Rumor has it that it's time for me to update.  It's been a long dry spell, hasn't it?  Fortunately I don't feel any sort of  obligation to update every day.  In fact, I think it's counterproductive, as most readers don't go back and read previous entries.  So I leave each entry up there for a while.

Well, we had our blizzard, as did many of you.  Still digging out four days after the big storm, which was supplemented by about three more inches of snow last night. 

Such an event brings out, if only momentarily, the best in human nature.  I met all sorts of neighbors I didn't know I had, receiving help and then offering it.  But yesterday I got a brusque call from the guy who had given my truck  temporary refuge in his parking lot, ordering me to remove it.  And I could find no one to help me shovel out a parking space.  So I soldiered through it, gasping for breath after about every fifth shovelful, feeling faint like I was going to pass out or have a heart attack.  But alas, no heart attack this time.  Just a very tired John, with an old truck that is now ensconced in a parking space on the street and isn't going anywhere for a while.  I REALLY don't know how my father shovelled snow when he was 79 years old.

Most days recently I wake up hyperventilating.  When I'm lying in bed I feel like my lungs aren't expanding at all, and I can't get enough air.  I don't know if it's fear, sleep apnea (which I've been told I have) or merely emphysema from years of smoking, firefighting, and breathing radon-saturated air in my current basement apartment.  Probably all of the above.

The other day I dreamed about Xcholo4u .  The details are fuzzy now, but the dream had something to do with God.  He was asking me if I was ready to meet God, something like that.  I didn't have the answer.  All I could do was hyperventilate.

Tax season is upon us.  And Xcholo4u was complaining the other day about taxes.  I feel his pain, of course; no one likes taxes (and I pay 'em too even on my minuscule disability pension).  Especially since our perception is that most of our taxes go for things that don't directly benefit us, like war and corruption.  But I had to remind him to be grateful that he earns sufficient money that taxes constitute a significant chunk of change for him.  Not all are so fortunate.

More importantly, people who complain about taxes utterly miss the point.  It ABSOLUTELY DOESN'T MATTER how much or what percentage of our income we pay in taxes.  What matters instead is two things: (1) whether or not we can buy the necessities of life, and perhaps a few of the luxuries, with the money left over after we've paid our taxes; and (2) what we get in exchange for our taxes.

People in most of Europe pay WAY more in taxes than we do.  In the Scandinavian countries the income tax is somewhere around 70%.  Yet most of them live a solidly middle class life.  They buy homes and cars, and somehow pay the $6.00/gallon for gas.  They have jobs with shorter work weeks, 8 weeks of vacation a year, and well-paid early retirements.  Their taxes buy them such things as fully-paid national health insurance.  Their countries are NOT trying to dominate the world militarily; even the Germans seem to have finally learned THAT lesson.  Europeans exceed Americans in the vast majority of quality-of-life measures.  There is relatively little homelessness and poverty in Europe, and the disparity between rich and poor isn't nearly as great as it is here in America.

This brings me to a fork in the road involving two different discussions: (1) my economic theory that, if I were an economist and a college
professor someplace, would earn me the Nobel Prize in Economics; and  (2) the role played in our lives by what a friend and I have termed, in our conversations, our national "core cultural values".

The economic theory is relatively easily disposed of.  It is this:  A family's purchasing power expands and contracts according to the average discretionary income in the society.  That is poorly stated and could be refined, but let me illustrate with the simple example that gave rise to my theory in the first place.  In America in the 1950's and 1960's the top marginal tax bracket was 70%, and few women worked outside the home.  Yet the average middle class family, with only one wage earner, could afford to buy a house.  Then in the 1970's women began to work outside the home in far greater numbers, and the top tax bracket was gradually reduced.  Therefore a lot more discretionary income, right?  Not for long.  Immediately the price of homes began to rise, until it consumed the gains made in discretionary income.  Today most Americans are NOT better off than they were in the 1950's, and an ordinary family needs two incomes in order to be able to buy a house.

