The American Pile

• Over a recent Christmas holiday Mogo and I attended services at a suburban Atlanta church. It was a far cry from the olden days, playing Presbyterian on the plains of central Indiana. Instead of a somber organ, a small band consisting of a bongo drum, two guitars and a piano provided music. Beside them on a school-like stage stood a huge movie screen on which were projected the words to the day's musical menu. Lights flashed from a film and lighting arcade in the balcony. Alas, spelling proved to be a problem. On the movie screen during the singing of "O' Holy Night," came the revelation that the soul felt it's worth. Later came a reference to coming to the alter. We filled out a "Welcome Guests" card with certain personal information. At the bottom was a series of options from which we could indicate wishes to join the church, be baptized, or learn more about these things. The last box said "I would like to talk to someone about. . . ." Mogo filled in that blank with the words "Bill Clinton" and dropped it in the collection plate. No one has ever called us about this. (January 2, 2003)

• A story flying around on the Internet says that a Marine Corps General named Reinwald was interviewed on National Public Radio (NPR) by a female broadcaster about a Boy Scout Troop which was visiting his military installation. The interview took on an edge when the interviewer said it was "a bit irresponsible" and "terribly dangerous" for the Marines to be training the youngsters in, among other things, rifle shooting. The female correspondent then said such training "was equipping them to be violent killers." General Reinwald is said to have then legendarily replied, "Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you?" At this point, the story says, the radio went silent and the interview ended. This sounds too good to be true, but we can pray it is. (January 9, 2003)

• The psychobabblers and handwringers are busy now, trying to find various isms in the Lord of the Rings films, especially the second, The Two Towers. Someone has noticed that the good guys seem to be all white, that the bad guys look like Japs or Africans or Middle Easterners or mutants or cripples or people of any color but honkey mother. John Yatt, writing December 2 in the far left Manchester Guardian, said all the evil guys in Rings are "dark, slant-eyed, swarthy, broad-faced." The Lord of the Rings, he proclaimed, "is racist." David Ibata, writing in the Chicago Tribune January 12, 2003, was worried that viewers will start confusing screen villians with real-life adversaries on the battlefield. He noted that the first Rings film had non-human foes: Orcs, trolls, uruk-hai, Ringwraiths. But the evil guys in the second film have human characteristics. Racism. Lookism. Zionism. Road biscuitism. I've seen two articles since Christmas on this theme. These people need sedatives. This is a fairy tale, for cripe's sake. Can't we have fun, enjoy the monsters and critters, and just leave it at that? Not if these paranoid liberal wackos and bed-wetters have anything to do with it, we can't. (January 13, 2003)

• Staring at me from the front page of the Indianapolis Star over my breakfast gruel is a mug shot of--try to imagine two parents standing in a maternity ward, pondering, earnestly pondering, and one looks at the other and says in a soft, sweet voice, "Let's name him. . ."--Euranus Johnson, 21, arrested on a carjacking charge in Indianapolis. Who could take you seriously if you were named Euranus? They might as well have named him Pilashit. This poor chap never had a chance. (January 14, 2003)

• OK, I'll confess. If reincarnation works and I get to come back for additional rounds, I want to come back as a Ringwraith, those great, dark-cloaked warriors who thundered through the forests in the first of the Lord of The Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Rings. They rode gigantic horses, with bloody hooves as big as dinner plates, and were filmed so that you never, ever, saw their faces, only their immense flowing capes shrouding their heads and, occasionally, a hand wrapped in reptilian armor on the reins or slashing with a huge sword. Frank Frazetta, an artist and science fiction illustrator, created a painting some years ago called The Death Dealer. It's the closest thing to a Ringwraith I've ever seen depicted. I wonder if the producers didn't borrow from Frazetta, or hire him to create these beasts. (January 14, 2003)

A Pass For The Shaqster

• Has anyone noticed that it took months for eager reporters to expose racist remarks made by Shaquille O'Neal about the Chinaman, Yao Ming, and we still haven't heard a peep of protest from the Reverends Al and Jesse, or from Maxine, the two Eleanors (Clift and Holmes-Norton), Hillary, Carl, Ted, and the rest of the Howling Left who were so eagerly ballistic on the Trent Lott Unpleasantness? (January 14, 2003)

Evading Blackwell's Radar

• Anna Nicole Smith, Ozzy Osbourne's daughter, Kelly, pop singer Shakira, actress Cameron Diaz, Britain's Princess Anne, author Anne Rice, designer Donatella Versace, actress Meg Ryan, and pop stars Christina Aguilera and Pink made up Mr. Blackwell's list of ten worst-dressed people of 2002. I somehow evaded Blackwell's ceaselessly questing radar. (January 15, 2003)

• Lefties got a hammer blow between the eyes mid-month when a military census statistics report refuted one their long-chanted mantras, the screeching about how blacks are disproportionately likeliest to fight and die in a war. The facts say it ain't so. The facts show that whites, not blacks, are over-represented in America's front-line combat forces and that blacks, while they make up 20 percent of the military forces, occupy less than five percent of the high-risk slots such as Navy and Air Force fighter pilots and Army commandos. USA Today gave the story prominent display January 21, and quoted a Northwestern University "military sociologist," Charles Moskos, as saying that "If anybody should be complaining about battlefield deaths, it is poor, rural whites." The trend of the last several decades, the story said, is that "black recruits have gravitated toward non-combat jobs that provide marketable skills for post-military careers, while white soldiers are over-represented in front-line combat services." Fine, but we should be watching carefully to see how many of the Big Talking Heads and cable TV talk show hosts point this out the next time the liberal wackos on their shows--the likes of Rep. Charles Rangle, Donna Brazile, Maxine Waters, Carl Levin, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle,Ted Kennedy and fellow travelers--try to offer up the same old familiar lies. My guess is liberal spinners are already at work figuring ways to discredit the facts and spin their interpretation. (January 21, 2003)

Darwin Nominee No. 1. . .

