Campanastan

The Long Island I Miss

My sister Ellen sent me this - it was in Newsday.

The Long Island I Miss

A baby boomer recalls a vanished world of open spaces, brand-new neighborhoods and Good Humor ice-cream trucks.

By Andy Edelstein
Staff Writer

The 1950s and '60s were a great time to be a kid. And Long Island was a great place to be one.

I am one of the hundreds of thousands of baby boomers who were raised in Nassau and Suffolk during those more innocent times. As those memories of Long Island's peak growth years recede further, my growing-up years have become crystallized -- or is it romanticized? -- as a state of mind. Call it The Long Island I Miss.

OK, so nostalgia can be a particularly insidious affliction of the middle-aged, so stop me if I'm putting too rosy a glow on this, but I miss this Long Island, which has irrevocably been transformed and vaporized by 40 years of development.

I miss not just the empty lots and open spaces, but the other victims of progress: the bowling alleys, drive-in movies and amusement parks, which have all been bulldozed for one more strip mall and housing tract. It makes me sad that my 8-month-old daughter will only think I'm a sentimental fool when I wax rhapsodic about them.

And I do think about them ... with memories that are constant and vivid.

On the Long Island I Miss, families are eating Sunday dinners at Patricia Murphy's Candlelight Restaurant, a cavernous Manhasset eatery where waitresses dispense hot, fluffy popovers, or they're waiting on the long wooden benches for their names to be called at Linck's Log Cabin out on Route 25A in Centerport.

They're shopping at malls -- which haven't yet been enclosed -- roaming down the cluttered aisles of Alexander's, S. Klein's, Times Square Stores and Korvette's searching for bargains. They're feeding the ducks at Syosset's Lollipop Farm and riding the carousel at Nunley's in Baldwin.

The sound track to the Long Island I Miss is provided (more likely than not on a transistor radio) by the WMCA Good Guys, WABC All-Americans, or Murray the K and his "Swinging Soiree" on WINS. Or maybe the music wafting over this Vanished Long Island is The Vanilla Fudge playing its torturous blues-pop-psychedelia at the Action House in Island Park or the Good Rats rocking at the converted bowling alley in Roslyn known as My Father's Place.

The Long Island I Miss is filled with the sense of really being in "the country." Backyard fences had not yet been erected to separate neighbors, and sycamore trees were still pint-sized. The stores were new. The schools were new. The air seemed fresher, or maybe there was just more to breathe.

On the streets, you could play "in the gutter," as my grandparents called it, and not worry about being mauled by a tailfinned gas-guzzler. Mostly, you had to watch out for the procession of trucks, driven by vendors who seemed to follow the new suburban families out from the city: The Dugan's bread truck, the guy who sharpened knives, the Cascade diaper-service truck, the Cott's soda and seltzer man, and the trucks that had rides such as "The Whip" in their flatbeds.

The most-awaited mobile visitor was the Good Humor man (or if he didn't show up, we'd settle for Bungalow Bar). Those boxy trucks may still rumble up suburban streets, but do their tinkling bells still elicit the same reaction nowadays, when you can just as easily buy a pint of Ben & Jerry's at the corner convenience store? Talk about your Pavlovian response.

Each night at about 7, from May through September, Nick -- we never did get to know his last name -- a Pied Piper in crisp white pants (with that very stylish coin changer hanging from belt), shirt and cap -- would drive up the block ringing his bells. Suddenly, dozens of screen doors slammed as kids ran out as fast as their PF Flyers would carry them, clutching quarters for their toasted almond, strawberry shortcake or coconut ice-cream bars.

Nick, who had our neighborhood route through the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, had the good sense to arrive after most of us had finished eating dinner and we had no chance of ruining our appetites. For someone without an air conditioner, like my family, to be strategically placed outside his freezer door when he opened up and you got that gust of dry-ice cold air, why it was better than 100 Philcos raging at full power.

Those kinds of scenes, like most of the Long Island I Miss, can only be conjured in the mind's eye. That's where you'll see rows of blue-suited Cub Scouts devouring sno-cones -- despite the freezing temperatures at the Long Island Arena -- rooting furiously for the Long Island Ducks as they body-check their hated rivals, the New Haven Blades.

