Jeremiah's School of Levitation

I have a chicken. It has outlasted every single pet we've brought into our house. My wife loves animals until she gets one, and two poops on the floor later, or after a couple of torn or scratched upholsteries, the animal becomes an ad on Craigslist. We have spent about 2 grand on dogs and, strangely enough, we have no dogs. We have cycled countless cats through our house at speeds of upwards of 40 miles per hour. We had a rabbit that ran away, mercifully. We had a rat that , well, was able to keep most of its tail intact before it escaped, thereby sparing the rest of its tail, I'm sure. Animals in the pound see us, and they actually RETREAT to the back of their cages. If we should take an animal from the pound, the others wipe their brows and say "Whew!"

We've never had any health problems with the animals, and we always have given them to a good home. One neighbor still has one of our former dogs. The dog, after a couple of years, still thinks he's just visiting next door because everytime we see him when the neighbor goes out to walk him, he strains his leash trying to get back in our house.

But, the chicken. The chicken has seen them all come and go. We actually had two chickens. Well, we had three. One died in chick-hood when my youngest was doing some chicken flight research. His findings were heart-wrenching, but ultimately important. The other chicken lived to be a chicken, but died mysteriously while we were on vacation. The neighbor who was looking after her called us on vacation, distraught, to tell us the news. I had to calm him down, tell him it's alright, all the while feeling just a little silly for trying to calm a grown man crying about a chicken. I'm supposed to do that to my 8-year old! But, I know that a pet caretaker having to deal with the death of a pet that they were supposed to keep safe is a little touchy, so I handled it with sympathy and understanding, and with one foot firmly mashing the toes of my other foot to keep myself from laughing. Yeah, I'm bad.

But, the chicken. I actually like the chicken. I like watching the chicken. I'd heard that birds were descendants of dinosaurs and when I see my chicken doing the chicken doop (that's what I call her walk, the chicken doop), she does look like a fat little dinosaur and I even chuckle to think that I may be looking at one of Mother Nature's funniest evolutionary bits: the great and feared velociraptor is now a chicken, terrorizing only bugs and being terrified of everything else.

And, we get eggs. One a day in the laying season. And, they're good eggs. They never accumulate. I eat them the same day I find them. Good eggs, man. Yolk all firm, taste all fresh and eggy. Yum city, USA. I have a friend who has chickens too, but she can't eat the eggs. She saw her hen lay an egg once and she said it grossed her out so much that she can't eat the eggs. I frowned when I heard her say that and she looked at me and said "But, they came out of her butt!" I explained to her that they don't exactly come out of her butt, and she knew that, but she insisted that the buttal proximity of the egg chute qualified it as something of a secondary butt, and chicken butt is gross. She had eaten eggs her whole life before then, but, the sight of one being made snapped her. So, when I can get over there, I eat her eggs too.

So, the chicken. Yeah. A chicken in the middle of the city. I feel like some kind of rebel farmer. I work in a big building downtown and I go home to a chicken in the backyard. And a confident chicken too, confident not only in her staying power, but also in the fact that she must know I won't ever pull her head off. Could never do that. I never thought that the pet I'd own the longest in my adult life would be a chicken. Damn. I'm so glad I survived into "adulthood", just so I can see how silly and uncanny it got.

Okay, I got to get to the bottom of some lyrics here. Ever since I could follow lyrics, I've been mystified about what some of my pop star heroes were trying to tell me. No, I wasn't pondering what the Beatles meant by "Newspaper taxies appear on the shores" or why Tull was singing about "aqualungs", as I figure that the meaning in these songs is debatable and I didn't wake up today wanting to debate. In fact, I never wake up wanting to debate. I actually wake up just wanting to utter obscene truths and then run away.

No, I'm talking about lyrics to popular, huge hit songs that entered my head all mangled and which I was too lazy to go figure out, so I spent the next three decades of my life mumbling made up lyrics at the unknown parts. We all do this, but how many of us work to cure ourselves and just find out what the heck the guy or girl was really saying? Well, I did! Thanks to the miracle some like to call the Internet, and which I like to call "How Was I Ever Able to Function Without This? I Pity My Neanderthalithic Pre-Net Existence!"

