Singing Loudly

Loud, snide and dismissive, he wasn't just a disappointment; he ranks up there with the worst hosts ever — particularly when you factor in the expectations. When the show ran a salute to Johnny Carson's years as host, the comparison was so painful, it made you think the academy would have been better off just letting a computer-generated Carson host again.

BFD. Unlike Bill Clinton, at least George Bush managed to inhale. If Bush is to be criticized in this instance, let us complain not of his inhalation but rather of his failure to remember the old Roman maxim: "Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy."

If Kerry thinks smoking pot is no big deal, he ought to come out for legalization. If Kerry thinks it is a big deal, as his website claims, he shouldn't be joking about it. More generally, we keep electing politicians (on both sides of the aisle) who once used - or, for all we know, still use - recreational drugs. Once they get into office they perpetuate the so-called war on drugs, with all of its racism, unfairness, and failures. Why do we put up with it? It is time to have a serious debate about legalization without all the posturing.

1. Helping with the law school skit night where they make fun of everyone. I saw it and it was pretty decent. Perhaps my help could have been of a minor amount of assistance.
   



2. Some sort of an award thing for the arts in New Mexico. I was nominated for best new playwright and lost to some guy name Jacko Ruby. The shame you imagine I must have felt being beat by some writer who made his psedonym from Jack Ruby is not close to the shame I actually felt.



3. Going to Vegas again with a group of people. Yes, this one was the most difficult. Maggie...



4. Adapting a one act into a full length for a medium sized theater company based out of Eugene, Oregon. I think that they might be recent grads from Oregon. I couldn't figure out why they haven't moved out of Eugene.



5. Going on dates. This one will change next weekend.

that stemmed from his relationship with a 14-year-old girlfriend that began when he was 17 and in high school.

Launched in July 2003 by Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit, or ICE, the initiative was meant to rid the country of non-citizens guilty of sex crimes, particularly against children.

To be sure, the initiative has resulted in many people guilty of serious sexual offenses being apprehended and deported. But many immigration lawyers say federal officials are casting the enforcement net too broadly, snagging people who aren't likely a threat to society and whose crimes don't involve actions that most people normally associate with sexual predators.

"In Operation Predator, the purpose is to rack up the numbers and say, `Oh, we've deported thousands of dangerous sex offenders,'" Cianciolo said. "Some of them are dangerous sex offenders. But some of them aren't.

You can lie to your Mama, you can lie to your race
but you can’t lie to nobody with that cold steel in your face.
And the same God that you’re so afraid is gonna send you to hell
is the same one you’re gonna answer to when the pin hits the shell.

Your sister’s been blaming everybody.
I don’t blame her, man, I guess I’d blame them too
if you was my brother, man, I‘d probably stand by you.
But you ain’t, man, so I got to go my way.

And I ain’t gonna crawl upon no high horse
Cause I got thrown off of one
when I was young and I ain’t no cowboy
so I ain’t going where I don’t belong.
It wouldn’t do you no good to let you know that it damned near killed me too
so I ain’t gonna mourn for you, man, now that you’re gone.

Me and you, we liked our pills and our whiskey.
But you don’t want your head full of either one when
the house gets quiet and dark.
Having fun used to be so damned easy,
racing trains from 2nd Street to Avalon.
Take a trip down memory lane,
You don’t see no friendly faces
all the houses have been painted and
nobody knows your name.
It’s enough to make a man not want
to be nobody’s Daddy,
when all he thinks he’s got left to hand down is guilt and shame.

And I ain’t gonna crawl upon no high horse........

You can lie to your Mama, you can lie to your race
but you can’t lie to nobody with that cold steel in your face.
And the same God that you’re so afraid is gonna send you to hell
is the same one you’re gonna answer to when the pin hits the shell.

• Suprise, surprise, both parties are pointing fingers at the other in New York over the death of the death penalty proposal.


• They are looking into the costs of the death penalty in Kentucky. Once they see how high the fiscal costs are, they should compare them to what tax payers in Harris County have to pay to soothe themselves.


• Death penalty opponents in Oklahoma want a study done on the amount of innocent persons killed by the death penalty.


• Finally, Kansas continues to try to figure out what to do in the aftermath of the Kansas Supreme Court declaring the current death penalty system unconstitutional.

IOWA CITY, IA—Freshly jolted awake from a peach-tea-induced nap, Sumatra Café patron Laurie Dubar said she had that same sex dream about bestselling author Dave Eggers. "I'm lying on the couch naked, and Dave is next to me, also naked, reading Salon on his laptop," said Dubar, a 34-year-old Iowa Writers' Workshop instructor. "Suddenly, he turns to me and says, 'Could you help me edit a collection of short fiction?' and I can't control myself any longer." Dubar said she always wakes up just as Sarah Vowell walks in wearing a kimono.

