I can read his lips, and he is not praying.

An excellent profile of our open thread icon Keith Olbermann, because why not.

A candlelit Saturday night

"Electric" would absolutely be the wrong verb to describe my Saturday night, although there was something magical about weather-induced family time. While the "perfect storm," as the weather hallucinators dubbed it, didn't pack quite the punch they forecast, ice and wind were sufficient to knock out power throughout town and much of Iowa.

I'm not normally one to run to the grocery store whenever I'm told the sky is falling, but I did load up on certain necessities this time. While others were stocking up on milk and bread, I shopped for vodka, chips and DVDs.

We were halfway through "Barnyard" before I discovered the error of my ways. It takes electricity to run just about every household appliance -- including, ironically enough, gas powered ones. When the power went out for good around 6:30 p.m., I nearly had a panic attack.

It wasn't cold enough for worry, thankfully, but I soon realized how dependent I've become on television and the Internets. Even radio wasn't an option when I discovered my self-charging radio only worked as long as I was willing to crank the handle to charge it.

I called several hotels in a futile effort to find one with both electricity and vacancy as my wife lit more candles than I could count. If the hotels were without power, I reasoned unreasonably, the bars probably were too. So much for my anticipation of Rainn Wilson hosting "Saturday Night Live."

I had nowhere to run to, baby, no place to hide. So I settled in for an unplanned family night. The family wouldn't play Scrabble with me, so we agreed on Triple Yahtzee. My son won, even after I corrected his math, but I'm not competitive.

Then we moved to the living room and, for once, lived. We talked and talked. My kids, long since tired of my usual stories, demanded new ones. We all shared memories that evoked other memories. It was fun. It was like camping, without the bugs.

I was grateful to see the power restored about 1 a.m., though thankful to Mother Nature for giving us a family night to remember.

Looking out for Mom

One Saturday morning, when I was almost exactly the age my own daughter is now, I spent what seemed like hours peeking from behind a corner of my window shade as uniformed men and women, some purposeful, some not, walked in and out of our front door. Listening to the crackle of their radios, I strained for a hint of what was happening as I counted the fire trucks and police cars that lined our dead-end street. More than one person had called in our medical emergency, and it appeared that the entire county had responded, if only for the lack of anything better to do. If I had been looking, I'm sure I would have seen our neighbors pushing back their curtains or boldly staring from their yards, but I wasn't looking. I was waiting. My younger brother was out there, in the middle of it all, but, scared of what I might find, or hear, or see, I didn't want to get too close. Later, when they wheeled my mother out to the ambulance, I, still at my surveillance post, was reassured to notice that she had insisted the paramedics allow her to get dressed. She's not a vain woman, and I knew refusing to go to the hospital in a faded gown and housecoat was as good of a sign as any stable vitals they may have recorded. Nobody reads a mother better than her child, even from the other side of the window.

I don't remember if my mother was checked directly in to the hospital that day, or how long she was gone once she was admitted, but other memories of that time are as vivid as the paramedics' visit. The days my father's mother and sister used my mother's absence to swoop in and rearrange all our furniture and toss out anything they didn't personally see a use for are forever in my memory, filed under Tragedies I Failed to Prevent. My brother and I may have been young, but we recognized a crime when we saw one. All we could think to do, once it became clear we couldn't stop that offense, was crawl out my bedroom window. It would have been more satisfying had my grandmother ever realized we were gone, but at least we could tell our mother that we knew better than to aid and abet.

Soon enough, my mother recovered from her surgery if not her unwanted home makeover and resumed holding down our rearranged fort as she always had done. Those days, though, stand out on the timeline of my childhood, both for what happened and for marking our first realizations of what might happen someday. Before that, the notion that my mother could be vulnerable never entered my mind.

Yesterday, it was deja vu all over again, only I was the one riding away in the ambulance and my daughter was the one hiding out. This Saturday was a pale imitation of the original, as sequels so often are, but for once I'm relieved to not measure up. Only one police car and one ambulance arrived at our home, and if the neighbors noticed, they haven't let on. My episode proved to be insignificant, and I was home before the afternoon was over, allowing my mother enough time to take out my trash but not re-organize my kitchen. My daughter played her own version of my part, "crying [her] eyes out", she later reported, but answering what I hoped was a reassuring call down the stairs with a strong voice. How she reconciled my "I'm okay" with my walk to the ambulance, I'm not sure, but perhaps she noticed my outfit. If her mother was up and dressed that early on a weekend morning, surely nothing could really be wrong.

Someone's worst nightmare

Dead in a ditch on the side of the road.

That's the fate my father's overactive imagination always conjured for us when he realized we were even a few minutes late or not exactly where we said we'd be. He's a worrier by nature and by genetics--his mother was the queen of unfounded, exaggerated dread—someone who cannot help but see disaster around every corner. Given that he was equally concerned whether we were crossing the street or crossing the country, his penchant for worst-case-scenarios just became part of the background noise of our lives.

It's okay, Dad; we'll be fine.

And, by chance or by fate or by the power of his prayers, we have been fine. Only once have I ended up in a ditch, along with, my pride compels me to point out, every other car that was headed South to Chicago on that snow-covered stretch of I-43. We were unhurt, and, to our extreme relief, we had enough cash to get the miraculously unscathed rental car towed back onto the road. Nonetheless, if my father ever heard the story of that trip to Midway, I’m sure the ditches were carefully edited out. Better to insist his fears were irrational that to provide proof that they were not.

