Greenspan is worried about the budget deficit. Which is thoughtful of him. But just once I’d like to see him grab the microphone, leap to his feet and shout, “Are you people insane?” And the fact that he’s not concurrently jolted into chronic sleeplessness over the record trade gap and bloated consumer debt gives me pause to consider that he may have lost his incisive objectivity.

Fifteen years ago, American chess champion Bobby Fisher went to Yugoslavia to play chess. This was a violation of sanctions against that country, and Fisher has been a wanted man ever since. If he comes home, he faces arrest and fines up to $10,000 and imprisonment up to ten years. That’s right, just for going in peace and playing chess.

This is the most absurd, moronic travesty of justice to cross my attention in weeks. And things have been busy in the absurd and moronic department. For crying out loud, this isn’t a matter that deserves a second thought by the government, let alone legal scrutiny. He didn’t hurt anybody, didn’t take anything, didn’t even compromise American foreign policy.

Who cares? Drop it, you idiots. I swear, what some people will pretend matters, just for busywork to justify their jobs, is mind-boggling.

[Link]

The only good that comes from even hearing about this vapid waste of human will, this violation of human freedoms, is that you get to go read A Game of Chess, in The Waste Land, by TS Eliot.

In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.

Fog moved in this afternoon. It’s not too heavy in town, or back of the bluffs where I live. But down on the water, it’s pretty thick. Which is usually OK – nice, in fact. It makes it very plain that I live close to the ocean, especially when the fog horn sounds. Gives everything an air of mystery, like an old San Francisco film noir detective flick, or maybe I’m in Men Don’t Dance by Norman Mailer.

Tonight, it’s not good. It’s a bad thing. A couple of hours ago, a 19-year-old kid disappeared, boogie-boarding near the pier at Pismo Beach. His board came in, but not him. People were searching – of course they were – but visibility was bad. Thick as pea soup. And when I saw it on the local news, they’d been searching for over an hour. They were getting ready to call it off at dark. It’s been dark over an hour now, and I fear the worst for his family and friends.

Update: The kid is OK. I don’t know the details yet, but a local newsblurb said he “survived in the ocean.” Thanks, God.

I received and email this evening from Senator Barbara Boxer, sharing her concerns about the spread of West Nile Virus, due to California’s recent rains. Here’s a link to info on her site.

Just a reminder that there’s a new page on my Web site for my novel in progress. I’ve added another chapter. And I have a few more chapters I can add, if there’s any sign of interest whatsoever.

I mean, people said they wanted to read it, sent me e-mails, “When can we see some of your book?” I’m starting to think they were just blowing wind up my kilt. Hoo! That’s a good one.

If nobody’s interested, that’s cool. If it sucks, I can live with that. But I don’t want to be one of those self-deluded geeks who spends hours posting stuff that no one ever even sees.

The chapters are in PDF format, so you can download them to your computer to read later, print them out, etc. Then kindly get back to me, so I’ll know what you think. Thanks!

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

— James Stockdale

Well, Martha Stewart is out of the big house, none the worse for the wear. She’s a lot richer, a little thinner, and a whole lot more popular. Hey, who am I to rain on the parade? I couldn’t be happier for her.

Some folks – like Dan Gillmor over at Grassroots Journalism – still think she’s a crook. Well, that’s a valid opinion too, I suppose. In fact, technically, it’s absolutely right. The law is the law. But I’ve thought all along, to the limited extent I’ve been able to generate any measurable interest, that she was just being a good squirrel. Covering her nuts, you see. Who wouldn’t? And who wouldn’t lie about it?

I consider myself a pretty moral person. If a checker gives me an extra buck or two in change, I’ll drive to the store and take it back. They have to balance the drawer at the end of the shift, and everybody makes mistakes. But if somebody called me and said I was about to lose a chunk of my own money, and I could avoid it, well I’m only human. And I know who has the burden of proving that I did something wrong.

One more point: I think she was made an example of. I think The Prosecution just couldn’t pass up beaching such a big fish, to pad the ol’ resume. So it wasn’t Martha who decided the same rules don’t apply for the big crook and the small. Because the average Joe occasional investor would’ve have gotten off with a warning or probation, especially with no prior criminal history.

Just calling it the way I see it.

My Mom sent me this quote today:

The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted
thirty years of his life.

–Muhammad Ali

Well. Hmm. If a difference in perspective were the only criterion for confirming I haven’t wasted 23 years, then I’m cool. I definitely see the world differently. But wait, maybe I see the world more cynically, negatively … Does that mean I’ve wasted those years?

I have to think this over. Get back to you.

Can somebody out there explain The Drudge Report to me? For years, I’ve been dropping by from time to time, just to see what sludge is being sifted. But I can never find anything there written by Matt Drudge. It’s just a bunch of links to other stuff. There’s a link to “Matt Drudge,” but it’s just a link to the same page you’re looking at.

Presumably, Drudge actually has a keyboard and writes some content for his site. How do you find it?

We an all take a lesson from this one. I’ll give you the moral of the story at the top: You call the cops as the last resort.

Here is the story of a guy who took his kids to Chuck E Cheese and wound up getting Tasered by the cops for “loading his plate” at the salad bar.

I have mixed feelings about the power of the State to dispatch armed forces into a kiddie pizza joint in the first place. We all know that we need protection from crime, and we’re not going to hire Mr. Rogers to provide it; we need our guard dogs to keep us safe. But dammit, you don’t send the Dobermans in amongst the children to protect your chopped iceberg, garbanzos and ranch. Just to protect the people, nothing less.

So I can’t see any angle on this story that justifies what the Cheesy manager did, or what the cops did. It just doesn’t rise to that level. I’ve been in a Chuck E Cheese; they’re raking in dough in every direction, faster than they can count it. Some guy hits the salad and doesn’t pay, you just shrug it off. It’s a drop in a bucket. But now they’ve got traumatized kids and a lawsuit and bad publicity spreading through the blogosphere.

Check out this article in The Age, an Austrailian Paper, about UK writer David Mitchell. I love this guy’s take on the writing process.

Stories just pour out of him, it seems. Daring, astonishing stories told in
many voices. “I write what my curiosity tells me to. It speaks and I
obey.”

Well I guess metaphor has been pretty boring lately, huh? I pretend I can tell, because the comments fall from few to none. Plus I get these traffic reports from Sitemeter.com that tell me I’m getting fewer visits, and people are leaving in 30 seconds instead of 3 minutes. [Yawn] Sorry about that.

Thing is, I’ve been writing. Can’t help it, writers write. So I’ve had less mental energy for blogging.

Plus – and this is kind of dramatic – I went to the dentist today and learned I’ve got an infected root canal. Actually, if you get a root canal you can’t say root canal. You say woot canow. It’s not very painful. It’s just an infection in my head, near my brain. And this’ll hand you a laugh: I get to have a root canal treatment on the Ides of March! You can’t get much more literary than that, am I right? Mean time, I’m on antibiotics, which make me feel a little stupid.

Anyway, I admit it’s been a little boring; some of it’s boring to me. Like the orchid show post. But some of it is actionable, stuff people could comment on. Like my new web page for creative writing, or the new one for my novel. I really would like to know what you think, especially if you’re a Front Page user with constructive criticism.

Thanks for your support.