Hey, W! Bin Laden (Still) Determined to Strike in U.S.

By Maureen Dowd

Oh, as it turns out, they’re not on the run.

And, oh yeah, they can fight us here even if we fight them there.

And oh, one more thing, after spending hundreds of billions and losing all those lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re more vulnerable to terrorists than ever.

And, um, you know that Dead-or-Alive stuff? We may be the ones who end up dead.

Squirming White House officials had to confront the fact yesterday that everything President Bush has been spouting the last six years about Al Qaeda being on the run, disrupted and weakened was just guff.

Last year, W. called his “personal friend” Gen. Pervez Musharraf “a strong defender of freedom.” Unfortunately, it turned out to be Al Qaeda’s freedom. The White House is pinning the blame on Pervez.

While the administration lavishes billions on Pakistan, including $750 million in a risible attempt to win “hearts and minds” in tribal areas where Al Qaeda leaders are hiding and training, President Musharraf has helped create a quiet mountain retreat, a veritable terrorism spa, for Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri to refresh themselves and get back in shape.

The administration’s most thorough intelligence assessment since 9/11 is stark and dark. Two pages add up to one message: The Bushies blew it. Al Qaeda has exploded into a worldwide state of mind. Because of what’s going on with Iraq and Iran, Hezbollah may now “be more likely to consider” attacking us. Al Qaeda will try to “put operatives here” — (some news reports say a cell from Pakistan already is en route or has arrived) — and “acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear material in attacks.”

(Democrats on cots are ineffectual, but Al Qaeda in caves gets the job done?)

After 9/11, W. stopped mentioning Osama’s name, calling him “just a person who’s now been marginalized,” and adding “I just don’t spend that much time on him.”

This week, as counterterrorism officials gathered at the White House to frantically brainstorm on covert and overt plans to capture Osama, the president may have regretted his perverse attempt to demote America’s most determined enemy.

W. began to mention Osama and Al Qaeda more recently, but only to assert: “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th.” His conflation is contradicted by the fact that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, as the Sunni terrorist group in Iraq is known, did not exist before 9/11.

Fran Townsend, the president’s homeland security adviser, did her best to put a gloss on the dross but failed. She had to admit that the hands-off approach used by Mr. Musharraf with the tribal leaders in North Waziristan, which always looked like a nutty way to give Al Qaeda room to regroup, was a nutty way to give Al Qaeda room to regroup.

“It hasn’t worked for Pakistan,” she conceded. “It hasn’t worked for the United States.”

Just as we outsourced capturing Osama at Tora Bora to Afghans who had no motive to do it, we outsourced capturing Osama in Pakistan to Mr. Musharraf, who had no motive to do it.

Pressed by reporters on why we haven’t captured Osama, especially if he’s climbing around with a dialysis machine, Ms. Townsend sniffed that she wished “it were that easy.” It’s not easy to launch a trumped-up war to reshape the Middle East into a utopian string of democracies, but that didn’t stop W. from making that audacious gambit.

The Bushies, who once mocked Bill Clinton for doing only “pinprick” bombings on Al Qaeda, now say they can do nothing about Osama because they can’t “pinpoint” him, as Ms. Townsend put it. She assured reporters that they were “harassing” Al Qaeda, making it sound more like a tugging-on-pigtails strategy than a take-no-prisoners strategy.

We’ve had it up the wazir with Waziristan. Surely there are Army Rangers and Navy Seals who can make the trek, even if it’s a no-man’s land. If it were a movie, we’d trace the saline in Osama’s dialysis machine, target it with a laser and blow up the mountain.

W. swaggers about with his cowboy boots and gunslinger stance. But when talking about Waziristan last February, he explained that it was hard to round up the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders there because: “This is wild country; this is wilder than the Wild West.”

Yes, they shoot with real bullets up there, and they fly into buildings with real planes.

If W. were a real cowboy, instead of somebody who just plays one on TV, he would have cleaned up Dodge by now.

Moving day, again

I moved again, the other day, though it wasn't my idea. I've moved so many times that my actions are automatic, my patterns predictable, a tic triggered by cardboard boxes and packing tape. I liked where I had settled and would much rather have stayed, but, despite the muttering, the bitching, the ranting, and the raving, once I got started, I almost couldn't help but work efficiently: stripping the walls, clearing the shelves, filling boxes in an altogether organized way. It's just second nature. Then, right on schedule, it got tedious.

I didn't have time to quit, to wander away and come back to my mess some other time or, even better, some other day, so I had to skip right to phase three: randomly packing boxes full of crap I probably will never need, just to get it out of my sight. Sure, it's a character flaw, made worse by being the teacher called on to teach everything to whomever walks through my door. I might need that Albanian-English dictionary. I might use that chemistry book from the class they don't teach any more, not that I ever understood chemistry. It could happen. Just like that one time when the biology teacher switched back to the old book and I, more prepared than any boy scout, had two. See? Thank baby Jesus I have no budget; if I did, I'd need to figure out how to get a Ryder truck into the hall to move my junk to my newly exiled spot. Because yes, it's my classroom, not my home, that I'm moving, but August through May, what's the difference?

Though I know there will be much cursing when I go to unpack those same boxes, I plow through the tedium, even managing to fill the recycle bin and the big trashcan I stole from the hallway in the process. Finally, I face that last layer of debris, the stuff that seems as if it should all fit in one box but instead could fill ten more. Where's a lighter when I need one? Doesn't anyone around here smoke anymore?

I eventually decide against challenging the sprinkler systerm, tenure not being that permanent, throw the last bits into empty file cabinet drawers, and call it done. With all my stuff down from the walls, out of the closet, and off the shelves, the space is no longer mine, so I go to see what will be.

And honestly, the new digs kind of suck. They're far from everything but the band room, which means I'm in for students who are chronically tardy and an all-day, everyday serenade. Then again, come basketball season, maybe I'll acquire a new appreciation for Rock and Roll, Part Two. In the meantime, there's no closet, no bulletin boards, and one misplaced network connection when I need at least three. But there's carpet! everyone keeps repeating, as if I'm a kindergarten teacher who sits in a circle on the floor. And I have promises, too, for cabinets, and a white board not covered with musical staffs, and who knows, if I can force myself to be the squeaky goddam wheel, I may really get those things.

What I have for sure is the loyalty of the custodial staff who thinks I got cheated in this deal right along with them (they had to clean two rooms twice), and that's worth plenty. And I also have a challenge--to make this room function, to make it my own--and I'll be damned if I'm not kind of looking forward to it. That's a good thing, of course: the world does not need one more disgruntled teacher. But whatever my feeling is, it's less about work and more about moving. A new place, no matter how crappy, has always inspired the same reaction. I guess it's easy to love the impression of a fresh start, at least until I look into those jumbled file cabinet drawers, or those sloppily packed boxes full of nothing I'll ever use. But that bit of reality will come later. Much, much later. In the meantime, don't tell anyone, but I'll be down here in the South 40, enjoying my imaginary blank slate.

Best headline of the day

From the AP: Bonds Calls Himself an 'Embarrassment'

It's not for the right reasons, but I'll take what I can get.

The 20

"Here goes nothing," I say, and we walk across the parking lot, past the maroon and gold balloons, through the double doors and into the golf course clubhouse full of who knows who. And for a split second, it is like high school all over again, because, faced with a room full of people, all I want to do is leave. But, I have paid my money, and I'll take my chances. High school was a long time ago-- 20 years, in fact. And oh look, the bar.

With my margarita and an invitation to a table, the night begins to fall into place, and while it never really gets less surreal, it does get more fun. I sit for a bit, resisting the urge to tell one of our tablemates that she turned out way better than I ever imagined she would and going with, "You look great!" instead. I look around the room, matching up the faces at the banquet tables to the virtual yearbook photos in my head--subtracting hair, adding a few pounds, thanking baby Jesus for name tags--and then I go mingle with people I've mostly known since grade school but haven't seen since the 80s, and how odd is that.

Somehow, it turns out to be fun and satisfying in way that's hard to explain. I don't even know what we talked about that filled so many hours-- just the most basic of catching up--married or not, kids or not, jobs or not,--who's here, who's not, who do you know, who do you see, where have ya been. Isn't this something, don't I know it, great to see ya, though. There are very few trips down memory lane, few remember whens, but I think we all feel good to be with people who did know us when, even if--especially if-- nobody feels like telling the stories. I laugh when somebody has his, "I love you guys," moment, and he hurriedly adds, "no really, even if I hadn't been drinking, I'd still love you guys. You're who I grew up with." And that we are.

