I have been outside most of the day today, probably the most beautiful November day one could ever imagine. It is perfectly still. I can hear the trains 10 miles away. And the birds.

While walking around the swamp, I saw a weasel playing in the reeds. I ran and got my camera.



I was happy to get this posed shot. Weasels don't sit still for long, and this one was jumping back and forth.

He deserved it. I still don't think he was as good this year as he was two years ago. He was only comfortable in about half his games. Some of the others featured more walks than usual and a high pitch count.

Santana's just going to get better. I am already looking forward to watching him pitch next season.

A weblog reader sends in this fun link to a group which stages public pranks of a harmless but fun nature just to see what the reaction will be. For example, they sent 150 people into a Home Depot. At a predetermined time, all of them went into slow motion.

Okay, Borat was a lot of laughs. I had trouble sleeping last night. Just as I was about to fall off, one of the juvenile gags would come back to me and I would start laughing again.

Saw it tonight. It is the funniest movie I have ever seen. I am sore from laughing. And, I recommend that nobody go see it--because I don't want you all to realize how sick my sense of humor is!

The movie is not a scathing criticism of American society, as some reviewers allege. It is just a compilation of some awfully funny gags. In fact, most of the Americans Borat fools come across as tolerant, good-hearted and sweet. I am going to be laughing for days at odd times as scenes come back to me.

An interesting day of teaching. The students who haven't been doing well are starting to panic. I will allow them every chance to turn things around, but some of them are going to struggle. You can't change things 180 degrees all of a sudden.

We discussed slavery. Some interesting points:

--Fewer than 25% of southern whites held slaves when the Civil War started.

--3,700 Freed blacks held slaves of their own.

Quite an interesting, somewhat sad little article about Donald Rumsfeld. I keep thinking of Robert McNamara.

Before I wrote tonight's column, I decided to call Rep. Bernie Lieder, who recently won another term as the Crookston area's representative in the Minnesota House. Bernie was in the Battle of the Bulge, so I had some questions for him.

Last night, we had a spaghetti supper at the American Legion in Fertile to raise funds for the Fertile Veteran's Memorial Plaza. Brother Joe and I played music during the supper.

The supper was well-attended, and over $2000 was raised for the project.

We hauled in all of Joe's sound equipment for the music, including a Roland keyboard he recently purchased from sister Tracie. When hooked up to the sound system, the keyboard really added a lot to the music.

Here is a defense of Donald Rumsfeld's tenure which runs contrary to the present conventional wisdom.

One value of hearings is that we may gradually get a better picture of the truth. How, exactly, did we come to dilute the Geneva Conventions? What was the process which led us to war with Iraq?