Happy Halloween Again!

Toby the Medieval Maiden and Mr Booperson trust you gave all the trick-or-treaters who came to your door some better treats than the awful stuff that horrible Kerr Mudgeon suggested yesterday.

Retorts to a Crabby Friend

So what's your problem today? Strategic planning session? or employee evaluation?

I think our princess had more than one pea under her mattress last nite.

Maybe you should give up on anger management classes and try electro-shock therapy.

So may I take it your lobotomy was not an unqualified success?

That's no way to win friends and influence people, Mr Carnegie.

It was hardly worth chewing thru your restraints this morning, was it, dear?

This might be a good day for you to place a call to Rush, Mr Dittohead.

Now I see the wisdom of forbidding concealed weapons on the premises.

A bottle of Qwell might make you less crabby. Or is it your herpes that's bugging you?

Someone apparently climbed out of the wrong side of the coffin tonite.

Happy Halloween!

The identity of the weirdo above is not being revealed to protect the living (the weirdo) and the dead (the long-gone punkins).

Madison's Halloween celebration came and went without any big State Street fuss. Hurrah! Now that the city has a model of how to conduct Halloween, I hope next year some thought will be given to decreasing the police presence and saving some of the $600,000 spent on 'public safety measures' for the occasion. I'd recommend reducing the 225 officers who worked on Friday evening (when few revelers were expected and few showed) reducing/eliminating the police's elaborate hi-tech 'command and control center', not using mounted police, and getting rid of the overly bright stadium lighting. I suspect that some changes of this sort could easily lead to reducing police costs by 1/3rd while not decreasing public safety.

In the meantime, I hope you have a happy Halloween. Be sure to give those trick-or-treaters something good for them like horehound drops or capsules of green tea extract. Best of all, hand out small samples of mouthwash to keep their teeth from rotting because of all the candy handed out by your irresponsible neighbors.

Actor T R Knight Comes Out

Earlier this month, actor T R Knight – who plays surgical intern George O’Malley on Grey’s Anatomy – came out in an interview in PEOPLE magazine. His brief statement said: “I guess there have been a few questions about my sexuality, and I'd like to quiet any unnecessary rumors that may be out there. While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me.”

The story behind Knight’s coming out is a rather ugly one. He was apparently pushed out of the closet by an unfortunate event. Rumors were floating on the web that a huge dustup had occurred on set between actors Isaiah Washington (surgeon Preston Burke) and Patrick Dempsey (surgeon Derek Shepherd). Although details have never been revealed, it became clear that Washington, himself a member of an oppressed minority as a black man, had made scurrilous remarks about Knight’s sexuality.

Washington has just apologized in the latest PEOPLE with “sincere regret” for his “unfortunate use of words." Series producers immediately quashed any rumors that Washington would be replaced, but he has definitely tarnished his name and undoubtedly created tension on a set that depends on close ensemble work.

Meantime, ready or not, T R Knight is now publicly gay. Will that just be considered a part of his personality, or will he – like others before him – always be identified by the standard phrase “openly/admittedly gay actor T R Knight”? But, on the cheery side, he and Luke MacFarlane [who plays Matthew Rhys' lover on Brothers & Sisters] have been seen shopping together for furniture, which is pretty sweet.

A Halloween Question

Fed up with last year’s Halloween celebration, Madison’s Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and a committee cooked up an elaborate plan to ensure that last year’s problems didn’t recur. Of course, the mayor and his cohorts neglected to take into account that last year’s problems were due as much to the police as the partygoers. They overreacted to the shenanigans of a few and, after making a feeble attempt to tell the whole crowd to disperse, waded into it with riot gear, tear gas, and pepper spray. The mayor and police chief, so far from recognizing that the police were part of the problem, reiterated that they would react the same this year if any problems occurred.

This policy is as unfortunate as it is unnecessary. I lived on State St from about 1975 to 1985. Halloween parties were huge and plenty rowdy then. Two things made a huge difference, tho, in what happened compared to now. There was plenty of entertainment with huge stages, bands, costume contests, etc. Police presence was of a totally different nature. Police walked the crowds in twos trying to help people that needed it and quietly putting down incidents about to happen with nonconfrontational tactics. There were no visible riot police or police on horseback to act as provocations to a drunken crowd.

There were justifiable grumbles then about the behavior of some in the crowd, but the nature and type of police presence made all the difference in the world to the outcomes. You prepare for confrontation and court it, and you'll get it. Take a conflict-resolution approach, and you can prevent bad stuff from happening in an otherwise volatile situation.

