Roots?

My German grandfather's birth name was Rock. His mother's maiden was Meerholz. They died together in a distant accident when my grandfather was a child and he was taken for adoption by his mother's family, and his name changed to the matrinominal Meerholz, which may have been shortened on arrival in America to Merholz. (Please, no T)

Playing Around with Google Earth I came across the name Meerholz in a town in Germany. Meerholz translates to sea wood in English and I have sometimes used the pseudonym B.J. Driftwood. Looking the town up on Google, I found that a vacant plot of ground in this little village now stands, after Bulgaria and Romania joined on January 1, at the geographical center of the European Union.

Make of it what you will.

Squirrel hunt

I parked in a large lot behind a block of stores and let Charlie loose for a little stretch and marking. Suddenly a squirrel appeared on the open ground, Charlie zeroed in and the chase was on. The squirrel zigged and zagged but couldn't shake Charlie, breathing down his neck and barking in his ear.

I chose not to interfere during the chase. It looked to me that Charlie could have seized the squirrel if he so wanted, and I was ready to reach in if he started to lunge, but harassment seemed to be his only interest. And animal observation was my interest.

I would guess it was basically over in ten to fifteen seconds when the squirrel finally found a power pole and started his climb. He actually slipped back to the ground after a foot or so but quickly regained his grip on the wood and scampered to a safe height, from which he loudly chided or taunted Charlie, who merely seemed to shrug and sauntered off to pee some more.

It was pleasing for me to see that although Charlie often barks at and charges toward squirrels, birds, cats, motorcycles, leaf blowers, etc., it seems to be no different than when he does the same thing to dogs, from which no harm has yet derived. Just a bit of sport.

Game On!

As action on the basketball court winds down, attention to the U.S. Supreme Court heats up. There is now the usual controversy over the selection of a new Justice and attitudes and platitudes are fanning the flames of partisanship. Juxtaposition of the two courts points up their similarities. The myth is that the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, like our sports umpires and referees, possess superior understanding of their respective venues and exercise appropriate wisdom in their final decisions. This is hardly the facts of the matters.

The Supreme Court is our ultimate legal authority not because it is our wisest court, but simply our court of last resort. Its record of decisions, usually 5-4, is less an accurate decider of Constitutional merit than is it the equivalent of a shoot-out of penalty kicks or shots on goal after an unresolving number of OTs in a soccer or hockey match. Someone has to be declared the winner, that is the nature of an adversary system.

Only on the Supreme Court, the nine justices – or referees, if you will, take the penalty kicks instead of the litigants. It becomes, at that point in our judicial system, a game between the sitting justices. Their prejudices, preferences, mind sets and rhetorical skills themselves become the contest they engage in. The prize for victory is the establishment of those prejudices as national law, regardless of merit, or lack of same.

The Senate confirmation hearings are the preliminary game played between the opposing parties and the nominating President in an effort to stack the nine member bench with referees expected to be most favorable to their interests. I, of course, hope that the new appointee, whenever in play, will score some goals for our side.

Time Marches On....

In 1909--

The average life expectancy was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were only 8,000 cars and only

144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour.

The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year .

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
A dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME.

Ninety percent of all doctors had

NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!

Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which

Were condemned in the press AND the government as 'substandard. '

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used
Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from

Entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea

Hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had
Graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

Eighteen percent of households had at least
One full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S..A. !

So where do we go from here?

Poltergeist?

Okay. So two days ago I prepared to shave but, after lathering up, realized that my Sensor excel razor was not resting across the top of my pewter shaving mug. I couldn't find it on the counter so I took the razor from my travel kit and shaved.

When I couldn't find the damn thing by yesterday I did a major ransack of my bathroom, closets, drawers and cabinets. Julie tsk tsked my absent mindedness and while I was out, she did one of her major - and usually successful - searches and came up with nothing. Since it had no hiding place, hidden or in plain sight, Julie was convinced the razor had somehow left the building. I felt we were in the grip of a mystery beyond earthly explanation; even predicting that no sooner would I buy a replacement Excel, than the original would re-materialize.

Okay. I didn't buy a new razor but I did bring in a spare I keep in my Trooper and used it yesterday. Last night, after brushing my teeth and spending the usual amount of time over my bathroom sink with the shaving mug right beside and no razor across its top, I go to bed. A few hours later, I awaken with my usual nighttime call to nature. As I start to return to bed I clearly see the razor, resting quietly across the top of the pewter mug. Dreams can seem very real so I somewhat doubted the evidence of my eyes. I picked up the razor, felt its solidity, convinced myself I was awake and determined to find it there in the morning.

