A Blog for the People...
Now we did manage to get in some skiing mid week at Trollhaugen. And the hockey season is in full swing. But these days, it's more healthy meals*, inside reading, and thinking ahead with outdoor plans for when the season changes.
It's a good life, really. A keeper, you might say.
Stay warm yourself out there.
*venison meatballs, garden tomato sauces, crockpots of pea soup.
Mmm..mm...winter food. Healthy and happy and wise.
GWB is like an addicted gambler --
surely we can't walk away now. Look what we're down now, what we're holding. Must keep going until we get just one big win. Make up for everything else. It's right around the corner, I can smell it coming... really, trust me on this one...
C'mon pony up. Don't have the stomach for this, think you can walk away now that you're down so much? The odds are on your side; the tide must turn, right? Nevermind those wusses who don't know risk like we do, eh? Besides, whose money is it anyway?
it costs less for students from Wisconsin to attend Minnesota schools than for Minnesota students to attend in state. Why? A now unbalanced agreement. But a good deal for paying parents, who live in the northern and western part of the state and might prefer Minnesota over Madison.
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Congratulations!
You're wait listed.
Was looking for a "Takin' It Easy" video, no luck, but came across this one by Lacy J.
I like it...
I love it...
I want some more of it...
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Related: Minnesota and Wisconsin are now home to many Hmong, who allied with Americans in the Vietnam War. They resettled here, an aftermath of another war.
By Ryan J. Foley
The Associated Press
MADISON — More than 600 Hmong residents from across Wisconsin, including a group from Green Bay, today packed the Assembly parlor in support of a new proposal requiring state schools to teach about the Hmong people, saying racial suspicion of the new immigrants could be eased by a greater understanding of their past.
The bill failed in the previous legislative session, but a group of 10 Assembly Democrats said they hoped the fallout from the recent slaying of a Hmong hunter from Green Bay would give greater urgency to the effort. The death of Cha Vang, whose body was found Jan. 6 in a wildlife refuge near Peshtigo, has heightened tensions between Hmong and whites, especially in Wisconsin’s northwoods. A white hunter was charged last week in Vang’s death.
Two years ago, a Hmong deer hunter shot six white hunters to death after being accused of trespassing in the Wisconsin woods. He said the whites shouted racial epithets at him and opened fire first. He is serving life sentences. Some Hmong residents fear the latest killing was revenge.
“All of the difficulties that the Hmong face and experience in the U.S. are due to the fact that there is no formal teaching about the Hmong to the general public,” said Za Blong Vang, president of the Hmong Community of Wisconsin. He spoke at a news conference in Hmong but gave reporters an English translation of his remarks.
...
“Misunderstandings often lead to racial conflicts that undermine Wisconsin’s long history of inclusion and tolerance,” Seidel said. “Educating our children about the contributions the Hmong have made in our state will be the first step towards addressing acceptance.”
Wisconsin, Minnesota and California are home to the largest populations of Hmong, an ethnic minority from Southeast Asia. Many Hmong, including Za Blong Vang, fought alongside the U.S. in a so-called secret war against communists in Laos during the Vietnam War and have fled to avoid government persecution.
Not quite sure about the columnists, but how 'bout them editorial cartoonists?
All hands on deck.
Now if this were a political gathering, thoughtholders like this just wouldn't be admitted. Better to selectively choose your competition, then run the field:
Contrary to President Bush’s assertion that “this is not the fight we entered,” a great many people warned before the invasion of Iraq that the war would be pretty much exactly “the fight we are in” now. At the time, the president’s orchestrated minions suggested that such people were stupid, timid, defeatist and unpatriotic.
No one expects a genuine admission of error from this president, but it would be nice to at least hear him apologize to the people who were maligned for having greater prescience and common sense than his entire retinue of foreign and defense policy makers.
Charles M. Newman
New York, Jan. 24, 2007
Nevermind this beautiful bow, what's going on over there?
(Did you know that's written into the blogger contract? It's free, but at some point you're required to post a baby photo. :)
The DemocratIC response showed up President Bush's pretty speech tonight for exactly what it was: a verbal performance. The QuickdrawPundits will no doubt have a field day analyzing the show. How he looked, who clapped when, how the performance measured up to years past. But in the end, it was just that. A show. Over when the clapping and the autographing signing ended, when the celebrity guests went home, when folks started to looking around after the party thinking of where to begin to get a handle on cleanup.
It's not just that the President has failed to back up his words so many times before. It's more than that. It's how VP Cheney couldn't even manage a straight face when the President challenged us as a nation, after all this time, to reduce our dependence on oil. It's the arrogance. The belief that saying something -- setting a challenge -- takes you more than halfway to achieving your goal. It's not that easy. Never was. Knowing what you want is no substitute for performance. You have to go get it; it's not like placing an order and you're there.
Senator Webb's response, on behalf of a united Democratic party with all thinking allies welcome, set a tone we haven't seen in a while. Loved that last line. ("If he does not, we will be showing him the way.") Enough with losing, those who make excuses and start jobs without finishing them. You have to spend a lot of time at the beginning of the project, thinking it through and figuring out if you can pay to complete it. If not, you don't start it. Or no excuses for not getting the job done. Today, not tomorrow.
In some of his pre-political dealings, Mr. Bush was a businessman who not so much worked and sweated and made things happen, as he was bailed out. Lucky like that. We won't all continue to put our faith in such luck, however, not after all these years, and Senator Webb's financial talk spoke to that. I suspect we'll be hearing more of those truths in the future too, as we realize that as the middle class is undermined so goes the country.
For all the talk, sure President Bush gave a nice performance. Hollow tonight, forgotten tomorrow, overshadowed by the real speech we'll remember -- the one Senator Webb wrote.
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Related: Reading this today made me kinda sad. The Olympic U.S.A. chant... the memories, the Miracle on Ice? Reducing U.S.A. to a You Suck Ass acronym? Listen kids, it's not about poor sportsmanship. Not about wisely paying more attention to the action on the field/court/ice, than the crazee fun in the stands. It's about pride... and patriotism. Respect. I wish someone, your grandpa maybe, could explain it to you. Someone really should. You don't ban nonsense like that, you educate the kids: explain and embarrass, if necessary. You Suck Ass, indeed.
By Kevin Deutsch
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
DELRAY BEACH — A woman cleaning out her deceased parents' storage unit discovered a partially mummified baby - possibly born in the 1950s - inside a suitcase, police said.
