The Pigs of St Joseph

Since my visit to Philadelphia, I worked for a week in Lexington before coming here to northwest Missouri for my last week of work until New York City. There wasn't much to report from Lexington - long days and nights, some annoying people, and a boss who acted unprofessionally. In other words, a normal week on the road. There will be much more to say once I finally retire.

In the meantime, we've been here in St Joseph, less than an hour north of Kansas City, for a women's $10,000 tournament. This is the entry level of professional tennis; many of the women here do not even have rankings yet. As a result, the level of play has been quite uneven at times, and startlingly competitive at others. In general, there is a wide gap between the skills of the top twenty players and the rest of the top 100. From about ranking 200 through 400, just about any player can beat any other on a given day. Once you get below that - and some players here are ranked around 1000 - the level of play once again drops off. There have been several matches here where the loser did not manage to win more than two games in the match. Then again, two equally inconsistent players could meet on the court and take you for a three-hour ride.

After receiving this assignment several months ago, I heard a few horror stories about the weather. I remember how parts of the Midwest can be in the middle of the summer, so I expected the worst. But we have been fortunate to have mostly overcast days (and a little rain) all week. Friday will finally be the clear and sunny scorcher we have been expecting all week. There was rain all day on Tuesday, creating a very long Wednesday, but now the end of the week is here, and we are back on schedule.

I have worked in a wide variety of tennis facilities in the eight years I have been on the road. This tournament is being played at a park with tennis courts and a track and football field, located alongside a fairly busy residential street. Three of the courts we have played on border the sidewalk and the road pretty closely. In the mornings, the sidewalk is the best place to watch matches and avoid the sun. There is a small building with restrooms and air conditioning. The accommodations are not elegant, but for an entry-level tournament, we have just about everything we need. Well, and we have one thing we don't need.

In all the years and all the cities and states I have visited, I have never encountered as many pigs as I have in St Joseph. Male pigs. Apparently, it is considered the height of class in this city to slow your pickup as you drive by the park and whistle, hoot, cat-call, or blow your horn at the women. It is true that these women are dressed unlike anyone that these pigs will see in their daily lives of work, Wal-Mart, and home. But that certainly does not excuse the behavior.

In the last three days, I have watched countless cars drive down the street - which in the afternoons is directly in front of me - and slow down once the pig drivers realize that lightly-dressed women are playing tennis on the courts. Most pigs slow down for the first bank of courts, speed up until the next bank of courts, slow down again, and so on. A few pigs have nearly caused wrecks, either by slowing down unexpectedly to ogle, or by nearly rear-ending the driver in front because they were not paying attention. At least ten have made some sort of inappropriate noise to signal - well, to signal what, I am not exactly sure.

Is this some weird mating ritual in northwest Missouri to which most of the rest of the country has not been exposed? I've seen men all over this country notice the female tennis players with whom I work, but I have never seen the women treated this way as they have been in St Joseph. Which of these women is going to say to herself, "Wow, he slowed down and whistled out the window, and then drove away quickly. I must be looking good today. And that man - so brave. That's the man for me"? These players know how they are dressed, and they know when they look good. But they did not invite rude behavior, and it offended me to have to see it this week.

Being a gentleman, it has been hard to wrap my mind around the goals of the pig. The one who whistled and then drove off quickly - what is he hoping to accomplish? If she thinks he is a pig, as she should, then driving away quickly might be smart. If he is trying to impress her, how would she know who he is? Is she to stop playing tennis and chase him down the street? The men who yelled, "Yeah, baby," and the like - is this the rural Missouri idea of how to woo a woman, or, more importantly, to treat a woman with respect? What motivates these pigs?

After a few days of witnessing pigs in the wild, and thinking about their behavior, I can only think of one explanation. Pigs aren't concerned with impressing women; they're trying to impress each other. They know they do not stand a chance with any of the women on our courts. So to earn standing with their fellow pigs, they try to demean the women that they cannot have. It is the gayest thing they can do without touching each other. If they were all on an elementary playground, the pigs would be trying to push the women down - that's about how mature this behavior is.

In this work environment, it is not my place to say anything to the pigs. (It is complicated to explain.) But I have apologized to the women when it has tread too closely to our tennis. In my experience, I feel that it has to be something about this place, St Joseph, that all these pigs have in common. I have never seen such disrespect for women anywhere else I have worked. And it bothered me enough to write about it. When women, and even other men, see this behavior, they should object to it. These pigs are close kin to the monsters that abuse and beat women. And often this puerile porcine behavior is how it starts.

Shine a light through the eyes of the ones left behind

Before heading to World TeamTennis in Wilmington, Delaware last Tuesday night, I decided to take my free day and spend it in the city of Philadelphia, where my mother is from and where I had spent so much of my youth. I have only been back there once since my grandparents died in 1989. Many of my memories had solidified, while others had become embellished through the years in my mind. In all, I was not sure what to expect.

From Albany, I drove through northern New Jersey and approached south Philadelphia from I-95. The skyline is different and taller, certainly; but much of the vague details, the set dressing of the city looked remarkably the same. And the first thing I tried to find was a bathroom, since the only place most Philadelphians can use the facilities is at home. My search was unsuccessful, so I parked at 12th and Washington for the first stop of the day - cheesesteak.

I can remember the biggest local debate among Philadelphians related to cheesesteak - specifically, Geno's or Pat's. Both are located roughly at the intersection of 9th Street and Passyunk Avenue, alongside the Capitolo Park. Years ago, the basic difference between the two restaurants was that one used real cheese on the steaks and one used Cheese Whiz. (I haven't been able to sort out which was which.) As a result of this and other subtle differences, my mother is for Pat's, and her elder sister, Aunt Lucille, is for Geno's.

I checked with both of them before I made my decision.



Aunt Lucille swayed me - she was the older sister, and lived in Philadelphia for more than fifty years.

Geno's and Pat's are both the kinds of restaurant with lots of locals as well as tourists. It helps to watch the habits of the locals so that you know how to order. While I was reading the menu board and listening to some construction workers order, I saw it:



For a rare moment in my life, I was stymied. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. But before I knew it, my turn was up, so I ordered and paid (cash only), went to the next window and ordered fries and a soda (cash only), and found a seat. How did I not know about this sign, this place?

I hadn't even had time to figure all this out before the next surprise. The Geno's cheesesteak - soft bread, steak, dice onions, provolone cheese - tasted like nothing. It did not taste bad. It just had no flavor at all. And I don't think this was one of those memories from my childhood that I had embellished. I remember the cheesesteaks being good, and I have lamented the lack of quality cheesesteaks in other parts of the country. (Excluding, of course, Texadelphia.) But this was a bad cheesesteak. Do you hear me, Joe Vento? A bad cheesesteak.

[Later, when I got back to the hotel, I looked up some information on the sign and the owner. Fox News set up Joe Vento and gave him a forum to "vent" about Barack Obama's comments on languages, and he didn't fail to demonstrate his ignorance.



If you had the stomach to watch the whole thing, you might agree with me that Joe Vento could stand to learn English, as well.

Any politically astute viewer who saw all of Obama's comments in context would know that Obama is not advocating for all American children to learn Spanish. But someone like Joe Vento who is ignorant - either by upbringing or by choice - wouldn't know the difference.

Vento: This guy [Obama], with this — he scares me. I'm telling all the people out there, please, please, vote these people out of office. And if they can't tell you that English will be the official language before the election, vote them all out, and do not be afraid of who you're going to get. It is not going to be worse than what we already have. We have got to speak. [Emphasis added]

Do not be afraid of who you are going to get? It can't get worse that Bush, right? Right?

Bonus: This photo was on the fence of the Little League field at Capitolo Park near Geno's and Pat's.]



After Geno's, I drove down to mom's old neighborhood - 12th and Daly Street, near Jackson Street. I parked by my grandparents' church, on whose fronts steps I vomited as a kid. (Ah, memories.) Grandmom and Grandpop's house is now peach, but the railing and the front stoop were the same. The butcher across the street is now a salon, but the Mauro grocery store is still there, so I went inside.

