Hiplog Archives

Conservative Corner (my brother, Dan)

Unashamed
(my brother, Scott)

Crazy Aunt Purl
(my friend Laurie)

There's Pie In the Lunchroom
(my friend Chuck)

Too Fat For Ponies
(my friend Sam)

Nashville Junk
(a Tennessean insider)

Recent posts:

2006
March 27-April 7, 2006
March 6-10, 2006
Feb. 27 - March 3, 2006
Feb. 20-24, 2006
Feb. 13-17, 2006
Feb. 6-9, 2006
Jan 30-Feb 2, 2006
Jan 23-27, 2006
Jan 16-20, 2006
Jan 3-11, 2006

2005
Dec 27-30, 2005
Dec 19-22, 2005
Dec 8-16, 2005
Dec 1-7, 2005

April 14, 2006

Just spent two days in Hickman County, Tenn. working on some stuff for a client. One of the tasks before me was working with a photographer to capture images of some local landmarks. For Centerville, that means Grinder's Switch.

Now those familiar with the work of Grand Ole Opry legend Minnie Pearl no doubt recognize Grinder's Switch as the location of many of her homespun tales of country life. Some of you may even know what I found out only after traveling a bunch of backroads in Centerville. Grinder's Switch doesn't actually exist. Minnie Pearl (aka Sarah Cannon) made it up.

There is a Grinder's Switch road and there is a railroad that crosses it. There is even a train station building off in field nearby that was moved there some time ago from a different county. But there is no switch and nothing really remarkable about the place, other than everyone within ten miles of it calls it the "world famous Grinder's Switch."

The local Chamber of Commerce in Centerville hosts a Grinder's Switch Radio Hour every Saturday from 10-11 a.m. CDT. I understand there is a lot of banjo/fiddle crap being thrown down there.

Day two was in Bon Aqua, Tenn. It's a nice little community that gets it's name from a resort that used to be located near there. Fun fact, the Tennessee Bar Association was organized at the Bon Aqua Resort. The photographer and I went out there and saw what remained of the place -- mostly old foundations and snakes.

Our other landmark was Wrigley Field. Back in the day (we're talking the 20s and 30s) many factories would hire baseball players to play on the factory teams. If the team was any good, they would travel around and play other corporate teams. It became a sort of semi-pro league. In the small community of Wrigley, right outside of Bon Aqua, the baseball field used by the Wrigley Charcoal factory is still there and is still used by locals for baseball games. About the only thing left of the original field is the concession stand and ticket booth. It has the original metal sign on top.

We went there to shoot it and was greeted by some folks from the EPA. They were there to test the soil because, as it turns out, Wrigley Field is a Superfund site. Runoff from the charcoal plant had gotten into the local soil. The nice man from the EPA says they've checked the soil three times and it was clean. The areas by the plant were a mess, he said, but the field was clean.

Holy moley! They're going to make a Shazam movie. It gets my goat a little bit when people refer to Captain Marvel as "Shazam." Shazam was the magic word Billy Batson used to transform into Captain Marvel. The problem, as is often the case, is due to lawyers.

See, Captain Marvel was a hero from Fawcett Comics. He was, by and large, a Superman knockoff. When DC Comics bought Fawcett, they got control of Captain Marvel. The problem is that DC's biggest rival is Marvel Comics, which not only has the name "Marvel," but has a character called Captain Marvel.

I don't pretend to understand the complicated rules under which DC gets to use Captain Marvel, but I do know that all of his versions in HeroClix call him "Shazam."

Most everyone my age remembers the Captain Marvel TV series. In it, Billy Batson was actually a teenager traveling around in an RV with an old guy called "Mentor." They coupled it with an "Isis" series as well. It was cheesy and tired, but I was glued to my set every Saturday.

The word Shazam has two meanings. First, it is the name of the wizard that grants Captain Marvel his powers. Second, it is an acronym for the various attributes of his powers: Solomon (wisdom), Hercules (strength), Aries (stamina), Zeus (power), Achillies (courage) and Mercury (speed). Since Captain Marvel's powers are mystical in origin, he can stand toe-to-toe against Superman. While Superman is the "Man of Steel," Captain Marvel is "Earth's Mightiest Mortal."

