The Dog Rocket

Today's free fishing and dog owner advice:

If you own a hunting dog (even if he's never been trained to hunt) and you take said hunting dog fishing in your boat, keep these things in mind:

1. Hunting dogs hunt. All the time, even when it looks like they're asleep.
2. When you fish near reeds and other heavy vegetation, said vegetation might appear to the aforementioned hunting dog to be solid ground.
3. Ducks, geese, swans and other birds congregate in reeds and thick, dense aquatic vegetation.
4. An angler easing around said aquatic vegetation using a trolling motor is really quiet and can inadvertently flush out water fowl that have gathered in a concealed pocket of vegetation for cover.
5. Birds being flushed out of a hiding place make A LOT of noise.
6. Noisy birds being flushed from their hidey-holes immediately garner the rapt attention of any hunting dog you might have on board - even if said hunting dog is lazing around, licking himself.
7. A chubby, aging beagle who hates the water but insists on fishing with you can get from one end of the boat to the other with startling speed.
8. Remembering point #2 above (water vegetation may very well appear to be solid ground to a recently awakened beagle) your resident hunting dog might decide to launch himself from the boat in pursuit of the fleeing water fowl.
9. Dogs chasing water fowl - even portly ones that sleep on pillowy beds - are fearless and will launch themselves right off the bow of your boat.
10. A maladroit angler with a really bad back can snare a dog rocket being launched from the bow of the boat provided that he doesn't mind blowing the last good disc he has in his back. How said clumsy angler didn't end up doing a header off his boat while holding a beagle that was running in mid-air is a mystery for the ages.

Tag PhotoAdd LocationEdit

The Jimmy Olsen Blues

As a former newspaper reporter in a couple of small central Indiana cities, I covered my share of dead dog stories.

"Dead dogs" are stories that have no chance of being interesting, but are ones your editor sends you out to cover because he has space to fill on page 9 of the local section, or because she has a hole tonight's news telecast that needs filling. (Or because he not-so-secretly hates you.) Why you find yourself in possession of a dead dog story doesn't matter.  What does matter is the next few hours in which you try just about anything to breathe life into a story that you know is a goner.

Dead dogs might be stories about the weather. Maybe it's a story about a local farmer who has grown the county's biggest acorn squash. Maybe it's a story about a local woman who crochets clothes for dogs (ostensibly live ones). Maybe it's story about the Aunt Gracie Longbottom who for the past 57 years has tantalized the town with her scrumptious carrot cake. The bottom line is that a dead dog has no hope of being interesting and every expectation to be a soul sucking story upon which you don't wish to ascribe your name or likeness.

I don't mean to infer that you hope for death and mayhem to serve as fodder for interesting news reporting, but dead dog stories are the ones that make your career flash before your eyes. In journalism school, you had visions of exposing injustice, of shining a light on the dark underbelly of crime, and of your acceptance speech when you're inevitably awarded the Pulitzer. Six years later, you're trying to make a story about town hall meeting in BFE sound remotely interesting. I can remember standing there, covering that meeting, reporter's notebook in hand, thinking "how did it come to this?"

Recently, I was watching one of my local news channels when I heard a news reporter utter a statement that was the verbal equivalent to pinning a note reading "goodbye, cruel world" to your shirt and leaping off a bridge.

This unfortunate reporter was attempting to report a "story" concerning an Indianapolis neighborhood in which people drive too fast. Really? A story about people driving too fast? Clearly, news was slow in the Circle City on this sunny April afternoon.

Apparently, however, this dead dog story actually contained a real live, er, dead dog. The dog in question allegedly met his maker after being hit by a vehicle that was traveling too fast through a residential area. I am a dog lover through and through, but a story about a dog being hit by a car is about as newsworthy as the boil your Aunt Barbara had lanced last week.

As the reporter was valiantly trying to make this dead dog into a real story, he said, and I quote, "the dog, affectionately known as....'Poopy'...is now buried in the backyard."

Trust me when I tell you that whenever your editor sends you out on boondoggle assignment such as this, the person you interview will always, always be a crackpot, have a bizarre name, be missing most of his or her teeth, or have a dead dog named "Poopy." 

Always. 

This is what I call The First Axiom of News Reporting.

It's an immutable law of reporting. Ask any reporter.
 
I looked into the reporter's dead eyes staring at me from my television screen and I swear, he was silently emoting, "someone, please, please for the love of all that's good and holy, someone please smother me with a pillow."

His pain was palpable - and a pain that I know all too well.

Unfortunately, dead dog stories aren't the only way in which a reporter can see his career flash before his very eyes. Sometimes, the biggest news stories are invaded by The Crazy Passerby.

The Crazy Passerby (also known as The Second Axiom of News Reporting) is the inevitable witness to whatever news story you're trying to cover. You might not know this, but no newsworthy event in the history of journalism has been witnessed by a relatively sane person with a decent command of the language, and the owner of most of his or her original teeth (or at the very least, a decent set of dentures that he or she is actually wearing).

You can't avoid The Crazy Passerby. You can ignore all of the obvious card-carrying crazies - the ones that look like Aqualung; the ones covered in cat hair and wearing purple spandex; the ones that carry a pocket knife in one of those little leather belt pouches (oh yes, every single one of those folks is plumb crazy). You can avoid all of the usual suspects and set your eyes on the most normal looking person in sight, and without fail - WITHOUT fail - he or she will open his or her mouth and the crazy will flop right out and wiggle around all over your shoes.

