This is how it started.

I knew Sam and Lori Nouv by sight and they knew me.  We didn’t know each other’s names but when I went into their donut shop they always knew what I wanted.  And they always had a smile.

And then there was the morning when, for these Cambodian immigrants, the American Dream turned into the American Nightmare.  The robbers must have been on drugs, for no sane crook would do to a victim what one of these guys did to Sam.  As a result of the pistol whipping he received – and he still doesn’t know why – the occipital bones around his right eye were shattered, there was major damage to his left eye, his face was almost unrecognizable, his teeth were loosened so badly that it was weeks before he could eat solid food, and a large portion of one ear was almost severed.

I heard a rumor about the robbery and beating several days before the story came out in the weekly Castro Valley Forum.  So I went to the donut shop to ask if the husband (still no name) was going to be alright.  The wife gave me the lowdown, including the fact that the terms of their medical insurance policy would leave them owing more than $10,000 in medical bills.

The next day I went back to the shop and slipped the wife $50 in cash.  But then I had an idea, and asked when her husband might be back to work.  The next day I sat down with Sam, learned his and Lori’s names and the first part of their story.

Sam has worked in the donut shop for about 22 years and has owned it for 19 years.  He goes to work every morning at 3:30 and opens for business at 4:00.  When the donuts are gone they close for the day, but that is often as late as 6:00 p.m.

After the early morning rush, Sam and Lori spell each other throughout the day, taking turns dealing with their three school-age children and trying to catch a short nap here and there.

And in 19 years, the longest they have ever closed the store has been for two days at a time.  No vacations for these two.

Our grandparents or great-grandparents were willing to work such hours when they came to America, but I don’t know any native-born American willing to do so.

The thing about the medical insurance was that the monthly premiums on the family policy were much higher than Sam could afford, so he changed to a policy with a $5,400 deductible, $50 co-payments and $500 a day hospital payments.  Add it all together and his out-of-pocket medical expenses were expected to be more than $10,000.  In addition, the couple had to hire a part-time worker to fill in for Sam until he is fully recovered.

So I sent out an e-mail to everybody in my address book who lives in Castro Valley, giving the background and asking for them to donate to Sam and Lori.  Through this direct appeal alone, they received almost $800.

Then the local Chamber of Commerce picked it up and people started jumping on the bandwagon.

This is the next part of the story:

Among the people on my e-mail list was our California Assemblyperson, Mary Hayashi, whose expertise is in health issues and who asked if I could set up a meeting between her and Sam.  She believed she might be able to intercede for him with his insurance company.  On the way back from this meeting, I discovered a lot more about Sam.

Sam was slow to open up to me; partially because he didn’t know me that well, partially because of cultural factors and partially because of the language barrier.  I knew that he had been orphaned at 13, but he finally told me that his parents had been murdered by the Khmer Rouge.  It seems they were suspected of having a bit of Vietnamese blood.

I hope to find out in time how Sam escaped.  The vicious Khmer Rouge spared neither the elderly nor the infirm nor the young.  But somehow he did escape and spent most of the next six years in a displacement camp in Vietnam before he and an entire planeload of other orphans were airlifted to the United States in a humanitarian gesture.

Now I was really intrigued, and we had these fliers printed up which were passed out all over town.

Ken Carbone set up the page for on-line donations through PayPal.  Kim McAllister picked up the story and posted it on her wildly popular blog about life in a hospital emergency room, www.emergiblog.com.  Ken Martin and the local Buon Tempo Italian Club sponsored a charity bocce ball tournament which raised more than $1,000.

All told, we raised $7,000, which we presented to Sam and Lori…

…along with this certificate:

That’s a small town for you.

I see where the U.K. climate scientists are claiming that the leaked e-mails which seem to show them manipulating data to support their conclusion that global warming is caused by man were “taken out of context.”

And just yesterday, the mayor of Vallejo, California, said that his remark to the New York Times that gays will not go to heaven was “taken out of context.”

“Taken out of context” seems to be the new excuse for everything.  Granted, many remarks are taken out of context and twisted around to make it sound like the speaker meant something else.  The extreme right is currently circulating a couple of films about President Obama spliced together from remarks taken “out of context” without explaining what the context really was.

