I missed the Menudo tryouts.

Or so says “retired diplomat” Dan Simpson, the crackpot Toledo Blade editorial board member.

I’ve read his crapola for too many years now; it’s tinged with a…tad bit of Bush Derangement Syndrome. (And when I see his picture with that odd smile and oddly flipped-over hair, he looks like he’s out of the nursing home on a day pass. I can almost hear one of the nurses shouting in his ear: “MR. SIMPSON, WE’RE GOING TO PUT YOUR NEW SUIT ON YOU AND YOU’RE GOING OUT FOR A DRIVE TO LOOK AT THE PRETTY CHRISTMAS LIGHTS! WON’T THAT BE NICE!” And then he drools all over his tie and they sponge it off.

That’s a cheap shot, but his article is just so off the wall that it has to be fake. This has to be something he put together as pure satire to piss off the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Who exactly could take this seriously:

First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

Okay…. Godwin’s Law says that the first person to bring up a Nazi allusion in a discussion automatically loses, but…wasn’t this policy employed somewhere in the world within the last seventy years or so?

Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest.

Uh huh. Stand in that line over there and make sure your papers are in order and….

Seriously, is this guy serious?

All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard.

In Simpsonworld, these guards will be the people to know. I hope the power doesn’t go to their head, what with being the only armed citizens in a disarmed country. Naaah–never happen.

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work.

If my eyes ever pop back into my head, I’ll be able to find my jaw somewhere on the floor…. Did he really say “special squads of police”?

Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

God bless America, land that I love….

It is easy to imagine mega-gun dealerships installing themselves in Mexico, and perhaps in more remote parts of the Canadian border area, to funnel guns into the United States.

Ya think so?

There could conceivably also be a rash of score-settling during hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot squirrels and deer, and began eliminating various of their perceived two-footed enemies.

Almost hard to believe this could happen–people with guns in a gunless society would take advantage of the situation?

I almost didn’t blog about this–it can’t be real. It just can’t be. I’m falling for it, and I’m going to look really stupid.

And before anyone starts to hyperventilate and think I’m a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take his gun from his cold, dead hands….

Wow–he ain’t kidding, is he.

Stories like this:

GOATICIDE IN CRESTLINE

The 4-H goat was found dead. The family is considering it a suspicious death and an autopsy is being performed.

John Heath from Sunbury, acting as representative for the Kopina family, addressed Crestline City Council for permission to allow Julie Kopina another goat so that she may finish her project. Heath asked this after pointing out to Council that the Kopinas followed Council’s request that neighbors be consulted and sign a petition giving permission for the goat to be kept at the home. A copy of this petition was given to Council.

Debbie McKay was also present at Monday night’s meeting but made no comment the request for a replacement goat. McKay was one of two women who filed a complaint last month. Council decided to send the issue to the Legislation Committee since there is no precedent for this case.

Larry Hagman’s Wikipedia entry was revised last week; someone removed “spoiler text” that revealed Kristin Shepard as J.R.’s would-be assassin on “Dallas.”

“Spoiler text”? Twenty-seven years after the episode first aired, this is considered a spoiler?

Argh.

“It’s his sled. It was his sled from when he was a kid. There–I just saved you two long, boobless hours.”–Peter Griffin’s commentary on Citizen Kane, “Family Guy.”

Note to my coworkers: enough with the “let me borrow your pen.” These aren’t the crappy disposables you buy over at the supply store. They are mine. Seriously.

I bring them from home and they’re mine. I use them at work, but work didn’t pay for them: I did. 0.7 mm Uni-Ball Signo 207s. Mine. Best non-fountain pens I’ve ever used. Mine.

And stop chewing on them. I can’t use them after you’ve snacked on them–you might as well keep them if you’re going to do that.

This is not selfishness. In fact, it’s entirely biblical:

• John the Baptist: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Not a word about pens.

• Paul: “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion.” Clearly the words of someone who was too frequently guilted into sharing his pens.

• John the Apostle: “I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink.” Probably because someone had been chewing on his pen.

