2007 January « Murder of Ravens

Archive for January, 2007

Jan

Uncle David

Categories: Getting old, Musings and the state of the world

I have a friend who works as a general handyman in an apartment complex. He told me how about a month ago, one of the elderly tenants, a man living alone, had been taken to a hospice. Sadly, the man seems to have had no living relatives or friends to claim his belongings.

My friend showed me an old lighter he had found there that he thought I might find interesting. It was, in fact, just an old Zippo, and while the case was somewhat unusual, it was really nothing out of the ordinary.

But the lighter had been engraved, “Uncle David”. Clearly he must have had someone in his life that cared about him at one point, since they not only gave him this lighter, but took the trouble to have it engraved. It was an inexpensive yet thoughtful gift. And yet now there was apparently no one left in his life, and he was taken to a hospice where he would die as he had lived, alone.

As I gazed at the lighter, I pondered who “Uncle David” might have been. I wondered what his days had been like. He apparently was a man of few possessions, but owned many books. Yet these evidently gave him little joy, as they were very dusty and had obviously not been touched for several years. It seems as though he spent his last years alone, watching TV and smoking. I wondered if, when he lit his cigarettes with the lighter engraved with his name, he thought about the niece or nephew who gave it to him, and if he wondered why he or she never visited him anymore.

Among the many tragedies of the human condition, loneliness, especially the loneliness of the aged, is among the most tragic. To live out one’s last days bereft of human companionship, with only memories of the loved ones who have either died or stopped visiting to provide some scant comfort, and where each soul-destroying day is as bland and as empty as the next, is simply a living death.

My heart went out to this lonely old man whom I had never met, and never would meet. I thought of him living his last days all alone, with his TV and his cigarettes, perhaps wondering if he would ever again have a visitor, and feel the comfort of human contact. What had he done to end up like this? Was he, perhaps, a difficult old man? Or had he simply become, like so many elderly people, an inconvenient old uncle, someone whom his younger relatives remembered, when they remembered him at all, with a certain sense of guilt mixed, perhaps, with a bit of resentment for having committed the sin of getting old. I wonder: are there any who will weep at the passing of “Uncle David”, or will he go to his grave alone and forgotten, with none to mourn at his graveside?

–Smith

Jan

What’s wrong with this picture?

By Murder of Ravens 3 Comments

Categories: Justice in America, Musings, Politics and Random Shots

The rather worried looking woman in the middle is named Amber Abreu, and she has every right to look worried. Not only is she being charged with illegally taking prescription anti-ulcer pills to induce an abortion, but her public defender, Amanda Barker, the blond woman on the right, looks like she’s about 14 years old. Maybe it’s just a bad picture, but I half expect Amanda to blow a bubble and start twirling her hair.

But I guess that’s how it goes down in this country. O. J. Simpson gets Johnny Cochrane, F. Lee Bailey, and the best darned lawyerin’ that money can by. The 18 year old Dominican immigrant gets the public defender who looks like she just got out of law school last week.

Looks like poor Amber’s goin’ to jail. You can read the rest of this disquieting story by clicking the picture above.

–Smith

Jan

Asperger’s and Peanut Butter

By Murder of Ravens 11 Comments

Categories: Asperger's Syndrom, Autism and PDD

By now most people in the New England area have read about the horrific murder of 15 year old James Alensen, allegedly at the hands of 16 old John Odgren, a special needs student at Lincoln-Sudbury High School in Lincoln, Massachusetts. If you haven’t, you can read the story here.

While any story about teenagers committing violent crimes is disturbing, this story in particular hit home for me. John Odgren has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. As the stepfather of a twelve year old with the same condition, seeing this rarely mentioned condition in the newspaper got my attention. You can learn more about this condition at the Asperger’s Disorder Homepage here. There is also a very well done introductory article written by Barbara L. Kirby here.

My concern is that now that the Asperger’s cat is out of the Asperger’s bag, all these kids will be painted with the same brush. I can see the same soccer moms who got peanut butter banned in the school cafeteria marching on their local high school once they find out it has a special needs program that includes (gasp!) Asperger’s kids. I just can’t wait to hear Soccer Mom demanding the removal of Asperger’s kids from her little darling’s school and placing them in a secure facility so they can’t murder anyone else. But don’t worry, I’m sure it will be a peanut butter free facility.

