it's been a while

been a fairly long time since i've written anything real here. i can't really put a finger on just why. I guess i can blame writer's block. but i think in order to catch that disease you have to be a writer. and i doubt i have those credentials. so rather than blaming it on writer's block i'll blame it on what i call "lack of inspiration".

sometimes where you're my age it's hard to get inspired. if i get inspired once a week or so, that's plenty. and on top of that the current news trend is so uninspiring. recent news headlines include . . . jimmie carter says the republican senator who accused president barry o of lying did so because he's a racist. now just a minute now you silly old peanut farmer. how can you tell from that one statement that the guy's a racist. cause i'm thinking the same thing. the health care plan does not expressly preclude coverage for illegal aliens. not from what i've read. so me having the same thought, mister ex-president peanut farmer, does that make me a racist? i guess so, but i never felt that i've been racist. ask my buddy jimmy easter. last i saw of him he's still a black man, and a very good friend. that type of headline will uninspire anyone.

more of the same in today's headlines. obama now claims health care anger is not motivated by his race. good. good that someone realizes that. but printing that garbage as a headline makes most wonder if the anger may actually be racist motivated. why even address it if it isn't happening. it's like saying "the city water system was tested and found anthrax free." reading that wouldn't you wonder why they tested it in the first place? was maybe it laden with anthrax earlier? just starts stuff that doesn't get started.

yahoo's most prominent headline right now says "barrymore's hair matches her odd dress". forgive me if i didn't read the article, for i find no possible interest in the content. what i find peculiar is that this is the headline and story that yahoo chooses to be it's focal point. boy, our society could be in big trouble.

here's another headline i find curious. former miss california defends position on gay marriage. well, first of all, she's no longer miss california, so why is this an issue. secondly, she should not need to defend her position on this issue no more than those that believe in gay marriage, but are not in the public eye, have to defend theirs. it's what you believe. or, in her case, what she believes. should those in the public eye be called upon to defend their position if they believe in gay marriages? no. and neither should she. it's an opinion.

we all know michael jackson died (unless you're one of those that thinks they snuck his live body out of neverland or wherever the hell he was living at the time) cause it was front page news for a month or more. some of us may have noticed that walter cronkite died. cronkite was the most respected and beloved news reporter this country has ever seen. and we were reminded of his life and death for a couple of weeks. not nearly for as long as we were innundated with the king of pop's details. and who can honestly say that michael jackson had nearly as much impact on our society as a whole, on the course our media has taken, than walter cronkite. and cronkite was "normal".

speaking of death. mary travers died. that's very sad to me. peter paul and mary. puff and others. there will never be such an inspiring folk group. alas, the demise of the group may mark the demise of the music genre. very sad.

a few of us noticed that henry gibson died. if you're not my age or a little older and weren't acquainted with rowan and martin's laugh in, you didn't know henry gibson. but short little comedic actor who seemed like a pleasant enough fellow. even the day of his death he wasn't front page material. page 10 for henry gibson.

not much of a plot. not much of a theme. just some things i needed to get off my back.

and, oh, i got a new computer. toshiba laptop. with a numeric keypad. know how handy that is on a laptop when you do anything at all with spreadsheets? well, it is. and i'm liking this new laptop pretty well except about every 10th browser page locks it up. i'm told it's vista. that being the case, i don't like vista.

another new item since the last post is a new cell phone. my cell phone life has been a little zany lately. alltel, the carrier i use, is generous enough to give you a new phone every two years in exchange for you renewing your contract for another two years. or you can pay a little for a phone and get an upgraded model. well, i did that in april. got a phone with a camera (don't really need that), slide out full keyboard so i can succumb to the kids request and send and receive text messages, and even access e-mail and web browser right there on the phone screen. pretty nifty, eh?

well, it was. but this phone didn't fit in my phone holster, so i just carried it in my pocket. one day i changed my pants at mid-day (sunday, i'm doing laundry, wanted to wash the ones i was wearing) and an hour or so later wondered where my phone had got off to. and i figured it out. went on an adventure through the washing machine cycles along with my pants. cell phones don't like that kind of adventure. it quit working.

so now i'm kind of hooked on texting and e-mailing and browsing on my phone. so i call alltel and tell em my phone quit working. they asked me if there was a little red mark under the battery. yep. well, you 've gotten it wet. not covered under our warranty. i knew that, but would have listened if they'd told me it was covered.

