Restaurants are a wealth of entertainment. Take a few minutes just to cock your head in another table's direction and nine times out of ten you'll get a head-shaking earful. Dinner and a show! And as much as you might think it's teenagers or lovey-dovey couples that might provide the best fodder for a chuckle, it is the senior citizen that never fails to entertain. Case in point was the lone diner at the table next to Lisa and I at the local Italian bistro. After receiving his chicken casear salad he grumbled, harumphed, and sighed heavily in an attempt to attract the attention of the young floor manager. As she approached hesitantly he let loose his disdain about the size of his meal.
"This is not eleven dollars worth of chicken. You need to bring me eleven dollars worth of chicken. Not a whole other portion of chicken, just enough so that I have eleven dollars worth of chicken."
I so can't wait to become a senior citizen!
Many people do every thing they can to stave off the progress of years. I, on the other hand, cannot wait for the fun and obnoxious benefits of being a post-sixty five year old. The world is at your feet once you reach gumper status.
First off, who would pass on a perpetual ten percent discount on virtually everything? My mother couldn't understand my fathers enthusiasm in joining AARP. Dad, however, understood the benefits completely: discounts discounts discounts. I'm going to have to double laminate my membership card to keep it intact against it's constant use.
A few years back I was at the local grocery and found myself waiting in queue to checkout. Without warning a crusty old fella jumps in front of me without a word. After realizing he's not with the family in front of me, I tap him on the shoulder for his attention.
"Sir, the end of the line is back there," I inform him as I point over my shoulder.
"So? I'm old!"
Although I'm known for being an impatient person, I will be the first to let someone with one or two items to go ahead of me if I have a full cart. It's just the courteous thing to do. But Mr. Crusty didn't ask and wasn't even remotely nice about it.
"I don't care if you're a hundred and eighty, get your ass to the back of the line."
"But I'm old!"
"Yeah, and you're rude, too, and rude trumps old. You should have just asked to go ahead. Now get thee to the end of the line."
I sooooo can't wait to try and pull something like that! The assumption that having wrinkles is your passport to expedience is a tactic I look forward to attempting.
You can say whatever is on your mind without fear of offending anyone. Whatever verges on insane or inane can be excused by age or the possibility of being senile. Shout out loud in public, scold cacophonous teenagers. Sometimes talking so absurdly to someone can get them to cave in to something just by nature of being exhausted with trying to understand you. This works best on high school students working retail at Christmas. Those sweaters aren't buy one get one free, but by the time you're done asking how the sale works for the thirtieth time, you'll get that second sweater for free, or at least a discount.
Sick of sitting in traffic? Once you're retired the sidewalk is your own personal commute lane. There's always a story in the paper about some half-blind, seizure-ridden Octogenarian knocking over pedestrians with their El Dorado like bowling pins. And you'll always get Doris Day parking: those blue spaces you so coveted in your twenties are now yours for the taking. If those aren't available, park that champagne colored Buick wherever the hell you like. I'm old! They should paint those lines better! I'm special!
Getting older is your ticket to freedom. You'll no longer be constrained by the tenets of decorum. Deference is due you. And you can finally buy things, like Preparation H without embarrassment.
After about five minutes of picking through his eleven dollar chicken caesar, our friend at the next table asked for a to-go box. Making sure he didn't spend any unnecessary cash, he whipped out his tip card, left his dollar, and exited with tomorrow's meal.
"You know, that's you in a few years," my wife laughed.
"I hope so. I certainly hope so."
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Doughnut Hole-y War?
Ironically, I was drinking my morning coffee when I read about this egregious act of paranoia. A right-wing conservative group asked Dunkin Donuts to pull an add featuring Rachael Ray because she was wearing a scarf that looked slightly like a Muslim keffiyeh. Never mind the fact that coffee originated in Arabia. Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin claimed that the keffiyeh (which is worn by males, not females) "has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad."
The term Jihad, in it's true, original definition, refers to an internal struggle against sin. The modern Western understanding comes from a convoluted translation made by Christian Crusaders in the 12th century.
Beyond that, though, I fail to understand how drinking a Dunkin Donut Mochaccino will contribute to a struggle for international recognition of a Palestinian state. Unless Rachael Ray is a subversive in the PLO, at which point I think Homeland Security should start doing their job and detain her as an enemy combatant.
Within a day of the announced boycott Dunkin Donuts crumbled like a crueller and pulled the ad.
If we are to somehow find ourselves agreeing with this boycott, then we need to make sure we are boycotting all Islamic products just to make sure we don't spontaneously start praying to Mecca five times a day.
So put down that bottle of Evian because Muslims invented water purification.
But don't grab that Coca Cola as a substitute. That's right, carbonation in beverages was an Islamic creation.
Your hygiene is going to suffer pretty dramatically. Soap was first seen in Mesopotamian society as was perfume. So no more baths, showers, deodorant, cologne, body wash, or shampoo.
Better think about driving the kids to Disney this year 'cause you can't fly. The magnetic compass. Muslim creation.
Oh, but you can't drive either. Even though Henry Ford invented the automobile, it was the simple crankshaft that made Babylon grow.
And without ambulances, how are you going to get to the hospital when you get sick? You can't go anyway. You won't be able to get a blood test, get a flu shot, or even your self-indulgent treatment of Botox. The hypodermic needle is a Middle Eastern invention.
And you better burn that Bible of yours. Paper. Egyptians. Muslims.
Another irony. The term boycott comes from England. Charles Boycott protested new tax laws on his land in Ireland by the British. 160 years later the British were smack in the middle of another land dispute: the seizure of Palestinian land to create the State of Israel, launching the "jihad" these right wing extremists are referring to in their own boycott of Dunkin Donuts.
So who do you shake your head at more? The ill-educated extremists or the corporation that succumbed to their demand?
We can talk about that later. My Arabian Mocca Java is getting cold and Rachael Ray is on in just a few minutes....
The term Jihad, in it's true, original definition, refers to an internal struggle against sin. The modern Western understanding comes from a convoluted translation made by Christian Crusaders in the 12th century.
Beyond that, though, I fail to understand how drinking a Dunkin Donut Mochaccino will contribute to a struggle for international recognition of a Palestinian state. Unless Rachael Ray is a subversive in the PLO, at which point I think Homeland Security should start doing their job and detain her as an enemy combatant.
Within a day of the announced boycott Dunkin Donuts crumbled like a crueller and pulled the ad.
If we are to somehow find ourselves agreeing with this boycott, then we need to make sure we are boycotting all Islamic products just to make sure we don't spontaneously start praying to Mecca five times a day.
So put down that bottle of Evian because Muslims invented water purification.
But don't grab that Coca Cola as a substitute. That's right, carbonation in beverages was an Islamic creation.
Your hygiene is going to suffer pretty dramatically. Soap was first seen in Mesopotamian society as was perfume. So no more baths, showers, deodorant, cologne, body wash, or shampoo.
Better think about driving the kids to Disney this year 'cause you can't fly. The magnetic compass. Muslim creation.
Oh, but you can't drive either. Even though Henry Ford invented the automobile, it was the simple crankshaft that made Babylon grow.
And without ambulances, how are you going to get to the hospital when you get sick? You can't go anyway. You won't be able to get a blood test, get a flu shot, or even your self-indulgent treatment of Botox. The hypodermic needle is a Middle Eastern invention.
And you better burn that Bible of yours. Paper. Egyptians. Muslims.
Another irony. The term boycott comes from England. Charles Boycott protested new tax laws on his land in Ireland by the British. 160 years later the British were smack in the middle of another land dispute: the seizure of Palestinian land to create the State of Israel, launching the "jihad" these right wing extremists are referring to in their own boycott of Dunkin Donuts.
So who do you shake your head at more? The ill-educated extremists or the corporation that succumbed to their demand?
We can talk about that later. My Arabian Mocca Java is getting cold and Rachael Ray is on in just a few minutes....
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The state of edumication
I read the newspaper every morning, starting with the front page, local news, business, sports, and then the lifestyle section. I like to save the humor for last to set a good tone for the day. Unfortunately today's section set an entirely different tone, the type of tone that makes you inhale deeply, purse your lips, shake your head, and let loose a forlorn sigh of defeat. The bitter taste in my mouth wasn't from my room-temperature coffee.
"Hitler's instrumentality of terror was the Gespacho."
"More than two decades later it is hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming out any other way."
One of these quotes is a student's test answer. The other is a direct quote from our President.
Every once in a while the paper will feature these humorous gaffes as submitted by teachers, but more often than not, these are grade-school students. In today's edition, the test answer came from a college student.
Look at the two quotes again. Can you tell which belongs to which? Or shall I re-phrase that to say: which quote belongs to the current President and which belongs to a future President.
If this glaring example of sheer stupidity is an indicator of the current state of education in this country then history will look back and hail George W Bush as model of smarterness and elloquental vocalating. The 2000 election should be example enough: confusion about how to read the ballot card and failing to follow the directions as given on the ballot lead to mis-cast votes and the election of "The Decider."
There are many books, calendars, t-shirts, etc., of "Bushisms." The mere fact that there is enough of these to fill an entire book is a slap in the face to the nation's education system and the public at large. Leaders are ones who are supposed to set examples, be standards of excellence. Instead we have the leader of the free world, the most powerful man on the planet, laud remarks by His Supreme Holiness, the Pope, by saying "Thank you, Your Holiness; awesome speech."
Surfers, gamers, stoners, Valley Girls, kids on playgrounds, Chris Farley, astronomers, reality tv show contestants, Rolling Stone magazine, hippies, Ultimate Fighting Champions, sk8ers, and Ty Pennington would be expected to use the word "awesome" to describe the Pope's words, but the President of the United States? Dude....
We have a President who called his closest advisor "Turd Blossom."
Edumacation has never polled in the top 5 issues important to Americans in this election. And judging by the answers on these college level tests, our future leaders won't be pushing it to the fore-front either. Even when Barack Obama gets elected, it'll be just like college all over again: Congress won't study for the tests Professor President will give it, give plenty of excuses for not completing assigned work, and hap-hazzardly rush through everything to make it to recess.
There is an entire book of "funny" test answers, from whence came today's quotes in the paper. But knowing that our future lies in the hands of these same students isn't funny at all. George W Bush is a shining example of our laissez-faire attitude towards education. (Go find a dictionary and look it up.... or don't....)
Even though Bush was recently gave an address to the Israeli Knesset and his remarks referred to the errors of appeasement, the quote about Hitler was not his. That was a test answer. The leader of the United States was the genius who compressed our own history into twenty short years. I guess he has the right, after all, he is the Decider.
"Hitler's instrumentality of terror was the Gespacho."
"More than two decades later it is hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming out any other way."
One of these quotes is a student's test answer. The other is a direct quote from our President.
Every once in a while the paper will feature these humorous gaffes as submitted by teachers, but more often than not, these are grade-school students. In today's edition, the test answer came from a college student.
Look at the two quotes again. Can you tell which belongs to which? Or shall I re-phrase that to say: which quote belongs to the current President and which belongs to a future President.
If this glaring example of sheer stupidity is an indicator of the current state of education in this country then history will look back and hail George W Bush as model of smarterness and elloquental vocalating. The 2000 election should be example enough: confusion about how to read the ballot card and failing to follow the directions as given on the ballot lead to mis-cast votes and the election of "The Decider."
There are many books, calendars, t-shirts, etc., of "Bushisms." The mere fact that there is enough of these to fill an entire book is a slap in the face to the nation's education system and the public at large. Leaders are ones who are supposed to set examples, be standards of excellence. Instead we have the leader of the free world, the most powerful man on the planet, laud remarks by His Supreme Holiness, the Pope, by saying "Thank you, Your Holiness; awesome speech."
Surfers, gamers, stoners, Valley Girls, kids on playgrounds, Chris Farley, astronomers, reality tv show contestants, Rolling Stone magazine, hippies, Ultimate Fighting Champions, sk8ers, and Ty Pennington would be expected to use the word "awesome" to describe the Pope's words, but the President of the United States? Dude....
We have a President who called his closest advisor "Turd Blossom."
Edumacation has never polled in the top 5 issues important to Americans in this election. And judging by the answers on these college level tests, our future leaders won't be pushing it to the fore-front either. Even when Barack Obama gets elected, it'll be just like college all over again: Congress won't study for the tests Professor President will give it, give plenty of excuses for not completing assigned work, and hap-hazzardly rush through everything to make it to recess.
There is an entire book of "funny" test answers, from whence came today's quotes in the paper. But knowing that our future lies in the hands of these same students isn't funny at all. George W Bush is a shining example of our laissez-faire attitude towards education. (Go find a dictionary and look it up.... or don't....)
Even though Bush was recently gave an address to the Israeli Knesset and his remarks referred to the errors of appeasement, the quote about Hitler was not his. That was a test answer. The leader of the United States was the genius who compressed our own history into twenty short years. I guess he has the right, after all, he is the Decider.
