Pre-Weekend Update - Stupider Edition

(The family is leaving town for the Memorial Day weekend, attending birthday parties and going shopping on the Oregon Coast, so here's your Weekend Update in advance.  See you Monday!)

• I've visited several states in the South, I even lived in Texas for a year or so, and I found that for the most part the people who are raised there and stay there all their lives are decent, polite, and charming people.  But I also noticed that under all the "y'all's" and the "ahm fixin' to's" was the constant hum of racism.  Back in the sixties I asked a white haired gentleman what he thought of the marching and the protests that were going strong at the time.  He told me he couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about because "we've always treated our negroes good."  He figured all the fuss was being caused by "northern agitators from Chicago."  I, of course, was appalled, and determined to get back to the sanity of Oregon as soon as possible.  Forty five years later I've begun to realize that racism, as well as other forms of intolerance, are spreading across America.  Mark Morford reports on "All the States That Hate You."
• How much would YOU pay for a vial of Ronald Reagan's blood?  Would you pay $30,000?  Of course you would.  However, I must sadly inform you the auction has been cancelled, for some silly reason.  I guess some people just don't have a sense of humor.
• Arizona's  Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is undoubtedly feeling better now that the State of Hawaii has verified President Obama's birth certificate.  If anyone an come up with an intelligent reason why Arizona has become the weirdest state in the union, I'd love to hear it.
• Ever paid an enormous amount for movie tickets to see a movie you really really want to see and some parent with two or three kids sit right behind you and talk and talk and throw popcorn at you and your date?  No?  Well, if it does happen, here's what you do.  First, jump up and hit the 10-year-old in the face.  A hero is born ...
• "This week’s NATO summit on the future of the war in Afghanistan probably did not get to the matter of burn pits or abandoned latrines. These are the details of hell."  The war in Afghanistan continues.  It's time to end this nonsense (Where's that "Mission Accomplished" sign?) once and for all and bring our troops home.  Robert Koehler gives us "The Pits of Hell."
• Did you know that Americans currently pay just about the lowest taxes in the entire world?  So just what exactly is the Republicans problem?  Oh, you know.  Timothy Geithner takes a moment to carefully explain why they are so stupid.
• It's official:  Watching FOX News makes you stupider.  Well, we told you that years ago, so just consider this a reminder.

"Job Creators"

Having Mitt the Barber run for President may have the effect of shining a light on the ultra-wealthy and their tax benefits. If so, the legacy of Mitt's run may prove ironically very, very good for our economy and our society, while leaving all of his exceptionally wealthy friends with a painful hangover, wishing fervently that Mitt had just stayed home.

I heard this guy on the radio yesterday and he seemed to be making very good sense. He originally did this short video for something called "TED", a website with a series of four to twenty minute clips about various subjects, but the organizers of "TED" felt that this clip was "too controversial" for them to post. When something that is not advocating violence or insurrection is seen as seditious, that can often be a cue that it might be seen as having a considerable impact on society.

TED is at: http://www.ted.com/

(BTW:)   By the way, I don't know anything about TED, I just found it fascinating that they were too paranoid to let this guy's video be aired after he recorded it, lest they invite the wrath of the Entitled Ones. I think his seditious ideas warrant far more distribution.

Arthur

Friday Update - "Do Not Feed the Animals"

