This and That

Mrs Vache Folle and I went to see The Hangover last night. It was among the funniest movies I've ever seen. Three men take a bachelor party trip to Vegas with the groom and wake up the next morning with no memory of what transpired and with the groom missing. They follow various clues to figure out what happened and where their buddy could be.

My mother survived the Holocaust, but she was way too young to remember anything about it. I wish I had discussed it with my grandmother and recorded her experiences. "What was the Holocaust like, Maw?" "Well, Dagwood (she sometimes called me that), we here in Whitfield County didn't even know there was a Holocaust going on until the war was over. It was a hard time, though, because all your uncles were off fighting in World War II, and I worried about them night and day. I'm sure the Jews had it a lot worse, though."

My neighbor was flying his Confederate Battle Flag the other day, but I don't know the occasion. I don't think it was the race thing. NASCAR races on weekends, doesn't it? Anyway, it seems so out of place in the Hudson Valley. I have mixed feelings about the Confederacy. I'm pretty sure my poor illiterate ancestors in the Confederate Army were hapless dupes who didn't see themselves as fighting for slavery. At least I'd like to believe that. I don't like it when anyone pisses on their graves so to speak by attributing motives to them that I doubt they had. On the other hand, they were traitors, just like their ancestors before them in the Revolution had been. The Revolutioners succeeded, though, so we call them "Patriots". The Confederates didn't, so they're just traitors, or more charitably "Rebels". For the most part, flying the Confederate Battle Flag these days is taken as an expression of racism. Even if you're intention is otherwise, you have to expect that it will be interpreted as racist.

I went to the gym today for the first time in weeks only to find that it was closed. The sign on the door said "temporarily" and laid it off to a landlord dispute. I went on line and found out that the chain was in Chapter 11. You wouldn't know it from the Sport & Wellness websites. They make it seem as if it's business as usual when clearly it's not. A reputable company would have some FAQs about the bankruptcy and information about how it was expected to play out on its websites. So I'm assuming that the club is not going to reopen unless somebody buys it. Here I was feeling guilty for the last month about not going to the gym when it was closed the whole time.

My nutcase neighbor who was disappointed in the election last November finally took down his sign that decried the Unites Socialist States of America and referring to Obama as Redistributor-in-Chief. It doubled for a while as an advertisement for Free Kittens. They really need to spay their cat. They still have their harpoon cannon aimed across the road.

I skipped church today. The choir is on hiatus for the summer, except for the women who sing on Father's Day. They get Mother's Day off while the men sing. In summer, the music is more ad hoc with small groups singing. In August, we have church outside under a tent. Anyway, I might not go to church all summer. I'm just not into church services if I have to be a spectator. I'm not a big fan of sermons and would just as soon skip that part.

My friend who was in the horrible car crash last summer finally had his innards reattached and enjoyed his first bowel movement in eleven months. I can't tell you how relieved I am that his recovery has gone so well. He's going to be in a lot of pain for a while yet. I didn't visit him in the hospital because I am phobic. The level of anxiety that being in a hospital as a visitor creates in me is intolerable. The place is crawling with sick people and germs. The only thing I hate worse is going to a funeral home.

The GOP is Still Evil

I have become convinced over the years that Democrats, for the most part, mean well. They really believe that good government can improve people's lives. Only, they're stupid. Republicans, on the other hand, do not have good intentions. They just want power and access to the treasury. They'll say or do anything to get and keep power because they don't give a shit about this country. They want what they can get for themselves, that's all. They're evil.

Democrats seem to think that they should be able to work in a bipartisan way. And they can as long as the other party is not the GOP. They don't seem to want to attribute to their counterparts in the GOP the evil motives that they seem to possess. The GOP will gladly attribute evil motives to anyone if it helps their cause even if the attribution is unsupportable.

