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Sometimes, life is like a lame standup comic's routine. Went to a movie, plenty of empty seats, we have two on the aisle in a short 5 seat row, couple walks in, sit right next to us. Didn't leave the customary buffer zone seat between us.

All I needed was some 6'10" guy in a sombrero to sit in front of me to complete the 1950's sitcom scenario.

I was squirming during the whole movie. Why did he sit in THAT seat? Why didn't he move one seat over? Why didn't they go to a more empty row? This is why I like DVDs and satellite- no people. Public situations would be better without other people. No crowds at the mall, no race for good seats at the movies, no waiting for tables at restaurants. No traffic, no noise. All I need is for everyone else to stay home when we want to go out. Simple.

Or we can stay home. That might be a little easier.

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The sprinklers are working again.

There are several rites of passage for those aspiring to adulthood. Home ownership is one. Mortgages, car loans, kids, taxes- all signs you're not a kid anymore.

Big home repairs, well, now we're talking adulthood. When you're a kid, daddy and mommy take care of everything. Something breaks- YOU break something- and it's magically repaired. Daddy may curse a little, but it's fixed and you never find out how it exactly how it's done. A little older, college, something happens, someone from the custodial staff shows up to patch it up, you're all good. Apartments, you call the super; rental houses, you call the landlord.

And then there's a deed in your name. You break it, you bought it.

Our house was built about 50 years ago, updated a little but still, essentially, what was here when the peninsula was still essentially scrub on rock with the occasional landslide to liven things up. The road had only recently been punched through; Marineland a few blocks away was new, but it wasn't yet suburbia, just a distant fringe area awaiting better roads and the 405 and 110 freeways to connect it to Los Angeles and civilization. The neighborhood was surrounded by rock and dirt and ocean. Now, it's surrounded by houses and palms and roads and, er, rock and dirt and ocean. But the house itself is, with a few alterations, what it was in the early 50s.

All of that is to say: old houses break. Sewer lines break, patios break, the slab under the garage breaks. You replace the roof, the driveway, the pool motor, and each time you swallow hard, you pull out your checkbook, your nuts retract and you curse like Daddy.

You ARE Daddy now.

My biggest adult home repair moment to date was the sewer main line problem, when the contents of our pipes began to back up into the alley behind my office and we discovered that roots had dislocated the line. Daddy, the sewers backed up, can you fix it? Er, no, but a plumber can, and he'll make you pay for it. Damage: thousands of dollars and a dug-up front lawn, plus the measure of emasculation that accompanies the inability to fix something, that helplessness most commonly felt at the car repair shop.

I'm fairly handy around the house, as it turns out. And, as the sprinkler guy said, I had the right idea when I replaced the solenoid and the controller. (Pause for you to be impressed that I even know what a solenoid is, let alone be able to replace it AND install a new controller, whatever that is) But the problem was something I could not diagnose or fix myself, and that's when I feel helpless, and I feel the judgmental eye of the repairman, who is undoubtedly thinking "hah! You bourgeois nancy boy with your fancy car and your uncalloused hands! You who has never worked an honest day in your life! You think you are so much better than I, yet you are unable to make this simple repair, while I, the laborer upon which you look down, will bail you out and charge you an exhorbitant fee to do so!"

Or something to that effect.

Actually, this time, the repair guy wasn't too judgmental, at least not outwardly so, and the damage to our finances stayed firmly in the low three figures, so we escaped for now. But there will be a next time. I will feel the wrath of the electrician, the plumber, the heating guy. And each time will be one more reminder that Dad won't bail me out, the janitor won't fix the problem, the landlord isn't available. I am the Dad, the janitor, the landlord.

The adult.

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Oh, for...

Do I have to go over this again?

There is no excuse for deliberately murdering any civilians, let alone children.

The Orlando Sentinel, like most other news organizations, clearly disagrees.

