It’s the first day of September; summer is almost over. Sadness all across the land. Although there are a few unfortunate souls who don’t like summer! Go figure! There are people — in my family — who actually enjoy winter sports, like snowboarding and … whatever. Well, snowboarding is okay — now. My dear and lovely friend Claudia likes snowboarding and if Claudia likes snowboarding … if Claudia likes snowboarding …

It’s like that commercial, can’t even remember what they’re selling with it. This guy comes into a lot of money, moves to a tropical paradise, filled with scantily clad young women and all these old pros, like Maurice. In the one commercial the young guy visits Maurice, who has row-upon-row of photos of all his girlfriends on the wall. The young guy finds a stack of Peter Cetera albums and asks Maurice, “Do you like Peter Cetera?”

Of course not, but ladies love Cetera and if you love the ladies, you love Cetera! What the Hell are they selling with that commercial? I’m thinking beer because nothing goes better with gratuitous sexual advertising than beer! Okay, time out, gotta look it up on the Internets: Hold on, smoke’em if you got’em, take a pee break, fix a snack, I’ll be right back.

Yep, I was right. It’s a beer commercial — Heineken. So, if Claudia loves snowboarding, then I love snowboarding. Sadly, there are a number of ski-snowboarding resorts within a short distance of Sandy Eggo. I might be snowboarding this winter.
 My nephew Dan likes snowboarding, as does my nephew Andrew. Maybe I can get some tips: best boards, etc. Dan tried surfing once. Found out it isn’t quite the same as snowboarding.

But this is summer and I had to work through it, which is a lot better than last summer when I had to endure a bout of pneumonia. Couldn’t even go outside! Now that’s a bummer summer! Didn’t get any snorkeling in this year, but I did get in the water once. Since the heart surgery in March of 2009, I’ve been extra cautious about my health. My friend Joe, Navy SEAL Joe, said he was just fine with the water and he’s had heart surgery as well. Maybe if the water warms up a bit.
 There’s nothing wrong with being a Navy SEAL that joining the Marine Corps won’t cure.

Summer is great, especially if you live in or around a beach community, like Sandy Eggo and it’s various suburban neighbors. I was telling someone that in Sandy Eggo we have 26 different beaches, some more populated than others. My favorite has got to be Pacific Beach, which morphs into Mission Beach as you walk south. Either or, there is a lot to see at both, but the crowds are incredible.

Coronado and the Silver Strand are pretty nice, although the beaches are separated by the Navy Special Warfare School, where the SEALs train. Then there’s Tourmaline, La Jolla Shores, Black’s, Torrey Pines, Moonlight, South Carlsbad, O’Side and Trestles way to the north.

Some spots, like Trestles, Tourmaline and WindandSea are primarily just for surfing or catching a tan. The beach break makes them treacherous for swimming, although at La Jolla Cove we get a beach break. But it’s fun, if you don’t get clobbered by the rocks. I’ve lost flesh on those rocks.

Black’s is a great beach for swimming and surfing, but it’s also a clothes-optional beach which means you will see guys like me walking around sans fabric. But, you will see women like Gianna walking around sans fabric as well, although I’m not sure if Gianna frequents Black’s. She’s more of a North Coast girl, Carlsbad, O’Side, Encinitas, etc.

The beaches are the main reasons I moved to Sandy Eggo nearly 20 years ago. It came with a price; not too encouraging employment picture; General Dynamics had just closed its huge facility, putting about 100,000 people out of work. The cost of living is mind-boggling, and people just aren’t as friendly as in the Midwest. But, if you make friends here, they are great friends.

Ran into my pal Tony last night. I’ve known him for over 15 years, but hadn’t seen him in about two. It was great to catch up. Back when the Spongebob movie came out, he and I went to see it! The Hasselhoff!

So, summer is almost over; one more weekend and then it’s official. sigh

The bright side of September is that tomorrow (September 2) is my lovely sister Elaine’s birthday! Earlier this year we had a scare with Elaine when complications arose after her surgery to remove a cancerous growth from her esophagus. Sometimes it’s hard to think of what there is in life for which we should be grateful, but Elaine surviving the health problem is easily a reason to count my blessings. She’s been so sweet and kind throughout her entire life.

Elaine will be … err … another year older. As will Allida, my brother Carl’s former wife. We’ve stayed friends over the years and this blog was originally spurred by a little exchange we had on Facebook. You know Facebook, the social networking website that displaced MySpace in popularity. Everybody is doing FB these days, every age, every demographic. Even Sarah Palin has an FB page so now you can get her nuttiness directly!

So, I wrote on my wall that with Christmas and my Birthday coming up in a few months, people could get me gifts from Carvin, and added a link to the guitar, amp, music stuff company (HERE). Their headquarters are just a few miles away in the Carmel Mountain Ranch section of San Diego. Great idea for gifts: order online, I go pick it up!

But nooooooo! Allida says that since her and Elaine’s birthdays are coming up, I should be more concerned about getting them birthday gifts. No, no, no, no, Allida! This is all about me! And she says she hopes I don’t stay selfish my entire life!

Then Elaine, who is also on Facebook, chimes in; Lainey, my lovely, best friend since early childhood, figures my Facebook community (that’s right, it’s my Facebook community) needs to hear her two cents worth and agrees with Allida. Apparently, the surgery has done something to Lainey’s childhood memories.

I should have agreed with Allida right from the gitgo because one thing I’ve learned: never argue with the Forkes women, even if they are once removed by divorce. We still love Allida, although I’m … err … nevermind. I’m in enough trouble and my other two sisters — and sisters-in-law — haven’t chimed in yet. God forbid my sister Mary Lou and her lovely daughter Nancy get a hold of this! Sheesh! And none of my three remaining brothers have offered any assistance or support in this matter. Effin’ cowards.

So, with September 2 being their birthday, this blog is my present to Lainey and Allida! Happy Birthday you two! I’m happy to add a present for each: a castle and Jerry Garcia playing the banjo! Enjoy!

What did you expect?
I was actually gonna go out and buy something and put it in the mail? Please …
Well, there really wasn’t enough time. Maybe next year …

Saturday, August 28th, was the 47th Anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech, given at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Normally, I wouldn’t have noted the occasion because, let’s be honest, I’m not that diligent. But, belonging to an organization that suggests we be rigorously honest, I’ll try that honesty thing here. I don’t know why honesty is important, but the other people in this organization are nice folks so I’ll give it a whirl.

People like Glenn Beck not only get away with lying, he gets paid to lie on radio and TV! Like when he said he didn’t know his little Restoring Honor rally was scheduled for the anniversary of King’s speech. On the Lincoln Memorial steps, where King gave his speech. Umm ... yeah Glenn, we believe that one.

Of course, Beck said he wasn’t trying to be Martin Luther King, Jr., because, after all, Beck was giving his speech two flights below where King stood when he gave his speech 47 years ago! Makes perfect sense when you put it in that context.

And if you YouTube Glenn Beck, you can see Beck telling everyone he’s restoring honor for White folks because, after all, we are the ones who first championed Civil Rights! Except that when “we” were championing Civil Rights after winning our freedom from the King of England, we didn’t include dark-skinned people of any ethnic group or nationality, most especially the African slaves and those who may have been slaves at one time.
 If you go to This Site, you can watch Jon Stewart lampoon Beck’s I Have a Scheme rally.

Until the Civil Rights movement picked up steam in the 1950’s, it positively sucked to be a Negro, to use the vernacular of 50-60 years ago. Actually, it sucked for a long time after Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his speech on August 28, 1963, but the tide was turning, at least a little.

So, this is how I came to know this past Saturday was the 47th Anniversary of that famous and most important speech in American History — a white-haired dickhead hijacked that anniversary to promote himself. He did get close to 90,000 White people to show up for it. King, well, he only had … oh wait, there were about 200,000 people attending the 1963 March on Washington August 28, 1963. Mostly African-Americans, but a large number of other ethic backgrounds as well.

Unlike Glenn Beck, Martin Luther King didn’t just speak to and for one race that populates this nation, he appealed to the better angels of all persons: “… when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, Black men and White men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’ ”

Honestly, I wish I had blogged about this at least a day ahead of time. King’s speech, along with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, stand as two of the most important speeches in American History; King’s coming 100 years (and almost nine months after) President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.
•••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• ••••
Today, August 29, is the 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting the New Orleans, LA area. No need to rehash the drama — real drama — that unfolded in the weeks that followed. The storm itself was bad enough, the damage from it was already in the billions, but when the levees that keep the waters surrounding New Orleans at bay broke — in 87 different places — the tragedy was magnified by ten, by a hundred. Eighty per cent of The Crescent City was under water.

More than 1,800 people lost their lives as a result of the storm and the aftermath, countless thousands more were injured, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. People became refugees in their own country. They were shipped to places as far flung as Denver, CO and here in California. Many of those people have chosen to stay where they landed after the storm. No wonder, the devastation around New Orleans, especially in the 9th Ward, remains. Much of New Orleans is still unlivable. Five years later.

President Obama gave a speech in New Orleans today, Sunday, August 29, 2010, pledging more assistance to the Gulf Coast, not just for the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, but also because of the British Petroleum oil disaster on the Deep Water Horizon that occurred just 131 days ago on April 20, 2010.

Maybe Glenn Beck can do something positive with his influence, a touch that can bring 90,000 people to our nation’s capitol. Bring them to New Orleans (and the Gulf Coast) and help, with their blood, sweat, tears and money, to alleviate the poverty and devastation caused by those two events: Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil disaster.

But, he obviously can’t make any money being of service to his nation.

Sounds like a good reason to visit New York City!

Anyone who has read this blog over the years, or at least knows me, also knows I have no love of religion. One of my favorite phrases: Religion is the root of all evil.

In recent years I’ve stopped saying that as much since greed has proven to be a big source of evil, but religion, especially the three that worship the god of Abraham, tend to breed, endorse, encourage and participate in much evil and have done so for millennia. But those religions aren’t the root of all evil.

Years ago, when in college, I had a discussion with a fellow student who told me in no uncertain terms Catholics aren’t Christians. Really? The original Christian denomination? Funny how definitions are left open to interpretation when it comes to religion.

This woman knew this because her Pastor told her it was so. At the time I was a pretty confirmed atheist, but having been brought up in a very Catholic household, I was a bit offended. Not to mention, the woman’s opinion just flew in the face of historical fact. But facts don’t matter as the previous presidential administration pointed out years ago.

In an October 17, 2004 article for The New York Times Magazine, writer Ron Suskind interviewed several Bush Administration officials, one of whom — un-named — told Suskind, he (Suskind), and people like him, were in the “reality based community” that thinks solving the world’s problems comes from “… judicious study of discernible reality.” The Bush aide went on to say, “That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Sadly, that has been the view of many Americans for many, many years. Decades, centuries now. Before we became a nation, our predecessors burned women to death because they were suspected of being witches.

In 1787 our forefathers ratified the U.S. Constitution. Two years later James Madison introduced the Bill of Rights, which were ratified in 1791. The first of those ten amendments states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In 1802, when Thomas Jefferson was president, he wrote the now famous — or infamous — phrase, contained in this paragraph from his letter to the Baptists of Danbury, CT: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their ‘legislature’ should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
 Italics are mine.

The Supreme Court has ratified that view in several opinions over the two-plus centuries our nation has had a Constitution. And yet — and this boggles the mind — there are those who still believe we live in a religious state, one that adheres to Christianity in particular. People use all sorts of half-truths and untruths to support that lie. But that’s really not the point here.

Religious freedom, for many Americans, only applies to those who believe somewhat the same as they believe. In other words, if you’re not an adherent of an excepted Christian denomination, then your religious freedoms are limited. For some, like that fellow student years ago, Catholicism isn’t acceptable.

The First Amendment says we are free from any particular religion and we can worship — or not worship — as we choose.
 Personally, if all religions were banned … eh, I wouldn’t much care.

But not really. While the government cannot do anything to limit your right to worship or not worship as you choose, your fellow citizens can and will do plenty if you do try to worship differently than they do. Like building an Islamic community center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center.

The insanity whipped up by those who oppose the center, which will have a basketball court and bookstore, as well as a prayer center, boggles the senses. This is in New York City no less, the greatest melting pot of cultures in this big nation of melting pots.

Mainly, it’s the demagogues on the right who are whipping up this anti-Semitism: Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and host of other radio crazies and their co-conspirators in the Republican Party, like House Minority Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Even Karen Hughes, who had been President Bush’s point person in winning over the hearts and minds of the Islamic World, has come out in opposition to the center. And, this is what makes this ironic and possibly funny: Hughes undertook that task with the Imam who is going to build the Islamic Center at 51 Park Place that she now opposes.

For them, it’s all about stirring up their political base, in particular, the Tea Party crowd. With primaries in full swing and the mid term elections coming up in a little more than two months, making sure the base of the party remains incensed at something will go a long way to ensure these people will show up at the polls.

President Obama was chastised, by the overly vocal opponents of the Islamic Center, for invoking the First Amendment in defense of the people who wish to build the center at a site that used to be a Burlington Coat Factory. Oddly enough, those opposing the center are the same people who claim to defend the Constitution when opposing the judicial nominations of Democratic presidents. But let’s not call them hypocrites — yeah, why the Hell not. They are hypocrites, especially Karen Hughes.
 If the Democrats had a backbone, they would be more vocal in their support of the First Amendment, embrace religious pluralism and let every Muslim capable of voting know the Democrats are the real “Big Tent” party and welcome people of all faiths — or no faith — into their party; that their proposed community center in Lower Manhattan is okay with them as are all the mosques facing opposition around the country, like in Mississippi and Wisconsin.
 But let’s not get off on that tangent. The Democratic Party is so wimpy … eh … sigh …

For the demagogues on the Right, the Islamic Center isn’t welcome so close to the “Hallowed Ground” known as “Ground Zero,” although the push carts featuring Middle Eastern food are okay, as are strip clubs and peep shows.
 According to Nicolaus Mills in an opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor, the center would be one of the few bright spots in that neighborhood, which has a variety of shops, fast food restaurants — plus two strip clubs and an adult store with a peep show. Wow! Two strip clubs and a peep show!

Everyone on the right, it seems, is opposed to the Islamic Center — until Monday, when Ron Paul, the one Republican to oppose Bush’s war in Iraq, the man who bucked his party’s line on several occasions while a congressman, came out in support of the Islamic Center.

According to Paul, who wrote an opinion piece on His Website, the anti-Muslim hatred has come from a very select group, “… the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it. They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars …”

It’s worth reading the entire piece. Finally, a voice of sanity in this whole debate. And why did the Democrats leave it to a Republican to make these points? They actually didn’t, but it is more credible coming from someone on the Right, especially Ron Paul, considered the father of the Tea Party movement.

Ron Paul reminds us that one of our most cherished ideals, one of our core values, is religious pluralism and tolerance. We put it in the very first amendment to the Constitution; it leads the Bill of Rights. President Obama said as much, as did other Democrats and people on the Left, but Ron Paul got more notice because he is on the Right.

Ron Paul is the true “maverick” in Congress. I may oppose him on just about every other issue, but on this one the Texas Congressman gets my endorsement.

Two strip clubs and a peep show … sounds like a fun neighborhood.

This morning there was a good idea rattling around in my head. Then I sat down to some naughty videos, watched a little of The Wire (the best show ever on HBO) and voila! Good idea gone.

Never put off to later what is prattling about in your thoughts at the moment. I was thinking about the nature of friendships, in particular the friendship I have with one person. Would I, could I abandon someone who is a friend when the chips are down for them? Not really, especially if I really like that person. That is where the idea started, but I don’t remember any of it from that point.

This blog was first started for political ranting. Along the way it morphed into everything else, from my infatuation with Playboy models to relationships, social interaction, fun in the sun and riding the bus. My friend Dan thinks I should write solely about riding the bus.

One tends to find a lot of the … under-privileged … on mass transit, many forgotten by those who might have been loved ones. They are caught in a state-controlled life that barely gives them enough to subsist on, let alone thrive. We don’t have much love for these people in our country. Mainly, we want them hidden from view so we don’t have to deal with them. I confess, when I’m on the bus and the driver has to pick up someone in a wheelchair, it’s a little annoying that my commute is going to be delayed while the driver buckles the wheelchair contraption into it’s place.

Over the years though, I’ve become quite a bit more tolerant. It’s good for the soul to be tolerant. Then there are the crazies who rant about anything and everything. Religion and politics mostly. People who appear to be off their meds have some interesting theories, conspiracy and otherwise. Like the guy who said the government conspired with the Costa Rican government to take his kids away and sell them to couples in Costa Rica. And God had a plan.

Sadly for a woman also on the bus, the ranting man recognized her and directed his conversation towards her. Someone had to take one for the team and well, she took it. Last night on the way home from work I took one for the team.

A guy who is often seen on the #20 bus (in all it’s route configurations) and just about anywhere on that route between Clairemont Mesa Blvd and Mira Mesa Blvd, recognized me. We don’t really know each other, I couldn’t even tell you his name, but he always has a valid pass and a brown paper bag with either a tall one or a pint. Lat night it was a tall can of beer, the label obscured by the paper bag.

Drinking Man is about six feet tall, always has a scraggly, unshaved face and is about as round as he is tall. Thankfully, he doesn’t wear tight t-shirts, but always wears a t-shirt and baggy shorts. He doesn’t do anything for sustenance, other than panhandle now and then, yet he seems simply contented.

Drinking Man sat directly behind the driver, the easier to have his beer without being ejected. I sat right across from him, in the front so I can keep an eye on the Trusty Trek, which is always in the front bike rack. The drinking man asked, “How far did you ride?”

My helmet was still on my head. So I told him, “Camino Ruiz.” From there to Black Mountain Rd, where I usually catch the bus, is three quarters of a mile. After work I don’t have the will to pedal all the way home even though intellectually I know I can get home sooner by pedaling the entire way instead of waiting for that #20, or if I’m lucky, the #31, which gets me two blocks closer to home. The bus ride relieves me of one and half miles of pedaling, most especially up Black Mountain Rd, from Carroll Canyon Rd to Hillary Dr. That’s one helluva a long climb.