Some fans worry that there are too many superhero films coming out. Not me. I say bring 'em on.

It looks like all the speeches Bush is giving about Iraq aren't getting him anywhere with the American people. Certainly support for the war hasn't risen as a result. Now more and more retired generals are calling for Rumsfeld's ouster.

He said he loved his family and if anyone had a recipe for choosing who your family members are, let him know, but for now, he still has to see them at Thanksgiving and Christmas and he loves every one of them. Good for him.

People, people, people. For the last time, you must pay taxes on your lottery winnings.

Man, Tennessee has it's own particular brand of criminal, no? Take the case of Pamela Rogers. She was a 28-year-old grade-school teacher in McMinnville. She gets convicted of having sex with one of her students. This makes her a sexual predator in my book, but because she's a pretty blonde woman, she got probation instead of the possible 16 years in prison she had coming to her.

Now, the terms of her probation included her staying away from the internet and having no contact with the boy or his family.

She's been arrested again. This time for putting up a profile on MySpace.com and using that page to send indirect messages to the boy. On the site, she told the boy she'd wait for him to reach the state's age of consent (about three years). She also posted photos of herself in a bikini as well as a highschool photo of her in her basketball uniform.

A new report has come out saying Cheney authorized the leaking of a classifed CIA report on Ambassador Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger.

Have a happy Easter weekend and a festive Passover.

|

April 11, 2006

Just before Max's spring break, he was doing much better with his behavior. The week he came back, his teacher's evaluation rose from "needs improvement" to "fair." This week, however, he's been backsliding.

It has become a ritual in our house. As soon as I get home, Max greets me at the top of the stairs and let's me know how his day went. If his eyes are downcast and he's talking without moving his lips, then I know it's been a bad day.

Yesterday was a doozy.

"Papa?"

"Yes?'

"Today at school, Johnny was bothering me all day and I couldn't control my temper so I told him I'd kill him when I got the chance."

There it was in his agenda:

DP -- Max said he would kill another student if he had the chance. The "DP" in this case is a code for "disrespecting people." Well, what do you say to that? I explained to him that threatening your classmates is wrong, that threatening to kill anyone was unacceptable. We took away the TV and computer and sent him to his room to do his homework.

"He said he wouldn't tell," Max said.

"A kid who has been trying to get your goat all day promised you he wouldn't tell on you?"

"Uh-huh."

"Think about that, Max."

I met with some banking clients this morning. This was the first meeting we'd had since I shaved my head and there were comments all around. The bank chairman called me "Kojak." Add that one to the list.

"I told my wife I had to leave early this morning because I was going to Belle Meade to meet with a bunch of long-haired bankers," I said. That got a laugh and everything was cool.

Here's what I don't get. How can there still be 37 percent of the American people who still support Bush? He obviously has no qualms about lying to them. Take this latest revelation about his authorization of Libby's leaking of classified information. This is from the AP report (emphasis mine):

President Bush said Monday that he declassified sensitive prewar intelligence on Iraq back in 2003 to counter critics who claimed the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

"I wanted people to see the truth and thought it made sense for people to see the truth," Bush said during an appearance at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

"You're not supposed to talk about classified information, and so I declassified the document," he said in a question-and-answer session after delivering a speech on Iraq. "I thought it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches. And I felt I could do so without jeopardizing ongoing intelligence matters, and so I did."

Here's the thing:

The truth was that the NIE showed that the intelligence agencies had serious doubts about the Iraq/Niger yellowcake story. It showed that the aluminum tubes that were supposed to be for Saddam's nuclear weapons program were most likey for conventional weapons. It showed that many of the justifications used by Bush and his officials were nowhere near as definite as Bush told us they were.

That's the truth. But Bush didn't want us to know the truth. That's why he only declassified part of the NIE -- the parts that bolstered his case. What he wanted us to know was the opposite of the truth. He wanted to spin us and it worked. But to now go back and say that he wanted us to understand the truth is not only a lie, it's insulting.

Shame on the AP for running that bit of spin uncritically. David Schuster lays it out very nicely on "Hardball."

|

April 10, 2006

It was a pretty good weekend. Friday was a bit of a nightmare as the tornadoes tore up a big chunk of Tennessee. While I was in my office, finishing up some work and planning on riding to my brother Dan's house to help him with his church's web site, the weather-related reports kept getting more dire.

