What's The Matter?

What are you doing this Wednesday? Maybe a trip to the grocery store? Seems like you're always running out of milk in the middle of the week. And apples. Don't you need a few more apples for lunch for the rest of the week? Well, maybe just this one time, wait until Thursday before you get yourself too committed to a refrigerator full of food. You might not need any food come Thursday. You might not need much of anything come Thursday.
Why? Because the most powerful atom-smasher ever built comes online Wednesday. The multibillion-dollar Large Hadron Collider, located in Geneva, will explore the tiniest particles and come ever closer to re-enacting the big bang. "Bravo," you say, "but what does that have to do with me and need for groceries? Frightened skeptics have filed suit in U.S. District Court in Hawaii and in the European Court of Human Rights to stop the project. Could the collider create mini-black holes that last long enough and get big enough to turn into a matter-sucking maelstrom? Straight-faced and serious minded scientist types are quick to dispel such concerns, though it doesn't keep them from making a rap video about all the giddy good fun they're going to have smashing atoms. By contrast, there are plenty of scary conspiracy theories that make connections to Nostradamus and the Bible, but they don't have much of a beat, and they're not easy to dance to.
Still, the best thing might be to stick close to home on Wednesday, just in case a hole is torn in the fabric of the universe. That kind of thing plays havoc with your morning commute.

Timber

It's Fall, and that means it's time for the leaves to start dropping from the trees. Up in Berkeley, there's more than just leaves. Hippies are starting to fall from the grove of oaks and redwoods located just outside the University of California stadium. Twenty-one months after activists climbed into the trees to protest the university's plan to raze them and build a one hundred and forty million dollar sports training center, crews began cutting down trees next to UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium.
The four remaining protesters, wearing black ski masks in ninety-degree weather, hit one of the arborists between the eyes with a bottle from their perch. That didn't keep the guy from getting back to work chopping and trimming. The trees will come down now. After nearly two years of legal wrangling and hand-wringing on the university's part, the state Court of Appeals denied a request for a new injunction by two community groups making a last-ditch effort to stop construction of the training center.
But this is Berkeley, right? Birthplace of the Free Speech movement? Once upon a time, perhaps, but students have not been a large part of the protest to save the trees. Most of the activists are older, unemployed individuals who have promoted the "save the oaks" campaign for the last two years while also using the grove as a gathering place to promote other social justice and environmental causes. And there were also plenty of steadfast tree supporters, such as Ayr aka Erik Eisenberg, who was arrested and led away in handcuffs late Friday, and Dumpster Muffin, who said Friday was a "sad day."
For the University, it was a day of relief. The cost for security fences and personnel over the duration of the protest reached three hundred thousand dollars back in April. And now four masked desperadoes make their stand in the lone redwood left in the grove. "We're going to give them a couple of days to let the reality sink in, and hopefully they'll see that, with the trees gone, their protest is completely pointless," said university spokesman Dan Mogulof. Then again, it takes a long time for reality to sink into the sap inside the tree, or hanging from it.

Free Speech

I told myself that I could watch just as much of the Republican Convention as I did for the Democrats. I failed. Hurricane Gustav did me the favor of limiting the time I had to spend on Labor Day. Besides, there was this barn-burner of a college football game on between Tennessee and UCLA that went into overtime. On Tuesday, I peeked in for a few minutes, but I was still on track to meet or best my attention span from the week before.
Wednesday night I sat on the couch with gritty determination. I was going to check out what the other side had to say. I was going to take it all in with an open mind. It was my intent to stay objective as I took it all in. Maybe the mistake I made was starting with Rudy Guliani. Maybe my expectations were too high, or too low. Maybe my mistake was having any expectations at all. About the time that Rudy launched into his bit about how Barack Obama "never had to lead people in crisis" and just before he began his signature refrain of 9/11, I turned the television off. I never made it to the presumptive nominee for vice-president, Sarah Palin.
From the bites of sound that I have witnessed in the wake of her speech, I guess I probably did myself and my digestive tract a favor. I was not up to this task. My wife was much more courageous. She sat through John McCain's video tribute as well as his acceptance. Strong stomach on that one.
She's the one that got to see my sister-in-law carried out of the hall. As a member of Code Pink, she was there with the expressed purpose of making her voice heard, even if it was at the expense of the viewers at home. The crowd in the hall responded to each disruption with loud chants of "USA, USA!" to drown out the single, unamplified voices of the protesters. That didn't keep the cameras from catching her being escorted up the aisle with one hand sticking straight in the air, making a peace sign.
And me? I wonder if I will have to limit my viewing habits strictly to Cartoon Network. That is, until Spongebob Squarepants announces his third-party run.