The reunion committee, last remaining clique of the class of '87, seems to think this night was about high school, or even, heaven forbid, that we are still in high school or that those rules still apply. They're even more wrong about that than they were when they didn't try to track the rest of us down. It is about the past, of course, and reconnecting, and a little seeing and being seen, but that's not really the same as high school. Except for the urinal photos. And the tickets for racing down the highway on the way to the afterparty. I admit--as a witness, not participant--that was pretty high school. But it was only 20 years: how much do you expect people to change?

Line of the day

Or, perhaps, the line of our days, from the NYT's Frank Rich:

"But even a stopped clock is right twice a day."

Summer school

Mis Quince Años Abigail reads the front of the card, the paper and font of the type that would surely mean wedding invitation in my world, but no one's getting married, though the celebration will rival any bride's reception. Instead, Abigail's finally having her quinceañera, despite a seventeenth birthday that arrives in September, and I'm going.

I have known Abigail's family for five years, since well before she actually was fifteen; I know her father, her mother, and her older brother, and if I teach in that district long enough I'm sure I'll know more about her little brother than his name and the fact that he's tall for his age. In a job like mine, you end up knowing things, and people, whether you want to or not. Lucky for me that I want to.

Being a white girl, I arrive at five as the invitation indicates, not thinking anything of it until I pull in to see the wide open parking lot and an ice truck backing up to the entrance. Oh, I should have known. I sit in the car for a bit, signing her card and musing that students aren't the only ones who forget once school lets out for the summer. Come to a Mexican party on time? I shake my head and laugh at myself when I spot Abigail, very beautiful in her very fancy, very pink dress, supervising the ice delivery, so I walk on up to the door.

"You came!"
"I did! But wasn't I supposed to be here at five?"
"Yes, dinner's at five. What time is it?"
"5:15"
"Oh, well, the dinner's not here. But everybody else is! Come inside."

Everybody turns out to be her parents and damas and chambelanes, the quinceañera equivalent of the wedding party, but, not being white people, they don't make me feel out of place for arriving so long before both those who remember about Latino time and those who just live on it. I'm not sure how or why that's true, but it is. We compliment each other's outfits and take pictures in the nearly empty reception hall, and then they make a place for me at the family table and go on and finish getting ready, and it's just kinda fun to be there and watch.

All night long, those kids never forget me the way I'd expect teenagers to do, though it wouldn't matter if they did. Long after the party finally starts and there are plenty of people to talk to, they keep visiting, and so do the other students who come as guests, from George, the 17 year old freshman who only looks like a gang banger, to Oscar, who speaks more English words in a row than he has all year to ask me to come eat at his table.
"Oh, that's okay, Oscar. I'd have to move all my food," I say, gesturing to my half-eaten meal.
"But are you fine?"
"Yes, Oscar, I'm really fine."

As the night wears on, I just sit and talk and watch; that Mexican music is so fast that I could never dance to it. Finally, after the cake is cut and I finish my slice and my conversation, I decide to go and walk to the center of the room to say my goodbyes to Abigail and the others. We're on the dance floor, and I realize the beat has finally changed to something I can move to. So, I don't leave after all. I surprise even myself by dancing with them in a way they'd all been waiting though five years of my excuses for, just like a person, not a teacher. In the middle of the song, Abigail's just graduated brother, Tony, catches my eye and says, "I'll never forget this, Ms. P."

I grin. "That's nice, because it's not really happening."
"Oh, he says, with a knowing smile, "okay."
And the song ends, and I say my last goodbyes, and walk out. Somehow, it's kinda perfect.

I get to the lobby and fish in my purse for my keys, and there's George, who has run out to catch me.
"Ms. P! you danced!"
Ms. P leans her head back and laughs. "Oh, no. Not me."
"Yes, you did. We saw you! Oscar saw you and pointed, and said, 'Ms. P!' so we all saw you."
"Well, okay. I was dancing. I kinda don't want to leave now, George," I say, and I look at my watch, and then back into the hall.

"But you gotta."
"Yeah, I gotta," and there's a pause. "Well, see you in school."
"See you in school."

And for some reason we were all smiles.

A Profile in Courage

Be sure to stick around for Lou Dobbs' telling parting shot.

A Profile in Cowardice

by Frank Rich, NY Times

THERE was never any question that President Bush would grant amnesty to Scooter Libby, the man who knows too much about the lies told to sell the war in Iraq. The only questions were when, and how, Mr. Bush would buy Mr. Libby’s silence. Now we have the answers, and they’re at least as incriminating as the act itself. They reveal the continued ferocity of a White House cover-up and expose the true character of a commander in chief whose tough-guy shtick can no longer camouflage his fundamental cowardice.

The timing of the president’s Libby intervention was a surprise. Many assumed he would mimic the sleazy 11th-hour examples of most recent vintage: his father’s pardon of six Iran-contra defendants who might have dragged him into that scandal, and Bill Clinton’s pardon of the tax fugitive Marc Rich, the former husband of a major campaign contributor and the former client of none other than the ubiquitous Mr. Libby.

But the ever-impetuous current President Bush acted 18 months before his scheduled eviction from the White House. Even more surprising, he did so when the Titanic that is his presidency had just hit two fresh icebergs, the demise of the immigration bill and the growing revolt of Republican senators against his strategy in Iraq.

That Mr. Bush, already suffering historically low approval ratings, would invite another hit has been attributed in Washington to his desire to placate what remains of his base. By this logic, he had nothing left to lose. He didn’t care if he looked like an utter hypocrite, giving his crony a freer ride than Paris Hilton and violating the white-collar sentencing guidelines set by his own administration. He had to throw a bone to the last grumpy old white guys watching Bill O’Reilly in a bunker.

But if those die-hards haven’t deserted him by now, why would Mr. Libby’s incarceration be the final straw? They certainly weren’t whipped into a frenzy by coverage on Fox News, which tended to minimize the leak case as a non-event. Mr. Libby, faceless and voiceless to most Americans, is no Ollie North, and he provoked no right-wing firestorm akin to the uproars over Terri Schiavo, Harriet Miers or “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

The only people clamoring for Mr. Libby’s freedom were the pundits who still believe that Saddam secured uranium in Africa and who still hope that any exoneration of Mr. Libby might make them look less like dupes for aiding and abetting the hyped case for war. That select group is not the Republican base so much as a roster of the past, present and future holders of quasi-academic titles at neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute.

What this crowd never understood is that Mr. Bush’s highest priority is always to protect himself. So he stiffed them too. Had the president wanted to placate the Weekly Standard crowd, he would have given Mr. Libby a full pardon. That he served up a commutation instead is revealing of just how worried the president is about the beans Mr. Libby could spill about his and Dick Cheney’s use of prewar intelligence.

Valerie Wilson still has a civil suit pending. The Democratic inquisitor in the House, Henry Waxman, still has the uranium hoax underlying this case at the top of his agenda as an active investigation. A commutation puts up more roadblocks by keeping Mr. Libby’s appeal of his conviction alive and his Fifth Amendment rights intact. He can’t testify without risking self-incrimination. Meanwhile, we are asked to believe that he has paid his remaining $250,000 debt to society independently of his private $5 million “legal defense fund.”

The president’s presentation of the commutation is more revealing still. Had Mr. Bush really believed he was doing the right and honorable thing, he would not have commuted Mr. Libby’s jail sentence by press release just before the July Fourth holiday without consulting Justice Department lawyers. That’s the behavior of an accountant cooking the books in the dead of night, not the proud act of a patriot standing on principle.

When the furor followed Mr. Bush from Kennebunkport to Washington despite his efforts to duck it, he further underlined his embarrassment by taking his only few questions on the subject during a photo op at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. You know this president is up to no good whenever he hides behind the troops. This instance was particularly shameful, since Mr. Bush also used the occasion to trivialize the scandalous maltreatment of Walter Reed patients on his watch as merely “some bureaucratic red-tape issues.”

Asked last week to explain the president’s poll numbers, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center told NBC News that “when we ask people to summon up one word that comes to mind” to describe Mr. Bush, it’s “incompetence.” But cowardice, the character trait so evident in his furtive handling of the Libby commutation, is as important to understanding Mr. Bush’s cratered presidency as incompetence, cronyism and hubris.

Even The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, a consistent Bush and Libby defender, had to take notice. Furious that the president had not given Mr. Libby a full pardon (at least not yet), The Journal called the Bush commutation statement a “profile in non-courage.”

What it did not recognize, or chose not to recognize, is that this non-courage, to use The Journal’s euphemism, has been this president’s stock in trade, far exceeding the “wimp factor” that Newsweek once attributed to his father. The younger Mr. Bush’s cowardice is arguably more responsible for the calamities of his leadership than anything else.

