Into The Woods

May 2, 1863

My Dearest Friends And Family,

My thoughts are with you often in the unceasing rain. I hoped it would avoid us this day, but as we formed up for the long march, the drops multiplied and soaked through our uniforms as we awaited orders. I feared my musket would be useless in the persistent shower, but the battle before us would not wait.


Several companies of soldiers are in this fight with us, and I admit I do not possess the skills of description necessary to convey a proper image of them mustering. Columns and columns of them in butternut uniforms lined up to our front, the 16th and 41st Virginia Infantries among them. The rain continued to soak us as the other companies inspected weapons. With the lock of my Springfield tucked under the pit of my arm, I longed for the order to march again.



After half a mile, our path led us directly into the woods. As we disappeared beyond the tree line, I saw Gen. Jackson on horseback from the hill above us, surrounded by staff and looking upon us with a determined confidence, and we cheered as we passed. Though grateful, he cautioned us into silence.


I could tell Providence was with us as the rain let up while we marched through the woods in columns of two. I constantly glanced about me, wary of Yankee scouts. As I understood it, we were to strike the Union's right flank and take them by surprise. But if the Yanks discovered us here, they could snare us amongst the trees and stumps, turning the entire march into a mass grave.


We wound through the forest for miles in silent procession, trusting in our commanders and relieved to dry out. I passed by earthen fortifications on our left, evidence, perhaps, of a previous battle. At the middle point, we paused to drink from our canteens as the companies caught up with each other. We heard crackles of musket fire, reassuring us our journey would not take us much further. Or, I wondered, had the attack already begun?


Finally, we formed up on the edge of the forest, just outside the Yankee position. I could not see how many of them were in front of us, but I was sure we were in for a fight. The officers crept forward to get a better look, and they waited as we did for the moment to strike.


The first companies moved out with a rebel yell, leaving us behind with explosions from the Yankee artillery peppered with musket fire. A gigantic log sat in front of us, and I feared our commanders would make us charge over it as we emerged from the forest. But they reorganized our columns, and we too moved out to face the Yanks with excitement.

By the time we took to the fight, smoke and musket fire exploded around us, from every conceivable direction. We formed a skirmish line only a few paces from where a dozen Federals had stood and fallen. A medic foolishly treated them as we loaded and capped our weapons.

I had little time to look about me for the positions of the enemy, as I loaded and capped and fired in rapid succession, forming up with my fellow soldiers and then charging through the muddy battlefield still hollering to put the scare in the northern aggressors. Those Yanks were lousy shots, but a musket ball pierced a young private to my left sending him into the mud. Fortunately for us, he would be our only casualty. Several times my brogans splashed into pits of water. But we marched onward, forming up in front of a pesky cannon.


It only took one volley to fell the artillery unit, and we charged forward to take the piece.

"Private Francis!" the Captain barked. "Guard this one!" He motioned to a young artillery man, who in fact was just a teen-aged boy with a pistol.

"You move," I said to him as he lay on the ground. "And it will be your last!"

He handed over his pistol to me, barely able to indicate that it was unloaded. I held my rifle and took it from him, not trusting his word for a second. A comrade was guarding another artillery man when a company from our allied brethren moved in to surround the prisoners and the dead.

Relieved of our guard duties, the fellow private and I rushed forward to rejoin our company, now pressed against a muddy redoubt in a hard fire fight with a Yankee line. The Union musket balls were nearly ineffective against us. Behind us, the privates of other companies shouted commands to themselves, repeating the orders of their captains over the explosions and volleys.


Those Yanks would surely not hold us back for long, and they finally surrendered to us. General Jackson's gamble in the woods had delivered an undisputed victory. We celebrated and whooped and cheered for Virginia. But in reverence, a bugler sounded Taps, and scores of us fell silent in reverence for those on either side felled in war, caps removed, heads bowed.

As we left the battlefield, we broke into the "Bonnie Blue Flag" and reveled in our victory, the unforeseeable outcome of that march in the woods.

I have great hope for our nation in the days ahead. And I know the ladies of the 1st Virginia have confidence in my abilities. Just today I received a letter from them praising my steadfastness in battle. I was quite surprised and humbled to read their words of kindness and encouragement. Thus, my dear family and friends, I hope I encourage you in the dark days ahead.

Long Live Virginia!

Your Servant In The Cause,
Pvt. Christopher Francis
1st Virginia Volunteer Infantry

Bacon's Castle

Bacon's Castle, built in 1665 in Surrey, Virginia -- the only surviving example of Jacobean architecture in America -- is more inspiring than any words I can pen. So here are my pictures, along with heartfelt thanks and a deep bow to the docent who stayed long beyond closing time to give us a private and wonderful tour.










