Bauer said, “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”
In the midst of the worst economic crisis in this country in decades, Bauer is reviving rhetoric straight from the 1980s, ignoring the fact that welfare was dramatically overhauled in the 1990s, and acting like his state, one of the poorest in the nation, should just be filled with starving homeless people. Because THAT’S going to make it such an attractive place for people to want to visit, live and work in.
Bauer added, “I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina,” adding, “You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch, and I’ll show you the worst test scores, folks. It’s there, period. So how do you fix it? Well you say, ‘Look, if you receive goods or services from the government, then you owe something back.’”
58 percent of South Carolina’s children are in that program. Could it be that their schools have crappy funding and don’t get the materials they need to teach the children properly? Could it be that their economy is in the toilet? South Carolina was filled with textile factories and the like, jobs that have disappeared over the past 20 years. Furthermore, statistically (thank you, Census Bureau), South Carolina’s income levels are well lower than the U.S. average and their poverty rate is higher than the U.S. average. People can be working full-time and still under the poverty ceiling, meaning, wait for it….they get government assistance.
Bauer’s comments reek of a lack of knowledge, not to mention a lack of compassion for human beings. The only thing of intelligence he said was that aid programs should require drug testing from its receipients. That’s fine, most of them do anyways. A once-a-month random drug test is not the worst thing in the world to ask. But Bauer’s requirement that parents attend PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences or lose their aid is idiotic. An awful lot of people receiving aid are working at the Wal-Mart to bring in a little more money to support their families and they don’t necessarily have that sort of time. PTA meetings are pretty useless in any case, but that’s beside the point. Sarah is a single mom, not by choice, and she works 60-70 hours a week, and her daughter gets the free lunch program at school. She doesn’t have time to go to a freaking PTA meeting. Should her daughter go without food because she’s working hard and doing her best to make a living?
Look, long story short here is that it is incredibly easy to demonize people who are beneath you on the socio-economic scale. It makes people feel better about themselves when they can portray the random idiot who lives off a dole as the rule and not the exception. It’s also incredibly shortsighted and downright stupid to say such things. I know a multitude of people who’ve had to be on food stamps or get state aid and NONE of them wanted to be there and were trying hard to get work that would support their families or were going to school to make their chances better. It’s an awful economy and people do need help right now. Not helping people who are unable to get work just means you’re going to increase the amount of people who are homeless, starving, and filling our streets, and who does that benefit?
Maybe it’s easy when you are a high government official and live in an official home and don’t have to see the consequences of such things, but for those of us who do see it, for those of us who have experienced it, Andre Bauer is a jackass. Stray animals? Really? Do us a favor and get the facts or shut your ignorant mouth.
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I haven’t been around much because I needed a break. I’ve been slammed working on new projects I’m excited to tell you guys about, but not yet. Whether my future will include this blog, at least in its current incarnation is still unsure, though. Its been a part of my life for so long that it feels weird just abandoning it, but I’m starting to feel a little like I’ve outgrown it or that it hasn’t grown with me. But those are decisions that don’t have to be made right now, and can’t be made easily. Whatever happens, know that I love you all and have cherished my time writing for all of you, and that no matter what, I won’t disappear. I’ll always be around. That’s one of my little habits.
The last year was one of the most intriguing years of my life. I traveled the country; I saw America. Its something I believe every single American should do: travel the roads that the first Americans paved on their way out west and see the country that sustains them and which holds the key to the future of freedom. I can hardly explain how grateful I am now to have meet Americans in nearly every state, spoken to people from all walks of life and experienced the best and worst this country has to offer. Before now, I’ve always been a road-tripper, taking time out of my life to live the way people lived with the highways and byways of American were brand new and Tee-Pee motels weren’t nostalgic and Route 66 was still one road. I felt a connection to history and at every stop, I came to understand just a little bit more why so many people, including my own grandparents who escaped a post-war Italy in steerage on an ocean liner, have risked their lives to come to this country. There’s something that just tugs at you, just like falling in love. There is a connection my heart has to this country that is viseral, magical, other-worldly.
I’m telling you all of this because, this year, I took a trip to Memphis. It was short, truncated by a heavy work schedule, but it felt like a pilgrimage: the birthplace of the Blues, the home of Elvis, the lush mouth of the Mississippi, a holy city of BBQ (I’m going back partly because, well, I missed the Rendevous, and I love me some BBQ). Memphis is burning with its own soul. Its one of those cities where you can feel history oozing from it, but like so many memorials and battlefields in America it has a tangible air of sadness. People come to Memphis to feel the Blues and mourn the passage of a million lost lovers, adulterous wives, dead dogs, broken guitars and empty bank accounts. They leave those feelings here because, it seems, Memphis can handle tragedy.
I got up early, maybe around 8:30am to see the one thing I couldn’t miss in Memphis. I didn’t get to see Graceland, I didn’t get to tour Sun records, there was only time for me to find one landmark. So as the fog rose off the Mississippi, I caught a streetcar and rode it beyond Beale Street to a seedy-looking green and white two story motel, a motel not really all that distinguishable from its surroundings or the millions of other sixties motor inns across the country with its Holiday Inn knock off sign and sloppy paint job. The Lorraine Motel doesn’t look special.
Back in its heyday, the Motel was one of the few hotels that allowed blacks to stay overnight and it hosted a bunch of black entertainers as they made their way through Memphis: B. B. King, Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway. It served homecooked meals. On April 4, 1968, though, the Lorraine Motel became the latest in a long line of mourners in Memphis when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on its balcony, just outside Room 306. A wreath hangs there now, right above a sixties era car meant to give the landmark a more authentic feel. It faces a crumbling brick building painted pink: the rooming house where James Earl Ray fired a shot that felled one of the most inspirational and incredible men in American history.