I don't know what I was expecting to find inside the grocery; maybe I just wanted to see if it still felt so small and familiar. And in most ways, it did. Carol was behind the front counter, and Joe was behind the back. But before I could say anything or notice much more, I saw the ATM machine, and it had money in the dispenser. No one else was in the store. And just then, Carol came around the counter and asked if she could help me. I told her that I had come in for another reason (to buy some Tastykakes), but that I noticed the cash. So she called to Joe to get her an envelope and to see if he could remember who had been in the store last. And then she wheeled around on me and said, "You're Dana's son, aren't you?" (Dana is my mom.) I was stunned and said, "How did you know that?" Carol had recognized me from an old picture Mom had sent to her.

I walked a block up the street to the bakery where we used to get rolls and Sunday pizza. But the bakery is closed on Mondays, so no bread and disappointing cheesesteak were all I ate in the city.

Before heading to my hotel in suburban Philadelphia, I had one more stop - to visit my grandparents cemetery on Baltimore Pike in Yeadon. Uncle Frank sent directions to me, but somehow I sensed how to get there, too. I hadn't been back to visit them since their funeral in December 1989. I drove right to the cemetery and found them from memory, without any trouble at all.



I sat with them for awhile, and then gave them a kiss and a pat for me and for Mom before heading to Glen Mills.

For the Pennsylvania we never found

I spent last week at a women's tennis event in Allentown. For all the time I spent in Pennsylvania as a child, I had never been there. I went there from Raleigh, traveling through the traffic bottleneck approaching Washington, and then up around Baltimore and into south-central Pennsylvania, approaching Allentown from the west and passing through some small parts of Amish country. It was a calm, quiet, and pretty drive - much nicer than the natural utilitarianism I would experience in New Jersey at the end of the week.

When I arrive at the hotel late Saturday night, there was a Jewish wedding party, a band in the bar, and a youth softball tournament that had quite literally overrun the hotel. Consequently, the front desk could not find my room, and I had to put down my own credit card for the night. As I waited, the desk clerk was on the phone with our chief umpire, telling him that there had been an error in reservations, that the hotel was overbooked, and that their company policy for overbooking was that whoever arrived first got the remaining rooms. Thankfully, I got a room, albeit a smoking one.

While I never found out who owned the hotel, it was the most patriotic place I have ever stayed. Seals with eagles adorned doors, carpets, and directional signs. The restaurant was called "America". The walls were adorned with all sorts of patriotic photographic art. Even the cigar lounge was prominently sponsored by Samuel Adams beer. (Although, I admit some trepidation in including this last fact, given that I do not know the provenance of that line of beers. I just know from the advertising that it seems colonial and patriotic.) And each morning at 8 a.m., they salute America with a flag raising. Employees and guests gather at the flag poles and honor hotel guests' family and friends who have served in the armed forces. The flag is raised to the National Anthem, followed by the much-overplayed "God Bless the U.S.A." by - you guessed it - Lee Greenwood. [Right next door to the hotel was the Liber-tee mini-golf. I went over there a few times for ice cream, as well as to play a round of golf by myself one cool night.]

The facility for tennis was decent, the staff was good, and the week was fairly normal. We had a few rain delays, one that moved our matches to the adjoining indoor courts. Imagine, if you will, Noah's Ark. Now, turn it upside down and place it over four tennis courts. That is what the indoor facility looked like. It was constructed of rich, dark wood planks around four inches wide, and it was built quite securely. The arc of the roof gently curved back in the opposite direction before reaching a point at the top. While the entire place smelled like your grandmother's damp attic, it did not leak a drop of water.

On Friday evening after work, I stopped by the supervisor's desk to chat before returning to the hotel. The order of play for the next day was on the table - two singles semifinals and the doubles final. As I looked at it, I said to her, "Well, I bet I know which match I am doing tomorrow." I had already had one of the singles semifinalists that day in her quarterfinal match, and back-to-back matches for chair umpires are avoided. And I've never done a final, so...

"You are doing the doubles final," she said. I told her that I was pretty certain this would be my first professional final. "Don't you think it's about time, then?" she said.

I wound up doing the opposite singles semifinal first, and then the doubles final third the next day. Other than a few extra duties for the final, it was mostly like any other match. I hadn't felt nerves on court in a long time, so it was an interesting feeling. But once we all got a few games under our belts, it was just like any other day at the office. And the match went pretty smoothly.

One note from the singles semifinal. The player to my left came to the next for an overhead smash. She succeeded in putting the ball into play against her opponent, but I heard something hit the ground as I watched the ball speed to the other side. The opponent got her racquet on the ball, but it sailed far outside. That's when I noticed the sound again, and saw the first player's racquet bouncing in her opponent's court. Apparently during the smash, the racquet slipped from her hand, bounced on her side of the court and then over the net. After the ball went out, the first player said to me, "Do I still win the point?" "No," I replied, to laughter from the player and the crowd.

And on other note - in another match, a tall player came racing into the net to play a short ball from her opponent. She got the return over, but her foot touched the base of the net in the process, so I called "touch". She looked at me and said, "Touch? What touch? Who touch?" So I told her that her foot had touched the net. As she walked back to the baseline, she shrugged and said, "Eh, my big feet."

Sunday morning I left for Albany for World TeamTennis, a pleasant drive of a couple hundred miles. Since I wasn't in a hurry, I drove mostly 55 mph on this trip. When I arrived, I discovered my gas mileage was 62.5 mpg for the trip. That's when I decided that I needed a bumper sticker reading, "I Drive This Way To Save Money". It amazed me at all the SUVs racing past me, sometimes more than 20 mph faster than me. Before you complain about the high price of gas, how about adjusting your driving habits?

I've also been playing the license plate game with some friends - the hard version, where you have to find all 50 state plates in alphabetical order. I have been stuck on Colorado for a couple of months now, which annoyed me since I was going to be up in New England these two weeks to get Connecticut and Delaware. And despite seeing Washington, California, Wyoming, Florida (lots of Florida), North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Quebec, New Brunswick, and even Mexico (D.F.), I still haven't seen Colorado. I'll have more to say about this in a future entry about bumper-sticker politics.

I was in Albany for World TeamTennis, a unique format of professional tennis that uses a box umpire in place of a chair umpire. In other words, you do the same job, but just standing the entire time on a box at the net. WTT has different formats, scoring systems, procedures, verbiage, and mechanics. And while I have been a line umpire at WTT events before - a job exactly the same as line umpiring on the pro circuit - I had never been a box umpire before.

I studied the rules carefully, but some of them are arcane and hard to get unless you see them in action. I don't get the cable channel that shows WTT, so I asked a lot of questions in the last couple of weeks. I knew the basics, but I did not know what the actual product looked like, so I was winging it. Players can tell by the little things if you know what you are doing. If you can't get simple announcements and verbiage correct, they'll mark you as a rookie and eat you alive, even if you aren't. So I tried to master the little things that would instill confidence.

WTT has noisy crowds, even during play; it has coaches and players that come from the bench to argue calls with you; it has instant replay and challenges (in some cities); it has a headset microphone and a Palm Pilot for live scoring and a wide range of line umpire skills, varying from city to city. In essence, it is a challenge even for experience officials. And it was one of the few things left on my list of things I hadn't yet done in tennis.

The night seems like a blur, even though I was sweating, my legs hurt, and I was on the box for three hours, as the match went into overtime. But overall I survived it, and I even enjoyed it a little bit. I'll be more prepared for tonight's match at the DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, and then I will be done with WTT for the far forseeable future. (In case you are wondering, I am next off to see family in the Washington area and then have a vacation with Dave, and then I go to Lexington for a week and St. Joseph, MO (north of Kansas City) for a week.)

The Sins of the Fathers are the Sins of the Sons

What happens when a growing new industry threatens the power and the profits of Big Oil? Why, environmentalists win, of course! Doing a double-take? You are not the only one.