Monday, May 26, 2008
History Lessons
We will never win the war on terror. Everyone knows this, including the warmongering neo-cons in the White House. We won't win the war because it is not a war in the classical sense. It is not army pitted against army battling for sovereignty. It is a guerrilla war of ideology being fought as a conventional war of supremacy.
Every generation considers itself smarter and more advanced than the generation before. The arrogance of each progression explodes exponentially. This hubris is what has lead our current leaders to make the same mistakes civilization has made before. Cliches are cliches because they hold a modicum of truth but we tend to ignore such golden maxims as "hindsight is 20/20" and "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." There are insanely valid reasons why this war is compared to Vietnam. We cannot see a finish line not because there is too much blinding ticker-tape, we cannot see it because we are running the wrong race.
The number of lessons to learn from are staggering. The most glaring should be our very own Revolution. The Reader's Digest version: Americans waged a successful guerrilla war against a conventional army unwilling to modify it's fighting tactics. The attacks of 9/11 changed the face of modern warfare, in terms of tactics, just as the introduction of mustard gas and mechanized weaponry changed the nature of conflict during the First World War.
Al-Queda does not have a standing army but stands as the single greatest enemy of the United States. In response we pump billions of dollars into a missile defense system to defend Western Europe from attacks from Russia and China? This makes as much sense as moving all of our armies to the Canadian border were we to be attacked by Mexico. If anything this senseless build up has done nothing but provocate nations that currently pose no threat to global peace. Russia is undergoing an economic renaissance due to oil exploration and production. China is working to mend its image world-wide while building up one of the strongest economies of the 21st century. To what purpose would these emerging economic markets threaten their prosperity by aggression against Europe or the United States?
It is a by-product of Cold War thinking. Because we face an ideology rather than a nation as an enemy we turn to more comfortable and familiar posturing; we aim missiles and puff our chests.
And we give the world another reason to call us "bully."
Lessons of the past. We were accused by the global community of building an empire after our dominance in the Spanish-American War. We seized territories around the world and intended to keep them in our ever-lasting lust for expansion. The isolationism that followed during the Wilson years repaired our tyrannical image. Our magnanimity following the Second World War in the form of the Marshall Plan cemented our reputation as "knights in shining armor." After earning disdain for our face-saving reluctance to excise ourselves from Vietnam our place in the world remained tenuous. Ironically it was George HW Bush who repaired our profile by following his UN mandate to the letter when liberating Kuwait from the Iraqi incursion. He did not use it as a prelude to further aggression and America was seen once again as the peace-maker of the globe.
It is now the norm to claim to be Canadian while travelling abroad.
How far we've fallen while trying to "do the right thing." While it was justified to retaliate after the attacks on the World Trade Center, we did so in the fashion of nation against nation. And we haven't adjusted that mind-set thus far. We are fighting against an enemy that doesn't adhere to the same rules or principles of warfare that we do.
So like a young child who cannot successfully complete a level of play on a videogame, we yank the game and put in another, ignoring the fact that the old game will remain active and incomplete until we decide to face it again and go at it from a different angle.
Afghanistan to Iraq to ....
Barack Obama has been roundly criticized for proffering a dialogue with our enemies. These attacks from come from the far right, the never-back-down crowd. These ideologues are the same people who hold Ronald Reagan in god-like reverence. Ronald Reagan is the great Cold Warrior who faced down the Evil Empire and brought freedom and democracy to Eastern Europe...
...by talking to his enemy face to face.
Synonymous with "Republican", Richard Nixon was the one who held a dialogue with communist China. This was a nation of a billion people with the world's largest standing army, practitioners of an ideology anathema to democracy. It was a face to face dialogue that eased tensions and allowed the flourishing of economic expansion on a global scale that we see today.
There has been a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel for over 30 years because two sworn enemies sat down face to face and talked. Though not a perfect peace, it is a peace non-the-less and is an example of the power of inter locution.
We instinctively attack what we don't know and understand. New York was attacked because our actions in the Middle East are perceived as being only favorable toward Israel. The United States is seen as intolerant of Muslims and Islam. Our attacks on Iraq have only deepened that belief. Would a summit change any of that? How are we to know if we don't try. We've tried the belligerent militant way for seven years without success. If Senator Obama is to be decried for wanting to face his enemy off of the battlefield, then so, too, must Reagan and Nixon be denounced for their cowardly acts of attrition.
It is Memorial Day. I would rather see a future Memorial Day when we remember finding a lasting peace. Until the players change, the game will remain the same.
Every generation considers itself smarter and more advanced than the generation before. The arrogance of each progression explodes exponentially. This hubris is what has lead our current leaders to make the same mistakes civilization has made before. Cliches are cliches because they hold a modicum of truth but we tend to ignore such golden maxims as "hindsight is 20/20" and "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." There are insanely valid reasons why this war is compared to Vietnam. We cannot see a finish line not because there is too much blinding ticker-tape, we cannot see it because we are running the wrong race.
The number of lessons to learn from are staggering. The most glaring should be our very own Revolution. The Reader's Digest version: Americans waged a successful guerrilla war against a conventional army unwilling to modify it's fighting tactics. The attacks of 9/11 changed the face of modern warfare, in terms of tactics, just as the introduction of mustard gas and mechanized weaponry changed the nature of conflict during the First World War.
Al-Queda does not have a standing army but stands as the single greatest enemy of the United States. In response we pump billions of dollars into a missile defense system to defend Western Europe from attacks from Russia and China? This makes as much sense as moving all of our armies to the Canadian border were we to be attacked by Mexico. If anything this senseless build up has done nothing but provocate nations that currently pose no threat to global peace. Russia is undergoing an economic renaissance due to oil exploration and production. China is working to mend its image world-wide while building up one of the strongest economies of the 21st century. To what purpose would these emerging economic markets threaten their prosperity by aggression against Europe or the United States?
It is a by-product of Cold War thinking. Because we face an ideology rather than a nation as an enemy we turn to more comfortable and familiar posturing; we aim missiles and puff our chests.
And we give the world another reason to call us "bully."
Lessons of the past. We were accused by the global community of building an empire after our dominance in the Spanish-American War. We seized territories around the world and intended to keep them in our ever-lasting lust for expansion. The isolationism that followed during the Wilson years repaired our tyrannical image. Our magnanimity following the Second World War in the form of the Marshall Plan cemented our reputation as "knights in shining armor." After earning disdain for our face-saving reluctance to excise ourselves from Vietnam our place in the world remained tenuous. Ironically it was George HW Bush who repaired our profile by following his UN mandate to the letter when liberating Kuwait from the Iraqi incursion. He did not use it as a prelude to further aggression and America was seen once again as the peace-maker of the globe.
It is now the norm to claim to be Canadian while travelling abroad.
How far we've fallen while trying to "do the right thing." While it was justified to retaliate after the attacks on the World Trade Center, we did so in the fashion of nation against nation. And we haven't adjusted that mind-set thus far. We are fighting against an enemy that doesn't adhere to the same rules or principles of warfare that we do.
So like a young child who cannot successfully complete a level of play on a videogame, we yank the game and put in another, ignoring the fact that the old game will remain active and incomplete until we decide to face it again and go at it from a different angle.
Afghanistan to Iraq to ....
Barack Obama has been roundly criticized for proffering a dialogue with our enemies. These attacks from come from the far right, the never-back-down crowd. These ideologues are the same people who hold Ronald Reagan in god-like reverence. Ronald Reagan is the great Cold Warrior who faced down the Evil Empire and brought freedom and democracy to Eastern Europe...
...by talking to his enemy face to face.
Synonymous with "Republican", Richard Nixon was the one who held a dialogue with communist China. This was a nation of a billion people with the world's largest standing army, practitioners of an ideology anathema to democracy. It was a face to face dialogue that eased tensions and allowed the flourishing of economic expansion on a global scale that we see today.
There has been a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel for over 30 years because two sworn enemies sat down face to face and talked. Though not a perfect peace, it is a peace non-the-less and is an example of the power of inter locution.
We instinctively attack what we don't know and understand. New York was attacked because our actions in the Middle East are perceived as being only favorable toward Israel. The United States is seen as intolerant of Muslims and Islam. Our attacks on Iraq have only deepened that belief. Would a summit change any of that? How are we to know if we don't try. We've tried the belligerent militant way for seven years without success. If Senator Obama is to be decried for wanting to face his enemy off of the battlefield, then so, too, must Reagan and Nixon be denounced for their cowardly acts of attrition.
It is Memorial Day. I would rather see a future Memorial Day when we remember finding a lasting peace. Until the players change, the game will remain the same.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
American Idol will get Obama elected President
It's a devisive topic but I have to take a moment and throw my two cents in. It is no secret that I am a big supporter of Barack Obama. The pundits have all but declared him president-elect and have dismissed Hillary even as she plows ahead making arguments as solid as a seive. It's not for the pundits that I believe Obama deserves the nomination, but for three distinct reasons:
1. Compare the campaign slogans. Obama for America vs. Hillary for President. Simply put, one person is running for the people, the other is running for themself. One is all about others, the other is all about me me me. The slogans are subtle indicators of each candidate's motive.
2. The argument that Hillary is the only one who can woo white working class voters is bunk. Obama handilly defeated her in states that are very very white, beginning with Iowa. Idaho, North Dakota, Missouri, Washington, Nebraska. Oregon. The other side of the argument that the white working class voters who supported Hillary won't support Obama in the general election is skewed as well. Polls show that Hillary supporters would jump to McCain. These are opinions given in the heat of the moment out of loyalty to the candidate and frustration at the possibility of losing. Just as Cubs fans and White Sox fans are polarized, if one were to go to the World Series, I doubt there would be rooting for the out-of-town team by anyone from either fan base. Democrats will support Democrats even when their original candidate is not chosen. It is far more important that a Democrat regain the White House than to fracture the party by vanity.
3. Americans know deep down that were Hillary to be elected President she would face the same bitter partisan attacks throughout her administration as her husband did through his and we would endure another four years of a stalled government. She brings too much baggage to effectively end congressional gridlock and partisan bickering. Will anything change if the history books read: Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton?
Bill Clinton is famous for saying he wants to please everybody. He did and said anything to make people happy. That school of thought is the one Hillary attends and she will do and say anything, depriving her of a real system of beliefs or agenda. She will do and say anything to get elected (gas tax holiday anyone?) putting her in a class of politicians who are all about gaining power instead of gaining an opportunity to help others. As the first serious female candidate for President she squandered a great opportunity to be a voice for woman's issues, equality issues, putting her name to a central idea and remaining faithful to it's pursuit (Obama came into the race because he was a consistent proponent of changing the status quo. Being an opponent of the war from the day Congress was asked to authorize it he has been faithful to an issue and has not pandered to voters by changing his stance in the slightest). Hillary enetered the race because she felt it was "her time." Her agenda wsa not issues-based, it was based on a presumption of entitlement.
Selfishness vs selflessness.
We've had seven years of selfishness. Do we want four more?
Americans are registering to vote in record numbers. Watch American Idol and you will notice that as the format has stayed the same every season, viewership and voting numbers have consistently declined. People are tired of the predictable banality and are looking for a reason to become re-engaged. The same is true for politics. We are seeing unimaginable exlposions in voter registration because we finally have something to peak our interest: the chance to make things change.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
1. Compare the campaign slogans. Obama for America vs. Hillary for President. Simply put, one person is running for the people, the other is running for themself. One is all about others, the other is all about me me me. The slogans are subtle indicators of each candidate's motive.
2. The argument that Hillary is the only one who can woo white working class voters is bunk. Obama handilly defeated her in states that are very very white, beginning with Iowa. Idaho, North Dakota, Missouri, Washington, Nebraska. Oregon. The other side of the argument that the white working class voters who supported Hillary won't support Obama in the general election is skewed as well. Polls show that Hillary supporters would jump to McCain. These are opinions given in the heat of the moment out of loyalty to the candidate and frustration at the possibility of losing. Just as Cubs fans and White Sox fans are polarized, if one were to go to the World Series, I doubt there would be rooting for the out-of-town team by anyone from either fan base. Democrats will support Democrats even when their original candidate is not chosen. It is far more important that a Democrat regain the White House than to fracture the party by vanity.
3. Americans know deep down that were Hillary to be elected President she would face the same bitter partisan attacks throughout her administration as her husband did through his and we would endure another four years of a stalled government. She brings too much baggage to effectively end congressional gridlock and partisan bickering. Will anything change if the history books read: Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton?
Bill Clinton is famous for saying he wants to please everybody. He did and said anything to make people happy. That school of thought is the one Hillary attends and she will do and say anything, depriving her of a real system of beliefs or agenda. She will do and say anything to get elected (gas tax holiday anyone?) putting her in a class of politicians who are all about gaining power instead of gaining an opportunity to help others. As the first serious female candidate for President she squandered a great opportunity to be a voice for woman's issues, equality issues, putting her name to a central idea and remaining faithful to it's pursuit (Obama came into the race because he was a consistent proponent of changing the status quo. Being an opponent of the war from the day Congress was asked to authorize it he has been faithful to an issue and has not pandered to voters by changing his stance in the slightest). Hillary enetered the race because she felt it was "her time." Her agenda wsa not issues-based, it was based on a presumption of entitlement.
