Articulation

I haven't written much about the inimitable Wally Hall, the alleged editor of the sports page for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in some time. Actually, I haven't written too much about anything lately due to the pressing duties of the day job. BTW...I deny the vicious allegation posted on our sister station Strangepup that I have been slacking. I've just been busy.

Anyway, today's topic in Wally's column concerns the University of Arkansas needing to hire a "big time" coach "if Stan Heath leaves" i.e. gets fired, as some are predicting. In his column, Wally rehashes the story on how Heath got hired at Fayetteville after only one year's worth of head coaching experience at Kent State (which actually goes by Kent now as i understand it). Then his column gets interesting, although as it always seems to work with Wally, it is for all of the wrong reasons. The law of unintended consequences is always enforced over at the Democrat-Gazette sports page.

Wally goes on to write: " Heath came in with his pleasant smile and correct English and expectations were high..."

"Pleasant smile and correct English?"

Early in what promises to be an interminable political campaign for the Presidency, Sen. Joseph Biden angered many black people when he referred to Sen. Barack Obama as "clean and articulate." Some black people took offense at this remark, saying that white people only refer to intelligent black people as "articulate" as if being well-spoken were the special province of white people only.

It is one thing to comment on Stan Heath's considerable reputation for class and civility as he stands out in that regard in a profession full of egomaniacs and martinets. It is quite another to refer to a black person's "correct English."

I will give Wally the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he's a racist. But he has a tendency to make much of "positive" character traits of black people he admires while demonizing the ones he doesn't like. Guys he likes are referred to as 'well dressed" or "polite" or " a yes-sir and no-sir kid." He doesn't write about white people in that fashion or at least he doesn't to the extent he uses such terminology about black people. And I think he mainly does it to pander to a certain constituency out there for whom these are still "hot button" issues. Which may be reprehensible but it doesn't make him a racist.

I think the point Wally was trying to make in his typically mangled way is he thinks that Heath was mainly smoke and mirrors and was just not cut out for the job. Or maybe Wally finds "correct English" to be a character flaw. "Correct English" is certainly nothing that he has ever employed consistently in his columns. But you would think a red flag would have gone up over there when that sentence came across somebody's desk given the furor over Joe Biden's remarks about Barack Obama.

No, I don't think Wally is a racist. He's just inarticulate.





No, I

My Sunday Feeling

This week's edition will be short and sweet. The day job has kept me pretty busy and I've got another free lance project that is due tomorrow. Will try to get back to posting more frequently soon but there's only so many hours in the day and so much staring at the computer screen I can do.

Let me begin by saying that I am not a Duke-hater. I reserve the bulk of my disdain for a certain school South of here that wears purple and gold as well as for a certain Roman Catholic institution of higher learning East of Chicago. I have no use for either of those schools, and furthermore, I do not suffer their fans gladly.

But there are those that despise Duke University and Mike Krzyzewski and their name is Legion. Granted, most of them are basketball fans at other ACC schools. But Duke bashing abounds all over the place and it usually manifests itself this time of year during the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament when Duke is typically in the thick of things.

Only this year, they are not. Duke got sent packing in the first round of this year's tourney by Virginia Commonwealth to the everlasting joy unbounded of Duke haters everywhere. Indeed, for one of the more conspicuous (and vitriolic) examples of this phenomena hit the link:http://www.truthaboutduke.com/.

Now Duke's getting the bum's rush should not have come as any great shock. They weren't very good this year. The lost their last 4 games of the season and limped into the tournament as a 5 seed mainly because, well, they're Duke. But Duke's guards are slow afoot and had trouble handling pressure all year. About all I knew about VCU was that they pressed all over the house. So, I figured they would give Duke trouble and picked them to win as did my friend PM. If guys like us are getting this right, then this isn't exactly brain surgery.

So why all the schadenfreude? In the first place, there are certain clubs that inspire class hatred. Duke is like unto the New York Yankees in that regard. I'll bet there are Yankee haters somewhere on my street. There is a certain smug arrogance about both clubs, most of it unjustified by recent performance. The Dallas Cowboys gave off much the same vibe during Tom Landry's tenure as Head Coach and Conduit to Jesus Himself.

But unlike the Yankees, Duke was once kind of America's hoops darling. Duke was pretty mediocre in hoops until Bill Foster took over. When I was a senior at Hendrix (another renowned hoops hotbed) Duke went to the Final Four with Gene Banks, Mike Gminski and true thug Terry Dennard who threw elbows at guys just for the sheer unabashed joy of it. Duke's second resurgence came under Coach K. Grant Hill, Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley were the poster boys for all that was right in college basketball, especially when viewed alongside their main rival, frequent NCAA recidivists Jerry Tarkanian and UNLV. (The hell of it is, UNLV had actually pretty much QUIT cheating by that point in time. But sometimes thy reputation precedes ye always.)

So how did the Dukies morph into the Evil Empire? Partly they are a victim of their own success. Everybody likes to root against the Overdog and Duke, while a shadow of their former selves, has been one of college basketball's Elites for years. It's just human nature. Secondly, it cannot be denied that they brought some of this on themselves.

Dukies, while not nearly as insufferable as your average Notre Dame aficionado, tend to think very highly of themselves. This is not surprising seeing as how the majority of their constituency is upper middle class and white. Secondly, while Coach K has certainly done things the right way at Duke ( their graduation rate is one of the highest in the game. Contrary to the bullshit that is put out in Durham, Duke ain't Harvard. But still, it is an excellent school and this is commendable.) But it irritated many people, myself included, to see him shilling for both American Express and Chevrolet during last year's tournament. To profit from the cult of personality that is college coaching while kids can't get paid anything was repellent. Such an indifference to appearance is borne of arrogance.

Finally, one must concede that the recent unpleasantness concerning the allegations of improper conduct by Duke's lacrosse team did not help matters any one little bit. Rightly or wrongly, Duke came across as a lily-white bastion of privilege and indifference while racial and economic tensions in Durham roiled about the ivory tower of academe.

So Duke haters may rejoice. Duke is out of the tournament. And they make take solace in the certain truth that the days of dynasties are over. There's no way a team can keep guys together for 4 years anymore. If you have kids that are any good they will jump to the NBA draft after 2-3 years.

But Duke's signees for next year are touted as highly as any class the Evil Empire has ever signed. Love 'em of hate 'em, Duke and Coach K will be back.

You can count on that.

My Sunday Feeling

The voice on the other end of the phone was serious for once.

" We need to talk about Mom." Bob said. " You need to know that things are not going well."

And with that, my brother the nurse explained the situation through the eyes of a clinician. Mother's dementia and senility are becoming more pronounced. She no longer recognizes Bob and he comes by two or three times a week. She is losing body mass despite the fact that she is eating.

" She is starting to talk about wanting to die, wanting to go, wanting to leave, that kind of stuff." he said. " We see that at the hospital all of the time. When an elderly sick person starts talking like that, well...."

Well.

Coincidentally enough, the hospice chaplain called me later that same morning. She wanted me to know that she had been by to see Mother the day before. She wanted me to know that Mother seemed to enjoy the visit and that the chaplain prayed with her.

" My brother said that Mother is not...is becoming...is." I was stammering. This is unlike me.

