All dressed up and going nowhere: Curmudgeon tries to tie it all toghether

My late father-in-law approached nearly every day of his long life wearing a tie. He was a professional man, a doctor, and a tie was part of who he was. I can't remember him ever wearing blue jeans. He may not have ever owned any; I don't know for certain because I never saw him tending to his lawn and garden. (He'd not married until he was past 40; he was just two months short of 70 when I married his daughter.)

By the end of his life, a service was cutting the grass and his horticultural exploits were limited to a couple of rose bushes and a tomato plant or two that my wife would start for him, and plant for him. It's possible he may have worn blue jeans in his grass-cutting days. I suspect, though, he may have only loosened his tie.

My father, on the other hand, wore a tie only because it was required of him -- and only when it was required of him. Also a professional man, a lawyer, my father preferred jumpsuits, better suited to a garage mechanic than a lawyer. Then again, in his private time, my father liked working in his garage -- working on this car or that one, working on his lawn tractor, or one of the fleet of smaller, gasoline-powered hand mowers that he maintained. He built a canoe once, from a kit, using thin wood strips and canvas. He built a grandfather clock. He built a Bugatti kit car on a Volkswagen chassis.

I've often read (and I read more and more of these things as the years go by) that one must keep busy in retirement or the human machinery will simply... wind down... and... stop. If scheduled projects were themselves a guarantee of longevity, however, my father would still be alive today.

When he was working, though, my father would never appear without a tie. I don't think he would have been particularly receptive to "Casual Fridays." Of course, the ties he'd wear might be a tad colorful. Colorful? They'd be loud -- garish -- frequently populated by characters from Disney or Warner Brothers cartoons. We buried him in a Mickey Mouse tie. It was a solid color tie, covered with tiny, raised Mickey Mouse faces. You really couldn't tell if you didn't look closely... but I do remember the arched eyebrow of the funeral director. Little did he know my father would probably have thought the tie far too subdued for the occasion. My sister and I made the choice, as I recall, as something of a compromise -- my father might have wanted a louder tie, perhaps, but he probably wouldn't have wanted to shock the guests at his wake.

I wear ties, of course, because I too am a professional man. I fall somewhere between my father and my father-in-law, however. I don't favor loud clothes on any occasion (on one occasion, I seem to recall, at a family picnic, my father critiqued my casual attire as "boring" -- which it certainly was, at least by comparison to the fire engine red, short-sleeve jumpsuit he was wearing).

I wear blue jeans again at home these day -- after a couple of decades of doing without, mostly because, as I wrote in 2008, of an overdeveloped sense of gravitas. I never wear a tie at home, except for the annual Christmas picture. In the modern age, I can sometimes get away with not wearing a tie to the office as well. "Business casual" is a confusing, but wonderful thing. Unfortunately, on several days where I've gone business casual, a colleague has asked me to cover something up in court. On one occasion I came to work in a flannel shirt, prepared to spend the day moving stacks of paper in the comfort and privacy of my office, when I realized I had a status hearing in a Chancery case.

The judge in that case was someone against whom I'd had cases when she was in private practice. We were adversaries, but never enemies. (In other words, we got along quite civilly, the way lawyers are supposed to get along.) I well remembered running into her at the Daley Center, not too long after she went on the bench. We were chatting for a few moments, catching up, when she saw someone entering the building in cutoffs and a t-shirt. "Can you imagine someone coming to court like that?" she said. "How can she expect to be taken seriously?" She proceeded, then, to tell me a number of short anecdotes about oddly dressed persons who had appeared before her.

That conversation sprang to my active memory buffer that morning as I sat in my office, in my flannel shirt.

This happened a few years back, before I moved to this Undisclosed Location. I was a tenant in a bigger office then and I begged a colleague to borrow his suit jacket.

I stepped up on the case with the borrowed blue jacket covering as much of the flannel shirt as possible. It wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. My colleague was at least as tall as I am, but I was a little wider. I seem to recall the sleeves only coming halfway down my arm. I hope my memory exaggerates. But the flannel shirt was still very visible.

I began with an apology, admitting (truthfully) that I'd misdiaried the court date and hadn't dressed for court.

"Yes, I see," said the judge. "But flannel? Really?"

Yesterday I didn't have court. I didn't wear a tie. But I otherwise dressed for work: Dressy dockers, sensible brown shoes, a tweed jacket, a button-down shirt. And that was to work from home.

