since cheap digitals came along, the idea of actually taking the time to load a roll of 12 or 24 or 36 frames into a camera, shooting the pictures, driving them to a processor, then waiting to see if "the pictures came out OK" just seems sooooo old fashioned. The good ol' 35mm SLR is soon to join the typewriter and the buggy whip as a nostalgic thing of the past.

It's funny, though. I see loads of highly-creative images on the web, shot with digital point-and-shoot cameras, and I can't take a decent photograph with my wife's digital to save my life. Unfortunately, I can't seem to shoot decent photographs with my 35's or my mega-dollar Hasselblad anymore, either.

I remember (go ahead and cringe, he's reminiscing again) a time about thirty-five years ago when I received my first real, honest-to-goodness 35mm camera. It was used, it was made somewhere behind the Iron Curtain, and it weighed about the same as the AK-47's that were probably being made on the same assembly line. I had absolutely no idea how to use it, other than a poorly-translated instruction book, and all the photographic subject material I could glean from the A.K. Smiley Public Library.

But I figured it out. Pretty soon I could rattle on about ASA's and shutter speeds and f-stops just like I knew what I was talking about. And, surprisingly, I shot some damn nice photos. At least, compared to what everyone else I knew was making with their Kodak Instamatics. In retrospect, I guess it wouldn't be hard to beat an image from an Instamatic, but looking back, I think the images hold up pretty well. The sheer fact I knew how to use a 35mm camera earned me my first newspaper job. If I'd only stayed a photographer...

As time went on, I upgraded cameras, relying more and more on the electronics those clever Japanese crammed into the increasingly sexy ergonomic aluminum and polymer camera bodies. Funny, but my pictures didn't get all that better.

So after my bad-ass all black Canon was stolen, I went back to a used and battered low-end Nikon, selected for it's lack of gimmickry and it's reputation as the backup camera war correspondents fell to using when their "good" Nikon took a crap from jungle rot or shrapnel from a Viet-Cong mortar barrage.

I didn't shoot much artistic stuff with it. My main subject matter was the used-car inventory at a dozen southland used car lots, being as I was selling advertising in those days. I'd rush the film to the developer, then rush back later to pick up the prints, then rush to the paper, size and crop the images, and throw them at the newspaper's back shop along with an ad layout minutes before deadline. Life sucked, and so did my hundreds of dramatic, low-point-of-view 3/4 angle shots of Plymouth mini-vans, all in glorious black-and-white.

Things didn't get any better when my boss acquired the very first commercially available digital camera, in the sad hope it would return it's investment in saved film and processing costs. It featured one, count 'em, one mega pixel. Press the "shutter" and, eventually, say, two seconds later, it would take a photo that looked like it had been shot with one of my old friend's Instamatics. This little jewel cost ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. I was mortified. And I had to share it with two other people. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions? I photographed the road to hell with that one mega pixel camera...

My camera-to-end-all-cameras came about four years ago. In a fit of lunacy, I was the high bidder in an eBay auction for the holiest-of-hollies, a Hasselblad medium format camera. This is the camera Neil Armstrong used on the moon! This is the camera Ansel Adams used in Yosemite! This is the camera used in thousands of weddings, and hundreds of Playboy centerfolds! Can you say Annie freaking Leibovitz?!! And this is the camera yours truly would lug all over Ireland; I, a former "pro" (e.g, I got paid a couple of times) carefully composing a single bad photo, while my fellow bus tourists were firing off hundreds of digital images that looked better than mine. Aaarrrggg.

I dunno. Let me blame it on cataracts, or a photographic mind destroyed by thousands of used cars, or the digital camera from hell. I just can't shoot shit anymore. But my youngest daughter wants me to take her picture with the Hassy; she in period 40's costume, her boyfriend wearing his Marine uniform, recreating a time long ago when girls kissed their guys goodbye at the train station as soldiers went off to war... which he is about to do, for real, in a much different world than it was then.

Pray that I can pull it off, one more time.

Why General Motors Should Die

Let me count thy ways...

(We'll for the sake of expediency ignore The General's historic lack of control over its dealer network, allowing dealers to provide horrible customer service for decades, if not outright occasional fraud.) Let's just focus on product, and review why I think GM should die:

1971: Chevy Vega - what can I say?

1972: Chevy "LUV" Pickup - Isuzu Import, with frames beginning to rust out while still on the boat. One of many foreign cars rebadged and sold to customers who believed they were buying "American".

"Badge Engineering" - sharing the same car between low and high end product lines

1976: Cadillac Seville (redressed Chevy Nova) - worst example of badge engineering

1979: Chevy Citation - subject of government lawsuit

Orphans: Opel, Geo, other imports dumped and unsupported with parts and service

Late 70's "Slantback" Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs - styling disasters

Substituting Chevy engines in Oldsmobiles without telling customers = lawsuits

1981 Cadillac 4-6-8 engine - engineering disaster

1984 Pontiac Fiero with "Iron Duke" 4 cylinder engine - engineering disaster

1970's-80's GM passenger car diesels - engineering disaster

1982: Chevy Cavalier - cheaply designed, cheaply executed

1980's Geo Metro

1980's - First generation Saturns

1999: Cadillac Escalade

2000: Chevy Aveo

I could go on and on about how GM took a generation of children who grew up in '57 Chevys and destroyed their faith in American automobiles. No matter how good their cars may be now, or in the future, their negligence to the USA consumer will not be forgotten. GM can't turn the clock back, and there's no way forward.

Life In The Slow Lane

The new Honda Fit I've purchased has retaught me how to drive.

There's a little instrument on the dashboard that, were I Barney Frank and talking to the heads of the "Big 3" about bailout money, I'd demand they install on every new car and truck. It's a little bar graph that moves up and down as you drive, telling the driver exactly what kind of gas mileage you're getting. Below it is a numerical display of your average MPG, linked to your trip odometer. Those two little displays that take up about three square inches of dash space have made me a new man behind the wheel.

Where once I blasted over to the fast lane and dialed in a 75 MPH setting on the cruise control, I'm now content to ride along with the trucks and the little old ladies hugging their steering wheels with a death grip.

"Go ahead and pass me, motherfucker," I utter to the guy blasting past in his 4x4 pickup. I glance at the mileage indicator and knock another mile per hour off of the cruise setting. Sixty two feels about right. "Oh wait," I exclaim, noting that the road is now going ever so slightly down hill. I kill the cruise control and let the car coast, picking up a precious few miles per hour. My new friend, Mr. Mileage Indicator, responds with additional green bars, telling me my mileage is soaring. At the bottom of the hill, I reset the cruise control.

A semi-truck passes me slowly on the left. I feel the car rock slightly, and note that he's momentarily breaking a path for me, as the air is diverted around my car. Cool. The indicator lights up another couple of bars.

Now let's play with the big boys, shall we? Traffic is light, so... let's play NASCAR, and pretend I'm following Jimmy Johnson around one of those super speedways. I tuck in behind the semi and draft him. The truck is almost sucking me along in his wake. I'm not brave enough ride nose-to-tail, but a couple of car lengths allows me a margin of safety while riding in still air.

"He he he," I giggle. I've been watching my average climb all the way to work. 48.6 MPG. The tenths come harder the higher the average climbs. I'm getting so I can anticipate the gain or loss of a tenth of a MPG. Breaking into another round number, say 48.9 to 49.0, is gratifying to say the least. This is fun.

So what that the price of gas is dropping like a stone; I'm making up for my past sins when it was $4 a gallon. Bite me, Mr. Jacked Up 4x4, Miss Urban Assault Vehicle. I may be slow, but I'm ahead of you.

Taking Advantage Of The Bad Economy

Rather than pour more cash into the useless dinosaur that was my Ford F-150 pickup, I decided to take my losses and see what else I could be driving back and forth to work every damn day. For those of you who don't know, my weekly commute totals 800 miles. At the height of the latest gas crisis, I was throwing $700 a month into the gas tank of my truck. Car dealers were getting thousands of dollars over MSRP for fuel efficient vehicles, and then....

Wall Street decided to implode. Car dealers found they couldn't get car loans for customers unless they had excellent credit. Inventories backed up, and suddenly, it's a buyer's market again, if you've got a credit score that approaches the number usually associated with a Chinese math genius's SAT.

Now, I'm not strong on cash flow, but I do have decent credit... so, off to the Honda dealer.

Most Honda cars these days you find on American highways are largely built here in the states or in Mexico. That poses a little concern for me, as all USA manufacturers buy from local suppliers -- suppliers who might go belly up along with Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Only a couple of Honda cars are truly Japanese these days, and the best of them is the "Fit".

Introduced to the world about 5 years ago, and in the States in 2007, the Fit is Honda's smallest and most economical car, although with 5 doors and a tall roofline it doesn't appear tiny, the way the Toyota Yaris 2 door does. Style-wise, it is something of a cross between Toyota's Matrix and the hybrid Prius but with typical Honda styling cues. For 2009, the Fit enters it's second generation, with a fresh design and slightly more horsepower.

