It's a drive to northern Illinois, but the "Aunt Mary" time is worth it. They make me laugh, as laughter is contagious. (Wait... are they laughing at me? I realized on the swingset early on with them, that the physical humor in slapstick may just be the earliest form of comedy. Even infants seem to get it.)

Anyway, have a great weekend, y'all!

"Busy, busy, busy..."

Do I sound like a magician aiming to get my magical hat back from a snowman?*

Lest you think I've gone off on a hibernation jag, we've had several new counties in my region join our program, and it falls to each of us to travel and formally orient the new representative along with our counterpart from the state. Vague enough? It's not confidentiality reasons that prevent me here from from describing, generally, my work, but personal choice. Maybe one day -- (I 'd prefer to tell friends in person exactly what it is I do) -- but for now, mostly I only reference my work in terms of travel.

So last week took me to Neillsville in Clark County, and today to Superior in Douglas. It's been frigid cold, but our work car is a 4-wheel drive Subaru, and even my '95 Corsica has loyally started up, no troubles/no plug in's/no battery inside overnight. She's a workhorse, all right, though I don't ask much of her in this weather, considering the job is walkable. And not to brag, but I'm pushing 200,000 miles, if you consider closing in with 15,000 to go not jinxing myself.

That's what I wonder about people with their hearts in the right place investing in the hybrids, and all those eager to tell you about their newest, greenest purchases... How many cars will they go through in the time others take to invest in and keep up but one? Just a thought.










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*Bonus points if you pick up on my trivia...

UPDATE: And and how about that new New York senator? Although the daughter of a lobbyist, you get the impression she worked her way up. And an alleged blue dog democrat who apparently is capable of nuanced thinking on gun rights/controls issues. Good luck to her.

And to whomever thought/thinks it's a good idea to offer up for Treasury Secretary a man who conveniently was unintelligent enough to pay his fair share of taxes: way to go on the "fresh start" thinking. I don't think enough folks yet realize: the change we want to see is not a shift from this team to that. It's waaaay bigger a job than that. Makeover the country so that we no longer hold in esteem the fellow who "got away" with something, who pushed himself ahead of the pack only based on shady networking and dealings. Make us admire what we formerly referred to as the "little guy" -- the one whose house maybe isn't the biggest on the block, but what's inside, the family and the values, is the most secure in the neighborhood, because, as the rap lyics go... "everythingyou have is yours and not stolen." Or paid for by others.

Because really, isn't that what this Geithner was doing? Letting others pick up his slack, when he realized his non-taxpaying error and didn't step up to correct it? No thanks. I'm all for forgiving mistakes, but again, we're attempting a major attitude overhaul here, right? A tricky fixer in the treasury is not going to fix our big picture problems in the long run, no matter how good he might be able to make things look on paper.

Something tells me that if you undertake a big job, some commitment to the task -- starting with basic "must play by the established rules" -- and some level of love of country that makes you understand why you pony up every April, even if you think you could spend that money more efficiently than the government 3 ways to Sunday, must be present. You can't really teach that kind of character at a late age, now can you? Character, of course, referring to demonstrated traits, not to Mr. Geithner or his type of latter-day "success story" himself.

I wonder if our current media will sleepwalk through covering this administration as well. Too busy on the presidential puppy stories, and with the Blagojevich hairstyle beat, I suppose...

Congratulations, President Obama!

Now... back to work.

(Related story of the week: a fellow blogger was commiserating on the Midwest's nasty winter weather, talking smack about passersby who didn't give him a push when his car battery conked, and he ran out of gas.

Best "Be Prepared" -- by winterizing your car, for example, and keeping the gas tank full when predictions of cold snaps come in. See, if you think like a Boy Scout, you'll be much less likely to find yourself ultimately in need of rescue ... just sayin')

Got 'em.

A Waupaca County snowmobiler is free on a signature bond, and two others are due in court today (Friday) in last weekend’s slaughters of five deer.

All three men are from Weyauwega.

Nicholas Hermes, 22, appeared in court yesterday on five felony charges of killing animals by mistreatment.

Meanwhile, Robby Kuenzi, 23 and his brother Rory Kuenzi, 24, have not been charged yet.

Police said Rory Kuenzi stole the machine he used from outside a bowling center the night after Christmas and he reportedly told people he borrowed it.

The machine was recovered this week near Mukwa. Tipsters responding to $12,000 in reward money told officers about Hermes and the stolen sled.

According to the criminal complaint, Hermes claimed he accidentally killed a deer and said the Kuenzi brothers chased others from behind and ran them over, but a witness said all three were chasing the deer.

One had its stomach gutted out. Another was tied to a tree and left to choke.

