CALL ME SNAKE

How low the mighty have fallen. Although the Boston Celtics are still, I believe, the most “storied” franchise in NBA history, this season–which finds them sitting squarely in the cellar–has been largely irrelevant. Nothing exemplifies that better than last night’s TV news at 11 on Channel 5 here in Boston, which featured the birth of Nomar Garciaparra’s twin girls ahead of the Celtics’ solid victory over a solid Orlando squad. Nomar has not been on the Red Sox for years, yet the editorial powers deemed his newly-born children a more important “sports” story. At the risk of repeating myself, I have to say: How low the mighty have fallen.

Saw this in yesterday’s Metro, my sudoku paper (do you sudoku?): “A Mattapan man with a history of conflict with his father allegedly ended the longstanding feud by bludgeoning the man to death, dismembering the body and spreading parts of it–including the head–in a Roxbury backyard.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is exactly the kind of behavior that gives “conflict resolution”–as well as “anger management”–a bad name. Brings to mind the oft-quoted query posed by American folk hero Rodney King: “Can’t we all get along?”

I don’t claim to know the girl at all. I just saw a couple of her movies with my older daughter–”Parent Trap” and “Freaky Friday”–so it was somewhat depressing to learn that the winsome kid from those movies is now 20 and in AA. To me, it seems kind of sad for someone that young to be in AA. But I suppose it would be even sadder for someone with a drinking problem not to be in AA. And that’s about all I have to say on a subject about which I really shouldn’t be saying anything.

With Barack Obama’s recent admission that he is contemplating a run for the presidency in 2008, several questions come to mind: Is America ready for an African-American president? (I hope so.) Is Obama ready for that exalted office after less than two years in the U.S. Senate? Is America ready for a candidate who has not even completed a single term in the Senate? And more importantly, is America ready for a president who is several years my junior?

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” the old saw goes. And given that, according to the latest polls, Deval Patrick now sports a 25 percentage point lead over Kerry Healey in the governor’s race in Massachusetts, Patrick supporters have to think things are going well for their guy. (He’s my guy too.) But still, I’ve got to question the ad campaign that portray Patrick as a soft-spoken, mild-mannered, latter-day Mister Rogers. Patrick claims he can take on the entrenched gang of meat-eaters that rules the State House, but the ads suggest he may not be ready to take on a Brownie troop.

Lest I sound like a hypocrite, I want to reiterate my strong (undying) support for Patrick (and equally strong aversion to his Republican opponent). That said, Healey has claimed he’s “not tough enough,” and the ads he’s running suggest she might be right. I’d say it’s time for a new ad campaign–something punchier and snappier–so that we can get away from the Casper Milquetoast image that has filled the airwaves for too long. It’s time to meet the Governator.

After Deval Patrick won last Tuesday’s primary, I felt, for the first time in a long while, the stirrings of something special–finally some excitement about a new face on the political scene, akin to the feeling I had when Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992. So far, Patrick seems to offer everything you’d want in a politician: He’s smart, thoughtful, charismatic, and nondoctrinaire. I think he’ll be able to dispose of his Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, with little difficulty (a contest that a Globe columnist characterized as one of “hope vs. tax cuts”). Healy is offering the standard Republican formula, trying to cast Patrick as a “tax-and-spend” liberal, and I expect that by now that stratagem has worn thin. Healy also suffers from the taint of Romney–a governor whose slogan appears to be “Anywhere But Massachusetts.” Assuming Patrick does prevail over our Lieutenant Governor, he’ll then face an even bigger challenge, attempting to do what his former boss Clinton did not–measuring up to his great promise.