Republicans don't care about being lying sacks of shit. It works for them. One or more of their surrogates may some outrageous claim or accusation which is then picked up by one of the right wing's captive "news" outlets (Washington Times, FOX, Weekly Standard, etc.). The surrogates and "news" outlets complain that the "liberal media" is ignoring the story, and then it filters into the mainstream media, The lazy assed talking heads at CNN and MSNBC and the like don't bother to look into the substance of the myths being created and disseminated and talk about them as if they were anything other than made up batshit lunacy. That's being "balanced" when you are too stupid or lazy to look at the facts. The mainsteam media has some right wing moles in it who make sure that the product of the right wing myth making machine get aired.

This works again and again because Democrats are too afraid or too stupid to stand up and call bullshit and shine a light on the machine. Except Al Franken.

I Fight Nature; Nature Wins

I feel as if I'm back in Seattle what with the almost constant grey skies and rain. Of course, the rain is different. In Seattle, it just sort of misted and drizzled all the time. Here in the Hudson Valley, it comes in downpours with thunder and lightning and an agitated Carpathian Shepherd keeping me up all night even though he's mostly deaf. Quite a bit of the mountain drains through my creeks and pond and parts of my yard, and I sustained a little damage to a pachysandra patch that got in the way of a flash flood that the creeks could not contain. I have fixed it, and I am proud to say that I think I came up with a solution to divert the flow coming down off the mountain from the west side.

Earlier, I put in some "levees" where the flow from the bedrock heads into the pond to channel the water into a waterfall that I had erected with big rocks. The "levees" I made by making two berms of pond muck and planting grass on them. The flow from the fencelline now is contained between them and does not wash put my perennial beds. I can't believe I didn't think of this before. When I saw what happened to the pachysandras, I nailed some planks to the fence behind the pachysandra bed to stop (or at least slow) the flow off the mountain and divert it toward the southern creek bed. Smart, huh? I have put in a layer of sand and aim to plant grass in a layer of pond muck to fight erosion even more. I reckon anything short of a deluge will be covered.

Oddly, the basement has not gotten filled up with water due to excessive rain as it had in the past. In times past, it has been necessary during some storms to run a second sump pump to keep up with the inflow. The basement water comes from underground, and I have no idea why the groundwater flow would have changed.

Making Your McMansion Pay

I bet McMansions would make good boarding houses. They usually have extra bedrooms and even bonus rooms that could be let, and their large kitchens make cooking for a group a breeze. Let's say you have a five bedroom house in a high end subdivision. You put your kids in one room and yourself and your mate in another, and you let the rest to strangers. I bet you could get $750 a pop if meals are included. It's hard to get an apartment for that little in the Hudson Valley, and solitary folks would be so much more comfortable in a family atmosphere instead of comng home to an empty flat. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

Would the neighbors have grounds to complain? Only if your boarders made nuisances of themselves. The neighbors would probably thank you for giving them the idea to take in boarders themselves.

If you got to know some Honduran landscapers, you could probably fit 10-15 boarders in your three spare rooms at $500 a pop. That would go a long way toward paying your jumbo mortgage.

Scripture

Steve Scott is starting a new series on how we really read the Bible. http://fromthepew.blogspot.com/2009/06/scripture-american-style-1.html He's using red font to express the real meaning that we seem to give it. I look forward to the series.

When I was a kid, my King James Bible used red font to indicate the words of Jesus. Also, it had italics where words had been supplied in the translation. Only I didn't know that. I reckoned the italics meant I should emphasize those words when I read them, so I did. I sounded pretty stupid, let me tell you.

Anyway, I'm reading up on some of the books that didn't make it into the Bible. Some discoveries suggest that the Gospel of Mark was edited a great deal to remove content that the orthdox bishops deemed objectionable. It makes sense when you think about it. Mark is pretty choppy in places, and it ends rather abruptly. And what's up with the young man in the linen loincloth in Gethsemane? That seems like such a non sequitur. Was linen loincloth dude a bigger part of the story in the original Mark?

