The following undated thoughts were posted on my old web site prior to today and are reproduced here, starting with the most recent.

I didn't watch Connie Chung's August 23 interview of Rep. Gary Condit (D-CA). But I did read a transcript online the next day, and have seen some of the foaming mouths on cable TV talking about it incessantly since then. A couple observations:

• Condit is sounding more and more like a novice student of the Bill Clinton School of Oratory. I don't care how many years he's been married, and no, I'm not buying that his current bind is the fault of the media, the DC police, the Levys, or little green men from Mars.
• The only thing missing was an accusation from Carolyn Condit of a "vast right-wing conspiracy." She didn't come through, but Condit attorney Abbe Lowell saved the day: Judicial Watch is to blame!
• And could Democrats like Dick Gephart be any bigger hypocrites? They can't get their knives into Condit's back fast enough, all because he had an affair and didn't tell police about it until they asked the question exactly the right way (that Clinton School training in action). Yes, he (through his lawyers) may have suborned perjury, but at this point it's a severe reaction compared to the ass-kissing they gave Clinton while he was facing allegations of, and later sanctions for, actual crimes.

Call me hopelessly old-fashioned, but I don't think it's too much to ask that baseball broadcasters have a command of remedial English grammar.

Exactly what does "50 RBI's on the season" mean, anyway? ON the season? What's wrong with "FOR the season," or simply "this season?"

Let's find the illiterate boob who first spake such inaneness and exile him for life to Montreal, where he'll have to cover all the games in French. That should teach him, and it may also scare his colleagues into returning to speech patterns that indicate at least a fourth grade education.

And yes, "spake" and "inaneness" are words. You can look it up.

I don't understand Los Angeles or Angelenos. Their team won. Why are they rioting?

Two completely unrelated thoughts:

1. I know they're supposed to be the "big bad Bruins," but this is ridiculous. B's defenseman Marty McSorley ought to be thrown in jail.
2. Republican loyalists and John McCain foes complaining about a "hostile takeover" of their party ought to quit pissing and moaning. It's the state Republican organizations that decide whether to allow independents and Democrats to vote in their primaries.

Every so often, I have an experience that proves the maxim that "the squeaky wheel gets the oil." Take this past week, for example, when I shifted into bitch-gear after being locked out of my FTP server for 5 days. I know at least one customer support representative at my web site hosting service that doesn't want to hear from me again soon.

As Tom Selleck's Magnum, P.I. once said, people make a hundred decisions ever day. Some you think about, some you don't. And then there's the one you agonize over.

With all due respect to the memory of John Kennedy, a member of the human family whose life, like all others, is to be cherished and his death mourned ... the crash of his plane did not warrant non-stop, all-day coverage by every television and radio news outlet in the United States. Nor is it, contrary to the assertion of CBS's 48 Hours, "an American tragedy."

Unlike ABC's Barbara Walters, I am not the least bit concerned about how Jacqueline Onassis would bear this blow if she were alive, because she isn't. If I were going to feel someone's pain, I would sooner think about the parents of Carolyn and Lauren Bessette. In one fateful instant, they lost two children.

And on a personal note, having lost a brother to an untimely death, I have great sympathy for the victims' surviving siblings, whose grief has also been ignored by the American media whose only care is for the suffering of celebrities and whose only motivation is sensationalism.

Call me old-fashioned, but hockey in June is ridiculous. If this native New Englander ran the world, the National Hockey League playoffs would end by March 31.

And with all due respect to the Dallas Stars, no team from a city where the ponds never freeze should be allowed to have an NHL team, much less win it all. Lord Stanley, roll over!

Of course Serbian President Slobodan Milosovic is willing to pull his troops out of Kosovo. All the Albanians are dead or gone, all their homes either destroyed or booby-trapped. Serbia's work is done - they no longer have any reason to stick around.

I can't be the only one who is tired of the "Crisis in Kosovo" moniker for our current military action. A crisis is when you're late for work and you can't find your car keys. What's happening in the Balkans is a war.

If anyone is taking bets on such things, my money says that upon acquittal by the Senate, President Clinton will immediately take a much-needed vacation, during which he will play golf with O.J. Simpson and plot a strategy for tracking down "the real liars."