So, here we go:

"Lady Marmalade" by LaBelle

I just mumbled "oolay poopoo shay ah sayn-qua" at the chorus, for years, until I finally looked at the lyrics and realized that the mumblings actually say:

"Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir. Voulez vous coucher avec moi", which means, roughly: "Please lie down with me this evening. Want to lie down with me?" (Google translated that, not moi--I don't speak French, or even claim to be able to pronounce the words).

So, wow, if I'd only known, I could have wowed my 3rd grade classmates and, for a brief moment, diverted them from making fun of my horn-rimmed glasses, buck teeth, and beach ball-like shape.


"I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" by England Dan and John Ford Coley

I had trouble with that part in the chorus where they sing "I'm not talking 'bout [something], and I don't want to change your life." Well, when I sang the song, that line went "I'm not talking 'bout MILLENIUM, and I don't want to change your life."

Yeah, I knew he wasn't talking about "millenium" but damned if I ever made an effort to find out what he was talking about, so I mumbled that line for nearly 30 years until, one morning, at about 3 am, I sat up straight in bed and said "I'm not talking 'bout MOVIN IN!" I listened to the song later and backed myself up with a little Internet research and, blammo, 30 years of agony in one particular brain cell got relieved.


"New Kid In Town" by the Eagles

My issue was in the second verse, where they say "You look in her eyes; the music begins to play. Hopeless [something], here we go again." When I sang the song, and I'm pretty embarrassed to say this, I actually sang:

"You look in her eyes; the music begins to play
Hopeless MO-MINUTES, here we go again..."

Jeez. I love that song, have sung it (to myself) about a thousand times, and, each time, I sang that goofy phrase. I finally crept to the Net to find out that, as I figured, it wasn't "hopeless mo-minutes" but rather the very nice line "hopeless ROMANTICS", which went perfectly with the song's subject matter, much more than "mo-minutes" did.

Jeez again.

Okay. I have others, but that's enough of me today. I gotta work.

Well, well, well. It looks like the Dixie Chicks are bringing back their own brand of shock-country and releasing a single, called "Not Ready To Make Nice," which is something of a retort to all the gasping and groaning coming out the back 40 when Natalie Maines spoke her mind a couple of years ago and said that she was ashamed to be from the same home state as George Bush. That comment met with a chaw-dropping response: they got banned from country radio stations a-cross the nation, and to this day, are still not being played in some spots, and not just in Moonshine County, but apparently in what I thought were world-aware cities, with running water and electricity, like St. Louis and Denver. Whew. They really hit a nerve.

I actually was a victim of the Dixie "Sex Pistols" Chicks backlash a couple of years ago. I was making talky talk with a young lady who sang country and I told her I liked the Dixie Chicks, and our already strained conversation became suddenly more like me trying to talk to a pan of hot, splattering grease. She scrunched up her face and told me, in the indignant tone of Zeus talking to worm shit, that the Dixie Chicks had best keep their politics to themselves. I, of course, flicked some meat in the pan and went on to say that, in addition to the fact they are a freaking amazing band, kind of a female version of the Eagles, I also like them because I once saw a photo of Maines wearing a Bob Marley t-shirt. I asked my country singer "buddy" if she had ever in her life seen a country singer wearing a Bob Marley t-shirt. She answered with a frowny face that looked more like a fist and she spat some kind of response that indicated to me that it was now time for me to go. I think I made the parting remark that I never thought that music was the ideal place to keep your politics to yourself. Quite the goddamned contrary.

But, anyway, it frightens me how close-minded that country community can be. I'm a little scared now that I walk among this shit and that I could be thinking I'm blending in by playing the Dixie Chicks and, suddenly, be chased out of town with pitchforks and torches. And, what's with radio bending to this? Why do country music DJs think they need to pander to close-minded thinking? I know why. Money, of course. Money always wins over being a responsible, open-minded human. If'n the public don't like it, then, don't mess with their money. Ban the best damn country band to come around this decade because they happen to think that the slaughter of your sons and daughters for no reason is a bad thing.

