Feelings of Safety

It’s now over a week since a madman killed 31 people and himself at Virginia Tech. Much has been written about the failures that allowed this to happen, especially the fact that the gun which might have ended the rampage was prohibited on the campus by policy. The stated reason for this policy was so that the students could feel safe.

If there’s one thing every adult in the post-9/11 world ought to have figured out, it’s that there is no such thing as safety. When I leave my house to go to work, there’s no guarantee that I’ll survive the day. I could die of an undiagnosed medical problem, I could be murdered, I could be hit by a car, I could have a ten-pound chunk of cement fall from the ceiling and hit me in the head (this last one actually happened at an old job, thankfully it happened over the weekend when no one was around, someone came in on Monday and found a chunk of cement on his desk and a hole in the suspended ceiling). Since there’s no such thing as safety, any “feeling” of safety you may have is an illusion.

Since the feeling of safety is an illusion, what does that say about anyone who says he’s trying to make you feel safe? They’re doing at least one, and most likely two, things to you that you shouldn’t let anyone do.

First, they’re lying to you. They’re pretending that they can make you safe, when all they’re doing is feeding an illusion (an attractive illusion to be sure, but still an illusion). No one has the power to make you safe. The Supreme Court has ruled that even the police don’t have the responsibility to keep you safe, not even someone who’s under police protection at the time of their murder.

Second, they’re probably asking you to turn over some control over yourself in the interests of safety. It’s usually phrased as “I can keep you safe if …” followed by a requirement that you refrain from doing something. So we have gun-free zones in the interests of safety, where people give up their right to self-defense under the assumption that a would-be murderer will be deterred by the fact that guns are prohibited. We’re told we’ll be healthy if only we’re forced to eat properly. We’re told we’ll survive a car crash if only the government forces us to wear seatbelts and pay for safety equipment like airbags in our cars.

To make this deal, to give up a measure of control over yourself for the illusion of safety, is to make a deal with the Devil. You’re giving up something and getting absolutely nothing in return. In the case of gun-free zones, I believe you’re actually making yourself less safe because the criminal knows that he’s the only one there with the ability to apply deadly force. There’s a reason why these things happen in schools and not at, say, gun shows, police functions and Texas rodeos.

When we were children we needed to feel safe and secure, and most of us were safe with our families. Now that we’re adults we need to put aside childish things, childish fantasies, and see the world as it is. It’s a dangerous place, and wishing it was otherwise won’t make it so.

So what do we do? Suppose you knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that there would be a fire in your kitchen today, and that nothing you could do would prevent it. What would you do? Would you declare your kitchen to be a flame-free zone? Probably not. You’d check your fire extinguisher or buy one if you don’t have one. You’d make sure there were fresh batteries in your smoke alarm. You’d stay home, and at the first sound of the smoke alarm you’d spring into action to put out the fire while it’s still small. There’s no guarantee that your house still wouldn’t burn down, but you’d do everything in your power to keep that from happening. You wouldn’t just make sure 911 was on speed dial and hit the button when you noticed flames, knowing that a great deal of damage would be done before the fire department could arrive.

We need to do the same thing regarding self defense. We need to put aside the notion that we are ever totally safe. We need to believe, deep inside, that it COULD happen to us. We need to equip ourselves to deal with such a situation. We need to develop a mindset for self defense (as Jeff Cooper said, you’re no more armed because you own a gun than you are a musician because you own a guitar). We need to develop the mindset that WE, and no one else, are our own first line of defense.

Lastly, we need to eliminate those silly laws that provide nothing but a feeling of safety while enabling people with no respect for the law to commit atrocities like we saw last week. We need to stop pretending that someone who will commit the worst crime it’s possible to commit will be stopped by a law against a lesser crime. We need to act like adults and demand that we be treated as such.

Literacy Meme

From MorningGlory comes a meme about the books I've read. Feel free to add your own in comments or on your own blog. Rules: Bold any books you've read, if you've read other books by the same author, but don't delete anything.


The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)

Emma (Jane Austen)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Sense and Sensibility

To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (J. R. R. Tolkien)
LOTR: The Two Towers (J. R. R. Tolkien)
LOTR: The Return of the King (J. R. R. Tolkien)
The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien)
The Silmarillion
The Book Of Lost Tales Vols. 1 & 2
Unfinished Tales

Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)

Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
Dragonfly in Amber
Voyager
Drums of Autumn
The Fiery Cross
A Breath of Snow and Ashes
Lord John and the Private Matter

A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (J. K. Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J. K. Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J. K. Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J. K. Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J. K. Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - currently reading

A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
The World According To Garp (John Irving)
The Hotel New Hampshire

Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)

Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)

The Stand (Stephen King)
’Salem’s Lot
Night Shift
The Dead Zone
Firestarter
Cujo
Different Seasons
Christine
Skeleton Crew
The Green Mile
Hearts in Atlantis
Dreamcatcher
From a Buick 8
Misery
Desperation
Insomnia
Pet Sematary
The Tommyknockers
Gerald’s Game
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
The Langoliers
Needful Things
Thinner

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)

The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)

Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
Little Men

The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)

The Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Life, the Universe and Everything
So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish
Mostly Harmless
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë)

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Horse and His Boy
The Magician’s Nephew
The Last Battle
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength
The Screwtape Letters
Mere Christianity
God In The Dock
Surprised by Joy

East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
The Red Pony
Tortilla Flat
The Pearl
Cannery Row

Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)

Dune (Frank Herbert)
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Chapterhouse: Dune
The Dragon in the Sea
The Santaroga Barrier
The Dosadi Experiment
The Jesus Incident
The White Plague
The Lazarus Effect

The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)

Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
We the Living
Anthem

1984 (George Orwell)
Animal Farm

The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
Lady of Avalon
Priestess of Avalon
The Forest House

The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
Eye of the Needle
The Key to Rebecca
On Wings of Eagles
Lie Down with Lions
Night Over Water

The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)

I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)

The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)

The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)

The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
The Valley of Horses
The Mammoth Hunters
The Plains of Passage
The Shelters of Stone

The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)

The Bible (Most of it at least)

Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)

The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years AfterThe Vicomte of Bragelonne aka The Man In The Iron Mask

Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)

The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)

A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
Oliver Twist
Nicholas Nickleby
A Christmas Carol
David Copperfield

Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
Empire
Red Prophet
Alvin Journeyman