One such Crazy Passerby tried to nose her way into possibly the biggest news story of my young career. It was April 1992, and I was a police reporter for the Kokomo Tribune. It was a Saturday and like most days off, I was running errands with my police radio lying on the passenger seat of my car. To say that I was dedicated to my job is an understatement. I literally slept with my scanner, running out at all hours of the night to cover shootings, fires and all manner of police and firefighter fun. Dates were hard to come by in those days. Go figure.

On this particular day, I just happened to be on the city's north side, when a call went over the air regarding a plane crash near Grissom Air Force Base, located near Peru, IN and about 12 miles north of Kokomo. 

At any rate, the crash itself was a tragic event in which a Air Force Reserve pilot crashed his A-10 Warthog fighter plane into a wooded area near the base, killing him and destroying the plane. 

(I want to say at this point that I am in no way trivializing the pilot's death. His death was a tragic loss to his family and our country. The rest of the story I'm telling here has little to nothing to do with the crash itself.)

There were several people nearby who saw or heard the crash. I got a line on one such woman and after ditching a bubble-headed blonde television reporter who was following me around, leeching off my journalistic instincts, I managed to find the "witness." One look should have told me to stay away. 

Far, far away. 

Her eyes were flashing "Helter Skelter" like a cheap neon motel sign on the fritz. Being the ever intrepid reporter, however, I pressed on.
 
After getting the proper spelling of her name and writing down her phone number (something I always did so that if I needed to call back later for clarification, I could) I asked her what she heard or saw, and I will never forget her response:

"Well, I was a'sittin' on the pot when I heard this loud WHOOOSH and BOOM!"

I resisted the natural urge to ask her if the loud whooshing and booming might've come from the porcelain throne upon which she was perched, but I managed to refrain.

She continued: "I got up, ran outside and saw the biggest dadburn fireball you ever did see."

The snapping sound heard by people nearby might have sounded as though someone stepped on a dry tree branch, but it was really the sound of my reporter's notebook slamming shut.

One would think the sudden and very decisive closing of one's notebook would ward off further comment, but Little Miss Helter Skelter was not the be deterred. The Crazy Passerby continued: "I didn't even flush, I just got up and ran outside to see just what IN THE HELL was going on out there. I didn't even bring my gun."

At this point, I was doing my best defensive back backpedal, trying to get away from this Looney Tune and she just kept walking with me, offering all kinds of helpful advice about the secret goings on at the sinister military base.

"It was one'a them military planes," she said with a strange hand gesture that I think was supposed to represent an airplane flying through the air. It was as though she thought I might not have gleaned the fact that a military plane was involved even though there were scores of military officers and vehicles in the immediate area that pretty much had already given that nugget of precious information away. 

"They fly right out of Grissom, you know. At all hours. Lots of 'em."

By that point, I was thinking of ways that I could end my suffering by taking a mental inventory of the items in my possession at the moment that could be used to take my own life. I had a ballpoint pen, a notebook, a Bic lighter and a police radio. My options were stab myself in the neck with the pen, eat my reporter's notebook and hope that the spiral binding did bad things down there, light myself on fire, or bludgeon myself with the radio.

Perhaps sensing my discomfort, the lady asked me if I had a business card. In my dumbstruck terror, I reached into my pocket, pulled out a business card and handed it to her. I can still see that moment in slow motion, my hand holding the card as my brain sent signals to my arm to move it forward while grasping said card, and stopping just in front of The Crazy Passerby so that she could take it. Over and over, I see a slow motion replay of my arm moving toward her, stopping and her taking the card.

The good news at that very moment was that the card seemed to placate her long enough for me to trot away - and trot, I did. I was literally wishing that the aforementioned bubble-headed blonde female news reporter in heels would rescue me, or that the MPs - who were looking for me and the Tribune's photographer, by the way - would just shoot me. I literally had to just walk away with her still rambling away about conspiracy theories aplenty.

Eventually, after speaking to dozens of military personnel, traipsing around a muddy creek bank, getting poison ivy, having a loaded M16 brandished in my general direction, and nearly ending up in a military brig (long story) I made it back to the newsroom and wrote like the wind, posting two front page stories in time for the first print deadline.

The following day, I was in a mostly empty newsroom working on my Day Two story - news lingo for a follow-up story that adds to deadline story from the day before. I had done several phone interviews, spoken to family members of the pilot and done as much research as a could on the A-10 fighter plane (remember, this was 1992 and the Internet was still only available on college campuses and at government facilities). 

I was about one third of the way into my Day Two story when my phone rang. This was also before CallerID was on every phone, so I had no idea who it was, but I was assuming that because it was a Sunday and that I had just left messages with multiple people, that it was probably someone important returning one of my calls. It wasn't.

You know who it was: The Crazy Passerby.

I'd barely gotten "Tribune, Rick Kughen" out of my mouth when the voice of crazy said, "why didn't you include me in your story, Mr. Tribune Staff Writer?" She put enough stink on "Tribune Staff Writer" to offend a fish monger.

As you probably assumed, I decided that a serious story about the tragic death of a decorated Air Force pilot was not the place to quote woman who was "on the pot" when the pilot met his end. I thought the visage of her running out the door - pants only partially returned to their upright position - would have been wildly inappropriate.

The voice on the other end of the line continued, "I took the time to talk to you about the big ol' plane crash over there, and I told all my friends I was gonna be in the paper. You made a fool outta me, mister."