I didn’t get to go inside. The museum wasn’t open yet and I didn’t have time, but I stood there, staring at the wreath on the second floor and felt everything, felt the power of the place where I stood. In my life, racism has never been explicit, its always been hidden under the cover of cultural norms and assumptions and stereotypes. I can’t imagine the world that Dr. King lived in, but standing there, for a few moments, I thought I could at least feel the tragedy and the hope and the power of his life…and his tragic death at the hands of those who couldn’t handle his message. And make no mistake, right there on that spot, his spirit lingers. Its fused with the building, the mission, the continuing fight for equality and that place, that fateful, horrible place where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went from being a civil rights leader to being an inspiration for generations of world leaders and average people who work for basic human and civil rights every day of their lives.
I had to see it. I had to know. I wanted desperately to understand something I can never truly know personally. I wanted to look on that place and burn it into my memory. I wanted to be reminded of it, of Dr. King and his legacy and of the long and arduous battle to change the stubborn will of America, to wake them up to the plight of humanity and the rise of progress. I wanted to cry. I didn’t, but I wanted to. Sometimes, the tragic places in America don’t let you cry. You haven’t earned it yet.
This is the first Martin Luther King, Jr. day where I can look upon that memory and its still pretty fresh. It changed my perspective on the Civil Rights Movement from something far off chronologically and geologically it almost didn’t exist. In a few short moments alone on the street with the Lorraine, the world around me deadly silent and gray, I gained a tenuous connection that will permanently change the way I approach my world and the way I think about America. And contrary to what you might think, right there in the parking lot, I felt a pang of love for my country, not because of the horrible things that we occasionally do, but because Dr. King’s death didn’t end the fight for equality in this nation. It didn’t turn back the clock. The bad guys didn’t win. The dream didn’t die. In America, we took up the cross and moved on. I’m not going to say that we have a perfect record today - not by far - and I think based on your political ideology, you view the chasm as greater or less, but I do believe we’ve changed for the better. I do believe we’re closer to Dr. King’s dream today than we’ve ever been.
I don’t think I’ll go back there. I’ll stop in Memphis on another road trip - after all, I didn’t see Graceland or buy a velvet Elvis painting or spend a night in a blues club like you’re supposed to do - but I don’t think I can ever replicate those moments, so I probably won’t even try. Its something you can only feel once, I think, and something you only need to feel once, but that I hope I feel for the rest of my life.
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I haven’t said much about this story because, frankly, there are like eight million people you should listen to on the subject of Islamic terrorism before you listen to me. I know some things, but I’m not an expert, though I might become one real quick if they decide to move GitMo to my backyard. Plus, the whole thing terrifies me. Like most Americans, I try not to think too much about these things and assume, wrongfully, that the government has my best interests in mind and is doing all it can to protect me. Now, of course I know better from the one experience I had reporting “suspicious activity” on the CTA to the Department of Homeland Security, who was fairly convinced that my report of a squirrelly-looking, vaguely Middle Eastern dude using a Handicam to record major Chicago landmarks from the El was a figment of my imagination, possibly brought on by bad sausage before a nap.
This sort of thing just goes to show that you can’t trust anyone, least of all Europe.
With his wealth, privilege and education at one of Britain’s leading universities, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab had the world at his feet – able to choose from a range of futures in which to make his mark on the world.
Instead, the son of one of Nigeria’s most important figures opted to make his impact in a very different way – by detonating 80g of explosives sewn into his underpants, and trying to destroy a passenger jet as it came in to land at Detroit Airport on Christmas Day.
I was, at first, tempted to say this was another one of those amateur terrorist situations like the one we had here in Chicago: the six or so dudes from Miami that tried to blow up the building formerly known as the Sears Tower, now known as Big Willy, with a plan that they apparently sewed together from Monty Python sketches. After all, of every city he could have targeted, he tried to blow up Detroit. Even residents of Detroit know that’s not worth it. But this guy had it down. Board a plane in Nigeria where they wouldn’t question him or the odd bulge in his shorts, switch planes in Amsterdam where he wouldn’t have to go through security, and board a plane to the destination least likely to cause suspicion, partly because its a post-apocalyptic shell of a city and partly because generically Arab names probably wouldn’t set of an alarm on a flight to Detroit, considering the Arab population of the greater Detroit area.
Never underestimate the intelligence that goes along with being pure evil.
Thankfully, Americans fooled once won’t be fooled again. Thanks to the quick thinking and sheer brute force of some courageous passengers, instead of blowing the plane to Kingdom Come, all he managed to do was scorch the hell out of his private parts. He’s in American custody and about to face the mercies of Western justice, which, frankly, someone like him doesn’t deserve, but out of the grace of democracy, will get anyway.
What really gets my goat, though, is that six months ago, his dad called up DHS and flat-out told them that his son had received his Welcome Package from Al Qaeda International and had started his first homework assignment. Granted, his dad didn’t have any specifics at the time, but if the former Economic Minister of Nigeria calls you and tells you that a dude with a lot of money and a lot of spare time has suddenly thrown in his lot with the Islamic Fundamentalists and now may or may not be planning Jihad, I suspect you listen. But, honestly, I suspect what the DHS actually did was either suspect that this was just another Nigerian email spam and delete it, or tell this man to take two aspirin and commit himself in the morning. Sure, if I were to get an email from the Honorable Umaru Abdulmutallab, Finance Minister of Nigeria, asking me to please help him, I might send it to the trash bin, too…the first time. The second time, after reading where he thought his son might be plotting to blow sh*t up in the name of Allah, I’d probably listen.
But no.
This dude, of course, didn’t write an anti-American paper or taunt the TSA. He didn’t accidentally pack nail polish and hairspray into his bag or travel through security with a pair of nail scissors. He didn’t accidentally have the same name as a GitMo detainee or an ACLU lawsuit plaintiff. He wasn’t Ted Kennedy. What the f**k am I getting at, you ask? Well, these and plenty others are real-life incidents where the TSA or airport security prevented a mostly-innocuous person from boarding a plane because their name appeared on the No Fly List. Wikipedia has most of the newsworthy ones, but its surprising how many people are prevented from boarding planes in this country because they participated in peace marches, were named Catherine “Cat” Stevens (not the other one, that dude is really very creepy - who knew that the guy who wrote Peace Train would be one of the loudest voices calling for the death of Salman Rushdie?), or got on the wrong side of a civil rights lawsuit?