When the shrillness and hand wringing starts, and it will, it will be grossly unfair and uninformed. What Asperger’s kids have in common is a tendency to withdraw into their own little world, but they are not, as a group, violent. Asperger’s kids can tell right from wrong (as can be attested by some of the priceless looks of guilt on my stepson’s face when he screws up.) But Asperger’s kids do suffer from a condition that makes their own life a living hell.

Dealing as I do on a day to day basis with an Asperger’s kid, this is a condition I have become rather familiar with. Asperger’s is being referred to, in the almost daily newspaper articles about this tragedy, as a form of Autism. This is not precisely correct. Asperger’s falls into a larger category known as Autism Spectrum Disorders, although the term PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) is more common in the United States. But it is not Autism in the usual sense of the word. Asperger’s kids (and adults, for that matter) seem to have to very marked traits in common, poor social interaction skills, and a tendency to hyper focus on one or two subjects. It is a difficult condition to diagnose and even more difficult to treat. It is often accompanied by other develepmental dissorders such as Attention Deficit Disorder.

Think about what goes on when you have a conversation with another person. Think about all the non-verbal cues that you instinctively pick up on. Facial expressions and body language are as important to communication as the words themselves. By reading these non-verbal cues, we can gauge to what extent we are being understood, and how effective we are being at maintaining the other person’s interest. A slight frown, or a look of boredom, tells us that perhaps we had either change the subject or at least change the manner in which we are communicating.

Asperger’s kids seem unable to pick up on these non-verbal cues. Furthermore, their tendency to hyper-focus on subjects that other kids do not find terribly interesting, along with this inability to see that they’re not holding their audience’s attention, of brands these kids as “strange” and subjects them to ridicule.

My twelve year old stepson is such a one. Like many Asperger’s kids, he is exceptionally intelligent, but it is a lop-sided kind of intelligence. In his case, his great fixation is Lego’s. He has been in love with them since he was old enough to walk, and as he has grown older his interest in them has grown more intense, and his creations more elaborate. His bedroom looks like Lego City.

Now, considering he wants to be an architect when he grows up, this is not necessarily a bad thing. But unfortunately he has a very difficult time transitioning away from this preoccupation, another characteristic of the Asperger’s child. It’s as though the gearbox in their brain gets stuck in one gear, and they often find transitions of any kind difficult.

He has at various times obsessed over other things that were not as healthy. When he was in first grade, his teacher conducted a class about poison, and more specifically, how to avoid them. This was the basic “don’t drink what’s under the sink” class that gets taught to all first graders. In one of our first warnings that all was not quite right with him, after that class he obsessed over the notion that he might be ingesting poison. EVERYTHING was poison in his mind: his food, his milk, even his bath water were regarded with the deepest suspicion. It got to the point where we even had to taste his food before he would eat it. This went on for about a year before he finally grew out of it.

Unfortunately, this was soon replaced by another obsession: hurricanes. Once again, something he had learned about in school had seized his imagination to the point where he could focus on little else. Even a few clouds in the sky were enough to make him apprehensive, and if there was an actual storm going on he would not leave our side, terrified by the idea that our house would be blown away with him in it. Thankfully, this too passed in time.

This condition becomes very hard for them to live with when they become teenagers. These kids spend a great deal of time in their own little world anyway. When fellow teenagers, with their notorious cruelty and lack of empathy, make them the butt of jokes and forbid them to enter their social circle, the natural reaction of the Asperger’s kid is to retreat even further into this self created world where they find protection from the meanness and cruelty they encounter in the real world. As they retreat further, their behavior becomes even more eccentric, leading to further ostracizing, and it become a vicious cycle.

In my stepson’s case, he just deals with it by building another Lego skyscraper, but John Odgren had a different, darker way of dealing with the world that was hurting him. He became obsessed with knives and, allegedly, killing.