I had two projects home with me. I had visions of finishing one before lunch, then running downtown for a CLE presentation that was right in my price range (free), then returning home to do the second project.

I started in diligently on the first project as soon as I dropped my wife off at school. Lunchtime came and went with the first project still undone. It remains undone. How often have I set two tasks for myself -- and finished only half of one?

I will wonder about this later -- but, now, I turn my attention to yesterday's unfinished projects. I think I will begin by loosening my tie.

What's wanting in public debate

The Chicago Sun-Times has a story this morning about a proposal to put pictures on Link cards, the ATM-like cards that have replaced paper food stamps for welfare recipients. The Sun-Times article, by Dave McKinney and Stephen Di Benedetto, quotes Ken Dunkin, a Democratic legislator from Chicago, asking the bill's sponsor, "Are you picking on poor people, representative?"

That's when the light bulb went on.

The recent federal budget compromise was attacked as mere 'accounting tricks' on the one hand and 'an assault on poor people' on the other.

Do you see the pattern?

No one, on either side of our increasingly wide political divide, can publicly admit that anyone on the other side might be motivated by good faith or good intentions.

Thus, the Democrats see any proposed reform of any government program as a Republican attempt to mug the poor and the Republicans see any revision of our Byzantine federal tax structure (the U.S. Tax Code is now 72,000 pages long according to a column today by Jacob Sullum) as an incitement to class warfare.

In the words of Rodney King, can't we all get along here?

Granted, if every dollar spent by government were wisely used, poverty might not be eradicated, every roadway might not be as smooth as a pool table -- but does this mean that no investigation can be made into the efficacy of our considerable expenditures? Can no program, once enacted, ever be abandoned? Why must any economy move be seen as an assault on the less fortunate?

On the other hand, while I hate paying taxes as much as anybody (and more than most since, as a self-employed person, I must withhold money from my own wages and personally send it off to Washington and Springfield), can no revision of the tax code be permitted? Deficits, like credit card balances, add up quickly. Rich people pay willingly for luxury cars and premium service; wouldn't most of us be willing to pay a little more in taxes for streamlined, more efficient government services? The two cents on the dollar Illinois income tax increase has supposedly resulted in a 71% increase in state revenues in March 2011 (when compared to revenues in March 2010). The pain involved in forking over the extra money would be greatly soothed by some assurance that it wasn't going to be entirely wasted.

Democrats are going to have to acknowledge that their Republican brothers and sisters are not heartless monsters bent on starving the unfortunate. Republicans are going to have to admit that their Democratic brothers and sisters are not communists bent on imposing a dictatorship of the proletariat on the Land of the Free. And, if they won't, we have got to get us some new Democrats and Republicans.

"Shut up, old man"

Today, I found out, is International Be Kind to Lawyers Day.

Yesterday was not.

I was in court yesterday morning on a case I should have won three years ago, but did not.

Success, it is said, has many fathers; failure is an orphan. That's not entirely true.

The first part -- success has many fathers -- is true. Brilliant as we all sometimes think ourselves to be, none of us succeeds in this life entirely on our own. The best athlete has had lots of coaches. And trainers. And at least one parent or parent-figure who drove the budding superstar to practices and games when he or she was just starting out. The doctor who discovers a miracle cure has had lots of teachers, lots of colleagues who listened attentively, an insight provided (maybe by pure chance) by a spouse or another relative. Yes, the movie goddess is beautiful, but there were others who had to give her the chance to succeed or recognize her talent.

But failure is not an orphan.

Oh, failure is the last kid to be chosen for pick-up basketball. Failure is the nerdy guy no one wants to be around. But the buck has to stop somewhere. And in this case I appeared on yesterday, it stops with me. The trial judge made the wrong decision, yes, but I must have been insufficiently persuasive. I should have worried less about the bill and more about winning in the Appellate Court. I didn't win there either.

And now my client is suffering for it. I don't think it any consolation for my client that I am suffering too.

And while you sometimes lose a close case to a respected opponent, the ones that really hurt are when you lose to a real jerk. In this case -- without getting into any identifying details -- it is the opposing client who is the real jerk.

I've represented real jerks before. Unless a lawyer is so financially independent that he or she can discriminate freely, every lawyer has had this experience. There are a couple of tricks for dealing with rotten clients. One trick, which I've more or less mastered, is to retain control of the case. The bum of a client isn't going to approve of anything you do anyway, so you might as well do what is right and appropriate and not get tainted by your association with the rat. The other trick, which I've not mastered at all, is get as much of your money as possible up front. Because the scummy client is never going to pay you in full.