One thing that really worries me this year is that the police may not have prepared themselves for the new situation. Because of the $5 tickets required to get into the party, State Street will have barriers to prevent unticketed entries. If the police try to wade into the crowd again as they did last year with truncheons, tear gas, and pepper spray but do so without first removing the barriers, they could start a stampede ending in injuries or worse to a crowd unable to get past the barriers.

Will Madison’s police have anticipated this problem? I wish I could count on them, but unfortunately I can’t say that I do. Saturday night will tell the tale.

Addendum -- NJ Gay Marriage

Judicial activism: President Bush and other GOPsters are already trying to make hay out of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday affirming the right of gay couples to all the rights of marriage. What Bush isn’t saying is that a majority of the court that he’s accusing of “judicial activism” was appointed by a Republican governor. In fact, all three of the justices who dissented, saying that gay couples had to be granted marriage itself, were Republican appointees!

Clarification: When I called the Court’s judgment “Solomonic,” I meant in a political sense, as a compromise position giving the legislature some role in defining the legal form of gay relationships. I actually agree from the point of law with the minority dissenters. Gay couples should be granted marriage itself, because anything less than marriage is inherently unequal. Marriage is an institution recognized everywhere and is portable across state lines. Married anywhere, married everywhere. Civil unions and domestic partnerships, on the other hand, are unique creations of individual states and have no portability.

Masschusetts currently allows gay marriages. If a New Jersey gay couple gets married, that would be recognized in Massachusetts. If the NJ legislature grants gays only civil unions, they would not be recognized in Massachusetts or elsewhere. Therefore, civil unions do not grant the full rights of marriage.

Currently, many states have legal or constitutional prohibitions against gay marriage, but Article IV, sec. 1 of the US Constitution requires each state to give “full faith and credit” to the laws and judgments of other states. If a gay couple gets married, these state prohibitions can be challenged in the courts. I do not believe that civil unions would permit such a challenge, as these other states do not have such a legal institution.

Football in American Life

A few weeks ago, I groused about the grotesque over-involvement of so many Americans with the ultimately trivial sport of football. A new TV series, NBC’s Friday Night Lights – perversely broadcast on Tuesdays – has confirmed my negativity and more.

The show takes place in a small Texas town whose life is dominated by football. The new coach is presented with take-it-or-get-fired advice by the men, and the women discuss football in the beauty parlor. The whole time gets fired up for a game, and they expect only victories.

The team is even worse off than the coach. He has complete domination over their lives and can order them all out of bed at night, into a bus, and to a muddy hill in pouring rain, where he orders them to run up and down to build up their determination to be a winning team! No nice word is given to them, just constant exhortations to shape up and do better.

Worst off of all is the star quarterback, whose entire life is laid out for him in advance. He will lead the team to a championship, get a scholarship to Notre Dame, marry his high school sweetheart, and go on to a successful career in pro football. No one doubts that this is his life’s course until the first game of the season, where a nasty tackle snaps his spinal cord and leaves him paralyzed without hope of ever walking again.

Of course, I can be accused of confusing this story with real life. However, it is based upon a book that is largely autobiographical. And Scott Porter, who plays the injured quarterback, when asked how true to life the TV drama is, cites the statistic that over 10 young men are paralyzed while playing sports in Texas alone each year.

He continues, “The town that we shot in, Pflugerville, has a population of 14,000 and the turf at their high-school football field cost $1.8 million. Just for the turf. The stadium seats 15,000 and the population is only 14,000. There's a school near Forth Worth called South Lake, and there is a five-year waiting list to get tickets. Just because you are the parent of a player doesn't mean you get tickets. If you have a kid in fifth grade, you've got to sign up. It might as well be [for] a pro team.”

And there you have it: schools and towns whose whole existence is tied up in a sport that in the end serves only to make more lives miserable than not. What a colossal waste!

TV Guido Reports: Gay Eunuchs No More

Gay characters on broadcast networks have pretty much been treated as eunuchs. Either they get no action at all, or it is dealt with off-screen. I remember that Matt Damon got more action on the couch with “Grace” in one episode of Will and Grace than “Will” got in all his years on the show. But that treatment is coming to an end.

On ABC’s Sunday night family drama Brothers & Sisters, Kevin Walker, played by Matthew Rhys, is the gay brother in a large business family. Although he has always been “discreet” and never brought a man home to family events, even tho he has been invited to do so by his mother, after a few episodes he begins to loosen up.

This past Sunday, in a restaurant scene with a prospective beau played by Luke MacFarlane, Kevin at first objects to a public kiss and claims he doesn’t like PDA. However, when his beau appears at the door to Kevin’s apartment, Kevin not only kisses him [click pic to enlarge] in front of an elderly lady across the hall but grabs him and hauls him into his apartment, obviously for intimacies. It’s nice for once to see a gay relationship treated on-screen the same way as the program's straight couples.