(We should entitle this post "How To Attract Graceful and Beautiful Deer to Your Property," but we won't for reasons to become obvious.  First, wait until the weather is unseasonably warm, and then break out the old rototiller.  After you're done tilling the soil and fertilizing everything with expensive bagged fertilizer, jump in the truck and get your Farmer Freddie butt down to the local garden store and buy up as many tomato, pepper, and cucumber plants you can carry, but don't, repeat, don't forget the large expensive strawberry plants.  Wife likes fresh strawberries.  On your way home be sure to drop by your local liquor store and purchase your favorite alcoholic beverage, because you're going to need a drink before all this is over.  Now get home and start planting.  Make a hole in your freshly rototilled dirt, then bend over and pick up the potted plant, turn it over gently in your hand, tap the bottom gently several times, and the entire plant - root ball and all - will slip effortlessly into your outstretched fingers.  Oh, I forgot to mention the cursing.  Lots of cursing.  Repeat this step until you feel like slashing your wrists, or you run out of plants.  This is called "farming."  Most people "farm" using large mechanical equipment called "tractors" which do most of the difficult work automatically.  But you do not have a "tractor."  You have "cursing."  Lots of "cursing."  Now, those really expensive strawberry plants can be placed in a hanging pot, and can be placed on large wrought iron hooks in front of the kitchen window, where they can be observed and enjoyed for the rest of the summer.  Great idea, right?  Right.  After a couple of backbreaking hours you will be finished, with nothing left to do except to enjoy the verdant fields of succulent fruits and vegetables to come.   Be sure that the next morning you gaze out the kitchen window at the remnants of the strawberry plants, now reduced to mere tiny straw-like sticks.  Also be sure to stop "cursing" long enough to observe the garden area, now a verdant field of stubby foreign looking plant matter, scattered amongst about a hundred deep holes that will later be called "deer tracks."  Observe how the graceful and beautiful little animals haven't even had the courtesy to leave you a freaking "thank you" note.  At this point, when you have finished "cursing," be sure to remember your trip to the liquor store the day before.  Enjoy the rest of your day.  And we digress ... )

• Wrigley Field in Chicago has been the home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs ever since the early 1900's.  It was named after a stick of gum - well actually the chewing gum magnate William Wrigley, Jr - and up until 1970 it was also the home of the Chicago Bears football team.  The Chicago Cubs baseball team is now owed by a family trust managed by Joe Ricketts, a conservative billionaire.  Wrigley Field is a great old park indeed.  But it's in need of renovation, and it seems there's a problem with the raising of public funds for that renovation.  Arthur writes:  It turns out that the recent flap over a planned attack on Obama as a Jeremiah Wright sympathizer and a Metrosexual has had a bit of a backlash. The elder Mr. Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade (who are also not happy with the publicity) is an enemy of public funding, except that his kids were trying to get Chicago to put up half the money to refurb Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs… owned by the Ricketts family. Chicago Mayor? Rahm Emmanuel. Oooopsy...  "Mr. Ricketts became a case study in the risks of political neophytes with big checkbooks seeking to play at the highest and roughest levels of politics," writes the NYT. 
• For quite some time now the Republicans have been saying that they're going to come up with their own health care plan that would rival Obama's plan (good thing we haven't been holding our breath).  While some have said their plan would have a few good parts of Obama's  plan included, recently John Boehner nixed that idea by saying "We voted to fully repeal the president's healthcare law as one of our first acts as a new House majority, and our plan remains to repeal the law in its entirety."  So there.  When the Republicans have their way, tens of millions of Americans lose their health care coverage, seniors pay higher prescription drug costs, small businesses lose their tax breaks, and the deficit goes up by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.  In other words, everything must go.
• If I said there was one of our (The United States of America) states that might not have President Obama's name on the ballot this year because they're not sure if Obama is an actual American citizen, which state would you think that would be?  You're right!  Something's funny about Arizona.
• When President Obama finally declared he supported same sex marriage, reactions from both sides of the issue were quick and loud.  But one of the funniest and weirdest came from Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute, who accused President Obama of being gay.  What? you may ask.  Yep.  And what's more fun is this bizarre interview with Dr. Cameron, where he admits to his own attraction to men.
• But for sheer understanding of the homophobic mind, check out this video from Lincoln, Nebraska. 

Mitt "The Barber" Romney

by Arthur In Marin County

(Romney said the incident involving cutting the hair of John Lauber, whom some students suspected was gay, occurred "a long time ago."  "I don't remember that incident," Romney said, laughing.  "I certainly don't believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual.  That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s, so that was not the case.") (.)

I have the benefit of having been in High School at the same time as Mitt Romney was. We certainly were aware that there were gay people in the world. I also have clear memories of people being harassed for being (1) short (2) poor (3) weak (4) effeminate (5) not as much of a jock as their tormentor (6) smart (7) not stylishly dressed (8) not expensively enough dressed (9) not playing team sports (10) not being popular with the girls (11) socially awkward, and that is just the start of the list that could be drawn up from the memories of others...

What I also clearly recall is that Type A students tended to get away with harassing Type B, C, D and F students. It was sort of not seen as actionable.