So, the drinking man started blathering on about something, the topic of which was unclear for the first few minutes. He was talking about something closing. But there would be international training at Miramar College. As it turns out, Drinking Man was talking about a fire department engine company being closed and I almost asked if it was the engine company on Black Mountain Rd. Thankfully, my tongue was restrained.

Apparently, there will be fire departments from Europe coming to Miramar College for training. I dunno, Drinking Man may be right. He seemed to have a lot of information, but with people like him, a few accurate bits of information can go a long way, if elaborated on well enough.

So, for a mile and a half I took one for the team and let this guy chatter at me about geopolitical cooperation through fire departments. Yes, he brought politics into it. You know what becomes apparent if you hobnob with the real hoi polloi, some of the ones who appear to be the craziest are often the ones with the highest intelligence. No kidding.

The saying goes, there’s a fine line between genius and madness and if you use mass transit often enough, you’ll get ample opportunity to test that anecdote. And take one for the team if the crazy one starts talking to you.

Thirty-six years ago yesterday marked my first day in the United States Marine Corps. It was a Wednesday. I didn’t pack a bag — we didn’t need any clothing, everything would be provided there — I got up early to make it to the induction center in Downtown Milwaukee. I had some breakfast; Dad got ready and drove me there. The one image above all others I remember from that morning is walking out of the kitchen, looking at Mom, wanting to hug her good-bye, but she wouldn’t turn away from the kitchen sink where she made like she was washing dishes.

Some years later Dad told me Mom couldn’t stop crying for three days after I had gone to boot camp. She had lived with a husband away fighting in the South Pacific during World War II and her eldest son serving in Vietnam at the height of the war, and now her third son was not joining the Navy, but the Marine Corps, land-based and most surely to see the war if the U.S. ramped up in Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese had immediately begun to violate the 1973 Paris Peace Accords and 16 months later, eight months after I enlisted, fellow Marines were lowering the colors of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon for the last time.
 It will always be Saigon to me.

So, with the war in Vietnam not quite settled, war hawks from both major political parties insisting we live up to our obligations as outlined in those peace accords, mother watched yet another of her family march off into the military. So she cried for three days.

Dad, on the other hand, wouldn’t let me get out of his 1970 Chrysler Newport Custom without a big hug. It’s not often we got to see Dad get emotional, but that was one of those moments. I sensed he had some tears in his eyes, but I didn’t really want to look.

The Induction Center remains a blur, we sat around a bit, getting poked and prodded by doctors who wanted to be sure we were fit for duty, and then all of us, about 100, raised our right hands and took the oath:
 I [your name] do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

That’s it. And then you’re no longer a “free” citizen. For the next year or so you put up with people telling you when to eat (and where and what and how), where to sleep, when to sleep, what to wear, what to do and who you are doing it with!

The first three months — or longer — of that is in boot camp. I was in longer, having to lose 45 pounds and become physically fit enough to serve. I spent the first six weeks of boot camp in the Fat Farm, a platoon for recruits who are overweight, out of shape or, in the rare instance, to weak and feeble for the rigors of the Marine Corps.

When I got to boot camp I couldn’t run more than two blocks, couldn’t do more than ten sit-ups and couldn’t even do one pull-up. When I got out of boot camp I could run three miles in less than 20 minutes, do 80 sit-ups in two minutes and 12 pull-ups — the PFT. I became a lean, green fighting machine and was pretty fucking proud of it!

Although I only shot Sharpshooter on the Rifle Range in boot camp (right here at Camp Pendleton), afterwards I consistently shot expert. I’m pretty fucking proud of that too. You fire 50 rounds from you M-16 down range at targets 200, 300 and then 500 yards away. There was a time limit for each stage of fire, but I don’t remember those details.

While stationed at Marine Corps Air Station, Yuma, AZ, I had to qualify three times. The night before the first day of qualification, the third qualification in Yuma (I was a corporal at the time), I had taken some LSD and drank as much beer and whisky as my body could hold. At 6 a.m. on that first qualifying day, when I reported to the rifle range, I was a bit hung over and still tripping. About two hours later I got my time on the targets and shot the best score of my military career: 247 out of a possible 250.

The Gunnery Sergeant qualifying next to me said it was due to me being a little hung over, as my reflexes were slowed and my body wasn’t as jerky. I didn’t tell him I was tripping on LSD, which, if you do your homework, heightens the body’s senses. Having trained and qualified several times before, shooting an M-16 at targets 200-500 yards away was familiar stuff and with a sharper sense of sight from the acid and the deadening effect of a hang over, voila! I shoot the best score of my life.

Now, I’m not going to suggest young Marines take LSD and get wildly drunk the night before going to the rifle range for qualifying, I’m just saying …

The number one Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) of every Marine, from the Commandant on down, across every unit of the Corps, is that of rifleman. Even the women. No matter what the occupational specialty, every Marine must shoot and qualify with the M-16 rifle. It’s the law. You can lose rank for not qualifying. Hell, you will lose rank for not qualifying, it’s so important. Not to mention, you’ll lose rank for not qualifying on the PFT — Physical Fitness Test.

Yeah, they take all of that seriously, all the time. It’s mandated every unit must conduct physical fitness training at least three times a week. It usually happens in the wee hours before breakfast. It was funny, watching some of my fellow Marines lighting up cigarettes on the three-mile run!

My brother Ken reminded me if this: one year, just after the Holidays but in time for my birthday (January 4), I went home to Milwaukee on leave without letting anyone know. I just showed up at the back door and knocked. Mom shrieked and just about fainted! I miss getting the big hugs and kisses from Mom like I did that day. Ken said he got choked up remembering it.

The Marine Corps has never left me. Those three years, ten months and 22 days were the defining period of my life. In that time I rejected the religion of my youth, learned how to kill others, almost learned how to fix appliances, learned how to cuss better and learned the true meaning of camaraderie — brotherhood. We never stop being Marines they say and “they” are right.

Semper Fidelis.

It’s been a long time since I’ve actually written something for this screed, nearly three weeks. Besides the daily J.O.B., life intercedes and, sadly to admit, I’ve been lazy and given to my … err … less productive predilections.

So much has happened. British Petroleum finally stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico … although we haven’t been assured the method used is safe. They put a “cap” on the well with lines going to the surface where ships collect the oil. The problem: the pressure at about a mile below the surface, not only from the weight of the water, but also from the oil gushing from the crust of the Earth.

Hard to imagine how much pressure it takes for that oil to overcome the pressure from the weight of the water to come gushing out of that well at such force it can put 100,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf every day. Fortunately, there are instruments that measure that sort of thing: 6,900 pounds per square inch at last measurement. That’s still pretty hard to comprehend.

Now, going in the other direction, the pressure of the water pressing down on the Earth’s surface at that depth, 2,236 pounds per square inch; that’s almost 10,000 PSI pummeling that “cap.” No wonder people are worried about whether it will hold until the “static kill” method is working. That process is supposed to start August 2, just six days away.

Not to be confused with the relief drilling, which is supposed to be similar to the static kill and top kill methods. All three require pumping mud, specialized cement, into the well and blocking the flow of oil. The relief drilling is supposed to be the ultimate plan for stopping the oil.

That’s the plan you may have seen diagrammed on TV programs, where you see two or three rigs drilling towards the Deepwater Horizon well. What’s startling about this is the amount of guesswork that is involved. Not just for the relief drilling, but for the static kill. What’s really saddening: BP and its fellow oil companies haven’t done this homework before they had a major catastrophe like the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

This would be funny, if so many lives hadn’t been lost, but it’s still worth noting. In 2005 BP’s oil refinery in Texas blew up: the now infamous Texas City explosion that killed 15 and injured over 170. The company was charged with a record amount of fines due to the explosion and all the environmental and safety violations, apparently a record itself.

Since 2005, after British Petroleum claimed it had cleaned up its act, we find out that of 761 OSHA violations recorded since that explosion at Texas City, BP is cited for 760 of them.
 Exxon has the other one. They should just give it to BP so they can claim a monopoly on violations.

So, it is not a surprise BP really doesn’t have a plan for stopping a catastrophe like the Deepwater Horizon. It’s just sad. Maybe now they will, but don’t hold your breath.

This just in: several months ago, BP CEO Tony Hayward said the mud being pumped into the oil well was water-based and therefore not toxic. Now we find out it contained lye and ethyl cyclo-something that is not only hard to spell, but must be a bitch to pronounce on TV. And it’s quite toxic.
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The other “big” story, now almost forgotten, happened last week when a extreme right wing blog aired a snippet of video of former Obama Administration Agriculture Department executive Shirley Sherrod supposedly regaling an NAACP audience with a story about how she denied the full force of her help to white farmers about to lose their farm back in the 1980’s.

“RACISM,” everyone cried! None louder than FoxNews. Hell, they still have their original story posted on their website: HERE. The White House asked for, and got, Ms. Sherrod’s resignation. Apologies were given. Everyone in the Obama Administration was forlorn.

And then we find out the rest of the story. If you watch the entire clip of Ms. Sherrod’s speech, she didn’t do what the clip implies, but instead gave the family all the weight of her job and employer to make sure the people kept their farm. That couple, now very old, were on CNN over the weekend defending Ms. Sherrod and thanked her for the help she gave then in 1986. They didn’t understand why anyone would think she discriminated against them.

Well, the perpetrator of the fraud, Andrew Breitbart, the guy behind the blog BigGovernment.com, now claims he wasn’t trying to show Ms. Sherrod was racist, but that the NAACP was, when it cheered after Ms. Sherrod said she tried to decide just how much help she would give to the White farmers. Everyone knows that’s a lie and CNN anchor (I should have written down his name and that of the couple) pressed Breitbart on it in the same story in which he spoke with the White couple.

Now the White House and all the media outlets* are issuing apologies to Ms. Sherrod for over-reacting to a story from a very untrustworthy source like Andrew Breitbart. My question is: why didn’t all these apologizing parties do their homework before piling on the smear of Shirley Sherrod? Especially the White House? Why were they so quick to throw her under the bus?
* Except Fox, although Bill O’Reilly apologized to Ms. Sherrod and Shepherd Smith admonished his colleagues for not doing their homework on the story.

Fear. And that is going to sink the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration if they continue to cower in front of these right wing extremists and their supporters in the Republican Party.
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The latest big story: the new “Pentagon Papers,” published on WikiLeaks.com. It shows the war in Afghanistan going very badly, far worse than either the Bush and Obama Administrations were and are willing to admit, at least publicly.

We’ve all read the stories of our tax dollars meant for humanitarian purposes going into the pockets of warlords and others; these leaks document that theft. We’ve all read stories of innocent civilians being killed in the crossfire of war, but these leaked documents show the figures we’ve been given publicly for the past six years have been woefully under-reported.

But the majority of the documents published on WikiLeaks.com are from soldiers in the fight and the stories they tell are harrowing.

The Obama Administration knew this was coming. The New York Times was given access to the documents before WikiLeaks.com published them and had a meeting in the White House to discuss the story last week. Names of individuals have been redacted for their protection, but what happened, when, how and why, that is all there.

So today White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs put their spin on it: the documents show why the president needed to make a change of strategy in Afghanistan. Well, how about a change in relations with Pakistan? The documents also show that the Pakistan security agency has been helping the Taliban fight the U.S. and coalition forces. Pakistan is supposed to be an ally in our efforts.

The Bush Administration fucked it up in Afghanistan by starting its war in Iraq. As Mr. Gibbs correctly pointed out, the war in Afghanistan had been under-funded and over-ignored until the Obama Administration came into office. Is the new strategy, punctuated by the departure of General Stanley McChrystal, too little too late? A lot of experts outside of government seem to think so, but we have this culture of never giving up that plague our foreign policy.

It doomed us in Vietnam and is doing so in Iraq. Three car bombs exploded in Iraq on Monday along, killing dozens of people. Remember nearly eight years ago when then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said we would be in and out of Iraq in five months?
 “I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won’t last any longer than that.” November 15, 2002.

Oops. Let’s support our troops while they serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, but lets bring them home as soon as possible.

My nephew Dan has the blog entitled Eschew Obfuscation, which is top on the list to the left of this screed. I read it from time to time simply because many of his interests differ from what I tend to write about and, more importantly, he’s an excellent writer and his subjects are extremely interesting.

His topics are generally in the nerdy vein, but composed in such a way that even dumbshits (who weren’t bright enough to study math and science in high school and college) can grasp and understand it. And then generally agree with his point of view.
He can be persuasive!
 Note to Dan: Don’t think I can be easily persuaded! You’ll have to work at it!

Anyway, to mark the 41st anniversary of the Moon Landing and the 35th Anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Young Dan wrote this piece, probably my favorite of his various essays. It speaks volumes about our society in general and our attitudes about space and exploration.

Those are a few reasons I’m posting it here. The other reason: I’ve been busy as of late and haven’t written anything in weeks and this is a quick and excellent fix to that situation.

Really though, it’s a great bit of writing.
It does need some graphics, photos even, so I’ve added a few ...
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It’s been 35 years since Vance Brand, Valeri Kubasov, Alexei Leonov (Who also did the first space walk), Donald "Deke" Slayton, and Thomas Stafford all shook hands while in orbit around the Earth. It's been 41 years since man first set foot on the Moon. And it's been 53 years since the first artificial satellite. And it's been 107 years since the first powered flight. For thousands of years, Humanity has looked to skies, wondering, questioning. For millennia we have watched the birds and have wondered how we might do the same. Since our birth as a species the Moon and stars have been there. No culture escapes making the stars and the skies fundamental to their way of understanding the world.

In less than a century we went from the first man flying under power to a man stepping on the Moon. In less than a century we went from two terrible global conflicts to a cold war stalemate that could kill us all, to a peaceful space race. At the height of the cold war, the two biggest adversaries collaborated to a degree previously unimagined in order to accomplish a simple goal: To have national representatives shake hands while in orbit around the Earth.

The space race and all subsequent space exploration has had a positive effect on international relations. From terror and uncertainty grew not just one of the most amazing accomplishments of Human ingenuity, Apollo 11, but one of the most amazing accomplishments of Human diplomacy. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project has had huge ramifications, including the creation of the International Space Station, arguably one of the most potent forces encouraging international peace. The ASTP helped bridge the divide between east and west. These men are heroes. These men should be on our stamps. All five of them.

It may seem odd, how easily and capably these two nations came together in order to accomplish this goal. But even in the beginning it was realized that while there may be many national reasons for sending a man to space, the ultimate function of anyone actually sent so far from home would be to act as an ambassador for Humanity.

The first official record of this cooperation concerning space exploration we have the 1963 "Limited Test Ban Treaty". It's ironic to note that this document was designed to halt testing and development of nuclear weapons and to start the disarmament process.1 Though neither nation had yet done so, this agreement prohibited testing nuclear explosions in orbit or in the high atmosphere.2 Though only a small part of the document, it is this part that shows the beginnings of the idea that space is about something more than national prestige.

The second record of international cooperation in space came when, in 1967, the "Treaty on principles governing the activities of states in the exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies" was created. While the whole document is a testament to peaceful cooperation, especially given its stance on the militarization of space, it is article V that really speaks to the companionship that is found when exploring space.3 This document not only builds on what was accomplished in the Limited Test Ban Treaty, and was heavily influenced by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs document, "Declaration of legal principles governing the activities of states in the exploration and use of outer space", This document goes far beyond either of these both in scope and in impact. It firmly establishes space as a Human resource that should benefit all peoples, that space should be free from military activity, and that all who enter into space are ambassadors of mankind and should be treated as such.

Both of these documents make heavy use of the principles outlined in the Antarctic Treaty, signed by 12 nations including the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.. Those principles include the idea that some domains are the province of all Humanity, to be preserved for their scientific worth and held as common ground. It is those principles which allowed the other documents in 1963 and 1967 to be created, and it is the sense of shared destiny engendered by exploring space, that laid the foundation for a project as ambitious as the Apollo-Soyuz test project.

A lot had to happen in order for the ASTP to work. But those momentous handshakes led directly to the creation of the International Space Station. It was the first time that two livable spaces had been combined in such a way, and thus this mission laid much of the groundwork for what would become a fundamental element of space station construction: Modular pieces. This kicked off Russian and American space stations such as Mir and Skylab, which led to numerous breakthroughs in longevity in space and construction in space. Though the Russians were more successful at this than we were. This also helped shape what would become the Space Shuttle, because even with modular construction, the bigger the module the better. A heavy lift vehicle was essential for the construction of the ISS. The political and social ramifications are what allowed so many nations to come together and create even the possibility of such a thing as the ISS. It is those social and political consequences, it is those technical accomplishments, which have allowed us to construct the ISS.

The ISS is the result of a multitude of decisions made over decades. It is the result of peaceful cooperation and cooperative exploration. The ISS is the current culmination of Human ability. It's very existence is made possible by international cooperation and the hope that one day we will truly be able to explore Space as one species: The Human Species.
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1"Proclaiming as their principal aim the speediest possible achievement of an agreement on general and complete disarmament under strict international control in accordance with the objectives of the United Nations which would put an end to the armaments race and eliminate the incentive to the production and testing of all kinds of weapons, including nuclear weapons,…" Preamble, Limited Test Ban Treaty, 1968


2"1. Each of the Parties to this Treaty undertakes to prohibit, to prevent, and not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion, at any place under its jurisdiction or control:
(a) in the atmosphere; beyond its limits, including outer space; or under water, including territorial waters or high seas; or…" Art. I, Limited Test Ban Treaty, 1968

3"States Parties to the Treaty shall regard astronauts as envoys of mankind in outer space and shall render to them all possible assistance in the event of accident, distress, or emergency landing on the territory of another State Party or on the high seas. When astronauts make such a landing, they shall be safely and promptly returned to the State of registry of their space vehicle." Art. V, The Outer Space Treaty, 1967

Related article by Zemanta:
First International Space Crew Reunites for Mission's 35th Anniversary (space.com)

Larry King is retiring. He’s been on the air interviewing people for 56 years — since 1954? This guy’s old. Monday night CNN aired King’s 25th Anniversary episode, with Donald Trump interviewing the old man.

