One Year Ago Today; Just About Now . . . .

If you don't have any idea what I'm referring to, you can read about it HERE.

Yes, that's me in the hat.

Good night, Dad.

~~JD~~

Living in the Cone 2008 (Part VI): September is the Disastrous Month

By 5:oo pm Saturday the aircraft had started to arrive in San Antonio. The skies were alight with Medevac helicopters shuttling patients from the airport to hospitals all over the San Antonio area all night and all morning.



FEMA had learned her lessons well from Katrina. Plans had been laid well in advance for possible hurricane strike areas and how to evacuate them prior to landfall of any hurricane. When Hurricane Gustav first began to look like he would make landfall in the Gulf Coast, FEMA had already activated National Guard Units and Federalized aircraft under the Civilian Air Board to transport hospital patients from threatened areas to designated evacuation zones.



San Antonio is the Evacuation zone for Beaumont and Victoria, Texas. (An Air Force C-9 Nightingale medical evacuation plane flew overhead as I wrote that. It was followed by a C-130 cargo plane.)



By 7:00 pm last night three fully-loaded medical transport planes had arrived in San Antonio, evacuating Nursing Home residents and hospital patients. By 9:00 pm most of the Emergency Rooms in San Antonio were closed to admissions from the onslaught of admissions. At 11:00 pm my own hospital began to plan to block off the street in front of the hospital to put a a massive circus-sized tent to triage the evacuees expected for Sunday and Monday.



By 1:00 am almost all of the ER's in San Antonio were closed to new admissions. By 2:00 am FEMA had politely informed them that they were open for business, and to get to work. I admitted people to my little Med-Surg unit all night long until we were packed to the gills.



At 5:00 am Sunday (today) they began the "contra-flow" operations on select Interstate highways leading away from the coast. During Hurricane Katrina this meant that I-10 flowed two sides both pointing towards San Antonio from New Orleans all the way back here. I don't know if that means the same this time, but I doubt it. During Katrina it was more reactionary response, while Gustav's FEMA plan is carefully considered.



But there's a lot of damned cars on the road -- and they're not looking for a Labor Day cookout.



By noon Saturday even Mayor Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin of new Orleans had caught the FEMA fever, and ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city. Buses that had stood silent during Katrina were fueled and ready to move everyone and anyone out of the city, along with their family, friends, and pets. I watched the Homeland Security director Micheal Chertoff on Fox News last night lay out a very clear, thin line: Areas under mandatory evacuation are also as of now under curfew. Once the storm winds come up, there is no further possibility of evacuation.

And time is running out -- fast. Get out, and Get out Now.



Hotels are filling up fast in San Antone. Our church this morning had an almost overflow crowd -- easily twice the crowd from the last time we attended. The worshipers seemed happy to be there, and there was a lot of "Nice to Meet You!" greeting going on, but there was a distinct unease in the air. It was the unease of uncertainty of the future, and the hope of better days to come; but mixed in was a double shot of pragmatism from Katrina's fury.


It's an eerie feeling to know that those electronic highway signs advertising "Hurricane Shelter Directions" are talking to YOU.


The foreboding is not limited to the evacuees. Edouard's grand tour of Florida had the unexpected side effect of temporarily reversing the normally clockwise Gulf weather patterns, showering South Texas with a bounty of rain the last 10 days. The ground currently is almost saturated. Gustav could make that much, much worse very, very quickly.


I watched the thunderheads march northward towards Austin and Dallas last night, silhouetted by the dying setting sun. Their dark purple bases made them look almost royal, and dignified. None dared challenge their power, or right to do as they please to us mere mortals. Their pink tops caught the last light of the sunset, making them look like curious giraffes, peering towards the north.


Right now they scare the hell out of me, pretty or not.

~~JD~~

Saturday Morning Gustav Sunrise

The cloudless skies of South Texas start to cloud up. . . .

