Twenty-eight thousand dollars finefor each dancing Hitler

What more can be said about a parade float featuring dead Jews.

American Ingenuity

Why is the bathroom door in this Carlsbad hotel room notched in such an interesting manner? Is it from some damage that hasn't yet been fixed? Is it a fancy embellishment to the otherwise boring straight line of the door edge?

No!

Apparently the door is just a smidgen too close to the toilet when it opens in to the bathroom... so the smart folks in the hotel facilities office cut a little section out to allow it to swing fully open.



Now that's ingenuity!

Parental Examination

A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), author

There should be a test that people need to pass before becoming parents. Let's review a few of the basics before the final exam:

























You can find more answers for your examine from this book:




A tip of the hat to Monkeys for Helping, which has even more parental tips.

A Female President?

But even the President of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked
Bob Dylan, singer, songwriter

Now that Hillary seems to be a popular candidate will we see more of this? You may have seen these photos a few years ago, but I missed them and thought it was worth a chuckle. Before politicians such as Rudy Giuliani or government officials like J. Edgar Hoover, there was the comedian Milton Berle. Now I introduce you to a few Photohopped presidents:

Train Kept a Rollin’

The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), author

Yesterday a majority of the day was spent on the train to San Diego to and fro. I was on the Amtrak and what a treat. The seats were comfortable, there was a plug to keep the computer charged, and stereotypical California scenery aplenty.

Because of this trip and pleasant experience, I plan to take a nice day or weekend trip to San Diego via the train in the near future. A round-trip ticket was approximately $50 from Union Station.

These photos were taken from inside the train through a rain-spotted window:

















If you look carefully you can see the reflection of the camera.

Yes We CanObama for President

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) U.S. President

I was very excited to hear about Carolyn Kennedy supporting Obama in the Sunday New York Times. What I like about him is he is not playing the typical divisive politics that we are seeing from the Clintons. The Clintons have to use these kinds of tactics because that is what the Republicans use so successfully, but if Obama can rise above it, then we have an opportunity to be hopeful that the tone at the top will change and spread through Washington, the country, and around the world.

It’s worth taking a chance on Obama for that hope.


From the opinion piece:

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.

Senator Obama has demonstrated these qualities throughout his more than two decades of public service, not just in the United States Senate but in Illinois, where he helped turn around struggling communities, taught constitutional law and was an elected state official for eight years. And Senator Obama is showing the same qualities today. He has built a movement that is changing the face of politics in this country, and he has demonstrated a special gift for inspiring young people — known for a willingness to volunteer, but an aversion to politics — to become engaged in the political process.

If I Were a Different Sort of Man,I'd Be in Heaven

My oldest daughter (eight years old) surprised me with a question today as we drove around in the rain -- a question that, if I were a different sort of man, would have had me walking on air.

"Daddy, is it true that you only have to choke the clutch when your engine is cold?"

Welcome New Readers

“I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me that trouble of liking them.”
Jane Austen (1775 – 1817), writer

Before the year ended I was caught unaware about a situation I created, innocently; see “Lesson Learned” post below. What surprised me most after the dust cleared is the sanctimonious jackals hollering for blood. I suspect they are the type of people one would see in the accompanying photo.

Initially, I thought I would not blog any more. I wondered if it was really worth it. I first removed a number of posts that related to daughter because I worried about her safety, then I took down just about everything. I thought these wackos could be dangerous. After reading the comments from the priggish lout boasting about discovering the blog and how he hated my
…vitriolic and disdainful commentary of a political nature (all of which I found myself disagreeing with, vehemently). I made a point to review it [the blog] heavily as I wanted to make sure that the attorneys received all pertinent information…

I decided that I couldn’t back down. Once I read his comments, I quickly returned the political posts (although I couldn’t find any of a vitriolic nature), especially after he provided a link to Toner Mishap.

Welcome new readers and join the many others who already enjoy the posts of Toner Mishap.

From Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

“In all the work we do, our most valuable asset can be the attitude of self-examination. It is forgivable to make mistakes, but to stand fast behind a wall of self-righteousness and make the same mistake twice is not forgivable.”
Dale E. Turner

From Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

"I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

You can read the rest of the letter at The Ethical Exhibitionist who receives a tip of the hat for posting this, or here read it at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute

Gimme Some Truth

I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon (1940-1980), singer, song writer

The whole truth, nothing but the truth; not from the Bush administration.

Our government made 935 'false statements' to its citizens in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Bush made 260 of them himself. And, the citizenry doesn't seem to care.

The right-wing nut jobs and the sanctimoniously righteous will discount the story citing the fact CNN carried it.


Tip of the hat to Chandira at Diary of a Hope Fiend.

Lesson Learned

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
H.L. Mencken, writer

I made a mistake and I faced my potential punishment with nervousness, remorsefulness, and very, very carefully so as not to make any further missteps. Not as others may have described as quiveringly, shakingly, or trembling. Meekly, maybe. I would have said soft-spoken. I certainly wasn’t going to be wrong and forceful, like so many right-wing nut jobs with flat tops and Jesus bumper stickers. Well, I guess we all think of ourselves as writers, whether writing here or in a newspaper’s comment section.

That is all I will say on the topic.

Yesterday

For us, the best time is always yesterday
Tatyana Tolstaya, author

On My Way to Court

Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.
Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), Dutch humanist

I am caught in the web...

Personal Thoughts

“Sometimes I wonder if I'm the person I was born to be, if the life I've lived really is the one I was meant to, or if it is some half life, a mutation engineered by loss, cobbled together by the will to survive."
Anderson Cooper, journalist

All day I have been thinking about my life’s occupation. Lately I have been wanting to be a reporter/writer, again. Sunday morning, I read the LATimes book review about William Vollmann and his latest book “riding “Toward Everywhere," which is an account of his adventure as a slumming hobo.” I had a week’s vacation planned when I was in my early twenties to jump trains with the managing editor of the local newspaper where I worked. We never did it. I don’t recall why, but I am truly sorry we didn't. The reviewer called Vollmann an intrepid cultural interpreter. Also, yesterday morning in the NYTimes was an article on Jimmy Breslin. It talked about his style of reporting and it named many of peers who are now dead such as Norman Mailer, Murray Kempton, George Plimpton, and Arthur Schlesinger. Saturday’s Wall Street Journal featured an opinion piece on Fredric U. Dicker, state editor for the New York Post, who doesn’t let politicians get away with their usual lies and half truths. Finally, I started reading Anderson Cooper’s “Dispatches from the Edge.”

In some respects Toner Mishap is my opinion page outlet for not following my heart, but my wallet, not that I am doing so great, but my career choices have been slightly more lucrative than being a local reporter somewhere. I still have a fantasy of working for some local newspaper in my golden years. I suspect I have too much of an independent, contrarian, cynical streak to appeal to a local readership, so you're stuck with me.

Tuesday I go to court regarding the posts about my experiences as a juror, so even blogging I get into anxiety causing situations. Writing can be a dangerous and costly occupation, if you offend someone. Breslin was beat up badly by a mafia member of the Lucchese family. On The Mark called me early at the office the other morning and highly recommended that I take down the post that wrote, which was just a quote, but he thought I was asking for trouble. I removed the post. I will use the quote again shortly I have no doubt. I have deleted another post a few months ago that had to do with the CEO of a once major mortgage company, after the newspapers reported that he collected millions of dollars in bonuses and stocks, but the company was going to lay off thousands of employees, I asked how could he sleep at night.

There is certainly a chilling effect on writing if you are not careful. For my own good, I think I will just stick to Toner Mishap and attempt not to aggravate the powerful and litigation minded, as best I can.

Life Imitates art or does art imitate life?

Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue.
Benjamin Haydon (1786-1846) artist

I just finished the bibliophile mystery "The book of Air and Shadows" by Michael Gruber and found this interesting:

...movies come first. For example, one never had a fast draw face-to-face shoot-out on the dusty Main Street in a western town. It never happened ever. A screenwriter invented it for dramatic effect. It’s the classic American trope, redemption through violence, and it comes through the movies. There were very few handguns in the real old west. They were expensive and heavy and no one but an idiot would wear them in a side holster. On a horse? When you wanted to kill someone in the old West, you waited for your chance and shot him in the back, usually with a shotgun. Now we have a zillion handguns because the movies taught us that a handgun is something a real man has to have, and people really kill each other like fictional western gunslingers. And it’s not just hugs.

