Lack of time, lack of animiation skills and lack of encouragement (except for one kind soul who has been thanked) wiped out any halloween special here at the Howling Point. Maybe I’ll plan better and get something turkey-ish done by next month. But even though the original plan didn’t work out, if you want to see something really scary….
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Mood swing pendulum is coming back from yesterday’s little temper tantrum. All the responses were interesting. Some were very appreciated. No, I won’t delete it. It’s what I thought and still think – I’d just phrase it differently today. Maybe it was the nice lunch yesterday with a client that got me thinking more like a lawyer and less like a blogger. It was nice spending a couple of hours with a client actually interested in proactive advice and counsel. The stereotypical client’s pleas to get him out of the grave he dug himself into get tiring and the change was welcome. Not that any of my clients are that way. I’ve just heard about them from other attorneys.

Just got back from a nice swim. The pool heater seems to be fixed so I didn’t have the rude awakening and rampant shrinkage of Monday’s attempted workout. Unfortunately, when I finished I found out the hot tub was out of order. At least I got through my workout. It’s kind of a makeup session for Monday when the coldness pushed me out of the pool after one painful lap (reminder to ALWAYS check the water temp before diving in) and I spent the next 45 minutes unwinding in the hot tub. Not a bad way to start the week, but probably not what I should schedule as a regular workout.

No big plans here for Halloween. I stocked up on little Snicker’s bars, but from past experience I think Pongo’s reputation will keep the kiddies away and I’ll just sit there and gobble them down until I slip into a diabetic coma. I’m trying to work on a little something special for the blogging neighbors who want to come trick-or-treating, but no guarantees that I’ll get it finished. If you want to encourage me, send a trick or treat message via comments or the contact page.

“The war on terror seems to be breeding more, not less,” said Rami Khouri, a Jordanian columnist. “There is no sign that anyone in the U.S. or Israel or the Arab world is addressing the grievances that lie underneath all this.”

That mindboggling appeasement of murderers was carried in today’s New York Times article on yesterday’s murder of Larry Foley in Jordan. I’m not faulting the New York Times for carrying it; I’m just still amazed that some people think that these murders can be justified, and glad that we have a free press that can report these twisted viewpoints that make the world more dangerous for everyone.

A short list of things I don’t care about this morning:
1. The grievances of radical Islam.
2. The grievances of the Palestinians.
3. Whatever gas it was Putin used to free 85% of the hostages being held by Chechen terrorists.

What I do care about this morning (one week from an election – hint, hint):
1. The economy.
2. Why Bin Laden’s head isn’t on a spike at Ground Zero.

Thank you for this opportunity to foam at the mouth for a while. I’ll try and find a nice beach pic this afternoon to balance out the site’s karma.

With all the terrorist outrages over the years, the various kidnappings and bombings and hijackings and shootings conducted with the intent of harming Americans simply because they were Americans, I’d recently started to consider myself lucky that no one I knew personally had been hurt or killed since Ron LaRiveriere was murdered over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Given the people I worked for and with, every time one of these stories made the press I would read it expecting to see the name of someone I’d worked with. After being out for six years, I was starting to feel I’d beaten the odds and maybe I could read the news without a sense of dread. Spoke too soon. U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley shot dead outside his home in Jordanian capital. Rest In Peace.

Hanging out on a Sunday afternoon being duly diligent while Pongo naps and the boneless chicken breast absorbs the subtle flavors of mustard, white wine and thyme in preparation for the grill.

Also wondering why I waited so long to sign up for Netflix. They’ve made a great first impression, and with any luck I’ll never again deal with the ‘associates’ at my local big-chain video place, Blockbuster.

I worked in a library for three years as an undergrad and just don’t understand how high school grads and college students can have such a hard time alphabetizing things on a shelf. Not to mention the mastering the basics of customer service like putting their personal phone calls on hold while dealing with the paying public and counting out change.

