We love Halloween!

We want candy!

Happy Halloween!

Trick or treat!

our son turns 25

Every generation hopes that their children will do better than they did, and I'm proud to say our son is living up to that hope. His sisters are too, but yesterday was his big day: Now that he's reached the ripe old age of 25, his auto insurance rates ought to drop! But let's talk about generations here.

His grandfathers attended college. One got his degree. My father, by the time he was 25, had graduated from Eastern Kentucky, was teaching school in "Bloody Harlan" County, Kentucky, and hadn't met my mother yet. Grandfather Doyle started college at Michigan State, but went to work at the Ford plant in Lansing after the beginning of WWII. There he met and married Sally, and was seven weeks away from being the father of a little red-headed girl when he turned 25.

By the time I was 25 I'd finished college (Florida State) and two years of active duty in the Army. I was a first-year law student in Hogtown. . .er, Gainesville, Florida. I hadn't met my future wife yet, either.

Our son earned a bachelor's degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found a great job in his major field with an aerospace company, and got married this summer to a wonderful young lady. How young? Two years younger, by my count, but that seems to be an inside joke.

His grandfathers would be proud. I am.

a few points to ponder

It's time for a little levity, no matter how forced or corny. I've borrowed this from a columnist at the Aspen Times, who had a longer version, but she probably borrowed it from somebody else and surely won't object. Next time you are riding a bus, or stuck in traffic because you should have taken the bus, consider:

• Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken over there ... I'm gonna eat the first thing that comes out if its butt"?

• If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

• If a fork is made of gold, would it still be considered silverware?

• Did Noah have woodpeckers on the ark? If he did, where did he keep them?

• Do pyromaniacs wear blazers?

• If you don't pay your exorcist, do you get repossessed?

• If a bunch of cats jump on top of each other, is it still called a dog pile?

• Can a person choke and die on a Life Saver?

• When you snap your fingers, does the sound occur when your middle finger releases from your thumb, or when your middle finger hits the palm of your hand?

• If two identical twin brothers married identical twin sisters, would their kids be identical?

• Do cows have calf muscles?

• If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

whew

Throughout your life you find yourself facing The Big Project, one of those things you've absolutely gotta do, and do it right. Maybe it was a term paper, a master's thesis, or a presentation to the Big Boss or a prospective client. Maybe it was organizing and arranging your wedding or your child's wedding. Whatever it was, there was a Deadline, as in drop dead if you're late. As the Deadline approaches, your brain begins to short-circuit and slide into panic mode if you did not get a head start early enough and did not plan ahead.

I had one of those Projects due this week, not as big as a wedding but important enough to do it right. Today was the Deadline. Court deadlines are inflexible, especially in federal court. I consider it a professional failure to have to ask for an extension of time. Thankfully, I took a big stab at it beginning last week. It always looked good at the end of the day but the next morning I would ask, who wrote this crap? Some projects always require more time than you think it ought to and this was one of them. HOWEVER, I got the thing finalized and filed before five o'clock. Some lawyers in private practice keep bottles of booze on hand to celebrate such events, but not so in a municipal building. Ah, well. The satisfaction of getting it done is intoxicating enough. The satisfaction of winning will be even better but that remains to be seen.

Fall arrived

Fall's finally arrived in Florida, with enough gusto to shove a hurricane out of the way. Thank God for both the arrival and the shoving. It pushed Wilma off the projected track and surprised a lot of S.E. Florida people who foolishly relied upon the weather service's map, the one with the broken line that runs up the center of the Cone of Uncertainty. Now there are 3.2 million people without power, some living in 20-floor "walk-ups" with no glass in their windows or sliding glass doors. Down in Naples, some have neither power nor running water, some have water but no power, some have tree holes in their roofs, some have no roofs at all. If you want to see local photos of the damage, do a Google search for the Naples News, the Palm Beach Post, the Boca Raton News, and the Miami Herald, and see what they are displaying.

The only good news is, we don't need power for the air conditioners. It was 50 degrees outdoors in Clearwater this morning and it's 74 degrees inside the house right now with the a/c and the heat off. Great stuff! Tomorrow I'm going to finish a defensive motion to file in a federal case I'm defending and then I'm going to get into a weekend mood right away.