People don’t change. Mr. Bush’s failure to have the courage of his own convictions was apparent early in his history, when he professed support for the Vietnam War yet kept himself out of harm’s way when he had the chance to serve in it. In the White House, he has often repeated the feckless pattern that he set back then and reaffirmed last week in his hide-and-seek bestowing of the Libby commutation.

The first fight he conspicuously ran away from as president was in August 2001. Aspiring to halt federal underwriting of embryonic stem-cell research, he didn’t stand up and say so but instead unveiled a bogus “compromise” that promised continued federal research on 60 existing stem-cell lines. Only later would we learn that all but 11 of them did not exist. When Mr. Bush wanted to endorse a constitutional amendment to “protect” marriage, he again cowered. A planned 2006 Rose Garden announcement to a crowd of religious-right supporters was abruptly moved from the sunlight into a shadowy auditorium away from the White House.

Nowhere is this president’s non-courage more evident than in the “signing statements” The Boston Globe exposed last year. As Charlie Savage reported, Mr. Bush “quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office.” Rather than veto them in public view, he signed them, waited until after the press and lawmakers left the White House, and then filed statements in the Federal Register asserting that he would ignore laws he (not the courts) judged unconstitutional. This was the extralegal trick Mr. Bush used to bypass the ban on torture. It allowed him to make a coward’s escape from the moral (and legal) responsibility of arguing for so radical a break with American practice.

In the end, it was also this president’s profile in non-courage that greased the skids for the Iraq fiasco. If Mr. Bush had had the guts to put America on a true wartime footing by appealing to his fellow citizens for sacrifice, possibly even a draft if required, then he might have had at least a chance of amassing the resources needed to secure Iraq after we invaded it.

But he never backed up the rhetoric of war with the stand-up action needed to prosecute the war. Instead he relied on fomenting fear, as typified by the false uranium claims whose genesis has been covered up by Mr. Libby’s obstructions of justice. Mr. Bush’s cowardly abdication of the tough responsibilities of wartime leadership ratified Donald Rumsfeld’s decision to go into Iraq with the army he had, ensuring our defeat.

Never underestimate the power of the unconscious. Not the least of the revelatory aspects of Mr. Bush’s commutation is that he picked the fourth anniversary of “Bring ‘em on” to hand it down. It was on July 2, 2003, that the president responded to the continued violence in Iraq, two months after “Mission Accomplished,” by taunting those who want “to harm American troops.” Mr. Bush assured the world that “we’ve got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.” The “surge” notwithstanding, we still don’t have the force necessary four years later, because the president never did summon the courage, even as disaster loomed, to back up his own convictions by going to the mat to secure that force.

No one can stop Mr. Bush from freeing a pathetic little fall guy like Scooter Libby. But only those who paid the ultimate price for the avoidable bungling of Iraq have the moral authority to pardon Mr. Bush.

This is sport?

At one of many points today when I was a kept man -- kept indoors in the air conditioned confines of my home -- when I wasn't, ironically enough, watching "Live Earth," I stumbled across the world paper, rock, scissors championship on ESPN. I'll admit I bought into the "World Series of Poker" phenomena and I turned a blind eye to spelling bees, but this is too much.

That's what fans are for

Although that fact that I bought tickets to a day game in July (game time forecast: 96 degrees, but only! 42% humidity) proves I didn't exactly overthink it, I admit that I wanted to see the Giants when they came to town this season. But not to see Bonds.

Last year, when the new Busch Stadium opened and the morning single-game tickets went on sale was a true frenzy--the season sold out in ninety minutes or some such--I had pretty good luck, and, truth be told, dozens of windows open on two computers, but I didn't get the Giants which I wanted for historical reasons and the number of former Cardinals wearing the orange and black. But not to see Bonds.

This year, I had somewhat lousier luck, ticket-wise, but I did secure the privilege of overpaying for loge box seats in which to swelter while St. Louis plays San Francisco. It didn't occur to me at the time that Bonds would be close to Hank Aaron's steroid-free home run record, but it turns out he's only 4 away from a bogus tie. He shouldn't hit 755 here, thank goodness, though considering the Redbird pitchers that will take the mound, stranger, though no less drug-induced things have happened.

Given that St. Louis was the site of Mr. "Steroids is Bad" McGwire's own tainted record, the latest sportswriterly fashion among the locals has become to chastise anyone who would boo or harrass Barry, painting him instead almost as a victim of his times.

In the end, though, Bonds is just another product of his era. He didn’t change the guidelines for the big leagues, he just adapted to the new environment.

The long ball sold tickets, so Major League Baseball allowed its sluggers to juice up and go crazy -– like so many WWE muscleheads battling to become the Next New Thing in professional wrestling.

Competition is competition and business is business. Pride and greed are powerful motivators. Ballplayers became bodybuilders.

Given the extraordinary stakes, can we really blame these athletes for seeking an edge? Bonds saw the love McGwire and Sammy Sosa got during their home-run derby and wanted some of that glory (and rewards) for himself.

He took extreme measures to add size and power to his frame. He transformed himself into a sideshow freak.

He put himself at risk for long-term health troubles and he became a dangerous example for young athletes to follow.

But to single out Bonds and abuse him as the human embodiment of all that went wrong with Our National Pastime . . . well, that is simply unfair.If fans want to paint angry banners and signs to display at the ballpark, they should criticize everybody involved.

Fans should hold Bud Selig, the owners, the general managers, the manager and the players accountable for what went terribly wrong.

Now, there are plenty of good points there. MLB is profoundly hypocritical on this one, and it's corrupted a great game. But beyond the fact that I'm not sure how any individual is supposed to hold an entire league accountable for anything, let's just get back to Barry, and the implication that he's not really responsible for the choices he's made or that his actions are not for fans to judge.

For one thing, just because an entire regime is corrupt doesn't mean that individuals aren't responsible for their behavior, even--especially-- if they know there will be no consequences. Seems oh, so appropriate this week, even if Bonds doesn't play for the Washington Nationals.

Because really, even for his apologists, what's the bottom line? That Barry Bonds was a jealous jackass who sacrificed his health and the integrity of his sport because he saw he could get away with it no matter how large his head grew? That he wanted to be in the record books and knew he couldn't do it otherwise? That he disregarded his influence on young ballplayers who didn't have access to such finely calibrated chemicals as he and may have permanently damaged their bodies or died as a result? That the money makes it all worthwhile, or understandable, or okay? Don't know about you, but I can judge that, and do.

I absolutely judge Bud Selig and the whole sorry bunch, too, right on back to McGwire, and if any of them ever appear in a batter's box, I'll boo them, too, but tomorrow, I only expect to see number 25 for the Giants step up to the plate. And, assuming I haven't passed out from the heat, I'll be sure to let him know what I think.

this is why

See, the problem with a plan is that if you get all organized and look at the list of bands who'll play, for free, down under the arch this summer, is that either you'll do just what the Live on the Levee's crowd control committee (publicly stated motto: not too good, not too popular) half hopes you will, and say, "oh, who cares, we'll go another time," or, you do go, too early, and bake in the sun to get a seat on the arch steps, since sitting must be better than standing, and fight the ballgame traffic and the families with their coolers and camp chairs and by the time the show starts, way down across the street, your butt is numb and who cares about this band anyway and haven't we seen fireworks three times this week already?

Or, you can decide at 7:24 to try to make the 8 o'clock show since what are we doing anyway but nothing, walk up to the stage after missing no more than a song or two, spot Beatle Bob in the crowd, realize this trio of brothers are not one-hit wonders but actual musicians, including a kick-ass guitar player, who, as Willie Nelson said, may well be Stevie Ray come back to life, and spend more than an hour doing one of the things you love best: moving to the better-than-you-ever-thought-it-would-be music on a summer night.

Good thing I know better than to make a pl*n.

big box/litter box

Cat hair is never charming.

Doesn't that go without saying?

Having lost a pissing contest to my last cat, Cinco, I'm no longer a full fledged Cat Person, but surely everyone but the old ladies with a house full of Tabbies would agree that, once detached from the cat, hair is something to be brushed off or sucked up-- and not something to be featured in a retail establishment as a Reason to Shop Here.

Thanks to the modern miracle and/or curse of preform concrete, a warren of big box stores and strip malls has been sprouting over acres that were once a nursery, and, un-ironically but hysterically, the county's tuberculosis sanitarium. First came the new grocery store, where I'm somehow a little too happy to pay a little too much for, well, pretty much everything, it's so nice and calm and non-crazy-making in there. And the food is better, too, I swear. I didn't think I'd give up the less expensive bag-it-yourself store, but apparently, I'm easy, and what's one chain over the other.