Here's the paper's Manning Pynn in response to letter writers complaining that the paper refuses to call Hamas and Islamic Jihad "terrorists," preferring the neutral term "militants" instead:

The term "terrorist" certainly expresses judgment: It imputes to the person or organization being described the motive of trying to instill fear. "Militant" seems to me much more neutral. And that may be why the Sentinel, despite its style committee's decision, continues to use that term to describe Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Because, ostensibly, it's important to be neutral about the murder of children.

And then:

I'm afraid that the horse is out of the barn on the labeling of al-Qaeda. Although journalists strive to avoid expressing bias in reporting the news, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, so shocked Americans -- including the news media -- that they almost universally applied the term "terrorism" to what had happened. I don't think the Sentinel will retreat from that.

"Afraid"? There's a problem with calling the hijackers "terrorists," or the events of 9/11 "terrorism"? Do you have to have common decency and sense surgically removed to work for the Orlando Sentinel?

Does that mean, though, that we should extend that judgment to all attacks on civilians?

Yes. Yes, it does.

Let me repeat- these "militants" DELIBERATELY KILL INNOCENT CIVILIANS. They MURDER CHILDREN. Anyone who can find an excuse to justify their acts needs to reexamine his or her humanity.

Pynn manages to find an "impartial" observer to back him up on this:

Sami Qubty, president of the Arab-American Community Center of Central Florida, doesn't think so.

A pacifist Palestinian who holds dual American and Israeli citizenship, he contends that the suicide bombers -- whose tactic he abhors -- differ from al-Qaeda in this regard: "They're resisting occupation."

Qubty acknowledged that suicide bombings resemble terrorism but likened them to the actions of Israelis "when they go out and shoot a missile and kill innocent bystanders."

By that standard, of course, any nation at war could be labeled "terrorist" when attacks take civilian lives.

Which is why it's an illegitimate standard- Pynn clearly does not understand the difference between inadvertent civilian deaths, aka "collateral damage," in war and deliberate targeting of civilians for murder. Using this reasoning, the Washington sniper and someone involved in a purely accidental car wreck are morally equivalent. Pynn recognizes that this is problematic, but since it's a necessary result of the paper's adherence to a warped standard of "impartiality," he and the paper would rather just not use the term "terrorist," WHETHER OR NOT IT'S ACCURATE.

Pynn's conclusion:

I won't presume to resolve the Middle East crisis here. It is tragic and involves acts I regard as terrorism.

But my belief -- and those of others who recoil at the violence -- doesn't warrant further injecting judgmental terms into impartial news reporting.

Calling what Hamas does, what Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah and al Qaeda do, "militancy" is not impartial. It is a refusal to recognize a basic element of morality, of humanity. It is the acceptance of the murder of civilians- of children- as a political option, not as murder. Someday, I hope Manning Pynn has the opportunity to explain to people who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks, in the "suicide bombings" in Israel, in the Bali bombing and in the Lockerbie explosion and the Olympic massacre that none of those things should be called "terrorism" in the papers, lest the terrorists- er, militants- be insulted. In the meantime, the news media will continue to pull its punches in the name of an impartiality it does not really have.

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Mars is going to be really close to Earth tonight. For all I know, there's a huge red object hovering directly over my backyard right now, and little green Ray Walston-like men with antennae and tinfoil jumpsuits are close enough to dive into our pool.

What does it say about me that I don't really care?

Oh, I'll go out into the driveway and look for a second. I'll see a bright thing up there, think "that's Mars," and go inside to watch TV. I just don't get all that worked up over these once-in-several-lifetime events. I don't rush to see comets, I don't ooh and aah over weather anomalies. They don't do anything for me. Mars, close? OK, fine, yup, there it is.

Sorry. Not really interested. Next!

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We had a nice dinner tonight: nachos 'n' a car chase. It was a stereotypical L.A. moment- Mexican food and a police pursuit on TV. Can't beat that for an all-around good time.

This one was odd- the driver took care to stop at red lights, signal for turns, and was tremendously courteous for someone trying to escape from a hit-and-run on Venice Blvd. I think I know why Southern Californians like to watch these things, too. It's the thrill of recognition that this dangerous incident is happening right here, right now, could actually come RIGHT UP YOUR STREET, the sirens and lights and police choppers and TV news choppers converging on your neighborhood and putting your house on TV. Call the folks back east, honey, we're on the TV!