Selfishness vs selflessness.
We've had seven years of selfishness. Do we want four more?
Americans are registering to vote in record numbers. Watch American Idol and you will notice that as the format has stayed the same every season, viewership and voting numbers have consistently declined. People are tired of the predictable banality and are looking for a reason to become re-engaged. The same is true for politics. We are seeing unimaginable exlposions in voter registration because we finally have something to peak our interest: the chance to make things change.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
God Bless Uzbekistan
My folks were sitting out on the front porch in the Indian Summer evening when I got up the courage to approach them. Did I have a speech prepared, I don't really remember, but I do recall being determined not to take "no" for an answer. Little did I know that this conversation would later change my life in a way I could never have made up if I tried.
"I'm going to go to the Soviet Union this year." Mind you, this was 1990 and Gorbechev was still in power. "I need to see what the Evil Empire."
The money I needed to go had been set aside for a car, but there would always be cars. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I braced myself for battle.
"Okay, but it's gonna be cold."
Two months later I was standing in the middle of Registan Square in the center of Samarkand, Uzbekistan having my picture taken by my Intourist guide Dmitri. I was literally half-way around the world, trodding the same wind-swept steppes as Tamerlane in a city over a thousand years old. I was exploring the far flung corners of the Soviet Empire. Tashkent, Dushanbe, Shakhrisabz. Twelve time zones from home. Little did I know that this small muslim nation at the foothills of the Himalaya mountains would determine my future.
The years after my adventures in Russia were aimless and without purpose. Jobs and acquaintances became a blur. My life lacked purpose and direction. I was burned out from the frenetic world of restaurants and was seeking a change. Tired of working nights, I found a new home at Starbucks. This was before it became the over-zealous McDonald's of the coffee world. Back then it was a smaller company that had just expanded into the Chicago market, still committed to quality and the well-being of it's employees. Finding my niche, I threw myself into it and began to find happiness.
It did not take me long to move up and gain recognition. I became a management trainer taking over a store that held a regional classroom facility. Although I was on a fast-track up, I remained just as cocky and arrogant as ever.
The management trainers were summoned to a certification meeting at the corporate headquarters downtown. Yawn. Another boring meeting. And not being too keen on one of the heads of HR who would be running the meeting, I was less than thrilled to waste this day.
It was the fishnet stockings that made me notice her. Pretty bold, I thought.
We went around the table telling the group an interesting tidbit about ourselves. Remember, the world revolves around me so I had very little interest in the banalities of others. But then...
"I was with Doctors Without Borders in Uzbekistan."
My head shot up, my ears burned, my eyes wheeled on fish-net stockings. I noticed her with more focus now. Suede skirt. Knee-high leather boots. Big turquoise jewelry. Corn-silk hair. Clear emerald eyes. Curves. Incredible curves. Tingly-climbing-the-rope-in-gym-class curves.
My eyes stayed on her as we continued around the room. When it was my turn I focused on her. I, too, had been to Uzbekistan. Something else about F Scott Fitzgerald, blah blah blah. But what I said I was saying directly to her.
We were given a break. Needing some air I followed the majority of the group down the elevators to the front plaza. A tap on the shoulder.
"F Scott, huh?"
"Uzbekistan, really?"
How much was I a self-absorbed jack-ass in those days? I have no recollection of her performing a tasting of coffee prior to the start of the meeting. Yet I eagerly followed her to the kitchen once we were dismissed offering to help her clean up. I walked her to her car, six blocks out of my way. Discovering I lived close to the store she ran, I was invited to stop by for it's grand opening.
Not only did I show up, I stayed for hours, chatting with her Napoleon-esque district manager, patiently waiting for her to end her shift. A drink? Sure.
It was our first date. That night I fell in love with her walk. We drank black martinis. We had our first kiss.
Today, we celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. We have lived in many cities across this country. We each have fond memories of favorite places. She misses New Orleans, I long for the gentility of Georgia. But we will both always hang our hearts in Uzbekistan.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
"I'm going to go to the Soviet Union this year." Mind you, this was 1990 and Gorbechev was still in power. "I need to see what the Evil Empire."
The money I needed to go had been set aside for a car, but there would always be cars. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I braced myself for battle.
"Okay, but it's gonna be cold."
Two months later I was standing in the middle of Registan Square in the center of Samarkand, Uzbekistan having my picture taken by my Intourist guide Dmitri. I was literally half-way around the world, trodding the same wind-swept steppes as Tamerlane in a city over a thousand years old. I was exploring the far flung corners of the Soviet Empire. Tashkent, Dushanbe, Shakhrisabz. Twelve time zones from home. Little did I know that this small muslim nation at the foothills of the Himalaya mountains would determine my future.
The years after my adventures in Russia were aimless and without purpose. Jobs and acquaintances became a blur. My life lacked purpose and direction. I was burned out from the frenetic world of restaurants and was seeking a change. Tired of working nights, I found a new home at Starbucks. This was before it became the over-zealous McDonald's of the coffee world. Back then it was a smaller company that had just expanded into the Chicago market, still committed to quality and the well-being of it's employees. Finding my niche, I threw myself into it and began to find happiness.
It did not take me long to move up and gain recognition. I became a management trainer taking over a store that held a regional classroom facility. Although I was on a fast-track up, I remained just as cocky and arrogant as ever.
The management trainers were summoned to a certification meeting at the corporate headquarters downtown. Yawn. Another boring meeting. And not being too keen on one of the heads of HR who would be running the meeting, I was less than thrilled to waste this day.
It was the fishnet stockings that made me notice her. Pretty bold, I thought.
We went around the table telling the group an interesting tidbit about ourselves. Remember, the world revolves around me so I had very little interest in the banalities of others. But then...
"I was with Doctors Without Borders in Uzbekistan."
My head shot up, my ears burned, my eyes wheeled on fish-net stockings. I noticed her with more focus now. Suede skirt. Knee-high leather boots. Big turquoise jewelry. Corn-silk hair. Clear emerald eyes. Curves. Incredible curves. Tingly-climbing-the-rope-in-gym-class curves.
My eyes stayed on her as we continued around the room. When it was my turn I focused on her. I, too, had been to Uzbekistan. Something else about F Scott Fitzgerald, blah blah blah. But what I said I was saying directly to her.
We were given a break. Needing some air I followed the majority of the group down the elevators to the front plaza. A tap on the shoulder.
"F Scott, huh?"
"Uzbekistan, really?"
How much was I a self-absorbed jack-ass in those days? I have no recollection of her performing a tasting of coffee prior to the start of the meeting. Yet I eagerly followed her to the kitchen once we were dismissed offering to help her clean up. I walked her to her car, six blocks out of my way. Discovering I lived close to the store she ran, I was invited to stop by for it's grand opening.
Not only did I show up, I stayed for hours, chatting with her Napoleon-esque district manager, patiently waiting for her to end her shift. A drink? Sure.
It was our first date. That night I fell in love with her walk. We drank black martinis. We had our first kiss.
Today, we celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. We have lived in many cities across this country. We each have fond memories of favorite places. She misses New Orleans, I long for the gentility of Georgia. But we will both always hang our hearts in Uzbekistan.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
Moby's Courthouse Adventure
Going to the mailbox is always an adventure. No matter how many weeks in a row it spits out nothing but bills and junk-mail you find yourself hoping that something special will be waiting for you today. So with baited breath I opened the door to my tiny little house of snail-mail, hoping to spy the corner of a colored envelope, the signifier of a greeting card, or the bulging hello of manilla carefully cradling an unexpected gift. What I found was, indeed, unexpected. That cringe-inducing green logo from the State of Oregon. Anything from the state is never a good thing, unless it's a tax rebate check, but I owed this year, so I was unable to discern any good from this arrival.
Frowning with a deep consternation I carried it inside, set it on the counter, and stared at it trying to guess it's contents. Imagining the worst would make whatever was inside seem not so bad. Did I have a warrant out for my arrest? Was there an error in my taxes? Problem with my license? The sweat of fear began dripping from my furrowed brow. Just open it, I told myself, and get it over with.
I groaned. I cursed. I threw the damned thing across the kitchen. I cursed again.
Jury duty. I was being called for jury duty.
Being eligible for jury duty for the last twenty years, I had never once been summoned. Finally, it was my arch-enemy, Boregon, that caught up to me. Damned tree-hugging-granola-eating-Birkenstock-wearing-bleeding-heart-liberal-hippies. Oh, wait, that's me....
So being the out-spoken cultural critic that I am, I figured, hey , no big deal. No lawyer worth his salt would want my opinionated and jaded self on a jury. I'd be home by noon.
Luckily for me the courthouse is only a few blocks away. I dressed rather sloppy, hoping to give a cavalier impression. Through the metal detector, down into the limestone depths of the basement. Taking my seat in a crowded waiting room, I filled out a stack of information sheets. This was when I began to realize that should I ever be convicted of a crime, I never want a jury of my peers to decide my fate.
The night before I was instructed to call an information line that would give instructions as to what is expected at the courthouse. Certain things were not allowed: shorts, sweats, hats, and newspapers. Simple and straight-forward, or so I thought.
Did I magically get transported to Mississippi or did Oregon just become the most uneducated and bassackwards state in the Union? (And, yes, I just insulted Mississippi). Looking around me, I spied five people with newspapers, two baseball hats, and one plasticene soccer-mom flaunting her bought-and-paid-for assets in Juicy Couture. Violating the guidelines wasn't going to get anyone out of serving, as it was made clear that those who did would have to return in two weeks to complete a full jury service. All of this was in the informational bulletin we were instructed to call in for the night before. The summons itself was to be brought with as it had your juror number posted on it.
Six people did not bring their summons and did not know their juror number. Within the first fifteen minutes of my being there, seven people were asked to go home and report back in two weeks per their new summons that would be sent to them. The newspapers were confiscated, the baseball hats held until their owners were dismissed for the day. And then it got even better.
Upon entering the holding area everyone was given a clipboard with a series of forms to fill out. The top form instructed which we kept and which we turned in. There was a counter with baskets and above the baskets were examples of which sheet was to go in which basket. No less than fifteen people either had to ask which sheets to turn in or put the wrong sheets in the wrong baskets. So by this time I had counted thirty idiots out of the sixty five who had originally been there. Almost half of the jurors summoned that day were too stupid to make it past the sign-in.
I pray to whatever God or gods may hear me that I never ever ever have to go to court in Oregon.
My number is called and I am whisked away upstairs with about twenty others to a stuffy courtroom that looks like Mike Brady decorated it. We are all sworn in and asked to answer the questions both counsels will ask us. Getting wise to athiests, we are not asked to swear to God nor is a Bible anywhere in sight. Instead we are asked to tell the truth under penalty of purjury.
There went my loophole.
We spend two hours being told about the nature of the case, answering elementary questions about prior experiences that might relate to the case. A car accident is involved (this is a civil case) and anyone who knows me knows that I wreck cars on a fairly consistent basis. I figure that admitting I've been in over ten accidents in the last five years would surely disqualify me and get me excused (meaning I would not face another jury summons for another two years). Counsels excuse themselves to the judge's chamber to pick the unlucky twelve who would be their prisoners for the duration of the day.
The first number called to serve on this jury is mine.
After seating us, the judge begins to dismiss the remining jurors until she is interrupted by a shrill voice to my right. "I've decided that I can't be fair and partial in this case after all." Damn, why hadn't I thought of this? But on the flip side, why the hell didn't you say something before?
Idiot count: 31.
After randomly chosing one of the remaining candidates the case begins. A car, a bike, blah blah blah. Noting how Oregon, like Mississippi, is never in a hurry to do anything, I note that this case was filed in 2005.
Both lawyers sound like Ben Stein. The air conditioning is not working. The woman to my left smells like a nursing home and the fella directly behind me has the habit of clearing his throat every thirty seconds. By five o'clock we are nowhere near completion as the judge astutely points out and orders us to return the following morning. Had we not taken a recess every twenty minutes, being forced into a stale conference room, we might have finished in a day. Instead I was treated to regular intervals of Christian self-help book reviews by two probable 700 Club members and the ramblings of an unemployed machinist soliciting parenting advice for his meth-addicted teenaged step-daughter.
Waking up the next day I debated whether I should have coffee. Did I want to be awake enough to pay attention or drowsy enough to tune-out my fellow peanut gallery goobers?
It was even hotter in the courtroom than the day before. The woman to my left now smells like moldy nursing home.
Thankfully we cruised through closing arguments. I was hopeful we would reach a quick decision and be on our way. The verdict was clear in my mind.
But leave it to Oregon to make things complicated
.
If we found the defendant to not be 100% not at fault, then we simply signed the verdict form and that was it. But if we found any shared responsibility then we had to decide what percentage was each party at fault. If the defendant was over 51% responsible then we had to determine exactly what % responsible he was and order him to pay that % of the awardable damages. If the plaintiff was over 51% responsible we had to allow the judge to determine the % payout.