Honda doesn't import as many Fits as it can sell here, because they don't want to cannibalise the profit made on USA-made Civics. The Fit, being Japanese, is at the mercy of the Yen-Dollar exchange rate, and right now, the Yen is high, making profit on the Fit low. Sorry 'bout that.

The dealer had a record-high seven Fits in stock, and about 250 Civics. We drove both, and while the Civic has more horsepower, it also features a dashboard resembling a work station on the star ship Enterprise. Not that that's a bad thing, only it makes entry and exit for someone with a bad knee (e.g., my wife) a literal pain. Back to the Fit.

Honda is marketing the Fit in America as a trendy and cool ride for 20-somethings, but it was designed to really be a super-economy car for Europe and Asia that would have enough room for five adults and a load of groceries. It features the smallest engine available in a Honda these days, 1500 cc's putting out 117 horse-power. That's ten more than my old Mini Cooper had. The rest of the world can have an even smaller 1300 cc engine, but gas would have to get to $10 a gallon before we'll see engines like that here.

One lesson learned from my Mini is that as much as I like shifting gears, my commute home from LA is not the place for a manual transmission. Automatics are as thrifty, if not more so than manual trannies these days, so that was a necessity. Fortunately, the Fit has a very well designed five speed automatic that, on the "S" model, comes with a feature until recently you'd only find on cars from Ferrari and the like -- paddle shifters.

This was my first experience with the steering-column mounted paddles, and they work very well. In standard "Drive" mode you can use it to drop the trans one or two gears for passing without having to nail the throttle to get the car to downshift. In "Sport" mode, ideal for twisty roads in the mountains, you can lock the car in any gear you like for as long as you like, and upshift and downshift as you would in a manual transmission car, except that your left foot will be relaxing on the dead pedal, rather than working a clutch.

The "S" package comes with some nice 16-inch alloy wheels and fatter, 55-series tires, a bunch of silly plastic spoilers and rocker covers, and different interior fabric, all aimed at the rice-rocket crowd. All I wanted, as the Toyota commercials say, is my MPG.

So...goodbye Ford F-150, Hello little Honda. I negotiated my way into a payment close to equal the one on the truck, at a decent interest rate, and no gas-crisis "price adjustment" stickers.

The car is EPA rated at 37 highway. The EPA has recently redesigned its testing to better reflect the real world, as in years past, the highway rating always was much higher than what you'd really get.

It looks like perhaps they went too conservative this time. My first tank netted me an average of 46.7 miles per gallon, amazing with a "tight" new engine. I've since touched the magic 50.0 MPG mark. That's damn good for not having a trunk full of batteries and spongy regenerative braking, as the Prius has. Not to mention the improvement over what the truck was getting.

As a former "car guy" now deep into his own 12-step recovery program, I have to acknowledge that the Fit and all other cars for sale today are really just appliances, not the thing dreams are made of. They are conveyances, not chariots of the gods. The Fit is not something that 30 years from now people will wax nostalgic about; seeking obscure parts to restore granddad's car to former glory. Oh well. Still, I wish Honda could have come up with carpeting that doesn't replicate high grade roofing felt, and saved me the embarrassment of driving a five-door econobox laden with spoilers in order to get the paddle-shifter option.

The next five years and 200,000 miles should be interesting. Barring any test of its five star crash rating, I feel confident it will still be rolling along getting excellent mileage. Honda has drawings of a hybrid sports car floating around the Internet, so we'll see if that's in my future, should I still be a) employed, and b) credit worthy, both tenuous propositions as I get older.

Peggy Noonan on the Election

A terrific essay on Obama and McCain:

Declarations - WSJ.com

If You Can't Read This, Don't Vote

I hate to say this, but in these days of billion dollar elections, perhaps we should reconsider the literacy test for voter registration. Better than that, we ought to test everyone on the contents of their voter pamphlet before they enter the polling booth.

Yes, I know not that long ago literacy tests were used to prevent black folk from voting. But that's not what I'm aiming at. I want people of every color and every age to prove they know what they're about to vote on, rather than relying on carefully scripted TV ads and robocalls to influence their decisions.

The more the media have expanded, the signal to noise ratio of politics has increased even more. Between the pundits, the ads, the media bias, "political correctness," and your odd conspiracy theorist here and there, the general public comes to election day feeling like they've been through a war. Who the hell are they supposed to believe?

I say they ought to be smart enough to prove they can ignore all of the above and read the measured for-and-against debates and actual word of law as outlined in their voter pamphlet.
They can then actually weigh the pros and cons against their own personal philosophies and make informed decisions. Is that really asking too much of the public?

You would think that with as much attention Obama and McCane have received, the public would know their positions well. Guess what? Somebody took a camera to Harlem and asked Obama supporters why they were for him, substituting McCane's positions for Obama's. Not a soul caught the discrepancy. They all were voting on Obama's personality and color rather than his platform. I surely think Obama would be appalled. I bet you could have played the same trick on Sarah Palin's ardent supporters, too.

Now, if that's the situation in the Presidential election, what about senate and house races? Or local votes? Or state referendums?

It's time to take back the vote from the media and put it in the hands of informed adults. If you think politicians are scared of voters now, you ought to think about how scared they'd be if we all really knew the issues.

You Say "Socialist" Like It's A Bad Thing...

Here we are in the last fervent days of the Presidential campaign, and the Republicans are attempting to paint Obama's "change" platform with the broad brush of "Socialism".

Socialism is a word that in the United States that brings to mind images of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, unattractive clothing, and the third word in "USSR". Not the kind of lifestyle that John Wayne lovin' Americans aspire to.

Well, my friends, it turns out we've had a growing list of socialist tendencies for a long time, and most Americans haven't seen it that way.

Remember the New Deal? Most Americans these days think fondly of FDR and the alphabet soup of projects that helped pull us out of the great depression: the NRA (no, not that NRA) the CCC, the WPA to name a few. And we've got the FDIC, Social Security, welfare, and a bunch of other government managed programs that are inherently socialist in nature... only we don't call them that.

These past few days, we've seen a wholesale collapse of our financial markets, and our government has stepped in with infusions of capital. Nothing has been more socialist than our government saying it is willing to take ownership positions in banks and insurance companies. Don't believe me? Go look up the definition of socialism. Go ahead, I'll be right here while you do.

I don't see the average Joe Sixpack complaining about this, because he's saying "Damn, I hate to see the feds spending all my tax dollars, but if it's really necessary, OK. But there better be some better regulation or control, so this crap doesn't happen again." Logical, yes. And socialist.

Barack Obama is promising to reverse what's left of Reaganomics; our friends on Wall Street having proven to us all that the trickle-down economics generally means that the middle class gets pissed on. Plus, they've largely enjoyed getting pissed on, up until now.

The white middle class has always been suspicious of the demands of the blacks, the Latinos, and the working poor. These groups have always wanted greater government intervention in order to provide a more level playing field, affirmative action being the greatest irritant to the white middle class. The middle class has always believed that someday they will be rich; they've made rock stars of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and indebted themselves heavily so that they, too can have a (mini)mansion, a BMW, and designer handbags, just like the rich folk they read about in "People". Providing for the poor, it seemed, would take away the wealth of their heros, and therefore, themselves.

Liberal Democratic guilt, combined with Neo-conservative greed, have led us to where we are today. In times of a government controlled by the Democrats, we've seen social programs that cost the country billions and contributed to the national debt with little reward.

The Republicans gave us freewheeling speculators at the top of the economic food chain who in the end did the same -- pile our country massively in debt through personal greed. Alan Greenspan, the guy who led the Fed for 19 years and to whom middle America has to thank for their mini-mansions and 401K's, said it best last week when he stated that his perception of 40 years was wrong -- that people running the financial houses would always work in the company's best interest.

The real irony is that a program both parties could get behind caused our current crisis: Allowing people with no stability, no ability to pay, acquire houses for little or no down payment. Liberals loved the idea of offering everyone a house, and the Neo-cons saw nothing but dollar signs.

So, get used to a more socialist government in the Western European flavor. The pendulum has swung once again; the Republicans will resume their accustomed role as vocal minority, and the Democrats will tax, and spend, though without the thoughtfulness I'm afraid that our European neighbors tend to manage with. Hopefully, if Obama wins, he can rein in his party's tendencies to provide socialist change we can all really believe in....without the ugly clothes.

Why I Took September Off...

Having not blogged in well over a month, I thought I'd explain why I haven't been typing my little fingers off to my vast legions of loyal ADIR readers.

Well, It's been too much fun sitting back and watching the world spin seemingly out of control. Start with the Olympics, with its faked footprints in the sky, the kids who weren't pretty enough for TV, and David Beckham kicking soccer balls from a double decker bus. How was I to top that in my little sarcastic blog? Then there's the Presidential race, the debates, Sarah Palin (!) et al. Finally we come to our current Three Mile Island of economic disasters, for which I could have written volumes. Instead, I'll let Ron Paul tell the truth in another blog entry for today. Read it and weep.

So, I quote Abe Lincoln and take his advice:
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

If You Thought Ron Paul's An Idiot, Read This:

Sickness Unto Debt The Big Money

Things I'll Never Understand...

