Esquire magazine has named Bill Clinton the most influential man in the world, in their estimation.  I mean, it’s subjective, I suppose.

I’m glad to see the fellow getting some traction out of his abilities. I’ve always thought he was extremely gifted, and I was sorry to see him – and his detractors – waste so much of what his time in office could have been.

Esquire editor David Granger argued that Clinton was poised to become “something like a president of the world or at least a president of the world’s non-governmental organizations.”

You go, Bill.

I believe that life is a mystery,
which we should attend as acolytes
with humility and in awe; that we
have barely scratched the surface
of science which is vast but finite;
that the suggestion that we have
any grip on infinite God is laughable.

I believe we are reborn in every heartbeat;
that enlightened is as enlightened does;
that every moment we stumble
in sin and stagger on.

I believe that God loves us anyway,
though I cannot so much study Him
as yearn for Him. I believe
I don’t know anything,
and therein lies my hope.

“You have no idea how much you’ll miss me. Just so you know, you really have no idea.” That’s what she said.

He stood there in the bright sunlight, shielding his face with his hand and watching her where she stood in the shadowed doorway. He was trying to see, for the last time, how blue her eyes were. And he knew she was right.

He remembered everything, from the first time he saw her in the park with her dog, wearing a pale yellow sun dress, no shoes. And how when he spoke to her, she took off her dark glasses so he could see those eyes.

As long as he could remember, his life had always gone in the same direction. He’d heard it was possible to turn it around, but it kept going the same way – mostly north, into cold country. Until that day in the park, when they stopped to talk about dogs. It was like he clapped his hands and everything changed. No, it was like she spoke and he believed.

Now everything had changed again, though he knew she was right, and he knew he had nobody to blame but himself.

His pickup was parked at the curb, and as he turned and saw its faded green paint, it looked like a friend, who knew he’d screwed up and didn’t care, who knew the roads where he might find hope, hot food, and a cheap place to sleep. As he passed in front of it, he felt the heat from the radiator, and heard her finally slam the door.

Birds singing. Dogs barking. Maybe her dog, clawing its way up the back of her sofa, to yell at him through the picture window. A Cessna droned overhead, so he stood for a moment beside the truck to watch it go. As a boy, he liked to lie on his back on the grass and watch the planes. The sound of them could push him to the brink of sleep.

Merging onto the freeway, the growl of the engine working through its gears covered every sound but the rush of air. Sometimes, the right thing to do is in front of you, impossible. The mind stands back and begs for time, and the heart is covetous of solitude. He hated doing what he did and knew that he would pay for it. He knew that she was right, and this would be a long road to drive all night. Still when he reached the coast and saw the sun go down in front of him, he had to bear right at the junction, heading north.

© 2005 by J. Kyle Kimberlin
all rights reserved
Second Draft, 11.13.05

It seems that the population of death rows in America went down in the US last year, for the fourth consecutive year.  

Think about it.  

It may be one of the few things working well in the Bush era.  But then, it was his forte in his last office, wasn’t it?

[Link]

My cox.com e-mail is down for scheduled maintenance.  I called Cox and was told that e-mails were sent out to customers.  Baloney.  And it’s not mentioned on their Web sites. So if you wrote to me this evening, I’ll answer you tomorrow.  

This sort of thing always gripes my cookies.  (Don’t ask me to explain that expression.)  Makes me want to snatch up my toys and go home.  Where would I go, though?  Back to AOL, where I was lucky to download at 47k?  I just tested my speed:  4278k.  That’s over 90 times faster than dial-up.  

I just hope the tech manager at Cox tonight has a terrible raging fit of sneezing, and dumps hot coffee in his crotch.  

“I know what I’m doing when it comes to winning this war.”
–George W. Bush

“I’m a war president.”
–George W. Bush

“The only way to stomp out the insurgency of the mind would be to kill the entire population.”
–Major Thomas Neemeyer

“Such an enemy cannot be deterred, cannot be contained, cannot be appeased, or negotiated with. It can only be destroyed. And that is the business at hand.”
–Dick Cheney

“Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.”
–Donald Rumsfeld

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse for W, he’s done it again. Today he used his Veterans’ Day speech to remind us that it’s no fair and downright un-American to criticize the president in time of war. Not only is this an affront to the sacrifices of military service and democratic principles, it’s simply pathetic. Unmanly. Bad form.

I’m a town born college boy, but I know a little about the rules of the west. You don’t cry when you get bucked off against the fence. You pick yourself up, knock the dust off your hat, and try to find your horse.

The man is all hat and no cattle.

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.
-Aldous Huxley

Pat Robertson is completely insane, and does not speak for any Christian with any spiritual humility.

1. I don’t understand how tornados manage to find mobile home parks, and why they seem so determined to do so. It’s not a joke. What happened in Evansville is heartbreaking.

2. Churchill said A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. I might add a fanatic can’t learn at all from results. They keep blowing themselves and others to smithereens, and nothing changes. Why do they keep doing it?

3. Does anyone know how Larry King is relevant? Look at the description of Thursday’s show:

A country singer’s survival story on the relationship she says nearly took her life. And why she’s keeping the baby.

And Friday’s:

Remembering Johnny Cash. His family and best friend,
Kris Kristofferson share fond memories of the man behind the legend.

None of that is news, and I think King belongs on Lifetime during the day, not on CNN in the evening. Maybe it’s just me. But where’s the war coverage? Where’s national politics and foreign policy? Fox news is spending more great gouts of time on the girl missing in Aruba. Enough already. Tragic, yes, but not news anymore. Only MSNBC is doing hard news – Jordan bombings – Oh, well It’s Chris Matthews. Where’s the beef?

And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.

Albert Camus
from The Stranger