To hear the Boston Globe describe it, youths are running wild, and unclothed, in the streets Brattleboro, Vermont, where public nudity is perfectly legal. “What began as a lark or an ode to youthful exubrance has now turned into a municipal quandary,” writes the New England paper of record (my second favorite source of information after Parade magazine, of course). Some adults in the community, including business proprietors, have been offended by the brazen displays of undress. It has reached the point where local businesses might be tempted to purchase one of my all-time favorite (and bestselling) bumper stickers: “No shirt, no shoes, no pants, no service.” While legislators are now contemplating a ban on public nudity, I suspect the youthful practice will ultimately attract more tourists and “sightseers” to the town than would normally flock there, in which case town officials might want to make public nudity not just permissable but mandatory. The state’s license plates, taking a cue from New Hampshire, might then read: “Clothes free or die.”

Hi folks — back in town with lots on my mind. Here’s the first of what I hope will be a number of short missives: Those (damn) conservatives love to rail about the “liberal press,” “media bias,” and the like. This morning, in NPR’s so-called “news analysis,” Cokie Roberts discussed Republican plans to turn (once again) the terrorist threat to their advantage. Instead of calling Dick Cheney’s argument that Ned Lamont’s victory will promote terrorism the load of crap that it is, Roberts gave credence to that inane (insane?) remark, saying that this issue could indeed hurt the Democrats who are traditionally viewed as “weak on defense.” How’s that for world-class news analysis? (Note to NPR: Why not cut out the middleman and hire Dick Cheney outright?) And how’s that for liberal bias in the media? I’m not what you’d call a praying man, but God help us if it were any less liberal.

Our man Mitt, the hero of the Big Dig fiasco (who has impressed everyone with his incomparable grasp of bolts and epoxy), ran afoul of the law by appointing too many Republicans to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board. This week Romney was forced to add a non-Republican to the board not out of any special regard for bi-partisanship, but because, as I mentioned before, IT’S THE LAW. Too bad there’s not a similar law to limit the number of Republicans in the Executive Branch (i.e., the White House) and in the U.S. Congress. That might be the only chance we have for a modicum of sanity in this once-great (but now psychotic) nation.

Some news accounts on the radio have suggested that Bush’s trusted aide, Karl Rove, got a demotion, handing over his policy management responsibilities to Joel Kaplan. But that’s far from true. They can call Rove whatever they want but his true job will always remain the same: that’s telling Bush what to do when Dick Cheney isn’t telling Bush what to do.

Watch out, Rumsfeld, the generals are gunning for you. The military people in the field agree almost unanimously that your war plan is an unmitigated disaster. Prominent generals like Paul Eaton and Anthony Zinni–people who actually know what’s going on Iraq–are calling for your ouster.

President Bush, not surprisingly, is standing by his man. (He’s loyal to a fault.) Why can’t he see the failings of Rumfeld that are obvious to everyone else? I figure Einstein had it right in saying “it’s all relative” (and he was right about a couple of other things too). Bush is shaping up as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, while Rumsfeld is destined to be one of the worst Defense Secretaries in history. Is it any surprise then that Bush thinks Rumsfeld is doing such a great job?

Tuesday’s Boston Globe had a nice “perspective” piece by Peter Canellos about Bush’s lackey Andrew Card, the former chief of staff. Card was more like a “lowly manservant” than an “imperious” ruler, Canellos wrote, largely due to the inordinate amount of power wielded by VP Dick Cheney. Here’s the part I wish I’d written, as it says very well something I’ve thought about many times before: “Cheney seems happy to swim along with an approval rating lower than Bush. He isn’t running for office. He’s running the country.”

Poor Johnny Damon, the erstwhile Red Sox center fielder who claims “the Red Sox flat-out disrespected me” when the team only offered him a four-year, $40 million contract. The Yankees offered him four years, $52 million. Which deal do you think he took?

All my life (or at least most of it, or at least part of it, or at least on one occasion, I’m pretty sure) I’ve been respected. I could stand for some of the disrespect that Damon was served up.

