The Torment Continues

Actually, I jest. Watching the Repugs continue their assaults on one another is better than football, so I'm glad Mitt won in Michigan. So to recap, Huckabee takes Iowa, McCain gets New Hampshire, and Romney wins Michigan. After Nevada the real stabfest will commence in South Carolina. Remember what Rove and the Bushits did to McCain in 2000?

I'm popping the popcorn now. It's going to be a delightful bloodbath.

The Bull Market Is Dead. Long Live the Bullshit Economy.

The tech bubble burst in 2001. The housing bubble burst in 2007. The dollar is prevented from falling further by all the foreign debt holders who would like to cash out but can't because it would cause a panic on the dollar and a subsequent collapse of the value of their holdings. The Fed is hinting at lower interest rates to free up some capital.

What we need, of course, is another bubble to obscure the housing pop. For a fascinating and likely prescient article on what lies ahead, I recommend you read "The Next Bubble" by Eric Janszen in the February 2008 issue of Harper's Magazine, available at your local newsstand (although you should really be a subscriber). Janszen sees in the sudden hype over alternative and green energy initiatives to modify tax laws and create new financial instruments the creation of the next bubble, and my aim is this time to get in early, not be greedy, and bug out with a nice gain, even if it's quite modest by the standards of most Wall Street types.

I'm thinking of European alternative energy companies so that at least the investments and returns are in more stable Euros, and also because the Europeans seem to be much more serious about the technology. My suspicion is demand in this country will drive a serious importation of Euro-tech equipment and software.

Forgive me for writing of economic matters--they're pretty dull--but Janszen's article really got me thinking about how to profit from these tulip-bulb manias rather than just watching them from the sidelines. I got burned a little in the tech meltdown, but knew better than to have anything to do with the real estate insanity theses last few years, despite being a little tempted by the ridiculous gains that were made by those who got in and then out in the meaty part of that inflated curve.

We're in a deeply disturbing cycle of denial and unreasonable optimism as each "next new thing" arises and sucks yet more wealth from the working classes into the tax-favored holdings of the few who know how to play the game, and who, in fact, control the game. I don't think it's any accident that economic education is wholly absent from the public school curricula.

Read the article. Read it twice. Think it over. If possible, play the game with the odds on your side.

Uh, I Think It's Snowing

Two hours to shovel out the driveway and cut a path for the mail carrier, but under a clear blue sky. Then Dorothy and I went for a lovely walk, or rather, I walked and Dorothy porpoised, occasionally coming up for air. Ain't she cute?

Tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary, but why should it matter? Until the lobbyists have a fire hose turned on them, flushing them out of the Capitol, it'll be politics as usual. We are a corporation, not a country, and the hope of Obama or the experience of Hilary, or the battle-tested courtroom skills of Edwards won't make a damn difference. Add onto that that ABC banned Dennis Kucinich from a Democratic debate and Fox News (sic) banned Ron Paul from that of the Republicans, and the idea of a marketplace of ideas, free and fair elections, blah, blah, blah, just gets pounded further into dust. We don't even get a chance to hear views that don't fit into a narrow and mistaken idea of what America could be.

I'm cold and tired, so I ain't got more to say at the moment. I'm just going to enjoy Dorothy's adorability.

Happy New Year 2008!

All the best to you from Olaf, family, friends, and critters. Let's close the book on 2007 and make 2008 a year worth smiling over.

Got Those After Xmas Blues?

You're not alone, friend. You're not alone.

Your Good Big Brother Is Still With You

At the interstice between Xmas and New Years Day, it is good to remember that Olaf is watching over all things, even if he has been, um, delinquent in his postings lately. Perhaps 2008 will open new vistas or give him a clonk on the head so fucking serious that he will rave like the madman he truly wants to be. God knows there are many who would love to do some clonking on Olaf. For those of you in this corner of the Southwest, line up and I'll open my noggin to ya. No pointed objects, please.