I suppose that the orthodox viewpoint was the only one that could have survived and flourished through the Dark Ages. The chirch had to be authoritarian and institutional. It is only now that it is safe for other versions of Christianity to be practiced, and I reckon it would be interesting to play around with different canons.

"Responsible White Separatists"

A spokesman for the white separatist movement remarked about the shooting at the Holocaust Museum: "The responsible white separatist community condemns this," he said. "It makes us look bad."

Holocaust Museum Shooting Suspect Had History of Hate, Signs of Breaking Point - washingtonpost.com

You know what makes white separatists look bad? Being white separatists.

And the Nominees for Worst Legislature in the Country

Are New York State, especially the Senate, where a couple of crooks that the Democrats thought they had bought refused to stay bought and sold themselves to the Republicans. The worse of the two was made President Pro Tempore of the Senate and would become Governor if David Paterson died or was incapacitated. God help the State of New York.

Divorce

My carpool companion is getting divorced, a process that's been in the works for months now. Meanwhile, he and his not soon enough to be ex-wife still live under the same roof, a situation that he once reckoned was a good idea for the sake of the kids but which is becoming increasingly intolerable as he embraces the divorce.

I reckon he's lucky to have a former divorce lawyer to commmute with, because I have been able (for free) to put him through the paces to get to the point where he can make rational decisions. He was the one who was blindsided by his adulterous wife, stay at home mother of three small children to whom my companion has devoted everything. He is a family man through and through, so the idea that he was going to lose his family was the ultimate blow. Seriously, his whole life revolves around hearth and home.

He went through the typical stages of the wronged spouse. At first, he was sure that his wife didn't really mean it, that she was just trying to get his attention, that the whole thing would blow over. I was pretty harsh with him during that phase. I pointed out that she was fucking somebody else and not him, that she did secretly set up a bank account, and that she was pretty adamant about getting divorced. I explained that she had been preparing for this for months, maybe even years, so that she was emotionally ready and poised for action. That's why it didn't seem upsetting to her. Her mind was made up. Say hello to reality.

Then he went through the "I'll do whatever it takes to save this marriage" stage where he floated all kinds of offers about how he would change, that they could work it out, get counselling, what have you. "Won't someone think of trhe children" also came into play. The dude was ready to live in a loveless marriage just for the kids and because he secretly believed that, given time, the bitch would come around and love him again. Again, I was pretty harsh. "She doesn't love you any more, if she ever did, and nothing you do or say can change that. You can't make her love you. If she changes her mind and begs you to take her back, great, but meanwhile don't be stupid. Look to your interests on the assumption that you're getting divorced. Your wife will use your vulnerability against you, so don't settle on anything until you get your head out of your ass."

Then he alternated between depression and anger for a while. This was understandable, but I told him that he had to make plans and decisions with a cool head. He wouldn't always feel this way. Eventually, he'd get over his hurt and anger enough to move on with his new life. And he'd be glad to be free of the shrewish harpy, at least as free as you can be with children together.

Now he's ready to protect himself and to work with his lawyer to get the divorce done with as little inconvenience to himself as possible. He still claims that he wants to have the kids with him way more than he probably really does, but that's what fathers are expected to say. If the ex-wife wants to saddle herself with a disproportionate amount of the burden of parenting, let her. You can always trade days with the kids for economic concessions. Down the road, she'll be begging him to take the kids more often.

One thing he can't seem to get past is that the court doesn't care whose fault it was that the marriage failed or that his wife cheated on him. I'm working on convincing him that the "Justice System" has nothing to do with justice. It really took him aback when I remarked back when the divorce process started that "nobody held a gun to your head". "This is what you sign up for when you get married and have children with someone. Didn't anyone warn you?" I reckon every marriage license should include a conspicuous warning: MARRIAGE MAY RESULT IN DIVORCE WITH YOUR SPOUSES TAKING HALF YOUR STUFF AND A LOT OF YOUR INCOME.