~~JD~~

Living in the Cone 2008 (Part V); Katrina is the Worst Possibility

(Sigh) . . . . It's Hurricane season in the Gulf, again. I may have mentioned this before, so if I have, bear with me. I once read somewhere that German U-boat commanders avoided the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea areas in World War II, despite the obvious strategic value of hitting the unprotected southern coast, was because the hurricane seasons were so violent in the late 30's and early 40's that U-boat skippers were terrified of surfacing in a hurricane and killing everyone aboard.

Looks like we're getting back into one of those violent cycles again.

Hurricane Gustav has had his way re-destroying the islands of Jamaica and Haiti that were previously destroyed earlier this season and last year, and the year beofre; but since they don't believe in building codes or governmental disaster assistance, the poverty-stricken residents are left to their own devices to try to rebuild their shattered lives. Again.

Fortunately for us, we have a lot more planning in place, and care what happens to our people, as evidenced by San Antonio's KSAT:

Perry Issues Disaster Declaration For Gustav
5,000 Guardsmen On Standby
UPDATED: 2:10 pm CDT August 28, 2008

BEAUMONT, Texas -- Gov. Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration on Thursday for 61 counties as Texas prepares for a possible brush with Tropical Storm Gustav. Perry said that more than 5,000 guardsmen and other state resources are on standby in case the storm comes ashore along the Texas Coast.

Forecasters said that Gustav, which has winds approaching hurricane force, could make landfall Tuesday anywhere from Texas to the Florida Panhandle.

In Beaumont, some residents were already preparing by filling up their tanks and stocking their pantries. In Tyler, tourism officials say that most of the 2,200 hotel rooms in the East Texas city are full as Gulf Coast residents make plans to head north.

And then this popped up in my e-mail today (since I'm a nurse and a orevious Katrina volunteer, I get them first):

A N G E L V O L U N T E E R S N E E D E D

We are seeking Volunteers for San Antonio based shelters. Please contact us immediately to add you to our list in order to assist others seeking relief from Hurricane Gustav.

* * * * * *
If the State of Texas should declare this to be a Natural Disaster, we will be searching and reimbursing for assistance to deploy for approximately 7 days. We will provide you with a list of necessities you will be required to bring. All accomodations will be provided. If deployment is necessary we will be expected to depart Saturday.

Further details will follow as information becomes available.

* * * * * *

Please call our office Angel Staffing, Inc - 210-616-9526

or

Contact Shannon at shannon@angelstaffing.net 210-854-7656
or Jennifer at jennifer@angelstaffing.net 210-854-8928.

Together we can make a difference!

This one is more than a little scary. We've had rain on-and-off for two weeks which is more a winter weather pattern than a summer one. As such, the ground is close to saturated already, and Hurricane Edouard's corkscrew path up and around Florida has reversed the normal clockwise weather pattern flow around the gulf coast, which will draw Gustav towards Texas like a magnet draws a compass needle.

I'm going to buy a couple of cases of water right now.

~~JD~~

Another Reason Washington DC is Not Like The Rest Of The World

Actual road sign from Washington DC:


It's 3:59 pm; do you know what lane you're in?

~~JD~~

Wednesday Morning San Antonio Health Clinic

Living in the Cone 2008 (Part IV); August is the Speediest Month

Eduoard made landfall about 4 hours earlier than estimated and as only a Tropical Storm instead of getting to hurricane status (thank goodness!); and despite the meteorological projection tracks that keep taking it towards Austin and the north Texas area, it seems determined to make a beeline towards San Antonio. I'm sure it will turn at some point eventually.


Meanwhile, I'm out buying water and flashlights later this morning.


Just in case, you understand. It would be silly to wait for lines to form like last time.

Meanwhile, it seems that a tornado hit Chicago last night; if not a good handful of microbursts. From CBS 2 Chicago:

Tornadic Storm Clears Wrigley Field, Brings Havoc

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A powerful storm led to tornado warnings in downtown Chicago, evacuated fans from the stands at Wrigley Field on Monday night, and left a path of damage and an atmosphere of panic. Storms continued throughout the night, and were not over Tuesday morning.