Godot arrived

Hurricane Wilma is rapidly becoming history as I type this, at least for us Tampa Bay area residents. The storm came inland on top of Marco Island, south of Naples. We've had a little wind and rain here in Clearwater. I had a dental appointment at 7:30 this morning. Just as my dentist was complimenting me on the healthy condition of my gums while reaching back for the old hammer and chisel, the power went out. Got home in time to see some video from Naples. Lots of wind and flooding in Naples, which was near the northern wall of the eye as it went over. The report from Jill is, no power and no water, and our call to her was the first news she's had this morning. Two trees are down on the roof of Dewey's newly constructed house. There are trees down all over town. Meanwhile, Wilma is racing across the state at 25 mph, slightly south of the projected track. The western edge is being flattened somewhat by the cold front that is driving it east and north. Tomorrow we are going to have lows in the 50s.

waiting for Godot

Hurricane Wilma is out there, moving slowly, aimed northwest. Why worry? But the hurricane wizards and their computer models and their spaghetti maps are predicting it will make a right turn towards West Palm Beach by way of Naples. That depends on a lot of variables. . .will it turn? When will it turn? How far will it turn? Will it then go in a straight line? The longer it stays on its present course before turning, the more likely it will be to aim itself at the Tampa Bay area, if it goes straight after turning. The target date, so to speak, is now Monday, not Sunday, not Saturday, as was the early forecast. Aaaargh. See my post below for the link to the current weather map.

I spoke too soon [updated]

Just when I was admiring the "cool" weather and the opportunity to turn the A/C off, Mother Nature reared her ugly head with Tropical Migraine Number 24 [now known as Hurricane Wilma]. Check this link for current information:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/204841.shtml?5day

On Sunday, I said that this beast appeared to have two probabilities: One was to throw an uppercut into the Tampa Bay area, and the other was to give the New Orleans area the third-strike-and-yer-out treatment. On Sunday, our weather guy on TV showed us one of those spaghetti maps this afternoon and most of the computer models were running right over Tampa Bay. This is not good.

Update: This is suddenly a Category Five, yes Five, hurricane. They are now showing a projected path running right across Naples and over to West Palm Beach, but note that the "Cone of Uncertainty" is wide enough to reach Tallahassee. They do not really know where this thing is going, but the odds are that Saturday is going to be a disastrous day for a lot of people. The only good news is that the New Orleans area should get a break from this one.

Never mind the wool socks; where are my waterproof boots? It's time to check out our hurricane supplies.

fall in Florida, part 3

The current weather forecast calls for lows in the UPPER 60's this weekend. Cool! Time to get the flannel shirts and wool socks out! Clearwater Jazz Holiday opened last night and the first wave of cool weather always blows in for that. We have frozen our giblets sitting at the park during Jazz Holiday.

You non-Floridians may think I'm jesting, but this is a sure sign that summer is almost thinking about getting ready to decide whether to go away for the year.

just blogging along

I've been doing this blog thing for fifteen months now. Periodically, like everytime I fiddle with it, I ask "why?" It started out as sort of an open e-mail to our children, nice Florida kids who left home for the colder climates of Massachusetts, Colorado, and California. The idea was to drop little reminders of life back home without cluttering up their in-boxes. They can check in daily, monthly, or not at all.

That grew into "look-what-I-did" brag book. Here's Dad, trying to be helpful to hurricane victims. Here's Dad, taking and completing a Scuba course. Here's Dad. . .but that got tiresome.

Lately it has become a venting place, an electronic letter to the editor of no newspaper, to be read by maybe a dozen people but not to be carried out with tomorrow morning's egg shells and coffee grounds. This has actually turned into something that justifies the nominal effort, and it's fun when I can import a good political cartoon or photograph.

It is also an exercise in self-restraint. I've had years of practicing self-restraint. I do not want something I write to show up in tomorrow's newspaper to my embarrassment. A good friend of mine, the police legal adviser for another city in a galaxy far away, once referred to the city's police officers as "hot dogs." The newspaper loved it. The cops did not. He was embarrassed. That perfectly illustrates why you need to assume that whatever you write will eventually be read by the wrong people. Some folks are a bit too sensitive but there's no point in picking a fight unless you really intend to and have another job lined up. That's why you won't find me discussing my current job, the people I work with, or my employer. There's too much other stuff to grouse about without having to explain myself to somebody whose opinion really counts.

abolish the death penalty, part two

A gal named cessna asked me which Florida governor didn't sign death warrants. Well, it turns out I exaggerated somewhat. Florida's death penalty was declared unconstitutional, along with other federal and state capital punishment laws, in 1972. For about seven years prior to that, beginning in 1965, there was an unofficial moratorium on executions, nationwide. No executions took place in Florida from 1964 to 1979, which covers Reubin Askew's two terms as governor. In 1976, the laws of several states including Florida were upheld by the Supreme Court. Florida's first execution after that moratorium was John Spenkelink's in May of 1979. There were no more in Florida for the next four years. Back to cessna's question: There were no executions during Bob Graham's first term in office (1979 to 1983) except for Spenkelink's, but whether he signed death warrants during that time, I don't know. After his re-election, there were eight executions in 1984 alone.

say goodbye to the Adam's Mark Hotel

The Adam's Mark Hotel on Clearwater Beach came down shortly after 7:00 this morning with a mighty implosion. The Adam's Mark was the first of the tall hotels you encountered after going down the beach past the concession stand and the southern-most parking lot. It's too bad I have no sound. This started with BLAM, BLAM, BLAM at regular intervals, ten or so BLAMS, and then the hotel collapsed in a matter of seconds. You can click for a bigger image.

an arrogant insult: the nomination of Harriet Miers

I consider the nomination of Harriet Miers to the vacancy on the Supreme Court to be an arrogant insult to the nation.

