I want to buy Ken Levine's book, but I'm afraid

An odd way, I know, to start a post about Illinois politics.

I really would like to buy Ken Levine's book. Ken Levine's daily blog, By Ken Levine, is one of my favorite and most frequent stops on the Internet. I'm insanely jealous of Ken Levine. Not only has he written for some of the classic TV comedies (M*A*S*H and Cheers, to name two), he's directed, he's been a rock 'n' roll DJ, a sports radio talk show host and a play by play baseball announcer. In the major leagues. He had to give up his Dodger Talk radio gig this year on KABC because he'll be doing on-air work with the Seattle Mariners.

And now he's published a book, "Where the Hell Am I?"

Levine's book is available in all those e-book, modern thing-y formats, Nook and Kindle and Kandle and Hook, but I don't have one of those reader things and I'm not likely to get one anytime soon. It is also available in paperback -- I do know how to use a paperback -- but, so far, only from Amazon.

And therein lies the problem, and the tie-in with Illinois politics.

See, Amazon doesn't charge sales tax to Illinois customers. A lot of Internet "stores" work this way; unless they have a physical presence in Illinois, they claimed to have no obligation to collect sales tax. They may even have been right.

When e-commerce consisted mostly of lonely or scary people buying stuff that had to be shipped in a 'plain brown paper wrapper,' no one took notice of the sales tax revenue that the state might be losing.

But Amazon is big business now. A lot of people -- myself included -- have bought books or movies from Amazon from time to time. Amazon has even branched into electronics and office supplies and jewelry and health and beauty products and even musical instruments. Who knows? Next week they may start selling groceries. Some people -- myself not included -- have bought a lot of stuff from Illinois over the years.

And there was no Illinois sales tax collected on any of it.

With Amazon doing such big business, and with Illinois lagging only slightly behind Ken Levine's own California in the bankruptcy department, Illinois politicians are looking at Amazon and scheming on how to get some of that money for themselves. Meanwhile, brick and mortar merchants have become increasingly concerned about 'e-tail' competition -- online customers can shop whenever they please, never have to pay for parking or deal with traffic and get what amounts to a discount on every purchase if the store charges sales tax and the website does not.

In fact, just this month Illinois passed something called the "Mainstreet Fairness Bill," to try and force Amazon et al. into charging and collecting sales taxes just like stores at the mall. Who can be against Fairness? Especially on Main Street, right?

And that's not all.

Illinois would very much like us taxpayers to fork over the sales taxes we didn't pay Amazon going back five years or so.

Most Chicago residents hear about a "use tax" when they buy a car in the suburbs. The suburb will have a lower sales tax than Chicago (we're number 1!) and that percentage point can be a significant amount of money when we're talking about the purchase price of a car. The city and state share information -- so when the car is registered (when license plates are obtained) -- the City will find out and demand its use tax. With this in mind, most auto dealers simply tack the tax on the sales invoice anyway.

In theory, apparently, every time we bought a book or a movie on Amazon, we were also supposed to be sending in the "use tax" money to the State. Since we don't have to get license plates on books and movies, the State has so far been unable to track who bought what.

Nevertheless, they'd like everyone to pay up, please.

Now, I don't know about you, but I have no way of reconstructing what I've bought on Amazon over the years. I know it's not a lot in my case -- but I'm taking no chances: I am not buying Thing One from Amazon -- much as I might want to -- until it starts collecting whatever miserable tax the State of Illinois imposes. I don't need the heartache. When I leave the mall with a purchase, I know that the sales tax has been charged. And if the merchant fails to send in the money thereafter, the State goes after the retailer, not the individual purchasers. I'd like that to be the case with e-tailers, too. But that determination will be made -- possibly -- in a court battle between Amazon and the Sovereign State of Illinois.

Meanwhile, I'd like to buy Ken Levine's book. Really I would. I know I'd enjoy it. But I'm afraid. And I'm taking no chances.

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For further reading, see: "Amazon Tax Attacks," by Robert W. Wood (posted on Forbes.com).

Discovery in a jacket

I ended yesterday's essay with a tease. I said that Sunday's controversy arose from the jacket Younger Daughter borrowed because she had lost her own sometime during Saturday's revels (at Middle Son's apartment, she says, but this has still not yet been confirmed).

Younger Daughter needed a jacket because she was coming with me to the Northwest Side Irish Parade. The parade runs down Northwest Highway in my little corner of Chicago, within walking distance of my home. So we planned to walk.

Younger Daughter grabbed her little brother's fleece. It was similar to the one she lost, only much larger.

It was a two-tone North Face fleece jacket. In addition to the two side pockets one might expect on any jacket, there was apparently an interior pocket, along the zipper line, where one might put a driver's license or glasses or... in this case... a can of chewable tobacco.

Youngest Son had apparently neglected to zip up this interior pocket when he last abandoned his jacket on a chair in the living room. Younger Daughter wasn't looking for the contraband; it simply fell out.

Well.

I've never understood the appeal of smokeless tobacco. I've smoked cigarettes and cigars in my day, though if I've had two cigarettes in the last 25 years I haven't had three. I fancied cigars in high school, as much for the shock value as anything. I'd churn out these enormous clouds of smoke to the annoyance and dismay of my fellow high school sophisticates (most of them girls) and their cigarettes. But I never, ever had the urge to 'put just a pinch between my cheek and gum' as the old Walt Garrison commercial instructed.

On the other hand, I understand that athletes, and baseball players in particular, seem attracted to chewing (even if "chewing" seems to me to be more dribbling and spitting). Supposedly, the stuff doesn't sap an athlete of lung capacity ("wind") the way smoking does. Many of Middle Son's friends "dipped" in their time and Younger Daughter advises that, at her school, the baseball players spend far more time chewing tobacco than taking infield or batting practice.

Younger Daughter was placed in an unusual position when the can hit the floor. Traditionally she has been the one busted by surprise discoveries, not the one doing the busting.

There was, for example, the time we caught her with a pay-as-you-go cell phone. This was fairly early in high school, before we surrendered to the inevitable and got all the kids cell phones. Younger Daughter couldn't wait for our resistance to be worn down. No, she was a social pariah without a phone, or so she thought. She would be even more socially handicapped while grounded, however. And, though its not exactly true that Younger Daughter's high school years were the four years she was grounded, it sometimes seemed like it was going to turn out that way.

Anyway, one evening in the winter, when it was dark before dinner, I had occasion to be upstairs when I saw a glow coming from behind the partially open door to Younger Daughter's room. I was frightened -- at first -- because I couldn't figure out what was making that freaky greenish-blue glow. It turned out that Younger Daughter had received a message on the phone, but she wasn't in the room to receive it. And she'd left it out in the open.

That phone has been in my desk now, here at the Undisclosed Location, for years.

And there was the St. Patrick's Day just a couple of years ago, before Younger Daughter turned 21, that she returned home from the parade downtown with a mostly empty pint of Captain Morgan not particularly well concealed in the large bag she was carrying. She didn't think anyone was home because the van wasn't in the driveway -- but Long Suffering Spouse didn't come with me on my errand that afternoon. Long Suffering Spouse was working in the living room when Younger Daughter stumbled in.

"What's that bottle in your bag?" said Long Suffering Spouse when Younger Daughter came into the room.

"What bottle?" asked Younger Daughter, trying to feign innocence.

"That bottle."

"Oh, this?" Younger Daughter pulled out a pennant.

"No."

She pulled out her purse.

"No."

She went to reach for something else.

"I can see the top of the bottle from here," said Long Suffering Spouse.

And she could.

And then there was the time -- well, never mind. You have the picture now, surely. Younger Daughter is pleased as punch when someone else is in the dock -- happy it's not her -- but she is not used to being the agent of disclosure.

I pocketed the can.

"I didn't mean for that to happen," Younger Daughter said.

"I know," I said and meant it. In the ongoing battle of kids vs. parents, Younger Daughter has never turned snitch.

We went to the parade.

Among the politicians and pipe bands and floats was a trolley bus chartered by a hardware store that hopes to open up on Northwest Highway in the spring. The store owners had engaged kids to run down the parade route on either side of the bus handing out miniature tape measures -- little, round plastic things emblazoned with the name and address and phone number of the store. I took one when it was offered.

"Here," I said to Younger Daughter, "put this in the inside jacket pocket and zip it up."

Younger Daughter did as instructed. She looked a little confused at first, but then the light bulb went off. "Oh," she said. "He'll think that it's still there until he takes it out to look."

"Exactly."

"That's kind of mean."

"Good. Don't tell him."