Growing demand for alternative sources of energy has many proponents turning to solar power. The technologies behind concentrating (heating water to produce steam energy) and photovoltaic (converting solar energy directly to electricity) have improved dramatically in the last quarter-century, reducing costs and increasing applications. And some of the best places in the United States for solar installations are located on millions of acres of public land in the American West. (If you have ever driven Interstate 10 from El Paso to Los Angeles, you know exactly what I mean.)

As a result, the New York Times reports, dozens of companies are applying to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for permits to install solar panels on barren, unused public land.

Much of the 119 million surface acres of federally administered land in the West is ideal for solar energy, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, where sunlight drenches vast, flat desert tracts.

Galvanized by the national demand for clean energy development, solar companies have filed more than 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management since 2005. They center on the companies’ desires to lease public land to build solar plants and then sell the energy to utilities.

According to the bureau, the applications, which cover more than one million acres, are for projects that have the potential to power more than 20 million homes.

It sounds like a win-win situation, and it almost is: the only losers come in the traditional energy industries, particularly petroleum, coal, and natural gas. However, the positives are clear. Solar power is a renewable resource; the others are not. Millions of acres of Western land are sitting unused, when both private companies and the federal government could profit from their development for solar power. The United States could take the global lead in developing solar power, generating thousands of green jobs that are powered by foreign and domestic sales.

Naturally, the Bush administration is on board, right?

Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

Suddenly when traditional backers of the Bush administration are threatened, environmental concerns become paramount. How did I not see that coming? Maybe because the usual Bush approach is delay and obstruction. The EPA refused to grant California a waiver for tough cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. The state of California sued the EPA to force its hand; automobile manufacturers preemptively sued to stop the waiver if the EPA was forced to give it. The automakers' suit was rejected on Thursday. Meanwhile, the administration has refused to release documents related to the EPA's denial of the waiver, citing executive privilege.

According to the Los Angeles Times, both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain have pledged to support the waiver if elected. Hopefully, this BLM moratorium will be treated in the same way. So add these topics to the long, long list of items that wait for Bush's retirement to his ranch.

[h/t to Grist for highlighting both stories.]

It's not time to panic

Barack Obama has brought many new people into the political process, and he has reinvigorated the progressive souls of many who stopped participating. For a long-time pol like myself, it is easier to see the shifts and changes that Obama is exhibiting as normal progressions in a campaign. For the groups of people I mentioned at the start, changes in public financing or FISA feel like a betrayal, and it has shaken their faith. I am here to tell you not to jump ship or even put on your life vests. It is going to be alright.

I am not disappointed about Obama's choice to eschew public financing; I somewhat expected it, and I know it makes my a hypocrite. I think there is merit in some elements of public financing, which is why I was disappointed that the Supreme Court voided the Millionaire's amendment today. Obama has played new media and new methods of raising funds brilliantly. As a writer whose name I forgot succinctly put it, any adviser who suggested staying in the public finance system would be guilty of "political malpractice". It would be folly to give up our huge advantage in the fuel of political campaigns when we finally have one. (UPDATE: It was Norman Ornstein who said it. Thanks, Dave! h/t)

I am terribly disappointed in Obama's positioning on the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. I have been hoping and dreaming of a Thurmond- or Byrd-type filibuster, one for the ages, where a senator talks for two days straight until relieved by another senator, and so on, until this bill dies. I did not like the "triangulation" I sensed in Obama's nuanced statements on the bill. But we are not single-issue voters. We cannot be if we expect to win.

Democrats have made errors, for example, in taking African-American and gay voters for granted. The party sometimes acts like those voters have a natural home in the party, that they vote on only one issue (race or sexuality), and that they will stay. Those voters are more savvy than that, and while one issue may have more importance than others, it will not be the only issue upon which they decide.

Obama supporters, we cannot be single-issue voters, either. We cannot act surprised that our candidate does not embody perfection on every issue. He does not deserve our blind loyalty, but maybe sometimes we have to cut him some slack, too. He is out there working hard to broaden this coalition, so that our victory in November can be subject to no doubt. When he makes these moves, to the extent we are able, we have to stand by him. Surely we can pressure him to adopt our position. But if not, and when it is not an absolute deal-breaker, we have to keep the faith.

Remember what is at stake here. The future of Roe v. Wade depends on this election. The future of our loved ones in the armed forces depends on this election. The future of our environment depends on this election. The future of our security against economic threats and energy crises depends on this election. Keep your eye on the ball.

John McCain

To find out more about John McCain, click on the links below.

John McCain

Cross Country Days 7-18: Not much happened...well, one thing happened

My work in California, and the enjoyment of the non-work time, plus the drive back to Alabama were times that I did not feel like writing, so I am a little behind. So let me just summarize what happened for the week there and on the trip back.

I spent a week in Redding, California. It was very beautiful, and with only one exception, the weather was fantastic. I found a nice park and running trail where I could work out, and I managed to keep my slow but steady weight loss going while I was on the road. (I lost three more pounds, and I am now down sixteen pounds since the start of the year.) Also, I had a very good week of work. I was complimented by a fellow higher-ranking official on the job I had done that week. (This despite a day in which I gave six penalties in two matches, including a well-deserved penalty that cost a doubles team their match.)

On the drive back, I spent a night with my cousin and her husband in Napa. They work in the wine and beer industry. She had been bitten on the face by a dog the day before, but was in remarkably good spirits, and we had a nice visit. I spent the next night in Phoenix, and then the next two nights visiting friends in San Antonio (more below). On the next to last day of my trip, I drove through Austin and visited my old high school. I got lots of hugs and smiles, and it was very nice to be so warmly remembered. (I am considering a job offer there.) I spent the night in Lewisville with my sister's family, visiting my nephew (who is gigantic and not even two yet). Then I drove to the University of Mississippi for a college tennis match, and finally back home for a week of rest. The visits with friends and the urge to be home made the last week of this trip fly. But overall, it was an excellent experience. Two-hundred-mile drives are nothing to me now.

So, back to San Antonio...

At the start of this trip, I had six friends in San Antonio: three sets of gay couples. I met the other two couples through the first couple, Jeremy (I've known ten years) and Jon (I've known in one way or another for fourteen years). The other couples are James and A.J., both Starbucks baristas, and Jonathan and Justin, who split up in the recent past, but still live together out of circumstance. Jon and Jonathan are my age, and everyone else is in their 20s.

Jeremy and Jon have always been my main place to visit and stay when I come to San Antonio, even when I lived only an hour away in Austin. They have the biggest house, the most computer toys, and always seemed welcoming, or at least ambivalent, to my visits. Jonathan and Justin moved from Ohio and lived with Jeremy and Jon for a few months until they go on their own four feet. Initially, I was going to visit Justin after he got off work late, because I wasn't arriving from Phoenix until around 11pm. But I was exhausted when I got close to town, so I begged off meeting him that night, and instead called James and A.J., who were happy to wait up to see me, and gladly let me spend the night.

I had a great visit with them, even though it was short, and my plan was to spend the next day with Jeremy and Jon, hopefully have Justin and Jonathan come over to visit, and go out to dinner like we usually do when I visit. So, I left James and A.J.'s place and went to get my car serviced. By noon I was out, and I called Jeremy and went over to their house (Jon was at work). I confirmed again that when Jon got off work (Jeremy said around 7), that we'd all go to dinner.

During the first part of the visit, Jeremy says to me, "In exchange for sleeping here, would you clean the kitchen?" I was very taken aback - I've never had to sing for my supper before, so to speak. But for some reason I agreed, probably in part because I never have to do any cleaning in my own house.

The kitchen was a disaster. There were flies and bugs crawling because of how unsanitary it was. Food was caked onto plates and the range top. The microwave looked like a lentil soup had exploded inside it. Cereal bowls were stacked up six-high in the sink. The floor was covered with dog hair, dog food, and all manner of crumbs and human food remnants. It was disgusting. And it was somewhat expected - Jeremy and Jon are slobs. Part of the rent arrangement when Justin and Jonathan lived there was to clean the house. I watched Justin do ten loads of laundry one day, and he couldn't even catch up.