Just read this; King’s replacement is supposed to be some British guy, Piers Morgan. Never heard of’em.

CNN has gotten so wishy-washy over the years, ever since Ted Turner sold his Turner Broadcasting in a bid to buy CBS — for the second time, I think.
 His first bid to buy CBS was in 1985 and the second in the late 1990’s.

Turner sold it to Time-Warner, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, although he remained on the board of AOL-Time Warner. Turner thought he would remain in control of Turner Broadcasting, but he lost control after selling his broadcasting interests.

Since then, CNN has become unimportant. There was a time when we could watch Crossfire and really see some cross fire. And in 1990-91 CNN trumped every network in the world when it covered the first Gulf War from Baghdad. Who can forget Peter Arnett and Bernie Shaw broadcasting from the El Rashid Hotel?

Arnett was fired from CNN for a program he was involved in about the government allegedly using the nerve agent against soldiers deserting during the Vietnam War. He was later fired from NBC for granting an interview to Iraqi-controlled TV just before the current Iraq War started in 2003.

It’s just a guess, but I would bet that were Ted Turner still in charge of Turner Broadcasting and by default, CNN, Peter Arnett would still be reporting for the first all news network. Now we get guys like Rick Sanchez. He’s okay, but he’s “safe.” He doesn’t get controversial — except when he let himself get tasered on TV, everyone still laughs — and he tries to be “fair” with both sides of the issues, even if one side is completely bonkers.

The difference between the CNN of old and the post-Turner CNN: the network that had once been, legitimately, the leader in broadcast news, ranks #3 among the three cable news networks — and FOXNews is hardly a news network.

Why? Because management tries to avoid controversy or being labeled on one side of the political divide or the other. CNN will always have a platoon of reporters at major stories like Hurricane Katrina, when their coverage was second to none, but when it comes to reporting on elections and campaigns, including those for issues like health care. Maybe I missed it, but when opponents of health care said crazy shit like “death panels” and called the president and the health care bill “Socialism,” the anchors and reporters didn’t call those people out. In fact, they often legitimized the nonsense.
 It’s no secret MSNBC is the current whipping post of the Right, as Dick Armey made clear. After Kentucky Tea Party Candidate for Senate Rand Paul voiced his opposition to that part of the Civil Rights act that forbids having separate facilities for non-White customers on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program, Armey said conservative candidates should not go on that network, lest that have to explain themselves and answer tough questions.

I still like to watch Anderson Cooper: 360 and in the past would hope to get lucky and see a report from Christiane Amanpour. That won’t be happening anymore though; she will be the new anchor for This Week on ABC. Good for her. Amanpour deserves this kind of success.

Of course, like her former colleague Peter Arnett, Amanpour has had some controversy, like when she reported on the war in Bosnia. The criticism was that she wasn’t an objective observer, as most journalists aspire to be, and quite frankly, she wasn’t “objective.”

Amanpour, born a Catholic in Iran if I’m not mistaken, had clearly biased opinions in favor of the Bosnian Muslims. Her reply to that criticism: “There are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about, because when you are neutral you are an accomplice. Objectivity doesn’t mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing.”

CNN still has some excellent reporters, like Susan Candiotti and Candy Crowley, and of course Anderson Cooper, but their anchor news program is called The Situation Room. Wolf Blitzer anchors that one and they have all the great gadgets for airing the news, but usually, Blitzer is trying too hard to be the neutral broker. And they over use that congeniality! CNN just looks and sounds bland.

But Larry King, he was the real anchor of the network, the highest rated program on CNN. Hard to imagine anyone stepping in and carrying the network as Larry King has for the past 25 years. To be honest, I didn’t watch him every night, maybe once or twice a week at best and even more rarely did I watch the entire hour. But he interviewed some of the most prominent people in entertainment as well as important figures in the news.

It was a nice show, Monday Night. King reminisced about his favorite moments, like interviewing Marlon Brando and it really was a trip down memory lane. Everybody likes Larry King, which is why he was able to get guests like Brando. He could ask tough questions or lob softballs, and it wasn’t based on political affiliation.

In one show, back in 1993, King acted as the referee when Ross Perot debated then Vice President Al Gore on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). That show is considered the turning point in the debate on NAFTA. Until then, most Americans were leaning against the agreement, but once they saw Gore skewer Perot on Larry King’s program, public opinion changed and NAFTA became law.

Larry King will leave a vacuum in cable news that won’t be filled, regardless of who steps in to King’s time slots.
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Thursday was Roxanne Dawn’s birthday! I won’t reveal her age, but she’s one of my favorite people on the planet! Very sweet, respectful and humble, Roxanne is the epitome of what it means to be human. Happy Birthday Roxanne!

”When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

And so begins the Declaration of Independence, ratified on this date, July 4th, 1776 — 234 years ago. Since then we’ve had a confederation of states, that soon fell way to our current constitution that has now produced 44 presidents — from George Washington, a slave owner, to Barack Obama, the son of an African immigrant.
 It should be noted that Washington came to believe slavery was wrong, but chose not to pursue the abolition of slavery lest it tear apart the new nation, which eventually occurred, about 62 years after he died. But Washington had his slaves freed after his wife, Martha, passed away and set in his will provisions to care for the elderly slaves and educate those who were not of age.

We’ve seen more wars than I care to count, including a great Civil War that claimed the lives of over 600,000 Americans on the field of battle alone.

We’ve had great social and industrial transformations. The Industrial Age may have started in Great Britain, but the United States became the biggest, most industrious and creative force in that period.

We’ve had the Jet Age, the Space Age, the Computer Age, not to mention, the Age of Aquarius!
 When the moon is in the 7th House, and Jupitor aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets and love will rule the stars!
 This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!

In the 1960’s women and minorities changed the societal conceptions on equality as African-Americans pushed their way to the table of American Democracy. The Women’s Movement soon followed, although today both still have hurdles to overcome for truly equal justice and treatment under the law.

And today we have a Black President; never thought I’d see that in my lifetime. It wouldn’t be a surprise then if we were to have a woman president before I leave This Mortal Coil. We might even have a third party win the presidency, although it won’t be the Tea Party.

So, we’ll have our barbeques, go to the beach, eat ice cream and watch the parades and fire works. But let’s not lose sight of why we celebrate this day. Millions have fought to preserve our independence and millions of those gave their Last Full Measure of Devotion.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence:
 New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
 Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
 Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
 Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
 New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

 New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
 Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
 Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
 Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
 Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
 North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
 South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
 Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

The 13 original colonies that eventually became the 13 original states. These, my friends, are the Founding Fathers, 56 in all. We hear that term bandied about a lot. Well these are the men we are talking about. It is their collective and individual memories we invoke when we use the term, “Founding Fathers.” Use it wisely.

Stay safe and enjoy this 4th of July!

This is the first day of July, 73 days since British Petroleum, through their negligence, has been pumping 50,000 barrels of crude oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. Saw some very disturbing pictures on television Wednesday; a sperm whale breaching through the oil and two pods of dolphins, one struggling to survive and another that was entirely dead. Almost two-dozen dolphins floating belly up in the midst of the disaster.
 I couldn’t find any of John Wathen’s photos on the Internet. You can see a video of it on the MSNBC website of Countdown With Keith Olbermann.
 50,000 barrels of oil equals 2,250,000 gallons, multiplied by 73 days — that’s 164,250,000 gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, 2010.

Sadly, there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight and with hurricane season upon us, and the first hurricane of the season already slamming the East Coasts of Mexico and Texas, the spread of the oil across the Gulf has quickened.

Pensacola’s once white sand beaches will now be slightly to darkly brown in color, as each new tide washes more of the dark brown crude ashore. Florida has been putting tourism commercials on TV for years, but today, for the first time, their commercials tell people not all of that state’s Gulf Coast beaches are affected by the disaster — not yet anyway. The actually have a link on their website that will tell you which areas are clean and which ones are not.

When you visit their Website, there is a box with this disclaimer:
 “Tar balls, tar patties and sheen have been found in Northwest Florida, with the heaviest impacts reported in Escambia County. Cleanup crews continue to be on site. There have been no reports of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill-related oil products reaching the shore beyond the Northwest Florida region. There is no indication that the rest of the state will have impacts from weathered oil products within the next 72 hours.”

Within the next 72 hours. They don’t want to predict what will happen beyond three days. Thankfully, the site provides links to several official sites involved in the disaster, including NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has charts and predictions of how and when the oil spill will spread.

Still, the Party of No is opposed to holding British Petroleum responsible for every penny that will be spent on this disaster, apologizing to BP for the $20 billion escrow fund that they agreed to create after meeting with the president in the White House. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R) had the most laughable response to the escrow fund.

In May Barbour compared the oil spill to the sheen of gasoline we see behind powerboats with outboard motors: “We don't wash our face in it, but it doesn't stop us from jumping off the boat to ski.”

Really? Oil hadn’t started washing up on his state’s shores. Now that it has, this is the federal government’s fault. Barbour is begging for more equipment to clean up Mississippi’s fouled beaches and of course he doesn’t think the federal government is acting fast enough. This is curious: at the start of the disaster, President Obama authorized the state of Mississippi to activate 5,000 National Guardsmen to assist with the cleanup. As of Monday, less than 60 of those troops were actively involved in the cleanup.

But what really sounds crazy was his response to the escrow fund: “I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they’ll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income. But this escrow bothers me that it’s going to make them less able to pay us what they owe us.”

Um, governor, the account was set up to insure British Petroleum does pay those affected by the oil disaster. Of course, this may cost BP three times that amount as this drags into months and then years.

The crazy lady from Minnesota, Michelle Bachmann, called the account a “redistribution of wealth fund.” How does an idiot like that continue to get re-elected?

Then of course there was Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas who apologized to British Petroleum: “I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Barton said. "I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown."

Barton added, "I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is — again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.”

Of course he added the disclaimer: “I’m speaking now totally for myself. I'm not speaking for the Republican Party.”

Which is a bit of a lie. The Republican Study Committee, with 114 members in the House of Representatives, called it a “shakedown.” Joe Barton just said out loud, and on the record, what most of his colleagues in the House believe, but haven’t been dumb enough to utter into a microphone.

Then of course there’s the idiot from Alaska, Sarah Palin, who said it’s the fault of environmentalists who have forced the oil companies to drill in deeper waters. What?!? Does she really think the oil companies would refrain from deep water drilling if they could drill willy-nilly anywhere on land? Man! That woman is an idiot!

And all Republicans oppose the moratorium on offshore drilling, which is how this disaster began, 73 days ago. They claim such a moratorium would shut down the oil industry — even though the act would affect less than 1% of the wells already operating in the Gulf of Mexico.

The oil industry apologists are out there, pushing back on our government’s attempts to hold British Petroleum responsible for this horror. In the mean time, life in the Gulf of Mexico is dying; plant and animal life as well as the economic lives of so many who called the Gulf Coast home and their place of business.

Yeah, visit Florida now, before it’s too late. Well, everywhere in Florida except the Panhandle, where Escambia County and Pensacola are located. There the beaches are already closed, as they are in Mississippi and Alabama. Visit now while you have the chance.

Sunday, I was carded for alcohol for the first time in my life — and I don’t even drink alcohol. The irony.

“So how can that be,” you might be asking?

Being carded, or never being carded in the past? No matter. I’m a wordy writer and therefore both ends of that question will be answered, with far more words than needed.

Sunday my friend John and I got free tickets to the Del Mar Fair. Actually, it’s called the San Diego County Fair now. It’s been many years since I’ve been to the fair, so long that it was still called the Del Mar Fair. This will be the third time I’ve been to the fair in the 18-plus years I’ve lived in San Diego. The first time I went it was to see Jewell on the Grandstand Stage. That was in 1996. There was another time after that, but don’t really remember the details.

So Sunday, with our free tickets, we went to the Del Mar Fair — I mean the San Diego County Fair. We actually drove to a high school in Del Mar Heights, Torrey Pines High, and took a shuttle. That's the way to go. The buses get in and out of the fair, drop you off close to a gate — it’s just way easier than parking at the fair.

The biggest attraction (as always) is the food, all of it over-priced. I had two cobs of corn, a pork chop on a stick, chilidog and fish sandwich. That’s just about all the animal groups, except for poultry, And some veggies, if you count corn as a vegetable. That’s about 30 bucks worth of food right there. Then there was the $4.50 for the giant Diet Pepsi in the souvenir cup that could be refilled (three times) for just $2.25. It all adds up.
I did bring the cup home, it is a souvenir after all.

And you get all that crazy food like chocolate covered bacon. C’mon man! That’s just not right! And deep-fried butter … who the fuck is going to eat butter by itself? Deep-fried or otherwise?

And it’s all on a stick. You can get just about any type of food on a stick. Fresh roasted artichoke hearts even; it’s all there in the midway. Ice cream of course. We’ve been getting ice cream on a stick forever though. Probably the biggest sellers: the corn on the cob and the smoked and roasted turkey legs. I didn’t have a turkey leg. John did and that was probably the best deal of all the food. There’s a lot of meat on that bone.

Potatoes in all configurations, deep-fried of course. Blooming onions, seafood of all types; the fair is all about the food.

It’s crowded as Hell too, if one believes Hell exists and it’s filled with all the unrepentant sinners from the past 10,000 years. The religious groups were there of course, passing out their little pamphlets: “How To Get To Heaven.”

My way of getting to “Heaven”: Find your dream girl, woo her and then have the best sex of your life with her, the kind of sex that leaves you laying there afterwards saying to yourself, “Wow!” It’s fleeting, but if you have the right partner, you can have Heaven nearly every night!

Unless you’re married of course. Then you only have sex … oh, I don’t know. I’ve never been married, but we hear the stories. Once a week, or special occasions, like your birthday. Really? Once a year? The problem “they” say is that we tend to stop trying to be sexy once we’ve hooked up with our life partners.

The other version of getting to Heaven, the one that has us believing the stories in The Bible, I’m not buying that one. On the other hand, if there is a fiery place called Hell, that’s where I’ll be for eternity.

So anyway, the Del Mar Fair is crowded. Oh man! We went to the Ocean Beach Street Fair on Saturday and that was nowhere near as crowded as the Del Mar Fair. But it was crowded.

The midway was packed from side-to-side, from one end to the other. One thing I’ve never understood is why parents bring small children to the fair and expect to stay all day. By small, I mean under the age of five. With all the walking and excitement, a kid gets worn out and needs a nap. I’m an adult and I needed a nap by 4 p.m. Lots of small children were crying and throwing tantrums later in the day. Small children are good for 3-4 hours max. Then it’s time to go home. Having children requires sacrifice, one of the reasons, if not the main reason, I’ve never had any myself.

Another draw of the fair: all the crap you can buy, like Sham-wows. One year I bought a squeegee type thing for cleaning everything. It was supposed to be the best for cleaning floors. Rarely used it. Well, I rarely cleaned the floor.

Then of course there is the home improvement stuff. Every place that sells pools and Jacuzzis had a display, awnings and window shades as well.

This is funny: to get into the fair we had to pass through a metal detector! No shit! We emptied all our pockets, took off our watches, put them in trays and then walked through the metal detector. I kept pining the damn thing! Turns out I had a quarter in my pocket and at least one of the staples in my breastbone from my surgery last year set off the detector. Man! Sensitive machines! I’ve gone through metal detectors before since the surgery and that was the first time my bare chest set one off.

So, we had to pass through the metal detector, and of course no weapons were allowed, not even penknives or garden tools — but once inside you could buy as many knives and other sharp objects as you wallet and plastic would allow! That’s one of the funny things about the fair.

There was entertainment of course. We watched Roller Derby for the first 30 minutes we were there. What are the rules for roller derby? I don’t even know, although just from watching one would guess each team has one person designated to get past the phalanx of other skaters. And then they do their best to knock each other down. The women take it seriously.

Lot’s of music — and a hypnotist. We sat and listened to a guy, Tom Griesgraber, playing a Chapman Stick. The only other person I’ve seen playing one of those was Tony Levin with King Crimson and that was back in the 1980’s. He and his guitar-playing partner, Bert Lams were very good, some of the best music we heard all day.

We were going to try and stay until the Iron Maidens played, but it got cold, I was tired and well, hot chicks playing the music of Iron Maiden just lost it’s appeal around 7:30. We did hear the band before them, Wayward Sons. They played all the classic rock from the 1970’s and all of them, except for the keyboard player, wore wigs. They were kind of cheesy, but good musicians nonetheless. The singer had a voice like that of Journey’s most notable singer, Steve Perry so they did a few tunes by Journey, Boston, Queen, any band that requires a high tenor for a singer.

Some people in the Coors Light Rock On Stage area had small children with them, but they left when the lead singer simulated oral sex with the guitarist during a song. They all just picked up their kids and left!

And that’s how I came to get carded for alcohol. To get into the Coors Light Rock On Stage you had to be 21 or with a parent or guardian. The bouncer at the entry insisted I show my I.D. So I did. Can’t recall ever being carded for alcohol in my life. Even when in high school and I would go to a nearby bar or liquor store.

At the time, the drinking age in Wisconsin was 18. From the age of 15 I always looked 18, I guess, because no one ever questioned me. I would just walk in and order a beer. And then another and another. Then I joined the Marines and at the time anyone with a military I.D. could drink at the Enlisted Club. We had 17 year olds drinking. Then I was stationed in Arizona and at the time the drinking age was 19.

Never been carded. Until Sunday that is. And I no longer drink beer of any kind; well, root beer now and then. Can’t say there’s nothing surprising at the Del Mar Fair. The San Diego County Fair. The irony.

My Good Nephew Dan replied to an earlier post of mine — as a comment
but it’s so well written it deserves it’s own post here! Hope you don’t mind Dan!

I would agree that “selfishness” is promoted in America (which makes it rather puzzling why so many people hate Ayn Rand. Or maybe that explains it). There is some measure of the idea that a group of individuals acting out of motivated self interest can create a sustainable and beneficial system for everyone involved which is built into the fabric of our country. I would have to imagine that Adam Smith’s work was highly agreeable in America's formative years (Given that it was published in 1776 it was definitely with us from the beginning) and certainly reflected some aspects of enlightenment philosophy which formed the foundation of our country. .

