kelli and i just finished watching 'blackhawk down'. go rent it if you want to get pissed off over a meaningless waste of life because of a little tinhorn, shithole of a country where we shouldn't have been in the first place. thank you george bush, sr. for getting us involved and bill clinton for f--ing it up royally once we got there.


in 1991, during the gulf war, i was stationed in orlando. like most of america, i watched the war on cnn, but i felt very close to it because our morale was high and we all felt like we were part of something terrific. i remember how quiet my dad was during that time. now i realize that he, having seen a real war up close, probably hated the whole concept but couldn't explain it to me because i was 19 and full of piss and vinegar. now i know: all wars are crimes. sometimes we have to fight, but places like bosnia and somalia aren't places worth sending americans to in order that they die for no good cause. i am in favor of crushing groups like al-queda, but what is going to happen in afghanistan after the u.s. and the u.n. peacekeepers leave? the strong clan will take over again, and history will repeat itself.


we have 37,000 troops in south korea. the korean war has been over for nearly 50 years. are the south koreans incapable of defending themselves? they can certainly afford it. should our tax money be going to that? couldn't those 37,000 soldiers be better used somewhere else? am i missing something here? oh, well.


'gone with the wind' was published today in 1936. my mom said that, when she was a little girl, 'wind' was considered scandalous and her mother and aunts used to gossip about people who had it in their house. go pick up a copy sometime and thumb through it. oh my.

holy sh*t, this is real...real scary.

something very odd happened today in 1995: microsoft agreed to pay ibm millions of dollars in licensing fees. for what? i'm glad you asked. it seems that, once upon a time, ibm patented little things like using the tab key to move a cursor 'x' number of spaces and using the enter key to advance a line or answer a query with a default answer and so on and so on. it seems like ibm pretty much owned the idea of typing and using transistors to do computations. this was the first time ibm had asked for fees from anyone for use of this stuff; many industry observers believe that it stemmed from microsoft suffocating os/2 with windows.

foxsports net is having a hottest woman in sports contest. i think we need to have a 'who thanks their lord and savior jesus christ the most after winning a pointless f@#$cking game' contest. some of you knock nascar, but you have to acknowledge that at least those guys don't pretend to be something they're not. they race, most of them are bubbas, and they remember to thank their sponsers after the race. 'nuff said, buddy.

kelli and i had dinner with some of the heavy-hitters on the radio show. a few of these guys contribute by e-mail and chat room only, so it was nice to connect faces with names. one of the guys, hash, is a chemical engineer and truly a pleasure to talk to. i hope we can do it again soon. a.m. and i had a nice talk about the current corporate culture in america and i was surprised to find an area in which we are in agreement. it was the conclusion of everyone there that the worldcom mess is going to be the enron of the tech sector. those people have almost 30 billion dollars in paper floating around that may go unpaid. wow. it's things like this that make people scream "tighter federal oversight", which i don't believe is the answer, but it certainly bolsters their argument.

today in 1919, john maynard keynes, who worked for the british treasury, left versailles claiming that the peace treaty being worked out with germany would cause long-term economic and political troubles in that country. keynes, who later went on to be a very famous and controversial economist, was dead-on in his predictions. oddly enough, it was the french who wanted to punish the germans most harshly. it was this 'punishment', in the form of reparations, that ultimately led to the rise of hitler and the re-invasion of france by germany in 1940. after world war two, germany was immediately brought back into the 'world' and, thus, became a modern, thriving nation.

i have received a few e-mails about my little rant this afternoon. what i find amazing is that some of you (and you know who you are) will freely lump me in with the fundamentalist-right and then dismiss me out of hand. my opinions are my own as yours are undoubtedly your own. let me clarify: you have the right to say whatever you want. i just think that some of you should move overseas for a while to gain perspective. for your further entertainment, i am going to state my beliefs, conservative or not:


--i am not sure anymore about the existence of god in the traditional, christian sense of the term. i wish i could believe like i used to. jerry falwell, ralph reed and most fundamentalists make me sick. they are anti-catholic, anti-semitic and just as intolerant as they accuse others of being. lumping me in with them is an insult to my intelligence.

--i believe we live in the greatest society the world has even known. it is not without its flaws, but i'll take it anyway.

--i believe you and i have the right to own big, shiny guns...automatic ones and ones the size of howitzers. but if you shoot someone with one and it wasn't self-defense, you need to spend the rest of your life in a little cell thinking about it.

--i do not believe our society has the right to put people to death for their crimes. if o.j. simpson had been a poor black kid from compton, he would be on death row right now. it's not justice if you can buy it.

--i believe marijuana should be legal and we need to look at other drugs one at a time to consider making them legal, too. if you are in pain for a valid medical condition, you should have the right to take whatever you want.

--i believe abortion is wrong and it has nothing to do with choice. don't e-mail me about this; neither of us are going to change.

