The Circle of Life According to Wylie Allman Greer (2 1/2 Years Old)

1) Lions Eat grass
2) Tigers Eat crackers
3) Horses like water
4) Cows like milk
5) Hippo and Rhino eat nuts and juice
6) Giraffes eat reefs
7) Chicken eat popcorn
8) Fish eat catfish
9) Snakes eat snake food
10) Lizards eat bugs
11) Frogs eat bugs
12) Bugs eat smaller bugs
13) We eat chicken

I do believe that I have a case of what the medical community refers to as Influenza. Down here in the hood, we call it Dem Flewbugz, Y’all.

The symptoms: Snotty head; coughing up lung biscuits; sore neck and back; stomach cramps; headache; blurry vision; fever chills; bad hair; bad breath; zitty chin; bad BO; decreased will to live; increased sense of whininess; no ambition; no friends; no happiness; no tenderness; nobody loves me but my momma, and she could be jiving too.

Don’t tell me to go home from work, because I have frittered away all of my sick leave for the year on lesser illnesses. I do have 16 hours of vacation time, but I am saving it so I can take off work the 26th and 27th to be with family for the holidays.

How sick am I? All the Fatboy has had to eat this morning is a can of sprite, which I drank very, very slowly. That is extraordinary! As I am sure that you are aware, sprite does not contain caffeine, alcohol, or pork. Those are the three criteria for something to be ingested by me.

The War on Drugs is a Failure

Federal drug laws should be repealed and currently illegal drugs should be regulated by the states

Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.
It left a trail of graft and slime,
It don’t prohibit worth a dime,
It’s filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we’re for it.
Franklin P. Adams (1931)

“There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.” P.J. O’Rourke (1993)


The federal government’s war on drugs is a misguided failure. Currently there are 400,000 non-violent drug offenders in jails and prisons. More than sixty percent of the federal prison population consists of drug offenders. An estimated 1.2 million suspected drug offenders are arrested each year, most for simple possession or petty sale. The government spends 19 Billion dollars every year to enforce its drug laws, more than the Commerce, Interior, and State Departments put together. In spite of all of this, according to the US department of Health and Human Services, 26.7 million Americans used an illicit drug last month. Every year from 1975-1995, at least 82 percent of high school seniors said that they found marijuana “fairly easy” or “very easy” to obtain.

Not only are drugs still widely available, evidence shows that we could be making the problem worse. In 1985, 5.5 percent of American high school seniors used marijuana daily, but in the Netherlands (where marijuana is legal) the rate was only 0.5 percent. Indeed, a national survey found that only 1.7 percent of people who currently do not use drugs said that they would try drugs if they were made legal.

Even police officers agree that we are mismanaging the problem. In 2001 David Klinger, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri and a former officer in the Los Angeles Police Department, stated that as he worked as an officer he, “started to view most people involved with drugs either as broken souls who made self-destructive choices or as harmless people who indulged their appetites in moderation—not as crooks who needed to be punished.” Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh says that while he was working on the movie Traffic, he made a point of interviewing police officers about their work. Soderbergh posed one question to each cop: "If your daughter had a drug problem, would you involve the police department?" Without exception, the answer was "no."

Prohibition of drugs has created the exact same problems that prohibition of alcohol created in the early twentieth century. Before alcohol prohibition, safe and regulated alcohol was readily available from reputable sources. After Prohibition, alcohol was still readily available, but in unregulated condition and from disreputable sources only. This spawned violence and crime. The murder rate rose with the start of Prohibition, remained high throughout Prohibition, and declined for eleven consecutive years after the repeal of Prohibition.

Likewise, before drug prohibition opium, morphine, and cocaine were legally and cheaply available without a prescription at drugstores and grocery stores and through the mail. (Marijuana, of course, is an opportunistic native weed and will grow up through the cracks in a concrete parking lot if left unattended.) Cutting off these safe and reputable sources has forced these substances to be controlled by criminals, but made them only marginally less available. Most, if not all, “drug-related murders” are the result of drugs being forced into the black market and would likely never have happened without prohibition.

