Re: Monday's post on gay marriage

Tribune columnist Eric Zorn apparently agrees with my modest proposal to get the State out of the marriage business.

Thanks to Beach Bum for pointing this one out.

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Senate hearings: Oil's well that ends well

For the Oil Moguls, that is.

Oh, sure, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee wagged their fingers and wrung their hands at a group of oil company execs yesterday. Now the Senate is on record as being "concerned."

When the price of gas gets to $6 a gallon, they'll probably get really concerned -- concerned enough, perhaps, to ask some obvious follow up questions of their witnesses.

If Steve Hargreaves' account, for CNNMoney.com, is at all accurate, the Senators failed utterly to even the most obvious questions to some incredible statements.

Hargreaves quotes Illinois' senior Senator, Dick Durbin, as asking, "Does it trouble any one of you - the costs you're imposing on families, on small businesses, on truckers?"

Why, yes, Hargreaves writes, the oil moguls "said it did, and that they are doing all they can to bring new oil supplies to market, but that the fundamental reasons for the surge in oil prices are largely out of their control."

Really?

Imagine someone running a store. He sells something that everyone wants and he charges so much per item that he racks up, oh, say $36 billion in profits in the first three months of 2008 -- like the companies represented by the Fab Five before the Judiciary Committee yesterday, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips Co., Shell Oil Co., Chevron and BP. Now one way that our hypothetical shopkeeper can keep profits from being so huge is to cut the price for the items he sells.

Duh.

Why didn't the Senators ask the execs if they might cut the prices they charge? You know, voluntarily? Apparently, though, something that obvious was beyond their grasp.

And the oil company execs were puffing smoke and flashing mirrors. From Hargreaves' article:

"We cannot change the world market," said Robert Malone, chairman and president of BP America Inc. "Today's high prices are linked to the failure both here and abroad to increase supplies, renewables and conservation."

Malone's remarks were echoed by John Hofmeister, president of Shell.

"The fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work," said Hofmeister. The market is squeezed by exporting nations managing demand for their own interest and other nations subsidizing prices to encourage economic growth, he said.

Shell's Hofmeister insisted there's no free market for oil... but not because of Saudi sheiks or other tyrants around the world. No! Once again, it's really America's fault. Hargreaves writes that, according to Hofmeister, "the problem is that access to resources in the United States has been limited for the past 30 years."

You want lower gas prices? the execs asked. Well, they said, let us plunder those "large parts of the U.S. that are currently closed to drilling - like sections of Alaska, the Rocky Mountains and the continental shelf." Hargreaves continues:

"The place to start the free market is in our own country," said one executive. [The drilling ban] sets the stage for OPEC to do what we are doing in our own country, and that is effectively limiting supplies."

John Lowe, executive vice president of ConocoPhillips, said Congress should enact a balanced energy policy. In addition to lifting the drilling ban, such a policy could include measures to encourage alternative energy sources, remove the ethanol tariff, promote energy conservation, cut regulations around refining.

Granted, one engine that can drive price increases is scarcity: If there isn't enough of something, the price will go up. That's true for Wii game consoles, certain hybrid automobiles, and other products.

Someday, certainly, it will be true of oil as well, especially as China and India ramp up their economies.

But there's no scarcity today.

Chevron's Peter Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron, gave that one away, according to Hargreaves' article: "We are investing all we can [in finding new oil] given the limitations of access and our own human capacity," Robertson said. "We have adequate refined capacity, inventories are at an all time high. The issue is the price of crude."

Crude oil prices burst through the $100 per barrel price level this year -- but some of these 'prices' are futures contracts -- guesses, really, of where prices will be in the future -- bets, in effect, of where the actual price may go. Futures contracts don't necessarily mean anything in the case of our hypothetical shopkeeper who's priced his goods so high that he's making obscene profits. The bets that investors make don't prevent our shopkeeper from marking down the prices on his shelves.

And they don't prevent the oil companies from marking down their prices either.

The one thing on which the oil company execs were absolutely united was that windfall profits taxes are bad. What did you expect them to say? Hargreaves writes, "In the short run, experts say there's little politicians can do to bring down the price of gas." The experts may well be right.

But the oil companies can bring down the prices that they set. They can do it right now. And if they fail to do so, the current crop of politicians will be thrown out of office by their constituents... and their successors will start thinking not just in terms of windfall profits taxes... but nationalization.

Unthinkable? So was $4 a gallon gas, and just recently, too.

In the meantime, the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue mugging and preening for the cameras, uh, hearings today. And nothing substantive will be accomplished. Why?

Because when oil companies start talking about things like "conservation," a lot of our allegedly populist senators go weak in the knees. They're in favor of conservation. They're against global warming. And if we selfish, greedy Americans would just change our behavior, we'll all achieve an earthly paradise. And if it takes gas at $4... or $5... or even $10 a gallon to bring this transformation about... well, that's all for the good, isn't it?

You know, the end justifies the means?

Well, I'm in favor of conservation, too -- and even if I don't accept the Gospel of St. Albert of Gore, I know the day must come when oil will be scarce. And we have to start seriously looking for alternatives. (Giving subsidies to corn farmers and driving up the world price of a food staple isn't serious. Except if your poor and living in Mexico and can't afford tortillas any more.)

And if the oil companies were truly serious about alternative energy sources, they wouldn't have these profits either -- they'd plow back these enormous profits into research and development. They'd have small profits on their enormous revenues.

But -- for all their talk -- they're not doing this. Otherwise they wouldn't have these huge profits... doesn't anybody get this?

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Sometimes things are really that simple

If you made it all the way down to the end of this morning's top post, thank you.

I've got to stop writing about that topic because it gets me frustrated and angry.

