How many absurdities can you find in this New York Times article on a proposed ban on toy guns, and a silly attempt by Manhattan Libertarians to protest it? Let's count together! 1) The proposed law itself. The goal is to put an end to the raging epidemic of ten-year-olds murdered by policemen because they were wielding squirt guns. (12 cases since 1998! It's an outrage! It's a debacle! It's... well, actually, it's less than three incidents a year. Hardly an epidemic at all. And no details about any of those cases are mentioned in the Times article. Might it be possible -- even likely -- that in many of those cases, the toy guns were just another element in an overall pattern of stupidity on the part of the victim?) 2) The picture of Councilman David Weprin. As you can see, he is holding a toy gun in one hand, and a can of black spray paint in the other. He has painted his daughter's pink toy gun, making it look like... a real gun!!! A real small gun, anyway. But I understand his point. The problem is: Is anybody really painting their toy guns black, and then drawing them against police officers? How many of the 12 cases since 1998 have involved a painted toy gun? The article doesn't say. (My guess: 1, max.) Anyway, if we must make a law against something, why not make a law against painting your toy gun black? That seems to be a specific action one could reasonably ban. (Not enforce, mind you, but that's another story.) Going after every toy gun in creation is a typical jackhammer solution to a garden spade problem. 3) The clause within the proposed law that might lead to jail time for children caught with a toy gun. Jail time! Says Welpin, "Obviously, it's going to be a discretionary thing, about whether to put a kid in jail." Whew, that's a relief. 4) The Manhattan Libertarian Party's reaction. They were right to slap their foreheads and say "Arrggh! $#@^%* local government!" But their response was less than measured: They decided to hand out hundreds of toy guns to the children of the city. Specifically, they went into Harlem, the area of the city most affected by gun violence. In an interview at City Hall, Mr. Snyder said the party selected P.S. 72 to show support for a deprived neighborhood. "We narrowed our choice down to a school on Park Avenue and one in East Harlem," he said. "We ultimately thought the kids of East Harlem might appreciate a free toy more than kids on Park Avenue." (I had thought the Libs handed out guns at multiple locations around the city, but the Times doesn't mention this.) What the Libs found in Harlem was not a horde of happy children waiting to squirt each other but a posse angry of parents wanting blood, and it's hard to be terribly surprised. 5) The reaction of the people of Harlem. Of course, the Libs went to Harlem not because they were indelicate but because they were RACISTS! "I'm livid that the Libertarian Party would have the racist nerve to come into a community of color just to get some attention," Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn said as the hearing opened, "to give toy guns to our children, knowing that these toy guns have led to deaths. This is not a game for media attention." And of course the protesters could not restrain themselves to the topic with shouts of "No Toy Guns For Our Children!" and "Barbies, Not Bullets!" They had to cross into invective like "Get out of Harlem!" and "Go back to your own neighborhood!" Very fine. Good going, guys. 6) The phrase "This is not a game for media attention." Spoken to the media. By a politician.

I. Am. Wiped. Out. Both kids were mine today -- Janinne has been unable to shake off whatever minor illness is plaguing her, and she essentially slept the day away. Alex and Lea, neither of whom yet speak, nonetheless conspired to give me the hardest time possible. For Alex, this took the form of never getting tired -- not once, all day. He's two years old, somewhere around mid-afternoon he usually gets a look of profound exhaustion, as if he had just hiked the Grand Canyon. Not today! And it was a busy day, too, what with one of his various therapists arriving at 8:00 a.m. This was the occupational therapist, who focuses on Alex's developing motor skills, and she wanted to watch him eat breakfast. At the appointed hour, I let her in and went to get Alex, who had been playing nicely in his bedroom. He came toddling out with his usual triumphant enthusiasm and was nearly to the living room when this woman jumped into the hallway and said "Surprise!" To Alex's immense credit, he did not cry, or turn around and run away. But, geez, what a start to the day. You've had a lovely post-wake-up period throwing your toys around the room, and now you're looking forward to your first glass of cold milk, and suddenly some strange woman is lunging at you! What kind of place are they running around here, you wonder. These therapists arrive care of a state-funded program to help developmentally disadvantaged children -- the Birth-to-3 program -- but lately there have been cutbacks and layoffs. This enrages Janinne -- the children are our future and all that -- but frankly I'm not quite sure what these therapists are accomplishing. Alex has a sort-of team leader, who oversees the occupational therapist, a physical therapist, and a veritable parade of speech therapists. The first one, whom Janinne liked immensely, was laid off. Her replacement was only meant to fill in for a couple of months, until a new permanent speech therapist could be assigned. This is fine with us, because this transitionary therapist gets our goat. In the three times she's been here, she has given up on proceeding any further if Alex shows the slightest sign of unhappiness. "Whoop! He's upset" she says. "Better call it a day!" Slotted to work with him for an hour, her first visit was a brisk forty minutes. Luckily, her replacement is due to start with the next appointment. But, wait, that's not what I was going to write about. Oh yes. So usually, when the schedule includes an appointment with a therapist, that's a sign that Alex is going to take an extra long nap come afternoon. Not today. Today, with Janinne desperately trying to get some sleep herself, Alex stormed around as if I fed him not Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast but amphetamines. It's the uncontrollable toddler! The crashes coming from his bedroom as I was attempting to feed his sister -- he can't really break through the wall and escape to the outside world, can he? It certainly sounded like he was trying his level best. And then there was the matter of the building block. Allegedly down for a nap, I heard an odd cry from his room. Upon investigating, I discovered Alex had placed a block into his mouth to the point that it could not be easily removed, prying his jaw apart the way a cartoon character would defeat an alligator with a stick. The block had to be not pulled but yanked out. Egads. No splinters or teeth came flying out, and I subsequently collected every toy smaller than my fist and had the whole lot smelted. Way to feel like a total failure of a father! And Lea, the most chipper, smiliest baby turned into Devil Girl. She would not, could not be consoled. The list of things she could possibly want is quite small -- new diaper? Food? Burp? Pacifier? WHAT? WHAT DO YOU WANT?! Finally gave up and turned on Baby Mozart, and that settled her right down. She's seen these particular images set to these particular classical tunes about a trillion times in her six months on Earth, but she continues to be mesmerized by it. But it's only half an hour long, and then Waaaaahhhh! Back to the all-consuming world of crushing misery. Way to feel like a total failure of a father! But now Mommy is awake, Alex is asleep, Lea is calm, and I am at my rightful place by the computer. Gonna work out a crossword idea, play a few games, chat with some friends, and temporarily -- I say, temporarily -- forget that I have children at all.

