I Love Idaho

Of course, I love the washrooms of Minneapolis-St. Paul even more.

Now, there are those who claim that it is physically impossible for a foot from one bathroom stall to wander errantly onto a foot minding its own business in the next booth.

Some may claim only a spastic fit could cause such a strange occurrence.

Certainly there has been no history of epilepsy in my distinguished family.

I am humbled by practically everything in life. A tomato humbles me. Bicycle spokes humble me. I was made for humbling.

Thank you.

p.s. You can watch my resignation speech in the post (If I may use that phrase...) below.

p.p.s. (If I may...) You can skip the advertisement if you like or watch it if you think it might be a good practice for your gullability quotient before watching my humble resignation.

MSN video

MSN video

Babble

I read the paper from cover to cover this morning.

And do know what I found?

Nothing. Gornisht, zipkins, de nada, nyet, zero, keduchas on a stick, windy pies and airy puddings.

Let's hope the weekend is somewhat dry, depending on your proclivities.

If you have such a thing as proclivities. Many people had them removed at an early age.

Many should have.

Many should.

It's not too late.

We Are Not Alone

Seems that being part of a Parole Board in any country, not just Canada - where Justice disappeared some 20 or 30 years ago - automatically renders one senseless.

Here's the headline in this morning's NY Times: "Parolee Linked to Killing of 5 Women in Michigan Capital "

Read the whole story here, and ponder this strange phenomenon, in which Parole Board members are universally the dumbest, most gullible and irresponsible fools on earth.

Ella Fitzgerald, Amsterdam 1957 - Angel Eyes

Nat king cole, Nature Boy

Thanks for the Hits!

A landmark! A milestone!

Today, the Berner Monologues passed the 20,000 mark in numbers of visits.

Wow!

Thanks, and let's have more...

Best wishes to all!

Gordon Campbell's Legacy

Isn't it fun about how you think of something or dream of it in the early morning just before waking and then you get up, put the tea on, pick up the paper and there, right there, on page 3, is what you were thinking or dreaming of?

Such was the case this morning with me and Gordon Campbell.

For no reason that I can fathom, I'd been thinking about Campbell's legacy and how we might be viewed by history. Clearly, old age and prostrate problems are keeping me from more "productive" thoughts.

I was thinking that Campbell will be seen as a guy who played to his strengths; not a bad thing. Money, business, physical projects have thrived and that can only contribute to the common weal.

But children, day care, health, education have received short shrift under Campbell's reign or been ignored utterly.

So sure enough, on page 3, there was Campbell opening a new bridge near Golden.

A very Gordo moment.

I cannot recall similar foto ops around any of the "humanistic" issues that occupy many of our thoughts. Maybe drug addiction, care for the elderly and the like don't take that well to the camera.

Or maybe the Premier is a pretty good manager with a not very warm heart.

Some will argue that the job description doesn't include "must have warm heart."

Leadership, I would argue, must be both strong and compassionate. Tilts in either direction are usually disastrous. But a balance between the two is what we all strive for in our own lives, and what we must always look for in our leaders.

How Many babies is Too many?

Daphne Bramham continues her excellent on-going series of pieces on Polygamy and the so-called Bountiful Community in today's Sun.

But, I had the weirdest thought.

There are 2 photographs of a man named Winston Blackmore. Under each foto, we are told Blackmore has more than 20 wives and...catch this...115 children.

115 children.

Alright. I confess it. My first horrible thought was, "This guy should be put down!"

On more sober reflection...This guy should be put down.

Shouldn't bringing 115 children into the world peopled with homeless, orphaned and poverty-imprisoned children be a major offense?

Isn't there something inherently unwholesome and downright strange about making that many babies?

O.K. I'm small minded. I can't get my pea brain around this concept.

But someone should put this lunatic out to pasture.

Oh, by the way...the foto herein is one of the few monents in Winston's life in which he has been known to wear clothes.

Itsy-Bitsy Spider? FUGETABOUTIT!

For those who like their tales well woven, check out this morning's little gem from the NY Times about the new world in a Dallas public park. It's spooky, it's creepy and it's for real.....

Murder Capital Gets The Bush Treatment

Bush put on his baby blue working shirt and stood near a bridge in New Orleans yesterday to tell us all what a wonderful job everyone was doing with the disaster.

He spent the first five minutes of his magic act praising Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, who just happens to be the senior Republican.

Five minutes of political hornswaggle to the people of a devastated region, who are suffering mightily and looking for relief.

This is yet the latest example of why he will go down in the books as the Worst President Ever.

His middle name should be Not-A-Clue, taken from the Mayans, to mean Gormless.

Shirley Strikes Out

The headline screams, "MINISTER VOWS TO MAKE B.C. STUDENTS HEALTHIER."

The article tells us that the highly effective, deeply committed Shirley Bond ("The name is Bond. Shirley Bond." I see Reese Witherspoon in the role.) will cut away at the junk foods and increase physical activity. Like running for the exits.

This is all very nice, isn't it?

The only problem is that B.C. schools abandoned recess, physical ed and sports programs in a huge way about 20 years ago and it will take not a few million but many millions of dollars to get all of that back up to speed. Of course, new gymnasia and the like, but more importantly, hundreds of new teachers.

And guess what? Shirley isn't about to spend that kind of money. Not with Gordon at the helm.

Her "aggressive new strategy" is hogwash, a drop in a polluted ocean, a smoke and mirrors job.

Did she make this announcement from the PNE?

Senator Larry Craig Arrest Renactment

Guest Blogger - Former Airline Flight Attendant, Pam

I can tell you exactly what is lacking on airplanes.