Fuck it. I'm putting on my Dixie Chicks t-shirt and taking a walk to the rodeo. I'll die for Natalie Maines! You go girl!

Big debate at the co-worker luncheon, attended by six gruntled employees at the local overgrown supershit video game arcade in downtown Rain City. We got to discussing if those who are rescued after getting all stranded in the snowy wilds just outside of our fair city should pay a fine for their rescue.

We live in the Great Northwest, where there are plenty of mountains that one can climb and one can camp within, all of which contain snow at this time of year, and all of which can quickly become an avalanche party site, or, if nothing else, a real good place to get your ass lost. Many climbers and hikers have been caught in survival situations, and most of them have needed to be rescued, at the cost of taxpayer money and, sometimes, at the cost of a rescuer's life. It was upon that point that the co-worker luncheon debate raged.

Some of my co-worker crew said that to have your ass saved, you should pay whatever cost that was incurred to summon the helicopters, medical crew, medical equipment, and St. Bernards with brandy. Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for your adventurous stupidity, no matter how transcendingly serene and soul-affirming it was in the absolute silence of 4,000 or so feet above sea level, on an ivory, frigid mountainside. If you got lost and needed to be rescued, you needed to pay the goddamn bill.

Jeremiah, hisself, agreed. See, I'd definitely pay to have my ass saved. If the other option, I told my co-workers, was for me to become the next Kennewick Man, my body not to be found for another 9,000 years, then, hell, charge my goddamn rescue on my Visa.

A couple of other folks, though, were avid outdoorsfolks, who said that they never embark upon their journeys with the intent of becoming the subject matter of cable channel shows about stranded people who had to eat each other, but, because Muddah Nature just don't give us a damn, shit be done happen, and even the Lance Armstrong-est among us could end up neck deep in snow shit and, thereby, deserve a free rescue. And, to the point of rescuers dying to save the stranded: after all, the rescuers knew the job was dangerous when they took it, so, if they should lose a life or two trying to save a thrillseeker, well, that actually WAS in their job description.

The debate got ugly for a second, and then the next round of beers showed up and, miraculously, we were suddenly discussing recent lovers. One of the co-workers discussed a lover that he wished would be a victim of an avalanche of common sense, from which they should never be rescued. Nods and grins abounded. And, the great debate of mountainside rescue reimbursement went unresolved.

Because I have family ties to Las Vegas, and thereby visit there often, friends of mine have frequently asked me for "insider" travel tips, which I gladly provide. I'll present here some of them over the next few weeks, hopefully to enlighten you, deepen your knowledge of the town, help you fully absorb the experience that is Las Vegas and, ultimately, inspire you to actually lock up half the money you brought.

HOW TO SOBER UP INSTANTLY

This skill would be helpful in any town, but my version works only for Las Vegas.

You're gambling, yammering away, falling fully into the glittering, clanglorious casino chaos surrounding you and, well, drinking like you have no stomach. All is well, until you finish that one drink, that brief, shining drink that can now be called ONE DRINK OVER YOUR LIMIT. One second ago, all was coherant and you were as loquacious and clever as a talk show host. The next second, your vision becomes so blurred that it looks like you are looking at the world through a rain-saturated windshield.

Yikes! You're drunk in the casino! Before you start pinching the cocktail waitress (men, she will smash a drink glass and slit your throat with the shards right there if you try that--how much cocktail waitresses hate you will be explored in another post), or putting your hand in the dealer's pocket, employ this nifty "get sober quick" exercise:

Slide away from the table. Proceed to the nearest door facing the beautiful Las Vegas strip. Go outside. Position yourself against a stable structure and gaze at the strip before you. Marvel at the mesmerizing, cascading lights that revel in a colorful parade, flashing and dancing in rainbow waves and neon crescendos, splashing into pools of sparks, twinkling and singing. Gaze at the giant outdoor video screens that plunge you into a futuristic fantasy of giant dancing women and high-resolution pyrotechnics that look like entertainment for the gods. Feel the enormous scale of the buildings and landscaping around you, which are towering, spanning, startingly accurate recreations of world wonders and tropical vistas that would seem gargantuan if even ONE of them were in your city's downtown, but, man, there're dozens of them in Las Vegas, one after the other. Amazing.

