Chocolate milk is a lovely luxury.

Spring is having a hard time making its entrance this year. Oh the flowers are peeking out on some azaelas and the dogwoods are coming out. The Bradford pears have come and gone, but the cold lingers. Neither the dog or I like it.

A blast from the past. Zbigniew Brzezinski, now that's a name to hang on a kid isn't it. No worry about naming your kid Zbigniew and having the name show up on the top 10 list by the first grade. Anyway, the former advisor to the Carter administration had an article in the Washington Post yesterday. Quotes below:

"In brief, the war has become a national tragedy, an economic catastrophe, a regional disaster and a global boomerang for the United States. Ending it is thus in the highest national interest.

". . . if the American people had been asked more than five years ago whether Bush's obsession with the removal of Saddam Hussein was worth 4,000 American lives, almost 30,000 wounded Americans and several trillion dollars -- not to mention the less precisely measurable damage to the United States' world-wide credibility, legitimacy and moral standing -- the answer almost certainly would have been an unequivocal "no."

Thanks Zbigniew. I agree.

Some how it is always cooler in Peachtree City than Atlanta. We are south of town, shouldn't it be warmer. You have to go to Kentucky to find temperatures as cold. Yesterday we saw a storm cloud of pine pollen as we were driving home. It looked like a white out in a snow storm except it was a yellow-green out. Very weird. Fortunately, lots of rain followed in just a few minutes.

The great and wonderful baseball draft was held yesterday morning. It is a fun time when a bunch of guys get together to joust with their baseball knowledge, pick a team of 30 players (we choose national league only), to represent them for the year. Carter and Steve had computer programs that compiled projected stats for our choices and when I consulted both of them at the end they said I was doomed to the lower division with my poor choices. I was saddened. However as I looked over things for awhile, I dispute their computers. Fie, Fie on you computer rankings. My guys will compete. Pitching seems to be the weak point for my guys, but to tell you the truth, pitching is pretty unpredictable and I usually end up with a remarkable number of changes in this area and so does everyone else. You can usually pick up an average of one pitcher a day dropped from the Dugouts alone.

It's time for Clinton to withdraw from the democratic race.

Clinton came under sniper fire, risking her life to visit Bosnia as a diplomat. Funny the little girl handing her flowers in the video and Sinbad the comedian didn't seem to hear the bullets. It is official. Hillary's campaign has jumped the shark. And don't think those were off the cuff remarks. She made those comments as part of a prepared speech.

And McCain thinks the Iranians are training Al Qaida? He says this three times before Lieberman leans in to say that Sunnis and Shias don't really get along that well. Yeah. He's commander in chief material, exactly like George W. Bush.

The Republican venter said today, "If you trust Hillary, you obviously have nothing to lose." Hey, after 8 years of W hardly any of us have anything left to lose.

Bill Kristol publishes in the New York Times that Obama was present to hear one of Rev. Wright's objectional sermons, and tells us which one. Only problem is Obama was in Miami at the time. Will there be a retraction? You let me know when you see that.

In my March Madness basketball bracket, 12 of my 16 picks for the sweet sixteen made it. Hey I picked Davidson over Georgetown. Cool huh? 7 of my great 8 are still alive and 4 of my final 4 are still in there. Woo hoo!

Don't be lulled to sleep, thinking the lame duck president is not doing anything. He and his people plan to do as much damage as possible to the government that might hurt their cronies, or try to reign in their imperial presidency. They are busy as the congress has gone to Easter recess. The Boston Globe reports that by executive order the preznit wiped out a civilian oversight agency of the country's espionage, a board that was established during the Ford administration in the wake of Watergate.

The Washington Post reports an unprecedented move as the president intervened to lower clean air standards.

"The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA. EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.
"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone."

As for the country's economy, the preznit could only say "We live in uncertain times." By the way, we spent 700 million dollars in Iraq yesterday and will spend another 700 million today. Wonder why the dollar is plunging and the price of gas and food skyrocketing. No end in sight.

In the same "economic" speech, I heard the preznit fumble around trying to remember King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, unable to remember he just said, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, the king of Saudi. He holds hands with the guy when he sees him and can't remember his name. The preznit is an idiot. And yes I may be a half-wit, but that's better than no wit at all.

Got to walk the dog.