I swear, I am NOT making any of this up.

Calmly, I said, "Ma'am, I didn't use your quotes because your quotes just didn't seem appropriate given the gravity of the story and I didn't want to sully the pilot's remembrance by mentioning that the nearest witness was relieving herself at the time of his death."

"Stop using all them big words, Mr. Smarty Pants," she hissed into the phone. "You didn't want people to know what I know. That's why you didn't put me in your story. You made me look stupid to my friends."

I resisted the urge to point out that I rescued her from looking stupid to the entire Kokomo Tribune readership. After spraying me with one of the most stunning strings of profanity I've EVER heard, the line went dead.

After sitting there in stunned silence for a few seconds, a wry smile ran across my face. After scratching around on my desk, I found my Indianapolis phone book and called the television network for which the aforementioned bubble-headed blonde television reporter worked. After being transferred to the reporter's voice mail and hearing her sing-songy outgoing message, I was finally greeted with a beep, after which I said:

"Hi, my name is Milton (last name withheld) and my wife witnessed that plane crash yesterday, but was too upset to speak to anyone. She has a lot of great information to share and she's only giving it to one reporter. She'd like you to call her, please."

I could barely keep from laughing as I said, "her number is (insert The Crazy Passerby's number here). Thank you."

I almost fell out of my chair laughing in an empty newsroom.

The Hamburglar Gets Shanked

My dad worked at GM in their tool crib - a pretty cushy job in which he was paid real money to sit at a little window and fill parts and tool orders. The most important part of his job, however, was to play practical jokes. The guys in the tool crib were a raucous bunch, often playing jokes on one another. They also were serious about their food. They had an entire kitchen set up in the tool crib and every day the west end of the plant smelled like the finest French restaurant. However - and this was a BIG however - one thing the tool crib guys never joked around with was food. 

Cover a black toilet seat with permanent indigo ink right before the boss goes in for his daily constitutional? Sure! 

Steal the foreman's coveted tool box, paint it yellow and cover it with a series of intricately painted cartoon characters? Right on, brother! 

Discover that one frequent visitor to the tool crib was deathly afraid of snakes and rig a realistic looking snake to drop onto the poor guy's head? Groovy! 

Mess with a man's food? Never! Sacrilege!

Unfortunately, one of his coworkers decided to break the tool crib's "Never Kid Around About Food" rule. Apparently, this weasel of a man was known to steal lunches and then openly brag about it. One of my dad's signature dishes was a gourmet hamburger. Guys came from all over the plant to enjoy his home cooked burgers - that is if he invited you to partake in their beefy goodness. Only a select few garnered invitations.

The aforementioned sticky-fingered coworker, however, was never invited, yet many a burger ended up on a milk carton when this man was around. He bragged far and wide how stealing my dad's delicious hamburgers was his coup de grace. Chef de Cuisine Kughen, however, was not amused. So, he and the other tool crib heroes plotted and conspired. They schemed and they colluded. I hear tale that they might have even artificed, but that might just be conjecture. It's hard to tell as the story might've grown taller in the re-telling.

But, I digress.

Back to nefarious plotting of our tool crib heroes. After discussing a variety of machinations, they settled on hitting this thief where he lived - right on the dinner plate. So, they went to Hank's - that was the local grocery store in Marion, IN at the time - and purchased a goodly portion of Gaines Burgers. Any self-respecting dog owner in the 1970s and 1980s remembers Gaines Burgers - small, hamburger-shaped patties of horse meat goodness wrapped in fancy cellophane packets and designed to fool dogs into believing they were eating a Big Mac right along side you, while you scarfed down a real Big Mac. Of course, they weren't fooled - and they exacted revenge later when they took a dump in your shoe.

But, I digress yet again.

So, the Tool Crib Gang mixed several boxes of Gaines Burgers patties with some other mystery meat that I hear might or might not have also included some of the substance Fido left for you in your shoe. They formed lovely patties and grilled them on their little charcoal grill - yes, they had a CHARCOAL GRILL inside the plant. No, this wasn't considered GM-approved equipment. They grilled up these delectable bites of brown goodness and left them right were Mr. Five-Finger Discount (and soon to be Mr. Very Sick and Have No Idea Why) would find them. And find them he did.

Apparently, if you get the mix of Gaines Burgers, mystery meat and fecal matter just right, burgers made from this concoction are purely sublime. The man ate several of these gut bombs before his stomach caught up to his taste buds and hit the eject levers - going in both directions. Word is that he made it to a waste basket for the upward ejection and was forced to scamper toward the crib bathroom for the, uh, downward ejection.

Did I mention that they liked to cover the black toilet seats with permanent indigo ink? Yeah, I think I did.

Just Horsing Around

Author's Note: The following is a true story, though a few of the details might be incorrect. At the time these events occurred, it was roughly 1974 when I was about six, maybe even younger. It's possible that the animals in question were cows, not horses, but I elected to go with horses in this retelling because I think horses are funny. Some exaggeration is likely. I tell this story with humor in mind, but also with deep reverence for my grandpa.

As some of you know, my mom was from Mississippi and was raised on a farm out in the middle of Red Dirt Road Nowhere. After graduating, she moved to Indiana where she met my father - a Pennsylvania boy - and made her family in the Hoosier state.

When I was a kid, we would take family vacations to visit her parents on their farm. It was always an adventure for my brother and me since we were northern boys and not at all accustomed to life on southern farm.