The skies were dark and treacherous for much of the game between the Cubs and the Houston Astros. The telecast of the game was interrupted for an Emergency Alert System broadcast announcing a tornado warning for areas west of Chicago. Soon afterward, rain interrupted the game.

As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, at about 8:10 p.m., winds that seemed near gale force began raking the area and the air raid siren that stands sentinel outside Wrigley Field began howling, along with all the others in the city. A voice over the public address system ordered everyone to move into the stadium concourse.

"They told you to get out, down to the concourse, because of bad weather," said Ron Swanson. "A lot of games out here and I've never heard that before; I've never heard that boomer go out across the street." Several small children and more than a few adults were terrified.

The National Weather Service did not immediately confirm any tornado touchdowns. But it said trained spotters reported high-rotation winds in DeKalb and Kane counties in northeastern Illinois, where widespread tree and power line damage was reported. Winds clocked in at 70 mph.

Passengers at O'Hare International Airport were evacuated into the lower levels of the complex's buildings. All flights were temporarily halted, and travelers who had already boarded airplanes were taken off as the storm struck, then led to the lower levels as a precaution. "It was pretty cramped down there, the whole terminal was down there," said George Wickens, 50, of London, who was trying to travel to Florida with his family. "I don't think anything will be getting out of Chicago tonight." More than 350 flights were canceled at O'Hare Monday.

Planes were flying again Tuesday morning. One hundred flights were canceled at O'Hare, and minor delays were reported as of 11 a.m. At Midway Tuesday morning there were a few one-hour delays and some cancellations, according to Cunningham.

"The wind picked up and in probably five seconds it blew (my friend) into her husband," she said. "He grabbed her and pulled her inside and we all ran down the stairs. It was like dead still and then within five seconds, ten seconds we were all blown away."

"The lightning between the buildings was looking ominous," said Michaela Nelson, a 58-year-old singer from Barrington, brushing her dripping-wet hair at the station. "And then it just poured."

As of 10:30 a.m., 219,000 Commonwealth Edison customers are without electricity, the majority of whom are in the city and the southern suburbs, according to ComEd spokesman Jeff Burdick. A total of about 427,000 customers were affected since the storms started. The outages will likely take days to fix, Marquez said.

"At this point, we're still saying it's a multiple-day restoration. We're asking a lot of our customers to be patient as we work on clearing all the damage and restoring power," Marquez said. "We'll get a better idea as work goes throughout the day on the extent of damage, and then have a better idea on when the last customer will be restored."

In the Logan Square neighborhood, a man was left in critical condition after he was hit by a falling tree. He was near his home in the 2100 block of North Whipple Street when the tornado warning sirens sounded. High winds and lightning moved in and sent a tree crashing on top of him. On the Northwest Side, a huge tree was uprooted and tore up the sidewalk on top of the roots. The homeowner could not believe what happened, and suspected a tornado might have hit.

A total of 1,438 trees were toppled or damaged in the storm throughout the city. A total of 158 traffic signals were knocked out, 69 city light poles were damaged, and 112 wires to city light poles snapped, according to the city Department of Streets and Sanitation. There were also 212 blocks where all of the street lights were out, according to the department.

On the roadways at 1 a.m., a backed up sewer added to the problems on the inbound and outbound Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90/94) between 83rd and 87th Streets on the South Side, according to Illinois State Police District Chicago Sgt. Michelle Tufenkjian.

Well, the good thing about hurricanes is at least we get a little warning.

Water. Flashlights. Gotta go.

~~JD~~

Living in the Cone 2008 (Part IV); August is the Ugliest Month

Eduoardo is on the way.

This one popped up during the day Sunday while I was sleeping off night shift at the hospital. When I went to bed, nothing -- but when ai woke up, full fledged Tropical Storm with winds approaching 30 mph. Today it's 45 mph sustained winds and headed straight for Houston Bay (and Galveston, which is an island, I might add) and thereafter cutting a swath between Austin to the north and San Antone to the south.