My pens. Mine.

I thought about live-blogging the TV Land Awards last night, but was completely thrown off track at the beginning: they announced that Mackenzie Phillips from “One Day at a Time” would be one of the presenters. Didn’t she die like twenty years ago?

Evidently not–there she was. And “clean and sober since January 27, 1992,” according to IMDB. Bully for her.

Maybe she could give Boris Yeltsin a call–maybe try to help him get clean and sober, too.

Whoops.

As a writer-type person in a political job, I have low tolerance for schmaltz, crap, and blarg in fundraising letters:

Does this crap work on anyone? I’ve got to stop by the RNC sometime and find someone who can answer that question.

I’m afraid the answer will be yes, since this kind of letter goes out…. They study this stuff to the nth degree and wouldn’t waste time on mailings that don’t generate responses. Argh.

I got a letter once from Senator Mitch McConnell–it had a dollar in it. “Mr. XXXXXX, when I told my colleagues that I was sending you this dollar, they told me I was crazy. But I’m confident that you’ll return this dollar to me with a contribution of your own to the National Republican Senatorial Committee to help us win in November….”

Mitch’s confidence proved unfounded. (But the Dr Pepper I bought with his dollar was thirst-quenching.)

My landlord called yesterday to ask if I could re-mow the yard today, even though I did it on Tuesday–he wants to put down fertilizer tomorrow. And he asked me to rake the yard afterward.

1. We don’t have a yard–we have a waste of time. Fifteen feet by ten feet; that might not even qualify for the “postage stamp” designation. Best to stop fooling around, turn it into a big flower bed, and visit the middle school campus next door if we want to know what grass looks like.

2. I don’t get raking. Dead grass clippings on top of live grass–big deal. Does it pose a threat? Do dead leaves pose a threat? ‘Cause some of them are still around from last year; I think they’ve mulched quite nicely. Ain’t it all nature? Besides–if I rake our “yard,” all the crap in the neighbors’ yards will just blow over and nullify my work.

3. All that being said, I miss having a yard. And a house not connected to other houses. And non-insane traffic. And living in a state instead of a commonwealth.

4. I don’t get commonwealths, either.

“Congratulations! The Virginia taxing authority has accepted your state tax return.”

Uhh…great.

Thanks.

“Congratulations!”?

Really? Congratulations are in order for successfully filling out a tax return? Should I have prepared some sort of speech to mark the momentous occasion? “I’d like to thank the fine folks at H&R Block for their hard work, also Governor Tim Kaine and his cabinet–especially Finance Secretary Jody Wagner. Jody, whenever I thought it couldn’t be done, there you were right by my side to encourage me and help me get through it. Couldn’t have done it without you. And what can I say about my good friend the Commissioner of the Department of Taxation, Janie Bowen…. You said it best, Janie: ‘Filing tax returns electronically makes good sense for Virginians and saves the Commonwealth money.’ Now who could disagree with that? Janie, you’re a class act from the word ‘go.’ Thanks for what you’re doing there in Richmond.”

(Cue cutoff music.)

…dead at the age of 217. RIP.

My dad died two years ago today…more or less. I won’t go through the same blarg I talked through on Saturday. Two years and two days, or two years by the calendar, or something–the more I think about this, the less I think we should commemorate/celebrate/remember specific dates and lean more toward marking the 52-week anniversaries of things. Which would throw the calendars off altogether.

I mentioned earlier that I didn’t have a copy of the feature that the local newspaper did for my dad. Grabbed a copy today online–they interviewed his teaching colleagues from school, also a former student and some others. My dad once commented that I had his dream job; I know he mentioned that to others as well. But the stuff I do at work really can’t compare to the influence of a good teacher like he was. The tributes we received from his former students in the weeks following his death bear that out. One teacher is all it takes to make all the difference in one life. Or in many.

There’s a scene from a movie that gets appropriated at times like this: Sir Thomas More’s advice to Richard Rich in “A Man for All Seasons.” Sir Thomas is goading Rich into becoming a teacher, saying that he’d be a fine one, “perhaps a great one.” Rich asks: “If I was, who would know it?”