The baby was wrapped in 1950s-era newspapers and placed inside the suitcase, which in turn had been packed into a larger suitcase and stored inside the unit.
...
A couple had rented the storage unit since 1996, but the man died several years ago and the woman in the past year, said officer Jeff Messer, Delray Beach police spokesman. The couple's family recently received a bill for money owed on the unit, so an adult daughter and her husband came to clean it out Monday.
Among the furniture, a bicycle and other possessions scattered about the room, the daughter and her husband spotted a large suitcase. They opened it to find a second, smaller suitcase, with newspapers inside. They unwrapped them and made the grisly discovery shortly before 6 p.m., when police were notified. ...
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
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This is what the Bears do. Pick apart quarterback Rex Grossman if you will. Go ahead and question their offense and even doubt the defense, but for all the style points and highlight plays that were shown coming into this game, it was won where Chicago likes to win: in the trenches.
Chicago attacked the weather with bare arms and Saints QB Drew Brees with naked aggression. They knocked him down, sacked him, beat him, pounded him and caused a fumble, an interception, a safety and probably post-traumatic stress disorder.
The defensive front physically dominated the Saints, forcing New Orleans to all but abandon running back Deuce McAllister (just six of the team's 12 total carries) and try to win through the air on a day when it felt like you were constantly walking into a sneeze. That allowed man-crushing defenders from Urlacher to Adewale Ogunleye to Mark Anderson to unload on various ribs, backs and chests.
"They had two plays the whole game," said linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer of a Saints offense that had 10 drives of five plays or fewer. "They were the No. 1 offense in the league, and we shut them down."
Meanwhile, the Bears' offensive line pushed open holes for Jones and bulldozing back Cedric Benson (60 yards, one touchdown) while keeping Grossman from being sacked.
"I thought they dominated," coach Lovie Smith said.
Benson and Jones, for their part, seemed to lower their shoulder on every run, taking the hit to the Saints first, even on small gains.
"You have to go out there and send a message there is going to be a dogfight," said Benson. "And send the message you're going to win the dogfight."
They played statement football, rough and tough, that paid dividends in the end against a worn-out Saints defense.
On both sides of the ball the Bears seemed to feed off the weather and the fans. As the cold got nastier, so did the Bears. As the snow came harder, so did the hits. The worse the conditions, the better Chicago's play.
And when New Orleans challenged in the third quarter, bringing the game to 16-14 with Reggie Bush's dynamic 88-yard touchdown catch and run, the precocious rookie made a major mistake. He spent the last 10 yards taunting Urlacher before doing a flip into the end zone and a little dance.
And then Chicago really got serious.
"Yeah, that pissed me off," Ogunleye said. "To turn around and taunt Brian – taunt basically the whole team – was a slap in the face."
They didn't taunt back. Heck, after the game they hardly wanted to talk about it. That isn't Chicago's style. The Bears let everyone else talk; then they punch them in the mouth.
What did you think of Bush's taunt, Urlacher was asked?
"I think we're going to the Super Bowl," he said.
Tradition can be an overplayed part of sports, but then there are days like this when a team delivers a performance so perfectly in tune with what the franchise has been about since the 1920s. It is days like this that demonstrate why Chicago never would build a dome, why the fans always will welcome a kicked-up wind off Lake Michigan, why you can't come to this city and play cute.
This is a results-oriented town, and the Bears are 15-3. Grossman, the erratic quarterback, was anything but sharp Sunday (11-of-26, 144 yards, one touchdown), but he had no turnovers and churned it up on one critical drive that all but clinched this victory.
"The guy wins," Urlacher said. "We've taken on his attitude."
So it isn't pretty, unless you like ugly. It isn't fun, unless you like fury. And it won't stand a chance with the experts, who certainly will pick the Colts, the way most of them picked the Saints.
Whatever. The Bears don't care right now. They'll bring the wood to the Super Bowl. They'll bring Bears football. Maybe it will be enough. Keep doubting them, they said.
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Did you work upon the railroads?
Did you rid the streets of crime?
Were your dollars from the White House?
Were they from the 5 & Dime ?
Do the old songs taunt or cheer you
and do they still make you cry?
Did you count the months and years
or did your teardrops quickly dry?
"And all of a sudden this movie came along and said, `You know, if you believe in yourself, you'll be OK.' And suddenly it became part of what America was about. I think maybe if the picture had come out two years later or two years earlier, it might not have caught on the way it did."
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Sidney Lumet directed "Network," the darkly satirical portrait of TV news. It won three acting Oscars and best screenplay for Paddy Chayefsky, but the best-picture loss still stings for Lumet.
"I've been nominated five times," the director told The Associated Press last year. "But on two occasions, I got so pissed off about what beat us. With `Network,' we were beaten out by `Rocky' for Christ's sake." (Lumet, who was finally awarded an honorary Oscar in 2005, also mentions the best picture win for "Gandhi" over his "The Verdict" in 1983.)
Yesterday was my friend's birthday. 48. His mother passed in August, and her kindness was missed. He's a good man -- knows who he is, what he has, and what it's really about. He's blessed, hopefully will live a long time.
"People pay for what they do and still more
for what they have allowed themselves to become.
And they pay for it very simply: by the lives they lead.
There's a smell of fresh cut grass
and it's filling up my senses
And the sun is shining down on the blossoms in the avenue.
There's a buzzing fly hanging around the bluebells and the daisies
And there's a lot more loving left in this world.
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There's white horses and they're coming at me at a pace now
And there's a blue sirocco blowing warm into my face
And the sun is sparkling on the underside of the bridges
And the cars going by with smiles in the windows.
More on that New Mexico rescue:
Some good tips, but note the brothers luckily did deviate from their well-mapped out plans that Mom had a copy of back home. Also, I give Carolyn Dorn credit for staying alive, particularly compared to this guy. A rare happy-ending story.
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This was the second trek in the Gila wilderness in as many years for the Kottke brothers, who love to travel together. They had left behind an itinerary so detailed that their parents would know exactly where they would be stopping for snacks on any given day.
"Whenever you go out in the wilderness, you want to make sure someone knows where you are," explained Albert, who took a survival training course years ago.
Dorn, meanwhile, was described as a "free spirit" who sometimes went camping alone without telling anyone. She reportedly set out for the Gila National Forest on Dec. 6 and became trapped when a rain-swollen river cut off her escape route.