Well, like a good friend, I diligently cleaned up. I spent forty-five minutes on the microwave alone. As I worked more and more, I became angrier and angrier that Jeremy would even ask such a thing of me. You don't ask friends to clean your house, especially in exchange for letting them stay at your house, when you have let them stay at your house for years before without such a request. So now, I was stumped as to exactly what the hell was going on in his head.

While I am working in the kitchen, Jeremy is mesmerized by World of Warcraft. I am used to this obsession, however, and I visit with him while I play Wii in the same room. About an hour later, a man comes over - middle aged, hulking, and, according to Jeremy, a divorced masseur. Jeremy said he always has a massage at 2pm on Wednesday -- "ALWAYS" -- so would I mind? He said I was welcome to stay and play games in the meanwhile. Sure, I thought, no problem. Well, that was the next problem.

See, the massage didn't take place at Jeremy's house. Jeremy left and went somewhere else, probably to the guy's house, which Jeremy said was in the neighborhood. And then Jeremy was gone for three and a half hours. I couldn't leave because I didn't have anywhere else to go at that point. And, by the way, there was much more than massaging going on, from the behavior between the two of them when the man was there.

So Jeremy is back now, and it is almost six o'clock. Both of them are flakes, I know, but I've overlooked it for a decade, so why stop now? Jeremy goes back to his computer games, so I go back to the Wii. (Actually, I had never left the Wii for the most part in the previous three hours - there was nothing else to do there.) Time passes, I am hungry, and we are waiting for Jon to come home so we can go to dinner. Suddenly, I notice two things at once. First, it is nine pm. And second, Jeremy is getting dressed and putting his shoes on.

I asked where he was going, and he said to the gym to workout. So I said, um, hey, it's nine pm, and where's Jon, and we're supposed to be going to dinner, right? And he said, oh, I thought I told you, Jon is going to have drinks with friends after work, and won't be home until nine or ten, buh-bye. Well, not quite buh-bye, because I told him I was hungry and aggravated, and that he in fact had not told me that. He replied, oh, I must have said it to (the massage guy). So Jeremy leaves me alone in the house for the second time that day.

About an hour later, after ten pm, Jeremy calls and says, "Okay, my workout is done." Long pause. Like I am supposed to say something in reply. ("Great, I am ready for dinner. Don't mind me, it wasn't any inconvenience at all.") Finally I said, "okay." He had just spoken to Jon, who was on his way home. So I said, fine, we'll figure out what to do when you get here.

They both arrive home around the same time, and I explain the situation to Jon. After some arguing, Jon agrees to make some Hamburger Helper for dinner. Not what I was expecting, but not horrible, either. So he cooks, we chat, and Justin comes over to visit. (He'll wind up staying for about four hours, probably the nicest part of the day.) When it is done, Jeremy says, "Eat what you want and I'll take the rest." So I do. Jon sees what has happened and says, "I didn't cook for you guys to eat it all." So he comes and takes some from each of us. Thankful for anything to eat, I just consume my Helper in mostly silence.

While we are eating, and Jeremy goes back to his computer games, I explain to Jon what happened with the kitchen. Jon tells me that he had told Jeremy the day before to clean the kitchen, because it had gotten disgusting. Now I am pissed. Jeremy, my "friend", used me. Neither Jon nor Justin seems to have an explanation for this. So as the night continues, and the three of us stay up late talking, I ask Jon what he really gets out of a friendship with me. Justin tries to explain, both then and in a later IM exchange, that friends are not ledger sheets. That made sense, but it still did not explain why Jon tolerates me, much less calls me friend. He's never needed me for anything, never had to rely on me for anything, and I don't have anything he wants or needs. He sometimes shows contempt towards me between being affectionate. And all of those things, especially in recent years, apply doubly to Jeremy.

I should have stayed with James and A.J. again that night, but it was late, and I just said, screw it. Sleep, get up, leave without saying goodbye, go to Austin, and don't look back. And that's what I did. I don't consider Jeremy or Jon friends anymore.

It's funny how time can pass, and you can think things are just fine, and it takes a strong slap across the face ("clean my kitchen") to realize that you have been ignored and abused all that time. I guess I kept going back to them because they had things I needed - computer knowledge and equipment, a place to stay in town, occasional fun friends. It is hard to believe that at thirty-four, I can still be surprised by things like this.

V13: On dinosaurs and Texas Canyon

This is a special edition of my vlog for my nephew, Will Carter, whose birthday I missed while out on the road.



The week of work in Redding was nice, with beautiful weather and uneventful events. I have some photos of the Sundial Bridge in Redding that I will post to flickr soon. Here are three:





I am on my way back to Alabama this week. I still owe you a post on the last and most treacherous part of the drive to California. There is already a video up on my vlog at YouTube.

Cross Country Day 2: Saint Louis to Denver / V11: On wind

One of the disadvantages to sleeping in the car is that I tend to wake up pretty early - because I am cold, because my back aches, or because the sun makes me rise. In this case, it was a combination of all three that got me on the road to Denver around 6:30 in the morning on day 2. I had breakfast at a Holiday Inn Express west of town. I hear that people who eat there can do pretty phenomenal things. Since I was trying to drive 850 miles in one day, I thought it was an apt choice.

The day was going to be divided into three parts - I-70 from Saint Louis to Kansas City; the drive clear across Kansas, and the shorter drive from the Colorado state line to Denver. During the first part of the trip, there was not much of interest to see. I spent most of the time thinking about baseball, actually.

The 1985 World Series was the I-70 series: the Kansas City Royals against the Saint Louis Cardinals. I knew I was mesmerized by sports from an early age, but this is my youngest and most vivid childhood sports memory. See, there was a time when World Series games were broadcast on weeknights at a time that kids could stay up and watch them, when games were played much closer together to keep the interest and drama high. I sat in the living room of our home every game night of that seven-game series, with Dad's ottoman over my legs. On top of the ottoman, I had the lineups for each team written in pencil on notebook paper, and I would compute and update in real time the players World Series batting averages. This should have been a sign that I needed to go into sabermetrics when I was older, but the 1994 strike, and canceling the World Series that year on my 21st birthday, forever ended my love affair with baseball. I remember being thrilled that Kansas City (controversially) won game six, and how they blew out the Cards in game seven so badly that both Whitey Herzog and Joaquin Andujar got tossed from the contest. Sadly, now, I can't even watch baseball. Even the playoff fail to excite me like once when I was young.

Perhaps because of the daydreaming, I cannot remember much about the drive across Missouri. But when I got to Kansas City, I needed a rest. I decided to visit the international headquarters of the Order of DeMolay, a Masonic-sponsored youth organization that I participated in until I was 21. Someday I'll tell more stories, but for now I will just say that DeMolay helped me come out of my shell, and gave me the confidence to speak in front of people, to seek elected office, and to become a professional sports official. The tour was interesting, and it refreshed a lot of memories that had collected dust since my majority. I don't think it stimulated me to go back and serve as an adviser, or to become a Master Mason like I promised. But who knows?

Rested and refreshed, it was time to tackle Kansas. Ah, yes - 450 miles of unbridled mediocrity. But Kansas was also where a lot of the fun began. Once it was finished, I realized that I could have easily spent a couple of days stopping and enjoying all the kitsch along I-70. But with the long day ahead, I just did not have the time. At first - hell, for the first 200 miles - Kansas is not as flat as you would believe. In fact, there were large swaths of the drive that significantly resembled north Alabama, save for the fact that the dominant color was yellow-brown, not green.