The attorney currently representing the rotten client in this case (he's run through several so far) hasn't mastered even the first rule. He's letting his client tell him how to handle the case. It will get him in trouble, eventually; at least I sincerely hope so. Of course, I may stroke out before that happens. It was outrageous what counsel said in the written submission he gave to the judge before yesterday and what he said in defense of it in the courtroom yesterday morning was equally so. But the judge, having only read what my opponent provided, regarded me with a jaundiced eye.

But I get ahead of my story.

Before the case was called -- before the judge came out -- opposing counsel introduced himself to me. He was sitting in front of me. He turned around in the swivel chair at counsel table to face me (I'd been sitting behind him) pretending to be friendly. I can pretend lots of things -- what blogger doesn't? -- but I couldn't pretend to return the pretend bonhomie. Indeed, I was radiating hostility. I had, as the saying goes, my "war face" on.

Nevertheless, counsel tried to engage me in conversation about the case. Eventually, I obliged him. I began to tell him what I thought. This lasted about 30 seconds or so.

Abruptly, though, counsel said, "Shut up, old man. I am not afraid of you." He turned around in his swivel chair facing the front of the courtroom.

Yesterday was definitely not Be Kind to Lawyers Day. Tomorrow won't be either.

Curmudgeon conducts an Unscientific Survey about the Royal Wedding

On the Friday after Easter, a balding relic of an age gone by will marry a very pretty English girl at Westminster Abbey.

It is a sign of how little royalty counts any more -- even in England -- that the young couple couldn't even book the church on a Saturday.

Now, mind you, I'm happy for the kids and I wish them a long and happy marriage. But my republican (small-r) instincts are entirely on edge with all this "news" coverage of the forthcoming nuptials.

Yes, I understand that the news-gathering services are pleased to focus on a happy story for a change. It must be a relief for the chattering class to put aside the endless wars and famines and plagues and earthquakes and tsunamis and insane dictators for this event. But wall to wall coverage by every cable and broadcast outlet? I don't see how Balding Billy's marriage to Bonnie Kate rates more than a passing mention on the evening news in America.

See, I could have sworn we had a Revolution in this country to rid ourselves of kings and queens and "aristocrats" who think that they've got something over on the rest of us because one of their ancestors stole off to the no-tell motel with the reigning monarch. (Oh sure, many of England's hereditary titles were conferred for valor in battle, especially in more recent times, but an awful lot of titles seem to have been initially bestowed on the offspring of royal mistresses....)

I learned in school that the British Crown provides an apolitical symbol of national unity -- something that pretty much all Brits can rally round, whatever their political persuasion. The advantage of having a head of state separate from the head of government is frequently illustrated by comparison of the Crown to the President of the United States: Because the President is both head of state and head and government, no matter who occupies the Oval Office, the blood pressure of somewhere close to half the population rises every time he speaks -- even when he is trying to apply a healing balm to the body politic. And, besides, the English Crown is a big boost to tourism: People like to see the funny costumes and the carriages.

I can therefore understand that some folks in England might want to take time off to watch the pageantry. But in America?

And yet I've heard and read about people -- American people -- planning to take the day off of work to watch the wedding and attendant festivities on TV.

Why?

So I throw open the floor to you, Dear Readers. How much, if any, of the Royal Wedding festivities are you planning to watch... and why?

Friday introspection

In other words, not a lot of laughs here. At least, not intentional ones....

We generally fall asleep in front of the TV in the Curmudgeon home. I usually nod off first, sometimes despite Long Suffering Spouse's loud efforts to keep me awake. My wife is generally correcting student papers when she drops off. As near as I can tell, though, she has never made a long red line down the face of a page as consciousness fled. This is surely a gift.

Tuesday was a typical evening in our home, then, at least in that sense, as we both fell asleep waiting for the news to come on. I wanted to catch news of the election results. I did not.

When I awoke, around midnight, I fired up the computer to see what I had missed. I went right to the Chicago Board of Elections site so I could get the vote totals in the ward races that interested me -- including, of course, the race in the ward where I live.

The news disappointed. It's not that I dislike the candidate who won; it's just that I consider the candidate who lost to be a friend. So does Long Suffering Spouse. "I was almost tempted to vote for her opponent," she told me Wednesday, "because no one I vote for ever wins."