When the Kottke brothers began their trek exactly a month later, they heard that a woman had gone missing in the area. But they didn't see another soul for six days, as they meandered off trails, up and down ravines and across the bone-chilling Gila River. Then, with the weather growing ominous, they decided to veer off their more rugged path and take a slightly easier, and longer, route along the trail, which they figured would be safer.
About noon Friday, they heard "something yelling" across the river. "It didn't sound human," said Peter Kottke. They found Dorn calling out to them. "The first words she said was 'I haven't eaten in three weeks,' " said Albert Kottke. "If she didn't call to us, we would have walked right by."
The brothers gave her Tang and ramen noodles, and watched her begin to spring back to life. But they all agreed that she was in no shape to hike, and that they couldn't carry her on the hazardous route. They had cell phones, but were out of range of phone service. "We talked about it," Albert said. "She was very comfortable if we left her. She made us a little list of things she needed to survive." They split their rations, leaving her with brown sugar, dried applies, almonds, an energy bar and cheese.
They also offered one of their books, "Chasing the Dime," a detective story by Michael Connelly. And she was "very eager" to have it. "That I thought was a good sign," Albert said. "Just being able to think about boredom rather than survival."
After about an hour and a half, "I asked 'is there anything else you need?' " Albert said. "She said, 'No, I'll be fine. Just get me help.' " He gave her a handshake and told her to be safe.
The brothers reached the access road the next afternoon, Saturday, and hitched a ride to Silver City to tell police their stunning news. "I think a lot of people had already given up on her and thought they'd just find her body," Albert said.
...
Their mother, Katherine Kottke of St. Paul, credits years of camping in Minnesota and good training for their cool under fire. "The thing that's so interesting is that they made the right choices," she said. "They would have risked their own lives if they would have attempted to carry her out."
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Spocko’s campaign became more widely followed when his blog was taken down by his Internet service provider, 1&1 Internet, of Chesterbrook, Pa., after ABC lawyers sent the company a cease and desist letter on Dec. 22. 1&1 says “the decision was made to remove the copyrighted material from our servers until the matter is resolved, whether by the parties involved or the judicial system.”
Spocko has since switched to a different Web hosting company. His lawyer, Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights group based in San Francisco, says that 1&1 acted too quickly in response to the ABC letter, which he described as saber-rattling rather than a valid notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, an updating of copyright laws from 1998.
“They have a choice when they get these vague threats,” said Mr. Zimmerman, who argued that Spocko’s clips constituted fair use. “They can instantly shut it down” or wait until formally notified of copyright infringement as detailed in the act.
A spokesman for 1&1, Neil Simpkins, said the company was acting on the advice of its lawyers and noted that the material “is being distributed all over the Internet.” He said that to his knowledge the company had never before taken down a site because of copyright concerns. Rebecca Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the the foundation, said ABC’s actions would have a chilling effect on online debate.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- A faint sound made Albert and Peter Kottke stop and look around as they hiked out of the Gila Wilderness at the end of backpacking trip. A figure moved on the other side of the Gila River. As it drew closer, the two university students saw a woman, hunched over and moving slowly.
The Kottkes crossed the river to find Carolyn Dorn, 52, who had been alone in the Gila National Forest for five weeks after becoming trapped on the wrong side of the rain- and snow-swollen river. The search for her had been called off two weeks ago.
The brothers said they realized Dorn was too weak to go with them. They gave her food - Tang, almonds, dried apples, an energy bar, some hot soup and a little cheese - scavenged firewood for her from the other side of the river, filled her water bottles and left her a book - suspense author Michael Connelly's "Chasing the Dime." They hiked 20 miles over the next day and a half, and on Saturday hitchhiked into Silver City, where they contacted authorities.
"We got her prepared to spend another couple of nights while we went upstream to get help," Albert Kottke, 25, a doctoral student in civil engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, said Sunday from his parents' home in St. Paul, Minn.
...
When they left, she was "very alert, talkative," said Peter Kottke, a junior geological engineering major at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "She seemed very relieved that somebody had finally found her."
Dorn told the brothers she was warm enough at night, but her eyes lit up when they offered her the book, he said. He felt comfortable leaving her after that because "you could tell she had a positive outlook," he said.
...
A New Mexico National Guard helicopter crew, using night vision goggles and a U.S. Geological Survey map the Kottke brothers marked, rescued the weak and dehydrated South Carolina woman before dawn Sunday and flew her to Silver City.
"It is a miracle she came out alive," said search and rescue coordinator Frankie Benoist. Temperatures in the area have dropped into the low teens overnight in recent weeks, according to the National Weather Service.
...
Dorn, who left for a two-week camping trip Dec. 6, had a tent, a sleeping bag and enough food and water for two weeks. After that, she drank from the river, kept warm by building fires and "used very little energy," Benoist said.
Did you play any high school sports? I swam for two years (fall sport), ran track long distance events (spring), then switched over to cross country junior year (fall). After that, I had a part-time job at Waldenbooks, so no sports senior year.
Now each one was fun enough at the time. I left swimming because I was average, and it got boring swimming laps back and forth, back and forth, keeping up a pace with others slapping at your heels. (No piped in music underwater in our pool.) Also, the girls on swim team were more ... aggressive than the cross country runners, imo. Freshman year, they gave "swirlies" to the new swimmers; I don't understand for the life of me how dunking someone's head in a toilet, even a clean toilet, is supposed to bond you to your teammates via hazing and help the team. Maybe if I would have stuck it out as an upperclassman, I would have had the "pleasure" in initiating others? I don't get it. In fact, I fought my "swirlie" until I realized that with two of them on me surrounded by a crowd, and the porcelain bowl drawing nearer, I could potentially chip a tooth or worse resisting. So I got my head dunked, and still swam for another year. Maybe you were supposed to take it in fun and not fight them; my individual award at the end-of-the-year banquet -- kind of "in" jokes where everyone got a small trophy -- was "untouchable". I remember they spelled it wrong on the plaque, and my mother didn't understand the award until I explained the "swirlie" episode earlier in the season. The cross country team, by contrast, was smaller and shared their fall season with the boys team. Maybe mingling the sexes -- on the bus to meets, in stretches and sprint drills -- made the women less nasty to each other. Maybe it was just the individuals who made up those teams.