Shortly after leaving Kansas City, I-70 becomes the Kansas Turnpike. At the entrance, you get a time-stamped ticket. You pay when you get off the turnpike. This ticket-taking made me think of a problem I faced in high school calculus. We had to prove, using calculus, that if a driver averaged 60 miles per hour for a three-hour drive, at some point during the drive he must have been traveling exactly 60 miles per hour. My teacher Mrs. Jones said that if the speed limit on a section of toll road was 65, and the time stamp when you entered and when you left computed to show that you averaged 66 miles per hour, then one could prove that at one point, you must have been speeding. The toll booth operator would collect your toll money, and then hand you a speeding ticket and tell you to have a nice day. I drove one mile per hour under the speed limit all the way to Topeka.

Before the next major bout of fun, some random things happened. A tumbleweed actually rolled onto the interstate in front of the car, and I struck it with the right front fender. From where I sat, it looked like it exploded into hundreds of shards. When I stopped an hour later at a rest area, the bulk of it was still lodged in the front of the car. I passed the Oz Museum and winery, and I really wanted to stop there for mom's friend Kay, but it was too far off the interstate, and I did not want to take that big of a detour. And looking at the map of Kansas, I understand now why meteorologists and experts tell you that if you are caught in a tornado while driving, you should drive in right angles away from the funnel. Kansas roads only intersect at right angles, so it is the only way you can flee. Moreover, it might not be as dangerous to fall asleep while driving in Kansas as elsewhere I have been. There's nothing to run into. Finally, when trucks and farm vehicles sprint down the dirt roads that gird the interstate, they resemble terrestrial comets, with long tails stretching behind them.

I was in a bit of a hurry the night before I left when I tried to recalibrate my iPod to work with my laptop. As a result, I allowed the computer to decide which songs fill on my iPod. When I started using it during the drive, I had to skip five to ten tracks each time to get to a track I wanted to hear. The automatic upload had included podcasts, audio books (but only selected chapters - no complete books), songs I didn't know I had, too many classical works, and Christmas music. I'll be fixing that when I stop for a few days in Golden.

On a political aside, I heard the following factoid on CNN: Hillary Clinton is more likely than Barack Obama to be supported by "lower income white rural working-class voters". Tell me if that stilted description does not also sound like the voters who are most likely to be racist.

About halfway across Kansas, I began to see the wind turbines I was expecting. Here, let me allow the video to tell the story.




[I had to climb a steep embankment and slither through a well-constructed barbed wire fence to bring this story to you.]

As I passed through the tiny towns that randomly dotted the interstate in western Kansas and eastern Colorado, I tried to imagine what life was like for teens on the High Plains. There can be an Abercrombie or Old Navy for a hundred miles. What sets the tone for fashion, for coolness out here? How do they react to seeing styles in movies and on MTV that they cannot replicate where they live? And what in the world do they do when they are not in school? For some reason, the only thing I can visualize is the John Deere chicken fight scene from "Footloose".

Once I survived Kansas - which, by the way, was not bleeding anywhere - the last part of the trip through Colorado was survivable. Even as early as I left, I had to drive straight into the setting sun for a couple of hours. The sky was so clear and bright that I could see several jets flying in several directions, condensation trails giving them away. It was as if some giant force used Q-tips to write in the sky.

About 75 miles from Denver I was finally able to spy the Rocky Mountains. They helped shield the sun, but they also made it too dark as I drove into the Denver metro area for me to look around. The last (and only) time I was in Denver previously was in the summer of 1992 for a DeMolay convention. We stayed on campus at the Colorado School for Mines, where my friend Ryan is a graduate student, and the rest of the time I stayed with a friend in Aurora. It was so dark, and I was so tired when I arrived, that I did not even notice the huge Coors factory on the left as I drove into Golden. I hoped I would recognize more from sixteen years ago, but I didn't.

Ryan lives in a bachelor apartment about three blocks from his campus building. It was really great to see him after the insanely long drive. We went to dinner at a new Mexican restaurant in town, and after he had one margarita, I had to drive us home. I am looking forward to the stay here, and when I get some time, I will take some photos and edit and upload them for you to see.

Cross Country Day 1: Home to Saint Louis / V9: On Spitzer and gas / V10: On Superman

So today I embarked on my insanely ambitious cross-country drive from Huntsville, Alabama to Redding, California, for a week-long professional tennis tournament that I am umpiring. At least at the start of the trip, the plan was to drive from home to Saint Louis for the night, then to Golden, Colorado to visit my friend Ryan for three days, and then on to Salt Lake City and finally Redding on Saturday night. (The tournament begins on Sunday.) We will see if the weather and my plans hold.

I have driven most of this route before a number of times - especially in Tennessee - so there wasn't that much surprising to see. I got bored in Kentucky, so I put some random thoughts down on film.



It wasn't until I arrived in southern Illinois that things got interesting. And, unfortunately, it was the only interesting thing until I reached Saint Louis after dark. Seeing the Arch, lit only by ambient light from the city, is an impressive sight at night.

One thing you should understand about me is that I enjoy kitsch and Americana. (Some might say to this, "what's the difference?") I stop for quilting museums and the largest ball of twine and the potato chip that looks like the Virgin Mary. I find that local cultural icons such as these help me get a better understanding of the values and norms of different parts of America. And in my travels, I have gotten pretty good at distinguishing the genuine from the tourist trap.

So we return to the story in southern Illinois - Massac County, to be exact. There is a rest area just off the interstate interchange as soon as you cross from Kentucky into Illinois. I remember stopping at it once before, when I drove to the Chicago suburbs in 2003 for the U.S. Open golf tournament with my brother-in-law. When you exit the rest area and get back on the local highway that takes you to the interstate, there is a blue sign with Superman's shield on it, reading "Giant Superman Statue". I am intrigued. So, instead of getting back on the interstate, I follow the signs.

One mile passes, and then another and another. Periodically, there is another blue sign that says "Giant Superman Statue - straight ahead". I have faith and persist. Finally, I enter the nearest city. It is fairly flat out here, save for the grain elevators, so I figure that I won't have much trouble finding this giant statue. And right when I enter town and am welcomed by the Chamber of Commerce's sign, I see something that makes me groan and wonder if I ever should have exited the interstate in the first place. More on that in a minute.

Finally, the signs direct me to the town square, site of the county courthouse. This is what I find:



Here is a still photo:

There is a post script to this story, the thing I mentioned that I would come back to at the end. As soon as you enter Metropolis, Illinois, there is a Big John grocery store on the left hand side of the road. This is what I saw as soon as I came into town:

Now, here is my first thought - Superman got purchased by this grocery store and converted into a bag boy. I was thisclose to turning around and leaving Metropolis in a cloud of angry regret. But then I saw another sign ahead for the Superman statue, so I continued. When I stopped to take this photo, another car was also stopped taking a picture of Big John. I am sure I was not the only one fooled by this inconvenient placement of a grocer's statue.

Scenes from a mall

On occasion, whether for the change in scenery or to avoid cold or inclement weather, I will walk at the local mall, Parkway Place. It's less than a mile from the house; on simply cold days, I will walk to the mall and do several laps inside before coming home. I see many other people walking there, especially a lot of seniors. What I have yet to see, however, is a bona fide mall-walker - fast pace, swinging hips and arms. I tend to walk pretty fast by dint of the music in my ears. But I don't mall-walk either.

Tonight was a very visually potent night at the mall. I had not walked there on a Saturday night before, and I left with several scenes in my head.

One
The mall might as well have been a farmer's market, for all the obvious county folks who had made the once-a-week trip into the city to sample the exciting sights, sounds and tastes of Parkway Place. The boys had poorly dyed blond hair, heavy work boots and dinner plate belt buckles. The girls mostly holding hands with the boys, were also invariably larger than the boys, with flat, limp, uninteresting hair. The only stores that seemed to interest them were GNC (boys acting butch for the girls), Brookstone (shiny things) and the Cookie Company (of course).