Your memory is the only place where you swear they used to have restaurants that delivered your hamburger to you atop a Lionel train. And it's where you can hear sounds you don't hear anymore: The click-clack of ice-cream sticks or baseball cards stuck in the spokes of your bike; a movie matron's sssshing rowdy kids during a 25-cent Saturday matinee of "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules," or the cat's-wail of electric guitars in basements and garages as hundreds of teen bands struggled mightily to learn the chord changes to "Sunshine of Your Love."

Most of all, The Long Island I Miss was filled with kids, which is not to say that today's L.I. -- with its new baby boom -- is going to be confused with a Century Village. But will so many kids roughly the same ages ever arrive in one place again at the same time? When my family (lawyer dad, housewife mother, myself, 3, and sister, 5 months) moved from Far Rockaway to West Hempstead in August, 1955, it seemed as if every one of the families that moved that same month onto Western Park Drive had at least two kids, the offspring of the foot soldiers in the great suburban migration. Within a two-tenths of a mile-long street, there were 48 potential playmates, all of whom had just a few weeks earlier been living in apartments in the Bronx,Brooklyn or Queens. You could scour up enough boys to get up two complete baseball teams plus several scrubs.

The word "play date" hadn't been invented. You "called" for someone (that meant ringing the doorbell, not phoning -- phoning was for grownups) or simply gravitated to the street as if called by some internal kid radar. You and a group of friends could wander away for an entire afternoon on bicycle or foot without worrying that your face would end up on a milk carton (a moot point, since milk mostly came in bottles then). Even when the sun went down and on Halloween. And when you returned home, you didn't need a key because the door was always unlocked. The sense of security made you feel confident and self-reliant.

And the same kids would grow up with you, be part of your lives for the next decade and a half. They'd be part of the bicycle brigade, exploring the strange uncharted land outside your immediate development (Malverne! how exotic, as we crossed the border into the next town). They'd be there through Cub Scouts and Little League, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs and communions, elementary school, junior high and senior high. A few stayed, but most left.

Of course, some things that made growing up on Long Island so special have not really changed: easy access to the culture and vitality of the greatest city in the world, superb schools and public libraries, and lots of recreational opportunities, especially the beach.

Which, despite decades of erosion, is still Long Island's best asset. But even so, a sense of wistfulness informs my trips to the beach nowadays. You can still enjoy Jones Beach, but don't expect to arrive to see a musical at the Zak's Bay theater via boat after eating a leisurely dinner at Guy Lombardo's restaurant across the water in Freeport.

And you can still have frozen custard and play Skee-Ball at Long Beach, but you can't ride the roller coaster or Ferris wheel at the Edwards Boulevard amusement park. The boardwalk is still thick with strollers and cyclists, but it's no longer filled with the "summer people," the lower-middle class, retired couples from Brooklyn and Queens who took small rooms for the season and on Saturday nights would promenade in their summer finest: the men in their white shoes and captain's caps; the women in flowered dresses and stoles.

Like most of the Long Island I Miss, they're gone now, and they're not coming back.

The Long Island I Miss is so vivid, I suppose, because my parents still live in the same house my father purchased for less than $20,000 50+ years ago. My parents have steadfastly resisted the migration to the Sun Belt that has enticed so many suburban pioneers. The house that I grew up in, likewise, has not changed that drastically: It hasn't been aluminum-sided, decked or whatever else people have done to their 1950s-era homes to drag them in to the late 20th Century.

Its finished basement is my personal Baby Boom Smithsonian. Without much effort I can locate my official Franklin Square Little League team photo, a campaign poster urging re-election of our long-gone congressman, Jack Wydler, and a guide book to the 1964-65 World's Fair. And that's just at the top of one pile.

For brief moments, The Long Island I Miss lives. But I know the clock is ticking.

Andy Edelstein, Newsday's television-multimedia editor, grew up in West Hempstead and graduated in 1970 from H. Frank Carey High School in Franklin Square.

Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

"You Can't Go Home Again." -- Thomas Wolfe novel

Things I'd Love to See: Baseball, Horses, Rudy, Mitt, Bush, Saudis, Vick, Becks, Posh, Hillary, Jeri

Time for another round of these.

1) President George W. Bush "look into the soul" of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his upcoming visit to Camp David.

