Belly Button Lint: Rick Ramsey's Weblog

One of my all-time favorite examples of slippery rhetoric, put back in circulation by my good buddy Joel Broude.

Video: The Front Fell Off

You are a devilish conscious rascal, damn ye! I am a free prince and have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred sail of ships and an army of a hundred thousand men in the field. And this my conscience tells me; that there is no arguing with such sniveling puppies who allow superiors to kick them about the deck at pleasure, and pin their faith upon the pimp of a parson, a squab who neither practices or believes what he puts upon the chuckle-headed fools he preaches to."

The pirate captain Charles Bellamy to the skipper of a just plundered cargo ship who refused his invitation to join his crew, as quoted by Frank Sherry in Raiders and Rebels, a History of the Golden Age of Piracy, a Harper Perennial Book.

Back when posting your musings to your coworkers over office email was an affront to accepted standards of corporate behavior, it was a lot more appealing. Once the guys who signed your paycheck started encouraging you to blog, it lost some of its charm. After all what's the appeal of being naughty if it's no longer naughty?

A friend of mine asked me to dig this up from the pre-blogging archives. It's from the .com bust of 2000, it's about a startup that went under, it's got more than a few inside jokes, but in many ways it's apropos to recent events. I figured, why not?.

A SLICE OF THE PIE

- by Rick Ramsey and Don McLean, inspired by Jim
Engquist and commissioned by Jack Phillips, with help
from Michael Barton and Laura Ramsey.

A long, long time ago I can still remember how that
big sum used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make my broker dance
And maybe we'd be happy for a while.

But the CFO he made me shiver.
With each postponement he delivered,
Bad news on my desktop.
Announcements made my heart stop.

I can't remember if I cried
When I read about the market slide,
But something touched me deep inside,
The day, the IPO, died.
So...

CHORUS:
Bye, bye Mister Millionaire Guy!
Worked my ass off for the billions but the billions ran dry.
Them banker boys are making me cry
Singin' this may be the day that you vest,
But this won't be the day that you rest.

Did you buy that load of hype?
And did you decide to work all night?
If a VP asked you to.
Now do you believe in rent control?
Can foodstamps save your mortal soul?
And can you teach me how to spend real slow?

Well I know you're hoping for the best
Cuz I saw you wearin' your green vest.
We all sure paid our dues,
But now we're singing the blues!

I was a lonely coder chasin bucks
With a Porsche traded for my pickup truck,
But I knew I was out of luck,
The day, the IPO, died.
I started singin...

CHORUS:
Bye, bye Mister Millionaire Guy!
Worked my ass off for the billions but the billions ran dry.
Them banker boys are making me cry
Singin' this may be the day that you vest,
But this won't be the day that you rest.

Now for four years we've been counting down
To the day when we might leave this town,
But that's not how it's gonna be.
Now we're forced to work for pork and beans
Instead of looking like James Dean
Dreaming of how it could have been.

While the market was looking nice
The stock lost its inflated price.
The S-1 was withdrawn.
Our suitors were all gone.

All those books we read by Moore
All those investors beating down our door
So we sing dirges all the more
Because, the IPO, died.
We were singin'...

CHORUS:
Bye, bye Mister Millionaire Guy!
Worked my ass off for the billions but the billions ran dry.
Them banker boys are making me cry
Singin' this may be the day that you vest,
But this won't be the day that you rest.

Reorg, reorg, in a summer downpour
Could we have just one VP more?
Fifty five and rising fast.
All these promotions are such a blast.
Do you think it helps if you arrive last?
Or should you learn to drive real fast?

Now the Fortune press was sweet perfume!
And the analysts played an upbeat tune.
We all got up to dance.
Oh but we never got the chance!

When marketing tried to take the field,
Engineering just refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed,
the day, the IPO, died?
We started singin'...

CHORUS:
Bye, bye Mister Millionaire Guy!
Worked my ass off for the billions but the billions ran dry.
Them banker boys are making me cry
Singin' this may be the day that you vest,
But this won't be the day that you rest.

Oh and though we are all in first place,
Procrastination lost that race.
With no time left to start again.
So come on, hack be nimble, hack be quick.
Hack it fast for the latest fix.
Because hacking is the devil's only friend.

As I saw the market turn the page
My hands were clinched in fists of rage,
No angel born in the Valley
Could reproduce that market rally!

And as the flames climbed high into the night,
No one told us it would be alright.
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day, the IPO, died.
He was singin'...

CHORUS:
Bye, bye Mister Millionaire Guy!
Worked my ass off for the billions but the billions ran dry.
Them banker boys are making me cry
Singin' this may be the day that you vest,
But this won't be the day that you rest.

I met a guy who shines my shoes
And I asked him for some market news
But he just frowned and shined away.
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the pitches years before
But the man there said my placement wouldn't pay.

And in the house the children screamed
The wife she cried, and alone I dreamed.
But not a word was spoken,
Our hopes they all were broken.

