That must have been quite a weather forecast in Hell today: The president said we can’t win the war on terror, and I thought finally, the man comes to his senses. Is it too late to hope for peace with honor in Iraq?

Of course you can’t win a war on terror. It’s like winning a war on war. Duh.

I’m sure things were nice and warm in Hell by noon, though; he changed his mind.

What do the Bushies sing at Kerry rallies? The theme from “Flipper.” Ha! That’s a good one!

I don’t want this to get all screechy. But I was reading a story today about the systematic looting of the Chicago Sun-Times, a story that contained neither shocking revelations or anything I didn’t really know already, but, well, grrr:

“Not once or twice, but on dozens of occasions (S-T owner) Hollinger was victimized by its controlling shareholders,” Hollinger chief executive (Conrad) Black and Sun-Times publisher (F. David) Radler, says the Breeden report.

In discussing Perle’s actions, the report is harsh: “It is difficult to imagine a more flagrant abdication of duty than a director rubber-stamping transactions that directly benefit a controlling shareholder without any thought, comprehension or analysis.”

So here’s the point where I get testy. Black and Radler are high-profile conservatives. Perle is a textbook neocon. If Republicans are going to present themselves as the party of morality and virtue, it would help if they didn’t go around looting companies, and helping their friends do so. Just a thought.

I had a big rant about newspaper ownership all ready to spew, but it makes me tired just thinking about it, so let’s talk guppies.

Guppies, some of you may know, are live bearers, which is to say, they don’t lay eggs, spray a little milt over them and swim away. Males have teensy little penises, females have the opposite apparatus, and they squirt out baby guppies every month or so. Some squirted in the last couple of days, as Alan discovered today when he did tank maintenance.

“They were off their feed a day or two ago, and look — there’s a dead baby, there’s another,” he pointed out. “I’m sure they had a feast.” What’s more, the males are in rut again, doing these rather obvious mating displays, which the females, being female, are ignoring. Once again, nature amuses, astounds and educates. You think you’re getting a tranquilizing television substitute, but you really get Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, with fins.

We bought three pairs of guppies, and a tiny seventh one got caught in the net when the guy was scooping them out. It’s a female; we call her Small Fry. She’s about half an inch long and growing by the day. I can’t wait to see how she shapes up, since now she looks like a translucent blob with eyes.

We haven’t told Kate about the orgy going on in her new educational resource. She already thinks Small Fry has been adopted by the older fish, who are now serving as her parents. We don’t need to clue her in just yet.

It’s no longer possible to deny the obvious. The ash tree outside my window is yellowing, and the bike path is strewn with hazards — golf-ball size walnuts, acorns and other tree detritus that, if you hit wrong, will send you ass over teakettle, only if you’re like me, you land on your teeth, not your teakettle.

Also, the Olympics are over. Thank God for that — I didn’t know how much longer I could summon empathy for Belarussian trampoline acrobats.

On the other hand, who knew synchronized swimming could be so wonderful? They even take their bows in sychronization. It’s a hoot. And while I really hate people who say things like this, watching the Argentine basketball team at the medal ceremony reminded me of being in Buenos Aires last year. I have never seen so many great-looking men in one place in my life, and you saw just a sample on the medal stand. Woo. Those aquiline noses! Those fierce chins! So masculine.

OK, then. Just thought of one more sign summer is slipping away: The peaches I bought at the market this weekend were, when they finally ripened, sort of mealy. That’s the real end of the season, right there — you get eight weeks of heaven, because the peach is the queen of all fruits, and then it’s all apple pie and woolly sweaters. Sigh.

But summer will be with us for a while, and while I’m not looking forward to its exit, it’s been a lovely one — cool and breezy and pleasant. Al–Qaeda may yet blow us up, but we had a nice final season.

Bloggage:

Garrison Keillor, he angry.

The last word on the string-heavy national anthem, at the Olympics.

Me, I’ll be back later.

