THE WELL RAN DRY

As I think about what I'd like to write each day my head is usually not full of such personal events. However, today my son and family have arrived from London for their vacation and I am totally absorbed in the changes a year has brought. The little one who used to crawl into my bed at 5 AM (not too long after I'd frequently retired) and prattle on about trains, legos, fantasies, and all the things that fill a little boy's head until he is six, is now 16 and towers over me.

His brother, 14, is now also taller than I....but, then again, the whole world that didn't play in the Wizard of Oz is taller than I.

I'm learning that the British economy is no better than ours right now and that Tony Blair's replacement is not particularly highly thought of though seems to be a slight notch in higher esteem than our leader who escaped from his ranch in Texas to make the world miserable.

Perhaps tomorrow I will be able to write with a bit more intellectual cohesivenss.........

WHEN THE COOK FLIPS

Japanese cooking at the grille table is a show with fascinating adeptness of practiced hands, flipping utensils. These men have been trained to twirl and chop with knives, but safety and the fearful prohibit that. But the show must go on so they now flip a carving fork and spatula! Nevertheless, a meal with these showmen is good for the eyes, as well as the tummy.

After flipping tools for a bit, an uncooked egg was flipped around, up and down on the fork and spatula until he the spatula flipped on its side neatly broke the egg onto the grille where it started to sizzle. Then he did the same with a second egg. Slowly, cooked rice, peas and bits of carrots got added with ginger butter and those who had ordered fried rice got a scoop on their plate.

Chopped vegetables were then added in a heap on the hot surface, along with whatever meats or seafood had been ordered. Each cook had brought out the right ingredients in the correct amount for those at the table, to fulfill their orders. Rings of onions were piled on top of one another to form a pyramid; oil was poured into the open top, then water, as those who watched saw the contents of the whole front of the table burst into flames. Steam poured out of the top of the onion volcano until the flames finally burned out.

Again and again the spatula scooped up the right amount and became another serving to one of the eager recipients gathered at the table. At the next table, the childish glee of a little boy with a Mohawk haircut, giggled as his gelled hair was felt by the other children at the table. A couple at our table readily admitted that they expected to be back again as they loved their first visit and introduction to such a gastronomical success and show!

MORE THAN BANNED IN BOSTON

When a Tree Grows in Brooklyn was banned in Boston the author was assured of money and success. Even though it was 'banned', anyone who wanted a copy got one as it is human nature to want what you are told you can't have, if you believe it won't hurt you.

Amazon has a good list of previously banned movies. Among them are classics like SAVAGE TEMPTATION and CANNIBAL though the censors at the Hays office stopped most at the pass.

Drew Carey who writes for Reason TV can talk about many more banned elements in what he calls our Nanny State,

Whether you love it, hate it, or have never thought about it, chances are some politician wants to ban it. "Welcome to the Nanny State Nation," says reason.tv host Drew Carey. "Where the government minds your own business."

"Saggy pants, fire places, plastic bags, light bulbs, poker—it's all been banned somewhere. Same with owning swine or fowl, feeding pigeons, owning pit bulls, and chomping on trans fats, a naughty little substance that makes food taste better.

Of course, smoking's been banned in all sorts of places—indoors, outdoors, near doors, beaches, casinos, even private homes. America's smoking ban craze began in California. So many bans start there.

"But is New York City the new California?" asks Carey? Smoking, trans fat, aluminum baseball bats, straddling a bike, wearing in-line skates or drinking coffee on a subway—the Big Apple bans them all.

Even if we don't particularly like something we should be wary of banning it because every ban is backed up by the force of law. Plus, would you want to live in a nation that bans everything that offends someone?

Carey wonders when so many of us turned into "ban-happy busybodies," and compliments the British on their more civilized approach to bans."

So many foolish people think that passing laws, forbidding and banning really produces their desired results. For the most part, it makes the forbidden fruit tastier.

TO WHOM ARE WE LISTENING ABOUT OUR WORLD?

It seems that McCain has been so busy campaigning and listening to his own line that he is fantasying something non-existent. He seems not to be hearing that the Iraqis are chewing us up and spitting us out as we did to them for the last 5 years. Listen up: They want us out of there!!!!
Al Qaeda and the Taliban are in Pakistan where we are now funding them, albeit indirectly.

