Another Saturday night and I ain't got no energy

The lyrics of this particular song are appropriate on this Saturday night.  I have a little money because I got paid, but not as much as I'm supposed to have.  That is because some asshole (assholes perhaps) managed to steal $489 from my debit card.  It's been identified as fraud and I'm promised to get a temporary credit which will become permanent as soon as the fraud acknowledgement from the processor.  This doesn't mitigate the fact that I'm pissed.

Were I to be in good health, I'd turn a portion of my considerable talents and energy to finding out who did this and hunting them down so they could be prosecuted.  I don't have the energy to pursue this, as much as I want to.  I must trust that time will heal all wounds, and eventually wound all heels.

* * *

I sat on the side of my bed this afternoon, one leg gloriously free of the work slacks I'd worn to teach and work in today.  Too tired to remove the other leg from the trousers, and unwilling to summon up the energy to do so, I just sat there.  I couldn't change the channel on the television because whoever made up the bed today had placed the remote just out of reach from any point on the bed.  Eventually I got the remove, and changed into a comfortable pair of shorts and a t-shirt. 

Again today I was forced to postpone some work, this time because of computer problems.  While I try to convince myself I'll get it all done on Monday and Wednesday (the two days I am scheduled to work in my office), in my heart I know that next Friday morning I will probably wind up knocking all of it out in one prolonged session of effort.

I haven't had a day completely free from one form of work or another since September 21st and I won't get one until Tuesday.  Fortunately for me, I have Tuesday and Friday completely free from work this coming week.  I will rest up on the first two of those days and then conquer the backlog on Friday, if I haven't finished it before then.

When it's tax season or when I'm slated to teach a class, it really doesn't matter how exhausted I am when I roll out of bed in the morning. I mentally overpower the fatigue until the day's duties are discharged.  Then I pay the price for overwriting my physical limits by feeling as I felt earlier today.  Too tired to remove a shoe.  Too tired to write film reviews or of late, write this blog.

Fortunately, there is light at the end of this tunnel that has overwhelmed me.  I will no longer have to allow my mind to write a check that my body really shouldn't be cashing.  I will rest.  I will recharge.  And most importantly, I will work harder to learn how to say "no" and mean it.

* * *

You shiver in the cold night air.  It's after two in the morning and there is little traffic passing you as you stand on the shoulder of the highway, a bright flashlight held by a cop nearly blinding you.  You are about to fail a field sobriety test and be arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.  That isn't what is really scaring you.  DUI when no one was hurt is just money.  A fine, higher insurance premiums and the stigma of having a criminal record to follow you the rest of your life.  That isn't why you're afraid.

You are afraid because you know they will be taking your fingerprints and loading them into the computer at their station.  Somewhere in the bowels of law enforcement databases, your name has a red flag next to it.  You are the subject of a request to hold, as you are suspected of having committed a federal crime.  The local cops will place a hold on you and keep you until the feds arrive to take you into their custody.  Then you will be unceremoniously whisked off to face the music for whatever federal law you stand accused of violating.

It could be tax fraud.  It could be committing a criminal civil rights violation.  Whatever it is, you're snared in the fed's web and you're stuck.  Unless the crime you stand accused of is entering the country illegally.  The courts continue to rule that the 48 hour hold requests of ICE do not meet the standard for probable cause to hold you for violating the nation's immigration law.

If you are accused of any other violation of federal law, probable cause exists to hold you until the feds can pick you up.  Why is illegal immigration different?  Because those who are the primary apologists for those who enter this country illegally have done everything in their power to turn the stigma that usually accompanies a violation of the law back on those who make decisions to enforce said law.

We can't deport all, or most, or even a good portion of the people here illegally.  Comprehensive immigration reform is a must.  But a system that has federal law enforcement (ICE) making requests to hold people long enough to take custody of them, and local law enforcement is being mandated to ignore such requests; is beyond broken.  It has failed utterly.

Our elected leadership needs to address this problem and now.