Well, of course she did. Long Suffering Spouse and I had gotten our Sunday obligation out of the way early in the morning, before either of the kids were up, so Younger Daughter and Youngest Son had to go to 6:00pm Mass. That's when she gave my plan away. "He's scared to death," Younger Daughter reported to me, only she expressed it in scatological terms.

Long Suffering Spouse and I had to get Younger Daughter back to her dorm Sunday evening (Spring Break having ended) and I didn't have the opportunity to speak with my youngest until late in the evening.

He was doing homework in his room.

"Do you have anything you wish to tell me?" I began.

"Nothing that you don't already know, apparently," he responded. He didn't look or sound happy about it either.

There followed The Chat. I told him that I didn't want him using this stuff. "If you want to spit and dribble on yourself," I told him, "use sunflower seeds. You like those and there's at least some nourishment in them."

I don't know -- and won't know for some time, if ever -- whether I successfully warded him off the stuff or merely made him more careful about getting caught again.

But I retained one arrow in my quiver -- and I made darn sure Youngest Son knew it.

See, I didn't tell Long Suffering Spouse. I promise you (and Youngest Son well knows) that were she to learn that he was messing with chewing tobacco there would not have been any quiet chat -- there would be an explosion.

A lot of parenting is role playing: Good Cop, Bad Cop. I think this may be hard-wired into the species -- the ability of parents to play Good Cop, Bad Cop is part of the evolutionary advantage conferred on kids raised in two parent families. In our house, we take turns, depending on the issue or who finds out what.

Sunday night was my turn to be Good Cop. Youngest Son's can of tobacco now resides in my desk next to Younger Daughter's pay-as-you-go cell phone.

Surely St. Patrick had none of this in mind...

Those of you with access to any decent calendar will know that the Feast of St. Patrick isn't officially celebrated until this Thursday. But, in Chicago, this weekend just past was the weekend for the parades.

The big downtown parade was held on Saturday and the largest remaining neighborhood parade, the Northwest Side Irish Parade, was held on Sunday.

There used to be a South Side Irish Parade, too, that marched south on Western Avenue from 103rd or so. From a small gathering of moms with green streamers on their strollers, that parade grew and grew until the good people of St. Barnabas and St. Cajetan Parishes got thoroughly disgusted with drunken outsiders, many of them well underage, vomiting on their well-tended lawns and urinating in their bushes.

The prodigious consumption of alcohol has been a staple of St. Patrick's Day celebrations in Chicago for longer than I've been around. But there is a fuzzy line between a lot and way too much. I've slid across that line myself a time or two. In today's increasingly intolerant world, though, I worry about my kids making the same mistakes I did. The consequences of those mistakes are ever so much more severe now.

Thus it was with grave apprehension that I received Younger Daughter's announcement that she was planning to have a bunch of people over to the house Saturday morning to "pre-game" before the downtown parade.

"Pre-game," in this usage, means to get sufficiently buzzed before going to one's ultimate destination. The idea is that the bar tab will be lower.

My apprehension turned to real concern when Younger Daughter (she is 21 now) and her boyfriend Olaf and another of their friends bought enough hootch Friday night to keep a busload of college kids happy on a cross country journey. "You'll be goggle-eyed and stupid before you even get to the train," I complained. And, unhappy as I was, Long Suffering Spouse was miserable.

At least as my wife tells the story, there is no great sloppy-drunken feast in Cuban culture. My wife's mother has a particular aversion to even occasional drunkenness and my wife inherited these views. Put it this way: In my younger days, if I drank too deeply of the Nectar at a social gathering, I would naturally want to compensate by sleeping in on the following morning. My wife would not permit this. Depending on how bad I'd been, she'd send one or more kids in to wake me up in the morning. If I hadn't been too bad, it might be only one or two kids sent in to do the job. But if I'd gone way over the top, singing off-key and amusing one and all with my antics, all of the kids would be asked to wake up Daddy. At one point, this was five kids, jumping on the bed and shaking my remains.

This is called behavior modification therapy.

And -- let me tell you -- it works.

But back to our story. As it turned out, most of Younger Daughter's friends either couldn't get up early on Saturday or decided, at the last minute, to pursue other interests. So it was just the kids who'd bought all this stuff who wound up gathering in my garage Saturday morning. With Long Suffering Spouse anxiously looking in from the kitchen from time to time (she was making soda bread), I brought the kids into the house and put some CDs by the Chieftains and the Clancy Brothers on the stereo. "You may as well be exposed to some other aspect of Irish culture besides ethanol," I told them.

We chatted awhile as I sipped my coffee (just coffee, thank you) and chatted about global warming.

Sure, they may have been bored to tears, but they didn't drink nearly as much as they would have if left shivering in the garage -- and I enjoyed the morning.

When I dropped the kids off at the train, the station looked like a general evaluation order had been issued: Everyone in the neighborhood, it seemed, was heading to the el. And they were all wearing green.

It was cold in Chicago Saturday, gray and windy. I didn't think the kids would last long at the parade, and I was right. Younger Daughter soon tracked down her oldest brother (who lives near downtown) and the party moved to first one overcrowded tavern, then another.

Middle Son, the accountant, had to work Saturday morning. Tax season doesn't stop, even for St. Patrick's Day. But he stopped at the Curmudgeon home after work, instructed by his sister (at my suggestion) to pick up their enormous stores of alcohol and move it to his apartment. Olaf and Younger Daughter and Oldest Son and his wife Abby wound up at Middle Son's apartment at some point. After awhile, these four went back to the apartment that Oldest Son and Gabby share with their little dog, Rodent. Younger Daughter wanted to play with the dog.

Oldest Son had to work yesterday, so he wound up curtailing his celebrations pretty early in the afternoon. In fact, he drove Olaf and Younger Daughter back to our house at a still respectable hour on Saturday night. The only casualty of the day, as near as I can tell so far, was Younger Daughter's fleece jacket. She's pretty sure she left it at Middle Son's apartment, but Middle Son reported last night that he 'hasn't started cleaning up yet' from Saturday's party, so he doesn't know whether he has it or not.

Yesterday's controversy grew from the jacket Younger Daughter used as a replacement.

But I'll get to that story -- if I get the chance -- tomorrow.

A modest proposal regarding daylight savings time

Almost all of us in the United States will switch this weekend to daylight savings time. We will move our clocks forward one hour late Saturday night (Spring forward; Fall back).

There are advantages to daylight savings time, but we lose an hour of our precious weekends each time we make the switch.

The problem has an easy solution: Instead of taking one hour from our sleep on Saturday night, why not take an hour from Friday afternoon instead?

Go home an hour early tomorrow. Set your clocks ahead then.

3:58... 3:59... 5:00.... Happy Hour!

Yes, there will still be some grumbling about how early it all seems on Monday morning. But we won't feel cheated.

Tell your friends. Tell your relations. Tell your neighbors. Tell your neighbors' friends and relations: Let's start this weekend one hour sooner. Move your clocks ahead on Friday afternoon!

Illinois: Day One after abolition of the death penalty

DuPage County State's Attorney Bob Berlin denounced Governor Pat Quinn's signing of a bill yesterday abolishing the death penalty as a "victory for murderers across Illinois."

I'm torn. As I wrote in January, when the bill abolishing the death penalty was passed by the General Assembly:

[O]ver drinks in a bar one day, a fellow lawyer made what I think is a tremendous argument against the death penalty. "Have you ever won a case you thought you thought you should have lost?" he asked. "Have you ever lost a case when you should have won?"

Well, sure, I said. Who hasn't? Juries do strange things. Courts make odd rulings. You stand up to speak -- and trip all over your tongue.

"Well, what makes you think that can't happen in a death penalty case?"

And this is the tack taken by an analysis in today's Chicago Tribune: While qualms over the morality of the death penalty motivated some opponents, the compelling argument was that too many mistakes were made in Illinois death penalty cases. Persons languished on Death Row for years (as the interminable appeal process wound and rewound through the courts) -- and sometimes wound up exonerated.

If only criminals would use such care in regards to their victims.

Supposedly we will now lock up murderers in Illinois forever. The worst of the worst, the serial killers, the cop killers, the child killers, will (allegedly) never be eligible for parole. And some of them -- like Wisconsin's infamous Jeffrey Dahmer -- will themselves be murdered while behind bars. No one will mourn.

Indeed, such karmic occasions will be an opportunity for wit and black humor... as it was when one half of the infamous child murdering team of Leopold and Loeb, Richard Loeb, was shanked in a prison shower at the Stateville Correctional Center in 1936.