In other words, the closest any hurricane has come to us since we moved here six years ago.

I'm going out to buy bottled water and flashlights tonight.

~~JD~~

San Antonio Sunset, 97 degrees

Testing the new camera, part II.

~~JD~~

Wednesday Morning Overcast San Antonio

Testing out the new camera.

~~JD~~

Curseo of the Joker Part III: When jokers become Jokers

Just to Prove my theory that "There's no such thing as a Criminal Genius", here comes proof from the Associated Press, via the Northwest Indiana Vidette-Times:

Holy hooligans! Phony 'Joker' arrested in Michigan
Tuesday, July 29, 2008

THREE RIVERS, Mich. - Police in Michigan have arrested a man who they say tried to steal posters and other items related to the new Batman movie from a cinema lobby while dressed up as the Joker.

Detective Mike Mohney said Monday 20-year-old Spencer Taylor of Three Rivers has been booked for investigation of larceny and malicious destruction of property.

Taylor is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 5 in St. Joseph County District Court.

There is no telephone listing under his name in the Three Rivers area.

Mohney says officers who were dispatched early Sunday to the theater arrived to find employees restraining a man wearing a purple suit, a green wig and face paint in the style of Batman's nemesis in "The Dark Knight."

Heh.

~~JD~~

Be Still, My Soul

Just feeling it was necessary to post this today. Happy Sunday.

Be Still, My Soul

Words: Katharina von Schlegel, 1752. Music: Jean Sibelius, 1899.

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

Living in the Cone 2008 (Part III); July is the Ugliest Month

Busy week around South Texas.

Dolly hit Category 2 just before she came ashore around Padre island, and just as the warmest part of the day was really ramping up. As a result, she cartwheeled from a low-grade Category 1 right up to a strengthening Category 2 very quickly -- so quickly, in fact, that the storm continued to strengthen briefly even after it was mostly ashore.


Even last night Dolly continued to maintain it's rotational momentum and spiral off lots of dense, dangerous thunderstorms, like the ones that hit San Antonio Thursday. A tornado breifly touched down on the near south side of San Antonio. Damage was limited to a few square blocks near the Patrician Movement Detox Center I used to work at a few years ago. Tornados are an oddity in South Texas; they mainly strike in north and east Texas and farther north, so this was quite a news event for San Antonio.

The gulf coast fared far worse, as these photos from an e-mail from an acquaintance show. Damage was much worse than expected, with one wag commenting :If this was a Category 1, then I never want to see a Category 2 or a Category 3!" Fishing and tourism will suffer the most, although major damage seems suprisingly light. The causeway to South Padre Island never closed except at the ehight of the storm, and re-opened immediatley afterwards. While many area of the Rio Grande valley remain without power, almost everyone has either water service or access to fresh water.


There are no reports of the damage to Mexico where the storm has burrowed deep into the Sonorran desert. Much like the old Soviet Union, the current Mexican administration is loathe to describe just how ineffective and powerless it is to provide relief to it's own beleaguered people.


Nevertheless, the people of Mexico continue to suffer from the inactivity of it's own government while America (and Americans) are busily involved in relief operations on both sides of the border.

So, we've been busy. how was your week? Obama been acclaimed king yet?

~~JD~~

Living in the Cone 2008 (Part II); July is also the Wettest Month

Well, Dolly has come ashore, and as I expected, she hit just north of the Texas-Mexico border. She actually struck South Padre Island, then turned north for a bit, sideswiping the island full-force for a few hours before actually coming ashore on Padre Island to the north. Expect some severe damage to the tourist locales of South Padre.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see parts of either island disappear into the sea entirely.

The feeder bands of rain started hitting San Antone about 2pm. Right now it's a solid steel-grey sky with high humidity. The feeder bands are weird experiences to this midwestern-raised farm boy -- not at alllike the great majestic thunderstorms of the plains that lumber through majestically. The feeder bands rumble past, suddenly dropping huge drops of rain that hit with the force of golf balls. The cats and dog ran into the kitchen for shelter from the noise, which lasts all of five minutes, then stops as suddenly as it started.

