Lately, I've gotten hooked on chess - on the computer. Shockwave has a good chess game where you can play the computer or a live opponent. I first got interested in chess back when Bobby Fischer was playing the Russians for the world championship, but I gave it up because (a) it is basically antisocial (visualize a roomful of sweaty tournament players hunched over the boards, not talking a civil word to anybody), and (b) Bobby Fischer turned into the biggest flake since Paul Morphy (Googelize him, I don't have room to explain).
My interest was rekindled this summer when I saw my brother-in-law playing chess on his computer. He didn't understand the game at all, and was amazed when I showed him how to castle his king and how to take a pawn "en passant."
So I got into Shockwave's chess game. There seem to be two kinds of players - those who know what they are doing and those who don't. You can spot the latter by the fact that they bring their Queen out on the second or third move without developing their pieces or castling their king first. I love that because my opponent's Queen becomes my target. Every attacking move againt the Queen is a developing move for me. After about 10-15 moves it is all over but the technique of closing the game.
I don't consider this too big a waste of time. I've read that doing crossword puzzles is a good "brain exercise" that will delay the onset of Alzheimer's in old age. I'm betting chess will have the same effect. If it doesn't, I hope I find another chess player in the nursing home. Meanwhile, I'm having fun.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
thanksgiving in Massachusetts
We had a traditional unconventional Thanksgiving this year, in Boston. Unconventional, in the sense that we flew up on Thanksgiving Day (hint: a good day to fly - don't fly the day before), and three of our children were having a family Thanksgiving with somebody else's families in three other states. The fourth had to work late, so the three of us ended up eating non-turkey dinners at a nice restaurant (Boston is full of them). The turkey had to wait until Sunday, so the good leftovers got eaten on Monday.
It was traditional only in the sense that we drove down to Plymouth, where it all began if you don't count earlier settlements like Saint Augustine. We saw the replica of the Mayflower. Your mind boggles at the thought of 102 passengers, including three pregnant women, crammed on board, setting sail for a trip to God Knows Where in a boat so small. We saw the Rock. You know it is the Rock because somebody has chiseled 1620 on top of it, and there is a nice plaque explaining the Rock's history in a way that makes you believe it really might be the first stepping stone into the New World.
So I'm looking at the Rock and thinking how cold and forbidding the New World looked to the pilgrims, who didn't have an Interstate Highway to take them to Philadelphia, except there was no Philadelphia there yet, either. My kids had an ancestor named Workinger in Philadelphia in 1750. The pilgrims, starting out with basically nothing and travelling on foot or by horseback, put in a lot of hard manual labor to make the colonies look the way they did by 1750.
The original Thanksgiving was to give thanks for surviving. It was not to usher in the beginning of the Christmas shopping season or to mark the end of hurricane season. Sometimes we need to get back to our roots and remember where we came from and how we got from there to here.
It was traditional only in the sense that we drove down to Plymouth, where it all began if you don't count earlier settlements like Saint Augustine. We saw the replica of the Mayflower. Your mind boggles at the thought of 102 passengers, including three pregnant women, crammed on board, setting sail for a trip to God Knows Where in a boat so small. We saw the Rock. You know it is the Rock because somebody has chiseled 1620 on top of it, and there is a nice plaque explaining the Rock's history in a way that makes you believe it really might be the first stepping stone into the New World.
So I'm looking at the Rock and thinking how cold and forbidding the New World looked to the pilgrims, who didn't have an Interstate Highway to take them to Philadelphia, except there was no Philadelphia there yet, either. My kids had an ancestor named Workinger in Philadelphia in 1750. The pilgrims, starting out with basically nothing and travelling on foot or by horseback, put in a lot of hard manual labor to make the colonies look the way they did by 1750.
The original Thanksgiving was to give thanks for surviving. It was not to usher in the beginning of the Christmas shopping season or to mark the end of hurricane season. Sometimes we need to get back to our roots and remember where we came from and how we got from there to here.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
back to the blog, part two
When our son was a boy, I said something along the lines of, "The key to success is. . ." and he interrupted me with a question: "How many keys to success are there?" Good question. That's what I get for using the same cliches over and over.
Today I was thinking about a few tips I have received from other lawyers during my career. They aren't keys to success but they help cope with the occasional failure.