But I wouldn’t say that it’s selfishness, really. To be selfish implies focusing on yourself to the exclusion of others, even at the cost of the well being of others. While, in certain extreme situations, this is certainly the case, I would say that on the whole we Americans focus on ourselves only slightly more than we focus on the welfare of others.

But this is getting away from where I was intending to go. People call me an idealist from time to time, and I certainly give them evidence for it. But it’s hard to make a declarative statement, especially regarding philosophy, without sounding like an idealist. But then, what are ideals? I like to use the Platonic ideal as a starting point. Unlike Plato, though, I don’t view ideals as some real object floating in some metaphysical world of which we have only the pale and diluted shadows to ponder. Rather, I look on them as ultimate goals that can never be ultimately reached, but in reaching for them we better ourselves. Ideally one would apply skeptical inquiry in their political pursuits, be it running for president or voting at the town council. Ideally, we would have a direct democracy. Of course, the real world isn’t ideal, so these ideals can never come to absolute fruition. The practical impediments for the latter alone are seemingly insurmountable.
 Though the case for a direct democracy has a new argument now that we have the World Wide Web.
 Of course, that brings on a whole slew of counterarguments against voting online or some variant, a topic I’ll not get into right now as I’ve already started this reply with a tangent and I won’t be doing that again, though I am getting rather tangential right now with this massive run-on sentence so I’ll just shut up and get back to the point.

Ideally, yes, a more scientific approach to politics would be beneficial. But that runs in the face of “free market” ideals which kind of assumes people will be dumb as rocks, but a well designed system will use that to create a strong system. As in all things, a balance seems to be needed. Those in power should be way more scientific than they are, as you pointed out with your health care example. And those not in power will do whatever they can to save the life of their loved ones, even if it means abusing the system. Which makes the health care example quite apt and harkens back to those extreme circumstances I mentioned earlier.

But people are dumb as rocks and hence highly selfish most of the time, and will likely be so for a long time to come. I personally deplore the lack of understanding about science in our culture right now and think that we need more of it, but science is not likely to be dominant for some time to come. And so we have representative democracy and free markets and we all hope like hell that the people in charge are smart enough to keep everything working properly.

Ideally the real world will balance idealism against pragmatism, selflessness against selfishness, hope against pessimism. Though for me, right here and now, my biggest concern is paying the rent.

The tragedy in the gulf continues, as if anyone really thought it would be over in a few days, or even a few months. This will go on for years, probably decades. The most recent estimate for oil pouring out of that wellhead: 60,000 barrel per day — that’s over 3,000,000 gallons per day. For the past 63 days.

Wow, I just blew my mind! Pulling up the trusty calculator on this Mighty Mac, I added those 63 days of 3,300,000 gallons of oil per day and came up with (this will blow your mind): 207,900,000 gallons of crude oil have poured into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon blew up, caught fire and sank to the bottom of the ocean, shearing the wellhead that kept the oil from pouring into the Gulf.
 Actually, I just found out I low-balled that last figure: it’s actually 264,600,000 gallons of crude oil have now been deposited into the Gulf of Mexico.

NOAA has just confirmed, using the research vessel the Thomas Jefferson, there are indeed plumes — lakes some call them — of oil in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico at 1,100 meters below the surface. That’s about 3,300 feet for the metrically challenged. The largest plume is 22 miles long — that’s miles — six miles wide and 1,300 feet from top-to-bottom. That’s not water filled with oil, that’s solid bodies of oil in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

So, last week the CEO of British Petroleum, Tony Hayward, testified before Congress and — this is almost funny — said he didn’t know anything about anything concerning the oil disaster in the Gulf — that is a result from his company’s oil well platform blowing up, catching fire and finally sinking. My question to him, had I been on the committee, in that committee hearing, after hearing Mr. Hayward say he didn’t know (in one way or another) over 80 times, would be this: “”Do you have a criminal trial lawyer Mr. Hayward?”

How does the CEO of a major multinational conglomerate, one that is in the top 10 (I think it’s #6) of most profitable corporations in the world not know about any decisions made to start a new oil well, something that costs at least $30,000,000 dollars per off shore oilrig, about the operation of said oilrig, about safety issues, or, even more important, decisions made to stop a catastrophic event like what’s taking place at this moment? As Congressman Michael C Burgess (R-Texas) said, after several hours of Mr. Hayward telling us he doesn’t know anything: “… any one of us could do his job.”

Here’s something even more interesting: in its investigation of this disaster, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce Energy and Environment poured through thousands of pages of documents from British Petroleum and apparently BP knew the broken well was pouring as much as 100,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf.

That’s almost as bad as finding out BP (and the other Big Oil companies) had no contingencies for stopping an oil disaster at that depth, even though on legal documents they signed to start drilling those mile-deep wells BP (and the other Big Oil companies) said they had plans for stopping oil disasters from happening. That’s fraud. I find it curious that no one in the media — or in government — has talked about criminal proceedings just for that alone!
 My next statement, after asking Mr. Hayward if he had a criminal defense lawyer, would be to federal marshals: “Please collect Mr. Hayward’s passport.”

Many Republicans have been apologizing for Big Oil, or at the very least, trying to protect Big Oil, and in particular British Petroleum, from government. For instance, the Republican leadership in the Senate is currently blocking legislation that would lift the cap on the amount of money an oil company can be liable for in the event of an oil disaster. That cap is $75,000,000. Hardly enough to cover the costs to the citizens of Louisiana affected by the spill, let alone every state — including those of other countries — bounded by the Gulf of Mexico.

Republican Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi said on Sunday (on Meet the Press) that the moratorium on off shore drilling was more harmful to the Gulf Region than the disaster itself. Are you kidding Governor Barbour? Apparently he isn’t. He does have a point though: this disaster may put 3,000,000 oil company employees out of work.

Still, the devastation to the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Region will be with us for decades, probably long after I die. That could put far more than 3 million people out of work.

The new Republican candidate for Senator, from the great state of Kentucky, Rand Paul, said President Obama’s treatment of British Petroleum was “un-American.” Holding the company that created this disaster accountable is un-American? Are you kidding Dr. Paul?

Well, maybe in his version of America, where corporations don’t have any government regulations to worry about.

Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Bachmann have called the $20,000,000,000 trust fund set up by BP a “shakedown” by President Obama. Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) made it official though when, during those hearings, he apologized to BP Chairman Tony Hayward for being told to create the trust fund.

Was Congressman Barton saying what many Republicans in Congress believe, but are too savvy, or scared, to say themselves? Maybe not his fellow Texan, Dr. Burgess, but many others believe it. They’re all for less government and letting the corporations run wild as they please when doing business in and with the United States.

This is the worse man-made tragedy to hit the United States since the Civil War. The worst environmental disaster ever. This makes Hurricanes Katrina, Ike and Rita (combined) look almost puny in comparison and those were some massive storms with horrendous consequences.

Recently, in the Playboy forums, I read posts from people who were minimizing the effects of this disaster, saying it would be minor and inconsequential in the long run. They even said the oil on the once pristine shores of Santa Barbara was natural. Yeah, the U.S. Geological Service did a study on the oil seepage in the Santa Barbara Channel, saying oil has been on the beaches of California since humans have lied there, but the study also says results are “inconclusive” about how much oil on the beaches is “natural” and how much is caused by “anthropogenically derived” sources — the oil platforms out in the ocean.

The truth is, and everyone who was alive in 1969 and living in Southern California will attest to this: the beaches of Santa Barbara were oil-free before the blowout on Unocal’s Platform A in the Dos Cuadras Offshore Oil Field.

And that is the reality the people on the Gulf Coast will be facing in the coming years. It’s the reality all of us will be facing. As has been reported on nearly every news outlet, we get 40% of our seafood from the Gulf of Mexico. If you thought the prices for shrimp and scallops were high, just wait. This disaster will affect all of us.

Been in a Little Feat kick all weekend. Little Feat, the band, not the tootsies things at the ends of my legs. Been singing either “Time Love a Hero” or “All That You Dream” all weekend. Not bad songs to have stuck in your cranial cavity. Well, I did put on Waiting For Columbus, thee Little Feat album to buy if you’re only going to buy one.

So, while listening to that album I did sing along with “Dixie Chicken” and “Tripe Face Boogie.” People always talk about how the Grateful Dead could jam and segue from one song to another, but really, the best band at that was — and possibly still is — Little Feat. Get this album; Little Feat puts on a clinic. You can download it for under 12 bucks.

Recorded live in London, England and Washington, DC, this is the lineup that includes Bill Payne, Paul Barerre, Richie Hayward, Sam Clayton, Kenny Gradney and Lowell George.

Lowell George is one of those guys; if you were an aspiring musician and/or songwriter in the 1970’s, you probably liked or even emulated him. Besides forming Little Feat (with Bill Payne) in 1969, he played with Mothers of Invention. The prevalent rumor is Frank Zappa kicked George out of the band for writing the song “Willin’.” Allegedly for the drug reference in the lyrics: “And if you give me: weed, whites, and wine …”

Sounds like a quaint story now, but a rumor like that, back then, no computers, no Internets to get viral on, the hippie culture moved with stories like that. Like the myth that Frank Zappa ate shit on stage. Not too long ago someone relayed that lie to me, as if it were the truest story that was ever told. And this was a guy who hadn’t been born until 1982. Or there abouts. How the fuck would you know, 40 years after that little piece of rock’n’roll mythology began making the rounds.

Actually, I would bet Zappa loved it though; it gave him notoriety and kind of fell in with his famous poster, Phi Zappa Crappa. If a guy would have a picture taken of himself sitting on the Vertical Throne taking a dump, why wouldn’t he eat shit on stage?

Well, one reason being that shit tastes like, well, shit and Zappa was never high enough to get past that, if he were actually ever high. In his autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book, FZ talks about the shit-eating myth (denying it ever happened) and how he had never liked drugs, didn’t want his band members using drugs when the played, or even drinking heavily. Although, as I recall, Zappa admitted he did in fact, inhale — once.

Lowell George was a prodigious drug user. Put me to shame really. Well, maybe not. The only difference between us, I survived and Lowell George did not. He lived to the age of 34, dying of “heart failure” in Arlington, VA June 29, 1979. Heart failure … goes along with excessive weight, too much alcohol and too much of the street drugs, like heroin. The autopsy showed that George actually died from an accidental drug overdose, but people who want history to remember George kindly stick to the “heart failure” story.

Like friends and families of alcoholics who die of kidney failure or cirrhosis of the liver, no one wants to state the obvious: the person died from alcohol or drug use. Alcohol and drugs, like nicotine, kill.

When someone like Lowell George dies from a drug overdose, it makes a lot of news, affirming for those opposed to legalizing street drugs, the reason why said substances should continue to be illegal. Ignoring the fact that being illegal didn’t stop Lowell George from obtaining his drug of choice. Being illegal doesn’t stop anyone from buying or selling drugs and by any estimation, the so-called “War on Drugs” has been a dismal failure for the past 80 years.

The saddest part of Lowell George’s legacy though is that he left behind two children and in a broader world, we won’t get to hear any new music from this man, one of the greatest songwriters to emerge from the 1960’s. He also had a great voice and was a master at the slide guitar.

My one disappointment with Waiting For Columbus is that it didn’t feature enough of George playing that slide guitar. It has all the great hits, like “Time Loves a Hero,” “Dixie Chicken,” “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” “Willin’ ” and “All That You Dream.” It also has scorching versions of “Tripe Face Boogie” and “Mercenary Territory,” quite possibly my favorite Little Feat song.
 “Some kind of man, he can’t do anything wrong
 If I see him I’ll tell him you’re waiting
 “Cause I’m devoted for sure, but my days are a blur
 Well your nights turn into my mornings
 I did my time in your rodeo, fool that I am I’d do it all over again.”

Years ago, right after Little Feat reformed and recorded the album Let It Roll, I had a chance to interview keyboardist Bill Payne. Of his old band mate, Payne said George was the type of guy you loved one minute and were ready to kill the next. Sounds like an addict. Predictably unpredictable. You never know when the person you can talk to sensibly will appear or disappear.

George would be 65 had he lived and likely might still be touring, if not with Little Feat than as a solo act. That’s what he was doing when he died 31 years ago. But we’ll never know. Waiting For Columbus went platinum years ago so he might have gotten out of the music business, got into real estate and ended up like surf guitar legend, Dick Dale, who performed June 6, 2010 at the Fiesta del Sol in Solana Beach.
 Don’t know if Dick Dale is into real estate actually, but if you have money and live in California, owning real estate used to be a great way to make your money grow.

In the thousands of rock concerts I’ve seen over the years, none of them, to my knowledge, included Lowell George. Let’s face it: there are a lot of them I just don’t remember due to too much alcohol and drugs. To this day I swear there were 15 people on stage when the Grateful Dead played Red Rocks on August 14, 1979. My lovely sister Elaine insists that wasn’t the case.

I’ve seen Bonnie Raitt and John Hiatt perform “All That You Dream” several times each, seen the “new” Little Feat a couple of times, but I can never say I saw Lowell George perform.

Back in the 1980’s I took my mother to see Henry Mancini perform with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. It had been nearly two decades since Mancini had scored a hit song, but for my mother it didn’t matter. Time had stood still and then rolled backwards. She was singing “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” as if she were 30 years younger.
 “Peter Gunn” is probably the coolest song Mancini ever composed! But Mom loved the romantic tunes.

Just imagine, seeing Lowell George, despite his age, performing his best music. When Dick Dale performed last weekend, he didn’t appear to have missed a beat. But, with Lowell George, it’s not to be. The best we can do is click on YouTube or download Waiting For Columbus.

That’s the true legacy of drug abuse; we lose a bit of what makes us smile every day when our heroes die far too young.

Just read a great blog written by my nephew Dan. He has a link on this page, Eschew Obfuscation. In his blog, Dan links the search for truth in science with the search for truth in democracy. “By science does democracy function.”

That’s a nice sentiment Dan, but the trouble with your conclusion is that it is based on the premise of an ideal society — I assume. As examples, Dan uses two of our best and brightest Founding Fathers: Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

As Dan points out, correctly, both Franklin and Jefferson were scientists and explorers and it was their faith in, and discipline for, the scientific method that led them and their colleagues to craft the Declaration of Independence.

In their real world experience, created on the anvil of our earliest forms of capitalism in a new world, the freedoms of the French Enlightenment were pounded into a philosophy that envisioned American citizens have certain inalienable rights: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. These three were left almost vague, opaque, leaving it up to the individual to decide how to define his life, what liberties he wished to use and what would make him happy.

In other words, and this won’t go over too smoothly, they crafted a document that codified selfishness. This was at the root of the loose confederation of states that sprung up right after the rebels defeated the British Army at Yorktown, VA. Every state was to decide independently how to govern, what was to pass for currency, etc. The central government had little, if any, power. This philosophy created chaos and thus was created the Constitution of the United States.

In that hallowed document is Article VI — the “Supremacy Clause” — that basically says federal law is the supreme law of the land. For example: here in California growing, distributing, buying and using marijuana for medical purposes is legal under state law. But, according to federal law anyone who engages in those activities is still breaking the law and can be prosecuted in federal court. And some people have been prosecuted since California legalized “medical marijuana.”

But let’s not get too far off into that tangent. Back to Dan’s idea that “by science democracy does function.” In the kernels of that tangent though is the codification of selfishness: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

For democracy to be a function of science, i.e., for democracy to actually be formed by the scientific method, all participants have to adhere to that method. Few, if any, do, at least in this nation. Yeah, we get a lot of laws correct, like the various Civil Rights bills of the 1960’s, but in our contemporary political climate, that is barely the case.

Currently we have a president who is a critical thinker, and that is a good thing. But his views and policies are formed by pragmatism more than idealism, a bane to his followers on the left. What many on the left consider “true” health care reform is glaringly absent from the health care bill that recently passed, while everything that is wrong with the health care system in America has been strengthened.

This was a result of President Obama’s pragmatism. According to his ideal, we would all have health care based on proven American models like the V.A. Health Care System, but the recent bill doesn’t even come close to that model. Instead of sticking to his ideals, the president left the end product to the vagaries of our legislative branch that is torn by sharp partisanship and drowning in the money of corporations that can afford billions to influence lawmakers.

What we got was a bill that may improve the system a little, but not one that will ensure every American will be able to get health care, the goal the president and his supporters demanded during the president’s campaign for that office.

Not really a testament to the scientific method and Dan’s ideal that skeptical inquiry will give us the best of democracy. See, those who opposed health care reform didn’t do so for skeptical inquiry, they did it for political expediency and those opponents made no bones about how their decision to oppose the president on everything is based entirely on defeating the president, regardless of the consequences. Not based on skeptical inquiry, but political expediency.

But thinking about the thesis that “by science does democracy function,” it’s a great idea. If all the participants engage in the scientific method when forming the laws that govern us, as Franklin and Jefferson did 235 years ago forming the Declaration of Independence, we would have a government that actually was by, of and for the people.

Selfishness though, stands in front of that idealism and selfishness is an American Ideal. It’s in the Declaration of Independence. Now, many people will consider that to be the height of cynicism. But, the truth is in the pudding, so to speak. No one wants to pay taxes, or any more taxes, but everyone wants the government to provide services, like fixing that horror in the Gulf of Mexico. The government doesn’t have any of the equipment or technology for deepwater drilling so there’s not a whole lot the government can do, other than pressure the oil companies to fix it.

We want cheap gasoline and are willing to fund nations that then fund terrorist organizations who mount attacks against our nation and our allies. Or, demand we drill for oil anywhere within our lawful grasp, ignoring the potential — and now real — consequences of doing so. We want cheap products to buy from Wal-Mart, and are willing to kill jobs in America and send then to China to get those cheap products, which then turn out to be dangerous to use.

Do “you” care that the people living on the next block over are losing their homes because their jobs have disappeared? Not really, as long as you can buy Levis jeans cheaply from whatever outlet you prefer, their problems are not our problems. Not gonna pick on Wal-Mart, although that company is the biggest purveyor of cheap, foreign-made products. We want “ours” and we want it before “they” get theirs.