“You, your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public, that.”

Not a bad public indeed.

My dad died two years ago Monday–on a Saturday.

He died on April 16, which was Saturday in 2005 and Sunday in 2006. Today is the Saturday closest to April 16, so is today the day I should be marking? He died on the third Saturday of April, which is next week.

But it was also the third Saturday after Easter, which might have more relevance: I’d been home for Easter, which was the last I saw him conscious…. He had the heart attack the Sunday after, had surgery the following Wednesday, and died the second Saturday after that.

The third Saturday after Easter this year is April 28.

///

Why am I talking about this so pedantically?

I think it’s because I’ve never really talked about it. Written about it, I mean. I almost literally jumped out of bed this morning to write something about it, having mentally composed the first part of this entry. In the time it took me to fire up this computer and sit down to write, I lost the desire/spirit/will to write it. I have no experience writing anything about it. Other than the obituary.

I don’t have a copy of the obituary. I don’t have a copy of the newspaper feature that ran along with the obituary, where they interviewed several of his former colleagues and students. Maybe I have those somewhere in the files and just forgot. But I’m so spoiled by Factiva.com that I haven’t felt pressured to make sure I have copies and have them at hand.

That’s not who I want to be: a guy who wrote but doesn’t have handy a copy of his father’s obituary.

That sounds odd. But it’s not who I want to be. I’m not the guy who isn’t close to his family. I’m the guy who enjoys double negatives, but I’m not the guy who isn’t close to his family. I call my mom every week; I get back to Ohio maybe five or six times a year. My sister and I are close. (Closer now that we’re hundreds of miles apart than when we lived in the same house.) I’ve never been able to fully relate to people who aren’t close to their families.

///

Not sure why I’m focusing on an obituary so much. Maybe because he died on Saturday afternoon and I started writing it on Saturday night…104 weeks ago to the hour.

Maybe because I haven’t taken a step back to reflect on how odd an experience it was to write it. Sitting around in the family room, me with a yellow legal pad and a red pen writing down what my mom and sister were saying. Just as if I were sitting down with the Congressman, taking notes for a form letter to send out to constituents. I’ve done that numerous times; this was too similar. Then I trundled off to the computer and typed. I printed out drafts and brought them back to the family room for review–same thing I’ve done at the office. The only thing making it different than a constituent letter was the lack of a little sign-off box for everyone to initial.

Then I e-mailed the obituary to the funeral home.

That’s odder yet. Shouldn’t these things be printed out on fancy paper–even parchment–and hand-delivered somewhere? By courier, even? Shouldn’t there be a service you can call, and someone comes to your house in a black suit and white gloves and you hand him a cream-colored envelope for delivery to the funeral home? Nope–just zap it right over, and then the funeral home zaps it to all the area newspapers. And here’s a picture to scan and zap along with it.

That’s how I did it. And I didn’t print out a fancy copy even for myself.

I still have it on the computer at home, of course, and can print reams of fancy copies next time I’m in Ohio. So this is not a big deal. Why am I spending so much time on it? How did I get from wanting to talk about my dad to obsessing about the obituary? Where exactly is this post headed content-wise?

It’s probably coming ’round to Romans 7:15, same as quite a bit else in my life: the stuff I’m doing isn’t the stuff I want to be doing: it’s the stuff I hate. The not-writing-about-my-dad stuff is the stuff I hate, or at least know I should hate. The not-staying-in-touch-with-friends-like-I-should stuff is the stuff I hate. I was inspired this week by a post on the magnificent Lone Prairie blog about that very topic–specifically the need to communicate with those we care about.

I pledge to work on that. For immediate purposes, though, a tangential pledge: I will start writing more about my dad–funny things, serious things, memories in general. And I’ll put them up here and reflect on them often.

And–first thing I do next time I’m in Ohio: print out a fancy copy of that obituary.