Fifty-Seven Channels And Nothin' On

What are you going to be watching this Fall? Now that we have hundreds of channels to choose from, we're having some trouble trying to decide just how to spend our daily four hours in front of the television. The newest issue of "Entertainment Weekly" promises to tell me about ninety-two different choices we will have come mid-September or so. Hundreds of channels. Dozens of new shows. Even if I exceeded my national average of hours watching the tube, I don't think that I could squeeze in all the quality programming that the major and minor networks would have me see.
But what would I be missing? I watched a few minutes of the two-hour premiere of the redux of "Beverly Hills 90210." I will allow that this may not have been my proudest moment, but I found myself drawn to watch anything other than Olympics and Convention. There was some mild comfort in seeing what amounted to familiar faces, or at least familiar situations. Then I recognized my folly and passed the remote control to my wife, who calmly took charge of the situation. I rolled over and went to sleep.
How I miss Premiere Week. With all the special events and the writer's strike, some of my favorite shows won't return until early next year. "Must See TV" as become "Must Wait TV." Still, I expect that, through the magic of digital video recording and living in a home with four (one for the dog) TV sets, we will all be caught up on what we need to watch and when. Just in time for the Spring TV Preview.

Juno, Alaska

"I mean, I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?"
How about getting mixed up in all the colorful hijinks that surround a presidential election? I have spent the last few days puzzling over the timing of the revelation of Bristol Palin's pregnancy. I have had a great many discussions with a number of different people and all of them end in decidedly different ways. When did mom find out, and when did she tell "Big Daddy" McCain? None of the answers seem to affect the overall reek of hypocrisy.
I agree with Barack Obama at one level when he says, "I think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Governor Palin's performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president." On another level, I wonder what this says about the decision-making abilities of John McCain. If he had known about the impending bundle of joy in advance, would he have made a different choice for his running mate? An advisor, who refused to be named, insisted "Senator McCain knew this and felt in no way did it disqualify her from being vice president. Families have difficulties sometimes and lucky for her she has a supportive family."
Again, I agree. But what about all this preaching of abstinence, and cutting funding for for an Alaskan state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live. What about all the teen mothers who aren't lucky enough to have a supportive family who just happen to be running for vice president? So many questions, so few answers. Time will tell. Until then, we can keep ourselves busy fuming over Sarah Palin's vision of God's Will, which includes sending U.S. troops to fight in Iraq and completing a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North American markets.
I guess it's all in the benevolent tentacles of the Flying Spaghetti Monster now, anyway.

When You're Hot, You're Hot

There are lots of reasons to miss Jerry Reed. The man was a great songwriter. He told stories like "Amos Moses": "Well, Amos Moses was a Cajun. He lived by himself in the swamp. He hunted alligator for a livin'. Just knock 'em in the head with a stump. The Louisiana law gonna get you, Amos! It ain't legal huntin' alligator down in the swamp, boy!" I guess I don't have to tell you that anybody who would mess with ol' Amos is lookin' for a heap o' trouble.
He was also quite the thespian. He understood his limitations as an actor, telling an interviewer "When people ask me what my motivation is, I have a simple answer: money." Even so, he managed to appear in more than twenty different films and TV shows over a thirty year career, and contributed to nearly as many soundtracks along the way. And this is how I will choose to remember Jerry Reed.
I was introduced to Jerry by my older brother, via Burt Reynolds. He was a big fan of one of Jerry's first films: "W.W. And The Dixie Dance Kings." I understood that Burt was the star, but there was something about that second banana thing that really made me appreciate the laid-back twang of his good buddy Jerry. This friendship was on full display in the first two "Smokey and the Bandit" movies, but Cledus "Snowman" Snow isn't the role I will remember best. That distinction lies squarely on Bama McCall.
In the summer of 1976, Burt Reynolds' directorial debut and the sequel of sorts to his 1973 film "White Lightning," was playing up the road at our local drive in. My older brother took me to see "Gator," squeezed into the back of his Toyota pickup along with several other friends of ours and enough lawn chairs and bean bags for us all to take up two or three stalls. I have a fond memory of Lauren Hutton's brief nudity, and Burt's sweaty tough-guy, but it was Jerry Reed's Bama McCall that stole the show. This was a guy who was every bit as nasty as the characters in his songs. Bama would just as soon pat you on the back as empty both barrels of his sawed-off shotgun into your gut. He was a very bad man.
And Jerry Reed was a very nice man. That's why they call it acting, I suppose.

In Harm's Way

A good friend and constant reader of this blog called just a little while ago, concerned for the safety and well-being of Geraldo Rivera. It seems that Jerry (to his closest associates) was standing on top of a levee, apparently unclear on the concept of what evacuation in advance of an oncoming hurricane means. Perhaps he had lucked on to some new information as to the whereabouts of Al Capone's vaults, or maybe he was busy sketching classified storm movements in the mud. Whatever the reason, there he was in all his wind and rain-swept glory reporting so that we could decide.
I have made my decision. He's a twit. And he's not alone. In spite of the fact that nearly two million people have left the Gulf Coast area in anticipation of the advancing storm, thousands more have streamed in, bringing their satellite trucks and crews. We are now being treated with 'round the clock coverage of impending doom. So far, the reporters and all their foul weather gear have been let down by Gustav. You can almost hear the disappointment in their voices as they tell us that the storm has been downgraded to Category One, and only one storm-related death, involving a woman killed in a car wreck, was reported in Louisiana. What a waste of good Gore-Tex.
I changed the channel to watch the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. I wanted to see if Jerry was packing heat. Now that would be news.