A funny story

Seems there was some young African-American librarian who used to commute to work everyday by subway. Very clean-cut with glasses, not bad looking and in New York there's a lot of crime so he's sitting there in this very crowded train one day and there's a wanted poster of the latest perp wanted for rape/assault and he's getting a little nervous and concerned because he's thinking "hey, that looks like me!!"

Former Yankees Third Baseman Graig Nettles once wrote a book, "Balls", and when a hot book first comes out there's usually a long list of reserves at the Circulation Desk at your local library and so this woman comes up to get her copy and asks "do you have Balls for my husband?"

Which is most likely to be true?

spontaneous human combustion, haunted houses, UFOs, Elvis is still around, Sasquatch, Loch Ness, Oswald was a patsy, the Bermuda Triangle OR the VRWC really exists?

I'm sorry those are your options and you have to choose one. It's my hunch that BB is going with (none of the above) but I've discussed this with people and my personal favorite is Nessie.

The age-old question

Why do African-Americans vote so overwhelmingly Democratic? Used to think the answer was traditional Democrat support for such things as affirmative action programs and welfare but this seems simplistic. I've come across many blacks who have conservative values and yet they don't vote that way in the end. It's a bit of a headscratcher and are there any polls out there that ask the question point blank? Every now and then black leaders make noises to the Democrat Party don't take us and our vote for granted but when push comes to shove...'tis a waste of time imo to woo their vote, they don't like you get in through your head and it becomes a bit stalkerish but I'm just curious about theories is all.

Which conservatives DON'T you like?

This is a spinoff from my most recent threads and deserves a special section of its own. David Frum doesn't like Rush Limbaugh, soapie doesn't like Ann Coulter, personally I never cared for Bob Grant. BB has finally come clean as having liberal tendencies but in my view judging from the bulk of his posts he doesn't read from the liberal playbook either, he's a fair guy. If I may toot my own horn here too I don't read from the conservative playbook but on balance I'm a conservative. It seems to me the real team players don't really have a problem with any of the prominent conservatives out there, throw out a name and they'll be cool with it. Just wondering though and this is just among friends are there any conservatives out there whom you don't like?

Personally I find her a little too bony

Meghan McCain, daughter of the Senator, in her blog on Ann Coulter:

"I find her offensive, radical, insulting and confusing all at the same time."

I normally would say something when somebody in the news criticizes a prominent conservative especially coming from outspoken liberal offspring but Coulter is a rather strong brew. I don't like it 140 proof either, Jack Bauer as politician, her scorched-earth policy of verbally obliterating the opposition, C-Block. I want to say something Meghan but I can't, it is what it is, you're entitled.

Mythologizing Limbaugh

I was in the A&P just now and noticed the spanking new issue of Newsweek with Rush's face on the cover with some kind of duct tape over his mouth it seemed to me. The big bold headline: ENOUGH! A Conservative's Case Against Limbaugh by David "Axis of Evil" Frum. Now if you turn this around and let's say it said instead "A Conservative's Case Against the Z-Man" I'd be tickled pink, I'm on the MAP and I must have some real pull, they must fear me for a reason if I'm on the cover of a national newsweekly but I would also feel I'm somehow being mythologized, a victim of apotheosis or being turned into a god but I'm only a blogger and he's only a radio guy but I suppose you're not supposed to diss the nation's first African-American president, for God's sake show some respect! but imho Frum is a dick. It's the BOX again that bothers me, what we're allowed to say and think is getting smaller by the day and people like Frum seem perfectly content to masturbate to Conformity, to hump the Rules even as they make them up as they go along. People who make it their hobby to attack those who think outside the box, they seem dangerous to me. The BOX now says you have to like the man who Made History even if you disagree with his political philosophy but libs never liked Bush and Rush calling Rahm Emanuel a ballerina is pretty mild stuff if you want to get all Michael Moore about it. There's an old old saying, you scratch my balls I'll scratch yours and neocon Frum making his case against a conservative legend in a major liberal newsweekly, there's some kind of weird footplay going on here even if I can't put my finger on it.