But I want to leave the topic with just one real-life illustration.

I'm a lawyer and, either on the defense or plaintiff's side, I've been doing personal injury cases off and on for the better part of three decades.

I've never made any big money at it.

The big money is made by only a few select firms in Chicago that get all the really big PI cases. Why?

A lot of it is reputation. Reputation that is earned, by the way, by a solid track record of success.

But this success becomes also a self-fulfilling prophecy.

See, any lawyer has to decide what cases to take. In America, plaintiff's lawyers make major investments in cases -- not just in their time, but also out of pocket, paying for medical records, court costs, depositions, experts... and these costs can seldom (very seldom) be recouped if the case is unsuccessful. Also, the personal injury lawyer is paid a percentage of the total recovery -- no recovery, no fee.

So a successful personal injury lawyer is also a selective lawyer.

The really successful firms can afford to be really selective: That means they'll probably take a pass on your case unless the liability is obvious and damages huge.

I used to think that the most prominent PI attorneys were truly great lawyers, amazing scholars and legal technicians because they achieved such great results for their clients. But, with time, I've learned: They're competent, hard-working men and women -- who just happen to have the incomparable advantage of working up only great cases.

In other words, it's just about as hard to prepare a small case for trial or settlement as a large one. The only real difference is in the potential reward. We want to think there's something magic or special about what the most successful lawyers do... but there really isn't. It really is simple. If you start with great cases you should achieve great results.

I think this is true in a lot of areas -- including government. A lot of people think because the numbers involved are so huge -- billions and trillions, not hundreds or thousands like we have to juggle in our own lives -- that the issues must also be huge or intractable or complex. Pick the word you like best.

But -- often -- it's just not so.

The oil companies are making insane profits because they are charging insane prices. If they cut their prices enough, their profits will fall back into what passes for respectable. It really is that simple.

Don't tell me the Devil is in the details. I'm inclined to agree with that -- but I think the Devil put the details there in the first place. We just have look past them, that's all.

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Sobering statistics from that radical rag, National Geographic

From the "China" issue, May 2008, Vol. 213, No. 5 at p. 170:

Percent of the world's umbrellas made in China 70

Percent of the world's buttons made in China 60

Percent of U.S. shoes made in China 72

Percent of U.S. kitchen appliances made in China 50

Percent of U.S. artificial Christmas trees made in China 85

Percent of U.S. toys made in China 80

Percent of Chinese goods sent to the U.S. that end up on Wal-Mart's shelves 9

Percent of the unsafe toys recalled in the U.S. in 2007, including Thomas the Tank Engine, that were made in China 100

Number of months a Chinese factory worker would need to work to earn the cost of a Thomas the Tank Engine train set 6

These numbers have consequences. Last week, for example, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that shoe prices in the U.S. will jump 10 to 15% in the next year -- the first price increase after nearly 10 years of declining prices.

Why the price boost? According to the linked article, by Rachel Dodes and Ray A. Smith, "The rising prices largely reflect higher costs in China, though higher fuel costs and the weak dollar share in the blame." The Sun-Times article contradicts the above statistic about the percentage of U.S. shoes made in China. National Geographic claimed that 72% of our shoes come from China; the Sun-Times reported that China "makes about 85 percent of all shoes sold in the United States."

Either way, we are heavily dependent on China for shoes. And the good news just keeps getting better. Again, from the Sun-Times piece, "[M]ore expensive shoes could also be a precursor to price increases for belts, purses and other leather accessories -- all made in the same region in China."

Globalization is not necessarily evil. In fact, the idea of raising living standards for everyone by encouraging trade and manufacturing everywhere is a fine and noble thing.

In theory.

In practice, however, things seem to have worked out differently.

I've been reading a history of Chicago recently and I can't help but see similarities in the way our local millionaires from the Gilded Age handled their labor issues and the corporate titans of today. There are differences of scale, that's all.

In the 1890s a businessman could cut wages at will and, if an employee, or group of employees, beefed, there were always men waiting at the gate who'd gladly take the jobs, even at the reduced rate of pay.

Thirty or 40 years ago, we saw companies strip the "Rust Belt" of manufacturing capacity, moving jobs to the "Sun Belt," where pesky unions couldn't be found and year-round tee times could. The sons and daughters of those wanderers have taken those same jobs out of the country completely. To China, for instance.

But China better not get too ambitious or try and raise their own prices too high. Because these corporate locusts will move on to another country. Because there's always another country waiting at the gate who'd gladly take the jobs....

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1984 arrives late -- but it's definitely here

From the Times of London today comes news that the British government is planning a "database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public as" -- you know it's coming... but... wait for it -- "part of the fight against crime and terrorism."

In America, Orwell's nightmare vision came to life as the Total Information Awareness Program of the Information Awareness Office. Although the linked Wikipedia article says that the IAO was closed and that the TIA program was "defunded" by Congress in 2003, "several of the projects run under IAO have continued under different funding."

I worry that too few people have read 1984 -- too few know even who George Orwell was. I worry that too many people think "Big Brother" is just a TV program.

But maybe most of you remember Benjamin Franklin. He once said, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

And, oh, was he right.

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Heads or Tails #39 -- Piece or Peace

Today is Homophone Day at Heads or Tails and, no, we're not still talking about recent decisions of the California Supreme Court. "Homophones" are words that sound alike, though they are spelled differently and mean different things... as in today's pair of words at the Internet's premier Tuesday meme, piece or peace. Our magnificent mentor, Barb, gives us a lot of freedom with these topics... and therefore I'll write this morning about oil profits.

And, yes, Your Honor, I will tie this up with our topic.