I always choose the overpriced Ultimate Car Wash option at the gas station because it feels good to type in the code at the car wash entrance and see “YOU HAVE THE BEST WASH MONEY CAN BUY” on the little screen.

The BEST WASH MONEY CAN BUY. Can’t beat that.

I bought one of those CardScan® dealies and am very happy about it. Knock on wood, it seems to synchronize very well (i.e. automatically) with my Treo®.

It tells me I have 714 people filed away on said Treo®. And I have another few hundred business cards in a desk drawer at work just waiting to be brought home and fed into the scanner. Rough estimate: 600 of those people I’ll never need to correspond with again. Probably a lot of them aren’t with the same company or organization as when I met them over the last eight-odd years.

But I can’t delete them. I can’t throw out a business card–just in case I ever need it. Just in case I ever need to talk to someone at the Central Ohio Bicycle Advocacy Coalition or the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council or the United States Rice Federation. One never can tell. I could walk into the office tomorrow and bam: rice-related crisis. And not the Condoleezza kind. The place could be in a panic: who can we call? Where do we go for information on how to resolve this rice crisis? (Crice-is? No–bad pun. But I’ll register it anyway: Crice-is®.)

And I’ll be the hero. I’ll unholster my Treo® and tell everyone to relax while I dial the United States Rice Federation. All because I can: all because I have that information ready to go. All because I can’t bring myself to delete anything. Anything.

This has got to be unhealthy on some level.

1. Easter back home in Ohio: highly recommended. Also too brief. Also a bit misunderstood: at a familial gathering, I made reference to “being in the minority”–by which I meant working for a Republican under the Democrat majority in Congress. It was interpreted as being a white feller in the District of Columbia. Not what I meant.

2. The national anthem of North Korea, I must say, is a stately little tune.

3. My office compatriots and I are due at the White House tomorrow for a West Wing tour. I’m wavering on my desire for one; will have to be at work tomorrow earlier than I got out of bed this morning. Sleep is my friend. And it always takes me a few days to get back into the congressional grind after even just 46 hours in the sanity and serenity that is Ohio. Sleep–and the resulting lateness for work–is my preferred form of protest at having to leave home after so short a time.

4. Why, oh why, oh why-o…why did I ever leave Ohio?

5. I have yet to do my taxes. Not a smart or responsible thing, since the Man owes me money. I blame this on the congressional grind as well: if it’s not due in the next four hours, keep it off my plate.

6. There is no sixth item on this Random Nonsense list.

7. Why did I wander to find what lies yonder, when lif e was so cozy at home?

8. The national anthem of the Netherlands is also impressive.

9. I end up reading Exodus about once a year, for whatever reason, but can’t get my head wrapped around the Tabernacle construction just from the reading. I have to look at a picture while I’m reading. The Tabernacle construction bit is one of the most confusing parts of the Old Testament to me.

10. That, and “Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord–therefore it is said: ‘Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.’” I take it that “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord” was a popular expression back in the day, and one day someone asked, “Hey–where did that expression come from, anyway?” and someone else answered, “Well, there was this guy named Nimrod, and he was a mighty hunter before the Lord. And that’s where that comes from.”

11. Wond’rin’ why I wander–why did I fly, why did I roam?

12. That Nimrod bit was funnier in my head.

13. It was funny back in college.

14. It was funny in the same way that Tony Trabert was funny one day in his U.S. Open coverage, when he helpfully explained that “if your opponent is serving and you break his serve, you’re said to have broken his serve.”

15. “Bruce Sutter has been around for a while, and he’s pretty old. He’s 35 years old. That will give you some idea of how old he is.”–Ron Fairly.

16. Oh why, oh why-o did I leave Ohio? Maybe I’d better go home.

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

–Isaac Watts, 1707

Top Gonzales Aide Monica Goodling Resigns

The drip…drip…drip of this is frustrating. The attorney firings were completely legal; the crux of this whole nonsense is that a Justice Department official gave a blatantly honest answer to a question (”Yes–the firings were political”). I’d love for someone from Justice to come to Congress and be that forthright.