The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)

The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)

Tim
The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)

The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)

Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
The Vampire Lestat
The Queen of the Damned
The Tale of the Body Thief
Memnoch the Devil
The Vampire Armand
The Witching HourLasher
The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned
Servant of the Bones

Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)

Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Márquez)
One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)

The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

Bridget Jones’s Diary (Helen Fielding)

Shogun (James Clavell)
King Rat
Tai-Pan
Noble House
Whirlwind
Gai-Jin

The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)

In The Skin Of A Lion (Michael Ondaatje)

The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)

The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)

The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)

Charlotte’s Web (E. B. White)
Stuart Little
The Elements of Style

Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)

Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)

Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)

Watership Down (Richard Adams)

Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)

Blindness (Jose Saramago)

Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)

Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)

The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)

The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
The Matarese Countdown
The Road to Omaha
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Bourne Supremacy
The Aquitaine Progression
The Parsifal Mosaic
The Matarese Circle
The Holcroft Covenant
The Chancellor Manuscript
The Gemini Contenders
The Road to Gandolfo
The Rhinemann Exchange
The Matlock Paper
The Osterman Weekend
The Scarlatti Inheritance

The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
That Was Then, This Is Now
Rumble Fish
Tex

White Oleander (Janet Fitch)

A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)

The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)

Ulysses (James Joyce)

Books

If you walk into the “spare” bedroom upstairs you’ll notice a number of book-cases that are tightly packed with books. If you look carefully you’ll notice that there is one author I have a lot of books by, in fact I have a copy of almost everything he’s written and have read them all, most of them several times. You might find it unusual that that author is Stephen King. You may even notice that I look quite a lot like Mr. King (actually, he’s a few years older than I am so I tend to look like he did a few years ago).

There’s a place deep in every human mind that dates back to our earliest ancestors who, while huddled together at night would see eyes gleaming just outside the range of the fire and wonder if those eyes belonged to wolves, or to something worse. It’s the instinct that makes the idea of a ghost in the next room more frightening than the idea of a hungry tiger in that room. Modern people build a high, solid fence around that portion of their psyche. They lock the gate with a strong padlock and throw away the key. Good horror stories break off the lock, throw wide the gate and prod that part of our minds, the part we try to pretend doesn’t exist, with a sharp stick.

One thing I like about Stephen King is the sheer variety of ways he finds to horrify us. We may know that vampires (‘Salem’s Lot), zombies (Pet Sematery) and malevolent clowns who hide in the sewers (It) don’t really exist. While we read these books we can chant to ourselves, over and over, like a mantra timed to the pounding of our hearts “It’s only a book, it’s only a book, it’s only a book” while we pretend that we’re shivering because we’re cold. We’re perhaps less certain about the reality behind a space-ship full of dead aliens who can inhabit human hosts (The Tommyknockers) or a final battle between good and evil after most of the human race is killed by a super-flu (The Stand). Then we find ourselves face to face with the reality that men really DO go insane and embark on a murderous rampage (The Shining), that St Bernards really DO go rabid and attack people in small cars (Cujo), that little girls really DO get lost in the Maine woods (The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon), and that a woman really COULD get trapped naked and handcuffed to a bed in a cabin in the middle of nowhere after her kinky husband dies of a heart attack (Gerald’s Game). Reading such stories sends an icy finger down our spine as we consider that such a thing actually could happen.

A reader with a vivid imagination can read a good horror story and suspend disbelief long enough to wonder if such things really exist and explore how he or she would handle a similar situation. We can peek behind the door marked “Keep Out”, “No Trespassing”, and “Here There Be Dragons”, secure in the knowledge that after the book is done the door will once again be closed, locked, dead bolted and nailed shut with a chair under the door knob for good measure.

Until the next book.

RIP - Bompy

My cat Bompy died this morning. There was no indication that there was anything wrong with him, he was standing in the living room, fell over and was gone within minutes.

I found Bompy about twelve years ago. I was doing yard work in front of my house and sat on the steps to take a break. He was across the street, saw me, ran across the street, up the stairs and into my lap. I posted signs around the neighborhood, no one claimed him so he was mine. "Bompy" was an expression my father used for a hobo, it seemed to fit him. Since he was full grown when I found him I don't really know how old he was when I found him, the vet said about two or three if I remember correctly, so he was probably around 14 or so.

Bompy was all black, and a big, solid, muscular cat. He loved people, loved laps, and loved to be petted and scratched. He'd sit on my lap and I'd scratch his head, and he'd purr so hard he'd drool. He'd actually purr as he inhaled as well as when he exhaled, apparently he couldn't get enough purring done just on the exhale. He wasn't the smartest cat I've ever known, but he was certainly one of the most affectionate.

Bompy made my life richer by his presence in my life. I'm glad he died at home, surrounded by his people. I'm glad he died quickly and didn't suffer.

I suspect the other two cats (Algy and Snoball, both females) will be getting extra attention from my wife and I for a while.

"No heaven will ever heaven be, unless my cats are there to welcome me" - Anonymous.

Back From Arizona

My wife and I took a trip to Arizona recently, we left on December 26 and returned on January 2. I didn't mention our trip beforehand because I'm not in the habit of advertizing, in a public forum, that our home will be empty for a week with someone coming in every other day to feed the cats and take in the mail. I'm seldom concerned about being paranoid, but I'm often concerned about not being paranoid enough.

Anyway, back to Arizona. We arrived in Phoenix, where we have friends, in the wee hours of December 27. We slept for a few hours, exchanged Christmas presents with our friends, and headed up to Sedona for a couple days. Sedona is about the prettiest place I've seen, with beautiful red rock formations. When you look out the window and can't see anything man-made in the distance you just decompress. We actually had snow while we were there, we took a pink-jeep tour (where you're in the back of an open jeep). We froze our collective butts off there, but it was a great time. There was a Christmas-light show where people decorated their homes and visitors voted on which was best.

Sedona apparently does have their fair share of nutters though, a bartender told us that on December 31, 1999 (the turn of the millenium for those who can't count) the road into Sedona was backed up by people who stopped their cars in sight of Bell Rock (the first major rock formation you see on your way into Sedona) and were banging on drums expecting Bell Rock to open up and a space ship to come out and take them away. Not that it would've been an entirely bad thing had that happened.