None of this is meant to minimize the death of James Alenson or let John Odgren off the hook. Just because he has Asperger’s Syndrome doesn’t mean he can’t tell right from wrong. He has committed the greatest of all sins, and he will almost certainly pay with his young life. No, he won’t get the death penalty, but is a life sentence with no hope of parole, starting when you’re sixteen years old, really any better?

I know how incredibly difficult and frustrating it can be to deal with an Asperger’s kid. But I do wonder why there was not more concern that a teenager, who is alleged to have roamed the school corridors in a trench coat, in a conscious attempt to emulate the Columbine murderers, supposedly owned a sizable knife collection. I also wonder why, when he allegedly asked his teacher about such subjects as making a bomb, and how “get away with” murder, that no one in the school system thought this worth looking into.

I can’t help but wonder to what extent the system failed him, and by doing so, failed James Alenson. John Odgren had the right to special education, but James Alenson had an even more basic right: the right to come home from school alive. But now one teenager, a child really, is dead, and the other as good as dead.

–Smith

Jan

Of pipes and presidents

By Murder of Ravens 5 Comments

Categories: Gerald Ford, pipe smoking, Politics and Smoking

Well, I thought I was done with Gerald Ford, but I came across this picture and couldn’t resist. Much has been written by now about how Ford was an under-rated president, as well as a thoroughly decent human being. What hasn’t been mentioned all that much is that he was, like myself, a dedicated pipe smoker. I’ve always felt an affinity for this particular president, even long before I knew he was a fellow pipe smoker. When I did find out that he smoked a pipe, it all made sense to me.

I love this picture. At first glance, it’s just a picture of a United States President sitting in the Oval Office, looking, well, presidential. But if you look a little closer, you will see that Ford, like all pipe smokers, littered his environment with the accoutrements of his favored mode of smoking. In the foreground there is a pipe sitting in what appears to be a crystal pipe holder. In the background you will see a pipe rack with three pipes, in close proximity to the presidential hand. (No pipe smoker has only one pipe. Just trust me on this one.) No doubt there is a tobacco jar close by.

All of this might seem a little bewildering to the non-smoker, but to a fellow pipe smoker it makes perfect sense. You can always tell the home or office of a pipe smoker, as he (or she) is always careful to have at least a few pipes near at hand. They usually form a part of the decor. They certainly do in my house. It is no coincidence that in his presidential portrait, Ford is holding a pipe. To the pipe smoker, the pipe is no mere means of imbibing tobacco smoke; it is a means of self expression.

Even in these politically correct times, the pipe conjures up pleasant images in the minds of most people. Somehow pipe smokers get a bit of a free pass that cigarette smokers do not enjoy. Most people have memories of a beloved grandfather smoking his pipe, memories which are brought back to the fore whenever the aroma of pipe tobacco is encountered. In many people’s minds the pipe conjures up images of a safer, less threatening world. Reassuring figures such as Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Inspector Maigret, or even Gandalph and Aragorn are asssociated with the pipe. As the man who restored America’s faith in the presidency, our last pipe smoking president surely belongs in such company.

–Smith

Jan

The span of days, a poem

By Murder of Ravens 5 Comments

Categories: Poetry

I beheld the sunset, transfixed by
The inferno in the clouds.
And there I saw the angels winging
Amidst the amber sunbeams.
Angels and archangels, least perfect
Of the nine choirs, most like us,
Happy in their imperfection
To play among the clouds.
And I wished I could free my soul
From its earthly prison
To soar amongst them between the fiery cumuli.

And so it came to pass that on a night
When the trees, like souls forsaken,
Grasped vainly with withered fingers
At the sapphire moonlight
That rent the dusky clouds,
I stood upon the parapet,
Arched my back like a lyre,
And as one crucified
Spread my arms wide,
And freed myself from earth’s jealous shackles.

And thus I ascended while
The moonlit ground receded beneath me
and I was among the nine choirs,
The flaming Ophanim,
The all seeing Cherubim,
And The Seraphim,
So bright that only One
Might look upon them
In their naked incandescent splendor,
Chanting the Trisagion in the ancient modes,
Dorian, Lydian, and Phrygian.