so they've given me a free phone, they're not gonna give me another, so i gotta buy one. and i find the perfect one. motorola q, whatever that is. camera,e-mail, browsing. perfect. and priced pretty cheap. i buy it. i receive it. it doesn't work. not since alltel is merging with verizon. won't work. so, to make a long long story a bit shorter, i got another one. a blackberry. and it does it all. not sure i like it, cause it buzzes all night long to indicate i've got an e-mail message, text message, whatever. but sure makes it nice to check e-mail when you need to. now if i could just get the kids to quit sending those darned text messages.

life, so full of meaning, and here are a few

when scooter and ryno were in the eighth grade i drove them to school every morning. ryno was scooter's best friend. an equally nice kid, and both of them were wise beyond their years, likely because they spent so much time as my captive audience on those rides to and from school. they learned a lot of valuable life lessons.

the first lesson i taught them was the secret words of life. these words, so valuable, yet so simple, i explained, can be used for virtually any purpose. to woo a girl. to lift yourself when you're down. to display intelligence when those around you may be doubting you have any. and we owe it all to johnny rivers. boys, i told them, when you find a girl that you may be smitten with, look her straight in the eyes and quote this magical line . . . do doo doo wah, schooby doobie. and there you have it. you'll win that chick over before she has a chance to cover the tracks of her tears.

as scooter and ryno grew into adolescence and on into adulthood they parted paths. sad. but it's a coming of age thing. friends in eighth grade just have to drift apart sometimes. so we reached a time when i no ryno was no longer able to partake of my words of wisdom, so i simply continued to share them with scooter alone. and i grew from this act as well.

i tutored scooter on the meaning of life, the facts of life, the pratfalls of life, the virtues of life. for 22 years i've saturated his mind with meaningful, insightful tidbits of information that he will be able to draw from throughout his entire life. the kid is now nearly as sage as his old man.

and then today i learned something else. and i can't wait to share it with him. this might be the most meaningful thought since johnny rivers' famous quote. so scooter, i share it with you now. a very important rule of life - are you ready.

son, life's too short. don't sweat the petty stuff. and by all means, don't pet the sweaty stuff.

in memorium

i like geese. well, at least the canadian variety that seems to like hanging out in the humid area we call oklahoma. they're very entertaining. i like the way they waddle. i like their voices. and just watching a flock of them on the ground is quite comical. whenever we stumble on to a flock i'm always driven to smile. i really like geese.

they settle in our neighborhood park from time to time. we have a lake there. and a walking trail. and when i walk the dogs on the trail around the lake we enjoy the geese. petunia tries the chase them. for the most part they humor her and pretend to run away. she hasn't yet learned that they can turn back on her quite fiercely without notice. could be fun to watch.

one evening we were going to dinner. hon and i, my sister and brother in law. driving east on 50th street, a semi-major thoroughfare here in the city. suddenly all traffic had to stop. here, right in front of us, was a flock of geese just waddling across the four lane street. taking their time. not a care in the world. and it pleased me greatly that not only did we stop, every car in every lane stopped to allow the geese to pass. and i think everyone who witnessed the crossing was smiling. geese are just fun.

so much so am i affected by the geese that i've pretty much concluded that i, in an earlier life, was a goose myself. well, hopefully a gander. partly because i'm so amused and smitten by them and partly because i tend to walk like them, and, according to my wife, can nearly duplicate their noises. enough about that.

monday evening hon and i decided to take a walk around our neighborhood lake. we do this frequently when the weather's nice. it's a peaceful area. probably a 10 acre park with a 4 or 5 acre lake. playground equipment, volleyball, swimming pool, basketball court. kids playing and riding their bikes around the trail. ducks in the lake all the time. and on this occasion, one lone goose floating on the lake. that's unusual, for geese mate for life. unless one mate has passed, you just don't see a goose solo.

as we rounded the lake to the west and looped back east, we encountered some neighbors who asked if we'd heard a gunshot. no. apparently they had heard one about two or three minutes before we got to the park. and apparently that gun shot had killed two of my beloved geese.

we continued on the trail until we reached the site of the killing. there were a young couple who had been fishing when the shots were fired. their story was that there had been a small flock of geese hanging out near the lake. no fences, just yards blending into the park. and one old guy didn't like the geese in his yard. so much so that he came out and yelled and screamed and chased them off. and then two minutes later the young couple fishing hear a shot, and looked up just in time to see most of the flock fly off. and two stagger, then fall into the water.

the young man, justin, ran to the aid of the geese. alas, all he could do was fish the geese out of the water and lay them on the shore. they had passed.

hon cried. actually was so upset by the senseless killing that she cried. i didn't cry. i was incensed. angry it not an apt word to describe my feelings. justin was on the phone with the 911 operator. an officer would be dispatched.