The scientific method gets lost in the shuffle when we are only concerned with “what’s in it for me?” Not to mention, most Americans, at least many Americans, have no idea what the scientific method is or means.

When Jefferson and Franklin cast great shadows over history, it’s hard to imagine they took into account that too many of their fellow citizens, both contemporary and in the future, would be dumb as rocks. That’s often how idealists think. They assume most everyone will be imbued with their same spirit once the ideals they espouse come to fruition. Not so with the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

What “we” have been imbued with is this notion of the “free market,” until that free market crashes and burns half the nation with it.

It’s still a nice idea though: “By science does democracy function.”

We’ve seen the ads on TV, “Vote Yes For Prop 16.” It’s an initiative to force California’s governments to put (yet another) referendum on the ballot to force California’s governments to put to to a referendum vote the decision to get into the energy business and buy and sell energy, like electricity and natural gas. The ads look so sincere too! They suggest it might be a good idea for local governments to get into the energy business! But, local voters should have a right to decide, because, after all, it’s our money! Gosh, that’s so true!

Well, on FaceBook this morning I noticed some of my friends clicked on "Like" for the Support Prop 16 FaceBook page. It sounds like such a good idea!

Who is behind this ballot initiative? Pacific Gas and Electric! Basically, they don't want the competition so they and their counterparts like San Diego Gas and Electric can continue to gouge us and hold us hostage, as they did in 2002-03 with blackouts, unless “we” agree to their outrageous prices. Does everyone remember how the energy companies subjected us to rolling blackouts and then increased their rates by over 100%? They arbitrarily shut down power plants and sold California energy to other states.

What PG&E wants to do is stop non-profit energy companies from forming, and those that already exist, from expanding. The reason: non-profit energy providers are about 20% cheaper than the for profit energy companies. The reason the energy companies could hold us hostage with rolling blackouts 7-8 years ago is because they have monopolies throughout much of California and they, the energy companies, hope to keep it that way.

If you recall, the energy companies were (and are) having record profits and having competition will eat into their exclusive cash cow. By making it a requirement for local governments to get a 2/3 vote on whether or not to fund or create non-profit energy companies will make it nearly impossible for non-profits to exist.

Think long and hard before clicking "Like" when you go to their page and most definitely before voting "Yes" next Tuesday. This is a ballot initiative I will happily vote “No.” Don’t let the energy companies hold us hostage again!

Today is Memorial Day, 2010. Like every Memorial Day for the past eight years, I’ll be at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery honoring the men and women who gave Their Last Full Measure of Devotion to this country, as well as those who served and were blessed to have lived beyond their service years and died in the Land of the Free. Like my father Carl P.J. Forkes and my brother Carl C. Forkes, who is interred at Fort Rosecrans.
 My favorite snipe at the Navy men in the family — and my friends who served in the Navy — They chose to serve their nation in the Navy, but I chose the military instead when I joined the Marines. D’OH!

Dear Old Dad served in World War II. He signed up for the Navy in January 1942, a little over a month after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I don’t really know the details of how and why he decided to join the Navy, other than a desire to serve and defend his country, a sentiment shared by millions of his generation at that time.

He became an Electrician’s Mate by chance. According to the Old Man, when a crusty old chief asked for any experienced electricians to step forward, Dad did so, even though he had never had a moment of electrical training or experience.

Whether he had any experience from working on anything electrical on the family farm is questionable; most of the place didn’t get electricity until the late 1930’s at best. But, Dear Old Dad learned a trade in the Navy, while fighting and defeating the Japanese.

Pop didn’t start his Navy career in the Pacific though. First he was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Texas, a mainline battleship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Shortly thereafter he came down with some disease, the specifics of which he never explained, and was sent back to a Naval Hospital in Philadelphia. Maybe Grandma was happy; her son might be spared serving in a war zone and sent home, but that was not the case.

Towards the end of 1942 dad was sent to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to pick up his next duty, a Destroyer Escort: The U.S.S. Wyman, DE-38. Man, that must have been a bummer! From one of the biggest ships of the Navy — the pride of the Navy — to the smallest, most unglamorous ship. Service aboard the corvette may not have been glamorous, but it proved every bit as dangerous as any ship serving in the Pacific Theater of Operations.

Destroyer escorts were small, with crews of less than 300. The skippers were generally commanders, or even lieutenant commanders. The job of the DE was to escort convoys and main battle groups, task forces, to and from various locations. They were submarine hunters primarily and DE-38, the Wyman, had two confirmed kills. The first was the Japanese submarine RO-48 on July 19, 1944 and the second, I-55, on July 28, 1944.

Right after sinking the first submarine, the Wyman’s whaler went to investigate the wreckage of the sunken sub and was strafed by friendly planes that thought it was a surfaced Japanese submarine. None were killed, although several men had been injured.

Afterwards, the Wyman served on escort duty, with time spent in “Taffy 38,” the task group charged with the invasion of the Philippines, and then with duty in the operations to invade Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

The war ended for Dad when the Japanese signed the instrument for surrender on September 2, 1945.

Young Carl’s story is different. He joined the Navy early in 1963 and served aboard the U.S.S. Pickaway, APA 222, from 1964-1967. Most of his time was spent taking Marines to and from the Western Pacific, with occasional stops in Hawaii, Guam and The Philippines. He saw the effects of war up close as Marines returning to San Diego from Vietnam would board the Pickaway for the arduous ride home.

Most people remember American forces getting to and from Vietnam by aircraft, but for a while, the Marines were arriving the old fashioned way: by taxi. Carl and I used to pick on each other with our inter-service rivalry and I always referred to Carl and the Navy as the Marine Corps’ taxi service.

The most memorable exercise Carl and his crewmates participated in was landing the 2/9 — 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment — on the beaches of Da Nang, South Vietnam. That was July 7, 1966.

Carl was supposed to start his Navy career as a radioman, but due to circumstances entirely in his control, he became a boatswain (pronounced “bosun”). Entirely in his control? Well, let’s just say he failed to meet the daily requirements needed to graduate “C” School.

He eventually moved from being a deck ape to the radar room, but I never lost the pleasure of calling him a boatswain’s mate!

Both my brother and dad have passed on, Dad over 30 years ago and Carl just under four years ago. His ashes are interred at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and it is for him primarily I attend the Memorial Day Service at that cemetery every year.

We all served, and those who lived to tell the tale are every bit as important as those who gave their lives in defense of this nation. All gave some; some gave all. And for that we should all be grateful.

Semper Fi My Friends!

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, out comes the Inspector General’s report that says the oil industry didn’t virtually write the inspections of it’s various off-shore oil rigs, the oil companies literally wrote the inspection reports — in pencil and then federal inspectors just copied over the pencil with pen before signing the reports.
 Thanks for that verbiage Olbermann!

Not to mention, employees of the Mineral Management Services (MMS), the regulatory arm of the Department of the Interior that is supposed to be a watchdog overseeing the energy industry, on a regular basis, accepted gifts, including a trip to the 2005 Peach Bowl in Atlanta, GA.

Also among those gifts: drugs. “Good” drugs. One inspector admitted to using meth while on the job. Me, I’m a guy who thinks all drugs should be legal and any legal adult with all his or her capacities should have the choice whether to use them or not. On the other hand, employers should also have the choice of whether to hire and/or employ someone who uses recreational drugs.

Considering the horror unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, someone who is high on meth — or cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, marijuana or alcohol — should not be allowed to work for the government in any capacity, especially one that regulates an industry, not just the energy industry, but all of them.

To be honest though, a meth addict working for the MMS is really the smallest part of the problem with the agency. Getting gifts that include expensive hunting and fishing trips, golf tournaments and Christmas parties are a somewhat larger part of the problem.

What’s really the problem: many of the inspectors are looking for higher paying jobs in the industry they are supposed to be regulating. So, a guy (or woman) who wants a job with British Petroleum is supposed to be inspecting the oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico. What does that person do? Well, if he or she wants to eventually be an employee of BP, they certainly won’t write a report that says the blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon is dangerously faulty. Oh, why write the report at all? Have someone from BP write it and then just copy it over with a pen and sign it! Problem solved.

One inspector actually did inspections on oilrigs run by Island Operating Company after engaging in employment negotiations with that company. The inspections passed with flying colors and that inspector was eventually employed by Island Operating Company.

And this has been going on at least since George W. Bush came into office in 2001. Actually, it’s been going on since 2000.

Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior, himself fairly cozy with the energy industry, said the report is “deeply disturbing.” Ya think? He said the report, “… is further evidence of the cozy relationship between some elements of MMS and the oil and gas industry. I appreciate and fully support the Inspector General’s strong work to root out the bad apples in MMS.”
 Salazar is the guy who spearheaded the efforts to get President Obama to expand offshore drilling.

Bad apples? That implies it isn’t too serious a problem. The entire barrel is contaminated. Well, there are no doubt a few reliable and honorable people working in the Minerals Management Services, but as one MMS official, Larry Williamson of the Lake Charles District (the one overseeing offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico) admitted, “Obviously, we’re all oil industry. We’re all from the same part of the country. Almost all of our inspectors have worked for oil companies out on these same platforms. They grew up in the same towns. Some of these people, they’ve been friends with all their life. They’ve been with these people since they were kids. They’ve hunted together. They fish together. They skeet shoot together. They do this all the time.”

Larry Williamson is the manager of the Lake Charles District Office of the Minerals Management Services. He pretty much admits he and his coworkers are not only breaking ethics rules, they are breaking the law. See, if a regulatory employee takes a gift from someone he or she is supposed to be regulating, they are required by law to report it. But, according the IG report, even though MMS employees accepted more gifts than they can count, in only one instance were the gifts reported, as required by law.

That might be the one MMS employee to keep if and when Ken Salazar and President Obama shake up the department — that is, if that employee reported all the gifts he or she received, or just the one time.

When Salazar came on as the Secretary of the Interior last year, he vowed to split the Minerals Management Services into three different divisions, one specifically for inspections. This was in response to the scandal some years ago when President Bush’s Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, resigned after it was found out the office of MMS in Colorado was engaged in much the same behavior.

From that office, MMS officials were giving waivers to energy companies on paying royalties for the minerals they mined or drilled from public lands. According to some experts, the amount of money lost to these sweetheart deals could be as much as 10 billion dollars. Everyone agrees it’s at least one billion dollars.

All of this, in both offices (Colorado and Louisiana), occurred during the Bush years and began to decrease right after Democrats claimed control of the Senate and the scandal involving the Colorado office began to spew out casualties; people who were fired or resigned in the wake of the scandal. Luckily for Norton, who resigned as Secretary of the Interior in 2006, she was able to find a job relatively quickly (within six months) — as Lead Council for Shell Oil.

President Obama needs to get a hold of this disaster, not only to stop the oil from billowing into the Gulf of Mexico, but also to clean up the regulatory authority that allowed the crime to occur. He should ask himself if Ken Salazar is still the best person for the job of Secretary of the Interior. The president should push British Petroleum aside, and if Salazar objects, push him aside as well, and have the government take over the control and cleanup of this tragedy.

Someone ought to take charge of it; obviously, British Petroleum isn’t getting the job done.
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And to end on a sad note: on Tuesday a memorial service for the 11 workers killed in the initial blast was held in Jackson, MS. In the horror of what continues to happen to the environment, we — I — sometimes forget 11 people died in this disaster.

This just in: the Republicans of Kentucky elected a self-proclaimed Tea Party candidate to be their nominee for one of their U.S. Senate seats. Really. Rand Paul, son of Texas congressman and self-proclaimed libertarian Ron Paul.

Two years ago I had several friends who chose to vote for Ron Paul during California’s primaries, convinced he was the man because Paul was one of the few, if not only, Republicans to oppose Bush’s war in Iraq. I tried to reason with them that although Paul’s opposition to Bush’s war was admirable, he held some abhorrent views on several other issues, making Ron Paul a terrible choice for a candidate, one who would not win a general election.

Instead, of course, the Republicans gave us Senator Jon McCain. How fortuitous was that! Since that disastrous presidential election (for the Republicans) the Republican Party for the most part has been tacking even farther right in every effort to please and subjugate themselves to their dwindling base.

Case in point: the Second Amendment wingnuts are back at it, convinced President Obama and the Democrats are coming for their guns. They had those two rallies in and around Washington, D.C. in support of the Second Amendment, the one in the capital itself was unarmed, due to local ordinances that forbid it, and the other taking place simultaneously just outside of Washington in Virginia with armed protestors.

Someone in that movement actually thinks it’s a smart move to threaten the U.S. government with a show of arms. It’s like the guy who showed up at an event in New Hampshire, featuring President Obama, wearing a loaded sidearm.

The protestor, William Kostric, was holding a sign that said, “It is time to water the Tree of Liberty,” a reference to the famous Thomas Jefferson quote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

The nutcase was obviously threatening the president, although on Hardball With Chris Matthews Kostric claimed he was not advocating violence, but “advocating an informed society, an armed society, a polite society." A polite society that carries loaded weapons and signs designed to threaten certain political and government figures. Isn’t that funny.

So the Republican Party and the Teabaggers have officially wedded — much to Mitch O’Connell’s dismay. They’ve been dancing around each other, claiming the one isn’t the other’s dance partner — as if anyone was believing it — but now, with a self-described Teabagger carrying their banner in Kentucky’s election for the Senate seat being vacated by their other political nut, Republican Jim Bunning.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky’s Class III Senator, supported Paul’s Republican opponent, Trey Grayson. With a bit of humility, or more likely trepidation and suspicion, McConnell said he would support and help Paul win the general election in November. During the campaign for the primary, Paul called McConnell part of the problem in Washington.

Paul, like the Teabaggers who voted for him, has no solutions, he just knows what he’s against: a Black man as president; a Democrat-controlled Congress, the fantasy conspiracy of the current government coming for everyone’s guns.

He’s also against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But, as of last week, not completely. Paul said the provisions of the law the prevent discrimination in government institutions and institutions that receive federal money are right and good, but that private businesses shouldn’t be prevented from denying services to people based on the color of their skin — or their religion, sexual orientation or, we can imagine, political affiliation.

After announcing his disdain for Civil Rights legislation, Paul has been steadily back-pedaling from his views. Republicans have been denouncing his statements, calling them out of step with the Republican Party, as RNC Chairman Michael Steele said a few days ago.

Getting pummeled daily in the press, by members of his own party, Paul has gone off the radar, canceling an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. That’s like a singer canceling a concert at Carnegie Hall because he (or she) has sang a song no one likes.

The ascendancy of Rand Paul to the high position of being the party’s nominee for a Senate seat says a lot about both the Tea Party and the Republican Party. There’s no question the former is a part of the latter and there’s no question the extreme views of the Tea Party are driving the base of the Republican Party to the polls and soon the Republican Party will be synonymous with extreme right wing nuttery. As if it isn’t already.

Republicans like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin have endorsed the Teabaggers and have stoked their support, Bachmann most humorously, if not dangerously. She’s the person who said, “Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful, but there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is harmful.”

That one is pretty funny … considering that inhaling just carbon dioxide could kill us. We need oxygen, not carbon dioxide, to live.
 And let’s not forget this is the party of “Drill Baby, Drill!”

These are the people who show up to anti-Obama rallies with signs showing the president with a Hitler mustache. These are the people who simultaneously call the president (and Democrats) a Socialist and a Nazi, then try to claim the two political philosophies are the same.

These are the people who show up at rallies with loaded firearms and threaten public figures with signs about watering the tree of liberty.

These are the people who cheered loudly when former Congressman Tom Tancredo told a Teabagger gathering Barack Obama was elected because, “…we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Talk about overt racism! These were the very same tactics used by the racist South to keep African-Americans from voting, before the voting Rights Act of 1965 banned them over 40 years ago.

This is what the Tea Party and Rand Paul — and now by extension, the Republican Party — represent. Oh, Republicans will deny it of course, and even Rand Paul is backing away from himself, but the proof is there. Paul got the Teabagger vote precisely because he embraced and gave voice to their extreme views.
 Sarah Palin is the darling of the Teabagger crowd for precisely the same reason.

The scariest thing Rand Paul has said during his campaign hasn’t been talked about much, his views on civil rights taking the spotlight. But this is eye-opening, both because Paul states he is in league with the Teabaggers and he echoes one of the most fervent views of the tea bag crowd: “I have a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words. We’ve come to take our government back.”

Take it back from who, or what? A duly elected Congress and President? That’s what the tea bag crowd seems to forget: the Democrats were elected by their fellow U.S. citizens. So, this small minority of people, maybe 15% of the population, if you include those who might scratch their heads and wonder if there’s any truth to some of the nonsense the Teabaggers spew, have decided their government has been taken away from them, simply because people who don’t share their political philosophies are now in charge.

That’s what happened when Bill Clinton was elected president 18 years ago. The militias formed and became noisy; and remember this: Timothy McVie had ties to militias.

Simply because the people who now control government don’t share their political views, the Tea Bag crowd now threatens armed insurrection and advocates a return to the days when businesses and government could discriminate against people based on the color of someone’s skin.

And that’s a reason to worry about Rand Paul possibly getting elected to the U.S. Senate. Should he be given a voice in Congress, the extreme views of the far right wing will have another voice in government. We already have at least 150 of them serving in Congress already, way too many for the country to be safe.

It’s now been 27 days since the Deepwater Horizon blew up, caught fire and sank into the Gulf of Mexico, starting the worst marine oil disaster in the history of our planet, or at least recorded history. The shores along the Gulf may never fully recover from this tragedy. The scale of it has even dwarfed the loss of the eleven oil workers who died when the rig exploded.

What’s equally frustrating is finding out that there had been a series of failures that led to the explosion, not the least of which was the spotty construction of the blowout preventer, which not only didn’t prevent a blowout, it appears to have made one more likely. I’m not a scientific guy, don’t have a bit of qualification as an engineer, despite my Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) in the Marine Corps, but I seems like the parts of this contraption that failed would insure a blowout and subsequent explosion.

