Fresh Look, Same Old Crap

I thought I'd tweek the design elements of Another Day, and this is what you got. Hope you like it. Check out the stuff at the bottom of the page, too.

Another Independence Day

There are certain things common to all wars, for all of history. Besides death, injury, and the hardship of battle, there has always been, and always will be, the silent fear of the loved one left behind at home.

This Independence Day, I can sense this first hand. My youngest daughter's boyfriend is a Marine, engaged in battle for the first time. He and 4,000 comrades swarmed into Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan a few days ago to fight the Taliban. The Taliban control this area, as it provides a huge source of money for their operations. This is where the poppies grow. Poppies that excrete juice for making heroin.

My daughter knows all this; she knows why we as a country fight; why her boyfriend must fight. And she must live with the fear that her man might be killed or injured; that he might never come back the same guy she fell in love with.

For most of history, loved ones never knew on what day their soldier faced danger. There was no TV, no satellite telephone, no Internet to provide real time information. Now the mothers and fathers and wives and lovers of the warrior can see and know everything the media and the military will allow, almost as it happens.

It must be hard to be a soldier in a distant place to think "today is the fourth of July" and not remember other fourths of July when they and their friends went to the beach, ate hot dogs, and watched fireworks and parades. They may even contemplate our own war for freedom over 230 years ago. But the thoughts must quickly pass, as there are more immediate things to be concerned with, deep within war's arena.

Not so for the loved one left behind. They have the time to think, long and often, about such things, and to mourn that life is not as it was a few short months ago. They wonder if the next Independence Day will be a celebration, or a reminder of tragedy -- just as others have silently wondered from decade upon decade, war after war.

Congressional Comedians.

At last, Minnesota has a new Senator, and his name is Al Franken.

It took eight months to determine, but Franken was declared the winner of last November's election by taking a commanding 300-some-odd vote lead over his incumbent Republican rival.

Franken first came to national attention many years ago, thanks to his contributions on Saturday Night Live. Now, the leap from comedy to Congress isn't that far a jump as it once was. After all, we've had an actor as President of the United States, and two as Governor of California.

It's my theory that comedians, especially those with careers in stand-up comedy, are perfectly suited for moving on to, let's say, the Senate. They have polished their writing skills so they can come directly to the point -- perfect for the media's need for sound bites. They can stand before an unruly audience and turn every insult hurled their way into a laugh at the originator's expense. They are unflappable at the unexpected, and quick with the quip.

Here are some nominees for certain states to consider:

New York: Jon Stewart -- brilliant, actually knowledgeable about politics, and... Jewish!
Also for New York: Lewis Black -- outraged at damn near everything, and...Jewish!
California: Paula Poundstone -- sharp, family oriented, and... gay!
Texas: Ron White -- rotund, alcohol loving, and... white!
Alaska: Tom Bodett -- keeping the light on for us
Michigan: Michael Moore, defender of the little guy.
Connecticut: P.J. O'Rourke -- our lone neocon in a sea of liberalism.
Florida: Jimmy Buffet -- not a comedian per se, but a very funny guy never the less.

I'm sure you can name many more.

Let's go all the way here, and come up with an appropriate Leader Of The Free World.

Somebody everybody can get behind. Somebody who believes in family values. Someone who believes we all can pull ourselves up by our boot straps. One who holds a Doctorate. He's even black! Beloved by millions for two generations... ladies and gentlemen, I give you the next President of the United States:

Bill Cosby.

Donny Osmond And The Road Not Taken.

Just imagine if Donny Osmond had taken Michael Jackson's career path.

Both Osmond and Jackson were bubble-gum pop heroes with their respective family groups in the early 1970's. The Osmonds were far more familiar faces on TV then, having made a name for themselves even before Donny was born, singing barbershop music. Their super-straight, clean-cut image worked against them in certain quarters -- they were just too uncool to many of the Woodstock generation, including myself. Just how cool could anyone be as a regular on the Andy Williams Show?

The Jackson 5, though, wore their Afros with pride and reflected the gritty urbanity of their Gary, Indiana hometown. Their outfits looked like a cross between your average Motown group and big-city pimpwear.

Oddly, the music both groups made around the time Donny was starting to get media attention sounded a lot alike. Listen to "One Bad Apple" by the Osmonds and it would be easy to think of it as a Jackson 5 tune. (Late edit: "One Bad Apple" actually was written for the Jacksons, but MJ's first number one record was "Ben" a year earlier -- written for Donny Osmond.)

But soon the spotlight was on Donny and Michael's solo careers.

Donny chose a TV show with sister Marie ("A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll") and still managed a few more popular records.

Michael, a few years behind Osmond, hooked up with Quincy Jones, a hugely-talented producer just as MTV was gaining a wide audience. John Landis produced some extremely creative videos, and there was no looking back. Michael Jackson was the hottest pop star on the planet.

Then Jackson got weird on us. Very, very weird on us.

The face lifts. The makeup to look white. Hanging with Liz Taylor. The crazy Sargent Pepper-in-Harlem outfits. Marrying the daughter of Elvis Presley -- for about a week. Sperm donor children. The accusation's of child molestation. Creating the Neverland amusement park for himself and his little friends. More accusations of child molestation. Wild shopping sprees for the most gawd-awful stuff man ever made. Dangling a kid over a hotel railing. Fleeing to Dubai, of all places.

It took a You-tube video of people dancing to "Thriller," at a wedding reception, of all places, to simultaneously make the sheer mention of Michael Jackson both a punchline of a joke, and yet, strangely cool again.

And now we have an early death, bags of prescription drugs, and a media frenzy all on what was to have been the eve of Jackson's farewell tour.

Donny, Donny, Donny. What opportunities you missed by being relatively normal. Think of it, Donny. Had you dyed your skin black, fondled a few kids, talked like Marilyn Monroe, and OD'd on something stronger than that permitted by the Mormon Church, you could have been the King of Pop.

Pyrric Victory.

The other night, out of boredom, I decided to look at the web sites of the newspapers I once worked for.

I couldn't find the web site for the Eastside and South County Journals outside of Seattle, where I worked, and suffered mightily, back in 1997 and 1998. The place damn near killed me.

A little digging turned up the news from two years ago that, after losing money for more than a decade, the owner pawned it off to a newspaper chain from Canada. They promptly shut the joint down, keeping the profitable commercial printing division.

Ha, ha.

While I hate to see a newspaper close, I find the news gratifying. Working there broke my spirit.

I've compared it before to the hot-shot test pilot who takes on a new ride, only to find that everything that worked for him in the past no longer holds true, and he's in an unrecoverable flat spin. Everybody back at the base is going to blame him for losing control and crashing the plane. Oh, and did I mention that the ejection seat's broken?

Well, in my case, I was able to bail out in time, though suffering severe burns of a sort. The scars are still visible if you know where to look.

So, to my departed comrades who built that vehicle of terror, I say:

You got what you deserved. Fill in your favorite string of expletives here on my behalf.