We pose for dozens of pictures in the front.

And then we sit and admire it for several minutes more.

"Are you glad you came?" my Captain asks.

"Yes," I say with understated enthusiasm. "Without a doubt."

A Learning Experience

The alarm goes off at 5:45, and even though I'm still adjusting to Eastern Daylight Time, I can still pull my fatigued body away from the sleeper sofa and into the shower... and later down to breakfast... and into my uniform.

The rain the weather people have promised us has arrived in the form of drizzly mist, but no downpours, fortunately. My private roommate and I march into camp through a marshy trail. I'm geared up and carrying a wooden ammo box full of cartridges, empty paper tubes, caps, and whatever else I can stuff in. The lid will barely close. "Elongated ball" reads the stenciling on the side. If it puts a scare into a stray Yank, the better.

We immediately have a special assignment: getting some brogans for an officer now re-cast as a private. Finding quality footwear has been tough with the blockades.


We fill in around him as we march to the sutlers' row, covering up any trace of white-footed anachronism. He's outfitted while we browse the historic goods -- the coats, caps, belt buckles, pins, snoods, and books.

Today is school day, meaning children will pour onto the grounds and we'll try to teach them what the books don't. A lot of the burden will fall on us: many of our allied units haven't shown yet. Last night's rain has forced a relocation of the Yankee camp, adding to the delays and gumming up the schedule a bit. It's no matter for the 1st Virginia as the cadets stay busy splitting wood while the infantrymen roll cartridges.





Our Captain is hurriedly summoned to Living History Duty. Soon after, our 1st Sergeant summons me -- we shall be a two-man detail on this educational mission.

We meet some four dozen eager students in the parking lot. Our Captain is already giving his opening remarks and answering a few questions when we march up to the crowd with fixed bayonets on our Springfield rifles. The 1st Sergeant gives a little talk on the uniforms while I stand at attention, looking as soldierly as possible for somebody who picks up the phone more than a rifle.

"Now, let's bring Private Francis into this," my Captain prompts.

I step forward and drop into my southern drawl while half my brain races to dig up more information early in the morning, realizing these kids probably know more history than I do having grown up in the middle of it. "I can't add much to what the Sergeant has told you," I begin, masking my morning brain freeze and the nervous desperation of a person who perceives himself a crib sheet standing next to a pair of 24-volume Civil War encyclopedias.

"But this is a cap pouch, and this is a cartridge box," I continue, indicating the proper accessories.

Good. Go for the gun. Gun talk is good. It's what you know.

"What we're going to do is, once we get the order, we're going to load one of these powder cartridges..."

Pull it out. Show it to them.

"We're going to pour it down the gun and ram it into place. Now we don't have a ball in these cartridges for safety reasons, but we would ram that down there with the ramrod..."

Remember the caps!

"And we're going to take one of these percussion caps out of here and place it over the nipple on the end."

CRACK! Somebody fires a shot back at camp.

"Somebody's getting started early," I crack to some scattered snickering.

Go on. Go on.

"When we get the order to fire, the hammer will come down and set of a charge, which will set off the powder in the gun and push the ball out."

Keep going, keep going.

"Now these rifles are much easier to load and fire than the muskets in the Revolutionary War, because you had to prime a pan with gunpowder, too, to set off the charge. These weapons are also a lot more accurate..."

Good grief, what's the proper range of an 1861 Springfield? Can I make a comparison to something in the parking lot? Maybe from here to those telephone poles? No. I'm not sure. I'm not going to risk giving out an unverified claim.

"I'm not sure about the distance though."

The 1st Sergeant steps in to offer the range figures I wish I had. Whew. I got through it without any bumps. After the talk, my head finally starts popping up the facts I wish I would've worked in, but now it's onto my next challenge -- showing a group of students the proper manual of arms given I'm still getting them down myself.

"You will emulate what Private Francis does," our Captain says after selecting a new Captain -- a teacher -- to lead our student cadets.

And if you emulate my mistakes, it's my fault.

"Shoulder arms!" comes the command. I get the rifle into place with the trigger guard between my right thumb and forefinger.

"Right shoulder shift!" Up here, lock out there. That didn't look bad. I hope.

"Order of arms!" Back down to my side.

We get the students dressed into lines about as well as you can with a group of grade-schoolers too wound up to stand in a straight line. Our Sergeant makes some adjustments and we've got a working company. The teachers grow envious -- if only they could do this in the classroom, every day. We march the lines over to the artillery demonstration.