British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward called the failure of the blowout preventer “unprecedented;” none have ever failed before this. In fact, jus a year ago the Deepwater Horizon platform had been hailed as a shining example of deepwater ocean oil drilling. Apparently the people who made that claim were mistaken.

According to the good CEO, the blowout preventer was “failsafe.” Apparently he was mistaken as well. What investigators found was a dead battery in the preventer’s core, leaks in the hydraulic system and a cutting tool that wasn’t strong enough to shear through the metal of the pipe when it came time to stop the flow of oil. In other words, British Petroleum and the company that actually owned and operated the oil well for BP, Transocean, Ltd, knowingly put a faulty piece of equipment into the ocean as a safety device. To me, that could actually be criminal fraud.

Mr. Hayward said his company would pay all “legitimate” claims associated with the spill, but will they ever be able to completely restore the wetland vital to the entire region? If the previous two marine oil disasters are any clue, especially the Santa Barbara fiasco, the answer is “no.”

One thing I overlooked in my rant about this last week was that Haliburton, the company that once employed former Vice President Dick Cheney as a vice president, also has a stake in this crime. That company cemented (whatever that means exactly) the blowout preventer and their own tests showed the device was not safe — in 2001 — nine years ago.

Clearly, the investigation has shown that there wasn’t enough government oversight—not enough inspections—of the oil platforms. Which brings to mind one of the first orders of business when Dick Cheney was sworn in as Vice President nine years ago: the secret meetings he held in the White House with oil company executives.

We still don’t know exactly who was present and which companies were represented, but that really doesn’t matter anymore. The damage has been done; an oilrig 65 miles out to sea is spewing 5,000-plus barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico everyday and the ones charged with preventing this, at this point, stopping this, aren’t even sure if their latest fix is working. But they do admit it isn’t a permanent fix.

The latest remedy: a tube has been put in place taking some or most of the oil spewing from the well and siphoning it into an oil tanker on the surface. In the meantime, a secondary shaft is being drilled into the ocean floor that will eventually reach the leaking shaft and — we hope — something will be placed in that shaft to stop the oil from reaching the surface of the ocean floor.

Well, maybe it does matter who was present in those secret White House meetings nine years ago, when it comes down to widening the net of who is responsible for this crime. The failure didn’t happen in a vacuum. To paraphrase an old hip-hop song: someone let the dogs out.

Eh, shouldn’t malign a piece of music, but, as the president said in his recent remarks from the Rose Garden, there is enough blame to go around, including the federal government which was charged with regulating and overseeing the industry, but clearly failed in that responsibility.

The president should just put an end to any further oil exploration and drilling in the ocean and forget his foolish idea that expanding exploration and drilling off our shores should be part of his energy plan.

This just in: scientists are now sure the oil has reached a “loop current” in the Gulf that will carry the oil through the Florida Keys and up the Eastern Coast. Now they are trying to assess how much oil has gotten into the current.

This is the worst man-made ecological disaster of all time.
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My dear friend Claudia, a waitress at the Oceanside, CA Hooters, has been competing in various Hooters bikini contests around San Diego and got to participate in the regional bikini pageant held in Long Beach, CA this past Friday.

Although she didn’t win the contest, Claudia did win the Viewers Choice Award! Congratulations my friend! I knew you would win that award because you are beautiful! You will always be this viewer’s choice! Besos!

It will go down as the worst environmental disaster in the history of our nation, the effects of which will far exceed those of Hurricane Katrina. And it will affect the same area of our nation as Hurricane Katrina — and then some.

Several hundred thousand gallons of crude oil a day is gushing from the ocean floor where the oilrig platform, Deepwater Horizon, blew up, caught fire and sank, killing 11 oilrig workers as it went. Once it sank the tube that brought the oil to the surface collapsed and the safety equipment that was supposed to prevent the type of leak that is taking place now, a blowout preventer, failed.

The oilrig is (was?) owned by British Petroleum and the well operator, Transocean, Ltd, both of which are foreign companies. Isn’t that ironic? The funnier part is BP is claiming responsibility for the oil spill, but claims they aren’t responsible for the explosion that sank the oilrig or for the blowout preventer that failed and caused this disaster. It’s the fault of Transocean, who BP says own and operates the oilrig.

As the cleanup and recovery mounts into the billions, just how much responsibility is BP willing to accept? Of course, they make 3-4 billion dollars in profit every quarter, so maybe it won’t be a big hit on them, but a corporation hates to lose any profit, especially if it’s a half year’s profit.

Just a month before the Lefty world was rocked when President Obama said he would support and encourage more off shore drilling, following Sarah Palin’s campaign call to “Drill, baby drill!” Despite two major oil catastrophes just in my lifetime: Santa Barbara in 1969 and then just 20 years later, the Exxon Valdez, the president decided to remove the ban on further exploration and drilling off our shores—despite the fact that effects of both are still being felt in both locations.

Oil is still found in the sand and gravel of Prince William Sound, where the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Alaska, spilling almost 11 million gallons of crude. Twenty-one years after the disaster occurred. All of the wild life of that area has been affected and continues to be; salmon and other fish species have had low hatching rates and the growth of sea mammals have been stunted as well.

In Santa Barbara, the beach communities advise visitors to buy and wear disposable sandals because the oil is still seeping from the ocean floor where Union Oil’s Platform A in the Dos Cuadras Off Shore Oil Field, located in the Santa Barbara Channel, had a blow out 41 years ago. The oil seeps from the floor and gets washed to shore, turning the once brown sand black.

Hawaii has a black sand beach, Punaluʻu Beach, but volcanoes naturally created it. Lava flows into the ocean, explodes into little bits of basalt that washes to shore and voila! Black sand beach!

Not so on the beaches of Santa Barbara. The oil seeping from the spot on the ocean floor where the blowout occurred creates the black sand. My friend, Christina Smith, Playboy’s Miss March 1978 told me about the oil on the Santa Barbara beaches because part of her pictorial was shot there. In several photos the sand is clearly black, which I thought was cool — at first. Then I found out why that sand is black and will remain black for millennia.

Christina said that during the shoot much of their gear, clothing and props were covered with oil from being laid down on the sand. Back in October 2007 I wrote about it (Here) and how the explosion from the blowout created cracks in the ocean floor. Authorities used a specialized cement to seal those cracks, but what man creates, nature eventually subverts and it didn’t take long for nature to get around the cement sealing off the cracks in the ocean floor. Sadly, sea life in the area continues to ingest petroleum and will be affected for millennia.

And now we have the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, with another blowout of an oil well head on the floor of the ocean, this one a mile below the surface. Millions of gallons, maybe millions of barrels will be spilled into the Gulf of Mexico before British Petroleum, Transocean, Ltd. and the U.S. government get this tragedy under control.

Oh yes, American taxpayers will be on the hook for at least part of the bill and you can bet BP will ask for some sort of assistance from the government to make up for some of the cost of fixing the problem and cleaning up the mess.

BP and others tried putting a four-story hood type thing over the leaking oil head, but water pressure created crystals that clogged the 100 million ton contraption. So, it sits while oil spills into the gulf.

Oil has now washed up on shores in Louisiana and Mississippi and it is expected on the beaches of Alabama and Florida soon. And then meteorologists expect the prevailing weather patterns will push the oil into a current that will take some of the oil around the horn of Florida and up the East Coast.

This is by far the worst man-made environmental disaster in our nation’s history and it will only get worse in the foreseeable future. And President Obama wanted to lift the ban on expanding off shore oil drilling. I’m guessing he’s changed his opinion on that — let’s hope.

Here’s the funnier part of this story: Rush Limbaugh and some of his ilk, like President Bush’s last press secretary, Dana Perino, want us to believe this disaster was the result of sabotage by environmentalists, because the president was in favor of lifting the off shore drilling ban.

Then of course there are people who want us to believe the president and his administration delayed response to allow an environmental disaster to occur — even though the Coast Guard was on site the day it happened and officials from the Department of the Interior and the Department of Homeland Security were onsite two days later. Some people are crazy in their partisan zealotry.

And the real truth is, this disaster won’t be going away any time soon, even when the oil leak—if the leak—is stopped. Like the Santa Barbara and Exxon Valdez disasters, this one will be with us for decades to come.

Think about it: if you have a small child, they will be seeing black-tinted sand on the beaches of the Gulf Coast when they are in their 30’s and 40’s. Maybe longer. More off shore oil drilling? I think not.

Okay, exactly a week ago this space published a blog about dirty little secrets. Actually, guilty pleasures, none of which are secret or ridden with guilt. I do, however, keep some of them low profile, the topic becoming too tedious over the years. It’s like the rule against talking politics and religion — and the New York Yankees in certain quarters.

This is a guilty pleasure, a dirty little secret, one I’ve mostly kept to myself over the last 12 years. Yes, it began in the Clinton years, when America was in its biggest and longest materialistic boom. I was deep into it too. Had a little sports car, a 1988 Mazda RX-7. But I was living somewhat beyond my means, wearing a façade, being something I’ve never been nor ever could be, a lie only I was trying to buy.

Carl was still alive obviously, and we shared that condominium over by Poway. We paid rent on time, paid the bills mostly on time, and that was where the lie began and ended. The loan payments on that RX-7 were sporadic at best, then it needed serious repairs; the jobs came and went, from one telemarketing job to another, consistently unhappy with all of that, unhappy and putting on the façade that I was just the opposite: happy as a clam.

Ever wonder from where that little idiom originated? It’s fully American in origin, first being used in the early 19th Century up around the Northeastern part of the country, New England I guess. A clam, you see, when not ripped apart and served in a white sauce over your pasta, looks happy when it is opened and clams are often open at high tide, when they are less vulnerable to predators. Hence the phrase, “As happy as a clam at high tide.” Most Americans, like me, abbreviate the phrase and leave off the high tide reference. Who has the time to get it right these days?

So, in 1998 I was living “over the hill,” working jobs I was too ashamed to admit working, looking for and hoping for, meaningful employment. Since I subscribed to cable, and paid it myself, I couldn’t live without HBO. At the time, we could still get the premium channel on the analog signal most common with cable TV up until that time. HBO was my refuge from reality.

Sunday Nights were reserved for HBO. All of the network’s TV series aired on Sunday Nights, my favorites being Dream On, The Larry Sanders Show and Dennis Miller Live. Yeah, believe it or not, Dennis Miller used to be funny!

All three of those shows were comedies, and none of them scrimped on language and sexual content and Dream On had lots of gratuitous nudity! Ah! The best reason to watch HBO! Everything you ever wanted to see on network TV, but couldn’t because the prudes who whine about good programming prevented it. Not that gratuitous nudity equals good programming, but it helps.

See, on network TV, people never use language many of us use on a regular basis; words like “fuck” and “shit.” Back in the 1990’s NYPD: Blue experimented with nudity, but we had to endure Dennis Franz’s bare ass. We did hear the characters talking like real Americans, but after that groundbreaking show left the air, network TV went back to bleh-as-usual.

So, what we were left with were the premium channels.

By 1998 Dream On had been off the air for two years and Sunday Nights were not quite as entertaining as they had been. The Larry Sanders Show was still the funniest program on TV, but HBO really had nothing to replace Dream On, in my book.

In stepped Candace Bushnell, sort of. More directly, in stepped producer Darren Starr with a series based on Bushnell’s book, Sex and the City, a tome taken from Bushnell’s newspaper column of the same name published in the New York Observer from 1994 to 1996.
 It should be noted: the TV show and subsequent movie bare little resemblance to the actual book and column.

Now, what caught my attention about the show, from all the previews and hype, was the name obviously, but two of the actresses as well, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall. Parker had been in a movie with Nicholas Cage, Honeymoon in Vegas, one of the funniest movies of that decade. Who can forget the Flying Elvises!

Besides the great storyline, Parker was often dressed in sexy, barely there clothing. After that film she was in the funniest movie of the 1990’s, Mars Attacks! She and Pierce Brosnan ended the film with their talking heads in jars.

Kim Cattrall, well, there’s really only one film that stands out over all others: Big Trouble in Little China. That’s not all she did of course. She had been in films and on TV since 1973 when she was — believe it or not — a contract player with Universal Studios. She was a regular on the old TV show, The Incredible Hulk, starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno as Dr. David Banner and the Hulk, respectively. And Cattrall was in the original Police Academy, the only one from that franchise that actually made me laugh.

But, it’s Big Trouble in Little China that remains firmly implanted in my memory! He co-star was Kurt Russell and the two had to battle supernatural, Kung Fu masters to … save the planet I think? No, just looked it up on Wikipedia: they had to save the girlfriend of Wang Chi, one of Jack Burton’s friends. That was a pretty funny movie and cult classic!
 I belong to a cult!

So, Cattrall and Parker would be the stars of Sex and the City on HBO and if it was anything like Dream On, with sex and nudity, it would be a great show. It did not disappoint. Although Parker didn’t showed the goods, Cattrall frequently did and my one friend, who also had HBO, and I would cheer the episodes when Cattrall flashed us her lovely body.

At the time, we had no idea this was considered programming for women — and gays. I mean, my friend and I are heterosexual so what do we know about women’s issues and Manolo Blahniks? We were watching for the great stories and the beautiful women.

Sex and the City had 94 episodes over eight years and I rarely missed the Sunday Night airing. One year when I went to visit family in Denver I implored my brother to subscribe to HBO for a month so I wouldn’t miss Sex and the City or The Sopranos. Sadly, I had to wait until I got home to watch the replays.

Most people would look at me like I am crazy when I said Sex and the City is one of my favorites TV shows. But, most of those people never subscribed to HBO and therefore had no idea what the show was all about, who was in it and of course, just how sexy a program it still is. Unless of course you’re watching the abbreviated version on one of the cable networks that edit out the naughty words and nudity. It’s as bad as trying to watch the Sopranos on one of the basic cable networks—worse! Sex and the City is all about sex! And relationships, most importantly the relationships between the four characters.

Ah yes, we cannot forget Miranda Hobbes and Charlotte York, played by Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, respectively. Four highly ambitious, very beautiful single women taking Manhattan by storm.

By the end of the show’s run on HBO I had stopped telling people I was a fan of the show. For most, it was a program for women and gays and who really wants to have that conversation in this day and age? But I watched every episode, right ‘til the end when Mr. Big flew to Paris to take Carrie Bradshaw back to New York and make her his! She had moved to Paris to live with her lover, the Russian Aleksandr Petrovsky, played by Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Charlotte converted to Judaism and married her divorce lawyer, Samantha fell in love with her actor/client/lover Smith Jerrod and moved to Los Angeles, and probably the worst end to the show, Miranda married Steve. I never liked Steve. He was such a whiney … man! He didn’t want to live in Manhattan on Miranda’s considerable income, so they lived in Brooklyn. He didn’t want to enter Miranda’s world, she had to leave it to live in his. Why did she do it?

So anyway, the movie came out a couple years ago, but I never saw it. Life was different for me at the time and going to see a movie wasn’t high on my list of priorities and going to see a movie made for women? Not a chance.

Recently we started getting HBO in this house and on HBO On Demand you can still watch Sex and the City as it was meant to be seen and, wouldn’t you know it, the movie is featured on HBO On Demand as well. So, I watched it, from start to finish.

Steve cheated on Miranda and she left him, Samantha realized she loved New York and herself more than she loved Los Angeles and Smith, so she left him and moved back to New York. Charlotte actually got pregnant and Carrie, well, she and Big were planning the biggest wedding of the century, taking place in the New York Public Library, to be covered by Carrie for Vogue, complete with a one of a kind wedding dress by a designer with a name I can’t remember. What do I know about fashion? Have you seen my wardrobe?

Then, about halfway through the movie, with Carrie in that one of a kind dress waiting on the steps in the library, Big didn’t get out of his car. He jilted her on their wedding day!

In the end, Carrie and Big get married at City Hall, Miranda forgives Steve and goes back to him and Samantha, well she ceremoniously turned 50 and celebrated her singleness of purpose — being herself!

That’s why she has been, and will forever be, the best character in the franchise. Not to mention, she is still smokin’ hot nude! Ah, the scene from the movie when she lays nude on a table for Smith, bits of her homemade sushi covering the tasty bits of her lovely body!
 which brings to mind this little tidbit of trivia: two Playboy Playmates from the 1980’s recently posed for Playboy’s online site, The Cyber Club: Miss December 1989 Petra Verkaik and Miss August 1986, Ava Fabian. Verkaik is 42 and Fabian 48. Both are still smokin’ hot!
 Makes you wonder, did the smokin’ hotness of Kim Cattrall at the age of 50 convince the powers-that-be at Playboy women can still be sexy after 36? Gotta wonder.

Well, that’s my one guilty pleasure, my one dirty little secret: I’m a fan of Sex and the City. Glad it eventually came to HBO so I could watch it in the comfort, convenience and secret anonymity of my home. Now I’m waiting for the prequel, based on Bushnell’s prequel, The Carrie Diaries. What can I say, I’m a hopeless romantic.

Everyone knows I have guilty pleasures and quite frankly, I’m not feeling guilty about any of them, except for maybe Ghost Hunters. Naah, not even that TV show. In fact, Wednesday Nights are sacrosanct in my household so I can watch three hours of the TAPS crew, headed by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, hunting ghosts and debunking sightings and experiences.

We’re still waiting for a ghost to smile for the cameras, but nearly every week we get ghostly shadows, disembodied voices on the Electronic Voice Phenomenon recorders and sometimes members of the team get touched!
 Some people say I’m touched.

The real guilty pleasure with Ghost Hunters though is that I like to see the two women ghost hunters on the show, Kris Williams and Amy Bruni. Being a guy, and a skeptic in matters of entertainment and media, my first thought was that these two lovely women were brought into the TAPS team for their looks and maybe they had a prior interest in the paranormal. What the Hell, every TV show needs to have some eye candy and the same could be said for the two young male investigators, Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango … err … I assume. Who knows what young women find attractive.

My skepticism was unfounded — somewhat.