And the three beings we admire most
Meeker, E-Trade, and the Holy Ghost
They stole the champagne for the toast
The day, the IPO, died.
And they were singin'...

CHORUS: Bye, bye Mister Millionaire Guy! Worked my ass off for the billions but the billions ran dry. Them executive boys are making us cry Singin' this won't be the day that we rest ...

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
+10
-------
55

A civilized country would have argued the relative weights of each number. For instance, the Even Party would claim that numbers 2,4,6, and perhaps 8 deserved greater emphasis in our consideration than numbers 1,3,5, and perhaps 7. And the Odd Party would make its corresponding claim to the contrary. The merits of each side would be discussed in cravats and dark blazers shepherding dry martinis around drawing rooms, and the election results would spark a raised eyebrow here and a satisfied frown there.

Not in America.

America's Odd Party claimed these were the facts:

1
3
5
7
+9
-------
25

Our Even party argued that no, these were the facts:

2
4
6
8
+10
-------
30

Since we were unable to even agree on the facts of the problem, we spent most of our time insulting each other...

"Any idiot can add up the numbers and see that the answer is 25."

"Except that it's 30."

"Only an Even moron could add 1,3,5,7, and 9, and get 30."

"And it would take an imbecil of the kind that only the Odd Party could produce to get 25 from 2,4,6,8, and 10."

"The Even Party is the refuge of cowards, traitors, and sissies.

"Anyone who votes for the Odd Party is either an imbecil, a crook, or Rasputin himself."

To compound our difficulties, the Odd Party protested that the laws of arithmetic were biased against their interests and that in fact, 1+1 does not equal 2. The press, not wanting to appear biased toward the Even Party, gave equal weight to correct and incorrect arithmetic.

To compound our difficulties further, the Odd Party claimed that people who insisted on getting the right answer were intellectuals out of touch with Real Americans, who earn their living with their hands. The unspoken message was that Real Americans can't add --and worse, that they don't need to. It was apparently overlooked by most of us that most of the people who look like Real Americans are either actors paid to work out in the gym and look grimy in advertisements for trucks real Real Americans can no longer afford, or steel workers sweating in China.

It's a wonder, and perhaps a sign of divine intervention for which we should be eternally grateful, that although we did not get the right answer, we did get an answer that includes most of the numbers.

I still don't have the answer, but the other morning I woke up before dawn, as usual, and nudged Missus Wife, a two-fisted Night Owl who drinks her last cup of coffee while watching the evening news. I told her about my blog entry.

"Hey,"

"whut."

"I blogged."

"wonderful."

"Wanna hear it?"

"nor particularly."

"What a Guy Needs. That's what it was about."

no answer

"Good topic, huh?"

no answer

"Hun. What'd you think of the topic?"

no answer

"So what do you think a woman needs?"

"sleep."

• a skill
• a sport
• a place where he belongs
• friends
• something to believe in
• the great outdoors
• someone to love

If you have a cluewhat a woman needs, please blog it and send me the link.

According to Fortune Magazine's April issue, of the Americans who filed tax returns in 2005...

• The top 50% paid 97% of the Federal Government's taxes
• The top 10% paid 70%

Fortune's point is not the inequality of the tax burden, but the inequality of the rise in incomes. To make it into the top 1% club in 1986, you only had to make $119,000. By 2005 it was $365,000. (And yes, as a result, that top 1% pays 40% of federal taxes.)

What interests me is the notion of representation. Or, to put it another way, "getting our money's worth." We all know that some people in that top 1% use their income to buy an awful lot of government influence. In some cases, to even buy themselves a position in government. Is that a bad thing? After all, isn't that what the founding fathers did? No, it's not a bad thing unless you seek to gain at the rest of the country's expense. How many of them do that? I don't have a clue. And neither do you. So shut up and go kiss your poster of Nancy Pelosi.

What I can be pretty sure of is that those of us between the 50th and 99th percentiles aren't buying any government influence beyond our vote and, thanks to the internet, our political contributions. (Isn't that one a slick little tax hike!) Why am I sure? Because we're all working too hard. (Well, those of us who aren't blogging about politics.)

Why are we working so hard? I can only speak for myself, for the people in California and for the folks in New England. The people in California do it to simply stay afloat. That place is expensive in a way that nobody in the Midwest can hope to grok. The people in New England do it because they don't know what else to do with their time...

"Yo. Jonas. S'up?"
"Workin. You?"
"Workin."

Me? I do it because I'm an immigrant. First generation immigrants always work their butts off. We need to prove ourselves worthy of Lassie's love. Good enough to be Roy Roger's pal. We are Tontos hoping for a promotion. Failing that, one for our kids.

Whatever the reason, those of us who pay for the government haven't spent a lot of time and resources making sure we get what we paid for. And politicians don't give us good customer service because it's tough to associate us with a pressing problem that they are uniquely qualified to fix. We're like the good student in the troubled family.