Then we wait an hour or so for it to start again -- which I think it just did as I'm writing this. In the graphic accompanying this post, that upper-left corner of the tornado watch box is me in San Antonio. Lucky Me.

The storm is breaking down rapidly as it moves inland. Should it follow I-37 north from Corpus, the mass of rain will hit tonight and thoroughly soak our drought-striken pastures.

Which would be good. At any rate the agricultural Rio Grande valley, which rivals Florida and Southern California for it's produce and citrus, will get a ton of much-needed rain.

That's good too.

~~JD~~

Living in the Cone 2008 (Part I); July is the Windiest Month

Hurricane Season 2008 looks to be ramping up fast. Hurricane Dolly is the third "named" storm of the year, and it's only July. (Usually the season doesn't really get going good until August sometime.) So we're already geting the storm warnings and Weather Updates, and bottled water prices are slowly climbing upwards again. We're getting the highway warning signs as well, which are lots of fun to read on the way to work.



As of tonight the projections appear to place Dolly hitting somewhere near the Texas-Mexican border, and most weather-people projecting it will hit just the other side of the border. My guess is that this thing will go to ground on the Texas side of the border as the storm heads more northerly tonight (the winds skew north after sunset and blow north-northwest inland all night. When these inland night winds start blowing tonight, Dolly may well follow.) I'm betting somewhere between Corpus Christi and Victoria (more toward Corpus.)

I noticed on the way home that the usually coludless blue south Texas sky was full of big honkin' cumulonimbus clouds laden with storm water, as the first feeder bands from Dolly agitate the upper atmosphere into action.


Good. We needed the rain.


Meanwhile, Governor Perry has already alerted the National Guard, and every nurse and physician in South Texas has received this e-mail yesterday:

As Tropical Storm Dolly threatens to grow as a Hurricane towards to the Texas border we are encouraging our Nurses and CNA's to call our office and offer your assistance to help others. Additional deployment information will be available within the next 24-48hrs depending on weather.

All Angels will be compensated for their time and efforts at the following rates:

RN's $40/hr
LVN's $30/hr
CNA's $15/hr

Transportation and meals will be provided as well as hotel accommodations. All Angels will be required to bring the following for their personal use:

Sleeping Bag/Pillow
Towel/Soap
Weather appropriate clothing and comfortable footwear
Hat/Cap
Non perishable food/snacks
Drinking Water
Hand Sanitizer
Kleenex
Toilet Tissue
Sunscreen
Sunglasses
Medications
Prescribed Eyeglasses/Hearing Aids

Please Contact:

Debbie or Ann Marie
210-616-9526

We truly look forward to helping others, together we can make a difference!

And this follow-up today:

Thank you to all the Angels who have responded in this time of need!

We have been informed that possible Deployment will occur Friday from the AT&T Center in San Antonio. More information will follow as it becomes available.

As Hurricane Season approaches we kindly remind you that even if there is no deloyment this time there may be some in the furture. Please look for updates from Angel Staffing as events occur. Please contact Debbie or Ann Marie at 210-616-9526 in order to be added to our list.

Gotta go buy bottled water . . . . and fill up my gas tank.

~~JD~~

You May Have Noticed I've Been Posting Less Lately . . . .

Well, just a Bit less, anyway . . . .

Welcome to the Nursing Shortage 2008. Here in beautiful South Texas the economy is thriving and the housing market continues to boom. It's no small coincidence that we have one of the lowest tax rates in the country -- hell, no state income tax at all. So jobs are abundant and plentiful. Texas employers are recruiting all through the Katrina impact zone for construction workers for South Texas. Some road work has even been delayed due to a shortage of trained construction workers.