" She is declining. That's why we're involved."

" He seemed to think that things were...were...."

" They are declining steadily. It is not fast but it is steady. I would agree with that. I mean she could plateau...."

She pronounced it platohhhhhhhhhhhh.

" I mean, it's not likely but it could happen." she concluded.

"Mother is dying." I thought to myself. "It's starting to happen."

" Hello?"

" I'm here."

" You OK?"

" Yeah, thanks. I mean, even though we all knew this day would come, intellectually speaking, this is kind of a lot to unpack. You know what I mean."

" I do. That's why I called. We don't just care for the patient. We care for the extended family as well. Is there anything I can do for you?"

" Umm. No. I mean, thanks. But I don't think so. Not just yet."

" OK."

" I guess what I am most concerned about is that I want her to be comfortable. I want her to have some dignity."

" So do we. That is what we are all about at hospice."

" I worry about that you know?" And I do. " I really worry about that."

" I know. Everybody does. I want you to know that she is being well taken care of. I want you to know that we will be with all of you every step of the way and that we are here for y'all 24-7."

And with that we said goodbye.

It is a beautiful Spring morning here in the People's Republic of Hillcrest. It is the kind of morning that makes you believe that Winter is really over even though you know in your heart of hearts that March and April in Arkansas is are full of surprises. Still this is the kind of morning that allows your to suspend what your sense and experience informs you.

I am on my front porch as I type this. My neighbor across the street was up early pulling weeds and putting out fertilizer. Runners are running. Folks are having yard sales. An earnest young man came by the other night asking for donations for the baseball team over at Hall High School down the road. He thinks they are going to be pretty good this year. What the hell. I gave him a check. Young fella thinks they are gonna be pretty good this year. Far be it from me to stand in the way of progress.

And it is while sitting here surrounded as I am by all of this life and by all this useless beauty (to borrow a phrase from Elvis Costello) I typed the sentence "Mother is dying." It is surreal.

" Her death is not imminent." Bob said yesterday. " She is clean, well-fed and the folks at the nursing home and Hospice are taking really good care of her. She's not suffering. But from what I've seen with other patients under similar circumstances it will be sooner than later. So you need to tell John and them what's going on up here. Now is the time to come and spend time with her. Because, well...."

Well.

Amid the splendour of all this useless beauty, in the season she loved most, my mother is dying.

It is starting to happen.

The Extended Family

A piece from the NY Times about a Division I player at UNLV who has more relations than he can say grace over.

I can't make this up.

Hit the link. Don't marry more than one woman while you are at it.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/sports/ncaabasketball/05unlv.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin

Even Worse Than Imagined

Not only are The Kings still working, these idiots have their own website.

http://www.thekingsarehere.com/

Go to last night's post on www.strangepup.blogspot.com to see what all the commotion is about.

Hey Donna! Ya still wanna?

My Sunday Feeling

I'm taking the day off. I was busy all day yesterday with the kids trying out for Arkansas Governor's School and I need to catch up on some work from last week since I was struck down with the flu.

I'll be back later in the week once I get my head above water.

Courage.

Meanwhile Back In Jackson

Looks like Frank Melton, the embattled whack job Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi is pulling the old Mafia trick of checking himself into the hospital to avoid compliance with an arrest warrant.
Our associate in Jackson correctly points out that judges tend to take a dim view of such tactics so it will be interesting to see if the cops actually have to execute the warrant at St. Dominic's Hospital.

I used to carry on some with a doctor who practiced over there but that's another story altogether.

Hit the link and be glad we have Mark Stodola at City Hall here in Little Rock..


http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070302/NEWS/703020381

The Latest From Death's Door

As I reported earlier this week, I have managed to acquire this flu bug that is going around. Today marks the first time since Saturday night that I have not run a fever of at least 100. ( Actually, I spoke too soon. I just took my temperature. I am running a fever again. Dammit.) I can see how this shit can kill an elderly person or someone whose health status is comprimised. This is easily the sickest I have been in years. Even though I seem to be on the downhill side of this, I have no energy and my muscles are killing me. Even my hips hurt. My hips have never hurt before in my life. My friend who is doing chemo sent an e-mail wanting to know if I could do lunch today. I was afraid to reply for fear of infecting him over the Internet. No, this is a bad one. No two ways about it.

However, I also consider myself, in a very real sense, to be extremely fortunate. I was able to get meds sent over when I first suspected that I was coming down with something more serious than an allergy attack. My co-pay was 18 dollars. The portion paid by my insurance was 53. 75 bucks for 5 days worth of pills! What does a poor person do? For that matter what does an elderly person with Medicare prescription drug coverage do when if they get sick while they are in the so-called "doughnut hole": the period after early coverage where the beneficiary has to pay 100% for a period of time before coverage kicks back in? The flu will kill an elderly person. It seems to me to be one hell of a screwed up system that causes a person on a fixed income to choose between paying for food and getting the medication they need.

My brother Bob is doing clinicals for a Masters in Nursing with a physician in the Conway area. He says that this doctor, who Bob describes as a kind and caring physician, is constantly forced to prescribe drugs he thinks a particular patient can afford instead of what he thinks will work the best. Bob says he sees this every day.

And guess what? The strain on the system will only get worse once the baby boomer generation starts retiring and more people are supported by fewer wage earners.

Me, I'm lucky. I've got good insurance that I can carry with me when I retire. As bad as I feel now I know I will be better soon. But can't we do better by the folks that brought us into this world?

I went to the bookstore this morning to get some magazines. The lady at the counter asked me if I was sick. When I told her I was, she said that she thought so because she hadn't seen me running in the neighborhood. I told her that my goal was to walk to the church and back tomorrow.

Me, I'm lucky. That's the biggest problem I have. That and my hips hurt.

Fakery

Here's a strange little story in today's NY Times about the widower of an obscure British pianist named Joyce Hatto passing off recordings of other artists as those of his late wife's. Not real bright seeing as how the technology exists to sniff out this kind of fraud.

This sort of thing is not completely unheard of in the music world. After all, Handel was widely known as a plagiarist in his day. But this kind of fakery is generally the province of the visual arts and antiques.

Hit the link to read all about it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/arts/music/27hatt.html?ref=music

He's Not Dead?

I was told to take the flu shot back in September seeing as how I am now allegedly in a "high risk" category due to the fact that the armada of docs hovering over me discovered I have asthma. Despite all of this prophylaxis, I have been struck down with the flu.

I'm running @ 100 or so and generally feel like hell. I took a walk around the block to get some fresh air and shuffled like an old man. And I mean no disrespect to old men. Older than me even. A doctor buddy called in anti-virals after I couldn't get anybody that was allegedly covering for my treating physician to call me back. More on that later.

Anyway, frail Lilly that I am, I spent the day reading. I read the piece below in GQ about George Clinton. My buddy PM hates GQ.

Or is it Esquire? I forget.

Anyway, is George Clinton a genius, nuts or what? We report. You decide. But I think he's nuts.

Hit the link. Bring me some chicken soup. I don't ask for much.



http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_5307

My Sunday Feeling

I have only been to Florida once and I enjoyed myself very much. Of course, I had gone to Florida merely to play golf. I did not travel to the Sunshine State to attempt to cast my vote in an honest election. Nor did I go over there to litigate a case before "Judge" Larry Seidlin. I don't think I would have enjoyed myself very much if I had been forced to do either.