• The 2003 Annual Darwin Awards competition broke out of the starting blocks in Winchester,Virginia, when 43-year-old Raymond "Raven" Poore called his wife at work and told her that their dog, a two-year-old Chinese Shar-Pei, had bitten him on the hand and he was going to kill the sumbitch. The wife raced home and found Raymond dead in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound to his abdomen. The dog was still alive, but its throat was torn open and it had gashes on its face. A Winchester police officer told reporter Ian Shapira of the Washington Post that Poore apparently was beating the dog on the head with the butt of a weapon when it accidentally discharged. The dog's wounds were so severe it had to be put to sleep. Poore had been convicted last year of receiving stolen property and had several other misdemeanor convictions in nearby counties. His mother was quoted saying, "Raymond was a very intelligent man, but he didn't always use his intelligence in the right way. I am a very distraught mother." (Chicago Tribune, January 26, 2003).

Libya Honored

• Columnist Georgie Ann Geyer is the first journalist I've run across who decided to name names in the sorry UN Human Rights Commission vote, and she troubled herself only enough to name the two countries which sided with the U.S. For the record they were Canada and Guatemala. Geyer, in a January 24 Chicago Tribune column scorchingly critical of the vote choosing a Libyan to head the commission, did note that of the 17 abstainees, seven were from the European Union, and they apparently "did not want to offend the African nations" ardently in favor of the Libyan candidate. (January 24, 2003)

• Mobs in Oakland celebrated the Raiders' Super Bowl loss to Tampa by setting fire to cars, breaking store windows, throwing rocks and bottles at police, and otherwise destroying property. You know, the usual way we celebrate great moments in history. More than 80 arrests were reported. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse those making mistakes or errors in judgment. (January 28, 2003)

But There's Nothing About It That A Sky Blackened By B-52s Bearing Daisy Cutters Wouldn't Fix. . .

• In a cartoon ever so appropriate for our times, the creator (last name Wiley, no first name revealed) of Non Sequitur, a single-panel drawing appearing daily in the Star and all across the planet for all I know, showed in today's issue angry marchers stamping through a snowy landscape bearing placards hoisted high, protesting outrages, demanding justice. "Diversity in Winter Now!" screeched one. Another decried the absence of snow women. A third wondered why snow men were always fat and protested this insult to the width-challenged. And of course there was the inevitable scream, "Why are snowmen always white?" The Winter of Discontent, Wiley labeled it. And indeed, it certainly is. (January 31, 2003)

• Fifty-eight percent of high school students in a recent survey by the National Constitution Center could not name the three branches of government. You know, the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe.

• The Ohio State Athletic Association has suspended the legendary Lebron James for accepting free merchandise from a sporting goods store. Lawsuits will surely follow to right this injustice and violation of the lad's human rights. (February 1, 2003)

• An Ohio judge has reinstated Lebron James, apparently on the theory that the Ohio State Athletic Association's attempt to enforce its own rules and suspend the lad for violating them constitutes irreparable damage to James's constitutional right to compete for a state or world championship and to play high school basketball. James's lawyers argued in court that Lebron has admitted he made a mistake, did not commit a crime (and, a careful observer might add, was not accused of committing one) and did not hurt anyone. So, this was a mere error in judgment, and what's the problem? Well, it's what it often is when bleeder judges get hold of things: new, previously unmined human rights keep getting found in the Constitution. But there's no stopping this tidal wave. (February 12, 2003)

• This got little attention in the slipstream media, but Exxon has sued Greenpeace for damages following a protest demonstration by the latter in Luxembourg. Greenpeacers chained themselves to gas pumps and shut down businesses. Let's hope a judge can be found who'll see it Exxon's way. (February 3, 2003)

Greenpeace, Terrorists--What's The Difference?

• Last night on TV Mogo and I saw a news film of two Greenpeace boats approaching within a few feet of an American cargo ship soon to leave a U.S. port with war materiel for the Middle East. There was no film evidence and no hint in the broadcast of any concern for security, despite the fact that terrorists used this tactic to approach and attack the U.S.S. Cole a couple years ago. The Greenpeace boats should have been attacked and sunk, no questions asked, once they approached within a certain distance of the ship. (February 15, 2003)

• New York attorney Samuel Hirsch has filed another lawsuit against McDonald's, this time accusing the company of "hiding the health risks of eating its food." Less than a month ago, a judge dismissed another Hirsch suit on virtually the same complaint. There ought to be a circle in Hell for lawyers and their clients who do this sort of thing. (February 20, 2003)

• The Star's headline over a story about Dubya's religious references in recent speeches around the country read "Bush's References To God Threaten To Alienate Voters." Good! Nothing quite gets under their skin like mentioning God. (February 23, 2003)

• The postman delivered a letter--correctly addressed--to our home on February 21. The envelope's face was smeared with numerous cancellation stamps, one visible as January 3, the date the letter inside was written. Across the envelope front was written in large and underlined letters: "3 Times Returned. This Is (Censored) 2888 Warrington. Please Send To Correct Address!" An arrow pointed to our address. It took the postal critters 49 days to figure it out. Not a confidence-builder.