In the meantime, if the Attorney General is going to resign/be forced out, then let it happen now. Two top Justice aides have now departed–how many more flareups like this will we see? How many could be prevented by the top dog’s departure? Not that he should necessarily go, but how effective will he be for the next twenty-odd months?

I have a meeting with the Ohio Sheep Improvement Association in a few weeks.

Can one, indeed, improve upon sheep? If one could, would it be desirable?

1. What’s with all the bitching about the new passport requirement for Canada, Mexico, et al? You’re traveling to a foreign land–why exactly would you not need a passport? Who cares what the rules were in the past?

2. The next episode up on my “Dallas” Season Six DVD set is the one where Rebecca Wentworth dies in a plane crash. I think I cried when that first aired–1983. I was ten. I was an odd child–still am.

2.5. “Wentworth Tool and Die” is still one of the best fictional company names ever.

William Henry Harrison died on April 4. And Martin Luther King, Junior, too–not trying to slight anyone. But it’s too easy to recall Harrison’s end days: sworn in on March 4, died a month later when Henry Clay chopped off his head with Tecumseh’s battle axe. Or something like that.

April 4 and still no daily journal prompt-type thing. And it turns out I wasn’t doing March 29’s prompt yesterday: it was March 28’s. I’m just pedantic enough for that to be a big deal. So back to March 29’s: “You remind me of.”

There is no “you” here to remind me of anyone/anything right now. 7:20 PM and still at work, mostly to avoid the pink tree gawker traffic that irritated me yesterday.

They’re just pink trees, for pete’s sake. Not that I’m jaded again today.

Also I’m still at work because the stuff I’m doing now I can do either place: the blogification and the journalizing and the whatnot. That’s not entirely good. Being at the computer all day at work and then a few more hours at home has indeed helped both my work writing and my personal writing, but I haven’t yet developed a reliable system for not wasting so much time online. You know, something like reminding myself that I’m an adult by saying, “Hey, Dumbass–cut back on the looking up of random William Henry Harrison facts and finish that letter on the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program.”

Eh. Maybe I’m grousing for nothing. I got the letter done and sent off to every fire chief in our congressional district. And I found out that, back in the day, only tall Ohioans like William Henry Harrison were called “Buckeyes.” Now the term refers to any ol’ clown from Ohio–including me.

I remind me of a guy who piled up a big stack o’ crapola on his desk on Friday, declaring that this week’s congressional recess would afford him time to clean it up. Hain’t happened yet. But I did get those fire chief letters out! I’ll hang my hat on that today and call ‘er a win.

I’m not blogificationizing like I should. I’m not blogificationizing like someone who has a lot of pent-up writingification to do. Which is what I say I have pent up. Inside.

2007 has seen the return of my Sequence-style LifePlanning™, which mostly means I create a list of things to do within a certain period of time and then neglect to do those things, pushing them off into the next sequence. We are now in Sequence VII. Not 7, but VII. Because not doing things is always more impressive when there’s a Roman numeral involved.

I signed up for a daily journal prompt via e-mail to encourage my blogging/journaling in general. Did that on Saturday or Sunday; haven’t seen a writing prompt since. So on April 1 I did the prompt for March 31, and yesterday I did the March 30 prompt whilst sitting in the courtyard of the Rayburn House Office Building during our fire drill. Thought about doing that again today; maybe tomorrow.

But for today, which is where we are right now, I still lack a today prompt. That means it’s time for March 29’s “Three months into 2007 and I have/haven’t.”

Have/haven’t? Is that like the “he/she” construction that respectable folk have stopped using? Have/haven’t?

I’m not as funny at 11:15 PM as I used to be. Lousy Daylight Saving Time.

Maybe I’m just jaded after eight years–and eight Cherry Blossom seasons–in Washington, and maybe I’m just mad about tonight’s extra-lengthy commute home…but I just can’t understand the throngs of people who come here to look at a buncha pink trees.

They’re just pink trees. Sure, they’re purty, but they’re just pink trees.

And you’re clogging my intersections when I’m trying to go home after a long day.