Well, no dead fish yet. In fact, as the evidence plainly shows, these little dudes are so lively they’re almost impossible to photograph.

Also, the weekend ran away before I got a chance to write much, but just to open the discussion: This is my congressman. The lead on David Brooks’ column: One of the most thoughtful politicians in Washington doesn’t believe in the theory of evolution.

Y’all bat that around, if you feel like it. I’ll be back later this afternoon.

Two jetliners explode almost simultaneously in a country having its problems with separatists, on a suspicious date, and one gets a distress signal off first. The most obvious suspects deny culpability, and 24 hours later, black boxes found, the best anybody can do is scratch heads and say huh.

Life sure is weird sometimes.

Of course, the Russians are saying the most likely cause is terrorism — planes just don’t blow up like that, except when they do, which is probably more than we’d like to think. I think about this stuff whenever I fly — maintenance, i-dotting and t-crossing, little stuff like metal fatigue.

“Relax,” people say. “You’re safer in a plane than in a car.” True. But being in a car crash is like being in a knife fight, whereas being in a plane crash is like someone firing a shotgun at your face. Don’t tell me about that Sioux City crash where people walked away; when you go down in a plane, you’re not getting back up.

Speaking of that Sioux City crash, did anyone here see “Fearless”? Or read the book? Boy, you could do a lot worse than either one of those. Great novel; great movie, starring the great, great Jeff Bridges and easily the most terrifying on-screen depiction of a plane crash I’ve ever seen, and yes, I’m including “Cast Away.”

Did you know there’s a website that contains transcripts and some MP3 recordings of the last moments of doomed flights? Nervous fliers, stay away.

Well, on THAT cheery note…

I have nothing to talk about because my life is a boring blur this week. Lately we’ve been watching the Olympics as a family in that half hour between bathtime and bedtime known as storytime until the Olympics started. Kate gets into it, far more than I thought she would — mainly she likes to figure out who’s from what country and watch the super slo-mo track replays, after which she turns to us and manipulates her cheek tissue to resemble the athletes’ slo-mo bobbling flesh. No one looks good in super slo-mo.

There were some nice moments this week, though. When Rulon Gardner retired and put his shoes on the mat — that was sweet. (Even though he didn’t show us his missing toe.) This big ox of a guy, crying — it’s an emotional moment. Who removes the shoes? How long do they stay there? Are the shoes then enshrined somewhere, or are you free to take them home? Gardner amazes me because he grabs big, sweaty men in extended bear hugs and isn’t grossed out. As someone who doesn’t like to be touched when she’s in athletic extremis — no sex jokes, please — I wonder how they do it. I guess you just get used to it. That was the part about all that exulting in beach volleyball the other night that sort of weirded me out, the rolling around in the sand with the stuff sticking everywhere and probably going right down everyone’s crack and into their noses and mouths.

Am I tired? Boy am I tired. Best cut this short. You all discuss plane crashes, Olympics and sand in the crack in my absence.

Oh, I see. This is what it’s all about with guys and beach volleyball.

Sniff.

I keep meaning to tell the fish story, which started the weekend before last, when Kate’s friend Sophia met us at the lake and we all went to the county fair. Of course there was a midway; of course there were games. Of course the kids wanted to play them. We stopped at the win-a-goldfish booth. A tank of largish goldfish swam in the middle of a sea of small bowls. You had to throw a ping-pong ball into a small bowl. “Six in wins me!” a sign on the tank said.

This would be a snap, I thought, happily springing for the extra-large bucket of 20 balls. They’d be lucky to get one in. I even offered tips: “Throw underhanded, and not so hard,” I advised. Kate got her third ball in a little bowl.

“Congratulations, you won!” the girl said.

“I thought they had to get six in,” I said.

“That’s for a big fish,” she said. “One in gets a little one.”

Oh, great. The two girls threw their balls, got four in. “We’ll babysit your fish until you’re ready,” the girl said, handing me some chits. Kate and Sophia were thrilled.

