Going Home....but first...

I've made substantial progress in my work, so I'm going home to try to enjoy the remnants of my Saturday.....but first, this important news item, courtesy of Weekly World News:

MONKEYS TYPE SHAKESPEARE PLAY

The classic puzzle about whether an infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite period of time would type a Shakespeare play has been answered in the affirmative. Researchers at the Raleigh Institute near Manchester, England, announced that the monkeys in their lab produced a perfect version of "Romeo and Juliet."

"We've been holding our breath for weeks," says Alan Ripshaw, the researcher in charge of the Monkey Project. "We knew the monkeys were getting close, but we've had a number of false starts. "One time they got to the fourth act of Macbeth, before making a mistake. The monkeys also recently typed out a Thomas Pynchon novel, but that doesn't count."

Ripshaw says he began the project because he was intrigued with the controversy over whether Shakespeare really was the author of the plays bearing his name. "Some scholars think Bacon was the real author," Ripshaw says. "That's when I had the thought, 'What if they were written by monkeys?' Ripshaw assembled 5,000 monkeys and an equal number of typewriters. The monkeys were rewarded with bananas every time they filled up a page with letters.

"Ninety-nine percent of it was nonsense," Ripshaw says. "But one of the monkeys put up a blog on the Internet, and it has a big following." But a researcher checking says the monkeys made a mistake. "In one reference, they called 'Romeo,' 'Romero.'" Says Ripshaw, "I guess it's back to the drawing board."

-- JAKE ANDERSON

Rambling Incoherence

It is Saturday freaking morning and I AM AT WORK - 40 miles from home. This is very rare, but a deadline to submit a brief to the Arkansas Court of Appeals is looming, and it is too difficult to write a brief either at home (children!) or during regular business hours. So, here I sit, having already worked for about two hours producing stunningly brilliant argument and legal analysis that will so impress the appellate judges that they will immediately offer me a seat on the court.

It is now break time; time for a diversion to clear my head.

I checked the usual websites and read the usual blogs. The latest blogging craze seems to be the "100 Things About Me". Lemming that I am, I jumped right in. I am up to #53 so far.

I'm not sure I will ever post the list, though, unless it is edited. And I hate to do that....Why, you ask? (Or, you may not ask.....Recent posts have brought no comments....of course, this is my fault --I'm not posting daily, I'm still flying under the radar and not really telling anyone that I'm blogging, I've been too lazy to set up links to the other blogs that I read so that they will perhaps return the favor, I've been extraordinarily busy, and, due to home computer problems, I can only blog from work.....Excuses, excuses, excuses. Could be that recent posts have sucked and been completely uninteresting, too.)

I digress. Back to why I'm not sure I will post the 100 things list: First of all, way too many of the entries thus far relate to incidents that occurred while I was either drinking or using controlled substances, or both. I'm not sure I want to disclose that. What if I ran for public office one day? (Of course, I have always said that if I ran for public office, I would never, ever deny having smoked marijuana, etc. Too many people know differently). Second, it gives the wrong impression. I really was considered to be one of the "good" kids in high school. I made good grades. I got Good Citizen awards. I got the Leadership award in band. I went to church every Sunday morning and choir and evening services every Sunday evening. But this was the late 70's and early 80's --the Reagan Era slogan "Just Say No" had not yet materialized. So, for the most part, even the "good" kids occasionally drank and smoked pot. The "bad" kids did even more. I wasn't out getting drunk and/or high every day, but I certainly experimented. Third, what if one of my children or one of their friends reads all of this one day? I'm going to be viewed as a major hypocrite when I try to counsel them against drinking or using drugs. To say that I regret ever doing any of that would be a lie, but it is also true that I was extraordinarily fortunate that I emerged from all of that without incident. Many of my friends were not so fortunate. One died from a drug overdose.