Anyway, while I have no use for the pet food, craft-y crap, and crappy furniture stores that are filling the intervening spaces, let alone the "Hair Saloon for Men," a moral dilemma lurks over in the far corner, under the temporary sign that reads Borders Books & Music, coming soon. If only it were a Barnes & Noble, I'd have no dilemma at all: that particular big book store leaves me cold. I walk in, I walk out, my dollars and debit card safe in my pocket. But my money just leaps out of my wallet at the Borders, just like at the good grocery store, the subliminal messages in the Muzak apparently calibrated just right.

That and the fact that I can find the books.

As opposed to the independent bookseller right up the street,a store that resembles its owner the way that some dogs do. Except that this owner has a cat, and a penchant for random piles. Or piles that seem random, even though they aren't. And cardboard boxes shoved under and above. It should make me feel at home, but it just makes me feel a little nuts. It's not a small space: there's plenty of room for it to be a perfectly lovely store, but it's not, and I kinda hate it, even though I wish I didn't.

And then there's the cat hair. To be fair, the hair's not everywhere, but to my mind, there shouldn't be any. On the cat, I guess, that's okay. It's quirky, it's cute. Oh, look, a cat. In a store. I get it. An independent's gotta do what an independent's gotta do, and aren't we lucky to have one? Well, yes. Theoretically. I suppose. I am glad it's here, or I'd like to be, in the same way I'm glad I can still go to Buhrmester's Paint instead of Lowe's. And I try, I do, stopping in when there's a book to be bought, giving up the discount that the big boxes would buy me off with because I would rather live in a town not completely overrun by corporations, and I'd like to support the little guy, even when she's a crazy cat lady. But when that Borders opens, man. I know it's the cat hair that's gonna do me in.

Better than fireworks

The Circus Comes to Town

According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, "many Eastern Iowans are hoping to catch a "two-fer" -- a chance to see a former president and perhaps a future president when the Hillary for President campaign rolls into Iowa City and Cedar Rapids with Bill Clinton riding shotgun."

That's all fine and dandy, if not for the fact that the Cedar Rapids event is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at a downtown city square/park/recently former host to a soup kitchen on Independence Day. Attendance estimates will no-doubt be inflated by the thousands descending on the river banks for the city's exceptional annual fireworks display.

Residents and guests will line both sides of the river on July 4th (so what if it's Wednesday?) as pyrotechnics are launched from the back of the county jail, located on an island that also houses the county courthouse and City Hall. The comparisons to Paris begin and end there.

This gathering should not be taken as a measure of support or disapproval for Hillary -- or Bill, for that matter. Now if they'd just stop calling my house.

Of course he did

commute Libby's sentence, that is.

But I've got a dollar for whomever can identify my favorite phrase from John Edwards' response:

"Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences could take the action he did today. President Bush has just sent exactly the wrong signal to the country and the world. In George Bush's America, it is apparently okay to misuse intelligence for political gain, mislead prosecutors and lie to the FBI. George Bush and his cronies think they are above the law and the rest of us live with the consequences. The cause of equal justice in America took a serious blow today."

Happy Fun Meds

If only Phil Hartman were still around to read me the patient information every time I get to try some new pill.

I read the news today, oh boy

As if it weren't a bad enough week, given the continued machinations of evil King Cheney and the goings-on at the Court and Congress, though a failure of any Bush pet project can't be all bad, go watch the always brilliant and always correct Sy Hersh over at Think Progress share his happy, happy thoughts, and then come back and maybe I'll share the third-time's-a-charm-anti-depressants my neurologist hopes will make my daily headache that she and everyone else claims is not normal go away. I hope she's right, too, just for novelty's sake, but somebody's got to explain this one to me. How do you people keep even one eye open every day and NOT get a headache?

Of Ann Coulter

Surely, you've heard all you want/need/care to about Elizabeth Edwards' gutsy call to vampira Ann Coulter on Hardball. The matter cost me several hours sleep and far too much thought.

I'm a fan of Chris Matthews, but I don't know how he resisted the urge to get out of his director's chair and slap the sunglasses off her face. Those long, shapely legs; that hot black dress; the way she flipped her flowing blond hair back -- would be sexy if not for the venom that comes out of her mouth.

Personally, I got more out of the reaction of the woman behind her in white. That'll keep you watching. Or maybe it's just me.

Can't always get what you want

"Is this heaven?"

"No. It's Iowa."

They're worn out now, those lines, W. P. Kinsella's gift to the Iowa tourism board, as faded and soft-cornered as my old paperback of Shoeless Joe with now a major motion picture printed across the front cover, but at this point, that's okay. It kind of fits. I mean, if there is some true celestial plane, I'm sure it doesn't have dual entrances and two feuding-though-they-claim-not-to be-families at the gates. Then again, even if it does, I'm sure it would probably appeal more than the fourth circle of hell. But enough about the Mall of America.


Today, once we fled that oversized retail tribute to all that is wrong with America and meandered through rural Minnesota and Iowa long enough for "If I call 1-800-75-AMISH" (as the billboards insist) who will pick up the phone?" to seem like a sensible question, we came to Dyersville and the movie site for The Field of Dreams. And, in true Family Vacation style, it had been closed for a hour, or at least the good part had: left and center field would be open for another hour, and if that's not another sign of what's wrong with America today, I don't know what is.

A property line, you see, runs through the field, and after the movie finished filming, the left-and-center folks plowed it and planted it and let it be corn until what do you know, the people, they did come, and it became clear that there was money to be made and souvenirs to be sold and "ghost" ballplayers to dress and corn mazes to be built and zoning to change and neighbors to offend and management companies to hire and oh, if we had managed to speed down those two-lane highways just a little faster we never would have turned in to the Left and Center driveway. But there we were, with a bat and a ball and a glove, and a watch that said 7 o'clock, and a sign on the "real" field to read, that said: Please respect our privacy. Field hours 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

So, several heavy sighs later, we let the girl trespass just long enough to run the bases because what could it hurt, and we, okay I, muttered about not being able to hit, and it didn't have anything to do with that book or that movie or recaptured moments with my dad because for Pete's sake, I'm not even a boy. But we'd been in the car forever, and it was a beautiful night, and we had a bat and a ball and a beautiful field, and I love to hit and I never do, and thanks to bad timing and that infernal mall, it seemed that I couldn't.

Well, screw that, I finally decided. So we crossed the line and took our gear out to the part of the field that I'm sure is only open that late to spite the neighbors and sell a few more t-shirts. No reason to let principle or their nonsense or the lack of a home plate ruin my night, though barely hitting the first half dozen of my husband's pitches off the end of the bat almost did, 'til he pointed out that I was leaning away from everything he threw at, I mean, to me. And then finally, sweet success. When I hit the ball into the corn, my family began walking away, assuming we were done, but my inner eight-year-old fished it out and "one more'd" my way to satisfaction. I even managed to throw something close enough to the strike zone that my pitcher smacked it far enough into the corn (we were playing in left field, remember) that the ball was gone forever, but by then it didn't matter. We got our hits, and nothing feels better.

The field is the field, and I'm glad it's there, however imperfectly. The feud is stupid. The book is my favorite, ever, untouchable in my heart, and the movie ain't bad either. Tonight was a good night, despite the fact that it wasn't quite what it could have been, and beyond the fact that my husband made a suggestion and, remarkably, I listened to it. I just love to hit the ball.

Such an idiot

Completely by accident, I saved myself a lot of embarrassment (and a small fortune) tonight.

My 50-inch projection TV had been out of commission since Thursday night's power outage. After numerous attempts to unplug and replug the surge protector, I had concluded that a lighting strike had damaged my prized TV while somehow leaving the DVR, sound system, clock and weather station fully functional.

When I finally reached a repairman this afternoon and explained my situation, he suggested I bring it in. You might surmise that 50-inch projection TVs aren't exactly portable.

Determined not to miss another episode of "Pirate Master," (the Nigerian Nightmare gone in week 2, are you kidding?!) I readied the Jeep to haul the TV and began disconnecting cables when I discovered the TV was plugged into the surround sound box. I turned on the power and my TV at least reacted when I tried to turn it on.

Another call to Darryl's and I had my TV back, without even lugging it across town or forking over hundreds of dollars. So it's like a MasterCard commercial in reverse:

Missing "National Bingo Night" again -- no biggie
Missing the inaugural Iowa Corn Indy 250 -- oh well
Narrowly avoiding the temptation to purchase the extended warranty on the next major appliance I buy -- priceless.