Now, I’m not saying that, in every one of these instances that the government was wrong. My general impression is that if you mix it up with terrorists, even in general, you probably should be subject to extra questioning and investigation before being allowed to do things like fly. But the point is, we place tons of people on the No Fly List for all sorts of crazy reasons, and we execute that edict on a regular basis. People who end up on the No Fly List aren’t allowed to fly. But there was a hangup about putting out an alert about this guy? There was something that prevented his name from setting off an alarm? Somewhere along the line, Northwest Airlines/KLM and Delta must have checked their passenger registers for weird names, no? Some agent somewhere must have had some idea that a dude who was reported to DHS for actually joining Al Qaeda was on his way into the US, right?
I mean, speaking of Cat Stevens, didn’t they reroute an entire flight because they didn’t want him in the US? You can’t tell me they couldn’t have landed this one in Ottawa and dragged Mr. Explosive Undies off the plane?
Maybe I’m scraping the bottom here because it creeps me out that this happened, but I don’t think I’m concerned unnecessarily. I mean, this dude tried to blow up a plane with explosives in his underwear. That’s scary. Everyone on your next flight could be sitting there with C4 strapped to their privates, just waiting for the opportune moment to send you spiraling into oblivion. Meanwhile, I can’t bring travel shampoo on a plane without being treated to the third degree.
Its probably an impossible problem to solve. So until we solve it, I think we all need to say a quick thank you to the passengers of that airplane for their bravery and quick thinking, and quietly hope in the collective courage of the American spirit, which, while not the best at orchestrating efforts requiring the assistance of the Federal government, generally knows when it needs to kick some terrorist ass.
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The Star Wars Holiday Special is having loading trouble, but instead, I will gift to you a lovely little ditty from my favorite Christmas special ever, Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas. I missed my chance to see this last year at the Gene Siskel Film Institute’s Muppett Masterworks series, but I’m seeking out a DVD version on eBay. Anyway, enjoy it, and please…from my house to yours, have a very, very, very Merry Christmas!
I think this also reminds me of Ataris and that time in history when MTV only played music videos and not ridiculous reality shows about people dating their parents or whatever. Ah, those days are behind me. Sort of. I kind of want to buy that Atari attachment for the TV from Target.
Merry Christmas!!
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Does anyone know where this is online or where I can get a copy? I’ve been able to find it every year except this year. Its like Lucasfilm finally caught on to YouTube, but not on to their fans. Not that that’s a particularly big surprise given the last three Star Wars films and that mass of animated crap they called Clone Wars. Any hints would be very much appreciated. I’ve never seen the whole thing all the way through and I feel empty inside because of it, somehow.
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It was between that and a Peter Griffin joke because the name “Parker Griffiths” immediately makes me think of either Family Guy or David Spade’s character in PCU. It surprised me that he was from Alabama. I totes thought he’d be from a family that lives on a compound and every few generations, produces a dressage champion. Of course, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose is Peter Griffin’s favorite show which I honestly do not believe is a coincidence.
Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, is switching parties to become a Republican, Fox News learned Tuesday.
Griffith is expected to make a formal announcement in an afternoon press conference.
Griffith, a retired oncologist and businessman, succeeded former Democratic Rep. Bud Cramer, who retired earlier this year, in a hard-fought contest for the northern Alabama seat.
Republicans thought that district would be hard for Democrats to hold without Cramer on the ballot, but Griffith defeated Republican Wayne Parker by 4 points — 52-48 percent — even though Republican presidential nominee John McCain won every county in the district.
Congratulations to Mr. Griffiths on being the first person in an election year to cut his potential losses and switch to the party most likely to carry him to victory in the mid-terms. I really admire his Jim Jeffords-esque commitment to his ideological principles and his party affiliation, which likely paid for his initial election. Its f***ing inspiring is what it is.
Apparently, Griffiths sort of rode to success on Obama’s coattails, which sort of also means that if Obama’s popularity is in decline (and really, its Alabama, not that I make sweeping distinctions about states other than Ohio and Wisconsin, but really. ALABAMA), its probably become clear to him that he has to get on the GOP bandwagon before his slow, flaming descent becomes a public spectacle. Maybe he is being honest. Maybe he really has seen the light, but I’m not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt just yet.
And earning that’s gonna be a bitch. There are already two candidates in the GOP primary, one that’s straight-up Republican and one that’s a Tea Party candidate who doesn’t have a whole heck of a lot of recognition, but given the sheer volume of the Tea Partiers, that’ll probably change rather quickly. In other words, the first leg of Griffith’s journey is going to head straight into a bloodbath. Not pretty.
Synchronize Swatches, everyone. We’re in for a ride.
UPDATE: Okay, also, apparently, Parker Griffith’s is a total weirdo. According to the NRCC sometime before it became irrelevant, quoting RedState, Parker Griffiths once said:
“And I think that . . . uh . . . we have nothing to fear from radical Islam. We have nothing to fear from any other religion if we are strong on our own beliefs. I don’t fear radical Islam.”
Okies, dude. You go with that. I, on the other hand, am not entirely convinced that the more I say the rosary, the less likely those cave-dwelling twerps are to want to murder me. In fact, I’m pretty sure, as with everything having to do with radical Islam, its probably the exact opposite. But whatevs. I’m represented by Roland Burris who may or may not have just recited his own health-care centric version of The Night Before Christmas on the Senate floor, which, while impressive in the sense that that’s way more effort than I ever expect from a member of Congress, is almost totally insane. But he’s still got the terrorism thing under control. I think. Sometimes. Maybe.
Seriously, Griffiths? SERIOUSLY? Yeah, no.
UPDATE: Okay, so he isn’t really a total weirdo. According to records, he voted against the stimulus twice, against Waxman-Markley, against the public option (though he did vote for the final bill, I see), and he plans to vote agains the debt-limit expansion.
