Thoughts While Driving and Hiking

I drove over to the state park today to take a hike while my wife is at work and before the expected snowstorm arrives. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony involved in driving somewhere to take a walk, so, gentle reader, you need not point it out.)

People have strange thoughts while driving and walking, and probably my thoughts are stranger than most. Here, in order thought, is what was on my mind.

I really struggled with high school physics. Part of the problem was my inability to get my mind around the terms used. "An object falls at 9.8 meters per second squared, " Mr. Martinez said. I wondered, how can a second be squared? "Weight is mass times the force of gravity." So, I thought, mass is the same anywhere in the universe but weight depends on where you are. I'd weigh less at the top of Pikes Peak than I do here in Colorado Springs, and less here than I'd weigh in Miami Beach.

Suppose I could dig a hole all the way to the center of the earth, and hollow out a little room there. While I was in that hollowed out space, would I be weightless? There would be about the same mass of material in all directions around me. I guess I'd drift to whichever side of my little cavern the moon was on, moving right along with the tides.

While walking, I thought how much I have always envied people who seem to be inn shape without having to do any exercising. I have to work like the devil to be in any kind of condition. I was huffing and puffing mightily through most of my walk. Of course, it didn't help that I'd eaten a pancake breakfast just before starting out.

A sign in the state park says bears are the "most well-known" animals that hibernate. A better way to say it would be "best known." The park needs an English major to review their grammar. (Or me.)

My brother is writing a novel. I asked him about it recently and he said it ends with an epilogue in heaven. "What's your vision of heaven?" I asked. "Oh," he said, "It's a wonderful place where you can do what you want and nobody bothers you."

My brother the Libertarian. By the way, much of his novel is set in Reno, Nevada, which he has never visited. Go figure.

Some Miscellaneous Thoughts

First of all, loyal readers, Kris' cat Phoenix is aptly named. He is alive and well (more or less), still hiding in the rafters, but has come out several times long enough to eat and eliminate. Once the trauma of surgery is forgotten he should be okay.

Some time ago I told of a dream in which Conan O'Brien appeared to me singing "When Irish Eyes are Smiling." I called him Colin instead of his proper name. I apologize to Mr. O'Brien, to all his heirs and assigns, and to anyone else who cares. I have a "hold harmless" document here for him to sign at his convenience.

The Republicans have dusted off the old Laffer curve of supply side economics and are arguing that a lower tax rate will actually increase federal tax revenues. Logically, if that's the case, the best tax rate should be zero percent. That way, everyone could do whatever business seems best to them without any tax worries and the government would just be rolling in revenues. It's just silly, of course. George HW Bush was right to call it "voodoo economics" but that doesn't stop these people from trotting it out again to bamboozle the gullible and win votes.

Speaking of politics, Congress recently considered legislation putting the US on record in opposition to coerced marriages of adolescent girls. House Republicans blocked it, claiming it would cost something like twenty million dollars a year for enforcement (without saying why it would cost anything) and might encourage abortions (again without saying how or why). By my calculations, twenty million dollars a year works out to about seven cents per man woman and child in this country. I'm willing to spend that much, or much more, to keep children away from forced marriages.

One of my little Christmas rituals is to read the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke. They are different from one another. Matthew traces Jesus' heritage through forty-two generations all the way back to Abraham and tells the story of the Magi. Luke is more comprehensive, I think, telling us of Zachary and Elizabeth and the birth of John, then relating the familiar story of Caesar's taxation plans, the birth of Jesus in a stable, and the angels and shepherds.

The Magi, by the way, always were referred to as kings or wise men when I was a child. More recent translations of the story in Matthew call them the three astrologers, which kind of diminishes them, at least to me.

I like the stories, but, sad to tell, to me they are just stories.