A few thoughts on the millenium:

• It begins on January 1, 2001 - not 2000. There was no year 0, so the first millenium A.D. could not have begun then.
• January 1, 2001 (or January 1, 2000 if you insist) will be just another day. Get over it. Ignore the politicians. We don't need leadership for the new millenium - we need leadership now.
• Ignore Bill Clinton. We don't need him to build a bridge to the new millenium. We will get there just fine without his help.
• Can the radio stations please stop playing Prince's "1999?"

Is it my imagination, or are Congressional Democrats obsessed with sex? I see allegations of perjury, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering by the President; Democrats say it's just about sex. I read a highly legalistic, dryly written, and anything-but-arousing report from the Office of the Independent Counsel; Democrats say it's just a thinly disguised soft porn piece about sex. I hear Republicans argue in favor of impeachment for criminal conduct and abuse of power; Democrats say we shouldn't impeach a President over sex. Congressional Democrats charge that Republicans are obsessed with sex; perhaps Democrats are simply projecting their own obsessions on their opponents.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I were a Republican, but I don't understand the big deal with the Democratic Party picking up five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The entire House was up for re-election, and by my count five seats is barely over one percent. Republicans still have a House majority and maintained their margin in the Senate, so what are they griping about?

Say what you will about Massachusetts drivers (or, as a friend of mine from upstate New York calls us, "Massholes"). Hard as it may be to believe, they're worse in Connecticut, the only place I've ever driven where no one - and I mean no one - travels less than 10 mph over the speed limit. I swear I drove through the entire state at the legal speed and never once passed another vehicle.

And to make matters worse, I discovered that you need to be psychic to know when someone is going to change lanes, Connecticut drivers evidently lacking the intellectual capacity to identify the turn signal in their own vehicles. Talk about rude. The most polite drivers on the highway were the out-of-state truckers.

The aggressiveness of New York City taxi drivers is legendary. But in a recent drive through mid-town Manhattan, I discovered that the most obnoxious cabbie is no match for a well-seasoned Massachusetts driver.

Recent mega-mergers in various industries have me thinking that before long we'll have:

• one big bank,
• one big media outlet,
• one big for-profit health care provider,
• one big insurance company,
• one big airline,
• one big telephone company, and
• lousy service for us customers.

The White House defense against the Kathleen Willey allegations is—hold onto your hats—that if she was so offended by Bill Clinton's actions, then she wouldn't have stayed in touch with him afterward. Anita Hill, are you listening?

If Monica Lewinsky did nothing wrong, why is her attorney insisting on an immunity agreement? Immunity from WHAT?

And in a related matter, I wonder when Hillary Clinton will demand an investigation of Janet Reno for her part in the vast right-wing conspiracy.

Liberals are those who were willing to let Anita Hill's voice be heard.

Conservatives are those who were willing to let Paula Corbin Jones' voice be heard.

Feminists are those who were willing to do both.

Do you suppose the recent devastating ice storms in Quebec and northern New England are a result of global warming? Or maybe this year, it's global cooling?

I often wonder what it would be like for someone from history, like George Washington or Betsy Ross, to come back today and see all that has changed in the last two centuries. What would they think of all our technology—televisions, automobiles, computers? What kinds of questions would they ask? Would I be able to answer them?

In the spirit of Christmas (sort of)...

• Christmas, by definition, is a religious holiday. Without Christ, Christmas wouldn't exist.
• So what's with these people who insist on removing all religious references to Christmas ... yet continue to accept a paid day off for it?

Regarding Barbra Streisand's recent over-publicized appearance on the Rosie O'Donnell Show, I don't understand the big deal about Barbra. If Rosie weren't rich, she'd be just another obsessed fan. Maybe even a stalker.

Random election-time thoughts:

• The world would be a better place if people bothered to inform themselves before they went out to vote.
• And on the subject of elections, it seems clear to me that the first female President will be a Republican. And the first black President will be a Democrat.
• No matter what you've heard, it really is possible for a nice guy to be elected President. But not twice.