The New York Times (genuflection optional) reported on April 30 that Royal Dutch Shell’s net income in just the first three months of 2008 ballooned to $9.08 billion and that British Petroleum reported a first quarter profit of $7.62 billion.

The Kansas City Star published Jane Wardell's AP story in its April 29 edition in which Wardell reported that Conoco-Phillips had a first quarter 2008 profit of $4.14 billion.

Read through David Lightman's story for the May 19 edition of the Kansas City Star and you'll find that Exxon-Mobil boasted a first quarter 2008 profit of $10.9 billion.

That's just four oil companies -- there are others -- who together report $31.74 billion in profits in just three months. That's profit -- you know, after you've footed the bill for sponsoring Masterpiece Theatre. (No, wait, ExxonMobile dropped its sponsorship in 2004.)

There are roughly 6.67 billion people on this planet. To put that $31.74 billion into some perspective, that amounts to roughly $4.76 for each and every man, woman and child... everywhere.

Lightman's KC Star article is not just about oil profits; it explains why serious economists think a windfall profits tax on these gushing oil profits would not be a good idea. The article quotes skeptical St. Louis University economics professor Muhammad Islam: "How do you define the word windfall? How do you define `normal price?'"

Writing about obscenity, in a concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964), Justice Potter Stewart said, "I know it when I see it."

Well, I know a windfall profit when I see it, too. And I'm seeing it here. And it's also obscene.

And now to tie it all up: One percent of $31.74 billion is still $317,400,000. One tenth of one percent of $31.74 billion is $31,740,000.

Keep on cutting: One one-hundredth of one percent of those first quarter profits would be $3,174,000. If I could just get me that little piece of that pie -- a crumb from the table, really -- and I'd be set for life.

When the crumbs the oil companies flick off their metaphorical bibs without a backward glance are so large they could turn anyone who catches just one into a millionaire... I put it to you that their profits are too large. I'm the last person in the world who would advocate confiscatory taxation under usual circumstances. As an American, I celebrate the success of my neighbors (OK, I get jealous, too) -- but I want to get my own -- I don't want to take away theirs. But there's another old saying to which I subscribe: Pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered. The oil companies have become hogs.

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California court decision prompts modest proposal

Some years back, when the "gay marriage" movement was just gaining steam, I made a proposal that was immediately ridiculed by friends on both the Right and the Left.

One colleague, in particular, a Democrat in DuPage County (and therefore a True Believer... as she was often so alone out there... although even DuPage has gotten 'purpler' since) called my suggestion "cowardly."

Last week's decision by the California Supreme Court, however, spurs me to renew that suggestion now: I propose we get the State out of the marriage business altogether.

Many churches -- most, I dare say -- would not recognize homosexual marriages. But some would. Churches have monopolized the marriage business in this country for years, if not forever. Sure, one could always go to City Hall to tie the knot -- but that was never necessary. Only a license was required -- a registration that a particular type of partnership, a marriage, was about to be entered into.

And, in the law, we have treated marriage as a partnership contract. It has been a particular kind of contract in the past, a contract that could only be entered between a man and a woman, a partnership that may produce offspring instead of widgets. And the law in many states -- even those that don't recognize gay marriages -- has evolved to acknowledge "domestic partnerships" that are similar to marriages in all respects except the name.

I say the State's real interest in marriage is in registering the partnership -- the licensing part. Determining that this partnership is a marriage and that one is not strikes me as legally unnecessary. Public registration is really necessary so that, in the event of a dissolution of the partnership, one partner can not be unfairly disadvantaged and become a burden on society.

Now, after thousands of years, in the span of a couple of decades, a clearly understood societal standard has moved. Or has been moved by activist judges. Or has been moved by crusaders for social justice. I don't care who moved what! The line has moved.

And it may move again.

After all, the Old Testament recognized plural marriage. If marriage is no longer to be exclusively a union between one man and one woman, why can't a Mormon have as many wives as he can afford? Gay marriage may have no Biblical roots -- but polygamy does. Moreover, the Qur'an certainly permits a Muslim man to have more than one wife. Must we expect, then, that "marriage" must be redefined to include polygamy too?

And, if we will permit polygamy, must we not also permit polyandry? Why shouldn't a woman have multiple husbands... if she wants? (Maybe one of them will leave the toilet seat down.)

In fact, as long as we're at it, why shouldn't Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice be permitted to enter into a group marriage if they so choose?

No, I'm not trying to ridicule my own proposal: If who may form a "marriage" is now a civil rights issue, a matter for individuals to decide according to their own consciences, and for courts to enforce regardless of what "majorities" say, why shouldn't we expect individuals to come up with all sorts of ideas about what a "marriage" should be?

It was, at one time, easy to tell what was and was not a marriage. Now... well, contract law and partnership law are very flexible. Divorce law and the law involving the dissolution of business partnerships share many similarities. We can let the law decide how to relate to these new domestic arrangements without trying to make the state responsible for defining what marriage is.

I expect that, in time, there will be a new line.

I just don't know where it will be drawn. In the meantime, with gasoline at over $4 a gallon, good jobs leaving the country in droves every single day, and our schools producing illiterates, does it really make sense to waste so much public time and energy debating whether Ellen DeGeneres can get "married" to her companion?

I'm not asking anyone to change their views about what marriage is. My own opinions in this regard remain entirely unchanged by the 172 pages of California jurisprudence linked at the outset of this essay. I just want to get the State out of this suddenly-contentious business.

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The last of our proms is tonight...

...and it's about time.

The 'little black dress' has been used for each of the three preceding proms -- if there are three different escorts it's apparently acceptable to use the same dress with each.

The one dress Long Suffering Spouse and I liked best will not be worn at all. Presumably because we liked it. But Younger Daughter would never admit that.