For those of you who have been living in a tree the past week or so, Larry Seidlin (pictured hereinabove weeping from the bench as he read his decision in the case) was the presiding judge in the ostensibly serious case concerning who would be the proper party to take custody of the body of Anna Nicole Smith.

There has been a lot written about Seidlin's thoroughly ridiculous demeanor in the courtroom and I won't add much to what has already been said. Except that I liked celebrity criminal lawyer Roy Black's comment that he would have said that Judge Seidlin had turned the case into a circus but that " I sort of think it gives circuses a bad name."

Look, I'm depressed enough as it is. I didn't think that a steady diet of this man's turning what on paper should have been an exceedingly solemn proceeding into an ego-driven fiasco would much improve matters in that regard. So I didn't watch just a whole lot of it. But I saw enough to arrive at 3 conclusions.

1) Anna Nicole Smith had a serious substance abuse problem. There was much testimony about her using aliases to get narcotics from different physicians. There was a video of her taken about a month before she gave birth to her daughter. She was inexplicably wearing clown makeup. She was slurring her words. Alleged husband Howard K. Stern can be heard asking her if she was "on mushrooms." He later testified that he was joking.

Right.

2) Speaking of Mr. Stern, from what I can tell, he is about as repellent a human I have seen in a courtroom since Orenthal James Simpson. Some witnesses you just don't believe. It's a vibe they give off. Or as a female friend in Texas who reads the blog put it more succinctly, " He is definitely a creep. But you don't get to run around like she did and pick up Dobie Gillis right?" I guess not. In any event, as far as I could tell, the only time he flat out told the truth after stating his name for the record was when he admitted that, although he had held himself out as Anna Nicole's attorney, he had not actually practiced law, or done much of anything other than sponge off of Anna Nicole since 2001. Which brings me to my 3rd conclusion.

3) Anna Nicole was poorly served by the men in her life. This is an observation about which my Texas friend wrote "Now there's an understatement." If ever a woman has ever taken up with a more motley collection of bums, enablers and nuts than did Anna Nicole Smith I don't know whoo it is. And what is remarkably sad about the recent furor concerning who might be the biological father of her infant daughter, out of all of the worthies that have come forward to claim paternity, I don't believe I've heard anybody admit to having loved her. That's impossibly sad.

Granted, Anna Nicole was not the brightest bulb on the porch. And you can't disport yourself like she did and expect to wind up with Dobie Gillis. But one would hope that in death Anna Nicole would finally secure the peace and dignity she never found in her ridiculously flamboyant life.

But until she is in the ground, I will continue to bet the under on the "peace and dignity" thing.

And now, here's a special announcement! My buddy in North Carolina obviously has too much time on his hands and has taken up the dark practice of blogging. Trust me. This is going to be good. Really good.

Go to http://polycarpblog.blogspot.com/ and see for yourself. I will add him to this space once I remember how to do it. Actually, when my new computer is delivered next week, my buddy PM will come over and show me how to pimp this space in exchange for drinks of whiskey.

Enjoy!

Take That, Eh?

The good folks at hockeyfights.com have preserved footage of the brawl between the Ottawa Senators and the Buffalo Sbres which took place a couple of nights ago. This is a pretty good melee even by hockey standards.

Hit the link. It won't hit back.

Good day.

http://www.hockeyfights.com/fights/31792

My Sunday Feeling

I had not talked to Miss June in awhile, probably not since Christmas when her daughter was in town. Besides, it was Valentine's Day. That seemed as good a reason as any to give her a ring.

" Hi, Miss June." I said when she answered. " Happy Valentine's Day!"

" Ohhhh.." she replied. "Aren't you sweet to call. How are you?"

" Doing great. Cannot complain."

" I hear sounds. Are you in your car?"

" Ummm, yes ma'am. I am. Why?"

" Well, why don't you call me back when you get home honey? That's dangerous."

" Oh don't worry. I have my Bluetooth in. I have both hands on the wheel."

That was true so long as I wasn't taking a sip from the gin and tonic I had on board. But she didn't need to know that.

" So how's it going?" I asked.

" Not too badly. " she said. " I'm doing pretty good for 80. I still can pretty much do as I please. I just don't get to it as quickly as I once did. And I still try to get out and around. I go out with my lady friends once a week. That's always fun."

" Good for you! That's important."

" And I have a man friend."

" Oh yeah?"

" I didn't say BOY friend. He's a man who is my friend."

" You don't have to explain anything to me Miss June."

" I mean, I spent the last 50 some odd years talking to a man every day. I love my lady friends and there's more of us at this stage of our lives than there are men."

"Um-hmm..."

" But I don't want to talk to women all the time. So I have a man friend who I talk to on the phone a couple of times a week."

" I think that's just great. Really I do."

" But I want you to understand that he's not a boyfriend. He's a "

" I know. He's a man friend. So what else is going on?"

" Not much. Like I said I try to stay busy around here. Won't be long until it's time to get the yard and the garden ready. I still have all of those pictures of Oather up on the wall. I say 'good morning' to him every morning and I say 'good night' to him every night. The way I look at it they need to stay up as he's the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do before I turn in. You probably think that's crazy."

" I absolutely do not! I think those pictures should stay up as long as you want them to stay up. As long as they comfort you, I wouldn't give it a second thought."

"Really?"

"Really."

" So, tell me. What are you doing tonight?"

"Not much. Probably going to throw some stuff on the grill. Probably going to watch some hoops."

" Isn't it late to be eating, Son?"

"Hell, June. It's 7:15. I'll probably eat around eight."

" That's too late for me. If I eat too late I don't sleep good."

"What time do you eat your dinner?"

"I dunno. Three or Four."

"OK. Now THAT'S crazy."

At this point I needed to jump off.

"Hey, this has been great but I have to go now." I said.

"Are you back home?" she asked.

"No ma'am. I am at the liquor store."

" Lord, you beat all, Son. You beat all."

"So I've heard. You have a good evening, Miss June."

" You too, honey. You know what?"

"What?"

"It was awfully sweet of you to remember an old lady."

" Nah...I'm just hoping you will cut Judy out of the will and put me in it. I can rewrite that for ya you know."

"You beat all, you know that?"

I have a Roman Catholic friend who has battled cancer of the brain for the past 4-5 years. He and I have good talks about many things. He has a perspective that is obviously unique and I find his insights useful at this stage of my life as I have some things on my mind nowadays. Anyway, he has says that our lives are "but a flicker" and that we should strive during our brief time here to live our lives in such a way that is most meaningful both to ourselves and to others rather than in just in pursuit of money.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with an nice old lady cultivating new friends. We can't have too many friends in this life regardless of our age. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with her starting and ending each remaining day that the Lord lends her with that dear face on the wall.

Unless the Hindus are right, this is our one and only trip. You've got to find yourself some peace and it is up to you to find it. Because life is but a flicker.