With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, suddenly Iraq recedes into the misadventure it has always been (never a threat) and Afghanistan, which squirted away thanks to the Iraqi distraction is now, along with the border region in Pakistan, hosting ever more Taliban. Pakistan immediately takes front and center, and here are the sobering facts. Pakistan is the sixth largest country in the world (bigger than Russia, as Joe Biden pointed out today) and they have nukes now, not in some uncertain and distant future like Iran. Their dispute with India over Kashmir and the bloody past mixed in with a potential political collapse if Musharraf goes the way of Ms. Bhutto's father or his murderers, Zia al Haq, could be the start of the first thermonuclear exchange. Heaven help us if that erupts.

Bombing the shit out of Iran doesn't seem so important or smart against backdrop, does it? But I'll just wager that Bush and Cheney are using this assassination in Pakistan as a veil under which to advance all their plans to do just that. Why?

I wish I knew, but they are nothing if not determined, even if it is by now driven only by madness.

Actually, however, I'm actually in a pretty good mood, despite the grim visage above. In my spare time I've been laying down tracks on what I think may be a pretty good tune, a rather upbeat thing with a nice swing to it. Don't have a title yet.

Happy New Year, y'all.

One Solution to the Television Writers' Strike

After we are all done stressing out to the max for the holidays, after all our family dramas have been thoroughly heated in the pressure cooker of our "perfect Xmas" mythology and all the sibling and parental issues have resurrected their ugly heads even though we've all been successful at playing grown-ups for decades, what are we left to do?

Well, sit back down in front of your new 56" HDTV and get ready for the second half of the season. Unfortunately, the writers are on strike, and speaking for myself, I don't think I can bear any more "reality" television that revolves around skanky love (Rock of Love, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, I Love New York 2, The Real World, etc.) without becoming a serious threat to civilized society.

But I was gratified to learn of a pilot for a really real reality show: Gitmo TV, a secret photograph I was able to cadge thanks to a lead from a favorite streetwalker along Rosenthalerstrasse, who directed me to a secret group of offices where the program is being hatched. It's in Berlin due to concerns of secrecy. Here's the concept.

In the first two episodes we will get to know twelve inmates at Gitmo, eleven of whom are innocent Afghan, Somali, Yemeni, and Iraqi shopkeepers and peasants, but one of whom is a seriously ambitious al Qaeda member with visions of 72 virgins dancing in his head. The identity of the al Qaeda member is unknown to anyone except the show's producer. Each week, the inmates will be given challenges, both in teams and as individuals. And every week, depending on the outcome and the discussion among the judges (a Cuban, an evangelical death penalty advocate, an atheistic alcoholic, an Islamic mullah, a devout Mormon, and a secular Jew), the audience will vote by phone ($0.90 per call) for which one of the inmates will be selected for various "repugnant acts," in the words of newly minted US Attorney General Mukasey, which might or might not constitute torture, like waterboarding ("It's like swimming," according to Senator Kit Bond (R-his own ass)), electric shock, freestyle Tasering, rumping with a broomstick, and other recreational activities.

All of this, of course, will be shot in High Definition Television with previously unused technology like "Invadocam" that can show the introduction of the "Giuliani broom handle" into the rectum of a losing inmate.

The final episode, of course, will result in the execution of an inmate as the "true terrorist" as selected by the viewing audience in a manner also to be selected by the viewing audience for the ultimate in democratic action in national security. I don't think Big Brother, the Amazing Race, or Survivor will ever be the same again after this.

You saw it here first.

"Chimpie" Is Retired

Regards and props to Dumb Drum Guy for spurring me into posting again. It's good to know you're out there. Thanks, man!

Now to bidness, as they say in Crawford, Texas.