But you know what we're thinkin', those of us who foot most of the bill for George Bush's multi-trillion dollar vendetta in Iraq, who listen to demagogues pandering for votes by claiming we need to pay more of our share, who know the difference between someone in need and someone who won't work, those of us who wonder whether a lifetime of hard work will be enough to put our kids through college or let us wind down a bit before we croak, you know what we're thinkin'?

We need to fire the bastards, is what we're thinkin'. No more stupid presidents. No more stupid congressmen, either. No more specious debates. No more deceptive sound bites. You can dispense with the gross generalizations, too, if you don't mind. Would the Republican Spin Machine kindly STFU. We request the same consideration from MoveOn.org. And any other group who promotes blind obeisance to one-sided arguments....

liberal: "What's your opinion?"
conservative: "They're idiots and I'm a genius."
liberal: "Amazing! That's exactly what I think!"

It's a tough world out there. Most of us didn't earn the privilege of paying taxes by acting like retards with a drinking problem at an apple dunking contest. We demand intelligence, thoughtfulness, and a reasonable attempt at honesty from each other. It's time we demanded it from the government. And from their political lapdogs. It's time we took the time to pay attention to what the hell is going on.

Enunciate, man. E n u n c i a t e.

Radar guns were a vast improvement over the previous method of training troopers to eyeball speeders, tail them, and catch them. More reliable. Numbers are harder to argue about at court than a trooper's judgment, after all. They were cheaper, too, since one trooper with a gun and several of his buddies in chase cars could catch a month's quota of speeders in an afternoon.

Laser guns were a quantum leap forward, as well, since they identify a menace to public safety in about an instant. A couple of years ago the guy tailgating me and I got nailed doing 80 on the New York State Throughway as we crested a hill near Utika. The trooper's lights were on about a picosecond after he saw us. I was so impressed I began to wonder if they were wired into his laser gun.

Because I'm keenly aware of the dangers of litter, stray deer, broken down cars, and other potential dangers to my safety and that of the drivers around me, I always slow down before the crest of a hill, but in this particular case I was trying to pass the traffic on my right with all due caution while taking into account the emotional needs of the guy tailgating me.

The trooper was downright jolly, and tried to make a good impression on my nervous children who'd never seen Dad pulled over before. I thought that was mighty good of him. When you're paid on commission, you don't have to go the extra mile, but he did. I was grateful he stopped me, and as I thanked him for his trouble, I told him my family found the entire experience salutatory.

I was also impressed by the initiative displayed by the insurance companies who donate the laser guns to the police departments so they don't have to burden the public coffers to protect and to serve that public. That sort of generosity is uncommon in today's cynical world.

And here's where I get to my point. You see, what's even more amazing is that this generosity of spirit has teamed up with good old-fashioned American ingenuity into a remarkable partnership. As towns and cities struggle to meet the health care costs of their retirees, they have to find new and less costly ways to ensure the safety of their citizens. The manufacturers of traffic cameras have stepped up to the plate. For a small percentage of the profits, they install cameras free of charge. Or at a reduced rate. In and of itself, that's remarkable. But they did not stop there. No, they actually spent extra time and effort to figure out how to improve the efficiency of the amber lights at intersections. Before traffic cameras were installed, the amber lights took too long to change to red, letting pass too many opportunities to ensure public safety while increasing municipal revenues. Now less time is wasted on the Amber lights. The result? A higher rate of revenue for the town, the traffic camera manufacturers, and the insurance companies. Talk about good old-fashioned American ingenuity!

There are days when I honestly wonder whether the life of the American Dream has been slowly choked out by creeping tyranny, but when I witness this sort of initiative, teamwork, and cleverness employed simply to protect me, an ordinary citizen, my hope is renewed.

Contrary to the suspicion in the press, the debates, and the living rooms of America, the benefits of Democracy are finally reaching Baghdad. Well, almost. Judging from the landscape, this style-conscious Taliban faithful is probably walking through the streets of New York City or San Francisco, but it won't be long before his breezy haute-couture style becomes the bomb in Baghdad.

Excerpts from Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick, published by Viking Press (c) 2006...

"But no matter how desperately our nation's mythologizers might wish it had never happened, King Philip's War will not go away. The fourteen bloody months between June 1675 and August 1676 had a vast, disturbing impact on the development of New England and, with it, all of America.

page 357

"By the end of the war, Mount Hope, once the crowded Native heart of the colony, was virtually empty of inhabitants. Fifty-six years after the sailing of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims' children had not only defeated the Pokanokets in a devastating war, they had taken conscious, methodical measures to purge the land of its people..."

"The war that was to have removed forever the threat of Indian attack had achieved exactly the opposite of its original intention....Without "friend Indians" to buffer them from their enemies, those living on the frontier were left open to attack. Over the course of the following century, New England was ravaged by a series of Indian wars. Unable to defend themselves, the colonies that had once operated as an autonomous enclave of Puritanism were forced to look to the British Crown for assistance. Within a decade of King Philip's War, James II had appointed a royal governor to rule over New England, and in 1692 Plymouth became part of Massachusetts."

pages 346-347

"In terms of the percentage of population killed, the English had suffered casualties that are difficult for us to comprehend today. During the forty-five months of World war II, the United States lost just under 1 percent of its adult male population; during the Civil War the casualty rate was somewhere between 4 and 5 percent. During the fourteen months of King Philip's War, Plymouth Colony lost close to 8 percent of its men.