Also it is important to note that the federal drug laws are constitutionally dubious. The Tenth Amendment states that any powers not given to the federal government in the constitution are reserved for the states. Alcohol was only prohibited federally by an amendment to the constitution. However, Congress never asked the American people for additional constitutional powers to declare a war on drug users. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 is considered by many to be the most far-reaching federal statute ever passed. It asserts federal jurisdiction over every drug offense in the United States, no matter how small or local its scope.

Further evidence of the federal government’s slapdash attitude about the constitution can be found in their retort to statewide medical marijuana initiatives. A recent survey found that more than 70 percent of U.S. cancer specialists said they would prescribe marijuana if it were legal; nearly half said they had urged patients to break the law to acquire the drug. The British Medical Association reported that nearly 70 percent of its members believe marijuana should be available for therapeutic use. In 1996 voters in California and Arizona responded to this by authorizing physicians to recommend the use of marijuana to seriously ill patients residing in those states. The Clinton administration quickly announced that any physician recommending or prescribing medical marijuana and patients who use marijuana under state law would be prosecuted in federal courts.

The bureaucracy that enforces drug laws is a perfect example of self-perpetuating big government. When drug use goes up, taxpayers are told that the government needs more money to fight against the rising tide of abuse. When drug use goes down, taxpayers are told that it would be a big mistake to cut spending just when progress is being made. Whatever the news, spending levels must be increased. The history of the drug war plainly shows us that spending levels have little to do with drug use, and likely has an adverse effect.

The best solution for the liberty-thieving problem that is the U.S. war on drugs was spelled out by the libertarian think-tank, the Cato Institute, in their Handbook for the 107th Congress. I would lessen its impact if I tried to restate it, so I will close with the same paragraphs that they did:

Congress should repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, shut down the Drug Enforcement Administration, and let the states set their own policies with regard to currently illegal drugs. They would do well to treat marijuana, cocaine, and heroin the way most states now treat alcohol: It should be legal for licensed stores to sell such drugs to adults. Drug sales to children, like alcohol sales to children, should remain illegal. Driving under the influence of drugs should be illegal.

With such a policy, Congress would acknowledge that our current drug policies have failed. It would restore authority to the states, as the Founders envisioned. It would save taxpayers’ money. And it would give the states the power to experiment with drug policies and perhaps devise more successful rules.

The war on drugs has lasted longer than Prohibition, longer than the Vietnam War. But there is no light at the end of this tunnel. Prohibition has failed, again, and should be repealed, again.

Did you hear that the new Secretary of the Treasury gave up his membership in Augusta National because of the recent non-scandal concerning female club members? This is what Jay Nordlinger said on NRO's the Corner about it, and he could not be more right.

"Anyone who would give up a membership in Augusta National to be Treasury secretary is absurd. In fact, anyone who would do so is too misguided to hold high public office."

Time out from conversations with the Naked Cowby to bring you the beautiful baby Amanda Grace Yielding

Born: 12-02-2002
Birth Time: 6:10 pm
@ St. Vincent Doctors Hospital
Weight: 6 lbs 7 oz
Length: 19 in
She is as pretty as her momma.
God bless her.

Welcome back Naked Cowboy!

Thanks, Fatnathan.

Man you are welcome on my blog anytime. Can I ask you a few questions?

Certainly, Shoot! I mean, draw!

Why do the chicks love you so much?

Well Fatboy, for a variety of reasons. First there is my Euro-Jesus hair. Then there is my voice of pure testosterone. Also, you might not realize this, but Naked Cowboy works up quite a sweat singing ballads of the western prairie and Slow Ride for the sweet ladies of New York City, and the Naked Cowboy’s sweat sends out pheromones that are an aphrodisiac on a par with pure rhinoceros horn.

Wow that is great! So when you get the ladies all turned on, do you take them back to the old Cowboy shack for a little private performance?

Don’t be ridiculous, Fatso. I’ve got the Naked Cowgirl waiting for me back home. When the ladies get all turned on and out of control, I just encourage them to turn their love into money and place it in the Naked Cowboy Boots. That is how I make my living.

Is it a good living?