Confusion and mayhem ensued.
Our elected fore-woman, she of the Pat Robertson Fan Club, could not understand the rules of the verdict sheet if God appeared before her and inscribed them on a stone tablet. Not wanting lose another day to the idiocracy, I jumped from the back of the bus and did my best Sandra Bullock impression. We needed to keep things speeding along or we were going to blow ourselves up.
"Let's make this easy on ourselves. Raise your hand if you think the defendant is 100% at fault and that the plaintif did absolutely nothing wrong to cause this accident."
No one raised their hands.
"Is the defendant 100% innocent?"
Eleven hands. We only needed nine. I pressed the button summoning the bailiff and put an X next to our ruling. Shoving the sheet at the fore-woman I told her to sign it. Before anyone could raise an argument we had reached a verdict.
And I had reached my own: The right to a jury trial as preserved by the Constitution is the single worst idea in the history of our republic, after Prohibition, that is. Speaking of which, boy do I need a drink....
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
Frowning with a deep consternation I carried it inside, set it on the counter, and stared at it trying to guess it's contents. Imagining the worst would make whatever was inside seem not so bad. Did I have a warrant out for my arrest? Was there an error in my taxes? Problem with my license? The sweat of fear began dripping from my furrowed brow. Just open it, I told myself, and get it over with.
I groaned. I cursed. I threw the damned thing across the kitchen. I cursed again.
Jury duty. I was being called for jury duty.
Being eligible for jury duty for the last twenty years, I had never once been summoned. Finally, it was my arch-enemy, Boregon, that caught up to me. Damned tree-hugging-granola-eating-Birkenstock-wearing-bleeding-heart-liberal-hippies. Oh, wait, that's me....
So being the out-spoken cultural critic that I am, I figured, hey , no big deal. No lawyer worth his salt would want my opinionated and jaded self on a jury. I'd be home by noon.
Luckily for me the courthouse is only a few blocks away. I dressed rather sloppy, hoping to give a cavalier impression. Through the metal detector, down into the limestone depths of the basement. Taking my seat in a crowded waiting room, I filled out a stack of information sheets. This was when I began to realize that should I ever be convicted of a crime, I never want a jury of my peers to decide my fate.
The night before I was instructed to call an information line that would give instructions as to what is expected at the courthouse. Certain things were not allowed: shorts, sweats, hats, and newspapers. Simple and straight-forward, or so I thought.
Did I magically get transported to Mississippi or did Oregon just become the most uneducated and bassackwards state in the Union? (And, yes, I just insulted Mississippi). Looking around me, I spied five people with newspapers, two baseball hats, and one plasticene soccer-mom flaunting her bought-and-paid-for assets in Juicy Couture. Violating the guidelines wasn't going to get anyone out of serving, as it was made clear that those who did would have to return in two weeks to complete a full jury service. All of this was in the informational bulletin we were instructed to call in for the night before. The summons itself was to be brought with as it had your juror number posted on it.
Six people did not bring their summons and did not know their juror number. Within the first fifteen minutes of my being there, seven people were asked to go home and report back in two weeks per their new summons that would be sent to them. The newspapers were confiscated, the baseball hats held until their owners were dismissed for the day. And then it got even better.
Upon entering the holding area everyone was given a clipboard with a series of forms to fill out. The top form instructed which we kept and which we turned in. There was a counter with baskets and above the baskets were examples of which sheet was to go in which basket. No less than fifteen people either had to ask which sheets to turn in or put the wrong sheets in the wrong baskets. So by this time I had counted thirty idiots out of the sixty five who had originally been there. Almost half of the jurors summoned that day were too stupid to make it past the sign-in.
I pray to whatever God or gods may hear me that I never ever ever have to go to court in Oregon.
My number is called and I am whisked away upstairs with about twenty others to a stuffy courtroom that looks like Mike Brady decorated it. We are all sworn in and asked to answer the questions both counsels will ask us. Getting wise to athiests, we are not asked to swear to God nor is a Bible anywhere in sight. Instead we are asked to tell the truth under penalty of purjury.
There went my loophole.
We spend two hours being told about the nature of the case, answering elementary questions about prior experiences that might relate to the case. A car accident is involved (this is a civil case) and anyone who knows me knows that I wreck cars on a fairly consistent basis. I figure that admitting I've been in over ten accidents in the last five years would surely disqualify me and get me excused (meaning I would not face another jury summons for another two years). Counsels excuse themselves to the judge's chamber to pick the unlucky twelve who would be their prisoners for the duration of the day.
The first number called to serve on this jury is mine.
After seating us, the judge begins to dismiss the remining jurors until she is interrupted by a shrill voice to my right. "I've decided that I can't be fair and partial in this case after all." Damn, why hadn't I thought of this? But on the flip side, why the hell didn't you say something before?
Idiot count: 31.
After randomly chosing one of the remaining candidates the case begins. A car, a bike, blah blah blah. Noting how Oregon, like Mississippi, is never in a hurry to do anything, I note that this case was filed in 2005.
Both lawyers sound like Ben Stein. The air conditioning is not working. The woman to my left smells like a nursing home and the fella directly behind me has the habit of clearing his throat every thirty seconds. By five o'clock we are nowhere near completion as the judge astutely points out and orders us to return the following morning. Had we not taken a recess every twenty minutes, being forced into a stale conference room, we might have finished in a day. Instead I was treated to regular intervals of Christian self-help book reviews by two probable 700 Club members and the ramblings of an unemployed machinist soliciting parenting advice for his meth-addicted teenaged step-daughter.
Waking up the next day I debated whether I should have coffee. Did I want to be awake enough to pay attention or drowsy enough to tune-out my fellow peanut gallery goobers?
It was even hotter in the courtroom than the day before. The woman to my left now smells like moldy nursing home.
Thankfully we cruised through closing arguments. I was hopeful we would reach a quick decision and be on our way. The verdict was clear in my mind.
But leave it to Oregon to make things complicated
.
If we found the defendant to not be 100% not at fault, then we simply signed the verdict form and that was it. But if we found any shared responsibility then we had to decide what percentage was each party at fault. If the defendant was over 51% responsible then we had to determine exactly what % responsible he was and order him to pay that % of the awardable damages. If the plaintiff was over 51% responsible we had to allow the judge to determine the % payout.
Confusion and mayhem ensued.
Our elected fore-woman, she of the Pat Robertson Fan Club, could not understand the rules of the verdict sheet if God appeared before her and inscribed them on a stone tablet. Not wanting lose another day to the idiocracy, I jumped from the back of the bus and did my best Sandra Bullock impression. We needed to keep things speeding along or we were going to blow ourselves up.
"Let's make this easy on ourselves. Raise your hand if you think the defendant is 100% at fault and that the plaintif did absolutely nothing wrong to cause this accident."
No one raised their hands.
"Is the defendant 100% innocent?"
Eleven hands. We only needed nine. I pressed the button summoning the bailiff and put an X next to our ruling. Shoving the sheet at the fore-woman I told her to sign it. Before anyone could raise an argument we had reached a verdict.
And I had reached my own: The right to a jury trial as preserved by the Constitution is the single worst idea in the history of our republic, after Prohibition, that is. Speaking of which, boy do I need a drink....
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
The Four Basic Requirements
Although I was intently listening to what my wife was saying as I shoveled the last of my Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity breakfast into my mouth, I couldn't help but overhear the exchange in the booth behind me. It was shocking enough that I instinctively held up a finger to pause the conversation and cocked my head ever so slightly so as to get a better listen. This time there was no mistaking it. My face must have betrayed my thoughts as Lisa asked me what was wrong.
"Nothing. It's just that the table of teenagers behind us just said 'please and thank you' to the waitress."
"You're kidding."
What have we come to as a society if shock and awe is what comes of witnessed politeness. Is it so unusual that someone born in the Clinton administration should possess manners and common courtesy? The sad fact is that it is rarer than Paula Abdul saying something coherent. If you were to ask any sixteen year old who Emily Post is they probably have never heard of that blog. We don't necessarily need to bring back the days of armor-clad knights defending the altruisms of chivalry, but we do need to return to the days when you took off your damned hat indoors (domed stadiums excluded, although domed stadiums in general should also be abolished...).
Manners fell by the wayside after Vietnam, when anything resembling the pre-war generation was shunned and ridiculed. Gone were the days of opening car doors for the ladies (the revolutionary "woman's movement" rendered that archaic and condescending), dressing up for special occassions (relax, man, just be yourself). Things degenerated even more as these kids grew and had children of their own in the Reagan years, better known as the "Greed is Good" era. It became the "All About Me" decade where personal well-being and wealth trumped all. This generation saw the sacrifice and hardships that their parents went through and were determined not to let those same hardships befall their children. So they coddled them, capitulated to every demand, tried to be their friend. The "me" philosophy exploded exponentially with this generation compounded by years of purposely shunning the lifestyles of the "Greatest Generation". Instead of creating a culture free of worry and sacrifice, we created a monster of selfishness, self-indulgence, and tunnel vision. So much has been done for the children of the nineties and beyond that they cannot do for themselves. They simply do not have the motivation to do for themselves.
There is a way to correct this. Our education system will never fully recover from the tragedy it is today. No politician will ever be able to fulfill promises of fixing the present system. But if you take into account the education opportunities of "the real world" and fold them into the school curriculum, the system may have a chance of succeeding. There are a few certainties that every person will face as they go through life and the school system should prepare their students for them.
Before graduating high school or getting a GED, every child should have to complete the following:
1. Spend 2 months working in a restaurant (in any capacity)
2. Spend November and December working at a retail establishment
3. Attend 2 weddings
4. Atend 2 funerals
All of the above address the fundamental lack of social skills of today's youth. Businesses that participate in a school-sponsored program receive tax beaks or government incentives. For the restaurant portion, the paycheck goes to the school for funding, the tips are kept by the student. In retail, the school and the student split the paycheck. Couples can claim their marriage license and clergy fees as charitible donations for allowing students to attend the ceremony. Funeral parlors would be able to offer discounts to families allowing students to observe.
In the restaurant business a person learns self-motivation, team-work, politeness, communication skills, how to count change, memory improvement, and physical stamina. They see what it's like to be run ragged, criticized, tormented, short-changed, and stiffed. They learn to appreciate the dining experience from a perspective everyone should have. If this were a life-requirement then the table of skater-punks crowding a booth at the local Denny's at 1 a.m. might think twice before unscrewng the lid to the salt shaker and pouring ketchup in the bottom of the sugar caddy.
It's NOT the most wonderful time of the year, Mr. Mathis, if you work in retail, that is. Rather, it's experiencing that need for immediacy on a grand scale. Patience is an elusive beast. Every Lexus-driving soccer mom becomes a army drill sargeant carricature: "You will wrap that for me, now! You will find that in your back room for me, now! You will give me a discount on that for no apparent reason, now!" If you think the mall is a scary place as a shopper, then try manning the register as you smile that Pepsodent smile, all the while shifting restlessly from foot to foot to avoid popping the countless blisters you have on your hot and sweaty feet, eyeing the never-ending queue of frowning troglodytes, and listening to Frosty the Snowman on the cheesy muzak loop for the eightieth time that day. For two months. Come January, the shopping experience will be a whole new ballgame.
I went to a wedding once where I counted four people in baseball hats. In the church. There was the wedding where a guy sitting next to the fella video taping the event, at the very back fo the church, fell asleep and snored so loudly the happy couple heard him and turned around. There is an eighteen minute gap in their vows where all they can hear are nasal ramblings. I've seen jeans, shorts, even sweatshirts. Not that I'm a religious person by any means, but I was under the impression that this was a solemn ceremony performed under the presence of God. In his house, no less. Dress up, if not for the happy couple, then for God's sake. This is the most important moment in most people's lives; dressing for the occassion is not asking much. If anything, you are in house of God, remove your damned hat! This is the chance to learn quiet respect, dignity in a formal setting, the importance of personal appearance, and selfless attention.
But we'll skip the reception. The less people who learn how to do the Electric Slide the better off we are as a nation.
It doesn't matter what movie you watch, someone dies, everyone takes off their hat. We mimic hollywood in so many aspects of our lives, so why not this? Wear something black (although other colors may signify mourning in other cultures, so be aware), conservative, and clean. Black jeans are not a viable substitute for black pants. Do not wear Raiders gear. Do not wear sunglasses unless you are immediate immediate family or Jack Nicholson. Do not bring a cell phone, pager, Game Boy, BlackBerry, or any blue-tooth item (this goes for weddings as well). Learn about the feelings and emotions of others. Learn to express grief. Learn to respect the grieving of others. Realize your own mortality.
We've all experienced these events, whether it be going out to dinner or buying a gift for Mom. We've either seen someone we know get married or had a relative pass away, and if not, we know we will at some point in our lives. We had better be prepared for it, because judging from my own experiences, we've prepared for these things as well as we prepared for Hurricane Katrina.