San Antonio alone has a ridiculous number of hospitals, medical clinics, nursing homes, and skilled nursing facilities. Just by working Temp Agencies like NursFinders a nurse with a modicum of skills can work until they drop. This week alone I've worked 36 hours at a downtown hospital (night shift); then this morning I turned around and started 3-ten hour shifts at my Dialysis Clinic. Then this Saturday I'll work 2 back-to-back shifts at the Hospital.

To pull off this small trick I have to work two of the days this week around the clock. Like today -- I got off the hospital job working all night, then worked all day at the clinic.

I'll do this again Saturday, in reverse order. So if I only post once a dy instead of three times, you know why.

By the way, if you know a teen-ager looking for a career, recommend Nursing.

Please.

~~JD~~

"Bozo" Larry Harmon Passes Away at 83

Presented with great solemnity, from CNN.com:

Bozo actor dead at 83

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Larry Harmon, who turned the character Bozo the Clown into a show business staple that delighted children for more than a half-century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure. He was 83.
Although not the original Bozo, Larry Harmon portrayed the popular frizzy-haired clown in countless appearances.

His publicist, Jerry Digney, told The Associated Press he died at his home.

Although not the original Bozo, Harmon portrayed the popular clown in countless appearances and, as an entrepreneur, he licensed the character to others, particularly dozens of television stations around the country. The stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos. "You might say, in a way, I was cloning BTC (Bozo the Clown) before anybody else out there got around to cloning DNA," Harmon told the AP in a 1996 interview.

"Bozo is a combination of the wonderful wisdom of the adult and the childlike ways in all of us," Harmon said.

Pinto Colvig, who also provided the voice for Walt Disney's Goofy, originated Bozo the Clown when Capitol Records introduced a series of children's records in 1946. Harmon would later meet his alter ego while answering a casting call to make personal appearances as a clown to promote the records.

He got that job and eventually bought the rights to Bozo. Along the way, he embellished Bozo's distinctive look: the orange-tufted hair, the bulbous nose, the outlandish red, white and blue costume.

"I felt if I could plant my size 83AAA shoes on this planet, (people) would never be able to forget those footprints," he said.

Susan Harmon, his wife of 29 years, indicated Harmon was the perfect fit for Bozo. "He was the most optimistic man I ever met. He always saw a bright side; he always had something good to say about everybody. He was the love of my life," she said Thursday.

The business -- combining animation, licensing of the character, and personal appearances -- made millions, as Harmon trained more than 200 Bozos over the years to represent him in local markets. "I'm looking for that sparkle in the eyes, that emotion, feeling, directness, warmth. That is so important," he said of his criteria for becoming a Bozo.

The Chicago version of Bozo ran on WGN-TV in Chicago for 40 years and was seen in many other cities after cable television transformed WGN into a superstation. Bozo -- portrayed in Chicago for many years by Bob Bell -- was so popular that the waiting list for tickets to a TV show eventually stretched to a decade, prompting the station to stop taking reservations for 10 years. On the day in 1990 when WGN started taking reservations again, it took just five hours to book the show for five more years. The phone company reported more than 27 million phone call attempts had been made. By the time the show bowed out in Chicago, in 2001, it was the last locally produced version. Harmon said at the time that he hoped to develop a new cable or network show, as well as a Bozo feature film.

He became caught up in a minor controversy in 2004 when the International Clown Hall of Fame in Milwaukee took down a plaque honoring him as Bozo and formally endorsed Colvig for creating the role. Harmon denied ever misrepresenting Bozo's history. He said he was claiming credit only for what he added to the character -- "What I sound like, what I look like, what I walk like" -- and what he did to popularize Bozo. "Isn't it a shame the credit that was given to me for the work I have done, they arbitrarily take it down, like I didn't do anything for the last 52 years," he told the AP at the time.

