The Chief

Why did Chief Justice John Roberts side with the four liberal justices on the Supreme Court and thereby uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as Obamacare? It couldn't have been due to personal affection for President Obama, who voted against Roberts' confirmation as a Senator. There are four possible theories to account for the Chief's totally unexpected behavior :

1. His wife made him do it. This is not as crazy as it may sound. Every married man knows that on occasion a wife insists that her husband do something which he otherwise would not think to do. In this case, I believe Mrs. Roberts, and maybe even the Chief himself, have grown weary of attending Washington parties filled with boring, rich Republicans. As everyone knows, the Democrats are a lot more fun. They are funnier and a lot more entertaining when it comes time to kick back and have a good time. Antonin Scalia is one of the few Republicans who are genuinely funny, even if you don't agree with him. The list of entertaining Democrats, on the other hand, is endless. Think of Nora Ephron, for example, who just passed away. This move undoubtedly will give them entree and make their personal lives in Washington a lot more interesting.

2. As a student of history, the Chief knows that it is not enough to serve as the Chief Justice of the United States. To be remembered like John Marshall or Earl Warren, you need your name as author on a landmark ruling. This was the Chief's opportunity, and he seized it, thereby ensuring his enduring fame as upholder of vitally-needed legislation and the signature domestic achievement of the Obama Administration. This case will rank up there with timeless cases like Brown v. Board of Education.

3. Things at the Court were becoming too stale and predictable. The Supremes were looking like a five member majority predictably doing the bidding of the super-rich and conservative Republican elite. After Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, declaring Obamacare unconstitutional would be business as usual. The same situation occurred in the 1930's during FDR's Administration, when a bloc of conservative, reactionary justices routinely invalidated all New Deal legislation. In short, the Chief saw this case as a chance to demonstrate that the Court decides its cases on the merits and is nobody's rubber stamp. What a turnaround! What drama !

4. It was the right thing to do.

One of these theories is correct. I believe the Chief saved this legislation when a majority of the justices (including himself) believed the keystone individual mandate provision was unconstitutional, for the final reason listed above.

Dreams

This morning my wife and I woke up within a few moments of each other. It was not the result of years of married life together, but instead some rather loud harp music coming from my wife's iPhone in the next room. This is the rather ominous theme music she has selected to alert her to messages and wake-up calls.

Both of us were roused from a deep sleep by these repeating chords, and as sometimes happens in these situations, dreams are abruptly interrupted, but as a consequence can often be recalled in detail. After a few moments to wake up, we described our dreams to each other.

My wife's dream involved her mother, still living independently and as mentally alert as ever, but on occasion welcoming a helping hand from one of her adult children. My wife's dream involved installing heavy iron grates on the front of my mother-in-law's house in Midwood, Brooklyn. This is a pretty peaceful neighborhood, but some crime is not unheard of. A more surprising element was an imagined dispute with her mother's downstairs tenant, which culminated in a lawsuit by the tenant and a counterclaim for damages. Gates and window bars for security are plausible, but her Russian tenants have rented their ground floor apartment for many years in complete friendship and harmony.

In my dream, the rear door of our brownstone leading to the backyard was slightly ajar, and two small kittens with grayish tiger stripes managed to sneak in and look curiously at us standing together in the kitchen. One of the cats quickly scooted back out when spotted, but my wife picked up the other one and stroked it gently on its tummy while we discussed offering it some milk. This dream was also based in reality, as there are a couple of fully-grown neighborhood cats who regularly visit our backyard. They sometimes stick their noses past the door, but rapidly scat when spotted. One cat is white and the other is a furry black. Almost always they just sit on the high fence we share with our next door neighbor and silently observe.

How to understand these interrupted dreams for their possible meaning and symbolism? If only the Biblical Joseph or Freud were here when we needed them. As a complete novice in this area, I don't have the foggiest idea what these dreams mean. However,I would certainly enjoy hearing how a trained professional might interpret our subconscious thoughts.