"But the English losses appear almost inconsequential when compared to those of the Indians. ... Overall, the Native American population of southern New England had sustained a loss of somewhere between 60 and 80 percent."

page 332

"It is easy to mock past attempts to venerate and sanctify the Pilgrims, especially given what their sons and grandsons did to the Native Americans. And yet we must look with something more than cynicism at a people who maintained more than half a century of peace with their Native neighbors. The great mystery of this story is how America emerged from the terrible darkness of King Philip's War to become the United States."

page 357

"There was the characteristic pessimism and the passion for work, the profit motive and the constant desire to get ahead, the suspicion of art, the devotion to family, the hatred of oaths, and the drive to strip formal religion of all but the most fundamental of its rites and doctrines. His was a creed that taught that one must be wary of all men, struggle against their evil ways, and be even harder on oneself than on others. As for the stirrings of the heart, they are not to be trusted; any show of emotion mus be reserved for members of the family alone, the flesh of one's flesh. Ceaseless labor is the only proper way to beautify the earth, which has been entrusted by God to His children, so that they might improve it by the sweat of their brows and the unremitting application of their minds. Success in itself is not enough, however, because its wages are often the twin evils of pride and vanity.

"In addition to the other radical Protestant traits identifiable in Newton's behavior, he, like Cromwell, was seemingly possessed of that regal Puritan notion of special election."

Gale E. Christianson, explaining the cultural background of Sir Issac Newton in the book In the Presence of the Creator, (c)1984.

I gotta rave about a totally new experience. Actually, it's an old experience that I've had the pleasure of savoring again after a long absence: Going to an adult movie. Do you remember when "adult" meant "grown-up"? Do you remember what going to the movies was like back then? You walk in, the place is full of grownups, they're murmuring quietly, they're polite, and best of all....are you ready?....when the movie starts they shut up. Yes, they actually shut up.

About a year ago I stopped going to the movies and decided to instead dish out the bucks for a good quality HDTV set and DVD player so we could watch movies at home. I'd grown weary of my role as the enforcer in the movie theater. It was always the same....wait 10-15 minutes to see if any of the other adults would ask the kids to pipe down...turn and look....turn and ask them to keep it down....stand up and tell them that if they didn't pipe down, I'd have them thrown out.

One day I crawled over my seat and grabbed a teen punk by the throat to make him shut up. That's when I decided that, as in all things democratic, if you're the only one who's right, you're wrong. So I walked out and swore to never return.

Then some friends told us about an old movie theater in an old New England town that would not admit anyone under 21. It showed the same movies as the big theaters, but about a month or two behind. It served burgers, pizza, and booze, which is how it got away with keeping out the punks. And it has adults instead of 15-year olds supervising the place. Best of all, there's tons of leg room and between every two seats is a small table where you can set down your coat or your soda.

It's my new favorite place, and no, I'm not going to tell you where it is. It's crowded enough already. With adults. The old fashioned kind of adults.

I've been told that the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in your mind at the same time is a sign of high intelligence. I've also been told that it's a sign of low character.

According to that logic, I'm a wicked smaht amoral low-life floor-flushing sack of scuz because for decades, now, I've been able to exorcise neither the liberal nor the conservative perspective on American politics from my overworked immigrant brain. About the best I've been able to do is point out to apologists of one camp or the other that by villifying their opponents, they simply compare their villain's worst qualities to their hero's best qualities, thereby rationalizing a position they probably adopted on emotion.

Given the enormous gulf between the abilities required to be a good President and those possessed by the man currently in the job, villification can be a difficult temptation to resist. So naturally, when Obama showed up talking about healing the divisions within this country, my ears perked up. The Republicans appeared defeated and the Democrats were on a roll, but here was a leading candidate talking about reconciliation.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the airplane. Missus Wife, Da Girlz, and I, plus our bags and ski gear loaded onto two SmarteCartes, were headed back to Boston from a week with the in-laws in Colorado. The week before at Logan airport in Boston, our little pack team had stood in a line 90 minutes long just to check our bags. Three burly guys with walkie-talkies and Jet Blue blazers kept that line in order.

Once again we were standing in line with all our bags and ski gear, only this time, there were no burly guys with walkie-talkies and Jet Blue blazers. The line moved forward at a snail's pace. From my vantage point at the end of our mule team, I kept reminding my chitty-chatty daughters at the front to pay attention and keep moving. The line behind us was getting longer, and having lived in both South America and the Northeast, I know what happens to lines that you don't protect.

Sure enough, when we reached the point where the line met the guide ropes, a guy in a tweed jacket tried to cut in front of our daughters from stage left and a slick couple slid in beside them from stage right.

A few meters closer to the action than me, Missus Wife politely pointed out to Mister Tweed that ...um... in case he hadn't noticed... he was cutting in line.