some ten minutes later two of oklahoma city's finest arrived. they investigated the area and found the wad from a 12 gauge shotgun. as well as obvious markings indicating the geese had been killed by shotgun shot.

there was only one house near enough to the crime scene for a 12 gauge to have had the impact to kill two geese. the officers approached the house and knocked on the door. an elderly man came to the door - sliding patio door - and the police asked his name. he told them. they asked if he owned a shotgun. he said he didn't have to answer. they asked if they could come into his house. he refused. they asked if he had fired a shotgun at geese. he refused to answer. then he began to attack the police, "i don't like your attitude. go to hell. i don't have to tell you anything." and the cops walked away from his door.

they talked to witnesses a bit. it was obvious they were pretty mad at the old guy. they talked about having ballistics come out. they talked about calling federal game authorities. they talked about getting a search warrant. and as they asked the crowd that had grown to disburse, they indicated that they had done all the above.

i know it's a felony to discharge a firearm in the city limits. the guy should be hung for that, assuming ballistics can match the pattern in the 12 gauge wad. and the feds, from what i hear, don't take kindly to folks killing protected geese. and i don't know which makes me angrier, the killing of the geese, or the fact that this a-hole fired a shotgun into a park area where lots of people were walking and kids are playing. just insane.

so hopefully this old fella will spend at least a day or two in the slammer and pay some horrendous fine. if not, alas, it's true. there is no justice.

vote for me

i have some ideas. in fact, i think i have some pretty good ideas. no one seems to think to ask me for my ideas. but i have some that i think might be pretty darn good. and in the right situation, i may be willing to share.

and i'm not the smartest person in the world. sure, i'm reasonably ingtelligent but i don't claim to be a genius. and people we elect to public office? well, i think they're pretty smart, too. for the most part. but what i think is the people we elect seem dreadfully lacking in the area of common sense. so i've decided i'm gonna run for office on a common sense platform.

you see, lawmakers make a lot of laws these days. and let's just be downright honest. most of the laws they make favor some special interest group, or, if they favor the public in general, they're generally laced with "line items" that sneak through little laws that are favorable to some campaign contributor. that's not right. line items in a bill should pertain to the main topic the bill is addressing. dontcha think?

so here's the first thing that's wrong. campaign contributions. bad on many levels, campaign contributions serve mainly to sway a candidate into favoring some special interest group that has a lot of money. pharmaceutical firms may contribute to one candidate's fund. in doing so, they sure are gonna expect a favorable vote on the passing of some bill that has something to do with fda requirements. duh!

unions may contribute to a candidates fund. and when they do they certainly expect that if their man gets elected he'll vote in their favor on any issues involving labor.

and political action committees. commonly known as pacs. they may be the worst. they'll withhold (only on a volunteer basis, of course, after a reasonable (or unreasonable) amount of pressure on their employees), from employee paychecks so they can contribute to the campaign fund of whatever candidate(s) that they feel will best represent the interests of those employees. maybe. or maybe they'll contribute to the candidate that offers the best overall favor to the pac itself.

these laws need to be changed. my law would be: no political contributions whatever. a fella announces he's running for office, the governmental entity, be it city, county, state or federal, hosts a series of forums where the candidates speak. tv stations can broadcast. no spending necessary on the part of the candidate, no automatic election for the richest. no special interest groups or huge corporations unduly influencing politicians. there ya go. common sense.

here's another of my ideas. well, a little background first. i lived in arizona when we, the voters, enacted a law requiring anyone living in the state and operating a motor vehicle to have liability insurance. and most states did the same thing along about the same time. but guess what. four times while living in arizona and once since i've been in oklahoma i"ve had my vehicle hit by the other guy. his fault. and only one of the perpetrators (i watch cops on tv) had liability insurance. so if insurance is mandatory, why are all these folks running around hitting my car without having that mandatory coverage? the law just doesn't work.



so here's my brilliant idea. eliminate liability insurance. i'm saying that not only should we not require it, we should ban it entirely. here's the alternative. add a penny to the price of fuel. or two. i haven't even tried to work out the numbers. i think a penny would do it, but certainly two cents would be more than adequate. add that penny, or two, to the tax on fuel. and then cover everyone who buys fuel in that state. not only would everyone be covered with liability type insurance, but we'd all be paying varying amounts pretty much depending on how much we drive. or the type of vehicle we drive. those that drive gas guzzlers would pay more than those of us that drive economical, practical little cars. how fair can you get? and no one would get their car crashed by an uninsured motorist. people who live in the state. people that drive through the state. everyone pays their fair share for liability coverage. yep, that's one of my simple, brilliant ideas.