No, tonight is the night for Younger Daughter's Prom -- all of the others have been for other schools -- and therefore tonight will be the night she unveils the new dress.

It's orange.

I said it's hard to find a turtleneck that goes with orange -- but I was ignored, as per usual.

I had a brief flare of hope last night as we discussed plans for this evening. It seems that Younger Daughter's escort has gotten in some trouble at his school and will be required to serve the dreaded Saturday detention -- meaning he must be at school at 8:00 a.m. -- and meaning, further, I found out last night, that the boy's parents will require him to return by 1:30 a.m.

Yes! I exulted.

But... my hopes were quickly and cruelly dashed. Youngest Son advised that he has a baseball tournament on Saturday morning. He's not sure where it is... but he must be at school to catch the bus by 6:30 a.m.

And then Younger Daughter said it was a shame that her escort was obligated to return home but she didn't see why she couldn't continue on and frolic with her friends until 3:00 a.m.

And then, worst of all, Long Suffering Spouse indicated a willingness to go along with Younger Daughter's plan. She confirmed it this morning.

Unlike the days of my carefree youth, when I came home singing with the birds just before dawn, I now generally fall asleep by 9:00 p.m. on Fridays.... the weeks are just too long for me now. But this one is going to be a lot longer than usual.

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More unsolicited advice, this time for Sen. McCain

In this morning's post, I suggested a retired Marine Corps general as a helpful running mate for Senator Obama. Senator McCain doesn't need any help establishing his military credentials. His service record is more than sufficient. From Wikipedia (footnotes omitted):

John McCain's capture and imprisonment began on October 26, 1967. He was flying his twenty-third bombing mission over North Vietnam, when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi. McCain fractured both arms and a leg, and then nearly drowned when he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi. After he regained consciousness, a mob attacked him, crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt, and bayoneted him; he was then transported to Hanoi's main Hoa Loa Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton".

Although McCain was badly wounded, his captors refused to treat his injuries, instead beating and interrogating him to get information. Only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral did they give him medical care and announce his capture. His status as a prisoner of war (POW) made the front pages of New York Times and Washington Post.

McCain spent six weeks in the Hoa Loa hospital, receiving marginal care. Now having lost 50 pounds (23 kg), in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white, McCain was sent to a different camp on the outskirts of Hanoi in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week. In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years.

In July 1968, McCain's father was named commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater. McCain was immediately offered early release. The North Vietnamese wanted a worldwide propaganda coup by appearing merciful, and also wanted to show other POWs that elites like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially. McCain turned down the offer of repatriation; he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.

In August of 1968, a program of severe torture began on McCain, at the same time as he was suffering from dysentery, and McCain made an anti-American propaganda "confession". He has always felt that his statement was dishonorable, but as he would later write, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine." His injuries left him permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head. He subsequently received two to three beatings per week because of his continued refusal to sign additional statements. Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions" and propaganda statements, with many enduring even worse treatment than McCain.

McCain refused to meet with various anti-war groups seeking peace in Hanoi, not wanting to give either them or the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory. From late 1969 on, treatment of McCain and some of the other POWs became more tolerable. McCain and other prisoners cheered the B-52-led U.S. "Christmas Bombing" campaign of December 1972 as a forceful measure to push North Vietnam to terms.

Altogether, McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years. He was finally released from captivity on March 14, 1973.

I don't usually clip such long sections, but it seemed appropriate here. Even in an encyclopedia entry, it's a compelling narrative.

If elected, McCain would not be a "military hero" in the Grant or Eisenhower mold -- he planned and executed no grand strategies, he won no battles. But even the most partisan Democrats won't question his heroism.

The problem for Senator McCain is that he comes off as the grumpy old man who is forever shooing kids off his lawn. For balance, he'd need someone younger, hipper, "cooler" -- obviously flexible, someone whose presence on the ticket would highlight McCain's argument that he's not as doctrinaire as he will be portrayed by his opponents.

In short, McCain's ideal running mate would be... Barack Obama. Or at least a more conservative facsimile thereof.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama will probably be otherwise engaged in November... although Hillary still has her own hopes.....

Republicans don't have a long line of younger, cooler, genial types. Many in the Talk Radio Right would impose former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on Senator McCain.

If McCain accepts Huckabee it is because he has subscribed to the rule of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

American presidential primaries are about appealing to party activists -- thus Democrats must run Left and Republicans must run Right. The survivors of this process have to then reverse field and run back toward the Center... where most Americans really are.

That will be hard for both candidates this year. Arguably, Senator Obama started left and has stayed there -- if Senator McCain can be said to have started closer to the center... it must also be said that he ran hard right, picking up baggage like the endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee along the way. (Wikipedia says the Rev. Hagee has apologized for some of his more virulent anti-Catholic remarks. But is this apology grounded in expedience or repentance?)

Sadly, though both candidates seem to be honorable and worthwhile as individuals, deciding for whom to vote may come down to deciding whose allies, confederates and hangers-on are less scary.

And that does bring us back to McCain's selection of a Vice President. Although the Republicans have held national office for nearly eight years now, the crop of likely veeps is very thin. Anyone too closely associated with the present administration is radioactive. And Republicans have a hard time playing young and hip and cool. I believe the last time they tried this for purposes of a national ticket, this is what they got:

Dan Quayle.

Maybe the best advice would be to counter former University of Chicago Law Professor Barack Obama with a former University of Chicago Law Professor of their own. (Yes, yes, I know, Obama was never full-time on a tenure track -- but, although academics may think it's a crime, most people think that "Professor" is an appropriate title for any instructor at an institution of higher learning.)

But Justice Scalia is already 72 -- and, besides, why would he want to give up his present gig?