And still I ascended,
Wishing for nothing ever more
But to listen to their canticle
Until I heard a voice,
Or rather, felt it,
For it passed through me
Like a flaming sword,
And intoned within me,
Saying, “Why have you done this thing?
Do you not know that the span of your days
Is not yours to measure?
Leave us now, for but awhile longer,
Go back whence you came,
And finish what you have begun.”
And I felt myself descend
Along the sapphire moonbeam
Until I lighted amidst the snow and the trees
And I was home once more.
I left that place,
And continued in the world,
Knowing that I once had felt the breath of God.

–Stephen P. Smith

Jan

Jury scam

By Murder of Ravens 2 Comments

Categories: Scams

I got this in my email the other day. Now, having been burnt like this once before, this time I checked it out on snopes.com, and sure enough, this one is valid. I hope others find this useful.

Now, I’m kinda new to this, so if it turns out that everyone and their brother has gotten this in their email, please let me know and I’ll just clobber it and won’t post stuff like this anymore. But otherwise I hope it may save someone some unnecessary grief.

–Smith

Here it is:

This helpful heads-up began appearing in inboxes in August 2005. While this particular attempt to coerce information from potential identity theft victims is not new, it is real. In a number of U.S. states, con artists have been contacting people by phone to assert those they’ve targeted have evaded jury duty and announce warrants are being issued for their arrest. When the about-to-be-duped protest they never received such notifications, that surely a mistake has been made, the sharpies go after what they really want, which is their pigeons’ personal and financial information. Under threat of being hauled off in paddy wagons unless they succeed in straightening out this terrible mess, many folks who would otherwise be more wary about what they reveal of their personal data will find themselves reeling off their birth dates and social security and credit card numbers in an effort to convince their callers the notifications that never arrived actually went to other addresses or were never meant for them in the first
place.

However these calls conclude — whether those who have been approached are left with the impression they’ve failed to show up for jury duty and are still expected to discharge their civic duties, or that a big misunderstanding has now been resolved — their true purpose has been accomplished: the scam artists now have the information necessary to open accounts or charge goods in the names of their victims.

The scheme outlined in the message quoted above might be categorized as a “social engineering” scam — a technique which preys upon people’s unquestioning acceptance of authority and willingness to cooperate in order to extract from them sensitive information.

How to Avoid Falling Victim to ‘Jury Duty’ Scams:

* Court workers will not telephone to say you’ve missed jury duty or that they are assembling juries and need to pre-screen those who might be selected to serve on them, so dismiss as fraudulent phones call of this nature. About the only time you would hear by telephone (rather than by mail) about anything having to do with jury service would be after you have mailed back your completed questionnaire, and even then only rarely.

* Do not give out bank account, social security, or credit card numbers over the phone if you didn’t initiate the call, whether it be to someone trying to sell you something or to someone who claims to be from a bank or government department. If such callers insist upon “verifying” such information with you, have them read the data to you from their notes, with you saying yea or nay to it rather than the other way around.

* Examine your credit card and bank account statements every month, keeping an eye peeled for unauthorized charges. Immediately challenge items you did not approve.

Jan

What happened to Reg?

By Murder of Ravens 5 Comments

Categories: Musings

I’ve been following a relatively new blog, Paradise Revisited. It’s authored by a woman, who, among other things, detailed the ups and downs of a seemingly rather dysfunctional relationship. Having been in my share of those myself, last night I posted a longer than usual comment, offering my advice. I admit that I was most curious as to how she might respond.

When I went to check her blog today, it was gone, “deleted by the author”. I find this vaguely disquieting, coming as it does the day after dumped her fiance. Does anyone know what happened to her?

Reg, if you’re out there, I hope you got to see my comment before you clobbered your blog. I could tell that you are in an uncomfortable place in your life, and I want you to know that I wish you the best in the future. I enjoyed reading your blog and hope you will start another one.

Most of all, remember that if you truly believe in your heart that good things will happen to you, more often than not, they do. It took me a long time to figure that one out.

Farewell, sweet Reg.

