Lloyd's doing great. He had another wonderful day, ate well, played heartily and slept the sleep of the clear of conscience.

As I walked with him this morning, we saw two large deer a few hundred yards down the road. Lloyd bolted towards them as I trailed behind yelling,"Hey! Wait up!"

'Wait up' is a term we often used with fellow kids but one we never wanted to hear from our parents.

"I'll wait up until you get home."

"No, that's OK, Mom. You don't have to."

It's funny how the language of boyhood returns when you're walking through the countryside with your dog. It got me to thinking about the dogs and friends with whom I traipsed through my early years. Dogs are just like kids. Too intrigued by new developments to consider personal safety, they must investigate everything. And they must take the most direct route. Puddles, streams, muck or what have ya, it's all just between here and there and it all must be dissected.

So as I retrieved Lloyd and thought of what a happy childhood we were still having, I thought again of the term 'Wait up!' and realized that it applied to other things. Like the rest of the world. And so here are some comments on a melange of issues that haven't been waiting up for me.

The important question we must ask presidential candidates is: if elected, what will you do to rescue those poor miners in Utah?

A year and a half after Sago and nothing has changed.

The only time mine owners are concerned about the well being of miners is when a mine owners is speaking at press conferences.

Classic Bush Administration. It can't get any groundswell of support for attacking Iran the nation well how about Iran the nation that arms terrorists and dresses them in military uniforms?

But wait, I thought terrorists worked undercover.

And I didn't think anything uniformed military did could be construed as terrorism.

You don't suppose this means some of what American troops have done in Iraq could be considered to be terrorism, do you?

Nah, that's just too far-fetched to even consider.

Karl Rove is going home to spend more time with his family.

Any glee we might feel about Rove's departure should be tempered with two things.

First we must be concerned for his family. How they will survive a brutal onslaught of character assassination, wiretaps and dirty tricks is anyone's guess.

And second: he didn't leave the White House in shackles.

Shamble yes, shambles, no.

Although there is still a persistent rumor that his White House office/dungeon was equipped with all sorts of restraints.

Rove himself of course had no restraint whatsoever.

What is comical is the idea that Rove left town because the Democrats were closing in on him.

Oh yeah, thoughts of Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton were giving Herr Karl the night sweats.

Toxicologists missed their chance at Rove's public announcement on Monday -- they should have harvested his tears for use as anti-venom.

I saw Hillary Clinton's new campaign commercial, replete with emotionally manipulative music playing under pronouncements about how much she cares for the 'invisible people" in this country.

The ad says "Hillary Clinton has spent her life standing up for people others don't see."

Yeah, invisible people like the hardworking lobbyists who lug bag after bag of campaign cash to the Clinton campaign.

Selfless lobbyists, eschewing the spotlight, never so much as grunting under the weight of their labors because to make a noise could mean detection.

These altruists do their duty so Clinton has the funds to make maudlin campaign commercials in which to claim she is going to come to the rescue of all the other invisible Americans.

She doesn't want Americans to be invisible to their government, particularly when they are in private, which is why she proudly voted for the Patriot Act.

And then (cue the sappy music) she voted to reauthorize it.

Clinton's ad claims she cares what we are thinking and going through but the only voices on the spot are that of a narrator, who is extolling her virtues, and Hillary, who is extolling her virtues.

The narrator has a voice possessed of all the sincerity of a guy selling hamburger on a Stop & Shop ad.

To call Hillary's voice 'grating' would be too generous. Grating takes a few seconds to annoy and even longer to sicken. Clinton's sonic assault does all that in a mere syllable. " IIIIIIII"

If she had anything to say that wasn't self-serving and phony, we could get past her voice. But she doesn't and so we should trust our natural defenses, tune her out and read the transcripts.

If you think she's the best we can do, you'd be better off just admitting that the United States of America has officially reached the status of "failed experiment."

Sorry about that. I do know how many Americans need to make ambitious, power hungry and shameless people into idols so that they might be worshipped but that's exactly how we ended up botching the experiment.

When Hillary Clinton promises that the first thing she will do when she takes office is withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and rescind all of the executive orders George W. Bush has handed down to cripple our civil liberties, we should begin to pay her some heed.

Quite frankly, I think she is champing at the bit to enter an Oval Office that's been refitted with new and even more dastardly powers than her husband exercised.

Powers that only a true believer in the patriarchy could ever want to assume.

***

Remember the good old days when 'recalling toys' meant nostalgic discussions about Rock-em, Sock-em Robots or Colorforms?

And finally, Phil Rizzuto is being remembered fondly by many today. The Hall of Fame Yankee shortsop and broadcaster was another familiar voice of my childhood.

In this day of steroids and dog-fighting it's hard to think of anyone involved with sports who could do what the mere mention of the Scooter does: bring a smile.

From his Yankee homersim, to his phobic fears of creepy-crawly things and lightning, to his proclivity to duck out of the booth in the Bronx to beat the traffic across the George Washington Bridge well before games were decided, Phil was a genuine character. He could be bought for the price of a cannoli, not to do wrong but to wish someone "Happy Birthday!"

He announced games that reflected what he saw. Once in the mid-Sixties, my pal Pete McLean and I were watching the Yanks and Orioles duel in the Bronx. Some idiot threw something from the stands onto the field. Oriole immortal Frank Robinson loped over to remove the refuse and Rizzuto said, "Frank Robinson is picking up a baloney sandwich in right field."

Now understand Rizzuto was up in the press box maybe 350 feet from Robinson. There were no ultra-zoom lenses in those days so all he could see was Robinson picking up a white paper bag. No matter-- to Phil, it was a baloney sandwich. Ever since then all Pete or I have to say is, "Robinson is picking up a baloney sandwich" to make the other start laughing. Phil Rizzuto was in his own world and he welcomed the rest of us to it with an open heart and a ready smile. He was a genuinely nice man and wonderful company for kids who shared his love of baseball. So long, Scooter. You will be missed.