So far, we haven't been "on the TV"- we're too remote for that- but some of the chases, like this evening's, take place in familiar areas. This one was mostly centered in the Marina del Rey/Culver City/Palms area where I once worked. I recognized all the streets ("hey, there's the Del Taco I used to stop at before work!" "That's Sepulveda northbound. Next light is the entrance to Fox Hills Mall"). And I got the momentary thrill L.A. people get when that happens- but for an accident of good timing, I COULD HAVE BEEN IN THE MIDDLE OF IT.

Humans do that. We revel in near-death experiences, the "I was once on that same flight, 6 years ago" and "I visited the World Trade Center once" anecdotes that provide us with some connection to a traumatic event. It reminds us of the randomness of life and death and reaffirms that, once again, we beat the devil. (For some people, that's not enough- this chase, like many others, featured people running out onto the shoulder waving at the passing van, yelling and gesturing and getting off on the momentary celebrity- "see that idiot who almost got run over by the van? That was me!")

So we enjoyed the chase, like all good Angelenos do. We got to recognize the scenery, second-guess the cops ("can't they just lob some tear gas into the van when it stops?"), laugh at the clueless commentary of the news anchors pressed into a play-by-play position. It's entertainment for the city that provides everyone else their entertainment. And, for almost 90 minutes, we neither heard nor uttered a word about the recall. It would be irresponsible to suggest that we needed this chase, but, hey, nobody got hurt and nobody mentioned Arnold. Win-win.

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I think... no, I KNOW I got Moveable Type to work.

If you see this, I did.

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Tiny type in the new setup. I'll probably switch to a better template soon. In the meantime, use your browser's "View>Text Size" setting to make it more readable. That might not work, actually, so, I dunno, use a magnifying glass or something.

Geez, do I hafta do EVERYTHING around here?

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Took hours to fix various Movable Type-related problems, so my mind's fairly fried. It didn't help that my friend John was back on the air at KFI this afternoon and on fire against the driver's licenses-for-illegals issue and the Cruz B. MEChA problem- I was ready to march on Sacramento by the time he was done. And it definitely didn't help that the Phillies got swept by Montreal- it's 1964 again, except there's a whole month left and after all these losses, they're still in the race. And Chico Ruiz, God rest his soul, didn't steal home.

I told you my mind was shot. I'll be better tomorrow. Really.

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At lunch, it seemed like a good idea to duck into the video store to pick up some DVDs for the weekend. We haven't planned any getaways, so it's prime DVD-watching time. Unfortunately, there wasn't a single video we either hadn't already seen or didn't suck, so we left emptyhanded. However, one video on the shelf caught my eye. I couldn't decide whether it was a sign of the death of civilization or, quite possibly, the greatest film ever made. Or both.

"Delta Delta Die."

How could I have ever missed this one?

Well, for one thing, it went direct to video. For another, it was there on VHS only, no DVD yet. And they only had one copy. But "Delta Delta Die"! Starring Julie Strain and Brinke Stevens! THE Julie Strain and Brinke Stevens, B-movie legends, the kind of "actresses" whose head shots and glamour poses are somewhere in the files of everybody- not just casting directors- in Hollywood! And get this- it's about CANNIBALISTIC SORORITY GIRLS! Evidently, one of the scenes involves a girl punished for- I kid you not- "eating of the penis."

Like I said, it could very well be the greatest movie ever.

But I couldn't bring myself to rent it. I'm careful what I rent. You never know when you'll be up for a big job, like President or Prime Minister or manager of the Dodgers, and they'll call up your video rental list and there among the Disney movies and Gary Cooper westerns they'll find "Delta Delta Die" and just like that, you're disqualified and end up eating half a can of Alpo every day.

You rent it.

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Woke up, worked, ran, showered, ate, went to movie ("Freaky Friday"!), went to Starbucks, went to post office, went to library, rented movies, came home, worked, ate, watched some of Phillies-Mets game, worked.

Mundane, surely, but my kind of mundane.

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