After receiving the following letter accompanied by the photo of its author at home, above, I wish to offer my sincere apologies to the simian brother- and sisterhood for any offense. I am deeply, deeply sorry that I was so thick-headed that I could not see the obvious problem with the term "Chimpie." Here's the letter:

Dear Mr. Rotkohl,

First, let me say that I am a fan and, although I only rarely post comments, I keep your blog on my bookmarks list and check it regularly. Even my wife finds you amusing at times, and even informative now and then. However, there is a matter that I can no long keep my silence over, and now that you have my photograph, you may understand why.

I do recognize the resemblance between my species and the president, but while it may seem to be a comic reference in some contexts, it begins to wear rather thin, especially after nearly seven years of increasing criminality, incompetence, and dishonesty coming from this White House. Now, whenever I see "Chimpie" in your posts, I cringe to think that anyone would begin to think that we are somehow responsible for this particular simian dunce in the Oval Office. It's true we share nearly 99 percent of our DNA with your species, but that gives no license for you or anyone to slander us or any of the other great apes with responsibility for having produced this specimen.

This is not an issue of political correctness, as I hope you will see having received this letter. I doubt you have had much contact with chimpanzees on a close, one-to-one level, so I hope that it is only an oversight and a failure of your otherwise compassionate nature to make this nickname a handle for the president.

But don't stop hammering these people! They have fucked up our world too, you know.

Keep it real, Dude!

Sincerely,

Arthur M. de Saussure, PhD
Washington, D.C.

Global Warming May Be Bad, But It Gets Worse

I had to change into my cool yellow HazMat suit for this one. As you may have heard, the United Nations report on climate change is none too cheerful, and even as gloomy as it is, there is speculation that it is still too optimistic and that things are going to get far worse much quicker than is being reported. I understand the need for caution--we don't want global panic. But on the other hand, I feel it is my duty to my reader(s), which although declining (the number of my readers, not my duty) to reveal the heretofore hidden portions of the report.

So grab your favorite beverage, make it a double, then double that, and sit down for a minute. Here's what no one is telling you until now.

Godzilla is coming back. And this time, he's bringing his homies: the Giant Behemoth, Mothra, and Rodan. The increase in ocean temperatures has re-stimulated the regeneration capabilities of these various monsters' remaining parts in the various watery areas of the world where they have lain for several decades. Not since the nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific at places like Enewetak, Bikini Atoll, and Christmas Island has this phenomenon occurred, and the disaster that awaits us when these beasts arise from the seas will make global warming seem only a minor inconvenient truth. What's a hurricane compared to 20,000 tons of angry lizard who breathes radioactive fire? What's FEMA gonna do about that, eh?

Let me point out that one of the primary effects of Godzilla's radioactive breath is electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which will disable anything within range that contains microprocessors, and that means just about everything these days--automobiles, aircraft, communication systems, ovens, all computers of course, and even heart pacemakers (Sorry, Dick, but sometimes being an evil cyborg does have its disadvantages).

Stay tuned and start your bunker preparations. It's going to be every Jane and John for her- or himself when the giant lizards, insects, and pteranodons come over the horizon.

You've been warned.

Invaded Iraq, Who Didn't Attack Us, and Now Target Iran Although It's Police State Pakistan that has the Bomb

I can think of no one happier with George W. Bush than the guy who had his soul looked into by him--Vladimir Putin. Still a viable nuclear power, a potentially huge problem for Europe, and an ally of sorts to Iran, the Russian president has got to be laughing and laughing and laughing as the US finds that only 17 percent of Turkey's citizens like us, our "ally" Musharraf has declared a police state, and wherever Condi Rice goes for diplomatic kneebending, disaster follows.

With Musharraf going to ground, resistance and fighting may well break out in Pakistan for control of the country and its nuclear arsenal. Although the US is not in any danger from attack by Pakistan--they lack long-range delivery capability--if radical Muslim extremists topple the government, our posturing over Iran or bin Laden and the "smoking gun that is a mushroom cloud" (such a dumb pairing of tropes!) is going to be mooted, and our failure to close out the Taliban in Afghanistan will come back to haunt us.