Thompson's greatest role: Washington outsider

Speaking of bad actors, I overheard this exchange at my daughter's softball game tonight:

"Hey, grandma and grandpa, I just learned we will have golf carts at the event and Mitt Romney's tent is the only one with air conditioning!"

I bit my lip, until my tenteen-year-old daughter took a slow roller to the back ankle and acted as if she were permanently disabled. Poor timing for her, to be sure.

Anyway, while I'm wont to pick on Repugnicans, I came across this on Fred Thompson:

Republican Fred Thompson, who likes to cast himself in the role of Washington outsider, has a long history as a political insider who earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government.

As a lobbyist for more than 20 years, billion-dollar corporations paid Thompson for his access to members of Congress and White House staff. During that time he was close to two Senate majority leaders, both from his home state of Tennessee -- his political mentor Howard Baker and, more recently, his former colleague Bill Frist.

During Baker's tenure, Thompson lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry's collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.

More recently, while Frist led the Senate, Thompson earned more than $750,000 lobbying for a British reinsurance company that wanted to limit its liability from asbestos lawsuits.

That history as a Washington insider is at odds with the image Thompson has sought to convey to voters. When he first ran for the Senate in 1993, Thompson cast himself in the part of the gruff, plainspoken everyman, leased a red pickup truck and drove around Tennessee in his shirt sleeves.

Now, as he considers an expected run for president in 2008, the actor-politician continues to position himself as a political outsider.

However, lobbying has been a steady side gig for Thompson ever since the end of the Watergate hearings that brought him to Washington in 1973 as minority counsel for the investigative committee co-chaired by the GOP's Baker. Lobbying clients paid him about half a million dollars between 1975 and 1993, when he started his campaign for the Senate. He released 20 years worth of tax returns during the race.

When Baker became Senate majority leader in 1981, lobbying provided Thompson with about 80 percent of his total income.

The fiasco ultimately led to about a $150 billion taxpayer bailout of the industry, said Robert Litan, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and co-author of a 1993 report on the causes of the disaster that describes the influence of lobbyists as "pervasive, pernicious -- and effective."

Thompson defended his S&L lobbying in a 1994 interview with The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis, Tenn., saying that both parties agreed at the time that regulations limiting the industry's competitiveness needed to be relaxed.

Thompson's first and longest-running lobbying client was Westinghouse Electric Co., for whom he lobbied in favor of nuclear energy. In 1981, he received a little less than $54,000 from the company. At the time Westinghouse was receiving federal funds for Tennessee's Clinch River nuclear project.

A spokesman for Thompson, Mark Corallo, said the experimental reactor "was a local project focused on new kinds of energy at a time when the U.S. was going through an energy crisis."

The reactor was never built and the project was canceled in 1983 after the government had spent $1.7 billion on it.

The spokesman said Thompson was unavailable to comment for this article.

Even after Thompson left the Senate in 2003 with a plum job playing District Attorney Arthur Branch on the NBC drama series "Law & Order" he continued to lobby, this time for Equitas, a British reinsurance company that handles billions of dollars of asbestos claims for Lloyd's of London. That earned him more than $750,000 over the past three years, including $300,000 in 2005, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The firm had complained it was being treated differently from American companies in a bill designed to remove the about 600,000 asbestos lawsuits from the courts and create a trust fund for victims. The bill was supported by companies facing lawsuits and opposed by many victims and their attorneys.

Since leaving the Senate Thompson has continued to have close contact with powerful Republicans, including members of the Bush administration. That includes acting as the president's point man in guiding Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts through the Senate confirmation process in 2005.

Thompson also helped run the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Fund Trust, an organization that set out to raise more than $5 million to help finance the legal defense of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was convicted in March of lying and obstructing Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

"This is no political outsider," said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for government ethics and campaign finance reform with Public Citizen. "He clearly gained a network of contacts in Congress though Howard Baker that he cashed in on and would represent anyone who would pay him."

Senator Grassley, You Magnificent Bastard

I know nothing of this Bob Cesca fellow, but his post on Huffington Post is good enough for me. As far as I'm concerned, Republican Senators from Iowa should be flogged daily. Particularly those inclined to earmark federal funding for the creation of a rain forest in the Hawkeye State.

Senator Chuck Grassley, you magnificent bastard, you and your cohorts make it way too easy to smack you about the bulbous forehead with the mighty hypocrite stick.

A little background first. A Pittsburgh law firm called Cohen & Grigsby was caught on YouTube detailing how they hire foreign employees through loopholes in the H-1B visa law, rather than seeking American employees. Why? To save money, of course. The Associated Press:

"The goal here of course is to meet the requirements, number one, but also do so as inexpensively as possible, keeping in mind our goal and our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker," Lawrence Lebowitz, the firm's vice president of marketing, told the audience in May.

Dastardly and inexcusable, since this firm practically admits to abusing the H-1B visa program. (Coincidentally, Senator Grassley introduced a bill in April which aims to close the loopholes in the H-1B law. If one chose to be conspiratorial about this, one might raise an eyebrow at the timing of this video leak story.)

But really, it's no different than the prevailing corporate mind-set here. A mind-set which Senator Grassley has repeatedly voted to support. More on that below.

The mind-set goes like so: hiring 'spensive, uppity American workers isn't good business sense when there exists a world of cheap, brown foreign labor to exploit; allowing wealthy CEOs to wade pantless in record profits... and Flomax. It's happening everywhere, and it's been enabled by the passage of NAFTA, GATT, and most recently CAFTA. America's borders are not unlike a gaping maw through which profitable corporations are encouraged to outsource their jobs overseas, and they're subsidized by your government to do so.

This thing called overseas outsourcing -- and not illegal immigration -- is the real crisis at our borders.

It's not so much the people coming in, it's the jobs going out.

It's one of many reasons why the middle class in America is rapidly fading away. From the much publicized exodus of GM in the 1980s to the more recent and less ballyhooed Hershey firings*, Ross Perot's prescient description of a giant sucking sound grows suckier by the damn day. At the time, we all thought it was just hilarious to hear a presidential candidate say the word "sucking" a lot. We should've paid more attention.

So on the sucking tip, enter Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Upon hearing about the Cohen & Grigsby YouTube video, and after consulting with his colleague Senator Ted Stevens about how all those shrunken lawyers holed-up inside his computer machine survived being dumped through a series of tubes, he teamed up with several of his fellow anti-immigration Republicans and fired off a letter to the law firm:

"We would like you to please explain how this practice does not constitute outright discrimination based on nationality and why your firm so blatantly promotes this type of behavior."

Boiled down, Senator Grassley pitched a fit over this story because it involved foreign workers taking the place of American workers... on American soil. That last part is important. After all, he's one of the top gunners in the anti-immigration debate, so when he spots any sign of ferrnerrs coming in and taking American jobs, he lets-fly the frothy bud nipping. Ironically, however, he has no problem giving American jobs to ferrnerrs -- that is, when those ferrnerrs stay far, far away in their own labor lawless country.

I give you the Grassley voting record:

Voted YES on implementing CAFTA for Central America free-trade. (Jul 2005) Voted YES on establishing free trade between US & Singapore. (Jul 2003) Voted YES on establishing free trade between the US and Chile. (Jul 2003) Voted YES on extending free trade to Andean nations. (May 2002) Voted YES on granting normal trade relations status to Vietnam. (Oct 2001) Voted YES on removing common goods from national security export rules. (Sep 2001) Voted YES on permanent normal trade relations with China. (Sep 2000) Rated 83% by CATO, indicating a pro-free trade voting record. (Dec 2002)

So while politically benefiting from his posture on the current anti-immigration debate, one could say he has -- how to be delicate about this -- a hard-on for sending American jobs overseas.

And it gets worse.

Senator Grassley voted NO on repealing government subsidies for corporations who eliminate American jobs in favor of foreign outsourcing. In other words, he voted to continue giving free money to corporations as a reward for hiring overseas employees instead of American ones. To put it a third way: Senator Grassley, in a sense, is paying American corporations to discriminate against American workers based on their nationality and, by proxy, their desire to earn a decent wage. To put it a fourth way: you're paying to lose your own job. To put it a fifth way: Fucked. Up.

In his letter to Cohen & Grigsby, Senator Grassley wrote, "Your firm's video advises employers how to hire only foreign labor, while making it nearly impossible for a qualified American worker to get the job."

Nice, since the senator voted YES on allowing more foreign workers into the country for farm jobs. No problems allowing cheaper foreign labor into Iowa. After all, he's from the corn capital of North America and he needs the support of corporate agri-businesses in order to keep his own job.

And it gets worse.