"We don't know our left from our right," the artillery commander explains to the young recruits, explaining what differentiates them from the foot soldier. "But we fire big guns, and we make big holes."

They make big noises, too. Our students get the warning to cup their hands around their ears and open their mouths before the piece goes off. Many don't wait. I don't either, striking a pose that could earn me the nickname "The Yella' Rebel."

After marching the lines into our camp, I go through the Springfield spiel again for those who didn't hear it the first time and this time with more confidence, flanked by a comrade who could add to my information.

"A typical soldier could fire three rounds a minute," I explain. "That doesn't sound like a whole lot, but that was fast for that time. A well-trained soldier could do this automatically."

As the children in front of us circulate on through camp, an idea springs up.

"Do you have a housewife in your haversack?"

"A what?"

"A sewing kit," I explain. I don't have one, but I'm anticipating somebody's going to ask what's inside the sack sooner or later. That question doesn't come, however.

With so few Yankees in camp, we don't have enough for the scheduled Battle of Falls Church, so we put together a firing demonstration instead. Our Batallion Commander calls the shots and he introduces us to an unexpected command:

"Countermarch!"

Our neatly dressed lines of two ranks fissure. Some recruits interpret the foreign command as "about face and march the other way," sending them into the faces of other recruits urging them to keep going the opposite direction while a few correctly execute the order as a U-turn. The mass of students gathered with us in the parking lot again don't mind the levity.

"Load!"

We put the powder down the rifles and reach for the caps.

"Do not prime!"

Another new twist. Usually "Load" is two commands in one: load the powder (with the imaginary ball) and put the percussion cap on the nipple. We were warned things might be different in the east.

"Prime and Come To The Ready! Aim! Fire!"

The first volley sends a shockwave of shrieking and shouting through the student observers. They raise their excited, chattery voices, nearly drowning out the commanders' barked orders. My 1st Virginia comrades relay commands down the line over the din.

We line up for one more round of questions and one of the local officers explains how none of us are paid for what we do. We invest in our own guns, supplies and uniforms. And our particular unit, one of our young recruits interjects, has come all the way from Arizona to show this to you.

The impact shows later in the day, when my roommate and I are driving past their school and spot a CSA flag planted in the ground next to a game of dodgeball. They're loving it now, but what about the days to come?

"It's ironic somebody from Arizona had to explain the meaning of the Virginia flag to them."

I have only fired a few shots, but I want a clean gun for tomorrow's battle. Back at camp, my comrades help me wash the barrel out with boiling water and I dig into this cleaning kit I just bought, the one with a rod long enough to reach all the way down the barrel. But it looks like somebody forgot to put in the patch attachment. And I forgot to bring my other kit, thinking I'd already squirreled it away somewhere in my luggage.

With some help from another sergeant, we run several patches down the barrel using a borrowed attachment on the end of my ramrod. The first cleaing patch jams near the bottom, and he whispers concern.

We play tug-of-war with the gun and the rammer to pull it out. It takes myself and one other private on my side before the rod comes out. The patch is filthy. Fouling has built up in the bottom of the barrel over time, and I just haven't gotten to it until now. I try hard to keep my gun clean, and it stays clean -- mostly. But it's that bottom that just hasn't been scrubbed enough, I figure. He pledges to help me order what I need to get the gun truly clean.

"I've talked to three different people and gotten three different answers on how to clean a gun," I explain.

We later present our host commanders with a fine bottle of champagne, smuggled around the blockades. They present us with an honorary title of Second Battalion, deeply appreciative and awed at our mission of education and pride in America's heritage.

"I've been talking about you boys for a year," one commander says. He vows to get out to Picacho Peak one of these days. He hasn't been to Arizona, but he'll find a way to get there.

We talk about the weather. Heavy storms are set for tomorrow, and we can see the streams of clouds rolling in. If we don't blow away or flood out, we'll be back for battle.

Being Here

The first thing I notice as I fly into Norfolk is the green -- everywhere. Green lawns and green trees, all against a gray, gloomy sky. Rain will be a challenge for us all weekend. Four battles are planned, and we shall see what comes down.

I link up with my roommate and comrade-in-arms at the baggage claim, and we're soon in our way to Suffolk in a Suzuki SUV, big enough to reasonably accommodate our war chests of uniforms and civilian clothes and cameras. My comrade's case is as big as mine, and he's only staying for the weekend. Mine is heavy enough to flirt with Delta's weight limits, meaning I've moved a shaving kit from the main bag to the one with my tricorns. Those are for later.