i have other ideas. drugs. drugs are a real problem in our country. we spend billions upon billions of bucks trying to keep drugs off the streets, to bust the drug pushers, the dealers, the importers, and on an on. ad nauseum. well, i have a simple solution. legalize drugs. yeah, all of them. and while we're at it, close down all the bureaucratic drug enforcement departments. save lots of money. and here's the good part. make the drugs available through your local drug stores. make users register to buy them. tax the holy crap out of them (see what a great idea this is? we save tax money by dumping the drug enforcement agencies. we generate lots of income by taxing the holy crap out of drug sales. perfect! in fact, i haven't run the numbers, but if you have enough drug users you could probably just eliminate all income taxes. or at least pay down the federal deficit. and then maybe if we generated enough drug tax income we would be able to just shut down the i.r.s., saving even more tons of money.) and allow pontential employers free access to the registry of drug users. and don't penalize them for refusing to hire someone on this registry. we'll eventually eliminate a lot of drug usage - users can't get jobs, can't buy drugs, so they quit, end taxation of income, and pretty much eliminate the underworld crime faction as well, cause they wouldn't have any business.



simple ideas. common sense. there are more. they flash in my mind now and then. global warming? well, mister gore, i'm glad you asked. ever walk by an air conditioner unit while it's running. it may be cooling the interior of a home, but it's sending air out heated up to 200 degrees. and build more houses, build more businesses, build more industries in the desert? that'll keep the world warm with all that heat generated. right there has to be the major source of global warming.

so, let's just solve it. stop building business, homes, airports, etc. in the desert. build where it's cooler. i was just in salt lake city. there's lots of open land available. and few people have air conditioners. it's just not that hot. so here's the plan. levy a tremendous tax on anyone building a home or a business that includes an air conditioner. that'll discourage growth in desert areas. and what's the harm? the desert turns back into, well, desert.

utah, colorado, the pacific northwest, well, they're not gonna favor this plan. but isn't democracy all about majority rules?

yes, folks. i have lots of ideas. so remember this . . . a vote for me is a vote against everything wrong with the world. i just gotta figure how to get my name on the ballot.

if the rain comes

i really like rain. at least, summer time rain. it's cool. it's cleansing. and it sounds neat. and makes the grass grow. if, that is, you live in a geographical area where grass does grow.

and that's a big part of why i like oklahoma. grass does grow. green. lush. i lived in the desert for most of my life, and i can't count the number of visitors who would say something like "oh my oh my. the desert is so beautiful!" hmmm. well, when you're raised in the desert, you don't think of it as beautiful. you think of it as dirt. and weeds. and hot. and laced with evil things like reptiles and scorpions.

even as a mere child i remember appreciating the beauty of green, lush grass. and rolling hills and trees. in my opinion much prettier than the stinking desert. not to mention that it's lots cooler than the desert. but i know. arizona has "dry heat". here we have humidity. well, let me address that.

have you ever opened your oven door when something's been baking in there for a while? and you feel this big blast of "dry heat" hit you in the face? yep. that's "dry heat". and it's hot. but the humid heat, while it certainly can make you sweat and feel uncomfortable, will not bake you like an oven would. and no matter how high the mercury rises here, if you're outside, in shade, and there's at least a bit of a breeze blowing, you're not nearly as uncomfortable as you would be in an oven.

back on point . . . as one may have guessed, it's raining out. and here in the first week of august when we're expecting the temperature to be in the high 90's or just over a hundred, the rain is a refreshing, welcome break from all that. and the earthworms crawl up on the sidewalks, so if you're inclined to go fishing - there's your bait.

rain is just really cool.

and another thing i like is zip lock bags. wow. i hope whoever invented zip lock bags is a billionaire by now. what a great idea. kinda like tupperware, but you can just toss them in the trash. maybe not so ecological sound as we should be. but oh so convenient. yep. i like zip lock bags.

if i wanted to i could take a zip lock bag out and capture the rain. wow, that's getting too weird. think it's time to do something constructive.

technological etiquette

this has puzzled me for a while. and i browsed through amy vanderbilt's bible. no answer. i don't think amy is up to date with modern computin technology.

what i'm wondering is . . . when do you quit? when do you quit e-mailing on a given topic. when do you quit texting? i'm not a big texting fan, but do it on occasion, and i don't know when to stop. and when do you quit facebook posting? i'm really perplexed about all this.

here's what prompted this today: my buddy gerv and i started commenting on each others' status on facebook. he'd post something clever. and i'd try to post something cleverer. or more clever. and then he'd make an attempt at posting something clevererer. and so forth. and pretty soon one or both of us will (this is on-going at this point in time) run out of anything clever to write. so what i need to know is, what is my obligation at that time?