Two
I walked past one woman and her two small children several times. She was seated in a bench near an exit with a stroller and several bags of merchandise. Her nonchalant posture implied that she was waiting for something - a spouse? a ride? They two children each had a drink and a cookie from the Cookie Company. The drink cups were on the ground, and one had already spilled some brown soda on the floor. I wondered after each circuit passed her whether she would exhibit good parenting and citizenship by cleaning up after her children, or (gasp!) having them clean up after themselves. Finally, on the next lap, she was gone. So were the drinks. Well, at least the cups were gone. The drinks were dripped and splashed all over the walkway, with pieces of cookie randomly scattered and smashed into the tile throughout.

Three
I passed the central intersection of the mall, and from my left side I saw a woman and a man walking down the adjacent way. She was carrying a white and black Williams-Sonoma bag. But not for long. The bottom fell out of the bag, and out tumbled a sterling silver cylinder that looked like a coffee carafe, and its mated lid. I had the ear buds in ("High School Never Ends," Bowling for Soup), so I didn't hear anything, which was remarkable. Most of the heads I passed for the next several seconds were turned in that direction, often murmuring something to the other nearby heads.

Four
Weekends usually bring out the young people. Parkway Place has a policy prohibiting unescorted minors during evening and weekend hours. Teen and early-20s adults come there, too, and this includes the urbanites from the north part of town. Many times at the mall I have seen pairs and small groups of young men that are mixed race groups - blacks and whites, for the sake of simplicity. Never have I seen the men in the group all dressed like the whites. They are always all dressed like the blacks.

Five
Near the end of my walk, I was following two adults, with two boys and five or six small girls. The group seemed too large and the adults seemed too happy for them to have all been related. And then I noticed the shortest girl in the group, a blonde whose height would imply she was four or five, but whose behavior would make you think she was double that age. She looked remarkably like my eldest niece Maddie. But she wasn't looking at or noticing me. I kept watching her, but not for too long, because I didn't want anyone who saw me to think I was some lecherous man. So I called my brother-in-law, and he confirmed that Maddie and Jessie were both out with friends. So I called her by her full name, and she turned around and saw me, and ran to give me a hug. She pointed me out to her younger sister, and said, rather demandingly, "Give Uncle Frankie a kiss!". Jessie kissed me, too, and I introduced myself to the adults, apologetically. I told them that I had seen Maddie, but not Jay or Lena, and that it had just surprised me. (I did not tell them that I had called Jay to make sure it was Maddie I had seen.)

Six
When I see seniors walking in the mall, especially alone, I wonder if that will be me someday. Without a spouse or children, it is easy for bachelor, single, or gay men to be forgotten in the older age. It is a platitude to say that it couldn't happen, or that it couldn't happen to me, because I can see it has happened to some of them. I have plenty of time to avert it. But then again, when I broke up with Joe Little, I certainly did not think at that time that I would still be single now, eight years later.

Seven
Near the central intersection of the mall - where the woman's bag broke - is a sunglasses kiosk. For almost the entire hour that I was walking at the mall, this attractive man was shopping there. Each time I walked past, he was trying on a different pair of sunglasses. Tragically, he did not have anyone to provide him advice aside from the salesperson, which was to his detriment. Each look he proffered was out of reach for him, an unusual state of affairs for a handsome man. On some laps, I speculated that he might have noticed my passing frequently, and he was trying to choose frames that were more and more outrageous each time. When I saw him last, he had walked away from the kiosk, empty-handed.

V8: On a snowy future

It snowed in Atlanta on my visit there. I am about to start on my 5,000-mile trek to northern California and back. This is just a short update on what is up, and a quick view of the snow.

V7: On Lake Erie

I am back from Toronto, and there is much to tell and write. For now, be satisfied with this stop along the frozen shores of Lake Erie on the trip to Toronto. I apologize for the quality and I have learned from my error.

V6: On nieces

I figured you were tiring of hearing from me all the time, so tonight I have something much cuter.

Rules for Fighting Fair

On Super Tuesday, I volunteered as a poll observer at University Place School in Huntsville, Alabama. The polling location was in a hexagonal, cinder block gymnasium on an unusually warm and humid winter day. During my fourteen-hour day in that gym, I spied the signs of children all around me - four-square lines on the floor; chairs too short for me to sit in; rows of aligned dots painted on the floor for assigned seating; and elementary art on the walls encouraging students to stay active and eat healthy. Sometime during my interminable day, I discovered this:



and I was reminded that we adults seldom remember or exemplify the lessons we are trying to instill in our children. I think it is a worthy desire to want to live in a civil society. I believe the values of tolerance and freedom can exist together and complement one another. And I feel that as our road seems to inexorably lead to another argumentative presidential election, we should go back to what we learned in school about how to fight fair.

1. We find out the problem. In a civil society comprising more than one person, fights will happen. Fighting can sometimes involve violence, but most basically, fighting is about disagreeing. In elementary school, such disagreements were often one-word affairs. "Mine!" "Stopit!" "Jerk!" In the grown-up world, disagreements take on significantly more facets, complications, and baggage. They can refer to critical, even life-and-death, matters. Yet most often, as children and adults, we are reduced to puerile, off-topic rants about unrelated issues or events that get us no closer to solving the problem.

If we want to fight fair, and if we really care about the problem and solving it, first we must find out what the problem is, and leave everything else at the door. It is the first agreement that leads to the end of the disagreement. So much time and energy, so many column inches and diaries are wasted on the debris surrounding past and present conflicts. So much bad will is generated and maintained by the memories of past fights. To be successful, we must find the problem, isolate it, and focus our intensity and efforts like a laser beam on the problem itself. This goal relates directly to the second rule.

2. We attack the problem, not the person. This is the most violated rule of fighting fair. As children, our lack of maturity makes it easy to spin off into name-calling, pushing, temper tantrums, and grudges. We're supposed to be older than that now; we're supposed to be adults. There should be no threats and no blaming. Does this sound like an adult way to attack the problem of terrorism?

And Barack and Hillary have made their intentions clear regarding Iraq and the war on terror. They would retreat and declare defeat. And the consequence of that would be devastating. It would mean attacks on America, launched from safe havens that make Afghanistan under the Taliban look like child's play. About this, I have no doubt.

I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating Al Qaeda and terror. If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

To summarize Jon Stewart's apt analysis: "So, Mitt, in order to avert a surrender on terror, you are going to ... surrender?"

So far, our candidates have resisted most urges to demonize the Republican Party and its supporters. They have defined the problems of our country as they see them; they have outlined their ideas for solutions; and they have highlighted how their plans differ from the proposals of their opponents. We Democratic partisans, we campaign supporters, we diarists and bloggers need to follow their lead. Fighting fair means keeping our eyes on the problem. It means no name calling, no threats, no making excuses, no failing to listen, no getting even. And it means doing this even when others do not.

Do you want to win, or do you want to win justly and fairly? If you are saying to yourself that the problems our country faces are too critical to make this distinction, or if you are asking yourself if there really is a difference, think. Why do we, and most right-thinking Americans, oppose the use of torture against our enemies? We oppose it because we do not want ourselves or our soldiers to be treated that way. We oppose it because it is inhumane. We oppose it because we do not want to be known in the world as a country that would do such things. All these statements boil down to one truth: we oppose it because it is wrong. We should not only fight the fights we can win. We must fight the fights that need fighting. And this is why we must do it fairly. Victory is hollow and meaningless if we don't fight fair.

3. We listen to each other. Fighting fairly is more than telling my side and waiting for you to agree, acquiesce, or give in. [Indeed, that is the way of the Bush administration.] We fight because we disagree, because we believe in something, and because we eventually want to agree. If we did not desire agreement and harmony as our default condition, there would be no incentive or impetus to fight in the first place. We must listen to those with whom we fight, even when they play unfairly.

Fighting fairly requires faith. We must believe that the people with whom we fight are what we strive to be, that they are sincere in their beliefs, and that they fight because they feel those beliefs are important. If we accept this and have faith, it makes it easier to fight fairly. No longer will we waste time on pettiness, on past quarrels, on scoring cheap points. Both sides will see the earnestness of the other, listen to what they offer, and find a road to connect the two.