I’m starting to get confused here. He’s better than a lot of Republicans, but in some ways worse than a lot of Republicans. Not sure WHAT to think, particularly considering that, apparently, he seems to come from a moderate district. Ugh. Hmmm….
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Illinois needs jobs. Yes, yes we do. Its no longer considered cool to be an out-of-work hipster because being out of work has gone totally mainstream. Some of the more experienced homeless people are starting to acquire staff. Of course, we are getting jobs for Christmas from the Obama administration namely, about 3,000 (some temporary, some permanent) jobs for people who are qualified or can be cleared to work in a federal prison. This, apparently, makes no one but me angry, which I am for multiple reasons, one, that GitMo isn’t actually closing, just getting a new address and two, I don’t want terrorists living within a two hour hitch-hike of my apartment. I’m not trying to be glib here. These dudes are sneaky. Obviously. They’re terrorists.
But like I said, apparently, this is no big deal to our lawmakers and they’re all excited about it and whatnot. We’re getting jobs! The economy will improve! Isn’t this wonderful and fantastic and beautiful and super duper!
Of course, there would have been a simpler and safer way to get jobs to this fair state. Granted, its dangerous, possibly against a city ordinance and maybe even a bit politically risky. But its a tough economy, right? And if we’re risking putting known terrorists who have to be tried by a military tribunal in the middle of a cornfield two hours away from one of America’s largest cities and a major transportation hub, clearly we’re willing to take a few risks, right? I mean, yes, it will involve building on a vacant lot, having a few alderman swallow their massive egos and painful pride and accept the tyranny of low prices.
Alderman Howard Brookins looks at a vacant South Side lot and is more optimistic than he ever has been.The 21st Ward alderman says he WILL get a Wal-Mart and the jobs that come with it after a years-long fight.
“This would be it,” says Brookins as he points out the empty corner in the Chatham Community neighborhood. “We’re glad the mayor has weighed in on the squabble between the unions and Wal-Mart”…
Key aldermen and unions oppose Wal-Mart because it employs a non-union workforce.
So yes, you read that right. Unions and key alderman (who are, of course, not among the people who are currently out of a job and desperate for work) are opposing a brand new Wal-Mart that would bring plenty of needed jobs to the beleaguered South Side, develop a plot of land that is currently sitting vacant, and bring a new consumer choice to an area that could probably really use a big box retailer with its significant buying power. When you’re scraping by on nickles and dimes, a store that sells things for significantly less than the corner bodega can be really useful. But nooooo. Wal-Mart only charges $8 per hour. It doesn’t provide its employees with full-coverage health insurance. It doesn’t let its workers unionize…they don’t. Oh, wait. That’s usually the big one.
I’ll give them this. Retail sucks dog butt. I’m not going to lie. I worked in it for years and, despite acquiring a Patty Hearst-quality case of Stockholm Syndrome, which drives me, occasionally, to actually fill out an application for a part-time job, I can fully admit that the work is boring and occasionally punctuated by truly horrible interactions with other people that can and frequently did cause me to completely lose my faith in humanity. And Wal-Mart is the scene of a high percentage of America’s most heinous fashion crimes and at any given time, any given Wal-Mart probably contains at least two people who have been drinking, three who have never left their house until right now and a high percentage of existing embroidered sweaters worn unironically. I am not a fan.
But that doesn’t mean I’d deny anyone a job over it. Particularly since, despite my carefully crafted prejudices and the WHARGARRRRRBL that flows steadily from MoveOn.org, Wal-Mart is not so bad.
As one former Wal-Mart critic found out, sometimes a soul-crushingly boring job can be worth it if, like at Wal-Mart, you move up in the ranks quickly, your loyalty is rewarded, you receive great on-the-job training that provides you with marketable skills, you are encouraged and empowered to make individual decisions because your company is transparent and, moreover, trusts even its most lowly employee, and which rewards improvement and excellent service with bonuses and a higher hourly rate. Because, as it turns out, Wal-Mart isn’t that unique in paying its workers a low starting rate, but it IS unique in helping its workers make more quickly.
Of course, none of this matters to the unions, whose main concern is, generally speaking, the union. If Wal-Mart workers were unionized, they’d pay dues and that would amount to a lot of money for the unions. Sure, there are things Wal-Mart could probably stand to improve, but when you have lots of people who are desperate for work and who could really use not just a job, but one that would provide them with some education, skills, some security and a reliable source of income they could use to better their lives, and the alternative is a vacant lot, its hard to make a coherent argument as to why they should be denied.
This happened once before in Chicago and, luckily, an alderwoman who knew what it was like to be out of work and desperate for a paycheck stepped in and headed off legislation proposed by another happy-clappy progressive alderman who was very concerned about the neighborhood going to the dogs once Wal-Mart stepped in. This time around, the overwhelming might of the sheer ridiculousness of the opposition will probably come crashing down upon them in a spectacular heap of glory all wrapped up in a nicely-designed blue reusable shopping bag.
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Sorry to be so crude, there, but its true. When animals don’t want you to see something, they squirrel it away so you never find it until the middle of the night when all you really want is a drink of water and you walk into your bathroom to discover that the floor is covered in a sand-link substance and something squishy. Its the last refuge of a scoundrel, or something that thinks electric cords are tasty. In other words, it the main tactic of something with a brain slightly smaller than an apple, to avoid the repercussions that come from doing something they vaguely recognize as “bad.”
U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday regarding the importance of getting it right on health care reform:…
‘And here’s the most outrageous part: at the end of this rush, they want us to vote on a bill that no one outside the Majority Leader’s conference room has even seen. That’s right. The final bill we’ll vote on isn’t even the one we’ve had on the floor. It’s the deal Democrat leaders have been trying to work out in private’
Get that? They’re supposed to vote on this baby before Christmas, and no one’s even read the thing other than a few low level staffers in the Nevada Senate office. Which is awesome, because it stands to redefine the parameters of something that directly affects the lives of every American. Why in the heck would we want to read something that important before, say, voting on it? I have absolutely no idea.