When You're Hot You're Hot

I eat a lot of peanut butter. Or I did until recently when I learned that Peter Pan had recalled a zillion jars of product it had shipped that was tainted with salmonella bacteria. Naturally, being the thrifty sort of person that I am I bought two jars when the local grocery had them on sale for 2 for 5 bucks. This is the kind of luck I typically am plagued with in matters of finance and love. I can usually leave my paranoia in the grocery store parking lot.

This is a luxury I will permit myself no longer. I don't know about you but under these facts I find scant comfort in the fact that these jars were each adorned with tamper proof seals. After all, we wouldn't want anybody coming along and trying to adulterate the product now would we?

Salmonella in peanut butter... Next thing you know, they will try to tell us that fluoridation of water is good for us.

The Nolan Speaks

Hit the link below for the thoughtful and nuanced thoughts of Nolan Richardson on the retirement of Frank Broyles and the attendant mess up there in Hogland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nonw4MN8VRc

A Simile Even Wally Hall Wouldn't Use

FSN's Marques Johnson on tonight's brickfest between Stanford and Washington: " This looks like a shooting contest between Stevie Wonder and Jose Feliciano."

Of course, Wally wouldn't use it because he probably has never heard of Jose Feliciano.

Addendum

I apologize for the fact that today's musings appear as one long run-on sentence. I don't know if the insertion of the picture is the cause, but for some reason Blogger refused to save the post with the usual spaces for paragraphs.

It is better than it was before Google bought it but Blogger is still pretty clunky at times. Sorry!

Goodbye Norma Jean

I have been on the road the last couple of days so I have had the chance to think about the tumultuous life of Anna Nicole Smith. Besides, there's only so much ESPN Radio that even I can listen to.

I described her earlier on in this space as "a completely useless woman" and I will not much back off from that characterization. However, upon reflection, I felt that when this uniquely American story is looked upon in light of some of her contemporaries in the world of celebrity, the life of Anna Nicole can at least be described as benign. Not everybody in what passes for her peer group can make that claim.

Where to begin? So much of this woman's life defies description. So let's just jump right in.

First of all, what of her marriage to the late billionaire J. Howard Marshall who became obsessed with her after seeing her perform at a Houston strip club? He was in his eighties when they married. When he died he left her approximately 500 million dollars in his will, a devise that has been the subject of hotly contested litigation in State and Federal Court. As you might imagine, J. Howard Marshall's son portrayed her as an abject gold-digger which she has always denied.

Was she a gold-digger? Of course she was. It is laughable to believe that Anna Nicole could be attracted to an octogenarian that wasn't loaded. However, the Federal Judge that presided over the portion of this Gordian Knot that wound up over before him viewed the relationship charitably if not entirely sympathetically.

"[T]heir lives were intertwined in need, and driven by greed and lust." wrote United States District Judge David Carter in the case of Marshall vs. Marshall. " She cherished the protection and security he afforded her and the lavish gifts that he gave to her in order to win over her affection. J. Howard used his money to get Vickie (Anna Nicole used her legal name of Vickie in the litigation) to fall in love with him, and in her own way, Vickie loved J. Howard."

In her own way Vickie loved J. Howard. Not exactly Robin Givens and Mike Tyson is it?

Speaking of litigation, this is the first time in the history of family law that 3 different guys have stepped up and admitted paternity. Of course, when parenthood comes with the potential of playing half a billion dollars for the use and benefit of Anna Nicole's infant daughter

Dannielynn, the woods may soon be full of putative babydaddies before it is over.

Anna Nicole was as crude and vulgar as American junk culture itself, her blond mane and what has been referred to as a "pneumatic" figure propelling her to fame and fortune far beyond what may reasonably be expected out of a high school dropout from Mexia, Texas. Vulgar she was, but her vulgarity was a caricature based on Marilyn Monroe whom she sought to emulate. There were no videos of her having sex floating around on the Internet, claims that cannot be made by her equally useless counterparts Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson. And unlike the even trashier Britney Spears, Anna Nicole was usually fully, if immodestly, clothed when she went out on the town.

Anna Nicole never assaulted anybody. Kobe Bryant can't say that. O. J. Simpson can say it but nobody with a half a grain of common sense could possibly believe it. She had her troubles with booze and drugs. But, unlike Courtney Love, nobody ever accused Anna Nicole of shooting heroin during a pregnancy.

Finally, Anna Nicole Smith deserves some measure of sympathy for no other reason than the tragic circumstances surrounding her untimely demise. I don't mean to imply that her passing leaves much of a void in world. Anna Nicole will be with us as long as there are drag queens. But anytime a mother leaves behind her an infant, it may fairly be considered tragic.

Further, her 20 year old son Daniel died of a drug overdose 3 days after the birth of his half-sister. While the cause of her death has yet to be determined some suspect that Anna Nicole met the same fate. She was said to be beyond despair over the loss of her son. Who knows? Anna Nicole was not particularly stable under laboratory conditions. Combine a history of drug abuse with grief and throw in some post-partum depression on the side and you have a surefire prescription for disaster.

Anna Nicole Smith's life was an absolute train wreck. She died a caricature of herself as if that is possible. She leaves behind a potentially limitless estate and a generation of unresolved litigation.

But as completely useless though she was, she was not the worst of her kind. She was benign. That's not much of an epitaph, but that's a better claim than Paris Hilton can make.

Lisa Nowak Catches A Break

Anna Nicole Smith died today in a hotel in Hollywood, Florida. Hit the link below to read an excerpt of what the Federal District Court Judge who ( I believe) reversed the Bankruptcy Judge's determination that federal jurisdiction took precedence over state probate proceedings (Anna was in a bankruptcy at this point in time).

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this completely useless woman's life, more amazing than how much money she was able to extract from an old man with more money than sense, and more amazing than the fact that she had more than her fifteen minutes of fame as a Playboy "Playmate of the Year" which she parlayed into a stint modelling blue jeans, is the fact that this pissing match made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. And they ultimately ruled in her favor thereby settling a highly technical point of bankruptcy law.

I doubt that Anna Nicole understood the first damn thing about her case. I doubt many lawyers would either. Is this a great country or what?

BTW, I am writing this from Tunica. Tomorrow I will attend the Mid-South Bankruptcy Institute seminar which will be held at the Gold Strike Casino. No lie. Like I said, is this a great country or what?

7 come 11 and all that.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0208071smith1.html

The Man Gets Open

To my knowledge, this the first NBA player to extricate himself from the closet. John Amaechi was a damn good player in college and a serviceable pro.

One of these days, an active male player in some professional sport is gonna come out. Or get outed. It's inevitable.

Hit the link: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2757105

Location, Location, Location

Tiny Hendrix College, founded by a Methodist minister named Tiny Hendrix, made today's New York Times. It looks like the old alma mater is getting into the real estate game. I sure hope they are more successful at this venture then they have been in basketball lately.

Hit the link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/education/07campus.html?ex=1171515600&en=41a441e913e4cdf5&ei=5070

You Think YOUR Partner Is Crazy? I'll Show You Crazy...

Below is a link to the bizarre story about soon to be former astronaut Lisa Nowak who got herself arrested in Florida for attempted murder and kidnapping after she confronted a romantic rival in an airport. Her story and the considerably less flattering mug shot that accompanies same is brought to you courtesy of The Smoking Gun which revels in this kind of stuff.