We're soon on I-64, and after navigating through the Hampton Roads rush hour, we arrive in Suffolk. This is where the history reaches out to us, in the brick homes and humble farmsteads, in the mansions and the churches. The past shades nearly everything except the strip malls and gas stations. Even the drive-through banks elicit the spirit of a burgeoning colony with their stately red veneer. No stucco. No faux adobe.


My companion is flashing back to his youth Pennsylvania. We both keep track of the number of flags we pass outside businesses and homes, especially the Virginia state banners.

"They're still pretty proud," he says.

I can feel it. It's in every flag hanging outside the many homes we pass by. This is America, not Suburbia. Submerged in history, they connect with it in a way people like me can only wonder about in Arizona. It's an honor to live in the land where the colonists first set foot 400 years ago.

We're so wrapped up in the greenery and architecture we miss a turn. Or maybe it misses us. It's a problem easily solved with a laptop and wi-fi in a gas station parking lot where we Google our position and make a course correction. Fifteen minutes later, we're at the hotel.

A quick check-in and we're back on the road to the battlefield, making sure we understand the route and checking out our camp. Tents are plentiful, and a few Confederates are there chopping wood and preparing for a soggy first night in camp.

My comrade and I link up with the rest of the 1st Virginia and venture out to Pizza Hut.

"Mr. Francis is in shorts!" our Captain observes.

My roommate and I are the Odd Couple -- his Felix in shirt, slacks and tie with the Confederate flags next to my Oscar in a 1st Virginia polo, those shorts and a kepi with beat-up tennis shoes.

Everybody's in high spirits, even with the rain pounding down outside, but we don't worry. So what if it's muddy. We're here. Welcome to Virginia!

He smells the hay from a barn near the hotel. The childhood memories embrace him once again. For me, it's not the same as my youth in Missouri -- except for the green and the chilly rain.

Back in the room, we watch Gods and Generals and my comrade looks for a place to hang the Bonnie Blue flag. Running it up the Wendy's flagpole is out of the question for tonight, so we'll just have to make do with what we can.

On The Eve Of Chancellorsville...

With Gen. Hooker before them and Old Dominion behind them, the ladies and gentlemen of the 1st Virginia Volunteer Infantry gather for dancing and celebration before the long march to the battlefield.

From the letters of Pvt. Christopher Francis
Dauggerotypes by Sgt. Michael C.

April 26, 1863

To My Dearest Family And Friends,

I can only approximate the stew of anticipation and dread enveloping the next few days. As I write this, my comrades are leaving for Chancellorsville, and word has spread among us of the thousands of Federals across the Rappahannock. All I can see are the lines of Yankees and my rifle at my shoulder, picking as many of them off as I can as the Captain barks orders to advance. I think about how rusty my drill is, even though I am getting better.

But before I leave, I am laboring to tell you of the sendoff we received last evening. My comrades and I danced with dozens of the finest ladies in Virginia. I tell you, we made a thunderous racket, loud enough to reach all the way to Manassas, but at the same time the members of my unit lived up to their gentlemanly reputations.

Imagine my shock, however, at the beginning of the promenade when I spot a youthful private standing next to a pretty young girl and see him turn to find some other partner.

"He is walking away," I say to the lady, airing out my disgust and offering a bow. "But I am walking toward you. Would you be my partner?" She accepts instantly.

With The Privvytippers' accompaniment, we journey through several dances, and as I put the words to this page, my ankles still remind me of my exuberance through the mixers and line dances. Our accompanists ponder their musical arrangements.

"You know 'Sarah Andrews'?" one of them queries, testing the depths of their repertoire.

"What's wrong with Sarah Lee?" I counter, suggesting something in honor of our General.

I draw comfort in knowing several ladies trust me to head up a set. All I have is my reputation, and living up to the fair ones' expectations makes me work harder on the ballroom floor. An artificial wind device provides us some relief from the unseasonably warm evening, but I can feel myself losing several pounds in perspiration alone. Lemonade does its best to replenish the loss.

"I hope that we can scare those Federals back across the Potomac!" I tell a lady.