I haven’t gotten much involved in the health care debate for a few reasons. One, I think you need reform. That is, I think that something has to be done to refine the system and make it easier for people who have pre-existing conditions and economic constraints to get affordable insurance. I know insurance is a gamble; I’ve had to buy my own before and after a month of ridiculous phone calls and medical investigations they finally rubber stamped my application, and I understand that process is the same process I take mentally when deciding whether to play blackjack or waste money on a slot machine. I’m taking a gamble, so I want to pick only the games/individuals that are likely to be the winners. But I do think something has to be done for the losers.
But I’m not dumb enough to believe that that “something” should be entrusted to the clowns we’ve managed to elect to public office. I believe that something should be entrusted to people like Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who managed to create an affordable, sustainable plan for his employees that drove health care costs down and helped them create a long-term plan for their own lives. But of course, CEOs like John Mackey are prevented to from working with insurance companies to create REAL solutions because those same clowns in Congress have spent the last 20 years regulating the bejeezus out of anything that makes money.
In other words, I don’t put a lot of hope in these people to actually reform health care, just write thousand-page bills that are stuffed to the breaking point with naming rights for Post Offices in podunk towns across the corn belt. And I don’t hold out much hope for a future Congress, either, unless suddenly libertarians who aren’t certifiably insane manage to snag a majority in both houses.
That will also be the day that I get a unicorn.
Not to be a downer here, and yes, I’m being a downer, but its the holidays and the holidays never bring out the best in anyone let alone me, but basically, what I’m saying is, when you trust government to come up with a solution, it will, undoubtedly, register itself as the solution. Its a fact of life. Government is the problem, and smart Americans would spend their money and time trying to figure out not how to change it, but how to stop the damned thing before it runs you over.
Of course, people have been trying to figure that out since the beginning of time. Unicorns, it is, then!
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You know, as much as I thought the iPod with all of his own “famous” speeches on it that Obama gave the Queen of England was a totally sh*tty gift, I have to say, this has to be worse.
At 3 pm ET, today at the White House, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., will be briefed on the plans to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois by National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.), Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright, USMC, and possibly Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano…Then the crew will come out to the White House stakeout cameras to announce the deal and take a few questions.
Based on the radio and television interviews these clowns are giving today, it seems we the people of Illinois are supposed to be comforted by three things: (1) we already have very dangerous criminals, so its not like this is going to be super duper different, (2) these are the “kind of Jihadi” that gets tried by a military tribunal not a “regular court,” and (3) we apparently get jobs. Now, sure, I trust this administration about as far as I can throw it, based solely on the “our stimulus created jobs” assertion alone, but even given that, I have to say, I’m not super impressed with the rationalization.
Are a few thousand jobs that may or may not actually materialize worth holding dangerous individuals whose prime directive is to kill innocent human beings a mere two hours away from the third largest US city? I mean, we have a few large synagogues here, and were I them, I’d be pretty scared. Obviously, its not like they would be the only people to go when these guys escape and decide to blow the city to smithereens, but they’re pretty much the primary targets. And if these guys aren’t being tried in civilian courts, that means they’re the worst of the worst, right? These are the hardcore, nabbed hiding in a hole in the desert armed to the teeth with C4 kind of guys, right? And when your major goal has to do with dying, a steel door, electrified wire fence and a few hours worth of cornfields aren’t going to stop you, right?
This is super not cool. Not cool at all.
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Okay, would I give Barack Obama a B+? Probably not. No. Most likely not. To be truly honest, I haven’t thought seriously about what grade I’d give him except, well, he’s sort of just like Bush. Things aren’t that much different. The economy is still tanking, we still have a huge deficit, we’re spending like drunken sailors on shore leave in New York, we’re mired in two wars we don’t seem to want to win, the terrorists still hate us, the only difference is, we’ve been doing a lot of apologizing and award receiving. So maybe if this were a question of “how well does Barack Obama do at apologizing and receiving awards?” I would give him a B+. But otherwise, he’s not great. He’s not even a good socialist. I think Mao would give him less than a B+ at that.
On Oprah Winfrey’s “White House Christmas Special,” President Barack Obama gave himself a “good, solid B-plus” in his first year in the Oval Office.
The Nobel Prize winner credited his administration with getting the economy on track, winding down the Iraq war and making the decision in Afghanistan.
He also said America has “reset” its prestige in the world and made progress toward halting development of nuclear weapons in Iran and North Korea.
Health care reform would boost his grade to an A-minus, he said, but until that and more people finding work “I can’t give myself the grade I’d like.”
Okay, he’s sort of delusional. Maybe he’s awestruck by the halo that surrounds Oprah’s hair, or caught up in the Christmas spirit and interested in being generous, or those are just some super-weird standards. I’m not an expert, but the economy appears to be only marginally better, if you don’t count it being marginally worse. We’re still in Iraq, save for the scheduled troop withdrawals enacted in the last administration. We’re probably not anywhere near halting the development of nuclear weapons in Iran unless you count a nuclear accident a halt in development. North Korea already has nukes. And lets be honest here, “making a decision” doesn’t count. Making decisions is your job. You don’t get extra credit for making a decision on a theater of war that you had to make anyway, unless you’re super proud of yourself for just making the decision in the first place, considering that you felt incapable of making the decision in general.
But that last standard, just by making a decision about what to wear in the morning, I get a B+ at life. So does Jon Gosselin, given a handicap for Ed Hardy. The Black Eyed Peas get a B+ at music. Rhianna, who frequently looks like a stripper who stumbled into a time machine and rolled out somewhere in the Middle Ages on a distant planet, gets a B+ in fashion. Rosie O’Donnell has a B+ understanding of mechanical engineering. Lindsay Lohan’s movie career is halfway into the A’s. I could go on and on and on and on. Just by stopping here, I am well past B+.
I mean, I’ve made a decision. Right?
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WHY ARE THE HOLIDAYS SO BUSY? I feel like I haven’t actually sat down in, oh, I don’t know, like, a week. Well, actually, I’ve been sitting but its been mostly while I was working or too exhausted to blog. Because blogging takes brainpower and I lack that right now. But I have a lovely Christmas tree and some spectacular Christmas cookies. And I feel accomplished. Kind of. My apartment is still a disaster area. I can’t find the cat.