Just think. At one time this-OK. We're going to say it-Space Cadet was authorized by the government to operate a million dollar piece of machinery. I predict that her life will be rendered considerably less complicated in the long run and that the universe of choices afforded her will be constricted.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0206073astronut1.html

I Would Apologize Some More But I'm Late For "Group"

Hit the link for a funny piece in the New York Times about the difference between apologizing and backpedalling.

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/opinion/06schiff.html?hp

Give Your Nearest Available Equine Christ-Figure A Starlight Mint

Passed along without comment is the following letter that was published in today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette :

Barbaro Filled Our Need For Hope

For the uncounted numbers of people who mourn the death of Barbaro, I relate to you and sense the network that connects us [to] the loss.

It has been said that some of us, and maybe most of us, seek purity, goodness, innocence and kindness. That we seek an objectified representation of these qualities is pointless and a moot search. But we persist.

When citizens can no longer pin hopes on the leaders of the nation and have experienced unbounded disillusionment, they still continue to hunger for the closest subject to perfection that they can find. Barbero satisfied that hunger, at least for lots of us. He restored our faith that, once in a great while, our ideal appears.

Four years ago, this horse was born and was known buy numbers of people who oversaw his growing up. His existence and his essence came into focus nationally when he prepared for the Kentucky Derby and blew past his competitors to win the race.

He became a tragic hero early in the Preakness race. How many persons felt the pangs of despair as they watched for updates on his condition and blessed the doctors and caregivers who loved and attended the great horse?

We needed Barbaro. He came to us in a time in which we had become saddened and disillusioned. He lifted our spirits. His life pulled from us a pure love for him. My own personal fantasy was to walk to him, unescorted, and offer him a Starlight Mint. I think my heart might have burst with the joy of the encounter.
Lorna Stokenbury Pryor
Fort Smith

I Cannot Make This Stuff Up

Check out the name of the sponsor of this bill to decriminalize marijuana use in New Hampshire.

http://www.keeneequinox.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&uStory_id=b16db52f-8704-41fb-9008-b9c2bd19964e

My Sunday Feeling

This was the scene at my house last Friday morning. Central Arkansas got a mild dusting of snow and hardly any of the ice predicted the night before. While I was disappointed that we didn't get a "snow day" I was relieved to see that the roads were fairly passable. The older I get-and I am just old enough to preface a sentence with "the older I get"-the more I detest the cold. It didn't used to bother me much at all. But whenever the temperature gauge gets below 30 I start to feel it in what my doctor calls my "tennis shoulder." I can barely raise my hand above it the past week or so. I hope it loosens up during the Spring thaw. Also, my nose hurts in the places where it has been broken.

Still, I insist on getting out in it as long as there's no ice on the ground. My ribs still hurt from when I slipped on the ice just before Christmas 2 years ago. (I forgot about them. I don't know how I could forget that old injury when I was setting out my litany of woe. Between my ribs and my shoulder I hardly slept last night. ) But while I don't walk or run when there's ice on the ground, I will bundle up and get down the road as long as the temperature is above 30 or so.

The Super Bowl will be televised later on today. I am having some friends over. We will have barbecued chicken, ribs and I don't know what all else. I am providing the chicken, the ribs, Dixie beer and two televisions. Everybody else can bring what they like. I enjoy cooking and I also enjoy having folks over. It'll be a good time.

As for the game itself, I pretty much don't care and I really don't pay much attention if any to all the pre-game bullshit. I had lunch with a friend last Friday. Sherri, an otherwise imminently sensible woman, was telling me about some of the accounts of the interminable player interviews in the local paper. My eyes glazed over. She's really into it. I don't get it.

I know I usually write about the Super Bowl but for some reason I just can't bring myself to get too interested in it this year. Maybe it's because the Saints got clobbered in the NFC title game by the Bears. I don't know. But as one of my friends used to say, "As long as they are putting it on we might as well watch the goddamned thing." What the hell. It'll be an excuse to eat and drink. Us guys will nod and offer sage pronouncements about the action. The women will enjoy the commercials. There are worse ways to spend a cold Sunday in the People's Republic of Hillcrest.

As long as they are gonna put it on, we might as well watch it. Beats busting your ass on the ice in any event.

EDITORIAL COMMENT: Last week, I received three or four messages regarding the story in the Onion about Barbaro receiving a State funeral that I posted here. These people thought it was real. This says a couple of things to me. First, not everybody has heard of the satirical magazine The Onion. Secondly, it kind of points out that things are sufficiently screwed up out there in the real world that people can actually believe that not only would the government hold a funeral for a horse but that his remains would be placed in a coffin as depicted by the obviously faked up picture in the story.

So, just in case anybody is wondering the story was a joke. Really.

Barbaro Redux

The Onion pays tribute to the fallen hero. Hit the link.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/millions_of_americans_travel_to

A Horse is a Horse

Quite frankly, I find all of the overwrought reporting and writing concerning the death of Barbaro to be a bit much. Good Morning America ran a segment this morning entitled "What Barbaro's Courage Can Teach Us" or somesuch nonsense.

Barbaro can't teach us anything. Barbaro was a goddamned horse for Chrissake. What the situation can teach us is that if the stud fees are sufficiently astronomical then a broken leg is not necessarily a one-way ticket to the glue factory. That's about it.

Or consider this gem from the usually reliable Harvey Araton in today's New York Times sports page: "Why this national obsession with Barbaro? Maybe, as the fallen champion, the horse was reminiscent of a country that was seriously wounded on 9/11 and has been wobbly ever since."

What?

Since 9/11 most sportswriters have been judicious in their descriptions of their human subjects as "brave" or as "heroes" given the daily examples of true bravery and heroism that one can find on a daily basis in the example of our men and women in uniform who have been thrust in harm's way on our behalf. Not even is employing the death of a horse as a metaphor for national malaise even more grotesque than the average sports mythologizing, it is just not correct.

I never once thought of Barbaro unless there was a news story about his latest surgery. I don't think much of anybody other than hard core racing fans thought about him either.

I mean, he was a horse . He was an awfully pretty one at that and one that I am made to understand is important to the history of an increasingly irrelevant sport.

But as for me, I would be a lot more upset if Roger Federer were put down.

The Completing Poetry of Hoover Dam

My Sunday column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

Hoover Dam made some men very rich and killed a few others. It diverted the natural appropriation of water, skewing the distribution toward the agribusiness concerns of California. And you and I are pretty much OK with that, unless we’re would-be monkeywrenchers, holed up with our Edward Abbey and our cubic mile of unshared air that we find necessary for proper respiration.

My Sunday Feeling

I am taking a break from my, well, break from blogging just long enough to put up this wonderful piece from today's New York Times about Indiana-born poet Norbert Krapf and his love of the Indianapolis Colts. It is also a reverie about the old Chicago Bears who used to hold their training camp at St. Joseph's College in upstate Indiana where Krapf played football as an undergraduate in the early sixties.