I Will Never Get Up Early and Go to the Gym

Yesterday, I decided that today was going to be the first day of the rest of my life, that I was going to get my shit together once and for all. I set my alarm for 5 am and resolved that I would get up and go to the gym in the wee hours of the morning. It's so much more righteous to work out in the early morning and the opposite of my nature.

I reckon I was unconciously setting myself up for failure. I didn't sleep a wink all night and couldn't even dream of going to the gym at 5 when the alarm went off. What a maroon I am. I am dead tired at my desk and apt to fall out any minute. A power nap might not be a bad idea.

Anyway, I decided that there is no way that I will ever get up at 5 in the morning to work out. It's not in my nature. I shouldn't even think of resolving to get up earlier than I absolutely have to.

When I had drill sergeants screaming at me, I could get up and exercise. Otherwise, it isn't going to happen.

Vacation Plans Made

I booked a cruise in the Western Mediterranean for late November. We haven't done anything cultural in a while, so we're visiting a sampling of cities. We'll have a few days in Barcelona before the cruise.

I was amazed at how inexpensive the actual cruise part is (less than $500 per person for a week), and the whole thing with air, hotel and cruise is less than $4K. Of course, excursions are extra, but most of these are under a $100 per person. Alcohol is extra, and the bar tab broke the bank on our last cruise. This time I have a plan to moderate alcohol consumption by putting off my first drink until our predinner visit to the wine bar. Also, I will drink only when Mrs Vache Folle drinks, so unless she turns into a boozehound between now and then, we'll spend way less on beverages.

Another costly item for us on our last cruise was the spa. We had massages, facials, manicures, pedicures, what have you. And it added up, let me tell you. Nowadays, we have regular appointments for massages and facials and nail care, so we won't feel any need to treat ourselves to these things at three times the cost while we are on the ship. I am used to my regular masseur and nail care professionals who are way better than the staff on the ship. Instead, we aim to get the "spa package" which for about a $100 each gives us access to the sauna, hydrotherapy pools, whirlpools, steam, and the "quiet room".

With excursions and souvenirs and wine, I'm hoping to do the trip for under $5K.

Bugaboo Creek

Mrs Vache Folle and I went out to dinner with some friends on Saturday to Bugaboo Creek, a steak restaurant in Poughkeepsie, presumably one of a chain, that has as its "theme" the Canadian Rockies. The food was palatable (I had smoked spareribs) and a "Bunyan Onion" appetizer. The latter is the same as a "Bloomin' Onion" that you'd get at the Outback, but it's name reflects the fact that Canada has forests, perhaps even some that legendary giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan visited. There were unlimited refills on nonalcoholic beverages, and I must have downed a gallon of iced tea before I realized that the waiters were surreptitiously replacing my beverage container any time it got to half empty.

The main dining rooom, where we were seated, featured an animatronic mounted bison head that would come to life at intervals and crack wise. The first couple of times, it was amusing. Even more annoying was the policy of commemorating birthdays with a parade of chanting and singing waitstaff, one of which was carrying a muppet mounted moose head that would maul the celebrant. There must have been thirty birthday celebrations during our dinner. Every few minutes, waitstaff would come over and ask us "How's everything tasting?" I had to admit that everything tasted pretty good. I hope that there are defibrillators strategically placed around the premises, because arteries are acloggin' at Bugaboo Creek. That's the only thing that makes the talking decapitated ruminants and the birthday celebrations bearable.

It Sucks to Be Me

I learned from my doctor the other day when we were reviewing my lab results that my triglycerides are way too high. I need to lose weight to get them down. My doctor suggsted that I check out Medifast because my antianxiety medication causes me to gain weight and makes it hard to lose weight. It's not my fault! It was the meds all this time. Self loathing can now be moderated. My plan is to taper down on the meds and quit drinking alcohol since it interferes with the meds in the first place. Also, I'll eat better and less and get more exercise. At least that's what Morning Guy aims to do. Evening Guy or Tomorrow Guy may have other ideas.