Now, close your eyes and realize that none of this magnificent town would be possible if it wasn't for millions of people, just like you, who come here yearly with their earnings, their savings, the money that they face humiliation on a daily basis to scrape up, and they dump it, smiling, directly into the deep and greasy pockets of greedy, piggish, contemptuous casino dons who would just as soon walk on your head if you stopped giving them money.

There, now you're sober. Go back inside, order a 50 cent hot dog, and go to bed. Works every time!

Dear Subway Sandwich Shop,

Hello. How are you? I'm fine, thanks. I am writing this today to make an appeal that I believe is long overdue, at least on my part. I have frequented your establishment on numerous occasions over the past 20 years and, with a slight feeling of anxiety, I have watched you grow from a brown, yellow, and brightly-lit outpost at the corner of our sprawling college campus to something of a dizzying swarm of locations that almost makes me feel like I'm surrounded. At the downtown building where I work, there are 4 (four) Subways within 2 (two) blocks in either direction, and these are only the ones that I have discovered. I fear that there are others lurking around corners that I have yet to turn. You outnumber Starbucks on these streets, which, in some fearfully perverted way, I have to admire, kind of the way you admire the fact that the smell of exhaust drowns out the smell of urine in the alleys.

But, the reason I'm writing you has nothing to do with urine. It has to do with your offerings. You see, Subway, I have tried to like your version of the sub sandwich. I have come in and ordered every manner of sub, from roast beef, to seafood, to club, to breakfast sandwich, to vegetarian, and I've tried the full assortment of your breads. I've allowed your employees to sprinke and douse everything you offer onto my sandwiches besides Windex or sweat from the sandwich maker's brow. And, all my endeavors have been for naught because, Subway, every single sandwich has tasted exactly the same. I do not know how you do it. It is as if you do not set anything out unless it has achieved an equality of taste. I wonder if you do not have some sort of Sandwich Civil Rights Policy that states that no component of your sandwiches can be singled out. The green peppers must be equal to the black olives, and the salt must not infringe upon the rights of the lettuce. And, to top it off, that standard of taste that you aspire to can be duplicated by simply soaking a cardboard box in water.

How do you accomplish this? Is there a machine in back called a "De-Tasterizer" that, using hydraulic forces that are almost against the law to exert, you employ to extract the taste from otherwise distinctly-flavored foods? I know this machine exists because my local natural foods store uses one too for all their prepared deli items, and some packaged items, like even cookies, for God's sake. In some instances, they have turned the machine up so high that it has also managed to remove the very soul from some foods, consequently making them the spawn of Satan's stovetop.

So, you may ask, why do I continue to frequent your establishment? Well, in moments of severe self-hatred, I feel that a low-calorie lunch will be the only thing to keep me from ringing my neck with a tire and setting it afire, at the sheer frustration at my lack of weight control. So, I drag my fat butt into a Subway and order a low-cal sandwich and I sit and chew on it, not even realizing that I had not first unwrapped it. And then, there are the occasions where my imaginative co-workers will say "Hey, let's go to Subway for lunch!" in the same tone of voice that they'd say "Hey, look! A 500 (five hundred) dollar bill!" I have to follow them to Subway, zombie-like, if I want to have any company at all during my work day.

Surely you can understand, and, thereby, surely you can think to restore taste to your meals. Please. Abolish the Sandwich Civil Rights policy. Let the peppers be hot! Let the salt be salty! Oh bitter vinegar, arise! And, garlic, old friend, be heard, be smelled!