The reverse would also be true.  If taxes were once again raised in order to fund, say, national health insurance, the price of homes would fall in direct ratio.  It's a manifestation of the good old capitalist supply-and-demand principle.  Which brings me back to what I said above.  Asking how much we pay in taxes is asking the wrong question.

Let me save my discussion of America's core cultural values for another day.  Meanwhile have a good weekend, y'all.  Keep yer whistles wet and yer powder dry.

P.S.: My daughter e-mailed me yesterday, wanting a copy of my 2005 W-2 form (in my case it's a form 1099-R) because she's applying for financial aid for graduate school, and apparently parental income and assets are still a factor for her.  Her request provided me with the opportunity to coin one of my little aphorisms.  You may quote me if you like.  Here it is:

"That's the great thing about kids....they're always there for you when they need something!" 

Note: I keep editing this.  It's a work in progress, it seems.  Something in me is deeply invested in this, and wants to make it perfect.

**********

He was 43 years old when I was born.  Because my mother didn’t have time to make
it to the hospital, he delivered me himself in their Chicago apartment, on the mattress on the floor which served as their bed.  He had absolutely no idea what he was doing.  The umbilical cord was wrapped twice around
my neck.  It’s a miracle that I lived.

While my friends’ youthful dads were taking them out to the
baseball diamond to teach them the fundamentals of baseball, my father was too
old to run, and when we tried to play catch his elbow hurt him.  I didn’t understand.  He did gamely serve one year as an assistant coach on my minor league baseball
team, hitting fly balls to the outfielders.  He had a funny hitch in his swing, and he
missed the ball about half the time.  I
stifled a groan, embarrassed to acknowledge him as my dad.

Every weekday he got up at 6:00
AM and went to work.  I could
hear his hacking coughs when he got out of bed, from the two packs of
cigarettes a day that he smoked.   The coughing would sometimes go on for 15
minutes.  But he never missed work.  And he never uttered a word of complaint.

My dad worked for the same company for 44 years, spanning portions of six decades, in a
warehouse.  With his two years of college, relatively rare for that time, he was nevertheless a laborer during the Roaring Twenties; during the Great Depression; during World War II, when he was just barely too old to go fight the Nazis.  At age 19 I got a little taste of working in that same warehouse, unloading railroad cars, lifting an average of  30 tons a day one bag or box at a time.  My dad had not even had the advantage of an electric pallet mover.

At some point he traded his blue collar for a white one, becoming some sort of low-level managerial
functionary.  I never quite understood what he did.  In my family my dad’s meager earnings
were “our money”, while my mother’s small but significant inheritance was “her
money”. 

When he retired in 1971, my dad was making about the same
amount of money that I would soon earn in my first full-time job, and my parents had still
not paid off their two-bedroom house in the white working class South Side ghetto.  They never had
a new car until my father’s elderly mother bought him a Ford Pinto as a retirement
gift.  Prior to that I can remember him
down on his knees in the cracked driveway, age 55 or 60, applying body putty to our
cars’ rusted-out metal, and screwing plywood over the holes where the floorboards
used to be.

My dad did all of the grocery shopping, and about half the
housework.  He vacuumed the carpet, and
washed the dishes every night.  On the
weekends my mother, who did not work outside the home and had only the one
child, would hand him a list of chores to do. 
She would stand at the window and blow him a kiss as he drove away in
the car to run errands.  He always did the
chores without a word of protest, even when she told him to paint the white plastic
lawn sprinkler a bizarre shade of maroon mahogany to match the trim on the
house, or to install seven locks on the back door.  He was forever painting something at her whim, and laying
flagstones where there should have been grass. 
I perceived my father as a wimp for being so subservient to my mother, and I resolved to be nothing like him.

When my friends and I grew tired of the underground tunnel
we had dug in my back yard, my father the wimp  spent a weekend filling in the hole.  When we eventually wearied of the cabin we had
erected, he spent another weekend tearing down the cabin and hauling away the wood in the family station wagon.