I wasn’t. On the rest of our course through the midway, we tried to tell them what a pain goldfish can be, how they’d probably die, how carnival goldfish in particular were unlikely to be healthy, how they’d have to get a bowl and blah blah blah. They didn’t care. Sophia had $10 of her own money to spend, and she was bound and determined to be a fish mommy. After a while, their enthusiasm began to get to me. For years, when her friends have adopted hamsters and gerbils and guinea pigs, we’ve had to tell our daughter, “You can’t have one, because your dog will find it and kill it and eat it,” not the sort of thing you like to say to a kid, but a speech familiar to terrier owners everywhere. Why not get some goldfish? What could it hurt?

We stopped at Meijer on the way home. Each girl got a $10 starter kit of bowl/gravel/plastic plant/fish food. We filled them with untreated well water, explained about overfeeding, introduced the fish to their new homes.

They lasted the night. Kate named hers Goldene and Penny; Sophia chose Pumpkin and Nickel. (Both rejected my suggestion: Crockett and Tubbs.) They survived the long drive from Coldwater to Ann Arbor and back to Fort Wayne, although by the end, Goldene and Penny were so exhausted they canted at about a 15-degree angle, and I figured they weren’t long for the world. But they lived into the next day and the day after, although the next morning both of them were dead. Alan and Kate had a pet funeral and buried them in the herb garden before cleaning the bowl, scrupulously purifying some tap water and going to the store to buy SpongeBob and Patrick, who lasted about three days before first SpongeBob and then Patrick floated to the surface.

“That’s all my fish!” Kate wailed. I can’t even keep a goddamn carp alive, I fumed. (No funeral for these two; they got flushed.)

Today Alan went back to the store and spent $60 on a 5-gallon aquarium with light, filter, aerator and deluxe gravel, plus a cool rock and some more plastic plants. Day after tomorrow: Hope springs anew with guppies. Someone please remind me of the concept of cutting one’s losses.

This reminds me of my horse trainer Robin, who once dealt with the guilt of being away from her daughter for 10 days by buying her a $12 guinea pig upon their reunion. The next week, the guinea pig broke its leg. Yes, vets can treat such injuries, if you pay them $90 or so.

I figure, we’re about $80 into our fish experiment.

When I was in high school, I took an “interest inventory” as part of one of my college-entry tests. When the results came back, it suggested I might enjoy running a commercial fish hatchery. As if.

Our house is two doors from the school bus stop, which, this year, has 21 kids from the surrounding couple of blocks gathering there for the 8:02. Twenty-one! Kate is in hog heaven — finally, in with the in crowd. After they all got on today and the bus rumbled away, we adults stood around looking at one another for a few minutes, stunned. Then we raised a big cheer, and suggested meeting for at least one round of Irish coffees. Of course we didn’t, but we should’ve.

Then I went out and bought … a piano! Kate is taking “keyboard” this year, which means she has to have a practice instrument. I always wanted her to have a real piano, and I know you can always buy someone’s old upright for a few hundred bucks if you watch the classifieds closely. But Alan pointed out a few things, and of those things I only need to repeat one: A piano is a piece of furniture weighing approximately as much as a dump truck. Plus, you have to have it tuned and so on and blah blah, and, ninja shopper that he is, he’d already researched the alternatives and found some very nice virtual pianos for the same price as a used upright. I was dubious. I shouldn’t have been.

Technology, she is so amazing. Once you get past the spring-loaded plastic keys with bossa nova rhythm tracks available at the very low end of the market, the vistas open up into some very cool stuff. We ended up with an 88-key marvel that feels exactly like a real piano, sounds exactly like a real piano and weighs about as much as a piano bench. Because it’s digital, it also sounds like a real harpsichord, string section, pipe organ, etc., so we had some fun after setting it up, playing “Some Day My Prince Will Come” (installed in its memory) on the vibes. “It’s Lionel Hampton!” Alan crowed.

