Oh, I'd thought my mother's fall was in January ten years ago, and it turns out to have been in February.

I've worked my pill schedule so that I get up (in pain: that hasn't changed. But I am not waking up in the middle of the night so often from shoulder pain, anyway!) about 7 and have the first one with breakfast. Lunch pill is about 2 and the night one at 9 or so. This makes for a 10-hour night, but has evened it out a lot better.

Yesterday I'd planned to see Prince of Egypt, but it didn't work out. This meant I could listen to Dale Bumpers. He was da Gov when we were there, and I guess Jim Guy Tucker was elected that November. We were concerned with Rich, so I don't know much about the Arkansas government. (I did find out quite a bit about Blytheville city, but nothing more major. Also, I was glued to the Watergate hearings. But mostly, Rich was unemployed and our concern was for him to get another job, who cared who was Governor or Senator?)

My review of the defense: Mills was good, though she apparently gave false information. She should be familiar with obstruction of justice cases, as she is still under investigation for the database stuff.

Kendall was riveting for that 4 hours (well, they claim it was only 2. That would be the two hours between 1 and 5.) NOT. Bumpers, however, is a fantastic orator. I'm sorry he's on the other side.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette lead editorial today (I'm quoting extensively because they don't keep archives so I can't link to it):

REASON MIGHT have been a bit too much to hope for, given the case he had to make, but dawgone if Mr. Counsel Bumpers' closing didn't have everything else. Why, when he defended or at least dismissed perjury in certain highly understandable circumstances, he made it sound so small, so insignificant, even such a good idea--"there's perjury and then there's perjury"--that we could hardly keep from rushing out and committing some right then and there. We told you it was a humdinger of a speech. . . .

As for the strongest part of Dale Bumpers' own case, it was lifted from Alexander Hamilton--good choice!--when the former senator noted that impeachment should be reserved for political crimes against society. Dale Bumpers didn't emphasize the part of the quote about society, if he mentioned it at all. He did say he was only paraphrasing Hamilton, and prudent paraphrasing it was. For Hamilton went on to define political crimes as those relating "chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself." . . .

BUT EVEN as we were nodding in agreement, the question occurred: What could be a more distinctively political crime than the chief law enforcement officer of the United States' choosing to give himself a little waiver from the laws he has sworn to faithfully execute when it suits him? Talk about an injury to the society itself: Doesn't that go directly to the heart of not just our legal but our political system?

And the Washington Post says:

The three days of White House defense have illustrated that many -- and perhaps all -- of the charges against Mr. Clinton would likely fail to produce convictions in criminal court. There was, however, a sad and pathetic quality to the presentation. This is perhaps the first time that representatives of a president have spoken continuously for three days about his conduct without even attempting to present any reason to admire or respect it. It seems that the best that can be said in defense of Mr. Clinton's behavior is that it does not warrant impeachment.

Meanwhile, of course, the second-best speech for the President was the Promise You Everything (as long as you pay and pay and pay for it) one on Tuesday night. Krauthammer remarks that 2 years ago Clinton said the era of big government is over. It must depend on how you define "big".

I can't understand how they could NOT have witnesses, they keep quoting Jordan and Currie and saying what they were thinking. One could just ASK them! And it's sort of interesting that Clinton kept saying in the Jones deposition "ask Betty. Ask Betty. Ask Betty." and then declares "I had NO IDEA she'd be a witness." Uh-HUH. Oh, well. Apparently the President is allowed a certain number of felonies before it's important. (I got some nice mail about my political rants the other day. He did say he knew it wasn't the focus of the journal. One wonders how he would know that, recently.)

Today Rich and I went to the home show. We didn't get as many goodies as last year, and either I'm getting blase or there weren't as many things to lust over, either. I grazed my way through (thereby making my 2-o'clock pill easy to take.) One guy from the Gilroy Garlic Festival had a garlic-bulb hat and a t-shirt advertising "Reek Week in Gilroy."

After that we stopped at Comp USA and browsed, discovering that DVD is not the only way to get the National Geographic archives, and that the maps are in a separate set. I WANT it.

And, in a fascinating development on the home front, I am back to 9 pts/game at Tripeaks.