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Lots to do around the house today, so not enough time to say much here. Keeping it short:

I guess I was wrong about the Swifties stuff having much of an effect, but I still don't think, ultimately, that it's the only thing turning the polls or which may affect the election. There's still a long way to go before people vote, and plenty of stuff that can happen to push things either way. But there has been some effect from the "Unfit for Command" thing, not to make Kerry's service a liability but rather to just raise a little doubt about the guy's character, to make him appear to be an opportunistic, inflated-ego guy- in short, a politician, which is not as strong a position as war hero.

Still, this ain't over, and I still think you don't beat Kerry on the issue of service to the country, you beat him on his record. But he's been taken down several pegs, and I didn't think it would happen quite this quickly and quite this way. There, I admitted it. What do I win?

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Bush's speech? Yeah, whatever. Was Zell "hateful" or right on target? I'll get back to you on that. Can the Sox keep it up and erase the "1918!" chants in the Bronx once and for all? Maybe, but I have more important things going on right now.

My Treo's broken.

More precisely, the screen's cracked. This morning, I discovered that my cell phone/PDA/smart phone/life saver's screen has a nasty crack that has left a third of the screen blank. The phone still receives calls, but you can't read the screen. And the web and e-mail? Useless, unless you want to guess what most of the messages say.

This is about as big a catastrophe to me as anything technology-related can be. Without at-my-fingertips-all-the-time e-mail, it might as well be, oh, I don't know, 1998 here. I'm so used to being in touch in all ways at all times that I'm kind of lost here. If I leave the house, I'll have no e-mail! I can't administer the web site! I can't write columns on the road or at the ballpark or in the locker room! I'm lost!

This is where my snap decision to add insurance to the cell phone account seems like a smart move- a few bucks a month, a $35. deductible, and a (refurbished, but better than a complete wash, and it's warranteed for a year) replacement Treo 600 is on its way to return me to 2004. Not that 2004's been a good year, but still, it'll be good to get back to the freedom that being able to leave the office and still work affords me. All I have to do is get through this weekend.

This long weekend.

This long, long weekend.

Withdrawal. The paiiiiinnnnn.

And then I perused the Treo Central message boards for, really, I don't know why, but I did, and there it was, coming soon...

...Treo 650. A new one. Coming within months. Even zippier and cooler. Better resolution screen. Bluetooth. Actual hardware answer and hangup buttons. A better backlit keyboard. A removable battery!

I want it. I need it. I will have it.

Three Treos in three years.

Hi, I'm Perry and I'm a Treoholic. I'm powerless over my addiction. Now, gimme the damn phone.

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Browsing in Borders down in Orange, I checked out the humor section, which, as it usually is in the major chains, is split between the comics section and the written-word section. The former is where you find "Get Fuzzy" and "Fox Trot" books; the latter is where you'll find Dave Barry, P.J. O'Rourke, and those "Weird News" compendia. But lately, that area's been overrun by another kind of book: the Bush-is-Stupid book. Whereas the category used to be isolated to Al Franken and Michael Moore books, now there's a rash of 'em, "Global Village Idiot," by a British newspaper columnist, is one, and there are a lot more. The gist of all of them is simple- we disagree with the President, ergo he is an "idiot," "moron," "stupid." The discourse has sunk to that level- playground name calling. "Flip-flopper!" "Oh, yeah? Idiot! Coward! Hitler!"

You know what? Someone who can make his way to the Presidency isn't stupid, CAN'T be stupid. Machiavellian, venal, brilliant, crafty, sly, evil, saintly, sure, one can make it being any of those. Stupid? "Idiot"? Nope.

But that's not even the main thing that bothers me about this. No, it's that there's so much REAL stupidity out there, I think we've lost sight of what stupidity means. Try this: I was on the bench under the bar on the Smith machine at the gym (see how quickly I went from totally ignorant neophyte weightlifter to knowing what the machines are called? Call me Arnold) and a couple of the more serious guys were conversing behind me. And I couldn't help but overhear this part, which came after a discussion of the difficulty of parking and exiting various concert venues in the Los Angeles area:

"Hey, you know who I'm gonna go see? Ozomatli."

"Ozomatli..."

"Yeah."

"Um... is that without Vince and Tommy Lee?"

(long pause) "Um, Ozomatli."

"Yeah, is that with all the original members?"

(longer pause) "Uh..."

"Oh. Not the Crue."

"No."

Meanwhile, I'm trying hard not to drop the weights and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

And I was still contemplating that the next day, when we were in that Borders and I was taking note of the "Bush is stupid" books, and then when we went to dinner in the same mall, at the seafood place, where Fran decided she wanted the crab-stuffed salmon but asked for it without the mashed potatoes.

"Oh, well, that might be difficult," the waiter said, his voice dropping to a lower register as he crouched beside our table. "You know, our chef... he doesn't like to make substitutions."

Your what?

"The chef, he gets a little, you know, he doesn't... I'll see what I can do."

Your "chef" is temperamental?

It's a CHAIN RESTAURANT, damn it! In ORANGE COUNTY! At the MALL! It's not Sushi Nozawa where the guy behind the counter makes what he damn well pleases and makes you eat it and pay however many hundreds of dollars he wants you to fork over for the privilege of saying you were abused by the famous master sushi chef. Not that this isn't stupid, too, but it's like the guys in the kitchen at TGI Fridays getting agitated because you asked for extra tomatoes on your Angus Burger.

She got the fish without potatoes, by the way. Turns out that it's not that big a deal, especially since the menu touts the availability of "protein-style" preparations. But the waiter's stupid. The chef's stupid.

Everyone's stupid.

Well, OK, not everyone's stupid. You're not. (cough) But stupidity is rampant in society right now; perhaps the one guy who can say his achievements prove he's not stupid is the one everyone calls the "village idiot."

Unless... unless the fact that he got elected is because everyone else is a moron, and... and...

...aah, my brain hurts.

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Here's what I want: you buy something, you install it, it works, the end.

Here's how it goes: you pick up the software package, you read the system requirements and all the other details, you see that your system complies. You buy it, you bring it home, you install it. It doesn't work. Then you try it again. It doesn't work. Then you go Google it and discover that the software has "issues" that the manufacturer isn't publicaly disclosing, and that the company won't say whether they're trying to fix the problem or not. And you see that they make suggestions- uninstall Service Pack 2, make this registry change, run that command line entry. You do all that. It still won't work. You do more research and see that the company has no answers, and seemingly no plans to answer- and they have limited, you-pay-for-the-call customer service.

Five hours of my long weekend, wasted.

I haven't given up, and I'm lucky I bought the thing at Costco, which WILL take back opened software for a refund, but, right now, do NOT mention Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 to me. (And I hear Nero has similar issues- is there ANY CD burning package that will do PAL-to-NTSC conversions and doesn't have fatal installation issues with Service Pack 2?)

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Live, local, late-breaking news:

The replacement Treo showed up late today. It's lovely, I tell ya. Sync went fine, activation was quick, I'm back up and running, cleared off the old one and it'll go back via UPS tomorrow.

I'd better not break THIS one.

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You can't really see the details in this picture, but that car to the left ahead of me on the 110 just before the Dodger Stadium exit has a bumper sticker on the left side.

Nothing says "I am, unquestionably, the biggest loser of all the people you may encounter today" than a Ford Focus with a "Dennis Kucinich for President" bumper sticker.