Park Slope Picker

I just returned from a classy stoop sale on Polhemus Place in Park Slope. I have been to this family's stoop sales before. Once every year or two, they have a sale in front of their house, advertised by an annoucement on Craigslist. In Brooklyn there is rarely a garage sale, because few homes, especially brownstones in Brownstone Brooklyn, have garages. We do, however, have lots of stone stoops, so that is the place, together with the wrought iron fences in front of our houses and the adjacent sidewalk, where our "garage sales" take place.

Saturday mornings are the big day for stoop sales every weekend when the weather is good. The season starts around April, gets into high gear in May and June, and practically disappears over the hot summer months. The deluge picks up again in September until the weather gets cold. The jackpot for stoop sales are usually "block long" sales, in which many neighbors organize to have their individual sales on the same day. This creates a festival-like atmosphere, with lots of souk-like bargaining going on, and massive amounts of goods and money changing hands.

Brooklyn is famous for its stoop sales. This is one of the traditions of living in many parts of Brooklyn that will remain in our collective consciousness for years to come, in the same way that stick ball games and Dodger baseball games in Ebbetts Field were fond memories.

So what can one buy at these stoop sales, of which there might be dozens on a good day in many Brooklyn neighborhoods? Think about what is for sale at any flea market and you will get a good picture of the available merchandise. Some people, like my friend Alice B, usually confines herself to fine women's clothing. My friend Lynn G, on the other hand, walks around with a shopping cart and has more eclectic tastes. In my case, I travel around on my bike to cover maximum territory and prowl mostly for useless but beautiful tchotchkes. Occasionally I also accept orders from family or friends to be on the lookout for a particular item, like a kid's bike or an aquarium tank.

In another blog, I will discuss some of the treasures I have managed to unearth and carry home. Let me just emphasize that "stoop-saleing" serves a number of worthwhile functions, besides the ecologically useful role of redistributing rather than trashing or simply storing goods. There is a feeling of camaraderie in the air; I have made a number of new friends and acquaintances in my travels. It's also a great reason to get out and go for a walk. It obviously also raises money to buy new clothes or replacement things.

The common element in all of these stoop sales is price. Usually, but not always, these sales come with bargain prices. The search for good things at bargain prices, normally well below flea market prices, is what keeps us Park Slope and other NYC pickers motivated and on the move.

FDR v. Alf Landon

In the Presidential Election of 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Gov. Alf Landon of Kansas in a landslide. Gov. Landon carried only two states-- Maine and Vermont-- which constituted one of the greatest election defeats in American history.

FDR is justifiably regarded as one of America's greatest presidents, who successfully battled both the Great Depression in the 1930's and the Axis powers in World War II. He is one of American history's charismatic and larger than life figures. People around the world admire and revere him. All of my life I have enjoyed reading about him and watching media productions about his life. I don't need any prompting to recite some of his best-known quotations, such as: " The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." His Pearl Harbor address to the nation is similarly familiar to most Americans.

By comparison, very little about Gov. Alf Landon is generally known. He was a two term Governor of Kansas who ran unsuccessfully as the Republican candidate against FDR and then spent the rest of his life in Kansas. He turned down an invitation to serve in FDR's Administration as a cabinet member and never ran for public office again. He never came remotely close to enjoying the fame and importance enjoyed by FDR. There is no monument to him in Washington, and I believe many Americans today don't even know who he was.

Despite the foregoing, as well as my overwhelming admiration for FDR, if I were forced to choose to live the life of one of these men, I would unhesitatingly select Alf Landon ! My reasons have nothing to do with political success, fame, or enduring importance; rather, they have everything to do with personal happiness, family, and longevity. As is well-known, FDR died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 63. Prior to his untimely death, he suffered from polio most of his adult life and had to be moved like the severely disabled person he was, since ordinary walking was impossible. He suffered from migraine headaches, high blood pressure, and other serious ailments.