I was prepared to write my usual curmudgeonly bit about the decline of ice skating at the Olympics. The men’s competition, from what I saw, was dismal. The heightened focus on jumping–which has been the trend over the last several Games–has hurt the sport, in my opinion. Skaters, both male and female, are under intense pressure to perform jumps that are somewhat beyond their abilities. The result is frequent falls which are no fun (and sometimes painful) to watch. The grace and artistry (of someone like Paul Wylie) is mostly gone.

I was all set to write that until last night when I was lucky enough to catch the last few female entries in the “short program.” Sasha Cohen was marvelous–a revelation–and I’m now prepared to eat those words. We can only hope that Cohen and the other athletes will achieve similarly exalted levels during tomorrow’s free skate competition.

Donald Rumself scoffed at Kofi Annan’s call to shut down the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Rumsfeld claimed that the UN Secretary had never been to Gitmo and that he was “flat wrong” to suggest that prisoners there had been mistreated. Annan’s statements about Gitmo were “beyond comprehension,” Rumsfeld maintained. “That place is being run as well as any detention facility can be run.”

If Rumsfeld is so fond of the place, maybe he should spend his next vacation there. Or better yet, take up permanent residence at that jewel in the Caribbean. And while he’s at it, he could take his friends–Bush and Cheney–along with him.

“BUSH PREACHES PEACE” was the headline in today’s METRO, the free Boston tabloid I get strictly for sudoku. I’m reassured by words of peace from a president who was hellbent on getting us into war in Iraq, using whatever lie it would take.

Then there was the lead story in yesterday’s Boston Globe about gaps in Bush’s budget: “Plan would cut funding aimed at conservation.” The budget advanced by the Bush administration slashed $100 million in federal programs promoting energy conservation–this on the heels of the State of the Union address in which the president admonished his subjects for their addiction to oil.

By now it’s painfully obvious that officials in this administration, Bush and Cheney in particular, will say anything–without regard to truth, logic, or common sense. There’s no point in complaining about it; that’s just what they do. But why do we listen?

Sometime soon, maybe even today, Steve Rossett plans to take off in his jet glider and fly more than 27,000 miles in 80 consecutive hours. We’re all supposed to applaud his heroic effort to break the world record for long-distance flight, and far be it from me to stand between a man and his dream. Yet I’m not too enthused about Fossett taking “catnaps” during his solo flight. Call me old-fashioned but I prefer that people piloting planes at nearly 300 miles an hour be awake rather than sleeping.

George Bush just confirmed what Robert Palmer has been saying (singing?) all along: We’re a nation “addicted to love.” That’s a serious problem, and we need some research on the scale of the Manhattan Project to find news ways for people to relate. It’s great that an American president finally had the guts to face up to an issue that has stayed below the surface for so long.

Oh wait. I just read the newspaper more carefully. Actually he said we’re “addicted to oil.” OK, forget what I said before. Sorry Robert Palmer, sounds like you’re wrong after all. The problem is OIL, not love. And we need to break our addiction to it right away. The first thing we need to do is to resist any efforts to increase the fuel efficiency of our nation’s cars and trucks. And to deny vehemently that the carbon dioxide we’re pumping into the air might have anything to do with the Earth’s climate. When you’re done with that, come back and we’ll talk again. I love these little talks of ours, don’t you?

By now, many of you may have heard about the man from Hopkinton, Mass. who evidently fled the country soon after his wife and young daughter were shot to death, and went back to his native England where he refuses to cooperate with the police. I have no idea whether this man, whom Massachusetts authorities call a “person of interest,” had anything to do with the terrible crimes that occurred in his home. But his behavior since those horrific acts–including his apparent unwillingness to go home for the funerals–has done nothing to quell suspicion.

Is it a crime to act guilty even if you may not have committed the crimes you are suspected of? Some clues may come from The Stranger by Albert Camus. That guy (Mersault) was condemned for not crying at his mother’s funeral. This guy won’t even attend the funeral–perhaps out of fear that he, like Mersault, would not be able to muster any tears.