NJ Court Grants Gay Couples Rights

Today the New Jersey Supreme Court delivered, by a 4-3 vote, a Solomonic judgment that same-sex couples must be granted all the rights of opposite-sex married couples. It also ruled that the Legislature must determine within six months what form that takes – that is, whether it be called a marriage, a civil union, whatever. New Jersey already has a domestic partnership law granting same sex couples some, but not all, of the rights of marriage.

I call this judgment Solomonic because it nicely delineates the function of the courts from that of the legislature. The courts may determine what a person’s constitutional rights are, but the legislature ultimately creates the social institutions for the expression of those rights. The real strength of the judgment, tho, is that not a single member of the court disagreed that gay couples should have all the rights of marriage. In fact, the three dissenters felt that they should be entitled to the name of marriage itself.

At a time when a number of states, including Wisconsin, are facing votes on constitutional amendments outlawing gay marriages and civil unions, the ruling offers the amendment supporters some comfort that the courts will not grant marriage – that “sacramental institution”, as many conservatives regard it – to gays. It should not galvanize right-wing support for such amendments the same way an outright victory for gay marriage in NJ would have. On the other hand, the decision offers comfort to same-sex couples that a thoughtful court will accord them full marriage rights.

It is my hope that the New Jersey Legislature will decide simply to include same-sex couples in the institution of marriage. Unlike Massachusetts, which will not allow most out-of-state gay couples to marry there, New Jersey would permit them under its current marriage laws. Same-sex couples from all over the country could then marry in New Jersey and return home to challenge their own states to recognize those valid marriages. But that is a fight for another day.

My Resume

Some readers have asked me to tell more about myself, so I thought I’d share my work resume with you.

My first job was working in an Orange Juice Factory, but I got canned. I couldn't concentrate. Then I worked in the woods as a Lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe.

After that, I tried to be a Tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it - mainly because it was a sew-sew job. Next, I tried working in a Muffler Factory, but that was too exhausting. I became a Deli Worker, but any way I sliced it, I couldn't cut the mustard.

I studied a long time to become a Doctor, but I didn't have any patience.I worked as a Baker but couldn’t make enough dough.

I became a Fisherman but discovered that I couldn't live on my net income.I managed to get a good job working for a Pool Maintenance Company, but the work was just too draining.

So then I got a job in a Workout Center, but they said I wasn't fit for the work. My last job was working in Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind.

So, I tried Retirement and found that I’m perfect for the job!

OK, OK, the last sentence at least is true!

The War Clock Ticks On

The National Priorities Project has posted a War Clock that continually totes up the direct costs of the Iraq War based on Congressional appropriations. Today, the clock stands at $336.75 BILLION. Pre-war estimates of the Iraqi population were about 20 million. That means that, so far, the US has spent over $16,800 per Iraqi – an astonishing sum.

Before America withdraws from Iraq, we will likely have spent about $20,000 per Iraqi, and to what effect? We will have left Iraq rid of a nasty dictator but worse off in every other way – harassed by bloody sectarian and tribal conflicts, lacking such simple amenities as electricity, and with having incurred fatalities estimated at 50,000-650,000. A lot of money for very bad results.

And these expenditure estimates are very conservative in that they cover only current direct costs. Economists have made calculations that include indirect and future costs such as veteran health care, disability payments, equipment replacement, interest payments for deficit financing of the war, and macroeconomic effects. The most conservative estimate is about $1 TRILLION. That amounts to the US expending $50,000 per Iraqi to leave their country much worse off than we found it.

The day that the US began the “liberation of Iraq” was one of the saddest and most expensive in US history. We'll all be paying the debt for decades to come.

Today's Vealcake* -- Josh Henderson

Just as Grey's Anatomy has been wont to flash skin for its Drs. McDreamy, McSteamy, and McVet, Desperate Housewives keeps its younger men shirtless much of the time. The latest is Josh Henderson, the soldier Bo Ryder in Over There who got a leg blown off in Iraq but kept insisting he could rehab his way back to combat. On Housewives he plays the vixen Edie's nephew Austin. [Click pic to enlarge.]

When Susan's daughter Julie first encounters him shirtless in Edie's yard, she takes a dislike to Austin and pronounces "You're not so hot." She encounters him shirtless again later when she knocks on Edie's door. When she meets him with Edie at a party, she snottily declares: "I didn't recognize you with your shirt on." The moment she leaves, Austin turns to Edie and complains "She couldn't take her eyes off my abs. I felt violated." Sure you did, dude!

Unfortunately, Housewives has so many plot lines going that Josh/Austin doesn't appear every week, or at least not shirtless. Fortunately, the web has lots of Josh pics.