I was a young assistant city attorney in Boca Raton and the prosecutor in our municipal court. One day I came back to the office, furious that I'd lost a case I thought I should have won. So I asked my boss, "Red, what do you do when you lose a case you think you should have won?" He looked at me and grinned. "First," he said, "you say "Aw, shit.' And then you move on to the next case."
A friend of mine in Clearwater put it more elegantly: "I don't design 'em, I just fly 'em."
Another friend of mine from Boca Raton, who was not a trial lawyer, gave me this observation: "The basic duty of any lawyer is to give his client the best advice he can give - once. After that, the client is on his own." That has stayed with me because it helps me understand the basic relationship between lawyers and clients. Their problems are not really my problems, and they have the right to make "business decisions" on their own, as long as you point out the potholes and stumbling blocks they will encounter along the way.
Today I was thinking about a few tips I have received from other lawyers during my career. They aren't keys to success but they help cope with the occasional failure.
I was a young assistant city attorney in Boca Raton and the prosecutor in our municipal court. One day I came back to the office, furious that I'd lost a case I thought I should have won. So I asked my boss, "Red, what do you do when you lose a case you think you should have won?" He looked at me and grinned. "First," he said, "you say "Aw, shit.' And then you move on to the next case."
A friend of mine in Clearwater put it more elegantly: "I don't design 'em, I just fly 'em."
Another friend of mine from Boca Raton, who was not a trial lawyer, gave me this observation: "The basic duty of any lawyer is to give his client the best advice he can give - once. After that, the client is on his own." That has stayed with me because it helps me understand the basic relationship between lawyers and clients. Their problems are not really my problems, and they have the right to make "business decisions" on their own, as long as you point out the potholes and stumbling blocks they will encounter along the way.
back to the blog
I haven't blogged in a long time. Now that hurricane season and election season are over, with similar disastrous results, I need to change subjects. One more political note, however, before 2004 begins drawing to a close: I have been reading a lot of theories about why John Kerry lost. Most of them seem overly simplified. I have a few simple theories of my own.
One is that Kerry failed to hit back hard at the swiftboat vets who smeared him. Some of those guys have been smearing him since he came back from Viet Nam and began speaking out against the war. What happened to the swiftboat buddies he had up on stage the night of the nomination? They disappeared.
Another of my theories is that he didn't hit back at the constant Bush smear ads about the votes he cast in the Senate for more taxes, etc. He should have countered with a package detailing all the good things that he did vote for during his career in the Senate.
Thirdly, his own smear ads weren't as nasty as the Bush smear ads. No matter what the experts say, Americans love a good smear campaign. That has been true throughout American history. The only thing better than a smear campaign would be to have the candidates duke it out, bare knuckles, no rules, no holds barred.
Finally, he carried too much baggage marked "wealthy Eastern liberal." Speaking as a non-wealthy Southern liberal, I can say that sort of baggage does not sell well anywhere in the South or the Midwest.
Between now and the next election, the Democratic Party needs to find candidates who can get elected, like maybe a younger Jimmy Carter. Sorry, but Hillary Clinton has no chance - she carries the same baggage as Kerry and she also suffers the disadvantage of being a woman. We will have a woman for a President some day, but not Hillary. This will mean finding "centrist" candidates who are not afraid to disagree with the single-issue constituencies and who can speak instead of the greater good of the country.
Wild suggestion: Let's recruit Colin Powell to run as a Democrat. He'd get my vote.
If the Democrats can't find candidates who can get elected, we will see the party fold up and die. I hope that does not happen in my lifetime, which is not saying I am hoping for an early death. When I'm 88, I want somebody to guide my hand as I punch my absentee ballot from the nursing home, and I hope the Democrats will, at that time, be continuing down a long, long trail of success.
One is that Kerry failed to hit back hard at the swiftboat vets who smeared him. Some of those guys have been smearing him since he came back from Viet Nam and began speaking out against the war. What happened to the swiftboat buddies he had up on stage the night of the nomination? They disappeared.
Another of my theories is that he didn't hit back at the constant Bush smear ads about the votes he cast in the Senate for more taxes, etc. He should have countered with a package detailing all the good things that he did vote for during his career in the Senate.