Leopold and Loeb were highly educated young men. Leopold was only 19 at the time he and Loeb kidnapped and murdered Bobby Franks on May 21, 1924. Leopold was enrolled in the University of Chicago Law School at the time. Loeb, only 18, had already graduated from the University of Michigan (the youngest ever to graduate from that school) and was planning to attend the University of Chicago Law School. Thus, the twist of Ed Lahey's lede about Loeb's death in the Chicago Daily News, "Richard Loeb, despite his erudition, today ended his sentence with a proposition."

I leave you with an uncomfortable question: Now that we've abolished the death penalty for the most heinous criminals, can we do something about the death penalty imposed on too many of our society's most innocent and helpless individuals?

On mushrooms, White Castle, and other dodges

In Monday's overlong post, I mentioned that Older Daughter and her husband and her husband Hank were scheduled to attend an engagement party during their Chicago visit.

The party was Saturday night. Older Daughter and her husband apparently returned to our house around 3:00am Sunday. Hank was apparently the designated driver.

Older Daughter was moving slowly Sunday morning and, in this context, "slowly" means virtually not at all. She'd gotten from the futon in the new addition to the living room couch. And there she sat. Carefully.

Long Suffering Spouse was sitting in her rocking chair, also carefully. (But for a different reason: She was suffering from the flu -- the actual disease, not the brown bottle variety.) Hank was seated on the couch, next to his wife, but attending mostly to his smart phone. Younger Daughter was in one chair, Youngest Son (who had not yet left for baseball practice) was sitting in another.

Having gotten the week's laundry underway, I came in to enjoy my morning coffee. I quickly diagnosed Older Daughter's condition. "So -- it got pretty drunk out last night?" I asked.

"No," said Older Daughter. I think she tried to shake her head, but found that she couldn't.

"I see," I said. "How was the party?"

Older Daughter sketched out a pleasant evening, though there was some sort of unhappy scene between the happy couple at one point. This was apparently papered over, however, and, in fact, it had been agreed that Older Daughter and Hank would join the newly engaged couple for brunch this morning. This accounted for at least some of Hank's smart phone activity: He was updating their departure to their brunch guests every so often based on Older Daughter's lack of movement.

"You came in rather late this morning," I noted.

"Well, yes." Older Daughter thought about denying that too, but realized that it would be impossible to hold such a position. Perhaps she realized, too, that she lacked the energy to try.

"But I thought everyone had to be out of the restaurant by 11:00?"

"We did," acknowledged Older Daughter. The group had adjourned to the bride-to-be's nearby condominium, she said.

"Oh," I said. "And how was the restaurant?"

"It was nice," said Older Daughter. "But every time I turned around, the wait staff refilled my wine glass. I didn't need that."

"I see," I said.

And, if she left it at that, it would have been fine. Older Daughter is young. She is entitled to imbibe to excess on occasion, especially happy ones. One learns from experience (hopefully) to imbibe just that much less the next time. It makes Sunday mornings so much more pleasant.

But Older Daughter was not willing to confirm the diagnosis I'd made upon entering the room. So she kept talking. "The food was good," she said, "but I think one of the hors d’oeuvres wasn't as mushroom-free as they said it was."

Older Daughter is famously intolerant of mushrooms. I have noted, on a previous occasion, that Older Daughter is downright allergic to the things (see, Dinner for 35 in a strange city), to the point of breaking out in hives.

But I didn't notice any hives on Sunday morning. I started laughing -- and so did Younger Daughter, Youngest Son, and Long Suffering Spouse. Even Hank looked up from his screen and over at his wife and smiled (quickly looking back lest he be spotted). "Mushrooms, eh?" said Youngest Son. "I'll have to remember that one."

"I won't believe it from you any more than I believe it from your sister, wise guy," I said.

I told this story yesterday to my friend Steve. "Mushrooms?" Steve asked. "I always used to say it was White Castle."

"White Castle?" I asked.

"Yeah. My dad would take one look at me and figure I was hung over, but I'd say, 'No, dad, we stopped for White Castles on the way home and I don't think the sliders agreed with me.' Then my dad would say, 'Oh, I see. The 200 beers you had before that have nothing to do with it, right?'"

We both laughed.

Of course, I was stubborn, too. In my day, when my parents figured I'd been out too late and served too long, they'd be sure to get me up early on some pretext or another. I would do my best to appear chipper and cheerful in their presence, my bones turning to mush as soon as I could escape. I was pretty sure -- then -- that my parents didn't see through my subterfuge. I'm pretty sure Older Daughter thinks she persuaded us, too, despite our horse laughs at her story. But I know -- now -- my parents saw through me as easily as we saw through Older Daughter on Sunday morning. Mushrooms, indeed.

The case of the missing birth certificate -- or -- When should visiting adult children book a hotel?

Older Daughter has not been up to Chicago since Christmas (see, Christmas with Rodent & the Curmudgeon clan -- Part I -- In which every dog shall have its way) and she had fixated upon this past weekend for her visit.

There are a couple of problems with designating a particular weekend for an inter-city visit (Older Daughter and her husband, Hank, reside in Indianapolis). The first of these is that, all too often, despite all best wishes and efforts, germs or virii will come to visit along with the family. If you recall, at Christmas, it was Hank who came down with a fever while staying at our home.

The second problem is more general, and arises whenever an adult child and spouse come calling: Where are they to stay? If I had a stately English country home, like the ones in Jane Austen's novels -- or even P.G. Wodehouse's -- putting someone up for a weekend would be no problem. But, alas, I'm not certain whether even the English have stately English country homes anymore, aside, possibly, from the Royals or Paul McCartney. I certainly have no such accommodations.

We did hit upon a solution at one point (see, Curmudgeon acquires a futon to solve a family dilemma) but events of the weekend just past are causing me to rethink the whole idea of just how much hospitality I should extend to visiting adult children.

The problem started Thursday. Long Suffering Spouse started the day feeling poorly. Last week was a particularly tough week since Youngest Son had to be at school by 5:30am for varsity baseball tryouts Monday through Thursday. I know I occasionally exaggerate in these essays for comic effect, but in this case I am serious: The kid actually had to be at school by 5:30am. Then, because he is a returning varsity player, he was expected to help out with the freshman tryouts after school. On Tuesday evening, the baseball team (though not yet finally selected) went as a group to the varsity basketball regional game in a far northwest suburb. On Wednesday evening the team (still not yet finally selected) went as a group to the wake of a player's mother who'd died suddenly. When he got home he could start his homework.

Not surprisingly, Long Suffering Spouse and I were pressed into service as backup alarm clocks for the boy. Adrenaline got him moving on Monday, but our assistance was increasingly required on each succeeding day. So we were up early, too.

And Tuesday Younger Daughter came down with some sort of massive eye infection. (She lives at her college but it is in a nearby Chicago suburb.) I was home Tuesday morning when she called to tell me that a problem was developing -- neither of us could have imagined then just how ugly it would get -- and I volunteered to take her to the doctor. (She eventually looked like she'd lost a bar fight to a brute with a terrible cold.) "No," she said, "I have an appointment with the school nurse this afternoon." The school nurse can write prescriptions. "Fine," I said, and went on my merry way.

That afternoon, though, as I was headed out to Wheaton on actual legal business, I got urgent phone calls from my wife and Younger Daughter: The eye was nearly swollen shut and could I divert on my way home to stop and pick up my daughter's prescription at the pharmacy near campus? My child desperately needed my reassuring paternal presence, er, charge card.

Because I still harbor hopes of getting back to the original narrative thread before nightfall, I will spare you the details of this mission, except to note that the nurse had either botched the prescription or the pharmacist could not understand the nurse's intent and, after an inordinate delay, I wound up at the doctor's office as I'd volunteered to in the morning... only eight hours later.

I don't think either of these events directly caused Long Suffering Spouse's illness Thursday, although the stress and fatigue may have rendered her more susceptible. I suspect that what did her in was a project at her school. Last week, Long Suffering Spouse was out in the parking lot every morning supervising volunteers from her junior high homeroom as they escorted preschoolers from their parents' cars into the school. The presence of teachers and "big kids" helping the little guys navigate keeps the traffic flowing in the mornings because anxious parents of preschoolers don't feel the need to park and walk the kids in themselves.

The problem is that preschoolers have a breathtaking range of germs and illnesses that they trade with each other the way kids in my day used to trade baseball cards. We built collections; they build immune systems. Outsiders, though, and my wife would count for this purpose because the junior high is on the other side of the school building from the preschoolers, are pretty much doomed.

So, by Thursday morning, Long Suffering Spouse was feeling punk. I had the van again because I had to take Younger Daughter to a follow-up doctor visit. I was in the office at lunchtime, though, when I spoke with my bride: She had declined perceptibly. We planned that I would come get her just as soon as the school day ended. "What about Older Daughter's visit?" I asked.