When you lose your job to overseas outsourcing, Senator Grassley helped to make your life a further waking nightmare by voting YES on the Bankruptcy Law. But I suppose he figures since you're out of work already, you'll have plenty of time for your federally mandated credit counseling sessions. On the bright side, you'll be home in time to watch all those credit card commercials during another one of Hannity's live telecasts from the Mexican border.

___
* The Hershey Co. recently announced the closing of their factories in Reading and Hershey, PA in preparation for opening candy factories in Mexico, India and China, where the Oompas are cheaper and less cranky about extravagances like overtime pay.

Alexandria, Missouruh: Sal-ute!

Travel Theorem One, formulated 1991, when trying to get from one side of Memphis to the other after the Beale Street Music Festival: Sometimes you have to go to Mississippi.

Travel Corollary One, formulated right now*, somewhere in far northern Missouri:

Sometimes you have to take the fresh oil, loose gravel, no center line detour in exactly the wrong direction just to get to Iowa! But we did get to see the per capita fireworks stand capital of Clark County: population? 166. Fireworks stands? 8!



*yep, e-mail via cell phone has come to the boonies

Not only woulda been cool, was

If I'd have known we were posting seizure-inducing video, I would have flipped to the next setting on my digital camera, but as it is the still-shot will have to do. Because I must have been somewhere cool, as I have the "I was there" (and you were not) KSHE bumper sticker to prove it.

While I cannot say that Van Halen's "Dreams" on a 12-string acoustic guitar was the religious experience for me that it was for many of the 1499 other folks who crowded into the Pageant last night, I gotta say it was cool (relax, collaborator. I'm not saying it was Springsteen). Sammy & The Wabos are always fun, and you gotta give the aging but somehow ageless lead singer credit for making a bajillion dollars doing what he loves to do. It must be good to be king (of St. Louis in the summertime). Plus, there was the nice drunk girl sharing her $57 worth of Waboritas, and Hoosier Haiku in the parking lot as we waited for freaking ever to get in, and Sammy himself chasing us down the alley in a tricked out Mustang as we searched for, and then lucked into, a parking space. On the other hand, let's hope there's no way of knowing if one of us coulda won the end-of-the-night drawings we were not present to win, as the prospect of two more hours with the "you shore look purdy tonight" crowd did plum lose its charm once the band left the stage and the DVD premiered. But hey! I was there! And you! were not!

The Boss and the Big Man

Clarence Clemens' role cannot be overstated.

While I'm at it, check this one out

This Boss has the love of the Common People

I love this song, though somehow never imagined a Bruce Springsteen rendition. The new CD with the Sessions band in Dublin is superb.

Pl*n B

So today I came home from the neurologist with a replacement prescription that has the advantage of being both cheap ($15 instead of $100, though the insurance claims that $100 bottle of pills that I will have to eat, metaphorically, 90% of costs them $1147) and nearly side effect-free but also has disadvantage of being related to the sulfa drug that gave me instant fake bronchitis after my original ER visit in February.

Would it be too much to ask, universe, that I can have a headache- and seizure-free existence on the cheap drug and perhaps even wash it down with the soda and/or beer that the Topamax has denied me for months now?

Um, on second thought, that does seem a bit demanding. I can compromise.

I don't mind a headache now and then, having had at least a little bit of one every day for so long that people tell me I look at them funny when they insist that's not normal.

But could Pl*n B,like, work? Pretty please with no extra office visits on top? No difficulty breathing? No tightness in my chest?

'Cause that would be awesome. Considering I still have the rogue ovary and all.

Triumph at the Tonys

Five years gone

My brother's the one with the story, something about working in a country club pro shop and having Jack Buck come in with Stan Musial. Legends made flesh and needing a belt, but still having time to talk and laugh and play the harmonica with the golf pro who better have been at least a little awestruck. Me, I don't think I ever saw either Buck or Musial in person except from a distance at the ballpark, but I still cried when Jack Buck died five years ago today. Why? For the life of me, I'm not sure I can explain it.

While I do have a thing for voices (I'd appreciate George Clooney even if I were blind), that wasn't really the appeal. Besides, as my daughter would say, that's just creepy. Although he was easily old enough to at least be my father, Buck's voice is what I chose to listen to even when I was 13 years old A self-made baseball fan, I tuned my bedroom clock radio to KMOX and listened to the games all summer long. Jack Buck and Mike Shannon were the sound of summer that year and for the next twenty.

So, the nostalgia is easy. But still, cry for a stranger? Well, the thing about radio, especially baseball radio, especially baseball radio done by old-school types who know what they're doing, is that it gives the impression that you're not strangers after all. You hear their stories, you hear their excitement, you hear their frustration with this stupid team you're both such suckers for following, right there in your car, right there in your kitchen, right there in your bedroom. It's intimate in the best, most non-creepy sense of the word.

Today all the games are on TV, usually narrated by idiots who can't shut up and let you watch the game that you can, after all, see. I'm sure those TV producers would have had a conniption watching the seconds tick by as Buck and Shannon let a minute go by with nothing but crowd noise floating out over the airwaves. But hey, it's baseball. Sometimes, nothing happens. Hearing the nothing is part of the appeal.

It's just harder to hear it these days. I admit my radio habit was broken after Buck was gone and it took a few years for them to find someone who fit. I'll turn the game on, but it's not so automatic any more, and even if it's on, actually hearing it is a crapshoot. The Cardinals moved to a station with a signal that barely carries past the arch, and XM only carries the home broadcast team for home games. It's novel to hear other cities, but it's no way to make me care.

But I did, once upon a time, and so did the thousands of people who filed past a casket placed, altogether fittingly and not at all creepily, at home plate back at the real Busch Stadium. But why? For a man? For the end of an era? for admiration of his skill? his part in our memories, and making them what they were? for having a really cool job, and keeping it, with style, for longer than many of us had been alive? Heck if I know how to parse it all out. But I know what a loss feels like, and that was one.

Confessions of a bad dad

Thank goodness there's no Father's Day edition of "Countdown," or I just might find myself nominated for "Worst Person in the World." In retrospect, I was a complete asshole to my wife and kids today.

I might blame it on sleep deprivation after staying awake from 6:30 Friday morning until 8:30ish Saturday night for Relay For Life, or heat, or dehydration, or latent hostility from my own childhood, but those are just excuses. It's probably closer to the truth -- though perhaps no less fair -- to say I'm just an ass at heart.

My biggest problem, I think, is I give too much weight to Hallmark holidays.

So what if the eggs my daughter prepared for breakfast were cold and the toast insufficiently toasted? So what if she drew a little blood while attempting to give her crotchety old man a pedicure? So what if she was more interested in seeing the new "Nancy Drew" movie than spending time with dear old dad? In fact, who could blame her?

So what if the Bruce Springsteen CD my son got me wasn't accompanied by a card expressing some sappy feelings? So what if I had to replace the lawnmower blade because he bent it while trying to spare me a chore? So what if he missed a spot here or there? So what if he wasn't up for a long bike ride after playing nine baseball games in five days in oppressive heat? In fact, who could blame him?

So what if Father's Day wasn't everything I had hoped but failed to communicate? It is, after all, just another day. Shame on me for wasting it.

Just to show

that we haven't forgotten that YouTube video counts as a random thought:

Handle With Care

I found irony tonight in the shopping cart while wandering through the Bullseye Boutique.

Right along side my son's I-tunes card sat my prized purchase -- the remastered and repackaged Traveling Wilburys collection, complete with DVD and four bonus tracks. Though I already own Volume 1 and Volume 3, and I was drawn to new releases by my all-time favorites Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, this was a priority purchase.

If you value the art of record-making, run (do not walk) to your favorite CD outlet/department store and fork up $25. You'll be glad you did if only for the glimpse into how a group of rock and roll stars managed to place friendship above egos to produce such wonderful music. The voice of Lefty Wilbury (Roy Orbison, may he rest in peace) is worth the purchase price all by itself. Add Charlie T. Jr. (Petty), Lucky Wilbury (Bob Dylan), Otis Wilbury (Jeff Lynne) and ringleader Nelson Wilbury (George Harrison) and you'll be doing the "Wilbury Twist."

We weren't even to the grocery section when I began to lament how I-tunes, in my view, has destroyed the art of record-making. Anyone, as American Idol has demonstrated all too well, can make a hit song. But a complete album that leaves your toes tapping from start to finish, seems to be a lost art (except for the aforementioned Springsteen and Petty).

What saddens me most is how accepting consumers are to this shift in the industry. Why buy the album (for lack of a better word) when I only want one song? Because, I demand, one song shouldn't be all there is. Green Day's "American Idiot" and Counting Crows' "August and Everything After" come to mind as examples that all hope is not lost.