I never attended school with a Type AAA student, whose father was currently the Governor of that State. One presumes that such a Young Prince could do very little wrong, given his powerful social and political connections.

However, if a group of low status students ganged up on a Type A student, ran him down, held him to the floor while he screamed and roughly hacked off his hair, they would have been immediately expelled. I find it interesting, since the rough haircut that Mitt Romney gave his fellow student must have been immediately visible to the school staff (unless they all were dangerously near-sighted or blind) that Romney and his "posse" were given a free pass. None of the other perps recall being disciplined, Romney claims (dubiously) that, gosh! he can't even recall such an incident, shucks, sorry, my bad, if I upset anyone by doing something sooooo long ago, when I was so young and so prone to "pranks".

In other circumstances, that incident would have been considered an assault. One hears stories about the horrors of life in English Boarding Schools, where fairly dreadful things happened to lower classmen. I accept that stuff happens, but it is also a fairly horrible story, that everyone involved says they have never forgotten… except for Romney. I can only assume that Romney has early stage Alzheimer's, he somehow never got issued an actual soul or conscience, or that he is a glib pathological liar. I vote for the last option.

I wasn't going to vote for him anyhow, but I hope that this issue gets legs and helps the rest of the nation come to realize what a disaster electing this guy would be. Oddly enough, it often isn't the big things that take down criminals, it is the small things. This feels like one of those small, but telling things. My guess is that about 80% of former students can recall being the target of serial harassment. I think they can clearly recall how it made them feel and what they thought of those who casually set out to shove their faces into (1) the dirt (2) a random pile of dogshit (3) or whatever. It is very much a fight for dominance, between an individual or individuals who thought they should be at the top of the heap, and everyone else. Very primal stuff, one suspects.

In Romney's defense, several pundits noted that in two previous runs for President, "None of his Republican opponents mentioned the issue", as though that means that Romney had been fully vetted and found acceptable to the Republican leadership, so we should just shut up and stop talking about what a jerk this story appears to suggest that he is. But it just doesn't work that way. My wife and I had an interesting talk about this. Try it with your wife or a friend and it is amazing what memories are dredged up. I was fairly lucky and was able to avoid the worst abuse, but I saw others who were not so lucky… and I don't recall me standing up for them, I think in part to avoid having attention drawn to me. I wonder how many others had much the same experiences. I suspect a majority of the American people probably do. I like hearing that the issue of bullying has been given a great deal more attention these days. I am not sure what effect that will have on society, and on individuals, but I think it sounds like a very, very good idea.

On the other hand, I think Mitt Romney sounds like an asshole.

The Boy convinced me that we just HAD to go see The Avengers movie Saturday, and try as I may, I couldn't come up with a good excuse not to.  The price is actually pretty good, relatively speaking, because he's still a kid and I'm a Senior Citizen.  Discount, baby.  All tolled we paid more for popcorn and a cola than we did for the tickets.  But let's not get started complaining about the insane price of a small popcorn and a small soda.  Because if we get started doing that I'll have to get angry, and I don't feel like getting angry today. 

I don't go to a lot of movies, maybe two or three a year.  The Boy goes with his friends or other relatives sometimes which takes the heat off me for the most part.  I like movies, don't get me wrong, it's just I'd rather watch them from the comfort of my old recliner, where I can control the sound level.  When I was a kid we went to the old McDonald Theater in downtown Eugene, and watched movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Invaders From Mars (which scared the pee out of me). A large tub of popcorn, which could feed an entire row of rowdy kids on Williams Bread Saturday (free admission with one Williams Bread bag), cost the astronomical sum of one dollar.  And when the movie was playing on the screen, everyone had to be quiet so you could hear the soundtrack.  But these days, they have stereo surround encompass enclose-and-destroy THX  melt-yer-frontal-lobe sound SO LOUD, that if you were to scream "fire!" in a crowded theater no one would hear it.  Not even the guy next to you.

Now the kids love that sort of thing.  They're in the generation who plays music in their cars so loud it'll crack window glass a block away.  They're the generation who plants those ear buds deep into their ear canal and turns the Ipod up to 10. (By the way, that's very hard on your eardrums and quite dangerous, actually)  But as I mentioned before, I'm a Senior Citizen, and sitting in a movie theater with the sound turned up to thermonuclear is somewhat of an ordeal.  You don't just hear it, you feel it.  Your prostate vibrates and your liver quivers, and if your not wearing your hat, I swear your hair falls out.  But the grin on the Boy's face during the intense scenes is worth it all, I suppose.  He loved the movie.