One of my big issues is guilt. I feel guilty all the time. Often I know that what I am about to do is going to result in intense feelings of guilt, but I do it anyway. I never made the leap to guilt as a deterrent. I blame my mother for this since she played the guilt card so much that it became meaningless. My guilt is unceasing and serves no purpose. It's like a phone that rings all the time whether or not anyone is calling. I feel bad about maligning my mother just now. I am a shitty, shitty son. Anyway, if only I could channel my guilt into helping me take healthy decisions. I am such a worthless wretch.

Also, my testosterone is way low, another side effect of my meds. Aside from reduced libido, this doesn't have any adverse impacts. I've been married to the same woman for over a quarter of a century, and I don't reckon I want to do anything that would upset our routine of quarterly sex, so I'm not going to get treatment for the hormone level. I might take some OTC supplements or some such thing, but no testosterone cream for me, thank you. Sex=guilt. I don't blame Mom for this. This was the Baptists. After sex, I want to apologize right away. Thanks for nothing, Baptists.

Other than the two anomalies, my blood and urine read normal. My good cholesterol was high and my bad cholesterol was only slightly high instead of astronomically high as it would be if I didn't take meds. I feel OK except for some fatigue (meds again). Now I'm worried about some hidden defect that, having been lulled into a sense of healthfulness by the lab results, I will fail to observe in time to treat. Damn it! I can't feel good about anything for even a minute.

Forget Personhood

When we ascribe personhood to an individual or category of individuals, this is ultimately based on arbitrary metaphysical assumptions about which it is pointless to argue. What we can do is discuss the practical, real world ramifications of the ascription or denial of personhood in particular cases. Even then, we will ultimately bump against subjective value judgments about costs and benefits and priorities, but it is nonetheless useful to get past the stage of "x is a person" versus "no it isn't" and to engage in constructive dialogue.

Suppose that I adhere to the irrational normative proposition that all spermatazoa are "persons" entitled to the rights and privileges apputenant thereto. After all, given access to an egg and a womb and just the right conditions, the sperm could become a human. This implies that I might support measures, however inconvenient or costly or draconian, to prevent the mistreatment or unnatural death of sperm. What do we gain by ascribing personhood to sperm? Nothing other than the satisfaction of appeasing me and my ilk in the "masturbation is murder" movement. In fact, we take on an onerous burden with no objective payoff for the social order. After all, sperm can't reciprocate. I don't deal with sperm in any manner that resembles my dealings with other "persons". Sperm don't respect my rights or personhood, and they can't even violate them of their own volition. Ascribing personhood to them seems ridiculous for these reasons and because of the difficulty of enforcing spermatazoa rights.

One might make the same arguments about human egg cells. What's the point of making them persons and recognizing rights? It is possible that a proponent of ova rights would use the ova as person argument as a justfication for the consequences of such a stance. It might suit the advocate of ova rights to limit the movement and freedom of women and to maintain an intrusive surveillance apparatus for reasons utterly unrelated to ova with ova rights being a tool to bring unwitting dupes on board with his program. Otherwise, nothing is to be gained by recognizing ova as persons.

The same goes, I reckon for an ova which has been fertilized by a spermatazoa. The fertilized egg is in no better position to recognize my rights or to violate them or to reciprocate with me in any way than the sperm or the egg that it once was. Affording it personhood does nothing other than diminish human freedom with no payoff other than appeasement of the subjective, irrational beliefs of a portion of the population. Those who call the fertilized egg a person must expect consequences to flow from the ascription, and it is likely that many who do so understand their position as a means to obtain mass support for the application of measures which protect fertilzed eggs at the expense of actual sentient human beings.

Suppose the egg successfully plants itself in the uterine wall. Nothing has changed really for the purpose of our analysis. Nothing is gained by calling it a person, and a big burden is shifted onto actual sentient human beings. The cell divides and begins to differentiate, and all along the way it remains incapable of respecting another human or reciprocating with us in any way.