My father had been married before, to a woman who ran off
with another man and left him with an infant daughter to support and raise.  Unable to raise her without help, he was
forced to leave her with his parents who lived far away.  Then for the fifteen years before I was born,
my father was an alcoholic.  He went from
work to the bar to his bed to work to the bar to his bed.  He had no friends that I was ever aware
of.  I called that period of his life the
“blank period”, because he would never speak of it.  My mother apparently got him to finally quit
drinking by locking him out of their apartment until he could come home sober.

My mother tried to teach me to drive when I was 16, but she
was too high-strung, and made me nervous by screaming at me.  My old man sat stolidly in the passenger’s
seat and never uttered a word, and I learned to drive.  “Phlegmatic” was my father’s middle name, it
seemed.

The time eventually came when I had grown taller and bigger and
stronger than my dad.  I could finally
beat him at checkers.  Feeling my
youthful oats, I would punch him playfully on the arm and call him “Old Sis”.  I thought I detected a certain
sad wistfulness in his face, but he never said a word.

Fast forward to the time when my second wife left me and took my nine-month-old daughter out of state.  In my anguish I was resolved to lie in bed and starve myself to death, but my parents talked me into staying at their house.  For six months I spent every moment when I wasn't at work lying on their couch, with my face to the wall, like King David after the death of his child.  My father had no words of wisdom for me, but he spent hours playing card games with me, to try to distract me from my depression.

The only advice my father ever gave me in life was during that period, when I was about
36 years old.  “Never expect anything
from anyone,” he said.  “That way you’ll
never be disappointed.”  But when I occasionally
left town in the winter, he would go over to my house and shovel my snow on
his 79-year-old legs.

When I was 38 and my father was 81 he went into the hospital,
saying simply that he wasn’t feeling very well, and died.  Lung cancer, the Medical Deities eventually proclaimed.  He was on a respirator in intensive care for
a couple of weeks, so he couldn’t talk. 
After several days someone finally figured out that maybe, if they gave him a
pad of paper and a pencil, he could communicate by writing.  Standing at his bedside, I breathlessly
awaited the wisdom that I was sure would finally pour forth from him.  “My lips are dry,” he wrote.  He did later scrawl that he loved my mother,
but he never wrote anything to me.

After my dad was gone, I cleaned the clothes out of his
closet and dresser.  It took only a few hours to dispose of all of his worldly goods.  Most of his clothes were too outdated and
raggedy to even take to the Salvation Army. I could see where he had tried to prolong the life of his work shoes - shoes I had given him - with some kind of glue.  He was forever tinkering with stuff, but never quite succeeded in repairing it.  I kept his little old pocket knife.

Following his passing, my mother and I got along worse than
ever.  I realized that, even though he
never said much of anything, my dad had somehow served as a buffer between the strong personalities of my
mother and me.

Now my father has been dead for almost 20 years, and I’m the
age he was when he was trying to play catch with me.  I can’t run, and I can’t throw.  I have no job, and haven’t owned a home in
years.  I wasn’t a wimp with women the way my dad was,
and consequently I have two divorces to show for my pains.  Yet I turned out to be a great deal like him in
some very fundamental ways.  I now
understand that life had kicked his ass pretty bad, and his untiring devotion
to my mother was born out of gratitude for her love in his otherwise arid life, imperfect and incomplete
though that love may have been.

The other morning I woke up unexpectedly crying for my dad.  He'd be exactly 100 years old if he was still alive.  I love you, Old Sis.  I miss the hell out of you, you phlegmatic
old fart.  I wish we had gotten to know one another better, BEFORE you died.

There's a woman who lives in Pittsburgh named Kathy Jo.  She has written copiously for years on usenet as "Whorella" among other pseudonyms, long rambling stream-of-consciousness posts that are in large part self-referential but also impassioned analyses of the "larger issues" of social justice that concern, or should concern, all of us.  She has had a couple of her own newsgroups, and has also posted on others such as alt.prisons.  She has had an extremely colorful life.  She's a real character, absolutely fearless and uncensored.  I used to read her regularly, and still do from time to time.  Sometimes Whorella makes complete sense to me, while at other times I think she's over the top.