Governor Sonny, why do you keep cutting the funds to education? Oh, I get it. If you can starve public education to death then you can claim that it is a failure and go to private systems only. We will get you and your kind out of office before that happens.

I have liked all the main candidates in the democratic primaries this season. Hillary Clinton has clearly lost, though by a small margin. But a loss is a loss. She should admit it and withdraw. If she now finagles a win from the convention then the system is broken, the people will feel robbed, and the Repubs will remain in power when many democrats stay home in November. It is time to withdraw. Barack is the guy. Let's hope he is as good as his speeches.

Eight years of Bushonomics has ruined the retirement funds of many baby boomers. The preznit wanted to eliminate social security (it would follow the company pension plan into oblivion) and go to private retirement accounts. Well investing in the economy according to Bush over the plas 8 years, our dollars have not even kept up with inflation. The little guy always lose. We get 2 percent interest, pay 8 percent interest and when we invest in banks, the banks fail. Where does the money go? Someone has the money don't they?

We did so many things in Louisville last week that I cannot do them justice in a blog. Concerts were wonderful at times. 12 inches of snow fell, a veritable blizzard. I lost my earmuffs. Alas, Alack. I couldn't have gotten through the winter without them. We had lovely meals with Pat and John, Robin and Tom. Pot Roast at the Cafe Magnolia was fabulous. And they changed it just for me. Dr. Hustad was remarkable, still, at 90. He gave a lovely lecture on his life and rules for life that reminded me of his "Ways to stay awake during an organ recital" lecture 33 years ago. I saw old friends, Michael from Virginia, now in Gainesville, who offered a gig for the three baritones, Bill Roberts who is teaching in a seminary, Ken Wilson, who is worn down from church music but still continues. I met Dr. Lawhon who may take up my tutorship of Craig and make her into a star. It was an uplifting conference with many encouragements. I'm glad the snow kept us an extra day.

The preznit continues to hold his ground on all fronts. No need to list them. But in the face of withering criticism and record low confidence by his homeland, he continues his "Father Knows Best" and "Trust Me" routines. He is busy planning war with Iran. Will he use it as a way to extend his stay in office. Will the Republicans in congress every have any backbone and be congressmen instead of team members for the preznit? What is Cheney doing in the middle east?

I did not serve in the military when I was a young man. I got close though. When the dreaded numbers were drawn for my age group, numbers that decided who went to war and who stayed home, you didn't want to have a number below 200. My number was 23. Fortunately I was doing well in college and that allowed me to remain on student deferment. However when I graduated, I would be going into the United States Army. In preparation for my service I got a letter in January 1973, summoning me to the old Ford plant on Ponce de Leon Avenue, to take my U.S. Army physical. I was pretty sure I'd pass and I did. I learned something odd about myself that day that I have not forgotten. There was a hearing test. About 20 of us went into this unit that was sealed up behind us. I remember it being silver. There were booths along the wall with a set of headphones in each and a hand-held push button. We were instructed to put on the headphones and listen. Everytime we heard a sound we were to push the button and hold it until the sound went away and then let go. When we came out they handed us cards with our names on them. They had columns and rows and a line sketched across the card that indicated when we heard each of the many differently pitched sounds that had been played for us. There were numbers down the side as well and it appeared that people routinely scored 10, 20, or 30 on each sound. Everyone passed. We could all hear well enough to serve. My card was different from the others however. The sketched line never came down into the boxes, rather the line was sketched into the several lines of writing, including names and other info at the top. I was a super listener. Could there be such a thing? Today I hear things that are not there--high pitched squeals. Mostly I don't notice them but the are getting louder as years go by. Still I hear pretty well. I wonder if this ability influenced my profession, listening to choirs and singers. I wonder if I actually do hear things that others can't hear. When I listen to a soloist, I have a good idea of what they are doing and what they can do to improve. Mostly, even singing teachers don't hear that. But I don't know if that is a listening skill, or an analytical skill, an innate ability, or the wisdom of years of experience. I'm sure all the senses decline with age, so perhaps I don't hear worth a toot any more.

I was interested to read some years ago about super tasters. They have 10 times as many tastebuds as regular folk and can taste every nuance of a sip of wine, how it was stored, how it was made. They can list the ingredients of a cookie with a single bite. Are all the super seers fighter pilots? Are there super sniffers too?