The Solution

Flying is a pain in the neck (and other body parts), we all know that. It used to be an adventure, if not actually fun, but that was before the airlines nickeled and dimed you to death, flights were packed like sardines, and you had to go through enough layers of security that you felt like you were entitled to a conjugal visit at the end.

And much of it is because of people who believe their deity or their political outlook - or both - gives them the right and duty to blow you up. Because of these loons, we now all have to suffer inconveniences and ignominies large and small just to be able to fly from point A to point B. New security technologies are always being introduced, and the homicidal morons are always working to figure out ways around them.

The latest thing is the whole-body scanner that, like an x-ray, allows security personnel to literally see beneath your clothes. Predictably, civil libertarians and others object to this as an unwarranted invasion of privacy, although I personally consider it being preferable to being blown up by some idiot looking for his 72 dark-eyed virgins.

All that aside, how do we keep the bad guys with their exploding shoes and underwear off our airplanes so that we can travel to visit our grandchildren and conduct our business with fear only of bankruptcy, and not of our lives?

As it happens, my friend Bob has sent me a wonderful idea: a booth you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may be carrying.

It would be a win-win for everyone - no whiny B.S. about racial profiling, no long and expensive trials, and the only person killed would be the one who wanted to die in the first place. Justice would be quick and swift. Case closed!

This is so simple that it's brilliant. I can see it now: you're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion, followed shortly by an announcement over the PA system, "Attention standby passengers -- a seat is now available on flight number..."

I'm forwarding this to the TSA. It makes more sense than making little old ladies take off their shoes and hapless business travelers x-ray their laptops. And it gives us one less idiot to worry about.

Thanks, Bob! I hope your idea catches on.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Big Brother is alive and well in China, where Internet censors are furiously working to blank out online reporting of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo; young people's role model Kim Kardashian says she's fine after being involved in a bar fight in New York; the midterm election sale is in full swing as the GOP pours money into races across the country in an attempt to buy its way back into power; walls holding back a reservoir of toxic sludge in Hungary are cracking, threatening another deluge of poisonous muck even more noxious than the US midterm elections; and Lady Gaga and the cast of Jersey Shore are this year's top Halloween costumes.

It may be too early in the day to drink, but Cartoon Saturday can help you adjust your attitude in the face of the environment of lunacy.

With the way some people talk nowadays, we may need to revise how we stage some of our traditional contests...


The Republicans are intent on repealing President Obama's health care reform legislation if, as many fear expect, they regain power in the midterm elections. How would a Republican health care plan differ from what we have now...?

There are many approaches to campaign reform. I rather like this one, which is about as good as any other, and more likely to pass...

Mark Twain once said that the difference between the right word and the almost-right word was like the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug. This fellow would probably agree...

This one is blindingly obvious, but still funny...


And finally, I hope nobody ever decides to remake the classic film Casablanca. Not only could nobody but Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman ever play Rick and Ilsa, but there's no telling what elements of the story they might "update" ...


It looks like it's going to be a beautiful fall day here in Northern Virginia...it's a bit cloudy at the moment, but warm and pleasant after a chilly early morning. A good day for yard work, dog walking, and generally enjoying not having to go outside in 47 layers of warm clothes.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Post Number 1500

Today is a milestone in my blogging career: my one-thousand-five-hundredth post. Yee, hah!

Technically, I suppose, it's only my number 1,497th, since Nessa has guest-posted three times, but I guess I'll take credit for her stuff, too. I don't think she'll mind.

Anyhow, I wondered what to write about for this landmark post, and even asked for suggestions in last Thursday's post. I got lots of comments on that post (about the death ray hotel in Las Vegas), but only one suggestion for the 1500th post...Raquel suggested: "I think you should shake things about a bit and celebrate by sharing things about yourself. Not things like you like to read books but more personal things. I for one would enjoy it."

Well, I've actually done that several times over the last few years, and figured I'd just post links to those posts...unfortunately, I didn't have time to go back and look for them all. So, with apologies to those of you who have been around for a while and may already have seen some of this, Bilbo bares his soul for Raquel and all you other new readers with a few personal tidbits. Please don't run away screaming. And Raquel, be careful what you ask for...

Some things that get on my nerves:

1. People who get into the express checkout lane with large numbers of items, then get in your face when you suggest they get into the right lane.

2. Clueless door-to-door political flacks.

3. People who collect for charities by roaming from car to car at busy intersections.

4. People who are unnecessarily rude (I can be as rude as anyone, but only if you've pushed me into it...see the next item).

5. People who believe their unrestricted right of free speech allows them to ignore the rights and feelings of others.

Some things I love:

1. Watching beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

2. The smell of baking bread.

3. My children and grandchildren.

4. Eating something I've cooked myself, preferably using vegetables and herbs grown in my own garden.

5. Agnes.

A few of my favorite songs:

1. Song for Judith, by Judy Collins

2. Who Am I to Say? and Years Ago, by the Statler Brothers

3. Angel Mine, by the Cowboy Junkies

4. The Perfect Partner, by Jimmy Buffett

5. Still Me, by Erkan Aki

My favorite TV shows:

1. Bones

2. Fringe

3. Dancing with the Stars

4. NCIS

5. Hawaii Five-O (the new, updated version)

And finally, a few odds and ends:

1. I think it's sexy for a woman to have hairy arms.

2. I'm the world's worst handyman...the only tool I can use with good results is a ballpoint pen.

3. I have a very bad temper, and work very hard to control it.

4. I was the gold standard for nerd-dom in high school. Now, forty-odd years later, I have more high-school friends on Facebook than I ever had while I was actually there. What's up with that?