*Vealcake = male flesh too young to be called 'beefcake' yet

Today's Gardening Tip: Superbena

The standout among this year's annuals in my yard was the Superbena, a new variety of the old-fashioned Verbena, but with sturdier foliage and larger flowers. [Click pic to enlarge.] Not only did one plant completely take over its pot as the petunias and annual phlox gave out, but now that cold nights have come, the Superbena continues to bloom when all the other annual plants, even the geraniums, have been pretty much turned to mush. A superb plant indeed! I'm buyin' a bunch next spring.

Fair Wisconsin's Campaign

According to polls, a majority of Wisconsinites reject gay marriage, but an even larger majority think that gay couples should have rights in such areas as hospital visitation, medical decisions, pensions, and inheritance. I have felt for a long time that winning the vote against the Wisconsin “Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage and Civil Unions” involved (1) exploiting that difference, (2) downplaying the religious issues of gay sex, and (3) appealing to decent people’s sense of fair play and opposition to discrimination.

Most importantly, the side that tends to win on this sort of issue is the one that sets the framework for the discussion. I had hoped that, in the public mind, the name of the amendment could be changed from “gay marriage” to “couples discrimination.’ The effort probably would have been doomed anyways, since our “fair and balanced” media would have kept calling it “the gay marriage amendment.” But on such perceptions the fate of issues can rise and fall.

Fair Wisconsin, the lobby group opposing the amendment, has done a good job directing the public's attention to the issue of unfair discrimination. FW has been successful in raising funds, finding and putting volunteers to work, and getting the word out to the citizenry via lectures, door-to-door visits, phone calls, and media ads. I have now seen twice their most effective ad yet on the subject. [Unfortunately, I can’t find it on FW’s website, so I have to depend on my memory.]

A farmer appears on-screen. He says that he is opposed to gay marriage because “he was taught that way.” He then goes on with evident sincerity to question some of the aspects of the amendment that would adversely affect health and financial issues for gay couples. He concludes sadly that “it’s just not right.” “They’ve done no harm to us, so why should we do any to them?” is the core of his message.

Hoorah! I can’t think of a better ad to appeal to the minds of those voters who are still among the undecided as well as those fixated on "gay marriage." If you want to help Fair Wisconsin put this ad on the air as much as possible between now and Nov 7, please make a donation now!

Just Try to Read the Fine Print

Picking up today my weekly Onion and Isthmus, Madison’s local “alternative” weekly, I marvelled at the sheer stupidity and self-defeating decision-making of publishers. All knowledgeable observers say current trends disfavor newspapers, as people turn from paper copy to websites.

So what do these newspaper idiots do? They make it impossible to read their paper copy by reducing the size of print to an unreadable level! Onion just switched the whole paper over to teensy print. Isthmus still has a lot of reasonable-sized print but has gradually been switching its regular features to tiny type, incl the “Week in Review” and its “Letters to the Editor.”

Newspapers aren’t alone in this. Entertainment Weekly started printing a few of its pieces in tiny type and gradually has shifted nearly all its features to unreadability. And it has changed its format so that more and more sidebars and irrelevant bits of info are scattered about a page. Other magazines are following in step too. I suppose they feel the smaller type enables them to either save paper or increase their content, but if a reader can’t read it, what’s the point?

Apparently these publishers have forgotten one of the main demographic trends in America, its aging population. That means more bifocular and trifocular readers, as we fogies suffer advancing presbyopia. I can read some of the tiny type by taking off my trifocals, but I have to squint, and the operation is tiring enough for my aging eyes that I can’t keep it up for long. Not to mention I like to read column-by-column, not having to run my eyes all over the page to make sure I don’t miss some amusing tidbit, like the latest celebrity divorce or photo of an Asian baby purportedly begotten of two Caucasian parents [Tom and Katie].

Maybe publishers would like to eliminate their paper copy entirely in favor of completely web-based newspapers and magazines. It sure doesn’t look like they have any interest in keeping their print editions alive. But there's nothing like the pleasure of holding a paper copy in your hands and reading it in a comfortable chair while sybaritically indulging in some dark chocolate-covered caramels or doughnuts.

Today's Photo -- Geek Squad

My own personal Geek Squad have filed an official grievance against me for failing to provide them the same "fair and balanced" coverage accorded my 'merry maid' Zeke. In response to their complaint, I am publishing these two pics of them displaying their most up-to-date and professional behavior. [Click pics to enlarge.]

The American University -- Sexualized Banter

You’ve probably read of UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley’s overreaction to shenanigans by marching band members. Wiley made his displeasure public in a letter to Band Director Michael Leckrone and also called the whole band together to read them the riot act. He placed the band on probation and warned that any further misbehavior could lead to the band’s “virtual extinction.”