"I can't worry about the weekend yet," my wife said. "I have to see if I can make it to school tomorrow first."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I got Younger Daughter to her doctor's appointment and returned her to her dormitory. I was on my way back home when Older Daughter called.

"Are you home by any chance?" she asked.

"No, but I'm on my way. Why?"

Older Daughter, it seemed, was at the DMV trying to get her driver's license corrected, something she needed to do to get her passport renewed. I'd provide the details but I never really understood the problem. It had something to do with whether or not her middle name would be spelled out in full on the passport. The one thing that Older Daughter was absolutely clear about was that she would need her birth certificate scanned and sent to her. She planned to wait in line until I sent it to her.

Unfortunately, there are railroad tracks that cross my route home from Younger Daughter's school. Sometimes freight traffic operates on these tracks. Such was the case on Thursday afternoon. The gates went down moments after I'd completed my conversation with Older Daughter.

The gates had just gone up, and I had just resumed my homeward journey, when Older Daughter called again. "Are you home yet?"

I promised, faithfully, that I would call her just as soon as I got there.

I finally pulled in the driveway and the phone rang again.

No -- I know what you were thinking -- and you're wrong. This time it was Long Suffering Spouse. She was ready to be picked up.

I backed out of the driveway.

There are times when cell phones drive me bonkers.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I didn't even take my coat off. I got Long Suffering Spouse into the house and ran upstairs to the file cabinet where we keep all the kids' papers.

I didn't make it in time: The phone rang before I got the drawer open.

"I'm pulling your folder out now," I told Older Daughter.

I am the pack rat of the family. But though my wife is much better than I am about throwing things out, she's kept a lot of souvenirs for each kid. Older Daughter's folder was bulging with grammar school report cards; Christmas and Mother's Day cards in all their Crayoned glory; certificates from band and choir; test results; achievement awards of all sorts; official records of Older Daughter's Baptism, First Communion and Confirmation -- but no birth certificate.

I provided Older Daughter with a play-by-play description of my search of her folder. She told me it must be there. After a second futile search, I decided to go through everyone else's folder. Maybe it had been misfiled.

I found Oldest Son's birth certificate right away. I found Younger Daughter's. There were multiple copies of birth certificates in the folders for Middle Son and Youngest Son; they'd needed birth certificates for various baseball tournaments over the years. I couldn't find Older Daughter's.

"Is it possible that you took it out when you were getting married because you needed it for something?" It seemed a reasonable question: She needed paperwork both for the civil license and for both the Catholic and Episcopal Pre-Cana sessions. (Hank's an Episcopalian, you may recall.) But Older Daughter was adamant. "No," she said.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but I've gone through everything and it's not here."

"That's alright," she said, "I'll find it when I come over." Besides, she added, I'd waited too long; the office where she'd been loitering all this time was about to close. "I have to go now," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Long Suffering Spouse, shivering from a fever, had, in the meantime, pulled the file she kept on Older Daughter's wedding, and was poring through its contents in a futile search to find the missing birth certificate. "There's one more place I can look," she said, and she struggled to rise from her chair.

"Stop it," I said. I can pick up a certified copy at the County Clerk's office tomorrow, I told her. "Just sit."

"Did you tell her I was sick?"

"I did." I even told her that she might want to reconsider her plans to visit because of Long Suffering Spouse's illness.

"What did she say?"

"She said she'd call you when she got home to see how you were feeling."

"Oh."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

We didn't want to forbid our daughter to visit. She'd been looking forward to it. And she and her husband had made plans to visit others while they were here. One of Hank's buddies from college was recently engaged; there was to be a party in a western suburb Saturday night.

"Why don't they stay in a hotel?" I suggested.

"They don't have any money --"

I cut Long Suffering Spouse off. "They're both working now," I said. "They both make good money."

"They're saving up for a vacation," Long Suffering Spouse protested.

"Exhibit A for my side," I said. Long Suffering Spouse and I don't take vacations. We couldn't possibly afford it.

"There's no place to stay," Long Suffering Spouse began, but her voice trailed off even as she said it: We live in the shadow of O'Hare International Airport. There are a million hotel rooms within a few miles' distance of our front door. So Long Suffering Spouse regrouped. "She won't do it," my wife said.

"Why not?" I asked. "She and Hank can come over as often as they want, but we don't have to clean up nearly as much and you can get some rest. And they can have their privacy and come and go as they please."

"She won't do it," my wife repeated.

"Even when we explain that you're ill? Good heavens, she doesn't need to get sick. And Hank was sick the last time he was here."

My wife just looked at me. It was my turn to try and regroup. "OK, fine, we'll just present the facts and let her make a mature decision. She is, after all, an adult."

"She won't stay at a hotel," my wife said. Well, maybe we should stay in a hotel then, I thought, but did not say, because my wife would remind me that we could not afford it.

Well, you know the rest: I presented the unhappy facts to Older Daughter without gloss or sugar-coating. Long Suffering Spouse (who never gets sick) was ill and might not even go into work in the morning. (She didn't. She couldn't.) We didn't want Older Daughter or Hank to get whatever crud is in our house. "I want it noted for the record that we have made full and complete disclosure," I said and Older Daughter acknowledged that we had.

But she and Hank came anyway. And they stayed at our house. We worked around them as best we could. Long Suffering Spouse is back at school this morning, although she's still queasy. And I'm here at the Undisclosed Location... and sinking fast.

I will bet large sums that Older Daughter will not come down with this loathsome disease, however, and even larger sums that, if she does, she will never admit where she got it.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

There is a denouement to all this.

I did pick up a certified copy of Older Daughter's birth certificate Friday afternoon in the office of the Cook County Clerk. I picked up two, in fact. I gave one to Hank as soon as I walked in the door on Friday evening, explaining to him that I would be keeping the other against the day that she loses the one I just handed over. Hank was saying something like, "That's a good plan," when Older Daughter swept into the room checking to see what we were up to.

I explained that I'd just given Hank a certified copy of the birth certificate for safe keeping.

"Oh, that," said Older Daughter. "Didn't I tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"After I hung up with you, I went and found the supervisor again and explained everything again. And he agreed to let me have the license corrected without the birth certificate after all."

The poor man just probably wanted to go home....

Libya situation really amusing -- unless you live there, of course, or unless you need to buy gas....

A rose by any other name would be equally as nuts....

From Wikipedia (footnotes omitted):

"Muammar Gaddafi" is the spelling used by TIME magazine, BBC News, the majority of the British press and by the English service of Al-Jazeera. The Associated Press, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News use "Moammar Gadhafi". The Library of Congress uses "Qaddafi, Muammar" as the primary name. The Edinburgh Middle East Report uses "Mu'ammar Qaddafi" and the U.S. Department of State uses "Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi", although the White House chooses to use "Muammar el-Qaddafi". The Xinhua News Agency uses "Muammar Khaddafi" in its English reports. The New York Times uses Muammar el-Qaddafi. The Los Angeles Times uses Moammar Kadafi.

Whatever we call the guy, he's still bats. And armed and dangerous.

It is widely reported, of course, that Gadhafi is shooting his own people, even bombing them from the air, because they've had the temerity to try and overthrow his 40-year tyranny. It is further reported that he's had to import mercenaries for these tasks since his own soldiers have shown an alarming tendency to go over to the demonstrators whenever possible.

And those bombing raids on the oil port of Brega, currently in the hands of anti-Gadhafi rebels? All just a "big misunderstanding," according to Saif al-Islam, one of Gadhafi's seemingly endless supply of sons. The bombs, he said, were just meant to "frighten" the rebels, not kill them, al-Islam told Sky News. The bombs, having detonated, were unavailable for confirmation of this assertion. But, according to this linked story in Britain's Telegraph, the big misunderstanding was continuing for a second day, since the rebels weren't 'frightened away' by the first day's assault. Indeed, according to the news report, the rebels were not only not "frightened," they seem to have repulsed the initial attack.

But the good news is that the world is uniting against Gadhafi: Why, just the other day, Libya's membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council was suspended because there is a sneaking suspicion on the part of several UN diplomats that importing mercenaries to murder your citizens, or bombing and strafing your citizens from the air, may not be in keeping with the highest traditions of protecting human rights. Oh, and Fox News reports that the "U.N. Human Rights Council has postponed consideration of a report that praises Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s government for its human rights record." The vote had been scheduled for March 18, but after "concerns were raised about the possibility of the council undermining its own actions by considering the report, the council decided Thursday to put off the vote." Presumably the vote can be rescheduled if Gadhafi survives. And, if not, another anti-Israel resolution can always be whipped up and voted upon.