My experience in numerous set dances leads me to offer a word of warning. In a well-attended ballroom, the lines of ladies and gentlemen often crowd together and one must make way for hoopskirts. Unfortunately in the swirl of the figures, stray threads can catch and fix on a properly placed foot. Ripping lace emits an unmistakable sound. But the true hazard is the tug at the leg indicating ensnarement. I nearly loose my balance as the pour soul to my left unravels, but I am able to shake it off and continue dancing with a blush of embarrassment as the lady and her partner toss aside the frill and continue with no discernible annoyance. One must also take care during the shoe dance, that ritual of gentlemen attacking a pile of footwear donated by the ladies to determine their next partners. The Captain nearly has to stop the dance when a guest discovers her black shoes are suddenly mismatched.

I fret over my long hair. At first I dispense with my kepi after it falls into my hands upon a bow and in keeping with custom. Yet as my dancing intensifies, I can feel the strands of hair lashing at my face and I despair over what the ladies might think of me, especially as the members of our unit prepare to present numerous Virginia Belles. The kepi returns, and no one says a word about it or my locks.

In previous occasions, we have run discouragingly short of gentlemen to escort said Belles. Tonight the numbers approach respectability, although it means escorting only one lass. Having presented the ladies, Captain Scott gives them the honor of choosing their next partner, preferably one of the gentlemen in gray. All I can do is stand at attention, smile, and plead in silence.

Pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me!

I am relieved when a lady approaches. In fact, several ladies desire my partnership this evening, including an Indian scout well regarded for her ability to detect enemy movements several miles away. She requests not one but two dances, and I fulfill the obligation even though I worry I am leaving other ladies in want of a partner. One must sacrifice.

A lady coaxes a shy little girl in a blue gown towards me as another waltz begins, and I know what I need to do. I bow and ask her for a dance, and I see her eyes glow through her tiny spectacles as I move in gentle steps. "You're a fine waltzer," I encourage, not stretching the truth for flattery. Her mouth offers no words, but a smile is more than enough compliment.

The festivities pause so that a prayer may be offered for the ladies and gentlemen of the 1st Virginia, for our safety, for our mission, for our purpose. With the request to Heaven raised, the call goes out for volunteers to set up four groups of three chairs.

The Pineapple Dance begins, an amusement so familiar to us it needs no formal explanation, yet I shall briefly elaborate for the uninitiated. Two lines of mixed couples lines up before three chairs. Three people sit down, the one in the middle holding a pineapple. The person with the pineapple passes it to one of the people beside him and sashays off with the other, preferably a person of the opposite gender. The person left holding the pineapple moves to the middle, two others from the lines fill in the empty seats, and the pineapple is passed again.


Enthusiasm boils throughout the room as couples constantly sashay about, or in some cases, groups of three if all ladies or all gentlemen are left occupying the seats.


Screams and whoops of joy pierce the air.


A rambunctious private tries to slip off with the pineapple rather than doing right by a lady and two of us chase him about to recover it.


The Privvytippers play with inexhaustible energy, leading us through at least 10 minutes of sashaying and quickening the pace.

At this point I cannot exhaust myself. I owe another lady a dance. Her sister introduced me earlier in the evening, and she made the request. After struggling to locate her again, I finally find her in time for "the Old Virginia Reel!" Whatever energy we may have left, the Captain says, we will be relieved of it here.

"Every set should have an experienced couple at the top!" Capt. Scott directs. The couple heading our set decides they are not experienced enough, so they hastily change places with myself and my partner. Now comes the test of Virginia citizenship. Without fail, I need to demonstrate to my partner, my set, and my comrades I can dance a flawless Virginia Reel. As the Captain leads us through a brief refresher, I assume the role of Dance Captain, gesturing to the couples along the line as to who moves and when and how -- honors, right hands, left hands, both hands, do-si-dos, sashays and the all-important reeling of the set. My partner picks up the figures immediately.

"You reel like a pro!" I call to her as we work our way through the set.

We lose ourselves in the dance, losing track of time, and we're not the only ones. The Privvytippers, perhaps convinced we need even more merriment or merely running out of musical arrangements, segue into a round of "Jingle Bells" -- in March. We all sing along, beginning to end.

"Dashing through the snow! In a one horse open sleigh! Over the fields we go! Laughing all the way--HA HA HA!"

Ho, ho, ho, that's the way the heroes go! Having done my duty, I escort my partner back to her sister with heaps of praise for her abilities.

Usually the evening ends with a final waltz, but none of us are ready to let it end that way. A freestyle dance commences and I find myself swinging wildly with several ladies who drain from me what little stamina I regained in the last waltz. I will admit to you here, this is where I realize how much I enjoy set dancing, where one knows what step comes next and you don't have to read the mind of your partner. I feel I am the most monotonous freestyler, doing little but swinging round and round. What does the lady want me to do? I think. Does she not desire some other steps? A young lad in a tall stovepipe hat taps me on the back, politely cutting in and relieving me.