There was one exchange between her and another woman on alt.prisons that struck me as quite profound.  It's relevant to far more than just prisons.  I reprint it here in its entirety.  Read it at your peril.  If you don't like long posts or stream-of-consciousness monologues or profanity in the service of a greater wisdom, then it's not for you.

**********
> Newsgroups: alt.prisons
> From: "Linda C." <l...@wolfstar.com>
> Date: Sun, 8
Sep 2002 15:13:58 -0400
> Subject: Re: love
>
> Whorella,
>
> Maybe if you'd leave the anger outside the room where
your keyboard resides
> someone would have some compassion and respond. 
Personally, I think you're
> so full of hate and anger that nothing I might have to
say would make a
> difference.  Your language is vulgar and offensive
to me.  Maybe no one else
> will tell you that but whatever compassion I might have
for your situation
> is lost because of the energy you are projecting. 
There are many people in
> this world who are hurting and they do it in a quiet,
gentle way.  Those are
> usually the people who get offers of help.  Maybe
you need to see yourself
> as you present yourself to others in order to see what
the real problem is.
> I wish you healing!

 
> Newsgroups: alt.prisons
> From: "Federal Bureau of Blowing Whorella"
<blow...@verizon.net>
> Date: Thu, 12
Sep 2002 20:26:58 GMT
> Subject: A HEAVY HEART HAS NOT A HUMBLE TONGUE
>
> this is the one place i thought people would understand
anger.
> outrage.  and they would if only i wouldn't swear.
>
> but no ... we have the language cop here telling me
she'd offer
> her unlimited advice if only i'd stop offending her
with what is
> my normal behavior. i had no idea this group would be
so white
> so i'm sorry if that makes me sound racist but dubyah
please.
>
> and she's offended? tell me how to act? no that's not
offensive,
> just offering advice in love and kindness. well keep
it. please.
> or start swearing and maybe i'll be your friend
> and let you help me. but obviously you have nothing to
offer me anyway.
>
> you'll deny that you tried to tell me how to act,
> only that if i want help, i better change how i act
> and not be so offensive. on alt. prisons.
> it's always for our own good, right fellahs? ain't it?
>
> i thought it would take way more to offend someone
here.
> so sensitive. but if people won't help me because i
swear,
> they don't have the kind of help i need anyway.
>
> do you know without anger, nothing in this world would
change?
> that jesus overturned the tables of the money changers.
angry.
> guess they nailed his ass to the cross for telling the
sanhedrin
> to blow him and get their money out of the temple.
> they still haven't learned that lesson. funny, ain't
it?
>
> did you know that one generation's profanity is
another's nonprofanity?
> christ you couldn't say 'bra' without people blushing
20 years ago
> and they used to do gyne examinations while a woman was
fully dressed
> with her leg on a stole while a doctor stuck his hand
in her
> with his head turned the other way? shit now they dope
you up fuck you
> and charge you for it. crazy world but don't swear.
>
> and no most doctors are fine or some so you can't judge
them all.
> but when it comes to the justice system it will. not
just a criminal.
> i mean this guy has a life and family so we don't want
to put him in jail.
> but if you have nothing to lose, too bad. so on one
hand they say,
> we don't want to ruin the good people but "jails
are not bad".
>
> cicero, that dirty ancient bastard, said a woman should
lay her modesty
> aside with her petticoats before making love. i agree
completely. that was
> considered profane.
>
> shakespeare swore. i mean the list of writers in the
english
> canon .... can you imagine DH lawrence without
profanity?
> the list is endless. it's not that swearing that makes
it good,
> it's the honesty that reaches through the boundaries
> that separate us by stupid shit like whether we swear.
> as if it means we have some kind of self-restraint.
>
> i don't demand others swear like i do
> and yet it's still totally kosher to work the other way
> because the default on 'good' is on the clean mouthed.
> but by who? netiquette? telling me how to act. no.
>
> i don't want my word usage restrained by someone else's
sensitivity
> when we lived in a world drenched with profanity.
> i saw a burger king commercial with the guy driving
along
> acting like his wife is about to go down on him ... a
commercial.
>
> so poor darling nancy,
i'm truly sorry you're so sensitive.
> with this heathen world, you mustn't be able to even
watch a movie
> without being offended. you are over the age of 10,
