Month: July 2005

The IRA, after a hundred years of strife, has announced it’s laying down arms and wants to work toward its goals using non-violent means (as Kathleen has noted over on her website.)

So let’s say we flash forward ten years, and Al Qeada is still strong, in business, and a major terrorist force. Iraq is still a fragmented mess. And suddenly Al Qeada announces that it wants to lay down arms and work toward a peaceful unification of Iraq and the Muslim world.

Do we accept that? Do we start working with them?

PAD

A Kenyan City Councilman has offered forty goats and twenty cows to Bill Clinton in exchange for Chelsea’s hand in marriage.

Hey…don’t laugh. I have four daughters, and I very much doubt I’m going to get an offer anywhere NEAR as good for them. “Mr. David, I’d like to ask you for the hand of your daughter (Shana/Gwen/Ariel/Caroline) in marriage.” And if I say, “Yeah? How many goats we talking about? How many cows?” the guy’ll probably just give me a weird look while the daughter in question rolls her eyes and tells her intended, “Just ignore him. I told you he’d be like this.”

I bet I don’t get any livestock at all. The guy’ll just say “Don’t have a cow, man,” and think it’s all a joke, and I’ll be lucky if I wind up with a coupon for a free Big Mac. Plus I have to pay for the wedding to boot.

Anyone have that Kenyan guy’s phone number? I wonder if he’s the one who’s been writing to me about trying to get $5 million into the country if I just give him my bank account info.

PAD

So I had the TV on just for background noise while I was working, and suddenly some TV doctor comes on and starts talking about how–if you feel tingling or heaviness in your legs–you may have peripheral artery disease, or P.A.D.

That got my attention. I looked up and watched in annoyance as the doctor proceeded to tell you everything you can and should do (including, of course, buying a particular product) in order to combat the terrible hazard that is P.A.D. And there’s my initials all over the commercial. “Beware of P.A.D.” “Know the early warning signs so you can avoid P.A.D.” “P.A.D., the silent killer.”

At least it’s not something that requires a rectal exam to detect. “Make sure your doctor sticks his finger up your butt to see if there’s any warning signs of P.A.D. in there.”

PAD

Okay, here’s the thing: I’m working on a book for Krause Publications on writing comics, and I need some specific photographs. However I can’t simply download them from the internet because there’s copyright issues. So what I need is some very clear, reproducable digital photographs that were taken by travelers with their very own cameras, and who won’t mind if I repro them in the book with the total payment being you get a photo credit and a free copy of the book.

Here’s what I need:

Mount Rushmore
The Citicorp building in New York
The Twin Towers (pre-destruction, obviously)
Downtown Schenectady, or a sign reading “Welcome to Schenectady.”

Yeah, I know, that last one might be a problem.

Anyone who can help me out, drop a note to me at padguy@aol.com.

Thanks.

PAD

There’s certain rides at Disneyworld where, if you don’t go on it while you’re there, you just don’t feel like you’ve actually visited (although your next month’s Amex bill will probably provide confirmation that you did.) It’s different rides for different folks. In my case, it’s always been the Peter Pan ride, one of the very first rides I ever went on back when I was on a high school trip to the Magic Kingdom.

As it so happens, it was also Carol Kalish’s favorite ride. Carol, Marvel’s former direct sales head and a good friend who died far too soon, loved the Peter Pan ride (although it was marred for her during one outing when she went on with a comic book retailer and he spent the whole ride talking about Marvel’s rack credit program).

So I was very interested in how her namesake, Caroline, would react on her first excursion on that same ride.

As we stood in line, I pointed at the passing pirate ships and told Caroline we were going to fly. “Fly?” she said uncertainly. “Fly in ships?” She wasn’t sanguine about it at all. When we clambered into the vessel (Kath and Ariel were in the one in front of us) Caroline clutched tightly and nervously to the lap bar that settled on us. Her eyes went wide as we moved forward, up, and then appeared to be hurtling into thin air (naturally she didn’t look up to see that we were being carried on an overhead track.)

“See, Caroline? We’re flying,” I told her, and pointed at the “night sky” over London. “See? There’s the stars. And there’s the city, way down there!”

“Stars,” she whispered in astonishment. And then, as we went higher, she suddenly pointed and gasped in delirious joy, “It’s the moon!”

Sure enough, just to our left was a large full moon. The silhouettes of Peter, Wendy et al were moving across it as it turned. I had my arm wrapped around Caroline just to make sure nothing happened. And she stretched out her little fingers, desperate to touch it, not quite succeeding. Completely enthralled in Disney magic, she cried out, “Oh, Da! It’s the moon!”

She watched the rest of Neverland with proper amazement. And although there were any number of rides and character greetings she enjoyed, that was the one moment in the park where she was totally swept away by pure fantasy-made-real. For a few seconds, one little girl sailed through the stars in a pirate ship and came justthatclose to touching the moon.

If Carol was watching through her eyes, I think she liked what she saw.

PAD

I was reading up on the new Supreme Court nominee to try and determine when (not if) Roe v. Wade will be overturned, and came across the following:

One Roberts case receiving particularly close attention involves a 2003 challenge to the federal Endangered Species Act. At issue was whether the act could be invoked to protect a certain species of toad that exists entirely in California and was being threatened by a development project. The appeals court ruled that under Congress’s commerce-clause powers, the Endangered Species Act extends protection to the toad.

Parties in the case asked the full appeals court to reconsider. All but two judges declined to take up the case.

Roberts was one of the two.

In his dissent, he said the full court should agree to hear the case to more faithfully apply two Supreme Court precedents establishing limits on Congress’s commerce-clause powers. He noted that the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals had recently adopted a similar, more restrictive, reading of commerce-clause authority and the Endangered Species Act.

That Roberts, who routinely appears to side with big business (and also appears to reject any restriction on presidential power–gee, hard to see what makes him attractive to Bush) wanted to take on the case isn’t the issue for me.

What bugs me is that if someone wants to build a development on MY home, and I protest that, then it’s tough beans. I lose my home. I’m screwed. But if someone wants to disenfranchise a freakin’ toad, THAT’S where the line is drawn? What the hëll–?!?

That’s it. I’m building a small enclosure in my back yard and getting me some of those toads. Either that or I’m going to lobby for Jews and/or liberals to be considered an endangered species.

PAD