Thirdly, his own smear ads weren't as nasty as the Bush smear ads. No matter what the experts say, Americans love a good smear campaign. That has been true throughout American history. The only thing better than a smear campaign would be to have the candidates duke it out, bare knuckles, no rules, no holds barred.
Finally, he carried too much baggage marked "wealthy Eastern liberal." Speaking as a non-wealthy Southern liberal, I can say that sort of baggage does not sell well anywhere in the South or the Midwest.
Between now and the next election, the Democratic Party needs to find candidates who can get elected, like maybe a younger Jimmy Carter. Sorry, but Hillary Clinton has no chance - she carries the same baggage as Kerry and she also suffers the disadvantage of being a woman. We will have a woman for a President some day, but not Hillary. This will mean finding "centrist" candidates who are not afraid to disagree with the single-issue constituencies and who can speak instead of the greater good of the country.
Wild suggestion: Let's recruit Colin Powell to run as a Democrat. He'd get my vote.
If the Democrats can't find candidates who can get elected, we will see the party fold up and die. I hope that does not happen in my lifetime, which is not saying I am hoping for an early death. When I'm 88, I want somebody to guide my hand as I punch my absentee ballot from the nursing home, and I hope the Democrats will, at that time, be continuing down a long, long trail of success.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
why are we in Fallujah?
Yesterday, listening to NPR while driving home from work, I heard an "independent journalist" from Baghdad accusing the U.S. military of committing "genocide" in Fallujah. I call it war, not genocide, but that raises the legitimate question, why exactly are we in Fallujah? Consider this, hot off the Associated Press "wire:"
"NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - Iraqi troops have found "hostage slaughterhouses" in Fallujah where foreign captives were held and killed, the commander of Iraqi forces in the city said Wednesday.
"Troops found CDs and records of people taken captive in houses in the northern part of Fallujah, Maj. Gen. Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassem Mohan told reporters."
The story goes on to say that the records they found did not indicate the whereabouts of hostages in captivity which are believed to be still alive. On the other hand, they aren't finished with Fallujah yet.
Like I said, I call it war.
"NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - Iraqi troops have found "hostage slaughterhouses" in Fallujah where foreign captives were held and killed, the commander of Iraqi forces in the city said Wednesday.
"Troops found CDs and records of people taken captive in houses in the northern part of Fallujah, Maj. Gen. Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassem Mohan told reporters."
The story goes on to say that the records they found did not indicate the whereabouts of hostages in captivity which are believed to be still alive. On the other hand, they aren't finished with Fallujah yet.
Like I said, I call it war.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
success, finally
Faithful readers of this Blog (both of you) may remember my bragging months ago that I was taking a Scuba open water dive class. After a few interruptions (nasal surgery, Hurricane Charley, Hurricane Frances, Hurricane Jeanne, and several unnamed disturbances on both coasts of Florida), I finally finished the course by making my second open water dive this afternoon, at Ginnie Springs, up near Gainesville. See it here: http://www.ginniespringsoutdoors.com/
I don't think it was cave diving, strictly speaking, but we did get an in-depth look at the mouth of a freshwater spring. You could easily hide an 18-wheeler in the mouth, and the floor was almost 60 feet down, but it wasn't a "cave." There were no tunnels branching off to God-knows-where. You could see sunlight at the top, if you looked way back before the ceiling blocked the view and if the 20 other divers didn't get in your way. Cold, at 72 degrees, but not too cold; with a wet suit it was like a drink of cold water on a hot day. Loved it! And now I'm a certified, card-carrying diver. My next toy may have to be a speargun.
I don't think it was cave diving, strictly speaking, but we did get an in-depth look at the mouth of a freshwater spring. You could easily hide an 18-wheeler in the mouth, and the floor was almost 60 feet down, but it wasn't a "cave." There were no tunnels branching off to God-knows-where. You could see sunlight at the top, if you looked way back before the ceiling blocked the view and if the 20 other divers didn't get in your way. Cold, at 72 degrees, but not too cold; with a wet suit it was like a drink of cold water on a hot day. Loved it! And now I'm a certified, card-carrying diver. My next toy may have to be a speargun.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
goodbye, Ralph Nader
One bright spot in Tuesday's election results is the miserable performance of Ralph Nader at the polls. In Florida, where the Nader vote made a difference in 2000, Nader got a mere 31,849 votes or less than one-half of one percent of the votes cast for the eight (yes, 8) Presidential candidates. To put it another way, he got substantially fewer votes in a statewide race than "Bubba the Love Sponge" got in a countywide race for Sheriff. "Bubba" got nearly four times the number of Nader votes.