--i believe that capitalism works, but i think that corporate america has lost its sense of moral responsibility to employees and communities. this is not new, but it's become pervasive and perverse.

--i believe that there are people in the world who only understand overwhelming force. these people need to be marginalized. some of these people are americans.

--i believe there are people in the world who hate americans. i don't care why; if they act against us, they are enemies. once again, some of these people are americans.

--i believe we should support true democracy everywhere in the world. we spent forty years propping up dictators because they hated communism. the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.

--i believe it is in our selfish best-interest to help countries like mexico and russia become thriving economic powerhouses with free elections and less-corrupt government.

--i believe that people confuse freedom with gluttony. you are free to own an suv to haul you precious little punk to soccer practice, but i think it is gluttonous. if we all drove smaller and smarter, we could tell countries like saudi arabia to f*ck off with their religious police and opression of women. it should be a national perogative to save oil, just like it was during world war two. i am NOT an enviromentalist; this just makes sense to me.



ok...end of list. i really hate being placed in a box. i know that i am guilty of doing it, but i only do it in times of anger. btw: name-calling will not make me reconsider my position on anything. if you disagree, state your argument concisely and we will discuss it. for those of you who do that (dlp and a.m. in particular), thank you.

instead of arguing about god in the pledge of allegiance (sp.), why not just put it back to its original form? here it is as written in 1892:


"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands -- one nation indivisible -- with liberty and justice for all."


that wasn't so difficult, now was it?

strange coincidences over at dlp's place. i never realized i was so with it, but if my boys in so. cal. are talking about it, it must be ok. btw, he has a very nice critique of my rant up over there. while i think that he would be surprised at the things we would agree on (especially about corporate america), it's nice to see a little reflection every now and then. go read it.

check out this video. this is the most f&^cked up thing i've seen in a long time and it really pisses me off. i am very, very tired of people who consider themselves academics and deep-thinkers telling me and the rest of our society that we brought the terrorists to our door by being the world bully. where were these same people when the soviets invaded afghanistan in 1979? were they labeled the aggressor? of course not, because the pointy-headed elitists in this country subscribe to the same marxist ideaology that the soviets did.


let me be clear: we are the light. the united states has raised the standard of living for the entire civilized world. if not for the united states, the world would be living under the yoke of either facism or communism; take your pick. those of you who are guilt-ridden for being americans can move your ass somewhere else like france where everyone can hate you for being an american.


radical muslims are the scourge of the planet. they seek to enslave their own people behind the guise of religious adherence, all the while telling us we are the great satan. a great satan would have already unleashed our fearsome arsenal on their backward civilizations and shown them the face of god. let's run down the list of nations that are run by muslim fanatics: iran, iraq, pakistan, syria, egypt, libya, saudi arabia...hmm, does anyone see a pattern here?


let's look at one economic fact: the entire middle east produces petroleum for export. if you remove petroleum and its related products from their economies, the entire region produces less than the national output of finland. what does this mean? they need us. they need our cars, our planes and everything else that makes our society what it is. they cry 'opressor' but continue to take the greenbacks off our hands. we only export 17% of our oil from the middle east. maybe we should become more self-reliant and efficient and let them starve their way to allah.

kell and i were watching 'ferris bueller's day off'. the film holds up pretty well for being over 15 years old (FIFTEEN YEARS? what they hell have i been doing?). the music is still good, the clothes aren't terrible and the plot...well, the plot was bad in 1986, too. no one was trying to pass it off as 'doctor zhivago' or anything.


elvis performed his last concert today in indianapolis in 1977. twenty-five years. if he's going to make a comeback, now would be a good time. if caesars in las vegas can sign celine dion to a mult-zillion dollar deal, imagine what they would offer the King.


the united nations charter was signed by 50 nations in san francisco today in 1945. oh, the optimism.

speaking of beautiful things, martha stewart is in serious danger of going to a federal 'pound me in the ass' prison. However, she would rather concentrate on her salad. doesn't she mean 'toss' her salad?



as i write this, i am listening to the the art bell show. he is on vacation, but george noory, his guest host, is talking to two gentlemen about why we need to go to mars RIGHT NOW. look, i love science and star trek and i've seen episode two, yada, yada, yada, but don't you think we should spend our money on something else right now like smoking out osama bin laden, turning iraq into a parking lot or finding those suitcase nukes that the russians are missing? we went to the moon for one reason: to beat the soviets. but there are no soviets now so no one cares. find me a good space-race adversary (like china in another generation) and we'll be going uranus before you know what hit you.

ss has been back in the states for less than ten days, and he has already made the cover of amercian homebody. ss is the one holding the cake. it's a beautiful thing.

sorry about the slow updating today. i found out last night that i can no longer access the blogger site from work due to new security restrictions through novell's border manager, so i will have to limit my updating to home. once again, damn the man.


