I went to see the mattress man yesterday. He's a skinny, little, gray-haired dude, looks to be in his early sixties, who sits at a desk in the middle of his (usually empty) mattress store reading the bible to pass the time. Upon my entering the store, he raised his eyes from the bible and I was met with a piercing gaze over the top of his of wire-frame glasses. He looks like a high school history teacher about to chew out the slacker who has just shown up late again. Like the good liberal I am, I try not to make assumptions about people based on their appearance, but what with the bible, and the glare, and this being red state Misery, I figured the mattress man and I didn't have much in common. Wrong.

During the course of our mattress discussions, the conversation drifted to the empty storefronts in the strip mall adjacent to his mattress store, and from there to all the brand-new, unsold houses in the area. Then I said something about how I felt there were some tough times ahead for America. And he went off.

Our conversation pretty much ceased, as, for the next 15 minutes or so, he gave dubya and his enablers such a verbal beat-down that all I could do was land a few metaphorical kicks to their ribs when he paused to take a breath. He touched on all the high points: oil and empire; corporate greed and lobbyists; bankruptcy law and predatory lending practices; globalization and the death of unions and the middle class. And of course, Iraq and the War on Terra. It was quite a performance, with lots of arm waving and pacing about and advocating for a second American revolution. I wish I could have taped it and put it on YouTube.

A man who looked to me like a retired history teacher turned out to be an aged warrior, drafted in the '60s, given a modicum of training and a rifle and shipped off to the jungles of Vietnam. And he's still pissed about it. Along with my receipt for a new mattress and box springs, I left there with a big grin on my face and a little bit more hope for America. It's refreshing to know that there really are religious people out there who can look past the obfuscation about abortion and fags getting married, and see that our government has taken this country off the rails.

I'm almost 5 good Belgian beers into this blogging thang tonight, but I've got tomorrow off so I'm going for two posts in a row. My little rant about cell phones has got me fired up.

As I stated below, I'm a dinosaur compared to everyone I know. No cell phone. No video camera. No digital camera. But I'm also a science geek; I like to build things; I like to read about the latest and greatest whirligig options available for pretty much anything. Just because I don't own it doesn't mean I don't appreciate it. My point is that I'm not some old geezer yelling at the neighborhood kids to stay of his lawn. I'm not anti-technology. I've just come to realize that every piece of new technology I bring into my home takes away a little more of my most precious commodity; time.

The other day, while standing in line to buy a 16 dollar replacement battery for a 20 dollar cordless phone, I found myself thinking about the amount of time (and energy) I waste on the gadgetry I do have. The number one time burners for me (besides, to quote Homer Simpson, "Sweet, life-giving teevee.") is this iMac I'm typing on right now and, oddly enough, the iPod that came free with it.

Even though the iPod required many hours to build and maintain a music library, I'm so completely hooked on it that I don't even play CDs any more. The iMac is my portal to the intertoobz, where I can easily spend the largest part of any given day. It also houses my blog, a place I built to practice putting words together, but which has become more of a neglected second wife.

I can only imagine how much less time I would have if I had a laptop and a cell phone. I'd probably have to cut back on my personal hygiene just to keep up.

I'm a dinosaur. My wife and I are the only two adults I know who don't own a cell phone. She'd have one too if it weren't for me. I hate the damn things. I think they are a plague on society. It just blows me away that I don't know a single person who agrees with me.

Cell phones have completely changed the way we interact with each other. It's no longer possible to have a face-to-face conversation with anyone that is not interrupted by a separate cell phone conversation. The problem is, I'm the only person who even notices that there's no such thing as a one-on-one any more. Everyone I know is carrying everyone they know in a little box in their purse or on their hip.

I occasionally ask people why they have a cell phone and they all use the same word; need. They invariably have some (usually pretty rare) situation or circumstance in their busy lives in which it is exceedingly convenient, possibly even necessary, to have a cell phone. They need it. And of course, that's all it takes. They move themselves into the must-have category, get themselves a top-of-the-line phone/camera/browser combo with the "very latest technology" and a Plan with free text messaging and 9000 anytime minutes that they might as well use. Those fucking anytime minutes ought to be outlawed. They're worse than heroin. They have a 100% addiction rate. They're the reason we have all these goobers running around with their little Bluetooth headsets looking like Trekkies.

The illusion of control provided by having everyone you know in your back pocket 24/7 is incredibly alluring. It's an addiction to immediacy. An addiction for which there is no treatment, no cure, and no one actually seeking either of them. I'm only immune because I've not yet drunk from the well.