But it’s difficult to imagine how “sweep that study under the rug; it doesn’t support our conclusions” could mean anything other than “sweep that study under the rug.”  Somehow I doubt that the e-mail really read something like “You know we can’t merely sweep that study under the rug just because it doesn’t support our conclusions.”

The Vallejo mayor was quoted by the Times as saying that gays are “committing sin and that sin will keep them out of heaven.”  His defense, of course?  It was taken out of context.

I really don’t think the New York Times would lift those words from a sentence which originally said “Some people say that gays are committing sin and that sin will keep them out of heaven, but I don’t believe that for a minute.”

But it must seem a useful excuse when you’re caught with your foot in your mouth or your hand in the cookie jar.  I don’t know why Gov. Mark Sanford didn’t use it: “Sure, I said I was hiking the Appalachian trail, but you’re taking it out of context.  And I admit I was really in Argentina boinking my girlfriend, but you’re taking that out of context, too.”

But why stop there?  I’m sure when Gov. George Wallace shouted “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” those words were merely taken out of context.  Or for that matter, imagine if Adolf Hitler had lived to go to trial at Nuremburg: “Yes, I know it looks like I ordered about 13 million people murdered – including six million Jews – but you guys are taking that all out of context.”

…and how to avoid the same

Santa Rita is the county jail in Alameda County, California.  That’s where they take you if you’re arrested by a county sheriff or a CHP officer, if you are awaiting a trial or if a court has sentenced you to jail time.  It temporarily houses murderers, rapists, child molesters, gang members and drug runners, but it’s also where guys go who don’t pay their child support.

I don’t do very much family law anymore, but I did for many years and in all that time I only had two fathers sentenced to spend any time at Santa Rita.  Most family law attorneys have many more of these stories than I have.  I guess I’m just an old softie.

The first one wasn’t really a bad guy – just stupid.  He had three children from his first marriage and a new wife.  One November, he quit paying child support for about three months and his kids had almost no Christmas that year at all.  All of mom’s money went for rent, food and clothing and Santa Claus was as mythical that year as the guy from the government who’s here to help you.

In the meantime, however, he had a $5,000 spa installed in his back yard and he and the new wife took off on a winter jaunt to Disneyland.  (Warning: if you’re going to buy expensive toys instead of paying child support, hide the toys from the kids when they come to visit.)

*

A word about contempt of court: The parent who’s supposed to be paying child support can be sentenced to up to five days in jail for each missed payment if he or she is found to be in contempt.  But the other parent (let’s face it – it’s usually the mom) has to prove that 1) dad had knowledge of the order for support, 2) he was able to make the payment if he chose (we say he had the “means to comply” with the court order), and 3) he didn’t make the payment.

The “means to comply” with the order doesn’t mean that dad has a bunch of money left over at the end of the month.  His kids are supposed to come first.  So it is no defense that he’s living in a $6,000-a-month penthouse apartment or he just bought some expensive new toys.  If, on the other hand, he had been laid off work, or fired, or his hours severely cut, or he had expensive emergency medical care, then he probably wasn’t able to make his support payments.

Also, most judges are reluctant to impose jail time, even if dad is found to be in contempt.  They’re more interested in seeing that the support is paid.  The norm is something like, “Mr. X, I find you guilty of two counts of contempt of court and sentence you to ten days in the county jail.  But I’m going to stay [postpone] that sentence and give you a chance to purge yourself of the contempt.  Bring your support payments current within 90 days and I’ll dismiss the contempt charges.”

*

This first guy, however, was too stupid to plead stupidity.  If he had only just put a big dumb look on his face and said, “Gee, judge, I didn’t realize it worked that way.  I’m sorry.  Give me a chance and I’ll make it right,” he’d have gotten off with nothing more than a lecture.

Instead, he went on the attack.

“Mr. ____,” I asked him when he was on the stand.  “Isn’t it true that you bought a $5,000 spa last November?”

“Who told you that,” he demanded.

“I’m sorry.  That doesn’t matter.  Did you buy the spa?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Mister _________,” interrupted the judge.  “Answer the question.  Did you or did you not buy a spa last November?”

“I really don’t see what that has to do with –“ he persisted.

“Did you or did you not?” the judge almost roared.

“I guess so.”

