Clinton, Spitzer, Sanford, Edwards, Madoff and now apparently McNair.  And of course one could name many others.

I'm not talking about men. I'm talking about wives of those men who didn't seem to have any idea what their husband was doing outside the marriage.  I don't understand it.  One common thread is that all of these women live very affluent and privileged lives.  But we all know friends or family who don't live at that level and have gone through similar things.

In fact I'm not entirely sure I believe that they didn't know what was going on.  Self-protection, perhaps.  Or even apathy. To my knowledge they are all educated women and presumably intelligent. 

And yes, I agree that a lot of men are pigs and would jump the bones of any woman who even remotely interact with them.  Unfortunately it's in our genes (or other parts of our body).  But not all men are like that just as not all women are like the above list.  And one has to remember that there is an agreeable female for every cheating male.

If I had to guess I don't think the women's apparent ignorance has anything to do with intelligence.  I think it's about trusting.  And deception by the men.   And it's about the nature of marriage in this day and age.  In nearly every home I know both the husband and wife work.  Both are extremely busy and it's hard to maintain the intimacy that was once shared, especially if there are children.   And that can make it hard for honesty and trust to be maintained.   At the same time it's human nature for everyone to keep a little piece of themselves to themselves. 

All of which means the relationship between a man and a woman can be very complicated. 

At least that's something I do understand.

July 1st always reminds me of Lewis Grizzard's comment about living in Chicago:  "they only have two seasons, winter and July".  If he had been from the Volunteer State he would have said that Tennessee has two seasons as well.  Humid and winter.  

Anyway, here's five things I think:

1.  No offense to the Jackson family but whatever services Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton could possibly provide to them in their grief is beyond my comprehension.

2.  Is is just me or do we seem to be rapidly becoming a socialistic state?  I think we now own General Motors and Chrysler for the most part and I don't know how many banks we own majority interest.  Now I hear news that the government is taking a look at the Canadian public health care system.  I truly think we have to change our health care system but this scares me.  The government is notoriously inefficient at most things and we seem to be putting more things in its charge. 

3.  When things happen like what has happened with the South Carolina governor do you think other spouses who have gone through a similar thing listen to the news and read about it and then discuss it among themselves?  If they're smart I think not.  Opening old wounds, etc.

4.  The church that demonstrates at soldier's funerals is the most despicable thing I've seen in a long, long time.  But I believe that any response to something like that only feeds the idiocy.  And that's all I have to say about that.

5.  For the last several years I've wondered in this blog what has happened to the heroes in this country.  They seem to be disappearing rapidly and no one seems to be stepping up to take their place.  Well, I found a hero.  Go read this about Colonel Kenneth Reusser.  I am in awe of this man.  Semper Fi.

Wow.  Two entertainment heavyweights in the same day.  It was a sad day in Tinseltown.

I can't say that I was ever a big fan of either.  I do have a couple of Jackson songs on my shuffle.  I think one is Dirty Diana and I'm not sure of the other.  He was clearly a huge talent but there was, as my grandmother used to say, something that wasn't quite right.  Whatever it was seemed to be as big as his talent and he just became stranger and stranger over the years.  His appearance was just bizarre.  And his thoughts on sleeping with children other than his own were criminal.  I think if he had not been so famous and talented he would have been put away for child molestation.  But I certainly can put his musical talent up with the likes of Elvis. And it's odd how these people seem to always die young.

I never really got caught up in the Farrah phenomenon.  Her poster came out in 1976 and I was 28 at the time so she was in my age group.  I certainly found her attractive and sexy but not any more so than her counterparts on Charlie's Angels.  I sort of favored Kate Jackson at the same although I think Jaclyn Smith has held her beauty better over the years.  But there was something about Farrah that I liked and I found her beauty more attractive as she aged.  That's not easy to do.  And she handled her disease with dignity.  In retrospect she was sexy and classy at the same time.  Not many women can do both but she pulled it off with ease.

I found this an interesting read Sunday morning.

While I'm glad the reporter is safe, I was struck by something else. The Times article had this sentence about midway through:

Say what? 

There's nothing wrong with that.  In fact I think it was smart.  But I find it very interesting that the New York Times deemed it OK not to report the story.  If I remember correctly The Times is the same newspaper that published the Pentagon Papers, the NSA terrorist eavesdropping program and the Abu Ghraib prison photos among other questionable national security "scoops".  Apparently I wasn't the only one who was struck by that fact.  

Full disclosure:  I read The Times every Sunday morning online.  But I think they're being hypocritical to publish national secrets, etc while they don't publish news about their own employees.  That's a double standard that I don't think they can justify.  Of course they don't have to either.  They're the media.

Long time East Tennessee Brushy Mountain prison has shut down.

I believe that at one time it was the only maximum security prison in the state and for that reason Brushy Mountain fascinated me as a kid.  Although I never saw it in person It seemed to me to be a dark and scary place.  I can remember many local trials in which the convict was sent there.

Brushy Mountain was famous for holding Martin Luther King's killer James Earl Ray, who escaped from the prison in the late seventies.  That had some particular significance for me too.  One of the guys that escaped with him was a high-school classmate of mine.  All of them were captured four days later but it made for some nervous times for East Tennesseans. 