You could call this Nader's Nadir. I hope this marks the end of Nader as a political figure. Goodbye, Ralph. Go away. You are unsafe at any speed. I hope we never hear from you again.
You could call this Nader's Nadir. I hope this marks the end of Nader as a political figure. Goodbye, Ralph. Go away. You are unsafe at any speed. I hope we never hear from you again.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
but can you fool all of the people?
As I write this, a different kind of writing is on the wall for the Kerry campaign. Let the smugness begin. I mean, I am going to sit back smugly and wait for Bush and his cronies to demonstrate that (a) they talk to God and God talks to them, (b) we really are winning the war on terror, (c) our economy is doing just fine, and (d) the Bush Administration is of such high moral caliber that we will not, during the next four years, see a single episode of corruption or feeding at the public trough by any Republican office holder or business executive.
Go ahead. Show me. After six decades, I am a patient man. We survived the Cold War and "duck and cover" drills (cower under your school desk to protect yourself from the atomic bomb aimed at MacDill Air Force Base that we all knew would miss and hit us instead). We survived Nikita ("We will bury you") Khrushchev and Fidel's Russian missiles. We saw the Berlin Wall come down (for which Reagan claimed entirely too much credit) and the USSR fall. We survived Reagonomics, although he embodied a hatred for government that still cripples the ability of the government to serve the people. We survived Ford and Clinton. We survived Newt Gingrich and his Contract on America. We have survived the first four years of George W. Bush, although few can truly say we are better off today than we were four years ago.
So, go ahead. Show me. I frankly do not believe you know God's will any more than Osama knows Allah's will. I do not believe we are winning the war on terror (a contradiction in terms), and do not believe any of the other "heifer dust" you have thrown at the people during this campaign. But I expect campaign promises to be kept. You have four years to demonstrate that you are as good as you think you are, even though a second-term President is answerable to no one.
In the meantime, may God help us all, if we are still worthy of his help.
Go ahead. Show me. After six decades, I am a patient man. We survived the Cold War and "duck and cover" drills (cower under your school desk to protect yourself from the atomic bomb aimed at MacDill Air Force Base that we all knew would miss and hit us instead). We survived Nikita ("We will bury you") Khrushchev and Fidel's Russian missiles. We saw the Berlin Wall come down (for which Reagan claimed entirely too much credit) and the USSR fall. We survived Reagonomics, although he embodied a hatred for government that still cripples the ability of the government to serve the people. We survived Ford and Clinton. We survived Newt Gingrich and his Contract on America. We have survived the first four years of George W. Bush, although few can truly say we are better off today than we were four years ago.
So, go ahead. Show me. I frankly do not believe you know God's will any more than Osama knows Allah's will. I do not believe we are winning the war on terror (a contradiction in terms), and do not believe any of the other "heifer dust" you have thrown at the people during this campaign. But I expect campaign promises to be kept. You have four years to demonstrate that you are as good as you think you are, even though a second-term President is answerable to no one.
In the meantime, may God help us all, if we are still worthy of his help.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
you can fool some of the people all of the time
In our home county (Pinellas County, Florida), with election returns in from 254 of 380 precincts (hey, California, your polls aren't even closed yet, so get cracking), Prez. George Bush is leading Sen. John Kerry, 189,959 to 180,212 or 50.85 percent to 48.24 percent.
Further down the ballot, Bubba Clem has gathered 26.30 percent in a two man race for Sheriff.
Bubba Clem, also known as "Bubba the Love Sponge," is a former radio DJ of the "shock jock" genre. How bad was he as a DJ? Bad. So bad that the FCC fined Clear Channel Communications over $700,000 for his performances. He was fined $23,000 by the FCC in 1998 for airing indecent material. In 2002, he was acquitted of animal cruelty charges after a pig was castrated and killed during one of his broadcasts.