By comparison, Landon lived to age 100 in fine health. He had a happy family life and lots of friends. His first wife died and he lived with his second wife, who survived him, for 57 years. He became a millionaire by age 42 and prospered as a Kansas businessman. One of his three kids married Sen. Howard Baker and served as a US Senator from Kansas. Landon had enduring good spirits and was undaunted by his presidential defeat. Two things demonstrate his equanimity and good humor to me: he genuinely admired FDR, was never bitter, and named his granddaughters' two ponies "Maine" and "Vermont".

FDR had well-known infidelity and marital problems with Eleanor Roosevelt,was often lonely despite the many people around him, and got worn down and died early due to bad health and the unrelenting demands of his office. He had limited time for normal family life, although the causes he gave his life for will make him famous for ages to come.


So what about you? Which man's life would you select if you were forced to make a choice between them, as improbable as that circumstance might be?






So, what about you? Whose life appeals to you more, if you were forced to choose between them for yourself?

Tastemaker

I am on the road to becoming a certified tastemaker.

My first foray has been writing for Yelp, a popular Internet site that collects reviews from average consumers like myself about a variety of restaurants and other businesses all over the country. To date I have written about 40 entries, mostly covering places where I have eaten. This seems like a respectable number of reviews, but it pales in comparison to upwards of 2,000 entries or more that some of the Elite writers have contributed. People can check three categories after reading a review: Useful, Funny, or Cool. So far I have garnered 10 Usefuls, 5 Cools, and 0 Funny, as well as 2 Compliments. I am trying hard to think of witty things to say so I can get at least 1 Funny, but nothing has worked. I saw one reviewer yesterday who got a Funny for this restaurant comment: "I prefer the service to the food." What is so funny about that? I'm proud to say that I am currently the lead entry for several establishments in my neighborhood: a barber shop, a bicycle store, and an art gallery. I am also prominently featured for the Staten Island Ferry and Perry's Diner in Brooklyn. Seriously, this site is a real help in finding good places to eat and do things while avoiding the duds.

My second foray is this blog. Thanks to free blog tabulations, I have ascertained that this blog is being read by people mostly in this country but also all around the world. By the way, I sure would love to learn who my readers are and to receive comments from you.

Recognizing my growing importance in the area of consumer opinion, I received and accepted an unsolicited invitation about a week ago to participate in a long-term study of consumer usage in an area that touches the lives of almost every American. This is a modestly paid position which unfortunately does not permit me to disclose its nature at this time. Once the work is completed and a stipulated period of time has passed, however, you can be sure that I'll relish discussing the entire story in detail.

I conclude by ruminating that despite my efforts, I probably will still not qualify for inclusion as a tastemaker in the Metropolitan Section of the Sunday New York Times. However, I may have been a contender at a recent antiques show that I attended at the Park Avenue Armory. I know the Times photographer saw me, but he just kept walking. Actually, given the anonymous nature of my endeavors, the only appropriate venue for me would be a masked ball.

Greece

Many years ago I took a summer vacation in Greece. I got to see many parts of the country except the north, where Alexander the Great came from. My trip was memorable, and I think about this beautiful country and its people all the time while reading today's news about their financial distress.

I landed in Athens and spent a good amount of time wandering around the Acropolis. In those days you could still walk all over the Parthenon without restriction. I remember reading that the architects built the Parthenon columns at an angle, which was necessary to create the illusion, given the size of the building, that the columns were straight. The paradox of needing to build crooked in order to appear straight demonstrated to me that on occasion the end does justify the means.

Soon enough I concluded that Athens itself was crowded and not very memorable, so I signed up for a 5 day bus trip through the nearby Pelopponese. This small area contains many of the city-states of ancient Greece that I studied in school. We visited sites like Corinth and Sparta. Unfortunately, to my chagrin, there was practically nothing left to see. After hours of travel under a broiling sun, for example, we got off the bus to take a picture of a single Corinthian column! The main fact from this trip was that rivals Athens and Sparta were only a few miles apart as the crow flies, but the hilly and winding roads took hours by bus-- obviously days for troops on foot.