McCain's ultimate selection may be the biggest surprise of the year -- and, given the long odds facing Republicans this year, an honor many would want to avoid. Who would you recommend for Senator McCain?

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Unsolicited advice to the (presumptive) nominee

Oliphant cartoon obtained from Yahoo! Comics.

At some point, maybe even before the convention in Denver, Mrs. Clinton is expected to step aside gracefully and acquiesce in the outcome of the nominating procedures of her party. I'm not entirely certain that this will happen -- if someone told me her middle name was "Rambo" I might be willing to believe it -- but this is the conventional (*ahem*) wisdom at this point.

If she does step aside, a faction of the Democratic Party will boost her candidacy for Vice President. In the accompanying cartoon, Mr. Oliphant seems less than enthused about this prospect.

Senator Obama should also feel less than enthused. If he does select her it would be only because he believes the old saying, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." She would not be a loyal helpmate; in her mind, at least, she's been there, done that.

Besides, the Republicans would have a field day, using clips of Clinton's attacks on Obama and Obama's attacks on Clinton in their advertising. Even in what should be a big Democratic year... it just might work.

No, what Senator Obama needs is someone for balance. He's perceived as inspirational, even "cool" -- but Senator Clinton's relentless attacks have scored points with the electorate: Many potential supporters wonder if there is substance beneath the style. Thus, Obama needs someone with gravitas. Any Democratic nominee will be portrayed as suspect on national security; Obama -- who's never served in the military and who has indeed associated with bomb-throwing refugees from the '60s (hey, who do you think lives in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood?) -- will have a particularly heavy burden of persuasion on this point come November.

The ideal choice for Obama, therefore, might be a career military man who is on record as having opposed the Iraq war. A lot of senior military men saluted and said 'yes, sir' when given the mission to topple Saddam Hussein -- but blanched and sputtered and protested when told about the size of the force with which they were to hold the country. Some, however, thought the enterprise flawed from the beginning.

General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC retired, is apparently one of the ones who had reservations right from the start. Although born in Pennsylvania, he's teaching now at Duke. His memoir, Battle Ready, was written with Tom Clancy and, according to the linked Wikipedia entry "features stinging criticism of the planning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and more specifically, the post-battle planning." (I'll be on the lookout for this book.)

General Zinni would be hard to marginalize, unlike fellow ex-Marine John Murtha -- who has a long voting record in Congress that could be exploited. Mr. Murtha also carries with him the lingering taint of the Abscam investigation (though he was never charged, he did testify against two other Congressmen accused of pocketing bribes). Besides, he recently charged that Senator McCain is "too old" to be President... and Murtha is older. In fact, Murtha said he was speaking from experience in making the charge.

(The linked Wikipedia entry says that Murtha enlisted in the Marines and rose to the rank of drill instructor before being selected for Officer Candidate School. After retiring from active duty in the Marine Corps, Murtha remained in the reserves, volunteering for service in Vietnam in 1966-67 "receiving the Bronze Star with Valor device, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry." Murtha ultimately retired from the reserves as a colonel. This is not why he's been vilified by the Talk Radio Right; I understand that the Right excoriates his political views and associations, not his service. But I did not know these details before looking them up today; perhaps you did not either.)

There are other anti-Iraq war generals around, some of whom have already endorsed Senator Obama, and there's always General Wesley Clark, although he, of course, was an early Clinton supporter.

The problem with choosing a Vice President for "balance" is that -- like choosing a nominee for the Supreme Court -- it doesn't always work out as planned. A lot of people, wary of George W. Bush's youthful excesses, were relieved when he selected Dick Cheney as his running mate. To many, it seemed like the grownups would be taking charge again... but the polls certainly indicate that many no longer hold this view.

Next up: Unsolicited advice to Senator McCain. Believe it or not, that's tougher.

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Oldest Son comes home for Mother's Day

Oldest Son is living on his own these days. He has a nice job. He drives a company car.

We expected Oldest Son home for Mother's Day if for no other reason than his mother baked him a cake. You see, Oldest Son's birthday was also last week.

So we weren't surprised when the nice company car pulled up out front. But there was just a teensy bit of surprise when he opened up the trunk and took out something enormous -- so big, really, he was struggling to carry it.

Awwwwww, you're thinking, the gainfully employed son brings his mother a giant gift for Mother's Day.

And wouldn't that be nice?

Of course, it wasn't a gift.

He was struggling to carry in a huge bag of laundry.

But he did it himself.

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Vatican says it's OK to believe in aliens

E.T., be sure to mention this when you next phone home:

The Tribune reported Tuesday that Fr. Jose Gabriel Funes, S.J., the Director of the Vatican Observatory, says that aliens would still be God's creatures. To rule out the existence of aliens because, for example, they're not mentioned in the Bible, "would be like 'putting limits' on God's creative freedom."

The Jesuit astronomer has it exactly right, I think. I believe the creationists may fail to give God enough credit. Evolution -- to cite another controversial example -- doesn't disprove the existence of God, nor is acceptance of evolution a rejection of religion. Why can't we accept (as most Christians have been taught) that God 'works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform'?

If God always intervened directly and understandably in the affairs of this world, the recent cyclone in Myanmar would have drowned only the leaders of the ruling junta. Katrina never would have struck New Orleans while a stone was standing on a stone in any of Kim Jong-il's palaces in North Korea. Good people would live to ripe old ages with grateful children and grandchildren; bad people would be the ones to suffer from disease.

But God doesn't make it that easy for us. For any of us.

Today's Sun-Times carries an AP report that a letter of Albert Einstein's is to be auctioned off this week. According to the article, this letter, written late in Einstein's life, dismisses "the idea of God as the product of human weakness" and calls the Bible "childish."