So it was a great head-turner when I head those two simple but oh-so-mature words in a crowded pancake house:
"thank you", from the mouths of babes.
"See, it's not too late," I said to my wife, sipping my coffee through a smile.
"They're probably Canadian....."
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
"Nothing. It's just that the table of teenagers behind us just said 'please and thank you' to the waitress."
"You're kidding."
What have we come to as a society if shock and awe is what comes of witnessed politeness. Is it so unusual that someone born in the Clinton administration should possess manners and common courtesy? The sad fact is that it is rarer than Paula Abdul saying something coherent. If you were to ask any sixteen year old who Emily Post is they probably have never heard of that blog. We don't necessarily need to bring back the days of armor-clad knights defending the altruisms of chivalry, but we do need to return to the days when you took off your damned hat indoors (domed stadiums excluded, although domed stadiums in general should also be abolished...).
Manners fell by the wayside after Vietnam, when anything resembling the pre-war generation was shunned and ridiculed. Gone were the days of opening car doors for the ladies (the revolutionary "woman's movement" rendered that archaic and condescending), dressing up for special occassions (relax, man, just be yourself). Things degenerated even more as these kids grew and had children of their own in the Reagan years, better known as the "Greed is Good" era. It became the "All About Me" decade where personal well-being and wealth trumped all. This generation saw the sacrifice and hardships that their parents went through and were determined not to let those same hardships befall their children. So they coddled them, capitulated to every demand, tried to be their friend. The "me" philosophy exploded exponentially with this generation compounded by years of purposely shunning the lifestyles of the "Greatest Generation". Instead of creating a culture free of worry and sacrifice, we created a monster of selfishness, self-indulgence, and tunnel vision. So much has been done for the children of the nineties and beyond that they cannot do for themselves. They simply do not have the motivation to do for themselves.
There is a way to correct this. Our education system will never fully recover from the tragedy it is today. No politician will ever be able to fulfill promises of fixing the present system. But if you take into account the education opportunities of "the real world" and fold them into the school curriculum, the system may have a chance of succeeding. There are a few certainties that every person will face as they go through life and the school system should prepare their students for them.
Before graduating high school or getting a GED, every child should have to complete the following:
1. Spend 2 months working in a restaurant (in any capacity)
2. Spend November and December working at a retail establishment
3. Attend 2 weddings
4. Atend 2 funerals
All of the above address the fundamental lack of social skills of today's youth. Businesses that participate in a school-sponsored program receive tax beaks or government incentives. For the restaurant portion, the paycheck goes to the school for funding, the tips are kept by the student. In retail, the school and the student split the paycheck. Couples can claim their marriage license and clergy fees as charitible donations for allowing students to attend the ceremony. Funeral parlors would be able to offer discounts to families allowing students to observe.
In the restaurant business a person learns self-motivation, team-work, politeness, communication skills, how to count change, memory improvement, and physical stamina. They see what it's like to be run ragged, criticized, tormented, short-changed, and stiffed. They learn to appreciate the dining experience from a perspective everyone should have. If this were a life-requirement then the table of skater-punks crowding a booth at the local Denny's at 1 a.m. might think twice before unscrewng the lid to the salt shaker and pouring ketchup in the bottom of the sugar caddy.
It's NOT the most wonderful time of the year, Mr. Mathis, if you work in retail, that is. Rather, it's experiencing that need for immediacy on a grand scale. Patience is an elusive beast. Every Lexus-driving soccer mom becomes a army drill sargeant carricature: "You will wrap that for me, now! You will find that in your back room for me, now! You will give me a discount on that for no apparent reason, now!" If you think the mall is a scary place as a shopper, then try manning the register as you smile that Pepsodent smile, all the while shifting restlessly from foot to foot to avoid popping the countless blisters you have on your hot and sweaty feet, eyeing the never-ending queue of frowning troglodytes, and listening to Frosty the Snowman on the cheesy muzak loop for the eightieth time that day. For two months. Come January, the shopping experience will be a whole new ballgame.
I went to a wedding once where I counted four people in baseball hats. In the church. There was the wedding where a guy sitting next to the fella video taping the event, at the very back fo the church, fell asleep and snored so loudly the happy couple heard him and turned around. There is an eighteen minute gap in their vows where all they can hear are nasal ramblings. I've seen jeans, shorts, even sweatshirts. Not that I'm a religious person by any means, but I was under the impression that this was a solemn ceremony performed under the presence of God. In his house, no less. Dress up, if not for the happy couple, then for God's sake. This is the most important moment in most people's lives; dressing for the occassion is not asking much. If anything, you are in house of God, remove your damned hat! This is the chance to learn quiet respect, dignity in a formal setting, the importance of personal appearance, and selfless attention.
But we'll skip the reception. The less people who learn how to do the Electric Slide the better off we are as a nation.
It doesn't matter what movie you watch, someone dies, everyone takes off their hat. We mimic hollywood in so many aspects of our lives, so why not this? Wear something black (although other colors may signify mourning in other cultures, so be aware), conservative, and clean. Black jeans are not a viable substitute for black pants. Do not wear Raiders gear. Do not wear sunglasses unless you are immediate immediate family or Jack Nicholson. Do not bring a cell phone, pager, Game Boy, BlackBerry, or any blue-tooth item (this goes for weddings as well). Learn about the feelings and emotions of others. Learn to express grief. Learn to respect the grieving of others. Realize your own mortality.
We've all experienced these events, whether it be going out to dinner or buying a gift for Mom. We've either seen someone we know get married or had a relative pass away, and if not, we know we will at some point in our lives. We had better be prepared for it, because judging from my own experiences, we've prepared for these things as well as we prepared for Hurricane Katrina.
So it was a great head-turner when I head those two simple but oh-so-mature words in a crowded pancake house:
"thank you", from the mouths of babes.
"See, it's not too late," I said to my wife, sipping my coffee through a smile.
"They're probably Canadian....."
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
There's a hole in my heart...
For every one there is a different catalyst for a grin. A cold frosty beer? Steve Martins' happy feet. Watching Martha Stewart go to jail. In my experience, there is one thing that can excite and stimulate just about everyone. Young, old, rich, poor. It matters not who you are, it will beckon, taunt, tease in the most benign way, luring you in with a sweet seduction. It's appeal is universal. If it were a character in literature, without doubt, it would be the siren call of the Odyssey. Homer would eagerly agree.
'Tis the doughnut of which I speak. Mmmmmmmm, doughnuts.
That familiar, comforting ring of decadence. Like a pearl within a pink cardboard box, it can alight the flame of jealousy. You guard your favorites like Pentagon secrets. You make a mental listing of tasting order, some saving their favorite for last, others diving right in. Leggo my Eggo? Leggo my Boston Creme! How cruel of you to take my crueller! Hands off my Long John....
Cake or raised, it matters not. Decorum surrenders to sticky fingers, powdered sugar smears, maple bar breath. We lose ourselves in that moment when we spy that perfectly round, supple, fluffy mound of pastry, slathered in confectioner's sugar, oozing globs of lemon custard or raspberry preserves. We gingerly raise it out of the box, examine it's form like the statue of David, bring it to our quivering lips, and softly bite down. An explosion of creamy pudding fills the mouth. You swallow, wiping the powder from your happy, happy lips with the back of your hand. You pull back and re-examine your fried pocket of culinary bliss, inhale deeply, and sigh the sigh of one who has reached nirvana.
The office meeting. You don't want to be there. It's early. You'll be bored. You shuffle in, grimmacing at the prospect of an hour of endless shop-talk. Then you spy it. The ubiquitous cardboard box. A lighthouse guiding you through. Has anyone else seen them? Quickly and with stealth you make your way, flip the top over and inventory the contents. Like the glow from the Ark of the Covenant, it catches your eye. The rare and elusive cherry-chip glazed. Survival instincts take over. No one is going to beat you to your prize. Scanning the room quickly, you hunch over, Nixon-style, and sweep the manna onto a cocktail napkin. Holding it close to your bosom, like a suckling newborn, you skulk over to your seat. For that brief moment your affair overtakes any emotion or dread you had about your meeting. It brings a smile to your face and for a minute or two, all is right with the world.
There are those who claim they don't much care for doughnuts. But ask them if they had to eat one, they will, without hesitation, name a favorite. There is nothing offensive about the doughnut, nothing sinister. A doughnut has no hidden agenda. Cut a doughnut in half and you get two smiles. Doughnuts are happiness incarnate, a spring board to feelings of contentment and child-like glee. Find a man who won't eat a doughnut and you have found a man without a soul.
So the next time you are tediously selecting your perfect dozen, take a moment and thank the baker, for he is, truly, the bearer of good tidings and the architect of true bliss.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
'Tis the doughnut of which I speak. Mmmmmmmm, doughnuts.
That familiar, comforting ring of decadence. Like a pearl within a pink cardboard box, it can alight the flame of jealousy. You guard your favorites like Pentagon secrets. You make a mental listing of tasting order, some saving their favorite for last, others diving right in. Leggo my Eggo? Leggo my Boston Creme! How cruel of you to take my crueller! Hands off my Long John....
Cake or raised, it matters not. Decorum surrenders to sticky fingers, powdered sugar smears, maple bar breath. We lose ourselves in that moment when we spy that perfectly round, supple, fluffy mound of pastry, slathered in confectioner's sugar, oozing globs of lemon custard or raspberry preserves. We gingerly raise it out of the box, examine it's form like the statue of David, bring it to our quivering lips, and softly bite down. An explosion of creamy pudding fills the mouth. You swallow, wiping the powder from your happy, happy lips with the back of your hand. You pull back and re-examine your fried pocket of culinary bliss, inhale deeply, and sigh the sigh of one who has reached nirvana.
The office meeting. You don't want to be there. It's early. You'll be bored. You shuffle in, grimmacing at the prospect of an hour of endless shop-talk. Then you spy it. The ubiquitous cardboard box. A lighthouse guiding you through. Has anyone else seen them? Quickly and with stealth you make your way, flip the top over and inventory the contents. Like the glow from the Ark of the Covenant, it catches your eye. The rare and elusive cherry-chip glazed. Survival instincts take over. No one is going to beat you to your prize. Scanning the room quickly, you hunch over, Nixon-style, and sweep the manna onto a cocktail napkin. Holding it close to your bosom, like a suckling newborn, you skulk over to your seat. For that brief moment your affair overtakes any emotion or dread you had about your meeting. It brings a smile to your face and for a minute or two, all is right with the world.
There are those who claim they don't much care for doughnuts. But ask them if they had to eat one, they will, without hesitation, name a favorite. There is nothing offensive about the doughnut, nothing sinister. A doughnut has no hidden agenda. Cut a doughnut in half and you get two smiles. Doughnuts are happiness incarnate, a spring board to feelings of contentment and child-like glee. Find a man who won't eat a doughnut and you have found a man without a soul.
So the next time you are tediously selecting your perfect dozen, take a moment and thank the baker, for he is, truly, the bearer of good tidings and the architect of true bliss.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
An unusual relationship
"Come on, come on, come on." A phrase we've all used in that complicated tango of a relationship where it seems like you do all the talking. We say this at some point with a tense desperation, a plea from which we expect no verbal reply. We gently stroke, give a reassuring pat. We proudly show them off in the beginning, but eventually end up making excuses for their appearance near the end. We find our eyes wandering, coveting the new and exciting. Yet, we stay true as long as we humanly can, 'till death do us part. And though we may move on, we never forget our first.
Every car has a name. No, not the make and model. It's name. You don't date "Caucasian female." You date Jane or Sally or Mac-something. They have names, just as your car has a name.
I drive Luthor.
I have driven The Rocket, Doris, and Ringo. I loved Ringo but lost him after six yers of on-again-off-again love to a cement retaining wall in Las Vegas. The day I said goodbye was heart-wrenching, and yes, I cried. That car was a part of me, part of my identity. We had driven 97,000 miles together. My first kiss with my wife was in that car. Ringo had a soul. He had a voice (which sounded nothing like the Beatle he was NOT named after). We bonded, experienced chapters of my life together. He drove me to my wedding. He was a part of me. And he told me his name. Not immediately. But eventually he did.
It takes time for your new car to open up to you. It takes time to build up a rapport, a trust, a syncopation. This is the beginning of an important relationship. This is what will whisk you away on adventures and what you will rely on for the mundane. You are putting your faith forward and asking the same in return. And once that rythym of routine sets in and you both realize you are in this together and for the long haul, it will happen:
You will get into your car and before you get the chance to put the key in the ignition, you will hear it. A name. Not the one you hope for, but the one that is true. You cannot force a name upon your car. The real moniker will always shine through. The longer you deny the real name, the more tennuous the realtionship. Your car will not trust you, not cooperate, will remain distracted until you say it back. The name. You can't deny the name of your loved ones, why should this love be any different?
Luthor.