the korean war started today in 1950. it was the first time the united states got invovled in a 'police action' in the hopes of avoiding a wider war. my father is a navy veteran of the korean war and is still incredibly bitter about the fact that very little has been done in rememberance of the men and women who fought in this conflict that was sandwiched between the total victory of world war two and the vietnam debacle.


ok...i have to tell a navy story about my father. dad joined the navy in january, 1951. by may, 1951 he was aboard a destroyer off the coast of korea. for those of you who have not been in the military, that is an incredibly fast turn-around time. dad had not yet been to an 'a' school, the navy schools that teach sailors their career specialty (or rate). he was assigned to the ship's electricians as sort of an apprentice (the navy calls this an undesignated striker). anyway, they had just left hong kong for deployment off the coast of north korea when a forward compartment on the ship caught fire. everyone not fighting the fire headed towards the stern. dad, always one to think things through before acting, realized that the power to the forward ammunition magazines and turrets was still on. a spark of any kind could've blown the ship in half. dad ran forward, only to discover that the circuit breaker panel he needed to access was covered up by crates of china that some of the chiefs and officers had purchased in hong kong. he grabbed an axe and started swinging. one minute and many broken dishes later, he had successfully cut off the power. it didn't save the ship or anything, but it did keep things from getting worse. no one else had thought to do this. as a reward, dad was promoted to petty officer third class (that's like a corporal in the army or marines) without having any formal training, which is highly unusual. by time he went to 'a' school, he had worked as an electrician for over a year. school was a review.

today in 1862, abraham lincoln went to west point to meet with general winfield scott. this is important for several reasons, but it really points to lincoln's dissatisfaction with his military advisors. scott was a veteran of the mexican-american war and was in poor health, but was still with it mentally. this was the 19th century equivalent of president bush blowing off the joint chiefs of staff and going to meet with norman schwartzkopf about operations in afghanistan. what lincoln did was considered bad form, but what made it worse was the fact that lincoln did not take scott's advice. it's the little oddities of history like this that really fascinate me. it gives the great figures such as lincoln a more human side to consider.


the radio show was fun today. i have discovered that i do better if i stand the whole time and pace back and forth. next week, i will take my own headphones with the extra-long cord. a.m. wasn't there, which gave everyone more talk time and made the atmosphere more team-oriented. the team is meeting for dinner friday night, which should be interesting. stay tuned.

the monitor arrived today. wow....this mf'er is huge. the resolution range isn't large (only goes to 1600x1200 at 85hz), but it lets me run 1280x1024 at 100hz, which is very easy on the eyes. for a retail monitor, i couldn't be happier. the price was right, too.


the car race didn't happen today for us because i felt like death warmed over and kelli had a paper to write for school. maybe next time. i have to be in a VERY good mood to sit in one spot for six hours.


the battle for okinawa ended today in 1945. the cost: 12,500 americans killed and 36 allied ships lost. more than 120,000 japanese died in the 11-week battle. the island was to be used as a base for the invasion of japan, which never happened. the was the last hurrah for the kamakazies (sp.), the suicide planes that were the forerunners of the modern cruise missle.


ann landers has died. wake up and smell the coffee.


'minority report' has opened to good reviews. spielberg needed a good one after 'a.i.' taught him what pain is all about. the film is actually part of a loose trilogy that includes 'a.i' and another story. i don't think there is a direct correlation other than the time they are set in. anyway, the film has opened up a pretty good debate about privacy and such. according to the film, future ads are directed at individuals based on retina scans performed at a distance by billboards. this technology is in our future; look for it as soon as it is economically feasible.


the whole thing has made me think a great deal about the nature of privacy in our world. i have heard it said by many people all over the political spectrum that there is no real privacy: our lives are stored in numerous databases and linked by the internet. while i am in agreement with that, i believe that the concept is only new in its scope. consider this: fifty years ago, the city of jeffersonville was a tiny village of maybe 5000 people. there are thousands of towns just like it. in the jeffersonville of 1952, there were few grocery stores and even fewer banks. one meat market served the whole town. there was one church for each major christian denomination. there were fewer than a dozen bars and no more than 20 restaurants. if you bought groceries, the grocer knew you because that's where you had shopped your entire life. the butcher knew what cuts of meat you bought and, therefore, knew roughly were you stood on the socio-economic ladder. the pastor knew if you came to services on sunday. the banker knew where you worked and how much you were paid there. the chances were pretty good that your children went to school with the children of the mayor, sheriff, grocer, banker and butcher. everyone knew each other's business. it was called a community and that sense of privacy that people felt was an illusion because it wasn't out there in your face. privacy has been, and always will be, an illusion. ted kazinski, call your office.

ss is back on the left coast, so interesting details are sure to follow. kelli and i are going to see some friends at a car race tommorrow in salem. should be a new experience as a i get to hang in the pits.