Wiley cited some unacceptable behaviors while the band was en route to away games. Some were actions that may have merited the discipline of the few individuals involved. Wiley’s concerns tho were nicely summed up by his charge of ‘sexualized bantering’ among band members on the buses. Yes, you read correctly ‘sexualized bantering.’

We have entered an unfortunate era in our social history where the powers-that-be feel that any sort of politically incorrect behavior must be punished and eradicated. One more fine example of ‘zero tolerance’ policies. What is so wrong, I have to ask, about bantering that includes some sexual innuendo among modern rowdy youngsters traveling on a bus in private? The members are all there voluntarily and largely enjoy the rough-and-tumble of their interactions. One young woman in the band even mocked Wiley by claiming the band “made me stand up in front of them and tell them my name and where I was from. Appalling!"

We have rightfully accepted that sexual harassment in the workplace and other formal circumstances is inappropriate and should not be tolerated. But I see no reason why we have to push onto every social setting standards set up for situations involving people’s livelihood, working conditions, and power imbalances between bosses and workers. Moreover, it’s ridiculous policy to allow permissible behavior for a group to be set by the most prudish and sensitive in them.

So let the band banter on, I say!

Today's Photo -- A Working Boy

A few weeks ago I treated you to a pic of my housecleaner Zeke lying down on the job, tho ever so artfully. I need to square things with him and keep my reportage fair and balanced. Hence,this photo taken of him yesterday, as he was going about his work brandishing his dustwand as my very own personal 'merry maid.' [Click photo to enlarge.]

Two Mommies or Two Daddies

Among the many books that conservatives around the country regularly try to get banned from their local schools, Heather Has Two Mommies is at the top. The book not only depicts the life of a girl with two lesbian moms but dares to suggest that's OK. So it has incurred the wrath of the right-wingers that don't want their children to even have available books containing such unsavory and immoral thoughts.

Now I'm not going to say there's no homophobia in European countries, even among children, because it exists, but not on the grand scale that it does in America. One piece of evidence is this cute song about a boy with two fathers performed for a group of Dutch children. In fostering fair treatment of everyone, there's no more important factor than unwavering support of that agenda by those at the top.

Today's Photos -- Incredible Bugs

My friend and former student Phil takes pictures with his digital camera that make me experience awe and envy. An artist in NY state, he has a real eye for a "photo opportunity." He has captured above a spider so tiny it takes a moment to recognize the coneflower it's standing on. The bee pic below is extraordinary in its composition and focus, and you don't know the meaning of 'gossamer' until you've looked at this bee's wings up close. [Be sure to click both pics to enlarge.]

Recommendation: 2007 Calendar

"America's Heroes" features (ex-)Marines who served in Iraq. Available for $14.99, this 2007 calendar is published by Freedom Is Not Free, and all proceeds will go to help wounded service members and their families. [Click on pic to enlarge.]

Computer Humor

After reading my post on their failure to cure my PC's ills, my "Computer Geek" pals wore this T-shirt to my house the next time they visited.

There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary and those who don’t.

Next time I’m going to have more memory installed.

Life would be easier if I had the source code.

If at first you don’t succeed, call it version 1.0.

An Apple a day keeps Windows away.

May the Source Code be with you!

I Won the Lottery!!!

Well, actually I didn’t. Which is no surprise since I don’t play the lottery.

Last week I received a letter purporting to be from the Prince of Wales Lottery Commission, saying that I had won $88,000 in an international drawing from two million random names. A check was enclosed for almost $2,000, with directions to call a lottery rep on this side of the Atlantic to collect my winnings. The check would pay that agent’s fee.

At first I was very excited, and the letter aroused my money-lust. But it seemed too good, and I suspected a scam. The internet turned up no info on the PWLC or on the firm with which the agent was supposedly affiliated. The check was drawn on the account of a natural foods firm in NH, but the phone area code was for Calgary, Alberta, in Canada. Similarly, the agent I had to call was supposedly in Calgary, but her area code was for Halifax, Nova Scotia! Huh?

The agent wasn’t very helpful, as she plainly figured out I thought it was a scam. I was supposed to deposit my check in my account, and then she would withdraw that amount from my account. Obviously, the check I was sent would bounce, and I would be out the money. I also called the Canadian number that was supposedly for the food distribution firm and was assured that the check was valid and from the company.

I called the company’s real number which I obtained from the net and was told the whole business was indeed a scam. The company had already had about 3,000 calls on the subject, and some people lost money when the invalid check bounced.