Now that we have the instrument, I’m going to take lessons, too. Although I know it will be slow going. When Alan turned on the device’s metronome, I wondered why it went chirp-tock-tock-tock-chirp-tock-tock-tock. “That’s the beat,” he said. Oh. Mr. Know-it-All. If only he had spoken the language of Prince, I would have understood perfectly: “All the white people clap your hands on the four now — one, two, three, (clap), one, two, three, (clap).”

I still think I need more musical training.

Feeling 3/4 of the way to health. More tomorrow.

I haven’t been kidnapped, unless you count rhinoviruses as felons, in which case I have. I’m done with my five-day antibiotic course, I’m eating Sudafed like popcorn and still — the snot fountain flows afresh. Excuse that disgusting image, but I’m beyond that particular emotion at the moment. Surround yourself with a growing mountain range of used tissues, and that’ll happen.

But I will not be brought down too far. I’m two-thirds of the way through a rare three-day weekend, planning all sorts of krayzee fun for tonight — why, I might stay up until 10! Have TWO glasses of wine! Watch the last half of “The Manchurian Candidate,” because I fell asleep halfway through last night, when I nodded off at 10:05! (Codeine cough syrup.)

Life in middle age is fun. It’s just a different kind of fun.

In its own sort of way, it was an eventful weekend. Alan went fishing Friday and Kate starts school tomorrow, so mother and daughter had a errand-y couple of days of looking for school shoes, buying the last of the unbought supplies and trying to get this kid in a going-to-school frame of mind, no small affair. Frankly, I’m relieved, but not for the usual reasons — Alan’s had the child-care deal this summer. It’s just that it’s time. Turn, turn, turn and all that stuff. Plus, if she spends any more time scampering around the neighborhood she’s going to turn into a monkey.

I was weak and dizzy frequently during my all-day slog through the housecleaning today, which was a good excuse to turn on the TV and inhale some brief puffs of the Olympics. I ask you: Is anything not an Olympic sport? Track and field, swimming, gymnastics — sure. But…trampoline? Badminton? Seventeen different kinds of rowing? Canoeing? I’m a traditionalist, sure, but even beach volleyball seems like a waste of time. Doesn’t regular old volleyball showcase the sport enough? No wonder this shindig costs $8 billion. In a few more years world cities are going to compete to not have to host this boondoggle.

Dump all that stuff (OK, guys, you can keep beach volleyball if it gets you that hot and bothered) and bring back pankration, I say. (On the other hand, I enjoy lots of the weird winter Olympic sports. Curling? Gotta love it. Biathlon? Love it more. But mogul skiing is stupid.)

Also, I love Svetlana, too. She’s one competitor who makes me with John Tesh still had his gig.

And those laurel wreaths? That’s a hard look to rock.

OK, bloggage. I’m days late catching up, but what the hey, here’s a mixed grill:

This is long, but I really liked this Gene Weingarten piece about the psychology of terrorism — of the terrorized, specifically. It reminded me of chatting with our Israeli fellow last year, who was always so amazed that Americans spoke of feeling unsafe in their own country. Want to feel unsafe in your own country? Emigrate to Israel.

Another WashPost piece from last week I liked was this, about the nature of the questions at those “Ask President Bush” campaign stops. Like? Oh, like this: “Mr. President,” begins a young man in a baseball hat. “I just want to say I’m praying for you and God bless you.” And then one questioner later: “I would just like to say that I agree with this gentleman, that we should all pray for you.” OK, glad to hear it.

More tomorrow. Really.

It seems I start every other entry with “sorry” these days, but it’s called for again. The cold Kate had found me yesterday, and ran me down like a speeding freight. I think it’s a sinus infection, actually — all the signs are there. I had a doctor’s appointment on another matter today, so we killed two birds with one stone. Thank God for general practice, is what I always say.