For reasons I won't go into here, I spent a day watching people attending a close-out sale of high quality shoes and clothing, priced at 20 cents or less on the retail dollar.



I'd always heard stories about the behavior of people at events like this, and, sad to say, the stories are true. Rudeness and skulduggery are the norm, and civility ends at the front door.



I am not a misogynist. Honest. But I'll never understand the behavior of women who are intent on getting a deal. Here's what I witnessed:



Tag switching -- So here's this leather skirt. It originally was $200. It's now $20; an amazing bargain. Yet some woman still attempted to remark the price to $5. Said woman is a high-powered executive in the entertainment industry.



"Is this cute?" One gal says to another, as she pulls a shoe from the shelf and slips it on her foot. "Oh, look at this one." Off comes the original, where it is kicked several feet away on the floor. Repeat this scene a dozen times by one customer, and then multiply that by another dozen women. No shoe is ever returned to it's original position on the shelf next to its mate. This never happens over in the men's shoe section. Why do women do this?



I'll bet you didn't know that women's shoes can magically transport themselves all over a store. I found them in the women's clothing department, which makes sense, I guess... trying to match shoes with a dress or something... but how do they end up shelved with office supplies, or even furniture? Again, men's shoes don't travel.



Moses forgot the eleventh commandment: Thow shall not covet thy neighbor's clothing pile. There were no shopping carts at this event, so every woman had a pile of clothes they shuffled around on the floor close to their feet, lest ye fellow shopper attempt to make off with one of their finds. It seems that if it's on the rack, it can't possibly be as good as something another shopper has already picked out. Go figure.



Lack of shopping carts does not deter the motivated female shopper from improvisation. Step one: Go to furniture department. Step two: Select sturdy office chair. Step three: Pile items selected for purchase as high as possible onto seat of chair. Step four: Purchase items, wheel chair to loading dock. Step five: Abandon chair.

Three New Things To Worry About

Number 3 on today's list:

The Chinese. They just showed the world how a billion communists can put on a really good Olympics, while effectively squelching all dissent at home. Memories of their event will make the one four years from now in London look amateurish. (Remember when the Olympics were for amateurs, by the way?) If you don't think the Chinese will be the number-one nation in the world in a few years, you're kidding yourself. Or you live in India.

Number 2: Buried in today's news briefs: Iran launched its first satellite. Let that settle in for a minute: A country that is only a couple of clicks to the right of nutzo North Korea on the fanatic scale now can de-orbit a nuke (that we know they will have any day now) anywhere they want.

Number 1: Stalinist Russia is alive and well and in the hands of Putin and his lackeys. It only took them about 15 years to crawl back from total collapse, and this time they have the advantage of the West needing their oil and natural gas. Putin can put the squeeze on Western Europe any time he wants, and I'm guaranteed he will. I hope our boys ion the Army haven't forgotten how to fight a land battle that doesn't involve dodging random terrorists with home-made bombs, but will involve thousands of Russian tanks. And did you note that when they left Georgia, they took all the American technology we'd given the Georgians with them? Expect to see a Russian version of the Hummer in a few months...

Had I Only Known...

Back in my college years, I had a dream.

I would someday be a newspaper publisher.

To accomplish this goal, I studied business and finance in school, and when I graduated, I took a job 425 miles away from home as a management trainee at a community paper, part of one of America's great newspaper chains.

I worked at newspapers large and small for the next quarter century. I held positions in both retail and classified advertising management in a frustrating quest to move up the corporate food chain.

I hung in there, confident that if I ever got the chance, I could produce a paper that was valued both by its readers and its stockholders. I never made it. I burned out, left with a few boxes of memories, a 20-year-old IBM Selectric, and those pesky PTSD nightmares that haunt me to this day.

Little did I know that had I avoided the newspaper industry entirely, I could have ended up publisher of one of America's greatest papers. At least, that's apparently what it takes these days at the Los Angeles Times.

Check this link:

TBO.com - News From AP

Why I'm Quitting The Republican Party

It's the straw that broke this Republican's back.

Much has been written about our skyrocketing oil prices, and how speculators in the oil market are greatly to blame. In 2000, speculators accounted for 37 percent of the oil market; today the number stands at 71 percent. These people are dealing in paper, not barrels of oil. They are not using the oil they trade; they do not affect demand.

I heard that 47 Republican senators have stood up and criticized speculators for driving up the price of gas.

Now, a government task force says the price of oil is up due to increased demand, and speculators are not to blame. (How many Republican political appointees are on this task force, anyway?)

The White House has chimed in and says the same thing. Supply and demand. Yet demand worldwide is up only a little more than one percent and demand in the USA has fallen slightly.

And guess what? The Republicans have suddenly gone silent on shutting down oil speculators, and the Democrat-led effort to put new controls on them is in danger of failing.

Do you think the oil companies and Wall Street have told their Republican buddies to nix this, because it might cost them money? I do.

President Bush gave the rich a huge tax cut with the idea the benefits would trickle down to the underclasses. And once again, the President and his rich cronies are once again thinking of themselves rather than the good of the nation.

I don't want to be associated in any way with these people. I quit.

John McCain is a good man, as far as I can tell. I may vote for him. If I do, I won't be voting for his party or a continuation of the crap the current administration has pulled on us.

I don't exactly trust the Democratic Party either, but I think working class citizens, organized labor, and other truly mainstream American interests hold more sway with them than in the Republican ranks.

So: call me an Independent for now, and get back to me in four more years. If I haven't quit the country all together and become an expat residing in some other nation.

Those Whacky Russians!

Cross CNN with The Onion, and you get the old Russian standby, "Pravda". It was a hoot back during the cold war; now they're apparently hired the writers of the gone but not forgotten Weekly World News. All we're missing is Bat Boy.

You've got to love a news source that leads with a story about Laura Bush leaving the White House before George's term is up, 'cause George and Condi Rice are having an affair. And don't miss the article about how apparently Americans are adopting Russian children just so we can murder them.

Pravda.Ru: Russian news and analysis

Have We Peaked?

We've all heard people lament that things were better back in the "good old days" or characterize our parents or grandparents as being of the "greatest generation".

There's always a sense of nostalgia for what was, and no longer is.

Many of my automotively-inclined friends think the world ended in roughly 1973 when so-called "muscle cars" suddenly died off like the dinosaurs, thanks to a gas crisis and a crackdown by the insurance industry.

I disagree, as cars actually, eventually, got better built, got better gas mileage, and actually learned how to go around corners without the door handles scraping the road.

But what of other things we judge our societal achievement level by?

Technology? OK, we've got the best cell phones we've ever had; not that if you gave me a dollar, I'd take a hammer to the one I have right now. Computers? Absolutely better. Mine only crashes once or twice a week now, not once an hour as it used to. (Thanks, wifey.)

Airplanes? Tough one. I think we haven't come up with a more revolutionary aircraft than Boeing's 747, or 707, for that matter. The 747 was introduced in the late 60's; the 707 in the mid-fifties. Nothing so hot going on that front.

I can only hope our government is wasting billions of secret money on a spy plane to rival our late, belated SR-71 "Blackbird", which could fly from L.A. to New York in the time it takes your grandma to get through airport security these days.

Our space program hasn't advanced since the Shuttle first launched in 1981. The Shuttle goes out of service in mere months, and then we don't have our own manned spacecraft until 2014 or even later. When we do, it will resemble the capsules that we first launched in 1962.

We're supposed to go to the moon, but we did that already. So we're going backward. I guess we'll have to wait for the Chinese to wave at us as they go by the international space station, on their way to Mars, before we do anything advanced again.

Society shouldn't be judged just on its tech advances. How's the quality of life? Is there peace? Food to eat? Clean water to drink?

Go ask Al Gore those questions and get back to me.

Art? Fashion? Music?

We all know what art is, when we see it. Based on that, I haven't seen much new art at all, much less art that pushed both the creative envelope and my imagination, since the 60's.

Fashion? Have you seen anything truly new since around 1969?

Music? Leaving aside a discussion of popular music, as longtime blog readers already know my feelings on that issue, let's look at the serious stuff for a minute. Heard anything powerful, lyrical, transcendent classical music that was written after WWII? I'm hard pressed to pick more than a handful. That war, having destroyed much of Europe, and with it most of its musicians, left us with a creative gulf that has yet to be filled.

Architecture? What's new there? Anything to rival the greatest of previous generations? Maybe you think Frank Gehry's stuff is cutting edge, but it sure looks like the work of someone who's toys were smashed by his brother, and who is still dealing with latent anger issues.

So, you be the judge. Are we headed forward; stuck in neutral, or sliding down the slippery slope to a new dark ages?

With six billion people to feed on this little ball in the middle of the universe, does it matter?

My Pick As Obama's Veep

More foreign policy experience than any President or Veep in my lifetime -- unless you consider Eisenhower defeating Hitler "foreign policy experience". How many guys can say they worked for both the Nixon and Clinton administrations? Hispanic roots will keep the Latinos from voting Republican (like they would, anyway.) Supports the right to carry a handgun (and does, from time to time.) And, best yet, he was born in Pasadena in the same hospital I was.