I have to wonder what kind of person engineers such an elaborate scam, involving seemingly official letters, a very real-looking check, and people to answer various phones to verify the whole business as legit. If you’ve got that much expertise and energy, why not do some good?

I have to feel sorry for anyone who falls for this scam. Granted, they’re not too bright, but I suspect it’s the inexperienced and the mentally compromised who most likely are successfully scammed – those least able to spare the money.

I am going to turn the info on this scam over to the local phone companies in Canada in the hope that the telecom firm will shut them down by denying them lines for their fraud. Whether this will work or not, I cannot say.

But let this be a warning to you if you ever get a letter like this offering you something for nothing. Perform your “due diligence” before committing yourself to anything, and above all don’t give anyone your bank account number so they can remove funds.

Also, a friend of mine tells me that emails are being sent to people here in Madison asking them to verify their credit union info and directing them to a fake – but very authentic-looking – website for that CU. Those who fall for it could suffer identity theft and loss of money.

Lots of scams waiting out there for the wary, folks. Watch out!

TV Guido Reports -- A Character Matures

TV writers are pushing characters to new depths in the race to create more outrageous plots to attract viewers. Personae are suddenly made to do things totally out of character to promote some cooked-up story line. I think, for example, of Kirsten on The OC, who degenerated from a sober materfamilias into an alcoholic requiring inpatient rehab in just one or two shows.

And then other characters, always with a nasty side to start with, have turned into sociopaths. On Rescue Me, comedian Denis O’Leary’s character Tommy the firefighter began as a pushy, annoying, yet funny jerk and has developed into a monster capable of playing three women off each other, carelessly allowing his son to be hit by a car, brutally assaulting his brother, and raping his ex-wife. [In the fantasy world of the male writers, she naturally enjoyed it and came back for more, but that topic’s for another day.]

On Nip/Tuck, the womanizer Dr Christian Troy – whose name ironically suggests spirituality and heroism – has always been a self-regarding womanizer. Over the seasons, the character has turned into a nasty woman-hating abuser who treats his prey with arrogance and contempt while caring only for himself and his material possessions.

Worst of the lot is the lead character of House, a diagnostic specialist. A physician who won’t treat patients or hospital staff with respect or kindness, his modus operandi has always been to make quick diagnoses and treat patients with methods that turn out to worsen their condition until he lands on the correct diagnosis and saves the patients right before killing them. Lately, he has resorted to vile aggressiveness to everyone in sight and even goaded patients into starting a fight so he can punch back. Of course, this is all done in the name of good patient care. Oh, and did I mention that he’s a drug addict? In real life, he would have been deprived of his license and sent to jail long ago. Instead, he has become a hero to the masses who watch House and think he’s just “2 kewl.”

So, it’s a real treat to encounter a TV character who actually grows and matures. Desperate Housewives’ John the gardener [see pic above; click to enlarge], played by Jesse “Manboobs” Metcalfe, started his career on the show having sex with a customer. All thru their affair, he called her “Mrs Solis,” even during sex. When his adulterous lover wouldn’t leave her husband to marry him, he gave her up.

On yesterday’s show, he reencounters the now divorced Mrs Solis, and the two of them fall into bed together, just like old times. Now the successful head of a gardening firm, he addresses her as an equal by calling her Gabrielle. She obviously thinks of him as marriage material, capable of providing both good sex and material possessions. With conviction, John tells her he is engaged and refuses to continue with her because he won’t become the kind of husband who has affairs outside the marriage. Who would have thought that this callow and naïve youth could develop into an adult wanting to honor his marriage vow? What a shocker – but a pleasant one.

After all the sociopaths, this development is most welcome. Congratulations, ABC! And kudos to Desperate Housewives’ writers. Now let’s have a few of those sociopaths develop a conscience!

Murder Comes to the Amish

Of the three recent school killings that happened in one tragic week, the Amish killings most touched my heart. For eight years I lived and taught in a town encircled by Amish farms. Some days the town parking lot had more buggies than cars! The Amish avoided all but necessary contacts with the “English,” as they called all non-Amish. Their world was apart from ours and more of the 19th century than the 20th. They didn’t attend any of the five regular elementary schools, and our school district ran five one-room schoolhouses for them.

The schoolhouse picture above – drawn from Bill Coleman’s Amish photos (click on pic to enlarge) – displays the character of the Amish. Simple, no frills, no fads, nothing modern, just a plain functional wooden building with an outhouse in back. An aura of spiritual calm and peace envelops it, and one can imagine only the laughter of Amish children at play. Like the Amish themselves, the school is isolated, alone, seemingly not part of the contemporary world, but rather belonging to an older way of life in harmony with nature’s seasonal and diurnal rhythms.