I spend too much time raiding windmills
We go side by side
Laughing until it?s right

There?s something that you won?t show
Waiting where the light goes
Take the darkest hour-break it open
Water to repair what we have broken

There?s something that you won?t show
Waiting where the light goes
And anyway the wind blows
It?s all worth waiting for

Pull on the borders to lighten the load
Tell all the passengers we?re going home

I spend too much time seeking shelter
World without end couldn?t hold her

There?s something that you won?t show
Waiting where the light goes
And anyway the wind blows
It?s all worth waiting for
Anyway the wind blows

Hi there,

Thanks for signing up to be updated on the latest Gmail happenings. We hope it's
been worth the wait, because we're excited to finally offer you an invitation to
open a free Gmail account! Just click on this link to create your new account:

Since last April, we've been working hard to create the best email service
possible. It already comes with 1,000 megabytes of free storage, powerful Google
search technology to find any message you want instantly, and a new way of
organizing email that saves you time and helps you make sense of all the
information in your inbox.

And here are just some of the things that we've added in the last few months:

- Free POP access: Take your messages with you. Download them, read them
offline, access them using Outlook, your Blackberry or any other device that
supports POP

- Gmail Notifier: Get new mail notifications and see the messages and their
senders without having to open a browser

- Better contacts management: Import your contacts from Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail,
Outlook, and others to Gmail in just a few clicks. Add phone numbers, notes and
more. Even use search to keep better track of it all.

We also wanted to thank you. For showing us your support and for being so
patient. And to those who have already signed up for Gmail, thank you for giving
it a try and for helping us make it better. Our users are what have made this
product great. So whether you're just signing up for your account or you've been
with us since the beginning, keep letting us know how we can build you the best
email service around.

That's it for now. We hope you like Gmail and will share it with your friends.
We've got lots of cool new stuff planned and we can't wait for you to see our
work in your Gmail accounts! Stay tuned...

Thanks,
The Gmail Team

He called the film "pornographic and sensational".

Female: Male, Male, wake up. Did you do this?
Male: Oh God, I...
F: Did you do this?
M: Oh boy, I...
F: Did you do this?....
M: Yeah...
F: Is this for me?...Don't look at [him], is this for me?
M: Yeah..
F: and this was meant to be some kind of charity?
M: No, not charity, I just wanted to do something.
F: Why?
M: I like you...
F: You look awfully tired...when was the last time you slept?
M: I don't really remember.
F: And was that for me?
M: Yeah...look, I'll clean this stuff up. It will take a second...
F: Sit down...lay down here. Put your head down.

Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counter-culture author of books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.

Many state and local drug enforcement officials are upset with President Bush's proposed budget. It would cut federal grants for state and local efforts in the war on drugs, ending most of the support for hundreds of anti-drug task forces

Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California have been working for several years with colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to analyse the effects of global warming on the oceans. They combined computer modelling with millions of temperature and salinity readings, taken around the world at different depths over five decades.

They found that the “warming signals” in the oceans could only have been produced by the build-up of man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Non-human factors would have produced quite different effects.

This case involves the most basic of questions. When is a man a man, and when is a woman a woman?

Christie is a transsexual. She was born in San Antonio in 1952, a physically healthy male, and named after her father, Lee Cavazos. At birth, she was named Lee Cavazos, Jr. (Throughout this opinion Christie will be referred to as "She." This is for grammatical simplicity's sake, and out of respect for the litigant, who wishes to be called "Christie," and referred to as "she." It has no legal implications.)

At birth, Christie had the normal male genitalia: penis, scrotum and testicles. Problems with her sexual identity developed early though. Christie testified that she considered herself female from the time she was three or four years old, the contrary physical evidence notwithstanding. Her distressed parents took her to a physician, who prescribed male hormones. These were taken, but were ineffective. Christie sought successfully to be excused from sports and physical education because of her embarrassment over changing clothes in front of the other boys.

By the time she was 17 years old, Christie was searching for a physician who would perform sex reassignment surgery. At 23, she enrolled [**3] in a program at the University of Texas Health Science Center that would lead to a sex reassignment operation.

1. A bicycle can't stand alone because it is
two-tired.

2. What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead
giveaway).

3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a
banana.

4. A backward poet writes in verse.

5. In democracy it's your vote that counts; In
feudalism, it's your
count that votes.

6. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

7. If you don't pay your exorcist you get repossessed.

8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll
show you A-flat
minor.

10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

11. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is
fully recovered.

12. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would
result in Linoleum
Blownapart.

13. You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge
it.

14. Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down
under.

15. He often broke into song because he couldn't find
the key.

16. Every calendar's days are numbered.

17. A lot of money is tainted. 'Taint yours and 'taint
mine.

18. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

19. He had a photographic memory which was never
developed.

20. A plateau is a high form of flattery.

21. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison
was a small medium
at large.

22. Those who get too big for their britches will be
exposed in the end..

23. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a
mall.

24. Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.

25. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair
she thought
she'd dye.

26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know
basis.

27. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

28. Acupuncture is a jab well done.

29. Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the
agony of defeat.

When my daughter developed a rash, we showed it to my dermatologist neighbor right in our backyard. He said, ''I have just the thing for that.'' He applied some medicine, the rash went away and I got a bill for $56. My wife, an accountant, has given this doctor much advice over the back fence at no charge. Should we pay his bill? Anonymous

Sounds like a merry mix-up.

The dermatologist saw the backyard consultation as akin to an office visit; you saw it as a neighborly courtesy, like the no-charge professional chats he had with your wife. Why not remind him about those conversations and tell him how you feel? Then, if he remains obdurate, have your wife bill him for the services she rendered.

Less provocatively, you could acknowledge the difference between what ethics allows and what neighborliness commends. Or, as Mark 8:36 does not put it: What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain $56 and lose the right to borrow his neighbor's card table?

He had such joy and drive and pleasure in his work, and an engagement in the world. It never felt like working with a legend, it felt like working with a colleague. A greater fortune for me was not working on Death of a Salesman, but working on his last play Finishing the Picture. He treated them exactly the same. They were two plays where he couldn't wait to hear the laughter and applause of the audience. I feel a bit like I've lost my compass [with his passing]. His sense of the world and sense of what is right with the world was great.

He is to me one of the giants. He, along with Williams and O'Neill, created the serious American play in America. They were fortunate enough to do it at a time when the culture appreciated them on Broadway.

I think of as children of Miller - Tony Kushner, David Mamet and August Wilson. I take those three names off the top of my head as playwrights who stand on the shoulders of Arthur Miller.

I think for us in the theatre, it's not just Arthur Miller's art. It's the way Arthur Miller lived his life in the world. He defines liberal in the absolute best sense of that word. This is a man who saw the Depression, World War II, the Holocaust, the Cold War, the fall of Communism. All these events were grist for his mill. And he always wrote about these things with a moral sense. He lived the way he wrote.

The Coca-Cola Co., the world's biggest soft drink maker, said Monday it will begin selling Diet Coke sweetened with sugar substitute Splenda in the spring.

Diet Coke with Splenda will have a distinct label with the name of the sweetener on it as well as a yellow streak. Coca-Cola will continue to sell traditional Diet Coke, which is flavored with aspartame, separately

THE PRESIDENT: Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised.

Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

Okay, better? I'll keep working on it.

A deterrent?

The letter "End death penalty" (Jan. 26 Reader Views) asked us to consider life in prison without the possibility of parole as an alternative to the death penalty, which the letter writer suggested did not protect Kansans from capital murderers; in fact, the writer said, the death penalty makes us "an accomplice to murder."

I would remind opponents of the death penalty that the punishment must be seen as a deterrent for it to be effective. The state of Kansas has not executed anyone since the 1965 hangings of escaped Fort Hood soldiers George Ronald York and James Douglas Latham. If those who have been convicted of capital murder in the 40 years since sit on death row awaiting execution, does it seem to anyone rational that we truly intend to execute them? If you told your children that as soon as they did something wrong, the punishment would come swiftly, and then forced them to wait decades until punishment, would they believe that you actually intend to discipline them?

Allow the punishment to fit the crime. And if the person convicted is sentenced to the ultimate fate, allow them to die in a much more dignified manner than those whose lives they took.
AARON VIERTHALER Andover

When the time came to computerize her small firm, she took her own wise counsel — and in spite of conventional wisdom, chose Mac.

The firm’s IT guru, Michael Sloper, says, “of the 50 iMac computers we own, we have never had one fail. The best part about using Mac in this practice is the lack of viruses. To us, viruses are a small nuisance instead of the possibly crippling disease faced by firms that run Windows. I couldn’t imagine having to spend all my time chasing viruses around.”

Our users go between a wired and wireless network and they don’t have to do anything — it just works. The iBook knows to use the wired network when plugged in, and the wireless network when not plugged in.”