At some point, protecting the fetus becomes sufficiently less costly and inconvenient that it begins to make sense to offer it some legal protection. It is not necessary to characterize it as a person in order to do this. And the interests of the actual sentient human being who carries the fetus should certainly weigh heavily and take precedence in most cases.

Let's not get caught up in whether a fetus is a person. Let's just decide what protections a fetus ought to have under various circumstances and leave it at that. After all, children aren't persons, at least not in the full sense of the word. Their rights are hugely constrained, and we expect little of them as moral agents. We afford them protections commensurate with their situation, and their personhood doesn't really play into it. Personhood for children has implications that are very complicated and that contradict traditional social norms. It is only when we come to those who have attained majority that the concept of personhood has any meaning.

Roe v Wade was, in my opinion, rightly decided. If one accepts that the enumeration of rights in the Constitution is not exclusive and that other rights nonetheless exist, that the notions of what those rights might be can evolve over time, that courts traditionally make law to deal with social developments as they have done in the creation of the evolving common law since time immemorial, and that certain rights carve out areas of life where the government is simply not empowered to act, Roe v Wade rings true. Given the development of jurisprudence vis a vis the 14th amendment and the application of federal constitutional rights to state actions, we can set aside the states' rights objection for the time being. It is one of the few decisions that stand for the proposition that the sovereign's power is not unlimited.

Tools Against Terror

The power of the executive to detain terrorists without trial for preventive reasons would come in handy in the investigation of anti-choice terror cells in the wake of the assassination of Dr Tiller. If you even knew the assassin, you're probaably a terrorist and eligible for preventive detention. You can't be too careful, so if in doubt detain, dtain, detain. Those FEMA camps will come in real handy, too.

Thanks to the ability to use "enhanced interrogation techniques", which the government would have to do to prevent any ticking time bomb scenario from unfolding, the confessions and the informing will come quickly. The government will, if it deploys all the tools the prior administration claimed the authority to use, can rid us once and for alll the anti-choice domestic terror movement.

Murder by Domestic Terrorists

Let's say I'm a hacktacular TV commentator who wants to see an abortion doctor get killed. How do I go about it without risking liability? I know that there are domestic terrorists, many of whom are regular viewers of my show, who are willing to kill abortion doctors, so I'll just vilify the particular doctor on my show and wait for a domestic terrorist to do my dirty work.

I'd be just like one of those clerics who issues a fatwa, except I wouldn't ever say out loud that I wanted the docttor killed. My domestic terrorist viewers know what I mean. Wink wink.

Of course, the public will be horrified, but that won't have an impact on me because I work at FOX and my viewers are douchebags who will approve of what I did.

Whom should I choose as the next target for domestic terrorism?

Empathy is Good

Why wouldn't you want a Supreme Court Justice to be empathetic? We already have our quota of psychopaths on the court.

Most of the justices have lived lives that insulated them from adversity, and this is bound to color their worldview and the way they interpret the law. Frankly, I don't think the Supreme Court really understands or much cares about how its decisions impact ordinary people. Other than their servants, they rarely encounter anyone ordinary.

Someone like Roberts can claim that he's just calling balls and strikes because he reckons that his worldview is the only one. He doesn't get it that his background and life experience color his interpretation of the law as much as anyone else's.

North Korea Solved

At long last, someone has an idea for how to deal with North Korea's Dear Leader: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/merrill-markoe/i-know-what-to-do-about-k_b_208210.html

For world peace, I'd buy a ticket to River of Blood.

Bring Back Peasantry

At some point, industrialization led many from the laboring classes to abandon the plow and become wage earners in cities and towns. Later, we mechanized, automated and computerized a great many of these folks out of jobs. Then we exported manufacturing and decided to become a nation of bankers and folks who serve burgers to bankers. The low skill manufacturing jobs that pay at least half a living wage are almost all gone, and about a third of us are fit for little else. Some have suggested that these folks can be retrained and educated to handle high tech jobs. This is probably not true.