We were never given any supplies such as bathroom spray, disinfectant or proper hand soap. We started carrying our own supplies! If we had a major problem in a lav we would simply lock it off. The company never provided the crew with access to a lav so we often had to wait in line with passengers and deal with the aftermath of people who had never seen or used a western toilet!

The medipac is on every aircraft but needs to be signed by a medical doctor before it is unlocked. People do not realize how little we can do when a medical emergency occurs.

Also, aircraft have to be one of the most filthiest public places and I could not handle it when I saw people go in the lavs with bare feet!

I should write a book!!!!! I have seen rats and cockroaches on airplanes!!!!!! They no longer change the headrest covers and on many flights the blankets are re-cycled. Believe it or not there have been passengers seen blowing their nose in a blanket. Have I really grossed you out now??????!!!!!!

Immigration Helping Killers

Paul Cheema was a destructive, sick time bomb from the word go.

We've chronicled before his history of violence towards women and towards himself.

But for a moment, let's remember that he was ordered deported while serving a 42-month prison sentence.

Of course, the all-knowing, all-seeing, ever-compassionate completely out-to-lunch Immigration and Refugee Board reversed that deportation order because "he had strong family support in B.C."

Why doesn't the family of Shemina Hirji, the wife that he murdered a few days after their wedding, why don't they sue the Immigration and Refugee Board for gross negligence of their duties?

Don Corleone had the hearty support of his family. The Board doesn't go to the movies?

Don't get Sick on an Airplane

It is instructive to watch the mandarins gather the chuck wagons in a circle.

Dr. Alan Drummond wrote an article in 2002 called "On a wing and a prayer: medical emergencies on board commercial aircraft." Drummond called supplies and equipment woefully inadequate. Of course, his article and his offer to help airlines ramp up have been widely ignored.

Now that exactly such inadequacies were revealed in a recent trans-Atlantic flight, every hired flak for every department including birds has rushed to the defense of the airlines and the industry.

When will these sob's stop defending the indefensible and get on the path to improvement?

It's All In Your Head, Madam

Imagine how surprised I was to learn that "Doctors dismiss patients' concerns." NOT!

The article in today's Sun speaks mostly of the rotten side effects of statin drugs (Lipitor, Zocar)taken to lower cholesterol in heart patients.

I have had, let's see, a cardiologist, a G.P. and a stress test technician all tell me, in response to my complaints of muscle pain and other side effects, that I am "a very sensitive person with a vivid imagination."

While that reading of my lovely personality may bear some truth, it is amazing how they are all reading from the same script.

Does Big Pharma provide these crib notes along with the free samples and the golf excursions to the Caribbean?

Crooks and Liars » Craig’s Bathroom Bust Statement: “I am Not Gay!”

Crooks and Liars » Craig’s Bathroom Bust Statement: “I am Not Gay!”

Anti-Gay Senator Sex Hunting in Men's Washroom

God bless Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho.

Three times an elected Senator, first a Congressman, the Good Senator has an impeccable voting record consistently against any gay-friendly initiatives. Equal rights, adoptions, marriage, you name it, he's agin' it.

Then, oops, surpriserama, Larry is busted by an undercover cop for soliciting sex in a men's bathroom.

Only Larry David of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm could write stuff like this, and he didn't.

Read the sorry plight of the Republicans and other washroom scandals here.

Better yet, watch the above-linked video for the Good senator's full statement on CNN, which he begins with, "Thank you for coming out today." Clearly he is not sensitive to IRONY.

This will now rank alongside Clinton's, "I did not have sex with that woman," (Imagine how bad that made the millions of us who thought we had been the grateful recipienrts of oral sex to learn that nothing had happened!) and Nixon's "I am not a crook."

The Year of Living Similarly - Movie Remakes

Has some enterprising Wilshire Blvd. genius already pitched remakes of Gone With the Wind and The Godfather?

No doubt.

Than why be amazed that the great American actor and movie star, Keanu Reeves, will star in a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still?

Michael Rennie will be replaced by Keanu Reeves. Someone will replace Oscar-winning director, Robert Wise, (The somebody in this case happens to be Scott Derrickson, who made the execrable "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," in which I had a small role as a lawyer.) someone else will replace Oscar-winning actress, Patricia Neal, and someone else again will replace Sam Jaffe as the Einstein look-alike.

We're not sure who will play Gort the Robot.

The 1951 classic is one of the greatest sci-flicks of all-time. It's one of those movies that you find yourself irresistibly watching on average once a year, say, in February, when you have a cold and you're lying on the couch and it comes on and saves you from Oprah and Court TV.

It also contains one of the all-time favorite trivia questions:

What did Patrica Neal have to say to Gort to keep him/it from destroying mankind?

Now, we will have to ask what could we say to the executives to save us from Keanu?

Similarly, Jodie Foster stars in a movie about to be released momentarily called "The Brave One."

Ignorant people everywhere are comparing this to Foster's role in Taxi Driver and to the movie itself. But this is clearly a remake of the Charles Bronson thriller, Death Wish."

Made in 1974 by director Michael Winner, Death Wish included the best acting Bronson ever gave. he plays a liberal New York architect, whose wife and daughter are brutally attacked and raped in their own apartment. His wife (Hope Lange) dies and his daughter is forever confined to a mental hospital.

Bronson goes out onto the street and shoots bad guys at random.

The movie made peace-loving liberals scream with their own surprised delight. It became a cultural phenomenon at the time.

It also became a franchise, as several follow-ups were made, but none could hold a candle to the original, which was terrifying and gripping.

Jodie Foster is truly a great actor and her remake will probably be worth seeing.

As for Keanu...