Of course, in writing all of this as to why I'm not sure I will post the 100 Things list, I go ahead and disclose the drinking and drugging anyway, don't I? I don't want to be perceived as glorifying or encouraging experimentation. My experiences were a part of who I am, though --- and they aren't that wild, anyway (no midget or enema stories) -- it's not like my experiences would fit in with the debauchery I've been reading about in the Motley Crue autobiography, The Dirt.

So, the dilemma -- post the honest "100 Things" list and worry about any possible repercussions.....or, post an edited "100 Things" list and be pissed at myself for wimping out? Or just abandon the idea altogether?

If You Read Nothing Else Today, Read This....

I don't usually post political pieces, but this one grabbed me, and I want to share it....


ZNet Politics
End-Timers & Neo-ConsThe End of Conservatives
by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts; January 19, 2005

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during 1981-82. He was also Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.

I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns over the air. That was before I became a critic of the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who have seized control of the US government.

America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war, and fully half of the country's population is enthusiastic. Many Christians think that war in the Middle East signals "end times" and that they are about to be wafted up to heaven. Many patriots think that, finally, America is standing up for itself and demonstrating its righteous might. Conservatives are taking out their Vietnam frustrations on Iraqis. Karl Rove is wrapping Bush in the protective cloak of war leader. The military-industrial complex is drooling over the profits of war. And neoconservatives are laying the groundwork for Israeli territorial expansion.

The evening before Thanksgiving Rush Limbaugh was on C-Span TV explaining that these glorious developments would have been impossible if talk radio and the conservative movement had not combined to break the power of the liberal media.

In the Thanksgiving issue of National Review, editor Richard Lowry and former editor John O'Sullivan celebrate Bush's reelection triumph over "a hostile press corps." "Try as they might," crowed O'Sullivan, "they couldn't put Kerry over the top." There was a time when I could rant about the "liberal media" with the best of them. But in recent years I have puzzled over the precise location of the "liberal media."

Not so long ago I would have identified the liberal media as the New York Times and Washington Post, CNN and the three TV networks, and National Public Radio. But both the Times and the Post fell for the Bush administration's lies about WMD and supported the US invasion of Iraq. On balance CNN, the networks, and NPR have not made an issue of the Bush administration's changing explanations for the invasion.

Apparently, Rush Limbaugh and National Review think there is a liberal media because the prison torture scandal could not be suppressed and a cameraman filmed the execution of a wounded Iraqi prisoner by a US Marine. Do the Village Voice and The Nation comprise the "liberal media"? The Village Voice is known for Nat Hentoff and his columns on civil liberties. Every good conservative believes that civil liberties are liberal because they interfere with the police and let criminals go free. The Nation favors spending on the poor and disfavors gun rights, but I don't see the "liberal hate" in The Nation's feeble pages that Rush Limbaugh was denouncing on C-Span.

In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.

The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."

This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.

That, gentle reader, is the full extent of talk radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal Editorial page, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and, indeed, of the entire concentrated corporate media where noncontroversy in the interest of advertising revenue rules.

Once upon a time there was a liberal media. It developed out of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Liberals believed that the private sector is the source of greed that must be restrained by government acting in the public interest. The liberals' mistake was to identify morality with government. Liberals had great suspicion of private power and insufficient suspicion of the power and inclination of government to do good.

Liberals became Benthamites (after Jeremy Bentham). They believed that as the people controlled government through democracy, there was no reason to fear government power, which should be increased in order to accomplish more good.

The conservative movement that I grew up in did not share the liberals' abiding faith in government. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around to the old liberal view that as long as government power is in their hands, there is no reason to fear it or to limit it. Thus, the Patriot Act, which permits government to suspend a person's civil liberty by calling him a terrorist with or without proof. Thus, preemptive war, which permits the President to invade other countries based on unverified assertions.

There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative.

American liberals called the Brownshirts "conservative," because the Brownshirts were obviously not liberal. They were ignorant, violent, delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction. Brownshirts' delusions were protected by an emotional force field. Adulation of power and force prevented Brownshirts from recognizing implications for their country of their reckless doctrines.

Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy. I went overnight from being an object of conservative adulation to one of derision when I wrote that the US invasion of Iraq was a "strategic blunder."
It is amazing that only a short time ago the Bush administration and its supporters believed that all the US had to do was to appear in Iraq and we would be greeted with flowers. Has there ever been a greater example of delusion? Isn't this on a par with the Children's Crusade against the Saracens in the Middle Ages?

Delusion is still the defining characteristic of the Bush administration. We have smashed Fallujah, a city of 300,000, only to discover that the 10,000 US Marines are bogged down in the ruins of the city. If the Marines leave, the "defeated" insurgents will return. Meanwhile the insurgents have moved on to destabilize Mosul, a city five times as large. Thus, the call for more US troops.

There are no more troops. Our former allies are not going to send troops. The only way the Bush administration can continue with its Iraq policy is to reinstate the draft.

When the draft is reinstated, conservatives will loudly proclaim their pride that their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers are going to die for "our freedom." Not a single one of them will be able to explain why destroying Iraqi cities and occupying the ruins are necessary for "our freedom." But this inability will not lessen the enthusiasm for the project. To protect their delusions from "reality-based" critics, they will demand that the critics be arrested for treason and silenced. Many encouraged by talk radio already speak this way.

Because of the triumph of delusional "new conservatives" and the demise of the liberal media, this war is different from the Vietnam war. As more Americans are killed and maimed in the pointless carnage, more Americans have a powerful emotional stake that the war not be lost and not be in vain. Trapped in violence and unable to admit mistake, a reckless administration will escalate.

The rapidly collapsing US dollar is hard evidence that the world sees the US as bankrupt. Flight from the dollar as the reserve currency will adversely impact American living standards, which are already falling as a result of job outsourcing and offshore production. The US cannot afford a costly and interminable war.

Falling living standards and inability to impose our will on the Middle East will result in great frustrations that will diminish our country.

Tribute

My dad would have been 90 years old tomorrow.

He died in April of 1995 -- 3 months after his 80th birthday and a month before my first child was born, before my younger brother's first child was born, and also right before the first child was born to two of my nephews (we had four births in May/June 1995).

Dad was 48 when I was born (and almost 50 when my younger brother was born). He and mom had each already been married once before and each had four children from their prior marriages. All of those children were already grown, or at least in their late teens. This is how I have a host of nieces and nephews that are approximately my age (and one niece who is older than me). This also explains how I am already a great-uncle to lots of great-nieces and nephews. I will be a great-great uncle this coming May!

Despite his advanced age, Dad did all the "dad" things with us -- he taught me how to ride a bike, how to throw a football, how to shoot a BB gun, etc. He instilled a work ethic in me -- I had to start mowing the yard when I was around 7 or 8. I had to help him with what seemed to be a never ending list of carpentry jobs -- it seemed we were forever building a storage shed or an addition to the house or remodeling this or that. None of this carpentry work "took" with me and I remain as inept as ever at even the simplest home repair. He arranged a job for me when I was 14 to scout cotton for the summer. I worked every summer scouting cotton thereafter until I passed the bar exam (with the exception of the summer that I went to Governor's School).

My younger brother was closer to my dad than I simply because they had similar interests, but this never bothered me. In his own way, Dad made sure that I never doubted that he had confidence in me and that he was proud of me. Somehow, he and mom made sure that I got anything that I needed and also anything that I wanted, if I wanted it badly enough. I was very fortunate.

In conveying Dad's strengths, I have to disclose his weaknesses. In my earliest years, he drank to excess on occasion. When this problem culminated in a fairly violent and dramatic episode when I was around six, he realized he had to stop drinking....and he did. No 12 step programs, no AA meetings, simply, "I quit." Similarly, after smoking cigarettes his entire life, he decided, in his mid-70's, that he should quit. And he did. No nicotine patches or gum. No relapses. Simply, " I quit."