After our time in Sedona we returned to Phoenix. While the female halves of the two couples went shopping and to the movies for two days, the guys (Rick and I) went shooting at Ben Avery Shooting range. We had a great time, shooting everything from a .22 pocket gun to a Mauser rifle. The thrill for me was an SKS with a detachable 20 round magazine, which is illegal in NJ where I live. Shooting is fun, shooting with a good friend is funner. I have to admit that the SKS didn't impress me as much as I thought it would, I found it heavy, bulky, and I had to make a conscious effort to find the rear sight (as opposed to the Mauser where the rear sight was easy to find).

It was great to see a lot of couples and families at the range. One man was sighting in his daughter's 30 '06 which she'd so far used on an elk, a deer, and a javelina (pronouced hav-e-lina). His daughter is twelve years old. The people at the range run a very tight ship, very safety conscious which is as it should be. Every fifteen minutes they shut down the range so you can go out and change targets and such, during that time you can't handle any firearm that's not already in a hard case, meaning if your rifle is in a soft case (as ours were) you have to wait for the range to re-open to carry your gear to your car to leave. The range safety officer gets positively testy if he sees you touching a firearm during a ceasefire, again this is as it should be.

Things are different in Phoenix than they are in suburban New Jersey where I live. I always thought a cactus was pretty much like a thorn-bush, unless you blundered into it you had no trouble, and if you did blunder into it all you had to do was get out and your problems would be solved with band-aids. Not true. My wife brushed against a cactus in Sedona and found that cacti LEAVE their spines IN YOU. These particular spines were hair-thin, we used tape and tweezers to remove them and she kept finding more for a couple days. Second, there is one variety of cactus (I think it was the "Teddybear Hoya") that, due to differing static charges, will jump on to you and latch on. Great, predatory plants. Once you get off the beaten path there are things around that can put a serious hurt on you, like rattlesnakes, scorpions and spiders. Thankfully, none of these things WANT to hurt you, you have to go out of your way to annoy them enough to hurt you.

I also learned that the Saguaro cactus is pronounced Swar-oh.

Other than that we saw some sights and spent time with our friends. New Year's Eve was quiet, we watched the Times Square ball drop at 10:00 and they rebroadcast it at midnite.

All in all a good time was had by all.

Maybe I can talk my wife into adding some of her perceptions to the comments.

The Day After

I got up early this morning (around 1 am) to watch the news and see how badly things were going. The news just wasn't good. The Democrats already had control of the House and are looking like they may control the Senate as well. I despaired. Then I read Bill Whittle's comments (and I recommend you do so right now, the link is over there on the right, I'll wait).

He's absolutely right. It's a defeat, it's even something of a disaster, but the Republicans had it coming and maybe, just maybe, they'll wake up and smell the coffee over the next two years. Like John Belushi said "Did we give up when the Germans attacked Pearl Harbor?" We've seen tough times before. We're Americans, we'll overcome, that's what we do. We have not yet begun to fight.

So cowboy up. Be of good cheer. Don't despair and remind me of these words when I despair (yes, I mean you, my dear wife and faithful reader). Go home tonight and enjoy the company of your spouse and family. Have a good dinner, not the dinner of a condemned man but the dinner of one who knows he has a marathon to run tomorrow and over the next two years.

I'm working on an entry containing advice for the Republican party, assuming that they want to re-take the House and Senate and keep the Presidency in two years. Watch for it.

Mischief Night

When I first moved from Staten Island, NYC to New Jersey some eight years ago I had a lot to get used to. First was that, when you get lost while driving, you ought to make a U-turn. Growing up on an island, if you got lost you did two things: 1) make sure you don't cross a bridge and 2) keep going until you see a street you know, then work your way to where you want to go from there. Eventually, if nothing else, you'd hit one of the streets on the coast (which we all knew by heart), then you'd be able to find your way. That doesn't work in NJ. The second thing that I've had to get used to is that you have to go to a liquior store to buy beer, or some bars can also sell beer to go. In NYC grocery stores and delis sell beer, and bars are forbidden from selling alcohol to be taken off premises.

I still haven't gotten used to Mischief Night though. When I was a lad two different things happened on Halloween night. Younger kids went trick-or-treating, going around to people's houses in costumes and begging for candy. Older kid armed themselves with shaving cream and eggs and had contests to see who could get messier. You might also TP the trees in front of your friends houses and all city buses had a generous coating of eggs.

New Jerseans split this event into two nights, "Mischief Night" is the night BEFORE Halloween (which would be tonight), and is reserved for TP, shave cream and eggs. Tomorrow night the kids will come a-begging.

I still trip over this. Every year I start my planning for mess clean-up assuming it will happen on Halloween, then realize that I'm a day late in my planning. Every year I start hoping and praying for rain on Halloween (when all it will do is make it miserable for the trick-or-treaters) when I ought to aim my wishes a day earlier.

Maybe someday I'll get it straightened out in my head.

Go. Watch. Listen.

I've never done this before, so I hope it works.

Hat Tip to the Anti Idiotarian Rottweiler

Follow this link, watch and listen. Tear alert.

http://www.beccycole.com/albums/videos/poster_girl.shtml

The best lyric, in my humble opinion "I'm just the girl who sings the crazy song, not qualified to sit and judge". Why can't we have more singers like her and fewer Dixie Chicks?

A little translation may be in order: "digger" is Australian for "soldier".

Buy her albums. Pass the word. Put her poster on your wall.

The Question

This morning my alarm clock went off at the usual half-past-early, I stumbled to the shower, them stumbled back to the bed to make sure my wife was awake. She asked me “Do you remember what today is?”

Now, this is NEVER a good question. It’s especially not a good question when I’m only half-awake, have yet to have my first (let alone second) cup of strong black coffee, and as-yet have no idea what the DATE is and only a sneaking suspicion of what day of the week it is. Still, I knew I had only seconds to come up with an answer of some sort, so I replied “Oh, happy anniversary!” Now I know full-well it wasn’t our wedding anniversary, but I knew it had to be the anniversary of SOMETHING or she wouldn’t have asked. All the while I’m thinking furiously, then it hits me, her father’s birthday was the other day. It was the anniversary of the day I proposed to her!