2) President George W. Bush tell us what he saw this time when he (once again) "looked into the soul" of Russian President Vladimir Putin during the latter's recent visit to the Bush family compound in Maine.

3) Michael Vick get disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy a job as a dogfight referee.

4) Inept FOG "Eternal General" Alberto Gonzales resign to star in the new telenovela !Es La Verdad! (It's the Truth!).

5) The vacuous Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham admit that she has indeed read one book, but can't remember whether it was Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples or Winnie the Pooh.

6) David "Becks" Beckham confess that he can't "save" USA soccer because he can't play worth a crap nor "bend it like Beckham" anymore, and void his $250M contract with the LA Galaxy.

7) President Bush (either one) call good buddy Prince Bandar and ask him why our "friend" Saudi Arabia supplies money, weapons, and men to the Sunni insurgents in Iraq.

8) Jeri Kehn Thompson and Hillary Clinton hoisting a few together at a DC bar, lamenting the fact that the press seems more enamored with their cleavage than with their brains.

9) Barry Bonds' ex-mistress Kimberly Bell proclaim that her tell-all with nude pictures spread in Playboy was done only for money and publicity.

10) A "Mitt Romney Official Scorecard", so we can keep track of his positions on stem-cell research, abortion rights, gay marriage, etc.

11) The Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony for Cal Ripken, Jr., and Tony Gwynn, two wonderful "old-school" ballplayers.

12) A book about the joys of horse ownership entitled Eats, Shits & Leaves.

13) Rudy "Mr. War on Terror" Giuliani explain why he moved NYC's emergency headquarters to the World Trade Center in 1999, six years after it was first attacked - the one spot everyone knew had been targeted by terrorists. Better still - have someone from the press ask him to explain this.

14) No more "free passes" for fellow New Yorker Lindsay Lohan, whose last run-in with the law could have put lives at risk. What do you expect from someone whose mother used to party with her and whose father has "done time" for securities fraud and DUI? 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the GOVERNATOR!

"I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt." -- President George W. Bush, 13 September 2001.

1000 Wells for Darfur: UN Takes Charge

Friend Bev Herzog forwarded me this email, sent on 25 July 2007 by Dr. Farouk El-Baz of Boston University, who met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"I was called yesterday to meet with H.E. Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations in his office at the UN Headquarters in NY City. The purpose of the meeting was to brief him on the recent find of a now dry lake in a Northern Darfur and its implications to the exploration for groundwater.
The meeting was exceptionally productive. He is very intelligent and instantly understood the science behind interpreting landforms using satellite images. He also pointed out that popularizing these results would tone down voices and allow people to think of what "could develop."
I offered to hand over all our research results to the United Nations and its agencies, and he offered to take the "1,000 Wells for Darfur" initiative under the UN umbrella. At the end of the meeting he asked his people to set up a briefing for the press (TV, radio and newspapers)."

Ban had earlier written that climate change is partly responsible for the conflict in Darfur.

Things continue to roll along.

Dr. El-Baz commented on my 26 July WaterWired post Darfur "Lake" - Oversold?

"Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel." -- Persian proverb

1000 Wells for Darfur: Irrational Exuberance?

I must be getting prescient in my old age. On 22 July 2007 I posted about the "euphoria and myopia" surrounding the recent discovery by Dr. Farouk El-Baz and his Boston University team of a  "lake" in northern Darfur. My post described how this discovery was not really a lake and also how no one really knows whether there is subsurface water in the area until you ground truth (i.e., drill test wells) the satellite data. There is lot to do before the "1000 Wells for Darfur" initiative comes to fruition.

Well, the current (26 July 2007) issue of Nature has a news article discussing these very same issues (see below).

Download another_elbaz_discovery.pdf 

The article essentially says that El-Baz oversold the discovery and made it sound like there was a real live lake there, as large as Lake Erie. It was unfortunate that he used the word "lake", because people assumed that there really was a lake there or beneath the ground.  An official from the Sudan Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources contends the BU team misrepresented what they found. El-Baz denies this.

The article mentions that German scientists discovered the lake basin in 1985 and mapped it in the 1990s, something El-Baz admits. Other geologists claim that the Nubian Sandstone, a major water-bearing unit in northern Africa and a productive aquifer where it is thick enough (3,500 meters or 11,500 feet in some areas), would probably be only a few hundred meters thick in northern Darfur and less likely to be a good aquifer.

Furthermore, the real need for water is in western and southern Darfur, not in northern Darfur.

As I said earlier, ground truthing is mandatory before we start touting the Darfur 'lake" as a large source of water and a solution to the genocide in Darfur, whose roots are far deeper than any well that can be drilled.

Maybe we should resurrect Alan Greenspan's "irrational exuberance" term.

"Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice." -- Will Durant.

"Eats, Shoots & Leaves" Is GR8 - B Shur 2 Read It :-)

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots into the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

That's the rationale behind the title of Lynne Truss's (Truss's book?) delightful little book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. It's an enchanting little book that's been around since 2003 but I finally got around to reading it just now.

Who would have thought a book about English-language punctuation would become a best-seller, especially among Americans? I wondered too, but now understand why. Truss, a British writer and journalist, knows how to write (and punctuate!) and imbues an otherwise prosaic subject with a degree of liveliness totally unexpected.

She'll give you the history of the assorted punctuation marks, the rationale behind their creation, the ones that teeter on the verge of extinction (semicolon?), the "failed" ones (the interrobang?), punctuation battles between editors and writers, etc. Be forewarned: she takes no prisoners. Would you expect anything else from a woman who writes a book about punctuation? Her WWW site even has an interactive game to play.

Truss also has a section on what email, the Internet, and IM are doing to the language. Emoticons, anyone?  :-(

You'll enjoy this book, but here's another warning: you might start re-examining almost everything you write to check for punctuation. But that's not a bad idea, is it?

"Sticklers unite!" -- Lynne Truss

Darfur's "Lake" - Raining on the Parade

There has been a lot of press recently about the discovery by Boston University's Center for Remote Sensing of a large lake, about the size of Massachusetts, in Darfur. This has given way to euphoria over the belief that all this water could mitigate the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

Before we pat ourselves on the back, let's do a little reality check.

1) Dr. Farouk El-Baz's team did not discover a lake, they found the contours of a lake basin (see blue-green area in the above photo labeled "Northern Darfur Megalake") that presumably held surface water in the past when the region was wetter. The satellite radar data produced signatures similar to those noted in the East Uweinat basin (also discovered by El- Baz) in southwestern Egypt, so it is logical to assume that the Darfur radar data indicate a similar feature. In the East Uweinat basin, hundreds of wells now irrigate about 150,000 acres (about 61,000 hectares) of crops.

2) From (1) above, it's logical to assume that since the lake is no longer there, some of the water it once held infiltrated downward to fill the pores of the sandstone (presumably) underlying the region, producing a substantial subsurface water body from which water can be extracted by wells.

3) Satellite data, as with all remotely-sensed data, need ground truthing. Until wells are drilled into the rocks beneath the basin, we will not know for sure whether underground water is present, how much there is, how much can be extracted by wells, and how long it will last.

4) If underground water is present, what is its quality? Will it be potable water, or suitable for irrigated agriculture? Will the land be suitable for irrigated agriculture?

5) Let's assume that lots of good-quality underground water does exist. Who will control access to it? How will it be used? Who will pay to maintain it? Will the Sudanese government insist on large-scale irrigated agriculture development as Egypt opted for in the East Uweinat basin, a practice that would be foreign to many of the Darfur people? The water could just as easily be used to subjugate the people as to liberate them. Given Khartoum's track record in Darfur, it stretches the imagination to think that the water would be used beneficently. And let's not forget that water is not the only issue in Darfur. It's more complicated than than; read Lydia Polgreen's article, "A Godsend for Darfur, or a Curse?", in the 22 July 2007 issue New York Times.

Here is the BU news release.

But first, let's find the water.

"Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theories; then you can borrow money from them." -- Mark Twain

Nahool the Bee Replaces Farfour, Creates a Buzz

On 1 July 2007 I sadly reported that Farfour, the intrepid Palestinian mouse who starred on the TV show, Tomorrow's Pioneers, had been murdered by an Israeli. His poor sidekick Saraa suddenly found herself alone, without a partner to assist her in spewing anti-Israeli, anti-West vitriol aimed at Palestinian children.