* * *

Random Ponderings:

Spray-painting a swastika on a Jewish frat at a university is a clear sign that bigotry is alive and well, or someone needs to learn what is and isn't acceptable as a prank.  Or both.

California law says if you're under 17.5 years of age, you may not drive a car with any passengers in the vehicle that are age 20 or younger.  That means that the driver of the BMW in which five teens were killed this past weekend shouldn't have had anyone in the car with him.  Then again, it looks like Bradley Morales didn't even have a drivers license at all.  He survived, but he will almost certainly wish he hadn't.  Five of his friends are dead and he may face vehicular manslaughter charges.

Should we be surprised that the nine year old son of LeBron James is already drawing notice from college basketball coaches?  No, we shouldn't.

People who are fascinated by Bruce Jenner's long hair at a concert really need to find stuff more worthy of discussion.

Raven Symone may not like labels, but that's how society identifies and groups people.  I don't want to be labeled as short, but calling me vertically challenged doesn't change my height, or the height of the average male.

There's a nurse in Harrisburg, PA who has gone above and beyond.  She's taken in a dying single mother and that mother's son into her home with her family.  I was very moved by their story.

Anyone dumb enough to try to run from Florida to Bermuda inside a plastic ball deserves whatever fate they get.

Add me to the list that doesn't care that Twin Peaks is coming back to TV.

Apparently ISIS doesn't care that one of their hostages converted to Islam before being taken captive, because he's an American they may still murder him.  Maybe we should start referring to them as MINO (Muslims In Name Only) since Islam is a religion of peace.

It really sucks that I started this on Saturday and here it is Thursday and I'm not finished.

* * *

October 9th in History:

768 – Carloman I and Charlemagne are crowned Kings of The Franks.
1238 – James I of Aragon conquers Valencia and founds the Kingdom of Valencia.
1264 – The Kingdom of Castile conquers the city of Jerez that was under Muslim occupation since 711.
1446 – The hangul alphabet is published in Korea.
1514 – Marriage of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor.
1557 – Trujillo is founded in Venezuela.
1558 – Mérida is founded in Venezuela.
1582 – Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1594 – The army of the Portuguese Empire is annihilated by the Kingdom of Kandy on Sri Lanka, bringing an end to the Campaign of Danture.
1595 – The Spanish army captures Cambrai.
1604 – Supernova 1604, the most recent supernova to be observed in the Milky Way.
1635 – Founder of Rhode Island Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he speaks out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land.
1701 – The Collegiate School of Connecticut (later renamed Yale University) is chartered in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
1708 – Peter the Great defeats the Swedes at the Battle of Lesnaya.
1740 – Dutch colonists and various slave groups begin massacring ethnic Chinese in Batavia, eventually killing 10,000 and leading to a two-year-long war throughout Java.
1760 – Seven Years' War: Russian forces occupy Berlin.
1767 – Surveying for the Mason–Dixon line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania is completed.
1771 – The Dutch merchant ship Vrouw Maria sinks near the coast of Finland.
1799 – Sinking of HMS Lutine with the loss of 240 men and a cargo worth £1,200,000.
1804 – Hobart, capital of Tasmania, is founded.
1806 – Prussia declares war on France.
1812 – War of 1812: In a naval engagement on Lake Erie, American forces capture two British ships: HMS Detroit and HMS Caledonia.
1820 – Guayaquil declares independence from Spain.
1824 – Slavery is abolished in Costa Rica.
1831 – Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first head of state of independent Greece is assassinated.
1834 – Opening of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, the first public railway on the island of Ireland.
1845 – The eminent and controversial Anglican, John Henry Newman, is received into the Roman Catholic Church.
1854 – Crimean War: The siege of Sebastopol begins.
1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Santa Rosa Island: Union troops repel a Confederate attempt to capture Fort Pickens.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Tom's Brook: Union cavalrymen in the Shenandoah Valley defeat Confederate forces at Toms Brook, Virginia.
1873 – A meeting at the U.S. Naval Academy establishes the U.S. Naval Institute.
1874 – General Postal Union is created as a result of the Treaty of Berne.
1888 – The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.
1907 – Las Cruces, New Mexico is incorporated.
1911 – An accidental bomb explosion in Hankou, Wuhan, China leads to the ultimate fall of the Qing Empire
1913 – The steamship SS Volturno catches fire in the mid-Atlantic.
1914 – World War I: Siege of Antwerp: Antwerp, Belgium falls to German troops.
1919 – Black Sox Scandal: The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series.
1934 – Regicide at Marseille: The assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and Louis Barthou, Foreign Minister of France.
1936 – Generators at Boulder Dam (later renamed to Hoover Dam) begin to generate electricity from the Colorado River and transmit it 266 miles to Los Angeles.
1940 – World War II: Battle of Britain: During a night-time air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, England is hit by a bomb.
1941 – A coup in Panama declares Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango the new president.
1942 – Statute of Westminster 1931 formalises Australian autonomy.
1942 – The last day of the October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces withdraw back across the Matanikau River after destroying most of the Imperial Japanese Army's 4th Infantry Regiment.
1945 – Parade in NYC for Fleet Admiral Nimitz and 13 USN/USMC Medal of Honor recipients
1950 – Goyang Geumjeong Cave massacre started.
1962 – Uganda becomes an independent Commonwealth realm.
1963 – In northeast Italy, over 2,000 people are killed when a large landslide behind the Vajont Dam causes a giant wave of water to overtop it.
1966 – Vietnam War: Binh Tai Massacre
1966 – Vietnam War: Diên Niên - Phước Bình massacre
1967 – A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia.
1969 – In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in for crowd control as demonstrations continue in connection with the trial of the "Chicago Eight" that began on September 24.
1970 – The Khmer Republic is proclaimed in Cambodia.
1980 – Pope John Paul II shakes hands with the Dalai Lama during a private audience in Vatican City.
1980 – Princess Caroline of Monaco divorces Philippe Junot.
1981 – Abolition of capital punishment in France.
1983 – Rangoon bombing: Attempted assassination of South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan during an official visit to Rangoon, Burma. Chun survives but the blast kills 17 of his entourage, including four cabinet ministers, and injures 17 others. Four Burmese officials also die in the blast.
1986 – The musical The Phantom of the Opera receives its first performance at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.
1989 – An official news agency in the Soviet Union reports the landing of a UFO in Voronezh.
1991 – Ecuador becomes a member of the Berne Convention.
1992 – A 13 kilogram (est.) fragment of the Peekskill meteorite lands in the driveway of the Knapp residence in Peekskill, New York, destroying the family's 1980 Chevrolet Malibu.
1995 – An Amtrak Sunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde, Arizona.
1999 – The last flight of the SR-71.
2001 – Second mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
2003 – Mission: Space opens to the public in the Epcot park at Walt Disney World. The opening ceremony included several astronauts from all eras of space exploration.
2006 – North Korea allegedly tests its first nuclear device.
2009 – First lunar impact of the Centaur and LCROSS spacecrafts as part of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program.
2012 – Members of the Pakistani Taliban made a failed attempt to assassinate Malala Yousafzai on her way home from school.

Famous Folk Born on October 9th:

Francis Wayland Parker
Charles Rudolph Walgreen
Charlie Faust (his story is a great old time baseball tale)
Rube Marquard (another great character from baseball)
Aimee Semple McPherson
Walter O'Malley
Horst Wessel
Peter Mansfield
John Lennon
Joe Pepitone
Brian Lamb
John Entwistle
Jackson Browne
Sharon Osbourne
Tony Shalhoub
Scott Bakula
John O'Hurley
Steve Ovett
Michael Pare
Sheila Kelley (had a big crush on her during her L. A. Law days)
Guillermo del Toro
Stacey Donovan
Eddie Guerrero
Steve McQueen (the English film director and visual artist)
Savannah
Erin Daniels
Sean Lennon
Darius Miles