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the next vice-president of the United States:

Bill Richardson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Something Else To Worry About

Remember that meteor that tore a huge hole in Russia a hundred years ago? Guess what: statistically, we're due for another one... I guess I'll quit worrying about earthquakes and start being paranoid about rocks with the power of a 10-megaton nuke blast. Read more here; it's the fifth article on the page.


Secrecy News from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy » Secrecy News


And while you're there, cruise around the website. Very dry and scholarly, but full of nuggets of information our government would rather you not know about.

My Pick As McCain's Veep

Credentials up the ying-yang.

Popular back home? You betcha.

Capable of carrying on if McCain goes room-temperature? Easy.

Pain in the ass for hardline Bushie lovers? - yep.

My kind of Republican!

Read her bio:

Olympia Snowe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dear Queen Elizabeth II:

July 7, 2007 A.D.

Queen Elizabeth II
Windsor Castle (Or Buckingham Palace, or where ever you are)
England
United Kingdom
(note to proofreader, find out her zipcode, OK?)

Your Royal Highness:

As a citizen of your nation's former colony, popularly known as The United States of America, I ask forgiveness of our founder's unruly treatment of your predecessor (and army) that resulted in our independence some 232 years ago.

Let me come straight to the point, your highness. It has become apparent to many of us that we haven't a clue as to how to govern ourselves. As example, at the present time it takes us over a year to determine nominees for our highest office, that of President, and months more to hold elections and finally determine a winner.

I understand that in your United Kingdom, the same process is accomplished in about five weeks.

Perhaps it would be understandable if the lengthy time in determining a new President resulted in the election of men (and someday women) of the best caliber; people of great intellect, high moral character, and sound judgement. Alas, I cannot say that this is the case.

The last two Presidents of our country reveal this failure in vivid detail. You, having met both men, surely you do not need me to point this out to you.

Many in your country have shown disdain at the election of your two most recent Prime Ministers, Messrs Blair and Brown. Mr. Blair, in supporting our own President Bush, became in the eyes of the media "Bush's lap dog," and Mr. Brown... appears to be just a dog.

Viewed from "across the pond" though, we have witnessed that both men can, and frequently do, string entire words together to form complete and cogent sentences, and neither has had a mistress come forth with a stained wardrobe.

Furthermore, it is greatly apparent that in our arrogance as "the world's last superpower" (for now) we have alienated much of the Free World, while increasingly antagonizing the people who didn't like us in the first place.

Your kingdom, on the other hand, has graciously granted most of its holdings back to the people you once subverted and pillaged for commercial exploit and their land's natural resources. (Sorry, that sounds so insensitive.)

England now is thought of around the world as a lovely place to visit museums, admire your palaces, and film period costume dramas. Huzzah! (Is that how you say that? My Shakespeare is rusty.)

So, on behalf of the American people, might I suggest we let bygones be bygones and, as the financial wunderkind might say, form a merger?

A merger, you say? Why, yes, dear Queen. Think of it: England, and America, back together again! You can even bring the Canadians along, if you must. (Except Quebec. Nobody wants to deal with anything even half French.)

We'll adopt the Pound Sterling as coinage, since it's worth so much more than our measly dollar; we'll gleefully join your health care system, crush our guns, and learn proper English, with the accent, of course. We'll even pay back taxes on the tea we dumped in Boston harbor. Perhaps, as a country united across a great ocean, both countries can solve the great issues that jointly plague our lands, like what to do about rap music, and how to get rid of that annoying Simon Cowell on TV.

There is one little, teensy-itsy-bitsy issue that we can't budge on, if the merger is to go through. I'm sure you'll give us one small concession, but it is crucially important for the former colonies to sign off on the deal.

You'll have to learn to drive on the right side of the street. Sorry.


Sincerely,

Joe Lunchbox
LA, CA, US of A

The Three-Minute-A-Day Literary Education

No time for college, but want to learn at least one new thing every day? Bookmark this, and watch your brain expand a few cells in just a few minutes.

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor Marine Tongue Twister by John Hollander

Mark Today on Your Calendar...

...because someone actually, incredibly, impossibly...left a comment on one of my blog entries.

Eighty-eight entries over seven months, and I finally have a comment. A comment!

Writing a blog is a little like standing at the end of a pier, and each day you put a message in a bottle, stuff a cork in its mouth, and hurl it into the sea. One doesn't know if those messages go anywhere; for all you know the corks leak and they are all sitting on the ocean floor, twenty yards from where you threw them.

But no! Apparently, there really is an Internet!

To Jim, writer of my beloved comment, whoever and where ever you are, thank you. My day is made.

Baby Name, Drug, or Country? The Answers:

Here are the answers to my "Baby Name, Drug, or Country?" quiz.


The first five are all names of pharmaceuticals.

The second five are all baby names, taken from online sources.

The third set of five are countries.

Believe it, or not.

Watching the Couples Go By

This says it all:
Watching the Couples Go By - By Herbert Stein - Slate Magazine

The Supremes: Lock and Load

In its final decision for the session, the Supreme Court has come to the conclusion that, yes, the founders really meant that the right to bear arms means you, dear citizen, can own a gun. It only took them a couple of centuries to figure that out.

Now that that's settled, let's move on. Apparently, you can own a gun (without a lock! OMG!) and keep it in your house. Nice first step, guys. (I say "guys" because Ruth Ginsberg, that liberal ninny, objected as part of the 5-4 vote.)

But what about those of us who spend half the day in our cars? Right now, here in the People's Republic of Kalifornia, the law says I'd have to keep my gun in a locked box in the trunk. Unloaded.

That's not exactly the best location for a weapon when you're set upon by a gang of thugs in the bowels of Los Angeles at midnight.

"Yeah," you say, "And what the hell are you doing in the bowels of LA at midnight?" Uh, earning a living, along with a heck of a lot of other folks.

Not all of us live and work in Beverly Hills. Every day, several hundred thousand of us Californians have to run the gauntlet from suburbs to our jobs along some pretty mean streets. Remember, they didn't put the freeways through the good neighborhoods. So, if your Hyundai takes a crap in the middle of any number of less-than-desirable 'hoods along your commute, you could have about as much luck surviving as a sparrow, with a bad wing, at a cat show.

Last year, for example, there were 12,000 assaults, 10,000 robberies, 500 rapes, and 784 murders attributed just to gang members, according to the LAPD's website. And just how do you think Mr. Crip and Mr. Blood feel about Joe Lunchbox who can't carry a gun to protect himself? Pretty happy about that, I imagine.

Remember, LA has something like 26,000 known gang members who really don't give a shit what LAPD Chief Bratton says about not carrying weapons. Like it or not, the homies know that it's better to be judged by a jury of your peers than to be carried in a coffin by your friends. Street smarts win out every time over criminal codes.

A growing number of states have laws permitting the carrying of a concealed weapon, assuming that A) you're not a felon, and B) you're not crazy. You might be surprised to learn that following the institution of concealed carry laws, weapons-related crime in these states didn't increase. Apparently, grandma doesn't turn into a vigilante or mass murderer just because she can carry a .22 in her purse.

As someone once said, "an armed society is a polite society". If the homies had to contend with masses of potentially armed citizens, they'd politely go back to robbing Korean liquor stores like in the old days, and leave the rest of us alone.

Ya feelin' me, Supremes? Just don't take another 200 years to figure it out.

Eight Hundred Minutes of George Carlin. - By Joshua David Mann - Slate Magazine

Here's a reminder of what we are going to be missing now that George Carlin has left us:

Eight hundred minutes of George Carlin. - By Joshua David Mann - Slate Magazine

Baby Name, Drug, Or Country?

Here's a fun challenge for you, with a follow up link to read more on the implications surrounding the naming of children in the African-American community.

Ready? Identify the following names as either: A) baby name; B) pharmaceutical; or C) country. We'll post the correct responses at a later date. No fair Googling for answers...

Alli
Iressa
Calan
Rosula
Cialis
Abiba
Harith
Keyara
Laquinta
Massassi
Tuvalu
Benin
Reunion
Djibouti
Burkina


A Roshanda by any other name. - By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner - Slate Magazine
Take particular notice of the paragraph identifying which population segment is most likely to name their baby with a "black" name. Very interesting...

Music To Die By

Suppose you're on your deathbed.

Some vital organ of yours has reached its expiration date and your doctor says "Gee, that's a bummer," and all that (s)he and the hospital staff can do is "watchful waiting" which is medical-speak for "we're going to come in and check your pulse every half-hour until you don't have one."

This isn't far from how my mom died a little over six years ago. I do have to give the attending ER physician credit for one action that offset his incapacity to do anything, and made him look like a real human being who sincerely cared he'd just delivered a death sentence.

A few hours after my mom was admitted and transferred to a private room, he entered bearing a crumpled brown paper bag, from which he produced a short stack of compact discs, a player, and headphones.

"Would you like to hear some music, Mrs. Woods?" he asked.

My mother nodded yes. I was a little surprised; she didn't hear very well and didn't listen to music often at home.

