Who's your yddad?

By now most of the country is probably familiar with the 9-year old kid who ran away from home and lied his way from Washington to Texas via Southwest Airlines. (I've included below an opinion column that gives a very good recap.) Despite a complete lack of evidence I have an inkling that the kid's father—apparently not a regular part of the kid's life—shares my first name.

Maternal instinct flew off to La-La Land

Robert L. Jamieson Jr., Seattle Post-Intelligencer

It's not every day that people get played by a sweet-faced 9-year-old.

One who has the bravado to steal a car in Tacoma and lead authorities on a dangerous high-speed chase.

One who showed smarts to get past security at Sea-Tac Airport.

One who duped Southwest Airlines to fly away to Texas because he needed to get away -- just like the airline ad says.

For his adventures last week, 4-foot-9 Semaj Booker was charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor.

I wrote that Pierce County prosecutors should take into consideration his tender age before coming down too hard.

They say they have never charged a 9-year-old. Consideration for the age of the thin fourth-grader ought to soften the blow of justice, right? I was on the fence, leaning toward leniency.

Now I'm beginning to be swayed by those hardened law-and-order types, especially after a national TV tabloid picked up the story, then aired an interview Wednesday featuring Semaj and his mother.

Some of the comments aired. Others were released earlier in the day by "Inside Edition."

Semaj came off remorseless. Even stranger, his mom, Sakinah Booker, exuded maternal pride over his exploits. The whole thing leaves you shaking your head.

The interview could have been a lens onto a lesson learned between a mother and child.

But what happened left a thought: When should you be able to revoke someone's parental license?

I figured the mother and son would spend the bulk of their airtime apologizing to the person whose car got stolen; to authorities who pursued Semaj in the chase; to airport security and airline officials who already have their hands full with terror fears.

But, instead we got an "attaboy" topped with a tepid mother-and-son hug, and his mother saying with a smile, "Don't ever do it again!"

Rather than holding her son accountable for actions that could have harmed others, we hear her admiration for his precocity.

In a quote released earlier Wednesday, the mother said her son showed her that "'I'm going to achieve anything I want to do; I'm going to just do it.'"

Family values have just left the building, folks.

"I planned it all out in advance," Semaj said during the interview, although that comment also did not air. But the statement will no doubt interest prosecutors, who want to know if Semaj had the mental capacity to understand what he is accused of doing.

On the air, Semaj said he went to Texas because "it's always sunny."

The day after the car chase ended -- he was found behind the wheel of a stolen Acura that knocked into a tree -- he thoughtfully hopped a bus to the airport.

He said on the air that he scanned the airport monitors and briefly contemplated catching a flight to Tokyo -- where the street-racing movie, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" is set. Thanks to "Inside Edition," we know he's a fan of the film's high-speed car maneuvers.

"You can drift there," he told the program. "And the cops don't care."

The television show described how Semaj noticed Southwest had the most flights to Texas, then got lucky when he heard the airline page a passenger who had lost his ticket.

He told "Inside Edition" that he walked up to the counter, identified himself as the passenger, Frank, then got a boarding pass, and breezed by a security checkpoint.

(A Southwest Airlines spokeswoman told me Wednesday night the report of the page "is news to us.")

Semaj eventually got caught and was detained in a Texas center for runaways until his mom came and got him a few days ago.

That the pair chose a tabloid television program for their public soapbox speaks volumes.

"Inside Edition" said it paid for Semaj's mother to go to Texas for the blissful reunion.

I put it this way because mother and son seem to be blissfully ignorant of the peeved and aggrieved people -- a car-theft victim, airport officials and prosecutors -- Semaj left behind.

The whole episode sends Semaj the wrong message -- if you do wrong, you land on national TV basking in the glow of mommy love.

The kid needs to be grounded. If his mom won't do it, prosecutors should.

Prosecutors last night said they are going forward with the criminal charges -- including theft and eluding -- against Semaj, who has returned to the area.

"I believe minds are going to differ on this," Prosecutor Fred Wist said of the decision.