Very happy this morning to read of the end to the Moscow theater hostage crisis. Sometime after the building was gassed troops stormed the building and most of the murdering hostage-takers were killed. About ninety percent of the hostages were rescued. Reuters has a good article on the events; so does the S.F. Gate. A few other news sites did too, but between registrations, pop-up ads, and that asinine new flash thing promoting MSN’s butterfly, I’m not linking to them.

But now for the related rant: every article I read uniformly referred to these people who took and murdered hostages in a civilian theater as “rebels.” Not one mainstream media outlet could bring itself to use any of the many other words that come to mind: criminals, war criminals, terrorists, and murderers are on my short list. Professional editors and writers should know that nuance is everything, and the connotations that come to mind with the word rebel are not negative. Rebel is James Dean, George Washington and Princess Leia. To use the word rebel to describe these animals in Moscow is not appropriate and incredibly disrespectful of their victims.

It’s barely a year after 9/11 and already some people are getting back in the mode of distinguishing good terrorists from bad terrorists. There was a time when the United States government made this distinction. Oppressed peoples fighting the Evil Empire were good terrorists. That kind of thinking got us Afghanistan and led to a reputation for two-faced hypocrisy that we may never live down.

I’m not a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination, but I don’t believe there’s any example in history where holding civilian hostages was considered a legitimate means to fight a war. Rebellion against oppressive authority has had many positive impacts on our history and culture, and among other things resulted in the existence of the United States, but some acts go beyond rebellion and are just crimes. Regardless of what I think of the concept of Chechen independence, these individuals were murderers and war criminals, and to soften their actions by using a generic term like rebel to describe them is just disgusting.

Woo Hoo! Yippee! The week ends on an up note with the winning of coffee, the precious brew that makes mornings bearable, in ed k’s coffee contest. Thanks Ed.

Took Pongo out to the leash section of the dog beach at Del Mar this morning. It was his first excursion there since the mauling last May. At first I was worried one of the injuries would get reinfected, then I was waiting for his strength to come back, and then I was scared that the hyper-defensiveness he’s shown to other dogs since then would be too much. But he gives me those longing looks when he knows I’m going to the beach, and I can see those longing stares as we drive past the beach, so today we went. He was cool. He was happier than I’ve seen him in a long time. He sniffed, he marked, he was suspicious of strangers but mellowly so. The aloof, reserved suspiciousness, not the run-and-hide paranoia. We had a good time. He let me watch the surfers and the volleyball players while he looked for dead things in the sand. We’ll go back soon.

Just in time for your weekend, skin and sex in the news:

– An Assistant Water Polo coach in Huntington Beach, CA (my hometown) has been fired from his position at Marina High School (not my alma mater) “after administrators found a secret videotape of girls undressing in their locker room.”

– Police are investigating reports that a porn movie was shot on the campus of Indiana University. According to the article:

Filmmakers tried to persuade students to get involved, said Teter resident Adam Brown, a freshman. Brown said the film actresses were performing oral sex on students in the hallway.

– Artist wants to fill city with 5,000 naked people. What more needs to be said?

Have a nice weekend.

Been busy with some things that just don’t fit here. No apologies, just a fact being offered in explanation of the quality and quanity of recent posts. As I mentioned to a cool guy a couple of days ago I make a lot of editorial choices about what goes here. I don’t view it as self-censorship as much as a series of editorial decisions. I run three distinct websites, two of which contain blog-type material (and the third is updated regularly based on user feedback and site statistics). Some things that go on or are important in my life find their ways into one of the sites, and some don’t. Life as used here includes my business, a major funding source of life-related activities. Things that don’t fit include B & P 6068(e) stuff. 18 USC 798 stuff. Personal stuff that by definition isn’t for public consumption and comment (no links to help you decipher that one). Setec Astronomy. These are just some of the results of the schizophrenia that comes from having a life compartmentalized by law as well as societal norms, whatever the hell they are this month. I suppose they’re a lot like porn; I’m supposed to recognize them when I see them.