The subject of Disneyland was more of the same.

In the end, the judge sentenced him to 15 days in Santa Rita, ordered him to actually serve five days and suspended 10 days on condition that child support was made current within a certain amount of time.

After his long weekend as a guest of the county, he told his former wife that he would never – ever – miss a support payment again.  “I never want to go through anything like that again.”

*

The second guy definitely deserved it.  Mom had turned her life around since they had been together, but he still fancied himself a gangsta.  He had the means to pay support, but nobody was going to tell him what to do.

The judge found him guilty of six counts of contempt – for a total of 30 days jail time – and asked me what my client wanted him to do.

“Well, judge, we’re not really interested in putting him in jail,” I said.  “I was thinking maybe just a couple of days to get his attention and then –“

“Couple days to get my attention,” the guy muttered/sneered.  “I don’t need nobody to get my attention.  Huh!  Get my attention.”

“Okay, that’s it,” the judge snapped.  “I’m sentencing you to 30 days in Santa Rita starting today.  Mr. Court Attendant, please escort Mr. ________ to a holding cell.”

As far as I know, my client never did get her back child support.

*

So, as I’ve written before, I’m a member of the Pro Bono Players, who sing song parodies to the law community about legal issues.  I occasionally submit a song of my own and they’re always rejected.  This one, I kinda like.  It’s to the tune of Alan Sherman’s “Camp Granada.”

Hello Mudda, life’s been neatah;
I’m locked up in Santa Rita.
All I said was, “Judge, you’re a phony.
You can’t make me pay that stupid alimony.”

I was witty, devastating.
Now my few-chah’s worth debating.
All I said was “No more support.
Fifteen days ain’t half of my contempt for this court.”

Take me home where life was sweetah.
Take me home; hate Santa Rita.
Don’t leave me to sit in jail and rust,
(A skinhead’s eyeing me with lust.)

Bail me out. I’m sorry for the things I said.
I told the judge to soak his head.
I said his mother was a hound;
You know…I like to kid around.

I might have mentioned kangaroo court
And said “Heil Hitlah,” but he’s a poor sport.
Thirty days now is the rumah.
Mudda what’s a judge without a sense of humah.

The world would be a much better place if there were a law…

–Allowing parents to make their houses “payable on death” the way bank accounts are.  The parents could change this disposition at any time, the way they can on bank accounts.  Real property, if titled this way, would not have to go through probate.

–Saying that a spouse who is required to put the other spouse on title when refinancing a home, retains full ownership of the property.  Adding a spouse when re-fiing would not be considered a “gift” to the non-owner spouse.

–Allowing motorists to run down skateboarders older than 16.  Maybe there should be a bag limit, such as “no more than three per calendar year.”  There is nothing more obnoxious than a 20-year-old skateboarder zipping in front of your car without regard to traffic signals.  Shouldn’t these kids be doing honest work, such as robbing banks or dealing drugs?

–Mandating that anyone under the age of 21 caught driving a BMW, Accura, Lexis or high-end Toyota or Nissan be subjected to random searches for contraband substances.  Where do these kids get these cars, anyway?

–Making the listening to any of Lloyd Weber’s music a misdemeanor.

–Saying that mariachi bands may not play “Cielito Lindo” more often than once every 90 minutes.

–Authorizing a mandatory five-day jail sentence for signal-jumpers.

–Prohibiting radio station helicopters from circling over residential neighborhoods.

–Permitting marriage for any two committed adults.

–Requiring everybody to have an Advance Health Care Directive or a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care.

–Prohibiting cats from wandering free to crap in my vegetable garden, the same as city and county ordinances prohibit dogs from running free.

–Requiring the DMV to administer drivers’ tests (not just written tests) every two or three years to licenced drivers over 65 or 70.

–Requiring all dogs and cats to be microchipped.

–Making it illegal to challenge the citizenship of a current or former President of the United States without credible evidence.

Sell a disposable product, make a fortune.

Heinz Ruhe was a big, jolly German whose family had been in the wild animal business for four generations.