To quote Pres. Bush: Miers "will strictly interpret our Constitution and laws. She will not legislate from the bench." That statement is happy horse feathers. The Constitution, written more than 200 years ago in concise terms, does not and cannot be applied to every factual situation without some measure of interpretation. There is no such thing as "strict" interpretation. Be glad of that. Otherwise, you would not have a constitutional right to privacy, which is mentioned nowhere in the Constitution.

To be able to apply the Constitution requires an exceedingly rare mental capacity. You need a mind capable of dealing with messy, sometimes ambiguous, sometimes conflicting, facts. After wrapping your mind around the facts, you need to be able to apply legal principles that often are in conflict with each other. Most federal judges have learned to do this fairly well, some better than others, most better than state court judges who see constitutional issues infrequently. The mind of a good federal judge is a wonder to behold. The best ones do not begin with the conclusion and work backwards. They begin at the beginning and plow forwards to a decision which is consistent with precedent.

My point is that we have hundreds of federal judges who have both the intellectual capacities and the judicial temperament to wear the robes of a Supreme Court Justice. Becoming president of the Texas Bar Association and being George W. Bush's confidant and in-house legal adviser are not qualifying events.

fall in Florida, part 2

The subtle signs of autumn in Florida are beginning to sneak up on us. The water in our swimming pool has cooled down somewhat. The air in the mornings is a tad cooler, or at least it no longer feels like the inside of somebody's mouth as it has all summer. The days are a little shorter. The lawn doesn't need mowing as often. Best news: Hurricane season is coming to a close, but it will be another month before we can pay more attention to the sports guy than the weather guy on the evening news. This isn't like autumn in New England or Michigan or Kentucky, but neither are our winters.

abolish the death penalty

This is long but bear with me.

When I was younger, I believed in the rightness of the death penalty. I could have pulled the switch.

I no longer believe that our criminal justice system is capable of sorting the guilty from the innocent to the level of certainty that justifies killing those convicted of a capital crime. Here is the most recent example, from the Associated Press. This man was not sentenced to death but many others have been after being convicted of similar offenses on similar evidence. As you read this, ask yourself where were you 19 years ago and what have you been able to do with your life since then. I have italicized the more atrocious aspects of this story:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Barry Gibbs was a forgotten man convicted of a forgotten crime he said he never committed: the 1986 slaying of a prostitute in Brooklyn.

It took a more memorable case -- the arrest earlier this year of a former detective on charges he doubled as a mob hit man -- for authorities to finally listen to Gibbs. On Thursday, a judge threw out Gibbs' 1988 murder conviction and released him based on new evidence that the same detective coerced a witness into identifying him as the killer.

"I knew I was innocent," Gibbs, 57, said at a crowded news conference at his lawyers' office. "I just had to make people believe." [Nineteen years ago he was 38 years old.]

The sudden release of Gibbs after 19 years behind bars was the latest twist in the case of former detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, dubbed the "Mafia cops" by tabloids. Both were arrested in Las Vegas in March on federal charges alleging they moonlighted as professional hit men in the 1980s and 1990s, settling scores against rivals of a Lucchese crime family underboss for tens of thousands of dollars.

Eppolito also was the lead investigator in the slaying of the prostitute. He located a witness who testified at a trial that, while jogging, he had seen Gibbs dump the body of the strangled victim near a bridge.

Gibbs, at the time a postal worker who was struggling with a drug problem, admitted he once had an "encounter" with the woman but said he never harmed her. Still, he was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

Following Eppolito's arrest, Gibbs' lawyers urged federal agents and prosecutors to re-examine his case. The discovery of an old homicide file on the prostitute's killing in the former detective's Las Vegas home raised suspicions further.

Under recent questioning by the FBI, the witness recanted, claiming Eppolito had bribed and intimidated him into identifying Gibbs, authorities said.

Gibbs said he was looking forward to feasting on a lobster tail stuffed with crab meat before worrying about how he'll survive on the outside.

"I was a legitimate guy," he said, "and now I have nothing."

Run/walk/stroll/amble for the Cure

The annual Komen Foundation Race for the Cure for Breast Cancer drew 12,000 people to downtown St. Petersburg this morning. It was a beautiful, hot day. Here's the starting line:

and here's a view from the rear of the pack with most of the route behind us. Not the complete rear; we started late. We completed the 3K hike in about 1:10, give or take a few minutes.