Category Archives: stories

wet & stupid

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Can somebody please explain to me why reporters find it necessary to report on storms by standing out in the rain in their silly ponchos? Do they think we won’t believe them unless they’re personally getting wet? I would believe it if they were in their hotel lobby, or a hospital or police station, though it might help to occasionally point the camera out the window. I do enjoy the visual aids.

I think there is a fundamental and deliberate stupidity at work here, which needs to be addressed because stupidity is contagious.

no really, tell us what you think

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In a blistering critique, Kerry said former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown was to Hurricane Katrina "what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what George Tenet is to ‘slam dunk intelligence’; … what George Bush is to ‘Mission Accomplished’ and ‘Wanted Dead or Alive.’ … The bottom line is simple: The ‘we’ll do whatever it takes’ administration doesn’t have what it takes to get the job done."  [news link]

 

Disasterous (side) Effects

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Boy, there’s nothing like a disaster to blow the stale stuff off the front pages.  I remember back in ought one, we were all a’hubbub about the sad disappearance of a young woman in Washington, and her romantic ties to a soon to be extinct congressman.  Remember her name?  Chondra Levy.  His was Gary Condit.  Then came 9/11, and … Whoosh.  Forgotten.  Well, his career bit the big one, but I don’t think he was climbing any higher anyhoo. 
 
And not long ago, there was a woman camped out in Bush’s neighborhood staging a protest.  Katrina swept Cindy Sheehan away about as cleanly as anything else.  She got on a bus and vanished.  Along with a certain little scandal involving Carl Rove and the identity of a CIA operative named Valerie Plame.  Whoosh.  Gone with the Wind. 
 
Now Bush is putting Rove in charge of reconstruction down yonder.  Scandal forgotten.  Too bad the water didn’t wash New York Times reporter Judith Miller out of jail.  Rove is off to help Bush’s buddies shovel up some reconstruction dough — grease a few palms and gild his parachute — and Miller’s still stuck in the pokey, far as I know.

Too Late for What?

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The online version of this week’s Time magazine is up on their Web site. I find the cover title interesting: “Is it too late to win the war?” I haven’t read it yet. My copy will be here Tuesday, and I don’t want to spoil the surprise. But the question intrigues me. I thought we already won the war in Iraq, and we’re just spilling blood in an protracted occupation to install democracy. Yes, I think I remember it: statues of Saddam yanked down, his ass dragged from a “spider hole,” (never bought that one)the Republican Guard pummeled into a quivering tattered relic, then the looting and the promises of a better Iraq through the miracle of no bid contracts.

So what is Time yammering on about? I can’t wait for Tuesday!

Car Bombs

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Have you been wondering how it was going to turn out? The new democracy in Iraq, I mean. Well, the waiting is over; the beginning of the end is upon them. It’s going to get a lot worse, but I can tell you in general terms: Civil War. Oh yeah, it’s gonna get ugly, and it’s already out of all semblance of “control.” There’s gonna be hell to pay.

“Iraq’s Shi’ite- and Kurdish-led government, backed by the United States, faces a Sunni Arab revolt that has intensified ahead of an October 15 referendum on a new constitution.

Sunni Arabs, the dominant community under ousted leader Saddam Hussein, fear they will lose influence under the new charter and many have vowed to reject it.”

[news link]:

band practice

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I have a song floating around in my head tonight: Row Jimmy, the Grateful Dead. I wish my Limewire was working so I could try to download it. I’m sure not going to wade into my tapes for it. I’m a little tired. But here’s some lyrics … What do they call to mind for you?

Here’s a half dollar if you dare
Double twist when you hit the air,
Look at Julie down below,
The levee doin’ the do-pas-o.

I say row Jimmy row, gonna get there, I don’t know
Seems a common way to go, get
out and row, row, row, row, row.

Broken heart don’t feel so bad,
You ain’t got half of what you thought you had.
Rock you baby to and fro
Not too fast and not too slow.

Well the band practice last night went not so bad. I’d kind of expected the suckage of the thing to hang over the little valley like fallout, killing trees. But I was impressed; some people found their instruments a lot sooner than I did. I sucked, though.

It’s late

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It’s late. I’ve been writing. Paid off nicely, I think, though the throughput is small. Oh well. Hope you all had a good evening, and are snug in your beds. That’s where I’m headed too … your beds. No no no, that’s not right. My bed.

Meanwhile, back at the disasters, turns out the real screwup was our mighty homeland-security secretary and not so much the more minor dipwad who walked the plank. There’s a cool plot-twist, huh?

Well, it’s late.

oh the humiliation

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I’m off to band practice.  Once a year, alumni members of my high school band have a reunion and join the new kids for a halftime show. 

 

  • I haven’t actually played the trombone since 1979, and I wasn’t much good then. 
  • I’ve only done the reunion once – in 2000. 
  • It’s just over an hour until practice starts, and I just found my trombone, in a cabinet in my garage. 
  • We were supposed to have four practices before the halftime, but things got busy and tonight is the first. 
  • The show is next week.
  • I just printed out a trombone slide position chart on the ‘net. 
  • I’m going to go down in flames, but I’m not going alone.
  • As the Chink says, Ha Ha Ho Ho and Hee Hee.