archived entries for April 2008

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
leave the ponchos be
So I caught a blurb about bowties being the new hot trend for the metrosexual or other guys who crave to be in the fashion know (certainly not me). I'm telling you, no way. I've never liked bowties and have always thought they were just weird reserved only for clowns (that includes you Tucker). Even on tuxes where they could be passable I still find them strange.

But as the new hot accessory paired with a good vest and jeans? Uh uh. No. You'd be a tool. At least according to my no-fashion-having sensibilities. And it may mean all of jack poo to those more concerned with obeying fashionistas. But I'll still make fun of you and your friends wearing their turned up collars, aviator sunglasses and fauxhawks.

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
it really does hurt
My annoyance of late with the continuing vacuousness of the press and complete lack of coverage of what is supposed to be news worthy has steadily begun to escalate to real anger. In my everyday observations and of course in part due to my reading of Susan Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason I find it painfully distressing that the masses continue to run from critical thought, contemplation, introspection, sympathy – enlightenment.

I believe that a lack of quality education for all ages (but fundamentally K -12) is a critical factor in this flight from reasoning. Not just the formal education one gets in schools, but education cultivated across the media. The news media, the press, play such a vital role in the education of the public; a role bestowed upon them by our government. In exchange for using the airwaves for their programming they are to provide the public a service by informing them of events and stories beneficial to their knowledge and being. While a great many arguments could be had on what would be considered newsworthy, I can assure you what Britney Spears is doing, what actor is getting sued by a former nanny, or photos a former country pop star’s daughter showing her back are not a critical pieces of information that would have any meaningful impact on our lives nor further our education of what is happening in the world.

But it’s not even just the lack of reporting important relevant news; it’s the lack of educating the populace about the issues that should be of concern to us. We get sounds bites, hyper-dramatic sensationalistic commentary and opinion over some real trivial things sometimes, but no real critical assessment or breakdown of what the story is, why it should be important to you or all the facts of the matter. I liken the issue to our getting the daily recommended dose of nutrition to keep us physically healthy. In order maintain a healthy, robust and complete physiology you need to eat your raw fruits and vegetables, drink your water, take your vitamins and eat balanced meals. And certainly you can splurge every once in a while on the sweets, rich foods or just comfort foods (junk foods), but of course in moderation. But if you consistently consume nothing but the sweets, junk or saturated fat foods what happens? Bad things. If all we get in our news is the junk, and this cuts across all swaths of mainstream press nowadays (I mean if ABC has the balls to put on that Democratic presidential debate, pure junk by the by, then mainstream media is in a bad way) then what can you expect from the masses in terms of their education? Problems. And when you have an uneducated mass, you have a nation going down the road to oblivion pretty quickly and taking you with it.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
for the love of goodness...
There are really too many dumb people out there.

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008
i’ll be done when I get done...
Ok so here’s another oddity one might find in the hell of cubicles and word documents. So I go to bathroom today and I see a guy just standing up against the wall. And the way the bathrooms are laid out, there’s a handicap stall, a normal stall and then two urinals. So I walk in and think, we’ll crap everything’s taken up. Nope, the urinals were not occupied just the stalls. Okay, weird. Seriously, who waits in the bathroom in front of the stall while two other guys are pooping, when there are SIX OTHER FLOORS that have bathrooms. It’s not like it was a busy airport or something. There were other options within an immediate area. Was that like his favorite stall or something? Even then, why wait IN THE FREAKING BATHROOM inhaling the poop fumes? Gross. And how would you like to be the guy in the stall being weirded out by some dude standing outside the stall pressuring you to hurry up? Dude, that’s messed up.

In other news, is the Democratic primary over with yet? It’s simply ridiculous now and if the best that Senator Clinton can do is berate Senator Obama for misstated comments (albeit fairly insensitive) and claim he’s just “unelectable” just pack it and go home. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for her going all the way as she certainly has the right to do since things are so close, but come on be a candidate of substance and persuade us by what you can offer not by tearing down the other guy. The last two elections ran that way and it served no one well. But as Seth Myers summed up so eloquently a little while back, "Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said she is not a quitter and compared herself to Rocky Balboa... the washed up, over-the-hill white contender, who despite a Herculean effort, is soundly beaten by the charismatic black guy." Yep. And this “OMG he said that!” is the best she can dish out? She should get pounded. I really thought she was better than that.

… A funny story I heard this last week told by Jason Alexander (yeah that guy from Seinfeld) on Bill Maher’s show. It was about his cousin who’s a pilot for a major domestic carrier. Apparently his cousin had a case of little screwdrivers for his eyeglasses, which the TSA deemed to dangerous for him to bring onto the plane. The cousin didn’t make a fuss, but politely said, “Yeah sure, go ahead take it. But I gotta tell you... I’m the pilot. If I want to bring the plane down, I, I don’t need this.“ Followed by, “And I don’t want to rock your world but there’s an axe in cockpit.” And you know, they got guns to. Really makes you wonder.

Oh yeah, no surprise from Petraeus' testimony last week, another six months.

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Friday, April 04, 2008
from the dept. of Are You F*@#king Kidding Me?!
So after months of consideration it would seem that Congress is on the verge of truly doing something to support our troops, a revamped GI Bill. The basic premise is to pay the higher education costs for our veterans after a few years service. The updated bill will bring back WWII-style benefits such as paying full tuition, room and board for those soldiers seeking higher education opportunities once they’ve returned from duty. As senator Jim Webb, a co-author of the bill, has stated, it’s a no-brainer.

But wait, yes indeed, it would seem those with no brains or at least purporting to have them are saying hold on we’re not sure that’s such a good idea. The White House after all the rah-rah of “Support our Troops!” is resisting something that would do just that. Their take on the subject? White House officials say that giving soldiers such strong incentive to leave the armed forces would result in low retention rates. Soldiers sign up and -- after two years -- leave the army in droves to get their free education. Um, say what? Too much of an incentive? Yeah, and staying to serve in a misguided, mismanaged, indefinite gruesome war does so much to keep soldiers wanting to stay. Never mind actually wanting to give them something to help them when they return after being asked to do what most of us would never want to do.

Add on top of that sending soldiers over to fight ill-equipped, over extending their tours and in some cases prohibiting them from leaving at all via stop-loss mandates, abysmal veterans care when the soldiers return home after being wounded… yeah, I can see a whole lot of supporting the troops going on. I suppose it should just be enough to slap on a bumper sticker, plaster ribbons all over the place, wear a lapel pin and whenever someone says anything about how asinine this war is, just yell “Support our Troops”!

You know, I’ve always wondered if I would be able to recognize being in the moment of history. Like living during a time of huge historical significance that would be immortalized as key moments in our existence and seeing it for what it was as it was happening. I just never thought one of those moments would be to live through the very worst administration of American government.

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