But that I-tunes card really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm not so old fashioned that I still own a turntable, but I haven't felt compelled to enter the I-pod world either. Am I the only one who still reads liner notes?

I quote Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free Press:

It's hard to imagine, 20 years later, that these records sold millions. They are way too spontaneous and organic, even with the polish of producer Lynne's glossy sheen. This is the sound of the authentic rock `n' roll as practiced by Orbison and the teenage pre-folkie Dylan, revered by Harrison and Lynne, and revisited by Petty.

It may, it seems, never die, as long as there is someone to remember just how great it can make you feel.

The reliably unreliable

Don't let me down.

And we walk down the stadium concourse, two people who have known each other for years, randomly meeting and going right back to the middle of the only conversation we can really have at this point, the one everything is riding on. And we both know it. Smiling but serious. One of us nervous, one of us not. All the real questions unsaid but immediately understood: Are you going to be honest? Are you going to be a grown-up?

Don't let me down.

And I look him in the eye and say it again, my tone light, as if he's not impervious to guilt, as if there's any chance that anything I say or do will have any impact on the outcome of this inevitably sad story.

Don't let me down.

Because that's what he does. Well, not me, in particular, as I've long since given up. My expectations went in the shredder with the bad check he gave us, and how many years ago was that? Long enough ago that the bank was still mailing back paper checks with little notes attached. Can you believe this guy? said the subtext of the NSF notice. You're friends! Why didn't he just tell you? Instead, he costs you $25 more?

Because he can never just tell you. There's always one story then another, and an unnecessary lie or two that contradicts the story anyway, until you just don't care any more, and then every time you see him he looks at you like a puppy facing some mean lady with a rolled up newspaper (though you never said anything to him at all about any of his screw ups, being the friend's wife, and not directly the friend), and oh for the days when he was just embarrassed because he left his dirty underwear in the bathroom floor of an apartment you moved out of in 1994.

It's a shame, really.

Especially because you're relying on him, the most reliably unreliable guy you know, to get you into a game at Lambeau Field sometime in 2007, and already, months ahead of time, the excuses are flying.

He came through last year, in his own way. He never paid for his share of the hotel room, of course; on the other hand, he may have thought it a poor use of his money, pulling into Green Bay as they did at 5:30 a.m. on game day since he can make no distinction between "I'm about 5 miles away," and "I am about five miles away where I am inside a restaurant having wings and fully expect to be hours late" when on his way over to begin a 500 mile drive.

I didn't make that trip, my seat having been eBayed out from under me at the last second, but it's probably a good thing, even though I wanted to go so much that, for a time, anyway, driving hundreds of miles out of my way to take advantage of an unsuspecting Cedar Rapids babysitter seemed like a perfectly logical choice. Because if I'd gotten into that car, I'm sure my wifely silence would have been broken, and I doubt that anyone who has been harangued for a thousand miles would be game for a replay. And this year, I really need to go.

And Mr. Reliably Unreliable needs to learn that it's better to tell his friends one thing that is true rather than three things that he wishes were true before the actual truth comes out in the end. Because he's not a bad guy. He has good intentions and a sense of humor that I always enjoyed back before it was surrounded by eggshells of his own creating. And he has a good job that comes with connections that either will or will not come through. I get it! Don't lead me on, don't let me down: just be straight. That, dude, is what friends do. They do not concoct ever- changing stories that only postpone--and increase-- the inevitable disappointment. At least if I were buying from a scalper I'd already know exactly how it's going to hurt.

According to Adrianna and Tom

I can't remember why Lonnie has a thing for Arianna Huffington--was it the hair, the accent, the keen political mind?--but she had me at the last line of this excerpt:

With each passing day, Washington, D.C. is turning into the Land That Time Forgot.

While the rest of the country is dealing with the here and now -- exemplified by Bush's puny approval ratings and this new poll showing rural voters turning against the GOP's handling of Iraq -- the Beltway's Democratic dinosaurs are acting like it's 2002. For them, Bush still has credibility on Iraq, Democrats still need to tread lightly in opposing the war for fear of alienating red state and swing voters, and Iraq is still a right vs left issue.

The latest proof that Tyrannosaurus Democrat is not an extinct species comes in the fossilized thinking of Stuart Rothenberg, editor of The Rothenberg Political Report. Writing in Roll Call, the Cro-Magnon pundit waxed ecstatic over Congressional Democrats' handling of the war funding issue, spinning the Dems' capitulation as having "played the issue like a Stradivarius," and proclaiming: "From a purely political point of view, Democrats had their cake and ate it too."

Rothenberg's piece is so confounding, it might have been written by David Chase.

Yes, yes, yes!

How can there possibly be political advantage in so maladroitly saying one thing and doing another, especially when what the Dems end up doing is exactly the opposite of what a growing number of Americans of all politcal persuasions seems to want? Leadership. Look it up. It's most definitely in the dictionary, somewhere between character and majority, and it might even introduce victory. But, perhaps that's too complicated: must we draw them a picture? Lucky then, 'cause just last week, Tom Tomorrow did.

Less wisdom, but longer of tooth

After taking matters into my own hands -- rather tongue -- this afternoon regarding a fragment of wisdom tooth that remained in my mouth a quarter century after the rest were removed, I sure hope dental care is included in whatever solution we eventually achieve to this country's health care crisis.

Following my semi-annual cleaning and checkup, complete with x-rays, on May 23, I began to notice an intense sensitivity to cold beverages on the upper left side of my mouth. Summer and aversion to cold beverages -- particularly the adult variety -- don't mix well, so I went back to the dentist last Thursday. They took another x-ray, it had been 15 days after all, and noticed a tooth that was practically without roots.

This was no epiphany as the dentist has commented on my short roots twice a year since I began visiting him at least a decade ago. Apparently, short roots are the result of hurried orthodontia. While it would be easy to blame my orthodontist, I blame my mother. When I was contagious with chicken pox, she got the orthodontist to reschedule my monthly crank session for a Saturday when the office was normally closed.

This is the same woman who took me to the mall to have my wisdom teeth removed. Thank goodness we didn't live near the Mexico border. And why would anyone split the procedure in two when you can remove all four in one visit? Except they missed a piece.

It hasn't caused me any problems lo these many years, but has been a constant reminder of slipshod dentistry. Well, at my recent cleaning/checkup, the dentist noted how it wasn't even connected to anything and would eventually fall out "or I can take it out." On my return visit, he diagnosed a suspected abscessed tooth, prescribed antibiotics and pain medicine, and referred me to an endodontist.

Meanwhile, I've taken to drinking beer with a straw.

Today I went to the endodontist and am happy to report that the most painful part of the experience was having an old high school classmate as the assistant. I handed her the x-ray taken four days ago, but of course they needed another one. The endodontist determined the tooth couldn't be saved and had to be removed, for which I would have to return to my dentist. Argh!

He also noted my residual wisdom tooth and said the dentist could remove that too, but it'll cost extra. Too small and deep to reach with my fingers, I redoubled my efforts to dislodge the tooth with my tongue. By the time I arrived home I had succeeded, wondering if I could submit a claim for my efforts to the insurance company or if the tooth fairy would pay me a visit.

I return to the dentist Wednesday hoping to end this saga once and for all. They'll probably take another x-ray (they should replace that winding sound with a cash register ca-ching), but they won't get a dime for removing that wisdom tooth.

A father's dream

"Proud parents Mary and Steve Scroggins show off daughter Carmela on Thursday in their in Wood River home. She is 5 weeks old. The "Bada Bing" onesie is a reference to "The Sopranos"; the baby was named after a character from the show."
(J.B. Forbes/P-D)

Now there's a sequel

Although she is nothing if not her own person, my daughter and I have a fair amount in common. Some is nature: sorry about the nearsightedness, kiddo. Some is nurture: I'll take at least a little credit for her reading and cooking skill and her defense of the downtrodden. And some is a toss-up: eye-rolling--does that come naturally or is it learned?

But one thing she'll never be able to share is a young person's pain at not finding her correctly spelled name on any pens or stickers or any other personalized plastic crap at Six Flags or anywhere else. While I knew, theoretically, that there had to be other A-l-l-i-s-o-n-s out there, somewhere, I don't think I met another until college. When one's name is number three on the popularity chart? Not an issue. And neither is buying junk with one's name on it.

Which, as I recall, was kind of a big deal when I was 10. And which, perhaps, is one more reason that my friend's brother's ex-girlfriend could have thought maybe a little bit harder about what to name her baby boy this week, because this kid is never getting a ruler with his name on it. And sure, family tradition is important. And sure, there's all that Sylvester Stallone memorabilia just waiting to be scooped up. And if two generations did it, what's one more. But, but, but. . . ROCKY III?