Major League Baseball is getting tough on drugs, increasing the penalties for the use of steroids and amphetamines. The U.S. Congress took an active role in all this, essentially forcing the sport to adopt more stringent policies. But wait a minute? Why is Congress so worked up over performance-enhancing drugs in professional baseball when it’s done so little to curb the use of performance-degrading (and sometimes life-ending) drugs in our nation’s schools? Is there something wrong with our priorities? Is baseball really more important than the health and wellbeing of our children? Evidently so. They don’t call it the “national pastime” for nothing. In case you haven’t noticed, “the three r’s” are no longer reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic; they’re roids, reds, and roofies.

Last month in the Boston Phoenix, media columnist Mark Jurkowitz wrote: “journalists now smell blood in the waters of Bush’s troubled second term.” And this was before the Harriet Miers fiasco, the Scooter Libby embarrassment, and the ongoing investigation into the Valerie Plame leak case. I, too, am smelling blood and (without sounding too violent) would like to see some heads roll, especially the big fat ones belonging to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Wouldn’t that be special, to paraphrase the Church Lady.

While it’s true the deceit involved in this case pales in comparison to other lies told by Bush and his surrogates (superiors?), the infractions are indeed major compared to the lies Clinton told about his relationship (and relations) with a former White House intern. I can’t believe this business started and ended with the “Scooter.” But from what I’ve heard, Patrick (“Fearless”) Fitzgerald just might be the man to determine how far, and how high, this thing goes.

“Another one bites the dust,” a wise Queen once sang. Harriet Miers, as everyone knows, has stepped down. Apparently, the fact that she went to church religiously–and if not “religiously,” at least faithfully, and if not “faithfully,” at least regularly, and if not “regularly,” at least occasionally–was not enough to convince some folks that she was qualified to hold a seat on the highest court in the land. She clearly appeared to be in over her head, which has been the case with many Bush appointees. The man ostensibly running our government holds government in ill regard and picks people accordingly. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don’t know how to react to yesterday’s news. I don’t for a minute think she deserved to be a Supreme Court justice. I’m still of the opinion (call me old-fashioned) that a bit of knowledge about constitutional law might be helpful for someone in that position. I’m also happy to see Bush dealt another embarrassing setback. On the other hand, I know he can, and just might, pick someone who would be unquestionably worse and perhaps an outright “disaster.” So it looks like we’ll be rolling the dice, once again. Les jeux sont fait. Or as the French put it: Either way, we’re screwed.

I was lying on my back yesterday, working–no I’m not a male prostitute, unless you happen to consider freelance writing prostitution, as some do–when the radio show I was listening to, “On Point” (what promised to be an interesting discussion about Hillary Clinton) suddenly switched to that rare occurrence, a press conference with George W. Bush.

Were it not for my back injury, which makes getting up from the prone position slow and painful, I would have turned the radio off immediately. Instead I was forced to hear the president repeat himself endlessly about how his latest Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, is a good person and a “bright” one to boot (how’s that for qualifications?) who shares his “judicial philosophy.” Many questions, of course, spring to mind, with one, perhaps, more salient than the others: Since when does a pledge “not to legislate from the bench” constitute a “judicial philosphy”? That might be a talking point, a slogan, or, more likely, notes in bold print from a teleprompter, but a philosophy it is not. Unless the hallowed field of philosophy–the old stomping ground of Plato and Aristotle, before George Bush staked a claim to it–is in even worse straits than I ever imagined.

They say a writer’s in trouble when he starts recycling his own material, but I’ve long since stopped worrying about being washed up. Which is why I’m taking an exchange I had a week or so ago with Gatemouth, which had been buried in the comments section, and putting it up front. There’s a word for what I’m doing, and it’s called self-plagiarism. And if that isn’t a word, it ought to be.