You can say what you want about his performance as a DJ but he is as qualified to be our next sheriff as our house cat. And we don't even have a house cat. Nevertheless, 26.30 percent of the voters in my county have voted for him, and 50.85 percent have voted for Dubya.
P.T. Barnum was right.
Further down the ballot, Bubba Clem has gathered 26.30 percent in a two man race for Sheriff.
Bubba Clem, also known as "Bubba the Love Sponge," is a former radio DJ of the "shock jock" genre. How bad was he as a DJ? Bad. So bad that the FCC fined Clear Channel Communications over $700,000 for his performances. He was fined $23,000 by the FCC in 1998 for airing indecent material. In 2002, he was acquitted of animal cruelty charges after a pig was castrated and killed during one of his broadcasts.
You can say what you want about his performance as a DJ but he is as qualified to be our next sheriff as our house cat. And we don't even have a house cat. Nevertheless, 26.30 percent of the voters in my county have voted for him, and 50.85 percent have voted for Dubya.
P.T. Barnum was right.
America's Team: Next year is finally here
There are times (rare times, to be sure) when the stiff, formal language called "legislative legalese" can wax poetic. Consider this, from the Massachusetts Senate Journal of October 28 (edited for brevity):
Whereas, on October 27, 2004, the Boston Red Sox, against all odds, won the World Series after a record-breaking 4 wins in a row against their arch rivals, the New York Yankees, followed by a 4-game sweep of the Saint Louis Cardinals; and
Whereas, the Boston Red Sox have been labelled "America's Team" because of their perserverance and spirit in the face of seeming insurmountable odds and have won the respect and admiration of professionals and sports enthusiasts with their dramatic come-from-behind victory against the New York Yankees to clinch the American League pennant; and
Whereas, the offensive team became a defensive nightmare for the opponents, evidenced by a World Series performance in which the Boston Red Sox were ahead for 34 of the 36 innings they played against the Saint Louis Cardinals, the remaining 2 innings of which they were tied; and
Whereas, after 86 years, next year is finally here and the Boston Red Sox team has brought the elusive World Series trophy home; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved, that the Massachusetts Senate joins with the Nation in saluting the members of the 2004 Boston Red Sox team, its managers and owners, on winning the 2004 Sorld Series.
Whereas, on October 27, 2004, the Boston Red Sox, against all odds, won the World Series after a record-breaking 4 wins in a row against their arch rivals, the New York Yankees, followed by a 4-game sweep of the Saint Louis Cardinals; and
Whereas, the Boston Red Sox have been labelled "America's Team" because of their perserverance and spirit in the face of seeming insurmountable odds and have won the respect and admiration of professionals and sports enthusiasts with their dramatic come-from-behind victory against the New York Yankees to clinch the American League pennant; and
Whereas, the offensive team became a defensive nightmare for the opponents, evidenced by a World Series performance in which the Boston Red Sox were ahead for 34 of the 36 innings they played against the Saint Louis Cardinals, the remaining 2 innings of which they were tied; and
Whereas, after 86 years, next year is finally here and the Boston Red Sox team has brought the elusive World Series trophy home; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved, that the Massachusetts Senate joins with the Nation in saluting the members of the 2004 Boston Red Sox team, its managers and owners, on winning the 2004 Sorld Series.
one prediction I couldn't quite make
I predicted the Red Sox win (along with 80 percent of Red Sox fans), and then I questioned whether the Republican National Committee was behind the recent resurrection of Osama bin Laden - about an hour before Walter Cronkite wondered the same thing out loud on national television. (There's a new generation who won't remember how much we trusted Uncle Walter to tell it like it is. Only he could say what he said and get away with it.) But there is one prediction I've been holding off, believing it with all my heart but not wanting to look stupid: I was almost ready to post a blog note here predicting that Osama would be produced either alive or dead within 48 hours before the election. Here was are, five hours before the polls open in the East, and no Osama. Why I am up at this ungodly hour is a different story - visualize a flat tire, can't find my air pump, gotta be at the airport tomorrow to pick up my wife, but Wal Mart is open 24 hours a day and Wal Mart carries air pumps. There are no lines at Wal Mart this time of night. But that's a different story. Meanwhile, Osama is still out there. Have we doubled the reward, yet? How hard is it to find a guy over six feet tall who needs dialysis and hides out in the mountains?
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