"Oh," he replied with patronizing concern for all of Earth's life forms, "we're all going to the same place." Then he tossed a big fake smile her way and didn't move.

You know how when somebody says one thing but means something else, you kinda get brain freeze? Happens to me all the time. When I was a teenager and said something stupid, if somebody else called me a goddamned genius, I was likely to respond with, "You think so? Gee, Thanks." That gave me a reputation as a sardonic wit, but I was simply too dumb to notice the sarcarm.

Not Missus Wife. She's a pro at reading the message within the words. While deftly moving the SmarteCarte with the ski bags around his knees without knocking them off, she proceeds to explain to Mister Tweed how a line works, what a brilliant idea one person standing behind another is, and so on. Was he, by any chance, familiar with the concept?

Daughter One, a chip off the old block if there ever was one, crosses her arms, leans back against her SmarteCarte, and with a look of unabashed delight, begins to watch her Momma disembowel somebody else for a change.

"Do you think maybe you've had a little too much coffee," Mister Tweed responds after a few moments, already looking defeated.

"Yes, why don't we all just get along," Missus Slick on our right says, and quietly slides between us and the people waiting in line behind us.

As Missus Wife turns her attention to Missus Slick's rhetoric, I begin to feel a vague sense of familiarity...I was 11 years old and sitting in the bleachers waiting for my parents to pick me up after football practice. Three older kids with nothing much to do that afternoon decided to beat me up. During the preliminaries, in which they pulled some gear out of my bag and called me a girl, a puss, a stupid, a girl again, and if I recall correctly, a belly-crawling worm sissy puss-face dick, I came to the conclusion that it would be advisable to don my football helmet. So I quietly put it on and fastened the chin piece in place and when the leader committed the tactical error of coming within reach, I snapped his head under my arm and punched in his face as best I could.

The coach and a few parents showed up before I could do much damage. The boy was crying. I was crying. I'm really not sure why I was crying, since I had definitely gotten the better of that exchange, but here's the curious fact: Coach made us both shake hands and apologize. At the time I didn't think much of it. But at the Denver airport, I realized I'd just decided who I was going to vote for.

I've been transfering my files from my trusty but outdated Win98 computer to something more modern and, in the process, have unearthed some old emails that would have made decent blogs had blogs been around. Here's one from 1995.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

My kids are driving me nuts. Actually, my 3-year old is driving me nuts. Here's a typical conversation:

DAD: Grace, get down from the counter.

GRACE: No, it's Coooo-dy.

DAD: OK, Cody, Daddy says to get down from the counter.

GRACE: You're not Daddy, you're Big Fish.

DAD: OK, Big Fish wants Cody to get down from the counter.

GRACE: It's not Cody any more, it's Belle, now.

DAD: Get down NOW, whoever the *%#$%@ you are!

GRACE: OK, Beast.

She wins by wearing down the opposition. A conversation that should take 1/2 a second lasts three minutes:

GRACE: I WANT! I WANT! I WANT! I WANT! I WANT! I WANT!

DAD: What do you want, Grace?

GRACE: It's Cooo-dy.

DAD: (Sigh.) What do you want, Coooo-dy?

GRACE: Um, um, I want, um, I want a POPSICLE!

DAD: A popsicle?

GRACE: Yeah! A popsicle!

DAD: Ask nicely.

GRACE: Silence.

DAD: Grace, ...

GRACE: No, it's--

DAD: --Right, right, Cody, Cody, COOOO-DY! You know that if you want Da-- I mean, if you want somebody to get you a popsicle, you have to ask for it nicely.

GRACE: Ask nicery.

DAD: No, don't say 'ask nicely,' just ask for it nicely.

GRACE: Just ask for it nicery.

DAD: [Deep sigh] No, I've explained this to you before, say, "Daddy, can I have a popsicle please?"

GRACE: No, you're Big Fish.

I opened the freezer door and was hit with a smell like Boston Harbor at low tide after a fleet of heavy-laden fishing boats missing for six months drifted in from the Bermuda Triangle and collided with an oil tanker that had only moments before severed both the main sewer line and a natural gas pipeline, both of which were set ablaze by the overloaded pickup truck that drove off the heights of the Tobin Bridge when its axle broke, the two dozen Cambodian refugees who, only a moment before, had been warming themselves in makeshift fire from some wood they found lying around, now desperately clutching at the edges of the rusted-out washer, the dryer, the sofa with the torn leatherette upholstery, a couple worn out truck tires, the dogs, the chickens, the terrified driver, and each other as they slowly fell that great distance with what must have seemed a cruel lack of urgency.

"To the most Reverend Father in Christ and most illustrious Lord, Albert, Archbishop and Primate of the Churches of Magdeburg and Mentz, Marquis of Brandenburg, etc., his lord and pastor in Christ, most gracious and worthy of all fear and reverence.

"The Grace of God be with you, and whatsoever it is and can do.

"Spare me, most reverend Father in Christ, most illustrious Prince, if I, the very dregs of humanity, have dared to think of addressing a letter to the eminence of your subliminity. The Lord Jesus is my witness that, in the conciousness of my own pettiness and baseness, I have long put off the doing of that which I have now hardened my forehead to perform, moved thereto most especially by the sense of that faithful duty which I feel that I owe to your most reverend Fatherhood in Christ. May your Highness then in the meanwhile deign to cast your eyes upon one grain of dust, and, in your pontificial clemency, to understand my prayer."

Opening paragraphs of Martin Luther's Ninety Five Theses, addressed to the Archbishop of Mainz and posted on the door of the Castle Church on Halloween night, 1517.

"I will smote the Ayatollah!"

"No, *I* will smote the Ayatollah!"

"But I will do it in my first year in office."

"The only one annointed by The Lord to smote the Ayatollah is standing before you."

"Shut. Up. It's not about the Ayatollah, dumass."

"I was a prisoner in Hanoi. I am still a prisoner in Hanoi. Vote for me because I was a prisoner in Hanoi."

"You see the fillings in my teeth? They're gold. Not treasury bonds. Gold. If gold is good enough for my teeth, it's good enough for my currency."

"Porcelain would look better, actually."

"Oh, so now you want to base our currency on porcelain."

"Has anybody seen my hammock? I need to take a nap."

"You have the eyes, the stance, and the very spirit of an unrepentant sinner before the Lawd."

"That's because I ARE one, you freakazoid. Bite my fatted calf. Go ahead. Here, I'll roll up my pant leg. You like that? Grab a mouthful. I dare you, you shmuck. Come on, a juicy morsel just for you."

"Gentlemen."

"The Lawd has descended upon this gathering and He is DISPLEASED!"

"Lawd? You want some lawd? I'll give you some lawd --"

"Gentlemen!"

"I really need that nap."

"They put bamboo shoots right here. See the scars? Can the cameras get a closeup of the scars? Thank you. Can everybody see them?"

You know those flus that come on strong with a fever that sends waves of chills across your body so strong that you crawl to your closet and put on every sweater, jacket, glove, hat, and poncho you can find, then turn up the heat and crawl into bed but still can't stop shivering? I hadn't had one since the 80's, I think, so I was due.

It got me last week.
















It hit me at about 5:00 pm. I had to pick up my younger daughter from soccer practice at 5:30, and take my older daughter to a meeting of host families for exchange students at 6:00 pm. (We don't think our estrogen level is sufficiently high around here, so we're importing more from Germany. How do you say, "my feelings" in German, anybody know?)

Missus Wife had just left with her horsie friends to see an exhibition of the Lipizzaner stallions that was being held in New Hampshire, and her parting words had been, "Are you sure you feel OK?"

Tough guy that I am, my response had been, "Phhhht!"

That had been 30 minutes ago. Now that the virus had me by the diaphram, I had to climb in the car and drive 15 miles to pick up the girls and then attend a meeting where they were going to repeat what they had already written down in the information packet, and give the other parents an opportunity to ask questions that had already been answered in the information packet and repeated by the speaker. I live for these events.

As I drove through the winding two lanes of New England the chills hit me with pounding regularity, so I girded my loins by calling out for my mommie. Needless to say, this behavior disturbed my older daughter, who had never seen me this sick. But she kept her fears to herself until we picked up her sister.

By the time I reached the place where the exchange student meeting was going to take place, I'd done my fair share of shivering, moaning, groaning, wringing of scalp, and begging for divine intervention in dead languages, so they were both a little worried. I could tell because they were strangely quiet.

I did not have to tell them that I would wait for them in the car. They'd kinda figured that out and were most likely relieved that they would not have to walk into the classroom trailing their Dad in the throes of demonic possession. As Missus Wife and I have trained them to do in an emergency, they began to consider their options.

"How are we going to get Dad home if he dies," Grace asked, opening the front door of the Jeep.

"You'll drive us," Beth said, getting out of the rear door.

"But I only have a permit, and it requires the presence of an adult in the car," Grace said.

Beth thought for a moment, then closed the door. I heard it through the window I'd left half open so I could get some fresh air. "A cadaver still counts as an adult, doesnt' it?"

"We interrupt this program to bring you a special announcement... The Yankees still suck."
--Heard this morning on MikeFM 93.7, a Boston radio station

Yup. I said it.

See, we don't have cable at home. I wanted my children to grow up realizing that going for walks through the orchard, visiting the barns up the road, riding horses, playing soccer, tearing through the hill trails on mountain bikes, dropping in on friends, painting, cross country skiing, writing stories, dirt biking, snow skiing, helping with the chores, playing cards, or just reading a good book is so much better than sitting on the family room sofa watching people eat worms through a little window.

Since Missus Wife grew up in a traditional American home, she was used to spending quality family time appreciating the nuances of fine television drama. Needless to say, my media-spartan lifestyle has given us ample opportunity over the years to refine our communication skills. A few years ago we stumbled on a compromise that has worked admirably. We buy the CD's of TV series we enjoy and watch them over a week or two. Then we take a break for a few months and start another one.