Movies shape everyone’ reality, to the extent that it’s shaped by human action—foreign policy, business, sexual relationships, family dynamics, the whole nine yards. It used to be the Bible but now it’s movies. Why is there stalking? Because we know that the guy should persist and make a fool of himself until the girl admits that she loves him. Why is there date rape? Because the asshole is waiting for the moment when resistance turns to passion.

Overreaction:Political Correctness, Again

This is one of those things that just gets my goat.

Apparently an on-air Golf Channel personality (Kelly Tilghman) was talking about Tiger Woods recently and used the word "lynch" -- suggesting that in order for the other golfers to actually win now and then, they might need to gang up on Tiger and "lynch him in a back alley."

Had they said this about a white golfer, no one would have blinked. The word is a little more loaded when referring to Tiger, I suppose, because of his race and the history of violence against blacks in America. So OK, this host was insensitive. She was suspended for two weeks.

The real problem I have is what took place this week in Golfweek magazine -- the cover is shown here. A noose was used to illustrate the story about Tilghman's use of the word "lynch" -- and the editor has now been sacked over that image choice. Why? It's an appropriate, dramatic image to illustrate the content of the story -- and that's all.

Agree? Disagree?

Check out the article on Yahoo.

Bobby Fischer RIP

I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art—and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) French artist

During the summer of 1972, I really became a Rolling Stones fan with the release of "Exile on Main Street," which was the background music to all our neighborhood chess games. I played every chance I could; Bobby Fischer and his game against Boris Spassky is who I can thank for my interest in the game. With my new iMac computer, I was pleased that a chess game was included.

From the New York Times: Bobby Fischer, the iconoclastic genius who was one of the greatest chess players the world has ever seen, has died, The Associated Press reported Friday. He died on Thursday in a hospital in Reykjavik, Iceland, his spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, said. He was 64. No cause of death was given.

The world championship match against the elegant Spassky was an unforgettable spectacle, the cold war fought with chess pieces in an out-of-the-way place. Mr. Fischer’s characteristic petulance, loutishness and sense of outrage were the stuff of front page headlines all over the globe. Incensed by the conditions under which the match was to be played — he was particularly offended by the whirr of television cameras in the hall — he lost the first game, then forfeited the second and insisted the remaining games be played in an isolated room the size of a janitor’s closet. There, he roared back from what, in chess, is a sizable deficit, trouncing Mr. Spassky, 12 ½to 8 ½. (In championship chess, a victory is worth one point, a draw a half-point for each player.) In all, Mr. Fischer won 7 games, lost 3 (including the forfeit) and drew 11.

Through July and most of August, the attention of the world was riveted on the Spassky-Fischer match. Americans who didn’t know a Ruy Lopez from a Poisoned Pawn watched a hitherto unknown commentator named Shelby Lyman explain each game on public television. All this was Mr. Fischer’s doing. Bobby Fischer the rebel, the enfant-terrible, the tantrum-thrower, the uncompromising savage of the chess board, had captured the imagination of the world. Because of him, for the first time in the United States the game, with all its arcana and intimations of nerdiness, was cool. And when it was over, he walked away with a winner’s purse of $250,000, a sum that staggered anyone ever associated with chess. When Mr. Spassky won the world championship, his prize was $1,400.

Mr. Fischer, the most powerful American player in history, had renounced his American citizenship and moved to Iceland in 2005.

Political Theme Song

Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), novelist

I purchased my first iTune song "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" by Randy Newman below (just the song not the video), which is apropos for this political season:

Unattended Babies, Be Warned!

Ouch! Seen in a public bathroom. Yes, at Legoland.

The Chilling Effect Continues

Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.
Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), Dutch humanist

That is all I want to say for now.