But -- also late in his life -- Einstein wrote that "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

The first passage may have been written at a time when Einstein had momentarily succumbed to the doubt and despair that claims us all from time to time about the Infinite -- but, in the second quote, Einstein gets it exactly right.

I believe the religious right has been at least as harsh and critical of space exploration as the tree-hugging left... for different reasons of course. I submit that both are wrong. God gave us free will and an urge to explore (yes, even if He gave it to us through natural selection) and we spurn His gifts when we fail to use them. We bury our talents... and you Bible readers will remember what happened to that guy.

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Heads or Tails #38 -- Any Tom, Dick or Harry

Today is the day of everyman at Heads or Tails, America's fastest growing Tuesday meme: In this exciting episode Barb wants us to write about any Tom, Dick or Harry.

The phrase any "Tom, Dick or Harry" is used, in English, to mean anyone.

So when the box arrives on Christmas eve and the box says that it's so easy to build the toy inside (from the 4,598 component parts) that any Tom, Dick or Harry can do it -- that's when you tell your wife your name is Ed and she can darn well get one of them to do it; you're going to the kitchen for another egg nog.

I remember Bill Veeck telling the story about how he had to build a rocking horse one Christmas Eve while the children were dreaming all snug in their beds, etc.

Well, a couple of festive beverages were consumed and parts were jammed here and there as seemed expedient at the moment... and when the job was done, the head was where the tail should have been and vice versa. Veeck's wife was less than impressed... but he told her it was alright, they'd just name the horse Charlie Finley.

Though "Tom, Dick and Harry" can describe everyman, can you name the only three American presidents who had those names? (There's only one of each.)

Now, ask your children... or grandchildren. Will they know?

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Now, to rouse you from the gloomy mood in which you will surely find yourself when you pop the foregoing quiz on your descendants, may I provide these lyrics from the musical, Kiss Me Kate. Ann Miller, on the left, is Bianca. Play this in the YouTube of your mind -- the name of the song, of course, from which these excerpts are taken is "Tom, Dick or Harry":

BIANCA:
I'm a maid who would marry
And will take with no qualm
Any Tom, Dick or Harry,
Any Harry, Dick or Tom,
I'm a maid mad to marry
And will take double-quick
Any Tom, Dick or Harry,
Any Tom, Harry or Dick.

GREMIO:
I'm the man thou shouldst marry.

BIANCA:
Howdy, Pop!

GREMIO:
Howdy, Mom.

LUCENTIO:
I'm the man thou shouldst marry.

BIANCA:
Art thou Harry, Dick or Tom?

HORTENSIO:
I'm the man thou shouldst marry.

BIANCA:
Howdy, pal!

HORTENSIO:
Howdy, chick!

BIANCA:
Art thou Tom, Dick or Harry?

HORTENSIO:
Call me Tom, Harry or Dick.

(Lyrics obtained from allmusicals.com. Photo of Ann Miller and Kathryn Grayson obtained and edited from original at Movie Market (UK).)

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A whole new meaning to "blogging buzz"?

(Obtained from Yahoo! Comics, but I read it Monday morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. Click to enlarge)

It would be interesting to see how many bloggers clip and post this episode of Pearls Before Swine.

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The attractiveness of Tony Rezko

As this is written, closing arguments are underway in the corruption trial of Antonin "Tony" Rezko in the Federal Court here in Chicago.

As a life-long, cynical Chicagoan I suspect that Mr. Rezko may be guilty of all sorts of crimes. As a lawyer, though, I don't know whether any of the actual pending charges against him may be proved. That is for the jury to decide, based on the evidence presented in court. I only know what I've read in the papers -- and that's not evidence.

But this is not an exercise in handicapping Mr. Rezko's fate. There seems to be a belief among the pundit class that the Government's star witness against him, Stuart Levine, came off so badly in court that Rezko may walk. But I claim no special insight into whether he will or he won't.

I do think, though, I have a clue into why he was so attractive to political candidates in Chicago... like embattled Governor Rod Blagojevich, whose name has been freely bandied about during Rezko's trial, and Senator Barack Obama, whose name has also come up, though not nearly as often.

It costs money to run for office. Rezko could raise money. Lots of money. He was willing to back less well known candidates (Obama, for example).

When I ran for judge, well over a decade ago now, raising money was the single most distasteful thing I had to do. I recall hearing a judge speak recently about getting elected, and he said how wonderful it was that people came out of nowhere to support him. It was a welcome surprise, he said, how people he barely knew became his biggest source of strength.

Nobody came out of anywhere when I ran for judge. But I can't help but wonder... if someone like Mr. Rezko had materialized when I was a candidate... would he and his contributions have been so welcome that I might not inquire... at least not right away... into why he was so generous?

Of course, most of you reading this would probably say that you'd see right through him, that nobody offers something for nothing, and you'd slap him and his fistful of dollars away. But most of you reading this have never run for office and have never faced the prospect of raiding your own hard-earned savings or stressing hard-earned friendships by asking for donations.

I have no sympathy for corruption. And I'd like to think I'd see through a Tony Rezko, too, and keep him at arm's length. But it's got to be an awful temptation for someone with enough self-confidence to seek elective office to think that the donor could be controlled or 'handled', to think that his insistence that he was only interested in 'good government' was really sincere, to see only the public plaudits heaped on the donor and ignore any whisperings about what might lay behind the smiling face... until the subpoenas begin to fly and your own career has been destroyed....

I have no sympathy for corruption. But evil doesn't always advertise. Sometimes temptation comes with a smile of seeming friendship and generosity. Sometimes when things are too good to be true... they are to good to be true.

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Another reason to dislike bottled water

I was at the periodontist last week.