And, another thing, can you please send that Jarrod guy packing? I'm over the fact that he lost half his body weight by eating Subway sandwiches. And, Subway, how do you know he's even tellling the truth? Did he keep all his receipts? Did he give you a detailed spreadsheet tracking his devourings and relating them to his weight loss? And, if he did keep his receipts, how do you know he didn't do the same thing to Wendy's or McDonald's? Maybe he just bought the sandwiches, got the receipts, threw out the sandwiches and just got his stomach stapled. Then, he went to each company and said that he'd lost all this weight eating their food and you were the only ones who fell for it. And, even if it's all true, can't you see that he's a complete dud? He can no more be a dynamic spokesman for your food than Dick Cheney can be a lovable host of a children's show.

Okay. Thanks for reading this far. Have a nice day.

-Jeremiah

Ambien is this sleeping aid that apparently does a great job of keeping you asleep, if you don't manage to take it with any alcohol, or if you take it and then don't get directly into your bed (though some folks have gone to bed, or thought they did). Then, it becomes the Zombie drug, as evidenced by these incidents from Ambien-takers:

• Ambien-influenced drivers are crashing into stuff all over the nation, "sleep-driving" as it's called. According to an article in the Detroit News: "Wisconsin officials identified Ambien in the bloodstreams of 187 arrested drivers from 1999 to 2004. In Washington state, officials counted 78 impaired-driving arrests in which Ambien was a factor last year, up from 56 in 2004."

• Taking Ambien with alcohol has caused two incidents of bizarre airplane behavior. One guy ripped off his shirt and Hulked out on a British Airways plane and, the one and only Peter Buck of REM had a similar outburst on a plane. Both guys claimed Ambien-related insanity or, convolutingly enough, "non-insane automatism" as it's officially called.

• Ambien causes bouts of "night eating," and, as the International Herald Tribune states: "The next morning, the night eaters remember nothing about their foraging. But they wake up to find telltale clues: mouthfuls of peanut butter, Tostitos in their beds, kitchen counters overflowing with flour, missing food, and even lighted ovens and stoves. Some are so embarrassed, they delay telling anyone, even as they gain weight." (Waking up with a mouthful of something is also a college stunt that I have never performed on a sleeping friend, especially not using shaving cream).

It almost makes me want to experiment, college style, with this stuff. Not that I want to go sleep driving on our freeways, though, I would suspect that's what most people are doing anyway--on their cell phones, or blasting forward with the singular thought of just getting the hell where they want to get, thereby in a trance-like state, thereby literally asleep.

No, what I want to do is lock myself in my room with a ball of clay, my guitar, a microphone, a pen and paper, some crayons, take a little Ambien with a dash of wine, turn on my video camera, and see what happens. So then, when I zombie up and start acting out my dream, I'll be able to capture all those incredible songs that I make up in my dreams, and are totally forgotten when I awaken. Or I can finally render some of my dream art using the crayons, or I could finally write down that world-shattering short story as I dream it, or maybe capture on video that riveting stand-up routine I did in a dream and, once awake, can now only recall the phrase "..and she took my pants with her." Think about it, all my dreams downloaded directly from my head and into the world as real life art.

Of course, there's always the possibility that I'll try to eat the crayons or I may actually use the pen to create a full-body tattoo consisting of all the lyrics of ABBA songs, and that'll be on tape and, well, that'll need to be erased and if it happens too much, I may need to flush the Ambien. But, every now and then, I could post the good stuff for everyone's entertainment and possibly as a great advertisement for the "fun" side of sleep medication.

Yeah, so, you know, I have been having a hard time sleeping, and, I also will need an idea for Friday's post. Looks like a good a time as any to go to Mexico and stock up. My creative future may depend on it. Or, at least I may find a new erotic thing to do with a hunk of clay, which alone would be worth the price.

This past weekend, I went to a giant junk sale held in an old hangar on the lake. This junk sale was organized by a group of rich people from a local hoity-toity, Bill Gates-funded academy and, I suppose, was both a fund-raiser for their private institution (which, I'm sure, already has enough funds to fund another school, but, hey, you don't get filthy rich by being content with just being plain old boring rich) and a way for them to mingle with commoners by offering us the crap they don't want in thier mansions.