i now know why airborne express is a distant runner in the delivery race. our new monitor shipped wednesday by second day shipment. this tells me that it should have arrived today. however, due to a mixup, it was delivered to someone in lexington, ky. when i called, they said, 'sorry, it'll be there monday'. i called back after i found out they offer saturday delivery. IF the package gets to louisville tonight, i'll have it tommorrow. completely unacceptable.

seems like the walter williams link is dead for the moment. sorry about that. the weekend is here, meaning that i am going to try, once again, to live like someone who works during the day. i think it's killing me.

a little soapbox action from walter e. williams. he and antonin scalia are the only two living human beings with whom i would switch brains. simple genius with wit. thanks to eh for passing that one on. you were right, e.



the germans invaded russia from the arctic to the black sea on june 21, 1941. unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you're pulling for), they encountered the worst winter since the last time russia was invaded (by napolean in the early 1800's). had the germans invaded england and left russia alone, they would have won the second world war in europe.

i have decided to completely re-write the book as a work of fiction. those of you in the know realize this will allow me to expound on many things that i had to leave out of the original. i think this is the only story i have to tell that people would be interested in and it's still on my mind constantly. this is what i was meant to do.

i installed some firewall software on the home pc a few days ago and i am amazed at the number of pings we receive here. i'm sure that most of them aren't malicious, but i don't know their true purpose.



today in 1863, west virginia became a state. i know the civil war was going on and all, but there should have been some more thought put into that. i mean, you know, what happened there? it's like a whole other country over yonder.

when did peace become an absence of war? it's as if everything would settle down if everyone just quit fighting. if the israelis and palestinians cooled it, would anyone be happy? israel would still be worried about security and the palestinians would still be without a homeland.



consider the times when the world has known real peace. 1945 is a great example: there was peace because we had completely vanquished our enemies. there were no peace treaties; there were only surrender documents. i know this all seems harsh, but consider the end results: japan and germany are first-world players in every way.

those of you on the left coast have probably heard of dennis prager. for the rest of you, know that he is a conservative jewish syndicated talk show host. they re-run his program in the middle of the night here in flyover country, so i try to catch it. he wrote an interesting column entitled 'the commencement address i would give'. here is a quick summary of his seven points:



-the greatest stuggle in your life will not be with society, but with yourself

-use your common sense. (what he's trying to say here is that if you read something that sounds like b.s. but it came from stanford or yale or oxford, it's still probably b.s.)

-race is unimportant.

-don't leave your values at home when you go work.

-beware of bad ideas. the 20th century was full of decent people who followed evil ideas.

-your behavior matters far more than your intentions.

-judeo-christian values are the real counter-culture.



today in 1864, the css alabama was sunk by a us navy steamer off the coast of cherbourg, france. the css alabama was, perhaps, the most successful commerce raider in the history of seafaring. it sank over 60 union ships during the civil war, causing six million dollars in damage, a huge sum in the 1860's. some researchers recently raised portions of the alabama, including one or her huge cannon.

paul mccartney is sixty today. i have often wondered this about the incredibly successful: do they look at their lives and feel shocked by the level of wealth/renown/infamy they have acheived, or do they merely see it as one more stop in a progression? people like rush limbaugh say that they are not surprised by their success, but i think that's probably bullsh*t. i'll probably never know, so it's a purely academic discussion.



i ordered a new monitor from dell, but it probably won't be here until next week sometime. it's a hitachi 21" jobber, one that we will probably have for years. our kds is nice, but it is four years old and is very not flat by today's standards. the viewsonic i have at work has spoiled me towards needing a perfectly flat screen that is bigger than most of the tv's i have ever owned. since i stare at a monitor full-time now, i have come to appreciate how important it is to spend the extra money on a nice setup.



i have received some feedback concerning my suv rant of last week. let me clear the air: i am not making an environmental statement about suv's. i do not believe that substantial evidence exists to prove that our current global warming was caused by the hand of man. i will go on to say that i believe the environmental movement in this country is the new home of socialism/marxism in our society and exists to consolidate the means of production and eventually federalize the economy.



my problems with the suv centers around safety and socialization. the safety aspect, to me, centers around a driver's inability to control something so large in an emergency situation or in adverse weather conditions. the socialization aspect bothers me for the same reason fraternities, sororities and country clubs bother me: they only exist to exclude. but i suppose everyone needs to believe in something. i believe i'll have another beer.

the u.s. soccer team beat mexico today, meaning that the men's team has gotten further than any team since 1930. if they win the whole thing, where will we hold the riot? can we burn down the french embassy?

well, well, well...pop goes the weasel. john dean is releasing his e-book on salon.com today in which he will say who he believes deep throat was (is, because the person is still alive). i am not linking there because i don't want anyone contributing to this rat's bank account, but i will make the prediction as to who i believe deep throat is: pat buchanan, john dean himself or...(drum roll, please)...a composite human being that woodward and bernstein made up. stay tuned.