In addition to the farm being home to multiple kinds of poisonous snakes (rattlesnakes, moccasins, copperheads, coral, etc.) it was home to  a variety of chickens, grouses, cows, pigs and horses. Oh, and lots of black widow spiders and fire ants.

Batter up.

My grandfather's farm also had several ponds and a creek running through it. When we would visit, my grandpa would sometimes take us on his big farm tractor and we'd go out fishing in one of the ponds. Some of my earliest and best fishing memories are tied to those ponds and my family there.

On one rather notable trip when I was about six, we came across a pair of horses that were...well, I  thought they were wrestling.

They weren't wrestling.

Apparently, the noise from the tractor's motor startled them, causing the male to dismount (clever verb usage there, eh?). The female - or the one losing the wrestling match insofar as I was concerned at the time - bolted. And man oh man could she ever run. She was out of sight before you could say "Jack Robinson."

Her beau, however, stood his ground. He stood there, snorting, shaking his head and looking about as angry as I had ever seen *anything* look in any of my six long years on the planet. My grandpa told us both to stay on the tractor and to just be still. Apparently, horny horses interrupted mid-coitus can be quite dangerous. He proceeded to talk to the horse in hushed tones, telling it to move along now. My dad and I were glad to oblige and sat on the tractor, not making a sound.

That is until the horse turned to the side. That's when I noticed that he was sporting the largest penis I have ever seen. The enormity of it caused my jaw to drop to my chest, grab my daddy's arm and ask, rather loudly: "daddy, do you see the big, the big black THING on that horse? How did it get that big?!?"

Now, I must tell you that my grandfather was a very kind and religious man. He also was a southern Baptist minister and gentleman who always had time for his grandchildren. However, he was not the kind of guy with whom you discussed the likes of horse penises.

My dad was mostly successful at stifling his laughter while he flashed me a furtive look that said, "not now, please, son, NOT NOW."

However, I was not to be deterred. I craned my head around my dad's shoulder so that I could make eye contact with my grandpa who was still sweet talking the pissed off horse, and said "Grandpa, how did that horse get such a big, black THING?!? Look at it!"

I think my dad darn near had a stroke and rolled off the back of the tractor at that moment. My grandpa turned about 12 shades of red before he snatched the shotgun from his lap, fired it into the air, and scared the horse off. Without a word, he put the tractor back in gear and off we went - home that is.

Apparently, once the topic of horse penises is broached on a fishing trip in Mississippi, said fishing trip comes to an immediate and explosive conclusion.

Adventures in (Mis)Dialing

A few weeks back, some friends and I were swapping stories about misadventures in wrong telephone numbers - you know, those times when you dial the wrong number and much hilarity and/or stomach upset ensue. The following is a true story that still makes my stomach churn. I have only recently been able to talk about it.

In 1988, I was a cub reporter working for The Muncie Star, and I had a wrong number experience that nearly forced me into a career in horticulture, beekeeping or anything as far from news reporting as possible. At just 20 years old and still working on my journalism degree at Ball State University,  I was one of the youngest reporters they'd ever turned loose on his own beat. Most student reporters were interns and thus classified as "general assignment reporters." I'd shown aptitude beyond my years, so they let me work the police beat, which I loved.

At any rate, another responsibility given to the lowest ranking reporter on duty any night was writing obituaries. On one particular evening after I had filed my last bit of police news, the editor in charge handed me a stack of obit forms that needed turned into obits for the next day's paper. One of the obits was almost entirely written and just needed a few facts verified. So, he shoves all of this onto my desk and says he needs all seven obit done in 45 minutes. Writing obituaries is simultaneously sad and difficult. While family members are well intentioned when they supply information about their dearly departed, they often supply information that is inaccurate, incomplete and sometimes even libelous. That means obituary writing involves a lot of fact checking, spell checking, and removal of bias that could get the paper sued. There are two key reasons why newspapers put cub reporters on obit duty:

1. Obit writing is tedious, difficult and forces young reporters to hone their fact-checking skills.
2. No one else wants to do it, so as lowest on the proverbial totem poll, it lands squarely in the cub's lap. It's a rite of passage that no young reporter escapes.

So, on this particular night in question, I knew 45 minutes was not much time to write and fact-check seven obituaries. I was young, but not stupid. I also knew that the editor in charge that night was one of the crustiest humans alive and though I was still thoroughly green in the ear area, he had zero patience for mistakes, and missed deadlines turned him into a beast from the fieriest pits of Hell.

I had been working at The Star long enough to know that news writing is often about triage - treat the most seriously wounded first and leave the minor injuries for later. That meant that I knew I needed to write the six obits that hadn't yet been started first, then circle back to the one that was nearly finished.

I whipped through those six pretty quickly. The information supplied by the funeral homes was nearly complete and I only had to make a couple of calls to verify various bits of information. When I got to the obit that was almost done, I saw that the editor had written a note on the obit form, asking that I call the funeral home or family to verify a few facts. He had also scrawled the family's phone number in the margin of the obit form. I should point out now that the editor in question had really poor handwriting - and was known around the newsroom to have the worst penmanship of anyone in the building.

At any rate, I first tried calling the funeral home since calling families who have just lost a loved one is obviously a quite uncomfortable task. Unfortunately, several calls to the funeral home went unanswered and I was just a few minutes away from my deadline. I'd already spotted my editor staring daggers through me because I had yet to file the last obituary.