Anyway, that's my background (1986 HS graduate) reading this story. There are all types of high school girls:
...
“They (female basketball players) asked, 'Why are you here?’ ” recalled Joquina Spence, 18, a senior cheerleader. “We told them, ‘We’re here to support you,’ and it was a problem because they kept yelling at us.”
Katelin Maxson, 17, a senior who is the cheerleading captain, said that while she does not mind cheering for the girls, it has doubled her workload: She has continued the tradition here of decorating the lockers of the basketball players on game days and bringing them treats.
“We joined sports to have fun, but they’re basically taking the fun away and giving us more work,” she said. “The interest is down so much, and it’s going to keep dropping, until there’s no cheerleading anymore.”
January 10, 2007 8:43 p.m. EST
Josephine Roque - All Headline News Staff Writer
San Francisco, CA (AHN) - The renowned, all-male acappella singing group from Yale, the Baker's Dozen, were pummeled outside a New Year's Eve party after singing "The Star-Spangled Banner."
The alleged attackers include graduates from Sacred Heart Cathedral, one of San Francisco's best-known private schools. The attack occurred outside the home of two known San Francisco police officers: former mayoral bodyguard Reno Rapagnani, and his wife, Leanna Dawydiak.
One of the victim's fathers, Sharyar Aziz, whose son's jaw was broken in two places, has employed the services of law firm Gonzalez and Leigh to make sure "the individuals behind this heinous assault (are) apprehended." Aziz is a prominent New York banker and has called the mayor's office and police chief to complain.
Rapagnani narrates that his 19-year-old daughter was hosting a New Year's Eve party at their family home for the Baker's Dozen, who were in the area for their West Coast tour. The acapella group came in late to the party donning preppy sport jackets and ties, and launched into singing "The Star-Spangled Banner."
A number of uninvited guests began mocking them, and allegedly used the words "faggot" and "homo" along with punches. Witnesses claim that one of the uninvited guests - apparently the son of a prominent Pacific Heights family - used his cell phone and said, "I'm 20 deep. My boys are coming."
Rapagnani and others confirm that the Yale students started on their way home as the house was ordered to be cleared and barely reached the corner when they were blocked by a van of young men.
"They were surrounded, then tripped -- and when they were on the ground, they were kicked," Rapagnani said.
Police reports detail that cops arrived about 12:40 a.m. to stop 20 people fighting in the street. Sharyar Aziz Jr. had to undergo reconstructive surgery for a broken jaw that will remain wired for eight weeks. Another fellow Yale student sought treatment for a concussion, while a third for a swollen ankle and other abrasions.
Yale Dean Peter Salovey told the school paper that he was "shocked and appalled" by the incident.
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I wonder if there was something wrong with "their rendition of the Star Spangled Banner", or if there was just too much liquor and hatred at play that night, and it was easy pickin's:
NEW YORK (AFP) - Members of a close-harmony group from Yale University are recovering after being ambushed and beaten up while on tour in California, according to local reports.
Members of the a cappella Baker's Dozen were performing at a party in San Francisco at the new year when their rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" apparently sparked taunts and threats from fellow partygoers.
As the group left the house, they were attacked by dozens of assailants, suffering scrapes, black eyes and concussions, said Connecticut's News Channel 8.
"Besides any bruising or scrapes to the face, the main injury I suffered was I broke my jaw in two places," one of the singers, 18-year-old Sharyar Aziz, was quoted as saying.
I'm sure he's a nice young man. Well meaning.
But I'm betting he hasn't yet read The Garden of Eden*. Spend a day with that one, and tell me you still have the same manly image of Ernest. Ka-blam. When he realized he couldn't write anymore, he blew his head off. That's the example you're really looking for here, my friend. Because good writing is true writing. Right?
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*I heard there's a work in progress, a memoir, by one of Gregory/Gloria's children, to feature correspondence between the father and son. That's sure to shed more light on the man behind the writer, if that floats your boat. For me, the work is enough. The work, and a clean and well lighted place. You can keep your intrigue, your own projections, about the basic man behind the work. Reputations wax and wane; sometimes it takes an old man to understand working for the daily bread.
Whooo's the new creature on the job site?
Now I loves me some books. Consider myself passionate for the written word. Even worked in a library, manning the entrance/security desk on the overnight shift. This, however, is taking your love just a bit too far. (If it wasn't a false alarm, I'd really like to know the title involved here; prolly it was a DVD...)
ANDERSON, S.C. (AP) - Police say a security guard at the Anderson County Library fired his gun at a car after the driver triggered a security alarm. Police say security guard James Turner asked the woman to stop after the alarm went off as she left around 5 o'clock Saturday afternoon.
A police report states Turner chased the woman as she ran to her car and he said the bumper brushed his knee as she pulled away. Police say the guard then fired into the driver's door. Authorities say the woman kept going and they don't know if she was hurt.
Library director Carl Stone says he's asked Cherokee Security Systems not to send Turner back to the library. Stone says no one should be hurt over a missing library book.
... Ohio State was mentally unprepared to play the game. The Buckeyes brought no emotion into the game, and they played with no intensity. Clearly, they thought they could just show up and the Gators would do what everybody predicted – lose.
Obviously, Florida had heard the same comments. However, the Gators didn't listen to what everyone had predicted. They didn't give up, and they didn't lie down. They took it personally and got mad, and they brought an attitude that they were going to show the world how good their team really was.
This game proved once again that football can't be played without emotion. Every team, no matter what people say, must be given respect, and if you don't give it, you will suffer the consequences.
To tell you how bad it was, Ohio State's prolific offense that came into the game averaging 410 yards per game was held to 82. On the other side of the ball, the Buckeyes' No. 1-ranked scoring defense, which was giving up only 10 points per game, watched as the Gators racked up 41. Isn't it amazing what a little emotion can do?
...
Meyer said he wasn't surprised by his team's dominant performance, especially since the Gators had spent so much time listening to critics.
"I'd like to thank all those people," Meyer said. "Our pre-game speech was easy. For 30 days, our team got motivated.
"You don't start messing with people's pride."
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*I'm a believer. The Big 10 = overrated on bigness. Don't let them tell you otherwise. And fight like hell to get in the big game. Excellent lessons.
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MORE:
"All we hear about is the Southeast Conference," Alvarez said. "But there's too much speed on too many teams."