Putin is an old KGB guy, and he knows how to exploit weakness, whether it is personal or national In some ways he is liberated completely from ideological concerns that constrained his Soviet forebears, and can play any advantage that we lay at his feet.

The Middle East is suppurating like an open wound, and it's going to seriously damage the defensive health of this nation--the real purpose of a US military establishment instead of this commercial protection racket that we're running now.

And yes, that's me in the mask, struggling to find some clean air.

Oh! The Hubris!

The "Lack of Self Awareness Award" for the entire decade has to go to Chimpie. I swear, this is someone with absolutely no shame, no knowledge of history, and the rhetorical integrity of the playground. From the AP today:

Bush argued the current debate over the Iraq war and the administration's anti-terror methods harkens back to debates decades ago over resisting action when Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin first talked about launching a communist revolution, when Adolf Hitler began moves to establish an "Aryan superstate" in Germany, and in the early days of the Cold War when some advocated accommodation of the Soviet Union.

"Now we're at the start of a new century, and the same debate is once again unfolding, this time regarding my policy in the Middle East," Bush said. "Once again, voices in Washington are arguing that the watchword of the policy should be stability."

Bush said any denial of war is dangerous.

"History teaches us that underestimating the words of evil, ambitious men is a terrible mistake," Bush said. "Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. And the question is, will we listen?"

I only have one question, Mr. El Presidente--have you fucking caught bin Laden yet?"

Oh, and World War II lasted from September 1, 1939 until August 15, 1945, taking just under six years to defeat the German-Italian-Japanese Axis powers. It has now been six years and nearly two months since September 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden is still sending you videos. Al Qaeda, with no nation-state to work from, no armament factories, no natural resources, no defensible borders, no nuclear capability for either delivery or detonation, a disconnected network of freelance ideological operatives, is something you claim is as big a threat as was the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany and even requires more shredding of the Constitution than Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., or Clinton ever, EVER contemplated, let alone attempted.

The threat is overstated to serve your megalomaniacal lust, and yet you cannot even deliver up a skinny old man from a warren of caves to show for it.

What a fucking failure you are. Why couldn't you have just become baseball commissioner? At least that wouldn't have killed anyone and a real president could have had bin Laden and his cohort liquidated without breaking a sweat.

Failure.

How Europe Views America

We're about to fall hard on our ass, you see, and it's going to be pretty embarrassing.

The truth is, actually, that we are barely on their radar any longer. When I lived in Berlin thirty-five years ago, even after I got out of the military, I was acutely aware of my "American-ness" because of Vietnam, our support of the Shah of Iran, and, of course, our large military presence throughout Europe. Being an American meant facing a lot of questions, challenges, and sometimes outright hostility. Even as someone who disagreed with our foreign policy then, I felt obliged to defend our overall intent in trying to shape a better world, because I honestly believed then that although we were capable of making some pretty grievous mistakes, our goal was never to build an empire. In 1983 I was in the Netherlands and then Britain when Reagan opted to invade Grenada, and that was a bit tougher to balance. Actually, the Brits found it more comical than anything else.

With that on my mind on returning to Berlin and Prague two years ago, I discovered that things had changed quite a bit, and in a very unexpected way. That experience was echoed on these last two trips, and it's been a bit of a shock, I'll admit.

You see, we still view ourselves as the center of the world, and we have the idea that as the U.S. goes, the world follows. As the old adage goes, when the U.S. sneezes, the world gets a cold. But not anymore. And for citizens of "Old Europe," as Donald Rumsfeld called it in an effort to marginalize the greatest concentrated economic power on earth, they don't really think that much about what we're up to.

