The Caws

Every now and then, my evening walk to the train station is punctuated with the banshee shriek and thunder of urban fireworks. The first time I heard them, my head tucked instinctively while I scanned the summer sky. In the east, I saw weak tails of light and color spilling over U.S. Route 1. I continued walking, eventually losing sight of the spectacle behind some buildings. After settling into my train seat, I cellphoned my colleagues at the television station.

“I dunno,” they said.
“I didn’t notice,” they said.
“It’s prob’ly just gunfire or something,” they said.

In late Autumn, while the dubious display sputtered and screamed and popped somewhere in the city, I called a friend who lives a half mile away.

“Yeah, I’ve heard them,” she said. “I thought they were fireworks at the baseball stadium.”

“But,” I may have mentioned, “the stadium is in the opposite direction.”
“And,” I might have said, “it’s only five o’clock, too early for a game.”
“Besides,” I think I opined, “they don’t look so great. Surely they’re not for large audiences who clamor for excitement.”

Somewhere in there, a wise person stated that the fireworks were used to clear the birds out of the nearby cemetery.

Tonight, bathed by the rockets’ red glare, I ran for cover while skirting along the cemetery wall. When I arrived at the train platform, I found three huddling police officers. I asked them.

“Yeah, they’re for the birds,” they said.
“Somebody’s got permission,” they said.
“One night, someone called in ‘shots fired,’” they laughed.
“They come from that building,” they said.

I identified the building for them. It was the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which, I had suspected for some time, was the source of the display. But who really has permission? And from whom? And what’s wrong with a few hundred crows hanging out in a historic cemetery?

I looked up, and there they were. Hundreds of crows were flowing from the grave like black smoke at a plane crash site. And now I could hear them. At first, the volume was alarming. But soon, they were high overhead, and by the time I entered the train car, their calls were deadened by the silence of strangers.

G = Bg + (mes)s

Christmas...a time for family, love, loud cursing and shattered ornaments. For the second time in as many decades, our fully decorated tree came crashing to the floor.

This time, we were out when it happened. Last decade, it happened while we slept. We think it has something to do with an oft-discussed physics problem. It goes like this: if gravity is such a weak force (it takes a whole planet just to pull an autumn leaf from a tree to the ground), why do we need it at all?

Watching the Speech

The President is spinning his con on television again. I notice his suit. It's nice, isn't it? It's got a sheen. What's with that? Is that...is it made of kevlar? Now why would he need to wear a suit made of kevlar? Well, we're zooming out now. He's about finished. Thank Heaven he didn't need the kevlar suit to protect him on live television. I wouldn't want to see that.
Anyway, bridges are unprotected. This scares the bejeezus out of me. You know "they" are planning to drive "their" engines of destruction onto ten or twenty bridges and set them off simultaneously. What are we doing about this? Illegal wiretapping? Please tell me we've got detection gear trained on every vehicle approaching our vulnerable arteries.

Date with Wife last night. Syriana. Nothing I haven't already imagined, pretty well acted, written, directed. What are we do to about all of this?

On the job

Yes, I’m sure the FAMs acted appropriately. And it’s encouraging to know that they’re on our planes. However...

…the plane was on the ground. And the guy had run off the plane. The passengers were safe. The FAMs had done their job as far as that goes. Mr. Alpizar was on the jetway. Don’t those things have steel habitrail doors that come crashing down on both ends to trap miscreants? Aren’t you all living in a world like the one in my head?

FREE SCHAPELLE pic

Last week, Singapore executed an Australian drug smuggler...and, in case you're wondering, it was not Schapelle Corby (pictured), the 27 year old who claims that nine pounds of marijuana was planted in her surfboard bag (don't you need special lights for that?). Anyway, she'll be home from cell No.7 at Bali's Kerobokan prison in time for Christmas 2020.

As for the unfortunate executionee, Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, was, horribly, hanged. In 2002, Nguyen was caught at Changi Airport with 396 grams (14 ounces) of pure heroin. He claimed he was working for a Sydney drug syndicate to help his twin brother Khoa, a former addict, pay A$30,000 ($22,000) in debts.

Debt sucks.