Well, coach, there was a big difference in speed between these two teams, and it proved absolutely critical as the Gators surged to a 34-14 halftime lead after that runback. It mattered most in UF's defensive line, where Derrick Harvey and company sacked Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith three times in the first half and forced a fumble that led to a touchdown.
Meanwhile, Fox's crew could not decide whether a record 51 days off were affecting Ohio State.
"So much for 51 days," play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman said after Ginn's touchdown.
Alvarez dragged it back out again as OSU fell behind.
"Now you go back and wonder about 51 days," Alvarez said. "We haven't seen Ohio State play like this all year."
That's because Ohio State has not played a team as fast as Florida all year, Bar.
Fellow analyst Charles Davis, a former University of Tennessee defensive back, seemed to understand a little better. "They've been able to get pressure without blitzing," Davis said.
By Tom Blackburn
Palm Beach Post Columnist
Monday, January 08, 2007
As a crafty politician, Franklin D. Roosevelt knew how to turn acquaintances into supporters by making them feel like friends. His touch rarely failed.
In 1938, the Army's chief of staff and his deputy, Gen. George C. Marshall, were at a White House meeting attended by some administration senior figures. After holding forth a while, FDR turned to the junior man in the room, Gen. Marshall, and asked, "Don't you think so, George?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. President," said Gen. Marshall emphasizing Roosevelt's title, "but I don't agree with that at all."
Whew. That could have been a career-killer for an ambitious officer. Instead, when the war in Europe began a year later, Roosevelt reached past more senior officers to make Gen. Marshall Army chief of staff, a post that effectively commanded the biggest army in the nation's history. Far from having ruined his career, Gen. Marshall went on be secretary of state under President Truman. He became the third secretary of the new Defense Department after the first two appointees in that job didn't work out. He is the only general ever to win a Nobel Peace Prize. That was for his role in the rebuilding of Europe after World War II.
And FDR never called the general "George" in public again.
A patriot has to wonder whether we'd be waist-deep in Iraq if Gen. George Marshall were still around. It's hard to believe that any of the top World War II commanders, especially Gen. Marshall, and his splenetic naval counterpart, Adm. Ernest King, would have quietly accepted ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's anemic manpower levels.
One current general did object. He happened to hold the same title Gen. Marshall held during World War II, but the job itself was downgraded during past Pentagon reorganizations. The service chiefs lost clout to the chairman of the joint chiefs, who is now more than a first among equals. That job was held in 2002 by Gen. Tommy Franks, who, according to Bob Woodward in Plan of Attack, referred to the service chiefs as "Title X (four-syllable bleep)s" after the law that kept their posts but reduced their power.
The Army's Title X (four-syllable bleep) was Gen. Eric Shinseki. He got into trouble with Mr. Rumsfeld almost right away by objecting to the secretary's plans to reduce the size of the Army by replacing troops with laptop computers. In typical bureaucratic knife-fighting, someone chose Gen. Shinseki's successor, and someone leaked the fact, 14 months before the general's term was due to expire. The signal was that Gen. Shinseki would be a non-player for his last year in office.
Before the U.S. attacked Iraq, Gen. Shinseki told a Senate committee that the looming Iraq adventure would take "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers." He specified that they would be needed to restore order after Saddam Hussein was gone.
Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who seems to have learned about military manpower while enjoying student deferments for the Vietnam War, pronounced Gen Shinseki's estimates "far off the mark." He said it was "hard to believe" that very many troops would be needed when the ground war ended.
That, of course, was then. And this is now. Some of the generals who dutifully reported, as requested, that they had enough troops are retiring, and President Bush has new requests for his new team: Find some more soldiers and Marines and send more troops in a surge to Baghdad. Both needs, of course, Gen. Shinseki predicted and Mr. Wolfowitz found hard to believe.
The politicians, led by Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz, stayed away from Gen. Shinseki's retirement ceremony, missing the chance to honor him for 38 years of service. Mr. Bush sent Mr. Wolfowitz and whatever he can believe off with honors to the World Bank.
The lesson of Iraq is not that the military services no longer have officers who are worth their stars. Gen. Shinseki knew what he was about. And there were others. The problem was elsewhere.
It doesn't help to have good generals if civilian leaders only want team players in their group photos. FDR knew he wasn't getting a yes-man with Gen. Marshall. He didn't look for one. He sought good advice instead. That's how he got it. It's why we won that war.
Here is a snippet from The Iron Man.
A Pete Townshend "musical" based on a story by Ted Hughes.
They cut the last phrase, so I put it up top. "Deliver your future..."
ONE of the pop heroes of the Iraq war was undoubtedly Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, the unfortunate Iraqi information minister who, in his daily press conferences during the invasion, heroically denied even the most evident facts and stuck to the Iraqi line. Even with American tanks only a few hundred yards from his office, he continued to claim that the televised shots of tanks on the Baghdad streets were just Hollywood special effects.
In his very performance as an excessive caricature, Mr. Sahhaf thereby revealed the hidden truth of the “normal” reporting: there were no refined spins in his comments, just a plain denial. There was something refreshingly liberating about his interventions, which displayed a striving to be liberated from the hold of facts and thus of the need to spin away their unpleasant aspects: his stance was, “Whom do you believe, your eyes or my words?”
Furthermore, sometimes, he even struck a strange truth — when confronted with claims that Americans were in control of parts of Baghdad, he snapped back: “They are not in control of anything — they don’t even control themselves!”
What, exactly, do they not control? Back in 1979, in her essay “Dictatorship and Double Standards,” published in Commentary, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick elaborated the distinction between “authoritarian” and “totalitarian” regimes. This concept served as the justification of the American policy of collaborating with right-wing dictators while treating Communist regimes much more harshly: authoritarian dictators are pragmatic rulers who care about their power and wealth and are indifferent toward ideological issues, even if they pay lip service to some big cause; in contrast, totalitarian leaders are selfless fanatics who believe in their ideology and are ready to put everything at stake for their ideals.
Her point was that, while one can deal with authoritarian rulers who react rationally and predictably to material and military threats, totalitarian leaders are much more dangerous and have to be directly confronted.