Even now that censoring habit is so ingrained that I hesitated a little before forwarding my mother the news story that recounted what I saw on the way into work this morning: a dead body in a ditch on the side of the road. There’s no drama to my early morning tale, only the slowly dawning realization of why lights were flashing, and cops were tramping through the median grass, and dark shoes were peeking out from under a plastic tarp. A 22 year old man, according to the paper, somehow dead. In a ditch. By the side of the road.

Parent without a clue

Most of the time, parenting seems to be the ultimate high-risk, low-reward vocation. I try to do the best I can, hoping to be a better dad to my kids than mine was to me. That's not a very high bar, yet success is no guarantee.

I've been at it going on 14 years now and still have lots to learn. High school promises new challenges and opportunities, more failures and disappointments. I have the best kids in the world, don't get me wrong, but I often think I'm just plain lucky.

And then there are moments, usually when you least expect it, when you know you've done something right -- even if you can't quite figure out what that is.

Tonight brought one of those moments. Nodding off on the couch while watching the news and skipping my son's orchestra performance -- which automatically disqualifies me from "good dad" consideration -- my precocious 10-year-old daughter walks into the room, shuts off the TV and sits down beside me.

"I have something I need to talk to you about," she says with the seriousness of someone three times her age.

I sit up and brace myself for what's to follow, though I haven't a clue. It's immediately clear she's given this a lot of thought.

"You know how I like animals?" she begins.

I listen, respond appropriately so she knows I'm hearing, and don't fly off the handle when she says she no longer wants to eat meat. All my work to make her an expensive date -- developing her taste for shrimp, crab and lobster -- is out the window.

Perhaps someone at school has planted these thoughts in her head, though she assures me that's not the case. I suspect a neighbor, but don't say so for fear of damaging an important family relationship. I silently question if "Wife Swap" is appropriate family entertainment. Monday's episode, after all, featured a self-sufficient Iowa farm family which subsided on raw meat.

I'm a dedicated meat-and-potatoes guy who prefers my steak medium well. I nearly had a cow, and haven't been back since, when I first experienced Red Robin and was presented the options of "pink or no pink" -- as if that's all there is. Sushi has never crossed these lips.

A vegetarian diet is a foreign concept in this household. But I'm willing to entertain it if only out of flattery for the manner in which she chose to broach the subject.

In the grand scheme of things, meat or no meat is inconsequential. Peanut butter is loaded with protein, I reason. But there's no substitute for the moment daddy's girl confided in her dad. I cherish it, and hope there's more to come.

Then we settle in for more questionably appropriate family entertainment -- "My Name is Earl" and "The Office." It's not in any parenting manual, but it seems to work for us.

Hillary is not David Geffen’s dreamgirl

by Maureen Dowd

“Whoever is the nominee is going to win, so the stakes are very high,” says Mr. Geffen, the Hollywood mogul and sultan of “Dreamgirls,” as he sits by a crackling fire beneath a Jasper Johns flag and a matched pair of de Koonings in the house that Jack Warner built (which old-time Hollywood stars joked was the house that God would have built). “Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don’t think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is — and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? — can bring the country together.

“Obama is inspirational, and he’s not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. And I’m tired of hearing James Carville on television.”

Barack Obama has made an entrance in Hollywood unmatched since Scarlett O’Hara swept into the Twelve Oaks barbecue. Instead of the Tarleton twins, the Illinois senator is flirting with the Dreamworks trio: Mr. Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who gave him a party last night that raised $1.3 million and Hillary’s hackles.

She didn’t stand outside the gates to the Geffen mansion, where glitterati wolfed down Wolfgang Puck savories, singing the Jennifer Hudson protest anthem “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” But she’s not exactly Little Miss Sunshine, either. Hillary loyalists have hissed at defecting donors to remember the good old days of jumping on the Lincoln Bedroom bed.

“Hillary is livid that Obama’s getting the first big fund-raiser here,” one friend of hers said.

Who can pay attention to the Oscar battle between “The Queen” and “Dreamgirls” when you’ve got a political battle between a Queen and a Dreamboy?

Terry McAuliffe and First Groupie Bill have tried to hoard the best A.T.M. machine in politics for the Missus, but there’s some Clinton fatigue among fatigued Clinton donors, who fret that Bill will “pull the focus” and shelve his wife’s campaign.

“I don’t think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person,” Mr. Geffen says, adding that if Republicans are digging up dirt, they’ll wait until Hillary’s the nominee to use it. “I think they believe she’s the easiest to defeat.”

She is overproduced and overscripted. “It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t,” Mr. Geffen says. “She’s so advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms.”

The babble here is not about “Babel”; it’s about the battle of the billionaires. Not only have Ron Burkle and David Geffen been vying to buy The Los Angeles Times — they have been vying to raise money for competing candidates. Mr. Burkle, a supermarket magnate, is close to the Clintons, and is helping Hillary parry Barry Obama by arranging a fund-raiser for her in March, with a contribution from Mr. Spielberg.

Did Mr. Spielberg get in trouble with the Clintons for helping Senator Obama? “Yes,” Mr. Geffen replies, slyly. Can Obambi stand up to Clinton Inc.? “I hope so,” he says, “because that machine is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective.”