During colonial African days, before people much cared about saving endangered species – well, maybe before there were much in the way of endangered species in Africa, and even before the days of expensive safaris with the white man killing lions, rhinos and elephants merely pour le sport, not to mention well before the days of Ernest Hemingway and Robert Ruark – Heinz’s great-grandfather established a series of “catching stations” in Africa.  Wildebeeste, monkeys, chimps, gorillas, giraffes: you name it, they caught it.

All of these products went on the market in Europe and America, for zoos (both private and public) , circuses and roadside parks.

Grandfather Ruhe took over from great-grandfather, father took over from grandfather and Heinz’s older brother, Hermann, took over from father.  Somewhere around the time of World War I, the catching stations were largely abandoned and the family began to move in other – but still animal-related – directions.  They operated the Hanover Zoo for many years and, after World War II, developed a series of wild-animal parks in Germany, Spain, South America and California.

In European tradition, Heinz and younger brother Lutz didn’t inherit the family business, although they worked in it for a while until they found there was no future for them.  So they struck out on their own and developed a traveling “baby zoo,” specializing in baby exotic animals which they would buy from zoos, from the Ruhe family or from other animal traders, exhibit until they had passed the “cute” stage and then sell back to a zoo or another animal broker.

At any given time, their baby zoo might feature a giant Galapagos tortoise (on which kids could ride), pygmy African goats (which the kids could feed), a harbor seal, baby elephant, baby llamas, baby exotic cattle and pygmy horses (all of which the kids could pet), baby capuchin monkeys, baby chimps, a baby (or, sometimes, pygmy) hippo, and lion cubs which were put on display at bottle-feeding time and which the kids could sometimes pet.

(They eventually had to give up on the lion cubs, since lions are such prolific breeders in captivity that they became a glut on the market.  Most zoos have their lions on birth control and you can’t even give a cub away once it reaches adolescence.)

After spending a couple of years in southern California, they began traveling north, where they struck a deal with the struggling Oakland Zoo to operate a baby zoo as a concession.  A few years later, the San Jose Zoo was closed down amid a minor scandal involving mistreatment of animals and misuse of public funds.  The brothers Ruhe then contracted with San Jose’s Parks and Recreation Department to remodel and reopen the zoo as the San Jose Baby Zoo.

That’s where I met Heinz, when I was hired as the public relations director for the San Jose Baby Zoo.  But that’s not the point of the story.

*

Heinz was only 20 years my senior (he died that same year at age 46), but had an entire extra lifetime’s experience over me.  He introduced me to quality coffee beans years before Starbucks became ubiquitous, pushed me to share his entrepreneurial dreams and encouraged me to travel to Sacramento to lobby the California Assembly to amend a proposed bill about importation of wild animals to make it less zoo-unfriendly.

He also refused to become flustered and could find the humor in almost any situation.  I was still pretty brash and hot-headed and would occasionally make remarks that might be – how shall we say? – possibly true, but not exactly diplomatic under the circumstances.

“Oh, Ho, HO!”  Heinz’s laugh would boom, followed, in an accent that sounded almost exactly like Henry Kissinger’s, by “Now, Steve, you don’t really mean that!”

But that’s not the point of the story, either.

*

Before they left the family business to strike out on their own, Heinz and Lutz were sent to New York to manage a new Ruhe venture: importing canaries from Germany to supply a growing market for the songbirds in the states and for further export to South America, then swarming with German immigrants.

Business was fairly profitable for a couple of years until another German immigrant took Heinz aside one day and gave him a neighborly bit of advice: get out while you can.

*

The Ruhe family home and business for several generations had been located in the German village of Alfeld, about halfway between Hanover to the north and the Harz Mountains to the southeast.  About 150 km south of Alfeld, and just next door to the Harz Mountains was the village of Fulda, home of the Stern family.  So the Ruhes and the Sterns were ancestral neighbors, so to speak.

According to their on-line biography, brothers Max and Gustav Stern emigrated to the United States and began importing canaries in 1926 and, six years later, began manufacturing canary food under the label “Hartz Mountain.”

According to Heinz’s report, one of the Stern brothers approached him one day and suggested that he and Lutz should begin making arrangements to close down their canary business.  Possibly taking a page from King Gillette’s marketing model (the profit not being in the sale of the razor but in the sale of disposable blades), the Brothers Stern planned to vastly increase their bird seed sales by vastly increasing canary ownership.  In other words, they were going to sell canaries well below cost, practically giving them away.