If I only trust and listen to those who play dirty, then I do not really know who or what I am fighting. After all, I cannot disagree with you if I do not know what you believe or propose, or how it differs from my ideas and ideals. We must listen. We must seek out sources of information from those with whom we disagree. We must turn on our ears, even when our minds want to turn off our hearts to our opponents. We must listen, so that others will hear us. If we want to fight fairly, and if we believe things are worth fighting for, then we must desire a solution and a resolution to the fight. We will never achieve that without listening.

4. We care about each other's feelings. Perhaps politics, like revenge, is a dish best served cold. If we fight dispassionately and stoically, then we cannot be hurt when we lose. Perhaps, as stated earlier, the crisis of our country is so dire that it does not matter how we win, just as long as we win. Yet all of us are old enough to have been both winners and losers in this game, some of us many times over. We know that the losers do not get voted off the island. We must all live together in this republic once the current fight is over, and until the next fight comes. Fighting fairly means caring about how we fight, and caring about the feelings of others.

We teach our children to play fair, and most of us cite some religious or secular formulation of the Golden Rule when we correct their behavior. Then we mature, inherit the responsibilities of the world, and abandon this point of view. We're good, they're bad, and we must win while they lose because everything is a zero-sum game. But it does not have to be that way if we fight fairly.

Caring about the feelings of others while we fight is how we would want to be treated. It encourages future fights, meaning it allows people to have faith that the next time they disagree, they can fight fairly to solve it without animosity or hatred. It invites us to engage one another to solve the problem that started the fight; when the fight is over, we must return to being neighbors. And caring about others when we fight allows us to engage in rule two - focusing on the problem and not the person. If it is good enough for our children, why can't it be good enough for us?

5. We are responsible for what we say and do. When we fight fairly, we become a collective unit towards the goal we are seeking. The tactics we use to fight, including the words we say and write, are the weapons in that fight. We are all responsible for how they are used and what effects they have. If you believe in a cause or a person, you should want to fight fairly. It allows people to have faith in your sincerity, and it lends credence to your views. It engenders faith in you as a fighter. You will not be successful at winning converts if you do it unfairly. They will not be able to trust what you say now, or when the next fight inevitably comes.

If there are people fighting with you that do not fight fairly, you must call them out for their behavior. Remember, it is about the goal, the purpose, the ideal - and not about the person. Calling names, seeking revenge, or spreading misleading statements will not help you in your fight. They discourage others from fighting fairly, they cast doubt on your motives, and they distract from what you are fighting for. If the fight is more important than the person, then fighting fairly is to your advantage. Criticize others when they don't fight fairly. Apologize and take responsibility when you fail to remember these rules. Encourage those who keep their eyes on the prize. If you are responsible for what you say and do, even when you err, you will earn the trust and respect of sincere people with whom you fight, smoothing the way for future agreements.

Following these rules and fighting fairly is difficult. We should do it because it complements our sincerity and earnestness. We should do it because we want others to treat us the same way when we fight. We should do it because we expect it of our children, for whom we should be exemplars. We should do it because it makes winning feel good, and losing feel tolerable. All these statements boil down to one truth: we should do it because it is right.

V3: On Obama in the rain

I have a lot of other things to tell, of making new friends and losing more weight and generally feeling better. But right now, I need to tell you about Barack Obama, me, and the rain that just would not quit.

Edwards for President; or, How To Choose a Candidate in Seven Days

I was sitting in my room and the news came on tv;
A lot of people out there hurtin', and it really scares me.

Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight;
So love and mercy to you and your friends tonight.

~~Brian Wilson, "Love and Mercy"

It was about eight in the morning yesterday when my friend Ed sent me a text from Buffalo and said, "Turn on CNN." My first thought was that Buffalo was on the news - he had been telling me about the severe winds, about how school had been canceled, and about how, dammit, he still had to work that day. In the few seconds more before the channel appeared, I wondered a few more things that might prompt Ed to direct me to the news today, but the news I saw was the last thing I was expecting. John Edwards was ending his campaign for president.

I am certainly a political animal; I am my father's son in that regard. But, as my friends will attest, I can inform without offending. I have never lost a friend over politics. So I am a true believer, but a reluctant proselytizer. Many would be surprised to learn that I have been with John Edwards since his first run for president in 2004. I thought the ticket was reversed that year; I stood by him and supported him in my forcefully quiet way until the present. Similarly, many would be startled at the depth of my support and passion for Edwards' campaign.

I wonder, when I saw him in Nashville two days before his withdrawal, if he knew then that he was ending his campaign. You could not tell from the passion in his speech and the fire in the crowd. I came home and signed up for a couple of campaign events locally that were supposed to occur today. And now, it feels like my significant other of four years has left me. And I have to find a date for next Tuesday's ball, or else I will be the only person sitting on the sidelines.

The kernel of an idea for this diary was a grand analysis of candidate positions; a three column chart on each major issue area, comparing and contrasting the positions of Edwards with Obama and Clinton. From this, I could call a "winner" in each policy area, and use that to determine where I would send my support - I am not sitting this dance out. I also wanted to highlight the differences in Senate roll call votes between Obama and Clinton in the last two years. However, I could hear in my head the criticisms of this approach, and I also became daunted by the sheer volume of information involved. I tried to focus only on the candidates' differences, but found there were few substantial policy contrasts.

In order to save my sanity, I turned to a thematic and idea approach. Which candidate shares the values and the passion of John Edwards to a greater degree? Which candidate has more truly innovative ideas? Which candidate has demonstrated the judgment and awareness to carefully select adviser to help administer the government? Ah...now we're getting somewhere.

During the beginning of my more in-depth analysis of policy positions, I consistently found more detailed, more creative, and more congruent ideas from Obama than from Clinton. One might want to argue that all the information on candidate positions is not available on their campaign websites, or one might want to refer me to other sources of information. My view is this: the campaign website is the primary vehicle of communication with the public. It is not limited by timed duration or column inches. If it is important to the candidate, it should be detailed on the website. Here is just a sampling of what I found.

Tax policy: All three candidate share support for restoring higher-income tax brackets to 1990s levels; extending and enhancing child tax credits; and rolling back Bush's tax cuts. But Clinton's policy speaks in generalities, with words and phrases I have heard before, over and over. Obama, meanwhile, offers substantive and fresh ideas. He proposes a Making Work Pay tax credit - $500 individual, $1000 joint - that could eliminate federal income taxes for 10 million lower income people. He also has actual ideas for simplifying federal tax filing. For example, the IRS could use information it already receives from banks and employers to send pre-filled statements to taxpayers for verification; ideally, filing federal taxes could be reduced to five minutes.

Government reform: The three candidates agree on verifiable paper trails, ballot security and election auditing; restricting the revolving door for agency officials and lobbyists; and using technology and the Internet to provide more government transparency and data-sharing. Clinton proposes a Public Service Academy - four years of paid college education followed by five years of service. It is a quality idea, but hardly innovative. Want something new? Try Obama's Sunlight Before Signing - all non-emergency bills presented for his signature will be subject to a five-day public comment period before he takes action. How about 21st Century Fireside Chats? Obama would mandate that Cabinet departments hold regular broadband town hall meetings.

LGBT issues: John Edwards was the run away leader in his efforts for equal and fair treatment of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. Edwards visibly supported civil unions and other arrangements that would provide equal standing for the more than 1100 federal rights related to marriage to straight and to same-sex couples. He opposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage. He wanted to expand Medicaid to cover HIV+ people; to increase funding and support for the Ryan White Act; and to encourage age-appropriate sexual education and science-based prevention. Clinton and Obama have each made public statements supporting equal treatment of the LGBT community, but both need to step up the written and verbal commitments to rise to the level of support from John Edwards. Obama took a step in this direction by addressing equal treatment in front of a predominantly African-American audience. But more than words are needed.

I can go on - rural America; nuclear proliferation; civil rights; Africa; trade relations - but the pattern is the same. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton strike all the right chords when singing about the major issues our party and our country face. They have white papers, press releases, and speeches that say all the right things and stroke all the right constituencies; this is expected. The difference is in the quality, innovation, and freshness of the ideas. This is more than just "change": who can change the climate of Washington, or who can change the course of our government.