I was born in Indiana although much of my knowledge about the place comes from my father. The Indiana of Buck Bowen and Norbert Krapf was all about high school basketball, Notre Dame and Chicago Bear football and the Cubs. My father and a buddy used to hop trains in Valporaiso-where I was born-and ride to South Bend to see Notre Dame. Sometimes they would head West into Chicago to watch the Cubs or the Blackhawks depending on the season. He never mentioned that he ever went to Soldier Field. Presumably, a Bears ticket was just as hard to get back then as it is now. Since my Dad was one of those people that told everything he knew I can only assume he never saw the Bears in person.

True Story: My father had this buddy named Gene Sanders. Dad said that Gene went out on a blind date once with the sister of the late Abe Gibron who played on the line for and later coached the Chicago Bears. Gene said she looked just like her brother-he was not being kind-and that she drank him under the table.

I had not remembered that story until I read George Vecsey's essay in today's NYT.

I am making progress with my other projects and will be back on-the-air on a regular basis soon. See you soon!

Hit the link:
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/sports/football/28vecsey.html

One Last Post

My last submission for January may be found at our sister station http://strangepup.blogspot.com .

See you in a couple of weeks!

My Sunday Feeling

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/sports/ncaafootball/20arkansas.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The link above is to a story that ran in yesterday's New York Times about the ongoing soap opera that is the Arkansas Razorback football program. In case you have no idea about which I speak, I shall attempt to summarize the current imbroglio in brief. Where to begin?

About this time last year Arkansas, like all other colleges, was out on the recruiting trail. The current occupant of the chair of football there, Little Rock's own Houston Dale Nutt, was feeling the heat from virtually all corners after 2 back-to-back losing seasons. He was also under some considerable pressure to get 3 or 4 kids from Springdale High School down the road from Fayetteville to become Razorbacks. Springdale had just completed an undefeated season and was widely considered to be one, if not the, best high school football team in the history of the state. Springdale had about 8 or 9 Division I players, including quarterback Mitch Mustain, the Gatorade Player of the Year. Springdale was coached by Gus Malzahn who enjoyed a considerable reputation as an offensive football coach even among the college ranks.

Things were not going well in Nutt's courtship of the Springdale Bulldogs. Their big offensive tackle committed early to Notre Dame. Wide receiver Damien Williams pledged his troth with Florida. And Mustain had withdrawn his oral commitment to Arkansas and was said to be considering following Williams to the Gators.

In the preceding two seasons, Nutt had come under withering criticism for running what was perceived by the armchair experts that make up much of the Razorback constituency of running an unimaginative offense. He was said to under pressure from Athletic Director for Life Frank Broyles to hire an Offensive Coordinator. So, Nutt evidently decided to kill two birds with one stone. He hired Gus Malzahn from the high school ranks to be the coordinator, in a move that was calculated to get Frank off his ass and maybe lure the Springdale kids to campus.

It worked on one respect in that 3 of the most coveted players came to Arkansas: Mustain, tight end Ben Cleveland and Williams who, in what was not recognized at the time as dramatic foreshadowing, welshed on his commitment to the Gators. However, the decision to hire a high school coach to run the offense at an SEC school was met with widened eyebrows in many corners including this one. Indeed, in a post dated December 11, 2005 I wrote that "[t]he potential for disaster cannot be discounted." It turns out that I was correct. I was just wrong in limiting the scope of my prediction to events on the field.

Fast forward: The 2006 Razorbacks were pretty damned good. They won 10 games, utilizing 2 running backs that ran roughshod over the SEC. One of them, Darren McFadden came in second in the Heisman balloting in the process. However, despite the stable of running backs, the offense sputtered at times, particularly in the final 3 games all of which the Razorbacks lost. The passing game got worse with time. Mustain got benched after leading the Hogs to 8 straight wins. His replacement, Casey Dick, didn't improve things much if any. And all of this time, a considerable faction of the Razorback Nation felt the fingerprints of Houston Nutt all over the offense despite the hiring of Malzahn to allegedly call the plays.

It was just before the bowl game with Wisconsin that things got interesting. The parents of the Springdale kids asked for a meeting with Broyles because they are "concerned about the direction the offense is taking." Amazingly enough, Broyles gives it to them. They play the Wisconsin game. They lose. A week later Damien Williams asks for his release and transfers to Southern California who had clobbered Arkansas in the opener for the second year in a row. A week or so ago, Malzahn resigns to take a co-coordinator position with Tulsa in weak-sister Conference USA, home of the Tulane Green Wave among other stalwarts of the game. It seems he found out that he was going to be pushed aside for another coach who was being imported from the Dallas Cowboys. And last week Mustain asked for his release. He is still in school at his own expense and is said to be considering his options for transferring somewhere else.

This is high drama even by SEC standards. And nobody connected to this story, with the possible exception of Malzahn and Ben Cleveland who has basically kept his mouth shut and played ball, has exactly covered themselves up with glory.

The parents of the players involved, especially Beck Campbell, Mustain's mother and Rick Cleveland who played in the NFL ,which makes him the world's biggest fucking expert on football, come across as stage parents from hell. Broyles merely heightened his considerable reputation for meddling by meeting with them. Somewhere Kenny Hatfield is making the Sign of the Cross. And he is Baptist. Nutt, who makes much of his Christian faith, comes across as paranoid and deceitful after pretty much being exposed as having lied to Malzahn in order to get him to come to Arkansas in hopes that his players would follow.

So what are the lessons we can take away from this little psychodrama? The first one is simple. Big time college sports is all about money and power and is largely irrelevant to the higher academic mission of the universities to which they are marginally attached. The corollary to that is that these young men-and you don't get this with the female athletes outside of tennis-that are elite athletes arrive at college with an expectation of entitlement and celebrity. This sort of thing used to be almost the exclusive province of basketball. But now you see young kids trying to hijack football programs as well.

Another lesson insinuated in the article above that is stated outright by my friend Phil Martin in today's column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is that there's a whole lot of folks around here that have way too much time on their hands. This mess is all we have heard about the last 4 weeks in the newspaper, on the message boards and on the call-in shows on the radio. Some guys even sprung for a half-page ad in which they called for the resignations of Broyles and Nutt. Cost 'em 5 grand. Surely that money could have been put to better use somewhere else. Like at Oaklawn.

The final lesson is this: It is never good when a parent lives vicariously through their kids. One of the theories being bruited about is the reason Mustain didn't immediately land somewhere else despite his allegedly all-world talent is that he is regarded in the coaching fraternity as a bad head with a pain-in-the-ass high maintenance Mom. Maybe so. I don't know.

But I know that I wonder "Where is the Dad?" I mean, I know his parents are divorced. But it seems to me that the one thing this young man needed more than anything was for someone-his Dad, a step dad, an Uncle, somebody, to put an arm around him and say, "Mitchell, you need to shut up and work harder. Nobody is going to give you anything. Talent only goes so far. The world does not need another Chris Simms and that is where you are heading if you aren't careful."

Defensive tackle Keith Jackson Jr. is quoted in the Times article as saying something along the lines of, " The problem with Mitch is that he wanted everything his way."

Who can blame him? It's all he's ever known. And that may be the only aspect of this story that approaches tragedy. No matter what else you read on the message boards or hear on the radio.

A program note: The world will not grieve at this announcement, but circumstances will force me to take a break from this corner of the blogosphere for awhile. Between the day job, a project I am doing for a non-profit organization I am affiliated with, and working on my house, I am pretty much swamped. Things will be better by the first of next month. But for now I need to focus elsewhere. See you in February and Go Saints!

