Apropos of nothing, I flew Aeroflat several times in the 70s/80s, and once on Lot from Warsaw to Gdansk in Sept. 1988, in the last year of Communist rule. The plane was WWII surplus, I assume, because it was a prop plane with an actual little gunner window of some sort, or maybe for a bombadier, under the cockpit. The "flight attendent" was a uniformed soldier standing at the back with an automatic rifle of some kind. No one asked about the inflight beverage service.

Thank you, Senator! While I love Sen. Levin, who represents my state in the Senate, you are of course right that this resolution is a toothless rebuke at best and tacit support for the status quo. But it's a small, timid first step. You were way out there in the lead on your opposition to the war, and the American people are catching up to you faster than the overly cautious Beltway insiders. Keep leading, and they will follow you, and soon. The tide is turning.

He says we didn't choose this war (Iraq); they attacked us on Sept. 11. Still repeating the big neo-con lie. This was the most pre-emptive, elective war in history. Lke the starlet who gets a nose job and then claims it was for a breathing problem, not for looks. Give me an effing break.

Regarding the question, "are there readers unmoved by Milan Kundera?" I would have to say, yes, since he began writing in French, anything post- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I find my self unmoved. His Czech works, Unbearable, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Joke, Laughable Loves, and the one set at the spa with the doctor, I count as personal favorites that moved me tremendously and had great meaning for me. But the last 15 years or so have been disappointing, an empty shell. I'm glad for the fall of the Eastern Bloc, but sad for the loss of the great insights that were in his earlier work. Having said that, he certainly doesn't owe me anything. If I had only read Unbearable, he would rank as one of my top writers for life.

I spent a week in LA in June 1984, as a competitor in the track and field Olympic Trials at the Colassium. We were staying in the dorms at USC. After my event was over, we stayed in a beach rental in Manhattan Beach and took buses into town to watch the meet every evening. I got a ticket for jaywalking after running across a street with the green light but when the "don't walk" had started to flash. No amount of "I'm here visiting for the Olympic Trials, and I knew I could make it across in time," was sufficient to beat the rap.

Right on, Keith!

I've already sworn off renewing Salon. I did that with G.K.'s It's Christmastime, Get Over It, Eat Your Cookies and STFU.

I just went to Obama's web site, watched his speech, and donated $50, first time I've ever donated to any candidate. I urge you all to do the same. I read his books in December. How anyone can say he's all hype, no ideas, is beyond me. They're just idiots repeating the line du jour from the pressroom, I guess. Whatever. Salon, you suck. Keep publishing your pieces about My Day at the Porn Movie Company, your hate pieces against Obama, and other bits of pornography. You are irrelevant.

Actually, I wasn't fooled on Iraq, either. Let's hope Congress doesn't roll over on this one. too.

Guliani's trying to weasel out of his support for abortion rights just in time for the primary season, too, saying he'd appoint judges just like Alito, implying that the SC could overturn Roe and let states decide.

Fuck 'em all.

Wendell Berry, the poet/essayist/farmer from northern Kentucky, and certainly one of those best minds of his generation that GK refered to (and he became a farmer AND a poet, imagine that) wrote a long time ago a poem I don't have at hand but I will paraphrase.

Berry said he grieves (or was it fears) for his children for having been born. By that he means a parent brings children into the world of suffering, and wonders whether it was the right thing to do.

Now anyone who knows Berry's body of work (including his novels and stories of a small town in Kentuucky that is not much like Lake Woebegone because it is filled with real lives and real suffering and real joy, not the Hallmark pablam variety) will know that Berry does not ultimately renounce his having children; that he welcomes the next generation into the Membership as he calls it. But he has never stopped worrying about the fate of his loved ones, his small town or his world, and has spoken out about it passionately his whole adult life, from his early and vocal opposition to Viet Nam to his thoughtful essays on the wounds caused by slavery to his environmentalism that is centered on locally grown food and conservation of the land.

Okay, here's my point. GK seems to think that all this talk about global warming, economic justice and a more peaceful world is tiresome liberal lecturing that ruins his lunch and makes him a grumpy old man, so instead of getting on a good anti-depressant or sitting under a lamp to ease his seasonal affective disorder, he blames liberals who fear for the world they are creating for their children and grandchildren. Would he have us just give up and acede to the destruction, or take a stand and try to make our lives and the world we leave for our children a bit more hopeful than that dying mythical prairie town he loves more than life itself?

AWOL from the Air Natl. Guard, cover-ups of various DUIs, etc.