Yes, eight years ago my wife did me the honor of agreeing to marry me. This is a story worth telling. I’d picked out the ring without her knowing about it (although I was sure she suspected). I was going to take her to a nice place for dinner on Saturday evening and ask her there. She suspected something was up when I started talking about Saturday plans on Tuesday (I have trouble keeping secrets), but all was going according to plan. Until she told me that her mother called, and we were invited to a birthday dinner for her father on Saturday. Of course I agreed to go (with my stomach clenched the whole time) and she began to wonder if she was mistaken about getting engaged on Saturday. I began to go over my options. I was going to pick up the ring Saturday morning. I could wait until the following weekend, but I’d NEVER hold out that long. I could propose to her at her father’s party, but I’m not that brave. I decided to keep it simple, pick up the ring, pick up a dozen roses from the florist near her apartment (where I got her roses regularly anyway, so she wouldn’t suspect), then give her the ring and pop the question. Then we could announce our intentions at the party (assuming of course that she said "Yes").

So early Saturday morning I went to Luddies Jewelry on Staten Island, plunked down the rest of my money and saw the completed ring for the first time. Luddie (a retired cop I’d known for some time who became a jeweler) gave me a little box with a light in it for the ring (we still call that the little refridgerator), then asked me how I intended to give it to her. I replied that I was going to get a dozen roses and ask her, to which he replied that he had just the thing I needed. He handed me a plastic rose that opened up to hold a ring, perfect! So I put the ring in the rose, then stopped at the florist on the way to her apartment, putting the plastic rose into bouquet. She didn’t think anything of it when I gave her the flowers, like I said I did that fairly often. As she was trimming the stems she came to the fake rose and picked it up, remarking that it looked different, at which point I opened the top, got down on one knee and asked her to marry me.

By the way, she said yes.

Book Meme

MorningGlory tagged me with the book Meme. Books are an important part of my life, I have a three-plus hour daily commute by mass transit, and I spend most of that time reading. When my wife and I moved from our first apartment into our first house I gave away a couple hundred paperback books and STILL have four bookcases full of books. So here goes:


One book that changed your life: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Early in my Christian walk my priest/spiritual director at the time recommended it to me, I found it to be a clear, logical and concise introduction to Christianity.


One book that you’ve read more than once: I've read literally hundreds of books more than once, some seven or eight times. Every couple of years I pull out Tolkien's Hobbit/Lord of the Rings, likewise Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.


One book that you would want on a deserted island: Assuming I can pick a series of books rather than one, either the Dune series by Frank Herbert or the Gunslinger series by Stephen King. For the record, I don't consider my Bible to be a book, it's a commodity like water.


One book that made you laugh: Dave Barry's "Guide to Guys". It's a great look at what makes guys tick. For instance, if an alien landed on earth and gave a woman a simple device that would ensure world peace, end hunger and give an infinite amount a free energy she'd bring it immediately to the leader of whatever country she lives in. A guy will take it apart to try to figure out how it works.


One book that made you cry: There's a line in a short story called "Hunters of the Sky Cave" in Poul Andersen's "Agents of the Terran Empire" that always chokes me up. Dominic Flandry (the agent in the book title) is discussing the impending collapse of the Terran Empire he serves and the age of barbarism (the Long Night) that will ensue. He says (and I'm quoting from memory, but this is the gist of it) that anyone with any sense knows that the Long Night is coming, but they also know that it won't come within their lifetimes. So they turn up their collar, and curse at the cold, and amuse themselves playing with a few brightly-colored, dead leaves. Hits kinda close to home.


One book you wish had been written: The Man's Guide to Understanding Women.


One book you wish had never been written: The Communist Manifesto. While drawing on concepts from Das Kapital, the Manifesto popularized the ideas and brought forth a philosophy that has killed more people in the last century than any other including Nazism. I had to read it in college (I had a philosophy teacher who was a die-hard Communist). I thought it was drivel then and my opinion of it hasn't improved since.


One book you are currently reading: "Enemy at the Gates" about the battle for Stalingrad during World War II. I first developed an interest in the Eastern Front of World War II many years ago when my Dad and I would watch a TV series called "The Unknown War", about the Russian side of the war. I got more interested when I got a Mosin Nagant rifle for Christmas, and a couple weeks ago I saw a copy of Enemy at the Gates in the used-book section of Barnes and Noble. (For the record, if anyone knows where I can get a copy of The Unknown War PLEASE let me know!). My wife just rolled her eyes when I pointed out that the rifle on the cover (itself a copy of the movie poster) had the bolt on the wrong side.


One book you have been meaning to read: I have a collected works of Shakespeare that I've barely cracked.

Where Were You Five Years Ago Today?

September 11, 2001 was a beautiful fall day. The sky was blue, the day was mild. I'd gotten up a little late that morning. My wife suggested that I should take the later train (about 40 minutes later), but I really wanted to stop in Borders Bookstore in the World Trade Center that morning. I did that once every couple of weeks, just to browse thru the books. So I pushed myself out the door, drove to the train station, and caught my usual train which took me to Hoboken, NJ. From there I took the Path train to the World Trade Center, but completely forgot that I wanted to stop at Borders, and entered the Courtlandt St subway station. After I paid my subway fare I remembered that I'd intended to stop at Borders, but decided that I'd either stop tonight on the way home or tomorrow morning. The time was about 8:10. I got my usual R train and headed into Brooklyn, just as I had every work day for the last several years. I arrived, as usual, at my desk at about 8:30.

About 9:00 a co-worker came in and told us that a plane had apparently hit the World Trade Center, that he saw the smoke on his way in. We turned on a radio and heard that a small plane had hit the North Tower. It seemed like an accident. As the news rolled in, we learned that it was a passenger jet, not a small plane, that hit the tower. Then the South Tower was hit. Then there were reports of a plane hitting the Pentagon. I called my wife to tell her I was OK, she said they were watching the news on a TV. I thought it was a little odd that she didn't seem concerned about me since my commute took me thru the World Trade Center, but I decided not to press the issue.

A few of us decided to walk down to the East River to see what was happening, when we got there my first impression was that there was a lot of paper in the air, apparently sucked from the towers. There was a huge hole in the North Tower, full of flames. The South Tower was partially hidden from view by the North, but it was obvious that it was burning too. We were too far away to see the people falling, we didn't hear about that until later.

At this point I was thinking that the fire department would evacuate the buildings, put out the fires, and then something would need to be done to repair the towers. It never occured to me that the towers might be too badly damaged to repair. Then the South Tower (or what I could see of it behind the North Tower) sort of tipped at the top, then collapsed in a rain of dust and debris.