The doctor shuffled through several titles, and she picked a collection of Glenn Miller recordings. "Of course!" I thought; these were the songs of her youth, the songs she heard when she was a freshly-minted adult, away from home, building C-47's in Long Beach, and dancing nights at the ballroom near the pier.

So I placed the headphones on her and loaded up the CD. I could hear music leaking from the little ear buds, and asked if the volume was OK...

The next day I returned the rumpled paper bag and its contents to the doctor's office at the Beaver Clinic. He came out to meet me, and I guess my expression told him that my mom had passed away. I thanked him deeply for the music and told him that it was a touching gesture.

So here's the question: what's on your deathbed playlist? A full album from a favorite artist? Perhaps a custom mix prepared especially for the occasion?

Obviously, you'd want each cut to be special; you've got no time for frivolity, so now's not a golden opportunity to renew your acquaintance with Cindy Lauper or MC Hammer. Unless, of course, your name IS Cindy Lauper or MC Hammer, and you want to recapture your fifteen minutes of fame.

But, it's not. So, what's it going to be?

Go rummage your record collection and let me know. And then I'll tell you mine.

Just The Kind Of Thing We Don't Want To See On The AP Newswire:

"Everything Seemingly Spinning Out Of Control"

TBO.com - News From AP

Shit, George Carlin Is Dead

Carlin was soooo much more than being famous for seven dirty words. To label him a "comedian" would be like saying a triple-crown winner is a nice pony. George Carlin was a keen observer of American life, a terrific writer, and a top-notch performance artist. Each show he ever did was a carefully crafted presentation, and, unlike many of his peers, his skills only sharpened with age. Carlin checked out at age 71 (71!!!) at the top of his game, and there's nobody who can replace him. He was to have received the Mark Twain award soon, and if ever there was a guy who earned a comparison to Twain in this day and age, it would be George Carlin.

A How-To Article: Writing Your First Novel Using Dave's Patented "Chinese Restaurant" Method

It's fun! It's easy! Here's how to generate a best-selling story line! Expand the synopsis you'll create below and wham-mo: on to the book tour.

All you have to do is pick options from the accompanying lists, just like you would at a Chinese restaurant... you know, one from column "A," one from column "B" until you (or in this case, your audience) has eaten their fill. So, follow along and you're good to go... all the way to Barnes and Noble's "New Fiction" shelf.

Ready to become a famous author? Let's do it!

When (fill in the name of your lead character):

a) kills
b) marries
c) divorces
d) sleeps with
e) buys a beer for
f) borrows money from
g) steals the identity of

(fill in the name of another character)

a) all hell breaks loose
b) discovers they're clairvoyant
c) finds out they have a child they never knew about
d) realizes they're actually pawns in a deadly game
e) is transported back in time
f) is now wanted by the FBI
g) is now wanted by the mob
h) is now wanted by both the FBI and the mob
i) has made a pact with the devil
j) has made a pact with the devil, the FBI and the mob
k) was really the shooter on the grassy knoll.

Soon enough, (character name) is

a) embroiled in a plot with
b) hunting
c) being hunted by
d) racing against time with
e) travelling the world with
f) trapped in a swamp with
g) trapped in a burning building with
h) trapped in a political scandal with
i) trapped in a bathroom without toilet paper with
j) hanging by a thread with
k) hanging by their feet from a toilet within a burning building with

a) the President
b) mom
c) aliens
d) mysterious strangers with secret agendas and funny accents
e) evil corporate big shots
f) Jesus Christ
g) the "ex"

who has just finished:

a) planning a surprise party
b) making a nationwide broadcast
c) threatening the world with mass destruction
d) taking the cat to the vet
e) losing the secret microfilm down the drain
f) sleeping with (character name's) best friend.

Fortunately, (character name) has:

a) a magic wand
b) telekinesis
c) a reformed alcoholic brother
d) double-jointed shoulder blades
e) keys to a Ferrari
f) keys to a safe house
g) keys to a safe house with a Ferrari
h) the phone number of the last honest cop in the city.

Soon, (character name) will be:

a) firing their pistol
b) firing a machine gun
c) firing a rocket launcher
d) firing their manager
e) firing off emails
f) firing up the barbecue

in order to subdue:

a) the forces of evil
b) good guys who have mistaken (character name) for a bad guy
c) roving packs of wild dogs
d) giant crickets
e) public criticism.


OK, got your plot line? Great! Be sure and share that first royalty check with me. A dedication would be nice, too.

The Stuff I Never Got

I wonder sometimes if the stuff you wanted, and never got, is as important and influential on one's life as the things you did acquire.

As a little kid, I always wanted a Flexible Flyer. There's probably a better name for them, and most people think of Flexible Flyers as sleds, which the company did manufacture. No, this was a sled with wheels...big solid disks with thin solid rubber tires, rolling on ball bearings, that allowed it to scoot down sidewalks and streets with amazing speed. To my seven-year old eyes, it was to a wagon what a Ferrari is to a Ford Focus. The smooth wood platform balanced over a red-painted steel frame, every bit as purposeful as a racing car. Wagons were for hauling stuff. Flexie Flyers were for hauling ass.

I never got one. On rare occasions I'll spot one in an antique store, and I'll glide my fingers over the wood, the steel rails, and test the smoothness of the ball-bearing mounted wheels. I'd probably buy one now, except for the fact that I'm no longer three and a half feet tall and fifty pounds; My middle aged body would dwarf the Flyer and render it useless.

Another item I never got was a real baseball mitt. I know; how could any American kid survive without a mitt? It was something every boy used every single day back then. Somehow, I never got one. Today I see them in the sporting goods stores; so many different manufacturers now! Nike sells gloves? WTF? Rawlings and Spaulding still are around, though the ones our local Big Five carries all seem to be made in China or Taiwan. Why I'm surprised by this, I do not know.

Here's a real irony for you: I did have a mitt, but never knew it. When I was born, my grandfather, Sherman Abbott, purchased a really nice catcher's mitt for me. It was so nice, my parents never let me have it until I was too old to use it. Today it sits beside my bed, accompanied by a softball my grandfather later gave me from down in his basement. God bless ya, Grampa. At least you tried.

Back around my first year of high school, my dad let out with a little bit of information I've dreamt about ever since... Apparently someone at work had an old single-cylinder motorcycle they wanted to give away. Give away!!!??? Sign me up. And not just any motorcycle, mind you; it was a DUCATI. Now, while I wasn't as well-versed in motorcycles then as I am today, I knew Ducati to be more than just a foreign made bike, Ducati's were legendary in their style and racing heritage. Me? With a Ducati? Oh. My. God.

Nothing ever materialized out of the rumor; I was left to ride my lawnmower-engined mini-bike up and down the driveway for a couple more years. I didn't even own a real motorcycle until I was in my mid-thirties. But the image of that graceful single piston "Duck" never left my imagination. Even today, I find myself scanning eBay for my lost dream bike, and the ones that are for sale are worth many thousands of dollars I don't have to waste on such things.

What all this means, I'm at a loss to explain. I've had plenty of cool toys over the years, enjoyed them, then moved on. But I guess it's like the old story about the fish that got away... they get bigger and nicer as the years go on.

Trillion-Dollar Baby: China's Impact on the U.S.

This week we "celebrated" the anniversary of Ping-Pong Diplomacy. For those too young to remember, back around 1971 the U.S. made it's first tentative steps toward breaking down what was then called "the bamboo curtain" with Communist China, by sending a delegation of Ping-Pong players over to bat some balls around. (I think they whooped our butts.)

We imported zip, nada, nothing from China then; they were isolated from much of the world by their own choosing; fearing, I suppose, the influence of America on their perfect Communist state. And oh, yes, the two countries had been busy trying to kill each other, through intermediaries, in Vietnam and Korea for 20 years.

Today things are much, much different. I read somewhere that over 24 percent of the manufactured goods we buy today are Chinese made. I think the Chinese influence on the average American is even bigger if we remember that it takes a lot of Chinese toys and textiles at Walmart to offset the billions we spend on a single U.S. built warship or bomber.

China's success is leading to a burgeoning middle class there. They're buying cars and eating more meat. Which means we must compete with them for gas and wheat. Don't expect to see $1 a gallon gas or 49-cent loaves of bread again in our lifetimes.

Did I mention that the Chinese are holding something on the order of one trillion dollars in U.S. Treasury notes? That's $1,000,000,000,000.00 in debt we owe the Communists, folks.

And, have you noticed that when referring to China, nobody ever calls them "Red China" any more? I guess they've earned (or bought) the right to political correctness.

All that power and influence gathered in just one generation. Amazing. Maybe if we'd been better at Ping-Pong...

Father's Day

I really miss my dad on this day. We almost always spent Father's Day together, especially after I was an adult and living my life elsewhere. My dad and I shared a love of old automobiles, and on this day we would attend an annual show to look at beautiful cars we could only dream of owning.