right?
>
> LINDA, YOU KNOW THEY USED TO FUCKING LOCK PEOPLE UP FOR
SWEARING?
> you'd be down for that. you would. fascism is always so
modestly dressed.
> polite.
> not swearing is about respect. no. telling me how to
act according to your
> values,
> that's tyranny, which has been blowing me since the
dawn of man
> and i still haven't gotten off. man.
>
> and poor linda is probably flabbergasted 'well i'm the
most well liked
> person on this group and i'm just the nicest little
thing and how can
> whorella be mean to me since i'm so above any behavior
i could be criticized
> for? i just said i was offended by her. not attacking
her."
>
> they are the same no matter what rhetorical tricks you
use to work around
> it. i read it all. brecht. orwells great piece on
jargon and speech and the
> ways we use speech to hide what we're doing. i know ...
how people try and
> work on you. but i'm not supposed to be pissed. phew.
>
> i don't know how you live in this world if you can't
deal with
> the most basic profanity. seriously. i pity you.
>
> remember silence of the lamb "i can smell your
cunt'
>
> chef fucking brocket from the neighborhood of make
believe, was the guy in
> that movie. a lot of it was filmed in pittsburgh.
he swore. even though fred
> rogers
never did when i worked for him.
>
> yeah. i answered fred's fan mail and didn't swear
because it wouldn't have
> been right.
>
> but on alt.prison? you gotta blow me while everyone
watches.
>
> no swearing please
>
> get the fuck out ... man. that is so funny
> tell me how to act out here.
>
> your compassion? angry people can't swear
> or it interferes with your compassion?
> i have to pass some test to earn your concern?
> then it becomes worthless. and no. i'm not treating
> you with respect now. sure your tone was mild
> compared to mine but i will not respect those
> who have none for me. i call it 'kissing ass' and i
won't do it.
>
> fuck you and your compassion. how's that?
> all about love are we? as long as i maintain your
standard of speech?
> so you're like the language warden here? assembly of
god member maybe?
>
> if you truly cared, you would have ignored the language
and helped me,
> right?
> saw that 'this child is obviously hurting so much it
has overflowed into
> anger'
>
> isn't that what christ said? what you do for the people
who use bad
> language,
> you do for me?
>
> but no. not worthy. i swore.
> seriously you made my day.
> alt.prison. i heard it on the pearl jam group
> even though eddie vedder swears all the time.
> it's okay if rock stars to do it. funny.
>
>  i don't see how you other people get through the
day without being outraged
> but as long as we have the language and emotion police
to keep us in line
> we can continue grabbing our ankles and taking whatever
the bush family and
> their flunkies
> stick up us. until we get to like it. thank jesus for
our many blessings.
> like KY jelly: TV
>
> MY HEART IS BREAKING and all you see is that i'm
swearing?
> if your help is conditional on accepting your standards
... that's coercion.
> plain and simple.
>
> so no, i wasn't looking for someone to tell me how to
act.
> but for an ex-con who understands these things of
loving a man in jail.
>
> or do they all stop swearing when they get out of jail
> and fear my anger so they back off. so scared of little
old me.
> finally servile. finally beat.
> boy they are improving things at the DOC.
>
> prisons are making bigger pussies out of convicts than
i thought.
> boy that george bush must get great ideas while golfing
>
> HELLO HELLO IS THIS THING WORKING CAN YOU HEAR ME?
>
> we are living in the midst of an atrocity
> men turned into animals in the name of morality and
corrections
>
> but oh no, we wouldn't want to raise our voices.
> won't voice our outrage.
> we might offend someone.
>
> well this world offends me.
> we tolerate poverty but not profanity.
> we walk over the homeless
> but if only they were more like us,
> we'd help. but they're not so they can lay there and
die.
> who gives a fuck? it's all their fault.
>
> fuck that.
>
> 'THE HEAVY HEART HAS NOT A HUMBLE TONGUE'
>         william
shakespeare from love's labour's lost
>
> that's the whole problem with liberals. sooo polite.
> offering so much but demanding so much more than they
offer.
>
> all these poor people are getting fucked right in the
bumbum (see how i
> didn't say "ass" because i'm good)
> in menial low paying jobs and get sick of it and go off
doing wild shit.
> then they're animals. bad criminals. but oh we care.
yes we do.
> we care about showing the world how fucking caring we
are.
> and caring people don't get angry. that would make them