• Mogo and I bought a SUV last week just to piss off Susan Sarandon, Joseph Kennedy, Jr., and the rest of the wacko radical left bleeders. (February 24, 2003)

More Bad News On The Equal Outcomes Front

• The Indianapolis area is sending two repeat local winners--sinners, too--to the National Spelling Bee in Wonderland, D.C. in May. Trevlor Leslie of Indianapolis won the regional for the second straight year, and up north in suburban Noblesville, Nathan Hammes was a repeat winner. This spells double trouble, for not only are both winning too often and thus unfairly depriving other children of their right to win the bee, but both are. . .males. (March 16, 2003)

• Pepsi is out with a new "patriotic" can featuring a picture of the Empire State Building and the Pledge of Allegiance printed on the can. But two words--"Under God"-- are omitted from the Pledge. When troublemakers pointed this out, Pepsi confessed the obvious: it was afraid of offending its target audience. Poor, pathetic Pepsi. (March 26, 2003)

The Answer, By The Way, Is It's Satan Dialing In From The Bowels Of Hell

• "Would you say your phone is a lifeline--or Satan's blow-hole?" --Rob Daumeyer, editor of Business Courier, an Internet newsletter originating in Cincinnati, writing in a column about the differences between introverts and extroverts. How we answer that question, he maintains, is a clue to which we are. Extroverts, he postulates, derive their life energy from interacting with other people; introverts recharge their batteries by being alone. (March 27, 2003)

• "People ever'where is pretty much the same. They want to get up in the morning, get something to eat, go to work, come home, go to bed--and not worry about getting blowed up." --A citizen of Bagdad, Kentucky, interviewed on Fox News in a short feature about what local people thought now that "the other Baghdad," the one with the "h," is so much in the news lately. (March 27, 2003)

• Meantime, a 12-year-old middle school student in El Paso, Texas, has been suspended from school for sticking his tongue out at a girl. School officials say little Sal Santana II is guilty of sexual harrassment. (April 2, 2003)

• Hollywood lefties suffered mightily during the brief Iraq campaign, especially Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. Not only did America rout the good guys, but fed-up Americans talked back to the precious Religious Left. Robbins turned deeply ugly when the Baseball Hall of Fame canceled an appearance he and Sarandon were to make this summer to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the baseball movie, "Bull Durham." Robbins called a press conference to screech about his constitutional rights being denied and to trash the Hall's president, Dale Petoskey. Robbins's face was twisted in anger as he ranted on and on about the "rogue state" (The United States) he seems to despise, the illegitimate president (Dubya) he holds in contempt, and the Hall of Fame, which didn't want to give him and his live-in squeeze, Sarandon, a stage to criticize the country, the war, or President Bush. Poor Tim. Like most of the rest of them, he's deeply confused about what constitutional rights are. It's such a simple concept: Tim and all of us are free to say what we want. But Tim and none of the rest of us are immune from being criticized for saying it. Nor does the Constitution guarantee Robbins the right to be invited to the Hall of Fame. Why can't they get it? (April 24, 2003)

• "Woman Hit, Killed By SUV," read the headline in the April 27 Indianapolis Star. Cosmic question: why do they choose to identify the vehicle type when it's an SUV, but not specify the vehicle when someone is hit comma killed by a two-door coupe, a four-door sedan, a convertible?

• The Indianapolis Star's obituary writer demonstrated painfully this morning why he does not work for the New York Times, where wonderfully interesting obituaries are the stuff of legend. The Star carried one in the May 6 edition about 92-year-old Alice Mary Lowe Sherman, most recently of Franklin and Noblesville. Her nickname was listed as "Chick-a-Bitty-Short-Shanks." There was not a syllable of explanation of its origin, though the story fairly cried out to be told. No writer thought it worth the trouble, and no editor with an eye for things of great human interest was present to assign follow-up on this tantalizing fact. (May 6, 2003)

• Add to my list of the most obnoxious people on our planet: Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of Handbook of the Wacko Left, The Nation.

• Much ado in celebrityland this week over the switching of jobs for a day between Katie Couric and Jay Leno. This is a non-event. The only way this could improve my life is if they'd both go away forever. (May 12, 2003)

Still Drillin' ‘Em After All These Years

• Today I slipped over to my neighbor's newly built driveway basketball court, took five practice free throws, then hit 9 of 10. This will be enough to sustain me for another decade. I can think of few things more rewarding than to dodder out on court, stand at the charity stripe drooling, shaking, and still be able to drill ‘em. (May 18, 2003)

• Jayson Blair, the affirmative action fraud recently fired by the New York Times for serial plagiarizing, lies, and deceptions over the last year or so, struck back publicly May 20 in a celebrity interview with a rival paper. He admitted to the New York Observer that "race play(ed) a role" in his Times career and that "anyone who tells you" it didn't "is lying to you." Blair taunted his former editors, bragged about how clever he was, and blamed his dismissal on racism. Wrong-o. The reason Blair got his job in the first place was racism. He needs to shut up and go away, too. (May 21, 2003)

Madonna Is A Trashy Whore In A Nation Of Whores. Pass It On

• "Here in France, I feel at home." --Madonna, thanking the French for their opposition to the war in Iraq. (May 22, 2003)

• I got to hear the Indianapolis Symphony play Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings tonight. This piece was played at the funerals of Franklin Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, princess Grace of Monaco, during the mourning period for JFK, countless times after the September 11 Unpleasantness and, not incidentally for me, at my mother's funeral. A major Life Event, as the HR professionals say. And as annotator Marianne Tobias writes, "the Adagio's comforting, dignified voice has spoken eloquently when words became impossible for us." (May 30, 2003)

• Meanwhile, on the monkeypox front, it's believed the malady is transmitted to humans from pet prairie dogs. They're ever so popular and this morning's Star featured a photo of a lovely young local couple walking their matched pair on leashes in a local park. This is yet another reminder of how far ahead of his time Jonathan Winters was when, in one of his late 1950s or early 1960s skits, he forewarned us by having one of his characters say, "Don't touch that groundhog, Baby Liz'beth, you don't know where it's been." (June 11, 2003)