Dad would invariably be wearing thin worn blue slacks and a white shirt; dress socks and an old pair of dress wingtips too beat up for work. I don't think he ever wore jeans in my life, which is odd for someone who spent as much time outside in the yard or in the garage as he did. Perhaps blue jeans reminded him of hard days as a kid back on the farm. I'll never know.

There's lots of things I'll never know about my dad; why he made the decisions he made or what secrets he would not, could not share. Bits and pieces would come out in conversations, but by and large my dad was not one to make speeches on the meaning of life. He just sweated life out.

He died in his 64th year; too young for a man of his generation, but he was as worn out as those old blue slacks he so often wore to the car shows. I have now lived 84 percent as long as he did, but I haven't lived as hard a life (though hard enough, I think) that I suppose I will live longer. I don't think I will know as much as he did, though, about the world, though if I live to be 100.

I do know that he was always unfailingly glad to see me. His face brightened and the gloom lifted every time I would greet him; even that last time as he lay on a hospital gurney with his heart ripping him apart in pain. It's an image I will always remember, and I am glad that is the image that comes to mind every time I think of him. Happy Father's Day, dad.

Tim Russert 1950 -2008

We note the passing of NBC's Tim Russert, Buffalo native and from all reports, the really great guy we thought he was. God isn't making journalists like Tim anymore, and we're all the poorer for it. So, on Tim's behalf this Sunday, we say: "Go Celtics!".

Best Worst (or Worst Best) Inventions of the 20th Century

1) Personal Computer: The good: Allows me to research any topic, anytime, without leaving my house. The bad: I never leave my house.

2) Cell Phones: The good: I'm never out of touch. The bad: I'm never out of touch.

3) Diamond (HOV) Lanes: The good: My wife and I can blow past a hundred cars stuck in traffic when we go into LA. The bad: 99 percent of the time I'm alone in the car, the diamond lane is virtually empty, and the lane I'm in is just crawling along. Where's the justice in that?

4) Big Box Stores: The good: One stop shopping. The bad: No more local retailers. Or employers.

5) Cable TV: The good: 500 channels to choose from. The bad: There's still nothing worth watching.

6) Computer Chips: The good: Reliability in small packages. The bad: I can't fix anything with pliers and a screwdriver anymore.

7) VHS and DVD: No need to go out to the movie theater for a recent film. The bad: No more drive-in theaters showing recent films at discount prices.

Attack Of The Clancy Brothers

Have you ever pulled up to a stop-light, and had some idiot roll up next to you with his mega-watt stereo blasting the hardest ghetto rap imaginable?

Of course you have. And I have the cure.

Tonight, I'm at the Circle K, waiting in the car while Wifey shops inside. Up rolls the stereotypical black Escalade with 22 inch chrome rims, and every other word starts with "f" or "n" from the sound system, booming loud enough to be heard a block away.

Little known fact: Honda Pilots have excellent sound systems of their own. You want woofers, fella? I got your woofers right here... Feeling a bit like Dirty Harry telling the bad guy he's packing a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and can blow your head clean off, I fire up my own stereo with just about the whitest band the world has ever known: The Clancy Brothers.

For those of you too young to remember the Clancys, they were a staple back in the folky days of the 1960's, playing traditional Irish pub songs on guitar and banjo. Even their sweaters were white.

I ramped up the volume to "11" and let the boys rip into their version of "Whiskey in the Jar" from nigh-on 45 years ago.

Go ahead, I thought, make my day.

Maybe it was the line about producing my pistol, and then producing my rapier, but after a couple of minutes, my problem was solved. No more boom-boom from said Escalade.

Success never smelled as sweet. Or sounded so quiet. Your mileage may vary when you try this technique, and having Dirty Harry's .44 under the front seat as fallback might be a good idea as well.

So...good luck with that... but it worked for me. Once.

Next time, I'll whip out the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, capable of not only shutting down stop-light ghetto rappers, but cleaning out the entire neighborhood in one small tactical mushroom cloud of sonic revenge:

Barbara Streisand.

"Indiana Jones" Movie Review

(Caution, this post contains lots of spoilers.)

Well, the long wait is finally over, and at last we get to see Indy in action again after a long, long time. Supposedly, the film was delayed years until Lucas and Spielberg settled on the right script...and while the script they settled on is good, it's not as great as one might have hoped.

Never the less, seeing Harrison Ford put the jacket and fedora on and swing into action cannot be a bad thing, not even if Ford was 75 and not 65 years old, as he is here. Indy, regardless of age, is a fun guy to hang out with.

Nazis have been replaced with Commies, this being set in 1957, and director Spielberg gets all sorts of nineteen-fifties touchstones to play with, the best being Indy finding himself in an all-American suburban neighborhood, built to be destroyed by an atomic bomb test. Lucas, who gets story credit, reverts back to his "American Graffiti" days with an opening homage to daredevil hotrodders in (what else?) a '32 Ford. (Damn, I forgot to look at the license plate; I wonder if the letters THX and 138 appear as they do on the '32 Ford in "Graffiti".)

Our baddest of the baddies this time is a tall, boot jacked female Russian who looks one part dominatrix and one part Natasha from "Rocky and Bullwinkle". We wonder if they're saving Boris for the sequel.

Yes, sequel. Or sequels. This whole movie seems to exist to build a new franchise around (surprise) the son Indy didn't know he had, a Marlon-Brando-In-The-Wild-One clone named "Mutt". Indy fans will get the joke; Indiana was the name of the family dog, so here comes another mutt to follow him. This idea of expanding the franchise was tried before; anyone remember the TV series based on Indy's youth?

Not only have they built the movie around future sequels, they've written-in the theme for a revised Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. It's time to rip out those Jeeps from the original and replace them with amphibious "Ducks". Everybody at Disneyland loves waterfalls, don't you know?

I guess I should mention the plot. The Ruskies force our hero to help them find a crystal skull which will lead them, supposedly, to incredible power. Indy should just have pointed out the Ark of the Covenant while in the warehouse and been done with it.

Which leads me to another observation/complaint. Spielberg (gasp!) screws up repeatedly by letting us know too much ahead of time. Far before we need to realize that, by God, the baddies have overtaken not just any desert military installation, but Area 51, we get the punch line: Aliens will be involved. But Spielberg confuses his audience by having the Russians search the warehouse for an item Indy found 10 years before. "But wait," I'm thinking, "We know what's in this warehouse; this is where the Feds stashed the Lost Ark; and it's been more than 10 years since Indy found it, so shouldn't they be looking for flying saucers and not some box, since this is Area 51?" and by that time I've become hopelessly confused.

Cut to the chase. And they do. Lots of times. Long, long chases filled with obvious CGI, followed by lots and lots of exposition as to why everyone is doing whatever it is they're supposed to be doing. Can't Indiana Jones be Indiana Jones, and, to quote a famous line from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", make it up as (he) goes along?

Indy must share action time with Mutt, played by somebody I've never heard of and who does not look particularly memorable. When Lucas/Spielberg have Mutt swing through the trees, Tarzan style, I uttered something out loud that I thought I'd never say in any of their movies: "Oh, please..." Yes, this is "Indiana Jones", but my suspension of disbelief well, shall we say, vapor locked, right then and there.

I take back that line about never before having disbelieved. I remember the first time Darth Vader walked onto the screen and I had to stop myself from giggling. Maybe if they'd have had Indy in his younger days do the Tarzan trick? Yes, it is a tribute to Tarzan, one of the greatest movie serials of all time... but, pleeease!

This is not to say I don't like the movie, I do. I haven't even mentioned some of the best parts; the best of the best being Karen Allen reprising her role as Marion Ravenwood. I would have traded a bunch of fist fights and gun battles to have had more Indy and Marion on screen together, doing what they do best -- argue.

You've got to love the reference to Indy's fear of snakes, or the several to his father, played with such comic perfection by Sean Connery in the third film. And don't forget the gophers, for gosh sake. I loved the gophers.

So...pretending to be my long lost hero and movie critic, Gene Siskel, I give the movie a "thumbs up" but only 3 stars out of 5. It's third on my list of the four Indiana Jones adventures, behind the original, and the terrific third movie, with Connery. But, it's certainly the best Indy we've had in, what 18 years, so who cares?

Liner Notes: Funky (Blank) Goin' Down In The City

OK... so I'm listening to one of the area's "classic rock" stations the other day, and that old Steve Miller standard, "Jet Airliner" comes on the air. I'm no Steve Miller fan, but having grown up in the era of AM rock and roll, followed by a few decades of FM, I've heard this song on the radio about a million times whether I wanted to or not.

I'm sure you know the lyrics:

Leavin' home, out on the road I've been down before Ridin' along in this big ol' jet plane I've been thinkin' about my home But my love light seems so far away And I feel like it's all been done Somebody's tryin' to make me stay You know I've got to be movin' on Oh, Oh big ol' jet airliner Don't carry me too far away Oh, Oh big ol' jet airliner Cause it's here that I've got to stay Goodbye to all my friends at home Goodbye to people I've trusted I've got to go out and make my way I might get rich you know I might get busted But my heart keeps calling me backwards As I get on the 707 Ridin' high I got tears in my eyes You know you got to go through hell Before you get to heaven Big ol' jet airliner Don't carry me too far away Oh, Oh big ol' jet airliner Cause it's here that I've got to stay Touchin' down in New England town Feel the heat comin' down I've got to keep on keepin' on You know the big wheel keeps on spinnin' around And I'm goin' with some hesitation You know that I can surely see That I don't want to get caught up in any of that Funky shit goin' down in the city....

