I read this * with mixed feelings.

First, I empathize with the folks who were stuck because some old fart fell asleep on the job. I mean, even though my age qualifies me for the position (fighting terror with a two-way radio while the cops threaten to tow double-parkers), I've been there: asleep on an airport floor waiting for shit to get right. It's less than ideal. So I'm there: I understand. I will not apply for the job.

But I've also done other things, and the most apt of those in this case may well be that I've bounced dice across the green felt in Las Vegas. Here's the letter I sent north-east a minute ago:

Secretary Janet Napolitano
Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528

Re: “Glass-eye” syndrome at Newark Airport

Madame Secretary:

I'm increasingly frustrated by people who don't know things that seem to me as obvious as my own nose, and I'm sure you are, too. But then, I'm wary of so-called common sense, as well, so maybe I'm getting ready to contradict myself...

If you haven't had a personal chance yet, send a staffer to watch the dealers at a craps table in 'Vegas: none of them stays in a single position more than 20 minutes. And none of them is actually at the table more than an hour.

See, the casino czars figured out decades ago that no matter how much money a dealer made, or how hard that dealer tried to stay focused, s/he'd go catatonic eventually, and miss something subtle. And the easiest way to avoid that was to rotate staff (my brother-in-law could name the positions at the table; he dealt the game to pay his way through college. I can't – but the point remains the same).

It's easy to see the (potential? No one is actually in line long enough to know) rotation at security scanners: ID checker, X-ray-watcher, wand-waver, bag opener-and-messer-upper.

But the poor hired hands that guard the periphery? It seems such a simple job: don't let anyone go the wrong way (Do they actually even get paid?), I can't imagine how mind-numbing that job would be, other than to compare it to watching dice bounce across a felt table.

And honestly? After about two minutes watching dice bounce I'd be looking forward to my next break. Unless I had chips on the pass line.

God bless you with strength, with wisdom, with patience and perserverance.

*Yeah, I know. It's a FOX link. But there's a sweet irony in that, given that FOX has spent so much of the last decade inflating the value of screw-the-little-guy. I say screw Murdoch.

Happy New Year to the Bill of Rights

Just click.

Throw in your two cents worth

That's what we're doing here in Texas in preparation for Veterans' Day: jfhc in a spray-painted bucket of donkey-shit. Or whatever obscene image comes to your mind.

The light with the dark

This pisses me off on a number of levels:



This I share for reasons that will become obvious:

">

I wish I had the resources to subscribe to everything I'd like to. If I had, I could read this Wall Street Journal article in its entirety. But while I may have enough bones stashed* to swap for the occasional bowl of beer at Lenny's, I don't have anywhere near enough to toss after every little whim that drifts through the fog between my ears.

Fortunately, I have friends like McBlogger who scurry like autumn squirrels and find other folk who CAN afford to subscribe to whatever they feel the urge to read.

The money quote from Alternet?

Between 1979 and 2006, the inflation-adjusted after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of households increased by 256 percent, compared to 21 percent for families in the middle income quintile.

The one from the WSJ (the little bit I could get to)?

Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data -- without counting billions of dollars more in pay that remains off federal radar screens that measure wages and salaries.

The money quote from McBlogger?

As a shareholder who's been bled dry by overpaid and incompetent management teams for years, this came as a huge shock.

If you read McB, you know whether he's being sarcastic or not. Or maybe you can intuit it.

Me? I think I'll curl up on Alpha's bed, bringing my muddy feet and leaving tracks, until the sun comes up and stirs the squirrels. Life is good, as long as you realize how many bones you need doesn't always mesh with how many bones you want.


*I was gonna post a pic of some deer bones spread on a blanket of leaves. But the pic doesn't belong to me: it belongs to Julie Zickefoose, and you can find it here. And that's about as many bones as I ever get piled up at once anymore. I ain't as young as I used to be.

I can tell which neighbor peed on my favorite tree

By now you've all long since read and digested the news from back in Yankee-land somewhere about the professor who found his front door jammed or something when he arrived home from a trip somewhere, called the cabbie up to help him force the door: a neighbor called the cops about someone trying to break into the house, the cops showed up, there was a confrontation, blah, blah, blah.

You know where you sit on it, and I know where I sit on it.

What the hell is going on with our society that we have a soul who doesn't recognize her/his neighbor? Have we brought the concept of a gated community right up to our very own eyes?!?

And what the hell is going on with our society that we have professors who don't say to themselves, "Damn. Front door's stuck. Lemme go try the back door..."

WTF?!?!

It's been a long time. I'm back in the norseland, and squirrel-chasing is running right up against being a 24-7 job. That's cool. I can hang. Vigilantly.

And I'm sorry that pic up there is so tiny. I found it here, and for some reason the site favors "ensmallen" the image over "enlifesize-en" or "embiggen." But that's the Gummint for ya. Again, I can hang.

But for the link-lazy, here it is in blog-type:

"Is it okay for my Company / Organization to link to the Write Your Representative Service? -- The Write Your Representative service is provided as a public resource for identifying and contacting a constituent's elected Representative. There is currently no restriction on a link being posted to the Write Your Representative Home Page at Write your retard to facilitate constituents in expressing their concerns and issues to their Representative in Congress."

Did you catch that last sentence? There is currently no restriction on your ability to communicate with your elected representative.

We live in interesting times.