The attacks happened last Friday night south of Waupaca. They sparked outrage by the snowmobiling community and others in northeast Wisconsin.

Tensions were so high, the Appleton Post-Crescent’s Web site cut off its normal comment feature on the story, because some writers were making personal attacks.

The judge said he agreed to keep Hermes out of jail because he cooperated with investigators. Hermes is due back in court Jan. 27.

Duck killings

Also Thursday, a man turned himself in for this week’s killings of 57 mallard ducks by snowmobiles in Fond du Lac.

A warden from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources interviewed the man, who’s in his early 30’s from the Fond du Lac area, but officials say their investigation is continuing.

The dead ducks were found Tuesday at a spot with open water on the Fond du Lac River, near the city’s sewage plant. It’s a place where snowmobilers are known to do water-skipping above a hole on the ice.

It casts a toll ... on you.

I was wondering, in reviewing the lyrics below, if some were missing. See, I always heard it as, "It casts a toll..." which also fits there context-wise.*

Same with the opening line -- to me, the English accent comes out as "Caught up in a clear blue morning." (Steve's English, right?) So, I'm gonna keep singing it my way I think since that's the way I heard it all these years.

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We cancelled the Milwaukee meeting tomorrow on account of the cold. Which was a good decision they made, I think. You never know, even though you can stay warm bundled in layers, about the vehicles starting up in those temps. Or if you get stranded road side.
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*Really, the road theme there reminds me of Mac Davis: Life Ain't no Easy Freeway. Which is also good. But good luck finding those lyrics online, or anything on YouTube.

From memory:
"But we all have destinations, and the dust will settle down/ Cuz life ain't no easy freeway, just some gravel on the ground...

Are you still free? Can you be?

Stand up in a clear blue morning...
until you see, what can be
alone in a cold day dawning.
Are you still free? Can you be?

When some cold tomorrow finds you,
when some sad old dream reminds you,
how the endless road unwinds you...

While you see a chance take it,
find romance, fake it
because it's all ... on you.

Don't you know by now: no one gives you anything?
And don't you wonder how you keep on ...moving
One More Day...
Your Way !

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It's a road trip week: tonight's the first return home trip, and the road songs were good. Steve Winwood, above, I haven't heard in a while. One of my favorites...

And you know you want to see the video! Yes you do.
Here's a comment tease:

Mrstarman3 (1 week ago) This is a great song, but the video???

A pyramid of aluminum siding, somersaulting ninjas and mirrors???????? And Steve with a keyboard.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Bono breaks into the old grey lady...

Once upon a couple of weeks ago ...

I’m in a crush in a Dublin pub around New Year’s. Glasses clinking clicking, clashing crashing in Gaelic revelry: swinging doors, sweethearts falling in and out of the season’s blessings, family feuds subsumed or resumed. Malt joy and ginger despair are all in the queue to be served on this, the quarter-of-a-millennium mark since Arthur Guinness first put velvety blackness in a pint glass.
...
There’s a voice on the speakers that wakes everyone out of the moment: it’s Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.” His ode to defiance is four decades old this year and everyone sings along for a lifetime of reasons. I am struck by the one quality his voice lacks: Sentimentality.

and let's just say, he's not like the usual sorts who have taken up residence there over the declining years...

More please, or do intelligent readers with my demographics not matter much? (Like: "Whose yer daddy?", you know?)

Look, with the editorial ego on parade, you'd really have to swallow hard to make the argument that Brooks/Friedman/Krugman/Dowd/Collins and guest extras are offering up anything nutritious these days. No accountability in their work, just recycled columns about the economy and the Middle East (really -- this whole downturn thing took y'all by surprise?)

Were she a ship, surely some of these squawkers would be treading water by now. So good move to hire the Bono, over another stale law professor, or paper economist, or well-bred do-gooder, or where ever else they dig up those "folk".

Let's hear some honest voices -- from folks who don't cash the paycheck either way, whether they are spot on, or whether they are again repetitively preaching to their choirs. That crew -- they're pretty stale, no? And forgive me for being blunt and rude, but that's not really where America is today -- aging, smug, and confident of all their "correctness." Give me the young gun over the tired hash, any day...

That's one good thing that will come of our economic troubles, I think -- less insurance. Meaning if you produce something good, you get. If you are wary and fearful of rocking the boat, standing up to the crowd so to speak, unwilling to take risks that in the end pay off, you're out.