Unlike our “keeping up with the Joneses,” no oneupmanship exists among the Amish. All those in a community dress alike, and anything smacking of vanity – like buttons – is forbidden. They build no churches except those in their own hearts, and “church” is held every other week at someone’s home. The activities are always the same, including the singing of unaccompanied hymns and two sermons, one several hours in length (!) known as “the real thing.” Items served at the supper come from a prescribed list that prevents any family from trying to outshine others.

In spite of their arduous spiritual life, the Amish are very practical, especially when it comes to their children. On non-church weekends, the children are allowed to run freer than usual. During late adolescence, Amish kids can lead a free life and may even decide to live among the “English” without disapproval. At some point, however, they are expected to return, sign the community’s covenant – or rules of community life – and settle in to an Amish life. Those who fail to do so and those who leave the community after joining the covenant are shunned so the community may remain faithful to its ideals.

Amish mostly farm, though some may be carpenters or carriage-makers. Their lives are simple and based on distinct roles for men and women. They are thrifty and pay cash for any goods or services they need from the outside world. Their sense of time differs radically from ours, and nothing is rushed or pushed in a way that would damage the integrity of the work.

For an Amishman leading this type of life, killing is unthinkable, so the intrusion of an “English” man into their school with murder in his heart must have shocked and stunned their community. Their most prized possession is their children, and five families lost little girls on this bloody morning of terror. Just thinking of it brings tears to my eyes.

Other communities obsess over such events, call in counselors, seek punishment for the murderer, and dwell on their pain. Not so the Amish. Asked if their community was angry over the killings, one shocked young Amish woman replied “Anger, no. Oh, no no no!” They quietly buried their dead in funerals of solemn horse-and-buggy processions, somewhat resentful of the media fuss that distracted them from their spiritual duties. Most amazingly, at the killer’s funeral, over half the mourners were Amish, many of whom knew the milkman. They came to assure his family of their forgiveness and to display their love.

Again, I feel the urge to weep, but this time not from sorrow, but with joy. In a world filled with tribes and clans and nations bent on genocide of those not exactly like them, it does the heart good to know that we still have communities with such goodness in their souls, people that are grace-filled and genuinely compassionate. Would that the rest of us could emulate their wonderful example.

My recipe: Applesauce

I love to eat applesauce with a variety of dishes but have never found a canned sauce that I really liked. So I developed this easy recipe. Note: use only Macs for this applesauce, as they break down easily into a smooth sauce just with cooking and occasional stirring.

Peel and core 4-5 Mackintosh apples, and cut them in small pieces into a 2-qt saucepan. Add 1/3 cup each of raisins and either craisins or dried cherries, ½ cup of water, and a dash of salt. Mix the contents with a wooden spoon, cover, cook on medium heat until the mixture starts steaming, then turn heat down to low. Cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally to break up the apples and smoothen the sauce. Remove from the stove, and mix in 1 tsp vanilla. Sauce may be served hot or chilled, plain or garnished with a dash of nutmeg or cinnamon.

In Praise of Motherhood

This summer a mallard visited my yard almost daily with her seven sizable ducklings. This occurrence was unexpected, because a duck's brood usually diminishes in numbers with time. Ducklings are prey for many predators, and their mother can’t prevent some of them being carried off and eaten.

But this momma duck was different. Especially vigilant, when her ducklings were feeding off the food that had fallen out of my birdfeeders, she rarely ate but stood with her neck fully extended to watch for trouble. [Click pic to enlarge.] When I threw them bread, she kept them a bit away from me and watched me carefully. Any other adult duck that dared to try to feed with her ducklings was given a loud honk and chased to the edge of the yard.

Whenever my cat appeared, she immediately ordered her kids back down to the lake, whereas other ducks would stay and watch Maurice to see if he was coming close enough to present a danger. But momma wasn’t taking any chances of losing one of her offspring to the jaws and claws of my cat.

Only once that I saw did her vigilance fail her. Maurice appeared, and she chased her kids away, then watched the cat for a moment. By the time she turned back, her brood was out of sight. She immediately panicked, running this way and that, softly quacking, as if to call her kids but not announce their loss to predators. I walked slowly behind her to gently move her down to the lake. She continued to blither and quack until she saw them swimming calmly at the shore. Then she uttered one loud and triumphant quack and dashed down to join them.

Ordinarily, I’m not in favor of ‘smother love,’ but I have to give credit to this mallard. Neighbors and friends who sometimes watched her also commented how seriously she took her maternal duties. She did an extraordinary job of protecting her brood, and I had to admire her. Hooray for Momma Mallard!