The real glory of ancient Greece, besides the Parthenon, is best seen sightly north of Athens at Delphi, where the famous oracle was located. Here was a complete set of stone buildings on a site a thousand feet above a beautiful green valley. An unforgettable experience, especially when you remember that they took these prophecies seriously.

The rest of my Greek vacation was spent visiting Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. There was little to do but go swimming every day in crystal clear blue water under sunny skies and eat Greek salads-- always with feta cheese and olives-- and fresh seafood while watching goats with tinkling bells around their necks scamper up the hillsides. The towns on these islands were all similar: small, white-washed stucco houses on hills above a small harbor with brightly-colored fishing boats in front of small cafes filled with locals and tourists.

I hope to go back some day. Greece is such a beautiful country. It's a Greek tragedy to see what is happening to this country and its people.

Palm Tree

This past Sunday-- Fathers Day-- while my wife went off in the afternoon to practice with her music group for a performance next weekend, I got on my bike to follow a neighborhood stoop sale notice on Craigslist for an Oriental rug from the Caucasus. I have no room for any more rugs, but I think they are beautiful and I always enjoy looking at them. Besides, it was a warm, sunny day, perfect for a little ride and my endless interest in tchotchkes of many kinds.

As it turned out, I was too late for the sale, but on the way back I passed an imposing palm tree plant lying forlonly on its side by the curb with other garbage awaiting pickup. The plant was being discarded by the church located at that corner on Sixth Avenue in Park Slope. You really couldn't blame them for discarding it. The palm was clearly on its way out, containing many dying branches with ugly brown leaves. But I have always regarded myself as something of a rescuer of distressed plants, feeling that with proper care they can often return to life and lend great beauty to my home.

I am no plant expert by any means, and at home I am only responsible for indoor plants. My wife, on the other hand, has actual knowledge of outdoor plants and manages our backyard garden in a way that often garners great praise from neighbors. As an "instinctual" plant lover, however, I sensed great possibilities with the fallen giant before me. With some pruning, I could see lots of healthy green palm fronds remaining. Clearly,a plant in this condition had no place inside the magnificent 19th century stone church standing in front of me, filled as it was with beautiful stained glass windows and located on well-tended grounds. The backyard of my home, however, was a different story.

Since this plant was easily seven-plus feet tall with its container and lush with green and brown fronds, I must have created some local color carrying it home in one hand (oddly light despite its size) while riding my bike. The young kids at the stoop sale next door to my house gazed in wonder and asked if I had really biked that thing home.

Once in the backyard, I went to work pruning. When I was done, I discarded the rubbish and examined my work. To my delight, the trimmed plant was beautiful and well worth keeping. As is often the case, whenever I feel the soil of an abandoned plant, it is either drowning from over-watering by the prior owner or bone dry from neglect-- in this case the latter.

I didn't check on the plant again until this afternoon. It already appears to be thriving, after getting a good watering and plenty of sunshine. Although the scale and importance are totally disproportionate, my palm tree experience gave me a little insight into the tremendous sense of joy and satisfaction which others must derive from real rescue operations, ranging from saving pets and wildlife to humanitarian efforts to combat hunger and disease around the world.

A Modest Proposal

The solution to the nation's financial problems and its potential drift back to recession came to me this morning while having breakfast and staring at the gloomy face of Ben Bernanke in the NY Times under the headline "Bernanke Offers No Clear Sign of New Action".

Most people agree that there is plenty of money around but the problem is that people are fearful and unwilling to spend. The problem, in short, is how to stimulate the economy (Democrats) without increasing the deficit
(Republicans). An additional problem is how to get any stimulus bill through Congress, especially in an election year, where a prime goal is to stymie any solution that might make President Obama look good. The Republicans' control of the House ensures gridlock.

My proposal is that the Federal Reserve or other appropriate government authority establish a voucher program, under which every man, woman, and child living in the United States on a specified date would be entitled to receive a counterfeit-proof voucher for $100. This would be a bearer certificate, with unlimited transferability like a regular $100 bill, which would expire in one month. Each holder would have an irresistible motivation to spend the voucher, lest it expire worthless in their hands. Multiple transfers would occur in 30 days.