Bruni has a long history of paranormal investigation. Her father is an amateur paranormal investigator so Amy has been researching the paranormal her entire life. Williams has had experiences with the paranormal, but her main passions are genealogy and history, two fields that lend themselves to the overall investigative nature of Ghost Hunters.

Most interesting about Williams: she has also been a carpenter and flooring installer. That cute little waif of a woman? Well then she knows creaking floors and settling timber.

Still, being a skeptic, I would bet being physically attractive makes the addition of Williams and Bruni to the TAPS team a plus for both the team and the TV network, SyFi. It’s all about the ratings.

Just have to say, I didn’t start watching Ghost Hunters for the women on the team. Didn’t even know they were there and when the show first came to my attention there were different women who really didn’t catch my prurient interest the way Williams and Bruni do.

There is a TV show, on E! that I watch entirely to please my prurient interests, Pretty Wild. I really don’t watch The Girls Next Door anymore. Maybe I should, but a guy has only so much time and this year, my pleasure is Pretty Wild.
 I may of course purchase all the DVD’s from The Girls Next Door just because the parts that are blurred or bleeped on TV are not blurred or bleeped on the DVD’s. I’m hoping the same is true for Pretty Wild.

What first got me interested in the program was that one of the “stars” happens to be Playboy Cyber Girl Tess Taylor Arlington, who is now the 2010 Cyber Girl of the Year. Okay! But, being on E!, you know there will be moments when the network has to blur and bleep. Tess and her sister, Alexis, have been trying to become fashion models, especially in the glamour and lingerie fields: specifically in those fields actually, so we know there will be numerous “wardrobe malfunctions.”

It’s apparent now that when Arlington first appeared as a Cyber Girl in July, 2009, the network was at least planning the TV show, which didn’t debut until Sunday, March 14, 2010. Filming began sometime in late 2009, before Alexis was arrested on suspicion of being a part of the “Bling Ring.”

You may have heard of it; young Hollywood wannabes burgled the homes of famous young stars, stealing their bling and clothes and then wearing it around Hollywood, going to parties to show off their ill-gotten booty. And maybe their bootays as well. They are young and live in Hollywood after all.

That’s pretty much how the show debuted. Alexis and Tess were just getting hired to model for a lingerie company, Biatta Intimates, were planning on modeling for LA Fashion Week and then … Alexis gets arrested, the police tell the TV crew to turn off the cameras, the home of the Neiers family is searched and off to jail goes Alexis.

This show actually has more crying than any other show I’ve seen. Alexis does most of the crying, as she is biologically the oldest child of her mother, Andrea Arlington so is most likely to be the most spoiled. Tess is an adopted daughter of Andrea and her husband, Jerry Dunn, but for purposes of modeling, Tess has taken her adoptive mom’s maiden name of Arlington. And that’s really about as convoluted as it gets.

Oh ... and Mom Andrea raises her kids according to the teachings of the movie, The Secret. I’ve never seen it or read the book, but apparently it’s a self-help tome that says that what you believe and envision will become reality. “And so it is.” They also appear to be, some what at least, into Buddhism. There are a lot of Buddhas around the house and Tess has a lovely Buddha in a lotus tattooed on her side.

We have to wonder though, as many other blogs and sites have wondered, what is it we find so fascinating about “realty TV,” especially shows like Pretty Wild. Other than the attractive mom and her three equally attractive daughters, there’s really nothing of great import. The premise is that the girls have been brought up with very little structure, the two older girls, Tess and Alexis get into all sorts of situations.

With Ghost Hunters, I’m waiting for a ghost to smile for the cameras. With Pretty Wild, well, so far I want to see if Alexis gets out of the mess she’s in with the law and of course I’m waiting for the wardrobe malfunctions.

There are people I know who can’t miss an episode of Dancing with the Stars or American Idol. The problem I have with those programs is that the American public gets to vote on who stays and goes and some of the contestants stay far longer than their talent allows. I did watch an episode of DWTS (if you’re cool, you know the text shorthand) just to see Pamela Anderson!

Actually, the only program I watch with any regularity is Ghost Hunters. And it really isn’t for Amy Bruni or Kris Williams. I like the investigations and once in a while — ONCE IN A WHILE! — they have such a provocative show I’m checking all the dark corners and moving shadows in this little condo.

Despite the hot participants of DWTS and PW, what the two shows are doing really doesn’t capture my interest. Yeah, it’s nice to see a side of Tess Taylor Arlington we don’t experience from her Playboy appearances, but after a few episodes, eh. I’ll keep watching just to see if and how Alexis gets out of the charges that she was part of the burglary ring. In truth, being a bit of a spiritual person myself, I was kind of hoping to see more about the family’s spiritual beliefs. But I’ve only watched three episodes so far so maybe we’ll see more of that in future episodes, if I can remember when it’s on. Sunday Nights, I think.

There’s really nothing exciting or controversial about Pretty Wild, not yet anyway. At the moment Tess is dating a singer from an unknown rock band. Musicians! We’ll see how long that lasts. And I’m not jealous in the least!

For real controversy, you should check out the Playboy forums. Because of her tattoos, piercings and TV show, a lot of subscribers are unhappy with the selection of Tess to be the Cyber Girl of the Year. The conspiracy theories rival those of the Kennedy Assassination and who actually planned and carried out the attacks of 9/11. If you haven’t heard that one, it has to do with Bush (43) and his Administration orchestrating those attacks. The planes slamming into the Twin Towers all a hoax. Seriously, there are people who believe it.

But that’s a topic for another day. Right now, I wanna watch the clips from Pretty Wild on their Web Site and leave messages on their message boards to piss off all the people who watch the show and hate it. That’s the funniest part of this: there are people who hate Pretty Wild but watch it every week nonetheless. The question is: is this appropriate programming for our children? Well — duh — it’s on cable, late at night. Maybe the kids would be better off watching One Tree Hill or the Gilmore Girls.

So there’s this clip of Tess and Alexis in Cabo San Lucas running around in bikinis …

I’ve been busy — and tired — all week. Haven’t really had time to write anything, although there’s been a lot to write about! The Tea Bag Party: The gift that keeps on giving!

More important than the teabaggers: my lovely sister Elaine has finally gone home after 42 days of hospital and rehab care! I’d post one of the most recent photos, but I did that on FaceBook a few weeks ago and now ... err ... she would smack me in the nose, if I weren’t such a lovable older brother!

Then of course there’s my friend Claudia, Playboy Cyber Girl and Hooters Girl. At the moment she’s in Las Vegas, NV, on a photo shoot. lately, she’s been competing in bikini contests around San Diego. I’ve been to two already and will definitely go to at least one more! Should you have a free night Monday, April 26, Claudia will be competing in the contest at the Gaslamp Hooters: 410 Market Street, San Diego, CA. Starts at 10 p.m.

On Thursday, May 6, Claudia competes in the contest at the Oceanside Hooters: 3186 Vista Way, Oceanside, CA. We would like to see Claudia win! If you go to either or both, call ahead and reserve a table!

Okay, time to go to work! Adios!

Ever notice lately, how the “good” Republicans will not denounce the violent rhetoric of the Teabagger crowd, but insist they are not of that ilk? On Meet the Press it struck me just how resistant Republicans are to criticizing their own. Some anyway. There were a few who resign from the Republican National Committee over the fetish club flap.

When host David Gregory asked Minnesota Republican Marsha Blackburn whether she agreed with Michele Bachmann, her Minnesota colleague, after Bachmann called the government, read Obama and the Democrats, a “gangster government.” All Blackburn would admit to was that she wouldn’t use language like that, but she wouldn’t condemn it either. Don’t want to piss off the Teabaggers, she might need their support come Election Day!

When the House of Representatives was getting ready to vote on the health care bill, Black congressmen walked through a gauntlet of protestors, many of whom hurled obscenities and hatred at them, calling them nigger and in one case, a man spit on Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver.

This is all caught on camera by all the TV networks of course and the networks run the footage, some sharing the footage of Cleaver getting spit upon, for days. They had on some of the Congressman who talked about being called racial slurs.

Also featured were Republicans. All of them condemned racial slurs, but then questioned whether any of it happened at all. Did the protestors really call the Black Congressmen niggers, and for that matter, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank a faggot. And even though footage shows Congressman Cleaver getting spit on, they even question whether the protestor actually spit. Really? Even with all the TV video?

Bill Maher spelled it out though on his HBO program, Real Time. Many people want to claim the Teabagger movement isn’t partisan, that it has nothing to do with race — and yet, with a straight face, commentators will admit that the Tea Bag Movement members overwhelmingly consider themselves Republican and they are overwhelmingly White.

As Maher noted, the Teabaggers are the Republican Party’s base and when Republicans go on talk shows, they measure their words carefully so as not to clash with the very people who will decide who wins the Republican primaries in their states.

If they act as if nothing happened, despite the overwhelming proof that these things did indeed happen, or they don’t criticize their colleagues who use inflammatory language and lies to stir up this Republican base, the Teabaggers, then everyone aligned with them, most especially the Teabaggers, can have their veil of deniability.

It’s also evident when a talk show participant will ask a Republican, especially if that Republican is sucking up to the Teabagging base, why there was no tax revolt movement during the Bush Administration when the Republicans went on a three trillion dollar spending spree without any means of paying for it.

Oh, they will agree Republicans lost their way during the Bush years, but in just his first 15 months of being president, Barack Obama and his Democrat colleagues have been much, much worse than Bush in his entire eight years!

No, the real center of all this animosity towards President Obama and the Democrats has to do with two things: the president’s ethnicity and the hatred this small minority of voters feel towards anyone they don’t believe is “one of them.” Which is why they often can be tearfully exclaiming they want “their” country back, as if someone has taken it away from them.

Their view of what constitutes “their” country has, at it’s center, White Folks in charge, another reason the Republican Party is now a regional party, centered mostly in the South and West. Oh yeah, the Republicans now have a Senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown.
 Interestingly enough, the Teabaggers held a rally in Boston, trying to be like the original Tea Revolt, right there in Senator Brown’s bailiwick. For whatever reason, the good senator didn’t make an appearance. But, it’s not likely Senator Brown will speak ill of the Teabaggers, he may need their support in his state’s Republican primary.

Their country, as if the people who voted for Barack Obama and his Democrat colleagues are not Americans. That’s basically what the Teabaggers are saying. They had it their way for most of the previous eight years, save for a couple years between 2007 and 2009 when Democrats had just enough members in the Senate to slow down President Bush.

To them, a Democrat in the White House and a Democrat-controlled Congress is just about the worst thing that could happen. Knuckleheads like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, along with his other FOXNews cronies tell their viewers the Democrats are all Socialists, and then Fascists and the tea bagging base of the Republican Party gets whipped up into a violent frenzy.

It’s no coincidence the growth of armed militias has grown exponentially since Barack Obama was elected president. As the Southern Poverty Law Center has said in its most recent report on the militias, these are made up of people who are ideologically extreme right wing — the base of the Republican Party.

They are against taxes and anything they perceive as left wing, and therefore Socialist in ideology. And of course they want to protect the 2nd Amendment which they are sure Democrats are getting ready to repeal, never mind that an actual repeal of any amendment in the Constitution requires two thirds of Congress voting for it and two thirds of the states, 34 total, have to ratify the repeal.

Funny, the extreme right wing that is so bent on preserving the 2nd Amendment isn’t so keen on protecting the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights.

Which just made me think of this: the State Board of Education in Texas had Thomas Jefferson, the principle author of the Declaration of Independence, removed from the history books in that state because, well, he wrote this to the Danbury Baptists: “Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
 He pretty much said this nation was not created to be a Christian theocracy, a view the Far Right does not share.

While the Far Right is passionate about the 2nd Amendment, they hold no such passion for preserving the 1st Amendment. Quite the opposite. They would like to declare, officially, this to be a Christian version of Iran.

In a humorous note, some from the Michigan and Ohio militias tried to claim the militias were non-partisan, but that bullshit seems to have faded.

But there was one voice of restraint from the Republicans, two if you count former Bush speechwriter David Frum. But I’m talking specifically about Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma who told his constituents that there is no provision in the new health care bill that will put people in jail for not getting health insurance, that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a nice person and added, “So don’t catch yourself being biased by FOXNews that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good.”

David Frum famously said that at one time the Republican Party thought FOXNews worked for them, but now, the party is working for the network. Just weeks before that statement Frum was fired from the American Enterprise Institute for saying the health care bill would be a Waterloo for the Republican Party, not the Democrats. Frum had the temerity to criticize Congressional Republicans for becoming the “Party of No” and not cooperating with Democrats on the bill.

It’s funny, the Republican Party, which always claims to be a “big tent,” is driving away the moderates in the party who don’t walk lock-step with the base’s views. Even Senator John McCain, once considered to be a straight shooter, has flip-flopped on so many issues he looks like a newly landed crappie, just to garner the support of the Republican base.

Just recently McCain claimed he never considered himself a “Maverick,” even though he titled one of his books, John McCain: Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick, and the Heroes Who Inspired Him. Chapter 11 is even titled, “Maverick.”

And let’s not forget, he campaigned for the presidency as the “original maverick” and declared his running mate, Sarah Palin, a fellow maverick.

Why did he lie so flagrantly? To suck up some of the Teabagger support from his Arizona Republican Primary opponent, J.D. Hayworth.

No, the Republicans won’t criticize the Teabaggers, they want that energy when the primaries come around, so the Republicans feed off all that hostility and some, like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, stoke that hatred.

There is one other reason the Republican Party and their base, which is about all they have for support these days, stoke and feed this anger: they are sore losers.

There’s no crying on 24, not Jack Bauer anyway! Jeez, here we are, in the final season of 24 and we see Jack Bauer cry. No way! Whose idea was that? This is the show that got Vice President Dick Cheney and his neocon lackeys to sit around a faux situation room and say, “Torture works! This TV program proves it!” Wonder what Cheney thinks now.

Jack Bauer is unlucky in love. You become one of those super secret spies, flitting about the country thwarting conspiracies of foreign terrorists and domestic alike! Remember, for several seasons now Bauer and C.T.U. — the Counter Terrorism Unit — have been fighting a shadow government of Big Wig control freaks, by inference, the people who are really in charge of the country. You know, the Bilderberg Group, but in fictional form!

See the Bilderbergs, as portrayed on 24, manipulate the foreign terrorists to do their bidding, all in an effort to force Americans to see the world and the United States their way — it’s in dire need of a totalitarian government to keep everyone safe and by golly, they’re just the ones to do it!

Eh … I’m getting away from Jack Bauer’s unlucky love life. Back in the beginning of this program, I’ve seen every episode of every season so far, Jack had a thing going on with a HOT, HOT babe who worked for C.T.U., Audrey Raines, played by Kim Raver. She was in two early seasons, then was brought back for season six left in a coma — after the sixth day.
 Real 24-philes don’t refer to them as “seasons,” they’re “days,” get it? Each season chronicles a 24 hour period, a full day, although the start time can start at any point in a day and conveniently, they always start on the hour!
 And if you’re a real 24-phile you’ll be following it on the show’s website where you get a lot of back-story on the show’s characters.

Back to Kim Raver: we can now see her on Grey’s Anatomy every week. I don’t watch that show, even though it features Raver and Sandra Oh.

So, in the course of these eight seasons our favorite domestic spy, Jack Bauer, has loved and lost twice … no, three times! In one season, he was on the lam, with an alias no less, and living with a woman with a young son. He had to leave them behind when terrorists decided to blow up Los Angeles with a nuclear bomb. As I recall, the terrorists succeeded with that one and it was up to Jack Bauer and C.T.U. to stop the other bombs from going off.

Well, maybe that was season two … or maybe season four … who can keep it all straight? I’m thinking of the season terrorists set off a nuclear bomb in Valencia, CA — blowing up Six Flags Magic Mountain! I like Magic Mountain! Maybe it was the same season Jack came to grips with his father and brother — and his father was in on the Bilderberg conspiracy! James Cromwell played Jack’s corrupt father.

See, that storyline in the show can’t really be a tangent for long because it always comes up every day — every 24 day. Let me reiterate, this isn’t the Bilderberg Group the producers of 24 are talking about, but some vague, shadowy, fictional conspiracy that wants to rule the United States and eventually, we should presume, the world!

Great idea. Take the roots of a “popular” conspiracy, like the Bilderberg Group, incorporate it into a storyline, but leave it vague, like the actual myth of the “real conspiracy,” — wait, this is getting too funny. Do we really believe the Bilderberg Group is a real organization bent on world domination? There really is a group of conspiracy theorists; conspiracy nuts (?) that believe the Bilderbergs are trying to rule the world. Many of them are the same nuts that believe the Bush Administration (43) planned and carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Several years ago I “friended” a guy on MySpace who was really, deeply, convinced that theory was true. I tried to debate him on it, but his rhetoric steadily got more animated and violent-sounding, so I “unfriended” him.

You see, on MySpace, not all “friends” are friends. Same with FaceBook, although with that social site I’m a lot more discriminating about who I choose for a friend.

So, this, the eighth day, is the final season of 24. There will be a feature film, but all good TV shows eventually come to an end. Since there will be a movie, we can assume Jack survives Day Eight. Too bad his girlfriend, F.B.I. agent Renee Walker, didn’t. That’s what caused Jack to cry.

Now wait a minute, just remembered that in Day One, Jack’s wife was killed, so he’s been unlucky in love four times. Jack’s daughter Kim, played by Elisha Cuthbert, survives! Thankfully, at least one hot babe in the series survives. Usually, the sexy ones are either one of the bad guys or they get killed. Why do TV shows do that? It’s like people hate beautiful women. I like beautiful women.

Speaking of beautiful women, my friend Claudia is competing in some Hooters Restaurant bikini contests here in San Diego County: Monday, April 19 at the Mission Valley Hooters, Thursday April 22 at the Rancho Bernardo store, Monday April 26 at the Gaslamp store and finally May 6 at the Oceanside Hooters, where Claudia works!

If you have a free night or two — or three or four — stop by one of those Hooters and cheer on Claudia! As a matter of fact, this Monday I’ll have to miss an episode of 24 to cheer on my dear friend!