Well, they need a little more lesson in mingling. Apparently, the rich still fear, somewhere beneath all that designer skin, that we really will eat them. And, even worse, try to steal some of their junk. I figured this out by noticing that the level of security for this glorified garage sale rivalled that of our international airport. We had people checking bags, twice! We had hook-lipped security folks posted at each area. Dusty Old Self Help Books for Bored and Desultory Kept Wives had their security, as well as Grimy Old Toys That We Even Forgot We Had Because We Spend a Grand In Toys R Us Everytime We Go In. And, of course, the watching eyes were tight in the Laughably Outdated Electronics section. My wife was accosted for wanting to put her small purchase ("purchase" I said now) in her purse, because, according to the accoster, she might be stopped at the door and accused of stealing. Now, she bought a couple of glass candle holders, about the size of shot glasses, and in fact, much resembling shot glasses. She would have to be on crack to want to steal these. Actually, even a crack addict would think twice, figuring they were worth less than a tootsie roll. But, you know these commoners. They'll steal junk if you don't watch them. And, another thing, what gaddamned right do a bunch of over zealous, over-wrought junk peddlers have to go into my wife's purse?

There was armed security in the parking lot and there were people posted at each outside corner of the hangar to catch, I suppose, the commoners who would snatch some junk and try to make a run for it. I was surprised there weren't Blackhawks circling overhead.

I won't even go into how overpriced this junk was. Okay, I'll just name a few prices. Plastic handheld bicycle pump, very used: 5 bucks! A deflated football. Black and lightly used, but very sylish apparently because it was 3 bucks! A beat up junior-sized guitar with a string missing--30 bucks! Now, if it sounds like these are actually very low prices, then you've not visited your local Goodwill, Salvation Army, or other neighborhood thrift store, where these same items were at least 50% cheaper (yup, I priced them--well I couldn't find a BLACK football, but there were plenty of other colors, apparently out of style). Freakin' hmmmm.....

Frankly, I'll take the trusting confines of Goodwill any day. No snipers, no uniformed folks strolling with their arms behind their backs, WAITING for you to steal, or even get that stealy look in your eyes, and the Goodwill junk is far more reasonably-priced.

And, the money I spend in Goodwill goes somewhere useful to people like me, instead of contributing to the iniquity of our city's schools, which is another blog entirely...

Harumph!

I was watching the assassination of President Kennedy the other day and I see that we are the most fragile things, aren't we? We go on through our days, and we hate and love, and we say funny things and we think awful things, and we trap ourselves in routine and we come home and sleep, thinking we've actually lived a day when, in reality, we've merely let a day have its way with us. Sometimes we win, sometimes we eat the bear, but sometimes the bear eats us and, sometimes, someone has a camera and gets to see us get the side of our heads blown off.

So, then what? I was riding the elevator in my office job prison unit and I noticed that they've now installed some video screen in there that gives me news as I ascend, telling me the state of the Dow Jones and the latest news about American Idol, and I get the weather report about weather that I just stepped out of and, suddenly, I'm at my floor and I realize that I couldn't even hide from the world in an elevator and that, if we thought about it, we were just thrust through a dark shaft on hydraulics that we trust and we have some sort of respectful silence that is either a reflection on our mortality, and how fragile we are against the strips of whatever that is hauling us up the floors, or we are embarassed to turn to the person next to us and say something like "What the hell are we doing?"

Don't be a nut, though. Stay shut up. And watch the damn tv in the elevator instead of the LED indicator telling you what floor you're on. I think the little TV should show, over and over, JFK's head getting peeled off, and that would make you grasp the moment a little more tighter. That's really the secret. How tightly are you holding this moment? The moment that you are still alive.

I know. That's exhausting. But, that's what you got TWO lungs AND a heart for.