I decided that my only course of action now was to call the family, so I picked up the phone and started dialing. As I was dialing, I saw that one of the numbers was illegible - looking like either a 4 four a 6. I dropped the phone back into the cradle and studied it for a bit, turning the paper every which way, but I still could not make out the number. I was sweating bullets, but I mustered the courage to get up and walk over to the editor's desk to ask him for clarification. 

Without even looking up and before I can utter a word, the editor barks at me and tells me to go away because he's on deadline. I'd tell you what he said, but my mom taught me not to use those words.

I start to protest, but he jabs his finger at me at me and tells me to go back to my desk. As many people from that era of The Muncie Star know, the editor in question was a heavy drinker and a mean drunk. He drank at work and was known to fire people for the tiniest of infractions even though he was usually blind drunk himself.

So, I skittered away, tail between my legs. Knowing that calling the wrong person to ask about the death of a beloved relative could be disastrous, I decide to do some research first. Because it was 1988, it was pre-web and Google, so I only had the phone book and the city directory to check, both of which didn't answer my question. So, I made my best guess at the number and dialed it with a sweaty hand.

A nice, older sounding lady answered. I identified myself as being a reporter with The Star and told her that I was working on her son's obituary, and needed to ask a few questions. Immediately, she begins sobbing and telling me that she had no idea her son was dead. She'd just spoken with him earlier that day and now she was bawling and asking why the hospital or the police hadn't notified her.

I'm on the other end thinking, "oh shit-oh shit-oh shit." You see, it couldn't be her son who had died since the person in question had been dead for two days. If she had spoken to her son earlier that day, he likely wasn't dead unless he had called from the afterlife. But I couldn't get a word in edgewise because she was crying and wailing. Eventually, she dropped the phone and continued to cry in the background. Those of you who know me know that I am the sensitive sort. As you might surmise, every drop of color had drained from my face, I was sweating and on the verge of tears. I was pleading with her to pick the phone back up so that I can tell her that her son is not dead and that I clearly have the wrong number.

By this time, the reporters who sat near me in the bullpen had gathered around my desk, some looking horrified and at least a couple appearing to be quite amused. I was ashen, trembling, and had very nearly soiled my pants.

Finally, another voice got on the line and told me she was the neighbor and she came over because she heard this poor lady crying up a storm (that should tell you just how loudly she was wailing). She asked me to tell her what happened. When I explained to her the honest mistake, I learned that little old ladies know a lot of swear words. A LOT. I apologized profusely and by this time, I think I might've actually shed a tear or two. She hung up on me after calling me some things that I dare not repeat here.

After I hung up, I saw a bunch of faces staring at me. Among them was the intoxicated editor. He immediately blurted, "what in the hell is wrong with you, boy? Why would you do that to someone?"

I stammered around, trying to explain that I couldn't read his writing and I even tried to ask him about it, but he wouldn't hear anything about it. So, he stood there and swore at me for awhile before tottering off to find his bottle. He didn't fire me, but I can tell you that was nearly my last day as a newspaper reporter.

The other reporters were supportive and many told me similarly horrific tales from their previous mistakes. I felt a little better, but to this day, I still feel bad. I have wondered if this story has become one that members of that family now laugh about, or if they burn my name in effigy at every available opportunity?

I think I might still have that piece of paper with the mistaken phone number on it. I kept it as a reminder to make sure that I had the facts right before I called or spoke to anyone about anything. Maybe I should call and ask if they have forgiven me yet? I mean, it's been like 26 years.

Then again, I still don't know for sure what numbered I dialed that day and I think it best not to call anyone to talk about their dead sons unless I want a repeat performance...

Thoughts on Syria

Note: I generally eschew using my blog space for anything other than humor and true stories of my superhero exploits. However, from time to time, a current event - such as our likely involvement in Syria's civil war - moves me to speaking out. This is one of those times.

I have been watching my Facebook feed with great interest these past couple of weeks, as people continually post about how we should attack Syria. Like pretty much everyone, I am appalled by the usage of chemical weapons anywhere. (Heck, I am appalled by the usage of any weapons of war anywhere, but that's a different kettle of fish altogether). I, too, am particularly appalled by the fact that children are being killed.

However, and this is a BIG HOWEVER, we need to remember that once we start bombing Syria, several terrible things are going to happen:

1. Many of the innocent kids we are trying to protect will die in the fight. How's that for irony?
2. We will be committing thousands more of our sons and daughters to die on foreign soil when we already have thousands dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.
3. We won't achieve a single thing other than satisfying our country's penchant for violence. We can placate ourselves by saying that we're just doing some bombing - you know, to protect the kids - but we all know that it will end up being more than that. The bombing won't stop the civil war in Syria. Once we're in, we're in. And it won't be long before flag-draped caskets and soldiers missing limbs and their minds start coming home from Syria.

The downside to all this rah-rah, let's kill 'em all sentimentality that I hear pretty much every day now is that kind of thinking is very shortsighted and a bit late if you ask me. Where was all of this "invade Syria" stuff when children were dying there the old fashioned way - you know, with bombs and machine guns? I get that chemical weapons are a global no-no (as they well should be) but I think it's interesting that we didn't get up in arms when the Syrian government started slaughtering women and children as a deterrent to the rebel forces - something they've been doing since 2011. Those killings are just now raising our hackles because the alleged usage of chemical weaponry brought their civil war into our homes on CNN.