5. My drink of choice is gin and tonic, made with Bombay Sapphire gin, lots of fresh lime juice, and a sprig of rosemary.

Okay, that's enough for now. Time to get ready to go to work so that I can earn the money to keep the internet connection that allows me to blog.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, when Cartoon Saturday rides to your weekly rescue.

Bilbo

Poetry That Speaks to the Heart

I'm getting myself packed up and ready to head home from Colorado Springs, so this will be a short post featuring a particularly interesting poem I found online recently. It's titled "Bridal Shower" but, as you'll see, it deals only tangentially with bridal showers. The author and I understand each other. Enjoy ...

Bridal Shower
by George Bilgere

Perhaps, in a distant café,
four or five people are talking
with the four or five people
who are chatting on their cell phones this morning
in my favorite café.

And perhaps someone there,
someone like me, is watching them as they frown,
or smile, or shrug
at their invisible friends or lovers,
jabbing the air for emphasis.

And, like me, he misses the old days,
when talking to yourself
meant you were crazy,
back when being crazy was a big deal,
not just an acronym
or something you could take a pill for.

I liked it
when people who were talking to themselves
might actually have been talking to God
or an angel.
You respected people like that.

You didn't want to kill them,
as I want to kill the woman at the next table
with the little blue light on her ear
who has been telling the emptiness in front of her
about her daughter's bridal shower
in astonishing detail
for the past thirty minutes.

O person like me,
phoneless in your distant café,
I wish we could meet to discuss this,
and perhaps you would help me
murder this woman on her cell phone,

after which we could have a cup of coffee,
maybe a bagel, and talk to each other,
face to face.

Have a good day. Remember that you don't need to share the details of your life with every stranger within earshot.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Things You Shouldn't See

We recently celebrated Banned Books Week, sponsored each year by the American Library Association to warn us of the dangers of allowing other people to decide what we're allowed to read and think. But there are also legions of people out there who would also like to decide on your behalf what you are allowed to see.

Ever since the technology to put moving pictures on a screen was developed, there has been controversy about what pictures are appropriate for audiences of various ages...or any age, for that matter. Religious and social action groups often object to entire films or to particular scenes for one reason or another. Some of those reasons are obvious, others less so.

This short video presentation, titled "Forbidden Images," provides a very interesting look at some of the scenes that censors wanted removed from films through the years. It was made for the 2007 72 Hour Film Festival in Frederick, Maryland, and features a compilation of clips from films that will make you nostalgic for the days when - in the words of the song "Anything Goes":

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows,
Anything goes!

To me, depictions of terrible violence on screen are much worse than any of this...or even than most of the sexy images that are pretty much standard today. But I think I ought to be the one to decide if I ought to watch them. And I think it's the responsibility of parents to guide their children to make the right decisions about what they read and what they watch until they can make the decision on their own.

Remember Bilbo's First Law: "Don't let anyone do your thinking for you." Especially if it's me.

Have a good day. Decide for yourself what to read and watch. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

On the Road Again, Again

I'm off this morning for a quick trip out to Colorado Springs, where the weather is supposed to be much nicer than here: highs the next two days of 80 and 73 under partly-cloudy skies, compared to highs of 63 and 64 with rain here in Northern Virginia. Of course, with my past experience of fickle Colorado Springs weather, it's entirely possible that I will get snowed in, but I'm trying to be positive. And since I'll be flying by way of Dallas-Ft Worth, I'll probably be flying through John's airspace...I'll wave as I go by.

I don't have a lot to say today, distracted as I am by last-minute packing and trying to remember the things I forgot to pack that I won't remember until I arrive, anyhow. I'm also trying to get to my Happy Place so that I can mentally prepare myself for the sheer joy of traveling by air again.

So this will be another quick post. Sorry about that. In exchange, how about this handy tool for the election season...just plug it into your phone to intercept robo-calls, or your TV to evaluate political ads:

You will have noticed that it is helpfully pre-set in the red zone. You know it'll be there until election day, anyhow.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Still Me

This morning I have my semiannual dental exam, so I need to spend about an hour and a half flossing my teeth to minimize the beating I'll take from the technician who does the cleaning and the dentist who does the exam. This, of course, means less time to spend on my blog, so this will be a bit on the short side.

As you know, Agnes and I love to dance. My favorite dance is the Tango (for the drama and fire), but I also love the Waltz for its elegance. This video is of Erkan Aki singing one of my favorite Waltz tunes - "Still Me." The video is a double-play, with "Still Me" followed by "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face;" you can stop watching after the first song if you like ...

Amazing how such a marvelous voice can come from such a scruffy-looking fellow, eh? Waltz doesn't get a whole lot better than this.