I didn't have another coherent thought for the rest of the day.

I couldn't stay there anymore, we left, headed back to our office building, where we found that the building (a New York City municipal building) was evacuated and locked down, we weren't allowed back in. We met up with our manager, and we all went to her apartment a few blocks away. On the way I stopped in a store for a bottle of soda and learned that the North Tower had collapsed, but I was numb at that point. I remember repeatedly thinking "This day needs to be over."

Since New York City was pretty much locked down I couldn't get home, so I and some others spent the night at our managers apartment. The next morning we decided not to open, and by then the transportation system was functioning, so I headed for home via the Path train in Mid-town Manhattan. Everyone I saw on the way home had a thousand-yard stare, like they were in shock. From the train I could see the smoke rising from where the towers had been, that column of smoke would be part of the landscape for a long time.

I arrived home in the early afternoon. My wife arrived home from work at her usual hour. As we talked about the events of the previous day I mentioned that I'd been in the basement of the World Trade center a half-hour before the first plane hit. She sat bolt upright and said "You were WHAT?" She'd completely forgotten that my daily commute too me thru the World Trade Center, which was just as well or she'd have been beside herself with worry.

Do not forget what happened that day. Do not forget what you were doing, where you were. Do not forget that three thousand people who did nothing more sinister than show up for work or ride a plane died that day. Do not forget that those people were murdered, they did not die in a natural disaster. Do not forget who murdered them.

Meat Loaf

My wife made meat loaf last night for dinner. For those who don't know, that is one of my absolute favorite meals. My mother made meat loaf, and although hers was uninspired (just beef) it was good. In my single days I'd eat meat loaf at Boston Market when I felt like treating myself to a "good" meal (meaning one that wasn't frozen, pizza or Burger King). Meat loaf is my comfort food. My wife tells me that her meat loaf never tastes the same way twice, all I know is that it's uniformly good, it's never been dry and it's always very tasty. You will NEVER hear me say "Oh no, meat loaf again!" (ten points if you can identify what movie that's from!).

I need a napkin, I'm slobbering just thinking about it!

I had an English teacher in High School who used to tell stories about his mother's cooking, one of her "specialties" was meat loaf. Her version of meat loaf was simplicity itself, throw a couple pounds of chopped meat in a pan and bake. She noticed that it tended to fall apart though, so she sought some method of holding it together. Research showed that the French cooked with peanut oil, so she decided to make French meat loaf. Not having any peanut oil though, she substituted peanut butter. She forgot to put on oven mitts when she took it out of the oven and dropped the glass pan, the pan broke and the meat loaf didn't. My teacher told us to try to imagine burnt meat loaf that stuck to the roof of your mouth.

I'd share my wife's recipe here, but I really don't know it. I know there's a mixture of beef, pork and veal, there's carmelized onions in it, and there's a glaze on top made of, I think, catsup. Maybe she'll share the recipe if enough readers ask nicely in the comments.

Dad's Stories - Part 4

It's been a while since I've put down some of Dad's stories, so here's the next batch. As always I'll promise that they are all true, or at least that they ought to be.

Dad worked in a shipyard among his many jobs. Since, as I've mentioned before, he had no fear of height at all, his job was to do the fitting on masts and such. This presented a problem at lunchtime, because he was expected to stay on top of the mast until the lunch whistle blew, upon which he'd have to climb down. The climb cut into his lunch break, which was only a half-hour as it was. To get around this he'd have his friend the crane operator swing the hook of the crane over to him, he'd sit on the ball over the hook and ride down on that. This was of course against the safety regulations, and it so happened that the government safety inspector was there one day when Dad took his ride. The inspector suspended him from working at the shipyard for a period of time, but since he was one of the few workers who'd go up the mast he was back at work the next day.

You may think being up at the top of a mast of a ship would keep you awake, but one day Dad fell asleep up there, leaning against the mast inside the crows nest (I suspect he had a long night the night before). A woman in a house across the road from the shipyard saw him hunched over and ran to the shipyard to tell them that their man had apparently died up on the mast. I'd imagine Dad's co-workers weren't to happy when they climbed up there to see what was wrong and found him alseep.

Last shipyard story for now. One day Dad was painting the lifeboat davits (these are the crane-like things that are used to lower the lifeboats). He was priming them with stuff called red lead, it's basically a water-proofing paint. He'd go from davit to davit with a five gallon bucket of the stuff, painting as he went. Well one time when he picked up the bucket the handle broke off, the bucket of paint fell over the side, hit a wooden scaffold (thankfully one that wasn't occupied at the time) which acted like a springboard and sprayed red lead all over the (freshly painted) side of the ship. Dad's foreman blamed him until Dad showed him that he still had the handle of the bucket.

When I was a tyke my Dad worked in a couple of different hospitals (which shall remain nameless in case either of my readers someday find themselves in one of them). He did general repair, from unclogging drains to changing locks. His time at the hospitals gave him a disrespect for doctors, while he admitted that some of them were very intelligent, many of them had no common sense. One of the doctors got a new blood-pressure machine, the type mounted on the wall that uses a column of mercury. It was mounted, but the mercury hadn't been added yet. The doctor decided to fill the column himself, but unfortunately neglected to remove the plug at the top first. Undaunted by the sight of mercury running down the side of the column, he kept pouring until the bottle was empty, then, upon seeing that the column was still empty he called for help. Dad realized what the problem was, and further realized that the mercury needed to be cleaned up. Today a hazmat team would probably respond, but back then Dad went around the floor with a spoon and a tongue depresser picking up globs of mercury and putting it back in the bottle, after which he removed the plug and filled the column without spillage.

Another time Dad got a call of a burst pipe in an area of the hospital, so he went to investigate. Upon entering the office where the leak was, he saw the doctor whose office it was sitting at his desk while having water leak from the ceiling onto his head. The doctor looked up and informed my Dad that there was water leaking from the ceiling (no flies on him!). Dad replied (in his most diplomatic tone) that he could see that, and pointed out that he (the doctor) was getting wet. The doc asked Dad if he thought he ought to move.

We Need to Change

I'm not angry, comparing anger to what I feel is like comparing a guttering match to the sun. I'm not enraged, that's entirely too polite a term. I am well and truly pissed off.