As the couples depart the hall, I come across the lady and the little girl I waltzed with earlier. The child's companion thanks me for the dance.

"She doesn't know much English."

"Oh," I reply in curious astonishment.

"She's from Russia," the lady adds before I can inquire further.

I turn to the child and offer the only Russian words I know: "Doisvedania! Spaceba!" Goodbye! Thank You!

The little girl's face brightens once again. "Doisvedania! Spaceba!" she cries out as she leaves. I am no stranger anymore. As I write this to you, I still hear those words in my ears as I prepare for battle.

So I ask for your sendoff and your prayers as well. I know many years have passed since several of us have met. Some of you I have never seen at all, but you have written to me with encouraging tidings. A great engagement lies before me, and I have full confidence in our commanders. Yet I know of no skirmish without danger or fear. By God's grace, I shall return home soon. But until then, I shall write when I can to advise you of our progress in beating back the northern aggressors.

With Highest Regards,
Pvt. Christopher Francis
1st Virginia Volunteer Infantry

TO BE CONTINUED...

More pictures of this sendoff celebration here.

Teflon Obama

The Wall Street Journal offers a poll suggesting Sen. Barack Obama's fire-breathing pastor hasn't hurt him in the polls. It's no surprise.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. was never a player in the Obama campaign. He hasn't been by the senator's side like Chuck Norris standing with Mike Huckabee. Obama only dealt with Wright after persistent needling, and when he did, he turned it into a state-of-the-races speech people gushed over.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, offered the hey-I'm-human response when confronted with tape contradicting her statements about a visit to Bosnia. It only played into the hands of her opponents, and reminded me of what one pundit suggested about the Clintons: their problem isn't dishonesty but ahonesty. They don't know what the truth is.

But the voters do.

Hello, Customer Service... Hello?

How hard can it be to find somebody to answer the phone? Harder than you think, according to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson who says he's having trouble filling the customer service jobs the company took back from India, according to Reuters. The problem isn't quantity, it's quality, and he points fingers:

Stephenson said he is especially distressed that in some U.S. communities and among certain groups, the high school dropout rate is as high as 50 percent.

"If I had a business that half the product we turned out was defective or you couldn't put into the marketplace, I would shut that business down," he said.

So prepare yourselves for the next buzzphrase in the outsourcing and immigration debates -- "the jobs Americans aren't smart enough to take."

2008 via 1968

Here's an interesting retro-read from Modern Mechanix, which dug up an article predicting life today 40 years ago.

How'd it do? About a B-.

One prediction the article nailed:

Money has all but disappeared. Employers deposit salary checks directly into their employees’ accounts. Credit cards are used for paying all bills. Each time you buy something, the card’s number is fed into the store’s computer station. A master computer then deducts the charge from your bank balance.

Another it got half-right:

Computers also handle travel reservations, relay telephone messages, keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, compute taxes and even figure the monthly bills for electricity, water, telephone and other utilities. Not every family has its private computer. Many families reserve time on a city or regional computer to serve their needs. The machine tallies up its own services and submits a bill, just as it does with other utilities.

One it missed big:

The car accelerates to 150 mph in the city’s suburbs, then hits 250 mph in less built-up areas, gliding over the smooth plastic road. You whizz past a string of cities, many of them covered by the new domes that keep them evenly climatized year round. Traffic is heavy, typically, but there’s no need to worry.

We'll take the future, just not George Jetson's vision of the future.

Unemployed? Take Your Pick!

Tomato farmer Keith Eckel says he's scaling down his massive Pennsylvania operation because he can't find enough immigrant workers. He blames the lack of a feasible guest-worker program.

From the AP:

Though Eckel's tomato pickers made an average of $16.59 per hour last year, he said the relatively high wage is not enough to attract local labor to work the fields.

"A lot of people think with immigration that we're talking about immigrants taking jobs from others. Let me tell you, there is no local labor that is going to go out and harvest those tomatoes in 90-degree temperatures except our immigrant labor," Eckel said. "They come here to do a job that no one else will do in this country."

Or maybe Mr. Eckel needs to get busy with the want ads. Sixteen bucks an hour isn't exactly slave wages. As for those 90-degree temperatures, it's obvious he never worked a summer at Six Flags Over Mid America.

For Ideological Assurance, Your Room May Be Monitored

The State Department's website is warning American tourists traveling to China for the Olympics about the possible bugging of hotel rooms.