Thrilling stuff, really.

But, do not worry that a spirit of liberal abandon has seized the world body: Stalwart champions of human rights like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba remain members in good standing of the UNHRC.

Meanwhile, it seems that every time someone picks up a rock in Benghazi or Tripoli, gasoline prices rise in the United States. So many rocks have been picked up by so many demonstrators, gasoline prices in Chicago are up to $4 a gallon.

The Washington Post reported last night that the price of oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange climbed over $102 a barrel because traders are worried about the situation in Libya and whether "unrest" might spread to other oil-producing nations. Then, this morning, another great champion of democracy and human rights, Hugo Chavez, proposed a mediation between Gadhafi and his opponents. Gadhafi has reportedly agreed to the proposal and the Arab League is reportedly also interested, although, it says, it wants details before getting too giddy about things. And, lo and behold, just like magic, when this exciting news was released, oil prices fell below $102 a barrel.

Now, you might be able to understand how markets that exist to predict the future price of oil might fluctuate with each news report from Libya.

However, you might also think that any possible interruption in the flow of oil from Libya, even if it is not quickly made up by increased production from other sources, would not be felt at the gas pump for some time afterward. After all, the gooey stuff that is pumped out of the ground can not be pumped into your car without extensive refining. And that takes time. Just as it takes time for oil to get from the ground to the refinery to make gasoline, it also takes time to get that gasoline from the refinery to a gas station near you. Therefore, you might think, an immediate rise in the price of gasoline -- the end product -- should not be expected just because of the current troubles in Libya. The cost of producing the gasoline at the corner station was not increased by events in Libya; it was pumped out of the ground weeks or even months ago.

But if you think this way you must be some sort of dangerous malcontent. Do you seriously think that oil companies and other speculators would take advantage of people fighting and dying for their freedom to make obscene profits? Whatever you do, pay no attention to oil company profits. Just pump your $4 gas and shut up.

Troublemaker.

Pen refills would note the changing times -- if you could find one

I had a colleague once who liked expensive pens. When I was a kid, an expensive pen was a Papermate (as opposed to a Bic). A real fancy pen was a Parker. But my late colleague favored fountain pens that probably cost as much as the computer on which you're reading this post. Can you imagine spending a thousand dollars or more on a pen?

(Although... none of his pens ever suffered a hard drive failure.)

As I grew older, graduating from this or that, I received pens as presents. The standard-issue graduation gift, back in the day, was a Cross pen and pencil set. I must have half a dozen Cross pencils hiding in the bottom of various drawers or boxes at my home, hardly ever used, even when new.

I managed to lose all the Cross pens.

All, that is, except one.

Strictly speaking, it's not a Cross pen. All things being equal, the barrels of the Cross pens were a little too thin for my taste. But this pen -- which I think my sister got for me because it was a premium giveaway at a conference she once planned -- was a little thicker. Still, it used Cross refills.

I've had this pen now for at least 20 years. Probably longer. The plastic in the pen has lost a great deal of its plasticity; it has, in other words, become brittle. Actual chunks of plastic have broken off at the top of the pen. Time flies.

And though I am, like most of you, increasingly dependent upon keyboards to communicate even the most basic thoughts, I still have occasion to use a pen. Not everything I pay (when I pay it) is paid on line; sometimes I have to write checks. I take notes with a pen, especially when I'm away from my office -- at a deposition, say. On the way home at night, if I try and reconstruct my time for the day, I'll jot my entries down on a legal pad. (I'll transcribe them into the computer later.) Eventually, even the sturdy Cross medium point black refill will run out. As my pen did, some weeks back.

For years, this posed no problem. Every decent office building in Chicago's Loop had a cigar store in the lobby. Pen refills -- especially standard ones, like Cross medium point black refills -- were readily available.

But there aren't as many cigar stores as there used to be. A lot of these are Starbucks now, or juice places. And, even when there are still cigar stores, there are few cigars to be had. And no pen refills.

The last Horders store in the Loop closed a year ago or more. Horders was a place where lawyers bought fillable legal forms and office supplies. There used to be several of these.

There is a CVS drugstore near my Undisclosed Location where I have bought some office supplies in the past. Within the past couple of weeks, however, I've noticed that there were no longer any office supplies displayed for sale. One can, however, buy beer, wine or spirits and drink to forget....

The War to End All Wars (and didn't) passes into American history

Frank Buckles, the Last American Doughboy, died yesterday at his West Virginia home.

With his passing, World War I becomes strictly a matter of history for Americans. It is no longer an event within "living memory." (Wikipedia says there are two confirmed World War I veterans yet living; both served in the British armed forces, though Claude Choules moved to Australia after the Great War and served under that nation's colors in World War II.) Oh, there are yet some who were alive during the War to End All Wars, but all living memory of going "Over There," the trenches, the mud, the rats, the gas, the thunder of the guns -- all of this is gone now.

When I was a boy, there were lots of World War I veterans. They were the granddads. When Charles Schultz drew Snoopy as a World War I flying ace, there were a good many newspaper readers who had thrilled to the first accounts of the battles between those Knights of the Air. Some of the real air aces were still around to chuckle at Snoopy's misfortunes right along with the rest of us.

But no more.

The other night Youngest Son had computer issues: It crashed just after he'd completed a paper and would not restart. My wife volunteered me to get up and sit with him as he called across the world for assistance in bringing the machine back to life. It was the wee small hours of the morning, of course; that's when high school seniors tend to write papers that are due immediately after sunrise. Youngest Son was on hold forever and I flipped on the TV to stay awake. There was a silent comedy on TCM; it was about two doughboys who escape from a German prison camp. It occurred to me that Youngest Son wouldn't have seen German uniforms from World War I; come to think of it, I couldn't remember the last time I had seen any either -- certainly not outside of some program on the History Channel. World War I had once dominated the popular imagination. Then the horrors of World War II crowded World War I from the collective consciousness.

And now World War I becomes a matter for historical study only.

The veterans of the Second World War were the dads of my youth. They are dwindling fast now; the last of these will be go someday, too, like Mr. Buckles, honored and celebrated and revered as the last of his kind.

The last World War II survivor will probably have been a kid who lied about his age to get into uniform, just like Mr. Buckles did. It will probably be that way for the last Korean War veteran, too, or the last veteran of Vietnam.

All the debates over strategy and tactics are glossed over, simplified, or even forgotten, as the generals fade away. The historians decide who was right and who was wrong (and change their minds every generation or so). The last living memories of any war aren't the grand schemes of planners and staff officers, but the vivid impressions made on a teenager's mind, far from home and kin.

Police and fire not among the most hazardous professions?

Last October, I ran a serious post, Solve the budget crisis: End (most) public pensions. Like most of my serious posts, it landed with a dull and largely unheard thud in the Greater Blogosphere. To summarize, I suggested that (a) current public pensions be honored for people who have already earned them and (b) public pension contributions be stopped immediately for everyone else except police officers and fire fighters.

The private sector largely did away with pensions a generation ago. My wife, a Catholic school teacher, was one of the last people in the private sector that I knew with a pension -- but it was terminated three or four years ago. (My wife didn't teach full time until about 10 years ago. Her guaranteed pension, as of the date it was terminated, was something like $17 a month. I can hardly wait!)

Anyway, I suggested that its mostly people without pensions who are paying, by their taxes, the salaries and benefits of public sector employees. Why should public sector employees (who already have unions, civil service and Shakman protections) also have pensions their neighbors no longer have?

My suggested exemption for police officers and fire fighters was based on the notion that these individuals put their lives on the line on every shift.

Until the other day, only Dave left a comment on that post. But now a second comment has appeared which I reproduce here in full:

Why make pension exemptions to police and fire? You mention risk, "putting their lives on the line" but these public union jobs [don't] even make the top ten hazardous occupations list.
Besides, public safety pensions make up over 70% of municipal pension obligations, so if you're going to make a cut, it makes sense to start with the greatest abusers of pension entitlements, police and fire.

You're the reason real pension reform [won't] occur when you whore out your preferences to fire fighters and such.

[B]ecause, when you state that governments are bankrupt, [don't] have the money, but then go ahead and make exceptions, no one takes you seriously.

My first thought was to reply that the most dangerous occupation must be this guy's food taster -- but it occurred to me that that would be just stooping to the commenter's level.

If police officer and fire fighter are not among the 10 most hazardous occupations, what are the 10 most dangerous occupations?