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Picked up some more cheap old TV Guides on eBay, and when they arrived today, I opened up one from March 1962 and immediately saw this:

That's Benny "Kid" Paret, welterweight champ, on the left. He fought Emile Griffith at the Garden on March 24, 1962, live on ABC. It was the third bout between the two- Griffith won the title away from Paret, then Paret won a controversial decision to get the belt back. This was going to be the deciding match. In the sixth, Paret almost put Griffith away for good, but the bell saved Griffith. Then, in the 12th, Griffith had Paret on the ropes, and Paret seemed to be hurt, but the ref (Ruby Goldstein) let Griffith go on a little longer, because Paret was known to fake injury at times.

This time, he wasn't faking. He fell into a coma while tangled in the ropes, getting pummeled by Griffith.

Ten days later, he was dead.

I was too young to see the fight, but a few years later, when I really started to follow sports, I remember this fight being brought up again and again- Griffith was still fighting, later winning the middleweight crown, and they would always bring up the Paret fight. Norman Mailer wrote a well-regarded article about it, and it became one of those cultural touchstones for a while, trotted out by those who thought boxing had to go, too barbaric. But it was a footnote. When Ali showed up and, especially, when he upset Liston, Benny Paret, while not exactly forgotten, took a back burner. He only mattered to the people who didn't approve of boxing in the first place, and to Griffith, whose career became defined by the phrase "he killed a guy in the ring." Today, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who remembers, or cares- so few people even care about boxing at all.

Yeah, a guy was killed live on national TV in front of millions of viewers. And nobody remembers. Just thought it was interesting.

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Coulda written something about the Killian memo/alleged forgery, but football's back.

Coulda written about Ivan, or al Zawahiri, but football's back.

There are many more important matters, but on a hot, breezeless night, I couldn't motivate myself off the couch to deal with them, and therefore paid rapt attention as Willie McGinest blasted around the left side and steamrolled Manning to back the Colts up, leading to Vanderjagt's miss and the start of another NFL season.

Feels good, and it'll feel good until the realization kicks in that the Eagles aren't gonna win the Super Bowl this year, or perhaps any other year in my lifetime. (Actually, they won the NFL championship, pre-Super Bowl, on December 26, 1960, when I was less than six months old. My luck, they peaked when I was too young to comprehend it) But football's back.

Now, what was that about a memo and IBM Selectrics? Aah, it's too late. Talk to me tomorrow.

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Part 2 of the Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 saga: I finally got a reply from their support staff suggesting I create a new Windows login with admin powers, then try the program that way. And it works- sloooooowly, but it works.

But I didn't WANT a new login. I want it to work on the one I had, with all my settings and icons and bookmarks and set up the way I want it set up. Is that too much to ask?

Well, I asked. Let's see how long THIS answer takes.

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This morning, Chris Rock was on Howard Stern's show. Rock, apropos of Howard's usual Bush-bashing, piped up with something like this:

"bin Laden killed, what, 3,000 people and he's Satan. Bush killed 1,000 and he's a hero. What am I missing?"

He's missing the same as a liberal friend of mine who e-mailed me today, asking for me to explain the difference between the Muslim call for murdering children (as in Beslan) and "collateral damage" killing kids in Iraq.

Do I have to explain this? Do I really? Because if I do, we're in worse shape than I thought.

If people- intelligent, reasonable people- cannot understand the difference between intentional, targeted murder of innocents and death as a byproduct of war, if these people aren't familiar with the fact that death has always been subject to differing characterization- murder, degrees of murder, manslaughter, self-defense, accident...

Greater minds than mine have explained the evils of drawing moral equivalence as a way of either excusing true evil or painting someone as evil who may not be. I'm just so tired of this. And if Chris Rock thinks sending planes into buildings to kill innocent people is the same as soldiers dying in a war, or someone else thinks there's no difference between accidental civilian casualties in a war and terrorists taking a school full of children hostage and killing hundreds of them in cold blood, there's nothing more to say. Some people are so dead set on their political objectives, there's no point in discussing anything with them anymore.

So I won't. Sorry.

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This is what CBS News is saying in defending its story on Bush's Guard service:

"This report was not based solely on recovered documents, but rather on a preponderance of evidence, including documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources, interviews with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely back in the early 1970s with Colonel Jerry Killian and were well acquainted with his procedures, his character and his thinking."

Here's the problem: the only documents they've produced, the ones they clearly used as the linchpin of the story, were quite likely faked. Remove them and what do you have? Interviews with unnamed people. He said, she said. And, as we've learned since, Killian's son and wife were contacted, but when they didn't corroborate CBS' spin, they were ignored.

Worse, CBS goes on to focus on a minor point- the existence of superscript for the "th" on typewriters "as early as" 1968, and the "th" superscript on some Bush-related military memos- without addressing the facts that a) Killian is known not to have written many, if any, memos, period, b) he didn't use a typewriter, and c) the likelihood that the Texas Air National Guard had that kind of typewriter is ultra-remote. (And the "th"s in the Bush docs are different from the one in the Killian memo) Plus, they ignore the font issues (sure, Times New Roman existed, but who had a typewriter using it in the early 70's?), use one handwriting expert to "prove" a signature match when most outside experts say there's a problem there, and with all of this, they're not even going to bother to investigate the situation. (More evidence that CBS is blowing smoke is building- check Hugh Hewitt for a good explanation by a professor of computer science of kerning and how it contradicts the CBS typewriter claims, and Charles Johnson teaches Atrios a lesson about the difference between IBM Selectrics and modern MS Word computers in line spacing and auto-centering. The spin ain't working)

Contrast CBS' defensiveness regarding the memos with the caption to an AP picture they're running with the same story:

"A decorated Vietnam combat veteran, John Kerry recently has faced questions over his record as a Navy officer and an anti-war protester."

Under Bush's picture, it says:

"A respected pilot and Air National Guard veteran, President Bush recently has faced questions over his record of service."

Just kidding. It doesn't say anything. It doesn't have to. The article covers everything.

All of this comes down to something very simple: they got caught. They got caught running with a story based on hearsay and faked documents, caught running with the story before they checked it out, caught running with a story because, deep down, they WANT it to be true. And now that it appears more likely that it ISN'T true, they're scrambling to the bow of the ship as the rest of the boat goes under, water lapping at their ankles, then their knees...

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The sign on the Starbucks kiosk inside the Redondo Beach Albertsons says this:

Starbucks Hours
6 AM-7 PM

At 6:30 this evening, this is what the grinning barista behind the counter said:

"We're closed."

What? But the sign says...

"Oh, well, we leave at 7."

It's 6:30.

"We leave at 7."

But...

Ah, forget it.

That's the Starbucks inside Albertson's in Redondo Beach. Add it to the list.

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If you subscribe to the L.A. Times- and who doesn't?- I want you to go check out Sunday's Calendar section and look at the capsule comments in the "Fall Sneaks" movie roundup. I want you to note that each, after noting title, genre, distributor, cast, director, and storyline, includes a line headed "So?:", which ostensibly gives you the paper's opinion on how good the movie is or why you should care about it, things like "Lavish but superficial" or "Less than the sum of its parts." Okay. But then there are a ton of entries that, well, here's a sample entry:

Reconstruction
Drama
Palm Pictures
With: Maria Bonnevie, Nikolaj Lie Kaas
The idea: A young Danish photographer's fling with an alluring Swede renders him a stranger to those he thought he knew.
Writer-director: Christoffer Boe & Mogens Rukov
So? The wages of adultery

The wages of adultery what?