You might be thinking, “Tim is such a sucker when the woman is so beautiful.” Actually, that’s true, but Claudia really is a friend and a sweetheart. There are few reasons I’d miss an episode of 24, and cheering on Claudia is a really great one! Not to mention, she’ll be in a hot bikini with about a dozen other Hooters Girls! I’m so predictable.

So, this is the last season of 24. What will I do on Monday Nights? Guess I could take up reading books again. Time to buy an iPad. Then I can be a real 24-phile and “watch” it online.

Back to 24. I’m thinking the real story behind the program isn’t the various threats from terrorists, both foreign and domestic, but that shadowy group that’s behind every plot, that fictional Bilderberg Group. And I would bet the feature film will finally expose it, at least to we viewers who have been watching all these years. After all, what good would it be of the conspiracy was exposed and defeated in the fictional story? Sort of kills off the chance of doing a sequel, or two.

Not that conspiracy nuts ever shut up about their theories. Sheesh, the “Birthers” are still trying to convince us the president was born in Kenya and those nuts who believe George W. Bush and his cronies planned and carried out 9/11, they’re still out there too.

So, whatever the outcome of this season and the movie, we can always believe the shadow government will always exist. That’s the beauty of conspiracy theories: you can’t prove a negative, but we can always claim the theories are true, with just a few facts to make it real.

Which is probably the how and why of Dick Cheney and his cabal thinking torture works. It looks like it’s working for Jack Bauer, so why wouldn’t it work in real life? And what the heck, it’s on that fair and balanced network, FOX! 24 is sort of like reality TV that way — without the reality. I mean, really, a real Jack Bauer crying? No way!

The other day I got an issue of Rolling Stone in the mail. Huh … About ten years ago, maybe less, my subscription lapsed and I never renewed. The magazine was no longer relevant in my life, the music and pop culture it covered so out of touch with a working stiff about to turn 50, it was a waste of the yearly subscription.

So out of the blue comes this issue, dated April 15, 2010: Issue 1102. It’s the one with the cast of Glee on the cover. I’ve never seen that show, even though it gets high accolades. Many TV shows with critical and commercial success don’t interest me. I’ve never seen an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, even though it featured two of my favorite actors, Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts. I hear it was a fine show, but who really wants to watch another sitcom with a standup comic as the star? Even if it has a great ensemble cast? Well, maybe I’ll start watching it in syndication. Peter Boyle’s da bomb!

Thirty years ago … naaa … it was longer than that — I was a devoted fan of the Bob Newhart Show. Now there was a show for stoners! Well, stoners thought so, although it was a hit with just about everyone else who watched television in the 70’s. I watched The Bob Newhart Show for nearly a decade after that, stoned and laughing every time a character said, “Bob?” Couldn’t be Dr. Hartley, it had to be “Bob”? Or “Hi Bob,” in the case of their next-door neighbor, Howard Borden, played by Bill Daily. And a few other characters as well.

Before this gets off on a rant about sitcoms, which is always a good topic, I’ll say this: I watched four episodes of Friends just because everyone I know insists it’s a funny show. It isn’t. Well, maybe it is, Friends remains one of the most popular TV shows of all time. I actually watched the pilot when it first aired to see Courtney Cox. She was a babe then and still is now. Maybe I’ll watch Cougar Town if it’s still on the air.

Friends just never amused me, although I like most of the actors in it.

Did you ever notice: men, heterosexual men anyway, will watch a TV show just for some hot babe who might be a cast member? My friend watched Star Trek: Voyager primarily because it featured Jeri Ryan as … wait, let me look it up on the Internets … Seven of Nine, a Borg who looks really HOT in those skintight costumes ever so popular in the Star Trek pantheon. Seven of Nine’s breasts were so prominently featured! But I never watched it.

Back to the Rolling Stone. Remember back in the day when Dr, Hook and the Medicine Show sang “Cover of the RollingStone”? They got on the cover, in caricature, shortly after that song made the Top 10. It was actually written by humorist, songwriter, poet and author Shel Silverstein, possibly the last renaissance man of our time.

Today’s story subjects rarely interest me. Hip-hop isn’t my thing; wayward young men living the rock star dream don’t interest me, RollingStone has covered that story now for … wait, let me look it up on the Internets … since November, 1967. The comings and goings — and cummings — of the younger TV and movie stars rarely interest, unless it’s Britney flashing her kootchie for the cameras. The pictures of the young women of music, film and television are sweet, but really, I can see those for free on the Internets.

And this is really “funny:” 40 years ago Led Zeppelin was persona non grata in Rolling Stone, but now, they are one of the greatest rock bands ever, as are the Beatles and Beach Boys, both 1960’s icons brushed off by the magazine back in the day.

RollingStone still has great investigative reporting, with such great journalists as Matt Taibbi, but, reading Rolling Stone for the political coverage is like reading Playboy for the articles. It ain’t its bread and butter.

Okay, I like the political and hard news of RollingStone and read Playboy for the articles. Both offer some of the best journalism in print, but it’s primary content, well, you can get WAY HOTTER pics of women nude for free on the Internets and Playboy.com has way hotter photos of it’s Playmates than you’ll find in the print magazine; and if I want great photos of scantily-clad women artists, the Internets fill that need as well.
 One of the benefits of getting the centerfolds online is that with programs like PhotoShop, you can easily do things to the photos to enhance the images to your liking! Not that I ever would …

The mystery is, how and why did I get a subscription to Rolling Stone? Like Playboy, I let that subscription die a long time ago. The woman at the UPS Store (where I keep a box) and I discussed this at length and figured it was one of two scenarios: someone got me the subscription as a gift and I forgot, due to old age, or, I ordered it myself and forgot — due to old age. I’m not that old, am I?

They say, after major surgery with your body being under a heavy anesthesia such as is used for open heart surgery, some of the brain cells in the frontal lobe especially are killed while under, affecting your short-term memory in particular. It can also change your personality; sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Better to let my friends and family judge that, I mean, just ask me, I may not be much, but I’m all I think about!

So, in this issue of Rolling Stone that has a photo of the cast of a TV show I’ve never seen, were a few tidbits of interesting information. Famed rock’n’roll photographer Jim Marshall passed away at the age of 70 and Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh turned 70. Dang! Really? Two icons of rock, one dies and the other celebrates a birthday (March 15).

August 9th will mark the 15th anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s death. Hard to wrap my head around that too, but Phil Lesh is 70? Hard to believe. He doesn’t look it either. It’s all that hippie-dippy clean vegan lifestyle of his. Actually, I have no idea what his lifestyle is, but he had a liver transplant in 1998 and survived prostate cancer (and surgery) in 2006, the same disease that took the life of Frank Zappa over 15 years ago. FZ would be turning 70 this year, were he still alive.

Beware the Ides of March, for it will bring The Dead! Lesh is a founding member of the Grateful Dead. Jerry Garcia may have been the front man, but as the old saying went, “If Phil’s on, the band is on.” And Phil was so often on! Years ago, back in the 1980’s when covering a Dead show at Alpine Valley Music Theater for the Shepherd Express — well, for me mainly — I had a photo pass that allowed me access to the very front of the stage for the first three songs so I stood in front of Phil for half a song — about 10 minutes — mesmerized by his playing. Wish I had those photos somewhere.

Also in this issue of RollingStone, the news that Alex Chilton died. “Who dat,” you ask? He was the front man for the cult band Big Star. “Who?”

Big Star. All the post punk, pre grunge indie bands loved Alex Chilton and Big Star and patterned their music after them. Still doesn’t ring a bell? Before Big Star Chilton was in the Box Tops and sang the #1 hit, “The Letter.”
 “Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane,
ain’t got time to take a fast train.
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home,
’Cause my baby just a-wrote me a letter.”

Chilton was only 59 when he died, just a few days away from headlining the final night of the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, TX. That’s only a few years older than me. Heart attack got Chilton, which is probably how I will go. Well, if I could bet on it, I would choose heart attack. My friends would probably bet on a bicycle accident, which isn’t a bad bet either.
 As a testament to Rolling Stone’s lack of vision and forward thinking, this was the first year the magazine sponsored a stage at the legendary showcase festival. It’s been going on now for nearly 30 years.

Anyway, I’m keeping my subscription to Rolling Stone. It appears they’ve brought back topics relevant to me, even the newer music. And maybe I’ll start watching Glee.

Who knows, maybe I’ll subscribe to Playboy again. I miss reading the articles.

This is interesting. Saw it on the The Rachel Maddow Show Tuesday. It has to do with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — A.C.OR.N. They are the association that was used to try and derail Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, was pilloried for the way it registered voters — they used the same resources as the Republican Party, they hired people to collect signatures—and then last year, lost their government funding and finally out of business due to an under cover, “investigative” series of videos showing A.C.O.R.N. workers trying to help a couple set up prostitution businesses. With underage girls.

Anyone who watched the videos would know they were heavily edited, but the footage — DANG! — it was so damaging! Those A.C.O.R.N. people were really going to help a pimp and prostitute start a prostitution ring. Or were they?

First of all, as it turns out, the pimp and prostitute, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, didn’t wear the 70’s style pimp and prostitute outfits into the offices of A.C.O.R.N. around the country. No, they dressed pretty conservatively when talking to the community organizers. In some of the videos you can see the A.C.O.R.N. workers laughing, knowing what’s going on is a joke. Maybe they thought they were being punked. Some guy comes in with an attractive woman asking about how to set up an illegal business, yeah, I’d think someone was playing a practical joke. I would have demanded a blowjob from Ms. Giles, just to press them on the joke. And possibly get a blowjob.

Turns out though, at least a couple of those A.C.O.R.N. workers, after doing the interviews with O’Keefe and Giles, alerted the police. In one that took place here in San Diego, the community activist called his brother, a police officer with the National City Police Department, to report O’Keefe and Giles after listening to the two phonies talk about smuggling underage girls across the Mexican border to start a prostitution ring. Gee, that part of the story didn’t make it into the reports on FoxNews. Or any other network that was creating sensational segments on it.

So far, Maddow’s program on MSNBC is the only TV program reporting on the fraud. California Attorney General Jerry Brown investigated the claims made by O’Keefe and Giles and found the videos to be heavily edited, making them appear to be something they are not. And in his investigation Brown found that the A.C.O.R.N. workers in those videos weren’t trying to help two people commit crimes and defraud the government, they were actually gathering evidence that was then passed on to the police.
 Although Maddow is the only TV program to report on the fraudulent video sting, it has been reported on the Huffington Post and Media Matters.

So far, FoxNews isn’t reporting that part of the story.

A few months ago it was reported that A.C.O.R.N. was going out of business. The truth is, the organization closed its local chapters but has maintained its national office and will continue operating, using all the media at its disposal, including the Internet, to further the organization’s community activism. And eventually they will open local chapters again. The kafuffle over the phony pimp and prostitute and their fraudulent investigation didn’t bring down A.C.O.R.N.

On the other hand, James O’Keefe and several of his friends are facing felony charges for entering the Louisiana office of Senator Mary Landrieu disguised as telephone repairmen to plant listening (and other surveillance) devices. Shades of the Plumbers of Watergate.

One of O’Keefe’s co-conspirators in that case, Robert Flanagan, is the son of the U.S. Attorney general in Shreveport, Bill Flanagan. Be interesting to see how that plays out. Does the son of an important figure in government get a pass? And if he gets a pass, do his co-conspirators get the same treatment?

There’s a rarely mentioned patron in all of this, one who claims to have no knowledge or complicity in either the A.C.O.R.N. adventures or the Senator Landrieu misadventure: Andrew Breitbart. He has a website with little sub-sites. Breitbart claims he has nothing to do with O’Keefe, Giles and the others, but you know he’s lying; James O’Keefe is a paid contributor to Breitbart’s Internet fiefdom.

Let’s see if this part of the story has legs, but it’s doubtful. There’s a mine disaster in West Virginia, due to a mining company’s arrogant disregard for safety. That story will have legs for a while — 25 people died in the tragedy.
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Today would have been our Mother’s 89th Birthday! Thanks Mom!

For two days my little site here as been off the Internets. Couldn’t figure out why. So, after having breakfast with about 500 of my closest friends this morning, I called the web hosting company to find out what’s up. Turns out the domain name had expired and needed an infusion of cash to continue on. Took care of that and voila! The Forkes Report is back in the Internet tubes!

Gosh, I’m going to miss Ted Stevens. As you may recall he was the Alaskan senator who was driven from office by an over zealous Justice Department — a Republican Administration Justice Department. It was the Obama Justice Department in 2009 that set the wrong right after Attorney General Eric Holder said there had been severe prosecutorial misconduct in the case. Guess it takes a Democrat to do the job right.

Anyway, it was Ted Stevens who called the Internet a series of tubes. To be fair, Stevens was using the phrase as an analogy, but it was a real stupid one.

But, we still have Tom Coburn and James Inhofe of Oklahoma in the Senate, not to mention Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Oh! And let’s not forget Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota! The laughs just keep coming!

Today is Easter Sunday when all Christians celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. I would like to wish all my family and friends who celebrate this holiday a Happy Easter. The Spring Equinox came on March 20, also a day of celebration for many religions. Missed it.

Obviously the previous post was an April Fools prank. Sadly few people fell for it. I thought it was convincing enough, but apparently the photo of me wearing a Hooters t-shirt sort of gave it away. That and the people who know me best … sigh … just knew it was a joke. Why doesn’t anyone believe I could be a Catholic Priest? I should join a seminary just to prove them all wrong!

Or not.

Happy Easter Elaine. You will be at the table — in our hearts.
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Wow! We just had a big earthquake! Shook everything pretty violently! According to the U.S. Geological Service, it was a magnitude 7.2 quake, about 16 miles S/SW of Guadalupe Victoria, Baja California, Mexico; about 110 miles from San Diego, CA. It happened at 3:43 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.

Today is the last day of the month. A year ago today I was in the Veterans Administrations Medical Center in La Jolla recovering from cardiac bypass surgery. Sharing a room with an old man, an old crazy man. My, how time flies.

Today, my sister Elaine is still in a hospital recovering from a March 10 surgery that had a complication. She is doing much better now, but she expected to be home in time for Easter, which is now just four days away. We all hope Lainey will be released next week sometime. I get teary thinking of my little sister in the hospital.

Her son is Dan and his blog is posted at the upper left of this page; Eschew Obfuscation. Nothing to note about Young Dan, other than he raises some interesting topics I wouldn’t have thought of, but he thinks on a much different plane.

• Did you know that on this day in 1917 the United States took possession of the Virgin Islands? News to me, but what the Hell, now we have a place in the Caribbean we can call all our own! Don’t need a passport to go there!

• A year later we adopted Daylight Savings Time. Springing ahead gives us more useable daylight hours so employers can effectively get more overtime — hopefully unpaid — out of their employees.

A year after World War I, Daylight Savings Time was repealed, sort of brought back for World War II to save energy and then made official in 1973 by decree of President Nixon to once again save energy. Our energy consumption has been steadily rising since then. And I have to get out of bed an hour earlier? Sheesh.

• On March 30, 1981, President Reagan was shot (and almost died) by crazy man, John Hinckley, Jr. who was trying to impress Jodie Foster. And people wonder why I was so worried about sharing a hospital room with a crazy man.
 Just for the record, regardless of how I feel about the political leanings of our public figures, I don’t advocate, promote or condone violence and assassination as a means of changing our national policy.
 John Hinckley had no political ambitions, he was just crazy, but either way, he should not be allowed to roam free in public.

Not much happens at the end of March, although we are on the cusp of Easter or into Holy Week at least, the most sacred time of year for all Christians. My sister Elaine is a Good Catholic and I won’t make any jokes at her or her religion’s expense. She takes this week quite seriously, as our mother did when we were growing up.

Good Catholics will go to church nearly every day, if only to mark the Stations of the Cross. Thursday through Sunday of course are the really sacred days of Holy Week: marking Passover and the Last Supper (Thursday), Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, Saturday, which is a day of mourning and then Easter Sunday when Jesus was said to have risen from the dead.

Scripture says Jesus was to rise from the grave “three days” after his crucifixion, but really, it was only two days. Anyway, this is the Holiest time of year for Christians.

Me, I’m more into bunnies, chocolate and otherwise. My friend Alan was commenting about this blog and was dismayed at the lack of bunnies of the otherwise variety. He and I share political views and that’s what we usually talk about when we see each other — that and riding bicycles.

Alan is the guy who, seven years ago, convinced me to buy a bicycle, a Trek no less. That is how the Trusty Trek came into my possession. Alan rides road bikes and is quite an accomplished rider. He’s conquered, on several occasions, the Pomerado Road Grade, a long, steep climb that boggles my ideas of riding bikes.

He said he hasn’t ridden his bike for a while. Get your ass off the couch and onto your Trek, old man! We ain’t getting any younger! Yeah, it gets harder, boy is that apparent, but as we get older we have to continue riding. Even if it’s only two laps around Lake Miramar.

Alan and I hadn’t seen each other in months, but Monday when we met, his first topic was the lack of bunnies of the otherwise variety these past few weeks. So, my friend, bunnies you can appreciate.

For me, I’d like a chocolate bunny, with some of those marshmallow bunnies, peeps. I love those, and jelly beans, chocolate eggs filled with sweet stuff and more chocolate. Candy!

Then of course there is Easter Dinner. Usually, in our house it was ham, or maybe the occasional leg of lamb. Mom was Greek and her Uncle Bill and Aunt Mary would often cook a leg of lamb for Easter.

This year Easter falls on the same Sunday for the Catholic and the Greek Orthodox Churches. Back in the day this would have been an Easter Dinner with a leg of lamb. Don’t know what I’ll have for Easter Dinner this year, maybe a nice ham with all the goodies.

Sadly, my doctors and nutritionists would all say none of this should be on my menu this year, or any year in the future. Fortunately, I’m not telling them what’s on my mind for Easter. But they’re right, none of it, the ham with all the goodies, the chocolate and other candy, ought not me on my menu, but it’s Easter!

So, here’s to the end of March and the beginning of April! And here’s to Elaine’s speedy recovery! May she get home soon and have an Easter Dinner of her own, albeit a week late.