The result of this program would be an immediate explosion in spending which would produce a tremendous boost to the economy. In other words, the basic problem is that money needs to keep moving in order to stimulate any economy. Money in the form of retained earnings by corporations or kept by banks as deposits or unloaned funds does no good, as present practice demonstrates.

My proposal would automatically produce a myriad of "shovel-ready projects" without any fear of earmarks, prolonged debate about which projects are preferable, or costly studies by so-called experts. We would leave it up to the people to decide. The immediate benefactors would be retail stores, restaurants, gas stations,and the like.
On expiration, businesses could deposit in banks, which could get an orderly credit from the Fed. The cost of this program would be about $30 billion (300 million Americans x $100), a small sum compared to our multi- trillion dollar federal budget.

I know---this has never been done before and is contrary to handing out free money to the banks as a way to cure our ills. Let me say that the current approach ( lend billions to the banks at near zero percent and then sell them risk-free treasuries issued by the Fed at higher interest rates) has worked for no one but the bankers. Keynesian and supply-side economics were also once novel and untested theories. So far nothing has worked. The worse that happens here is that the national mood is lifted, modest relief is afforded to some truly needy fellow Americans, and in the end the banks redeem the vouchers at the Fed for another cool $30 billion to add to their coffers. On a macro-economic level, this would be a blip, no worse than the Pentagon's new naval vessel costing billions more which is deemed unsuitable for combat conditions. Seriously, the multiplier effect of this proposal, however unorthodox, might actually work and do the country some good.

Irony

Irony is defined in the dictionary as "an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected".I have always been fascinated by examples of situational irony because it fits perfectly with the sayings "Life is what actually happens to you while you sit there planning" and "Man plans while God laughs".

Here are three of my personal favorites:

1. One day in 1974 I awoke to learn that a trapeze artist named Phillipe Petit had managed to string a wire between the towers of the World Trade Center and was walking with a pole between the twin towers without a net or other safety device! The ground was 1350 feet below but he acted like he was having a good time, which in fact he was. It turned out that he wasn't crazy or demented, just a very skilled young trapeze artist from France with lots of confidence. The people watching him out of their windows in the World Trade Center would surely have considered him crazy and, like me, wouldn't have traded places with him for anything in the world. Comparing their respective positions, the people inside would have considered themselves safe and Petit on the verge of death. The supreme irony here is that, unbelievably and tragically, he was safe and they were the ones actually in danger, as the subsequent events of 9/11 demonstrated. I read not so long ago in a follow-up article in the New York Times that Petit is today living happy and healthy in upstate New York.

2. For many years I engaged in a variety of physical activities. These included boxing lessons, skiing, ice skating, bike riding, roller skating, jogging, sledding, swimming, weight training, hiking, surfing, and training for and running the Boston Marathon. None of these activities ever resulted in any injuries. The irony here is that, when all I did one day was to let the family dog run off his leash, the dog came running back in response to my call and crashed into me. The result was a broken leg and torn ligaments which required a cast and many weeks of hobbling around on crutches. In light of all my previous potentially dangerous activities, I never imagined that my downfall would occur while taking a slow morning walk on a totally flat and grassy meadow in a public park in Brooklyn.

3. I once worked for a lawyer who graduated at the top of his class at Harvard Law School and got to clerk at the US Supreme Court for Justice Felix Frankfurter. Thereafter he went to work at a top law firm now known as Dewey & Leboeuf. They denied him a partnership and he was forced to seek work elsewhere. This must have been a great shock and disappointment to him. Recently, Dewey & Leboeuf declared bankruptcy and went out of business. Retired partners have undoubtedly lost their entire pensions. The firm he transferred to is doing just fine.