do i continue to post something mindless? something that has absolutely no socially redeeming value? or just exactly when do we let the conversation just go away. since i posted first, is it suitable that he post last? (sorry for the delay here, had to go back to facebook and respond to his last response.)

are there rules regarding how you might go about ending something like this?

the same could be true for e-mailing. consider something like this: person a writes, "can you send me the link for that brain surgery website you mentioned the other day?" and person b writes back: "sure, it's www.howtoremoveahumanbrain.com". and person a is obliged to write back, "great. thank you." and person b, again, "you''re welcome."

and there's where it gets confusing. if you're person a do you respond? or is that the end. cause person b did you a great favor, so you may feel compelled to say, "i sure appreciate your help." and now person b has to write back with, "i'm always glad to help." person a, "i know. you always have been, and i genuinely appreciate that." and person b, "nice of you to say that." and this could keep going on ad nauseoum.

so i'd like to know if there are any established protocols for this type of communication. rules? regulations? do's? don'ts? if anyone knows anything about this, please let me know.

and then i'll write back with a "thank you." and you can write back with "you're welcome". and then . . . . .

where have you gone, walter cronkite? a nation turns its loney eyes to you

walter cronkite died. did anyone notice? yeah, i guess we mostly all did. they spent a fair amount of time reporting it. about 5 percent of the tv airtime devoted to michael jackson. and here was an icon. probably the best, most respected television journalist ever. and i don't just mean "up until now". no one will be better. from kennedy's nomination in 1960, to the assassination. from man on the moon, to vietnam, to the gulf war, and all things in-between, chronkite reported it all in an unbiased fashion, but still managed to do his reporting with emotion. he seemed real to us. and someone we could depend on for honest news reporting.

i know i'm not alone when i say that i don't think there are any honest news reporters anymore. no matter which network i watch, i always feel that the prominent news folks are giving us the news from their slant. or perhaps the slant of the network. too many anti-bush stories. too many pro-obama stories. way too many michael jackson stories. and all the while they seem to be stretching the truth. exaggerating. lying by omission. cronkite never did that.

it's interesting now to see the news slant on . . . hmmm, forget his name, the professorial "scholar" in cambridge. started out with the media reporting the story in such a way that left no doubt that it was a pure case of racial profiling. and i recall the first time i heard the story i'm thinking . . . wait, a fella is seen breaking into a house - no matter his race, creed or color, he's breaking into a house. would not that cause suspicion? then when confronted by police the scholar refuses to produce identification? if i'm a cop, that's also gonna give me cause for concern.

now i wasn't there, so whatever else happened is merely conjecture. the media reported that the cops involved harrassed professor scholar. the cops report that professor scholar became belligerent, called them names, cast about disparaging remarks regarding their mothers. all the while, the media stops just short of stating the police were racially driven. totally out of line. and the morning show on cbs, the today show on nbc, and good morning america on abc, as well as larry king, jon stewart, and kermit the frog invite professor scholar on their programs so that this travesty of justice is forever on the forefront or everyone's minds.

then two things happened on the same day. one, someone determined that the sergeant in charge was really a pretty good guy. very good record. even taught classes to other law enforcement folks on how not to be a party to racial profiling. and then our president, mister barry obama, when asked about the incident (i gotta mention here . . . the members of the media asking obama about this issue at this press conference was just asking for trouble. the question was an extreme case of racial profiling that goes unnoticed. had we had a white president in the white house, this question would not have been asked.) admitted, first of all, that he didn't know the details. then went on to state that the police acted "stupidly".

well, barry, i have to think that you acted "stupidly" in making that statement. i may not agree with you on every issue, but i certainly respect the way you conduct yourself, and i've been very impressed about the way you field and respond to questions. you've always said the right things.

but to accuse the cambridge police of acting "stupidly" was wrong on several levels. and when proceeded by the disclaimer about not knowing the details? well, that can only be termed "racial profiling". one has to wonder if, were the police officer involved a minority, what would have happened. lots of speculation could go on there.

but these two events served to alter the direction of media reporting. basically, abc, nbc, cbs, larry king, phil donahue - oh, he's not around any more - have just stopped talking about it. there was some mention of barry o recognizing he could have "chosen his words better". that's a phrase we're using a lot lately. it's intended to be almost an apology, but when saying that you're not admitting any wrong-doing. then, with barry having said that, the issue's moved away from page one news. and that's a very good thing.

and that's where i think it would have been initially had walter chronkite been reporting.