That's my car's name. He told me about a week or so after we met. Although he's Swedish, he has a thick Jamaican accent. He's big, ugly and prone to grunts and groans. Just like me, he's never quite healthy, but he tries his absolute hardest to get me where I need to go. And the longer we're together, the stronger the bond. The harder it is to curse him when he's sluggish and cranky. The more it hurts me that I can't do more to make him feel better. We understand each other. And he trusts me because I recognize who he is. I allow his voice to be heard.
Every car has a soul. We all believe that. We have all spoken to our cars at one point or another, and we've done so in the belief that we would be heard. We have all had that proud moment, not of buying, but of meeting. It's that one brief moment when you realize that you and the car are one. It's like falling in love. Maybe not romantic love, but a love that transcends explaination.
So the next time you get into your car, before you just start it up and rocket off, take a moment and ask about it's day. You'll get a whole lot more love back if you do.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
Every car has a name. No, not the make and model. It's name. You don't date "Caucasian female." You date Jane or Sally or Mac-something. They have names, just as your car has a name.
I drive Luthor.
I have driven The Rocket, Doris, and Ringo. I loved Ringo but lost him after six yers of on-again-off-again love to a cement retaining wall in Las Vegas. The day I said goodbye was heart-wrenching, and yes, I cried. That car was a part of me, part of my identity. We had driven 97,000 miles together. My first kiss with my wife was in that car. Ringo had a soul. He had a voice (which sounded nothing like the Beatle he was NOT named after). We bonded, experienced chapters of my life together. He drove me to my wedding. He was a part of me. And he told me his name. Not immediately. But eventually he did.
It takes time for your new car to open up to you. It takes time to build up a rapport, a trust, a syncopation. This is the beginning of an important relationship. This is what will whisk you away on adventures and what you will rely on for the mundane. You are putting your faith forward and asking the same in return. And once that rythym of routine sets in and you both realize you are in this together and for the long haul, it will happen:
You will get into your car and before you get the chance to put the key in the ignition, you will hear it. A name. Not the one you hope for, but the one that is true. You cannot force a name upon your car. The real moniker will always shine through. The longer you deny the real name, the more tennuous the realtionship. Your car will not trust you, not cooperate, will remain distracted until you say it back. The name. You can't deny the name of your loved ones, why should this love be any different?
Luthor.
That's my car's name. He told me about a week or so after we met. Although he's Swedish, he has a thick Jamaican accent. He's big, ugly and prone to grunts and groans. Just like me, he's never quite healthy, but he tries his absolute hardest to get me where I need to go. And the longer we're together, the stronger the bond. The harder it is to curse him when he's sluggish and cranky. The more it hurts me that I can't do more to make him feel better. We understand each other. And he trusts me because I recognize who he is. I allow his voice to be heard.
Every car has a soul. We all believe that. We have all spoken to our cars at one point or another, and we've done so in the belief that we would be heard. We have all had that proud moment, not of buying, but of meeting. It's that one brief moment when you realize that you and the car are one. It's like falling in love. Maybe not romantic love, but a love that transcends explaination.
So the next time you get into your car, before you just start it up and rocket off, take a moment and ask about it's day. You'll get a whole lot more love back if you do.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
Make Mom Proud
Today is Mother's Day and convention would have me extolling the virtues of my own mother and motherhood in general. I'll leave that to Hallmark and the ladies on the View. Today, I want to comment on an article I read in this Sunday's paper.
This last Friday there was a dance held. A prom, really. There was a DJ, decorations, girls in long flowing dresses. The ubiquitous chaperones. Actually, there were chaperones for every guest. And every guest was proud to have their chaperone there with them. These guests were stars in their first big feature, the spotlight shining on each of them individually and equally. They wanted to be watched over. They wanted to be seen,
These guests were patients at the Shriner's Hospital, kids who face life-long struggles with illness or injury and have had to subbordinate normalcy for treatment and ongoing care. These are the kids who have never known a spring break, intra-mural sports, sock hops, sleep-overs. What they have known is isolation, gossip, teasing, staring, gawking, fear, and indifference. Because of their conditions, they have never had the opportunity to "fit in" and consequently have few friends.
Almost every television program geared toward the teen-set seems to be grounded in viciousness, self-aggrandizement, glamour, cliques, materialism, and selfishness. The Hills. Gossip Girl. The O.C.. Keeping up with the Kardashians. Nothing of value, but still held as the standard for teen behavior, if not by teens themselves. Look at the examples of cruelty and brutality streaming on You Tube, videos of "girl fights" and school bus riots. Schools today have become venues of torture not seen since the Inquisition under Torquemada.
And then there was Ariel Rogers. Her picture featured in both photographs for this article. She's a beautiful girl. The prom queen in her own right. Without reading the headline or the story below, at first glance, she appears to be able to fit right in with the "beautiful people" in a strata removed from the rest of her high school peers. But look closely at the picture, look closely at her eyes, and you see something missing from today's youth: compassion. Not feel-sorry-for-you compassion, but a compassion filled with hope and real caring. Here is a girl who breaks the stereotype of beauty by showing the beauty of a person most never see. I have long ago lost faith in our future generations. Our culture has become one of rampant selfishness and immediacy. How incredible a relief it is to sometimes be proven wrong, or at least hasty in coming to a conclusion. Ariel Rogers is evidence that we haven't completely lost sight of making the world around us a better place.
Here I have spent the last year of my life selling $300 toasters to plasticene Lexus-driving Barbie dolls. Ariel Rogers has spent hers making sick children smile.
My future is filled with doctors and needles and pills and appointments. It's aggravating, frustrating, annoying. But I get to live at home. I have freedom of mobility. I have friends. I have poor health but I can function normally in soceity. Do I have room to complain? I got to go to my Prom (I actually went to three of them). I had a steady girlfriend throughout high school. I had it pretty easy. And now that I'm sick myself, I think I have the right to shake my fist at the powers that be?
I find myself full of regret that I was not the big enough person to do back then what Ariel Rogers does now. I do not know her but through this article, and yet, I am immensely proud of her and those who volunteered with her. Looking again at these pictures of kids in wheelchairs, dressed to the nines, smiles big enough for their own zip codes, I can see what real honest joy and gratitude looks like. And it makes me ask myself, again, what am I doing to make someone happy who could not otherwise find happiness themselves? And what is is that drives someone like Ariel? Drives her to break out and be different at the risk of being called different herself? At least these kids, usually labelled as "different" weren't so for one incredible night. In fact, they probably had the most drama-free prom ever held.
So the tie-in to Mother's Day? Don't just send her a card or take her out to brunch. Give her the better gift: do something to make her proud; make a difference in someone's life. I guarantee you, Mrs. Rogers is a very proud mother indeed.
(The article in question can be found in the Metro section of the May, 11 2008 edition of the Oregonian: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1210474508111150.xml&coll=7
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
This last Friday there was a dance held. A prom, really. There was a DJ, decorations, girls in long flowing dresses. The ubiquitous chaperones. Actually, there were chaperones for every guest. And every guest was proud to have their chaperone there with them. These guests were stars in their first big feature, the spotlight shining on each of them individually and equally. They wanted to be watched over. They wanted to be seen,
These guests were patients at the Shriner's Hospital, kids who face life-long struggles with illness or injury and have had to subbordinate normalcy for treatment and ongoing care. These are the kids who have never known a spring break, intra-mural sports, sock hops, sleep-overs. What they have known is isolation, gossip, teasing, staring, gawking, fear, and indifference. Because of their conditions, they have never had the opportunity to "fit in" and consequently have few friends.
Almost every television program geared toward the teen-set seems to be grounded in viciousness, self-aggrandizement, glamour, cliques, materialism, and selfishness. The Hills. Gossip Girl. The O.C.. Keeping up with the Kardashians. Nothing of value, but still held as the standard for teen behavior, if not by teens themselves. Look at the examples of cruelty and brutality streaming on You Tube, videos of "girl fights" and school bus riots. Schools today have become venues of torture not seen since the Inquisition under Torquemada.
And then there was Ariel Rogers. Her picture featured in both photographs for this article. She's a beautiful girl. The prom queen in her own right. Without reading the headline or the story below, at first glance, she appears to be able to fit right in with the "beautiful people" in a strata removed from the rest of her high school peers. But look closely at the picture, look closely at her eyes, and you see something missing from today's youth: compassion. Not feel-sorry-for-you compassion, but a compassion filled with hope and real caring. Here is a girl who breaks the stereotype of beauty by showing the beauty of a person most never see. I have long ago lost faith in our future generations. Our culture has become one of rampant selfishness and immediacy. How incredible a relief it is to sometimes be proven wrong, or at least hasty in coming to a conclusion. Ariel Rogers is evidence that we haven't completely lost sight of making the world around us a better place.
Here I have spent the last year of my life selling $300 toasters to plasticene Lexus-driving Barbie dolls. Ariel Rogers has spent hers making sick children smile.
My future is filled with doctors and needles and pills and appointments. It's aggravating, frustrating, annoying. But I get to live at home. I have freedom of mobility. I have friends. I have poor health but I can function normally in soceity. Do I have room to complain? I got to go to my Prom (I actually went to three of them). I had a steady girlfriend throughout high school. I had it pretty easy. And now that I'm sick myself, I think I have the right to shake my fist at the powers that be?
I find myself full of regret that I was not the big enough person to do back then what Ariel Rogers does now. I do not know her but through this article, and yet, I am immensely proud of her and those who volunteered with her. Looking again at these pictures of kids in wheelchairs, dressed to the nines, smiles big enough for their own zip codes, I can see what real honest joy and gratitude looks like. And it makes me ask myself, again, what am I doing to make someone happy who could not otherwise find happiness themselves? And what is is that drives someone like Ariel? Drives her to break out and be different at the risk of being called different herself? At least these kids, usually labelled as "different" weren't so for one incredible night. In fact, they probably had the most drama-free prom ever held.
So the tie-in to Mother's Day? Don't just send her a card or take her out to brunch. Give her the better gift: do something to make her proud; make a difference in someone's life. I guarantee you, Mrs. Rogers is a very proud mother indeed.
(The article in question can be found in the Metro section of the May, 11 2008 edition of the Oregonian: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1210474508111150.xml&coll=7
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
So I was brushing my teeth...
You know how you're brushing your teeth and a random thought will just pop into your head, with no connection to the here and now? Here are a few I'd like to share and solicit some feedback on:
Smuckers Uncrustables, in the freezer section. If that crimped edge of dough all around the edge isn't a crust, then I don't know what it is.
Not that I believe they existed, but what exactly did Adam and Eve use to keep those fig leaves in place? If you examine all the definitive art, they just kind of magically stay in place.
There's a new commercial out for the BMW "M" series with the tagline "redefining the coupe" but they show a sedan...
If you notice on "Friends", Joey and Chandler's bathroom is exactly where the staircase is outside the apartment.
And who was the genius who cast Ian Ziering as Hernando Cortez in "Aztec Rex", a gripping tale of the explorer battling a native tribe that worships a captive Tyrannasaurus Rex? Sci Fi Channel, I kid you not.
Who would buy an $8 color-coded double-ended spatula specifically for spreading peanut butter and jelly? The one side is purple, the other brown. $8, at retail-rapist-central: Williams-Sonoma.
A $300 toaster, really?
Casimir Pulaski is so celebrated in Chicago that they have a holiday for him where the entire city practically shuts down. He's buried in Savannah, Georgia. There's a square named after him there, but that's not the square he's buried in. And he has no holiday.
Why is there a size zero for women? The definition of zero is "without value." So maybe that is accurate, if most models are a size zero.....
Why is it still called a dial-tone? Dials are round and I can't recall the last time I saw a rotary phone.
Why do artists say they have a new album coming out when it's not actually an album? (purists, agree with me here, an album is vinyl).
Did you know Williams-Sonoma also carries a cup-warmer for $999. That's not a typo. And, yes, all it does is warms cups.
I have no point to make here, it's just funny what pops into your head when you're cleanin' your choppers....
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
Smuckers Uncrustables, in the freezer section. If that crimped edge of dough all around the edge isn't a crust, then I don't know what it is.
Not that I believe they existed, but what exactly did Adam and Eve use to keep those fig leaves in place? If you examine all the definitive art, they just kind of magically stay in place.
There's a new commercial out for the BMW "M" series with the tagline "redefining the coupe" but they show a sedan...
If you notice on "Friends", Joey and Chandler's bathroom is exactly where the staircase is outside the apartment.
And who was the genius who cast Ian Ziering as Hernando Cortez in "Aztec Rex", a gripping tale of the explorer battling a native tribe that worships a captive Tyrannasaurus Rex? Sci Fi Channel, I kid you not.
Who would buy an $8 color-coded double-ended spatula specifically for spreading peanut butter and jelly? The one side is purple, the other brown. $8, at retail-rapist-central: Williams-Sonoma.
A $300 toaster, really?
Casimir Pulaski is so celebrated in Chicago that they have a holiday for him where the entire city practically shuts down. He's buried in Savannah, Georgia. There's a square named after him there, but that's not the square he's buried in. And he has no holiday.
Why is there a size zero for women? The definition of zero is "without value." So maybe that is accurate, if most models are a size zero.....