I end with an example used by the dictionary writer to illustrate situational irony. He pointed out that the bullets fired at President Reagan in an assassination attempt actually missed their target. It was only a bullet that ricoched off the door to tne limousine, which was there to protect the president, that caused him to nearly lose his life.

Copper Wire

We've been waiting a week for the Verizon telephone repairman to arrive and fix our standard copper wire landline phone. When I grew up, this was the only kind of telephone that existed. In those days the phone company took pride in its performance as a public utility, and in return it enjoyed a monopoly. But things have changed a lot since deregulation and the proliferation of cell phones, which we also use extensively.

We've actually been waiting over two weeks for relief from the scratchy loud static that emanates from our landline phone every time it rains. Eventually the rain dries up and normal service resumes. In our
ignorance we thought it might be caused by flooding. I promptly made an appointment with the Verizon telephone robot, which spoke to me in a friendly, relaxed manner, analyzing my problem in a chatty question-and-answer style. At the end of our conversation, I was invited to say goodbye or just hang up. Considering that I was conversing with a robot, it is a credit to their engineers that I was momentarily undecided whether it would be impolite to just hang up.

The bad news about our first appointment is that static-free service eventually resumed after the sun dried the wires, so I cancelled the appointment. Several days later, contrary to Accu-Weather on TV, heavy rain returned and I had to start all over again at the end of the queue. This time I called a human at the company to object to beginning again, but my complaints were summarily dismissed and there was no effective appeal. I was also cautioned that if the repairman determined (using expertise available only to him) that the trouble emanated from inside my house instead of an outside line, a charge starting at close to $100 an hour would be imposed. I was also told that my "appointment" would be all day, anytime from 8am until 7pm, a kind of house arrest.

This morning around 9am, a Verizon repairman arrived to diagnose and fix our problem. He quickly determined that the problem was actually caused by the same backyard squirrels who destroyed my wife's tomato plants last year. It seems that squirrels commonly use copper telephone wires and its insulation to keep their teeth ground down. He showed me the areas, which was most of the wire across our backyard, which had been chewed to pieces. Every time it rained, the water on the wires caused constant static until the wires dried up. He reported that the squirrels were brazenly standing by and watching him as he worked, impatiently waiting to get back to their highway in the sky as soon as he left.

Our repairman was a long-time employee of the company, enjoying unlimited medical benefits and good pay thanks to his still strong union. He was a living symbol to me of the way things used to be, when telephone repairmen were dispatched quickly, always competent, and took pride in their work. He confided that the repairmen sent to our home on previous occasions to fix this problem saw the same thing he did but did not spend the necessary time to replace the entire wire running across our backyard due to a combination of daily quota requirements and laziness, relying instead on temporary but ineffective fixes which he briefly discussed.

In this case the good old days, at least as far as copper wire landline phones are concerned, were definitely better.

Isle of Joy

Living in New York City practically my entire life, except for periods of schooling and some jobs elsewhere, I sometimes forget how much there is to do here, often at very little cost. The City is still in many ways the Paris or London or Rome of its day. I won't say I've ever taken it for granted, but the recent visit of some friends from Los Angeles and some of their comments brought home to me anew the vast range of choices available here. For my newly-discovered international readers, here are some great ideas of world-class things to do on a visit.

On our first get-together this time around, we visited the New York Botanic Gardens in the Bronx. I confess this was probably only my second visit ever, but my wife loves plants and the outdoors and served as a guide for the four of us. These 250 acres are absolutely beautiful in the spring; everything there made my houseplants look like scrub-brush. The Bronx Zoo is nearby and makes me feel like I'm on an African safari minus the travel.

Our second date was filled with a roster of activities taking up an entire day until my friends' cousins meeting for dinner. We started with a round trip on the Staten Island ferry, which involves a free 10 mile RT from lower Manhattan. This provides a spectacular view of the financial district as well as Governor's Island, which was the military HQ when Britain ruled the colonies. From there I planned a short walk up Broadway to the Freedom Tower, which had just passed the 1000 foot mark to again become NYC's tallest building. On the way I casually pointed out Trinity Church graveyard, where Alexander Hamilton was buried. It turned out that my friend's husband was a great fan, and the tour stopped in its tracks until he could get a picture of Hamilton's gravestone. Next came the Freedom Tower, mobbed by tourists, who were essentially simply looking at the construction of another Manhattan skyscraper.