> like the animals they care so much about.
>
> if only we could get the bad people to act like us good
people,
> then everything would be fine! yeah! and if they don't,
we'll leave them
> to starve and shit. but hey we tried.
>
> and then, after that, don't expect the discarded to be
pissed
> or the compliant to not be pissed that they are forced
to lie
> and supplicate themselves for the pleasure of a meal
consisting of rotten
> meat.
>
> and we're talking about profanity.
>
> 1 out of 7 people are being sentenced to death although
they're innocent.
> but don't swear. don't get angry. no one will listen.
>
> WELL YOU'RE WRONG. YOU'RE TALKING TO THE WRONG PEOPLE.
> FUCK THE LEGISLATORS. WE NEED TO REACH THE BEER
DRINKERS.
> THE FUCKING LOSERS WHO DON'T VOTE.
> THEY'LL HEAR THIS. THEY'LL PAY ATTENTION TO THIS.
> AND THEY WELL GET PISSED. AND THEY WILL ... VOTE!!!
> and then ... the shit will hit the fucking fan.
>
> it's coming ... it is ...
>
> people are pissed. they understand the swearing.
> and they're just words. my god.
> i refuse to surrender my anger.
> it has saved my life.
>
> i have never struck another human being
> but ... if i saw someone being hurt,
> i would. sure. i think ... there are times
> that life demands it. sure, you can stand there and die
> like christ ... but now we love martyrs who fly
airplanes into buildings
> because they love god so much and think to die for god
is so great so ...
> jesus.
>
> aw ... this world is magic and green and the sun warms
like an embrace and
> god just the sound of water slipping over rocks wants
me to make love to the
> whole world but i can not understand the pettiness and
the anger of the
> world although i know i participate but i just can not
see not trying to ...
> demand more of this unlimited Eden
if it weren't for fear ... and yet ...
> people ... whew ...such willing victims ... and i see
how it happens through
> weapons of emotional control ... and shaming us for
feeling angry or jealous
> when we see how little we have while others have so
much, we're taught to
> blame ourselves and turn our shame on ourselves in a
variety of forms of
> self destruction or addiction.
>
> not this whore. no shame. i lived with it for years.
being raped and
> honestly feeling like i deserved it. you watch jody
foster in the accused,
> that was my life. doctor fingering me like he's trying
to fuck me while
> asking details. an hour after i was raped. big nice
doctor, right? just a
> rapist with a mask. dick.
>
> so ... they say profanity is only for people too stupid
to find a way to
> articulate themselves intelligently. tell that to saul
bellows or
> christopher hitchens or alice
walker. please. don't swear. only means you're
> stupid. don't even fucking try it with me.
>
> and nancy,
don't be angry and swear at me.
> you're the bigger person. man it must get lonely up
there.
> it gets mighty lonely down here, too.
>
> but you have to rise above this response
> and don't say suck my dick or anything.
> and to further protect yourself from other things that
might offend you,
> don't watch tv or someone might say a naughty word.
> oh and don't be mad on a prison group.
>
> my boyfriend was killed in there. murdered.
> and you deny me an emotional vehicle to express my
outrage?
> ew ... it's mind control at its most heinous form
> disguised as civility. it's fucking gross. really.
>
> or maybe you lost someone in prison
> and have rose above it and don't swear or get upset.
> i swear to god i owe it to timmy to never surrender
> my outrage in what happened to him.
>
> i never avenged his killer.
> i was a fucking full-time on-the-masthead journalist at
the time.
> i had access to every document about it.
> but i knew whoever got caught,
> would go to the electric chair.
> and i would have nothing to do with it. no way.
>
> so no. i didn't avenge his death that way.
> i'm not vengeful. but i am outraged.
> there is a difference. there really is.
> timmy's not the only one.
> one year as many people were killed in that prison
> as in the whole city. yeah. yeah. i'm angry.
>
> angry. i hate that word. how they sterilize the
outrage.
> no. i'm not angry. people are dying. and i'm fucking
pissed.
>
> or convicts dying in prison, just one of life's
mysteries i guess.
> that shouldn't piss you off. part of god's plan.
> say the serenity prayer:
>
> god, grant me the serenity to blow the people i have to
blow,
> to get the people who have to blow me, to do it right
> and the wisdom to remember i'm the only one who can do
it right anyway.
>
> anger does not always lead to violence
> but some of you will never understand that.