Or:

Wimbledon
Comedy
Universal
With: Kirsten Dunst, Paul Bettany, Sam Neill, Jon Favreau
The idea: A lowly Brit tennis player finds his way into the world-famous All-England tournament and falls for U.S. star.
Writers: Adam Brooks and Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin
Director: Richard Loncraine
So? Courtiers

"Courtiers"?!? Courtiers what?

This kind of thing goes on throughout the piece, and it's the same every time they do these roundups: "Identity crisis," "The joke is afoot," "Seeking light after cruel darkness," "Moral conflict." WHAT DO THEY MEAN? WHAT'S THE POINT? DID SOMEONE ACTUALLY GET PAID FOR THIS?

My LORD. If I have nothing to say, at least I don't get PAID for it.

The end of the piece claims that these witticisms were written by something called "Kevin Crust." It must be nice to get paid by the word even when you just hand in randomly chosen verbiage.

And, suddenly, Entertainment Weekly seems like the New York Review of Books.

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I had one letter to send, certified mail, return receipt requested. One letter. That's all. No packages, no special orders. All forms were filled out. I pulled into the post office garage, parked, walked in, got in the queue- about 5 people in front of me- and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And while I waited, I noticed what was going on. Everybody in front of me except for one- a gentleman with an express mail envelope ready to go- had several packages or envelopes, all to be sent with some sort of insurance or confirmation, but none of them- NONE of them- had filled out any forms at all. So the customers were slowly, painstakingly filling out forms- 15 or 20 each- and the clerks, rather than having them step aside while they filled out the forms so that other patrons could go through, just... watched. And watched. And the queue began to build behind me, 10, 15 people, the line stretching right out of the room and down the lobby hall, and the clerks just... watched.

I've been using this post office for about 10 years now. I have a P.O. Box there, the clerks all know me, and they're very, very nice people. Too nice. And way, way too slow. What should have taken me 5 minutes, at most, ended up taking a half hour. And when I loudly complained- I was wearing an Eagles jersey, so I was feeling aggressive- the clerks and manager agreed and said their policy was indeed to have the slowpokes step aside.

SO WHY DIDN'T THEY DO THAT?

If there really was competition- if you could send letters, non-overnight letters, by a private carrier the way you can FedEx or UPS something, maybe the service would be better and the prices more reasonable. I know that because of FedEx and UPS, you can now use a self-service kiosk to avoid lines. Unfortunately, if you need to send something and get a receipt back, or insure something, the kiosk is useless. And that's how you end up with a half-hour wait at 2:30 pm on a non-busy day. It's hardly April 15, or Christmas time. (The lines and the wait at those times are mind-boggling) This shouldn't happen on September 13, even with quarterly taxes due on the 15th (I appeared to be the only one on line sending off a tax payment- everyone else had packages). This shouldn't happen, period. But that's the service I get, and if I don't like it, my alternative is to... well, I don't have one.

Here's what I want- I want the right to kick the ass of anyone who isn't ready with completed forms when he or she reaches the counter. I want a line set aside for people with 5 or more packages, so that the people like me with one or two items don't have to wait forever. I want the clerks to be a little less chatty and a lot faster. And I want to be able to get the hell out of there in a reasonable time.

Is that too much to ask?

Probably.

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The blog world- I'm going to declare the word "blogosphere" off limits only because I'm sick of it- is learning now what talk radio knew years ago, because the condescension directed at bloggers isn't all that different from what I was hearing about talk radio over a decade ago when I was at New Jersey 101.5 and we were involved in the kind of emperor-has-no-clothes action that the blogs are directing at CBS.

Back in the early '90s, New Jersey was in the throes of a long romance with liberal politicians who returned the love with heavy taxation. Actually, that's still the way it is there, but for a brief, shining moment, and for the first time in the state's history, there was a media outlet that wasn't afraid to point out that a) the Governor, Jim Florio, had promised to hold the line on taxes, but b) had instead used threats and backroom politicking to ram the largest tax hike in the state's history through the shockingly compliant legislature. And it happened like this:

1. Postal worker calls John and Ken show to complain about high taxes.
2. John asks postal worker why, if he's so upset, he doesn't DO something about it.
3. Postal worker says, hey, I think I WILL do something about it.
4. Grass roots campaign forms, station jumps aboard, rallies held.

And then, the critical part:

5. Newark Star-Ledger, Asbury Park Press, Trenton Times, Bergen Record attack station and tax revolt, denigrate postal worker as just a postal worker, denigrate hosts as screaming right-wing wackos.
6. Governor thrown out of office by angry voters, with difference coming by margin of voters in counties covered by station.

Here's the funny part- the station was OWNED BY A NEWSPAPER, the Asbury Park Press. When we started to make noise, the paper refused to mention us, even when it was an integral part of the story (they resorted to calling us a "Trenton-based radio station"). Then, the editor, loath to assign one of his own reporters to cover what was happening, decided instead to print a hatchet job on the station that had appeared in the Chicago Tribune, an article that got many of the facts wrong. The editorial staff was so fearful that the radio station was gaining popularity and prestige that they felt the need to trash us, but didn't have the balls to do the job themselves.

And blogs, in many ways, are just like talk radio- an alternative, fact-checkers, keeping the mainstream media honest, ripping them when they aren't honest. You can tell by the reaction, the anger apparent in Dan Rather's increasingly desperate attempts to hold back the tidal wave, the aggression in CBS' passes at debunking the growing blog-generated pile of evidence against it. It's deja vu for me- it's the early 90's and talk radio all over again, only this time, it's open to anyone with a computer. That's a good thing.

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Which is a more valuable and worthy news organization: CBS, the National Enquirer, or the Weekly World News?

Compare and contrast:

ACCURACY

CBS: Lead story this week: Memos. Now everyone knows the word "kerning." (0 points)
National Enquirer: Lead story this week: "Hollywood's CHEATERS & most dangerous relationships." Hollywood stars cheating? Sounds accurate to me. (10 points)
Weekly Word News: Lead story this week: "NOV. ELECTION CANCELED! Nation's voting machines are made in Florida- AND THEY WON'T WORK!" Haven't heard about the cancellation yet, but it does have wonderful pictures of a slackjawed Kerry and a simian Bush, so gotta give 'em at least some credit. (5 points)

SELF-PROMOTION:

CBS: Dan Rather in the New York Observer. Andy Heyward's zero-news release after a whole day of stalling. (0 points)
National Enquirer: Self-congratulation: "DOUBLE BACHELORS! You read it here first" Perhaps that's true, but did anyone want to know that, or see the list of the 15 girls making the cut on "The Bachelor"? (5 points)
Weekly World News: "NASA scientists stunned: WEEKLY WORLD NEWS FOUND ON MARS!" (10 points)

FEATURES

CBS: Web site features columns by Robert Scheer. (0 points)
National Enquirer: "Hollywood BEATERS & CHEATERS" feature includes pictures of Farrah Fawcett's bruises, Brett Butler's bloody mugshot, Vanessa Williams looking like someone just goosed her with a cattle prod, Dr. Phjil's first wedding photo; a feature notes that Teresa Heinz Kerry and Dustin Hoffman in drag for "Tootsie" appear to have been separated at birth; contest for "America's Cutest Cat." (5 points)
Weekly World News: Free pullout Alien Abduction special investigation, including a section on how "EXTRATERRESTRIAL SEX IS OUT OF THIS WORLD" (no mention of anal probes, though); Ed Anger demanding that Tug-of-War be made an Olympic sport; a "Be the Next Superman" contest; yet another weekly feature story on "Bat Boy," in which "the world's greatest plastic surgeon" offers to alter said deformed child's face into "a normal-looking teenager- free of charge!"; a Peter Bagge comic strip about Bat Boy; a story about NASA building a "DOUBLE-WIDE SHUTTLE" to launch fat Americans into space "...and you could be one of them!"'; a story about a car that runs on toe jam; how to get ahead in business by dressing like Courtney Love. (10 points)

NUMBER OF MY FORMER EMPLOYEES WHO ADVERTISE THEIR OWN 900 NUMBER PSYCHIC LINES THERE

CBS: Zero. (0 points)
National Enquirer: One. (10 points)
Weekly World News: One. (10 points) (same employee)

RESULTS:

CBS: 0 points.
National Enquirer: 25 points.
Weekly World News: 35 points.