I do alright. I certainly ain’t complaining. I am able to work in New York and make ends meet without having to rustle up money with my naked six gun.

You mean to tell me that you are packing heat?

Why do you think that the Naked Cowboy keeps his tighty whities on?

Modesty, I assumed

Don’t be ridiculous. Want to hear some Blue Oyster Cult?

Nah, How about some Marty Robbins?

Who the hell is that? Some kind of queer cowboy poseur?

Let’s change the subject.

No problem. Let's talk about why you are ripping off Tony Pierce.

Let's talk about how he has no link for me, even though I have him linked right at the top of my blog!

Let's go get some beer with this stinky boot money of mine and get tore up!

Let's not. Goodbye Convertible Cowboy/Star Guy

Later Lunchbox

Ray-Ray just admitted that the Mimes dream was not his at all . . .

I just got the following email from my old buddy Ray-Ray "Dr. Earl" Baser. Grad school must be more stressful than I had imagined.

I had a dream last night; it was about mimes. I saw myself surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of mimes. All of them pointing and laughing at me. Mocking me. Pretending to sip tea. With their smug grins and painted faces. WHO ARE THEY TO LAUGH AT ME? Suddenly it started to rain knives from the sky. The mimes got pierced and maimed. Blood was everywhere. One of the mimes caught a knife in the side of his head. He screamed and cried, but all the other mimes were being impaled and couldn't help him. He looked at me and exploded. It seemed the hell I was in was turning into heaven. After it stopped raining, only pieces of the mimes remained. They could no longer torment me. I was free from hell. Or so I thought. I don't remember what happened next, but suddenly that bitch was there. I hate her. Then I was at a park, with more mimes. This time they were juggling and balancing chainsaws. I ran over to one of the mimes and took his chainsaw, saying "Oh, it seems I have your chainsaw. How do you like that, bitch?" The mime shrugged, so I chopped off his legs. Then I woke up.

Mimes are worthless. If they'd get real jobs, we wouldn't be harassed by them everywhere we go. I'm sure there are mimes in hell. Mimes and all things shitty. What the hell is wrong with people when mimes can still make a living?? Don't they understand that mimes are evil and should be shot? Greedy bastards, always stealing my candy and throwing rocks at me. Throw rocks at me will you? I'll burn your house down. HAHAH. I'll laugh and laugh like you did so many times before. And then it will be my turn to not invite you to my birthday party. How do you like that, asshole? HAHAH.

Mimes torture me with their existence

Look out because I will rock you. Stand still and I will rock you. Move and I will rock you. I am the Naked Cowboy and I am here for one reason, heavy freaking rock. Heavy Metal. Hard rock. Acid Rock. Naked Cowboy R-O-C-K! My guitar is like a laser beam. My hair is like the golden locks of Euro-Jesus. My voice is like a beautiful kitten that has been thrown into a food processor. That’s right, a food processor. That is how rock-and-freaking-roll I am. I will throw your kittens into the blender. I will steal your girlfriend. I will outrun your fastest car. I will break your momma’s heart. But I will not mess with your boyfriend if you are gay, because I ain’t like that. The Naked Cowboy is NOT gay. Get it. I am rock and roll in the Aerosmith way, not the Boy George way. I am rock and roll in the Foghat way, not the Pet Shop Boys way. I will rock you up one side and down the other. Do you see this guitar? Don’t look too closely because it is a lethal weapon. Do you see these boots? They are for stomping weaklings like you. Do you see this hat? Is it too much, because my ex girlfriend said that it made my nose look big. I like it. Do you? When you see the Naked Cowboy coming, better step aside. Hide the booze, cause I will drink it. Hide the drugs, cause I will take them. Hide the women, cause they will be mine. Don’t worry about hiding the dice, because the Naked Cowboy does not gamble. I don’t gamble because I am a sure bet. Put your money on me, because I am going places. The Naked Cowboy is going places fast. Right now, I am going inside, because it is as cold as a mother out here! But first, do you have some spare change or something, because the Naked Cowboy is hungry and the naked cattledriving business just ain't what it used to be.