Here's something I was holding back for a future Cartoon Saturday, but which seems particularly appropriate lately ...

And now, it's time to floss.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Eye of the Beholder, Image of the Beholdee

I found this interesting, stop-the-presses quality article a few days ago - One-Night Stands Explained: Men Prefer Hot Bods to Pretty Faces.

It seems researchers have determined experimentally (and wouldn't it be interesting to know who paid for that research?) that men subconsciously look at women in terms of their potential for producing offspring, even when they are just looking for some quick nooky. A tight, supple, curvaceous body (stacked, to use the more precise medical term), in the male evolutionary memory, signals short-term reproductive potential, while a pretty face signals reproductive potential over a longer term.

Research also hypothesizes that women are less interested in a man's body (no, really!) than in his face because - in general - any man past puberty is pretty much always capable of fathering children. This, of course, tracks with other behavioral hypotheses that suggest a woman - who, after all, is the one who gets pregnant - tends to be more choosy about partners because she has to consider the long-term potential of a man to cooperate, financially and emotionally, in the raising of the child.

This explains why some men never understand what a woman sees in a particular competitor they perceive as being less desirable than themselves. After all, why else would a woman choose a fairly average guy like, say, Bilbo, over a buff, chiseled gym rat? Because they're thinking desirability over a longer term, rather than just the immediate gratification of a satisfying roll in the proverbial hay.

Just some food for thought for those of you looking into the mirror and contemplating what you see ... because the eye of another beholder may not be looking at quite the same image.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Hollywood legend Tony Curtis died this week at his home in Henderson, Nevada; the US government has apologized for a research study conducted in 1946-1948 in which people in Guatemala were intentionally infected with sexually transmitted diseases; at least 23 people were killed and dozens more injured when two trains collided early Saturday in Indonesia; a message supposedly from Osama bin Laden urges Muslims to take time out from murdering infidels to tackle problems such as famine, flood relief, the effects of climate change and clean water ... which, oddly enough, are more of a threat to Muslims than infidels; and on Friday a New Jersey father killed his two teenage sons, critically wounded one more and set fire to his his home before police killed him.

I don't know about you, but Cartoon Saturday is about the only thing that makes sense any more.

I thought this was an interesting way to look at the state of the economy, such as it is ...

It's been a good week for cartoons about health care...you may not be able to afford it, but at least you can laugh about it. This one is so obvious I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone take off on it before...

One of the things that businesses use to ramp up revenue is "cross-selling," or strong-arming customers who come in for one product or service to purchase another as well. Sometimes, though, they don't need to use the hard sell, they just take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves ...

This appears to be the actual, practical effect of health care reform ...

This one's for Andrea ...

And finally, did you ever wonder other jobs TV advertising pitchmen might be good at? How about this ...

Here in Northern Virginia it looks like the miserable baking heat of summer may have gone away, at least for a while ... after two days of very heavy rain, the weather is now much cooler and more pleasant. It actually feels like autumn. Of course, that means it'll soon be the leaf-raking season, but I think I can put that off a week or two before the leaves pile up to the second floor and the homeowners association starts glaring at me.

But for now, it's time for breakfast with my beloved.

Have a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Saying the Things You Shouldn't

One of the things that drives me crazy is the tendency of people in positions of authority to say things they shouldn't. Not just the standard open-mouth-insert-foot sort of thing we expect from the Dan Quayles and George W. Bushes of the world, but the things that people who should know better really shouldn't say.

In the course of my nearly forty-year professional career, I have signed countless nondisclosure agreements. I have solemnly promised to keep secrets of all sorts, and I have...partly because I don't want to go to jail, but more because it's the right thing to do. Unfortunately, not everyone believes the same thing.

Bob Woodward's new book Obama's Wars is a classic example. It is based largely on his access to classified government documents and frequently sensitive, if not downright classified, interviews with senior military and government officials.

So I ask all of those who participated in the writing of this book: what part of not authorized to speak is it that you don't understand? Did you sign your nondisclosure statements with disappearing ink? Why is it that none of you will ever go to jail for happily chatting about things you shouldn't? Have you considered the consequences of your self-important blather to a self-important writer?

As it happens, Eliot Cohen has. In yesterday's Washington Post, Mr Cohen wrote this wonderful op-ed piece: "Obama's Wars: the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight...or Shut Up."

In this article, which you really ought to take a few minutes to read, Mr Cohen offers a few imaginary responses on the part of various famous and not-so-famous persons to the secrets blithely spilled in Mr Woodward's book. He writes this comment from a hypothetical, relatively junior general in the Pentagon:

"I don't get it. The president fired one of our truly great commanders not for things that he said but for tolerating indiscretion, disloyalty and disrespect among his subordinates -- but do these people apply anything remotely like that standard to themselves?"

Of course, the Woodwards and the persons who speak "on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly" or "on the condition of anonymity because the information is classified" don't worry about simple moral things like this. The Bilbos of the world go to jail for violating confidentiality. The big shots write books for big money.

If it doesn't bother you, it should.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow on Cartoon Saturday. I need it.

Bilbo