He'll skip today's impeachment of the President as well, if you don't mind, and the attack on Iraq. He doesn't have any pat answers on either, but he's worried about both. He's not in favor of impeachment and he's not in favor of bombing Iraq, but he has doubts about his opinions on both.

He suspects this impeachment business is more about the worries and fears brought about by changes in our world than the "touching, lying before a grand jury and whatever else" of some neurotic asshole in the White House. The world is a nervous place, our lives change in ways we don't always like: the way we work, where we work, the way we put food on the table, if we're able to put food on the table, the loss of an Evil Empire to focus our collective attention, the too many cars on the road, the too many kids going weird in the schoolyard, the too few parents, the too many uppity women and a bunch of other stuff (fill in the blanks) that we all at some level share or at some level know, even if we don't understand.

This weirdness gets fused onto the political stage, the President becomes all that's going right for one, all that's going wrong for another. Good and evil. Battles between good and evil get nasty and make trouble in the land. The Sole Proprietor is right on this. Right and just. Rational and perceptive. Trust him. He knows. Deep down to his toes.

Iraq? If he thought that dropping bombs would stop this guy from making some nasty stuff and dropping it on Oakland, he'd say blow the hell out of the bastards, he'll push the button himself. But he doesn't quite think that and he isn't volunteering to push any buttons until he does.

It makes him uncomfortable that we're willing to kill people, but only without risk. We're sending in mechanized bombs because we're not willing to take any chances and fly them in ourselves. We'll kill, but only from an armchair, a comfortable armchair, preferably in the afternoon without preempting any football games what with the playoffs getting close. Let's hope all this bombing stops this guy and saves our collective asses from annihilation, let's hope the Sole Proprietor and all that are like him are sitting here with our heads in the sand and our bare asses in the air, that killing these people will build a better world. Or save the oil. He doesn't want to run out of oil. Or gasoline.

Oh hell, enough crap (he warned you about the crap). It's Saturday and the sun is out. A little cold in the morning, but clear and bright in the afternoon.

The Sole Proprietor went to breakfast this morning at his restaurant on Telegraph just beyond Dwight toward the university. He took the digital camera and finally took a photograph. They had blocked off the street and people were preparing for a street fair, vendors hoping for a clear sky and people with dollars to spend. The Sole Proprietor had his breakfast, went back to his car and ran out of gas. Start, cough!, stop. Out of gas.

One hundred and fifty six miles on a 15 gallon tank.

But, he had a gas can in his trunk and there was a gas station some ten minutes walk down to the corner at Ashby. He put another quarter in the meter, got the gas can, walked, returned with the gas, drove to a discount gas station and filled it up. He could have run out of gas on the highway returning from work. Nasty ugly place to run out of gas. He didn't. He ran out after a good breakfast on a lightly traveled street near a gas station with the sun shining. Bad luck about the car, but he knows its on its last legs (ten miles to the gallon, burns oil like a furnace) and now he knows to fill it sooner.

In the afternoon he hopped on a bus and attended the street fair. The couple singing asked him to send them some prints. He will, if they turn out. The little clay jar with a cork was nice. He bought two of them, the one above and another that said "power surges". Most of the stuff: T-shirts, bumper stickers and posters they sell are pretty dorky for what is supposed to be a hip crowd. "Dirty thoughts" and "power surges" seemed less so.

Sunday he will try one of the restaurants recommended by MsW. for breakfast. Maybe then he'll have two on his list. Something to look forward to.