Harmon protected Bozo's reputation with a vengeance, while embracing those who poked good-natured fun at the clown. As Bozo's influence spread through popular culture, his very name became a synonym for clownish behavior. "It takes a lot of effort and energy to keep a character that old fresh so kids today still know about him and want to buy the products," Karen Raugust, executive editor of The Licensing Letter, a New York-based trade publication, said in 1996. A normal character runs its course in three to five years, Raugust said. "Harmon's is a classic character. It's been around 50 years."

On New Year's Day 1996, Harmon dressed up as Bozo for the first time in 10 years, appearing in the Rose Parade in Pasadena. The crowd reaction, he recalled, "was deafening." "They kept yelling, `Bozo, Bozo, love you, love you.' I shed more crocodile tears for five miles in four hours than I realized I had," he said. "I still get goose bumps."

Born in Toledo, Ohio, Harmon became interested in theater while studying at the University of Southern California. "Bozo is a star, an entertainer, bigger than life," Harmon once said. "People see him as Mr. Bozo, somebody you can relate to, touch and laugh with."

Besides his wife, Harmon is survived by his son, Jeff Harmon, and daughters Lori Harmon, Marci Breth-Carabet and Leslie Breth.

~~JD~~

Happy 4th of July!

I don't know if there's anything more American than Jimmy Cagney tap-dancing to "Yankee Doodle" on the 4th of July.

Very Likely Not.





And here's something else to Cheer your Fourth: A link to the National Republican Committee asking about Why You Are Proud of your Country. Here's mine:

I am proud of my country because we can make mistakes here. And God knows, we've made some Lulu's over the years; but if there's something going on and it's wrong, we have the innate ability to see the wrong, make the change, and come out better for it.

Re-writing the Constitution from the Articles of Confederation. Paying Mexico after we seized the southwest in the Mexican war, even though we didn't have to do so. Repealing slavery, and making freed slaves full citizens with voting rights. The Civil Rights movement. Everything we learned from Vietnam that made Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, and Grenada so right.

In so many countries around the world "that's the way it's always been done" is a way of life, if not the Status Quo. In America we not only right the wrongs, we go beyond. We see the possibilities, and reach for the stars. No other nation has walked on the moon, or built an international space station that invites other nations to participate freely.

And no other nation forgives our enemies quite like we do. Rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. A Free South Korea and Japan. The whole Marshall Plan. Mexican reparations in the Gadsden purchase.

For everything "wrong" with America, there's ten things right nobody else in the world would even think of doing.

And here's another link to make you proud of our country if you haven't seen it already: Real American Stories.

Happy Fourth of July, wherever you might be today.

~~JD~~

I Love . . Little Baby Ducks . . .

***UPDATED***

There used to be this weird little country song by the great Tom T. Hall in the late 1970's that went like this:

I . . . love . . . little baby ducks,
old pick-up trucks,
slow movin' trains, and rain.

I love little country streams,
sleep without dreams,
Sunday school in May, and hay.

And I love you too.

One of my friends from my first posting in the Army at Fort Campbell, Kentucky adulterated the lyrics, like so:

I . . . love . . . little baby ducks,
kids that screw on rocks,
monkeys in the air . . . , and shit.

Well, as of right now, My son the world traveler is one of those things; and fortunately it's not "kids that screw on rocks." He is officially a "monkey in the air" somewhere between Hawaii and the Phillipines as I write this, on his way to a month as an exchange student in China.

Freaking China!

That's him to the right, being interrogated by the TSA as we put him on the plane this morning before church. Fortunately, I refrained from the near-overwhelming urge to yell out "Strip Search Him! as he passed Security, and he called from San Francisco to say he'd make the connection and was fine, and excited.

I'll try to post some more pictures from the trip as they occur. Not bad for the kid who took this course to impress a girl only a year ago.

UPDATE: Talked to him this morning; apparently they are 13 hours ahead of us in Beijing. It was 6:30am our time; he hadn't slept on the plane at all during the flight (sounds like me at 17, too) -- and the phone rang while he was in the introduction class in Beijing. (Apparently you can call straight through to Beijing from San Antone -- my bad!)

He's having a blast. Through the exhaustion you could hear how excited he was. More as we know it.