This is Canadia writer David Warren's take on Christian/Muslim relations and attitudes. (Via David Frum)

“It is a commonplace today that Christians in the West have lost their faith, whereas Muslims in the East are still believers; that what we now have is a confrontation between decadent post-Christian secularists, and sincere if possibly misguided Muslims. The first part of this proposition often seems true enough, especially of contemporary Europe. But I really think the second proposition is false. I think one of the reasons Islamism has erupted with such gale force in the Muslim world is indeed the very loss of faith, and the fear that comes from this. ...

“It is in moments of doubt that one often makes the wildest, most desperate, professions of faith; and in a way Osama bin Laden is doing this within his own person, and calling to fellow Muslims who are experiencing the same dark night of the soul. It is as if they were confronting not us, but instead Allah, and saying, ‘Show us! Prove to us you still exist; because, if you don't, we will give up on you entirely.’

“At the edges of that Muslim world today, there is much, chiefly anti-Christian violence: in the Philippines, Indonesia, in Nigeria, Sudan, and across Africa, in the Trans-Caucasus and elsewhere. But part of the reason for this, I have come to realize, is the very success of the new Christian missionaries. They are coming today not from Europe and America as they once did, but from churches now indigenous to Africa and Asia. For in the grand statistical overview of the present day world, Islam is expanding by its birth-rate alone, it is not making many converts; whereas, paradoxically, it is Christianity that is now spreading like wildfires from many different centres in the Third World, both by birth-rate and by conversion.”

Just when I thought that my job could not be any more insufferable, there has been a sewer leak on the floor above my office and now the air is rife with the nose hair singeing bouquet of poopoo. The walls must be flowing with crap. My eyes are watering and my chest burns. Yuck! To top it all off, time appears to be standing still.

Wow man, you people really know how to dress a soldier here in India. You really know how to dress a soldier and you know something about curry too. Yep, curry is one of your specialties here on the old subcontinent. I love curry. Do you put the saffron in it? Because that saffron stuff is kind of expensive, but it is yummy. I know that you grow the saffron. I also know about you growing the poppies, huh. Yeah you grow the poppies in a clever and covert manner here in India. That is the spice that Columbus was looking for, saffron and curry and smack. Also you got that chi tea stuff. Man, I love that chi tea. It is so tasty with the nutmeg and the cinnamon and the sugar and the milk. Of course, I guess that you don’t use cow’s milk here in the subcontinent. You know, since you think cows are your dead granny or something. You probably use goat milk or something weird like that, huh. Oh well, I still love that chi tea. Chi tea and Gandhi. Man that Gandhi sure was a sharp cat. He really knew what was up. He could have used a cheeseburger or something though, because he was so thin. Oh, wait, no cheeseburgers. Maybe a goatcheeseburger. Or some curry! Anyway, that Gandhi guy was really something and I liked him the Searching for Bobby Fisherman movie also. That was a great move, with Joe Montana and that kid who really knew how to play checkers. Oh yeah, Larry Fishbone was in Bobby Fisherman also. Man he is a good actor. I really liked him in that Matriarch movie with Bill or Ted. I forget which one it was. You have to respect Bill or Ted though, because they went from being in movies with George Carlin to being a real dramatist. At least one of them did. Bill or Ted. The other was never really seen from again, was he. But The Matriarch had cool special effects like they do on Monday Night Football. But I guess you don’t get Monday Night Football here on the old subcontinent. Or if you did it would just have soccer, because I heard that you call soccer football and football something else. Man, what a strange place. I’m going back home!

Dave Barry has ruined christmas for everyone.

Speaking of the wise men: How many of you readers, when you hear the words ''We three kings of Orient are,'' even if you are attending a somber worship service, find that your brain automatically responds with, ''smoking on a rubber cigar''? Me, too. It's like at weddings, when the organist plays ''Here comes the bride,'' and everybody's brain, including the groom's, automatically responds: ``Big, fat and wide.''

This morning Dan reminded me of a limerick I wrote when I quit my job as a cook at Smitty's Bar to go to work for a tile contractor. I had been hoping to get a job with a law firm as a title researcher, but it did not work out.