Why is it still called a dial-tone? Dials are round and I can't recall the last time I saw a rotary phone.
Why do artists say they have a new album coming out when it's not actually an album? (purists, agree with me here, an album is vinyl).
Did you know Williams-Sonoma also carries a cup-warmer for $999. That's not a typo. And, yes, all it does is warms cups.
I have no point to make here, it's just funny what pops into your head when you're cleanin' your choppers....
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
And this next one was taken...
My wife recently posted a blog about her inherent disinterest in other people's photos. Her main point of contention being that she has no interest in having snapshots of people and events foisted upon her of which she has no interest or connection. In a way, I must agree (however, I contend that a snapshot is just a blithe moment captured in time, a photograph is a work of art...discuss). This point of view brought me to a larger conclusion, a view based on the notion of not wanting to see another family's happenings.
If I wanted children, then I'd want to be around them, but since I don't want kids, I don't want to see yours. Just as I have no interest in seeing a photo of your rugrat as the tomato in the third grade play about nutrition, I have no interest in seeing that same child in public. I don't want to hear it talk, scream, cry, whine, moan, complain, shout, yell, blabber, sputter, sneeze, mumble, bitch, back-sass, giggle, burp, fart, yawn, whisper, or breathe. If I had any interest in that, I'd have one of my own. So why do I have to endure the ramblings and rumblings of your offspring when I'm out in public? As a non-smoker, I have the right to a smoke-free environment. Why can I not have the same protection as a non-breeder? Why must I endure your shortcommings as a parent in the tantrums of your child when I'm out at the Target or the Safeway? Why must my quiet romantic dinner be constantly interrupted by an urchin running circles around my table demanding foods he can only get at home? Why must my deliberately child-free existence be constantly intruded upon by exactly what I choose to avoid? Where are my child-free shopping centers, my urchin-free restaurants (hell, even bars allow children nowdays). And, really, what kind of a parent are you if you are out with a stroller-bound fuck-trophy at eleven o'clock at night gorging on Miller Lite and buffalo wings?
So, no I don't want to see your picture of little Johnny at the McDonald's playground spreading germs and disease in the plastic ball pit. I would rather see your parent license.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
If I wanted children, then I'd want to be around them, but since I don't want kids, I don't want to see yours. Just as I have no interest in seeing a photo of your rugrat as the tomato in the third grade play about nutrition, I have no interest in seeing that same child in public. I don't want to hear it talk, scream, cry, whine, moan, complain, shout, yell, blabber, sputter, sneeze, mumble, bitch, back-sass, giggle, burp, fart, yawn, whisper, or breathe. If I had any interest in that, I'd have one of my own. So why do I have to endure the ramblings and rumblings of your offspring when I'm out in public? As a non-smoker, I have the right to a smoke-free environment. Why can I not have the same protection as a non-breeder? Why must I endure your shortcommings as a parent in the tantrums of your child when I'm out at the Target or the Safeway? Why must my quiet romantic dinner be constantly interrupted by an urchin running circles around my table demanding foods he can only get at home? Why must my deliberately child-free existence be constantly intruded upon by exactly what I choose to avoid? Where are my child-free shopping centers, my urchin-free restaurants (hell, even bars allow children nowdays). And, really, what kind of a parent are you if you are out with a stroller-bound fuck-trophy at eleven o'clock at night gorging on Miller Lite and buffalo wings?
So, no I don't want to see your picture of little Johnny at the McDonald's playground spreading germs and disease in the plastic ball pit. I would rather see your parent license.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
Will you accept this rose?
Reality television piques my interest. Most of the time, I hypothesize my own performance and roundly criticize those actually participating (I could cook circles around the "chefs" on Hells' Kitchen). The range of programming sways from the pseudo-highbrow (Extreme Makeover) to the criminally insane (Flavor of Love). It occured to me that while most of these shows were competition-based, the majority of that sub-set were grounded in the dating world:
Flavor of Love 1, 2, and 3. I Love New York 1, 2, and 3. Mr. Personality. Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. Date My Dad. Farmer Needs A Wife. Rock of Love 1, 2, and 3 . Outback Jack. Paradise Hotel. Temptation Island. Joe Millionaire. Average Joe. Who Wants to Marry My Dad?
Just to name a few...
And then there is The Bachelor.
Never a favorite of mine, I have watched this last season with increasing interest. The network just aired the reunion program as a prequel to the finale. In this yawn-inducing bitch-fest I found myself struggling to find any of the women attractive. Not the two finalists. Not any of the contestants. And after scrutinizing their features, their mannerisms, their attitudes, I realized just why none of them held any appeal for me:
Their lack of principles and shame.
To have launched themselves upon this bloke (he's English this year, so he has an accent that makes him sound classy) in a public forum, espousing profound feelings of true love after only a few days and a few cocktails provided by producers, these women have demeaned the very poetry of wooing. Just as unbelieveable as Luke Skywalker becoming a Jedi in all of about a day and a half (re-watch Empire and you'll realize just how long he really goes through his training)(yes, I totally belong on Beauty and the Geek) is these women believing that they'll be proposed to at the end of a few weeks. How selfless are you if you need to be on camera 24/7? How can someone truly be devoted to the idea of a singular love when carousing with fifteen other women at the same time? In the real world, he'd be a "player", and the women around him "sluts". But on television, the third runner up gets to be the Bachelorette.
The Bachelor has contributed the death and dearth of courtship. Women now feel the need to flay themselves of the digital altar, spewing obscenities and physical threats. They become carricatures of real women looking for real love, not shots at fleeting "US Weekly" fame. Even the one couple who DID end up staying together as a result of said program, Ryan and Trista, whored their nuptuals out to the network and paraded their baby before the paparazzi the way Paris Hilton does boy-toys. What's more appalling than the content is the continuing popularity of this show. Are we really to believe that this is going to be the most romantic rose ceremony ever?
Back to the original argument, that this diminishes the art of relationships. If anything, this, and all reality dating shows illustrate the decline of the committed heterosexual relationship. They are tabloid adventures in titulation. The tabloids themselves exploiting the participants in splashy exposes, reducing them to late-night fodder. Pick up any tabloid and it will contain two constants: who's banging who, and who's split up. Forty pages of this, every week of every year. Think of the major headlines recently that you've secretly peeked at while waiting in line at the checkout counter. Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. Starr Jones. Brittany and K-Fed. Divorce, divorce, divorce. Paris Hilton and this week's Son-Of-A-Greek-Shipping-Tycoon, Lindsay Lohen and some rock band flunkie, Jessica Simpson and the athelete of the moment. Emotionless trysts, at best. If anything, the tabloids do nothing but illustrate the impending extinction of the healthy committed hetrosexual relationship.
Why do I keep specifically mentioning "heterosexual"? The conservative right-wing of America constantly harps on the importance of traditional family values and the importance of defining marriage in our Constitution. The hypocrisy is beyond evident. The Senator who sponsored the most anti-gay legislation is busted in a bathroom stall. Evangelical leaders are caught with gay prostitutes. As we look to our leaders to provide examples for which to follow, the governor of Nevada is trying to evict his wife from the Governor's Mansion as they battle in divorce after 21 years of marriage. Donald trump, who roundly crticizes those who are unloyal to him and don't finish projects, himself has violated his own tennants by divorcing twice. Country music legend Garth Brooks left his wife of 16 years to run off with Trisha Yearwood, herself a married woman. Robin Williams is divorcing after 26 years of marriage. How can the right point to gays and say that their marrying would destroy the sanctity of marriage when there are far more examples of hetero impropreity? How have straight people, in even just this last decade, shown proclivity toward sanctifying the union of a man and a woman?
If you need any more convincing, tune in to the finale of the Bachelor next Tuesday, 10 pm PST on ABC.
(Michael did NOT meet his wife on a reality dating show, but they are hoping to one day be contestants on "The Amazing Race")
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
Flavor of Love 1, 2, and 3. I Love New York 1, 2, and 3. Mr. Personality. Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. Date My Dad. Farmer Needs A Wife. Rock of Love 1, 2, and 3 . Outback Jack. Paradise Hotel. Temptation Island. Joe Millionaire. Average Joe. Who Wants to Marry My Dad?
Just to name a few...
And then there is The Bachelor.
Never a favorite of mine, I have watched this last season with increasing interest. The network just aired the reunion program as a prequel to the finale. In this yawn-inducing bitch-fest I found myself struggling to find any of the women attractive. Not the two finalists. Not any of the contestants. And after scrutinizing their features, their mannerisms, their attitudes, I realized just why none of them held any appeal for me:
Their lack of principles and shame.
To have launched themselves upon this bloke (he's English this year, so he has an accent that makes him sound classy) in a public forum, espousing profound feelings of true love after only a few days and a few cocktails provided by producers, these women have demeaned the very poetry of wooing. Just as unbelieveable as Luke Skywalker becoming a Jedi in all of about a day and a half (re-watch Empire and you'll realize just how long he really goes through his training)(yes, I totally belong on Beauty and the Geek) is these women believing that they'll be proposed to at the end of a few weeks. How selfless are you if you need to be on camera 24/7? How can someone truly be devoted to the idea of a singular love when carousing with fifteen other women at the same time? In the real world, he'd be a "player", and the women around him "sluts". But on television, the third runner up gets to be the Bachelorette.
The Bachelor has contributed the death and dearth of courtship. Women now feel the need to flay themselves of the digital altar, spewing obscenities and physical threats. They become carricatures of real women looking for real love, not shots at fleeting "US Weekly" fame. Even the one couple who DID end up staying together as a result of said program, Ryan and Trista, whored their nuptuals out to the network and paraded their baby before the paparazzi the way Paris Hilton does boy-toys. What's more appalling than the content is the continuing popularity of this show. Are we really to believe that this is going to be the most romantic rose ceremony ever?
Back to the original argument, that this diminishes the art of relationships. If anything, this, and all reality dating shows illustrate the decline of the committed heterosexual relationship. They are tabloid adventures in titulation. The tabloids themselves exploiting the participants in splashy exposes, reducing them to late-night fodder. Pick up any tabloid and it will contain two constants: who's banging who, and who's split up. Forty pages of this, every week of every year. Think of the major headlines recently that you've secretly peeked at while waiting in line at the checkout counter. Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. Starr Jones. Brittany and K-Fed. Divorce, divorce, divorce. Paris Hilton and this week's Son-Of-A-Greek-Shipping-Tycoon, Lindsay Lohen and some rock band flunkie, Jessica Simpson and the athelete of the moment. Emotionless trysts, at best. If anything, the tabloids do nothing but illustrate the impending extinction of the healthy committed hetrosexual relationship.
Why do I keep specifically mentioning "heterosexual"? The conservative right-wing of America constantly harps on the importance of traditional family values and the importance of defining marriage in our Constitution. The hypocrisy is beyond evident. The Senator who sponsored the most anti-gay legislation is busted in a bathroom stall. Evangelical leaders are caught with gay prostitutes. As we look to our leaders to provide examples for which to follow, the governor of Nevada is trying to evict his wife from the Governor's Mansion as they battle in divorce after 21 years of marriage. Donald trump, who roundly crticizes those who are unloyal to him and don't finish projects, himself has violated his own tennants by divorcing twice. Country music legend Garth Brooks left his wife of 16 years to run off with Trisha Yearwood, herself a married woman. Robin Williams is divorcing after 26 years of marriage. How can the right point to gays and say that their marrying would destroy the sanctity of marriage when there are far more examples of hetero impropreity? How have straight people, in even just this last decade, shown proclivity toward sanctifying the union of a man and a woman?
If you need any more convincing, tune in to the finale of the Bachelor next Tuesday, 10 pm PST on ABC.
(Michael did NOT meet his wife on a reality dating show, but they are hoping to one day be contestants on "The Amazing Race")
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
$3 Trillion
I'm generally not the one who passes things on, but as I was perusing the new issue of Vanity Fair (no, not for the Miley Cyrus pics), I found myself reading the letters to the editor, not a section of magazines I frequent. One letter in particular piqued my interest, and it's intent, of putting things into a surprising perspective about the Iraq war, worked. Well enough that I felt the need to pass it on and offer my thoughts.
"...if I were to give someone $3 trillion and tell him that he had to spend $100 million each and every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and then told him not to come back until he had spent each and every penny, said person would not return for approximately 82 years. Think about it. Eighty-two years' worth of spending $100 million each day."
I have yet to encounter one singular individual who supports this war. I have yet to encounter one singular individual who supports his tax dollars funding Halliburton or Blackwater. I have yet to encounter one singular individual who thinks we haven't spent enough money building infrastructure 12 time zones away. Politics is a land mine. But there comes a time when you have to cast your voice out amongst the cacophony and hope it somehow gets heard. It is no secret I'm an Obama supporter, but this topic transcends the election and hits at a deeper core. This is about American children being shortchanged in their education to pay for corrupt Iraqi police forces. This is about the lack of comprehensive health care for Americans while we build new Iraqi hospitals for victims of our invasion. This is about building and securing oil pipelines and refineries for big oil while domestic prices keep rising. This is tantamount to treason against the American people as a whole. Not to delve into hyperbole, but the use of funds in all aspects of this war has been criminal. Of all that $3 trillion, we still can't provide the proper armor and equipment for our troops? How can we ask our own citizens to invest the kicker checks they just received into our own economy when the goverment itself refuses to invest so? How can we blithely go along with budgets for domestic services for an overseas country that are triple our own?