–Smith

Jan

Thank you everyone

By Murder of Ravens 4 Comments

Categories: Musings

Just a quickie here. I have to say I’m somewhat bowled over by some of the comments that people have been kind enough to leave on my poetry. I try to make every post a little worthwhile, but I confess I take special pride in the poetry.

The funny thing is that while I was rather prolific in college, I hadn’t written a poem in over twenty years. I thought this part of me was dead. Now I realize that it was only sleeping. I’m glad it’s still there.

It’s nice to know that there’s still a little zip in the ol’ fastball. For this I have to thank the man who bears an astonishing resemblance to the Muppets’ Swedish Chef.

Thanks, Murph.

-Smith

Jan

And we expect countries to get along?

By Murder of Ravens 2 Comments

Categories: Musings

I had an interesting experience the other day here in the blogosphere. What made it interesting in retrospect was that it demonstrated to me the extent to which people can think they’re communicating when in fact they’re completely talking past each other.

Recently an acquaintance of mine has started reading my blog. This reader shall, of course, remain anonymous, except to say that she is someone I have known very well for a long time, and who has always encouraged my writing.

Anyway, she started leaving comments on some of my posts. This, in itself, was a minor miracle, since by her own admission she is just about the most computer illiterate person in the western hemisphere. But somehow she figured out how to navigate the WordPress software and began leaving comments that were effusive in their praise, to say the least.

Now I enjoy reading complimentary comments as much as anyone, but as this person happens to be an acquaintance of mine (which came through loud and clear in her comments), I felt a bit of restraint was called for here.

Here’s where it gets interesting. When I called her, she at first couldn’t understand why I had any objections to her comments. I, for my part, couldn’t understand why she was getting upset at my request. The conversation went on in this unproductive manner for about five minutes, until I suddenly realized that she was unaware that her comments were publicly viewable. She really had thought that her comments would be for my eyes only, and worded them as such.

So for five full minutes we were talking past each other, not to each other. We thought we were communicating, and we weren’t. Once she realized that everyone in the free world could read her comments, she immediately saw my point.

This is a classic example of something I have learned in life: never take it for granted that you are being understood, nor, for that matter, that you are understanding the other person. This was, of course, a tiny, tiny issue in the grand scheme of things, and yet it might have led to lingering bad feelings.

It makes me wonder how many times in the course of human history has a lack of communication led to tragic consequences. We think we’re communicating. We think we understand and are being understood, only to find out later we were wrong.

Robert Heinlein once wrote (as near as I can recall), “Your enemy is never evil in his own eyes. Realizing this may help you find a way to make him your friend.” Whether we’re talking about international relations or neighborhood relations, it might be a better world if everyone believed this.

–Smith

Jan

Sunshine in a Bottle, a poem

By Murder of Ravens 10 Comments

Categories: Poetry

Middle age is a bitch. This is where you learn that your teachers lied to you about there being four food groups. Now I know there are really five: meat, dairy, grain, fruit,………..and pharmaceuticals. This is a little ditty dedicated to all those who, like myself, find better living through chemicals.

Really don’t know when it started,
When my sanity first departed.
Some days I’d be so damned depressed
Couldn’t even get me dressed.
Hiding underneath the covers
Hoping maybe I would smother.
Hiding out inside my room
In the darkness, in the gloom.

I said, “I can’t go on this way.
It’s just too hard to face the day.”
So I found an old head shrinker
In my head I let him tinker.
He said, “there’s two things I can do:
To help us make a happy you.
The first is spend years on my couch.
About your childhood you can grouch.
In maybe ten or twenty years,
You’ll know the reasons for your fears.
But if you don’t want to wait that long,
I’ve got something good and strong.
My boy, the cure for all your ills
Is right here in these pretty pills.”

And you know, that old doc was right.
Now my future’s looking bright.
Getting older? Getting fatter?
Getting deader, it doesn’t matter.
All of my life’s little spills
Are no match for these pretty pills.
Some are blue and some are yellow.
They keep me loose, they keep me mellow.
Can’t get hard enough to screw?
They got a pill for that one, too.
I can go at life full throttle:
Got my sunshine in a bottle.