This is despite the WWN's evolution from a straight-faced outrage picking up where the sister Enquirer left off when it moved towards actual reporting and accuracy. Now that the WWN KNOWS it's funny and plays that up, where can we turn for falsehoods presented with utmost sincerity and lack of self-awareness? Which news organization will consistently make up stories and be surprised when the public figures out it's all a fake? Who...

Oh, OK, it's an obvious one. Sorry. But I swear, these days, if it's a choice between CBS and "SIMON COWELL CAUGHT- This is NOT his girlfriend!" and "My dead mom keeps calling on my cell phone!", I know which I'll take.

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Why is anybody surprised that Borders employees are discussing ways to hide, lie, or whatever else they feel they need to do to prevent people from buying the Swifties' book? (Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the link to the Google cache of the bulletin board) Sure, I mentioned this to Fran when my local Borders put up a sign telling patrons they could order the book but it wasn't in and even wrote about it someplace (here, All Access, someplace else, I can't remember and I'm too lazy to look it up), but why is anyone surprised? You can only be surprised if you'd never shopped at a book store before.

Or a record store. Or some clothing stores. I've always felt judged by the clerks at stores, but especially at book and record stores. There's always an attitude, and I know when I plop my stack of intended purchases on the counter that they're sizing me up. See, I don't look "cool." I have no piercings or tats. I look... ordinary. Suburban. Wonder Bread white. And if I'm buying something of which the pierced/tattooed hipster behind the register wouldn't approve, I get that feeling I get at nightclubs or radio conventions- I don't belong here.

But why? Why should I care what a retail clerk thinks? Am I uncool because a minimum-wage slacker with unnaturally colored hair and a sneer thinks that I'm some suburban cipher in a Land's End shirt buying a "Get Fuzzy" book and a crossword magazine? Am I uncool for buying a Fodor's travel guide and an Orange County Register? Am I uncool because I'm not buying a CD by the latest undeserving "next big thing" played only on KXLU? Maybe, but I'm not low-wage, low-self-esteem, bookstore-clerk uncool.

So why does it bother me? Why do I find myself entertaining the thought- just a thought- that I have to add, say, McSweeney's or a tasteful Taschen book to appear more with-it to the clerk? Why do I hesitate to buy something dorky that I want- Baseball America, or a book that isn't exactly "liberal"- to save myself the dirty looks and hostile undercurrent of the clerk? Well, I don't do it as much anymore. I still go to bookstores and record stores and video stores, but now I save the stuff I really want for Amazon and Overstock and Deep Discount DVD and other online stores. First, they're way cheaper, and second, there are no clerks. This works for me; if some data entry person or shipping clerk half a country away puts a "Green Acres" DVD or "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man" in a cardboard container, slaps my address on it, and thinks "what a dork," I'll never know and never care. I don't have to explain to a clerk with raised eyebrows that the Flintstones collection is a gift (when it isn't). I just buy, with no human interaction- perfect.

That's something I'm surprised the bookstore chains and music chains don't address. If I managed one of those places, I'd tell the clerks to drop the attitude, fast. Customers are customers, not, as one of the commenters at the Borders union bulletin board says, "neanderthals" to be scorned and pitied. Our unapproved purchases pay for their salaries, their tats and piercings and lattes and drugs and employee-discounted "cool" books and CDs. If Borders doesn't understand this- if they don't realize how much money this particular "neanderthal" has spent at Borders stores in the past decade- then they don't deserve my business.

But they probably won't miss me, anyway. I may have spent thousands of dollars there, but I'm SO uncool.

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Step one: someone releases a study claiming liberal media bias.

Step two: the media claims, en masse, that the study's illegitimate because the people doing the study are- gasp!- conservative.

Step three: the media do things that prove the study's correct.

Step four: nothing changes.

Here's how this played out yet again, and it has nothing to do with Rathergate: a study came out in which a study of headlines attached to stories about the economy showed that the headlines were significantly more upbeat when Clinton was President than they are for identical news under Bush. The study was greeted with attacks on the guys who did the study from people like the Baltimore Sun's radio/TV reporter David Folkenflik, who called the study "replete with regression points and dummy variables" and scored the survey for a) analyzing headlines rather than full stories (although the study was specifically designed to analyze the headline spin, because the headlines are all many people ever see), and b) being written by conservatives, who obviously had a dog in this race.

Okay, fine, except here's the headline on an AP story, as it appeared on the New York Times website today:

Consumer Prices Climb; Jobless Claims Up

Consumer prices climb? Here's the article itself:

Consumer prices barely budged in August, suggesting that inflation isn't currently a problem for the economy and Federal Reserve policy-makers can stick with a gradual approach to raising interest rates.

The government's closely watched inflation barometer, the Consumer Price Index, rose by just 0.1 percent in August from the previous month, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Falling prices for clothes, cars and airfares helped to temper rising prices for medical care, education and some food items.

How does a statistically insignificant 0.1% rise- one the article itself characterizes as "barely budged"- constitute a "climb"?

And then there's the part about jobless claims being up, which conjures up images of the unemployment line- the soup kitchen line- getting ever longer:

New claims for unemployment benefits rose last week by a seasonally adjusted 16,000 to 333,000, the Labor Department said. The pace of layoffs, however, has slowed over the last year. A year ago, new filings were at 401,000.

"Seasonally adjusted"- summer jobs are over and some people are newly eligible for unemployment benefits. Otherwise, the news is that the pace of layoffs is slowing. Is that in the headline? Neither is this nugget:

U.S. households saw their net worth in the second quarter of this year rise to a record $45.91 trillion, reflecting in part higher home and other real-estate values. The second quarter's figure surpassed the previous all-time high registered in the first quarter of this year.

Net worth's up, layoffs are slowing, consumer prices are flat despite high fuel prices (which dipped in July and August), food prices are up just 0.1%, clothing prices are down 0.2%, new car prices are dropping, airfares dipped 3.7% (largest drop since June 1999), medical costs were up 0.2% and education rose 0.6%. The consumer price rise is mostly from the high price of oil.

So how did the headline writer get this:

Consumer Prices Climb; Jobless Claims Up

out of this?:

Consumer prices steady despite energy costs, net worth rises

Ask David Folkenflik.

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The Yankees and Red Sox were in a rain delay, and I'd been kinda absent lately- working here, or at the stadium- and so I found myself agreeing to take Fran to the movies, her choice. And that's how we ended up at "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." Actually, that was the choice because it started a half-hour before "Wimbledon." Whatever. "Sky Captain" it was.