Video From Springfield

This was sent to me by my brother Dave who lives in a rural area outside Springfield, Missouri. He hasn't had power since Monday or so. The Co-op says that they won't get power restored in his area for 5 more days or so and they are calling for 5 inches of snow Sunday.

He has his wife, his disabled Mother-in-Law, his Sister-in-Law and her 2 kids under his roof. They have tenuous heat and power because he has a generator going through the box that he is using to keep the lights on and run 2 space heaters.

But, he doesn't have enough juice to run the water pumps from the well. So you 6 people in the house without running water or at least flush toilets.

I don't know what your conception of Hell is but this would be pretty close to mine. Anytime I ever consider a move to the country, I will bear this picture in mind.

City utilities are a good thing in my estimation.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Mz57eRA0s

My Sunday Feeling

"All the way to Jackson, I don't think I'll miss you much."

"Jackson" by Lucinda Williams


The only thing more depressing than Lake Providence, Louisiana in its usual state of entropy is Lake Providence all decorated up for Christmas. It would be something straight out of Dickens if Dickens had any black folks in his stories. This cheery thought occurred to me as I drove down US Highway 65 last Sunday en route to a court appearance in Jackson Monday morning.

I was in a pretty good mood despite the bleak winter landscape of the Delta. All brown and flat with an endless horizon. Just like it has been since I first started making that drive 30 years ago in an old Chrysler my mother bought me to take to law school. I was in a pretty good mood because court would be a no-brainer sort of proceeding that even I couldn't screw up and I would get to see my friends that live there.

I like Jackson. Always have. In fact, I strongly considered moving there about 15 years ago or so after I met a woman that lived there. That a long-distance courtship was a pretty crazy idea on both our parts became more apparent with the passage of time and the relationship became harder to sustain over a distance. On the other hand, I have a friend whose husband has been detailed to another city for the time being. She says it kinda works for them. Whatever. It didn't work for us.

Jackson is a lot like Little Rock. Or, it used to be more like Little Rock than it is now. Jackson has changed over the years I have been hanging around down there. And not for the better. Jackson is a lot like Little Rock in that it is easy to get around in despite the seemingly endless construction on I-55 that bisects it. Rush hour traffic on I-55 makes 630 here in Little Rock look like a country lane. I can't recall a time I've been out on 55 when I haven't seen the aftermath of some kind of traffic accident. Logistics aside, the people in Jackson are friendly, it's a great sports town and there are good restaurants. Beautiful women abound in Jackson. No kidding.

But like I said, Jackson has changed over the years. In the first place, violent crime in Jackson is absolutely through the roof. Much worse than Little Rock. As I am made to understand it, Katrina forced a lot of the New Orleans gangbanger types up the interstate to higher ground. As a result, people are getting whacked and robbed at an alarming rate. When I am in town I usually stay at any one of a number of hotels in the North part of Jackson which has always been considered a safe part of town. No more. One of my friends suggested that I stay in Flowood about 10 miles East of there "where it is safe." I stayed where I usually stay despite her advice just because I figured she was being an alarmist.

Turns out maybe I should have listened. As I was getting dressed Monday morning I saw on the news where the front desk of a hotel around the block from where I was staying got robbed Sunday morning in broad daylight. I will bear this in mind next trip.

Other differences: Jackson's Mayor is a certifiable loon. He is currently on probation for carrying a gun on school property. He is out on bond while facing charges of damaging a duplex that he contended was a crack house. Oh, and his Probation Officer is pissed off at him. Jim Dailey never made that kind of news around here.

Just from watching the local news I deduced that Jackson's racial climate is even more poisonous than what obtains here. Having said that, I can't imagine how you undo a generation's worth of institutionalized racism. The local nuts who wear their Civil War drag down at Mount Holly to celebrate David O. Dodd's birth (Or death. Whatever. I can't keep it straight.) like to imagine Little Rock as part of the Old South. Nonsense. Little Rock has but minimal relevance to the history of the Great Cause. Jackson is the Old South. And it still has the hangover in the form of racial enmity that seems far more pervasive than what you find here as bad as things are here.

I got downtown early on Monday and decided to walk around to see what had changed since the last time I had been to court there a couple of years earlier. The answer: not much. Downtown Jackson is tiny. Capitol Street is about 5 blocks or so in length. There is a beautiful Episcopal Church across the street from the Courthouse. North of it lies the Governor's Mansion, as handsome a structure as you are likely to see. There is a great diner across the street from the Federal Building that serves a great plate lunch where we all went after court. I was encouraged by a friend to try the liver and onions. I declined.

Not that Little Rock is exactly Manhattan but there's stuff going on here that is not-and will never-go on in Jackson. At least not until they elect one of their own President and he or she decides to build a Presidential Library there. The effect of the Presidential Library on real estate in downtown Little Rock is incalculable. Downtown is cool again for the first time since the early sixties. High dollar condos (who's buying these damn things anyway?) and high rise hotels are going up everywhere. A new ballpark will be ready to go in the Spring. The River Market is jumping every night. Ain't nothing like that going on in Jackson.

Still, I like Jackson. I made happy memories there. And there are people there that care about me. The kind of folks who call me when I am on the road to make sure I am OK. That's always nice to know in case I ever get run out of town. You always have to have a backup plan.

But I am glad I live in Little Rock. And I am glad that I didn't make last week's trip burdened with a broken heart unlike the poor thing in Lucinda's great "drivin' and cryin' song" about a girl's sad trip from Lafayette to Jackson. Because driving through Lake Providence is depressing enough as it is even when you are in a good mood.

"I Am A Lightning Rod For Stupidity"

No kidding.

Hit the link for the latest in "stupid lawyer tricks."

http://www.rep-am.com/story.php?id=18077

Domestic Tranquility

Before he went over to Iraq, a buddy of mine made the observation that law enforcement depends upon folks having some sort of social contract with the government. As he put it at the time, " All it takes is 10-15% of the population determined to fuck things up to insure that you have major instability."

My friend was talking about Iraq. Here are the harrowing observations of Chris Rose of the New Orleans Times-Picayune about the situation on the ground in NOLA. When guys like Rose start talking about leaving, that's all I need to know about the gravity of the situation.

http://www.nola.com/rose/t-p/index.ssf?/base/living-0/1168325824152570.xml&coll=1

On The Road Again

The day job requires me to be in Jackson, Mississippi tomorrow morning. So no post for today. Will get back at it sometime next week.

Courage.

And how 'bout them Cowboys?

A Glimpse At Some Of Our Competiton

My brother John somehow stumbled across this out on the Internet and passed it along. What I found striking about all of this is how completely serious this woman is about her "art."

As one of our frequent correspondents pointed out after poking around on this site, " No doubt she has received an NEA grant."

I cannot make this stuff up. Hit the Link. Enjoy!

http://www.suzannemuldowney.com/

A Simple Phone Call Will Suffice

Yesterday, while en route to Conway to help move Mother to her new apartment, I was struck down by a stomach virus just as I was crossing the Faulkner County line. Once I got back on the road, I opened the sunroof and cracked a couple of windows to let some fresh air in. I had managed to forget what misery it is to be driving 70 mph while fighting nausea.

