Legacies

I was putting away the last of the Christmas decorations today, and while I was in the garage, some Y-chromosome function kicked in and compelled me to putter. It was already tidy, but my mind insisted it could be even more organized. So I moved shelves and toys, emptied some boxes and filled others, hung tools on the wall, and generally had a high old time. At one point, Mrs. Cat asked me why I was doing all this, and I honestly had no answer beyond grunting “Woman go house; cave mine!”

But it occurred to me as I was putting up the ochre hand prints and saber-toothed ibex drawings that if a man’s home is his castle, surely the garage is his armory.

Now, my grandfather died before I was born, so I never knew him, and can only piece together what sort of man he was by looking over the things he left behind. Judging by the stuff in the garage, he was either an amateur mechanic or a professional assassin. I mean, there’s a toolbox I could fit Cub into filled with all sorts of rasps, files, wrenches, screwdrivers, drill bits, and blades. In various corners and on random hooks are three different hacksaws, a large wood saw, a pick, a mattock, an axe, a couple of hatchets, a manual drill, bamboo stakes, a very large spool of medium-gauge wire, enough heavy chain to fetter the entire cast of Hostel, a sledgehammer, a couple of different shovels, a post-hole digger, two bags of lime, and – most telling for we Dexter fans – an unopened box of 39-gallon trash bags.

I imagine if I uncovered his diary up in the attic, a typical entry would be:

July 19: Changed oil in car; fixed porch rail; dismembered milkman; sanded dining room table; finished interrogating the Communist I caught at the Post Office (see July 5) and buried him in the backyard; my new rose hybrid bloomed today!; replaced bathroom faucet; set snare for that damn raccoon/sneaky neighbor kid. Note: need more trash bags.

Raising My Ire

The Bush Administration reduced the country’s net worth by six trillion dollars, pushed the DOW down 4,000 points, raised unemployment by 3%, increased the deficit by over $900 billion, forced banks to lend money to the insolvent, thereby collapsing the mortgage industry, pushed through a $700 billion bailout with no oversights or conditions, and demanded that auto executives accept a $1/year salary in order to get federal money.

(Of course, when I say ‘the Bush Administration,’ I mean ‘a Democratically-controlled Congress’, which the AP has conveniently forgotten is part of this administration.)

So after all of that hard work, and in light of the burgeoning economic crisis, it seems absolutely natural that they vote themselves a pay raise. Yep, each of our hard-working, fiscally responsible elected reps will receive an extra $4,700 – or a 2.8% increase. That’s an additional $2,500,000 from the taxpayers.

How about you, dear readers? Could you use an extra $4,700 a year? Call your reps and explain that to them.

All I can say is that it’s a damn good thing Congress isn’t seated in Brighton, MI, since their City Council just approved an ordinance allowing police to ticket and fine anyone who is annoying in public "by word of mouth, sign or motions." http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081219/METRO/812190459

What kills me is the admission from a city attorney that “there could be situations where the measure would violate freedom of speech.” Yeah…like every single one of them. I’m hoping that the citizens of Brighton show up at every public council meeting and demand that the councilors be ticketed as soon as they start talking.

Ten Glorious Minutes

Mama Cat came to visit over the holidays, and today – quite possibly because of a carbon monoxide leak – she and Mrs. Cat decided to take Kitten with them and hit the after-Christmas sales. So after making sure everyone had money, sensible shoes, store cards, cell phones, extra ammo, the portable Jaws of Life, and a Marine escort, they joined the madding crowd.

After settling Cub down in front of some flashy, cartoony thing, I attacked the house, rectifying the chaos that comes with the holidays: gift wrapping detritus, pieces of new toys that weren’t quite as sturdy as the commercials made them out to be, piles of dishes from extra-special, extra-large holiday meals, baskets of laundry because the weather keeps pendulum-ing from Winter to Spring, and the inevitable paper scraps, leaf pieces, dust bunnies and other unidentifiable oorts on the carpet that the visitors bring in.

It took a while, but that was okay. I’m not really anal about the housework, but I am clumsy, and if I can avoid breaking an ankle on one of Cub’s Matchbox cars, all the better.

So I finished up everything, and just had time to get through the opening credits on one of my new DVDs before Josie and the rest of the Pussycats returned, their hunting trophies carefully wrapped in variously-logoed plastic bags and clutched with a vehemence usually only seen in the more rabid NRA members.

Five minutes later, there were discarded coats, shoes, and socks piled on chairs and the floor, I had tomato sauce on my shirt and the kitchen floor from Cub’s kibble, camo fatigues were piled on the washing machine, having been swapped for more sensible jeans and T-shirts, and the dishes and bowls had been snatched from the rack by Mrs. Cat so she could start fixing supper. Mrs. Cat is genetically incapable of fixing any meal – from stir-fry to cereal – without using every single measuring cup we own. On the plus side, everything Mrs. Cat fixes is really fucking good, so I generally don’t mind washing up, as long as I have a few minutes alone in the caloric coma before I have to start processing higher brain functions.