According to this August 28, 2010 post on Yahoo! Finance (by Les Christie of CNNMoney.com) the 10 most dangerous occupations in America are:

1. Fisherman,
2. Logger,
3. Airplane Pilots,
4. Farmers and Ranchers,
5. Roofers,
6. Ironworkers,
7. Sanitation Worker,
8. Industrial Machinist,
9. Truckers and Drivers/Sales Workers, and
10. Construction Laborer.

The last of these 10 most dangerous occupations, construction laborer, supposedly has a fatality rate of 18.3 per 100,000 workers. If I am reading this statistic correctly, on an annual basis, we can expect 18.3 deaths for every 100,000 persons engaged in the occupation of construction worker. This is the same death rate as expected for hazardous occupation no. 9, "Truckers and Drivers/Sales Workers." The death rate for Industrial Machinists is given at 18.5 per 100,000 persons. The death rate for Sanitation Workers is given at 25.2 per 100,000.

This last one shocked me. I've heard of guys employed by Streets and San being found in automobile trunks from time to time, but these unsolved mysteries were never assumed to have been caused by picking up garbage. I have lived in Chicago a long time, and I've never heard of a line of duty death involving a worker on a garbage truck.

But I have heard of Chicago police officers dying in the line of duty -- several this past year. So I inquired further and discovered this December 28, 2010 article by Patrik Jonsson on the Christian Science Monitor website. In the article, Jonsson writes that there were 160 deaths among American law enforcement officers in 2010. He adds that there are "about 800,000 active local, state, and federal law-enforcement officers in the US." Doing the math, I come up with a fatality rate for police officers in 2010 of 20 per 100,000 -- above three of the 10 allegedly most dangerous occupations.

But still below "Sanitation Workers."

I could not find comparable figures for firefighter line of duty deaths. The United States Fire Administration, a division of FEMA, reported "there were 85 onduty firefighter fatalities in the United States as a result of incidents that occurred in 2010, a 6 percent decrease from the 90 fatalities reported for 2009. The 85 fatalities were spread across 31 states. Illinois experienced the highest number of fatalities (9)." There were 90 firefighter fatalities in 2009. But that doesn't give me a total number of firefighters or even define the term. However, it apparently includes professional urban departments, like the Chicago Fire Department, as well as rural volunteer companies and even smoke jumpers -- the guys who jump in the middle of forest fires.

Therein lies the problem with these statistics. I can't believe that police officers or firefighters have a lesser risk of on-the-job fatality than the guy who picks up the trash. My experience tells me it ain't so. Some inside-the-numbers and inside-the-definitions exploration is clearly warranted in order to figure this out -- but this is, of course, impossible from the linked articles alone.

And then there was the contention raised by my anonymous friend that "public safety pensions make up over 70% of municipal pension obligations." Sadly, he did not provide a source for that claim either. While police and fire make up a sizable chunk of any city budget, I wonder if 70% isn't high. I would guess that the number can't take into account teacher pensions (in Illinois these are paid from a different fund and school boards are separate taxing entities). But I just don't know.

To use my new friend's colorful phrase, I wanted to 'whore around' some more and investigate this claim, but I flat ran out of time today. Perhaps I can come back to the topic again. Or someone may provide some additional facts in a comment?

More troubles for Rep. David Wu

Let's be fair. When he donned this costume, maybe the seven-term Oregon Democrat was just trying to attract one of those Chinese tiger mothers who has been so much in the news of late:


Rep. Wu's is apparently a sad story of mental decline (for background, read this) and I don't mean to pile on.

Still, I couldn't help but think that Mr. Wu's increasingly well-documented problems weren't entirely new. There was something about him that triggered my increasingly feeble memory.

Then, today, I remembered this March 2007 post about a Finnish parliamentarian who had gone to the trouble of translating his campaign web site into Klingon.

In putting that post together, I came across a YouTube video of an American Congressman complaining of American policy in Iraq and warning of "Klingons in the White House." That video is no longer available. But this one was, at least as of this lunch hour:


Yep. That's Rep. David Wu.

Now, whether I agree or disagree with the point Congressman Wu was trying to make is immaterial. His little speech here makes reference to both Vulcans and Klingons. That's weird... but not really crazy. The crazy part is that his argument can be understood only by old geeks like me who've watched Star Trek lo these many decades. I kind of doubt there's that many of us... are there?

Don't let anyone tell you the economy is improving

This is the big lie circulating these days, mainly, I suppose, because the media have tired of reporting on the Great Recession. Not that they did a particularly good job of it....

There may be signs of hope... sprigs of green pushing out of the late winter snows... stock prices have rebounded... the big banks have paid off most of the TARP money... GM reported its first annual profit since 2004 (there were quarterly profits in 2010 and 2007)....

But however healthy things seem at the top of the economy (thanks all too often to the massive and timely infusions of taxpayer money), for the rest of us, those deemed small enough to fail, things don't seem to be getting better at all.

I had a client declare bankruptcy recently. If I did bankruptcy work, that might be a good thing for me... but I don't. What that client owes me won't drive me into bankruptcy by itself... but I am teetering on the brink, too.

Somebody asked me recently whether my business is trending up or down. "I think it's more a swirling motion," I responded. The February rent is not yet paid. March starts next week.

And, while I hope my own situation will improve soon, for the economy as a whole, it seems likely to get worse before it gets better: Governments at all levels are broke. Yet, in many states, such as Illinois, there is no incentive to stand up to the public employee unions that have such a large say in who attains elective office. So taxes must go up instead. (Tea Party pipe dreams notwithstanding, even a stiff dose of fiscal courage would probably include some sort of tax increases at almost all levels anyway. The shame of it is that there is no 'rightsizing' -- a hated private sector euphemism for layoffs -- likely in the public sector. Thus, however much taxes go up, we're really only postponing a day of reckoning.)

Although Illinois may have found one silver lining in all this: We had Democratic members of the Wisconsin State Senate hiding out in Rockford and Harvard and even Chicago, trying to prevent a vote on measures proposed by Wisconsin's Republican Governor, Scott Walker, that would require public sector employees to contribute more to their own health care and pension costs, limit their right to strike, limit their union's rights to bargain to wages only and not working conditions, and limit the extent of raises that may be granted. Meanwhile, Democratic legislators fleeing Indianapolis (where a right to work vote was set for the Indiana legislature) took refuge in places like downstate Champaign.

Finally a growth industry in Illinois! Playing host to legislators shirking their duties in other states. As long as they don't thereafter shirk their bills here....

An Unscientific Survey: The eyes have it, or, rather, have had it....

It was not quite four years ago that I asked here about whether I should switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs at the Curmudgeon home.

Well, I did switch. As incandescent bulbs failed, they were replaced by CFL's. I still have a few left, but they're in fixtures that don't seem to support CFL's -- and there are few of these -- the light over the kitchen sink and a decorative bathroom fixture are the only ones that come to mind right now.

I'm wondering how long I have before I have to replace those fixtures. You don't see incandescent bulbs on the store shelves much anymore, do you?

I miss incandescent lights.

I sit under harsh fluorescent lights here in the Undisclosed Location. My desk lamp, which used to provide a warm, comforting incandescent glow in the midst of the cold fluorescent harshness, has long since been replaced by a CFL, too.

And my eyes hurt.

Granted, I'm four years older, since I began switching to CFL's, and eyestrain should become an increasing issue over time. But an association is forming, in my imagination at least, between incandescent light and my eyes not hurting so much.

So I put the issue to all and sundry who might happen upon this post: Have you noticed any increased eyestrain since switching to fluorescent lighting at home and away? Is there scientific evidence that backs up or refutes the association that I've made between increased eyestrain and constant fluorescent lighting?

At least I didn't get past the lobby....

Have you ever had a snake-bit case?

I realize that most of the people who might happen upon this blog aren't lawyers, so that's probably a dumb question.

But have you ever had a task, a project, an assignment where absolutely nothing is done right the first time?

I have a matter now pending in the Appellate Court that fits this description. The very pendency of this matter in the Appellate Court is a dead giveaway. But a case doesn't become snake-bit just because a judge makes a decision that I disagree with.

In thinking about this piece, I thought about detailing all the stupid, nonsensiscal, just-plain-dumb mistakes I've made on this one case -- mild stuff, like sending out a bill without including all of the expenses (which means I ate them) -- to more fundamental, tactical decisions (I should have filed two suits, not one, and let the defendants argue they should be consolidated). In this case, the Circuit Court Clerk failed to call me when the appellate record was assembled so that I was unable to verify that stuff that should have been included in the record was included. It wasn't. (This problem was correctable, and was corrected.)