~~JD~~

There's Still Plenty of Time for Obama to Blow It

Today is Monday, June 23rd; 113 Days to the General Election, as we watch the Wheels come off the Obama Bus; and, alternately, who's been thrown under the wheels of that bus today.


One of the things I remember vividly about my father is that he was a Cubs fan. Many a day I'd come home from work and he'd be parked in front of the TV tuned to WGN in Chicago, watching his beloved Cubbies play.

On one of those rare days the Cubs were ahead and I expressed any optimism, he'd quickly chime in, "Don't worry. There's plenty of time for them to lose it." Invariably, being the Chicago Cubs, they would, indeed, lose it. And, of course, Barack Obama's home is in Chicago as well.

Coincidence?

REDSTATE has this wonderful little summation that comes to the same conclusion I did a few weeks ago: (a) Obama's not that bright, and (b) he's beginning to believe his own PR.

I'm sure this will be pretty spectacular when he really well and truly blows this thing.

Obama Might Just Blow It
This is Not the Moderate You are Looking For
By Mark I

The biggest danger to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign comes not from his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, nor from his former rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, but from Barack Obama himself. Obama has sold himself as a new kind of politician, even an anti-politician, a practitioner of a new kind of politics. The Achilles heel of this strategy is that Obama is not really that different from other politicians; and if he can be shown to be just like every other candidate, save for his eloquence, voters who invested in him on a personal level may begin to feel like they have been had.

The past week provided Obama with a few opportunities to show that he really is a different kind of candidate, indeed a different kind of Democrat, than the standard variety. But in each instance, he espoused the typical liberal position.

The Supreme Court's wrongheaded decision in Boumediene, for the first time granting habeas corpus rights to terrorist detainees, was embraced by the "different" Obama as an important step in preserving civil liberties for American citizens. But the decision has nothing to do with Americans. It grants the rights of Americans to non-Americans who want to harm American citizens, but it does not one thing to advance any American's civil liberties.

Obama then compounded his error by holding out the example of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as a model for how an Obama Administration would deal with terrorists and terrorist acts. He assessed the trial and conviction of the terrorists in that first Islamic terrorist attack on American shores as having been a success. "They are in U.S. prisons, incapacitated," he boasted of the terrorists responsible. He did not address how, if the trial and conviction of those terrorists was so successful, the September 11th attacks took place. Clearly, the trial did nothing to prevent further acts of terrorism on America at home or abroad. Obama missed a chance to take a post-September 11th position on terrorists, a more robust one than federal prosecutors can implement, in favor of a tired old liberal worldview.

But Obama was not finished. He capped off the week by suggesting that if Osama bin Laden himself were captured alive during an Obama Administration, the mastermind of the murder of more Americans than any other person in history would not be subjected to the death penalty. Obama said that the U.S. should deal with a captured bin Laden in a way that does, "not make him a martyr." That may be a popular position in the liberal salons of Cambridge and New Haven, but it is not one that will resonate with an overwhelming majority of Americans. Even those personally opposed to capital punishment will have a hard time finding any sympathy for bin Laden's soul. Obama could have easily said that bin Laden deserved "ultimate justice" for his crimes, or some other suitable euphemism for execution, and he would have been praised as a "new" kind of Democrat, tough on terrorism. But instead he went out of his way to take the liberal position, even for the worst of America's enemies.

Since securing the nomination, Obama has been trying to tack back to the center, walking back pledges to meet personally and unconditionally with the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. But there's nothing new about that strategy either. Presidential candidates since time immemorial have campaigned to the fringes in the primary and to the center in the general election. What is new about Obama, however, is the length to which he has gone to convince voters that his greasy fast food served on fine china is really nouveau cuisine. It's not. If Obama doesn't start to come up with some genuinely new positions and fresh ideas, he will lose in November, and become just another bitter liberal former nominee.

And THERE'S something to look forward to!

Happy, Happy Monday everybody!

~~JD~~