All of that was really just a build up to brag that my wife fixed two homemade sweet potato pies tonight, topped with homemade whipped cream, and I am having to type by randomly whacking the keyboard with a single finger because the rest of me is totally occupied in licking the plate clean and making yummy sounds.

Apparently I’m “It”

I’ve been neglecting dear Jales over at Barely Dressed. Seems she tagged me a couple of weeks ago and I missed it. Here are the rules:

RULE ONE, I have to grab one of the books closest to me, go to page 56, type the fifth line and the next two to five lines that follow.

RULE TWO, I have to pick five people who love books and who could receive the Bookworm award with honor.

And the result is:

“McNihil wondered if she had a name. He supposed he could give her one, something cute and temporary; it only had to last as long as whatever connection existed between them. Which was probably measurable in hours. If that, he thought glumly. She was the loveliest thing that had ever been inside the dark, cramped space of his working and living accommodations. Like some self-destructive flower that had bloomed there, begging to be crushed inside anyone’s fist.”

Noir - K.W. Jeter

Like Jales, I don’t have five other people I could tag, since most of my friends aren’t on Blogspot, but I’ll go ahead and shout out to Elle, Anise, and EX-PFC Wintergreen.

Some Anaesthesia Required

It’s that time of year again. Time for parents to steal away and put together the “Santa” gifts in secret so the tiny terrorists can keep the magic alive one more year. I’m convinced that toy manufacturers have a special set of instructions they include in the packages they expect to sell over Christmas. You know what I’m talking about. These are the instructions that take pains to include actual-sized illustrations of the ¾” screws, but whose diagrams for assembly require a 4,000 power microscope to read. Even then, those fun-loving engineers tend to include drawings more resembling optical illusions than any sort of true three-point perspective, as the lines showing you where to attach various accessories always look like they are zooming off into the Cartesian horizon instead of into some physical part of the toy.

And would it be too much to ask for someone to actually lay out these booklets in some sort of desktop publishing program before they’re printed? That way, you’d know beforehand if some crucial piece of information fell on the other side of the fold. I love turning the page over and seeing:

STEP 9b – Continued: Though the illustration seems to indicate otherwise, under no circumstances are the snapbaffles to be inserted onto the auxiliary flange before the flousting lever is rotated to parallel. The snapbaffles cannot be removed once they are assembled, and if you’re reading this after completing all of the other steps on the previous page, you’re just going to have to go buy a new one and start over – or explain to your child why there’s no gift from Santa for them. Ha ha HA HA HA!

They’re also misleading about the “Tools Required” section. It’s always just: Hammer. Phillips screwdriver. Yes, technically, you could assemble the entire toy with just those two items. As long as your screwdriver has a magnetic head, can adjust from 3” to 10” long, turn in right-angles, and has a built-in LED light source and jeweler’s loupe. There’s a reason Santa uses elves to do all of the toymaking – small hands. They can get into the 1 1/16” gap between the primary camshaft and the torqueguard to tighten down the friction pins. The same friction pins that the instructions reference in big bold red letters, letting you know that if they aren’t at the correct depth, the entire toy becomes one big deathtrap.

Adding to the fun is trying to do all of this in an unheated garage, where every scrape of the knuckles or pinched finger is exponentially more painful – and the fact that the garage shares a wall with the kids’ room means I can’t even cuss satisfactorily.

This is why my stocking is always full of bandages, rum and Valium.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

Whirled News Tonight

Two stories recently caught my eye in my local fishwrap.

The first was about a couple of Englishmen who had flown to the US for a vacation, and ended up being jailed for several weeks. Seems they had packed a couple of silencers with them, which – as weapon accessories are want to do – attracted the notice of the authorities. These two first claimed the silencers were a gift for a hunting buddy they were visiting, then after being a guest of our penal system, refined their statement to say the silencers were for air rifles, like those used in paintball. Needless to say, the two UK natives were finally deported. One of them was quoted as saying he would never ever visit the US again. Ever.

Now, all of this tends to evoke a “Well that sucks” reaction, but the very last line of the story changes everything. “The two men admitted they had not declared the silencers to Customs.” Ohhhhhh. Now I see. Because you were the dumbasses that didn’t declare a weapon accessory, we’re the ones at fault. I’m kind of glad you won’t visit again, because personal responsibility is in short enough supply here as it is. We don’t have enough to spare for you.


The other story went something like this (I’m paraphrasing):

Local high school student Crystal Woods took offense at a comment made by her Art teacher shortly after the Presidential election, when he said that African Americans couldn’t complain about slavery anymore.

“I couldn’t believe he said that in front of the class,” said Crystal, who is African American. “It’s like he was trying to minimize our struggles in this country. “

Crystal complained to her mother, Sharon, who called Principal Jonathan Stevenson to find out what the school intended to do about the offensive speech.

