I’ve been really busy lately; besides the fact my web work (my freelance “day job”) has picked back up, I’ve got three recording projects going on. Two of them even have deadlines, so something might possibly get finished!

Anyway, here are a few things I need to post before they get too moldy:

• If you haven’t read this op-ed written by seven NCOs fighting in Iraq, you need to. It’s much more complex and believable than the simplistic “the Surge is working” fantasy being spoon-fed to us by all the Powers That Be. (I bite my tongue and will not start a rant on spineless Democrats. Will not. Will not. For now.)
  “In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, ‘We need security, not free food.’”
  
  
• The amazing Les Paul is still going strong. Besides guitar work fine enough to earn his place in pop music history (not to mention the Gibson guitar bearing his name), the man invented multi-track recording, as well as reverb and echo techniques without which modern popular music is simply unimaginable. At age 92, he still plays a regular gig in a Manhattan nightclub. He was the subject of a recent American Masters program on PBS.
  I remember a cartoon from a while back: it looked like The Jetsons’ world, spaceship cars and a giant nightclub floating in a starry sky, with a marquee reading “Tonight: George Burns.” Well, George didn’t quite make it, but I wouldn’t bet against Les Paul.
  
  
• If you’ve been reading here for a while, you’re probably aware that I’m more than a little skeptical that all the hoop-jumping we have to do to actually get on an airplane these days makes us one whit safer. I’m happy to say I’m not the only one who feels so. While searching for something else the other days, I ran into a post by one Becky Akers called The Cheesy Blockheads of the TSA. It turns out she has found a rich vein of humor to be mined in the TSA. A few other titles: Brace Yourself for a Hoot, Bombers Can’t Banter, The TSA in Atlanta, A Belt and Suspenders Kind of Agency, The Case of the Killer Cosmetics, and Sippy Cups as WMDs. There are more, but I’m sure you can find them if you’re interested.
  
  
• Finally, speaking of humorous female writers, Terry Castle’s Travels With My Mom is priceless. I won’t even try to describe it. Via James Wolcott’s blog at Vanity Fair—I frequently have no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s almost always entertaining as he does it.

Hope you all are surviving this beastly heat. Actually Kansas City got a break yesterday from weeks of heat indexes above 100°, but the temp is going back up again. The weird thing is how the light has changed to that of autumn. Looking outside in the afternoon, if it wasn’t for the air conditioner running you’d almost swear the leaves will be changing any day now.