There once was a man named Nathan
Who worked for a company ran by Satan
He had hoped to with haste
Move into real estate
Instead he became a tile mason

The place that he worked was called Smitty's
The scent of this dive was truly shitty
People go there to drink
They pick up the stink
Then say, "Smitty's shitty is truly a pity"

Now Nate won't have to stink
And it didn't drive him to drink
But methinks looking back
He would rather have been a hack
But you know heinsight's 20/20

He'll miss the artwork that hung on the wall
And the pay per view days of football
But what he'll miss the most
Later on when'st he'll boast
Will most certainly be the pinball

The Guts of the Delta

Two Aliens Observe Pine Bluff, Arkansas

About three years ago I went on a late February fishing trip with my friend Ray. The weather was cold and a little snowy, and we never did get around to much fishing. Instead we ended up driving across Arkansas, East to West, and back again by a different route. Along the way, we fell into this strange routine: Whenever we would come to a small town, the driver would call out to the navigator, “Which shit-hole is this?” And the map person would say, “Flippin,” or “Berryville,” or “Calico Rock.” But it really did not matter because they were all the same to us.

About a year later I was driving through downtown Malvern with my best buddy Daniel when I realized that they do all look the same. If you were dropped by helicopter on Main Street of any Arkansas town with a population between five and thirty-five thousand, you would have to look at the names of the stores (Bank of Malvern) to know where you were. This will not do. There must be a reason that people continue to inhabit these places. These shit-holes have a soul and I am determined to find it. I must know the stories that set apart each of these otherwise insignificant little villages.

For me, the obvious place to start was Pine Bluff. I have an uncle that lives near there, in White Hall. He is a chemical engineer at the Pine Bluff Arsenal where he disposes of chemical munitions. My dad commuted from Little Rock to work at the paper mill in Pine Bluff when I was a toddler. Also, like Madonna in high school, there is a reputation that I would love to find out the truth about. I have often heard that the city of Pine Bluff has more liquor stores and pawnshops per capita than any city in the US. I did some research and was not able to find any empirical study to back up this claim, but I did discover that it has twice been chosen the worst place to live in the US by national publications. It has an astonishingly high murder rate. The Arkansas Times’ Bob McCord wrote in 1999:

Remember that for two years in a row, 1997 and 1998, Pine Bluff had the highest murder rate in the nation -- 33.8 per thousand population. The national average is 6.3. The prosecuting attorney in Pine Bluff says his town has more guns than people. The New York Times reported that if New York City had the same percentage as Pine Bluff, it would have had 2,500 murders in 1998 rather than 629.

Also Pine Bluff has the reputation as being a polluted, industrial place. A river port and rail hub. A major polluter of the Arkansas River. A generally smelly town.

It was with this information that I picked up Daniel in my old green pickup truck and hit the road. It was Veterans Day. I had my notebook and camera. Dan brought his keen observational sense. We would find the heart of Pine Bluff. We would know its essence. We would need a shower when we got home.

A few days after we returned, I conducted interviews with my Dad and Uncle Mark about what goes on in this fabled city. I probably should have called them before I left, because Mark told me about a Country and Western museum in the convention center where a talking bust of Johnny Cash greets you. That would have made Daniel’s day!

---

Dan and I started south on I-530 and we quickly realized that a sterile, common freeway was no way to prepare our minds for the economic hub of Southeast Arkansas. I took the Dixon Road exit and we headed for the old highway. I pulled over in the parking lot of an old barn that had been converted into a tavern and turned the wheel over to Dan. I would need to have my notebook handy as I observed the city of Little Rock giving way to the flat delta and then reemerging as urban Pine Bluff.

In the city of Sweet Home, Dixon Road meets what is traditionally known as “The Dollarway Road.” This road dates from the very beginning of the automobile, and was once the longest continually paved stretch of road in the United Stated. Now it is just called Arkansas Highway 365. We were immediately confronted with shotgun houses, old rusted cars on blocks, dilapidated shacks, and barns that were even worse. We passed a man on a riding lawn mower, headed to the store. “Wow!” Dan remarked, “It is like we have been suddenly magically transported to Southeast Arkansas.”