Members of Stormfront -- a white nationalist, anti-Jew hate group -- are mulling the creation of a blog. From a thread on a bulletin board at stormfront.org: There's about fifty billion neoconservative blogs out there, but no white nationalist ones. The closest thing we have is Vanguard News Network, which is certainly an excellent site, but it mainly preaches to the choir. What I have in mind is something more "respectable", i.e. no cursing, no racial slurs, excellent spelling/grammar, etc., but with the same pro-white and anti-Jew message. Something that "mainstream" readers would be more likely to look at and take seriously. Apparently they think blogging is simply a way of broadcasting one's message to the world with no consequences whatsoever. But the best of the bloggers (which I am not) live for this kind of thing: Taking the stupidities espoused by idiots across the Web, and disposing of them using logic, wit, and -- most of all -- facts. (Robert Fisk has probably had more than his fill of the Internet.) It's the kind of debate that Stormfronters absolutely cannot handle -- they prefer it when they can control their own messages, and distort things to their liking. That's not a blog, guys. Go back to your silly little newsletters.

I'M COMPILING A LIST of specialty business magazines, in hopes of scrounging up some freelance work. My favorite so far: "Framing Business News is the industry's framing authority and your best source of information and news for today's rapidly changing world of framing." I'm not sure I could handle the excitement.

BACK ON UNEMPLOYMENT. It's still hard to believe. I wasn't even sure if I'd qualify for benefits, as my last job only lasted six months, but apparently that's the minimum qualifying time, and I squeaked in under the wire. Yay. Both New York and Connecticut require you to call in once a week to their "tel-service" lines, and answer a series of questions by using the touch-tone keypad. In New York, it didn't take me long to memorize the order of the questions, and since the answers never changed, I would simply interrupt with the answer at the earliest possible moment. Pretty soon, the electronic voice could barely get its mouth open: In the week ending Feb-- BEEP! Thank you. Have you received any j-- BEEP! Thank you. Have you applied to any j-- BEEP! And so on. I had the whole five-minute process down to less than thirty seconds. In Connecticut, they force you to listen to the -- entire -- question -- before -- they -- allow -- you -- to -- answer. It's maddening. Have you received any job offers (BEEP!) or completed any full or part-time work (BEEP!) including self-employment, in the week ending Saturday, February 2nd? (BEEP!!) And then they ask you the exact same question a second time, in case you didn't hear it the first time because you were too busy trying to interrupt the system with incessant button-pushing. They could simply say "You answered YES. Is this correct?" but no, they have to drag you the whole damn question: You indicated that you did not receive any job offers or complete any full or part-time work, including self-employment, in the week ending Saturday, February 2nd. Is this correct? No, I did not! I mean, YES, that's correct! Gah. Yes, it's only five minutes of my life once a week, but it's still aggravating. Just this moment received my least favorite flavor of telemarketer: The sort that refuses to identify themselves. The conversation went something like this: Me: "Hello?" {sound of a hundred telemarketers buzzing in the backgroud, but nobody speaking directly to me} "Hello??" Woman: "Hello, may I please speak to... Jah-nin..." Me: "Who's calling?" Woman: {still on previous sentence} "...Buh-lin?" Me: "Who's calling?" Woman: "This is Theresa. May I please speak with Jah-nin?" Me: "Where are you calling from?" Woman: "Okay, I'll call back." {she hangs up} Unbelieveable. Did she think I was going to mistake her for one of Janinne's friends? They generally know how to pronounce her name. Obviously, they want to speak with the Woman of the House, who is more likely to be receptive than the boorish, ill-mannered Man. If they make the pitch the man and he says no, they've got to mark a big "refused" by my name and not call for, oh, a week at least. But if they simply hang up and call back in hopes of getting my wife, they think they've got a better chance of making the sale. Shows what they know. I love it when they try to use guile to get through me to Janinne. They're about as clever and subtle as a bullseye painted on the road by Wile E. Coyote. There was the one guy who introduced himself and asked to speak with my wife, and what I asked what this was in reference to, you could hear the caginess flood his voice: "I'm sorry, but this is a private matter which can only be discussed with Janinne Berlin." Riiiiight. I said to him: "Then I wish you the very best of luck," and hung up on him. He didn't call back. Guess it wasn't that important a matter after all.