He liked to watch the news, read the newspaper, and read TIME magazine from front to back. I inherited his love of the music of Hank Williams, Sr. and other old school honky tonk country artists. When I played him a tape of a song that I wrote and that my band recorded, he said it sounded like an old Marty Robbins record. No one could have paid me a higher compliment than that.

I wish my children had known him.

Happy birthday, Dad.

Query

So, if a woman is told that she is "built like a brick shithouse, " is this a compliment?

Hey, Hey, They're The Osmonds....

Most music fans probably have at least one “uncool” act that they secretly like. I’ve always liked the Osmonds – all permutations of them (the Osmonds, Donny Osmond, Marie Osmond, Donny & Marie, Jimmy Osmond….well, okay, maybe not Jimmy…). It likely has to do with timing – they were at their height of popularity in the early 70’s and I was around 8 years old and making the switch from liking country music to pop music. I had an infatuation over Marie. The girls at my school were infatuated with Donny. Now, I never went through a “girl hating” phase. It’s supposedly common to not like girls at that age, think they are gross, etc. Not me – I always liked girls. So, when I started reading about the Osmonds and buying their records, it was not out of some gay pre-pubescent lust for them – I wanted to be them – especially Donny. I figured that if girls went ape over him and if I could be like him, then they would go ape over me (didn't really work)…. So, I bought all of their singles.

I DIGRESS, AND THIS IS OF INTEREST, AT BEST, TO LOCAL FOLKS: Back then, you could buy singles at Kroger’s in Hamburg for 77 cents, at Foote’s grocery store, and also at the drug store that was on the corner where Sawyer’s is now – in Crossett, I bought singles at Magic Mart and Howard Brothers – this was a few years before Wal-Mart opened. I remember this because when Wal-Mart opened, I had graduated to being a Kiss freak and I picked black eyed peas from our garden and sold them each week to make enough to buy each Kiss album until I had them all – albums were about eight bucks then. Since we still lived in Portland in the early 70’s, I also bought singles at the drug store in Lake Village – this brings me back on point…..

I remember winning an award in the third grade at Portland Elementary School – the prize was $1.00 and I bought the single of Donny Osmond’s “Puppy Love” at the drug store in Lake Village with my winnings. I didn’t get many Osmond albums – albums were comparatively expensive and were reserved for Christmas presents. I do remember getting a K-Tel Donny compilation called Donny Osmond Superstar one Christmas – I still have that album.
Along with the albums, I got the magazines that featured the Osmonds – 16, Spec (a 16 offshoot), Tiger Beat, and Fave (a Tiger Beat offshoot, I think). I wish I still had some of them.
As with most teenybopper acts, the Osmonds fell out of favor after a few years, but I always tried to keep up with them. I watched the Donny and Marie show, even though I had moved on to hard rock. When Donny had a brief resurgence in the late 80’s with “Soldier of Love” and “Sacred Emotion”, I paid attention, even though I didn’t like those songs. When Tipper Gore spearheaded the music censorship movement in the mid-80’s, I was glad to see Donny join Frank Zappa, Dee Snider, and others in opposition. I even watched Donny host “Pyramid” a time or two. And when the Napster craze hit, I downloaded a lot of Osmond songs ( I was especially pleased to find Donny’s version of “Stayin’ Alive” with Dweezil Zappa and other rock guitarists.) I bought and read Donny’s autobiography a couple of years ago. My nephew dug out his Osmond lunch box and discovered via E-bay that it is worth a little something now (sadly, he no longer has the thermos, or it would be worth more).
One of my most recent CD purchases has been an Osmond compilation called “Osmondmania.” When I listened to it, it occurred to me that the better music of the various Osmond groupings was made by the Osmond Brothers rather than Donny. Donny was steered toward the syrupy stuff, particularly remakes of old 50’s and 60’s pop hits. The brothers, though, rocked considerably harder. One of their songs, “Hold Her Tight” nicks the primary riff from Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”
A few years ago, a lot of alternative artists paid tribute to the Carpenters with a compilation CD covering Carpenters songs. The Carpenters were almost as reviled or uncool in the early 70’s as the Osmonds were. It seems to me that the Osmonds deserve equal treatment – It’s time for Sonic Youth to cover Donny & Marie’s “Deep Purple.” It is time for the Hives to cover “Down By The Lazy River.” It is time for the White Stripes to cover “Crazy Horses.”
This would beat the hell out of that Eagles tribute album (I despise the Eagles – but that’s another post).
Anyway, thank you, Osmonds, for being an influence in my formative years.