I noticed that the News-Sentinel is running a poll for what its future use should be.  I like the idea of it being made into a museum or tourist attraction.  I would definitely visit it for that reason.  I totally enjoyed touring Alcatraz a few years ago.

I'm in one of my cranky moods today.  To wit, five things that really annoy me:

1.  Celebrities who spout off about their political views.  Do they really think that their political opinion is important because they're an actor,  television personality or musician?  Take a look at Bono.  Good cause but a self-indulgent prick.  In the unlikely event that I watch Larry King or Oprah, I couldn't care less about their guest's political views.  I'm interested in them as a person or in whatever occupation they have or how they accomplished what they have.  If I wanted to know someone's political views I could just as easily listen to the person manning the drive through at Burger King.  Really, there isn't any difference.

2.  Overpaid CEOs.  In this time period of American capitalism that's every CEO.  They get too much credit and money when things go well for their company and not enough blame when things don't.  Yes, the buck stops with them decision-wise but it shouldn't compensation wise.  There's not one CEO in the country worth more than ten times their highest paid hourly worker.  None.  Unfortunately the real culprits in overpaying CEOs are the boards of directors.  They scratch his back and he scratches theirs.  The good-old boy network runs American business.  Chrysler's CEO is the fomer CEO of Home Depot whose BOD sent him packing but with an estimated $200 million dollar payout for his incovenience.  If anyone wants me to leave I'll do it for a lot less than that.

3.  Television news.  There's no in-between with these guys.  Everything they report is overdone in one direction or another.  Swine flu?  Depending on the day of the week we're all going to die or the government is closing schools and restricting travel unnecessarily.  I think what's missing in television news can be summed up in one word:  objectivity.

4.  Absentee parents.  This can be either father or mother but most often seems to be the former.  Yes, relationships are difficult at best and intolerable at worst but if a child is involved the equation changes in favor of the child.  Live up to your responsiblity for your off-spring.  Respect the role you are supposed to play.  Be a man.  Or woman.

5.  Lobbyists.  They control Congress who control us.  That's back asswards.  They are supposed to work for us.  We're funding the government, not the lobbyists.  What's wrong with this picture?  This situation has to be the only one our founding fathers didn't anticipate.  They planned everything else damn well.

That's it for the day.  Now I'm mad as hell.     

There are some things that I just don't understand.

One of those is the current flap over the comments made by Miss California in the Miss USA pageant.  Columnists, bloggers, TV hosts, MSNBC (imagine that) among others are calling her bigoted for her remarks. 

Can someone explain to me why their reaction to her comments are apparently OK but her stating her beliefs isn't OK?  Doesn't freedom of speech apply to her just as it does to them?  It just seems to me they're being intolerant because they think she's being intolerant.  I understand that the pundits have a right to say what they want about her but doesn't she have the same right? 

She didn't give a politically expedient answer just to win, she didn't call names, she didn't express hatred, she was polite and respectful in her answer and she apparently spoke her beliefs.  The left wingers thus far seem to be tending toward the opposite direction.  If anything they seem to be causing more attention to her beliefs than she would have gotten otherwise.  The fact is that polls show the majority of Americans are against gay marriage and that means the pundits are in a minority.  Is that why they're making such as issue of a beauty contestant stating her beliefs?

I just don't understand.

1. Here's a really interesting interactive geographic map  depicting job losses in the last two years.  Actually it's not so much interesting as scary.

2.  I'm not sure why but stories and pictures like this fascinate me.  I remember seeing a similar article with pictures about Chernobyl on the net years after the accident.  I went back to that article several times.

3. I believe today is the tenth anniversary of Columbine.  I remember thinking then the same thing this columnist did:  where were the parents?  The answer is even scarier than the actual event--they were there all along, at least according to the columnist and an author .

4.  Speaking of an anniversary, how about the upcoming 40th anniversary of the moon landing?  It turns out that the White House had planned for the worst.

5.  I finally got the nerve to look at my 401k a few weeks ago.  I was staggered a bit but it wasn't quite as bad as I expected because I had diversified it a couple of years ago.  Then last night 60 Minutes did this story. The hits just keep on coming.  Now I'm going to try to find out just what fees they're hitting me with.

1.  Some people just take things far too seriously.  Lighten up, guy and just enjoy life.  Or at the very least the view.

2.  And sometimes things happen that defy explanation.  This lady had to be totally bat s--t crazy or incredibly stupid.

3.  I can't believe it's taken six years to put this guy in jail.  There's only one reason he shouldn't be there and that's for him to be in a mental institution instead.  I have no doubt that our justice system is the best in the world but cases like this one make me think that it's favored too heavily toward the defendant's rights.  And the fact he's a celebrity contributed to the delay too.  You would have to be an idiot to believe he didn't commit this murder.

4.  How about those Navy SEALS?  That's some amazing shooting--from one boat to another on the high seas and killing three pirates simultaneously from cover.  There is no doubt in my mind they saved the captain's life.  And for the pirates?   You live by the sword and you die by the sword. 

I know a former Navy SEAL and they're a breed apart.  There's a reason that three out of four who attempt to become one fail. 

5.  Have you ever noticed that politicians can't seem to stop running for office?  It makes you wonder what's so attractive about the job.  Oh, wait a second.  I know what's so attractive.

Big Brother has come and gone. 

All is well.

More at 11.