But getting back to the exchange I’m rescuing from the “back of the book,” as it were: At the time, Gatemouth and I and others had been discussing Bush’s failures of “leadership” (I use the term advisedly), as evidenced most recently by his response (or lack thereof) to the Katrina disaster. Given all the president’s screwups, lies, deceptions, and general incompetence, someone else speculated, shouldn’t a Democrat have a cakewalk to the White House in 2008? Gatemouth offered a cautionary note, sagely pointing out that, so far, none of the people mentioned as possible candidates have showed any “real gumption”–a problem that plagued the Democratic contenders in the last two presidential elections. I agreed with him by and large, as I generally do, and am still grateful for his role in helping me come to terms with an incipient TV issue before it became an actual problem.

Despite my gratitude, I took issue with part of his statement. Al Gore, I countered, showed a lot of gumption in 2004. In fact, you might say he was the epitome of gumption during that election. The only problem was, he ran for office in 2000.

So far as I can tell, the “low-carb” or “no-carb” craze that gripped the nation a few years ago has abated, and although I’m not an overtly religious man, I say thank god for that. The latest trend I’ve observed, while doing field research at the local supermarket, is a resurgence of whole grain products in the strangest places. Nabisco has gotten on this bandwagon in a big way. Now there are whole wheat Wheat Thins which strikes me as a sensible idea. Whole wheat Fig Newtons is another entry into the field. I haven’t tried them yet but I’m keeping an open mind on it. (Offhand, going with my “gut” feeling, I think the concept just might work.) In addition, we now have Whole Wheat Chips Ahoy.

That’s where I think Nabisco may have stepped over the line. Has anyone in the world’s history ever considered Chips Ahoy healthy? It’s a fine product, although it also happens to be what I consider the epitome of junk food, right up there with Doritos (another of my favorites), Snickers, and the like. Can’t we just enjoy these small indulgences without trying to make them “healthy” too? Or, to put it more redundantly, can’t we at least have some small allotment of pure, unadulterated junk food in our daily diet, to satisfy whatever psychological need that satisfies, rather than trying to load them up with whole grain, fiber, vitamins, and minerals?

I don’t claim to have all the answers on this, but I’m not sure I’m ready for Whole Wheat Chips Ahoy. I suppose I could do a simple test and try them, see what they’re like. That approach, however, is too obvious. Too pat. I’d much rather do my complaining (and speculating) from a position of ignorance.

My wife knew one of the local weatherman (call him “Eddie”) as a kid growing up in her neighborhood, where she grew up as well, if that makes any sense. When Eddie made the leap to the big time, from weekend weatherman to the 11:00 news, I watched his forecasts religiously. He’s improved his delivery a lot over the years, avoiding some of the missteps (awkward choreography, blocking the view on the weather charts, for example, and other no-no’s), and overcoming the stiffness that plagued his act in the early days. I feel unfaithful saying this but for the last year or so, I’ve been watching his Channel Five rival, “Harvey,” instead. Not for any good reason. I mean, I can’t remember Eddie blowing a big forecast and, as a result, my big picnic got rained out. But for some reason, again not based on any sound statistical analysis, I have more confidence in Harvey, who’s a bit older (though not OLD), and looks more like a weatherman, whatever that means. I can’t say Harvey’s forecasts are more reliable, and in fact they may be more fallible, but for me, at least, they have the ring of truth. When it comes down to it, he may not know a thing about meteorology but he’s more comfortable on camera–and perhaps more comfortable in his own skin, as they say. So for now I’m sticking with Channel Five.

That said, I’d like to see all the stations reduce their forecasts from the standard five minutes to 30 seconds or less. And we don’t need a weather forecast three times in 30 minutes–a preview forecast followed by the “main” forecast and then the wrapup. Nor do we need our weathermen to be–or feebly attempt to be–standup comedians. Personally, I can do without the patter. Just a forecast, and preferably an accurate one, would be fine.

I caught a few seconds of an interview with Dick Cheney the other day. (To my friend, “CheneyLover,” this is your cue to chime in.) He said something to the effect that he took the VP job to be more than just a pretty face. And he wanted some responsibilities, he wanted to do more than just wait around as a stand-in in case something ever happened to the Commander-in-Chief. Well, how does running the country sound? Is that enough responsibility? If not, perhaps running the world would suit him better.