Translation:  "Do you realize the number of those who would die for nothing if we stopped
now?"

I was recently referred to an interview with Justin A. Frank, M.D., author of "Bush on the Couch".  He posits that Bush Jr., our pResident, has sociopathic personality disorder.  I've been pretty certain of this for years, but it's nice to have it confirmed by a "mental health professional".  Here's the link:  http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/049

In other news, below is a brief commentary on Bush's latest "signing statement", a device he has pioneered and perfected - no doubt at the instigation of his handlers - as a way to negate the intent of the legislation he's signing, and to impose his unilateral executive will on our unsuspecting asses.

Yes, get it while it's hot....my vicarious response to the death of Saddam Hussein, and to Xcholo4u's recent post about it.

December 30, 2006
The Independent (UK)

A Dictator Created Then Destroyed by America
Robert Fisk

But we will have got away with it.

Please forgive me if you've already seen these....

And have yourself a merry little Christmas....

As I'm sure you have discovered by now, I am a veritable fount of wisdom, a cornucopia of cognitive coruscation.  I very recently dispensed some of that wisdom in a comment on Kestryl's site.  But her posts are protected, and every time she posts a new one she hides or deletes the previous one.  So my wisdom will be lost to posterity unless I share it here.  And here it is:

1) Vocabulary words are like smiles and like love itself: the more you use them, the more you have of them.

2) That old cliche, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," isn't always true.  Here is the full quote, from the French writer/philosopher La Rochefoucauld.  No one seems to be aware of this except me.  I'm translating from the French, so if it sounds just a bit odd to English-speaking ears, that is why:  "Absence increases large passions and diminishes small passions, as the wind fans a fire but blows out a candle."

That's all the wisdom I can think of at the moment.  If I come up with more I'll surely let you know.

Incidentally, I still haven't received any nude audition photos from nubile females willing to help Theologian Dan beat YouTube.  Quite frankly, I am shocked and appalled by the lack of pictorial response to my previous post.

God bless us every one.

I think this is important enough from a global historical perspective to belabor the point a bit further.  This just in - Theologian Dan's second message regarding his grand YouTube plan:

***For everyone who wants to help out with the youtube project, this is
how it will work. I am having people read my post into a camera or
webcam. Then we will use those as the tapes for youtube. So if you want
to go through my old post and read them, we can use your help. I have
been watching youtube traffic. I have noticed that women tend to get
more traffic once they are on the high view page. So I need attractive
women to read the post. No offence to nonattractive women. Make sure
you read and it sounds natural. You don't want to look like you are
reading it. Also make sure you look directly into the camera for the
entire video.

Now I will need the help from the ugly people too. Hey, we are all
in this boat together. Not all of us can be drop dead beautiful. So I
need help from people who spend a lot of time in front of the computer.
You don't have to know anything about youtube or making videos to make
this work.

If you can help, let me know. I do want to mention something. This
will get a ton of traffic. So if you can't handle that, you may not
want to participate. People can be mean online and there will be
negative comments and people saying whatever. So don't participate in
the video part unless you can take that.

Dan