i thought i was a history geek. check this guy out. thanks, dlp. speaking of history, today marks the thirtieth anniversary of the the arrest of the five men who broke into the watergate hotel. g. gordon liddy, the brain of the thing, was indicted later. he went on to greater infamy when he refused to testify or turn state's evidence. because he wouldn't rat, he had the book thrown at him, but was immensely popular in prison when tales of his silence were learned.

high school graduates today know very little about the 80's. ok...i didn't know what a fondue pot was when i graduated from high school (in '89). who gives a flying f*ck? is this news?

so our friends mike and tammy came into town and we went to caesars indiana to throw some money away. after losing about $40 to the one-armed bandits, mike grabbed me and talked me into playing blackjack at $5 a hand. i sat down with $20 and walked away with over $200. of much help to us was a gentlemen who sat down next to me and started dispensing advice. after watching him win, i started following his advice to the letter. come to find out, he was a professional gambler. it was great fun, and it also made me realize why so many people suck so hard at cards. i still suck; i can just do it with more style now.

way behind on the posting. stayed up 24 hours friday night on blackjack streak, where my friend mike and i won big. more details later. for the record, i am not a hotshot.

dlp linked on the left...you know you have to go.

martha might be going to the big house. it's a prison thing. could we send jamie oliver, too? to think, he came from same society that brought us winston churchill.

the roman empire circa 180a.d. the united states circa 2000a.d. let's compare (just some observations of mine):


in 180a.d., rome controlled an area containing all of europe from the modern scottish border to greece and north the the rhine and all of north africa and most of the middle east. this was all of the known world at that time. the united states has cultural, economic, military and social influence over the entire planet.



the roman army was the best in the world and hadn't been beaten on the field of battle, with one notable exception, for over a century. the united states is the world's only remaining superpower. there is no military force on the planet that can face us in battle. while we have withdrawn from conflicts, the united states has never lost a war.



the romans were attacked from more than one direction by people who they viewed as savages. the united states is dealing with terrorism brought to us by people who some people (myself included) view as savages.



rome was eventually subdued by her enemies and from internal corruption. i guess we'll just have to wait and see.

today in 1943, the u.s. supreme court ruled that schoolchildren could not be made to salute the flag if doing so conflicted with their religious beliefs. pretty amazing considering that this was in the middle of the second world war.


i was talking to my dad the other day about his memories of that war. he was very young (8 when pearl harbor was attacked and 12 when the war ended) and so his only exposure was the propaganda (his words) being handed out on the home front. he said that, during the war, he never saw a photograph of a dead american. the lie was so total that he had the perception that none of our soldiers were dying anywhere. when he finally saw photos of the carnage at places like omaha beach and okinawa after the war, he was shocked. it was much later that he realized that the gold stars hanging in people's windows represented a dead family member. he remembers dozens and dozens of them in the west end of louisville alone.

this picture was on the front of the louisville courier-journal this morning. someone please come rescue us from ourselves.

some history stuff. on this day in 1940, the french declared paris an 'open' city and evacuated it in the face of the advancing germans. france evacuating? shocking. in 1943, german spies were dropped off from a submarine near new york city. they were later captured and all of them were shot. several of them were born in the u.s. think about that the next time someone cries for american members of al-queda.



i want to talk about something political, so tune me out if you're not the political type. i am beginning to notice that many of my fellow americans do not/can not differentiate between democracy and capitalism. let's clarify a few things: we do not live in a democracy. we live in a representative republic. in a true democracy, everyone would vote on every issue that dealt with the common good. we elect representatives who vote in our stead. capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is determined by profit, etc. you can have capitalism without democracy (like China) and have democracy without true capitalism (like Finland).



as i get older, my love for democracy grows. the idea of free determination is the central reason for our country's success. however, i am beginning to question my love of capitalism. before i go any further, let me be clear: i am no fan of a centrally-controlled economy. overall, capitalism has helped us sustain our republic when times were tough. but there seems to be a huge belief that what is good for business is good overall. this is simply not the case in all circumstances. enron is a great example of a group of people taking decisions that, for a while at least, were sound from a business perspective. in fact, it was all a large ponzi scheme. let me ask: if enron's shares were selling for $300 a share right now, wouldn't we all be toasting their success? after all, if they are making huge profits, isn't all ok? even the employees of enron are guilty of over-investing in their own company. none of them were complaining about morality when the stock price was right.



so what becomes of all this? i don't even begin to know. i think that, maybe, the answer lies in the fact that we have so little sense of community in our rush, rush, cell-phone drive lives. very few middle-to-large corporations have any connection to the communities that supply their labor force. pr firms would argue otherwise, but consider this: if ups could move to memphis from louisville and save a billion dollars a year, do you think they would do it? no one calling the shots at ups has any personal ties to louisville. part of that is a result of size and is unavoidable. however, consider gm and ford. both of them have been pillars of the detroit community for almost a century. after all, it's the motor city.