Still, I was all riled up about the election. All elections rile me up; I have an interest in elections and politics that borders, according to my friend Steve, on the unhealthy. Someday, he says at every opportunity, science will prove that all politicians are mentally ill -- the very thirst for office being the most telling symptom. Steve frequently cites Rod Blagojevich as Exhibit A for his theory.

I used to remind Steve that I have run for public office and would, therefore, according to his definition, be mentally ill. "Yours seems to be a mild case," he told me. I believe he was trying to be reassuring. I try to change the subject now whenever he brings it up.

So -- as I say -- I get riled up on every election day. I can feel the sap rising, as Adlai Stevenson III once said (to his eternal chagrin). But I must have been particularly riled up on Tuesday night because, having woken up enough to check the election results, I found it difficult to fall back asleep.

It's probably because I'm currently reading Martin Gilbert's biography of Winston Churchill (the one volume condensed version, not the full eight volume work).

Churchill was a man who was apparently fearless, and I do not refer just to his youthful military exploits. He seemed utterly unafraid to say, and write, what he pleased, knowing all the time that he would be, and was, making enemies in the process. He was unafraid to work with those whom he had alienated, converting some, in time, from enemies to admirers. Maybe the subject is covered in more depth in Gilbert's unabridged biography, but Churchill's recurring depression (his 'black dog') is merely hinted at. I suppose it may be because, when Churchill wasn't depressed, when his eyes burned with intensity and purpose, he churned out such a staggering pile of papers, memoranda, letters, articles, even books. Gilbert, and other Churchill biographers too, suggest that Churchill was so afraid of dying young (as his father had) that he lived his life on overdrive. By the time he realized he would (and had) long outlived his father, the habit was formed.

I, on the other hand, am a profile in timidity. If I've made few enemies, I also have few friends -- and no admirers. I can churn out sentences as pompous and grandiose as anything Churchill ever wrote... but mine sound pretentious, even to me. I think this comes from my unwillingness to come out, in the open, and take the risks that anyone takes in public life: The risks of defeat, humiliation, even ridicule. Steve would say that my attitude demonstrates reasonable mental health; Churchill's, on the other hand, shows that depression was not the only mental illness with which he coped. And, of course, at the end of the day, Churchill was the descendant of John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, the grandson of the 7th Duke, nephew of the 8th, cousin of the 9th... and related by blood or marriage to most of the rest of the English peerage. His mother was a 'confidante' of the future King Edward VII. (Churchill, I've learned, received a walking stick from King Edward as a wedding present. Churchill used this for the rest of his life -- even if Edward and his successors occasionally wished that Edward had knocked him over the head with the stick instead of making it a present.) Churchill's place in society was assured regardless of his successes or failures in politics. I, on the other hand, am merely one of 50,000 Cook County lawyers, as proud of my heritage as Churchill was of his -- but altogether conscious that my bloodlines confer upon me no social standing whatsoever.

In the end, I'll finish Gilbert's biography and move on to the next book. Perhaps then the urge to do something will pass or the regret subside.

Don't criticize President Obama for starting campaign early

There are some who have criticized the President's decision to formally announce his candidacy this week for reelection in 2012. To these critics, November 2012 seems so far away.

But, of course, it isn't, not if you're from Chicago.

Indeed, Mr. Obama is following the time-honored Cook County political calendar: The next election cycle begins as the last one ends. We had a municipal election in Chicago yesterday (Mr. Emmanuel avoided the runoff, but there were runoff elections in 14 of Chicago's 50 wards).

The 2012 primary campaign officially started in Cook County last night when the polls closed. If Mr. Obama jumped the gun in any sense, it was by no more than a day or so.

You may complain that this is a terrible way to do things; you may believe that the public should have some respite from perpetual campaigns; you may even think that elected officials should spend some time at the jobs they were elected to perform instead of always campaigning to keep those jobs -- or eying the next rung on the cursus honorum. I may even sympathize with these complaints, if you have them. But that is not how things work in politics in 2011 -- or, should I say, 2012.

Check engine light means sanity check imminent

I had to drop Youngest Son off at school a week ago. His baseball team was gathering there for a Spring Break trip to California to test itself against high-powered West Coast competition.

I started the car that the kid usually drives -- and lost my mind.

A sickly yellow light remained glowing on the dashboard as the engine engaged. Taking off my glasses so I could attempt to interpret this glyph, I realized it was the "check engine" light.

We live in a post-literate age. Sometimes I don't know why I bothered to learn to read at all, given the way 'glyphs' or 'icons' are used instead of words these days.