Trying Day

My day yesterday:

We learned that the elderly gentleman who served our pleadings for years passed away. He was an outstanding process server who, frankly, spoiled us; other process servers paled by comparison. Mr. Eddie, you will be sorely missed.

I am in the middle of an agonizing decision regarding a job offer made to me recently; it was quite unexpected. The money is better, but the duties and challenges would be significantly greater, also. I’ve enjoyed relative anonymity the past few years and I prefer that. That would change, also. The challenges don’t intimidate me; I would welcome a bit more of a challenge. The main issue is that I left private practice and took this job so that the 12-14 hour days would end and my children would recognize me. That has happened and it is nice. There have been trade-offs – there are no looming personal injury settlements to look forward to; just a steady paycheck. If I take this job, despite assurances to the contrary, I think the late hours would begin again. I don’t know if I’m willing to do that again while the kids are so young. I will make the decision in a couple of days.

On top of learning of Mr. Eddie’s death and discussing potential new employment, I suddenly find myself essentially being placed in charge of security at our offices in Monticello and McGehee while a violent and troubled teenager is at large in the area. While this isn’t listed in my job duties, it falls in my lap through a combination of sexism (I am one of only two males in the office amidst 28 females) and “wrong place, wrong time” timing.

So, in dealing with grief counseling (and my own grief) at the loss of Mr. Eddie, a job offer, and then frightened co-workers and police officers, how much actual child support enforcement did I accomplish today? Not much.

Random

I saw Meet The Fokkers this weekend and Dodgeball last night. I thought I would really like MTF and not like Dodgeball; the opposite was true. Well, not quite, I didn’t dislike MTF; I just found it boring. Dodgeball, on the other hand, made me laugh out loud several times (particularly during comedic episodes of extreme violence). Ben Stiller is overrated; the best thing he ever did was his old sketch comedy show from a few years back – I still laugh when I think about his portrayal of Bono doing a Lucky Charms commercial. If I remember correctly, it was to the tune of U2’s “One”: “One bowl…one spoon….”

I have my new graphics card installed in my computer and now I can view my computer screen on my television. Now I’m not really sure why I wanted to do this in the first place….

KAGH-AM in Crossett switched to a Southern Gospel format this month. I listened to it for a few minutes this morning and I think it will be successful, especially in our current climate. From a purely musical standpoint, the songs I heard were more country (i.e. prominent steel guitar) than what passes for current country music nowdays. This provides an alternative to those that listen to American Fascist…er Family Radio for the music.

Another Crossett radio station switched from an “oldies” format to what appears to be a classic rock format. While I would have killed for a station like that twenty years ago, there are a lot of them now and they all play the same tight list of “classics.”

I say it each Christmas; I will say it again: I HATE Hot Wheels sets. I apparently did not go to school long enough to understand the instructions to those things.

I shouldn’t get mad at artists who have agreed to perform at the president’s inauguration balls in a couple of weeks. It’s a great honor. I’m pissed anyway. I know that it doesn’t necessarily amount to an endorsement, but…..

I am strongly considering boycotting Fox over the “Who’s Your Daddy” show – but that means no “Simpsons”, no “Arrested Development”, no “American Idol”, so it will require some thought. My wife, who was adopted, was greatly offended at the concept. Every time you think reality programming has sunk as low as it can go,…