A bronze statue of a young Barack Obama in shorts and a T-shirt — and what appears to be a Nobel medal around his neck — has been erected at a park in Jakarta, Indonesia, near the school where the future U.S. president studied as a child, according to news reports.
The likeness of a 10-year-old Obama — his hand extended with what appears to be a butterfly resting on it — cost $10,600 and now stands in a corner of Menteng Park, according to the Jakarta Globe and AP.
Now, I don’t know much about Indonesia, but I am assuming, based on what I understand about the southeast Asian peninsula, the general impression I have of oppressive countries that bear the cancer of Islamic terrorism, and what I’ve been taught about sex tourism and sex trafficking and how its incredibly prevalent because of the abject poverty Indonesian people suffer from, I would think that the $10K could have been put to better use buying food for its people or something. I mean, $10K may not sound like a lot here in America, but I imagine that if just a tiny bit of food would really make your day and keep you from starving, $10K could probably go a long way toward alleviating a lot of pain for a lot of people. But, like giving a Peace Prize to a man who hasn’t earned it, and whose approach to “peace” is much the same as his predecessor when he’s not apologizing for America, sometimes its all about image.
Its not a really great message to send kids, really. Unless you let the kids melt the statue and sell the residual metal for scrap. Now that’s believing in the power of your dreams.
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I’ve been super busy and am still super busy, but if I didn’t say something about this, I was going to explode with rage, but I’m having holiday events at my apartment and I don’t have enough time between now and then to fix holes in the wall from any HULK ANGRY! HULK SMASH! events and I don’t have a lot of wall art. What I have I never feel like hanging so it sort of looks like a museum of Andy Warhol posters has been hit by a small earthquake. Not enough to break anything, but just enough to test the integrity of museum-grade wall hangers.
Anywhoo, while I sometimes enjoy telling poor people how to live, not just because I’m a Republicanish sort of thing and all but because I have an endless supply of poor people here in Chicago who ask me for change to buy booze on a daily basis and by denying them this simple comfort, I feel that I am taking an unjustifiable position on their life at least as far as their income goes. But see, telling a hobo I won’t give him change is one thing. Telling entire countries of poor people who live in developing mostly southern-hemisphere nations how to live their lives so that people in industrialized, First World nations can assuage their enviro-guilt at a European conference they all took private jets to get to, that p*sses me off.
[The] total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. “We haven’t got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand,” she says. “We’re having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden.” And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? “Five,” says Ms Jorgensen.
The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.
As well 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders, the Danish capital will be blessed by the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Daryl Hannah, Helena Christensen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Prince Charles. A Republican US senator, Jim Inhofe, is jetting in at the head of an anti-climate-change “Truth Squad.” The top hotels – all fully booked at £650 a night – are readying their Climate Convention menus of (no doubt sustainable) scallops, foie gras and sculpted caviar wedges.
Luckily, Danish prostitutes will be giving sexual services to people with a Climate Delegate badge for free, or they’d probably be wasting even more carbon trolling around the red light district looking for a carbon date (and don’t worry, they’ll plant a tree to offset all the carbon emissions that result). Ha. I didn’t even make that up. The Telegraph did. But I thought it was funny. Not as funny as the faux-seriousness with which the delegates are taking their Giant Carbon Footprint of A Conference full of Serious People who have Serious Goals.
Did you know the environmental movement is not just about being a good steward of your environment so that you may, to the best of your ability, pass on an inhabitable planet to future generations? Nope.
It turns out that’s just the sweet sugary frosting on top of the social justice pie…For a glimpse into the social(ist) justice ideology motivating the Progressive Global Warming Climate Change movement, take a look at the video below, produced by a community organization called smartMeme. The video promotes turning Copenhagen into a moment for “ecological justice.”
You can click the link to see the video on Big Government if you have a penchant for masochism, but I’ll spare you the pain: basically a giant, George Soros funded conglomerate of international hippies want to use the Climate Conference as a way to impose their socialist values on a bunch of industrialized nations in order to fulfill their dream of “helping” poorer nations “develop.” No surprise here, right? You could have written this story without the video, three weeks ago with your eyes closed. Its not like their MO has changed over the last 20 years, just now they don’t have an American President who refuses to swallow their BS.
But here’s what bothers me about this particular time around. This time, because they have a friend in the White House, they seem to have gathered some confidence about actually imposing their bizarre agenda. And I feel like, well, no one asked the Third World countries. So what this amounts to is a bunch of rich white people gathered at a climate change conference that no delegate from a developing nation can afford to eat at let alone get to, coming up with a weird agenda of legislation and regulations that may or may not actually make any change in the standard of living for developed nations, but will, rather, assuage the guilt of said rich white people over being rich while people who live in rich, mostly white developed nations, and which will prioritize actions which are most likely to serve said rich white people’s self-interest. Meanwhile, people in the third world are dying at an incredible rate, in some (if not many) cases due to other regulations and programs designed by rich white people to help them.
Take DDT for example. If you didn’t see Not Evil Just Wrong (which is a fantastic film despite the somewhat less-than-steller name), I can outline the basic problem they covered when it comes to the outrageous number of malaria deaths in middle Africa. Because of Silent Spring, which called attention, probably rightly, to the environmental effects of using waaaaaay too much DDT in the 50s (and when I say waaaaay, I mean people practically bathed in it, okay?), people across the country and around the world totally banned the use of DDT to kill mosquito larvae. Now, never mind that, in small doses, DDT does not have disastrous effects, and never mind that, in Africa, they would be willing to risk some small environmental effects to keep their population from dying horrible, painful deaths from malaria spread by mosquitoes, they banned it. And now, Bono and UNICEF and OXFAM and other well-meaning liberals run around the world trying to raise money for mosquito netting and Quinine pills which might save a few people from malaria. We spend millions on it. We could eliminate malaria deaths by approving small uses of DDT, but the environmentalists freak out at even the mention.