• There's a beautiful anti-French piece floating on the Internet rounds these days. It's apparently the creation of Carmine R. Gagliardi of Allentown, Pennsylvania. It's headlined "Now Do You Understand The Anger?" and refers to what Americans see as French ingratitude (and sheer cussed obstreperousness) in its opposition to U.S. efforts in Iraq. There then follows a series of 13 color photographs of French cemeteries with a notation of the number of Americans buried there, all of whom died fighting to free the ridiculous French from Nazi occupation in World War II: Aise-Marne (3.349 Americans buried there), Somne (2,177), Brittany (4,908), Oise-Aisne (6,253), Epinal (5,679), Rhone Dragungnam (1,155), Lorraine (10,993), Meuse-Argonne (15,200), St. Mihiel (4,437), Suresnes (998), and Normandy (10,944). In all, 66,033 Americans buried or missing in France, with thousands more buried in the U.S. At the end came a long list of French products for possible boycott. Who ever did this--was it you, Carmine?--deserves a round of applause. (June 11, 2003)

Butcher, They Dare Not Speak Your Name. . .

• Indianapolis Star reporter John Tuohy, unable to use the word "butcher" in a massive feature story in the Sunday, June 22, edition about an influx of Hispanics into the Logansport, Indiana, area who've taken good-paying jobs at a local Iowa Beef Processors meat packing plant, dug deep into his rich Corinthian leather bag of euphemisms and came up with this beauty to describe Miguel Mata's job of cutting up pig carcasses: disassembly worker.(June 22, 2003)

• They're not eligible for the Scorched Corners Famous Nicknames list, but both deserve recognition: Coral "Aroma" Hinshaw Cobb, a lifelong resident of Hamilton and Marion Counties in Indiana, and, from farther north in Silver Lake and at age 95, one Mr. Worby Clinker, both of whom expired in June, 2003.

• Biggest surprise of the month of June occurred in Rockford, Illinois, when a New York Times reporter, Chris Hedges, was abused in a way usually reserved for conservatives. In the middle of his anti-war rant posing as a commencement speech at Rockford College, engraged audience members "turned their backs, booed, shouted, rushed the stage, and cut (off) the mike," according to a report in the June 16 National Review.

See Ya At The Vomitoreum

• The Supremes have ruled that libraries getting federal handouts can use porno filters on library computers to prevent access by minors to certain material deemed undesirable. The Indianapolis Star's angst-ridden handwringers assaulted us this morning with a penetrating analysis of how this ruling is an outrageous injustice and will do irreparable damage to countless innocents who will be deprived of their constitutional rights and freedoms. What about, the Star lamented, the high school youth assigned to do a term paper on gay rights who can't get through to homo websites for resource material? What about the gravid teenager who wants abortion information but can't get through to the killing fields on the library computer? It just isn't fair. And these are only two examples of aggrieved victims of this ruling, who are no doubt filing today, in courts all over this great land, damage suits seeking billions and billions and billions in recompense for their suffering. (June 25, 2003)

• The media provided brief but frenzied late June coverage of the sentencing of Chante Mallard, the Texas woman convicted of killing a homeless man (Gregory Biggs) she struck with her car, then driving the vehicle home and parking it in her garage with the unfortunate chap lodged upside down in her windshield, where he eventually bled to death. A jury recommended life in prison. In all the reportage, I saw not a single mention anywhere that Mallard is black and the decedent white. Can we imagine the worldwide furor had the races been reversed? (July 1, 2003)

Yeah--And Whatever It Was Raining Stunk, Too!

• The Scorched Corners Peeper's struggle with the English language continued in the July 7 edition when its front page headline blared a report that Weekend Rainfall Reeks Havoc on Area.

A Bulletin From The Frontier

• This report direct and live from an impeccable source in Gotham City. On the morning of July 17, at the 86th Street subway station (the downtown platform Yellow Line), a man in a business suit, age estimated about 50 years, was observed wearing a belt outside his suit jacket. On the belt were three holsterlike receptacles containing a cell phone, a beeper, and a BlackBerry wireless e-mail receiver. The man himself was striding back and forth on the platform, speaking into one of those earphone headsets with the tiny microphone curling around to his face. Never out of touch! A Master of The Universe in full gear and action! (July 17, 2003)

• If I hadn't seen this in USA Today July 21, I wouldn't believe it. But America's McDaily reports that Playboy founder Hugh Hefner "and a squad of sexy Playmates" who will "battle enemies of democracy" will be starring in an animated TV series now being developed. It'll be called "Hef's Superbunnies." The creators are hoping to land it on a "mainstream television network."

• Nothing makes me feel uneducated quite as quickly as those lists of books every educated person should have read. Human Events asked 28 scholars (many of them self-admitted conservatives) to vote for their Top 10 Books Every Student Should Read in College. In order from No. 1, they are: The Bible, The Federalist Papers (Hamilton, Jay,and Madison), Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville), The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri), The Republic (Plato), The Politics (Arisotle), Nicomachaean Ethics (Aristotle), The City of God (St. Augustine of Hippo), Confessions (St. Augustine of Hippo), and Reflections on the Revolution in France (Edmund Burke). Number of these I've read: 0. (July 15, 2003)

• I slipped in a Spinners CD while hurtling down Old South Friendly Road enroute to work this morning. On came "Workin' My Way Back To You," one of my all-time favies. I spun the volume knob to Daisy Cutter blast level, rolled down the windows, and shucked and jived and snapplepopped the steering wheel all the way into the Maverly Brothers parking lot. Hot. . .dang! It was so good! I felt so strong, so sweet, I could hardly bear it! Made my whole day at Universal Export. (July 25, 2003)

