My Dad was a lineman for Southern California Edison for over 30 years, a very dangerous job. Number 7 on Money’s top 10 list. Here’s to all the Dads who do dangerous work to bring home a paycheck for their families. Thanks Dad.

Money: hazardous jobs – Oct. 13, 2003

Well, this should just be wonderful news for the stock price. As if my portfolio wasn’t Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as it is. Dang.

Yahoo! News – Wal-Mart Raids Catch 300 Illegal Workers

World class stupid. I’ve heard that God looks out for the truly stupid among us, and cuts them a little extra slack. This guy deserved a Darwin Award for this, and got cheated by that slack he was working with. But I have no doubt he’ll get his award before long.

It’s kind of annoying, though, because not everybody gets the same break. You can’t open a newspaper without reading about someone who loved life, cherished family, tried to be careful, and got hit by a car. A few years ago, here in Santa Barbara, we had a terrible storm. A creek flooded in a canyon, and the wave of water crashed through a man’s home and swept him away.

Yeah, I’ve decided that it’s metaphysically untenable that this moron went over the waterfall and lived. He’s lucky that God is infinitely, though inscrutably, more merciful than me.

Yahoo! News – Niagara Falls Man to Be Charged for Stunt

Earlier this year, I posted an entry about a car I saw in my condo complex, which had the phrase “Brown Power” stenciled across the hood. I wondered what reaction there might be if I painted “White Power” on my pickup truck. I don’t think it would be well received.

I support this young woman’s efforts to start a Caucasian Club at her high school, on the non-racist terms she has expressed. Not because I’m arrogant about my race, or have disrespect for those of other races, but because understanding fosters tolerance, and tolerance fosters peace and equality.

Power to Everybody.

Mercury News | 09/19/2003 | Caucasian Club on hold until student completes application

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

A cool site for stuff to read. Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, is behind this site. That’s a great book.

Look, I’m just passing this along, like a good blogger. And please note I’m refraining from any jokes to the effect that drumsticks are not my favorite part of the chicken.

Yahoo! News – Actress Pamela Anderson Urges KFC Boycott

But man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As make the angels weep.

–Shakespeare

Hey kids, ever wanted to run off and join the circus? Here’s one for you. There’s some travel involved. c i r c u s 2 i r a q

Better start brushing up on those juggling skills!

Found this at Justin’s Waffle.

What’s the dysfunction at NBC? They’ve changed their primetime lineup two nights in a row, leaving this blogger a tad miffed and dyspepsic. (Have you ever seen anyone use two words beginning with dys in one sentence before?)

Last night, they blew off showing West Wing, though the newspaper and Yahoo TV both indicated there was a new episode called “Han,” airing for the first time, and gave an episode description. Tonight, they forgot they were supposed to show Scrubs.

The NBC web site says Scrubs will return (from where?) next week. They don’t mention the West Wing fubar. Hmmm. If anybody knows NBC personally, you might suggest that they cut back on the office parties. Their slip is showing.

Did the grandfather of President Bush desecrate the grave of Geronimo? Does Bush’s uberfrat at Yale have Geronimo’s skull in their Tomb? Reportedly so.

indiancountry.com

Were George I and George the Younger in the same Secret Order? You bet yer secret handshake, Skippy. It’s a family thing, like bootscootin’.

Tune in next time, when we ask the questions, “Just how twisted are these people anyway?” and “Why are we letting them run the country?”

Wal-mart’s headlock on the grocery business is a driving force behind the present labor problems with other stores. The problem is a lot bigger than it looks; a lot bigger than a strike over health benefits. I don’t see the revenue concerns of these stores going away. Investor’s Business Daily editorial

For the record, this blogger is a wal-mart shareholder, albeit a very small one.

I’m working on the book tonight, diagramming out some plot and thematic subtext in a series of four of my chapters. I started thinking about a poem I wrote in 1990 about a visit to my brother in San Francisco, as it happens that my protagonist also goes to visit his brother in San Francisco. Why? Because the brother needs to move to a big city and become successful, and I want it to be in California, and San Francisco is the coolest big city in California.

NOTE: If you live in LA, and wish to differ on the basis of LA’s coolness and get us all to sing along with that Randy Newman song, I have two points: No, it’s not as cool as San Francisco; Please quit driving up here to Santa Barbara every damn weekend to get away from how cool LA isn’t, then driving back in a big herd on Sunday evening.

Well, the poem wasn’t on a computer, because I didn’t own a computer in 1990. So I had to go to the closet and find my old notebooks. I finally found a draft of it, which is weird because it was published in ’95; but like I say, no computer. I also found a lot of other interesting stuff I wrote going back to 1980, most of which actually sucked. But I found one piece called “In the Midst of Beings,” from 1990.

Beings is about my neighbor lady, who lived in the house next door to a guest house I used to rent across town. She believed that her home was haunted by the ghost of her father, who died in Ohio some years before. She said that after he died, he gave his favorite frayed old brown coat to the Goodwill. When she got home, it was hanging in the closet. She took it again, and back it came. After a few more attempts, she decided to keep it, and it hung to that day in the closet of her place next door to me.

She said she saw her father from time to time, as a shadow, a silhouette of a man surrounded by tiny stars. But mostly, he just locked doors and played with her radio. I shared with her that I’d had some mysterious experiences myself.

Solitude is a screen door in sunlight.

from In the Midst of Beings by Kyle Kimberlin, © 1990

My neighbor moved to Oregon or Washington about nine or ten years ago; she and her family were going to live on a farm. Lots of room for spirit relatives to roam around. I have no doubt that coat is in her closet still, if by the mercy of God she is not yet a shade described by tiny stars.