Nomadic crabs

"One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle." --James Otis (1761)

The Supremes have finally told us that the castle is made of sand and government is the ominous wave, ready to demolish it. We must be the crabs or some such part of wildlife. Of course, all is done for the good of the whole of nature. I'm sure they'll build a crab hotel or something to replace it. Eventually, we'll just be little crabs, searching for cans to use so we can continue a nomadic life, with the ocean tossing us about where it pleases. But wait! Since we're eliminating pollution, there won't be any cans, either. We'll be forced to live in these hotels, travelling from one to the next. I hope they have DSL...

Quotable Ten Commandments

"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress." --Ronald Reagan

And after this week, we seem to be getting a clearer picture on what happens when one runs them through the Supreme Court.

"Why didn't the Supremes just say you could display the 10 Cs on Monday, Wed., and alternate Fridays, but not on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Or that they could be viewed inside government buildings, but only on the walls of bathrooms and in janitors' closets? Has anybody ever advanced this radical opinion -- that the five justices in question may be intelligent and thoughtful people individually, but that together they form one blithering idiot?" --John Podhoretz

Tennis, anyone?

My friend and I decided that this summer, we would attempt tennis. We've now had a couple of outings, including one on Sunday.

Have you ever watched tennis? I mean, especially on television. It's all seems to come down to a matter of perspective. I happened to catch some Wimbledon highlights on television over the weekend, and when on the court itself this summer, I've noticed that my perspective is all wrong. When the game is on tv, the angle from which we view is always above the court; being on the court itself is a whole different ball game... I can't tell where I'm hitting it - even if I am able to control where I'm hitting it. It could be in bounds, but who can tell? Neither of us can see the back lines and that darned net seems so much taller than it should be.

I'm also having issues with my muscles, or rather some of them. I mean, I don't mind getting the workout, but it all seems to be on the right side of my body - which makes sense since I'm right-handed. I serve right-handed, lunge with my right leg to bend over and pick up the balls. I'm afraid that by the end of summer I'll be so disproportionate in my musculature that others will have to stand perpendicular to me in order to get any kind of proportionate perspective of me.

See, again, it all comes down to perspective...

Now we've gotten into recruiting others to play with us. We're aiming for doubles (though we're not very good, so the more, possibly the merrier). We figure if we get another bad perspective out there with each of us on our respective sides of the court, we might improve. But I suspect at the rate we're learning, we'll just be lopsided players, blindly trying to hit the ball in bounds, attempting to finish a real game, let alone a match by the end of summer...

The Launch

"There is no heavier burden than great potential." -Charlie Brown
Oh, what will I write on this new blog? I'm sure the suspense is killing, well, something or someone, somewhere...even if the something is only a few of my own brain cells.