Once, David Geffen and Bill Clinton were tight as ticks. Mr. Geffen helped raise some $18 million for Bill and slept in the Lincoln Bedroom twice. Bill chilled at Chateau Geffen. Now, the Dreamworks co-chairman calls the former president “a reckless guy” who “gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.”

They fell out in 2000, when Mr. Clinton gave a pardon to Marc Rich after rebuffing Mr. Geffen’s request for one for Leonard Peltier. “Marc Rich getting pardoned? An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice?” Mr. Geffen says. “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

The mogul knows it’s easy to mock Hollywood — “people with Priuses and private planes” — and agrees with George Clooney that it’s probably not helpful for stars to campaign for candidates, given the caricatures of Hollywood.

I ask what he will say if he ever runs into Bill Clinton again. “ ‘Hi,’ ” he replies. And will he be upset if Hillary wins and he never gets to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom again?

“No,” he says with a puckish smile. “It’s not as nice as my bedroom.”

Sunrise, sunset

The temperature did its mid-winter in mid-America thing today, climbing high enough to send this weekend's snow and yet another measure of topsoil flowing down the street and into the lake. It's a muddy mess, but it's not tundra, and that's a grand improvement. Come July, our complaints will be as bitter as a real winter wind if the mercury dips anywhere near fifty, but today, even at dusk, it feels warm enough to slide open the kitchen door and enjoy a preview of Spring. The lingering daylight and the relative warmth are enough to make me shrug at the safflower seed that's scattered all over the deck now that my daughter's icy bird feeders have melted. Lulled by the sun, I idly wonder if the cardinals and jays have moved on to more generous digs, but I don't gripe about the mess. A cold nugget of dread hardens in my chest, though, when I consider what this break from winter means, when I consider what's coming next. What's coming, thanks to the United States Congress, weeks earlier than it should.


Years into this unnatural routine, I'm more or less numb to the horror of getting out of bed before five a.m, but I'll never grow accustomed to traveling the pitch-black highways with long-haul truckers and state troopers only to end up, a little disoriented, a little sleepy, and perhaps a little miraculously safe, at work instead of at some cross-country destination. This time of year, when the sun has actually risen by the time I open the garage door, it's a much more tolerable drive, and probably less dangerous, too. As soon as we spring--or are dragged unwillingly--forward, I'll be plunged back into the darkness. Perhaps, then, it's understandable that so I'm less than thrilled that Daylight Saving Time is now mandated to start on March 11, weeks earlier than ever. Yes, the evening light is lovely, but it will be May before it seems like a fair trade, and in the meantime, it's oh, so, dark when my day begins. They've now caved to interstate pressure, but is it possible that Indiana once had something right, and that time should just be left to march on alone?

How totally typical that the only supposed energy conservation measure our representatives have managed to pass is this meaningless shift of the clocks. I'm not one to illuminate every light in the house, but I surely don't get dressed in the dark, and I don't own appliances that draw less juice depending on the position of the sun. Yet, for what thus seems like no reason at all, I get to lose an hour of sleep and make that surreal psuedo-midnight drive for three extra weeks of the year. Call me a cranky constituent. If we could harness the hubris it takes to act as if the U. S. Congress can slow the actual rotation of the earth--and if you notice how many times the phrase "add an hour of daylight" appears in the action's justifications, it's as if someone believes that's true--there'd be no energy crisis at all, and, better yet, no driving to work each morning in the dark of night.

Presidents Day Copy & Paste

Because, after all, the President of the United States was not always an irresponsible, inarticulate danger to us all:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

From Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
March 4, 1865

This week's sign of the apocolypse: Britney goes bald

I don't know why I (or anyone) cares, but WTF?! It would seem Britney's life had taken a turn for the better when she dumped that loser Kevin Federline. And when I think of shaved body parts she's willing to flash in public, her head never crossed my mind. Perhaps she's distraught over Anna Nicole Smith's passing (or, more likely, the publicity that has generated) or has the aforementioned FedEx stepped forward as the father of her baby? It boggles the mind to think what goes through the heads of people without them. We all know that sex sells. Bald women are not sexy. Bald women in tattoo parlors are downright scary. There are no bald women in tattoo parlors in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Man law?

What, no hermaphrodite deer?

Here at the Southern outpost of our open thread it has been a slow moving Saturday. Other than a nap, a newspaper, some cold pizza, and a procrastinated science fair project, I'm already drawing a blank on what became of my day. I don't much mind the squandered time, given that it's a three day weekend, but I do wonder what I missed. Checking the hard news bonanza that is CNN.com, I find today is Biological Freakshow Day: the top stories of the day are Bush's moles (the dermatological, not informational, kind), Anna Nicole's embalming, Britney's shaved head, and an honest-to-goodness four-legged duck. I swear, if the last, decadent days of the Roman Empire had had a website it would have had to have been the Latin version of that.