All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times. Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant’s consent or knowledge.

However, your room phone is out of Chinese reach. Homeland Security is tapping that.

Many hotels and apartment buildings may be of substandard construction, lack emergency exits, fire suppression systems, carbon monoxide monitors and standard security equipment (locks, alarms, and personnel).

So those of you from Queens should feel right at home.

About Obama's Speech...

I finally got around to reading all of Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race in America. Here are my thoughts:

* It's honest in ways a lot of us aren't going to like. You can read it and think he's trying to excuse the hateful words of his pastor. But I will maintain he's trying to explain how we got to this point. The one thing I took away from this speech above everything else is that race relations are a heckuva lot more complicated than how the media portrays them.

* Obama is clearly trying to reframe a lot of racial woes as economic woes we mistakenly blame on racism -- namely poverty, unemployment, and disparities in health care. He goes after corporate America hard:

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

* Undoubtedly some of you are going to think Obama is doing a Clinton, trying to be on both sides of the issue. But race is an issue where you can't pick a side, not if you want to have a discussion that doesn't rot into The Jerry Springer Show with verbal chair-throwing. Sen. Obama also gets points for saying it's not enough to simply be a color-blind society:

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

We can't turn off the color receptors in our brains. And even black and white TV sets have color -- just two of them, three if you count gray. Racial justice demands racial consciousness, because we are still dealing with racism.

But then, Obama boils it down to a simple principle:

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

So there you have it: the Golden Rule. Hate the sin, but love the sinner. That's certainly the attitude Obama has towards his pastor. That's the attitude Christ taught us to have. I wish the senator would have challenged his pastor to show some more of that attitude instead of just... well... attitude.

Blue Light Special

For those times when you need to drive from Columbus to Kansas City in a day comes a safety device for the drowsy motorist. Scientists are working on using blue LEDs to keep you awake, as New Scientist reports:

The scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, are testing blue LEDs that shine light at particular wavelengths that convince the brain it is morning, they say, resetting the body's natural clock.

That could help reduce the number of accidents that occur when people drive through the night.

Now if we could only find a light that resets the body's bladder during those long drives.

Journal Swallows Up Tucson's CW

Tucson now has its second TV duopoly: Journal Broadcast group, which owns KGUN-9 (ABC) is buying KWBA-58 (CW) for an undisclosed amount (hint: cheap).

The big question: will KGUN launch a 9pm newscast on their new sister station? I'm betting on it. If anything, it would end the free ride of KMSB's 9pm show, a quilt of segments produced in Tucson and Phoenix and anchored from KTVK in Phoenix with sports coming from KMSB's Tucson studio. KMSB is one-half of Tucson's other duopoly, with KTTU as the other half, both owned by Belo.

My station, KOLD News 13 produced a 9pm newscast for KWBA from 2003 to 2005. We wanted to continue the arrangement, but our people and their people didn't see eye to eye on what kind of newscast it should be. Those were the old managers, and the new managers won't have that problem. Don't be surprised if it's branded as "KGUN 9 On Your Side on CW58."

But what's best for KWBA is that it will likely get an equipment upgrade. Once upon a time, they operated out of a nice building on Palo Verde with several edit suites. Then, somehow, that morphed into an office on Campbell with most of the station's technical operation running by remote control from out of state through a rack mount unit sitting at KVOA. It's called "hub broadcasting," and it's inexpensive, but my old-school TV mentality gets queasy at a master control without a person behind the control -- in the same room.

The Worst Thing You Can Say To A Newspaper Writer

As demonstrated on The Simpsons:



Well it is, and it isn't, if you consider all the newspapers running websites. I'm still reading the paper, but that's mainly because it's hard to curl up on my sofa with the laptop.

Sure Beats Having To Hack Your Way In

Both Pima County Republicans and Democrats have been taking blank ballots home before the election for testing purposes. That's a huge no-no according to Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer. She let the county have it in a letter to Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard Elías, according to the Arizona Daily Star:

"That Pima County would allow such a massive election security breach is itself a shocking development, especially given the recent high-profile efforts by your county to increase voting security," she said in the letter.

The parties say those ballots are clearly marked "Test" to keep them from counting, but Brewer says that doesn't matter. I agree. Nobody should get a chance to take a ballot home and duplicate it for stuffing purposes.

The irony here is that the Democrats are still going rounds in court over allegations of computerized vote fraud in previous Pima County elections. Will they have to investigate themselves next?