It's an interesting movie (there's the blurb: "'Interesting!'- P.M. Simon, pmsimon.com"), but not wholly successful. I'm not even sure it's a whole movie- it's more of a concept stretched out to feature length. To be sure, it's a pretty cool concept: what Tomorrow was imagined to be like at the 1939 World's Fair, only with giant marauding robots and Jude Law and stuff. The look of the thing is cool (I'm sure Lileks will want to see this one- it's right up his alley), and it's amusing enough, even though the plot's stupid, characters appear and disappear and plot elements drift away (warning to Angelina Jolie fans: she's barely in this one, and comes in very late, at that), and there's entirely too much winking at the camera, "Indiana Jones" as remade by the writing staff of "According to Jim," hamhanded and way too self-aware. But there's one thing that stands out above all:

Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow can't act.

(Gwyneth, if you're prone to Googling your own name and came across this, I'm sorry, but it's true, and someone has to say it. You're wooden, bland, unexpressive, and oddly plain, even with the Veronica Lake 'do and the crimson lips. Sure, I'll give you points for having to react to CGI elements- it can't be easy- but there was not a single appealing note to your performance. I kept rooting for Jude Law to deck you, and, sure enough... but that's giving something away. Plus, you named your kid "Apple." Unforgiveable.)

There's more- the Hindenburg shows up for a few minutes and doesn't go kaboom, it's set in 1939 but there are no Nazis (just Sir Laurence Olivier as a German mad scientist ("Totenkopf"- deadhead! Ha ha!) in the form of CGI-altered clips), Giovanni Ribisi co-stars as a comic-book-reading dork who makes both Jude Law and Angelina Jolie go weak-kneed for no apparent reason, Michael Gambon and Omid Djalili come in, appear to be important to the story, then disappear as if they never existed... I have to hand it to writer/director Kerry Conran for convincing a major studio to drop a huge budget and big-name cast on a script that appears never to have been completed.

But it looks cool.

That's all that matters, right?

(sigh)

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Got no time, so here's a picture of Fernando Valenzuela being swamped by fans as he emerged from the press box last week:

They still love the guy. He's still an icon for the Mexican community. Must be strange to be mobbed wherever you go.

Relevance? None. Maybe he's signing documents for CBS.

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My liberal friends insist that Rathergate is really all Karl Rove's fault, that he did the forgeries- probably crafted them himself, with the Eviltron 400 (TM) word processor and weather controller- and fed them to Bil Burkett and somehow did it with no fingerprints involved.

Maybe they're right. I've been sent photographic evidence of Rove discussing his plan with the President. You be the judge:

Hard to argue with this kind of incontrovertible proof.

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From AP:

Staking out new ground on Iraq, Sen. John Kerry said Monday he would not have overthrown Saddam Hussein had he been in the White House, and he accused President Bush of "stubborn incompetence," dishonesty and colossal failures of judgment. Bush said Kerry was flip-flopping.

Less than two years after voting to give Bush authority to invade Iraq, the Democratic candidate said the president had misused that power by rushing to war without the backing of allies, a post-war plan or proper equipment for U.S. troops. "None of which I would have done," Kerry said.

"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," he added. "But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."

From 1944:

Staking out new ground on Europe, Sen. John Kerry said Monday he would not have gone to war against Adolf Hitler had he been in the White House, and he accused President Roosevelt of "stubborn incompetence," dishonesty and colossal failures of judgment. Roosevelt said Kerry was flip-flopping.

Kerry said the president had misused his power by rushing to war without the backing of Italy, Japan, or the Vichy government of France, a post-war plan or proper equipment for U.S. troops. "None of which I would have done," Kerry said.

"Adolf Hitler is a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," he added. "But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his possible downfall does not hide this fact: We are trading a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."

You know what I would respect more? If Kerry would say, "yeah, it's good we got rid of Saddam, and while I'd have done some things differently, that part turned out fine. I think we can be doing better in the post-war period, because we should have a plan that includes being more aggressive against the insurgents and terrorists and we should be recognizing and battling the danger of extremist Islam." I'd be interested in VOTING for that. Instead, he lurches between lukewarm war support and telling the rabid anti-war-at-any-cost crowd whatever he thinks they want to hear. The latter seems to be the plan for the rest of the campaign, and that's too bad. I think the majority of voters realize that platitudes about waiting until France and Germany and the U.N. joined the coalition are pretty hopeless, that France and Germany and the U.N. had no self-interest in doing so (and what we're learning- slowly- about the the oil-for-food scam ought to seal that one for good). I also think that a lot of voters, if anything, are upset with Bush for not being aggressive enough, for not finishing enough of the job before settling back and allowing the Sunni Triangle to become overrun with opposition.

It's a shame, really, that Kerry's not offering a realistic alternative to Bush's conduct of the war. There IS an opportunity for someone to challenge Bush on this. But the winning argument isn't to insist that the war shouldn't have been fought or that we'd all be better off if Saddam was still in there. Voters are looking for fire, not a wet blanket.

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Dear ABC:

I am watching the Monday Night Football game in progress on your network right now over your Los Angeles station, KABC-TV. I would like to register a complaint about the coverage your network is providing, specifically the following:

Jim Belushi.

There have been "According to Jim" promos on this game telecast at every possible opportunity. Mr. Belushi appeared live at halftime for no apparent reason. Mr. Belushi has been on my TV screen more than Terrell Owens tonight, and I'm sure you'll agree that this should not be the case.

As you know, "According to Jim" is on your schedule because your program development people were unable to come up with any better options this Fall, and the default ratings were enough to leave it in place while "Life With Bonnie" got the ax. That's fine with me- I do not have to watch "According to Jim," and accodringly do not- but it is cruel and unusual to inflict Mr. Belushi on viewers who wish only to watch Donovan McNabb and Daunte Culpepper, not the bloated and mildly embarrassing brother of a revered but long-dead entertainer. Please ensure that this never happens again. Thank you.

Oh, and lose the Alanis Morissette thing, too. Nobody wants to see that.

Sincerely,

Perry Michael Simon

P.S.: I am an Eagles fan, with all that implies. You don't want to make me angry.

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On the way home from dinner, I realized that it's all Yngwie J. Malmsteen's fault.

We were cruising south on Hawthorne Boulevard, dreaming up names for Fran's sister's baby, which we know will be a boy. And we were amusing ourselves with names that play off of her married surname, which happens to be "Horsey"- yes, Giddyap was in there, and Dorsey, and countless other jokes. And there was the category of Old Jewish Guy's Names, like Sol and Irving and Shlomo and Menachem. And then I blurted out the idea of naming the kid Yngwie J. Horsey.

Silence.

You know, Yngwie J. Malmsteen.

Silence.

Yngwie J. Malmsteen. The guitar guy. Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force. Hero to metal guitar geeks. Yngwie J. Malmsteen.

Fran looked at me from the corner of her eye. "Oh, um, yeah."

And that's when I realized that I know too much Yngwie J. Malmsteen and too little of the stuff that'll make me money.

I know a lot, but precious little of it is salable knowledge. Do I know quantum physics? Nope. Do I know the Uniform Commercial Code? Nope, and I had classes on that in law school. Do I know how to fix a car, split an atom, manage a large multinational corporation?

Nope. But I DO know who Yngwie J. Malmsteen is. That's what occupies my brain cells. Yngwie J. Malmsteen and Joe Besser and Marv Throneberry. The Baltimore Claws, the Fish that Saved Pittsburgh and the Cleveland Steamer. (Hey, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland- the three football franchises that switched from the NFL to the AFC when the leagues merged. I know that, too) Soupy Sales, Wallace and Ladmo, Wee Willie Webber. Pete Best, Stu Sutcliffe, Billy Preston. Joe Pyne, Leon Lewis, Long John Nebel. DuMont, Metromedia, Fox. J.J. Walker, B.B. King, G.G. Allin. Darby Conley, Darby Crash, Upper Darby. Dick Capri, Freddie Roman, Slappy White.