Of course, in the case of the evil omen on the dashboard, I am obliged to concede that providing accurate words would have taken up too much space. The "check engine" light does not necessarily mean that the engine is not working -- in my case the car was on -- but, rather, serves as a warning that one's credit is in for a major hit. A light that read, "Prepare your wallet for a major hit because something -- and we haven't the foggiest idea what -- isn't working but if you don't pay immediate heed to this warning you will be stranded in the middle of nowhere," would not leave room on the dashboard for the speedometer. Even in an SUV.

I dropped Youngest Son off at school and continued straightaway to the nearest Ford dealer. (The car in question happens to be a Ford Focus, a smallish, utilitarian vehicle, quite the opposite of an SUV. I do not indict this brand in particular. I have had similar problems to those related here while in possession of vehicles manufactured by others.)

I had not anticipated this problem, but I did (thankfully) anticipate that there might be some unforeseen complication in getting the boy off on his journey. I therefore had scheduled nothing in court for that morning.

Incidentally, for the record, the young man denied ever seeing the "check engine" light on the dash. It must have gone on, he insisted, for the first time that very morning. I almost believe him.

I waited nearly two full hours at the Ford dealer waiting for some word on the car's condition. There was one problem I expected: The brakes were allegedly on the point of failure. I had noticed no troubles with the brakes on this vehicle, and my son had not reported any, but it seems almost impossible to go to a dealer these days without receiving a recommendation along these lines. It is my belief that a new car can be secured from the showroom floor, driven around the block, and into the service bay -- at which point, at least as long as the new car sales sticker has been removed, a very sober-faced man will insist that at least two brakes must be replaced.

So the bad news about the brakes was hardly unexpected. This would not, however, explain the check engine light.

Well, the sober-faced man in my case said, your four tires are very worn and in need of replacement.

I have someone that I will take the car to for that work, I told him, but what about the check engine light?

Oh, that's the good news, the sober-faced man said -- without, of course, actually smiling. It seems there is a failure of pollution control whatchamacallit-fizzbin, but that's covered by the extended warranty. (I may not have heard him exactly, but that's the gist of what he said.) Of course, he added gravely, it may take some time to get this part. That's alright, I reassured him, and he gave me a loaner car and I made my way home.

We picked up the car Wednesday. With Youngest Son out of town, we didn't need to drive it again until Saturday, when we took it to get new tires.

We had no difficulty getting to or from.

Now we get to last night. Lightning was flashing in the clouds and the temperature was unseasonably warm. The wind was whipping leaves and papers and dust, but there could have been ghosts or evil spirits abroad in the land as well. I took the family van to pick up Youngest Son (he had just returned from his trip). In the meantime, Long Suffering Spouse decided to use the newly-repaired car to take the recycling to her mother's house.

(I'm sure I've mentioned before how we smuggle our recycling into a nearby suburb each week, the City of Chicago's recycling program ranging from dubious to non-existent.)

As Youngest Son and I pulled up to the house, we saw Long Suffering Spouse getting out of the other vehicle. She yelled something at us, but we couldn't hear her over the wind. I walked over to where she was. The recycling bag was still in the car.

That's when I found out:

The car -- with the new brakes and the new tires and the new pollution control whatchamacallit-fizzbin -- that car would not start. All the dashboard lights lit up in mockery when the key was turned, but no engine noise of any kind resulted.

One of the hardest thing to teach children or politicians is cause and effect. It is not always easy to distinguish between consequence and coincidence.

My mother-in-law stopped having her furnace cleaned annually because, over a period of several years, without exception, some four to six weeks after this annual service, her heat would fail. She began to suspect that there was a causal connection between these events. She field-tested this hypothesis the following year by not scheduling her furnace for its annual cleaning. That winter, she enjoyed uninterrupted heat.

I have on numerous occasions, with several cars, serviced at several different dealerships, noted that one service visit seems to lead, shortly thereafter, to another. Cause? Or coincidence?

I suspect that this dealer, like others before, jiggled something, loosened a wire, or unplugged some cable, thereby guaranteeing that an additional service call would be required. Unlike my mother-in-law's furnace, though, I can not field test this suspicion by doing nothing: The car is too big to be a paperweight and, at the moment, it is capable of no other function.

So I will go home soon, hoping to work on an appellate brief while I wait for AAA to show up and see if it can get the car started. If AAA fails, I will have the car towed to the dealer where, with a straight face, a sober-faced man will explain to me that the reason that my car will not start is that I bought the tires somewhere else.