I also think it's interesting that so many people are so eager to join the side of the rebels. Do some reading about the rebel forces (some that have ties to Al Qaeda) and then tell me if you really want to back either horse in this mess. Do we really want to arm the rebel forces only to have those weapons used on us at a later date? Do we really want to fight side-by-side with terrorists who hate our country?

I'm not sure that there is a good guy in this fight other than the innocent, non-combatants. If we are going to liberate those innocents - in Syria or any other part of the war-torn Middle East - then we better be prepared for a full-scale invasion that ends with the U.S. running its flag up over the whole of the Middle East (which is a ludicrous idea, I know). I just don't see any way this problem is solved with American bombs and soldiers in a temporary engagement.

What does winning in Syria look like for the U.S.? I'm not sure that we know anymore since we haven't decisively won a war since World War II. We intervene in the affairs of other countries with regularity and we kill off a bunch of our young people in the process, but what exactly is being accomplished? How much safer is the Middle East or parts of Asia that our soldiers have fought in since the 1950s?

Don't think for a second that I am a pacifist or anti-military. I am both willing to fight to protect our country and I am pro-military. I simply do not want to see more of our kids dying in wars that don't involve us. I am pro-military to the point that I don't want to see any of our soldiers dying unless it's absolutely necessary - unless the very freedom or safety of our country and its people is at stake. As a parent, I would not want to send either of my children to fight in Syria, and am thankful that they are not yet old enough to get involved in that mess.

Yes, you can say that we have a moral obligation to defend innocents everywhere, but until we can defend the innocents in our own country, I am not so sure that we ought to be out defending the innocents of another - especially when our idea of defense involves bombing their country and turning their homes into rubble. This is a war that is being fought in the urban areas of Syria, and there is no way our involvement doesn't create more carnage and more refugees.

Instead, I would like to see much of the money that we put into our various war efforts placed into programs for feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless and cleaning up the drug problems in our country before we spend billions fighting a war in Syria that isn't our fight. We have so many problems here at home that need addressed. I know there are many good people working to alleviate the social issues in our country, but we don't give them near enough money or support to actually win those battles. I believe that's largely because we're too busy trying to be the world's police force.

Being 100% honest, however, I don't know what the solution is. Standing by and watching kids die makes my stomach churn just like yours. I wish I could say "do this, not that" but I don't have a solution for the problems in Syria, much less Afghanistan, Iraq or wherever the next nut-job will begin slaughtering his people. What I do know is this: the United States cannot continue sending its sons and daughters abroad to fight wars that we cannot win.

The very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and yet expecting different results. And I believe getting involved in Syria's civil war would be just that - insane.

Bacon - It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore...

Bacon in the Wild

In honor of International Bacon Day tomorrow, I give you my Top 10 bacon-inspired products the world needs to have soon. Patents are pending, so don't even think about trying to Bogart these ideas for yourself:

10. Bacon-scented pepper spray. It still packs a punch, but leaves the satisfying taste of thick cut, smoked bacon that lingers well after your eyeballs have melted from your skull.

9. Bacon mousse. Not the kind you eat; the kind I used in the 80s to control my big hair. A gentle bacon scent would be a natural attractant and the added bacon grease would give you that Jheri Curl sheen.

8. Bacon-flavored toothpaste. Dentists say many adults, particularly men, do not brush long enough to effectively ward off cavities. Think of how much more enjoyable scrubbing those pearly whites would be if you got a hit of hickory smoked pig belly for your trouble.

7. Bacon-scented catalytic converter. As you motor heads know, a catalytic converter is a vehicle emissions control device that converts toxic byproducts of combustion in the exhaust of vehicle motors to less toxic substances. So, why not add the eye-opening scent of fresh cooked bacon. Instead of smelling like armpits, our urban areas would all smell like Bob Evans.

6. Bacon bug repellent. It's a proven fact that mosquitoes and other stinging insects hate the smell of bacon (and if it's not previously proven, it is now). Hormel's 100% DEET, Maple-Cured Bacon Repellent would be a welcome addition to any Canadian fishing or hunting expedition.

5. Bacon lozenges. Have a cold? Throat feeling scratchy? Reach for Hall's Thick Cut, Pepper Bacon lozenges to take the sting out of that sore throat and leave you with the "everything's gonna be alright" feeling that only dead, fried pig fat can give you.

4. Bacon lip gloss. Let's face it ladies, sometimes it's hard to get your man to take notice of you, especially during football season. You change your hair, cook his favorite food, and even wear undergarments containing lesson cotton found on a Q-Tip. And yet, he still doesn't seem to notice you. Apply a little Emge's BaconBelly LipSmacker and lay one on your man. The smell of morning fresh bacon sizzling in a cast iron pan will bring him back again and again. Item #1 below is the perfect complement.

3. Bacon scented morning breath eliminator. Worried that your morning breath could stun a team of oxen in its tracks? Feeling randy at sun up, but don't want to subject your lover to your dragon breath? Keep a discrete canister of BaconBlast in your nightstand or under your pillow. One tiny spray and you'll vanquish that chronic halitosis. Instead of your breath smelling like the inside of of a dumpster, it will smell like Waffle House, minus the smelly drunks and cigarette smoke.