And thank God that once in a while we get sick, so we have an excuse to lie on the couch on a beautiful summer afternoon and watch “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.” It was, as reviewed, pretty much an incoherent mess, but an entertaining incoherent mess. If I were Demi Moore’s best friend, though, I’d tell her to spend one-tenth of the time she spends on her workout routine watching the occasional Marx Brothers movie. No one ever seems to let her know when she’s in a comedy, and it just embarrasses me. Great abs, though.

OK, so it’s off to bed to let the medicine work. Until we meet again: R.W. Apple on Julia Child.

Sorry for no update last night. Note to self: Don’t get home from weekend fun at 10 p.m. when you have a 3:45 a.m. alarm. It really ruins your blogging time.

Now that that’s done, though, let’s let ‘er rip. I have one question for the assembled today: When the hell did everybody in the world get so ugly?

I’m indebted to our Turkish friends Fatih and Idil for an expression we use in our family. One day, while discussing a trip to Istanbul we’d like to make next summer, I wondered whether a secular American like myself would find parts of the city a little too Muslim for comfort, if you catch my drift. Oh no no no no no, Fatih said; Istanbul is a sophisticated world city. It’s only when you travel farther east that the going might get a little weird. “Eastern Turkey,” then, became our shorthand for any place where the natives make us feel like we’re on the other side of the world.

So Saturday we went to the Branch County Fair in southern Michigan, the quickest trip to Eastern Turkey I’ve yet made. It’s been a while since I’ve felt entirely at home in a crowd of my fellow Americans — about since piercing and tattooing took off like twin rockets from hell — but man oh man, you’d think Michigan wouldn’t be so strange and off-putting, like a trip to prison. Nothing like passing close by a man wearing matching cotton-jersey camo, the shirt emblazoned “Bobby Labonte” to make you wonder where your cosmic ship had washed ashore. How about a 300-pound man with a shoulder-blade-length curly mullet, shaved bald on the sides? His wife smoked a cigarette as long as my arm and nursed what appeared to be a one-gallon flagon of Mountain Dew. Teenage boys wore the sorts of clothes you can’t imagine any female finding attractive — those enormous pants, shirts that showed off armpits and man-boobs, and of course that mutant baseball cap made to be worn backward and pulled down to the tops of the ears.

And the T-shirts! Don’t piss me off, I’m running out of places to hide the bodies … Blondes do it better (this on a woman sporting five inches of roots proving she’s anything but). Tattoos on necks! And everywhere, 50 extra pounds of pudge, bulging over EZ-stretch waistbands and (why? why?!) low-rise jeans.

“When did Michigan turn into eastern Turkey?” I asked Alan.

“Oh, this is the midway,” he said. “And it’s mud-racing night. You go back to the farm buildings, it won’t be this bad.”

And it wasn’t precisely that bad. No, back by the farm buildings you could watch the “Hillbilly Daze” music and comedy review, watched by a knot of veiled Muslim women and their stern-looking menfolk, no doubt enjoying every minute of this immersion in American culture. We’re all in eastern Turkey now.

But a lovely weekend it was, otherwise, except that the cold Kate came down with last week has now moved to Alan, and will probably get me by week’s end, too. We spent the weekend at the lake, enjoying the unseasonably cool weather. Kate’s friend Sophia came over from Ann Arbor, and we took her home Sunday, which made for lots of driving but also the chance to get all moony with yearning for my spiritual hometown. We also saw Fatih and Idil’s new baby, their Yankee doodle dandy, before they head home. Talia is a week old and today’s milestone is Baby’s First Passport Application. You might be wondering, will she have to have her picture taken? Why yes, she will. I can just see the scene at immigration now:

“This isn’t this child! This is Winston Churchill!”

Bloggage: In case my brief meditation on how young people look these days wasn’t depressing enough, you can read this WashPost story about the state of one 26-year-old soul and get even more so.

Roger Ebert called “The Brown Bunny” one of the worst films he’d ever seen. Figures, then, it would need a socko billboard over Sunset Boulevard to really make an impact.