I thought about listing all of the many things that had gone wrong on this matter but it occurred to me that such a litany would and could identify only this case and my cherished anonymity would be out the window. (And I might have wound up breaching the attorney client privilege in the bargain. In this case, that would almost be a dead-cinch certainty.)

Suffice it to say, then, that if the copier had a misfeed, it was printing something for this case. If the printer jammed when making envelopes, it was stuck on the service list in this case. If I got a paper cut, from one piece of paper in all the mounds of paper that weigh down this Undisclosed Location, it would be from a paper I'd forgot to file in this case. (And then, when I'd staunched the flow of blood, I'd be unable to find the offending paper to put it where it belonged.)

Yesterday I had a motion to file in the Appellate Court. In this case, of course. It was a housekeeping motion, about something that should never have had to be done in the first place, but that's been the nature of this beast.

The Appellate Court is close by my Undisclosed Location and yesterday felt like the first day of Spring. The Groundhog's Day Blizzard is shriveling away. Of course, the first day of Spring in Chicago does not involve a lot of green. The predominant covers are brown or black as the dirt and pollution and the mud remain behind as the once-pristine white snow melts to an ugly gray.

Anyway, yesterday's motion was for leave to file something. I had the something on my desk. I prepared the motion without incident. I got through Security at the Appellate Court and started pulling my keys and my phone out of the folder in which I'd brought over the motion and that is when I noticed -- the something to be filed, the subject of the motion, was still sitting on my desk, wondering where I'd gone.

Oh, fiddlesticks! I might have said, but did not.

Of course, a phone call I'd been waiting for came in while I was on this fool's errand. I returned the call -- and while I was chatting away, I thought to make the envelopes to send out the copies of the motion. This was accomplished without incident. I thought to put the thing to be filed into my folder. And then I thought to put the stamps on the envelopes. So I took the motions out for just a moment so I could weigh one with the envelope and apply the proper postage.

Out I went again.

I got through Security again and fished out my keys and my phone from the folder and I smiled when I noticed that the thing to be filed was in the folder just where I'd put it -- and my smile faded just as quickly that the motion was no longer there.

Oh tarnation! I might have said, but didn't.

Now, the third time was the charm. I got the motion and the thing to be filed over to the court clerk at the same time.

Now, if this happened to me in every case, you'd say (and I'd agree) that I need a keeper. But it only happens in cases like this one. Cases that are well and truly snake-bit.

But, at least, on these two futile outings, I never got past the building lobby....

Curmudgeon blue about modern blue jeans

I wrote a few years back about how I broke down and got my first pair of blue jeans in at least 20 years.

I realize that no one has been checking in each day in breathless expectation of an update, but the topic is on my mind.

Add blue jeans to the list of things that aren't as good as they used to be.

When I was a kid, blue jeans were blue. Dark blue. Navy blue. And they were stiff.

Oh, they could be folded. One could, with some effort, stand or sit while wearing new blue jeans. But it was a workout.

Everyone at school knew when you had new blue jeans. It was not, as I seem to recall, entirely favorable notice. Of course, when you're an adolescent, unless you've just scored the winning basket at the big basketball game, almost any notice is unwelcome, at least initially. Coming to school in a new pair of blue jeans was nothing like winning the big game.

Everyone else, in their more faded, softer blue jeans was far more comfortable.

There was an element of risk the first time a new pair of blue jeans were washed, too. My mother always wanted them soaked in a vinegar solution to hold the color.

That was just like parents: Darker jeans were definitely less cool than faded jeans; therefore parents instinctively favored darker jeans. Whether vinegar was used or not, however, anything washed with the new blue jeans was apt to turn at least a robin's egg blue.

Faded blue jeans were celebrated in songs during the 1960s for a reason: By the time a pair of blue jeans were properly faded, they'd been lived in. Your favorite blue jeans were privy to your habits, good and bad, and even your secrets, if you had any. When the knees went, applying a patch was much more than garment repair; it was first aid for a friend.

The modern blue jean is neither particularly blue nor particularly stiff. Today the garment is marketed to us Baby Boomers as 'relaxed fit' and 'stone washed.'

It turns out that relaxed fit doesn't just mean that six of your high school selves could occupy those pants. And it turns out that "stone washed" is literally true.

On one of those "How Its Made" programs aired on the Science Channel I learned that new blue jeans are pre-washed in what amounts to giant washing machines. Instead of fabric softener sheets, actual stones -- small boulders, even -- are washed with the jeans to 'break them in' before they're foisted on a lazy public.

Either the modern jeans consumer is too sensitive about the reaction obtained when wearing new jeans or too lazy to break them in as we did in the 1960s and 70s. Blue jeans fade now after being laundered only a few times -- and why not? They've already gone through extraordinary wear (and even tear) before getting put on the shelves.

And every parent knows that pre-torn jeans are more expensive.

When a patch is required, as it will be all too soon on the modern blue jean, the item is not an old friend; it's hardly even a casual acquaintance.

If anyone knows where old-style, sturdy denim jeans may be obtained, please leave a comment. Of course, the jeans would have to come in aircraft-carrier sizes....

Valentines birthday salutes!

One of my all time favorite entertainers, Benjamin Kubelsky, was born right here in Chicago on this day in 1894. You may remember him as Jack Benny, the Pride of Waukegan.

So do I.

I was reading Fred Allen's Treadmill to Oblivion again recently. Toward the end of the book he pays a wonderful tribute to his supposed enemy: "He is my favorite comedian and I hope to be his friend until he's forty. That will be forever."

And speaking of people who don't yet admit to 40, here's a birthday shoutout to Skeezix Wallet. He looks pretty good for 90, don't you think?

(Only in the comics.)

Also celebrating a birthday today is Ken Levine, one of my all-time favorite bloggers, even if I am insanely jealous of the career he's had: Comedy writer (M*A*S*H, Cheers, and many others), director, and baseball broadcaster. (He'll be doing some work for the Seattle Mariners this year.) Levine's blog posts are consistently funny, except when he writes eulogies. In contrast, I may be at my funniest when I try to do a serious political post. Dag nab it. (Levine once passed up the chance to see the Beatles in concert and saw Jack Benny in Vegas instead. "I made the right choice," Levine wrote. "That night at Sahara's [Benny] was sensational. No one who went to the Beatles concert could hear a note.")

And there is yet one more birthday shoutout to make this morning, this one to my Older Daughter. She doesn't read, or even know about, this blog. If she saw this, she'd be upset by my continued association of her birthday with Jack Benny's. I'm upset by the fact that she's 27 today.

Twenty seven? How is anyone supposed to believe I'm still 23? Even when I explain how it works according to the New Math I learned in the 60s? I may have to move my admitted age up to 39 as well.

What does Yahoo! think I am -- a Republican congressman?

I have a couple of different Yahoo! mail accounts; there's one linked to the Sidebar on this blog.

All of them recently developed the same problem.

Every time I go in to check my mail, a pop-up box will appear on the lower right-hand portion of my screen. Here's one:

You may not believe this, but I don't know anyone named "Wett.heartz590." I certainly did not ask Mr. or Ms. Heartz (you will note the indistinct gender identification in the solicitation) to add me to his or her contacts list. The same goes for Mr. or Ms. "Warm.potion" something-or-other that also popped up.

And, frankly, I'm kind of ticked off about the fact that Yahoo! is letting this kind of stuff through. I mean, who do they think I am? Former Republican Congressman Chris Lee?

First of all, the last time I appeared in public without a shirt, Captain Ahab tried to harpoon me.

Anyway, this has happened now 12 or 15 times and I was moved this morning to try and write to Yahoo! to complain.

I clicked around for some time, finding menu upon menu of 'frequently asked questions' but nothing about these unwanted messenger pop-ups. Apparently not too many are asking about Mr. or Ms. Heartz or Potion yet. Or maybe Yahoo! customers are flattered by the solicitations and accept the invitations. Personally, I think these solicitations are invitations to contract a virus -- computer or otherwise.

I'm still trying to figure out how any question becomes "frequently asked" because I could find no address where I could ask anything at all.

Has this happened to any of you?

Anyway, I'm putting my complaint out here in the Greater Blogosphere in the hopes that some Yahoo! spider will see its exclamation points bandied about in this fashion and put an end to the unwelcome solicitations of Mr. or Ms. Heartz and Potion. Or, possibly, introduce them.

Picture Day at the Undisclosed Location

I run photos here at Second Effort, some of which I've actually taken myself. Most of them, of course, are 'lifted' from other corners of the Internet.

Of course, I don't think pictures are entirely necessary -- even if it doesn't really work out this way, I'd rather have you coming here for my words rather than someone else's pictures. Still, the occasional illustration breaks up the solid gray page....