2. Bacon-scented charcoal underwear liners. Embarrassed by your odoriferous flatulence? Worried that your co-workers, in-laws, spouse or friends think you might have a problem with your bum? Wish you could release those middle-of-the-day, gut-busting emissions at work without fear of sending your co-workers for the fire exits? BaconButt peel-and-stick charcoal underwear liners filter your gas through 12 micro-thin layers of charcoal before reaching three layers of Ossian Farms bacon sent. Your co-workers won't mind you passing gas. In fact, they'll ask you chip off a few whenever you can so that they can all enjoy the eye-opening, morning fresh scent that only a pan of warm, sizzling bacon can bring.

1. Bacon flavored joy jelly. I don't want to get too graphic here, but think about how much more appealing your lover would be slathered in the smell and taste of farm fresh bacon. Breakfast will never be the same. It's great on toast, too!

Top 10 Reasons the Aliens Ignore Us

Humans have long looked the stars above them and wondered, are we alone? Is there life on other planets? Why don't the aliens visit our meager planet and bestow us with the gifts of their technologies? Like hyperspace. Teleportation. The ability to vaporize entire planets. You know, that kind of thing.

Problem is, I think the aliens are out there and they are are flying by us every day, barely giving us a second glance. Why, you ask?

Well, dear reader, the answer is simple: it's us. We're the reason that the green, 14-eyed, 2-horned aliens fly right past or tiny blue world.

You see, I've long believed that until we reach a higher level of intelligence, the aliens will eschew us for more enlightened people on the other side of the galaxy. They've given us plenty of chances, abducted a few of the more intelligent among us (I speak from experience) and concluded that as a species, humans just aren't advanced enough to handle their wicked cool technologies.

A typical alien

However, all hope is not lost. The aliens still check in from time to time to see if we have evolved enough to warrant a further look.

After much research and deep thought, I have formulated what I believe to be the top 10 reasons why the aliens continue to give us the stink-eye:

10. Justin Bieber. He has to go.
9. They find Dennis Rodman unnerving and until he's gone, they'll just keep their distance.
8. Republicans (oh, come on, it's a joke!)
7. Miley Cyrus is actually being paid to do...well...anything.
6. We haven't had Hillary Clinton put to sleep yet. (See, I can be bi-partisan.)
5. There are still people who consider rap music to be an art form. In addition to being flat awful, rap music disrupts the aliens' tractor beam technology.
4. Too many humans have IQs lower than their body temperatures.
3. 'Mericuns...
2. The collective average trouser height of humans across the globe remains too low thanks to millions of juvenile delinquents who wear their pants around their knees.
1.Milton Poon Farner of Queens, NY. Little do most people know, but Milton's anti-alien maneuvers - including covering everything he owns in tinfoil and playing polkas on his oboe at all hours of the night - have kept our alien friends at bay for decades (it's a known fact that aliens are powerless against tinfoil, especially in large quantities). Some call Milton a hero. Not me. No sir.

So there you have it. Truthfully speaking, these are just a handful of the reasons that the aliens hold us in so little regard. There are many more reasons we don't get invited to play their alien games. I  just don't want to overwhelm you (see #4) with too much. For now, let's just work on these 10 items and see where we end up. Okay?

How to go Fishing

My four-year-old son, Eric, and I have been doing a lot of fishing this summer. On one recent fishing trip, he had this to say about how fishing is done:

1. You get some red wigglers.
2. You pick out good-looking red wiggler.
3. You put it on a hook.
4. You throw it WAY out there.
5. You catch the fish.
6. You give the fish a name.
7. You throw it back. If you don't throw it back, it goes "uh-uh-uh" and dies.

Pretty much sums it up, don't you think? Of course, those of you who know me well, know that I name each and every fish I catch. Eric's fish-naming proclivity is proof that the proverbial apple does not fall far from the equally proverbial tree.

You Can't Beat His Meat...

After reading this article, I felt that someone needed to tell the rest of the story...

ALIQUIPPA, Pa. - "She can't beat my meat!" shouted William Neugebauer as he was led out of a packed western Pennsylvania courthouse.

The 51-year-old Neugebauer was convicted Friday of a class B felony count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and a class D felony recklessness endangerment charge. A public drunkenness charge was dismissed.

Neugebauer was arrested August 9, 2013, several hours after police say he bludgeoned his 50-year-old wife, Wendy Neugebauer, with his frigid meat.

Police say Wendy Neugebauer was struck repeatedly about the rib cage area by an enraged William Neugebauer who was wielding his frozen meat like a cudgel.

William told the court that struck his wife because she insisted on trying to beat his meat, despite repeated requests that she keep her hands to herself.

Said Wendy Neugebauer, "When we were first hitched, Billy used to unwrap his meat whenever we were together, and I would beat it silly. We were so in love."

Wendy said William had gotten extremely protective of his meat in recent years.

Wendy says his over protective nature when it comes to his meat stems from an unfortunate 2007 incident in which Wendy ground William's meat a little too coarsely.

"Since then," said a tearful Wendy Neugebauer, "his meat has been a frigid as a well-digger's ass in November."

Police said on the day she was assaulted, a horny Wendy Neugebauer allegedly tried to unwrap William's meat while he was sleeping.

When William awake, he allegedly pummeled his wife of 28 years while repeatedly yelling, "You can't beat my meat!"

Said one shocked juror who asked not to be identified, "This was one of the most horrific cases of meat beating I've ever heard of."

William Neugebauer faces 8-20 years on the felony assault charge, and up to four years on the reckless endangerment charge.