Playing a hunch, I fire up one of my favorite toys, the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, and check out past versions of the CNN homepage. I'm a little disappointed that the oldest page is only from 2000, but I click it anyway and find links for tropical storm Beryl and the Democratic National Convention. The what-might-have-beens from that pre-stolen-election time are enough to turn my stomach, but at least there are no mutants--animals or celebrities-- to make me queasy. The next news I rediscover, from my birthday in 2001, was especially virtuous, with a call for world peace from the pope and heart surgery for a South Pole doc. That was pre-9/11, though, and I'm sure the headlines from the last quarter of the year would be different. Finally, looking to appease my sense of symmetry (read: compulsive nature) I scan the database for February 17s and find only one. The stories from 2/17/2004 are a slightly different style of sensational-- the Peterson case and a South African "thrown to the lions"--but perhaps they posed as real news more easily than Britney and Anna Nicole ever could.

It's a meaningless sample, I know, but I bet it suggests a little bit of truth: that the worse reality seems to be, the more we seek to avoid it.

Another kind of Valentine

"Oh, you girls. . ."

What does it mean when, at our age, my friend's mother admonishes our giggles the same way she would have--did--when we were barely out of our teens? I'm not sure what it says about my emotional maturity, but I love what it says about the friendship I value most.

I never was able to keep a straight face, and somewhere along the way, I stopped trying. Life's too short--and too strange, too difficult, too messy, and too good, too-- not to laugh at what strikes me funny, even if no one else gets the joke, even if the cool kids are giving me that sideways glance that says, "what's her problem?"

Trust me, uptight, appearance-obsessed, cool kids of the grown-up world, there is no problem. In my life, there is always, always someone else who gets the joke-- or who will, if nothing else, laugh at my inevitably botched re-telling of it. And though that does describe everyone who's close to me--if we don't laugh together, we're surely not even casual friends--there's one person with whom I've collapsed in helpless laughter more than any other, and this post is for her.

Is there more to our friendship than a shared sense of humor? Well, duh, as we're still likely to say. Of course there is. But each time I try to catch my breath and regain my composure so I can finish my meal or my conversation, and each time I must studiously avoid eye contact with her so I don't lose it entirely in a quiet crowd, I notice that too many people in the world are not having nearly as much fun, and I know that I'm lucky to have something that not everyone does.

If I claimed that the key to this endless stream of laughter was the intimacy of thousands of shared experiences and nearly twenty years of in-jokes , my premise wouldn't be questioned, but it wouldn't be entirely true. Sure, we've had a laugh for all occasions for a long time now, but we've been giggling like easily amused schoolgirls since we actually were school-or at least college--girls who didn't know each other that well at all. We laughed so much through the writing of the otherwise hateful group research paper that fate assigned us that I was determined to stay her friend long after the final draft was typed. One of the defining relationships of my life, and I owe it all to inappropriate giddiness in the computer lab. Life is, indeed, unpredictable.

To be all Valentine's Day about it, I'm not sure there really is any explaining the hetero girlfriend equivalent of love at first sight. I do know, however, that we sure have always laughed more than most people do, and we surely always will. For that certainty, and that laughter, and for that singular, enduring, more-than-a-friendship, I will always be grateful.

A Dowd Valentine: Obama, Legally Blonde?

By Maureen Dowd

IOWA FALLS -- Barack Obama looked as if he needed a smoke and he needed it bad.

Everyone knows you’re not supposed to make two big changes at once. But Michelle Obama’s price for letting her husband run was that he quit.

So there he was, trying to meet the deep, inexhaustible needs of both Iowa activists and the global press behemoth on his first swing across the state, while giving up cigarettes.

He was a tad testy. Traipsing around desolate stretches of snowy — and extremely white — Iowa to go into living rooms and high school gyms and take questions like “Are you willing to stand up for independent family farmers?” makes me want to sneak out for a drag, too, and I don’t even smoke.

“I’ve been chewing Nicorette all day long,” he told reporters at a press conference in Ames on Sunday, where he was getting irritated at suggestions that he lacked substance and at the specter of his vanishing privacy. And, oh yes, at the accusation by the Australian prime minister (sounding two sheep short of a paddock) that Mr. Obama’s deadline to get out of Iraq made him Al Qaeda’s dream candidate.

The Illinois senator didn’t have on an implacable mask of amiability, as Hillary did in Iowa. He didn’t look happily in his element, like Bill Clinton. But he certainly didn’t look as if he was straining to survive the Q .& A.’s, as W. did in the beginning.

Beyond his smooth-jazz façade, the reassuring baritone and that ensorcelling smile, the 45-year-old had moments of looking conflicted.

In the lobby of the AmericInn in Iowa Falls on Saturday night, he seemed a bit dazed by his baptism into the big-time. He was left munching trail mix all day while, he said, “the press got fed before me.”

Everything was a revelation for him: The advance team acronym RON, for Rest Overnight. Women squealing. “I saw a hat,” he noted with a grin, “that said, ‘Obama, clean and articulate.’ ”

Senator Obama’s body language was loose — and he’s so slender his wedding band looked as if it was slipping off — but there was a wariness in his dark eyes.

He is backed up by a strong, smart wife and a professional campaign team, but he doesn’t have a do-whatever-it-takes family firm with contract killers and debt collectors, like Bush Inc. and Clinton Inc.

He was eloquent, if not as inspiring as his advance billing had prepared audiences to expect. He made his first Swift-boat-able slip when he had to apologize for talking about soldiers’ lives “wasted” in Iraq. He sounded self-consciously pristine at times, as if he was too refined for the muck of politics. That’s not how you beat anybody but Alan Keyes.