there was a day when there was one hardware store in jeffersonville, heuser hardware. heuser's was an integral part of the city in that they weren't going anywhere because that was everyone's hometown. things will never be that way again, and, as i have said before, we are poorer for it.



wow...i can drag on with the best of 'em.

seen today: jeep grand cherokee with a peace symbol on the rear window. fight the system.

i haven't forgotten about putting a little history up in here. the truth is, there hasn't been anything that i find interesting in the past few days. but here's a thought: how would our world look to someone from 1945? 57 years ago, easily within living memory of many people. we see these old science fiction b-movies from that era and they seem funny, but consider all the things we do now daily that weren't possible then. i carry a phone that is completely portable, fairly inexpensive, and i can use it call almost anywhere on the planet. space flight has become so common that it doesn't even warrant news coverage. when was the last time anyone watched a shuttle launch? our lives are so wrapped up in satellite communications that a solar flare can seriously incovnienence us. we have the technology to make flying cars; they are just not economically viable. The only reason we don't have automated cars is that they would be expensive and no one wants one. we have become flash gordon.

i heard an interesting theory today: that the increase in child molestation can be directly connected to an increase in the availability of pornography. let me say that i believe this to be absurd. it is my contention that our society now pays attention to things such as neglect, abuse and molestation and so more of it is reported. before, people just lived with themselves and suffered.



but i have been thinking about porn. when i was a pubescent lad of 13, a dog-eared playboy or (gasp!) penthouse was worth its weight in gold. i once found two hustlers, a penthouse and some playboys in a long-forgotten stash in a neighbor's basement. looking back, it was pretty harmless stuff, just women in various poses. i was seventeen before i saw a hardcore movie, but the real mysteries of womanhood and sex remained a mystery to me until i experienced them first-hand.



what if there had been an internet then? would i have even left my room? what would i have seen by the time i actually touched a woman? it makes me think that maybe adolescents, especially males, are becoming more and more desensitized to sex because we are inundated by it. oral sex, a huge deal when i was in high school, is now just part of making out to many girls. what will happen to the joy of discovery of pleasure with someone they really love? if a blowjob at 14 is expected, is anything off-limit at 18? i'm not trying to preach, but i worry about a societal loss of innocence. oh well

i was reading about an Australian government project that has developed a cornstarch-based plastic that is biodegradable and edible. soon, you will be able to eat the egg carton or use it as a thickener for gravy. i remember the old man in 'the graduate' cornering dustin hoffman to tell him about plastics, plastics, plastics. funny how they went from being a boon to a bane to a food product in one lifetime.



i have received some e-mail concerning the demise of 'dattilo's this day in history'. there will be no more e-mails on the subject as i began to see it as rather intrusive. with the dattblog, you have the option of ignoring me without having to worry about me turning up in your inbox the next morning. however, understand that to know me is to love me, so spread the love to the world and let's all teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. i'd like to buy the world a coke and keep it company (that'd be so nice).



speaking of coca-cola: i read an interesting little tidbit about how some in the business world think that the 'new coke' disaster (1985-86) was a carefully-planned sales tool to re-ignite then-faltering sales numbers for 'old coke'. it's as if corporate america couldn't possibly f*ck up that bad. who are we kidding? if you doubt me, pick up gil amelio's book 'on the line: my five hundred days at apple'. of course, amelio spends alot of time justifying his actions, but it's a good study of a great product being flushed down the corporate toilet by infighting, politics and a climate of mistrust.

it's amazing what other people remember about you. ss e-mailed me some stuff about high school and mentioned a detail that had completely escaped me. what else don't i remember?

some june 8/9/10 history to feed the need: in 1948, chuck yeager became the first human to break the sound barrier. he was later denied the chance to become an astronaut because he did not have a college degree. i guess having rocks the size of refrigerators wasn't good enough. in 1959, the uss george washington, the first ballistic missle submarine, was launched. this was pretty impressive considering that the first nuclear-powered submarine (the nautilus) sailed only five years before. in 1980, richard pryor was severly injured while free-basing a 'substance'. just snort the sh*t, brother. damn, that's all you have to say.

had a strange dream that i was in high school with complete foreknowlege of what was going to happen in the future. i broke it off with my then-girlfriend, telling her that i knew who she was going to marry and it wasn't going to be me and that i wanted to spare us the ugliness that was to come. i also made it a point to talk more to my future wife, who i did not start dating in real life until after high school. it was one of those weird dreams in which i felt in complete control, but didn't realize i was dreaming. i remember very few of my dreams, so remembering one this vivid is almost like a gift.