That's how I became addicted to "24" and almost lost the ability to sleep. "One more," I'd gasp, bleary eyed but too wired to abandon Jack Bauer while he was still trying to defuse an atom bomb duct-taped to his forehead. I suspect I lack the antibodies to attenuate the impact of good drama on my Luddite psyche. The problems of the protagonists become my problems.

I got some respite with the "Grey's Anatomy" series, which Missus Wife and the girls enjoyed. I would occasionally get hooked, but most of the time I could take it or leave it.

But then my younger daughter brought home "Smallville." She begged me to watch it with her. She aims to engage in holy matrimony with the character who plays the young Clark Kent and giggles at the very sight of him. It seemed like a wholesome show, so what's the harm, I thought.

Well into season three, I'm a tangled web of rattled nerves and lovesick disappointment. I can hardly bear to get up in the morning, but can't live without my fix in the evening. I've been known to watch a fifth episode in a row, just to see whether my characters --and therefore, my-- deepest yearnings are fulfilled.

Which explains my current nocturnal accommodations on the family room sofa. Saying the wrong thing in an unguarded um.... moment... to Missus Wife will get you grounded faster than taking your Daddy's tricked out Trans Am for a joy ride with your bestest pals.

I have a plan, however. I'll sleep in my own bed again just as soon as I can get Missus Wife to utter "Oh Lex," with the same unbridled passion

.

There's far more driving than birdwatching going on in Massachusetts, and given the driving habits of most Massachusetts residents, I believe it's time to change the state bird from the official version shown here:


To the one being demonstrated by Clyde:

Spring was short this year in New England. Still, the cherry tree I planted four Springs ago is looking good.

Can I file a medical malpractice suit against my dentist for playing Barry Manilow on the office speakers while his assistant cleans my teeth, or is that just a violation of my civil rights?

Every war, even one that doesn't turn out well, brings some kind of benefit to the folks back home. Not only do we find out which military tactics work and which don't, but our troops come back with clever civilian uses for military devices.

OK, so the other day Missus Wife convinced me to go out and buy a new sofa.

I'd been holding out because Missus Wife can't make up her mind whether she wants to live in a house or Noah's ark. Horses, saddles, hay, tack, bunnies, fish, cats, dogs, varmints and what-not fly in and out of our house like Italian relatives. The trunk of her VW Bug is useless because it's always filled to the brim with blankets and bird food and linemint and ointments and grub and salt licks and gawdawful stuff you don't even wanna know about.
















Our two boxers, Penny and Bustah, own the family room. The remnants of what were once a sofa and a love seat belong to them. You've never seen furniture this demolished. Even the duct tape was worn through. This thing would have been rejected by the guys building the barricades for the French Revolution. The dogs, of course, loved it. If you demonstrated sufficient courage to actually sit in one of them, the dogs would climb all over you and lie down on your chest.
















I dealt with it. I moved into the garage. That's been my family room for a coupla years, now. A critter comes into my garage, I kick it.

So why buy a new sofa for the dogs, is what I'm thinking. Not Missus Wife. "We'll train them," she said. After 20 years of marriage she still hasn't lost her sense of humor.

"OK," she tried again, "we'll get them their own doggie beds." I fell for that one. Bought 'em two nice canine-pedic temper-neutral scent-reflecting hypo-allergenic pet beds for the price of a vacation in Bali. "Cool," the dogs said, "but they're on the floor. We don't nap on the floor."

"OK," she said, "We'll buy 'em a scat mat. You know, the kind that hits them with an electric shock if they get on the sofa. "How high can you set it," I asked her. She looked sad.

To make a long blog short, we bought the sofa. A sectional, actually. Most comfortable damn thing I've ever sat on in my entire life. Like sitting on a cloud with the angels playing Bach. Looks great, too. There's only one problem....To keep the dogs from climbing on it, Missus Wife covered every available seating surface with a magazine, book, shoe, or game box. "Look honey! I didn't have to spend any money on a scat mat!" The dogs walk around the sofa and whine half the day, but don't climb on.

Neither do I. When you grab yourself a mug of root beer and the latest issue of Hot Bike at the end of the day, you tend to follow your rump. And my rump sets a bead on the nearest open seating surface.

So there it is, occupying a place of prominence in our family room, the nicest looking, most comfortable, most expensive magazine rack I've ever owned.

Yesterday morning Missus Wife got in my way and said, "excuse me."

"Uh..." I elucidated, "you're the one who is in my way, so excuse you."

"That's right," she said, "which is why I said, 'excuse me.'"

What manner of nasty trick is this?

I've been married for almost 20 years, was married once before for seven, and am in the middle of raising two teenage daughters. I know damn well that when a woman says, "excuse me," she means "get out of my way."

So what is Missus Wife up to with this straightforward talk? I'm not sure how to handle it. Does this mean that the next time she asks me, "how do I look," she really wants me to tell her how she looks? Yeah, right.