After talking to high school journalists, he took a sniffy shot at the loutish reporters who were merely whispering where’s the beef: “Take some notes, guys, that’s how it’s done.”

No fewer than three times last week, Mr. Obama got indignant about the beach-babe attention given to a shot of him in the Hawaiian surf.

Using the dreaded third person that some candidates slip into, he told the press that one of their favorite narratives boiled down to “Obama has pretty good style, he can deliver a pretty good speech, but he seems to prioritize rhetoric over substance.” After an ode to his own specificity, he tut-tutted, “You’ve been reporting on how I look in a swimsuit.”

He poses for the cover of Men’s Vogue and then gets huffy when people don’t treat him as Hannah Arendt.

For some of us, it’s hard to fathom being upset at getting accused of looking great in a bathing suit. But his friends say it played into this Harvard grad’s fear of being seen as “a dumb blond.” He has been known to privately mock “pretty boys” (read John Edwards, the Breck Girl of 2004).

He doesn’t lack confidence, but he’s so hung up on being seen as thoughtful that he sometimes comes across as too emotionally detached and cerebral with crowds yearning for an electric, visceral connection. J.F.K. mixed cool with fire.

For a man who couldn’t wait to inject himself into the national arena, and who has spent so much time writing books about himself, the senator is oddly put off by press inquisitiveness.

When The Times’s Jeff Zeleny asked him on his plane whether he’d had a heater in his podium during his announcement speech in subzero Springfield, Mr. Obama hesitated. He shot Jeff a look that said, “Are you from People magazine?” before conceding that, unlike Abe Lincoln, he’d had a heater.

Take some notes, senator, that’s how it’s done.

But it's finger lickin' good

Though I have no idea why it ended up in my inbox, except to demonstrate that the gmail spam filters are human after all, I must say these are the most compelling paragraphs I've read all day:

Looking for that perfect Valentine's Day dinner plan? Many lovebirds say that a quiet night at home enjoying good (and simple) food like KFC ranked higher than a night out at a fancy restaurant as the ideal date. The KFC "Valentine's Dining and Dating Poll" of more than 300,000 men and women revealed that six in 10 respondents thought a quiet night at home was the way to go.

If you've been stressing about Valentine's Day dinner reservations, stop by KFC for a bucket of the Colonel's Original Recipe Chicken.

Sure, I'd insist on a background check first, but I want to meet this guy (and/or gal as the case may be), the one who reads that suggestion and reacts with an enthusiastic "Yes! I will bring home a big bucket of greasy, discount chicken and call it romance. Thank you, KFC, for bailing me out again!" I'm not sure he and/or she exists, but if he and/ or she does I would love to spend two minutes with him and/or her to hear the answer to the obvious yet burning question: "What are you thinking?!"

I realize it's possible someone (Tavin, for instance) has a legitimate Valentine reason for going through the KFC drive thru tomorrow; truth be told, the first meal I ever shared with man I eventually married was White Castle, and at some point a reprise of that bad fast food probably would have seemed sweet. But, otherwise, even I, who refuse to be too beholden to the Hallmark/Valentine's Day machine, am pretty sure bad fast food inspired by corporate junk mail never says I love you. "See you tomorrow, after the Immodium kicks in": yes. "Happy Valentine's Day": no.

Tavin draws the line: A Valentine's special

Bless the Dixie Chicks, baby Jesus

A triumphant Natalie Maines said "I'm ready to make nice" after collecting the Dixie Chicks' fifth Grammy last night. She damn well better not be.

"Not Ready to Make Nice" alone prompted me to buy my first "country" CD since, well, ever. (I'm not old school enough to have an album collection, but I do still buy "records" and wish more people did. My thoughts on the sorry state of the music industry, and consumers' culpability in it, will have to wait for another day.)

No song this year -- not even Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" -- approached the Chicks' defiant anthem for crank-up-the-volume play in my SUV. (Come to think of it, it might explain why my speakers are shot.)

I'm a huge fan of the mad-as-hell-and-not-gonna-take-it-anymore genre. I also liked the CD's title song, "Taking the Long Way."

In their honor, I may just play them both during timeouts of the next basketball game I announce. All the better that it will be Valentine's Day.

"Not Ready to Make Nice" was most deserving of "song of the year" honors. I have a bit of a beef, however, in the "best rock album" category.

Nothing against Red Hot Chili Peppers, which won with "Stadium Arcadium," but Tom Petty's "Highway Companion" was the best musical purchase I made all year. I loved Neil Young's "Living With War" too, for reasons stated previously, but Petty rocked my world.

He always has, but this was special. At my umpteenth Petty concert, with no less a warm-up band than Metallica, I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with my son at his first rock concert.

Petty didn't win the Grammy, but he presided over an important father-son experience. I didn't even mind that Zach preferred Metallica. What teenager wouldn't? But as I think back to seeing the Doobie Brothers with my eldest sister probably 30 years ago, I know he will always remember his first concert. And I cherish him as my "Highway Companion."

Lady and Gentlemen, start your engines

The race is on in Iowa.

Barack Obama came to town today after announcing his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination in Springfield, Ill. I'm sorry I missed it. Just as I'm sorry to have missed Hillary Clinton's visit last week, although I wasn't invited to that one.