Following a Chinese lunch at Ho Yip, a popular spot for local Asian and non-Asian workers downtown, we took the subway uptown to A La Vielle Russie, a very high end purveyor of Faberge and other pre-revolutionary Russian antiques, which my friends love to see whenever they can. Next followed a walk in Central Park, conveniently located across the street. Time did not permit a visit to the Museum of Natural History and its Planetarium on the West Side, but since my friends return to the City periodically,they made a mental note to begin there next time. As time ran out, we stopped briefly to see the inside of beautiful Temple Emanuel on Fifth Avenue, the largest Reform Jewish synogogue in America, as well as its museum.

Everything we did throughout the day was completely free, except for the subway rides and our $7 lunches. The Botanic Gardens are not cheap, but as members we had guest passes for our friends. On their own, our friends went to several Broadway shows, which are definitely expensive, even with discount tickets. But the thing about New York, which struck me anew as I took them around, was the dazzling, endless array of things to do, and how many of them cost absolutely nothing. For example, we didn't get to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art this time, since they had already seen the major temporary exhibitions there, or to go to Coney Island Beach. But I did get to eat great pastrami sandwiches for dinner with them at famous Katz's Delicatessen on the Lower East Side.

Thanks to my friends, I got to enjoy a whole array of activities, some of which I normally would not do as a local. I guess in some ways it is like a parent who gets to see the world anew through the eyes of their young children. Anyway, we hardly scratched the surface, so I encourage my out of town readers to come here and have a blast. I am sure you will enjoy being a tourist here as much as I did for a couple of days with my friends.

VIRAL !

I am not especially computer literate. In fact, if you read my recent blog entitled "Customer Service", you might agree with my two sons in their twenties that some of my knowledge and actions, computer-related, are what they would consider lame. There is no doubt in my mind that the Time-Warner repairman who had the opportunity to rescue me from my recent dilemma has an accurate picture of my computer sophistication.

With the foregoing as background, I want to share with you the mixture of pride, shock, and amazement I just experienced while sitting at my iPad a few moments ago and discovering for the very first time how my blog is doing in the world. Apparently, unknown to me, a control page is provided to all blogsters(?) like myself where all kinds of statistics can be found. Until now I had no idea whether anyone besides a very small group of immediate family and friends even knew it existed.

To be perfectly honest, as they like to say these days, I have mixed feelings about bringing these short essays to the attention of people who know me. While it might increase readership, it would also restrict my ability to be forthright about things I was writing about.

This brings me back to the subject of the results of my efforts to date. You can believe me when I say that I was shocked (not phony shocked, like Claude Raines in the movie "Casablanca") to discover that this blog is being read by people all over the world. I entitled this piece "viral", and honestly this is totally tongue in cheek. It is nowhere remotely close to what that term means in today's computer world. Nevertheless, I discovered from this service that my blog has found readers all over the world ! Aside from the US, which is the overwhelming majority as you would expect, there are dozens of hits from Russia, Germany, and Ukraine. There are even hits from places including Australia, Latvia, Malaysia, and one from Mexico.

This is a wholly unexpected and exciting feeling. Hopefully my next stop will be an invitation to appear on a late night talk show, like Charlie Rose or Piers Morgan. Seriously, I recognize totally that this is the Walter Mitty in me talking. But it also gives me a little more insight regarding the power of the Internet to effectuate communications and how events like the Arab Spring could be generated by people as insignificant as me just tapping out our thoughts, hopes, and dreams on a screen while sitting at home and then watch others use their computers to direct people's revolutions. Imagine how quickly that "Let them eat cake" comment would spread today and how fast things would happen.

Thanks to all my readers worldwide and the tabulation service for making my day !