Useless, all of it.

OK, there's value, I suppose, in eclectic pop cultural knowledge. And I have some peculiar pockets of knowledge- I can tell you the TV stations (call letters, network affiliation, channel number, even owner and history) in many if not most American and Canadian markets, I can give you directions, off the top of my head, to major landmarks in a disturbing number of cities, I can recite the history of long-lost sports leagues like the ABA and the ABL (the 1961 version) and the WFL. But I can't always remember the important and useful stuff. There's no room. It's all taken up with junk, stuff I need not know... Yngwie J. Malmsteen.

So it's Yngwie J. Malmsteen's fault. He's taking up room. And as I get older and the storage space shrinks, there's no way to discard ol' Yngwie. I'm stuck with Yngwie J. Malmsteen. And the only saving grace is that, now, some poor guitar fan will Google Yngwie J. Malmsteen and get this. He'll come for the Malmsteen, and leave with Slappy White.

And maybe that's my calling- to pass along the knowledge. If I must live under this curse, at least I'll have company.

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Yesterday, he was Greg Behrendt, standup comic, father, husband, all-around nice guy.

Then, today, he was on Oprah, plugging his book.

Now, his book is the Number One Best-Seller on Amazon.com.

Number One at Barnes and Noble, too.

And the cool thing? It's funny and perceptive, he's a great guy, and you should buy the book now. Right now. Go.

I don't know, maybe I should be jealous. I'll save that for when he no longer returns my calls because he's too big a star. Maybe next week.

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I'm not supposed to look at Yom Kippur as a day off- it's a day of atonement, after all. But I do need a day off, and this is the only way I'm gonna get it.

I feel for Shawn Green, really I do, because I know what he's thinking. He's thinking that if he had a real job, a job the public doesn't follow, a job like actuary or accountant or pediatrician, he could take the holiday off and nobody would care. Better still, he could take the day off and nobody would watch to see if he goes to services, if he fasts, if he avoids driving and brushing his teeth and all that stuff. If he's Mr. S. Green, nondescript, non-famous Jewish guy, he gets to stay home, not go to services, and, sometime in the late morning or early afternoon on Saturday, tell Mrs. Green that he's had it, he's going to In-N-Out for a burger because he can't stand the fasting any longer, and she tells him that's okay, as long as it's not in the house, and he jumps into the family car headed for the drive-thru when both of them know they both cheated in the middle of the night, sneaking an apple or a sandwich when they thought the other was asleep.

You don't think that's the drill? Lemme tell you, when I was a kid, this is exactly how it went: we fasted after dinner, watched some TV, went to sleep. The next morning, we skipped breakfast, then, around lunchtime, Dad and I- not Mom or Joanie, they were stronger- would slip out the door (with Mom saying "I don't care WHAT you do, just not in the house!") and head for Gino's for some Kentucky Fried Chicken. We'd go back, and by about 4 pm, Joan would have succumbed- sneaked something when Mom wasn't looking- and Mom would say okay, that's it, I can't do it anymore, but not in the house. That was the rule, not in the house. So we'd pile into the car and head to where we assumed we'd be safe, far enough away from home so nobody we'd know would see us- the Claremont Diner in Verona. And we'd walk in and, sure enough, the ENTIRE JEWISH POPULATION OF WAYNE, NEW JERSEY would be there, sheepishly looking away, caught red-handed and full-bellied, hours before sundown.

That's what Yom Kippur means to me. If you're Famous Baseball Star Jew, you can't do that. You're a role model. You're SuperJew. And if you don't play, you will be watched. You will have to go to services, on Friday night and on Saturday. You will not be able to sneak a bite when nobody's looking, because everyone WILL be looking. You will be scrutinized for Jewish Perfection from sundown to sundown.

And that's why I wouldn't have blamed him for deciding to play on Saturday afternoon. (He's playing Friday night, staying home Saturday, which is kinda backwards, but that's okay- given the circumstances, you can't blame him for compromising) Saturday afternoon's about right, really, for most Reform Jews- by 1 pm, you've had enough of the fasting, enough of the sitting around. You're stir crazy. You HAVE to go get something to eat, go do something, go to the park and grab a bat and try to beat the Giants. Anything. It's what we're all about- good intentions, a game attempt at hanging in and following the rules, and, eventually, failure of the flesh. And it's the first thing for which to atone next Yom Kippur.

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The movie they're shooting down the street is spreading. This morning, when I was running, I was passed by about a dozen trucks with Sony Pictures logos on them, carrying equipment to a house in Palos Verdes Estates where they'd set up tables with craft services food on them on the sidewalk across the street. There were guys with walkie talkies, and it all seemed very Secret Service-ish.

Later in the day, I headed out to the post office, and they'd taken over the corner of PV Drive and Hawthorne Boulevard, by the 76 gas station. A couple of phone booths had sprouted up on the sidewalk, as had about a zillion traffic cones cordoning off a lane, and there were cops and cameras everywhere. Cops and trucks all over, and a Los Angeles Sheriff's squad car blocking both lanes of traffic in the downhill direction. I've never seen so many cops without a chalk outline of a body amidst them.

This was all because of Jim Carrey. They shoot a lot of movies around here, but I've never, ever seen so much security and so many cops. But when your stars are Viggo Mortensen or even Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu, the cops stay home. Same for Matthew Broderick and whoever the hell was in "Life As a House." But drop Jim Carrey out here at the edge of civilization and suddenly it's like Bush, Kerry, and Salman Rushdie were converging for a confab at the Golden Cove Starbucks. I mean, it's Jim Carrey, people- Jim Carrey! "Dumb and Dumber" Jim Carrey! "Ace Ventura" Jim Carrey! The man's a genius! Avert your eyes when in his presence and speak only when spoken to!

I don't resent it too much. The movies supposedly bring a lot of money to the local economy, although I never see anyone from the set actually contributing to the local economy by patronizing local businesses, not even Starbucks. And all we get is noise and traffic and inconvenience, and... um... you know, actually, I DO resent it.

But in about a year, we'll pay our ten bucks to see our neighborhood on the big screen- look, you can see the lighthouse in the background! There's our 76 station!- and we'll marvel about how cool it is to see an artificially altered, flat picture of the same thing we can see every day in full color and 3-D, live and in person, because, like playing Madden 2005 instead of watching a game on Sunday, reality pales next to the unreal thing.

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It's 2004, right?

Then is there any possible excuse for Wal-Mart to have sold "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" through its web site with a description that indicated it might be factual?

Is there anyone left who doesn't know what that is, how virulently anti-Semitic and fraudulent a tract it is?

I shop at Wal-Mart. I own Wal-Mart stock. I'm pissed. And I do not accept "gee, we didn't know" for an answer.

Heads have gotta roll for this. Nobody's saying they can't sell it. I could say they shouldn't, because they don't HAVE to, but, certainly, they could have done what Amazon and Barnes and Noble do, attach warnings to it.

Tonight starts the Day of Atonement. I'm telling you, Wal-Mart better damn sure atone for this.

(On the other hand, maybe Dan Rather and Mary Mapes vouched for the source...)

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It's pushing midnight on the west coast and I'm sitting here in a darkened room staring at the computer screen because I temporarily lost the ability to dream tonight.