'the importance of being earnest' was very, very good. rupert everett is one of my favorite actors and reese witherspoon....um, reese....sorry, got lost there for a second. anyway, go check it out. the film reminds me that we have lost all the subtlety in our humor.



being on bardstown road made me realize, once again, how nice it would be to live somewhere where everything was in easy walking distance. Iiwould gladly turn our car and truck into giant bonfires for the chance to have a good resturant, grocer and theater within five blocks of the house. ideally, our pad would be above the small used bookstore we owned where people came to find that something that they knew as a child but had misplaced during that move to college. i would spend my idle time writing, but never quite finishing, the great american novel. our summer nights would be spent up on the roof looking at the stars. our winter nights would be spent at the diner down the street arguing politics with our socialist neighbors. oh, well.



bs is on vacation this week so someone else is hosting the radio show tommorrow. it will be interesting to see how a.m. handles himself without bs there to put the reins on. my e-mails have been especially pointed towards him lately, so i hope he gets the picture that he is on his way out as a factor. we shall see. if this sounds vindictive and small, you're right.

on this day in 1967, the israeli navy and air force attacked the u.s. navy ship 'liberty' in international waters. the israelis later claimed they mistaked the ship for an egyptian tanker and attacked it because they were in the middle of a war with egypt and syria at the time. the captain of the liberty undoubtedly saved the ship by dodging four torpedos and resisting as best the lightly-armed ship could. he was later awarded the medal of honor in secret by president johnson. there was so much unexplained crap going down that day we'll never know the real deal.

abc bleeped the word 'jesus' out of a replay of the view. will they now bleep it out anytime an over-paid genetic freak thanks the looowwrd after a game? actually, the ladies on the view should thank jesus every day that there are enough bored soccer moms out there to watch that banality.


kelli and are going to see 'the importance of being earnest' this afternoon. i played earnest once, so i'll be interested to see how much it's been tinkered with.

just for the record, i am not convinced to a certainty that human pollution is the cause of our current global warming. but i do think the whole suv thing is becoming a blight on society (see my earlier post).

ss, still on patrol in belgium, sends me an interesting link. you have to give these guys credit for coming up with a good set of 'rules of engagement'. it still might get you shot, though. i can hear my texas friends loading up right now. gh: i know you need your truck for work. put the gun down.

interesting thomas sowell column here. if you know sowell, then you know the drill, so don't say you weren't warned. if you don't know sowell, go check out one of the greatest american minds alive today



jim rome just did an interview with lennox lewis' trainer. how long is it going to take before someone actually says that mike tyson is dangerous to himself and his surroundings and needs to go away? i do not believe he has the ability to contribute to society in any meaningful way. he has become a circus act.



i heard a funny story this morning about someone i know buying a new ford truck while he still had a lease out on his current ride. why do so many people define themselves by what they drive? i know many guys who are hobbiests; in other words, they buy a car/truck and tweak it for all it's worth. it's a passion of sorts and i can understand it. but the world is full of 95-pound soccer moms (and dads) driving 3-ton vehicles under the guise of "room and safety". if you need maximum room, buy a minivan. if you need safety, buy a volvo wagon. the truth is, it's all about keeping up with your "me too, i love my kids more than you love yours, let me get involved in soccer/softball/field hockey with my kid in a feeble attempt to re-live my own life, i CARE about my KIDS,oh look at us, we're special and politically-correct" neighbors. why can't all these people admit that they are clones? it infuriates me that good parentage is now connected with a certain ride. grrrrrrrrrr....when are we going to grow up?



in the history dept.: the "$64,000 question" quiz show premiered in 1955. it was the biggest thing since sliced bread and made more celebrities than 'survivor' ever dreamed of. however, it seems that the whole thing was fixed. in 1958, several contestants admitted that they had received answers before the show. it spelled the end of the show and the end of the golden age of tv games shows. anything for the ratings, man.

dee dee ramone is dead. for those of you who are music buffs, what i am about to say may sound silly. i always thought the ramones were somehow related. i never knew, until my darling wife told me, that they changed their names to 'ramone'. unless, of course, she's pulling my leg.



we saw the preview for the movie 'windtalkers', the film with nicholas cage about navajo codetalkers in the marines during world war 2. i think it's a jerry bruckheimer joint, which automatically makes me suspicious of its intentions and accuracy. since hollywood is now our only reliable source of history, i expect some research to be put into these films. otherwise, spielberg and hanks will have to give their screaming eagles badges back.

kelli and i went to see 'the sum of all fears' tonight. pretty scary in light of recent events. i had to suspend disbelief for a few scenes, one of which had a nimitz-class carrier battle group being attacked and decimated by a flight of russian backfire bombers. it would never happen. i'm probably just biased, but they would've picked those bad boys off while they were still 100 miles away. but i digress.

the abc network, in it's continuing effort to stay afloat, is bringing two true-life mini-series to the fore this summer. one is about the hamptons and the other follows some people around boston to see how they live. i have another idea: a mini-series called "sleep". it would follow various people who work third shift in l-ville. waffle house, kinkos, dennys, strip clubs; i mean, does anyone care about the hamptons? most americans live in fly-over country and have no way to relate to old money eastern establishment types. for once, let's see real people puttin' the hammer down. there's my egalitarian rant for the day.