We capture terrorists, without uniforms, we fly them to a Caribean island where they get three hot meals a day that meet the requirements of their religion, prayer mats, Korans and when we try to extract information from them by depriving them of sleep we're called torturers. When three of them decide to hang themselves we're held responsible for their deaths.

Then two of our soldiers, in uniform, completely identifiable as American soldiers and perfectly distinguishable from any civilian in the area, are captured. They have their genitals cut off and stuffed in their mouths. They have their eyes gouged out. They have their heads cut off. Their mutilated corpses are intentionally left in a place where they'll be found by other Americans and their bodies are booby trapped as is the area around them in hopes of killing yet more Americans. There's no outrage flowing from this. Two men died a horrible death at the hands of monsters and there's no outrage, while terrorists are photographed with underwear over their heads and we're called brutal.

Yet we have people insisting that we must play by civilized rules in dealing with the terrorists. We have people claiming that the terrorists must be treated according to the Geneva Convention, ignoring the fact that the Geneva Convention allows combatants without command structure, who don't carry arms openly and who wear no identification to show that they are in fact legal combatants to be shot on sight. They ignore the fact that the Geneva Convention is intended to be adhered to by BOTH sides of a conflict, otherwise the agreement is void.

We need to change how we fight the War on Terror. First, we need to get rid of the imbedded reporters. Why? They lead to too many Monday Morning Quarterbacks. When one of our warriors has to make a decision in a matter of seconds, when making the wrong decision could kill him and his comrades, but then that decision is endlessly analysed in slow motion by people in safe, comfortable offices to see if he may have been able to decide otherwise, well as they say that dog just won't hunt. I'm not a veteran, I've never been in combat. I, unlike so many of my self-proclaimed intellectual betters in the news media, won't second-guess anyone for what they do in the heat of combat. The grunt on the ground doesn't have the advantage of all the information that will later be gathered after the smoke clears, he doesn't have access to video tapes and satelite images to tell him exactly what's happening around him and, even if he had access to all this information, he wouldn't have time to sit down and analyze it to make a completely informed decision before he and his buddies are killed. He has to make a decision now, not tomorrow, not in ten minutes, but right this very second. In combat the best thing you can do is the right thing, the second-best thing you can do is the wrong thing, and the absolute worst thing you can do it nothing.

Second, we have to put the blame for civilian deaths exactly where it belongs. Few German civilians were killed by American troops on the ground during World War II. Why? Because when the German army occupied a town to set up a defensive position the civilians moved out, and because the German military wore uniforms so that the Allies could tell at a glance if a person running across the street was a soldier (and thereby a target) or a civilian (and therefore not a target). The Germans didn't fire from civilian occupied buildings while dressed as civilians themselves so that when the Allied troops entered the building they couldn't tell who fired on them. If the terrorists don't want their civilians killed they have to stop making themselves look like civilians while attacking American troops. They have to clear the civilians out of an area before setting up shop. We, for our part, need to support those warriors who make these difficult decisions, stop insisting that they do the impossible and spare civilians while killing the indistinguishable terrorists, and stop blaming our troops when it turns out that someone they killed wasn't a terrorist.

Lastly, we have to stop insisting that our troops fight a civilized war when their enemies are anything but civilized. This war isn't a football game where both sides fight according to previously agreed upon rules and where some impartial third party determines when a foul has occurred and what the penalty shall be. From the very start the terrorists have failed to fight according to any recognized standard, targetting civilians, murdering prisoners, and disguising combatants as non-combatants. Spare me the argument that acting in a similar manner will "bring us down to their level". We are at war, war is organized barbarism, and the nation that's more efficiently barbaric will not only win, it will bring a speedier end to the war. Kim Du Toit gave the best analogy I've seen yet, we can't insist that our boxer go into the ring and fight under the Queensbury rules and watch helplessly as his opponent enters the ring armed with a flamethrower.

Yes, I know, it took me over a week to write this. Part of me was processing the events and trying to make something coherent out of a white-hot cloud of pure emotion. Another part was hoping that the media would respond with some outrage, but instead (and predictably) they responded with stories about Abu Gharib and Gitmo. They responded by saying that our men and women in uniform are no better than the animals who castrated, mutilated, and decapidated two of our citizen soldiers. They drew a moral equivalence between those who broke the rules, in a rather mild way really, and were punished for their transgressions, and those who committed attrocities and who are hailed as heroes. The only outrage I've found has been by my fellow amatuer journalists in the blogosphere and by the common folks I've spoken to. So much for the relevancy of the mainstream media.

Reflections on my 43rd Lap Around the Sun

Today, June 15th 2006, marks the 43rd anniversary of the day Dr Shernlank (I am not making that name up) caught me as my mother pushed me screaming into this world. A lot has happened to the world in 43 years.

If you're about my age, you probably know how to do long division, but you'd rather use a calculator. You may know how to use a sliderule, but you still prefer a calculator.

You remember stacking records on a spindle on a turntable, where they'd drop down to play. You had to turn them over to play the other side. 45's had a big hole in the middle you had to fill with this little plastic thingy.

My mother made iced tea with tea bags in a big pot, she'd pour it into empty instant coffee jars and put it in the fridge.

Speaking of instant coffee, this stuff is the reason I hated coffee until I discovered that some people actually brewed coffee.

Boys played with toy guns. This wasn't cause for concern by parents, teachers or school administrators. Girls played with dolls. Boys and girls seldom played together unless the girl was a tomboy, then she was just another boy. Boys thought girls were yucky, girls thought boys were yucky, the boys would outgrow this but the girls wouldn't.

You were expected to get dirty when you played, especially if the play involved Tonka trucks in the yard.

The cure for hyperactivity was to go outside and play.

Pong was the extent of home video games. You could go to the Arcade at the Mall to play video games for a quarter a play.

TV had seven working channels, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13. Channel 7 had the 4:30 movie every day.

There were no video rental stores because there were no video tapes or DVD's, if you wanted to see a movie you went to the movies or you waited for it to come on TV.

Wrestling was on channel 42 or 47 UHF, the announcers only spoke Spanish.

The grammer school principal had a paddle. If you misbehaved you went up on the stage during Assembly, assumed the position, and got your butt whacked in front of everyone. The pain was bad, the humiliation was worse, and the thought of what your parents would do to you when you got home was worst of all.

Teachers didn't care about your self esteem, if you didn't learn the material you got a failing grade. If you got too many failing grades you got left back.