By rewarding all voices equally, whether they really "get it" or are clueless, you're making a mockery of the market. Not to mention missing out on all the worthy life still going on out here. Because you can't tenure intelligence anymore than you can realistically take the scorecards away from the crowd. Yep, we're watching. And some of us out here ... not only can we read, we can add. Don't bring us all down with you, eh?
---------------

Meanwhile, here's Cohen today on Obama's assemblage of the new Middle East advisor "dream team":

Now, I have nothing against smart, driven, liberal, Jewish (or half-Jewish) males; I’ve looked in the mirror. I know or have talked to all these guys, except Shapiro. They’re knowledgeable, broad-minded and determined. Still, on the diversity front they fall short. On the change-you-can-believe-in front, they also leave something to be desired.

In an adulatory piece in Newsweek, Michael Hirsh wrote: “Ross’s previous experience as the indefatigable point man during the failed Oslo process, as well as the main negotiator with Syria, make him uniquely suited for a major renewal of U.S. policy on nearly every front.”

Really? I wonder about the capacity for “major renewal” of someone who has failed for so long.

I think he gets it.

Change is needed, and not just in the intensity of U.S. diplomatic involvement with Israel-Palestine. Some fundamental questions must be asked.

Does regarding the Middle East almost exclusively through the prism of the war on terror make sense? Does turning a blind eye to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank that frustrate a two-state solution, and the Israeli blockade of Gaza that radicalizes its population, not undermine U.S. interest in bolstering moderate Palestinian sentiment?

Should policy not be directed toward reconciling a Palestinian movement now split between Fatah and Hamas, without which no final-status peace will be possible? Beyond their terrorist wings, in their broad grass-roots political movements, what elements of Hamas and Hezbollah can be coaxed toward the mainstream?

Do we understand the increasingly sophisticated Middle East of Al Jazeera where, as Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland, put it to me, “People are not dumb and our credibility is at a historic near-zero?”

We'll see...

Asking these questions does not alter America’s commitment to Israel’s security within its pre-1967 borders, which is and should be unwavering. It does not change the unacceptability of Hamas rockets or the fact the Hamas Charter is vile. But it would signal that the damaging Bush-era consensus that Israel can do no wrong is to be challenged.

I don’t feel encouraged — not by the putative Ross-redux team, nor by the nonbinding resolutions passed last week in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The former offered “unwavering commitment” to Israel. The latter recognized “Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza.” Neither criticized Israel.

It seems that among liberal democracies, it is only in the U.S .Congress that a defense against terror that results in the slaying of hundreds of Palestinian children is not cause for agonized soul-searching. In my view, such Israeli “defense” has crossed the line.

“We are all opposed to terrorism,” Telhami said. “But how does that enlighten you about how to move forward?”

When will our wise men realize that the only way out of this mess is to draft the moderate Palestian majority to our side? And (when we will realize) what Israel is doing now, and all the destructive plans they have pursued under the still-alive Sharon, act against their aims and bring them no closer to tasting true independence?

Truth be told, humans will win this thing. Not unmanned drones, not scholar soldiers with unlimited bullets shooting at anything that moves. Not big blasts that light up the night sky and lay waste to years of effort. People. Humans. Like me and you.

He (Obama) said during the campaign that “an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel” can’t be “the measure of our friendship with Israel.” Those were words. Now, with Gaza blood flowing, come deeds.

Dunno about you or your faith in future President Obama. Me? I'm not holding my breath. In fact, I'm breathing it all in, especially the freshly scented airs -- I mean, that's the way life is supposed to be lived, no?

"I'd rather be ashes than dust. I would rather have my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and perseverant planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist."

~Jack London

Sick, senseless stupidity.

Bring em to justice, Waupaca:

“It is senseless. I don’t know how else to describe it,” Dremel said. “It is probably something they thought was fun or humorous at the time. They did purposely run over these deer. The tracks in the snow were in a circular manner, almost looking like they were chasing the deer back to other snowmobile partners.”

Randy Yorkson, who farms the land, said people cannot believe what happened.

“I am going to guess it is somebody who left a bar. They probably had been using that trail before, knowing the deer were out there,” he said. “This is just some yahoos who don’t have any common sense.”

Landowner Virginia Niemuth, 80, immediately shut off access to her property, closing five miles of the main snowmobile trail across Waupaca County.

“There’s sick people out there,” Niemuth said. “I used to love to snowmobile, but this is too much.”

Dremel believes three or four snowmobiles were involved in a roundup of deer in a moonlit alfalfa field where 30 to 40 animals were known to feed. Witnesses reported hearing snowmobiles in the area about 3:30 a.m., he said.

Three deer were found dead in the field. A snowmobile stopped atop one and ripped open its stomach, Dremel said. A fourth deer with broken legs was euthanized.

The fifth deer was dragged from the field and tied to a tree about 25 feet from a road. Investigators think someone may have planned to return for that deer, Dremel said.

“It looked like the deer wrapped itself around the tree and choked itself to death,” he said.

Dremel said he has never heard of this kind of “cowboy-style” attack on deer with snowmobiles.