Boycotts, French Style

France may boycott the opening ceremonies of the Bejing Olympics because of violence in Tibet -- not the whole thing, just the opening ceremonies, because as the AP reports:

[Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner] insists France had no plans to boycott the entire Olympic Games, saying that would not be "just."

Neither is the violence in Tibet, but let's not split hairs now, non?

The Supremes Word Up

Finally. The Supreme Court will decide what does and doesn't qualify as profanity on television. No more FCC double standards. No more partisan-tainted interpretations. And hopefully, no more broadcasters biting their nails or gritting their teeth trying to figure out what the law is other than the personal will of Kevin Martin, who as one person once joked, wanted to ban the "F" in FCC.

Let me be clear. I am not against profanity regulations on broadcast television, even though I think their effectiveness and legitimacy is highly questionable with so much cable and Internet penetration. I am against government agencies that can't draw a straight line.

The high court hears arguments in the fall.

Illegal For A Reason

I don't care what Emily Bazelon says in Slate. Prostitution is not a victimless crime. Ask Elliot Spitzer's wife.

The rationalization behind legalization as advanced by Bazelon and others is similar to those who advocate decriminalizing marijuana possession. They say it will 1) make it safer by taking it out of the criminal underworld 2) provide a basis for regulation and 3) open up a new revenue stream through taxation. Bazelon also suggests the unseemliness is overrated:

Martha Nussbaum, a law and philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, argues that lots of work involves the sale of bodily services and that lots of the work that poor women do involves bad working conditions. For her, it's all about context—there's a big difference between a street worker controlled by a pimp and a high-end call girl who picks her own clients, and the real question is how to increase poor women's access to decent and safe work in general. Legalizing prostitution "is likely to make things a little better for women who have too few options to begin with," Nussbaum writes.

Note the words "a little better." "Little" is generous. Also note the ignorant assumption in that statement: that poor women have so few choices for work, thus making prostitution a necessary career option. Please give me pause while the indignation steams from my ears.

As for legalization providing safer, regulated sex services: we regulate guns and medical services and we still have underground markets for both, as people constantly seek discounts or loopholes. Legalized hooking will inflate the cost to the average john if you consider the price of complying with the law. Any serious measure would have to require scrupulous medical examinations, fees for licenses (which would likely be high), and taxes on each session.

Then you have the human price: risk of disease. Even more devastating is the families shredded by infidelity. I cannot believe we would seriously consider legalizing a home-wrecking profession. Put yourself in the shoes of Silda Spitzer, silently standing by your philandering man while he confesses his sins to the cameras. Imagine the hurt, the sadness, the feelings of rejection -- Why was I not good enough for you? What did this woman have that I didn't? Why couldn't I make you love me? We all know it's not her fault. But I know if I were the woman passed up for a high-dollar callgirl, part of me would be blaming myself. Maybe some women can make peace with a husband who keeps a lady on the side (a la TV's Carmela Soprano), but they shouldn't have to. And our governments should not force them to put up with it.

Selling sex is not like selling maid service. It's not, like one person suggested, "ordering a pizza." GOD did not make sex a commodity to be bought and sold on the open market. Elliot Spitzer knew that, but I guess he put a signing statement in his marriage license... or his wedding vows.

How To Get Fired After Flaming Out

This could be a scene from Anchorman. Staffers with two El Paso TV stations held a drag race with live trucks after doing a story from the local speed strip.



KVIA's live truck is on the right. KDBC is on the left. And KDBC's live truck operator is on the unemployment rolls after station management found out about this.

You don't drag race a $200,000+ live unit. Ever. Especially when you know how much mileage and engine stress they take and how reluctant ownership groups are to replace them.

UPDATE: Here's more on the race from the Associated Press.

Can We Ask For A Refund?

As the U.S. throws more money into the black hole known as Iraq, the Iraqis are swimming in oil money and running a surplus, as the Associated Press reports:

"The Iraqis have a budget surplus," said U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. "We have a huge budget deficit. . . . One of the questions is who should be paying."

Walker and the other [U.S.] auditors did not give a figure as to the likely surplus. U.S. officials contend that Iraq's lack of spending is due primarily to Baghdad's inability to determine where its money is needed most and how to allocate it efficiently. Two senators have called for an investigation into the matter.

Democrats say the assessment is proof that the Iraq war as a waste of time and money. The U.S. has spent more than $45 billion on rebuilding Iraq. And while officials in Iraq contend that much progress is being made, many projects remain unfinished and U.S. troops are still needed to provide security.

I guess if Iraq doesn't pay us back all the money we've spent on them, we can repossess it. Oh wait, we did that already.