Today may not be the best day to search Wikipedia

I'm pretty sure that the on-line Encyclopedia Britannica never changed its front page like Wikipedia has done this morning. If you happen upon this post today, April 1, you really should click over and check that out. If not, never mind.

Junior high school students, be warned: Today may not be the best of days to do your research entirely on line.

I did see a quote attributed to Mark Twain that strikes me as appropriate to the occasion: "April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four." Self-awareness is a blessing and a curse.

Acting on instinct -- not always the best way to act

Talk about survival strategies: The primitive mammals (tiny, shrew-like quadrupeds), furtively crawling out of their burrows at dusk, watching out for dinosaurs -- big ones that might step on them and, more important, little ones looking to eat them -- would quickly dive for cover at the first whiff of trouble. Dinosaurs rumbling through? Dive into the burrow. Forest fire? Dive into the burrow. With luck, the fire would pass by without using up all the oxygen in the hidey-hole and the frightened little animal could live to cringe and cower another day.

The survival strategy really paid off when the Chicxulub asteroid hit: The cowardly little mammals took cover and enough survived to take over the world. The proud dinosaurs roared back at the heavens and went extinct. Some larger mammals had evolved by the end of the Cretaceous; a few were large enough to eat dinosaurs. They fared no better than their dinners. The K-T boundary shows us one place where the meek really did inherit the earth.

Not surprisingly, the 'duck and cover' instinct survives in all of us descendants of those timid little creatures today -- though, unhappily, it doesn't always serve us as well.

I well remember deposing a State Fire Marshal -- a grizzled veteran of four decades fighting and investigating fires -- who broke down in tears describing two children who'd died in a house fire -- a fire they might easily have escaped -- but who hid instead under a bed and were suffocated. Kids have an instinct, he explained. In a house fire, kids will naturally crawl into closets or under the bed. It is often fatal.

House fires notwithstanding, most of our modern stresses are mental, not physical. But have you ever noticed? When things go bad at work, when we start fighting with our spouses, when we can't pay the bills, when we're facing unhappy medical news, we clam up. We don't return phone calls; we don't do much of anything. We turn inward -- diving into a mental hidey-hole. I submit that this is the same hide-in-the-burrow instinct that guided our little shrew-like ancestors, but it's not all that helpful now.

As sentient creatures we can identify instinctive behaviors. We can understand that our impulses are instinctive, not rational. But it's still hard to overcome them. I'm trying.

On the Libyan intervention: It's complicated

It's complicated?

That's a Facebook relationship status, but it accurately describes my feelings about American involvement in the Libyan uprising.

I wouldn't mind if Mr. Gadhafi is forced to abandon Libya. He's not just a despot, he's a dangerously crazy one.

In the mid-1980s, Gadhafi sponsored -- or at least applauded -- terrorist attacks in Rome and Vienna. He gave aid and comfort to the Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction and the Irish Republican Army and was implicated in a 1986 bombing of a disco in West Berlin in which two American servicemen were killed and another 50 wounded. President Reagan ordered airstrikes against Libya in 1986 in retaliation -- and Gadhafi struck back by ordering the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 (the Lockerbie bombing). Few will forget the scene only a year and a half ago when Scotland released the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, because he was allegedly suffering from terminal cancer and had only three months to live. Megrahi was given a hero's welcome in Libya -- and, although it wasn't reported at the time, he may have stopped off on the way at Lourdes because he seems to have enjoyed a miraculous recovery. (Although Megrahi was reported to have lapsed into a coma in December 2010, other media reports referred to in a Wikipedia article concerning Megrahi have him living with his family as recently as last month.)

Anyway, there's history between America and Gadhafi. Supposedly, Libya's belated admission of responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing (in 2003) was prompted by America's invasion of Iraq: Gadhafi saw what we did to Hussein's regime and figured he might be next, so he decided to play nice for awhile. In fact, if memory serves, some in the Bush administration were allegedly pointing to Gadhafi's seeming change of heart as a happy consequence of our Iraq adventure.

But that Iraq adventure isn't over yet. And neither is our adventure in Afghanistan.

How many adventures can we have at one time?

And, speaking of George W. Bush, who doubts that if he were pushing this latest military effort, there would be demonstrators screaming "No Blood for Oil!" in our streets?