The Star Struggles To Find Its Self, And The Meaning Of Its Existence

• Devoted Indianapolis Star readers haven't quite been able to put a finger on it, the uneasy feeling in the last several years that there's trouble down there in their favorite newsroom. Oh, there've been hints here and there, but they've been isolated flickings and tidbits bobbing past here and there in the roaring Niagara of advertising, music, screeching and news assaulting us 24-7-365. An outsider, the Indianapolis Business Journal, tried to give us a little perspective with a summary account in its July 21-27 edition. Some would say the decline began in the 1990s with the failing health and eventually the death of Gene Pulliam, the patriarch of the family that owned the newspaper for decades. After that event, the Star's sister paper, the Indianapolis News, was closed, and a definable new era began. Among the first to be swept away were two high-visibility sports columnists, Bill Benner and Robin Miller. A boatload of lesser lights have followed them overboard, including Greg "The Incredible Flea" Dawson, hired with great fanfare several years ago to resurrect the paper's long-dormant public ombudsman "Herman" column. The IBJ's short summary focused only on the period since September, 2000, when the Pulliam family sold its holdings to Gannett Newspapers. A year ago it was estimated that 60 reporters and editors had left the paper in the Gannett Era. More have left since. The Star has had four editors and three managing editors in the last four years. This does not suggest stability or happiness among the staff. The current editor, Dennis Ryerson, has taken to writing a folksy column himself in an apparent attempt to make readers feel a part of the Star's family. The paper has been running radio and print ads, and launched a million-dollar "branding" campaign to market itself. Ryerson was quoted by the IBJ assuring the public that he wants to bring in "good hard-edged" journalists, who "can actually bring about change" and who "will be breaking down my door with great ideas." My perspective--and I have no idea how widely it would be shared by other readers--is that the Star has become a dramatically worse newspaper in the last few years. My sense is that it's been obsessed with accommodating the popular culture's trendy psychobabble about diversity, sensitivity, and feelings. The paper's dominant tone today is a juvenile shallowness. It's become McPaper, as one reader recently wrote in a letter to the editor. I can't imagine anyone who is serious about being an informed citizen wanting to read the Star anymore. I also suspect my "personal demographics" are far from the Star's target audience. To be fair, I suspect if I were confronted with current demographics about the audience the press increasingly has to reach, I would be juvenile, shallow, and trivial, too. Daily newspapers, if they want to survive, have little choice about what they must be. I doubt there's much mass market remaining for serious newspaper journalism. Serious readers have probably long ago gone elsewhere to satisfy their needs. (July 27, 2003)

Prescient Paul?

• Could Paul Simon have been prescient way back in 1986 when he sang "The Boy in the Bubble," a three-minute and 59-second ditty on his best-selling album, Graceland? The first few lines go like this: "It was a slow day, and the sun was beating on the soldiers by the side of the road /There was a bright light, a shattering of shop windows, the bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio/These are the days of miracle and wonder, this is the long-distance call/The way the camera follows us in slo-mo, the way we look to us all/ The way we look to a distant constellation that's dyin' in the corner of the sky/These are the days or miracle and wonder, and don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry. . ." (July 27, 2003)

• Say goodbye to jazz flutist Herbie Mann, who turned in his chips in July at age 76 or so. I stumbled across him by accident in the 1970s or 80s, saw him play once live, at Clowes Hall in Indianapolis in the 1990s. On his Live at The Village Gate album is one of the finest pieces of jazz ever rendered. . .a 19-minute and 55-second rendition of It Ain't Necessarily So, which features extended solos on the flute, xylophone, drums, and string bass. . .A world-class snapplepopper, friends. He'll be missed. (July 27, 2003)

Dumpster-Diving In Chelsea

• It's been a tough spring and summer in Gotham City art galleries. The challenge has been fierce for The New Yorker's arts reviewers, whose job often is to find deep meaning and the secrets of the universe in puerile, moronic splatterings and rubbish heaps. I browse through the reviews in search of honest men and women, and occasionally find them. Take the June 9 issue, for instance. There, in a tour of Chelsea District galleries, the reviewer described a 555 West 24th Street display of Francesco Clemente's work as pretty much "vast trite symbols" floating on "vaporous pastel surfaces. The silliest of the lot features a pair of gigantic snowflakes with precisely rendered vulvas at their center. . .The show seems dismissable, but as you leave, you feel a little tug. Is art really a kind of unembarrassed simplemindedness?" A few blocks away, at a West 21st Street showing of Dan Flavin objects, the reviewer could only ask this question: "Is it odd to think of an eight-foot standard fluorescent light fixture, set at an angle on the wall, as classical art?" and close by noting that (Flavin) was "an artist who really made something out of nothing." Back on West 24th, the wandering scribe noted that a "callow young Photo-Realist" named Damien Loeb "has become a catchword for unmerited success" whose iconographic work--borrowings from megaplex favorites (scary movies like "Alien" and "Jaws")--is "transparently puerile, almost painfully desperate. . . ." The Chelsea coverage closed with notes on Michael Raedecker's exhibit. He is an English artist who "sews metallic thread through his canvases to make faint, drab images, augmented by washes of mousy color. Their labor-intensive ugliness reads as a kind of contrarian come-on. Most are adorned with allusive, inscrutable motifs: a Turkish tent, a Picasso vase, phallic vegetation, cigarettes." (August 15, 2003)

• A summer issue of The American Enterprise magazine summarized some interesting research from the last two years about how the public regards the media and other groups. When asked "Do you trust these groups to tell the truth?" stockbrokers ranked last with a 23 percent "yes" vote. Others with poor percentage ratings included lawyers (24), trade union leaders (30), members of Congress (35), journalists (39), pollsters (44), and TV newscasters (46). Most trusted were teachers (80%), doctors (77), professors (75), and police officers (69). Judges, clergymen, accountants, bankers, and the President all fell in the middle with ratings between 65 percent and 51 percent). Other research bodes poorly for print journalism and the three major TV networks. Only 26 percent of 18-29-year-olds "read a newspaper yesterday" (versus 40 percent in 1990) and only 19 percent of that group "regularly watches nightly network TV news" (compared to 41 percent in 1990. Overall and regardless of age, 32 percent watched TV news regularly, compared to 58 percent in 1990. (August 15, 2003)