Barack Obama has shown the charisma and the inspiration to bring people together to follow him. And if you are looking for "change" in this election, he represents it to a far greater degree than Hillary Clinton. He is worried about health care, and tax burdens, and external threats, and education. But on each of these topics, and more, he hits the right notes and then embellishes them with trills and arpeggios. I have not seen sufficient evidence that Clinton is flexible enough or open enough to tackle old issues and emerging threats with a keen and fresh eye. Obama has the creativity and the vision to see beyond the same solutions to the same problems.

This is my analysis, and this is what works for me. Hopefully - maybe - it is helpful to you. The candidate who comes closer to the passion, the ideals, and the perspective of John Edwards is Barack Obama. I will be voting for Obama on Tuesday.

Should Mother Nature choose the president?

clipped from talkingpointsmemo.com

Norris says McCain too old for president

APRIL CASTRO
AP News

Campaigning for Mike Huckabee, actor Chuck Norris said Sunday that Sen. John McCain is too old to handle the pressures of being president.

"I didn't pick John to support because I'm just afraid that the vice president would wind up taking over his job in that four-year presidency," said Norris

As the first Southern primary, South Carolina was supposed to be friendly territory for Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister.

"We obviously wanted to win and we really thought we would win," he said. "The fact of Fred Thompson's being in the race took some votes that we would have most likely had."

Huckabee also blamed late snowfall in parts of upstate South Carolina.

"The snow not only froze the streets of the Greenville-Spartanburg area, the votes kinda stopped once it started snowing," he said. "That was an area we were looking forward to having a significant vote margin."

Further down in this article from Talking Points Memo, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee lamented the affect of weather (and Grandpa Fred) on his vote totals in South Carolina.

Especially today, on the formal celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, it is worth noting the cavalier attitude we seem to have towards democracy and voting rights. I am not old enough to remember the bulk of the struggle for women and minorities to secure the right to vote. But in a country that considers itself the modern torch-bearer for democracy, in a country who nicknames its president the Leader of the Free World, in a country where thousands have died in the Middle East so we can ostensibly enjoy the freedom to shop here at home, it startles me to see the basic act of democracy so tattered.

Weather should not affect elections. If more South Carolinians really wanted Gov. Huckabee to win, it shouldn't be his bad luck - or a reflection on him - that they were too lazy or not intrepid enough to brave the weather in order to vote. It is troubling enough to deal with the variables of computerized voting versus hand counting, of polling places running out of ballots, of citizens actually turning away in Nevada because of half-mile lines to vote. It is likewise disturbing that dozens of votes were found to have been miscounted in New Hampshire, despite the fact that the recount did not change the outcome. Do you want your vote to be the one that is not counted?

So I guess my beef is not with Mother Nature. It is with our particular flavor of democracy. The tradition of Tuesday voting - harking back to the days of farmers' markets, and when most citizens would be "in town" to vote - needs to be retired. We need weekend voting, multiple day voting, voting by mail. Ask Oregon - mail voting has been tremendously efficient and effective, and very impervious to fraud. Austin always had multiple early voting sites throughout the city when I lived there. Unless you were away on business for three weeks solid, there was no excuse for failing to vote.

After all that has been given by so many for our right to vote, shouldn't it be more protected, more cherished? A vote should not be minimized because one could not get off work...because one could not get a ride to the polls...because one had a sick child on the one day of the vote...because weather depressed the turnout of an entire area of a city or state.

Mad libs vs. Pee Wee's Playhouse

[Sen. John McCain, former Gov. Mitt Romney, and former Sen. Fred Thompson (l-r), point out how they have never seen former Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a man's suit before.]


I didn't listen to my mother; when she told me not to yell at the television, I did anyway. I was annoyed and disappointed at how Fox ran tonight's Republican debate. The audience was allowed to be too boisterous, and the whole she-bang came off sounding like a pep rally.

Because there was so much audience interaction, it was easy to see the Republican keyword machine in action. More times than I can count, candidates were interrupted in mid-sentence -- often in mid-topic-sentence -- by applause from a vat of Florida Republicans who heard the special words. Whether it was "terror" or "Vietnam" or "Hillary" or [insert your word here], they gave themselves away by applauding the keywords too quickly, often before the candidates had time to assemble them into complete thoughts. Did a Republican invent Mad Libs?

However, in my house, the opposite was going on. It was like Pee Wee's Playhouse here - whenever the keywords were uttered, I screamed at the television. I yelled down the hall to my mother. (Well, what can I say, the baseball game is still in the early innings as I write.) I was troubled to see how easily manipulated that audience was. They cheered for hating Hillary; they cheered for hating immigrants; they cheered for hating Muslims; they cheered for hating poor people.

I prefer my debates to be debates, and for the most part, the Democratic affairs have come off much more professionally and informative-ly. I don't want the audience to cheer or moan like someone just hit "Bankrupt" on Wheel of Fortune - it just encourages the candidates to give empty applause lines. And I don't want questioners to manufacture disputes. I want to know what candidate A thinks about an issue. And then I want to know whether candidate B agrees or disagrees, and what candidate B would do differently. Lather, rinse, repeat.

We might be favored in the coming election. But I was scared by what I saw tonight. I was scared to think that so many people are still caught in the headlights of Republicanism. The worst part is, it's not just them that will be run over by the oncoming truck - it's all of us.

Caught in the undertow

The first three days of my new job have been....what's the word...confounding.

I work for a company that sells tungsten heavy alloy products for a variety of uses - aerospace, metallurgical, machining and milling, and so on. We may not make most of the things in your home, but our products help make the machines and tools that make most of the things in your home. I am an inside sales representative, ostensibly responsible for all of our clients outside of North America.

When I was interviewed and then hired, I was advised that the company did not consider itself very good at training new non-floor employees, and that with us (me and my fellow new inside sales rep), they were going to try to use a more comprehensive training. No more sink-or-swim; now, it's seminar-and-snooze, as I like to joke.

My supervisor gave us a detailed three-week training schedule. She is due to be on vacation for the second and third weeks; however, much of our training during that time was to be provided by other employees - engineers, outside sales reps, product specialists, and so on. However, already people are coming to her with tweaks to the schedule and conflicts. For example, our plant tours were supposed to be next week, on days that she was gone. Now, they are taking place this week, on days that she was to provide training to us.

We have a slightly better idea of what products we sell, and what their properties are, and how they are manufactured. However, we still have no good sense for what our actual jobs will be like. We have not been trained in detail on our product line - thousands of different types of tool holders and inserts, for example, and which one is best for which application - nor have we learned about our all-powerful computer system. Those days are certainly coming. However, in the meantime, the last three days of work have not seemed like work at all.

So far, these days have felt more like, I don't know, college orientation? You feel like you know what to expect. You are shown a bunch of things you won't recall, and you are introduced to dozens of people you won't remember until you need them. You aren't taking notes, you're just watching and hoping things will stick when it is time to need them.

The training schedule gives only a vague idea of what we are doing each day. Yesterday was supposed to be about products and procedures. But I don't remember learning much that was new or not intuitive, and then the day ended early so we could go buy our steel-toed safety shoes (on the company's tab). Today, we toured our plant in La Vergne, outside Nashville. It was interesting to see the products being made, and I did learn a few things. But I have not seen our products being used yet. I don't know what they actually do, or how they do it, or how tiny differences in design create different outcomes, or why certain grades or materials are used for certain applications. I know what our products look like. I don't know what they do. So it felt like today's long trip (four hours on the road, three in the plant) was not the best use of time, at least at this point in our training.

I am still neutral about this job. Frankly, I don't know what to feel about it yet. I know I am not ready to deal with customers, not for a few more weeks or months, but I am chomping at the bit to do something, anything more meaningful and hands-on and productive. I am frustrated because I want to get to work.