Mr. Obama presents a humanitarian case for our limited intervention in Libya: Gadhafi was murdering his subjects wholesale.

But North Korea has been starving its subjects for years and we don't intervene there. What's the difference? Could it be... oil?

And then there's our marvelous allies that begged us (supposedly) to intervene and that will (supposedly) be taking the laboring oar in the Libyan operation at any moment now. Only the Arab League seems now to be as much against the venture as for it. The Germans, too. And the Turks.

Of course, our friends abroad are no worse than our domestic politicians. The Republicans were demanding intervention when Mr. Obama seemed to be leaning against it; now that he's intervened, many of them seem to have changed their minds. And, oh yes, this is now "Mr. Obama's War."

And that bring up one more thing: I've danced around it in this post because everyone else has, too. But let's admit it: When we lob missiles at people or buildings or even tent complexes, that's an act of war. We are now at war with Libya. I'm really glad the U.N. thinks it's a good idea (although Russia's Vladimir Putin, who could have instructed his U.N. ambassador to veto the authorization for the use of force and did not, refers to the establishment of a no-fly zone in Libya as like a call for a medieval Crusade) -- but what about the role of Congress in any of this?

Doesn't our Constitution say something about Congress having the power to declare war?

At least when Mr. Bush the Younger went into Iraq, there was a clear purpose: Mr. Bush gambled his presidency, or at least his legacy, on the alleged presence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It turned out there weren't any -- and Mr. Bush lost his gamble (whether or not you believe he otherwise 'accomplished his mission').

But what is our purpose in Libya? And, if our motivation is entirely humanitarian, as Mr. Obama seems to be saying, then how do we justify not also bombing Pyongyang? How can we possibly keep every tin pot dictator who is a menace to his own people in check?

I'd like to see Gadhafi gone... but it's complicated.

Curmudgeon learns the true meaning of sanctions

And, fortunately, not first hand.

I didn't write about it at the time, not even here in the cocoon of my anonymous blog, but a couple of years ago I got fined by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago for bringing what the court determined to be an inappropriate, ill-founded motion. I had to write a check to my opponent for what I consider to be a whole lot of money (even if it was less than a quarter of what my opponent requested that I be ordered to pay).

I sent the check and the matter ended. I wasn't criticized by name in the one sentence order awarding the sanction and the sanction wasn't mentioned at all, even obliquely, in the 7th Circuit's subsequent opinion.

But, I assure you, I was traumatized -- and chastened -- by the event, and not just because the client ultimately failed to pay a large chunk of my bill.

I do not mention this in a bid for sympathy. I won't rehash the facts that led me to bring the unhappy motion or in any way try and persuade you that the court was in any way in error in sticking me with a fine. I mention my own sad history only because I thought, at the time, that I'd been sanctioned.

I thought I'd been sanctioned, that is, until I saw Ahmeet Sachdev's column in yesterday's Chicago Tribune.

Sachdev wrote about the Seventh Circuit's opinion Tuesday in the case of Lee v. Cook County, Nos. 10-2013, 10-2402 and 10-3026, in which Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, writing for the court, slices, dices and purees the Chicago attorney who represented the plaintiffs in this employment discrimination case in the District Court and on appeal.

The attorney's "calamitous handling of this litigation has been followed by a sloppy performance in this court" (slip op. at 7). Indeed, states the opinion (slip op. at 9), "The events recounted in this opinion show that [the plaintiffs' attorney] is a menace to his clients and a scofflaw with respect to appellate procedure. The district court may wish to consider whether he should remain a member of its bar. Would-be clients should consider how [the attorney] has treated [his clients in this case]." The Court of Appeals reprimanded the attorney for his "unprofessional conduct," fining him $5,000 payable to the Clerk of the Seventh Circuit. Also, the attorney was ordered to send his clients "copies of this opinion so that they may consider whether to file malpractice suits against him."

Substantively, the court noted that the amended complaints eventually filed by plaintiffs' counsel in response to the District Court's order dismissing his original complaint without prejudice might not have been timely even if counsel had complied with the District Court's timetable for amendment. Counsel's long delay beyond that deadline was certainly fatal to his clients' claims. And -- adding insult to injury -- the Seventh Circuit noted that the District court erred in dismissing the attorney's original complaint in the first place. "There was nothing wrong with the original complaint," the court stated (slip op. at 3). "Multiple plaintiffs are free to join their claims in a single suit when 'any question of law or fact common to all plaintiffs will arise in the action.' Fed. R. Civ. P. 20(a)(1)(B) (emphasis added). The common question need not predominate; that’s a requirement for class actions, not for permissive joinder. Whether the Cook County prison system discriminates against black employees when making promotions is a question common to all plaintiffs’ claims." However, by failing to immediately appeal the erroneous dismissal, the plaintiffs' attorney 'bungled away' his clients' chances of success.

