Here's the tricky part: the president sometimes has to use the power that he has. And nobody really likes that. Nobody who understands it, anyway.

As a kid, there was a gully that ran beside our house. It had been washed out by the rain, leaving a pool at the bottom of a six-foot face. Once, I held a piece of cinderblock in my hand, imagining the bombardiers of World War Two lining up their sights on an enemy target, and released my payload over an unsuspecting toad. I crushed the toad, and in the worst possible way. He didn't die instantly, but was left sprawling in agony, mostly mangled, feeling his life ooze out into the afternon sun. I felt immediately sick. I was struck by the pointlessness of the death and was relieved of any pleasure I may have been feeling beforehand.

We produce guns and armies and bombs because bad people will not respond to words. Guns and bombs will always hurt, and we always regret using them. However, when they must be used, our president must have the will to do so. Jimmy Carter is a great man, whom I admire. I think however, that he lacked the will to hurt people.

It isn't enough to be a good guy. Or a nice guy. History will judge harshly the leader who lacks the will to bear a sword. Real leadership is knowing when to draw your weapon, and being willing to do so.

That's one of the reasons there are so few real leaders.

The Truth About Child-rearing

Here's the real reason child-rearing is so difficult: only people are allowed to do it. If we could find some flawless proxy to stand in for us, this whole thing would be a lot easier.

You and I are given a certain number of shortcomings; both by our wiring, and by our upbringing. The very instant we bear children, we obligate ourselves to the task of training another individual how to overcome those very failings. Frankly, I haven't quite figured out how to overcome them in my own life. And what's worse, is that: 1. The children don't want their flaws corrected, and 2: every flaw we see in them screams about our own failings.

So here's how it works: Your children screw up. You see yourself in their screw-ups. Your parents laugh. You yell at your kids out of fear that they will be screwed up by their parents the same way that you were. Your parents laugh again. Your kids resent your "training." You get together with everybody at Thanksgiving and apologize to your parents.

Maybe we could just all rear someone else's children.

Alright, my burning question of the day is as follows:

Is everyone else's blog as painful to read as I think it is? Or is everybody else great, and I'm the one who sucks canal water?

When I read the tripe that's kicking around the internet, I wonder how those people have readers. Maybe they don't. Maybe this whole "blogosphere" notion is a myth. There really isn't any such thing. The truth is, there are only 12 semi-literate losers, posting garbage that hurts to digest on their nowheresville blog. With them, comes an army of illiterates who quote sound bites off of bumper stickers and feel informed (and maybe even edgy; a little alternative) because they've made reference to a blog that they heard of.

Or maybe it's just me.

I read The Dawn Patrol; a blog that is an exception to my petty grievance. This lady is really a pleasant read, regardless of her politics.

If you can recommend a blog that is well-written, by all means do so. Until then, I remain unconvinced.

Author's disclaimer:

By no means am I trying to say that I'm some kind of John Steinbeck. Or Beverly Cleary. Heck, I'm probably not even an Ariel Lefkowicz.

Put down the bumper sticker, and no one will get hurt.

You want to know what I love about the Navy? (In retrospect of course, there's lots to love.) The swearing. Possibly the foulest, crassest, most vile speech on the planet is made available as a staple, right alongside the scrambled eggs.

I understand that George Carlin used to tell a joke about some list of words that you could never say on network television. The way the joke went, he would recite the words, and everybody laughed, precisely because you couldn't say them. And he had! (Gasp. Laugh.) Having uttered the 5 or 6 unutterables, he put himself so far beyond the pale, that it was a shock to the system.

The people who laughed at George Carlin had a network television frame of reference. If it didn't fly with Ozzie & Harriet, it wouldn't fly with them. If Mork & Mindy found themselves put out by the language, or the difficulty, or the situation, chances were good that these same people would be troubled.

In the Navy, a sewage main once opened in the overhead of our bathroom, depositing a two inch deep layer of raw human waste into our bedroom. In the Navy, you visit people who eat fermented duck embryos for enjoyment. In the Navy, working for thirty-six hours isn't uncommon, and you should anticipate no special attaboys. Your hands will be cold, you will be wet, tired, uncomfortable, thirsty, hot, and filthy; you will be able to fall asleep on an eight-inch wide I-beam, you will know men who urinate in their beds out of laziness, and you will be thrown up on at least once or twice. (Otherwise, how will you know that you've had fun?) You will clean things that are repulsive, and then eat pringles off of the floor. You may be beaten with a fire hose, you might swim through garbage, and you will see a side of humanity that that you probably wish you hadn't.

All of the cursing, swearing, and expletives that are deleted from our lives here in Suburbia, are the elements of a life that has long since lost its delete key. Shipboard speech is symptomatic of a shipboard frame of mind. Shipboard speech is born out of a raw and unvarnished existence. The life that deletes that speech, is the life that has whitewashed over elements of humanity that really aren't far from Suburbia. Every time we neglect to drop a well-placed F-bomb on some moron who desperately needs it, we rob them of a valuable experience.

festering mediocrity

I didn't think that I would be laboring in such obscurity.

I thought that once I plunged into the blogosphere, that I would have a sort of instant notoriety. I thought that hip, young, subway-riding men would be subscribing to my almost daily blog looking for moments of enlightenment to brighten their otherwise dreary train ride to mediocrity. I expected people to read my posts and be either inspired or inflamed, and be compelled to respond.

So what happened? Where are my subscribers? Where are the impassioned responses to my posts?

Here is the ugly truth:

There are precious few Bentleys on the information super highway. It doesn't matter how wide the lanes are, inviting more vehicles hasn't done anything to raise the overall level of discourse. Most of what is printed, posted, or published is heaps of festering mediocrity.

Probably, my writing is only adding to the traffic. Just one more idiot who refuses to use his turn-signals.

"Put down the bumper sticker and no one will get hurt."

The disciples asked him, "Teacher, when will this happen? What will be the sign when all this will occur?" Jesus said, "Be careful that you are not deceived. Many will come using my name. They will say, 'I am he!' and 'The time is near.' Don't follow them!"

After having read Luke's account of this interchange, doesn't that create a problem for Charles Russell, founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses?

Mr. Russell said that Jesus of Nazareth, the historical figure, was planning to return in 1914 for a rendezvous with Armageddon and world-domination. So why does this guy still have any credibility at all?

"Put down the bumper-sticker and no one will get hurt."

Bad Quotation Marks...

Saw this on a bumper sticker: "God" Bless America

Is the owner of that sticker quoting someone? Did somebody famous use the word "God" in blessing our country, and now we have to give him (or her) credit?

Or, possibly this is a subtle use of irony? Like this: "I know that Average Joe is requesting God's blessing on America, but even the suggestion of a single god is so ludicrous, that by simply calling everyone's attention to the word "God" will cuase the occupants of the cars around me to laugh in derision. Most of us are anti-god anyway, so this is a good way to indicate my anti-god status, and have a good laugh at Average Joe's expense." It is possible that there exist bumper sticker authors who are exceedingly clever, and also assume that others around them will understand their cleverness.

But I don't think so.

This is probably just another example of Average Joe unwittingly assaulting his neighbors, and his God with bad grammar.

"Put down the bumper sticker, and no one will get hurt."