I got to Trillium Park where Mom used to live. I stayed long enough to give Bob some money for lunch and a check for the movers. Then I was asked to "get the f*ck out of here" and so I headed back to Little Rock with windows open and teeth gritted.

Between brothers Bob and John and with cousin Janan pinch-hitting for me, everything went smoothly. Mom's place was pretty much ready by 11:30 or that morning and she was installed in her new digs by 1 or so. Of course, it should have gone smoothly. I had planned everything down to the nth degree in case something blew up.

It just didn't occur to me at the time that I would be the "something" that would go kaboom!

Some of my friends were predisposed to see the hand of the Almighty in all of this. As one such theologically inclined friend said, " You had done so much work and worried so much about all of this, maybe this is just God's way of telling you to let go and let others take over." I confess that this high-minded consideration was the furthest thing from my mind when I was taking a knee just outside of the Mayflower city limits.

" You know," I said. " If God wants to get a message to me, there's any of a number of ways to do it. He could have appeared unto me in a dream. That always worked in both the Old and the New Testament. He could have appeared as a whirlwind or he could have set my azaleas on fire and spoke to me from there. "

" Would it have killed God-speaking metaphorically of course-to have sent me an e-mail or to have hit me with a text message? With all due respect, if God is communicating His will nowadays through the intentional infliction of the stomach virus I would just as soon he minded His own business. "

But, as another of my friends who is still given to belief in Signs and Wonders even in this present age said, "Yes, but if He hadn't put this on you would you have listened to anything else?"

" Hell yes, " I replied. " I am a reasonable man. If the chinaberry tree bursts into flames and starts speaking Hebrew or impersonating Charlton Heston, I will take heed and know that
it is God. Either that or I will join AA."

Someone else tried to put it all in perspective. She is an Episcopalian and as such she tries not to let such ruminations get the best of her.

" The important thing is that your Mother was moved with as little stress on her as possible. All your hard work and the fact that you guys all get along and work well together made it possible for you to stay on the sidelines. If that's not a blessing I don't know what is."

OK. I can go with that one. I don't go out of my way to look for 'em but I will take my blessings where I can get 'em.

I am much better today. I ate a sandwich and some soup for lunch. So far so good. I've been reading out on my porch swing. The cool air feels really good. Looking forward to the Sugar Bowl later tonight. Notre Dame and LSU. Talk about a game that's hard to find somebody to root for!

I'll probably swallow my pride-now that I can swallow- and pull for the Tigers. LSU fans may be crazier than hell but at least they're not a bunch of damn snobs as the Irish faithful tend to be. Yep. I think I am on the mend.

But really, God. If it be thy will, the next time Thou desireth to get me told about something, try the cell first before Thou considereth other means of communication with Thy humble servant. Always got it with me.

It will be easier on everybody.

A Really Bad Idea

The link below will take you to an article in the Legal Times about a lawsuit filed by a man who claims his privacy was invaded when a woman named Jessica Cutler wrote a steamy blog about her sexual exploits in which intimate details of the sex life of she and the Plaintiff (along with about 6 other guys) were laid bare for the world to read.

The local angle is that Plaintiff is now on the faculty of the UALR's Bowen School of Law here in Little Rock.

You gotta wonder if he's reconsidered the wisdom of having brought this action. The discovery process (depositions, requests for admissions etc.) can be quite, ummm, embarrassing.

The moral? Don't file a lawsuit unless you are willing to let the other side get up your ass with a flashlight.

Also, blogging can get you sued.

http://www.law.com/jsp/dc/PubArticleDC.jsp?id=1147943130871

January 1, 2007

The new year begins cold and clear here in the People's Republic of Hillcrest. Not much is going on to speak of. I got up late-for me-and made bacon and eggs for breakfast. Not that I needed more food. Spent New Year's Eve at a nice dinner party where there was much food and drink. Tonight will have ribs and black eyed peas for dinner. No, I didn't need a big breakfast but what the hell. It's a holiday.

Been receiving text messages bearing glad tidings from all over. Talked with my friend Marge over in Jackson. She got up with her son early this morning to make sure he made it to basketball practice. God, I had managed to forget all of those basketball practices on New Year's Day. Nothing like line drills to put you in a festive mood. Good thing that I didn't have my first hangover until after my playing days.

I don't do resolutions. But I do have questions about what 2007 will bring.

Surge or Purge? Here's the biggest question of them all: What will we do in Iraq? The latest theory is that we dramatically increase or "surge" our troop level in a last-ditch attempt to impose order in that God-forsaken place. Note that I used "impose" and not "return." The last time there was any order in Iraq it was run by Saddam. And, suffice it to say, he ain't in charge. He ain't even sharing oxygen with us anymore. But more on that later.

I hesitate to classify the invasion of Iraq as a blunder. But this is only because I still have friends that are serving over there. What they are doing is noble and brave. I honor their service and I pray for their safe return. ( Matt has already requested steak on the grill when he gets back. You got it, buddy.)

But something has to change. We can't keep this up indefinitely, surge or no surge. We shall see.

Rough Justice: Saddam Hussein was hanged by the Iraqi government after what passed for a trial. His execution was calculated to be as humiliating as possible. He was not allowed a final visit from friends or relatives. According to eyewitnesses, he was mocked by the guards en route to the gallows. A grimmer bit of statecraft is scarcely imaginable.

Unless it was the torture and murder meted out by him during his reign of terror. Don't get me wrong. I weep not for Saddam. He may have been tried by a kangaroo court but then again genocide is a fairly easy crime to prove. If anybody on Earth deserved the death penalty it was that son of a bitch. The fact that he wasn't summarily rounded up and shot is more due process than he deserved.

But still. Say what you will about capital punishment. But we in this country don't mock the condemned. And we don't broadcast executions for public entertainment regardless of how cathartic it might be. The Department of Justice helped set this "court" up. Couldn't we have controlled these guys a little better? They could have killed him just as dead with a more dignified proceeding.

The execution of Saddam was brutal, sadistic and barbaric. And Uncle Sam's fingerprints are all over it. When a state orders that a life be taken, it must be an act of utter solemnity. Saddam was put to death by our proxy in a mob scene not much more dignified than the public executions conducted during the French Revolution.

I weep not for Saddam. But the way this played out sickens me both as a lawyer and an American. Our reputation for being the world's moral authority took a major hit when we invaded Iraq. I can't imagine that our status improved the other night.

All Things Razorback: Will the soap opera that is Razorback football continue in 2007? Which players will leave? Which assistants will be fired? Will Houston Nutt go to Alabama? Will the basketball Hogs win 20 games and go deep in the NCAA's (It says here no.)?

Will the radio callers and Internet rumormongers get a life and move on to other pursuits?

You must be kidding.

First things first: Barry Bonds is pretty much a lock to pass Henry Aaron's home run record if he manages to play long enough. My question is whether he will do so while under indictment or not. What will Major League Baseball do if that happens? What will be the response of the Player's Union if MLB suspends him?

How much fun will all of this be to watch? Words fail me.

That's enough for this New Year's Day. The Razorback game just started and I am tired of typing.

Best of luck to all of you in 2007!