The shotgun house is historically the home of choice (or more likely necessity) for delta farm hands. Long and narrow, with the rooms in succession to each other, it is like a mobile home that does not move. We came to a place on the road where two of the bleak houses stood. Abandoned for years, they had caved in roofs and their yards were waist deep in weeds. In front of them on the road, a government sign read, “2002 Volunteer community of the year.” I said to Dan, “I guess the volunteers haven’ t made it to those houses yet.”

“Nah,” he replied, “The sign was probably stolen from another town.”

---

One of the last towns that you pass through on the Dollarway Road before entering the Pine Bluff area is called Dexter. Everyone in Dexter has an RV. Many people lived in mobile homes and still had an RV in the front yard. Other lots had only an RV with full time residents. There was no citizen in the town of Dexter, Arkansas that did not have immediate access to an RV. Dan and I speculated as to the explanation. Was there an RV factory nearby? This was pretty close to the Arsenal; perhaps the RVs were in case of emergency evacuation. Later on, Uncle Mark explained to me that this was a Gypsy community. (He suggested I use the word, Traveler. Sounds too Tolkeinien for my taste.) The citizens of Dexter load up in their RVs every April and travel the country in search of work. One or two stay behind to guard the property. They usually return around September. Dad said that the guys out at the paper mill liked to date the Gypsy girls because they put out.

---

Although Dan and I saw no sign proclaiming us to be in the city of Pine Bluff, a store advertised as “Pawnshop: Guns and Cars” made us think that we might be close. Daniel and I are both fat guys. We were feeling a bit eleven 0’clockish. We decided that the first order of business would be to find a great local restaurant. After trying the doors of several places and finding them closed, we stumbled on our Mecca: Kribb’s Bar-B-Que #2.

The smell of hickory-smoked meat was thick. Kribbs was tiny inside; there were only two full sized booths and one two-person booth. There was a scarred butcher-block counter where you placed your order. Typical 1970’s paneling covered the walls. A video camera pointing at the register was the only thing in the store of any more recent vintage. On the counter were six huge softball trophies and a big yellow poster advertising a blues concert at the County Line Club. A large black lady took our order, then turned and went to the kitchen to make our food. After a few minutes she peeked at us through a small pass-through window and said, “Honeys, y‘all can have a seat.” Dan and I sat in the two-person booth next to a couple of gumball machines with twenty-five cent temporary tattoos or gold rings.

A steady stream of locals came in the door to order food. Predominately black, working men in dirty clothes with dirtier boots would walk up to the counter and yell out to the kitchen, “Two jumbo pork. Two Fry. Two cuppa tea,” then turn around and walk back outside. In a few minutes they would walk back in and Miss Kribbs would place their order in the pass-through windowsill, walk all the way around from the kitchen, and ring up their food. Finally she came around the corner with baskets for Dan and me. It was worth the wait. In each basket was a large chipped pork sandwich, dripping with sauce and slaw, and wrapped in wax paper. Next to that was a small paper envelope that was overflowing with short, thick, hot, greasy, home fries. The tea was very sweet, and that was the only way it was offered. There were no nutra-sweet packets on the table. When we took a bite of our sandwiches, an equal amount of its contents would spill out of the back into the basket. Paper napkins were no match for this fare. The fries appeared to be hand cut from fresh potatoes and ketchup was an insult to them. Dan and I spoke not a word. The food was quickly disposed of. A deep breath, a sigh, finally Daniel broke the silence.

“You know what would be really good?”

“What’s that Dan?”

“To take two of those sandwiches and stack them on top of each other with about a half inch of pepper-jack cheese in-between. We could call it the Fatboy Special!”

---

Our lunch was going to have to digest for a little while. Dan and I decided to drive around and get a feel for the town. We traveled the area between downtown and the suburban mall and then back again. We saw the headquarters of Simmons First bank. Ten stories high, it was by far the tallest building in Pine Bluff. Also downtown was a big and tall men’s store called “Pinky and Johnny’s.” We saw the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, one of the few schools in the nation where Caucasian students are eligible for a minority scholarship. There was a strip club with a sizeable Monday lunch crowd. We saw a beauty salon called, “A Touch of Mink” that was next to what appeared to be a downtown grain silo. The silo was the second tallest building in town. We drove past Bad Bob’s Country Nightclub, a place my uncle described as “Take the first shot, and the next two bullets are on the house.” We saw dozens of liquor stores, pawnshops, churches, beauty salons, and florists.

