Hartmut, I like it. A little like T.H. White, a little like Cynthia McQuillin. For some reason, the biggest seller I have had so far among my short stories is "The Men Who Saved JFK" (possibly it's the keywords): "Fred Hatch had decided while still a small boy that he needed to be the man who discovered time travel. He needed to have time travel, in order to go back to November 22nd, 1963, and save President Kennedy from assassination. And he needed to be the one who discovered time travel because he couldn’t trust anyone but himself with such an awesome power. "Hatch worked hard to become a time traveller. In high school, he studied math and physics, but also took shop classes, because he wanted to be able to make any special parts the time machine might need. He studied history, of course, and worked out various turning points where he thought he could improve matters by intervening. He took drama classes, so he could learn to blend in with the crowd in different time periods. He got into shape, learned to shoot, learned to drive. He paid one of the school’s bad boys to teach him how to pick locks and hotwire cars, and regretted paying so much money to learn such simple tricks. "He joined the Marines out of high school, partly in order to fund his education and partly because he was a sincere and passionate patriot. That was why he wanted to save JFK, and do all the other things he had in mind to do...."

I would go and download immeejitly if I had already straightened out some difficulties with major Internet entities regarding cash payments, but I haven't yet. Meantime, if you'd like to read one of MY stories, contact me and I'll be happy to share with you. Maybe you'd like to read my novel, The Christmas Mutiny.

My mother called her three boys "the monsters" well past puberty (you know, when we pretty much were).

"The NRA isn’t for hunters any more than AAA is for bicyclists." Perhaps better to say, "than Toyota is for bicyclists". About "baiting": I once saw a picture of a sign on a tree which read, "BAITING DEER IS STRICTLY ILLEGAL CORN PLACED HERE IS FOR SQUIRRELS ONLY ANY DEER EATING THIS CORN WILL BE SHOT!" I swiped the photo and turned it into one of those (de)motivational posters, with the caption, "If the Department of Fish and Wildlife were run like the SEC".

Glenn, it wasn't the flight attendant who made you feel "subhuman". Here's a hint: trust your feelings . . . .

"[I]f only the victim had been armed, this whole unfortunate incident would have been avoided." Sure, because then the cops would simply have said, "Well, he was armed", and that would be the end of it.

Not merely considered normal, but often preferred. Imagine if you were working at McDs, and handing over a Happy Meal to one unattractive person after another was giving you orgasms . . . .

What to teach the kids: * Much of what we call "Christmas" traditions have nothing to do with Christianity. Non-Christians should feel free to put up a Yule tree, make egg nog, &c. * For that matter, Jesus does not belong exclusively to Christians. Anyone should feel free to celebrate the birth and life of a child born under very unprepossessing circumstances, ignored by the rich and powerful, his birth noted only by certain extremely ordinary working class people, and some scholars from a foreign university town.

Yes, Robert Bork is their poster child for the Innocent Wronged. Proof, if more were needed, of just how far removed Red America (under its Stars and Bars) is from the United States of America.

Anti-Semites like to claim that Washington,Franklin and others were anti-Semites. Hey, all they have to do is make up some phoney quotes and there you are. The poor schnooks would also like to idolize the Confederate treason -- except for that inconvenient Judah P. Benjamin....

As I look back on parenthood from the perspective of one whose youngest has just recently married, I find that the failures I regret most are those times when I squelched a child's exuberance by, for instance, telling him that his repeated use of the word "disturbing" was not disturbing at all, merely boring. I apologized to him recently. I'm glad I did that.

And since one of those borders is a body of water, it's possible that erosion might sever the connection entirely...?

Friend Dick speaks my fuckin' mind.

I'm reminded of the famous reply to a bad review, "I write to you seated in the smallest room in my house, a copy of yoru review before me. Shortly, it will be behind me." But at least he didn't post a video on YouTube.

Thanks, BTW, for mentioning the dysfunctional relationship between urban populations and the police. Too many people fail to notice this "army of occupation" mentality, or worse yet take it for granted. -- Dr. Psycho