Outside the window, however, things looked fine. There was some rain, but nothing to write home about.

My boss, who was headed back to Nashville from a meeting in Chattanooga, called in to say he was thinking about playing a round of golf.

"Good luck with that," said a co-worker. "There are tornadoes coming."

Just before quitting time, my co-worker came into my office and said she'd just gotten a call from her husband saying not to leave. We both decided to risk it.

On my way home, the bottom fell out. Rain and hail pelted my car. Along the interstate cars were lining the roads and stacked under overpasses. I put my hazard lights on and slowly drove down the middle lane. I called my brother and canceled. Then I called Dollie to say I'd be coming straight home.

It actually wasn't a bad drive. The weather scared off a lot of the traffic, so even though I was traveling slowly, it didn't take me all that long to get home.

Once home, I saw the make-shift shelter Max, Rozzy and Dollie had occupied during the worst of it. My closet is under the foyer stairs. They dragged out a lot of stuff and put pillows, blankets, a flashlight and a radio under there.

Dollie said Max freaked out a little. He kept screaming "We're going to die!" Dollie said the radio kept repeating "Murfreesboro! It's right on top of you!"

But in the end, Murfreesboro was spared. the tornadoes cut a path through Hendersonville and Gallatin. The local news had some amazing footage of the devastation.

Sunday afternoon, we took the kids to a birthday party for Serenity and Rusty's little girl, Callie. We got to see a lot of people we haven't seen in a long time, including Serenity and Rusty. It's a little embarrasing, but until recently they lived just a couple of blocks away and we hadn't been over to see the baby at all during her first year.

They rented the new pavillion at the Kid's Castle. Max and Rozzy were excited because they love the playground there. I showed off my newly shorn skull for the folks and promptly injured it at the playground. I was leading Rozzy from one section to another so she could swing. I looked back to make sure she was following me and wanged my head on a low beam.

Ow. I mean, OW. The other parents around me gasped when they saw it. I was okay, but discoved that without that cushion of hair, your head really takes a beating.

Easter is coming up. This year is falls on Max's birthday. The actual date of Easter is hard to peg because it is a moving target. Sometimes it's in March. Sometimes it's in April. Without a calendar to tell us, it's not easy figuring out Easter.

Technically, Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after the vernal equinox. You'd think this would lend credence to the pagan origins of the holiday. Who else but the pagans would schedule their Spring celebration in accordance with moon phases and seasons? Well, the early Catholics for one.

Emperor Constantine ordered the first tables that calculated the date for Easter during the First Council of Nicaea. It was decided that Easter should always fall on a Sunday and that everyone around the world should celebrate it on the same Sunday. So they created tables to help calculate the date. They were, however, using the Julian calendar and Eastern Christian churches still do. The Gregorian calendar (which we use today) wasn't adopted by western Christian churches until the 18th century.

This matters because the ecclesiastical full moon does not always coincide with the astronomical full moon (lunar motion is more complicated than Emperor Julius Ceasar understood). The full moon (on the ecclesiastical calendar) is 14 days after the new moon.

The vernal equinox is fixed at March 21 on the ecclesiastical calendar, but astronomically, the equinox is described as occuring when the ecliptical longitude of the sun reaches zero with respect to the earth. which takes place on or around March 21. For the most part, these small differences don't matter. But there have been a couple of instances when it did.

In 1962, the astronomical full moon came about 6 hours after the astronomical vernal equinox (which was on March 20 at roughly 8 p.m.), but the ecclesiastical full moon came before the fix equinox of March 21, so we had to wait an entire lunar cycle to celebrate Easter. Fascinating stuff, I know.

The White House this year will hold their annual Easter Egg roll down the White House lawn. They put out the word that all families are welcome and I've heard that some 2,000 gay families will be attending this year. While I am all for the rights of gays to have families and to be active in public festivities, I hope this doesn't turn into some sort of political stunt. Easter may be a religious holiday, but Easter eggs are for the kids.

I saw some video of President Bush's appearance this morning. It is a little scary.

Woo Hoo! Kiefer has signed up for three more years of "24."

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves:

New Rings Found Around Uranus.

|