In Europe, so far as I can tell, the U.S. has become almost irrelevant, more like a sideshow. Oh, they're aware of our travails and triumphs, but they don't really place us at the center of global events and concerns. With the European Union now greater than the United States in terms of population, GDP, exports, and global influence through diplomacy, and no longer dependent on U.S. nuclear deterrent to keep the Russians at bay, they've turned their attentions to expanding their markets and influence while we squander our Cold War victory in the sands of Iraq. And although I am grateful that my nationality provoked nothing but friendliness everywhere I went, it was curious indeed to suddenly confront the feeling of being a citizen of a country that was now almost marginal insofar as the people of Europe were concerned.

Oh, and poor too. Have you looked at the value of the dollar vs. the euro lately? Sheesh!

Actually, this fellow in the photo didn't fall--he was break dancing and quite skilled enough to pull this stunt off. I'm afraid we might not be so lucky.

One of the War Criminals Gets a Taste of Code Pink

It's been said enough times that for evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing. Watch this video of a confrontation of Condi "the Incompetent" Rice by a Code Pink activist. Then watch the more disturbing part following her ejection: all members of Code Pink who were innocently sitting quietly were forcibly ejected by chamber police. Having just returned from Berlin, I don't have to say explicitly what it reminds me of.

Back in the USSA

Well, it was a grand three weeks, and I even had a delightful flight back, thanks to SeatGuru and a jovial Irish seatmate for the long leg back over the Atlantic and the North American continent. I'm still processing the effects on my psyche and on my physik (a nagging bug of some kind, slowly abating), slogging through the conversion of sound files I recorded around Berlin, reviewing the hundreds of images I snapped, and strutting around in my new black t-shirts that say things like "Feindkontact" and "Kampf gegen Rassismus." I also brought back a stack of CDs thanks to some very cool people in actual record stores (!!!), who, when I expressed my desire to tap into the Industrial music scene and the Berlin techno current, plucked out many, many examples for me to listen to before making a decision. If you are a vinyl freak (I mean for listening, not for wearing, not that there's anything wrong with it), you'd be in heaven. I cannot begin to describe the variety of new and especially vintage vinyl records that can be found in these same record stores and in the many flea markets. I happen to be one of those people who still hangs grimly onto his old records and turntable, despite owning more than one iPod, and I wish the damned things didn't weigh so much--I would have brought back a carload. I still wet my pants when I hear the needle settling in the groove before the first song begins.

Meanwhile, I see that the Larry Craig business is still current, which is really rather appalling (what is it with sex scandals in this country?), and the jello-spined Democrats have equaled in cowardice the brutality and criminality of the Bush administration, and I realize how much easier life here would be if I could just get an inexhaustible supply of Xanax and Zubrowka vodka. Do Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid know that they are the majority party? So what if the Republicans threaten filibuster? Let them do it, fer chrissakes. Bush vetoes a bill popular with 81% of Americans and you can't organize an override (S-CHIP)? What would those Republicans do to you in similar circumstances? Did Tom "Cockroach" DeLay roll over and beg you to quit being meanies?

Oh crap. Now I'm coughing my guts out. Must not get excited. Must not get excited. Think of mountain meadows, wispy clouds, a spotted fawn prancing in a sunbeam...

Getting back to the Larry Craig thing, I have to admit to a mixed feeling. On the one hand, it delights me to see virulent anti-gay Republicans nabbed in sex stings. On the other, it's really a sad testimony to our repressive society that cops have to spend time cruising undercover to bust desperately closeted men seeking sex in public crappers. If only these dudes could be openly gay, perhaps we could--oh, I don't know--stop more murderers, nab more drunken drivers, or stop a few more thousand instances of domestic violence. Still, you've got to love the discord this has created for the Repugs.