"The superstitious Right fights global warming." Not since Keith Olbermann issued a series of open letters to Bush have I heard a case presented as coherently and honestly as David Michael Green, writing for Environment. It is well worth your reading of it.

IS HOPE SHOWING FOR JOURNALISM?

The Washington Post has just appointed a new Executive Editor, Marcus Brauchli pronounced (Brow-klee). It would seem that what we have known for so long is that Murdoch, a businessman not a journalist, ran the show at the Wall Street Journal. No small wonder journalism reached so low a level of objectivity.

Having lived through the past few years in which the "news" is no longer the truth but what those in charge of government or ownership of the media want us to hear.

Only the ability of people to read for themselves, blogs, email, chats, all sorts of other communications will make it impossible for the biased, media control to remain so powerful in the hands of so few. Apparently the wake-up call by slipped circulation is touching some of the worst offenders as the only way they are capable of feeling, in the pocketbook.

Glen Greenwald, 4/20/08 wrote that the US media deceitfully disseminates US propaganda. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro pressed major news networks to disclose ethics standards for military analysts. We have fallen into being a country where our leaders have no moral compass and use deceit and fear to confuse the overly-trusting masses.

AUSTEN SEQUELS: PLAGIARIZING A PLAGIARIST

Continuing my addiction to Austen sequels, I have now discovered that some authors may not even have read an Austen original of Pride and Prejudice. When the film with Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFayden came out in 2005 it seemed a lovely romantic tale, since I had not read the original. I was eager to show it to someone I knew loved Austen and was annoyed that she talked and criticized it all through the film. She had been affronted that it didn't follow Austen and I realized that the person who made it into a film must have taken great liberties to make the story fit the time alloted as well as changing many scenarios of the plot.

Immediately I bought the Complete Jane Austen novels and realized the difference. Then I watched the BBC 2-disk version which quite honestly follows the story as Austen wrote it. I have now read two authors who directly quote from the short movie version. I'm sure that is not illegal but to true Austen fans it is insulting! Word for word one author lifted several lines as to what to call Lizzy when she asked Darcy not to call her 'my dear' because that is what her father called her mother when he was cross with her. Since it was not from the no longer copyrighted original, it is from a movie script and I would assume it is plagiarism. If someone is going to write a sequel of their own, it seems that it should only be taken from the original text. However, if one loves bedroom scenes, this book was certainly sexually titillating.

Having now read fourteen sequels with many more to go, they seem to multiply like rabbits, I am finding that there are good writers and bad writers. To me, the good sequel writers are those who use the original story, facts, dialogue and people and then fill in the blanks of the future after Austen stopped in a manner believable by the characters Austen had built. The rest of the writers seem to be trying to turn Austen into a cash cow. Like all else in my world, there is something to like in all of them if you can get by my plagiarism grievances.

WHY DO THEY ALL TOPPLE OFF THEIR PEDESTALS?

Christopher Hitchens has a mind I have admired for a long time, primarily after reading his book, God is Not Great. He is a brilliant historian and writes well (since he agrees with me) on God. However, after seeing him on TV panels I have to confess his personality is as fetching as Ann Coulter's. When I heard that he is a neocon/warmonger, he immediately toppled off the pedestal.

He is not, by far, the first to take a dive. Some people talk well and make interesting points. This is wonderful to help the rest of us think out of our box. He is provocative and his expressed thoughts really push the envelope. However, it was surprising to hear that this pro-Iraq war supporter has taken this length of time to change a view that the majority of Americans have held for a long time. It took him only 11 seconds to realize that waterboarding is torture. Perhaps he should experience more directly before he forms such authoritative opinions about which he so pedantically lectures on panels.

An article by Alexander Linklater, having interviewed him, writes more accurately than anything I could write. Now I understand why I unconsciously related him to Ann Coulter. Both of them like to stir up controversy and shock. While Coulter is petty, nasty, and even more insulting than he...it seems he is taking lessons from her by such comments (to quote Linklater) as: "His aptitude for the iconoclastic flourish—describing Princess Diana and Mother Teresa at their deaths, for example, as, respectively, "a simpering Bambi narcissist and a thieving fanatical Albanian dwarf"—sustained his currency as an intellectual shock troop of the left."