A Look Around Confirms This

• ". . .more adults 18 to 49 watch the Cartoon Network than watch CNN." --Christopher Noxon, writing in the New York Times about America's latest cultural phenomenon and market segment, "grown-ups--call them rejuveniles--who cultivate juvenile tastes in products and entertainment." (September 1, 2003)

• Actor Charles Bronson has died of pneumonia at age 81. Hardly seems yesterday that we thrilled to Charles The Wonderful Avenger, leathery and menacing and sporting several clips of extra ammo, in 1974's Death Wish, one of the few opportunities in a 20th Century American's lifetime to see, even vicariously, justice achieved. The Dirty Dozen would be my second-favorite Bronson film. Say adios. (September 1, 2003)

• A suburban Indianapolis Baptist pastor thought he'd try a little free speech in early September and drew instant wrath from elite opinion leaders and the politically correctoidians. The Rev. Marc Monte put the title of his Sunday sermon on a sign in front of the Faith Baptist Church in Avon, Indiana: "Islam: America's Number One Enemy." The screechers filled up the Indianapolis Star's letters section with complaints about the minister's judgmentalism, divisiveness, and hate-mongering; the chieftain of the local Islamic Center said "such views are inflammatory and dangerous to society." The Star somehow located a local woman who happened to pass the church and see the offending sign. She said seeing it "was like I was kicked in the stomach." Another local female called the minister "arrogant and ignorant." Correctoidians called the county commissioners and other authorities but were told the sign was not a capital crime, not even a felony or misdemeanor. A commissioner shared with the Star his fairly novel view that the minister actually "has a right to put that up there. It is in no way a poor reflection on the community. We live in a community where people have a right to express their beliefs." (September 6, 2003)

• Time to say goodbye to Johnny Cash, who died September 12 at age 71. For my money, his best album was "Orange Blossom Special," which featured a couple ot Bob Dylan tunes, It Ain't Me, Babe, and Don't Think Twice, It's All Right. I enjoyed his music for five decades. It was said that he sang for the hopeless and the downtrodden. His was a tumultuous life: a brother who died at age 12, as well as divorce, serious battles with booze and drugs, and debilitating illness in the last 10 years. But he won a boatload of awards and a huge following of fans. I hope he went out wearing a gown of his trademark black when he turned in his chips at Baptist Hospital in Nashville in the wee hours of this morning. (September 12, 2003)

• Men should pay eternal tribute to whoever invented high-heeled shoes and convinced women to wear them.

• The first paragraph of writer Cesar Soriano's story in USA Today (Sept. 11) tells us everything we need to know about the present state of American society: "Disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, who sparked a plagiarism scandal that rocked journalism, will receive a mid-six-figure advance for his memoirs." (September 11, 23003)

• I think we all enjoy comeuppances. One of the best comes from San Antonio where David Williamson, a computer software consultant and obviously a bit of a wise ass, had his number called by a Federal District Judge. Williamson was summoned for jury duty for what became a seven-week trial. He soon after mailed a bill to the court for $16,800 for "court-ordered professional services." He invited the judge to call him to schedule an appointment if he disagreed. Judge Fred Biery faxed a reply instead, ordering Williamson to appear in court "to show cause why he should not be held in contempt of court and jailed." Williamson climbed down from his high horse, appeared in court, apologized, and agreed to serve on another jury for free in exchange for no jail term.

• And speaking of justice, I roared out of my Barcalounder cheering at the great news on Blair Hornstine brought to me in the July 21 issue of The Weekly Standard. Hornstine sued her Morristown, New Jersey, high school for $2.7 million when it announced she was a co-valedictorian of her graduating class instead of the one and only. A judge issued an injunction naming Hornstine the one and only. Hornstine, meanwhile, announced she was going to Harvard. In mid-summer, though, Harvard announced it was revoking its admission of Hornstine. The Harvard Crimson newspaper reported that Hornstine had plagiarized five essays she wrote for a local newspaper. Betcha Blair's not done filing lawsuits, however.

• The September 12 Indianapolis Star brought sad news for many of us who lived in the 1950s and then saw them come alive again in the movie, "Hoosiers." Kent Poole, a small-town Indiana kid who played the role of the little guard wearing No. 12 on the Hickory Huskies in the film, committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in his own front yard in Advance, Indiana. A life unraveled at age 39.

No Need To Fly To Paris To Puke--Do It Here In Your Own Home!

• An Internet bulletin near September's end revealed to a breathless world the news that Yoko Ono, the 70-year-old widow of Beatle John Lennon, has resurrected her legendary one-woman Strip For Peace show in--and this is perfect--Paris. Audience members get to cut off a piece of her clothing until she is standing on stage completely naked. The big mystery here in the heartland, though, is what kind of deranged person would want to see even one square inch of this world-class pig naked? Mogo and I turned down the Democratic National Committee's offer of free tickets and stayed home and puked at the thought of it rather than invest the time flying to Paris to do so. (September 29, 2003)

Vic Ricci's Error In Judgment

• Vic Ricci has the right idea but he'll pay a terrible price for it. Ricci runs a grocery store in Lost Angeles and has begun posting the names of deadbeat customers on a sign in front of his store. He's trying a hopelessly outdated idea--shaming people into paying their debts. "People ask me if it's legal. I say I don't care," Ricci told eager reporters, adding a question which reveals how much heartbreak he's setting himself up for--"If you can't pay a $25 (grocery bill), how can you pay a lawyer?" Answer: With the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages they'll collect from you for damaging their self-esteem. (September 19, 2003)