There were no mini-vans, there were a few SUVs that were basically short pick-up trucks with seats in back. Families had station wagons. There were no car seats, and nobody wore seatbelts.

The first computer hard-drive I ever saw advertized was in a Radio Shack catalog, it held 8.4 MB (not GB) and cost $4,995. It was about the size of the CPU case on my current computer. Dell currently lists a 1,000 GB (or one terabyte if you prefer) drive for $1,000.

Most cars didn't have air conditioning, power windows or power locks. You couldn't unlock the car from a distance, you had to use the key, but few people bothered to lock the car anyway. Lots of people just left the keys in the ignition. Nobody had car alarms.

Most bikes had one speed, some had three, some had five, and the most any bike had was ten. Nobody wore a helmet to ride a bike. These same people often didn't hold the handlebars while they rode. Bikes came in boys and girls types.

The Star Trek communicator was a futuristic piece of equipment, not something everyone had on their belt or in their pocket or purse.

We landed on the moon. We were going to Mars. In 2001 we'd be going to Jupiter (Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick said so!).

The Russians wanted to nuke us, but didn't dare because they knew we'd nuke them back. Mutually Assured Destruction kept everyone safe.

In High School we discected once-living frogs, grasshoppers and earthworms. Some classes did clams too, those students vowed never to eat another clam. There were periodic small explosions in the Chemistry lab, and there were often noxious smells coming from there.

On Sunday mornings we read the funnies. Mom made dinner early on Sunday, then there was usually a movie on TV in the afternoon.

There were no CDs, DVDs, VCRs or home computers. People bought TVs and stereos, not home entertainment systems. We read books made of paper.

Yes, a lot has changed. The world is better in some ways, worse in others, different in many. We've come further than we'd ever dreamed and failed to accomplish many of the things we expected.

A Good Terrorist

The other morning the radio awoke me at the usual un-Godly hour with the news that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by an American air-strike. This was certainly good news to start the day, any time a terrorist gets sent to someplace considerably hotter than Iraq is cause for celebration. The news hit after the press-time of the free (and worth every penny!) morning paper I get in the morning, so I had to wait until the next morning to read about it.

News is a funny thing. Actual news, meaning the who, what, when and how of an event, has a shelf-life of about twenty-four hours. This means that if news breaks in the morning by the time a morning newspaper runs it it's already getting stale. Newspapers don't stop running news stories just because the news is stale though, oh no. Doing so would lead people to believe that the newspaper exists to inform its readers rather than to expose them to advertizing (I go into much greater detail on this in one of my very early entries entitled The Media).

So what's a newspaper editor to do? Everybody knows that al-Zarqawi found himself fatally near 1,000 pounds of smart-bombs when they detonated, that's not news anymore. What we now get is commentary, and todays throwaway is running with the story that al-Z's death doesn't mean anything, that the insurgency will continue, and that the father of Nick Berg (who was decapitated by al-Zarqawi) is sad that another person had to die and blames George Bush for his son's death.

Of course when all else fails, you can always do man-in-the-street interviews to see if people think the insurgency will end now. One of the randomly-selected experts on insurgency said that if he were a terrorist the death of his leader would inspire him to fight harder. I have some news for him, it doesn't matter how hard a terrorist fights, to be successful he has to fight smart. Any idiot with a room-temperature IQ can wrap himself in exposives and blow himself up, but getting the explosives, recruiting, planning, and deciding where to send him as part of a co-ordinated attack requires a smart and talented leader. By all accounts al-Zarqawi was such a leader.

We'll see. Maybe someone will step in and fill al-Zarqawi's shoes. Maybe the insurgency will crumble without his leadership. I don't know and any prediction I may make would be strictly a guess, just like the predictions I read in the newspaper.

Predictions are funny things, if you happen to be right everyone thinks you're a genius. If you're wrong everybody will forget that you made the prediction. I predicted twenty years ago that music CDs wouldn't take hold, that they'd be replaced any day now by Digital Audio Tape and that anyone who had a CD player would end up with the equivalent of an eight-track player. Had I been right people who heard me say it would be marvelling today at my insight. As it is I'll bet no one remembers.

So will the insurgency continue? I don't know, it might, it might not. I do know that if al-Zaqwari were still alive it most assuredly WOULD continue. I know we have enough bombs to take out his successor if there is one.

Let me head off the comments about Osama Bin Laden right now. Yes, I'll read his obituary with great satisfaction too, but in terms of the War on Terror he's a non-issue. He's in hiding someplace (assuming he's not already dead), he's not running anything. He hasn't even released a video tape in years, just a couple audio tapes. We'll catch up to him someday, but al-Zaqwari was actually leading terrorists in attacks against Americans, getting him was a priority.

Not a Word

This morning the radio had repeated "news" stories about the fact that today is 6/6/06 and wondering if today would mark the arrival of the Anti-Christ and the beginning of the end of the world. The fact that a movie opens today on this topic is completely coincidental I'm sure. The throwaway newspaper had similar articles, and neither had anything about the more significant meaning of this date. In fact no one but a couple bloggers even noted the date.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Folks, today is June 6. Does that date ring a bell? If not, let's try a little harder. June 6, 1944. Omaha. Utah. Sword. Night of Nights. Normandy.

If you don't get it turn on your TV and DVD right now and watch Band of Brothers in its entirety, from start to finish, including the bonus material, without a bathroom break. No fair fast-forwarding either. When that's done watch Saving Private Ryan.

Sixty-two years ago marked the beginning of the end, not of the world, but of World War II. Once the Allies had a foothold in France the war was lost by Germany, it was only a matter of time.

I've said it before on these pages, the Greatest Generation is dying off rapidly, the men who served in World War II are now in their eighties. If you know any talk to them, get their stories now before it's too late. And thank them.