The Problem with Polls

The problem with polls is that, like fair-weather friends, they don’t provide you with help when you need or want it most.

An article I read today on the Tennessee Senate race claimed that a poll “showed Republican Bob Corker leading Democrat Harold Ford Jr 43 percent to 42 percent.” That’s absolutely wrong. The article should have stated the poll showed them “in a statistical dead heat.”

Polls typically have a 3-4 point 'margin of error.' Since the sample used in a poll is so much smaller than the number of voters, it can’t be perfectly accurate. A figure of 42% with a 4-pt margin of error [on both sides of the number!] means that the candidate will likely receive 38% to 46% of the vote. Not very helpful, huh?

Except in cases where the answer is pretty much obvious already to any knowledgeable observer, a poll won’t tell you a lot. It certainly can’t help you in a close race like the one in Tennessee. Media reporters don’t seem to understand this and so constantly treat the polls in close races as definitive, when they really mean that the race is wide open. Factor in that ‘undecideds’ often fall disproportionately to one candidate on voting day, and a poll with even a small number of undecideds becomes even more of a puzzlement.

Worse, polls are likely to get even more deceptive as time goes on. Many young people have only a cellphone and no landline, and many with landlines, esp women, have unlisted numbers. These trends have been growing, and, since poll-takers can contact only those with listed land-lines, the sample population will look less and less like the whole population. Poll results will therefore distort the reality even more than they do now.

So beware pollsters when bearing close numbers! What looks real is just a mirage.

Today's Photo -- Rose the Cow

Madison's downtown sported a variety of sculptures this summer as part of a "Cow Parade." One of my favorites was Rose, a white cow decorated with rosemaling. A cow and rosemaling. What could be more quintessentially Wisconsin, exceptin' cheese, o' course? [Click pic to enlarge.]

Today's T-Shirt, or, Why I Love My Life

Football VS Everything Else

Madison’s two daily papers – Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times – upload their major stories to a combined website. The site includes each day a listing of the nine “Most Clicked” articles. Day after day, quite reliably, five of these popular stories feature the spectator sport of the season. Here in the fall, typically three articles involve the Packers and two the UW Badgers. And the papers’ forums always include a handful of sports threads, such as today's "Should the Packers switch to a 3/4 defense?"

Americans now face such serious issues as global warming, terrorism, wars and genocides, elections, decline in access to health care, the quality of our children’s education, growing economic disparities, and so on. Yet we moderns act about the same as the ancient Romans. Their overlords, to keep them distracted from public affairs, gave them panem et circenses. Their "bread and races" equate to our superfluity of every kind of consumer goods and our year-long succession of spectator sports.

But what’s our excuse? We Americans are not cut out of the political process. We can visit or write our representatives, express our opinions publicly, vote, demonstrate, agitate, what have you. But the fact that more sports articles are read than all the others in our newspapers makes one thing clear. Too many of us have allowed distractions to cut ourselves out of these important processes.

Sometimes I think I lack the essential human gene that causes attraction to watching others cavort about some playing field. I just cannot understand how a populace as educated and enabled as ours can involve itself so heavily in an activity as essentially trivial and meaningless as watching two teams fight over an inflated ball. What a shame.

Wisconsin Wears the Cheese Crown

The ads for California cheese that have been appearing on TV grate on my nerves. How dare they advertise their wares in "America's Dairyland"? They claim their cheese is good because their cows are happy. Well, Wisconsin has long been the #1 cheese-producing state, so I gotta presume our cows are even happier than theirs. So take that, you big bully California!

California cheesemakers claim that they will soon surpass Wisconsin in cheese production. In 2005, Wisconsin produced 2.4 billion pounds of cheese, with California right behind at 2.14 billion pounds. But I say “so what?” By any measure that I have calculated other than gross production, Wisconsin will always be first.

California covers 158.7K sq mi, while Wisconsin has only 56.2K sq mi, so that Wis' cheese production of 42,700 lbs/sq mi easily bests Cali’s 13,500 lbs/sq mi. Wisconsin does even better when population is taken into account. Cali’s 36,132K population dwarfs Wis’ 5,536K, but – conversely – Wis’ 434 lbs/capita dwarfs Cali’s measly 59 lbs/capita.

And then there’s quality. I haven’t tasted any California cheeses that I’m aware of, but I have eaten Penna and NY cheeses, and I can attest that they taste like wax or cardboard compared to our cheeses. And I’ve noticed that cheesemaker booths at our local Farmers Market boast blue ribbons from nat'l/int'l associations. As far as I’m concerned, the cheese crown belongs to Wisconsin’s dairy farmers and cheesemakers, and Wisconsin’s David will always clobber California’s Goliath.

Excelsior, America's Dairyland!