Cooper Imprisoned

Cooper the Dog was found guilty last week on several counts of pee-ing on the floor and three counts of pooping-on the floor After Former Conviction. He has now been sentenced to evenings in jail for the remainder of his natural life. In the Court's written opinion, Judge Dad said, "Mr. the Dog has shown that he can no longer be trusted by society to refrain from doing his duty on the carpet while society rests in it's bed, therefore he must spend every night in a jail cell, where he cannot roam free to harm deep carpet fibers."

The prosecutor, Mommy made this statement: "Cooper has shown the worst kind of recidivism in the area of wetting his britches. The aggravating circumstance is that he doesn't wear britches."

Chloe the Cat, a defense advocate said, "Jailing Cooper the Dog does not reform him, nor does it make the carpet of society any safer. The only thing it accomplishes is that he must now be housed in an area of the house that I feel like I should own. But now Coopers rights under the forth and fifth amendments have been taken by the Judge and my land has been taken away by imminent domain." Cooper's attorney said Cooper will file an appeal "worthwith," which is legal mumbo-jumbo for, "as soon as Cooper pays his attorney $300."

Are You Ready for Some Baseball?!

This time of year, I get lots of baseball stuff coming in the mail. It's actually been a couple weeks since I got in my latest shipments of Sox Tickets and Baseball caps but I forgot to mention it and I needed a quick post so here's my stuff. So here's my bragging post: Look where I'm going on my b-day.

And even thought they're already out of it, "Viva la Venezuela!" Now if my own U.S. team can beat Mexico and stay alive!

The Red Sox Cookie Off

I know from the player's blogs what last seasons secret ingredient was. Whose cookie has the right stuff this year?

Dumb Idea for Racial Equality

I learned on the Officer Down Memorial Page that Chicago City Council woman Madeline Haithcock has proposed renaming a Chicago Street after Fred Hampton, a former Black Panther chairman who advocated the killing of Police Officers. During his chairmanship, black panther members killed five police officers, including two Chicago Officers. Hampton himself was killed in a raid in his apartment.

Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue:

It's a dark day when we honor someone who would advocate killing policemen and who took great advantage of the communities he claimed to have been serving. We have real, everyday heroes within the department who would be better honored than someone of the stature of Fred Hampton

Read this article for some of the asinine stuff Haithcock said in defense of her proposal.

The officers murdered by the Black Panthers were:

Frank Rappaport
John J. Gilhooly
Glenn E. Smith (a black officer)
Kenneth Carmel Patrick
Ricky Leon Kinchen (a black deputy)

Almost Time to Wave the Sox Flag!

On the second day of the regular season, I will be in Texas watching the Red Sox play the Rangers. I will be sitting in section 14, Row 4. It will look a little something like this:

Headline of the Day

Earth's Population to hit 6.5 Billion Saturday

That's right, exactly Saturday!

Tonight's Ridiculous Fox News Teaser

From time to time, I quote the stupid local fox news promos on the blog. The reason is, Fox news (at least our local affiliate) loves reactionary stories that border on racist! I hate to use the word "racist" since it's such a buzz word, overused to the point that it no longer has meaning but there's not another word for it. Maybe, isolationist or ultra-nationalistic. Anyway, here's tonight's ridiculous promo, stirring us to wonder how safe we really are.

Thousands of ships go through these ports daily. So, what are we doing to handle security? How about, handing them over to an Arab company. Tonight, the deal that could sink us all.

I guess I should stop eating at Zorba's. It's owned by an Iranian and I would hate it if he put a dirty bomb in my gyro.

Read Much?

With the recent cold snap, I have had a good excuse to do what I really want to do; chain myself to my futon and read non-stop. In my last post, I mentioned that I was reading the Don DeLillo novel "Cosmopolis" and I promised to comment. I decided that I needed to ruminate over the book a little more before discussing it. In the meantime, I have completed the 738 page Tom Wolfe novel "I am Charlotte Simmons" a book that I have been waiting to go to paperback so I could afford it. With the cold whether, I read the last 412 pages in the last 48 hours!