I got this email today:

---------------

Here's something thought provoking-

The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual
manner, think about whether you want the "politicians" spending your tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

• A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

• A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

• A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

• A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

• A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans - It's amazing what you can learn with some simple ! division ............

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans.

Interesting number, what does it mean?

Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516, 528.

Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1, 329,787

Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.

Politicians in Washingt on, D.C. !!!...........................Are all your calculators broken????
Maybe everyone should just flood their houses, then we can all be on the "big easy" street for the rest of our lives, and forget about working, and paying taxes and all that useless stuff!

------------


The first part is cute. It is interesting how large a number a billion is. It's also interesting to note that some parts of Mississippi have apparently not progressed for a billion seconds. How large a number a billion is isn't all that useful beyond its obvious mathematical necessity, but knowing its breadth is good for perspective's sake, along the lines of "If I had a nickel for everytime someone said..." which I like to embellish by completing that statement with a real estimate of what I'd really have if I got a nickel each time for something someone said. For example, "If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that I looked like Spike Lee, I'd have about, oh, 65 cents." That sort of diffuses the perspective part of it and creates what some may call "humor."

However, the second part, about New Orleans, is a crock of steaming Bush. Come on. Yes, 250 billion is a lot of money. But, to break it down by family or individual is stupid. As if the government is going to hand a check to a family and call that "Rebuilding New Orleans." If I lived in New Orleans, and the government handed me a check for $516,528, I'd say "To hell with New Orleans! I'm going to move to a bungalow in Kauai and live the rest of my days on a goddamnned beach. The only thing I'm going to rebuild is my bar."

I bet Senator Landrieu knows this very well, too, which is why she (and Republican Senator David Vitter, the cosponsor) isn't touting this as some sort of personal compensation, but rather, as exactly what she says: some money to rebuild New Orleans (as well as some of the state wetlands--that's the other thing--this isn't all going to be New Orleans money). Rebuilding New Orleans has as much to do with getting families back on their feet as it does with repairing damaged or destroyed infrastructure, getting business that have lost millions in revenue going again, restoring homes, offices, schools, making sure that the citizens' health concerns are all addressed and that toxins are cleaned from the waters and ground, getting the police department strong again, getting people employed, jeez, man, the list is huge, and just may come to about 250 billion to do right (though, I do think the legitimate worry is that some unjust wallets may get fat, just not the wallets of displaced New Orleans residents). And, so far, nothing's really happening with the bill, probably because of the cost, so the debate goes on.

So, stop sending out these cranky, petty, misleading, half-blind, kooky emails to me. If you want to get your calculators smoking, calculate the dollars we've spent in Iraq and how that relates to the actual progress and how much more it'll take to actually progress, or calculate how much money Bush and his cronies gained to make by the DP World ports deal. If your calculators don't smoke, then maybe your head will.

Or, if you do keep sending these emails to me, then send me a billion of them, and also send me a nickel for each one.

Here's some world-warming facts for you:

• According to NASA, 2005 had the highest annual average surface temperature worldwide since instrument recordings began in the late 1800s. Holy Shit! (The italics are mine, but, hell, it'd been hella funny, and appropriate, if NASA had said that too.)
  

• "Global observations coordinated by WMO [World Meteorological Organization] show that levels of carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, continue to increase steadily and show no signs of leveling off," said Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the U.N. climate and weather agency.

• "If we stop [adding] CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, it would take 50 to 100 years before [we start] to see approaches to preindustrial levels."

• "Globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in the planet's atmosphere reached their highest ever recorded levels in 2004," WMO said.

Oooh! Let's take a long drive to the beach and watch the air curdle! Or, let's just take a freaking long drive!

I don't know if what Bob Marley said, which was "Ain't no use. No one can stop them now," is true or is a call to become more aware of what you personally are doing to contribute to this.

If you don't already regularly do this, take a bus today--wipe the damn seat down with a bleach rag if that's your trip with riding a bus. Ride a bike. Take a walk in those Adidas.

Do it for the kids in your house or in your neighborhood, if it's too hard to think about that big old scary globe out there. Because, see, global warming is already in your backyard.