We worked our way out to the edge of town and got on the interstate bypass to circle back downtown. Dubbed a “Scenic Byway,” I-530 offers a panoramic, three-part view: Pine Bluff, muddy cotton fields, and a murky marsh. While driving sixty miles-per-hour on the bypass, a deer hunter on a four-wheeler passed on the access road. Blaze orange vest flapping in the breeze; he was going faster than we were.

---

Back downtown; with the brick in our stomachs now partially digested, it was time to park the car. We needed to stroll the city’s fair boulevards. Admire its public structures. Read its historical markers. Dan saw an army surplus store.

Dan parallel parked the truck at the foot of Main Street in front of what appeared to be the skeleton of an ancient building. There were long wooden posts and metal pipes tied together with hemp rope and pointing off in all angles. I stepped out of the truck (and into a large spider web, geez . . .) and realized that this was some sort of public sculpture. A very, very bad public sculpture. A sculpture entitled “Bridge to the Future.” It looked more like a giant pre-teen’s aborted attempt at a clubhouse from the scrap materials out behind his dad’s barn. Just as I was thinking to myself, “If this is the future, I ain’t going.” I heard a big squishy splat and noticed that the fountain next to the sculpture had a clogged drain and was regularly overflowing across the sidewalk and down the street. Later on my uncle told me that this sculpture was a major source of discontent among the city residents. Apparently tens of thousands of tax dollars were spent on its commission.

I started across the street (damn, another spider web, yuck!) to read another historical marker. Now I know that Jefferson County was named for Thomas Jefferson in 1829. Right underneath the sign was the rotting carcass of a dead pigeon. Whatever killed it was certainly not a person, because as I looked up and down the sidewalks of Main Street Pine Bluff, I saw not a soul. It was Monday afternoon about 1:00 and no one was around. Perhaps that is why spiders flourish in the downtown. Just as I was about to complain about the third spider web I had walked through in fifteen minutes, Dan said, “Boy you sure can tell this is harvest time in the delta, with all of this cotton in the air.” Oh yeah. I should have thought of that.

Just across Highway 65 from downtown is picturesque Lake Pine Bluff. Now, this being a holiday, I had noticed many people out fishing since we had gotten to town. There were people all along the banks of the Arkansas River and its backwaters. Beautiful Lake Pine Bluff, with its public fishing piers and paved boat ramps, was totally uninhabited. I remembered to ask my uncle about this and he told me a fascinating tale that gets to the essence of the Pine Bluff attitude.

There once was a factory in Pine Bluff that made transformers. The process by which they manufactured transformers in those days created a highly toxic waste known as PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls.) Not having anything else to do with their PCBs, they illegally and covertly dumped them into Lake Pine Bluff. By the time the public found out about this, the company was out of business and the fish in this popular lake were found to contain dangerous levels of PCBs. The lake had to be closed to the public. Unfortunately the only way to clean up PCB contamination in a lake is to drain it, dredge the bottom, and refill it. This is hugely expensive and you still have to dispose of the contaminated earth that is dredged up. The city decided it would be prudent to drain the lake and have the soil tested again to make sure that it was contaminated. Still showing as contaminated, they had it tested again, and again, and again. Lake Pine Bluff was tested over and over by every available private company and government agency until finally one guy looked at a sample and said, “Eh, it’s probably OK.” The lake was immediately filled back up, and restocked. A big ceremony was held in which the mayor ate the first fish caught.

---

Pine Bluff’s most notorious calling card is its signature smell. Although the smell has recently been sweetened by the addition of a Tyson’s chicken preparation plant, its sulphuric essence has always been the International Paper mill. This would be the last stop on our Pine Bluff pilgrimage.