This is not the first time the Woods family has run into insensitivity from the school. Crystal’s older brother, James, found a confederate flag sticker beside his locker one day, and often overheard comments from other students about how he didn’t have to perform well academically because he was on the basketball team. James, the Valedictorian of his class five years ago, attended a state school on a basketball scholarship.

Principal Stevenson has assured the Woods family that the teacher will be required to attend sensitivity training.

“I’m just glad that he’ll know he can’t say things like that without repercussions,” Sharon said.


If this were in any way a sane world, the story should have read like this:

Local high school student Crystal Woods took offense at a comment made by her Art teacher shortly after the Presidential election, when he said that African Americans couldn’t complain about slavery anymore.

“I couldn’t believe he said that in front of the class,” said Crystal, who is African American. “It’s like he was trying to minimize our struggles in this country. “

Crystal complained to her mother, Sharon, who called Principal Jonathan Stevenson to find out what the school intended to do about the offensive speech.

The Principal immediately scheduled an Over-sensitivity class for Crystal and Sharon, citing the fact that the Constitution doesn’t guarantee freedom from offense at others’ Free Speech.

“He probably shouldn’t have said that to his class,” Stevenson noted, “but to demand punishment over a thoughtless comment is overreacting just a tad.”

Stevenson says the priority for the Over-sensitivity class will be to teach the Woods women how to be more like Crystal’s brother James, who didn’t let every little thing bother him. “He maintained a perfect GPA and won a full sports scholarship to our local college,” Stevenson said. “They’d do better trying to be more like James rather than being whiny bitches.”

The Ruling Class

Did you hear that Tribune Media is filing for Chapter 11? I saw it on the Chicago Tribune’s web site.

If this is an example of their usual journalistic standards, I’m surprised it took this long for them to go under.

Other random things on my mind include this story from the UK:


Extinguishers banned as a fire safety hazard

Fire extinguishers could be removed from communal areas in flats throughout the country because they are a safety hazard, it has emerged.

The life-saving devices encourage untrained people to fight a fire rather than leave the building, risk assessors in Bournemouth decided.


Ordinarily, I’d post some snarky comment about either irony or the Nanny State tendencies of the English, but I think in this case, a healthy “What the fuck?” will suffice.

And speaking of Lawmakers Gone Wild!, there was this gem a couple of weeks ago:


Florida: A Port St. Lucie boy has been busted after police caught him with a bag of parsley. The 15-year-old was with another 13-year-old boy on their way to a friend's house on Friday morning when they were questioned.

The older boy told police that he planned to trick his friend into thinking his baggie of parsley was really marijuana. He also admitted to smoking the real deal the prior day.

He was arrested and charged with possession of a counterfeit controlled substance with the intent to deliver.


Man, oh man…I hope the cops don’t ever raid my kitchen; I’ve got counterfeit cocaine, counterfeit pot, counterfeit heroin…

I looked up the specific statute that covers this case, and it’s not a crime unless you admit that you were going to try and make someone think it was a real drug. So what was this 15-year-old supposed to say when the police asked “What are you going to do with that baggie of parsley?” Who does this law protect? Legitimate drug dealers? And Florida’s not the only stupid state, Ohio’s got a version of it, too. There was this bit from Akron’s court blotter:


(December 5, 2007, Akron) … Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh announced today that Dexter L. Harrison, 21, of Cliffside Drive in Akron, Ohio, was found guilty by a jury of Aggravated Robbery with a Firearm Specification, a felony of the first degree, Possession of a Counterfeit Controlled Substance, a misdemeanor of the first degree, and Possession of Marijuana, a minor misdemeanor.


Did you see that? The possession of a counterfeit controlled substance is a more serious crime than possession of the real substance. Is this opposite day or something? (And if you tell me “no,” how can I believe you?)

See, lawmakers pass these bizarre statutes, and then expect us to listen to them when they advise us on how to protect ourselves, when we have direct evidence they’re absolutely bug-fuck insane. There was a story recently about a woman from Harlem that had gotten mugged on a subway, then ran down her muggers and grabbed onto one, not letting go until they gave her purse back. The cops "lauded” her “spunk,” but were quick to add that tired old platitude about how “you shouldn't take matters in your own hands like that.” Why not, Officer? Obviously none of the boys in blue were on the subway with her. What else was she supposed to do? I tend to agree with those that cling to their guns when they opine “I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy,” or “When there are only seconds between life or death, a cop is just minutes away.”

I think that’s why movies about vigilantes always do well, because people want to think that in the same situation, they’d have the balls to put things to rights themselves. Boondock Saints taps into that feeling with the newscasts presented throughout the film (especially in the credits). Batman is a vigilante with “wonderful toys”, the new Bond goes off the reservation any time it’s convenient, Jason Bourne is a rogue agent, Dirty Harry had his own catchphrase, Charles Bronson had the Death Wish series. People would like to say “Fuck the rules, I’m fixing this.” Especially when the rules state that having fake pot is more of a crime than having real pot.