This is a nation of immediacy. Everything must be delivered in a flash, from goods and services to soundbites from our leaders and entertainers. Our own government has adopted that same behavior, looking only at the immediate and ignoring the bigger picture. We only look to the present and not the future. "Someone will figure out how to pay for the education of our next generation, but, really, I'm busy right now so I can't be bothered to think about it." "We can't pull out of Iraq or it will collapse." If we keep pulling out of America, it will collapse! Our generation is already lacking in basic education and skills. Our refusing to fix it and fund it will only make it worse, and future generations simply won't be able to fix it because nothing will be left to fix and they'll be too stupid to know how. Reversing the tide of funding would only admit to a mistake and Americans don't admit mistakes, although electing a Democrat this fall would be a step in the right direction.
$3 trillion dollars is what we have spent on this war so far. Keith Olbermann ends every program with a countdown of how many days since W. procalimed "Mission Accomplished" (just over FIVE YEARS). Remember, it would take 82 years to spend $100 million a day and we've spent $3 TRILLION in those FIVE YEARS And every year kids across America have to share 20 year old text books with each other, forgo art education, provide their own equipment for extra-curricular activities and sports. If only we concentrated on re-directing those funds toward education and nothing else, just that, our next generation might have a fighting chance at righting our wrongs simply for having had a better education.
On the lighter side of this, on the page directly opposite this letter was an ad for Cartier jewelers
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
"...if I were to give someone $3 trillion and tell him that he had to spend $100 million each and every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and then told him not to come back until he had spent each and every penny, said person would not return for approximately 82 years. Think about it. Eighty-two years' worth of spending $100 million each day."
I have yet to encounter one singular individual who supports this war. I have yet to encounter one singular individual who supports his tax dollars funding Halliburton or Blackwater. I have yet to encounter one singular individual who thinks we haven't spent enough money building infrastructure 12 time zones away. Politics is a land mine. But there comes a time when you have to cast your voice out amongst the cacophony and hope it somehow gets heard. It is no secret I'm an Obama supporter, but this topic transcends the election and hits at a deeper core. This is about American children being shortchanged in their education to pay for corrupt Iraqi police forces. This is about the lack of comprehensive health care for Americans while we build new Iraqi hospitals for victims of our invasion. This is about building and securing oil pipelines and refineries for big oil while domestic prices keep rising. This is tantamount to treason against the American people as a whole. Not to delve into hyperbole, but the use of funds in all aspects of this war has been criminal. Of all that $3 trillion, we still can't provide the proper armor and equipment for our troops? How can we ask our own citizens to invest the kicker checks they just received into our own economy when the goverment itself refuses to invest so? How can we blithely go along with budgets for domestic services for an overseas country that are triple our own?
This is a nation of immediacy. Everything must be delivered in a flash, from goods and services to soundbites from our leaders and entertainers. Our own government has adopted that same behavior, looking only at the immediate and ignoring the bigger picture. We only look to the present and not the future. "Someone will figure out how to pay for the education of our next generation, but, really, I'm busy right now so I can't be bothered to think about it." "We can't pull out of Iraq or it will collapse." If we keep pulling out of America, it will collapse! Our generation is already lacking in basic education and skills. Our refusing to fix it and fund it will only make it worse, and future generations simply won't be able to fix it because nothing will be left to fix and they'll be too stupid to know how. Reversing the tide of funding would only admit to a mistake and Americans don't admit mistakes, although electing a Democrat this fall would be a step in the right direction.
$3 trillion dollars is what we have spent on this war so far. Keith Olbermann ends every program with a countdown of how many days since W. procalimed "Mission Accomplished" (just over FIVE YEARS). Remember, it would take 82 years to spend $100 million a day and we've spent $3 TRILLION in those FIVE YEARS And every year kids across America have to share 20 year old text books with each other, forgo art education, provide their own equipment for extra-curricular activities and sports. If only we concentrated on re-directing those funds toward education and nothing else, just that, our next generation might have a fighting chance at righting our wrongs simply for having had a better education.
On the lighter side of this, on the page directly opposite this letter was an ad for Cartier jewelers
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
The Prudish States of America
In order to fit in with the mindset of Americans, I have decided to start wearing big brass buckles on my shoes, you know, in the conservative fashion of the Purtians. Our country was founded by Calvinists and remains a religiously conservative nation. Proof of point: 20/20. I sat down to watch their special report on the Sistine Chapel and nearly fell off the couch at the first frames shown: "The following program features paintings containg nudity, viewer discretion advised." If ever there were an example of irony. The religious right has made such an impact on American culture that a television program about one of the holiest places on earth had to be pre-empted by a warning fueled by the prudishness of religious fanatics.
Mormons believe the larger the family, the greater chance of celestial salvation. Lots of kids comes from lots of sex. But heaven forbid we should actually show the penis on the sculpture of David, a piece of marble whose sole purpose is to exemplify the perfection of God's creation in Man. How do you build a bigger family without knowledge of sex? How can groups proclaim such a devotion to protecting the sanctity of life and the beauty of all God's creatures when they protest actually seeing the work of God in all it's glory, purely as art, and not as pornography. This was a program about an artist and his relationship with the Catholic Church. This was a program about an artist whose sole purpose in life was to wrought the beauty of the human form as tribute to God's great work, the creation of man. And now, a nation founded by pilgrims, devout of religion, have mutated into a nation ashamed of God's creation, all the while claiming to be speaking the will and intent of God. The hypocrisy of that singular warning at the beginning of the program was the single greatest example of the twisted nature of religious belief permeating this nation. It shows just how backward we as a people are. If we cannot be trusted to recognize art for what it is, then we have, indeed taken one step further toward George Orwell's vision of a Thought Police. When his book was celebrated in 1984, we laughed at how improbable his predictions were. Re-read it now, and it takes on a whole new meaning.
As a side note, I love a program like "Art With Sister Wendy", a discourse on art and art history, hosted by a NUN, showing the same pieces of work as the 20/20 special, has never received a bit of protest, but because a program on the Sistine Chapel was aired by "the liberal mainstream media", it was met with warnings and pre-emption.
The pilgrims left Europe to escape the hypocrisy of the ruling religious figures, only to have founded a new nation conceived in the same. I only hope my brass shoe buckles and big black hat won't offend. At least the Constitution allows me to carry a blunderbuss.....
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
Mormons believe the larger the family, the greater chance of celestial salvation. Lots of kids comes from lots of sex. But heaven forbid we should actually show the penis on the sculpture of David, a piece of marble whose sole purpose is to exemplify the perfection of God's creation in Man. How do you build a bigger family without knowledge of sex? How can groups proclaim such a devotion to protecting the sanctity of life and the beauty of all God's creatures when they protest actually seeing the work of God in all it's glory, purely as art, and not as pornography. This was a program about an artist and his relationship with the Catholic Church. This was a program about an artist whose sole purpose in life was to wrought the beauty of the human form as tribute to God's great work, the creation of man. And now, a nation founded by pilgrims, devout of religion, have mutated into a nation ashamed of God's creation, all the while claiming to be speaking the will and intent of God. The hypocrisy of that singular warning at the beginning of the program was the single greatest example of the twisted nature of religious belief permeating this nation. It shows just how backward we as a people are. If we cannot be trusted to recognize art for what it is, then we have, indeed taken one step further toward George Orwell's vision of a Thought Police. When his book was celebrated in 1984, we laughed at how improbable his predictions were. Re-read it now, and it takes on a whole new meaning.
As a side note, I love a program like "Art With Sister Wendy", a discourse on art and art history, hosted by a NUN, showing the same pieces of work as the 20/20 special, has never received a bit of protest, but because a program on the Sistine Chapel was aired by "the liberal mainstream media", it was met with warnings and pre-emption.
The pilgrims left Europe to escape the hypocrisy of the ruling religious figures, only to have founded a new nation conceived in the same. I only hope my brass shoe buckles and big black hat won't offend. At least the Constitution allows me to carry a blunderbuss.....
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
How Nokia Discovered The New World
I think our history books are lying to us. There is, in fact, a book out there called "Lies My Teacher Told Me About American History." If there were a place to see if my conspiracy theory were true, it should be there. But, alas, non. One of my favorite things to do when watching historical docudramas or movies is to find that small flash of technology to prove my point. I just know that the History Channel is skewing the facts in favor of tradition and folklore. My singular goal (future pun intended) is to expose the shoking truth:
Cell phones were invented in the fifteenth century and brought to the New World by Christopher Columbus.
Outrageous? No. But it is the only logical explaination for why the cheetoh-munching-video-game-playing-cell-phone-using-chatty-cathy-fat-ass simply HAD to get on said phone before even pulling out of her parking space at the local Safeway. Without cell phnes, we as a society would simply collapse. And it is because of our long tradition of using cell phones that has brought us to the virtual surgical implantation of them, removal tantamount to amputation.
How else did we conquer the New World? How did we communicate our plans for Western Domination? This is a continent of vast distances, immeasurable physical hurtles. Indigenous populations that needed to be relocated. Forests to be raized. Canals to be built. An Industrial Revolution to be wrought. How could a people forge a Brave New World without being in literal constant contact? How, indeed, did we get thirteen delegates to come together and vote on a Bill Of Rights without benefit of texting? How, indeed, did John Steinbeck communicate the plight of the migrant worker without IM? How, indeed, did Matthew Brady ever document the horrors of our Civil War without benefit of the picture phone?
It must be obvious that such a great country could not exist, grow, or succeed without the ubiquitous cell phone. Our generation, the Grtst CPhn Gnrtn, has proven the worth and necessity of this life-giving/saving device. Americans, over the course of generations, have become one with their phones, bringing that tradition of use to their fellow citizens, recalling that time when Paul Revere saved the colonies from the invading British by giving a shout out to all his party peeps in Beantown ("Hey, yo, G Wash, can ya hear me now?") (do you think he was in Washington's five?). And it was a proud moment for me, today, to witness a self-indulgent-mini-van-driving-slob get on her phone just seconds after grocery shopping to tell the world of her great accomplishment. Pity me for being in her way. She, that great patriot, showing the next generation just how much cell phone use is ingrained in American culture.
So I ask you, please, to help me re-write the history books to include the truth: that America simply could not have become the great self-centered-ego-centric nation that it is today without the help of the cell phone in the past. We as a nation would not have been able to overcome the challenges unaided by bluetooth, and the truth needs to be texted. While driving, of course.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
Cell phones were invented in the fifteenth century and brought to the New World by Christopher Columbus.
Outrageous? No. But it is the only logical explaination for why the cheetoh-munching-video-game-playing-cell-phone-using-chatty-cathy-fat-ass simply HAD to get on said phone before even pulling out of her parking space at the local Safeway. Without cell phnes, we as a society would simply collapse. And it is because of our long tradition of using cell phones that has brought us to the virtual surgical implantation of them, removal tantamount to amputation.
How else did we conquer the New World? How did we communicate our plans for Western Domination? This is a continent of vast distances, immeasurable physical hurtles. Indigenous populations that needed to be relocated. Forests to be raized. Canals to be built. An Industrial Revolution to be wrought. How could a people forge a Brave New World without being in literal constant contact? How, indeed, did we get thirteen delegates to come together and vote on a Bill Of Rights without benefit of texting? How, indeed, did John Steinbeck communicate the plight of the migrant worker without IM? How, indeed, did Matthew Brady ever document the horrors of our Civil War without benefit of the picture phone?
It must be obvious that such a great country could not exist, grow, or succeed without the ubiquitous cell phone. Our generation, the Grtst CPhn Gnrtn, has proven the worth and necessity of this life-giving/saving device. Americans, over the course of generations, have become one with their phones, bringing that tradition of use to their fellow citizens, recalling that time when Paul Revere saved the colonies from the invading British by giving a shout out to all his party peeps in Beantown ("Hey, yo, G Wash, can ya hear me now?") (do you think he was in Washington's five?). And it was a proud moment for me, today, to witness a self-indulgent-mini-van-driving-slob get on her phone just seconds after grocery shopping to tell the world of her great accomplishment. Pity me for being in her way. She, that great patriot, showing the next generation just how much cell phone use is ingrained in American culture.
So I ask you, please, to help me re-write the history books to include the truth: that America simply could not have become the great self-centered-ego-centric nation that it is today without the help of the cell phone in the past. We as a nation would not have been able to overcome the challenges unaided by bluetooth, and the truth needs to be texted. While driving, of course.
this blog may also be viewed at:
www.myspace.com/mcmuppet
don't forget to read Chicken's blog at:
www.myspace.com/chickenlovesmillie
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