• The Florida orange-growing industry is asking the federal gub'mint to buy $240 million of orange juice to help ease an oversupply caused by the largest crop in state history. This has caused the price per pound growers get to drop to 65-85 cents, compared to 90 cents a year ago. Funny, I have not heard Democrats screaming about this. (September 2, 2003)

• Alice Slater won a debate in the pages of the Wall Street Journal about airline security. She wrote a letter to the editor September 17 asserting that cargo shipped on passenger flights is never screened. An air cargo shipping executive immediately denied the charge in a letter published in the Sept. 25 Journal. But a September 18 report in the Journal reported that even Congress knows that cargo was not being screened. And on September 11, the New York Times reported that a man stowed away in a freight container on a passenger plane and was not discovered till the plane landed. Like we've said, we're not serious about security, airline or otherwise.

• One beautiful fall evening recently I stood near a railroad and watched a train pass slowly westward through downtown Indianapolis. It included over 75 cars bearing a warning sign painted on their sides which read "For Radioactive Material Use Only." These were ordinary open freight cars of the sort used to haul coal or other bulk material, but each had a white or grey top, or cover, which appeared to have been made of molded fiberglass. (October 14, 2003)

Stunner!

• "Alcohol Blamed For Student Riot" --Actual headline in the October 6 Chicago Tribune over a story about a 2,000-student melee in the streets of Mankato, Minnesota, following Mankato State University's homecoming football game defeat.

• The Indianapolis Star continued its downward spiral toward complete insipidity October 15 when it ran these three stories on the front page's prime "above the fold" position: (1) the day's lead story headlined "Support and Faith Lift Judy O'Bannon" which told how the Governor's widow is soldiering on, as widows have done for millions and millions and millions of years, (2) a report that obesity is increasing in the United States, and (3) a story revealing that the rainy summer had produced a crappy pumpkin harvest in Indiana. It was the Star's judgment that these three articles were the most important stories occurring in the entire solar system for this news cycle. Preposterous.

Wishing Everyone A Lousy New Year!

• I rather like Ambrose Bierce's definition of a year as a succession of 365 consecutive disappointments.

• Oh, man--another legend goes to ground. Jack Elam, the ever-grizzled, wandering-eyed actor, died at either age 84 or 86 in Ashland, Oregon, October 21. He started life, as so many of us do, as an accountant, but wangled his way into movie bit-parts in the late 1940s. He went on to a splendid career playing mostly villains, drunks, or seedy characters, in Western movies. One of my all-time favies. (October 22, 2003)

Adios To The Jepster

• Another of Indiana journalism's legends has gone to ground: Eugene J. "Jep" Cadou, Jr. turned in his chips at age 80. His dad was the equally legendary "Jep" Cadou, Sr., who in his own time was regarded, at least by the Indianapolis Star, as "the dean of Indiana political writers." Young Cadou retired from the Star in 1989, after a career in writing and public relations which spanned over four decades. In 1992, the paper noted, he "began another career as a greeter for (a local) Wal-Mart store. . ." The obit was far longer than most, but missed a chance to answer the question surely on most readers' lips: Where'd he get that wonderful nickname, "Jep"? (October 22, 2003)

• The Belleville Bible Church in rural Hendricks County, Indiana, has been gutted by fire for the second time in the last four months. Police say both fires were arson. There is no record of a single liberal marching in protest anywhere in the world. Not a peep from Jesse Jackson, Teddy (The Man Whose Oldsmobile Couldn't Swim) Kennedy, Al Sharpton, Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi and the rest. I doubt this would be true if somebody'd torched an Islamic temple. A few local Christians have expressed their dismay, and so have the church members, but that's the extent of the outrage. (October 23, 2003)

• Hats off and a moment of silence, lads. Twenty-eight years ago today the Edmund Fitzgerald went down with all 29 hands aboard in a Lake Superior storm. Not long after, Gordon Lightfoot wrote this verse among many in The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald: "Does anyone know/where the love of God goes/When the waves/Turn the minutes to hours?" There are times when I feel nearly completely alone in the world. Hearing those words is one of them. (November 10, 2003)

• Oh, man! Now Art Carney's toast. Millions remember him as Ed Norton on The Honeymooners, but he led quite an interesting life away from the show, and won struggles with booze and drugs along the way. (November 11, 2003)

• Jonathan Winters observed his 78th birthday Tuesday, November 11. Another moment of silence, please, and take off those silly baseball caps. Some reverie would help, perhaps a few bars of one of the tunes from Jonathan's Amateur Hour skit, hummed softly under one's breath, would be suitable.. . ."Well, it's one of those days I feel so fine/I feel so fine with my bottle of wine/Occasionally I look up in a tree/ What do I see?--I see a picture of my sister and me/There's my brother Bill/Sittin' on a window sill/There's my brother, sitting in a chair/ There's my mom, over there/And I have my teddy bear. . ."