Answering Machine Message

Hello, you've reached the home of Mark and Mark's Wife. We can't come to the phone right now. We are the only two humans who live here. If you don't want to speak to either of us hang up now, you won't get in touch with anyone else here. We speak English here. Neither of us is fluent in any other language, so if you don't speak English hang up, we won't understand you and you won't understand us. We're perfectly happy with our insurance, phone service, Internet access, exterminator, financial advisor and mortgage. Even if we weren't we wouldn't do business with you on the basis of a cold call, so don't waste your time or ours by leaving a message. Our siding, gutters and roof are in good condition, our chimney is clean, our furnace is in good repair, and our basement is waterproofed already. We're not interested in selling our home, buying a new home, buying a vacation home or buying a timeshare. We already give generously to a variety of charities, we don't decide which on the basis of messages left on our answering machine. We really don't believe you're calling to give us a free trip, a free camera, a free computer, or a free anything else. We're not fish, we know bait when we see it. We don't believe we've already won a million dollars. If you are a machine with a recorded message try to ignore the irony of two machines talking to each other and leave your message, we'll have our toaster get back to you. Please note that by leaving a message we offer no warranty, express or implied, that we will get the message or that we will return your call. If you still want to leave a message please do so after the beep. Or don't, it's entirely up to you. Beeeeeep

In Honor of Mother's Day

I didn't have a chance to post this over the weekend, but better late than never.


When God Created Mothers
by Erma Bombeck

When the good Lord was creating mothers, he was into his sixth day of overtime, when an angel appeared and said, "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one."

And the Lord said, "Have you read the spec on this one? She has to be completely washable, but not plastic; have 180 moveable parts, all replaceable; run on black coffee and leftovers; have a lap that disappears when she stands up, a kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair, and six pair of hands.

"The angel shook her head slowly and said,"Six pairs of hands...no way."

"It's not the hands that are causing me problems," said the Lord."It's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have."

"That's on the standard model?" asked the angel.

The Lord nodded. "One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, "What are you kids doing in there?" when she already knows. Another here, in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't, but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say, "I understand and I love you," without so much as uttering a word."

"Lord,"said the angel, touching his sleeve gently, "Rest for now. Tomorrow..."

"I can't," said the Lord. "I'm so close to creating something close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick, can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower."

The angel circled the model of the mother very slowly. "She's too soft," she sighed.

"But tough!" said the Lord excitedly. "You cannot imagine what the mother can do or endure."

"Can she think?"

"Not only think, but she can reason and compromise," said the Creator. Finally the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. "There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told you, you were trying to put too much into this model."

"It's not a leak," said the Lord. "It's a tear."

"What's it for?"

"It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness and pride."

"You're a genius," said the angel.

The Lord looked somber, "I didn't put it there."

Mark D writing again:
My own mother died in 1990, May 24 to be exact. She was tough as an old boot and mules used to say among themselves "That woman is STUBBORN". She could produce more good food with less money than anyone I'd ever met. For instance after my Dad was disabled at work in the mid '70's their entire income was from Worker's Comp until the Disability Social Security kicked in (which given the inefficiencies of the Federal Government took a long time). The Worker's Comp check was $183.80 every two weeks, rent was $214 a month and she fed two adults and an 11 year old boy (the definition of skin stretched around an appetite), never borrowed money, never paid rent or utilities late, and we never went hungry. She'd walk to the electric company to pay the bill to save the money on the stamp and money order (never had a checking account). I remember those days, lots of pasta, lots of chicken. She was a high-school drop out, her mother took her out of school to help care for her eight siblings, but I've often referred to her as an uneducated genius, no one maintains a household like that without a good supply of brains. She loved animals, the last four pets she had were strays she picked up or animals that were too old to get by with other, younger animals that people had.

I'd be remiss now if I didn't mention my mother-in-law, who welcomed me into her family with open arms as she did the wives of my wife's three brothers. "Like a mother to me" is about the biggest compliment I can give any woman, and she is. It took me a couple months to start calling her "Mom" after my wife and I got married, but one day it just popped out and seemed right and that's what I've called her ever since.

TV Complaints

One thing that drives me nuts when I watch a TV show or movie is when the show presents information about things I know about, and the information is so completely wrong it's insane. Since I know a lot about computers, and history, and science this happens pretty often, which explains why I don't watch much TV.

The topic where it makes me the most crazy is guns though. Every time I see a bullet spark when it hits something I cringe, and I've seen movie bullets spark when they hit TREES.

I'm going to give some spoilers for last night's episode of House, so if you didn't see it yet and plan to stop reading.

What little I saw of this show last night, before I retired grumbling to the bedroom, revolved around a police officer who'd been shot, the bullet hit his vest, fragmented, and fragments shot upward and hit his eye socket lodging in his brain. We'll leave alone the fact that soft body armor is intended to capture a bullet, not fragment it, it COULD have hit something hard in his pocket before reaching the vest.

This being the show that it is, the cop had other serious medical issues besides hunks of metal in his skull. The preferred diagnostic was an MRI, but the doctors were afraid to perform an MRI because he was shot with a .38 Special hollowpoint, and those bullets are ferro-magnetic.

Huh?

I've fired and seen thousands of rounds of .38 Special cartidges, both hollowpoint and non-hollowpoint. Most have been basic lead alloys, some have been lead alloys with copper jackets. "ferro" means iron (I guess ferro sounds better than iron). Still, I guess it's possible that someone manufactured rounds with iron-based bullets (they used to make them in .22 specifically for use in shooting galleries with steel targets just so they would spark, they also wore out rifle barrels in a hurry). I have to ask myself why any sane engineer would design iron hollowpoint bullets for a .38 though. Hollowpoints are intended to expand to create a bigger wound and also to keep the slug from going completely thru the intended target and hitting someone else. The .38 Special is a low-velocity round, so if a bullet is going to expand it has to be made of soft stuff. Now what's softer, lead or iron?????

But wait, there's more! Our hero decides to test if the bullet in question posed a problem in an MRI, so he gets a similar cartridge, loads it in a revolver, and brings it to the morgue where he shoots a corpse with it, they then MRI the corpse to see what the bullet did.

Now, I'm no doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I know enough about both bullets and MRI machines to figure out if a particular bullet would cause a problem in an MRI without having to use someone's dead relative for a test. I'd start by bringing my bullet, not to the morgue, but to the kitchen. I'd then pull a magnet off of the refridgerator and see if it would stick to the bullet. If so I know I'd have a problem. If not I'd probably, just for the sake of safety, pull the bullet from the cartridge and just MRI the bullet, if it flew in the machine I know we'd have a problem, if not I'd know we wouldn't.

Of course this wouldn't make for very good theater, which is the bottom line here. It's much more dramatic to make up a problem where one wouldn't exist in reality. It's much more dramatic to have a shocking method of determining if there's a problem than a simple method.

What happened? I didn't watch that far, maybe my wife will answer in the comments (hint hint).