Pleasant thots...

...Have you ever tried to pin down the first conscious thots of your whole life?
I have always had an interest in this, maybe because I have a major rememberable happening when I was 4 years and 11 months old: We moved from 87th and Sangamon in Chicago, to South Haven MI. And I can remember plenty
of stuff before we moved to MI.

Maybe the earliest was a party of some kind, at the home of my mother's brother and his family. They moved into the flat above us and 87th in the spring of 1937, but before that lived on Wallace street, a few blocks away.

It was dark out, so makes me think it was wintertime, and my aunt Grace's birthday was February 28, and she seemed to be the star attraction. She was playing the piano, and I stood next to the piano bench watching. Pretty soon she looked down and asked: "Do you want to sit up here w/ me, Arnie?" I'm sure my little head was bobbing up and down like crazy, so she stopped playing long enough to reach down, pick me up, and sit me down right next to her, and went back to playing.

Later in the same scene my mother introduced me to my cousin Larry, 15 month younger than me, sitting on the floor w/ a big smile on his face. I'm sure I had met him before, but at that age I guess you need a little reminding once in a while. And since he must have been 18 months old at the time, where else would he be sitting but on the floor? He was about the best friend ever had, became a Chicago Policeman, died 20 years ago of a heart attack on his way to his job as Sis Daley's body guard (aka go-fer.) I'm pretty sure he didn't die w/ a smile on his face, but I'm even more sure he had one five minutes before.

As best I can determine, working w/ bits and pieces (there are only two other people still alive, my older sister and cousin) that must have been Sunday, February 28, 1937, when I was 2 years, 9 months old.

Not so pleasant thots...

A 640 word article 'Senators Hesitant to Use Torture, Even to Find al Qaeda Bomb' at CNSNews.com Friday, October 05, 2007 contains two statement by US Senators which make me wonder: Who dresses these people in the
morning - they sound too stupid to do it unaided:

"Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that compromising on torture would be 'to the detriment ... to the safety and security of our troops.'"

Apparently littledick (what Mark Levin on the radio calls him) thinks if we refuse to torture, when our soldiers are captured by terrorists they will not torture them because "The US says they don't." No, Dicky, they'll just cut off their heads - no torture there."

But then Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) supposedly a big time conservative Repub, goes Dicky one better: She suggested she might be open to a technique "that is not harmful to the person's health."

No comment.

But the all time dumbest statement was by a CNN news anchorette, Carol Lin 2200 ET Sunday nite, November 6, 2005, at the height of the Paris immigrant riots:

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN SUNDAY NIGHT. Terror in the middle of the night....

Meanwhile, overseas, France is engulfed in an 11th straight night of riots with no end in sight....

Carol LIN: ...[I]t's been 11 days since two African- American teenagers were killed, electrocuted during a police chase, which prompted all of this.....

The original is about a dozen scrolls down at this site (or do a find on this page France):

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/06/snn.01.html

PS Found this on OpinionJournal.com/BestoftheWeb

PPS For all you folks in the sales dodge out there, remember: People buy from you for their reasons, not yours.