Finally, congratulations to Chimpie, who has managed to turn a lesser threat--terrorism--into a greater one as in the possibility of global thermonuclear exchange as he gives Putin perfect opportunities to twist our tail on Iran and Iraq. Has he ever looked at a fucking map? With the oil resources of Russia and the influence of Iran on the Middle East, their unity against the U.S. could really fuck us over. Given Bush's phony masculine posturing on everything, Putin is playing him for a bigger jackass than even I thought Bush was capable of becoming. God, I hope somebody in the Defense Department will tell him that the Russkies still have nukes and can still deliver them well enough to create the end for everyone. I thought Bush saw into Putin's soul? I know that Bush was coked out and drunk for most of the Cold War, but didn't something from the era slip into that grey mush in his skull? And this ought to frost him: Putin has 80 percent popularity as Bush slips toward 20 percent. Of course, like Putin, Bush doesn't really have an opposition party, so I guess he can drag us into war with Iran, then Russia, and then we'll all shake hands with the devil.

Good night.

Out for now. Hope you all enjoyed my absence.

Well, We're Off...

...and alas, Dorothy must remain behind, dreaming of Berlin. But she has a plan, I know. Ms. D. will no doubt slyly seduce our lovely house sitter into spoiling her rotten with kindness and long walks and endless ear scratching, not to mention fat marrow bones now and then gnawed under a cornflower blue sky in the mountains. What does Dorothy do on her days off, I wonder.

If I can, I'll post (not taking a computer) from any cafe that is equipped and is affordable by dollar-poor American visitors.

Am I excited? Unbelievably. The perfect vacation of total leisure mixed with foreign urban energy, stirred lightly with a soupcon of the unknown and then washed thoroughly with beer brewed under strict purity laws: hops, barley, water, and yeast. Wunderbar!

National Strike, October 17, 2007

This shit works. If everyone who has to work for a paycheck takes the day off (excepting, of course, those in direct life-support positions), buys nothing, produces nothing, transports nothing, the wheels of industry are going to stutter, and some motherfuckers are going to have to wake up to the will of the people.

It couldn't hurt. Pass it on!

Berlin on My Mind

Apologies to MB, but Darlin' I am off to Berlin again in ten days or so to regenerate some energy and sanity and, of course, drool over a few Citroens and get some hip new duds. Also, I'll be recording sounds of the city on my nifty microdigital recorder and stereo microphone for ultimate use in an entirely new genre of music--Rot n' Kohl. Catch the wave, my friends, for you can say you knew me when.

I have tried writing about the Petraeus hearings and really can't say anything new--it was a big Kabuki dance, with more of the same shit predicted and realized. Chimpie goes on TV tomorrow night to tell us how he's going to follow the General's recommendations, which conveniently frame what was already planned to happen--3000 Marines already scheduled to leave will leave, but Bush will take credit as if he has actually done any fucking thing, and by next summer another 30,000 already scheduled will return, leaving Iraq in chaos still, and still 130,000 Americans in harm's way.

The only comparably cynical comparison is Henry Kissinger's "Decent Interval" which was designed to distance him from the ultimate collapse of South Vietnam that was largely his responsibility. Chimpie will hand his successor this steaming, fiery pile and go off to torture his legacy into something other than the grand clusterfuck of America it has been.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Ya gotta luv Larry Craig. Now we hear he is giving the finger to all the Repubs who want him to resign and possibly withdrawing his offer to step down. Talk about keeping a story alive!

I was hoping that someone would attack me about Craig, citing Clinton/Lewinsky claiming harassment by the Minneapolis PD, invasion of privacy, that cops shouldn't be hanging out in airport crappers, or something. Anticipating such remarks, let me ask this:

If your nine-year-old son was taking a dump in a stall adjacent to Senator Craig, would you feel that the police have no place setting up stings in airport restrooms?

One of the things that just cracks me up about Craig is this tidbit from the police interview transcript (LC is Senator Larry Craig, DK is Minneapolis police Sgt. Dave Karsnia :

LC: Did I slide them too close to yours? Did I, I looked down once, your foot was close to mine.

DK Yes.

LC Did we bump? Ah, you said so, I don't recall that, but apparently we were close.

DK Yeah, well your foot did touch mine, on my side of the stall.

LC: All right.