Yes, though I am getting long in the tooth figuratively, I am still trying to avoid that condition in the literal sense.

I had submitted to my cleaning and had received a reasonably good report about my dental condition when the hygienist asked if I would like a fluoride treatment. I expressed surprise: Isn't the water treated with fluoride? That's when the hygienist expressed surprise. "You don't drink bottled water?" she asked.

Apparently many people do.

Why people would drink water in plastic bottles -- contributing unnecessarily to landfills and the price of oil -- is something that has long baffled me. There might be good reasons to drink bottled water in areas where the local water supply is suspect -- but that's certainly not yet the case in American cities.

The periodontist came in at this point, looking to poke and prod my gums and make his own pitch for fluoride treatment. It seems that people who are drinking bottled water aren't getting fluoride that is supposed to prevent tooth decay... and people who have consumed bottled water exclusively over a long period of time are experiencing dramatically increased rates of tooth decay.

So now people who pay extra for water must pay extra also for fluoride treatments. Who knew?

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Quoting myself... or maybe not

Money: You can't take it with you -- but you can't stay here without it!

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This little bon mot was in my head this weekend... and I thought I'd use it today in a post. But first I wanted to see if it was something I'd made up or overheard. (Always want to provide proper attribution, doncha know?)

A Yahoo! search told me it had been used before... by me... but also by one Doug Sparks, an author with whom I am not familiar.

There really is nothing new under the Sun, is there?

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The law of unintended consequences -- Part 9,152

It is widely supposed, in certain circles at least, that Indiana's law to require voters to present identification at the polling place was a sneaky reactionary plot to disenfranchise poor, elderly, disabled and minority voters.

In a word, Democrats.

And these suspicions were confirmed, in those same certain circles at least, when that nasty old Supreme Court upheld the law on April 28, with the plurality opinion written by that extreme right-winger, John Paul Stevens.

No, wait. That doesn't work, does it?

I went outside to cut the grass on Sunday morning and I wasn't carrying my wallet. I felt... less than dressed. In this day and age, who ever goes out in public without some form of identification?

We got our answer Tuesday, during the Indiana primary. The AP reported that 12 nuns from St. Mary's Convent in South Bend, all of them in their 80s and 90s, were turned away when they tried to vote by a fellow nun, Sr. Julie McGuire. Sr. Julie was apparently serving as election judge -- at least the AP story says she's the one who turned her older sisters away -- because none of them had any current identification.

Ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you thusly: If the Indiana statute was meant to erect obstacles to the exercise of the franchise by likely Democratic voters, it failed spectacularly.

These nuns weren't going to vote for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton; they weren't going to take Democratic ballots at all.

I can't know this with absolute certainty, of course, because I was not there. But I can so state with an extremely high degree of confidence based on my own experience.

There I was, in the parking lot of our parish school, a polling place for multiple precincts, on Primary Day in Illinois in (I think) 1996. It might have been 1994.

I was running for judge -- and I had been designated by my volunteer coordinator to work my own precinct, handing out my card.

(Of course, my volunteer coordinator was Long Suffering Spouse. She was also the only other volunteer. She had another multi-precinct polling place she was covering elsewhere in the ward.)

About mid-morning, a whole troop of nuns descended en masse on the parking lot, walking over from the hospital convent a little down the road.

These were my people, I thought. Wasn't I active in the parish? Weren't all my children enrolled here at the parish school? (And most of the nuns who could have contradicted this illusion of character that I'd so carefully constructed over the years were surely dead by then... or at least far away on the South Side. So I was pretty confident.)

Some of the good sisters were charitable enough to say that they'd heard my name when I presented my credentials. And they all expressed hopes for my success. And I'm sure they were telling the truth. Nuns wouldn't lie, would they?

But I didn't get a single vote from any of them. Because I was running as a Democrat (as one must if one hopes to be elected to the bench almost anywhere in Cook County).

The nuns had come in a group to support the candidacy of some Republican running for statewide office who'd come out strongly against abortion. Sisters, I tried to tell them, this man couldn't do a thing about abortion unless you could elect him to the Supreme Court of the United States -- and it doesn't work that way.

But the nuns would not be dissuaded.

And that's how I know for sure that those nuns in South Bend, even though they fit the description of elderly and poor, weren't trying to vote Democratic. If you believe the conspiracy theory behind the Indiana law, the nuns and, more to the point, the Republican candidates they'd come out to support, were victims of the law of unintended consequences.

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More about our plethora of proms

Today's word of the day is "plethora." For more information, see ¡Three Amigos!

I don't understand: I thought I'd stumbled on something new and amazing -- backup boyfriends and backup girlfriends -- each of them apparently aware of their secondary status. I don't know if the primaries are aware of their backups... but if this phenomenon is widespread, might the existence of backups not be expected, or at least suspected, by every primary?

But, no, my anthropological discovery seems to have left my commenters cold. What has interested you is... dresses.

For the record, Younger Daughter has only bought one new dress for this prom season. It's rather orange.

She's worn a black dress to the first two proms -- yes, the same dress -- and she bought it for a dance a year or two ago. Of course, she did have two different dates for these.

I don't know what dress is scheduled for this Saturday -- yes, she's going to the co-ed school prom, too -- but it won't be the orange one.

That's for her own school prom, the last in this long, long sequence.

Now I suppose you'll ask me to describe the dresses.

Please.

Long Suffering Spouse is the final arbiter in the matter of prom fashions, determining whether a dress may be worn or must be returned. As a practicing coward, I try and stay as far away as possible from these discussions. Even after grudging approval, though, I have asked Younger Daughter what color turtleneck she will wear with each dress.

But no one ever takes me seriously.