Had it not been for this friendly warning, the Ruhes might have been ruined.

Heinz, who bubbled over with promotional ideas but never himself hit on the big one, held no grudge against the Sterns; in fact, he seemed to find the story amusing.

The Stern brothers did so well for themselves that they eventually branched into real estate and Hartz Mountain today is one of the largest holders of commercial real estate in the United States.  And all from bird seed, cuttlebone and more than a little grit.

Or, “Now which fork would you use?”

My friend Brian and I think we must be the only two people who stand over the kitchen sink during bing cherry season, eating cherries and spitting the pits into the garbage disposal.

*

There’s something satisfying about tossing food scraps.  Maybe it’s a racial memory of Vikings or English lords in their castles or mead halls, with straw spread all over the floor and the dogs fighting over the mutton bones casually tossed away when the diners were finished with them.

*

Or that longing for decadence we feel when watching the Russian cavalry officers in an old movie down their large shots of vodka and then all fling their glasses into the fireplace.

*

Years ago, two friends, a different wife and I planned a picnic on the Marin County Headlands.  Cold fried chicken and artichokes.  As we finished each bit, we tossed the bones and the leaves over our shoulders into the grass.  It wasn’t littering.  It was all organic.  We carefully took our paper and plastic away with us.

*

But that was outdoors.  Castles and mead halls being in short supply nowadays, different rules apply inside.

*

My nephew from Oklahoma, a kid who used to have no discernable table manners until he started visiting Uncle Steve and Auntie Marianne, was out here last month with his parents for freshman orientation at UC Santa Cruz.  One night we ordered Indian take-out, including tandoori chicken.  Cabot started to pick up a leg with his fingers, and I cleared my throat loudly.  He’d temporarily forgotten his etiquette.

“Can you look straight up and see the sky?” I kidded him.  “And, by the way, I didn’t notice until now that you’re drinking a Coke out of a can.  We don’t do that indoors, either.”

Cabot looked up at the ceiling and said, “Well, I do have a vivid imagination.”

It’s no wonder I love that boy.  He has a wicked sense of humor, just like his Unca Steve.

*

Or like the lady used to say about her son on “Dobie Gilles,” “Such a nasty boy!”

*

When Cabot’s older brother was ready to go off to college, his parents had to pay a thousand bucks to send him to a crash course in etiquette, where he finally learned, among other things, the proper use of tableware and the true purpose of a napkin.  He’d grown up like an enfant sauvage, and we jokingly offered to teach the younger kid all of these niceties for half the price.  But Cab has visited what they call “the left coast” so often, that he really doesn’t need a formal course – only the occasional reminder.

*

Like his uncle before him, Cab doesn’t want to be an Okie.  He wants to be civilized.

*

Cab’s mother, my sister-in-law, didn’t understand at all why it’s bad form to eat with your fingers or drink a soda out of a can when at an indoor dinner table.

“Now, why is that?” she asked.

“It’s called manners,” I replied.

These are among my favorite…

Jokes:

Rene Descartes walks into a bar and orders a beer.  When he finishes, the bartender asks if he’d like another.  “No, I think not,” he replies, whereupon he disappears and hasn’t been heard from since.

*

How many women with PMS does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
I don’t know.  How many?
Six.
Why six?
IT JUST DOES, THAT’S ALL!!!

Quotes:

I was walking down along the street and I heard this voice saying, “Good evening, Mr. Dowd.” Well, I turned around and here was this big six-foot rabbit leaning up against a lamp-post. Well, I thought nothing of that because when you’ve lived in a town as long as I’ve lived in this one, you get used to the fact that everybody knows your name. –   Mary Chase.  “Harvey”

*

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.   –  Joseph Heller, “Catch-22″

*

‘Please don’t talk,’ said the nun.  ‘That’s all right mother,’ I said, ‘they can’t hear me because of the noise of the traffic and because they aren’t listening.  And it wouldn’t make any difference if they did.  They’re too young to learn, and if they weren’t they wouldn’t want to.’  ‘It’s dangerous for you to talk, you’re very seriously ill.’  ‘Not so seriously as you’re well.  How don’t you enjoy life, mother.  I should laugh all round my neck at this minute if my shirt wasn’t a bit on the tight side.’  ‘It would be better for your to pray.’  ‘Same thing mother.’  –  Joyce Cary, “The Horse’s Mouth”