My sister Patti claims there is a Christmas song this year called, "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." Can that possibly be right? Can the singer even imagine the care a hippo would need? Better dig a big pond in the backyard and have plenty of money for the truckloads of food it would eat and the waste to be removed. And the reindeer would all have hernias by Christmas morning after flying a hippo to someone's house. And don't even get me started about Santa trying to get the animal down a chimney to place under a tree. (The hippo would probably eat the tree by Christmas morning too.) I thought "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" was the lowest possible taste in Christmas novelty songs, but I suppose I was wrong.

Kris and I drove to Denver on Christmas day to celebrate with her mother. It was just the quiet sort of Christmas day we wanted after the emotional roller coaster of Christmas Eve. (I say quiet although my mother-in-law has a hearing loss and keeps her television and record player on very high sound levels.) But it was nice and we are now living on leftovers. So probably are all of you. A very merry Christmas to everyone, and keep Christmas with you, all through the year.

Hard Christmas

I'm sitting in the basement of my house on Christmas eve afternoon. My wife is asleep upstairs. She needs a nap because she was awake for much of last night trying to find one of her cats.

This cat had surgery earlier in the week for removal of kidney stones, an operation that cost about $1000. Not any king's ransom to be sure, but for us it was a pretty big bite into the credit card. Wednesday night after bringing the feline back home, Kris tried to shut it up in a guest bedroom so it could recuperate in peace. Unluckily (and my wife doesn't have much good luck) she didn't get the bedroom door completely shut, so during the night the cat absconded and is now hiding somewhere in the rafters between floors in our house.

We've tried to lure the cat with the smelliest food we can think of - tuna fish - but so far it has not emerged for anything in about forty-eight hours, not even to empty its bladder or colon. (I hope not. I don't want animal waste lingering up there.)

So we don't know if the cat is healing or is in trouble, or even has died. In the worst case, we would have to guess where the corpse is and cut through the drywall to remove it. I can tell you I would not enjoy doing that. Not to mention the thought of $1000 spent to prolong the cat's life for three days.

Then, thinking we'd make our Christmas calls to relatives before Christmas day, we telephoned my middle sister (I have three) this morning. She has been afflicted with a dementia for the last few years and it has become gradually more difficult to communicate with her. This morning was the worst yet, however. She couldn't complete a thought or even a sentence and seemed utterly unable to understand me. This is my younger sister, to whom I was a tyrannical big brother when we were kids, but whom I love dearly now. In addition to the hurt caused by hearing her stumble so badly through our brief talk, there of course is the little voice in the back of my head that says, "If it's happening to her, it could happen to you, and soon."

Meanwhile, Kris is not doing the baking she meant to do this afternoon. My wife cannot easily leave intended chores undone, so I'm guessing she'll be baking well into the evening, which effectively blasts my plans for a quiet night before the fireplace watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on DVD with her. And yes, I know how to bake and could do it myself, but she has her heart set on doing this herself and won't be dissuaded.

So, not having much to do a few minutes ago, I tried to load the DVD player with a disc we borrowed from the local public library. And the player jammed. Not only could I not get it to play, it would not eject. All I could think was how much I really did not want to spend the afternoon taking the machine apart to get the disc out. It was really just the bottom for me, the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial back. I turned the player off and sulked for a few minutes, then, almost whimsically turned it back on. Wonder of wonders, it worked! My belief in the holistic theory of appliance repair finally paid off!

And so, brothers and sisters, daughters and sons, and good friends all, there is hope in the world. I am revived, and ready to face the rest of the day with good grace and cheer. I'd be a lot cheerier, though, if that damn cat put in a appearance.

Merry Christmas to One and All

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along the unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head

“There is no peace on earth,” I said,

“For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.”

It's time for FEARLESS PREDICTIONS, the feature of this blog in which is revealed events of the coming year. After all, my predictions might be as valid as anyone else's. So let's begin by saying. . .

The stock market will surge, with the Dow hitting 14,000 by December 2011. Republicans will claim credit for this, of course. Meanwhile, unemployment will still be at about nine percent. Republicans will refuse to take any blame for this.