Well, Hamas has conjured a replacement for Farfour - his "cousin", Nahool (or Nahoul) the bee, who debuted last week. One thing is for sure: Hamas needs to bone up on biology.

You can view a video posted on YouTube.

On the 19 July 2007 The Daily Show Jon Stewart announced the coming of Nahool, and speculated that the Israelis might counter with a kiddie show of their own, "Dr. Bagelman's Hour of Hate", featuring two hateful bagels - the title character and his cousin, Rabbi Wallenstein.

Ah, Hamas...what can I say?

"I couldn't imagine someone like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah." -- George W. Bush, 10 December 2001.

Loons in the White House

Jim Belshaw is a columnist for the Albuquerque Journal and is one of my favorites. He has the talent for writing about everyday things with an insight that transcends the "everyday" aspect.

John Fleck, science writer for the aforementioned paper and blogger extraordinaire, sent me a link to Jim's 14 July 2007 column. The link does not work, so I have reproduced the column below [copyright 2007, Albuquerque Journal].

          ***************************************************************

It's been a few days since former Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona testified before Congress about his experience with the Bush White House and I still can't decide if what he described is more strange or more coldly cynical. But I'm leaning toward strange. Very strange, actually. Flat out weird. That it's happening in the White House makes it a lot more unnerving.

Let's begin with cold cynicism. The former Surgeon General said he was told not to speak to a charity affiliated with the Special Olympics because the Special Olympics were closely identified with the Kennedy family and why would he want to do anything that cast the Kennedys in a good light?

I understand the Bushies have politicized very waking moment (not to mention quite a few U.S. Attorneys) to a fare-thee-well, but this, as Jon Carroll notes in the San Francisco Chronicle, is beyond shameless. The Special Olympics? Developmentally-disabled children are just more political bones to chew on? Just more raw meat for the conservative ideological meat grinder? Beyond shameless.

Now for the strangeness. The Surgeon General was ordered to insert President Bush's name at least three times on every page of his speeches.

Think about this for a moment. The average number of words on a double-spaced, typed page is 250. So the man was ordered to say his boss' name three times in every 250 words he uttered in public.

Imagine for a moment what it would be like working for a boss who issued this order Would you not -- reasonably -- conclude that your boss was a loon?

Not a tough boss. Not a tyrant. Not even a bad boss. But a loon.

This isn't a liberal or conservative thing. It's not a Democrat or Republican thing. It's a loon thing. Where did these people come from?

           ************************************************************

                          HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NELSON MANDELA!

"I'm the master of low expectations." -- President George W. Bush aboard Air Force One, 4 June 2003.

The Genius of Impeachment: It's Time

On 13 July 2007 Bill Moyers' Journal had a remarkable show on impeachment - specifically, impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney. His guests were John Nichols of The Nation and author of The Genius of Impeachment and Bruce Fein, a conservative, Harvard-trained Constitutional law scholar who was involved in the Clinton impeachment. Read his Slate article "Impeach Cheney". He's got a great line in there in which he says that the President has "outsourced the lion's share of his presidency to Vice President Cheney, and Mr. Cheney has made the most of it."

I figured the show would consist of Moyers refereeing a match between Fein (against) and Nichols (for). To my surprise, and I think to Bill Moyers' as well, Fein seemed as much, if not more, in favor of impeachment than Nichols. Fein essentially felt that both Bush and Cheney were acting like "royals", something the Founding Fathers would find abhorrent.

I had not really been in favor of impeaching Bush and/or Cheney simply because I did not think it would be "worth it". I have since changed my mind. I believe Cheney should be impeached, and that impeachment hearings for Bush should commence. The American Research Group (cited on the show) found that 54% and 45% of Americans have those same positions as I do. I actually find that a little hard to believe in a country where something like 35% or so still think that Saddam Hussein had an active role in 9/11.

I won't repeat what the show discussed; you can click on the link in the first sentence and read about the show and watch the video. But here are some things that were stated either by Nichols, Fein, or both, that really resonated with me.

• The Founding Fathers expected that Congress would keep the President in check if he started acting too much like a "royal". If Congress abdicated that role, then a vigorous free press would perform that task.
• Congress has rolled over and played dead, abdicating its responsibility to serve as a "check and balance" against the executive branch. The press has not been much better. They don't ask tough questions.
• We don't appear to have any statesmen/stateswomen in Congress who can champion impeachment without appearing partisan.
• Some of the Founding Fathers - James Madison, in particular - felt that the threat of impeachment would be critical to ensure that the President did not misuse his power to commute sentences and issue pardons to "keep people quiet" about his wrongdoings.
• If Bush and Cheney are left unchecked, then on 20 January 2009, when they leave office they will leave behind for Bush's successor a toolbox of power the likes of which no president has ever possessed. So ask yourself: Would you want John McCain, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, or Mitt Romney, or any of the others, to have these powers? I think not.
• Impeachment is not a Constitutional crisis, but a solution to one.
• Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about having consensual oral sex with a White House intern.

This was an important program. Take some time to watch it.

"Well, when the President does it that means it is not illegal." -- Richard M. Nixon, 19 May 1977.

And Now, From the Department of Homeland Stupidity...

Clay Bennett, the Christian Science Monitor, 13 July 2007.

Enough said.

"Every organization is much like a septic tank - the really big chunks float to the top."

Fred Thompson: Law & Odor

Disclosure - this is a Jeri Kehn-free post!

I kind of like Fred Thompson, although I know little about him, other than from news articles and his acting roles.

But to many people, mostly conservatives, he is the tough, "true conservative", the Superman who will rescue them from McCain, Romney, and their ilk, and carry the conservative banner into battle with the feckless Democrats in 2008. Or something like that. [By the way, not all conservatives seem to be enamored with Fred; see this site.]

So what has Fred done to deserve all this adulation? It helps to be a big guy with a deep, firm voice, and a former US Senator (R-TN) for eight years. His legislative career was generally undistinguished, save for a disastrous stint as Chair of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, where he (wrongly) charged that the Chinese had bribed the Clinton folks. But from what I can tell, his movie and TV roles have fashioned his image as a tough, decisive leader, a persona that has been transferred to real life.

He currently stars as no-nonsense Manhattan DA Arthur Branch (who conveniently refers to himself as a "country lawyer") in NBC's Law & Order. He's played similar alpha-male roles in Die Hard 2 - Die Harder, In the Line of Fire, and The Hunt for Red October, plus many others, including Last Best Chance, a docudrama featuring Thompson as a US President dealing with terrorists and nuclear weapons.

He also likes to cast himself as a Washington outsider - aw shucks, m'am, just another country lawyer with a red pickup. But he's also a lawyer/lobbyist who resides in McLean, VA, where the power insiders live (Tenet, Powell, et al.)

Fred Thompson: the strong, decisive leader who will lead us from the wilderness. To me, it sure smells like life imitating art, but it seems to have bamboozled a lot of otherwise intelligent folks who have been watching too many TV shows and movies.

Happy Friday the 13th - beware, all triskaidekaphobes!

"In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king."

Microsoft's "Surface" Computer - Watch This Video

Not to be a shill or anything, but watch this video about Microsoft's surface computer:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid932579976/bclid932553050/bctid933742930

Oh, boy, now we can have computers on any flat surface!

Seems to me the following quote is apropos.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

Important Political Discourse II: Dennis Kucinich's Wife

The other day I posted an item about Jeri Kehn, Fred Thompson's glamorous wife, who is 24 years younger than Fred, who's 64.

You don't hear the pundits commenting much on Elizabeth Harper Kucinich, who, at 29, is 31 years younger than her 60-year old husband, Presidential wannabe Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).

Ms. Kucinich is a UK citizen from Essex, sports a tongue stud, and is 6 inches taller than the diminutive Dennis.

Last March I actually had a close encounter with the couple at a DC hotel. I was sitting in the lobby with a friend when they stepped from an elevator, he pulling a small suitcase. I took one look at Kucinich, whom I recognized, and informed my friend who it was. We looked at Kucinich with the young, willowy redhead, nodded, and said to each other, "Uh-huh, Dennis!" We did not know they were married - at least not to each other. I actually wanted to believe that she was his daughter, but their body language said otherwise.

They have been married for two years. The two met in his office and it was love at first sight. At their second meeting, he proposed, and she accepted.

I wish them much happiness (same wish for Thom and Jeri, too).

I suspect the wags don't comment much about her beauty and youth because they don't think Kucinich has much of a chance to be President, whereas Fred Thompson presumably does.

I'm done blogging about candidates' wives. Well, maybe I'll make an exception for Mitt Romney's wives.

"Instead of getting married again, I'm just going to find a woman I don't like and give her a house." -- Rod Stewart

Important Political Discourse I: Fred Thompson's Wife

Well, unless you've been on the planet Zocor for a while you know by now that Fred Thompson's wife Jeri Kehn is very striking and 24 years younger than ol' Fred (40 vs. 64).

You also may know that back in June, Joe Scarborough, the ex-Congressman (R-FL) who now hosts MSNBC's Scarborough Country, likened Jeri to a pole dancer. Way to go, Joe!

Kehn is no airhead, though - she's an attorney and political media consultant for a DC law firm. She and Fred married 17 years after he divorced his first wife, so she is no homewrecker. They did not meet until 1996, 11 years after his divorce.

The buzz seems to be whether Jeri's glamorous looks and penchant for low-cut gowns will be an asset or a liability for Fred, should he choose to throw his hat into the ring.

The 8 July 2007 New York Times weighed in on the matter (albeit in the Sunday Styles section) with an article by Susan Saulny entitled "Will Her Face Determine His Fortune?"

Is this important? Let's hope we look at Thompson's record, when and if he decides to run, and not his wife's physical attributes. Let's stow the Thom and Jeri Show.

When I told my wife I was going to blog about this, she just said, 'Will your blogging about this add to the discussion?" Point taken, Mary Frances.

"Giving money and power to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenaged boys." -- P.J. O'Rourke.

Farewell to Falwell: My Belated, Humble Tribute

Okay, so I'm a little late with this one, but I thought I would pay tribute to the late Dr. Jerry Falwell, the Lion of Lynchburg, who died on 15 May 2007.

You can go to the Thomas Road Baptist Church WWW site to see the tribute his own church has arranged. 

As for my own tribute, I decided that my meager words cannot honor the man - no, icon - that was Jerry Falwell. I will simply supplant my words with his sagacious quotes that will do him justice unlike anything I can say. What better way to honor someone of his stature?

"Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them."

"He is purple - the gay-pride color, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle - the gay-pride symbol." [Warning that Tinky Winky, one of the 'Teletubbies', may be gay.]

"Facilities [for blacks and whites] should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line." (1958)

"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals...AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals." (2001)

"[LBJ's Civil Rights Act] should be considered civil wrongs rather than civil rights." (1964)

"Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan in America."

"I believe that global warming is a myth. And so, therefore, I have no conscience problems at all and I'm going to buy a Suburban next time."

"The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country." (1976)

"If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."

"The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi Party is to Jews."

"I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we don't have public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them." (1979)

"Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions."

"I am such a strong admirer and supporter of George W. Bush that if he suggested eliminating the income tax or doubling it, I would vote yes on first blush."

And speaking of President Bush: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Thanks to the July 2007 issue of the Funny Times for the quotes.

I'll close with my favorite Jerry Falwell quote:

"I really believe that the pagans, and abortionists, and the  feminists...all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say 'You helped this [9/11] happen'." -- Rev. Jerry Falwell (2001)

A Republic...If We Can Keep It

Today we celebrate the USA's birthday - the Declaration of Independence, promulgated on July 4, 1776.

For the last several Fourths of July I have taken a few minutes to read and reflect upon the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and all its amendments (especially the Bill of Rights). Download a copy below.

Download const-dec.pdf 

I started doing this after a local Albuquerque law firm sent me a holiday card that included a pocket pamphlet with copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. I thought nothing of it at the time and put the pamphlet on my bookshelf. On the next July 4th, I was browsing my bookshelves, came across it, and sat down to read it. It didn't take long to read both documents. I was amazed and awestruck. The Declaration of Independence is a remarkable statement of freedom. I find the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to be such simple but powerful documents that I wonder how mere humans, replete with all their foibles (duhhh....slavery?), conjured them. There was nothing like them before, and nothing since. They are unique.

What was it about the men who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Was it the time in which they were immersed, that caused them to produce these? Did the times shape the men, or did the men fashion the times?

Imagine how different today's world is from that of the late 1700s, then imagine how the Constitution has persisted through time, with amendments of course, to remain flexible enough to govern us.