My review of it?  I give it three stars.  Lots of action, great special effects, and no cursing.  Someone estimated the amount of damage caused by the bad and good guys to New York City, had it actually happened, would cost $160 billion to repair.  Great movie for kids with hearing problems.  My favorite Avenger? Tony Stark (Iron Man).  Played by Robert Downey Jr.  The guy's a bit of a Bad Hat. 

Lost, Found, and In Between

(Big doin's around the compound lately: Buddy, the Emergency Backup Cat, went missing for nearly three days.  We had adopted Buddy from the local animal shelter for no apparent reason.  How many cats do you need?  [answer 0]  The wife had her two ancient cats Rutger and Alex for many years, but the Boy wanted his own so in spite of all my carefully thought out reasons for not getting another cat [i.e.: "over my dead body"] Buddy became a member of the family about three years ago. Now, cats normally aren't known for their intelligence.  We refer to Alex, weight 20 lbs, as "25 watt."  You know, "Dim Bulb?"  And in the case of sheer feline stupidity, Buddy doesn't disappoint.  But he always seemed to remember where he lived after being out in the backyard for several hours, so I didn't worry about him too much.  He's a young large, strong, male domestic shorthair tabby and he seems to rule the network of neighborhood cats with sheer stupid rudeness.  At the first of the week he didn't show up at the back door for his usual feeding, and for the next couple of days there was no sight of him regardless of all our efforts at calling him home.  Day and night the three of us entertained the neighborhood residences with hallelujah choruses of "heeere kitty kitty kitty buddybuddybuddy" to no avail.  Boy was very upset and getting worse, so we went back to the local animal shelter where we'd gotten him to see if someone had turned him in for the deposit [bad joke]. Nothing.  Finally last night, when I was just beginning to have hope [bad joke #2], the elderly next door neighbor called and asked "you lookin' fer Buddy?"  Seems our little feline Einstein had gotten into a storage area in the back of the neighbor's garage and was too scared to come out where they could get him.  Boy went into the garage and called for him, and Buddy practically flew into his arms.  So the idiot cat is safe and sound, has eaten over half a large bag of cat food, and slept in the Boy's bed all night last night.  Awww.  I hate cats.  But I digress ... )

• Actually, at my age things like having a cat missing is rather comforting in a randomly usual way.  Life in the neighborhood situation is predictable - the garbage is picked up on Thursdays, the mailman gets here around 11AM, the doorbell makes the dog bark, etc.  What makes life fun and exciting are things like Michele Bachmann suddenly becoming a Swiss citizen.  Didn't see THAT one coming, did ya?
• There's a hilarious website called "Live Funny or Die" that posts outrageous videos to lampoon life's little silly things.  In this one, Kate Beckinsale, Judy Greer and Andrea Savage "spread" the message that the one thing women really want in their vagina is the government.  Ohgawd, this is good.
• Say what you will about President Obama (and we know that you will), he eventually gets around to trying to say the right thing.  It started with our favorite Vice-President, Joe "Shecky" Biden who actually stood up for his convictions and stated his support for equal rights for gay marriage.  And this statement apparently nudged the President into saying the same thing.  Or did it?  Common Dreams posts a report by Robert Scheer, There is enormous condescension in Obama’s assertion that “I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally.”
• Jonah Goldburg is the founding editor of the National Review Online, about as ultra conservative as one can get without being institutionalized in a mental facility.  Apparently Jonah has learned how to pad a resume' from Bill O'Reilly, who once famously listed his two non-existant "Peabody Awards" on a book blurb.  Goldburg says he's been "nominated twice for a Pulitzer Award."  Yeah, and so have I.  MSNBC investigative reporter Bill Dedman reports.
• And finally, let's check in with the Romney campaign.  As we left the Mittstir he was stating quite concisely in a New York Times editorial that we should let "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." Okay.  Well, fortunately, President Obama didn't do that, he bailed them out, and now the auto industry is fired up and working well.  But guess who's taking credit for the whole thing?  Yeah, guess.