in the movie "The Big Chill" during the funeral scene when the preacher asked, "Are not the satisfactions of being a good man among our common men great enough to sustain us any more? Where did Alex's hope go? Maybe that is the small resolution we can take from here today. To try to regain that hope that must have eluded Alex."

I think about my grandparents and their generation - 2 of my grandparents are alive and in their 90's now. And for them, the satisfactions of being a good man were and are enough to sustain them. I watched that sense of satisfaction start slipping away in my parents generation, and now here in mine, it seems to be utterly gone.

I also think that the America my grandparents were young in has changed in that the world, the country, the place we have created is no longer supportive of such satisfactions. Yet, that is a chicken and egg scenario - which shift came first, the structural or the individual. Regardless, we have created a place that is very hard to walk through with grace.

Perhaps the "how" can be answered better once America re-establishes an identity for itself, for it is difficult to be a part of something greater than yourself when you have no idea what that something is. In other words, when we are trying to define the new American Dream, I think what needs to happen first is the definition of American.

When I was a teenager, I watched a man in a pet store picking at this huge macaw (sp?) - would not quit even after the manager asked him to. Well, the guy had a trach flap that flapped when he breathed... gawd... I can barely type anymore... hee hee... and anyway, the bird finally had it and grabbed that flap and shook the guy around by it. The manager had a hell of a time trying to get the bird to let loose of the guy, I just dropped to the floor in hysterics, oh lord, people were glaring at me. I know this sounds horrible, but there it is.

I always admired the fellow who wrote or still writes the cooking column in Gray's Sporting Journal, now he had a wonderful sense of humor.

JFK & LBJ came into the office in January, I was born a few weeks before the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis. I actually remember when JFK was shot, I remember my parents freaking out. With the events in those years, including the messes in Viet Nam, there was quite a lot to be freaked out about.

the situation with Huzaifa Parhat down in Gitmo? Are those guys ever going to see the light of day again?

Another question on my mind is whether or not anything is being done to assist them with what's left of their lives when they are released. They are going to need somewhere to live, a job, clothes, etc. Does anyone know?

Here is a link that gets into some of the detail about uranium enrichment.

www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf28.html

Historically they have been dirty messes, but what is being discussed for Wilmington is 3rd generation technology, which hopefully has truly addressed that issue.

What makes me nervous about this technology is how complicated and complex it is - also, that they employ "passive safety" techniques, whatever that means, I haven't researched that yet.

If I were in the area and could get to the meeting, I believe I would have a long list of questions for these people. One question might be is whether or not the new plant will be LEED certified.

I clicked on this subject because I too thought it was about records... lp's.

Good grief.

In some, make that most, of the small rural areas I travel through, even the big name brand places are gone. The one that surprised me the most recently was a gas station that had been around forever, just gone.