58 years ago today the invasion of france was begun by american, british and canadian forces. instead of landing at the pas-de-calais, the shortest distance across the english channel and thus the most heavily defended point along the french coast, the allies opted for normandy. the landing area was divided into five areas; 'omaha' and 'utah' beaches were assigned to the americans.



the night before the invasion, three divisions of airborne troops (two american and one british) were airdropped into the area behind the beaches to seize key bridges and take out various artillery positions. due to stiff anti-aircraft resistance, many of the paratroopers were dropped miles from their designated drop zones and some were lost for days. given their near-impossible mission, they performed brilliantly.



although history makes it seems as if success on this day was assured, this is not the case. this was not the first time americans had faced the germans in battle; campaigns in north africa, sicily and an ongoing fight in italy had shown the germans to be highly skilled, well-trained and well-armed. supreme allied commander dwight d. eisenhower carried two speeches with him that day: the one that became famous and a second one announcing an allied failure.



it is important to remember that many of the men who fought in normandy on d-day had never seen combat. despite this, the day was filled with acts of bravery and self-sacrifice. although the war was into its fifth year by june of 1944 (america had been in the war for 2.5 years at this point) and the germans were on the run against the allies in italy (rome was liberated on june 6) and poland, they still had a lot of fight left in them. many of the american infantry who survived the landing found themselves pinned down on the beach for most of the morning. one of the famous quotes from that day came from the commander of the 17th infantry, colonel george taylor: "two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are about to die!! now lets get the hell out of here." and move they did: by noon, both the american beaches were secure.



most of you reading this will live to see the day when there are no living veterans of world war two. it will then fade in our collective memory, much as the civil war or world war one has. and we will have lost something that the world will never know again.

i just realized that i didn't do any history stuff today. sorry about that. tommorrow is june 6...a big day history-wise. stand by.

to quote chris rock, i got it!, it got it!. my mail link now replaces my trite little blog description. you now have no excuse for your pitiful silence.

maybe now?

well, maybe not. you would think that, after all this time, i would be able to effectively code html. guess not. i'll mess with it later when i do my post.

ok...maybe now.

if i'm right, there should now be an e-mail link in the left-hand column. send me some love.

i think i figured out that you have to post something in order for the template changes to take effect. i'm off to experiment. geekiness rising.

i'm having trouble getting the blogger template to recognize my html changes. if anyone can help, please drop me a line. the template may not be 'editable'; if that's the case, why do they show you the source code in the settings? my amateur slip is showing



my first night back at work was pretty smooth. however, i believe that third shift is slowly killing me. i can't remember the last time i had more than seven hours of uninterrupted sleep. for some of you, that's more than you ever get. for me, it's a minimum. i function much more smoothly on 8-9. i guess it's just part of being an adult and doing a big boy job.

i accidently deleted a whole page of stuff. let me start again.


back in l-ville. the flight was uneventful except for a bit of weather about 30 minutes out from sdf. i saw a flash of fear on a young flight attendants face, a first for me.



dallas, oh, dallas; my home away from home. the group was, as has become the norm, fragmented, making it a little more difficult to have a good time without being constantly aware that things are not as they used to be. the reality is that i expect too much when i imagine that it will be 1995 there forever. sometimes, i just need it to be easier than it is now.



we went out on sc's boat sunday, which is always nice. we had a pesky little problem with an anchor line and a large cruiser, but i won't bore you with the details. we all lived to tell the tale, so it really wasn't that exciting. last night we visited two gentlemen's clubs in the dallas area. one of them, called the men's club, is very high dollar (as such things go) and has a very nice menu. after a steak and some butterfly shrimp (eaten at the bar while sitting in a large plush chair on rollers), i was looking that the main stage when i noticed a large screen showing espn sportcenter directly behind the young lass dancing. this way, we could all look in one direction, view emotionally-damaged nudity, and find out which baseball player admitted to using steriods today. do we need that much constant stimulation?



for those of you who care about such things, the battle of midway started today in 1942. midway is a little non-destination in the pacific at the end of the hawaiian islands chain. due to some magnificent code-breaking work by some sailors, the u.s. knew that the japanese planned to invade the island. the navy stopped them, but not before both sides suffered significant losses. the important thing to know it that this action stopped the imperial japanese advance in the pacific. for those of you who in the cfr/buildeberger/kissinger-is-a-one-world-gov't-man set, know that the freemasons were started in 1711 in london this day. mark of the beast alert: you can now use your dallas tollway tag to buy dinner at participating mcdonalds in the city. watch this space.

sorry i've been out of the loop. i didn't have as much time here in dallas as i thought i would to post. i had two computer problems to work on here (wireless network and a very pesky aol dsl setup) so that took up all my unplanned time. i'll try to post more this afternoon. there is much to talk about.