Three wild ducks have taken up residence across the street.  The female is pregnant and will soon lay eggs.  Maybe she already has.  Here is a pic taken today of the ducks and my grandson Braydon.

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This is easy.  Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.  Read it and be prepared to be both revulsed and changed forever.

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I remember reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night in 1964 or 65. A voracious reader open to all the possibilities of life, I was both shocked and gladdened by Vonnegut’s writing style and the depth his prose conveyed. I had already read Ibsen and Hemingway, but soon found that Vonnegut took literature to a higher level. Vonnegut was the master of leading his reader down a path, an always entertaining path, until the reader inevitably exclaimed "Oh shit!" as the master’s words coalesced from a dim premise into a sparkling nugget of golden truth.

Yes, Kurt Vonnegut was a thoughtful person that worried about the consequences of everyday actions. He also worried about what is real and what is perceived, and reading a Vonnegut novel is often like experiencing a waking dream. This week we lost a true master. He will be missed.

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After thinking about the subject for a day or so, I’ve decided to weigh in on the Imus controversy. Here is my opinion. Freedom of speech is a right we all have as Americans. We should cherish this right. That said, we don’t have the right to blurt out anything that comes to mind. You can’t, for instance, call your wife a dirty c**t without incurring dire consequences. Your wife may love you dearly but such name calling will most certainly result in something very unpleasant, and probably divorce. No sane husband is going to ever make this remark. If he does, I guarantee it’ll never happen more than once.

Yes, we may have the right to say almost anything we want, but rational people know this right bears consequences, often dire. No one knows this self apparent fact better than long-time broadcaster Don Imus. Then why, you ask, did he do it? After thinking about his possible reasons for a day or so, I can come up with only one logical answer: he did it on purpose, knowing full well the impending consequences of his actions. In short, Imus committed employment suicide.

My conclusion begs many more unanswered questions: Why didn’t he simply tender his resignation? What prompted him to choose female African-American basketball players as his target of opportunity? Knowing the consequences of his actions, why did he bother apologizing? The spoken word is powerful. Imus has known this power for years, wielded it like a golden sword. This week, he fell on that sword and I would bet good money that even Don Imus doesn’t really know why he did it.  Eric Wilder

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