So this morning it was still there. I picked up the mug and my spare razor and took them down to show Julie. She, also, could not understand how the razor could be exactly where it was supposed to be and where she had not been able to find it when she was looking for it the day before.

This may not qualify for The Twilight Zone, but it's woo-woo-woo-woo, woo-woo-woo enough for me.

Isms on the March

Though I have been a proclaimed atheist for most of my life, I have experienced moments of discomfort with the term and the concept. Though I am casually aware of my lack of belief in a conscientious godage at all times, it seems that my position only becomes active when aroused by confrontation with overbearing theists. One problem with being an atheist is its demonization by denominational theists. But a bigger problem, for me, is in not having an active program of atheist promotion. Organized religions survive by the business of selling blessings. Their respective members are pleased to pay their organization leaders with money and blood in return for their blessings here and in the hereafter. Atheism offers no such blessings. Nor much of anything else except argument of rebuttal to foolish belief and self delusion. A persistently thankless job. Our primary political activity is in attempt to make Americans aware that our Constitutional Freedom of Religion includes freedom from religion.

Pantheists, however, are deeply intermingled with atheists and have a lot of pro positions. It may be that I am more the pantheist than the atheist. But as atheists are now beginning to step out and even evangelize as secular humanists with meritorious personal and social values, the need for a better defining may not be necessary. Let freedom ring.

Presence

Access to a computer and cell phone/camera gives us 21st Century cyberpunks extraordinary opportunities for self dissemination. Though I tap into a few, my select triumvirate include this blog, plus Flickr and Twitter.

Sideswiped

Charles Willeford was a decent novelist and story teller. His talent/skill/whatever grew over time and with practice, and in his sixties he hit his stride with a brief series of crime novels featuring Miami police detective sergeant Hoke Mosely.

Three of Willieford's novels were made into movies, including the first Hoke Mosely, titled "Miami Blues," released in 1990. Leading up to that production, Willeford was beginning to be recognized by movie and television entities as a potent creator of stories and scripts for both feature films and television. Unfortunately, a heart attack took him out of the running in 1988, two years before Miami Blues was released. To date, only the ineptly underproduced "The Woman Chaser," a sort of feeble Jim Thompson knock off, has reached production.

I had wanted to be the first filmmaker to bring a Hoke Mosely story to the screen. I had read all of Willeford's novels and short stories and had seen the screen potential in Miami Blues and the second in the series, "New Hope for the Dead," but I was totally blown away by the third installment, "Sideswipe." I thought to pursue an option, but when Fred Ward announced his production of Miami Blues I knew that Hoke Mosely would be out of my reach, since all dramatic rights would have been included in any production deal.

Sideswipe is a character/crime novel which is the equal of all of the best of the 20th Century. And I'm talking Hammett, Chandler, Thompson, Cain, Woolrich, Highsmith and whoever. This also means that Sideswipe is the very best, unequalled crime novel of the last sixty years.

But can it make a good film? I really don't know. But I'm tempted to try again. I wonder who owns it now.

Pig-Out

Bludso's catered affair. Table No.1

Dupicity

As in dupe the audience. Duplicity must have been put together by Bernie Madoff. What a rip-off.

No. I take it all back. I know that Tony Gilroy thought he was putting together something sleek and clever and mind twisting. But in reality he was twisting up his own underwear. The plot is plodding, repetitive, predictable and boring. Its clumsy dance around psuedo-industrial espionage is graceless and tedious and makes a strenuous effort to seem to be about something when it is all about nothing. Coming off the Bourne series as he is, it is surprising that Gilroy’s script contains no danger, violence or anything more than the mildest action. He could have cast Matt Damon as the male lead and called it The Bourne Inadequacy.

Characters pretend to be about something that they are not and we are supposed to be surprised and titillated by revelations and counter revelations. Gilroy thinks he is creating a romantic story of mystery, surprise and suspense. But Gilroy is self-deluded and the viewer is sadly disappointed. At the very first introduction of the plot machinery, this viewer knew exactly where it was going, who was fooling whom and who was not being fooled at all. And seeing through and past these feeble fumblings is no fun at all.

But then you might say, so what? It’s only a mild diversion and it is surely uplifted by the physical and thespic charms of Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. And yes, they can act. But charm, much less character chemistry? These qualities are not really on display. They say the lines and go through the motions of mutual attraction but the conviction is not there. So the audience can only sit quietly and observe the two supposed lovers as they kiss, spat, make up and make love, and do it all over again. And again.

I assume this was a good payday for all involved and Duplicity might make some money, but like Bernie Madoff’s investors, some of us are already losers.