Hillary met with as many people they could crowd into a living room -- fire marshals excluded. Barack packed a high school gymnasium, but promised more intimate visits once the novelty wears off.

It's an interesting phenomena this attention Iowa gets for hosting the nation's first presidential litmus test. I'm not sure it's fair, but I'm not complaining either.

In this election particularly -- where we have a "clean" slate and an unprecedented opportunity to change the course of history -- Democratic candidates will roll through town with regularity in the coming months. Republican candidates will come too, but they're irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.

I'm hoping to meet them all, or at least see them in person, before making a commitment. I was encouraged to hear reports from friends attending Barack's appearance today that he took unfiltered questions from an unfiltered audience. What a concept!

I confess an early attraction to John Edwards, if only for his refreshing ability to admit mistakes, and continue to hold a candle for Al Gore, but I'm undecided. I'm not sure why former governor Tom Vilsack is in the race, but maybe familiarity breeds contempt and he'll score better in New Hampshire and Nevada than Iowa.

Barack's critics usually point to his relative lack of a track record. I dismiss this as political straw grasping. After all, what did we know about W before he stole the presidency -- other than the fact that he was a loser in every venture he had ventured?

"My experience, not only as a U.S. senator, but as a state legislator, a civil rights lawyer, as a professor, as a community organizer, I think that mix of experience allows me, maybe, to speak to people in ways they can identify with, and I think that's part of the reasons we're generating such a good response," Obama told the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Perhaps so. But, ultimately, all of the candidates will have to talk about where they stand and not how they think they're perceived. Never a fan of single-issue voting, my choice won't be based on Iraq. That's Bush's cross to bear.

Critical thinking in Ohio

Although I'm hoping to make it through the rest of the winter without another one, I stand by my claim that there is no day like a snow day. And so, despite the fact that they must not be the sharpest crayons in the box, I almost have to give these soon-to-be-expelled girls credit for trying to make their own:

Students Charged in Online Snow-Day Hoax
Feb 10, 6:04 PM (ET)

TRENTON, Ohio (AP) - Two teenage girls posted a fake announcement on their school district's Web site that said school was closed for the day due to winter weather, police said.

The notice, posted Monday, confused many parents - snow was not in the forecast - and persuaded some students to stay home.

My favorite line may just be an administrator trying to be good copy for the local paper, but I prefer to interpret it as yet another illustration of the brilliant minds guiding our nation's schools:

Edgewood City Schools Superintendent Tom York said he discovered the posting when he logged on to write his own announcement that school would be delayed for an hour because of an extreme cold snap.

"I didn't make that call, and I'm the guy who does, so I knew something was up," York said.

If he's capable of that kind of incisive analysis, maybe the Cedar Rapids district should call him in to consult.

Dowd: This One’s for You, Joe

By Maureen Dowd

It’s not double jeopardy exactly, but still, I’d prefer not to kill the same man twice.

And I wanted to follow William Safire’s advice on writing about gaffes and graft: Only kick people when they’re up, not when they’re down.

So I decided to do something completely radical and not pile on.

Having played a role in derailing Joe Biden’s ’88 presidential bid with stories on his overreliance on the speeches of Neil Kinnock and Bobby Kennedy, I feel compelled, now that the guy has slipped on another presidential banana peel 20 years later, to lend him a hand.

I wanted to give him a chance to wipe the slate clean and articulate his positions — without dredging up any painful memories of the words “clean” and “articulate.”

The senator called me between New York fund-raisers last night. After his rough week, he sounded a bit chastened, not at all in the mood for a columnist’s probing questions. He needn’t have feared.

“So,” I asked him sweetly, “why has everyone been so mean to you?”

“Well,” he demurred, “they haven’t been mean. The truth is, a lot of people in the African-American community were hurt by what I said. I really feel lousy about it. I got involved in politics because of civil rights.” (He said a lot more, but hey, it’s a 750-word column.) I had another penetrating question ready: “Is Delaware big enough to launch a president?” “I think it is,” he replied.

I had a tough follow-up: “Will your first act as president be to get rid of those tollbooths on I-95?” He laughed. “I get asked that a lot by people. I can’t help ’em — they’re on their own.”

That’s the straight talk I like to see. No pandering, like Hillary’s telling Iowans she likes ethanol, and John McCain’s telling Christian conservatives he likes Christian conservatives.

“People don’t seem to appreciate your verbal generosity,” I said. “Are you studying Bogie and Steve McQueen movies to become less wordy, or do you just hope people will come to see it as part of your charm?” “We’re in a political culture where everything is reduced to bumper stickers and sound bites, and it’s a lot more complicated than that,” he said. “I’m fairly candid, and sometimes I’ll cause controversy and sometimes I won’t. It’s who I am. I’m not going to change who I am.”

That’s my man. He stares controversy in the eye and chats with it.

“In one sentence, with no more than two dependent clauses,” I instruct, “tell me why you would make a great president.”

“I really believe the American people get the fact that with the next president, there’s no margin for error. He’s going to inherit a world and a nation where this guy is going to leave him in a real deep hole. The next president has to get us out of Iraq without ruining the Middle East, so Americans should be looking for the person with the most experience.”

O.K., that’s three sentences, but who’s counting?