Yes. But this bright youth needs to learn that life is neither a video game, nor a movie, nor a tabloid TV show.

There are real consequences for reckless actions. It's not child's play. Better learn it now, not later.

(As a high school student I would have my American Mathematics Competition public score posting attributed to Iksokopeh Semaj.)

Abducted

I finally got my Alienware back after sending it in for repair on 18 December, and I'm sad to report that those dunderhead technicians proved wholly useless once again, as they returned the system unchanged.

...or are you just burning to see me?

Fire in man's pants not started by phone

The Associated Press

VALLEJO, Calif. – A fire that started in a man's pants pocket, critically injuring him and destroying his hotel room, was not ignited by a cell phone as authorities suspected, phone technicians said.

Nokia Corp. engineers found that the charred device still worked Wednesday and convinced fire department investigators that it had not spontaneously ignited in Luis Picaso's pocket.

"He could have been smoking a cigarette, the cigarette fell into his pocket, and it started on fire," Vallejo fire inspector Bill Tweedy said. "We don't know that. We weren't there."

The fire caused about $75,000 in damage to the residential hotel and a ground-floor business. Picaso, 59, was in critical condition Thursday with second- and third-degree burns to his upper body, right arm and right leg.

The fire apparently started in Picaso's pants pocket while he slept on a plastic lawn chair in his room, authorities said. Picaso is under heavy sedation and doesn't seem to remember what happened, Tweedy said.

The usual suspects

I have about as much respect for the Grammy Awards as the creators of the Simpson's do

(Homer: Mr. John, I'm your biggest fan. I tape-recorded all your songs off the radio.
Elton: Oh, that's very sweet. Have a Grammy. (produces one from nowhere)
Homer: Uh … (throws it in a garbage can)),

but somehow I think I'll find it in me to hate the Recording Academy just a little more if the sissy boys of Stone Sour beat Mastondon for Best Metal performance.

At the movies

I'm just back from Curse of the Golden Flower a Chinese piece of palace intrigue and occasional martial arts. It's only the most recent of a long string of films I've seen lately. In theater I've attended: Apocalypto, The Fountain, The Prestige and Casino Royale. On video I've watched: Das Boot, The Bourne Supremacy, Miami Vice, Lucky Number Slevin, Thank You For Smoking, The Big Blue, The Perfect Storm, and Man of Aran. I'd recommend Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot to just about anybody who can handle subtitles and Mel Gibson's Apocalypto to anyone who can stomach very graphic violence; both are well crafted and highly potent films.

By the numbers

Claire and I celebrated a year-and-a-half together with a lunch at Wolfgang Puck's 20.21 in the new Walker Art Center. We were already visiting the building so that I could shoot some video for a project I'm working on for a professor, so the restaurant lent itself to our cause quite readily. We both enjoyed the pan-Asian cuisine, which managed to take enough pleasantly unexpected turns to set the menu apart from, say, the local LeeAnn Chin. The pot-stickers we ordered for an appetizer came with a vinaigrette instead of the usual soy sauce concoction, and the lettuce wraps had a much more complex blend of vegetables than I've tasted in similar dishes. I wouldn't make a special trip to 20.21, but I was pleased to find that the food justified the high costs that one normally finds in art museum restaurants.

More spectacular was 112 Eatery, which we visited this evening as my official (albeit delayed) birthday dinner. I started out with duck & radicchio salad, which was heavy to the (very delicious) dressing, but the entrées Mom, Dad, and I ordered (tagliarini w/ blue prawns & vin santo, nori encrusted sirloin w/ ponzu, and pork tenderloin w/ sweet potatoes & Roquefort butter, respectively) were truly spectacular. Laura, never quite as adventurous, ordered the 112 cheese burger, which managed to frustrate her with its exotic array of cheeses. She was happy, however, with the cauliflower fritters, a side we all shared. More than once we felt that the familiar food in front of us (sirloin, sweet potato, cauliflower, or other) was better prepared than anything we'd previously experienced.