A lot of things are catching up to me right now. It's been a pretty difficult year, and that fact combined with another fact- I have not had any real time off for a very, very long time- whacked me across the face tonight. Normally, in that situation, I can lose myself in thoughts about things I'm looking forward to accomplishing, projects I want to start, things I want to write, but lately those pleasant, creative thoughts have been replaced by thoughts of absolute dread of the alarm clock. I've been up before the crack of dawn writing every day for I don't know how long, and writing after dark. I've been planted in front of a computer keyboard for years, nonstop, whether I'm here at home or traveling or in an airport waiting area preparing to see my father for the last time or ro go and deal with his estate and the lawyers. I've worked through family crises, illness, creative blocks. And through it all, I sustained myself knowing that it was all leading to...

...to what? Good question. And that's where the dreams come in. People dream of a bright future from the moment they know what "future" means. Kids dream of being a ballplayer or doctor or fireman. Teens dream of getting laid and getting rich. People in their twenties dream of getting laid and getting rich. Everyone dreams of something- becoming president, becoming a famous actor, becoming Donald Trump (only with better hair). And as time goes on, some of the dreams drop by the wayside- you realize you can't hit a curve ball, you'll never just happen to make the acquaintance of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, you'll never record the biggest hit single in rock history. But you still hold onto some dreams- maybe you'll write the Great American Novel, maybe you'll hit the lottery. Hey, stranger things have happened, right? And you drift off to sleep, thinking about what you'll do with all that money.

And then, one evening, you go blank.

That's what happened to me. It started with a recurring rant I go through in my mind every once in a while, the "I must not be as smart as I think, considering the number of non-smart people who appear to be doing far better then I" discussion, and that led to the "who the hell do you think you're kidding, what you are today is what you're going to be tomorrow" self-pity thing, and, in turn, that got me to the "you're in your forties- too late" thread. And before long, like a hard drive left near a powerful magnet, the dreams got erased, the book ideas trashed, the scripts deleted, the radio projects and the TV projects and the creative concepts dropped in the "you don't have time for any of that" pile.

Which is, of course, partly true and partly bull. I often say that I know I can't be as smart as I think, not if (fill in the blank) is still not only employed but being paid a fortune despite (fill in the transgression). And success sometimes DOES come to the undeserving, but that doesn't mean the less successful aren't either deserving or liable to experience success in the future. It's just that sometimes, fried from unending work, I manage to lose sight of the second part of that equation and focus on the first. And that can only lead to thinking that things are futile, hopeless, that I'm deluding myself with all these projects and proposals, because this- suburban guy in his forties waking up before the birds and writing all freakin' day, every day, all week, all year- is what I am and what I will be.

Try getting to sleep after THAT.

Some people can still have dreams and ideas and youthful exuberance in their "senior years." You read about guys in their 80's still starting businesses and trying skydiving and doing new things. That's great, but it's also not common. Most people, I imagine, give up earlier, resign themselves to whatever it is they've achieved and nothing more at some point. Maybe, for some, it's the addition of kids- having to provide for a family means you need career stability, hence you won't be ditching the actuarial job for a career in stand-up comedy. Maybe for others it's age- certainly, if you're in your 40's, it's too late to pull a Roy Hobbs and hit the home run that wins the World Series.

For me, it's temporary- those projects haven't really been erased, and I really DON'T know what will become of me, but I still have hope, not that the Phillies will add me to the 25 man roster by Opening Day 2005 but that, you know, the best is yet to come. And I know there are worse things to be than a writer who doesn't have to leave his house to work.

Hey, I feel a lot better now. All I needed was to talk it out.

Now, where did I put that Lotto ticket?

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The Boston Globe approves of the way Europe handles terror, by bending over and pleading for gentleness:

For the United States, the response to Sept. 11 was to launch a "war on terrorism," one cast in terms of good and evil and marked with somber ceremonies, fought more with armies than with indictments. But for Spain as well as for France, Germany, and Britain, all countries that have suffered a history of terrorist violence, the focus is a "struggle" against a criminal element.

These European countries have expressed a more quiet but collective resolve to work within an international consensus to fight terrorism. In the eyes of many European counterterrorism specialists and officials, the Bush administration's reliance on conventional military means can serve to provoke more terrorism.

No terrorist acts on American soil since 9/11. More terrorism in places that don't fight back.

"When Spain pulled out its troops, it was completely wrong to say the Spanish people had gone soft on terrorism," said Gijs de Vries, the European Union's first counterterrorism chief, a post created in response to the Madrid bombing to help European countries coordinate efforts against terrorism. "They were instead exerting their belief that the war in Iraq was not connected to the war on terrorism, and that in fact it undercut the war on terrorism."

De Vries, of the Netherlands, said confronting terrorism needs to combine conventional military force, police investigations, and a political dimension that is "more than just hearts and minds, but truly analyzing the context and the conditions that create terrorism." He said the United States and Europe had cooperated very effectively in many ways, especially in criminal investigations, but that the United States had unnecessarily alienated many of its allies by relying too heavily on a military response and consistently undervalued the political dimension.

Let's translate what he means by "the political dimension," okay? What he means is GIVING THE TERRORISTS WHAT THEY WANT. Throwing Jews and Israel under the (exploding) bus in the hopes it'll mean the terrorists- er, "militants"- will just leave everyone else alone. Negotiating treaties so that the leaders can emerge from their planes, walk onto the tarmac waving a piece of paper and announcing that it means "peace in our time."

Tried it once, didn't work.

The three leaders (Chirac, Schroeder, and Spain's Zapatero) agreed to share police databases and vowed closer cooperation in the continent's fight against terrorism. They also agreed to pursue a united approach to address the anger and despair among Muslims in the Middle East and those who come as immigrants to Europe, and who sometimes become recruits for terrorist groups.

Yes, must address the Muslims' despair. Attacks against Jews, against Christians, the murder of innocents? No time for that, not with the Muslim desperation. Maybe if we let them institute sharia law, they'll play nicer.

Across Europe, terrorism has claimed 5,000 lives in the past three decades, in attacks from such groups as the Irish Republican Army, the Basque separatist group ETA, anarchists, Italy's Red Brigades, Arab nationalists, and Islamic militants.

And the response has always been to treat them as criminal attacks, or ignore them, or give the terrorists what they want. And it's never worked. 5,000 lives, and they still can't see that.

This month, the European Union released a report it had commissioned to reassess Europe's ability to confront terrorism. The study was compiled by an independent group of counterterrorism and military specialists. It showed that Europe must increase its capacity to intervene in regional conflicts worldwide, and to help root out security risks at the source.

Which means... what? Means it's war, actually. "Intervene in regional conflicts worldwide"? Like, say, in the Middle East?

To do this, the report said, leaders must stress the importance of reexamining outdated notions of protecting states in favor of an approach that protects people and that offers a wider and more interlocking concept of security. "In an era of interdependence, Europeans can no longer feel secure when the rest of the world is insecure," said the report, which was published Wednesday.

The report also emphasized a need to complement conventional military means with improved civilian elements, such as police and their trainers who can provide assistance in peacekeeping missions and in the promotion of democracy and the rule of law.

In other words, you have to fight terrorism beyond your own borders, and promote democracy there. Who's trying that right now? Not most of Europe, which doesn't want anything to do with establishing democracy anywhere.

After the attacks in Madrid, Spaniards reacted with a demonstration of collective resolve that brought 10 million people to the streets to protest the terrorists...