I don't know what the wench is up to, but I sense a trap.

A list of the items on my family room floor this morning:

• unravelled spool of multi-colored yarn
• plastic bag of Martin's potato bread, sans the bread
• package remnants of Dannon Le Creme yogurt
• package remnants of Dannon Lite n Fit yogurt
• partially chewed canister of 24-shot Fuji film shot last weekend
• remnants of a sky blue girls hair brush
• stuffing from two sofa cushions
• empty remains of two sofa cushions
• satin sofa pillow, chewed to the consistency of wet beef jerky
• remains of a phone book dismembered with prejudice
• several stuffed animals in varying stages of disembowelment
• a blanket once favored by the human inhabitants of the house, now stained with drool
• a torn harley-davidson t-shirt, apparently used as the rope in a tug of war
• a well chewed baseball cap
• punctured soccer ball
• several magazines that seem to have been used as doggie skate boards
• a "little princess" pillow, wet but intact
• the branch of a pine tree, knawed to bits

The central plaza in Miraflores has a pretty bronze fountain iluminated with colored lights. Compared to other Peruvian sights, it's anything but spectacular, but to this day, more than 30 years after I left it behind, I would bawl like a 300lb tackle at the sight of it.

In the middle of the 20th century Peruvian country boys began in greater numbers to abandon their honest hard working lives in the Andean highlands and seek fame and fortune in the capital city. The locals called them recien bajados, or "just descended." Saavy urbanites that they were, Lima's cholos introduced the wide-eyed country boys to the charms of the city by selling them jars of "color changing water" from the Miraflores fountain and, when the country boys returned the next day to complain, gently berated them for not handling the delicate product carefully and sold them a replacement jar "at cost."

It was around the early 60's, I believe, when the adventurous street-wise Western traveler was replaced by the carefully escorted wide-eyed tourist. This unwary bird proved a boon to Peruvian economy in more ways than one. In no time the cholos around Lima began to outdo each other with scams whose ultimate purpose, I'm certain, was not so much the money to be made, but the credulity-stretching stories to be told around a circle of beer bottles in the cantina.


Of all these marks on tour, none proved more gullible than the American. My favorite Peruvian tourist legend was the one about the locals who sold American tourists the skull of Atahualpa, the famous Inca warrior who himself was duped into surrendering his hard-won empire in the early 1500's by those stand-up citizens of the Spanish empire, Los Conquistadores. Apparently a great many of Lima's cholos were able to convince the occasional gringo that they had the great warrior's only remaining skull. No doubt it commanded a premium price.

But wait. These were hard times. For the gringo in search of truly amazing treasure, the cholos had a special treat. If the gringo who had just bought the well-preserved head of the great warrior Atahualpa could find it in his heart to pay cash and not tell anyone until he got home, the earnest cholo would depart with his family's most prized treasure: the skull of the great Inca warrior Atahualpa when he was still a child.



The departing US Congress shared that opinion of the American people. After a few decades of collusion between government and the financial sector helped the American middle class bury itself under a mountain of debt, this Congress and this president passed, among other scams, the harshest bankruptcy law in American history and, for a really good laugh, called it the "Consumer Protection Act."

Looking back over the American political events of the last 30 years, none satisfied me as much as the way we threw the bums out last Tuesday. Well, at least some of the bums. Maybe we're naive enough to fly home carrying a skull of the same stalwart warrior under each arm, but in spite of all the professional liars our politicians hire to deceive us, we proved Lincoln right when he said that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Fade in...two American voters, watching the campaign debates on TV and eating popcorn n soda n chips n dip n hot dogs n more chips n salsa n peanuts n another kinda dip and more cola n soda and peanut butter and a stick of celery...

Candidate: We need to get out, and get out soon!

Incumbent: Did you --did you just call me a bufoon?

Candidate: I didn't call you anything.

Incumbent: Yes you did. You called me a buffoon.

Candidate: No, I didn't.

Incumbent: Yes you did.

Candidate: No, I didn't.

Incumbent: You lying sack of potatoes.

Candidate: I am not a liar. You are.

Incumbent: So now you're calling me a liar?

Candidate: You called me one, first.

Incumbent: But only because you called me a buffoon and then lied about it.

Candidate: I did not!

Incumbent: Did too!

Candidate: Did not!

Incumbent: Did too!

Candidate: Did not!

Incumbent: You are just like that there, that head of, the leader there of Koe-rea. Just like him!

Candidate: You don't know his name, do you?

Incumbent: Do too!

Candidate: You don't! You don't know his name!

Incumbent: I don't need to. I have people who are paid to know that! Now apologize for calling me a babboon.

Candidate: I thought you said you were a buffoon.

Incumbent: Why should I listen to a sissy like you? A BIG sissy like you?

Moderator: Gentlemen, we've run out of time. Thank you, and good night.

......................................

Voter 1: So, whadayathink?

Voter 2: Me? Well, I'm figuring ... thank goodness we're the leaders of the free world or the rest of that there world would think we're a bunch of morons.