It took awhile to figure out how to insert a picture. Checking this morning, I think the first illustrations I put in this blog came in August 2006 -- nine months after I'd started this blog. And this was my second blog (hence the name).

At home, I'm the guy who downloads photos my wife takes and stores them in various subfolders of the "My Pictures" directory. I can do minimal editing and everything!

(Long Suffering Spouse has to take pictures at school. For the yearbook. For the parish bulletin. And she takes whatever family souvenirs we have because, she says, my pictures are usually out of focus. I can't argue with her because she's right. And this with an automatic digital camera! Yes, I have talent. And, if we're outside in the daylight, I can't see the stupid screen on the back of the device to save my life.)

Anyway, having demonstrated so much ability in the capture and manipulation of images, you might think that a simple request for a photo would not throw the old Curmudgeon into a tizzy.

You might think that -- but if it were so, this would be even a more boring post than it has been so far.

I'm filling out a questionnaire for one of the bar associations that is reviewing my latest judicial application. Some of the questions are easy: No, I don't use recreational drugs. Yes, my license is current. No, I haven't been sued. Yet.

But this questionnaire requests that I provide a photo. Of myself.

Most of the pictures I've been in lately are group shots: Older Daughter's wedding, Oldest Son's wedding. Events associated therewith. And even in these pictures there is a problem. Some techno-sharpie is Photoshopping me out of all of these photos and substituting some overweight, balding old man where I should be. I have been vigilant. I have paid careful attention. I still can't figure out how it's been done. And even if someone else weren't standing in the group where I should be, I doubt that a group shot is what the bar association has in mind.

And even if I had a picture to provide... well, when's the last time you went to the drugstore to pick up prints? Everything's digital now... and nothing ever gets printed except for the stuff my wife frames. Despite my vehement protests, my wife has even had group shots framed that include that overweight, balding old man where I should be.

But I need a picture and I need it now. So -- I thought -- I'll pull a profile picture off Facebook. There's a picture there that I've used as a profile picture that was taken at another family wedding this summer. The guy in this picture is also balding and overweight... but it's taken at such an angle, and in such dim lighting conditions, that these conditions are hardly noticeable.

Facebook is interesting. I can lift anyone's picture that I have access to, apparently, except my own. At least that's what I discovered this morning.

So, I fell back on a head-shot that was taken for me by a professional photographer some, um, seven years ago. My wife and I were coordinating a photo directory for our parish's 100th anniversary. One of us had to be with the photographer pretty much all the time when the parish families trooped in for their portrait appointments. It was during a lull following our own family portrait that I asked for the head-shot.

"What do you intend to use it for?" the photographer asked.

"For my business publicity," I told him, truthfully. That photo used to run with the column I wrote for the local legal newspaper. But neither the photographer nor I imagined, at the time, that I'd still be using it seven years later.

I printed a copy on plain paper on my inkjet this morning and it didn't smear too much. In fact, the smears probably improved the image.

And, no, I won't be running that photo with this post.

The court paradox -- which only works if you appear pro se

Yet another reason to always hire a lawyer to handle legal problems. Think about it:




From the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

I was wondering whether author of the strip, Zach Weiner, may have worked in his own lawyer joke into the cartoon. The student, Euathlus, turns out to be "a genus of the family Theraphosidae containing four species of tarantulas."

Hmmmm.

However, if you check out the Wikipedia article on the Paradox of the Court, you will find that the student of Protagoras is called both Eulathus and Euathlus. This may mean that Wikipedia is in on the joke. It certainly means that the Wikipedia article is in need of proofreading.

Still here after the blizzard....

Everyone in Chicago seems to have been thrown a tad off kilter by last week's blizzard. Youngest Son has a whole mess of tests this week (this week's and last week's) and Long Suffering Spouse reports she's giving a bunch of tests starting today. "The good news," she said, "is that I had them ready to go before the blizzard."

Courts were closed here last week. The Federal courts were closed last Wednesday; the Circuit Court of Cook County was closed Wednesday and Thursday. I can't remember that ever happening. It may have been a good thing, though. I saw that the chief judge of the courts in Dallas insisted they'd hold court despite a snow and ice storm (that greatly complicated matters for that scrimmage they played Sunday in the Jerry Jones Dome) -- and then broke his leg, falling on ice on the way to court.

I had an appellate brief to write. It's due today. It will be filed today.

So I took stuff home Tuesday night, hoping that I'd be able to work on it Wednesday.

Two feet of snow later, I actually got to the brief on Thursday. Afternoon.

But it's done now.

I think.

Instead of writing the story I wanted to write this morning, I think I'll actually read the brief I wrote... just to be sure.

And another unanticipated crisis landed on my desk last night.

And it's snowing again.

February has the fewest days, but it can be the longest month....

Curmudgeon says something nice about government

That thudding sound you just heard is my blogfriend Dave hitting the floor somewhere in metropolitan Atlanta....

Yes, admittedly, I grumble a lot about all levels of government. If you paid your own withholding, like I do, you'd be wary of government too.

But if government is evil, it can protect us from other, greater evils, and that leads us directly to into this morning's discussion.

The evil in question is not the Red Chinese. The Chinese may be our rivals in trade, our most likely adversary in war, and the nation likely to supplant the United States as the world's hegemon as we gracefully decline into a really big Portugal, but they also own the biggest portion of our national debt. So, I don't mean to bite the hand that props us up. No, I refer to a menace far worse than the Chinese.

I refer to the Telephone Company.

I have complained about telephone service in other posts on this blog. Early on, I griped about troubles with the "Texans", a reference to the Baby Bell that later grew up to swallow its corporate progenitor. For the classically trained, you can critique my interpretation of Greek mythology at the post linked in this sentence. In that post, I called the telephone monopoly BP&P; in this 2009 post, I referred to the Telephone Company as AT&TT.

Whatever it may be called, my latest dust-up with the Telephone Company came when I fell behind on my bill.

I know I may be shattering some of your dearly held illusions about the great wealth of lawyers and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to live up to the standard, but when people don't pay me I find it well-nigh impossible to pay my bills.

I let the office telephone bill go for one month, then two, waiting for the dreaded Red Notice all the while trying to plug up other, larger holes in the dike.

The dreaded Red Notice came shortly after the regular bill arrived showing that my business account was two months in arrears.

But here was the problem: The amount demanded on the regular bill was some $36 or $38 less than the amount demanded on the Red Notice.

No, I didn't let things deteriorate to actual disconnection -- so I didn't actually incur a restoration charge. The two bills just demanded different amounts.

Guess which amount I eventually paid?

Wouldn't you?

But the Telephone Company, having decided it was owed more, kept showing this phantom $36 or $38 charge on subsequent bills.

On receipt of each bill, for two consecutive months, I wrote to the Telephone Company at the address designated on the bill for the sending of complaints. I asked for an explanation about this phantom charge. Where had it come from? I explained how I'd paid the amounts demanded on the bills.

I imagine a giant shredder must be at that location: Letters complaining about this or that are apparently fed, unopened, into the maw of this giant machine. At least this would explain the total lack of response that I received from the Telephone Company to my inquiries.

In month three, therefore, I decided to try a different course. I did a little research and ascertained that telephone service in this state is regulated by the Illinois Commerce Commission. I did a little more Googling around the web and found a site maintained by the aforementioned Illinois Commerce Commission on which I could tell the Sovereign State of Illinois all about my trials and tribulations with the Telephone Company. It was a fill-in-the-blanks type form. I filled in the blanks. I pressed enter.

By the next morning -- the next morning! -- I had two voice mail messages from different corporate units of the Telephone Company both promising that a thorough investigation was underway and that I could rest assured that every effort would be made to resolve my problem. Several more calls followed.

This would be a better story if I didn't have to pay the $36 or $38 -- but, alas, this proved not to be the case. It turns out that, several months ago, the Telephone Company mysteriously applied a credit of roughly that size to my bill, lowering my monthly payment for one whole month. I thought nothing of it at the time -- credits like this pop up every so often as the Telephone Company is forced to settle a class action suit or is otherwise caught overcharging its customers. This time, however, the Telephone Company insisted that the credit was applied erroneously. The error was not picked up until the dreaded Red Notice was put together.

How could I argue otherwise? So I paid the #$@%! charge.

Late last week, I received a letter from the Illinois Commerce Commission advising me that the Telephone Company had advised it that my problem was solved and inquiring if I thought so too.

My thank you letter went in the mail last night.

Not all government regulation is bad. Sometimes it is necessary to keep evil corporations more or less honest.