I don’ t know much about the corruption charges, but James Traficant ought to get sentenced to at least eight more years for that toupee or hairdo or whatever that thing perched on top of his head is supposed to be!

With NBC doing television show ice cream tie-ins, I think Ben and Jerry’s should get into the act. I have one idea:

• Seinfeld Swirl: A heavy marble rye swirl with chunks of beefaroni, jujubees, and a hidden junior mint.

I had forgotten how much I love the Counting Crows until I listened to their new album, Hard Candy (just released last week, I believe). Or I should say I had pushed the significance of their first album to the back of my mind. August and Everything After, which has perhaps the best initial four song sequence of any album, was released at an important time in my life. Everyone has (or should have) certain pieces of music that just speak to them, even if the reasons have as much or more to do with their lives than the notes on the record. The first Counting Crows album was that record for me. Adam Duritz’ lyrics and his plaintive, sometimes desperate delivery spoke to– and for– me. I knew what it was like to have to turn a love and life over… I knew what it was like to be sleepless at 4:30 a.m. and how it felt like it couldn’t get any worse… I knew the dead man inside my soul that was trying to get out. There was just enough desperation, just enough need, and just enough poetry in that album to make it a part of me. I still get chills listening to it, even though I have heard it hundreds, perhaps thousands of times.

Hard Candy is not that kind of album. It has its moments, and if anything Duritz’ lyrics are even closer to standing alone as good poetry than ever before… but the big leaps are gone, there isn’t much that really grabs my attention and keeps it, and nowhere does the album speak to me in the same way. Of course I too am different now, and the band is, I am sure, wealthy and more satisfied than they used to be. You can’t blame a band for any of that, but you can’t blame me for dreaming that they will be able to reach me in the same way again, either. I guess that is what keeps us listening to music!

Foreign Policy magazine recently had a piece that changed my mind about some aspects of cigarette taxes and restrictions. Second-hand smoke is a problem, of course, and no one should be subjected to it. And kids should be restricted from tobacco products. But the taxes really are just a money-grab. Studies show that the extra costs of caring for smoking-related illness is basically wholly offset by the shortened lifespan of smokers. Cold, but true. So I am not sure what to feel about Phillip Morris flip-flopping and embracing FDA regulation. It is solely based on profit, I realize, but it just doesn’t smell right…

Just when I think I won’t be surprised, Shrub and his minions find yet another way to crap on the lower and middle classes. I really hope there is no one out there who believes that he and his cronies actually give a rat’s ass about anyone except their big corporation brethren. If you own a home, you are safe. If you are a bank or a big corporation, you are safe. If you are an average Joe who loses his jobs, get out the vaseline.

That the only sticking point was a disagreement about using bankruptcy law to shield oneself from fines for protesting abortion puts this whole episode right in the middle of Oz.

And here I thought Austin Powers was just dumb… guess I was wrong!

Each day, Rock and Roll Confidential features new, often incredibly funny pictures of pretentious wannabe rockers striking poses. Makes me want to dig out my “band” pictures with the Jack Daniels and the silly perm… a few choice samples here, here, and here.

My good friend and compatriot, Tom Dooley, has a well-written (and scathing) article about a shooting in an Alaskan village… nice work!

Returned late last night from a four day trip to Anchorage for a soccer tournament. Our girls played pretty well, but lost in the semi-finals for the second time this year. The best part of the trip was a long conversation I had with my kids for the last hour of the drive home… maybe the first real adult style conversation I have ever had with both of them. It ranged from sports to houses, acting to magic tricks and much more that, like a dream, is already being forgotten. But it was a real high for all three of us. One of those rare happy moments when we just spent time together without worrying about anything else.

Of course, once we got home it was back to the workaday world of practices, camps, shopping, rushed meals and climbing stress. So it goes.

Being a parent is hard, HARD work. It isn’t the big emergencies and unexpected difficulties that are the worst… we all deal with those, whether childless or not. It’s the constant, daily grind, the incessant demands on active schedule, the constant (and rightful) demands for my full attention, and the unrelenting pressure of issues that don’t seem rational and/or reasonable, but nevertheless occupy a substantial amount of time.

I am constantly worried about setting an example in every action, and I find it impossible not to berate myself when I don’t live up to my own expectations. I always worry that I am favoring one child over the other, whether it comes to something as simple as dividing a piece of fruit or dividing my dwindling free time. There is a constant pressure not to unwittingly reinforce stereotypes or discourage them by buying too many “girlie” gifts for my daughter or too many science and bug type gifts for my song. They are both into sports, and I have to be careful not to expect them to do things they can’t do… while remaining a positive influence in helping them do things they only think they can’t do. I have to find a balance between two constantly shifting weights: on one side my desire to guide them towards the things I find most valuable, on the other my desire that they make decisions for themselves and not become dependent on me being there to make decisions for them.

All too often, this means letting them fail.

Soccer is a good example of this dynamic. I am a pretty gung-ho soccer Dad, though I am careful not to antagonize parents or other kids… but my kids are fair game. Within reason I provide direction to help them. But last year, my daughter’s first year of competition soccer, I directed her too much. I had to step back and let her make decisions for herself, even though she was bound to make “bad” ones. It is incredibly heart-wrenching to have to allow your child to suffer when you know that your direction could alleviate their angst. But it has to be done… and in the long run– and even now– it seems to be paying off.

Then my son started competition soccer this year. The difficulty now is not in holding my tongue (I can do that), but in making sure he understands that I care just as much about him and how he does as I do and did his sister… even though it might not seem as clear in my actions from the sidelines.

Every day there are new decisions to make and very little opportunity to consult someone else for help making them (though there always seems to be ample opportunity to find company to help perform a post-mortem on decisions already made). It’s this constant decision-making that wears me out and makes me dream of going back to a one-room cabin in the woods with no water, no neighbors, and no children.

What’s striking is how the most mundane decisions can have longer, more far-reaching effects. I have a strong aversion to music by sods like Ricky Martin and Britney Spears. I used to take them to the store to get a CD, but refuse to let them choose any of these artists, thereby reinforcing all kinds of negative attributes (I am domineering, I know what is good and they don’t, there is an absolute scale of value when it comes to art, etc) and quite likely causing the opposite reaction and making my kids hate the music I wanted to “expose” them to.

It never ends. The rewards are great, but the work of it all (and the long road ahead), in those rare moments I let myself think about it, is so daunting that I almost find it impossible to cope…