The irony is that this distinction encapsulates perfectly what went wrong with the United States occupation of Iraq: Saddam Hussein was a corrupt authoritarian dictator striving to keep his hold on power and guided by brutal pragmatic considerations (which led him to collaborate with the United States in the 1980s). The ultimate proof of his regime’s secular nature is the fact that in the Iraqi elections of October 2002 — in which Saddam Hussein got a 100 percent endorsement, and thus overdid the best Stalinist results of 99.95 percent — the campaign song played again and again on all the state media was Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”
One outcome of the American invasion is that it has generated a much more uncompromising “fundamentalist” politico-ideological constellation in Iraq. This has led to a predominance of the pro-Iranian political forces there — the intervention basically delivered Iraq to Iranian influence. One can imagine how, if President Bush were to be court-martialed by a Stalinist judge, he would be instantly condemned as an “Iranian agent.” The violent outbursts of the recent Bush politics are thus not exercises in power, but rather exercises in panic.
Recall the old story about the factory worker suspected of stealing: every evening, when he was leaving work, the wheelbarrow he rolled in front of him was carefully inspected, but the guards could not find anything, it was always empty. Finally, they got the point: what the worker was stealing were the wheelbarrows themselves.
This is the trick being attempted by those who claim today, “But the world is nonetheless better off without Saddam!” They forget to factor into the account the effects of the very military intervention against him. Yes, the world is better without Saddam Hussein — but is it better if we include into the overall picture the ideological and political effects of this very occupation?
The United States as a global policeman — why not? The post-cold-war situation effectively called for some global power to fill the void. The problem resides elsewhere: recall the common perception of the United States as a new Roman Empire. The problem with today’s America is not that it is a new global empire, but that it is not one. That is, while pretending to be an empire, it continues to act like a nation-state, ruthlessly pursuing its interests. It is as if the guiding vision of recent American politics is a weird reversal of the well-known motto of the ecologists — act globally, think locally.
After 9/11, the United States was given the opportunity to realize what kind of world it was part of. It might have used the opportunity — but it did not, instead opting to reassert its traditional ideological commitments: out with the responsibility and guilt with respect to the impoverished third world — we are the victims now!
Apropos of the Hague tribunal, the British writer Timothy Garton Ash pathetically claimed: “No Führer or Duce, no Pinochet, Amin or Pol Pot, should ever again feel themselves protected from the reach of international law by the palace gates of sovereignty.” One should simply take note of what is missing in this series of names which, apart from the standard couple of Hitler and Mussolini, contains three third world dictators: where is at least one name from the major powers who might sleep a bit uneasily?
Or, closer to the standard list of the bad guys, why was there little talk of delivering Saddam Hussein or, say, Manuel Noriega to The Hague? Why was the only trial against Mr. Noriega for drug trafficking, rather than for his murderous abuses as a dictator? Was it because he would have disclosed his past ties with the C.I.A.?
In a similar way, Saddam Hussein’s regime was an abominable authoritarian state, guilty of many crimes, mostly toward its own people. However, one should note the strange but key fact that, when the United States representatives and the Iraqi prosecutors were enumerating his evil deeds, they systematically omitted what was undoubtedly his greatest crime in terms of human suffering and of violating international justice: his invasion of Iran. Why? Because the United States and the majority of foreign states were actively helping Iraq in this aggression.
And now the United States is continuing, through other means, this greatest crime of Saddam Hussein: his never-ending attempt to topple the Iranian government. This is the price you have to pay when the struggle against the enemies is the struggle against the evil ghosts in your own closet: you don’t even control yourself.
Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, is the author, most recently, of “The Parallax View.”
Remember this tune? Lee-hee-hee-hee-vi's...hawhaw. The song is the same, but the visuals I remember had the kids flying over houses and trees. And just a few more I like:
Levi's slimfit,
501 laundromat,
munchabuncha Fritos go with lunch,
Ronald McDonald "mobiles",
the Jacksons pitching AlphaBits,
Fonda and Foster for ViewMaster,
and the Fruit of the Loom lady with her boys.
----------------------
Happy Friday:
Maybe I have no ear, but then and now, every time I hear this song I think the band of demons wins it... Go figure.
Olivia Newton John gives us two fun numbers from the past.
Watch the whole thing!
And have a fun weekend y'all .
The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media. ...
Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press....
The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.
The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP's initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein's identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.
Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein's existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record.
Let your love fly,
like a bird on the wing
and let your love bind you,
to all living things...
Let your love shine,
and you'll know what I mean
That's the reason.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man."
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."
-- Mrs. Warren's Profession, 1893
"A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman."
"The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed but that he cannot believe anyone else."
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
"One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't."
"Do you know what a pessimist is?" "A man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it."
"When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."
"We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it."
"My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world."
Jan. 3, 7:57 a.m. CST - The Full Wolf Moon. Amid the zero cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. It was also known as the Old Moon or the "Moon After Yule." In some tribes this was the Full Snow Moon; most applied that name to the next Moon.
...
"I’m an artist. I’m on the edge," Launhart said in an interview this morning as he tried to keep his composure while workers tossed boards and wooden poles from his yard into a trailer. "But where does it become some kind of personal infringement on my pursuit of happiness?"
Quickly breaking off the conversation, Launhardt pleaded with workers to stop.
"I feel like some of those oak beams and stuff like that are part of my yard décor," he said. "I do temporary installations, I use those things, I move them around, I’ve collected them from old barns on properties my parents have sold."
Then he stopped again to complain as the workers began walking off with pieces to a dismantled hot tub behind the house.
"How am I going to be able to rebuild my hot tub when they’re taking part of it away?" he asked.
Health department officials say Launhardt had plenty of time to clean up his property. Environmental Health Manager Gerald Worley said Launhardt received four written warnings the past year to remove various things from his yard, including tires, building materials, unlicensed vehicles, trash and scattered clothes. The department also tried to contact him by phone five times, Worley said. Art or not, he said, the health department simply relies on the nuisance ordinance to determine when to clean up a property.
"If your artwork is pieces of dismantled barbecue grills, which is some of what we picked up today, no, we don’t consider that art," he said.
----------------------------------
COLUMBIA, Mo. - A man hunting for American Indian artifacts with his sons along a gravel bar on the Missouri River has uncovered an ancient fishhook that is making collectors envious.
"The first thing I thought is, 'I hope this isn't metal,'" said Eric Henley, who found the hook last month near McBaine. "When I picked it up, there was a pretty good jump for joy and a couple of 'whoops' and yells. It's the cream of the crop."
The hook is made of bone and covers his entire palm, making it much larger than most bone hooks.
Joe Harl, of the Archaeological Research Center of St. Louis, said the size of the hook suggests the fisherman who used it was after a larger fish.