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The Barbara Walters affair

Reading the paper in the past week or so I learned that, years ago, during their Star Wars days, Carrier Fisher acted on her crush on Harrison Ford. And that, also many years ago, Cher thought a young Tom Cruise so cute, she decided to take him home with her. If you know what I mean.

(The article I read did not mention whether the young Tom Cruise jumped on Cher's couch.)

I can't get too exercised about these revelations: Actors are traditionally public about their private lives... and they seem to live a lot.

But I find Barbara "If you were a tree what kind of tree would you be" Walters' recent revelation of her 1970's affair with a married U.S. Senator to be another matter entirely.

Once we get out of Hollywood, I thought the traditional rule applies: If a man kisses and tells, he is a cad.

What word should we use for Ms. Walters?

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Two proms down... two more to go?

Prom season is in full bloom at the Curmudgeon home this year. Some years are worse for allergies, too.

Younger Daughter has a prom at her all-girls school -- and she managed to snag invitations to proms at the two local all-boys schools as well. I've written about her plotting and planning over proms -- and about my own discomfort with the whole ritual -- here and here.

Now comes word that Younger Daughter has also been asked to the prom at the local co-ed Catholic high school. She claims to be torn about accepting, although Long Suffering Spouse thinks this hand-wringing is strictly play-acting for our benefit. The dilemma, as Younger Daughter claims to frame it is that, on the one hand, she has a number of girlfriends at that school that will not be at her own prom the following weekend -- but, on the other hand, she has to read at 7:00 a.m. Mass on the morning after... and she'd be going as the date of one her friend's back-up boyfriends.

You read that right: Back-up boyfriends. Apparently in today's world, kids don't need to wait until after a breakup for the next infatuation to develop because they already have someone warmed and ready in the bullpen to come in at a moment's notice.

Youngest Son recently attended a dance at his school as the escort for one of his friend's backup girlfriends. So this is a phenomenon that cuts across gender lines.

Yes, it was a lovely evening. After the dance, some in the group wanted to continue on to a restaurant. Others wanted to repair to someone's house for awhile before heading home. Youngest Son was in this latter camp. But Youngest Son's friend, the one with the backup girlfriend, wanted to go to the restaurant... so off the friend went with both girls, his own date and the backup previously escorted by Youngest Son. Apparently thinking it was the chivalrous thing to do, Youngest Son gave his about-to-be-ex-date money for pizza.

And, no, I don't understand any of this either.

So Younger Daughter has a chance to attend four proms, a record that would eclipse the family record (three) set by Middle Son in 2005. (For the record -- yours truly went to no proms and neither did Long Suffering Spouse. We claim to have survived this high school humiliation without injury -- but our children firmly believe otherwise.)

Younger Daughter worries, now, that, if she accepts the pending offer to provide an escort for her friend's backup boyfriend, she'll be "prommed out" by the time of her own prom the following week.

I know I'll be.

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Heads or Tails #37 -- Mother

Today's Heads or Tails is seasonal. Just in time for Mother's Day, Barb wants us to remember "mother."

*Sigh.*

Both my parents are gone now -- we're just past the 8th anniversary of my mother's passing. I've not written much about my parents here. I did mention that my mother was such a shopper, she was still getting credit cards years after she died. I haven't seen one lately; that probably means she's about due for another one.

Shopping was what my mother liked to do. If someone stuck a "One Day Sale" sign in a pile of rags by the side of the road, she'd pull over to check it out. It was, we figured, a Depression-era thing: She had nothing then; she could indulge herself now. So why not?

No one talked much about those days... my mother's father died young and my mother's family had to depend on the charity of more prosperous relatives to stay afloat. The relatives' charity was apparently uneven: They could spring for a Catholic boarding school in Iowa where my mother and her sisters attended high school, but my mother did mention that she was often in doubt about where she might get her next pair of shoes.

After their deaths, while cleaning out my parents' house, my sister and I found how my mother had compensated for her childhood shoe deprivation. I always knew she had a lot shoes; I did not know she was a shoe hoarder on the order of Imelda Marcos. There were boxes and boxes of boots, heels, pumps -- many of them never, ever worn, not even once. The tags were still on.

My mother wasn't just a shopper. She was a pioneer of sorts. She was one of the first women to obtain an undergraduate degree at her formerly all-male college.

But she loved to shop. During her final illness she wanted to 'make a memory' for Younger Daughter. She saved up her strength for a final trip downtown, with Younger Daughter in tow, to visit the American Girl doll store. Then they had lunch at an elegant hotel on North Michigan Avenue. My mother's plan worked: Younger Daughter still talks of that day. It is a cherished memory.

But, then, Younger Daughter likes to shop, too.

Long Suffering Spouse does not. If there was any area of friction in the otherwise wonderful relationship between my wife and my mother, it was over shopping.

One time, at least 22 years ago, my mother tried to take Long Suffering Spouse on a big shopping expedition. Long Suffering Spouse was willing to indulge her. We had only two children at the time, Older Daughter and Oldest Son, and Oldest Son was still a bottle-feeding infant. I assume both of them came along, but only Oldest Son figures in the story. They all went to Marshall Field's downtown store -- which was then a shopper's paradise. (It is now just another Macy's. Macy's may be a fine chain of stores. It inspired a wonderful Christmas movie. But renaming Marshall Field's flagship State Street store has proved a disaster for the Macy's chain -- unless their idea is to sell the property to real estate developers when the condo market turns around again.)

My mother wanted to take her daughter-in-law and grandchildren to Field's because it was such a "grandma thing" to do. My father used to tease her that she'd forgotten everything she ever knew about raising children when she became a grandmother, but I don't think that was the problem. I think she thought children automatically behaved differently for grandparents.

And maybe older