Out of the loop

Repeat after me: That woulda been cool. Say it wistfully, even though it doesn't matter, in the scheme of things, is no big deal, is nothing that you had your heart set on or would really wish to happen. Just say it, why not, because life is like that sometimes: that woulda been cool.

'Cause that's what I was saying when I found out that not only did the Hollywood types who commandeered a block or two of town for the day drove right by the end of my street as they moved from one location to the other, not that I would've camped out to catch a glimpse, but that they, and by they I mean Tim Robbins, showed up to play with the house band at a local bar for a couple of hours, and I most definitely would've shown up for that, had I only but known before my dad showed me his town's paper two days later.

I need a wider circle of friends, or at least acquaintances with my number programmed into their cell phones who are likely to be out late on a Wednesday night, you know, just on the off chance some other interesting actor type comes slumming two thousand miles from the coast. If I find out I do know someone who was there, well, that just won't be cool at all.

Once I realized what I'd missed, I went back and read the news stories that would have kept me in the loop if not for a poorly timed and purely accidental local news blackout. The city council seems to have done a fine job anticipating problems both real (traffic, interrupted business) and imagined (confusing Edwardsville, IL with Evansville, IN in the movie credits), and hundreds of people enjoyed a day in the sun seeing what there was to see. And why not? The movies came to town, and how often does that happen? (Technically? Once every twenty-nine years.) And then later, the guy who was both Nuke LaLoosh and the director of Dead Man Walking and Mr. Susan Sarandon played his guitar a couple of miles from my house. I don't know if it woulda been good, but, c'mon, admit it: it woulda been cool.

When the living is easy

"Just think," said my dad, pointing out the weeks on our oh-so-seventies kitchen-towel kitchen calendar, "you have two whole months of vacation to go."

That's the real life moment that marks the beginning of my generic, never-really-happened-quite-that-way Summer Vacation, the one where I'm some indeterminate age, riding bikes, walking to McCrory's for a candy bar, concocting a cover story for the naked Barbies in the patio drain water, walking to McCrory's for another candy bar, and alternately playing with, looking for, or ratting on my brother and his friends.

To my elementary school mind, two months seemed like forever, though I'm sure I didn't express my appreciation enough to appease the working man who actually earned his time off. Decades later, having progressed all the way to high school, I feel like nailing the calendar pages down before they flip by without me. I still may not have earned the time off, but appreciation? That I have down.

I didn't choose to be a teacher for June, July, and August, or, these days, for June and July, and in fact I don't really believe that teaching will ever be the profession it aspires or even claims to be until teachers work as many weeks a year as everybody else, no matter how long kids are in school, but that's another post. And for now, I've got time.

Time for my family and friends. Time to sit on my deck and drink something cold if regrettably non-carbonated. Time to finally get rid of the awful striped wallpaper in the bathrooms. Time to go away for a while. Time to watch half a season's worth of The Shield at once and declare it an accomplishment because cleaning the DVR of its backlog still counts as cleaning. Time to read. Time to listen to Keith and Dan. Time, eventually, and I really mean it this time, to work on the next school year so it doesn't swallow me alive.Time, even, to ride my bike.

On the last day of school, the principal announced that school would be in session in seventy-seven days. But that was the 30th, and today's already the 6th. And teachers come in a good week before students. . . man! What am I doing? Time's a wastin'. Better get to work.

What's in the Holy Water?

First there was Kurt Warner, whose rise from Hy-Vee sacker to NFL MVP is well documented. Then there was Zach Johnson, the Master's champion for whom a stretch of road is now named in Cedar Rapids. Regis High School hit the trifecta with Joslyn Morse, the busty blonde gal pal of Yankee superstar Alex Rodriguez.

The New York Post reveals her to be "a longtime stripper and Playboy wannabe who has danced at one of A-Rod's favorite jingle joints." With a collection of adult-oriented businesses now clustered on the city's far west side -- including a "juice bar" recently cited in Sports Illustrated for its weekly mixed marshal arts night -- it seems inevitable, and altogether appropriate, that a street near the Lumberyard be named Joslyn Way or Morse Boulevard.

I'd suggest the Catholic high school, but it's been closed. Their work is done.

Texas tea party

While attempting to instruct the mother of my son's baseball teammate on the art of keeping score today, the conversation wandered. By the time my son was pitching to hers to finish off the 8-5 victory, she was asking for the address to this blog. So, in case she stops by, I thought I should write something.

I realize now that I erred in characterizing my writing as mostly political. So if she comes here looking for my justification for supporting John Edwards or Al Gore for president, she'll be disappointed. Come to think of it, she didn't indicate who she supports, though I got the distinct impression that's she leans to the right.

That's ok. I have no problem with that. Good people can be wrong, just as bad people can be correct. I'm actually quite intrigued by the ability of conservatives to stand by their principles, even as conservative poster boy Dubya has made a mockery of our democracy while trying to force the freedoms we hold so dear down the throats of an unwilling nation and simultaneously denying them to our own people. It's like showing up uninvited to a party and changing the music, only bloodier.

Don't give me that "they hate us for our freedom" crap. They hate us for our arrogance, for our we-know-what's-best-for-you actions, for bombing their country and killing innocent people.

Don't give me that "we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" crap. Even the grand illusionist White House occupant can't believe this lie. Were it true, wouldn't we be fighting the people who attacked us in the first place? Intelligence, which is a moving target under the present administration, is clear that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Afghanistan did. Our ally Saudi Arabia did.

Sure, Iraq is now a breeding ground for terrorists. But only because our actions made it so.

And, public opinion be damned again, the Bush administration this week began discussing a US presence in Iraq that will last for decades. Why that wouldn't have anything to do with the region's rich oil resources would it? Goodness no. It's about weapons of mass destruction... or responding to an attack on our homeland... or bringing a dictator to justice... or spreading democracy.

I don't hate America; I hate George Bush's America. Though I don't have a magnet on my car, I support our troops. I support bringing them home from an unjust war. Let Dubya and his oil-rich buddies do the fighting, if they must. Except, as we've seen too many times, they're cowards.

Come and listen to a story about a man named Bush
Inherited a surplus, and made it go woosh
Then one day he was shootin at some dudes,
And up through the ground came a bubblin' crude.

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

Well the first thing you know Bush is a billionaire,
Voters said Bush move away from there
Said we've had enough of this unjust war
So he dug his heels in the sand and prepared us for more

Death, that is.
US troops, Iraqi civilians.

Well now its time to say good-bye to Bush and all his guys.
And they would like to thank you folks fer turning a blind eye.
You’re all invited back again to this locality
To have a heapin helpin of their democracy

Imperialism that is. Set a spell. Watch Faux News. Y'all come back now, y'hear?

No slumber at this party

Kid parties are a drain, on one's energy, on one's bank account, on one's patience. And yet, every year, we do it again, sometimes even twice. This year's birthday party was intended to be small and low key, but, the time-space continuum still having its way with me, we still needed to bake the cake and finish tidying up the house with only hours to go. I was glad for the house to be cleaner than it had been, survival having been the theme of the Spring, but when my daughter asked me when I was going to get around to clearing my things off the upstairs bathroom vanity since her guests were due to arrive in two hours, I can't say I was looking forward to her party, or, frankly, spending any more time with the guest of honor. Limits had been reached.

But unlike the city Parks and Rec department that canceled Thursday's games on account of some gathering dark clouds and some brief if intense showers, I resisted the urge to pick up the guest list and the cell phone and clear my weekend schedule once and for all. Not that I ever would have done that, but please, child of mine with the apparently broken arms who has lived with me for ten years but still cannot resist asking if I will pick up my hairbrush and make up bag sometime in the next 120 minutes. Who are you to doubt me so, my mother?

But the moment passed, and, in the end, I thoroughly enjoyed carting those silly girls around, talking with and teasing them, feeding them sugar, thwarting The Dreaded Alexa in her quest for party domination, and staying up late (but not nearly as late as they did) printing out pictures for their so-last-minute-but-didn't-look-it party favors and laying out a breakfast buffet worthy of at least a Days Inn. That's the beauty of ten. They're not nearly self-sufficient, but they're not self-conscious yet, either, and, by God, they can surely get up and feed themselves.

If a lot of laughter, a very few tears, an evacuation out of the Y skating rink for the first tornado warning of the season, a late-night run to the grocery store for even more sugar, and the tamest game of truth or dare ever make for a good birthday sleep over, then I think our 10-year-old came out okay. Even The Dreaded Alexa claimed to have had fun. And the bathroom, for the record, was pristine.