Another artifact collector, Kenny Bassett, said the large size of the hook might indicate an earlier origin. American Indians used bigger rocks and tools in earlier periods to hunt larger game such as wooly mammoths. He said the hook could have been used to fish for pallid sturgeon or enormous catfish.
Bassett, who works with Henley, said he had to control his envy when he saw the oversized hook.
"I've been hunting" American Indian artifacts "for 30 years and never found anything so identifiably unique. I've never seen anything like it," Bassett said.
Because bone matter deteriorates rapidly, bone artifacts typically have to be buried deep enough in the ground to be preserved. And they are usually found during archaeological digs, said Bill Iseminger, assistant site manager at Cahokia Mounds State Historical Site in Illinois.
Harl said sandier soil in spots along the river might have kept the hook preserved. He said the hook could be anywhere from 300 to 12,000 years old.
by Zona Gale, late of Portage Wisconsin
HEMPEL had watched the hands of the clock make all the motions of the hour, from the trim segment of eleven to the lazy down-stretch of twenty minutes past, the slim erectness of the half-hour, the promising angles of the three quarters, ten, five to twelve, and last the unanimity and consummation of noon.
Before all the whistles had ceased he was on the street. It was Thursday, but he was going home; he had told them that he must get home. He had even told one of them why he must get home. "Look alive!" he wanted to shout to somebody. "She may be going through it now." Only of course there was nobody to whom a man could shout a thing like that, so he sent the message flooding through all the little secret cells that faithfully worked to let him hurry. Thus he dashed through West Twenty-eighth Street, and came to a halt at Fifth Avenue. A procession was passing.
"Hold on, young fellow," an officer said, serene in the law's backing of constituted authority for easy familiarity. "Can't you see the doin's?"
"But I must -- I must! I tell you I must!" Hempel cried. And when the thick neck continued to shake the great, faintly smiling face, Hempel, the boy, stepped close to the policeman and said something to him man to man.
The officer lifted his chin in the first half of a nod, passed the business on to his eyebrows, and threw his glance down the avenue.
"Set tight, then," he said, "till I tip you the go."
So Hempel waited on the curb. For the first time his eye took in the procession passing, and he saw that the paraders were women. At first this fact made on him small impression. Then he found himself thinking:
"These women here are well and strong, and she may be dying." But that thought he put violently away, and seized on something, anything, to crowd it back. So he fixed his mind on the women.
Some were young, ruddy, erect; some were young, narrow-cheated, stooped; some were old, and dragged their feet; one who passed near Hempel scuffled at every step. But, decently or shabbily or showily dressed, all were looking up, intent on something.
"What's the matter with 'em?" Hempel asked.
"That there big fire," the policeman answered -- "that there last factory fire. It et into 'em some. These are striking; a grand sight o' good it'll do 'em."
Hempel looked at them now with a new impression. He too had shuddered at that thing -- the flimsy loft, the locked doors, the broken bodies, the charred remains.
Poor things, trying to earn their living! He straightened his young shoulders. She didn't have to do that. Thank God! he had saved her from this kind of thing. That poor young creature there carrying the heavy pole of a rude banner: GIVE US THE CHANCE TO SAY HOW WE WORK, it said. Already the girl was dropping with weariness. Every day must be to her weariness. But the girl's face was intent on something, as the faces of all were intent. And Letty was there in the flat, just waiting. But she might be going through it now, and he three miles away from her. Even as he turned fiercely on the policeman, he saw the gray helmet execute a mighty nod.
"Skin!" said the officer, and through a break in the ranks Hempel tore across the avenue and fled toward the subway.
As he ran, a sickening thought swept him. It was true that Letty need never march like that, -- she was safe, with him to work for her, -- but suppose it should be a girl -- Hempel shrank abashed from "daughter" -- suppose it should be a girl, and she should go to work sometime!
"O God!" something in him said as he ran, "I wanted a boy. Here's another reason. Let it be a boy!"
The little flat was very still as Hempel fitted his key. He had dreaded finding some alien confusion. Now the silence seemed more ominous. He ran tiptoeing across the passage and turned the knob. The afternoon sun flooded the sitting-room. In the willow rocker his wife sat sewing.
"Letty!" he cried. "I thought maybe -- "
"Not yet," she said, and one moment smiled up at him, the next caught at a button of his coat with a whimpering breath. "Dicko, I'm so glad you've come!" he heard her say.
Instead of going into the dark dining-room, the noisy, loud-voiced, kindly maid, a luxury which they had never known until of late, brought a covered dish or two to Letty's sewing-table, and they ate by the window, in the sun. A book lay open on the window-sill. Some one had sent in a pink hyacinth. A child in a red dress was playing with two colored balls in the street below. When luncheon was finished, the well-being in the small, bright room, and the thrilling suspense of the time, possessed Hempel as the chief fact in life. He looked at his wife in her gray gown and cap of lace, at her soft, white work. She was so little! He stretched out his big, brown hand, and laid it on her knee.
"Letty," he said, "see me, strong as an ox; and it doesn't help any."
She looked at him strangely, beautifully.
"Strength isn't the only thing," she said. "I was thinking that just when you came in. I'd found something -- "
She took up the book on the window-sill. Sometimes the things which she read to him from books had made Hempel uneasy with the sense that he was not seeing in them what she saw; then gradually he had grown to feel that very likely she saw more than was really there. But now he felt that in this hour whatever she had found would be there for him, too. He followed her, even when he began to perceive that what she was reading aloud was verse, which someway always confused him, like several exposures on the same film. But this, he understood quickly, was man's verse, man's talk, straight from the shoulder:
"Force rules the world still,
Has ruled it, shall rule it;
Meekness is weakness,
Strength is triumphant,
Over the whole earth
Still it is Thor's Day!"
"Bully!" said Hempel, spontaneously.
She shook her head, smiling.
"It isn't true," she said.
"What isn't?" asked Hempel.
"Well," she said, "there's something else. It isn't just strength that's going to pull me through to-night, if it's tonight. It's something else -- something that's weak and great and small, not a bit like strength, Dicko."
He wondered what she meant. He reached out, and took in his somewhat roughened fingers a hem of the soft, white stuff of her work. He saw that it was a little skirt. A strange sweetness ran current with his blood.
"Strength is the greatest thing in the world though, I guess, Letty," he was saying.