I’m just thinking out loud here, as usual. Please don’t read anything into it.

When I was a youth, the saying used to be “Black is Beautiful,” not “Black is Republican.” But the headline on a front page story in today’s Boston Globe reads: “More young blacks ready to embrace GOP.” A picture of Adam Hunter of Somerset, N.J., adorns the front page, just below the headline.

I, for one, am skeptical of this story. There’s another picture on page 4, where the article continues, and it features, you guessed it, Adam Hunter of Somerset, N.J., which makes me think the Boston Globe had to go all the way to New Jersey to find a young black Republican since they couldn’t find one in Boston. Not only that, they couldn’t even find another young black Republican to take a picture of. So I’m not going to worry about what might otherwise be a worrisome trend. When they find two young black Republicans to write about, then I’ll start to worry.

If you experience frequent angry outbursts to the point that it adversely affects your performance on the job or at school or your relationships with friends–particularly overly-sensitive friends who don’t like the occasional sucker punch or head butt–you just might have the latest psychiatric ailment, “Intermittent Explosive Disorder.” The scientists who study this condition consider it a distinct, neurophysiological ailment and say the label can lead to better treatment. If this reduces the odds of my getting killed from road rage, I’d have to regard that as a step forward.

Yet the reactionary side of my has to wonder: Are psychiatric conditions such as Intermittent Explosive Disorder, so-called “Sexual Addiction,” Gambling Addiction, and the like merely covers for bad behavior? I’m all for helping people get better, especially people who might otherwise be inclined to do me in. But I don’t want to give license for individuals to act out in inappropriate and violent ways simply because some new psychiatric diagnosis now “explains” their substandard behavior.

I don’t know if this makes sense. I’m just thinking out loud, here. Maybe I’ve got a condition too, call it Online Processing of Half-Baked Ideas.

I don’t want to make light of human suffering or the fear induced by terrorist acts, but you’d have to call yesterday’s attacks on London a bust. As of this writing, only one person needed medical attention (and that was for an asthma attack) after bombs were set off on three subway trains and one double-decker bus. It makes you wonder whether the terrorists are missing those fun summer camps they used to have in Afghanistan, where they learned about making and detonating explosives and other ways of amusing themselves. We can only hope they fare as poorly in future attempts at wreaking havoc.

From what I know (which is essentially nothing), Netflix is a well-run company: You order the movies online and they arrive in the mail precisely on schedule. Yet I think Netflix is emblematic of a worrisome trend in this great land–people doing their shopping by computer (amazon.com being another example), without getting out to see and interact with other people. Eventually, this has to take a toll on our society, to the extent there is any society left.

That said, I must make a painful confession: I subscribe to NetFlix, despite the fact that I think it’s part (admittedly a small part) of what’s wrong with America. How did this come about? I got sucked in with a free one-month offer. By the end of the first month, I hadn’t had time to watch the free movies, so I ended up paying for one month. By the time that month had elapsed, I still hadn’t finished watching the movies. So it continues. But this month I vow to turn the movies in before the due date, whether I watch them or not, so that I can do my part in saving America, assuming it’s not too late. If it is too late, I apologize for my role in contributing to this sad decline.

Much was written in the 1990s–and I personally shoulder part of the blame–about the four million miles of public roads that cover our nation with asphalt. What a terrible thing, we all said. All those roads. All those damned roads…

But when I see TV ads today (not that I watch TV, and especially not the ads), it’s hard to find a car that actually follows a road. Instead, they’re all driving up mountainsides, or smashing their way through jungles, or splashing across wetlands, in a full-frontal, all-out assault on the environment. I used to think all those roads were a tragedy–cursing those poor chaps in the blacktop industry–but now I wish at least a few cars would stick to the pavement.