Thirty-five "experts" will predict the World Series winner, and thirty-four of them will be wrong. (It will be the Rockies. You heard it here first.)

The bewildering array of products available promising enhanced Internet speed will grow even more bewildering. The divide between people who understand some of the new apps and those who don't will get wider than ever.

Global warming will continue apace while Senator Imhof of Oklahoma still insists it's all just a hoax. Luckily, seawater won't reach Oklahoma in 2011. (But people in oceanside cities will get more nervous.)

From Atlantic to Pacific, gee the traffic is terrific. And getting worse. Thousands of fatalities and a million injuries in auto accidents will not make any impression on people serious enough to spur rapid transit development or passenger train travel.

Kris Kringle is bringing me. . . snowshoes!

No fewer than ten Republicans will announce their candidacies for president in 2012. Sarah Palin will be among them. She'll manage to put her foot in her mouth several times but that won't deter the zealots who support her. The rest of us will be amused and appalled by turns.

I will be able to prove to Jesus that winning the lottery hasn't spoiled me. (I wish!)

The Big Needle

Last week I read John Grisham's latest novel, "The Confession" in which a man was executed because he had been coerced into confessing to a murder he had not committed. Grisham sets up the story so there is never any question that the convicted man is innocent. The actual guilty person confesses, but the state machinery of death is in motion and cannot be stopped by the defense attorney because the prosecutor in the case and the governor of the state have vested political interests in upholding the conviction.

The theme of the book of course is that innocent people have been and will continue to be executed because prosecutors cover up the coercive methods of some police officers, juries remain intent on convicting on the basis of confessions, no matter how obtained, and elected officials do not want to be thought of as "soft on crime."

Grisham makes the argument that the death sentence is imposed capriciously, sometimes mistakenly and isn't even economical. It costs about three million dollars to execute a person in the United States, after all appeals have been filed, rejected, and clemency is denied. It would clearly be less expensive just to keep the convict in prison. Grisham, by the way, makes a compelling case that incarceration on death row is inhumane, gradually driving the inmates into insanity.

Readers might remember the governor of Illinois commuting the sentences of all death row inmates once he became convinced the sentence was being imposed on innocent men. If that's the case in Illinois, by strong inference it's true in other states as well.

I'm not absolutely against the death penalty. There are two arguments in favor of killing convicted murderers that have made some sense to me. First, there is the matter of finality. As Isaac (Hanging Judge) Parker once said, Nobody I hanged ever hurt anybody else again." That made more sense in the nineteenth century than now of course. The other argument for executions was made by a different novelist, Joseph Wambaugh, who said that society must have some threat of last resort to hold over the heads of people who are already in prison on murder convictions. What else can we do with inmates who kill prison guards, sentence them to two life sentences?

But the death penalty must be applied only as a last resort and only in extraordinary circumstances. I've wondered what those circumstances might be, if there are any other than the one described just now. Serial killers? Murders for hire or killings that involve torture? Heinous as such crimes are, I would oppose executing such murderers. Yes, the crimes are awful, but we fall right back to the opening question of the undoubted convictions of innocent people.

There are some other aspects to the whole question of the death penalty that might be questionable. For one thing, we have heard a lot in recent years about involving the family of the victim in the prosecution effort. I'm in favor of keeping the loved ones of a deceased victim up to date on the progress of a case, but in our jurisprudence it's the society at large that is offended by the crime. It's "The people versus the defendant" after all, not only the family of the deceased. The victim's rights adherents are sympathetic but the prosecutor must decide how to handle a case based on the evidence at hand, not on anything else.

I've been lucky and no one in my family has been victimized by a violent crime, so I'll concede I might feel differently if someone I love had been murdered, but I wonder if families of murder victims get any sense of closure when the convict is put to death. Probably some do and some don't. Giving the relatives of the victim some solace is important, but it shouldn't be the most important factor in debating this issue.

(By the way I've only mentioned murder as deserving execution. I'd absolutely be against executing anyone for any other crime such as kidnaping, rape or stock market manipulation.)