...and then GAVE THE TERRORISTS WHAT THEY WANTED.

Antiterrorism police have arrested 68 people in connection with the train bombings, including 20 believed to have been directly involved. The suspects are alleged to form a web that ranges from Moroccan cell-phone store owners who perhaps unwittingly helped the terrorists obtain and program phones used to trigger bombs, to Spanish nationals who helped secure some of the explosives, to a core of 20 militants who more actively took part in planning and coordinating the bombings.

The core cell has been dismantled, according to Spanish law enforcement officials.

They damaged a core cell, and it's a huge success. Has no effect on al Qaeda as a whole, leaves the international al Qaeda organization alone to continue, but it's a huge success.

The Zapatero government has worked to build bridges with the immigrant Muslim community, and the new foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, has gone on a diplomatic offensive to improve ties with its neighbor, Morocco, and other Muslim countries, relations that were frayed by Aznar's support for the war.

Give them what they want. Peace in our time. Sure, Mr. Hitler, go ahead and take eastern Europe, we'll just sit over here and you'll leave us alone, right?

Trinidad Jimenez, the spokesman on foreign affairs for the Spanish Socialist Party, said: "We know terrorism, but we are not afraid of it.... We know it needs to be confronted, but we have come to understand that it must be confronted intelligently, effectively, and within the framework of international and national law."

Give them what they want. Peace in our time. We're not afraid, which is why we'll give them exactly what they asked for.

The differences between the United States and Europe were evident in the aftermath of the two attacks: While Americans rallied around the flag, Spaniards chose a less political symbol -- a white hand.

Make it a white flag.

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Our lemon tree has sprouted a lemon. This is noteworthy insofar as we've been waiting at least two years for it.

When we got the tree, it produced a lemon almost immediately. T'was a small lemon, but a lemon it was, and Fran prepared a salmon dish for the occasion. We laughed as we squoze the citrus juice onto our fish, imagining the bounty of lemon to come. Why, soon, we thought, there'll be homemade lemonade! Lemon meringue pies! Lemon for everyone!

And then, nothing. No lemons. 2002 passed, then 2003, no lemons. We added an orange tree- no oranges, although I noticed little orange buds that were there one day and snapped off the next. Listening to a radio show one weekend, I heard that wild animals like to grab the unripe fruit. Roof rats, actually. On went some netting, and, soon, a couple of small navel oranges appeared. They're still there, green, not yet large or ripe enough to matter. But no lemons. And I'd see other people's fruit trees brimming with huge yellow produce, hanging over their fences, taunting me. I could not contain my jealousy.

And then, today, I was grilling some burgers in the backyard, and filling the pool with more water, and I grabbed the hose and decided to give the trees and plants some refreshment. Here ya go, rose bushes! Have a drink, orange tree! Hey, lemon tree, here's... hey, what's that?

Could it be?

Why, it's...

A LEMON! A nice, big, still green but unmistakable LEMON!

I'm so (sniff) proud.

Now, if the roof rats get at it, all bets are off.

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Just got back from the ballpark- Dodger game's still on, going to the bottom of the ninth tied, but I had to get back to take care of some business and get some sleep. Interesting game, but when I was there in the back of the radio booth and Fernando Valenzuela stopped by to goof around with the crew, then Steve Garvey was standing next to me, waiting to get on the air, and then, while Garvey was on the air with Mo and Ross, Tommy Lasorda came by to greet Garvey...

...I mean, come on. It was my Topps baseball card collection come to life 20 years later. Throw in a raucous crowd, a pleasantly cool evening, and free popcorn and frozen yogurt, and that's a good night. And I'm not gonna ruin it by aggravating myself with a typical political rant. It's September, it's a pennant race, it's daring Fernando to pull a chair out from under someone (Tom, always check if the chair's where you think it is), it's no time for writing anything serious. So I won't.

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Here's a press release I got in the e-mail today:

HIP HOP NATION SQUARES OFF AGAINST GEORGE BUSH

On the eve of the first Presidential Debate, THE ROOTS join CHUCK D and "SLAM BUSH" to mobilize young Miami's young voters

WHAT: A Get-Out-The-Message concert in Miami on Sept. 29, the night before the first presidential debate, in which the Hip Hop Nation will lash out against the policies of George W. Bush and call for his defeat in November. The Roots, who are not taking a partisan stance, will headline the show...

Wait just a goldurn minute.

"...who are not taking a partisan stance..."?!?

They're headlining a show "in which the Hip Hop Nation will lash out against the policies of George W. Bush and call for his defeat in November" and they're "not taking a partisan stance"?

What a weasel phrase. What weasels.

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Can I even stand to wait for this debate?

Er, yes.

I'm going to be in transit tomorrow, so I'm going to be tired and cranky when the debate airs. And unless one of the candidates farts gold boullion on the podium, or rips off his face to reveal that he is, in fact, Xang, the ruler of Planet Xatox, it's not going to be all that interesting.

Of course, I could be wrong. But I'll be too tired and cranky to notice.

Gotta go. More when I've adjusted to wherever it is I'm headed. If you need me, try the cell.

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The couple on the security line at the Delta terminal appeared a little odd from the get-go. We were behind the wife as we approached where you have to show a boarding pass, and she was wielding a sandwich in a clear box and no pass. She was looking for her husband behind us, stopped, and waited. No husband. I started to move past her and she snapped "well, okay, you can go in front of me," clearly wanting to add "IF YOU'RE IN SUCH A RUSH." Hey, sorry, lady, but if you want to go ahead of me, have your boarding pass ready. Otherwise, get the hell out of the way.

So we got on line, and they got in behind us- the small, loud, fifty-something woman and her larger, bearded, professorial husband with a cell phone mic dangling from his ear bud. And something had happened at the boarding pass stop after we got past them, something major, because Professor was agitated. He started yelling from the line back at the guard. "You were very rude to that woman!" he shouted. "I should report you!" The guard, a short woman in a TSA uniform, walked toward him and said "excuse me, sir?" He kept going, egged on by his wife: "You were rude! You had no right to be rude!" I looked back- the woman to whom he was referring was an Asian lady who had been pulled aside for not having proper paperwork; she was seated on the side, smiling, while a Delta agent worked through the problem.

Meanwhile, the Professor and the Yenta were working on the TSA guard, and she'd had enough. She asked for their boarding passes again. He started yelling again. And so it went for a few minutes, punctuated by the couple muttering dark oaths about the evil agent. Finally, boarding passes returned, they shut up, she walked away, but, later, I saw the TSA agent and a Delta person on the side, looking at the couple, nodding.

You do not want to criticize a TSA agent. You do not want to speak to a TSA agent except to say hello and yes, sir and thank you. You do what this couple did, you end up on The List. And someday, it'll come back to haunt you.

As well it should. Whatever happened to the Asian woman was a matter between her and the TSA and Delta, and she didn't appear too upset. This couple was butting in, trying to stir up trouble. I got the impression they do this a lot- the Yenta kept snapping at the Professor for small slights, like not having finished his latte ("What, you're not finished with that? I told you to finish it before we got on line!") and for arguing with the agent and then for not continuing to argue with the agent. Some people are born to do that. If that means that somewhere down the line they show up at an airport and get the full cavity search treatment, well, look, I'm not usually in favor of government intrusion, but in this case, someone needs to be intruded upon. Hard.

Me, I kept my mouth shut, nodded yes and hello and yes sir and thank you sir. So did Fran. We got through without incident. That's the way you travel.

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