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When I worked as a fuel element designer at an atomic power lab in the early seventies, we were periodically besieged, on site, by hordes of useful, placard-carrying, idiots. I generally walked right by them into the lab. Once I stopped and talked with them, only to find that there was no talking with them. They knew nothing about that which they were protesting. All they knew was that it (the design of nuclear power plants) had to be discredited, and the plants had to be dismantled. Ignorance (especially ignorance which receives national attention, and national acceptance) is a very dangerous thing.

Joanie, this evokes an indelible memory. You know how they say we all remember that moment we learned of remarkable events? Three Mile Island is one for me. It came of an hysterical face, a lost, happy desparation I encountered on the backyard escape route while skipping class in High School. As I slithered away from math class, I encountered one of the school hippies. He came up to me, shaking with excitement. "Haven't you heard? Haven't you heard?" He held my shoulders and shook me with his convulsions. "Three Mile Island blew up!"

I didn't know how many miles to that island, or to which island, anyway, but I did know that whatever it meant, whatever happened, however bad, this dope-happy moron was damned pleased with it.

A life-defining moment for me -- the making of a conservative, right there in Bethesda, MD, Montgomery County, Liberal-Central. I knew immediately it wasn't the stench of pot that was wrong that day. Or Three Mile Island.

PS Saw another of your posts: Dammit, Joanie, I'm gonna raid your keyboard and remove the "9" and "0" keys. You used a double parenthesis -- you've outdone yourself!

My epiphany took place while in high school in the mid-seventies. I lived with my screamingly liberal step mother. I compared the dogma with that which I could observe- and found the dogma wanting. All of these many years later, and liberals still don't make any sense.

I live just and hop/skip/jump from Three Mile Island. At the time of the 'event,' my daughter (who was then a toddler) and I were sitting in the tree house in our backyard having milk and sandwiches, when a neighbor came out and calmly informed us of what had occurred. No hippies were around, taking ghoulish pleasure in the fact that a nuclear meltdown might have occurred. So my memory of that day is much more calm and unmemorable than yours. But that moron appears to have done you a favor in that he steered you to the right. (Did you consider running down to DC last weekend during the anti-war demonstration, seeking him out, and shaking his hand?)

Regarding the parentheses thing ....

In fourteen years, my dog has never jumped up onto the furniture when I am at home. But occasionally, when I arrive home, I will peek through the glass panel in the front door, and there she will be, lying on her back on the couch, feet up in the air. As soon as I put the key in the lock, she scrambles down and meets me at the door with a 'Who, me?' look in her eye.

I guess that's kinda how I am with you and parentheses. When I am writing specifically to you, I avoid them scrupulously (well, semi-scrupulously) <-- as you can see. Yet, when I think you are not looking, I use them with abandon.

Why do I feel like a two-year-old with her hand caught in the cookie jar?