It's colder than a well-diggers ass here in Misery this Thanksgiving morning. My outdoor thermometer shows 34 degrees right now. That's a good enough excuse to lay around on my ass and watch football.

The Fox pre-game show is fêting the troops. They've got soldiers and sailors and Marines (oh my!) in the studio. It looks like the Army personnel are all wearing some type of camouflage working uniform, but the Navy and Marine Corps people are representing. They are shaved and shined up and wearing dress uniforms. I wonder just how many of them really don't want to be there.

When I was in the Navy, little collateral duties like this were always coming up; sailors in their Cracker Jack uniforms make good decorations. After they've done a couple of these type events — usually enticed into it by the promise of free tickets or free food or free beer — most everyone finds them tedious and starts trying to avoid them. Spending your day off in dress blues as part of a recruitment poster backdrop for Terry Bradshaw and the boys isn't nearly as much fun as it looks.

This is Peyton Robert taking his first peek at the world a couple of weeks ago. (I've been busy.) By all accounts he was, and remains, unimpressed.



At first, when my old friend Scott told me he was going to become a father at the ripe old age of 44, I was not happy for him. I remember thinking: Better you than me, buddy.

Of course I was looking through the eyes of someone who, along with my wife, has spent the last 15 years hauling the three pups from our second litter — and all their stuff — around. The thought of having another baby at this point in my life makes me want to hide under the bed.

But the difference for Scott is he's a first-time father. His back is not yet stooped and his face is not yet worn. He wanted this to happen. He did this on purpose. In short, he doesn't have a clue what he's just stepped in, hasn't even caught a whiff of the smell yet. It should be fun watching his enlightenment over the next few years.

Like most parents, I'm sure Scott will just hate it when people tell him how to raise his son. So in the spirit of our friendship, I'm going to get my 0.02$ worth of unsolicited advice in early.

So here it is, Scott, plain and simple: You will fuck this up. Many times and in many ways. As a father, at any given moment you will be required to furnish your son with knowledge and discipline; love and respect; humor and humility; scorn and trust and the multitude of other ingredients that make up the man he will eventually become. The difficulty lies in choosing which particular ingredient(s) and what particular amount(s) for any given situation. Expect to make mistakes. Kids don't come with instructions and there's really no such thing as an expert parent.

I have, however, gleaned a couple of basic truths about sons as I've stumbled and bumbled my own way through fatherhood. They are:

The way you treat his mother is the way he will treat women.

The way you treat him is the way he will treat those weaker than himself. It's important that he learn the meaning of altruism.

Other than that, old buddy, I got nothing. If he turns out like his dad, that'll be just fine.

Oh look! Events are once again transpiring in a manner so as to make dubya look like Wile E. Coyote. Another of his foreign policy myths has blown up in his face. The one with the US as benevolent bringer of democracy. Back last year, when the preznit was still peddling the illusion that democracy could be spread like apple butter throughout the Middle East, this is what he had to say about Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf:

"The president is a strong defender of freedom and the people of Pakistan," Bush said that day, side by side with Musharraf.

Over the weekend Pervez Musharraf suspended Pakistan's constitution and disbanded it's Supreme Court, canceled upcoming elections, shut down television and radio stations and newspapers, and began rounding up lawyers and judges and political activists.

Wow. You really couldn't be much more wrong about something than that, could you? Wile E. Coyote's eyebrows would be on fire right now.

Talking Points Memo has been following the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Michael Mukasey nomination for Attorney General pretty closely. It looks like the Dems are in the middle of another of their make-a-lot-of-noise-about-standing-up-to-the-president-before-giving-him-what-he-wants moments:

...the real battle will take place in the Senate Judiciary Committee. There, the Democrats outnumber the Republicans 10-9. And four Dems have already said they'll vote no. Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has yet to say whether he's made the full journey from "I like him" to "concerned" to "no." Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who championed Mukasey, is dodging the cameras. The rest haven't said.

I'd bet money the rest haven't said because they are busy lubing up, preparing to bend over for the preznit again. They just can't quit him.

Michael Mukasey has refused to state whether he believes waterboarding is torture. Think about that for a moment. He's up in the air about a practice that prior to the evil reign of darth and dubya was considered by the US to not only be torture, but a war crime. He has essentially begun covering for this administration on his way into the job! Doesn't that make him pretty much by definition unfit to be in charge of our Justice Department?

For me, this is as no-brainer as it gets. As a nation, if we don't have impartial justice, then we have no justice at all. What the Judiciary Committee is actually deciding is whether or not the preznit gets to continue operating above the law for the rest of his term.