Except that the last line had been censored for airplay. There apparently is no funky shit goin' down in the city anymore, only funky "kicks".

Way, way back in the day, this wasn't unheard of, and I'm sure the edited line was recorded contemporaneously with the correct lyric. Remember Ed Sullivan telling the Rolling Stones they couldn't sing the line "Let's spend the night together" in 1967?

But we all, well, grew up and got over it. What once was titillating was now classical music.

That was until recently, when the stations I don't listen to began playing c(rap), or "hip hop" if you prefer. Rap has been around long enough, we actually have classic rap stations now. Egads.

The Brothers filled their "songs" or "music" or whatever people in polite society refer to it, with foul language we couldn't even imagine back in our hippy-dippy 1960's radio world.

The Mad Mothers of America or some other organization popped an artery over this, and the record labels featuring such trash were ordered to put warning labels on the records to scare off buyers, which had exactly the opposite effect in the urban market. Of course. Which only gave the rappers more incentive to use the invective.

And then there was Howard Stern doing his shock-jock gig. And who can forget Janet Jackson's so-called wardrobe malfunction on national TV?

The Feds came down hard and threatened anyone with access to the public airwaves that uttering any one of George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words meant stiff fines and a close look at their broadcast license.

And so, here we are again, back in the sixties, with Steve Miller singing about funky kicks when every lyric website in the world will tell you differently.

To borrow a line from Bob Dylan, "It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

And so it goes.

Let's Run It Up The Flagpole...er, Maybe Not

Yesterday I spent a dozen hours hanging around the 1928 penthouse of one of LA's most successful haberdashers. Looking out over the city from the thirteenth floor (built when that was as tall as you could build in town) I started thinking about the flagpoles that were scattered about the rooftops.

Now, new buildings don't seem to have flagpoles, perhaps because many are so tall, nobody could see a flag at that altitude, or that the rooftop has been given over to the CEO's helicopter landing pad. So, no flagpoles on skyscrapers. Windsocks, yes; flagpoles, no.

Older buildings built back at the turn of the last century, and for a few years more, seemed to embrace the pole and its flag; adornment for the architect's urban visions. The poles still stand today, leaning out over the street or jutting prominently upward from a select corner of the roof.

But hoisting a flag seems to be a forgotten task. From my penthouse vantage point, I counted 25 poles; four had flags; and one of those was of some corporate logo and not Old Glory. And of the three American flags, none was taken down at dusk, nor illuminated after dark as proper etiquette deems necessary.

Perhaps the maintenance men who were assigned this task to do each dawn and dusk died off, and their replacements never were told it was part of their job. Maybe it's just too big a hassle to climb up on the roof in all sorts of weather. Maybe the flags wore out and nobody bothered to buy new ones. Maybe nobody gives a rat's ass. Maybe a little of all of the above.

I'm no super-patriot; I don't think symbols and slogans and sound bites and bumper stickers replace fully realized thoughts. But, if you're gonna have a flagpole, you might as well fly the freaking flag.

Dave Barry Nails The Newspaper Industry

They say in every joke there is a kernel of truth. Barry's column is the whole bag of Jiffy Pop. God bless ya, Dave.

Get me rewrite! - 04/20/2008 - MiamiHerald.com

The Mean Green Journalism Machine

Back in the day, your average "beat" as they called it, at the newspaper was either a) the action down at the court house, b) City hall, c) the cop shop, or lesser pursuits like "society" stuff or sports.

Today's J-schoolers must now all be trained in finding and reporting the most arcane trivia regarding the environment. The media, on a daily basis, must find at least one new angle relating to global warming, saving energy, or our water supply, or our reducing waste, less it be viewed as not doing it's God-given mandate to inform the public.

Let's not forget that many of these stories are written by "stringers," people who aren't in the employ of the publications they write for. They are free-lancers, paid by the column-inch. So, like any good business man or woman, they supply what the market wants. And the media wants anything environmental right now.

In today's Sunday paper, for example, we have important tips on how to make that next party you hold "green". To which I reply with my standard issue "WTF"?

I didn't read the article; I can guess what suggestions our earnest journalist has to offer: make sure all the paper goods came from recycled sources. Have the guests car-pool. Use low-wattage bulbs (great for adding atmosphere!) to illuminate your shin-dig; Be sure and take your empty vodka bottles back to the glass recycler, and use "natural" products the next morning to clean up the puke in the carpet.

Anyone can do this. Pick a topic, any topic, and put the word "green" in front of it. You've just created a story of instant public relevance. Use a real person's narrative in the first paragraph to make it feel "real". Give a little "before and after" history of the issue. Find some obscure specialist, doctor, engineer, or spokesperson for a couple of quotes. If you really want to look professional, find somebody in the field to say the idea is full of crap. Sum it all up in the last graph with: "Time will tell if XYZ will make a difference."

Then file the story, and place a copy in your tickler file to do a follow-up in a couple of years.

Feel free to thank me; I just saved you four years of journalism school. Start writing now; half of the media is currently tied up covering the wars or the election, and sooner or later they'll be looking for new (greener?) ground to cover.

I Want My ZPG

You can't open a newspaper or turn on the TV without somebody telling you about the latest "green" energy saving idea. Everything these days, it seems, is based on how this or that will save "the equivalent of taking XX number of cars off the road" or "will cut xx number of new powerplants that need to be built".

Let's get a grip on reality, folks.

Although the government can mandate all the environmental change it wants, it's not going to matter in the long run, because the world's population keeps zooming upward. And nobody but nobody is going to tell anyone in the free world to stop having babies.

They say that Social Security is the third rail of politics. Any politico who might even suggest such a thing as limiting the number of kids his or her constituents can have might as well go stand in front of the subway train and ignore the third rail all together.

There was a time when ZPG, or Zero Population Growth, might have at least received discussion, and that was back at the very beginning of the environmental movement. In 1968 author Paul Erlich published his best-selling book "The Population Bomb" which outlined the effects of population growth on society. It had an impact on some people. The best example I have is that of my first wife. So moved with the idea, she had her tubes tied a year after our marriage.

But the 1960's morfed into the disco 70's, and then the yuppie 1980's, modern Americans, men and women both, wanted it all -- the career, the condo, the kids. And, yes, they wanted the Latina illegal immigrant to clean the house and cook the food, and a Latino to mow the lawn and wash the car... who were busy making babies, lots of babies, themselves. In the 1990's, the yuppies moved out of the condos and into their McMansions, taking their kids, cars, and undocumented aliens with them.

So, here we are in the 21st century, the North Pole is melting away, and suddenly everybody wants the world to be "green". Yet, do you hear anyone talk about population control? Nope. Unless its China, where they have a one child per family policy, which Western folks look upon with horror -- those damn Communists; how dare they!

In my life, the population of this country has nearly doubled. Something less than one percent of our nation earns its living on the farm. Yesterday I heard on the news that for the first time in history, half the world lives in cities. We grow and grow, taking more and more of our natural resources, until there is no more left to take, except by war and greed.

Still think the meek will inherit the earth? Good luck with that.

Perhaps nature will win the game first. All it will take is a new pandemic; a new plague or influenza that will knock civilization back on its knees for a few centuries. At least the survivors will have plenty of nice McMansions to choose from.

I guess we'll just have to see how things go in the final quarter.

So, Just How Rich Are You, Anyway?

Here's something to make you feel better about your lot in life!
Click here:
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...Of course, they're trying to sell something, and I have my doubts as to accuracy...try plugging in "O" and you'll still end up richer than damn near everybody.

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Jesus Walked On Water -- But Have You Seen What Arabs Can Do These Days?

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Katie Couric - Poster Child For Media's Meltdown

I've never been a big fan of Katie Couric. In fact, I've never been a fan of Katie Couric, big or small. I, as a rule, don't care for people who base their careers on being "cute" or "perky" especially if it involves The News. Couric is one of them.

We all recognise that some people (sports personalities come immediately to mind) receive compensation way out of whack with reality. At least a Tiger Woods or a Kobe Bryant are at the top of their field, so some (not I) can "justify" their enormous paychecks.

It's rumored that Couric, as anchorperson, won't survive to see the end of her five year contract with CBS. Since she joined CBS a couple of years ago, her evening news program is mired in third place. CBS bet big on Couric's star power from her days at the Today show, and lost.

Now there's a new rumor afloat. CBS may "outsource" its news, and get their reporting from CNN. Edward R. Murrow is spinning in his grave.

Think what Couric's $15 million a year could buy. Assume Couric works 250 days a year (doubtful) and that she spends 22 minutes each of those days on the air. That works out to over $2,700 a minute for our perky third place anchor.

For $2,700 a month, CBS could hire a stringer with a video camera in every backwater around the entire globe. Maybe the result wouldn't be a return to the days CBS was known as the "Tiffany Network" but my bet is they'd have a damn better news gathering operation than they have now.

I can live without "perky" -- how about you?

Quiz: Name That War

Here's a little thought provoker for you.

Since World War II, which war has been the bloodiest?

Vietnam? Nope.

Korea? Nope.

Iraq? You're awfully American-centered in your thinking. Nope.

Bosnia? Sorry.

Keep guessing....

Afghanistan? US vs. Taliban, or Russia vs. the Muhajadeen? Nope on both counts.

Anything involving Israel? Not hardly.

That thing with the Contras in Central America? Get real. You're getting colder.

Give up?

Here's a hint: It's been going on now for at least the past ten years.

Tens of thousands of women have been raped.

Over five million people dead.

Oh, come on, it's right at the tip of your tongue, right?

No?

It's.....

......

The war in the so-called Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Do we not care because: a) it's Africa; b) it's black people who are dying; c) it doesn't affect us; d) the third world is a backward bunch of corrupt greedy bastards; e) all of the above?

You decide.

"The Unaccustomed Earth" a Thought For Today

"Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth." --- From "The Custom House" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Perhaps it has come the time for some of us to go on to a new place, having worn out our "American soil," our American lives; to make room for others who find this place more to their liking?

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Achtung, Baby: Back To Work

After a long, long, strike-induced layoff, I'm back to work on a regular basis.

Thank God.

Like many people, especially Americans, I partly derive my self-esteem from work. So, it's really good to be back.... but we should remind ourselves, now and then, what is really important in life.

Americans define themselves by their jobs. Ask an American what they "do" and they will say "I'm an accountant" or "I drive a truck." Ask a European the same question, and they will say "I like to ski" or "I like to travel." Quite a difference in perception, huh?

(Which might have something to do with the near riot that broke out in France last year when the government wanted to raise the standard work week up from the traditional THIRTY hours. Those poor bastards! With only four guaranteed paid weeks off a year!)

That being said, we come to the real subject of this blog entry: a once-popular German phrase.

There are days, and we have them all, that work seems more akin to slavery than to joie de vivre. (Sorry to slip a little French in on you.) We all have our bills to pay and our dreams to finance. Nevertheless, in the depths of the work week, with no end in sight, we look at the drudgery we face and moan to ourselves that there's got to be a better way. Of course, there usually isn't.

And here's where a little German phrase will come in handy. Write it down for future reference.


"Arbeit macht fre"


...which means, roughly translated, "work makes you free" or "work brings freedom." Most good hearted, Puritan-ethic Americans will nod their heads in agreement with that concept.

Now, I bet you've seen this phrase someplace. But where? Think about it.

Keep thinking...


No? Give up?


Remember that I have a huge appreciation for irony, then Google the phrase.

Done?

Kinda puts a new perspective on things, doesn't it?

--------------

We tend to take ourselves, and the things we do to make a living, a little too seriously. Better we remember that while work provides us with material wealth, it's not worth killing ourselves, or others, over it. Remember this lie that the Germans told; the lie that work makes freedom, and remember where you saw it.

Take pride in what you do, and how you do it, but don't let your job define you, or how you perceive the value of the guy next to you. Don't let anyone, especially your kids, persist in believing that work will set them free. Freedom is a state of mind, not a paycheck.

Now, keep that little phrase taped to your cubicle wall, water cooler, or tool box, and reread it whenever things get to be a bit much at work. See? Things could be worse.

That, or your situation at work really, really sucks.

In which case, maybe it really is time to change jobs. And/or leave the country. Fast.

Why Do My Spammers Speak Latin?

Like a lot of Americans, I get spam in my email "in" box daily. What I'd like to know is this: How did they all learn Latin? Maybe it's not Latin at all; maybe it's Esperanto, or whatever Klattu, that nice man from outer space spoke to Gort the robot in "The Day The Earth Stood Still". I dunno.

Here's a sample collection from today's mailbox headlines:

Wompass leam sungus liquito
Leathrot plass vidow wino
Cape Potape sunnet
Flight floon swimmet spaper
Vidow bibruid solass eral knis.

I can make out three words -- "flight," "cape" and "wino," and wino is really a slang term. "Vidow" shows up twice; I wonder why vidows are so popular. Maybe they're warning me in Porky-Pigspeak of vlack vidows? Be veddy veddy careful...

Perhaps its really poetry. I imagine a gaunt man in a goatee; someone who never left the coffee shops of the Beatnik days of 1950's San Francisco, dressed all in black, earnestly speaking these words into a microphone in some dark and dingy dive out in North Beach. A single spot light illuminates our muse.

"Yeah, man. It's, like, Leathrot, plass vidow, wino... like, cool." He snaps his fingers. "Can you dig it, man?"

Polite applause from the half-dozen in the audience. They sip cappuccino while huddled around candle-lit cafe tables.

You've got to admit it; it's much more fun to imagine that spammers are really unemployed humanities majors, or space aliens, than hucksters pushing Canadian pharmaceuticals.

So, I don't open the posts to find out the truth. I'd rather think that there's a legion of Esperanto-speaking folk with nothing else to do than to email me every day.

Slate Magazine Disses Disney

I've always loved Disneyland, and tried hard, really hard, not to develop a cynical attitude toward The Magic Kingdom and all things Walt. But here's somebody else's perspective, and I have a hard time arguing with some of his observations. Except for monorails. We need monorails. Now, let's all sing "It's a Small World" as if it were George Bush's resignation speech.


Five days of Disney. - By Seth Stevenson - Slate Magazine

Why The American Economy Is Just So Much BS

BS, we love(d) you. And look what you almost did to us.

Bear Stearns, who came within an eyelash of taking a big chunk of the financial community down the toilet with it last week, could be just the canary in the coal mine. A couple of months ago, BS was trading at something like $150 a share. Last weekend, the company sold out for two bucks a share, thanks to its heavy leveraging in sub-prime mortgages.

Think of these little factoids and tell me I'm wrong.

The real estate market is little more than five percent of our economy.

The sub-prime market is a fraction of that five percent.

Defaults on sub-prime mortgages are an even smaller fraction.

So if something so insignificant can bring the banking community to its knees, what about all the other weak areas of our economy? Areas of weakness that put us in much greater peril?

The environment: Droughts, floods, crop failures? My oft-mentioned "big one" -- the San Andreas fault line decides to make Las Vegas beachfront property?

Energy: Oil - cost, supply, refining? Or an aging, overtaxed power transmission system that plunges the east coast into darkness for, oh, a week? That event, alone, would cost the US more than the events of 9/11/01, don't you think?

Other financial crisis, e.g., China and the Saudis quit buying our debt?

I'd buy gold, but you can't eat gold. I think I'll plant some more potatoes.

Take Your Medication Today? No? Not A Problem!

Our friends over at the Associated Press have discovered that our drinking water is contaminated with trace amounts of dozens of medications. Everything from antibiotics to sex hormones are flowing out of your tap, and there's nothing your local water treatment plant can do about it -- if they could test for it, which they can't.

It seems that when we take our meds, we also piss a lot of it away the next day. Plus, for years, the standard procedure for disposing of old drugs was to flush them down the toilet... and in much of the country, we clean and recycle our piss and put it back into the pipes to drink again. And again. And again.

The Europeans knew this about ten years ago, but apparently it takes a while for news such as this to travel to the USA. (The AP ain't the news gathering organization it once was, it seems.)

While the people who are supposed to know say that while this is serious and we shouldn't panic, it's bad for the environment. Boy fish are showing up with female hormones, etc. Gee, last time I looked, people were part of the "environment" too, right?

I'm sure some science-fiction writer has already well-covered this idea, but let me pose it for you here in case your subscription to "Amazing Stories" has lapsed:

Our government, faced with a continuing decline in, well, everything, decides to take a page out of the Tim Leary textbook and turn on the population to manage the situation. The EPA, working with our nation's top drug companies and the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, selectively salt our drinking supply based on the needs of the nation. Hey, why not? Wouldn't this fall under "providing for the common defense" or "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?

So, who gets what meds?

The Southwest: Birth control for slowing down the illegal immigrant birth rates. Mood stabilizers to chill out the gangs and the rising incidents of road rage on L.A. freeways.

The Midwest and and Rustbelt States: Prozac and a cocktail of other anti-depressants to let the populace ignore that American manufacturing and farming have all been exported overseas.

The Northwest: Stimulants, so that the boys on the line at Boeing, and the gang at Microsoft's Redmond campus can work 24-7 on the country's last surviving profitable products.

The Rockies and San Francisco: Remember we said the Dead were in on the project? Seems it's time for another tour.

Florida: Cardiac and stroke meds for mom and dad who retired there last year.

But back to "reality". (And how would I know? My morning coffee was made with tap water.)

If you think you can escape by drinking bottled water, good luck with that. The bottled water companies don't test their water for pharmaceuticals, either, and as much as the bottlers would like you to believe it, not all it really comes from melted glaciers or other unpolluted sources, as you might guess. So we're screwed. Have a nice day.