“Usually, it is an accident — a deer standing in a trail and a snowmobiler can’t avoid it,” he said.

The dead deer included two bucks and three does. One was a fawn.

Investigators have no suspects. Some snowmobile clubs have offered $4,000 in rewards for information leading to arrests, Dremel said. Information can be phoned into the DNR’s tip line at (800) TIP-WDNR, or (800) 847-9367.

“This is not characteristic of the snowmobile community in Wisconsin,” DNR Chief Warden Randy Stark said in Madison. “Obviously, we are looking to get any public assistance we can in identifying who is responsible for this.”

PRO-LIFE means many things to many people. Is it me, or is our society raising more and more of our young people to turn their backs on human -- and animal -- suffering? Shameful, those who laugh at such atrocities ... and those who turn their heads and choose not to see.

MORE:

Snowmobile groups are contributing to a growing reward to find the snowmobilers who ran down and tortured five deer in Waupaca County.

The DNR says between two and four snowmobiles were involved in the attacks early Saturday morning. Some of the deer were found with broken legs and dragged behind a snowmobile. One was tied to a tree.

The current reward is around $4,000 for information leading to those responsible, in addition to a possible $1,000 from CrimeStoppers.

Area snowmobilers are worried the acts of a few will have lasting effects on the majority.

"Everybody is mad as hell about it. Everybody is just, everybody is upset about it," Tim Dwyer, president of the Scandinavia Viking Snowmobile Club, said.

In an area where snowmobiling is a way of life, a bad rap is something the sport can't afford.

"The snowmobiling community as a whole is probably more appalled about this than anyone else," Dwyer said. "It makes us all look bad. It makes us look bad in the public, it make us look bad with the landowners."


Local enthusiasts say it can take years to gain access to trails -- many of them run through private property -- and a single senseless act by a few irresponsible individuals has the potential to take that all away.

"Landowners aren't going to put up with it. They're going to shut their properties down and snowmobiling won't be around," snowmobiler John Nutter said. "It takes a few bad apples and it's going to ruin it for everybody."

Right now around 13 different groups invest thousands of hours caring for more than 400 miles of trails in Waupaca County.

"People are assigned certain sections of trail and they mark that section, they talk to landowners, they patrol in the wintertime. If a sign gets knocked over they replace them. If a tree branch is in the way they cut them," Dwyer said.

Snowmobilers hope these things are what people remember.

"You can ride anywhere, and this puts the whole trail network at risk," Dwyer said.

"Everybody wants these people caught," Nutter added.

Happy birthday Mo-Town !

If you've got a good friend nearing that half century mark this month... just remind 'em:

"Motown has a lot of slow, romantic songs for people in their 40s and mid-50s who want to feel 25 again for a couple of hours. And if you're on a date, you're guaranteed to get lucky."

To quote a Smokey Robinson and the Miracles song from the Memory Lane playlist, "Ooh, baby, baby."
...
"It's got that sound that everyone can relate to, the beat and the melody," offers vocalist Gregory "Popeye" Alexander. "And they've got the greatest hooks on the planet.

Lol... I just added the link (kicked off the library computer too soon), and read the rest of Leslie's piece:

'You Keep Me Hanging On,' The Supremes: When I was little, I used to think, "Diana, if he don't really love you, why do you need him to set you free? Just stand up for yourself, punch him in the nose, adjust your wig and leave!" But now, I understand that impulse that ties you to a charming manipulator that you just can't shake. Of course, I still support the punching/wig plan. But I get it.

'You Really Got A Hold On Me,' The Miracles: Sort of like Diana and her wig, Smokey's singing about the conundrum of not liking someone all that much while still really, really loving them. This makes sense only when you've gone through it a couple of times.

'The Tracks of My Tears,' The Miracles: Smokey, he knew the suffering.

'Living For The City,' Stevie Wonder: At 24, living in one room on a mattress in a questionable neighborhood eating tater tots and Rice-A-Roni, I finally got what Stevie was singing about. Living just enough, just e-nough for the ci-taaaay! And the tater tots.

'I Hear A Symphony,' The Supremes: Of course, Motown's not all bad relationships and subsisting on processed foods. I weep for anyone who has never, even once looked into someone's face and heard violins and angels and birds singing. This stage sometimes only lasts a few weeks before the "Whenever you're near, I hear a screeching jackal" stage.

"It's a beautiful day. Not a cloud in sight.**

So I guess I'm doing alright."* Enjoy, and happy Saturday.
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Random thoughts:

"One's 40s are the old age of youth; 50s are the youth of old age."
~Victor Hugo.
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*And here's the acoustic version, for those who'd prefer to see JoDee singing herself.

** Related story.