She laughed, and for a moment leaned her face close to his. Then she met his puzzled eyes gravely, sweetly.
"Men don't know it," she said. "They don't know how to know it. Women know; I know now, and I'll know to-night."
Abruptly, as he looked at her, Hempel saw something in her face that he had never seen there before -- a strange intentness, a strangely uplifted, radiant intentness. He had seen faces intent like that only a little while before in a marching line. It gave him the instance that he needed.
"Why, look here," said Hempel. "Talk about strength not being the biggest thing ever. If you'd seen what I saw to-day -- the whole street full of miserable, half-starved women, some of 'em left out o' that last factory fire, some of 'em striking out o' sympathy and on account o' their own troubles. And a grand sight o' good it'll do 'em," Hempel repeated. "Look at 'em, what they are, just because they've got no strength. All they can do, the poor things, is to get out there and go marching.
"Ah," Letty said, "but they were marching. They were marching. And they'll get what they're after in the end. And without strength."
She dropped her sewing and put out her hand.
"Listen, Dicko," she said, "and hear about me. You know -- I've almost hoped it would be a boy. Well, when I read that to-day, of that big old god shouting around about strength being the thing, I remembered to-day is his day, the day they named for him -- Thursday -- Thor's day. And, Dicko, I don't want it to be a boy, born to-day. Because if it is, I'm afraid it won't ever know but that force is the thing still -- just as that says."
Hempel looked apprehensively round. Were women like this at such a time, he wondered. He recalled vague things which he had heard of them.
"Ain't you -- ain't there something you're taking?" he said. "Can't she beat you up an egg?"
At this his wife further alarmed him by laughing softly and long. Then abruptly she kissed him, and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.
"I'll tell you what;" he said nervously, "you let me run over to the drug store and get you a little bottle of lime-juice. You liked that other."
He rushed out like a boy. She watched him hurrying down the street. Her smile was brooding, maternal, as if already the maternity were hers, for him.
"Not a boy," she was thinking, "born on Thor's day; but a girl, born on Friday, Freia's day -- the day of the goddess that held the apples of new life. On Friday," she said, "the new day. The day of something better than strength."
In the dining-room the loud-voiced maid met Hempel on his return.
"She's took to talking to herself, sir," she told him. "I dunno but what -- "
Hempel nodded. These two worried faces perfectly understood each other. He swung briskly into the sitting-room and set down the bottle.
"Now, then," he cried cheerily, "two nice glasses of lime-juice, and we 'll be all right."
ONCE more Hempel's look dragged round the clock with the hour: the grim segment of eleven; the strained down-stretch of twenty minutes past; the horrible, waiting attention of the half-hour, like a man standing listening, listening; the warning angles of the three quarters, ten, five to twelve; last the solemn inevitability of midnight.
He stood leaning against the glass of the sitting-room window; the sickish smell of the hyacinth that he was brushing rose protestingly. People loitered in the street, extinguished lights, went to sleep; and in there, where the nurse and the doctor had her, she might be dying. Sometimes he heard something, and then he crumpled against the window-frame, his magnificent body as weak as that of a child.
Pale against the black sheet of the buildings opposite, he could see his wife's face, not laughing, not looking at him, not turned to him as at his home-comings, but remote and intent. That was it: she was amazingly intent on something. It was as if, in this hour of hers, was occurring the whole creation of a new being. And on it she was unspeakably intent.
He shut his eyes, and there on the imminent black was Letty's face in the midst of a thousand white faces. They were the faces of women, the faces of women marching. And each one was as intent on something as was Letty. Each one was as intent as if this were to her the hour of the creation of new beings, somewhere ahead there in a time that Hempel didn't know anything about. And if it was a girl, if it was a daughter, that daughter might be somewhere, sometime, with women like those, marching, too. And he, as strong as an ox, could do nothing to help either of them, Letty in there, or his daughter down there in the street.
Hempel pulled himself up, and he smiled foolishly. What was the matter with him? Was he going to pieces like a baby? He squared his shoulders and started toward the kitchen. He'd better eat a little something, he told himself, to keep up his strength. If his strength went back on him -- But he came to Letty's willow chair, and he sank down in it, and took his head in his big, helpless hands.
Interminably thereafter the nurse came to him.
"It's all right," she said, "and she's all right. She asked me, before, not to tell you which it is."
Hempel glared at her, and did his best to roar in a whisper.
"Which it is?" he said. "What do I care which it is? Is she safe? Is she?"
A little while later Hempel sat trying to read the morning paper. He read the same things over a great many times. One of these things was an obscure head which he kept reading for a long time before it fixed his attention.
MARCH OF THE WOMEN
Thin Line of Agitators Parades Fifth
Avenue for Half an Hour.
Hempel thought back to the line as he had seen it, those lifted, determined, intent faces. Think of their starting out to get something, weak as they were! He sat fingering at something within his reach, a soft, white hem of his wife's sewing in her basket. Think of Letty going through that thing alone, almost as weak as a child! He stared out the window, past her plant and her book on the sill. How in the world did women do these things, anyway?
He was still sitting so when they came to tell him that he could go into the room. Now that the time had come, he found, when he rose, that he was trembling.
There she lay, the same Letty, yet incalculably different. In some mysterious way she was nearer to him than ever he had known that she could be; in some way, more mysterious, she was as remote as she had seemed to him at midnight.
"Dicko," she whispered, "I wouldn't let them tell you. See your son!"
He stooped awkwardly, got to one knee, and looked. Then he bent his look on her.
"But you -- " he said. "Letty, how -- "
She did not hear him. She was speaking softly, eagerly.
"And it wasn't on Thor's day, either," she said. "He came Friday, Dicko, the day of something better than strength."
He kissed her.
"There! there! there!" he kept saying.
"Dicko, it's coming," she tried to make it clear. "Can't you tell? The time when men will know -- something better than strength. And use it. O Dicko, maybe our little man will know it -- in his lifetime!"
"There! there! there!" Hempel went on, and patted her arm.
At last he stumbled out of the room. Indeterminately it smote him that to be in the little chamber, which he knew so well, was like being in some other place.
"Better than strength," he heard her insisting as he closed the door.
He turned to the nurse, who stood waiting in the passage.
"I guess she's a little delirious yet, ain't she?" he said, much shaken.
"Nothing you can do that can't be done. Nothing you can write that can't be run..."