Superior Court 3 Judge Richard C. Poon set sentencing for 11 a.m. October 5.

In the time since the flogging incident, Wendy Neugebauer has recovered from her injuries, save for a wicked case of freezer burn.

"It just hurts, you know," said Wendy Neugebauer as a single tear trailed down her cheek. "On cold mornings, I can still feel my sides burning from the cold. I may never eat - or beat -meat again."

A Sudden Loss of Hearing or Vision

A somewhat accurate depiction...

So, as many of you know, I watch a lot of televised baseball and football. That means I see a lot of commercials targeted at predominantly male audiences, including a fair number of commercials for erectile dysfunction medications.
I've noted that the narrator always says to contact your doctor if you "experience a sudden loss of hearing or vision." 

Dreaded dinosaur affliction...

That would seem like good advice regardless of whether you're taking Cialis or any other medication (for ED or anything else).
However, I have to wonder if one would know if that sudden loss of hearing or vision was due to the medication or just a consequence of what *always* happens to men when they have an...uh...well, you get the picture. Men aren't known for their exceptional hearing or vision when the lieutenant is steering the ship, if you know what I mean. 
So, a sudden loss of faculties might just seem like par for the course to some men.
Of course, this line of thinking has reminded me of one of my all-time favorite Facebook posts about how the little ones in our midst don't always hear things exactly as we think they do. I can't decide what would be more difficult as a parent: explaining ED to one of my kids or hiding my amusement if one of my kids thought that the advertisement was for a medication targeted at dinosaurs. I am quite in touch with my sense of humor, so it's quite possible I'd find myself rolling around on the ground laughing.

Newfound Newtonian Wisdom

Try dropping one of these at the dinner table...

Recently, my daughter asked me to help her study for her final 5th grade science test. She was having a little trouble with Newton's Laws of Motion - in particular, Law III, which states in part, "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction..."
She asked me for some examples.
So, I was doing my best to come up with some, but the best one I came up with I really couldn't share.
You see, I learned first hand the power of Law III when I was 9-years-old and I dropped the F-bomb at the dinner table in front of both parents.
Talk about your equal (if not superior) and opposite reactions!
Strangely, I don't think she really understood why I was so amused with this particular homework assignment.

Kick Her Where?!?

Yesterday, my wife, Charlotte, had a baking emergency and asked me to go to the grocery store for a can of coconut milk. So, off to the store I went.
After acquiring said coconut milk and getting back into my car, I noticed the pickup truck on the end of the row had an interesting collection of bumper stickers - on the bumper, the tailgate and the rear window. Because I never like to miss a dose of redneck wisdom from the yahoos in Kokomo, I drove past the truck slowly so that I could take in the depth and breadth of this particular hill-jack's wisdom.  
The two stickers pictured here are the ones that caught my attention:

1. The equality sticker. Usually, you don't see this kind of open-minded sentimentality anywhere near your garden variety redneck.
2. The kick her in the, well, a sensitive place sticker. At first, I was entirely perplexed by this, for several reasons:

• Reason A: Kick her in the...? Really? Who would do that? And why? Didn't his father teach him any better? And forget about dad, if his mom was anything like mine, he wouldn't be able to sit for a month if he ever uttered such a thing. Further, I have to assume this fella doesn't date much.

Kick her where? In the what?

• Reason B: Of all the possible bumper stickers in the world, why would you pick this one? What's the purpose? Is this really the message you want to share with the world?
• Reason C: Are these two stickers a combined statement? Is Mr. Redneck Genius saying that he's an equal opportunity giblet kicker?
• Reason D: If reason C is accurate, who hangs out with this guy? And do those people guard their giblets when in his presence? 

Really, if my wife hadn't been suffering from the aforementioned coconut milk emergency, I would've waited until he emerged from the grocery store so I could ask him. As it is, I am left trying to picture the owner of that truck. I *think* I have him all sussed out, but the possible combined messaging found here is simply perplexing, and not often seen amongst people of this intellectual and social status.

Note: I originally shared this missive as a private Facebook post with some friends. A couple of my friends pointed out to me that this sticker is the slogan for The Naptown Roller Girls, an Indianapolis-based roller derby team. Another friend suggested that this truck might be drive by a woman and not a man as I had suspected.

In any event, this is the kind of bumper sticker that will do several things for (or to) you:

1. If this sticker appears on a vehicle driven by a man, I can assure you that he doesn't get much attention from the ladies...and the attention he does get isn't the kind most of us want. Put it this way, women who would find this slogan endearing enough for public display probably aren't the kind of women you bring home to mom.
2. If this sticker appears on a vehicle driven by a woman, most men are going to steer far, far away from her. If she willing to kick her girlfriend's hoodilly, you can bet she's willing to give you a kick between the uprights.
3. If you get pulled over by a police officer with this sticker on your vehicle, you almost certainly are getting a ticket. That's not to say that some officers wouldn't find it amusing, but I am pretty sure that this kind of thing only helps further cement the officer's suspicions that you are richly deserving of some unwanted attention from The Man.
4. If you are a male sporting this sticker on your vehicle and you pull into the driveway of a protective father expecting to pick up his daughter for a date, he is going to remove your giblets for you.
5. If you are spotted exiting a vehicle displaying this sticker on your way to a job interview, the interview better be for a construction job, a bartender job or for some other profession that isn't white collar and doesn't pay much above minimum wage. Sorry, much like tattoos on the neck, this sticker is fairly career limiting.