So while people in Africa are dying, liberal environmentalists show their priorities: the Earth over its people. Their own interests over African lives.
And then there’s Kyoto.
No nation who signed Kyoto has been able to actually keep their promise to lower their carbon emissions. But, Emily, you’re saying, I think Canada might have! Well, you’re only half right. Canada kept their promise by farming out their industry to the Third World. Yep. That’s right. Here they are complaining about how the environmental movement is all about getting justice for the Third World, and meanwhile, they’re trying to meet their own goals by making life a lot worse for people in the Third World.
Social justice indeed!
I’m sure if you called up Africa, you could be like, how have liberal policies and “international aid” money dumped into corrupt governments over the last few decades worked out for ya? And they would totally answer, “well, considering that Africa has actually regressed in its development over that period of time, I’d say its kind of not working out for us, but hey they keep telling us they love us and sending Angelina Jolie so it must be OK, right? RIGHT?!”
Now, of course, there is at least one “upside” to the whole climate thing: its keeping Leonard DiCaprio busy so he’s not making movies, which is, quite honestly, something the whole world should be able to appreciate. Its not much, I know. But its something.
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Apparently, there are some things that test even the conscience of Bill Ayers. Not that I’m all about Bill Ayers. But seriously, if you’ve got the man who basically birthed your career protesting your decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan on the streets of Chicago, you’ve got a problem. I guess it could be a carefully orchestrated publicity stunt to get the public on Obama side, but really…I’m going to go with the analysis that basically ratifies whatever assumption I’m happiest with making here.
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I’m not sure if this is meant to be serious, or a sort-of ironic protest against Obama’s failure to end the drug war. Given that its ecstasy and considering that I was under the impression that no one has actually done ecstasy since like, 1998, I would call this an earnest effort to cull support in a very strange, very new demographic.
President Barack Obama’s approval rating may be hovering in the 50 percent range, but that doesn’t mean America’s Commander-in-Chief isn’t catching on with new constituents.
There is now a line of Ecstasy pills made in the image of the 44th president of the United States, according to Texas police who have snatched a batch off the streets.
Ecstasy is known for a sense of elation, diminished feelings of fear and anxiety, and ability to induce a sense of intimacy with others.
Perhaps a good Election Day strategy to get out the vote?
Um…no. Probably not. Clearly whoever wrote this article has never met anyone on Ecstasy. Not that I have met all that many people, but really. I’ve been to the Detroit Electronic Music fest. I don’t and won’t do hard drugs because doing hard drugs is stupid, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never seen someone else stupid enough to do them do them. And don’t get me wrong, if you’re on Ecstasy, you’re stupid. Besides the dangerous nature of the drug (each hit is actually like playing Russian Roulette, it will kill you, you just don’t know when) people on Ecstasy are incapable of doing, well, anything. They’re all weird and trippy and worse at communicating than stoners; they don’t have the requisite ability to make any important decisions more complex than choosing a flavor of Kool-aid, which, come to think of it, would put them on right about on the same level as their leader.
Actually, Ecstasy, or at least these particular Flinstones-looking pills, are a decent metaphor for the Obama experience thus far. Excitement, Euphoria, and then a terrible hangover as your brain slowly turns to Swiss cheese from the combination of chemicals. And, in the end, you didn’t even get what you ordered.
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Now, okay. I don’t talk a lot about global climate change because frankly, I sucked at science, and had biology with the football coach so you know what? I don’t understand a lot of stuff about science. I get physics. I can do some math. Not a lot of math, but put the math in a Mythbusters episode and I can pretty much follow along as long as explosions are involved. But climatology? The closest I ever came to having a true understanding of weather and climate was either that year in elementary school where I watched a hell of a lot of Captian Planet, or that time a friend of mine working with me at Marshall Fields spotted a local weatherman she had naughty fantasies about buying a tie and forced me to hide behind a rack of clothes with her and watch him. She followed him or something weird. I went up to him later and, because this was the kind of situation that warranted this type of question, asked him how the weather was. He said, “fine.”
Following that, everything I need to know about global warming I learned from John Stossel as he debunked Captian Planet himself, Al Gore on the issue of global warming. But I don’t have a serious commitment to “climate skepticism.” I mean, I live in Chicago. Last year it was hot in the summer. This year it wasn’t. Last year it was cold in December, this year I could walk out in shorts and only command minimal attention. Something weird is going on. Whether we, human beings, are ultimately responsible seems a bit…presumptuous….to me considering that for the majority of the Earth’s life, its been a lot hotter than it is right now. In fact, we are, from what I understand, at a cooler point in the Earth’s history, and unless the dinosaurs were burning fossil fuels in a sort of cannibalistic/anachronistic sci-fi novel come to life, I’m pretty sure there are other factors involved.
One of those factors, apparently, is the institutionalized hubris of climate scientists affiliated with the United Nations. By now you know the story, so I’ll just let Jon Stewart sum it up for you.
The polar bears are going to be lonely without all of those scientists and photographers clamoring all over their individual ice floes from here on out. At least for a while.
Now, I don’t believe that this is the ultimate end to the debate over whether man is responsible for any kind of global climate change. Far from. But it does shed a bit of a shadow over the enviro-enthusiasm and the overall seriousness of the apocalyptic enviro-vision. In the end, though, its hard to escape the idea that climate change is a moneymaker, and producing scientific results is the easiest route to more funding, particularly when those findings corroborate a worldwide trend. Who knows what was motivating these scientists to massage the data as they did (and then dump the raw numbers so as to ultimately destroy all evidence of their wrongdoing), but in the end, they were defying the very nature of scientific inquiry: allowing their own political beliefs and personal ends to define their findings. Its devastating on a number of levels, but most of all for them and their colleagues. If, in fact, global climate change is occurring, it will be a lot more difficult to sell to Americans, at least, who are already wildly skeptical of even more settled science, like the theory of evolution.
Also, it makes me doubt global “warming” all the more. As in, I’m pretty sure its not happening. I’ll await further instructions on the whole global “moderating” thing. Or the “God hates Chicago so your weather is totally f***ed up, but that’s just you” thing.