I propose as a solution to the plight of the urban poor a return to the family farm. Just about anybody can farm with the right training, and peasant farmers enjoy a degree of economic independence that the urban poor can only dream about. Society would benefit from having small family farms widely dispersed throughout the country, and these would add to greater food security.

The return would have to be subsidized, of course, and a training program in sustainable agriculture would have to be maintained. Land, mainly from public holdings, would be provided free of charge and free of property taxes as long as the homesteader or his or her heirs held it and farmed it. A market for their produce would be supported by requiring public schools to purchase local peasant farm products for use in school cafeterias. Also, the formerly blighted neighborhoods now abandoned by the newly made peasant farming class could be gentrified, and the peasant farmers could come in on weekends and run farmers' markets for the yuppies who live in their old apartment buildings.

I reckon that sustainable agriculture and organic farming would be the best market niche for the peasants, in part because the program would have a less furious reaction by Big Food if it didn't compete directly with it. Frankly, small farms can't compete with the mega farms when it comes to providing crops and meat for the processewd food industry. Also, the peasant farmers would have less need for expensive equipment and fertilizers and would not require as much in the way of credit. We don't want them to fall into the debt trap that has all but killed the family farm. We want them to stay on the farm for generations to come.

Peasant farming also builds character. Families work together in a common enterprise, and folks deal with one another on a person to person basis. A peasant farming class would provide a counterweight to our overly depersonalized culture. It might also make for some interesting politics.

Tax Deductions I Favor

I have been thinking about the mortgage interest deduction and have concluded that it's a sop to the middle class. While we're giving ourselves sops, why don't we lobby to have other aspects of the "American Dream" made tax deductible.

For example, what young bride wouldn't want a lavish Guinea Wedding, and what parents wouldn't want to throw them for their daughters? If the costs of a Guinea Wedding were tax deductible, families could afford to go even more over the top. Cocktail hour with all you can eat snow crab legs and an omelet bar, an eight course meal, a live band with an open bar, a Vienna Room and stretch limos for the whole wedding party would be available to more brides and grooms. The catering hall industry, dressmakers, and other folks who make their money on weddings would benefit mightily, so this could be a boon to the economy. Also, the tax code would be promoting marriage, wouldn't it?

Or how about the costs of education for the kids? If these were tax deductible, folks could afford to spend more, and schools could charge more and pay teachers better. What middle classer wouldn't want the best possible education for his or kids? It's the American Dream to give your kids a better life than you had.

Americans love dogs. Every household should have at least one dog. Dog ownership builds character and makes for better citizens. Dogs also deter crime. Let's make the costs of keeping dogs tax deductible! Hell, let's establish a tax credit for dog related expenditures. (I work from home a lot and keep confidential files there. I have dogs to protect the house; ergo, I should be able to write off their upkeep as a business expense. Mrs Vache Folle, CPA, disagrees, says it would invite an audit.)

Another aspect of the American Dream that the tax code overlooks is the maintenance of a healthy lawn. Shouldn't lawn care costs be deductible?

Snake Encounters

The long weeked was marked by close encounters with water snakes. On Saturday, Jasper caught Brad, the mack daddy of the water snakes in our pond, and I had to intervene to keep Brad alive and Jasper unbitten. On Monday, Mrs Vache Follw was weeding the daffodils by the pond when two water snakes chased a large frog right where she was kneeling. The frog got away, and the snakes made themselves comfortable and started screwing in the daffodils. The frog seemed way to big for thos particular middling sized snakes. Later that day, Mrs VF happened on a baby water snake in the grass by the deck, further from the water than we've ever seen a water snake before.

Today, I went down to the pond to try out a new net I bought for mucking, and I ran into Brad on the berm with the ass end of a huge frog sticking out of his mouth. His jaw had unhinged, and he was swallowing what seemed to me to be an impossibly large meal. Jasper came over, so Brad swam across the pond to the Jasper free zone where the dog is not permitted to go. Slowly but surely, Brad swallowed that frog and slithered off with a huge lump in his middle. He'll likely not need to eat again for some time.