“You’ve been a truth-teller on Iraq for years, so tell the truth,” I said. “Are we cooked?” Citing the soft-partition plan he co-wrote, he noted: “Any country that comes into being as a consequence of the pen of a diplomat has never been able to be stable except by (a) an imperial power dominating it, (b) a dictator or strongman, or (c) a federal system.”

Aren’t Americans going to be angry at a Senate that’s bending itself into a procedural pretzel, rather than seriously tackling the future of Iraq?

“They are going to be angry,” he agreed. “Republicans are trying to avoid embarrassing the president. If you took a secret ballot, I’d be dumbfounded if 20 senators thought sending 21,500 troops made any sense.” He said John McCain wouldn’t think it made sense either “because he has called for sending many more.”

Do you agree that Dick Cheney is barking mad?

“Cheney is a very smart guy who’s kicking the can down the road here,” he replied. “He’s concluded that this administration’s policy can’t succeed in Iraq and he’s handing it off to the next guy.”

Things were getting way too serious. “What’s your ideal day?”

“It would be corny,” he said. “Just taking off to the beach with Jill.”

Trying to boost his dented confidence, I said I was sure he looked better in the Delaware waves than Barack Obama in the Hawaiian surf. The 64-year-old laughed, saying, “Like the Paul McCartney song, ‘When I’m 64.’ I don’t look as good as I once did, but Jill does.”

“Who would make the best president?” I coaxed.

“Me,” he crowed.

I think his confidence is coming back. Excellent.

White Like Me

So I’m in front of my class, and the mood is light, and things seem to be moving along--until one question and then another suggest that we may be back at square one after all. To catch their attention and diffuse my frustration I let my explanation out--again--- in an exaggerated, teasing, tumble that's far from my usual teacher talk.

"Wow," says a voice from the back row, amazed. "You sound just like a white girl."

“Did you ever notice,” I say, “that I am a white girl?”

And they all laugh, partly at me calling myself "girl," but partly at the thought of me being white. It’s not that there’s any question about my ethnicity, it’s just that they don’t lump me in with most of the white people in their lives. I’m the trusted English teacher they've known in fact or by reputation for years, the one who has helped them decipher traffic tickets and leases, buy lunch, pass Algebra, and understand the United States (a real chore in recent years). In their eyes, those actions don’t make me a credit to White People, they separate me (and anyone else who has treated them well) from the White People. "We forget," another Mexican student says, "that you're not one of us." I take that as a compliment, but given the impression that basic human kindness makes, it doesn't say much for the White People. Nonetheless, these kids aren't the only ones who cling to their stereotypes and prejudices and make exceptions one individual at a time.


Take someone who, at least on appearances, my students would quickly judge as a really White Guy. Joe Biden's description of Barack Obama as the “first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,'' may be last week's news, but it still boggles my mind. It's hard to believe that thirty years in public life has not taught Biden to think before he speaks, but, then again, should it really take an extra effort to not say that? Only, perhaps, if he perceives Obama to be different than most African-American men. Or, in other words, not really black. Given Obama's popularity, I'd hazard a guess that it's a not uncommon sentiment, a notion that Leonard Pitts (whose newspaper, hallelujah, does not keep him behind a pay-per-read firewall) discussed in a recent column.

"Meantime," Pitts concludes, "I've got two words of advice for those folks who are surprised to learn Barack Obama is black:
Eye. Doctor."

Can't really argue with that, except that it's not really that simple. Too often, one first notices the skin color, and then one judges the actions. When they don't fit the stereotyped mold, our first impulse doesn't seem to be to break the mold but to build a new one. We're more comfortable putting people into groups than admitting that those groups may be flawed or, heaven forbid, unnecessary. Those habits, dear reader of undetermined race or ethnicity, don't exactly fill me with hope. On the other hand, the senior senator from the great state of Delaware has something important in common with a bunch of Mexican teenagers in Missouri. Maybe in some strange way we're all more integrated than we know.

Tom Sawyer stays in school – optionally

Local school administrators have clarified their stance on “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

After spending “about” $6,700 (originally reported as $5,000) for 750 copies of the Mark Twain classic for each of the district’s eighth graders and subsequently deciding it wasn’t appropriate as required reading material, they’ve graciously given teachers up to the task the green light to engage their students in issues of language and racial stereotype that the book invokes.

Meanwhile, teachers who shy from such incendiary issues were given a pass.

I guess here in Cedar Rapids, it’s ok if some children are left behind. Except, as a wise friend of mine noted, Tom Sawyer is not on the test.

According to the Gazette, “A committee will be formed to make sure the process used to identify instructional materials, including an all-class novel, aligns with district policy. It will include a language arts teacher from each secondary building and others, such as administrators and special education teachers. Community input also will be sought.”

Such is the state of education in America.

God save our kids.

Plausible Deniability. Or not.

Today we see again how nothing gets a wingnut's knickers in a twist like homosexuality. Ted Haggard, the Evangelical leader who made the news last fall when he was outed by a male prostitute, is back in the headlines, but only so his former colleagues can quickly declare him "cured" and hustle him out of state as part of the Closeted Christian Relocation Program.

"He is completely heterosexual,'' said a Revered Tim Ralph, one of the ministers who counseled Haggard. ''That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing.'' Besides, Ralph would have added if only I'd been writing his prepared comments, Haggard doesn't even like Snickers, and all right-thinking people know it really doesn't satisfy.