Maybe only a practicing attorney can appreciate just how much this last bit hurts. Yes, the fine is awful; getting called a "menace" is worse (I've deleted the attorney's name, but the Seventh Circuit did not). However, being told that you had a good case but you screwed it up is the stuff of nightmares.

I got fined for filing an improvident motion; the attorney in the Lee case got sanctioned. I understand the difference now.

Curmudgeon faces the end of demographic relevance

I was joking at home last night with Youngest Son. The topic was unimportant; Youngest Son's observation is the starting point.

"That's high school humor, Dad," Youngest Son observed (accurately).

"Well, I was in high school once," I shot back.

"Yeah, 40 years ago," said Long Suffering Spouse.

Yikes.

But, as always, Long Suffering Spouse was correct: I was in high school 40 years ago. I am, in fact, about to observe a natal day. And it will be a Major Landmark Birthday, a day of special significance -- like these other landmark birthdays:

• 16 -- when a kid becomes eligible to get a driver's license;
• 18 -- when one can register to vote;
• 21 -- when a kid can take that first legal drink;
• 30 -- when I couldn't trust myself any longer;
• 40 -- when (according to some) life begins;
• 50 -- which is either the new 30 or the new 40, depending on who you talk to; or
• 65 -- which isn't 65 for persons my age any more. The new 65 is 66 years and 10 months. So far.

According to the calendar, next week I will turn 54.

Oh, I know some of my readers will dismiss my apprehension of this occasion as the whinings of a still-callow youth. Others will scoff that this seems a pretty random age to declare a "landmark." But it really is significant.

This coming year will be the very last that I cling to the coveted 18-54 demographic. Advertisers really care about what people aged 18-54 like. It's persons in this age range to whom networks pitch shows and advertisers pitch products.





In other words, Beyoncé will try and sell me stuff for only one more year.





After that, apparently, advertisers believe I will respond better to pitches from Wilford Brimley.

Advertisers are obviously idiots.

Anyway, I have one more year of demographic relevance. I'm not sure how, but I hope to make the best of it.

Curmudgeon has a Lotto explaining to do

I don't usually buy lottery tickets. I don't like the odds. Statistics have shown that you have a better chance of being hit by lighting -- twice -- than of ever winning the Lotto.

Statistics and statisticians baffle me. What's "better" about getting struck by lightning twice?

I buy raffle tickets at church, of course. I got $50 once from the Holy Name Men's Club monthly drawing. Another time I won a bottle of wine from the Council of Catholic Women's annual raffle. It had a screw top. Probably had a retail value of 79¢ (without paper bag). Gee, thanks, ladies.

I just finished buying as many "Hoopsmania" tickets for Youngest Son's baseball fundraiser as I could afford. I got $100 once from the "Footballmania" tickets he sold for the football fundraiser. But that was a couple of years ago.

The point is that one has to kick into fundraisers for church and school anyway. If prizes are awarded, that's a bonus. Except possibly in the case of the CCW bottle of wine.

But the Lotto is different. You can't win if you don't play, according to the advertising campaign, but mathematics proves that almost everyone who plays doesn't win either. And, despite claims that Lotto money helps out local schools, the truth is that the money goes to the sponsoring states. Buying Lotto tickets is just paying an additional, voluntary tax.

On the other hand... when the jackpot gets high enough, I overcome my aversion to giving the state money and throw a few bucks in the pot. (I explained why in January.)

Well, the Mega Millions jackpot is growing again.

It was just over $200 million for Friday's drawing, so I bought $5 in quick-picks on my way home.

Long Suffering Spouse was not amused.

"We don't have the money for that," she reminded me (unnecessarily).

And, of course, I didn't win the jackpot Friday. Nobody did.

Now the jackpot is up to $244 million for tonight's drawing. Even after taxes, that would be enough to pay off my credit cards. So I bought another five quick-picks.

I admitted as much to Long Suffering Spouse last night.

"You did what?" she said.

"But it's for $244 million," I said.

"Well, I'll probably forgive you," she said, softening a little. There was a pause. "If you win."

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.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
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....