• They're takin' down the Jim McMahon posters as fast as they can in Illinois. The former Brigham Young and Chicago Bears quarterback has been the poster boy for the Illinois Liquor Control Commission's program to discourage overuse of alcohol and underage drinking. The posters bore a slogan of--and how odd this is, given McMahon's well-earned reputation as one--"Don't Be A Punk and Get Drunk." The hypocrisy finally became too much for the Commission to bear shortly after McMahon made national news this week by getting arrested in Florida for drunken driving. McMahon's self-branding over several decades as a rude, boorish pig of a man--a world-class flamer--didn't stop the ILCC from bringing him aboard in the first place, but it's caught up with everyone again. Until the next time, in this absurd culture of ours. (November 12, 2003)

• Hot new business idea! Somebody should set up a company where customers could order customized CDs. Instead of having to buy a whole CD just to own one or two songs you like, you could order one CD loaded with nothing but your favies, and by assorted artists, ala carte. I think people would pay a premium price for this. I sure would. Gotta be some reason why this is a dumb idea, or somebody would have tried it. Right? (November 20, 2003)

• A scam to fraudulently obtain Indiana drivers' licenses has been uncovered right here in beautiful central Indiana. Undercover cops have discovered that over 100 foreign nationals have recently received licenses at the Speedway branch of the state's license bureau. Four people have been arrested, and more will be, says the prosecutor. Turns out the perps ran ads in the Chicago papers to attract customers, who paid hundreds of dollars to get the documents. Police received a tip that an "unusually large number of foreign nationals" were appearing at the Speedway branch. State authorities promised in the wake of 9/11 that they were going to toughen up procedures for issuing licenses, but citizen whining caused them to back off. We hardly needed another reminder that we are not serious in this country about national security, but this one will do. (November 25, 2003)

• A correspondent from darkest Washington state reports encountering a brand new word: "trans-humanoid." It was used to try to describe Michael Jackson. (November 25, 2003)

Oooooooh. . .Too Good To Be True. . .

• For the impish among us, there is now a website (www.mylastemail.com) which, for about $10, will hold e-mail that you have directed to be sent after your death to whomever you desire to reach out and touch from well, wherever you are. Your executor must mail a copy of your death certificate to the service. Irresistible.

• The Supremes on December 8 quietly unearthed a new human right in the Constitution, and except for a brief note in USA Today's "People" section, the big slipstream media have been silent. Rosa Parks, now 90 years old and famous for refusing in 1955 to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white man, has sued a rapper group which has made reference to Parks in one of its songs. Among other things, Rosa's lawsuit argued this infringes on her right to publicity. The Supreme Court ruled she may sue on those and other grounds. What a comfort this is.

Ditto If Christ Appears

• "You may not shout ‘Morality' in a crowded Democratic convention. In the resulting stampede for the exits, many would be killed." --Dale Boroviak, of Lansing, Illinois, in a letter to William F. Buckley, Jr., in the December 22, 2003, issue of National Review.

• The number of Indiana drivers licenses illegally obtained with fraudulent documents by foreign nationals in a local scam may now run into the "thousands," according to the Indianapolis Star. (December 10, 2003)

• The Indianapolis Star has announced creation of a special new tabloid edition aimed at capturing that crucial 24-to-35-year-old demographic. They're calling it Intake. The new creature debuts this weekend. Star marketing droids tout it as clever, creative, caring, courageous, insightful, incisive, aggressive, wonderful, sharp-edged, sparkling, and sensitive. Great. But what about the rest of us? How come we don't get a newspaper like this? If the Star would put all that money, talent, and effort into making the Star an irresistible newspaper, it could have all of us captive. The hidden truth in this may be that the Star doesn't want all of us, and that, except for that coveted 24-35 bracket, it would much prefer that the rest of us go away and leave it alone. (December 12, 2003)

But Wait, There's More!

• Seven more foreign nationals were arrested December 12 when they walked into a state auto license branch in the Indianapolis suburb of Lawrence and tried to obtain drivers licences with fraudulent documents. They apparently missed the past month's news coverage of the unfolding scandal, in which 17 people have so far been arrested, or saw it but could not read. Meantime, Hispanics in Los Angeles held a big boycott of schools and businesses the same day to protest California's rescission of a law signed by Gray Davis giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. My guess is most of them are already on private jets to Indianapolis to get them here. (December 13, 2003)

And The ACLU Is Gonna Sue To Get Every One Of ‘Em Banned!

• David Aikman, in his new book, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing The Global Balance of Power, reports that "Chinese police admit, privately, that there are some 25 million Christians in (China)" and says the number "may be closer to 80 million," according to Michael Potemra in his review of the book published in the December 22, 2003, issue of National Review.

• Flagstar Bank has agreed to pay $1.2 million settlement after a federal judge ruled that it discriminated against---gasp!--white people who applied for its mortgage loans. Evidence showed that Flagstar in 2001-2002 charged minority applicants up to 3 percent loan commission fees, while charging honkeys the maximum of 4 percent. Stories like this typically make national news when minorities are the winning plaintiffs. This one got into the Indianapolis Star, but I heard and saw not a peep about it anywhere else. (December 24, 2003)

• Mogo and I saw Gub'nor Schwarzenegger interviewed on television at year's end and he used the word "Christmas" three times. He was not arrested on the program, but probably has been by now. Let's check out The Donahue Show and find out. (December 31, 2003)

• We know intuitively that there's a lot of bull-s'ing going on out there, but someone's actually measuring it. A short feature in The New Yorker magazine reported on the work of a Brookfield, Wisconsin firm, Jude M. Werra & Associates, which specializes in executive recruiting.Werra himself has come up with a Liars Index he believes reliably measures the amount of untruths on resumes. Werra recently focused on hundreds of resumes his company had screened in the last six months of 2003, examining only one aspect: representations about the applicant's education. He's been compiling this since 1995. The most recent number is 11.2 percent. The highest was 23.3 percent in the first half of 2000. Aside from the numerous well-publicized recent episodes of resume-lying in the sports world, others fib, too, such as the chief executive of Bausch & Lomb (Ronald Zarrella), who claimed he had an MBA degree, and Quincy Troupe, California's newly-appointed poet laureate, who imagined he had a degree from Grambling College but admitted when caught that he did not. Troupe resigned, but Zarrella, with the enthusiastic support of his board of directors, stayed at his post. (December 31, 2003)

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