But look out, boy, if I don’t take ‘em.
The crystal and china, I just might break ‘em.
Without my pills I’m not so pleasant.
‘Cause my temper’s incandescent.
You won’t like me when I’m like that:
I yell and scream and kick the cat.

So God bless all my pharmaceuticals
That give me peace and healthy cuticles.
I do not think it undo vanity
Just to want a little sanity.
And while at times it makes me shiver
To think about my poor old liver.
A rotted liver’s a tiny price
To pay so folks will think you’re nice.
It matters not how much I sin
On my face I wear a grin.
I can go at life full throttle:
Got my sunshine in a bottle

–Stephen P. Smith

Jan

Thank you, Britney

By Murder of Ravens 2 Comments

Categories: Britney Spears and Random Shots

Well, say what you want about Britney Spears, she’s certainly been good to me. My post about her remains my number one traffic gatherer.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain. This little blog needs all the help it can get. But it is vaguely puzzling that a post about Gerald Ford, one of the most decent men ever to hold the office of President and an important historical figure, barely gets any attention, while the mere mention of the Sweetheart of the Trailer Park garners more traffic than all my other posts combined. What does this say about our society? Nothing good, I sadly suspect.

Maybe I should just tag all my posts “Britney Spears”. Better still, maybe I’ll become a celebrity gossip blogger. Yeah, that’s it.

Thanks Britney, you pantie-less wonder, you!

–Smith

Jan

The Accidental President

By Murder of Ravens 3 Comments

Categories: Gerald Ford, Musings and Politics

Yes, I know I’m a day late with this, but I couldn’t let the passing of Gerald Ford go by without comment. Of all the presidents who have held office during my lifetime, he was my favorite.

Some will, no doubt, raise their eyebrows at this last statement. But then, my favorite Red Sox player is Doug Mirabelli. And when you think about it, the two really have a lot in common.

For those of you who don’t know, Doug Mirabelli is the backup catcher for the Boston Red Sox. To put it kindly, Doug is not going to the Hall of Fame. I can probably hit better than he can. Furthermore, as the personal catcher for knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, he has the shittiest job in baseball. (If you know who Tim Wakefield is, you know what I mean. If you don’t, don’t ask me to explain it here, just trust me on this one, OK?) Nevertheless, Doug endears himself to the fans, me included, because he defied expectations and succeeded in a job that nobody else really wanted. And by all account he is also a really good guy.

Gerald Ford was the Doug Mirabelli of American presidents. Having resolved to retire from politics at the end of his term, instead he got the shitty job that no one else wanted, that everyone predicted he wasn’t up to. He had neither the rhetorical skills of a Ronald Reagan, nor the intellect of a Bill Clinton, nor the charisma of either. His career in Congress, while long, was not particularly distinguished. He is not remembered for any landmark legislation His most notable quality was that everyone liked him, Republicans and Democrats alike. And yet it is this seemingly uninspiring politician whom history will remember as the man who, with nothing more complicated than integrity and decency, helped to heal America and end, in his own memorable words, the “long national nightmare”.

He had to have known that by pardoning Nixon he was effectively shooting a torpedo into his hopes of being re-elected. That he chose to do so anyway was one of the most courageous acts in modern politics. After the pardon, his popularity rating plummeted from 71 to 49 percent. After the 1976 election, president elect Jimmy Carter called Ford a “good and decent man”, and it is no surprise that both of these good and decent men eventually became life long friends.