Our Constitution is really not very complicated. I remember in 1996, when I was teaching in Belize, a country of 250,000 people. It was enduring the throes of writing a constitution. One of the constitutional committee members gave a talk at the University College of Belize, where I was teaching, and jokingly held up a copy of the draft Belizean constitution and a copy of the US Constitution. Theirs was about 10 times longer than ours! His point: why is ours so complicated and the US's so elegantly simple? It was a rhetorical question (but he would have accepted an answer) whose meaning was not lost on those present. The world envies us for having our Constitution. The UK does not even have a written constitution.

Lest I get too carried away, I recall the words of my father, John Pilgrim Campana, historian and teacher: "The Constitution is like a pretty girl. You can look, but you can't stare, because then you'll see all the little imperfections." Good advice!

The Bill of Rights - the first ten amendements - is pretty remarkable. I'm partial to the First Amendment, which guarantees five rights. How can you remember them? Think RAPPS - religion, assembly, press, petition, speech.

Take a few minutes today to read and reflect upon our precious heritage. Like me, you will be proud to be an American, and you will likely find yourself wondering just how all this came about. Just be thankful that it did.

Learn more at the GPO WWW site and at the National Archives.

The Fourth of July is about far more than firecrackers. A lot more. And these days, more than ever, we must heed Ben Franklin's words:

"A republic, if you can keep it." -- Benjamin Franklin, at the end of the Constitutional Convention, when asked "What have you wrought?"

At $135M, It's a Prince of a Deal

I couldn't avoid posting this item about ultra-FOG Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz's bungalow in Aspen, CO. It is now on the market for a $135,000,000, the most expensive home ever listed in the USA. His 56,000 square foot residence, larger than the White House, is the centerpiece of the 95-acre property, which also has several other buildings.

The Prince's asking price "trumps" Donald Trump's $125,000,000 beachfront property in Florida. But the record price may not last long, as Aaron Spelling's widow is rumored to be considering asking $150,000,000 for her California home.

Read the story in The Aspen Times, where I obtained the house's photo.

Prince Bandar was Saudi America's....ooops.... I mean Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the USA for 22 years. He is now back in Saudi America...damn!...Saudi Arabia, where he chairs the kingdom's national security council and is the chief foreign policy advisor to the King Abdullah. He doesn't get out much anymore, so that is why he is selling his Colorado retreat.

To his credit, he was a great supporter of local causes and charities in the Aspen area.

Prince Bandar was well-connected in the USA, especially to the Bush family. He was often referred to as a member of the family. He gave great parties, both in DC and Aspen. The CIA considered him a prime Mideast "asset", and he was hailed as a "good Arab". He gained some degree of unwelcomed notoriety when he arranged to have Osama bin-Laden's USA relatives flown out of the USA on a private jet right after 9/11. Contrary to urban myth, the USA government cleared the departure after the relatives were questioned.

But I cannot forget that fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian citizens, including the ones who murdered my sister.

"He who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, dead." -- Anonymous

Zionist Dogs Kill Farfour, Courageous Palestinian Mouse

Farfour, the Palestinian Mickey Mouse look-alike who "educated" Palestinian youngsters about fighting Israel, resisting the USA, and spreading Islam, was beaten to death on TV by an actor posing as an Israeli official.

The popular weekly TV show Tomorrow's Pioneers, which had been briefly taken off the air in May (see my 10 May 2007 post), had been reinstated by Hamas.

In the final show, Farfour was "martyred while defending his land" by "the killers of children", according to his gal-pal Saraa. He was murdered for refusing to surrender the keys and deed to his family's property that had been abandoned when the "Jews" took over. His grandfather had entrusted the items to Farfour for safekeeping.

Along with Saraa, Farfour invited youngsters to call in with songs and poems expressing Palestinian outrage at Israel, the USA, and the usual blather.

Read a transcript of a recent show, and view a video. The USA Today article has more information.

Yeah, we'll all miss Farfour.

Saraa is reportedly going to be starring in a new TV show Bombs Away! with master bombmaker Ali bin-Dovr. The show will reportedly recruit children to be suicide bombers and teach them the finer points of explosives.

You go, girl!

"He who seeks truth should be of no country." -- Voltaire