So I guess count me in Stewart’s camp. In the end — and they’ll hate this analogy — science is like organized religion. Those who put all of their faith in it and work diligently within it are generally honest and seeking the good, but they are still people. They are still as likely to be tempted by the pressures of the world as any human being, and the overall effect should not be to denigrate science (or organized religion) as a whole. But it does remind all of us that asking questions, seeking knowledge and testing even those who claim to be utterly infallible.
At any rate, I’m pretty happy for the polar bears.
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January 27, 2010 
Posted by Thad in Uncategorized 
8 Comments »
I haven’t been around much because I needed a break. I’ve been slammed working on new projects I’m excited to tell you guys about, but not yet. Whether my future will include this blog, at least in its current incarnation is still unsure, though. Its been a part of my life for so long that it feels weird just abandoning it, but I’m starting to feel a little like I’ve outgrown it or that it hasn’t grown with me. But those are decisions that don’t have to be made right now, and can’t be made easily. Whatever happens, know that I love you all and have cherished my time writing for all of you, and that no matter what, I won’t disappear. I’ll always be around. That’s one of my little habits.
I haven’t said much about this story because, frankly, there are like eight million people you should listen to on the subject of Islamic terrorism before you listen to me. I know some things, but I’m not an expert, though I might become one real quick if they decide to move GitMo to my backyard. Plus, the whole thing terrifies me. Like most Americans, I try not to think too much about these things and assume, wrongfully, that the government has my best interests in mind and is doing all it can to protect me. Now, of course I know better from the one experience I had reporting “suspicious activity” on the CTA to the Department of Homeland Security, who was fairly convinced that my report of a squirrelly-looking, vaguely Middle Eastern dude using a Handicam to record major Chicago landmarks from the El was a figment of my imagination, possibly brought on by bad sausage before a nap. 
It was between that and a Peter Griffin joke because the name “Parker Griffiths” immediately makes me think of either Family Guy or David Spade’s character in PCU. It surprised me that he was from Alabama. I totes thought he’d be from a family that lives on a compound and every few generations, produces a dressage champion. Of course, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose is Peter Griffin’s favorite show which I honestly do not believe is a coincidence. 
Illinois needs jobs. Yes, yes we do. Its no longer considered cool to be an out-of-work hipster because being out of work has gone totally mainstream. Some of the more experienced homeless people are starting to acquire staff. Of course, we are getting jobs for Christmas from the Obama administration namely, about 3,000 (some temporary, some permanent) jobs for people who are qualified or can be cleared to work in a federal prison. This, apparently, makes no one but me angry, which I am for multiple reasons, one, that GitMo isn’t actually closing, just getting a new address and two, I don’t want terrorists living within a two hour hitch-hike of my apartment. I’m not trying to be glib here. These dudes are sneaky. Obviously. They’re terrorists.
Sorry to be so crude, there, but its true. When animals don’t want you to see something, they squirrel it away so you never find it until the middle of the night when all you really want is a drink of water and you walk into your bathroom to discover that the floor is covered in a sand-link substance and something squishy. Its the last refuge of a scoundrel, or something that thinks electric cords are tasty. In other words, it the main tactic of something with a brain slightly smaller than an apple, to avoid the repercussions that come from doing something they vaguely recognize as “bad.”
You know, as much as I thought the iPod with all of his own “famous” speeches on it that Obama gave the Queen of England was a totally sh*tty gift, I have to say, this has to be worse. 
Okay, would I give Barack Obama a B+? Probably not. No. Most likely not. To be truly honest, I haven’t thought seriously about what grade I’d give him except, well, he’s sort of just like Bush. Things aren’t that much different. The economy is still tanking, we still have a huge deficit, we’re spending like drunken sailors on shore leave in New York, we’re mired in two wars we don’t seem to want to win, the terrorists still hate us, the only difference is, we’ve been doing a lot of apologizing and award receiving. So maybe if this were a question of “how well does Barack Obama do at apologizing and receiving awards?” I would give him a B+. But otherwise, he’s not great. He’s not even a good socialist. I think Mao would give him less than a B+ at that. 
WHY ARE THE HOLIDAYS SO BUSY? I feel like I haven’t actually sat down in, oh, I don’t know, like, a week. Well, actually, I’ve been sitting but its been mostly while I was working or too exhausted to blog. Because blogging takes brainpower and I lack that right now. But I have a lovely Christmas tree and some spectacular Christmas cookies. And I feel accomplished. Kind of. My apartment is still a disaster area. I can’t find the cat. 
I’ve been super busy and am still super busy, but if I didn’t say something about this, I was going to explode with rage, but I’m having holiday events at my apartment and I don’t have enough time between now and then to fix holes in the wall from any HULK ANGRY! HULK SMASH! events and I don’t have a lot of wall art. What I have I never feel like hanging so it sort of looks like a museum of Andy Warhol posters has been hit by a small earthquake. Not enough to break anything, but just enough to test the integrity of museum-grade wall hangers.
I’m not sure if this is meant to be serious, or a sort-of ironic protest against Obama’s failure to end the drug war. Given that its ecstasy and considering that I was under the impression that no one has actually done ecstasy since like, 1998, I would call this an earnest effort to cull support in a 
Now, okay. I don’t talk a lot about global climate change because frankly, I sucked at science, and had biology with the football coach so you know what? I don’t understand a lot of stuff about science. I get physics. I can do some math. Not a lot of math, but put the math in a Mythbusters episode and I can pretty much follow along as long as explosions are involved. But climatology? The closest I ever came to having a true understanding of weather and climate was either that year in elementary school where I watched a hell of a lot of Captian Planet, or that time a friend of mine working with me at Marshall Fields spotted a local weatherman she had naughty fantasies about buying a tie and forced me to hide behind a rack of clothes with her and watch him. She followed him or something weird. I went up to him later and, because this was the kind of situation that warranted this type of question, asked him how the weather was. He said, “fine.” 