Some interesting facts about our 38th president:

Just as Nigel Bruce’s portrayal of Dr. Watson unjustly convinced generations of movie goers that Watson was a buffoon, so did Chevy Chase’s Saturday Night Live spoof forever fix Ford as a clumsy oaf in the public consciousness. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He was in fact one of the most gifted athletes ever to hold public office. He was an outstanding college football player. As the starting center at Michigan State, he was voted the Wolverine’s most valuable player in his senior year. He turned down offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers to turn pro, electing instead to go to Yale Law School. His number 48 was eventually retired by the school. Not bad for an alleged klutz.
He was the last surviving member of the Warren Commission.
Thomas P. O’Neill was a life long friend and one of his favorite golf partners.
In his first year in office, he used his veto power 36 times.
While Nixon is widely credited with ending American involvement in Vietnam, it was actually under Ford that the last American soldiers came home in 1975.
Gerald Ford, not George H. W. Bush, was Ronald Reagan’s first choice as a running mate in 1980. Perhaps not surprisingly, Ford turned him down.
Ford dedicated the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum during the nation’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976.
He was a dedicated pipe smoker, whose favorite tobacco was Field & Stream. That right there is enough to tell me he was a good guy.

Embroiled as our nation is in another national nightmare, it may not be too much to say that we could use a man like Gerald Ford today.

–Smith

Jan

Some overdue thank you’s

By Murder of Ravens 9 Comments

Categories: Musings, Random Shots and the state of the world

So here we are, 1-1-07, and, like most people, I felt obligated to come up with a New Years resolution. I considered resolving to lose weight, and maybe to stop kicking the cat, but I know in my heart that both of those goals are as unattainable as a pardon for Saddam Hussein. So I decided to go for something a little more realistic. I have resolved to stop being a blog slacker.

This blog thing has not been an easy endeavor, nor has it been an unqualified success, for which I have no one to blame but myself. I never realized the amount of time needed not only to write on one’s own blog, but to be an active participant in the blogosphere as well.

In my own defense, such as it is, I can honestly say the demands on my time are not insignificant. I have a special needs step-son who requires a great deal of attention. As the father of a 20 year old who is serving his country in Iraq, I am, quite frankly, often too depressed to write anything. I am still trying to figure out just where this blog fits in the overall scheme of my life.

Plus I am a lazy bastard.

But is spite of all this, I think I have posted some things that have been worthwhile, and I hope to continue to do so on a more consistent basis. Best of all, I’ve made some new friends. It is these friends whom I would like to acknowledge.

First and foremost, I have to acknowledge Michael Murphy, he of Smoke & Mirrors fame. Without Mike there would be no “Murder of Ravens” (so if you don’t like what I write, blame him).

Mike spent about a year cajoling me into doing this in the first place. I call Mike my blog sensei, and with his shaved head and little round glasses, he could easily pass for the Dalai Lama. It is a role he is well suited for. Besides the encouragement, he saved me weeks of frustration by showing me the tricks of the trade, as well as how to navigate the WordPress software.

Now I’m sure many of you have on-line mentors, but how many of you have to face them in person on a daily basis? Such is my lot, for Mike is not only my blog mentor, he is also my friend and co-worker. As a self-confessed blog slacker, I have come to dread what I call the “Melting Mike” look. It’s the look I get from him when I first get to work in the morning. It’s a look that combines, in a remarkably effective manner, disappointment, disapprobation, and disillusionment. With one glance from his soulful brown eyes, Mike manages to wordlessly say, “I believed in you, man. What happened? You have SO let me down.” Ah, how I dread that look. All I can say is I will try to do better in 2007.

I must also thank the Writer Chick, a top notch blogger and one of my earliest supporters. I could always count on seeing two comments on my posts, one from Mike and one from her, and she was one of the first to link to me.

A very special thanks to Spasmicallyperfect, for taking the time to critique my attempts at poetry. A first rate poet herself, her comments have been invaluable.

And I must thank Nanny’s Nook, Nuke’s News and Views, From Evyl With Love, Squawkbox Noise, and The Winged Man. Each in his or her own way is a first rate blogger, who was also kind enough to link to me and even occasionally give me a much needed plug.

All in all I’m glad I started this. I used to spend my mornings venting my rants at poor Mike. It’s a small shop we work at, so there’s really no place for him to hide. Now I can inflict my opinions on the world.

Happy New Year to all!

–Smith

taking up a glowing cinder with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious rather than a meditative mood" ~ Dr. John H. Watson ************************

The Technical Junk

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Click here if you want to learn the truth about second hand smoke

A Boston University Physician exposes the fallacies of the anti-smoking movement.

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