K+3 AND LITTLE PROGRESS:

Today is the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking the Gulf Coast.  Let's see, now.  The Mississippi coast is still a waste land.  New Orleans' levees are not ready for Gustav.  The cadaverous Jerkoff is still in charge of the Department of Homeland Insecurity, with its $50 billion budget.  What's that line about time for a change?  August 29, 2008.

THE OBAMA NOMINATION:

I know it's not fair to pick on people who make verbal gaffes under pressure, but I greatly enjoyed one of Chris Matthews' lines this evening.  According to Matthews, Senator Barack Obama is not only the first African-American to be nominated by a major party to be its candidate for the presidency of the United States: he's also the first African-American to be nominated by a major party to be its candidate for the presidency of any major country.  Now that's a really neat trick.  Complicating factors such as the definition of a "major country" and the fact that most of the OECD countries are parliamentary democracies and don't elect presidents, are irrelevant.  In what countries would a U.S. citizen, African-American or otherwise, be a qualified candidate?  Oh, well, picky, picky, I guess we know what he meant.  August 27, 2008.

BOEING SUCCESSFULLY INTIMIDATES DOD:

Boeing threatens not to submit a proposal for the USAF tankers and the Air Force promptly agrees to revise the RFP.  If the Defense Department, our bastion of liberty, can be so easily intimidated by one of its vendors and that vendor's congressional lackeys, goodness knows how they would handle Putin and co.  August 27, 2008.

ENGLISH, NOT FRENCH OR CHINESE:

The LPGA has decreed that players on its tour must be able to speak English.  Excellent.  This is further evidence, as if any was needed, that international commerce of all kinds proceeds more smoothly if there is a single common language.  The French may not like it, but tough cookies, they had their opportunity and they blew it.  There is really no reason to teach any language in U.S. schools as a second language, except special classes in English for immigrants.  We probably ought to learn Mandarin Chinese, just in case, but fortunately, the Chinese are all busy learning English, so, if you hang in there, you probably won't need it.  We should redeploy the resources we devote to teaching languages to improving the teaching of math and science, in which our educational system is disgracefully inadequate.  All this is not to say that you shouldn't speak any language you want at home or in local commerce: just recognize one of the realities of the globalized economy.  And Latin should be compulsory for all, of course.  August 27, 2008.

VROOM, VROOM:  

With construction noise concentrated in July and August, one might think that the rest of the year would be relatively quiet down here in Delravia Beach.  And it is, up to a point.  There’s always some traffic noise, of course, and when you live over a beachfront pub, there’s always going to be a certain amount of late-evening people noise.  But what really breaches the peace around here is the noise made by bikers.  Vroom, vroom, look at me, I’m an idiot.  I know, I know, they’re not all Hell’s Angels, most of them are veterans, lots of well-to-do, respectable folks ride Harleys, etc, etc.  It’s easy to understand what fun it must be - the sun on your face, the wind in your hair and a blonde on your pillion.  (Note the wind-in-your-hair thing.  Florida, in its infinite stupidity, repealed the law requiring the wearing of helmets: in the first year after it did this, motorcycle deaths in Florida, already 9% of the national total, increased by 45%.)  But why do bikers have to make so much noise in a residential area?  If they must roar about demonstrating what they like to think is their masculinity, why can’t they go and do it on I-95 or on the quiet rural roads inland?  Grrr.  August 25, 2008.

SIR SEAN COMES TO VISIT: 

So I’m sitting at the Pink Rose bar one evening and Sean Connery walks past, kilt, sly grin, the works.  Since I’m reputed to be a Scotsman, several of the locals instantly point him out to me, just in case I hadn’t noticed.  He lives just round the corner, they say, not on the beach but a couple of blocks back.  Sean Connery?  Living in an area of fairly modest homes in Delravia Beach?  A three-bedroom bungalow, perhaps?  Can this be true?  So next morning I do a little Googling and discover that there’s a chap living a couple of blocks away who’s a professional Sean Connery look-alike.  He rents himself out.  For a fee, he’ll come to your party, correctly kilted, talking all Edinburgh, and pretending to be Sean Connery.  What a way to earn a living!  But the real question is, why would you want a fake Sean Connery at your party?  August 18, 2008.

CONSTRUCTION TIME: 

July and August may be the height of summer where you are but they are the depth of the off-season down here in South Florida.  The snowbirds are all back up north and about half the restaurants are closed.  This strikes me as very strange, since it’s no hotter or more humid here than it is in New York, for example, and often less.  Of course it can be pretty miserable in the interior of Florida, or in those awful walled and gated ghettoes that start as soon as you get west of I-95, but here on the beach, it’s great.  Because it’s so quiet, it’s the preferred time for disruptive construction projects, all of which are scheduled to achieve as much progress as possible in the time available, an approach that inevitably results in cacophonous noise from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., six days a week.  It’s all in a good cause, of course, but dang it’s noisy.  The highlight of this year’s activity is the total restructuring of State Road A1A, which is the main drag along the beach.  Another traffic lane?  No, actually we lose several turning lanes.  More beach parking?  No, quite a bit less.  All this is to provide a bike lane.  The state has decreed it.  What we need a bike lane for is a mystery.  We have hordes of bicyclists, not one of whom has any plans to use the bike lane.  The serious ones, in their Tour-de-France uniforms, ride eight abreast down the middle of the highway and defy anyone to get in their way.  The non-serious ones use the sidewalk, to avoid the traffic: nobody expects them to start using the new bike lane and no law enforcement officer is going to make them use it.  Oh well, it’s only the taxpayers’ money: let’s spend it all on stupid projects.  August 11, 2008.

THE PURSER PATROLS: 

Every morning, around 7.30, the Purser shows up near the main entrance to the Delravia public beach, which is, by the way, almost the whole of the beach in Delravia, over four miles long.  Scarily thin (by my standards) he is always dressed in whites - white shirt, white shorts, white knee socks, white shoes - so that he looks as though he might be the purser on a fifth-rate cruise ship.  He's out there pretty well all day long, patrolling.  He never seems to eat or drink anything.  He never seems to talk to or even exchange greetings with anyone.  Occasionally, depending on the weather and sea conditions, he disappears, returning shortly afterwards in a wet suit, with scuba gear in a supermarket shopping cart, and goes for a dive.  Towards the end of the day, he settles on a public bench, which he always carefully wipes down first.  Then, around 7 in the evening, he marches off. It's hard to know what to think about this gentleman.  His story may or may not be a sad one: I'm not sure that I want to know.  August 4, 2008.