So it's time to compare the two, starting in chronological order.


Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo

I have been a fan of Don DeLillo since I read "Underworld" in 2002 after listening to an English student laud the merit of the book. Cosmopolis is the forth? fifth? book by DeLillo that I have read. Of the four or five I have read, this one was the most disappointing.

The book is a kind of modern usage of the Greek tragic method, that is, a heroic character meets his downfall due to a single character flaw. Eric, the major character (note my hesitation in calling him the protagonist), is the modern hero; the ultra rich twenty something. I can't deny that it is a masterful piece of writing. DeLillo is one of my favorite geniuses but I hated this book.

Eric's critical flaw seems to be (I get this from reading the book and listening to a DeLillo interview)that he is unable to think of anyone but himself. In fact, the plot is centered around Eric's desire to get a hair cut. I am forced to admit that in the end, it becomes a decent story of redemption and learning too late that there are others in the universe. The problem is the ride to get there. In true postmodern fashion, DeLillo treats Eric's other destructive traits as completely natural, not part of his flaw at all. Eric's ridiculous vanity and sexual proclivity are treated as side issues, not vices at all but a luxury available to the rich that are supposed to make Eric's fortune complete.



I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe

"I am Charlotte Simmons" on the other hand seems a little more willing to call a spade a spade. In his novel, Tom Wolfe treats human sexual proclivity (which doesn't mean promiscuity by the way. Look it up) as the dangerous catalyst to destruction that it is. The book is not about sex per se, but it takes a rightful place near center in the novel, which is about college life.

Wolfe expertly depicts the ridiculousness of the "maturing" process in that oh so important college experience. He shines light on and exposes all that is banal about humanity and hypocritical about academia: the rampant sexuality bordering on perversion ("wanna swap [partners]?"), the dumb language of young men, which he comically refers to as f--k patois (look it up), and the endless snipping and sniping of females ages 18-22.

The plot centers on the sometimes heart warming and sometimes heartbreaking story of Charlotte Simmons, a self loathing back woods girl thrown into ivy league college life. He outlines her sub-text and speaks her thoughts in such a way that I thought 'this must be exactly how girls think.' Since I don't know that for sure, I plan to force my wife to read the book and tell me for sure, expecting fully that she will say "Oh it's so true."

Story in the Works

Sorry that I haven't updated more recently. I have been working on a story. The idea came to me when I was listening to my wife and Yancey (member of my church home group) talking about my writing style. Yancey had to point out that all of my stories end in death, which, though I would like to deny it, is mostly or completely true. Charissa said that I do this because I "like closure and there's no better closure than death." This instantly got me going because I don't necessarily always like closure.

Then the idea sprang full grown from the head of Zeus. I would write a story in which no one dies in the end and that has no closure whatsoever. The product is a new short story called "Jack in Limbo." The story is about a man who dies in the beginning and is inexplicably stuck on earth. This becomes frustrating to him as he learns things about his life that he did not want to know.

A few of you will get the story e-mailed to them to help me revise but most of you will just have to wait for it to publish somewhere, if I can get any fool to take it. I would post it for you on the blog except it's thirty three full pages long!

I've also been reading a terribly disappointing Don DeLillo novel that maybe I'll talk about tomorrow. Stay tuned for updates.

Scary Moment

In an odd anti deja vu, I had a dream the night before last about being in a shooting. I actually had the same dream back to back. I woke up after the dream, went back to sleap, and had the same dream over again with slightly different details.

Last night at work, I got into a short pursuit that ended in a driver of a stolen vehicle running the car into a ditch and bailing out. We ran and ran and ran, probably a quartet mile before it was all said and done. Toward the end of the foor chase, I reached down do feel my gun and didn't feel a gun there. I looked down. No gun. no holster either. My entire holster was missing, somewhere between me and my car in one of the most dangerous parts of the city.

We found the gun andthe bottom half of the holster right next to my car. It's a sinking feeling to realize that you ran that far in a high crime drug area with no gun. Incidentally, I found out that the brand of holster I was issued has just been recalled because "there is a small rick of failure." Imagine that.

Here's what it looks like: