Wrong hat . . .

I love magic. Not the dark, hexing curses, cast you into hellish eternal darkness pin in the voo-doo doll kind of magic. I like sleight of hand. Legerdemain. Prestidigitation.

When I was young, and even now that I am not, I loved watching Uncle Johnny do magic tricks. He made thimbles and coins disappear and move and re-appear in unsuspecting ears or shoot through bodies with no pain and leaving no scars. Playing cards would migrate mysteriously through the deck at his mystical direction. I could not figure it out even while looking right at him.

I know now that much of what Uncle Johnny does is sleight of hand. It doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the tricks at all. In fact, I am even more amazed. Uncle Johnny uses his big hands and an artistic ability to divert attention to make people like me believe we see something that never really happened. Maybe he'll do some tricks for us sometime. It is really cool.

One of the ironies of the magic tricks is that Uncle Johnny constantly says, "now watch carefully." His eyes would be fixed intently on the object of the trick. He would be pointing at an open palm with an authoritative index finger. I would do what he said. My eyes locked on the focus of his gaze, ignoring everything else going on in the room as I tried to catch him and figure out the trick.

As it turns out, Uncle Johnny did that on purpose. He made me look where the trick wasn't. The important stuff was happening in the other hand most of the time. But I never saw it. I was always looking in the wrong place. Where Uncle Johnny was subtly telling and showing me I should look.

It is not enough to watch carefully.

You gotta look where the important stuff is happening. The real stuff. Not the tricks.

But it is hard these days.

Republicans are pointing at Harry Reid's words about Barack Obama with moral outrage and demanding his resignation in the name of racial harmony and equality.

Now watch carefully, because in the other hand Harry Reid has one of the best and longest records for promoting civil rights in the U. S. Congress, most of which was opposed by Republicans.

Republicans, led by head cheerleader Dick the Rifleman Cheney, point at President Obama's deliberate manner and lack of macho swagger and suggest he does not understand the gravity of the threat of terrorism.

Now watch carefully, because in the other hand the Obama administration has taken more aggressive and broad action than his predecessor, militarily, diplomatically, and in matters of intelligence gathering and domestic security, most of which the Republicans have questioned and criticized, at least publicly.

Republicans are pointing at the Democrats failure to deliver on President Obama's promises regarding sweeping health care reform.

Now watch carefully, because in the other hand Republicans voted against all health care reform, even some that they themselves had previously proposed, and have offered no alternatives, all the while saying that they want true reform.

Republicans point to the huge stimulus bill and says that the resulting deficit will destroy our economy.

Now watch carefully, because the Republicans hold their share of the stimulus money clutched tightly in the other hand.

The Republicans, while not nearly so noble, are like my favorite moose, Bullwinkle.

Despite what they would like you to think, and no matter how often they yell "Presto," there is nothing up their sleeves.

In fact, they go Bullwinkle one better.

Empty suits.

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Double dog Dareus . . .

It is a cold day and the driveway is too icy to negotiate. I suppose it is. I haven't been out to check. I,like many others, have been recovering from, reveling in, and reflecting on Alabama's championship won last night.

The individual leader in yards-gained-after contact. What an achievement to be at the top of that stat list. So I thought it was a bit unfair that it went unheralded when Mark Ingram slipped into second place last night, bumped by a team-mate.

Tide defensive lineman Marcell Dareus deftly cradled the ball after his interception at the 28 yard line. He was hit once (admittedly by the freshman quarterback), throwing a stiff arm that made Tim Tebow look like a peanut leaguer, and pirouetted his 296 pounds like a jumbo sized Baryshnikov. Then he sprinted, not at all like Usain Bolt, into the end-zone. Average of about twenty yards after contact. And his sprint to the end zone virtually ran out the clock in the first half. When you add in the offensive yards he took away from the Longhorns with his smashing, debilitating tackle of Texas QB McCoy, he probably should get credit for a couple of hundred more yards after that contact.

What a fun season it has been. RTR.

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My apologies in advance. Too much coffee.

A couple of random thoughts that found a vacancy in my brain today. I suppose that is one good thing about not being too thoughtful. Plenty of space to work with.

Our nation has desparately needed something we can agree upon. Something upon which a consensus can be built.

It is cold.

There it is. In all my running around today I said a hundred times, or if the person walking toward me beat me to it he or she said, a hundred times, "Cold enough for you?" or "Can you believe how cold it is?" or perhaps just "BRRRRRR." There was no debate, no conditions, no wrangling for position. Just simple acceptance. All the polling numbers show that everyone thinks it is cold enough. Even the push polls that had questions like "if cold weather improves sexual performance, would you think it is too cold," or "if Democrats would lose control of Congress because it is too cold, would you still say it is too cold?" still resulted in a huge percent of people agreeing that is too cold. There were a small number of those identifying themselves as Republicans that changed their opinion when responding to the push poll. Both questions.


Now that we know we can achieve such unity, perhaps we can build upon it, maybe about something we can actually do something about.

The second random thought, in no particular order of significance or importance, is that we need creative thinking. Get out of the box. I have devised a method of problem solving. I call it the intersect solution.

We face countless problems in our society, in our country, in the world.

For instance, affordable health care. One of the things that is consistently suggested as a cause of high medical costs is the cost of tests, particularly that of diagnostic imaging, such as mammograms, x-rays, and a variety of scans.

Another controversial issue in the news this week is airport security. The ACLU and those of us who are lying about our weight and how we go to the gym regularly are raising objections to the enhanced screening that has been proposed. Specifically, there are new machines that see through your clothes all the way to the body and, I suppose, below the surface of the skin. The resulting image is your naked body, exposed to TSA officials and inevitably you-tube and facebook.

So what about just turning up the power on those machines occasionally, and when you travel by air, you get a complimentary copy of the body scans to take to your doctor on the next visit? Timely travel and medical diagnostics. And an amazing new profile picture. All for the price of an airline ticket.

Voila. The intersect solution. The book will be in stores soon.

Because in this cold weather you might need a good read. And if the snow comes to the south you may not be able to make it to the store and you might run out of toilet paper. Bad book? No toilet paper?

Voila. Another problem solved by the intersect solution.

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Be alert. We need more lerts . . .

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

I drive a car that runs like a golf-cart at low speeds. All electric. It gets really impressive gas mileage. And it is quiet. Too quiet. A few days ago as I pulled up to my carport the phone vibrated. I stopped the car, answered the phone, and finished my conversation. Then I opened the car door, ready to scurry into the house. I had one foot on the ground and was half-way out of the car when it began to roll forward into the too-full-of-junk carport. Only nanoseconds before the thick plastic bumper connected with the side of the mini-fridge sitting on the simulated cedar round picnic table with a missing leg temporarily replaced by two terra cotta flower pots, I dove back into the cockpit, stomped on the brake, and averted an unnatural disaster. Then I actually turned the car off. It had been so quiet when I got off the phone I thought it wasn't running.

Because the car runs so quietly at low speeds, the manufacturer felt compelled to provide an annoying safety feature. When in reverse gear a warning beep begins to remind the driver and his annoyed passengers that the car is on and moving backward. As you go backward it beeps and beeps and beeps until the backward motion ceases.

The annoying alert is a great idea. It is so easy to go backward without being aware.

Peter King, a U. S. Congressman, is advocating the legalization of ethnic profiling as a legitimate means of law enforcement, and specifically, investigation of terrorist activity. This position is obviously in response to the failed terrorist bomb attempt in Detroit on Christmas Day.

Maybe I make too much of this. Maybe it is just a matter of semantics. Truly, most investigations result in a profile of the perpetrator. The more specific the profile, the better. That is an acceptable, in fact, desirable law enforcement technique. For instance, if a witness says the perpetrator was a tall, white male with a scar on his face who was last seen driving a van from the Full Gospel Double Portion Second Baptist Church of the Revival, then the investigators should round up all male Baptists over six feet tall and hold them for questioning right? Maybe throw in those women who are particularly sturdy just to cover all the bases.

Silly? You are right. Because in the above scenario the investigation is being done after a crime has been committed and a perpetrator has been seen by witnesses. The ethnic profiling being proposed by King and others would occur before any crime has been committed. It would assume that a certain ethnic or religious group, even those who are U. S. citizens, would no longer be presumed to be innocent. No big deal if you are innocent, right?

Congressman King, and millions of others, perhaps many of you who read this blog, believe that if one is of a particular religion, nationality, or ethnic group, he or she should automatically be under suspicion and watched carefully, perhaps even prevented from travelling from place to place, before any crime has been committed.

As I write this I am struck how reasonable this position sounds. Surely it is far more desirable to investigate terrorist activity in an effort to prevent attacks rather than explain them after the fact.

That sounds reasonable because it is. Law enforcement and intelligence communities should investigate the environments, conditions and associations which evidence leads them toward.

What is not reasonable is assuming that a terrorist is going to be of a certain age, sex, nationality, skin color, or professed religion. Such an assumption could unnecessarily take an investigation down a dead-end, wasting precious time.

Or more importantly, it is unreasonable to assume that a person of a particular religion, ethnicity, or nationality is guilty, or more likely to be guilty, based simply on those factors. Such an assumption takes us backward. Backward to Germany or Scottsboro in the 1930's. Backward to thousands of times and places where fear has spawned prejudice and bigotry and threatened freedom and civilization far more than the original object of the fear. Backward quietly, with no alarms or alerts. Or if there are any, they are drowned out by the background melodies of national anthems and onward christian soldiers.

So be alert.

Be an alert.

Even if it seems to annoy. It's better than running backward into the trashcan and spilling it out again. It is tiresome haveing to pick up the same old trash over and over.

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