Located just outside of town on 5200 acres along the Arkansas River, the first thing we glimpsed was belching steam from towering chimneys. As you get closer you see the gargantuan lumberyard. An entire forest of trees stacked about twenty feet high in long rows as far as the eye can see.

I remember the first time I drove through Pine Bluff with my family when I was a small child. Of course, my natural response was to say, “Dad, what is that smell?” My father considers himself a closet chemist and loved the opportunity to give his children a science lesson. He adjusted himself in the drivers seat, turned down the radio, and rubbed his chin.

“Nathan that there is the paper mill; where they make milk cartons. You see, at the mill they take trees and strip off their bark. Then they burn the bark to generate the electricity that powers the mill. Then the trees are sent to the chipper and chopped up into itty-bitty pieces. Next those pieces are sent to this big pot they call the ‘digester’ where they’re mixed with the same sort of chemicals that you have in your stomach to digest your dinner. After the chips sit in the digester and cook for a while, they uncap that mother and it lets off an enormous poot!”

Mmmm, Pine Bluff.

These past two weeks have been horrendously busy. They have changed my duties at work, so that I am now spending the day going around to people’s desk and fixing their computers. Also I have been traveling one day a week. Last week I went to an office three hours west of Little Rock. This week I went to an office three hours west of Little Rock. Every day when I get home from work, I have to go to class. When I get home from class, I eat dinner and then play with the boy for a while and then get him put to bed. That means that I sit in leisure for the first time at about 9:30 every day, if I don’t have homework. Several nights last week I had to work on stuff until midnight or later, then go to bed and do it all over the next day.

So I want to write to you people, but I just don’t have time. Please be patient with me. About next Tuesday or Wednesday I will post a 3000-word piece that I have been working on. That should hold you over for a while.

God Bless.

Where the hck has Nathaniel been? Is Taco Bell having an all you can eat buffet?

No, my job has changed drasticly over the last week. Instead of sitting at a desk answering the phone when it rings I have been actually going out and laying my hands on computers and healing them. Also, I have had much writing to do for school. I want to write for you people. I love you! I just can't right now.

See you next week.

This picture was on iwon.com today. It is a fine example of the phenomenon that my dad (a Baptist preacher) refers to as "The Cross and the Cleavage."

Symptoms that you have a blogging problem:

1. You notice that your toddler goes number two every time that you are in a particular place and think, “Gee, I really need to write about this.”
   
2. You consider a story about James Lileks’ daughter consistently crapping her pants in the same department store to be a heartbreaking work of staggering literary genius.
   
3. You brag about your website to a co-worker or a college instructor or classmate, but are ashamed to tell them the URL because it is fatnathan.blogspot.com.
   
4. You feel it is an important personal responsibility to read every word of every single post in NRO’s The Corner.
   
5. You think that people who post to Slashdot are hoplessly uncool, but people who post to Metafilter are hip!
   
6. You consider the invention of Blogger to be Mankind’s crowning achievement, but would never spend the money to upgrade to Blogger Pro.
   
7. You feel you have the right to throw a huge fit when your free site hosting service or free comment hosting service is down, but would never consider paying to upgrade to something more stable.
   
8. You think that anything you find on the internet is public domain and take pride in stealing photos and code from other websites; because that shows that you have the html savvy to find the code and steal it.
   
9. You consider an online “If I were a ____ I would be:” quiz to carry informed psychological authority.
   
10. Tony Pierce links your blog in a prominent place on the busblog and you think to yourself, “Now I can die happy.”
    
11. Tony Pierce takes the link to your blog down after a month and your daily visitors go from 100 to 20 again. This makes you suicidal.
    
12. You consider yourself a personal failure if you don’t put something new and original on your blog every single day, regardless of the personal circumstances that keep you from posting.
    
13. You refresh your site every fifteen minutes to see if anyone has commented.
    
14. You do not understand why all of your family and all of your friends don't read your blog every day, and you can't figure out why they don't each have a blog of their own.
    
15. For a class project, you write Bloginstructions and instead of printing a hard copy for your instructor, you email her a link.
    
16. You are a Libertarian

Please add your own experiences in the comments.

If I were a founding father, I would be:

Which Founding Father Are You?