DK: Okay. And then with the hand. Urn, how many times did you put your hand under the stall?

LC: I don't recall. I remember reaching down once. There was a piece of toilet paper back behind me and picking it up.

Here is the smoking gun that Craig is lying--do you honestly believe that anyone, and particularly a United States Senator, would pick up a piece of toilet paper from the floor of a international airport public restroom? Would you do it? A US Senator is someone who gets his ass licked constantly, has an enormous staff to clean up his physical and political messes, and is likely to be considered among the two or three hundred most arrogant people on planet Earth. So Larry was just doing a little tidying up in the shitter?

Yeah, and Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

Hang in there Larry! Leno and Letterman and Stewart need you!

Say Hello to Dorothy

Hello, Dorothy!

Four-weeks-off Musings

First of all, the picture above is one of the reasons I live where I do--there is frequently drama of the natural kind. Late this afternoon the storm clouds were erupting over the mountains north of us and "threatening" us with the promise of much-needed rain. The low sun to the west lighted the dried grass against the darkening sky to the northeast and the long shadows pulled it all together. Mrs. Olaf was ahead of me and ahead of her was Dorothy, our newly rescued pooch, of more anon.

Second musing: Is it possible that the reason we have not had any terrorist attacks on the U.S. since 9/11 is that old adage, "Never get in the way of someone determined to destroy himself"? The PR overkill on this coming bogus report on Iraq and the predictable kneepad press response to it means more months and years of the quagmire, with war speculators continue to reap riches from the public coffers and the war criminals retiring into gated, taxpayer paid protected lives, the remainder of which will be spent circling among the remaining psychological bunker mates on how principled and strong they were to press this disaster on the world.

Third: A return to Berlin is imminent. I have been debating whether or not to take a laptop, because it would be fun to blog day-by day, posting pictures and perhaps even sounds of the city of my heart. On the other hand, a computer is a distraction from life, particularly on vacation. Not that that will keep me from dropping into an Internet cafe now and then. On yet another hand, having one's own laptop and an apartment high-speed connection would allow evening wrap-ups, at least on the evening when I wasn't drinking myself into oblivion and crawling kneipe to lokal around Kreuzberg.

Fourth: Would all of the gay closeted Republican gay-bashers please out themselves? Nobody but the nuttiest nuts gives a shit how you get your rocks off, just so long as we can take a shit in an airport restroom in peace. Keep sex and religion where they should be--private and personal. Boning in public restrooms is, not to mention the hygienic aspects, rather pathetic. By being openly gay you're going to score a hell of a lot more than by cruising, unless, that is, you like getting disciplined by policemen. In that case, tap on, dudes!

Fifth: Katarina Witt, if you are reading this, I hope I run into you again on the Oranienburgerstrasse and don't lose my nerve to approach and tell you how amazing your Winter Olympics performances in Sarajevo and Calgary were--absolutely transformative. And, now that I have finished Gunter Grass' recent book Peeling the Onion, I suppose understand the context in which you became a Stasi informant. That's a pretty heartbreaking thing to learn about a woman I love. I still hope you're hangin' in Mitte.

Sixth: Dorothy just came through her dog door into the house, reminding me to mention her. She's a two-year-old mutt, spent over a year in a no-kill shelter (those people are saints), and has revealed herself to be a true sweetie and a damned good dog. She barks very, very rarely, can be walked off-leash thanks to an instant response to commands, and is the quickest learner of any dog I've been a pal to. Our eyes still mist up thinking about dear old Daisy, but she went to her greater reward after a long, full life, and I think she would have approved.

Yes, dogs are definitely a weakness for me, which Mrs. Olaf knew back in early May when she tricked me into going to the "Adopt-a-thon" at a local park. Once I walked Dorothy around the park, it was all over for me.

Anyway, I'll post a picture later, or sometime tomorrow. As my only reader, I'll be thrilled to see it.

Adieu for the nonce.