Saturday, February 28, 2004

I've written a short story about my great-great grandfather, Isaiah Springer Beck (Springer in the story). The basic story is true. A lot of the details are accruate, but some are fictional. I think this picture was taken at Camp MacDonald, north of Atlanta, while he was on his way to Knoxville. He was twenty-eight at the time. His son, Isaiah Houston Price Beck (Houston in the story), gave my grandmother an organ that I inherited. The organ sits in my dining room. The little photo on the organ is a family photo of I.H.P. Beck and his family. 7:48:36 PM

Monday, June 02, 2003

Former President Bill Clinton has been floating the idea of amending the constitution to allow a former two-term president to run again. He says it would not benefit him, but some future president. Of course, whether or not it would benefit him depends on what the definition of "is" is, oops, I mean what the definition of "benefit" is. If benefit means a TV benefit, or a luncheon benefit, or a health plan benefit, then yes, it may not benefit him. Don't you miss the nostalgic, good old days of presidential word games. Maybe a better amendment would be to limit the presidency on a per couple basis: the combined terms of a husband and wife can not exceed two terms in total. 8:35:24 PM

Saturday, March 01, 2003

"It is a painful and terrible thing to think how easy it is to stir up a nation to war...and you will find that wars are always supported by a class of arguments which, after the war is over, the people find were arguments they should not have listened to." John Bright, House of Commons, 31 March 1854 10:38:09 PM

Friday, February 21, 2003

Iraq Scenario 2 (Best Case): 1. Day one: US invades Iraq.  2. Day two: Iraqi generals assassinate Sadam. 3. Day three: Iraqi army reaches truce with US. 4. US hailed as liberator by Iraqi people.      5. Stockpiles of WMD found, horror stories of torture emerge. 6. US withdraws completely from the Middle East, to the delight of the Arab street who thought that the US was there to colonize the region. 7. Bin Laden becomes an anachronism as the Iraqi model of democratic reforms sweeps the Middle East. 8. Senator Tom Daschle complains that Bush could have been more effective. 9. France becomes a major wine and cheese supplier to Iraq. 8:34:17 AM

Iraq Scenario 1 (Worst Case): 1. US invades Iraq. 2. Reengineered smallpox breaks out in 10 major American cities, bypassing standard vaccines. 3. The world population is reduced by 30% and a major depression ensues. 4. Iraq has a special vaccine that works, so the Iraqi people, excluding Shiites and Kurds, are immunized. 5. Iraq waltzes into neighboring countries because they have the only healthy army around. 6. Iraq controls most of the world’s oil. 7. Senator H. Clinton wins the presidency in a backlash against President Bush, withdraws from the Middle East, stops eating bagels because she doesn’t need the voters in New York any longer, and abandons support for Israel. 8. France becomes major wine and nuclear equipment supplier to Iraq. 7:28:11 AM

Thursday, February 20, 2003

One night last week in Denver, a hardhitting local TV news anchor keenly observed that in case of a nuclear attack "duct tape and plastic will not be effective in the blast radius". I wonder if I can get a refund. 9:06:36 PM