*

The benefactors of humanity deserve due honour and commemoration.  Let us build a Pantheon for professors.  It should be located among the ruins of one of the gutted cities of Europe or Japan, and over the entrance to the ossuary I would inscribe, in letters six or seven feet high, the simple words: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF THE WORLD’S EDUCATORS.  SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE.  — Aldous Huxley

*

Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.  — 1 Timothy 5:23

*

[H]e which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

Shakespeare, Henry V, Act IV, sc. iii

*

Exit, pursued by a bear.  — Shakespeare, A Winter’s Tale, Act III, sc. iii

*

For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.  — Thomas de Quincey

*

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of more serious crimes, like eating his salad with the wrong fork.  — Uncle Dave

Movies:

Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun.”  FINALLY released on DVD.

“It Happened One Night.”  Probably the second greatest movie ever filmed (after “Citizen Kane.”)

“We’re No Angels.”  No, not the trashy remake with Sean Penn, but the real McCoy.  Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov and Aldo Ray star in the best Christmas movie ever.  Ustinov is in particularly fine fettle and gives the best legal summation since Clarence Darrow.

Beautiful women:

You can keep today’s entire crop.  For sheer classic beauty, give me Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn and the young Elizabeth Taylor, the three most beautiful women of the 20th Century.

(Thanks for the title, Herb Caen)

It’s the middle of July and raining in parts of the Bay Area.  This is NOT supposed to happen.  Back in the 50s and 60s, we blamed weird weather patterns on nuclear tests by the USSR.  Here in the oughties, we blame them on global warming.  What will we blame them on in the 30s and 40s?  I’m torn among investment bankers, rabid Oklahoma Republicans and folks who live in Los Angeles.

*

If Sarah Palin described herself as “not a quitter,” why did she quit?

*

Are Charleton Heston’s fingers cold and dead enough yet that we can finally pry that assault rifle from them?

*

If newspapers all go the way of the dinosaurs, what will we line birdcages with?

*

I was asked yesterday if I intended to go see a local production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”  “I’m a firm believer in a comment I heard a few years ago,” I replied.  “Why do so many people take an instant dislike to Lloyd Weber’s music?  Because it saves time.”

*

Here in California, the Bankrupt…er…Golden State, we have pledged that all our residents are entitled to a free and first-class college education.  There is NO tuition at any California public university.  Of course, there are those pesky “fees,” which are fast approaching the cost to attend a top private university.

We bemoan this, because we really do believe that education is an investment in our future.  Why, we ask, should it cost $30 -$40,000 a year to attend a public university?

Of course, we also want the best infrastructure — and we used to have it, just like we used to have a top-notch educational system.  We want roads and bridges and levees and streets without potholes and playgrounds and bridges.  And we want the best social services and the best safety net for our least fortunate citizens.

How do we propose to pay for this?  I dunno, we shrug collectively.  Ain’t my problem.

Taxes?  Wash your mouth out with soap, boy.  We don’t need no steenking taxes.

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

*

Clippings from my bulletin board:

“The case of ‘William Shakespear’s Romeo & Juliet’ goes to the larger issue of ‘accessibility.’  For my money, it’s clear that some works of art just have to be met halfway.  Either we meet them and experience their joys, or we hang back and watch Schwarzenegger movies.  But to make something accessible by making it lousy — by changing it into something else while claiming it’s the real thing — does nobody any favors.”  — San Francisco Chronicle review of a few years ago.  Author unknown.

*

“Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.”  — Sydney J. Harris

*

“This, I think, is a great secret.  Just because you have an opinion doesn’t mean the other person has to know about it.  Just because you have a plan that is certain to make her life richer and fuller doesn’t mean you need to share it with her right this minute.”  — Jon Carroll

News flash: Kim Jong Il, in a fit of pique last week, launched a missile strike which destroyed the Hawaiian Islands.  You probably didn’t hear about it because the mainstream media and the blogosphere were too busy obsessing over Michael Jackson.  You don’t have to believe me, but when was the last time you got a postcard from Honolulu?

Remember, you read it here first.