I'm not exactly sure what "acting-out situations where things took place" is supposed to mean, but a literal take on the phrase "ignore the man behind the curtain" does come to mind. In a related story, Ralph is working with a woman who is a little bit pregnant.

Forgiveness and damage control probably look much the same in this situation, so I suppose I should give Haggard's fellow ministers and the rest of that community the benefit of the doubt. It does strike me, however, that those who have so little interest in examining Haggard's character have so much interest in explaining his predilections. Once again, the specter of homosexuality trumps all. It doesn't matter that he lied about what he did as long as he didn't like doing it.

Meanwhile, Haggard and his wife have declared their intentions to move to either Iowa or Missouri and study--of all things-- psychology. I'd be curious to know what they learn.

Greed, Inc.

The world being such a big, bad place, it's a real comfort to know that I can count on others to look out for me and the rest of the little people. Others, for instance, like the giant multi-state power utility that, most of the time, supplies our electricity.

Why, just this week I received a letter from them explaining their new "Customer Elect Plan." Once I stopped laughing at their professed "commitment to safety, service and the seamless delivery of power to [my] home," I learned that Ameren has figured out a way for their customers who are just scraping by to afford both power and food despite the newly jacked up electric rates-- at least until 2010.

What is the Customer Elect Plan? Why, it's an opportunity to pay interest on one's power bill! If that's not America, I don't know what is, but it did remind me of Stephen Colbert's take on Bush's SOTU health care-tax break "plan":

"It's so simple. Most people who couldn't afford health insurance also are too poor to owe taxes. But...if you give them a deduction from their taxes they don't owe, they can use the money they're not getting back from what they haven't given to buy the health care they can't afford."

With Ameren's plan, customers' bills will "only" increase 14 percent each year through 2009. The rest of the increase (which will far exceed 14 percent) will be deferred and accrue interest at a rate of 3.25 percent. Starting in 2010, those customers will pay 100 percent of their current bill, plus the portion of the previous bills they never paid, plus interest, for 36 months. So, don't pay what you can't afford now so you can really not afford it later. Priceless!

Around here, people may not always have electricity, and they may not always be able to afford it when they do, but at least they'll always have Ameren's goodwill to keep them warm.

Groundhog Day

Punxsutawney Phil’s big day arrives, and I find myself repeating a common practice – ranting to the local newspaper about some perceived injustice. This time, again, I’m certain I’m right.

At issue is Mark Twain’s classic American tale, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” and whether it’s appropriate reading material for eighth graders. After spending $5,000 for copies for each of the district’s eighth graders, administrators determined the book’s language and racial issues were inappropriate for middle school students.

Rather, administrators determined teachers were incapable of dealing with such issues as racial identity and name-calling. The book, they smugly noted, was available for students to check out from the library.

Quite coincidentally, except it’s not, the district is asking voters to approve a 10-year, 1-cent local option tax. This wrong-headed decision won’t help their cause.

But that’s not all that today brought. First, Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow, foretelling winter’s imminent end. With temperatures hovering around zero – and wind chills well below – in my neck of the woods, spring can’t come soon enough.

My soul was warmed by mid-morning with the news that Brett Favre would return for another year as quarterback of the Green Bay Packers. While some contend Favre’s skills have diminished, he’s still one of the top 10 quarterbacks in the NFL and, week after week, gives the Packers the best chance of victory.

I’m pleased that, at least prospectively, my final memory of Favre won’t be of him fumbling victory away against St. Louis. But it’s fitting that his decision was announced on Groundhog Day, since retirement watch has become an annual ritual for Packer fans.

To complete the day, Mediacom and Sinclair Browbeating Group reached an agreement that restored CBS broadcasting for local cable subscribers. With Super Bowl Sunday on the horizon, the timing is ideal – if not predictable.

As I write this, I’m watching Letterman for the first time in weeks – without the aid of rabbit ears. Financial terms of the agreement – which extends through 2009 – were not disclosed, but Mediacom will carry through on its promise to hand out 10,000 frozen pizzas to customers in Cedar Rapids and Waterloo.

The pizzas are “free,” and if you believe that, you believe a groundhog in Pennsylvania can determine how long winter will last in Iowa.

They're Multiplying (what else could they do?)

When evaluating hermaphrodite deer stories, one must weigh several criteria: was the deer in Wisconsin? did it have seven legs? and, most importantly, did anyone eat it? By those standards, this story is pretty weak. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure that the open thread bylaws require me to post it. After all, hermaphrodite deer!

Florida Hunter Bags a Hermaphrodite Deer
Tallahassee, Fla. (AP) --
A DeBary man who was out hunting deer last fall got a big surprise when he took one of his deer into the check station.
Joe Stokes was deer hunting on public land in Sumter County on Nov. 12 and shot two deer, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported.
When FWC senior wildlife technician Tim Farley logged in the deer, he discovered that one deer was a hermaphrodite, possessing both male and female reproductive organs. Farley also he logged in another hermaphrodite deer the day before.
"I've been doing this for 27 years, and I've only come across three deer that were 'true' hermaphrodites, those having all of the male and female sex organs," Farley said in a statement.
Robert Vanderhoof, the deer management coordinator for the FWC, said deer that are true hermaphrodites are extremely rare.