Why we're fat

Blame it on conventional wisdom. Ever since we were growing up we had it drummed into our skulls that you need 3 SQUARE MEALS A DAY, there's even a small diner in Yonkers with the same name. Conservatives who think our prison system is too liberal complain among other things that prison is a place where you're assured your 3 SQUARE MEALS A DAY. Conventional wisdom has it that BREAKFAST is the most important meal of the day, it's fuel for your body and you won't feel right the rest of the day if you skip this critical morning ritual. So here's the deal, it's that third meal that's doing us in. The Z-Man regimen would say you only need one square meal a day at a minimum although this does require some discipline so for the vast majority I would propose either a light meal and then later on the main meal or if you feel this is still too ascetic for your tastes then simply two regular meals a day. BUT 3 meals a day?!? Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner? This is why we're so fat, you don't need three meals in a 24 hour period. Conventional wisdom, it'll get you in trouble every time.

& what if those cures never come?

I hadn't even planned on blogging about this today but Savage was so eloquent and insightful last night it inspired me. Yeah Savage is known for an extreme view every now and then (nobody ever seems to define this term "extreme") but I enjoy the show anyway and the biggie topic yesterday was Obama taking pen in hand (yet again) and signing an executive order lifting the ban on taxpayer funding of human embryonic stem-cell research. OK, so 'twas to be expected and so far Obama's report card has a big fat red L on top saying he's a liberal and so where to begin?

ALL the approaches from the scientific to the philosophical to the mathematical which I recently contributed in a blog point overwhelmingly in the direction that human life begins at conception. Faith talks about ensoulment but I don't think that's relevant here, after all if we hold a newborn may not get a soul until two weeks later we don't normally then sanction infanticide. You did not come from an embryo, you once were that embryo, so says this branch of philosophy concerned primarily with the nature of existence. Mathematically we have what Dr. Bernard Nathanson calls the vector of life at work, cells dividing at a rapid pace and forming organs etc., a velocity and direction at work, a force and magnitude and again the vector obviously begins at conception. It's a canard to say we don't know when life begins and will probably never know, that's not the issue anymore although many pretend it is but that's for psychology. The long and the short of it is as one pro-lifer put it after yesterday's signing "this president places very little value on the life of the unborn." You wonder though, yeah I know Obama's official political position is one of Pro-Choice but when he looks into the eyes of his daughters Sasha and Malia at night how can he not question his own stance or is he that hardboiled on the issue? Anti-socialism unites us conservatives far more than the social issues (ka-ching ka-ching) but for me the larger concern may be how extreme will Obama be on abortion? The media might pretend FOCA doesn't exist but I know an awful lot of folks who are concerned. As Savage said yesterday Obama is beginning to pay back one of his biggest constituencies, the abortion racket in this country. Some people might consider this out-of-the-box talk but I was never a fan of the box anyway.

I don't like being boxed in like this

Danny has a recurring theme over at Right Minds and that is his concern that the conservative movement not become irrational as the liberal movement has been in the past if I can give a capsule review here. He says the growing conservative charge that Obama is a socialist or has socialist leanings is evidence of the movement becoming unhinged. Libs did this with Bush and it became known as BDS or Bush Derangement Syndrome but here's another option: what if the libs were right about Bush and the conservatives are right about Obama? I was thinking about the late William F. Buckley Jr. the other day and one of his legacies was he almost single-handedly purged the John Birchites from the mainstream conservative movement. Now if you ask me if I agree with the Birchers I would say in large part NO but I still want to hear what they have to say just like I want to hear Rosie O'Donnell's theories on why steel can't melt. Throw it ALL into the mix and while Danny is a smart fella, imo he's a rising star but the reality of it is this whole country right now is the top of the blender having come off and the shake going all over the place. You hear this you hear that and pretty much you can't control it anymore, it is what it is and maybe that's a good thing after all. Savage said last night a very profound thing, when the day comes when you can't hear these things, when everyone says the same thing our country is gone, no longer a democracy. Gotta say something about those embryos in the next blog.....

The subject is ghosts

You can consider this a companion piece to my recent Why aren't there more miracles?, in short why aren't there more ghostly encounters? Having gone to a wake recently this thought's been rattling around the ole mental attic for a while but as it stands now the age-old question is there life after death is still quite up in the air. Now it's easy to make Casper jokes when this subject comes up but let's be a little serious here. The purpose of more visitations from our dearly departed would be twofold -- to ease the pain of the survivors and to add the weight of the evidence to that timeless question.

When I was a member in good standing at Hannityland I was mostly political but occasionally poked my nose around into other territory and I brought up the subject one day in the Religion Forum (please no dissing there, either respect any and all beliefs or consider yourself eternally banned). Monsieur Hben, the resident Protestant minister pounced on the topic and said consider any and all ghostly manifestations as the work of Satan but then two longtime and stalwart conservative Catholic posters chimed in too. Socrates and Apatriot agreed with Hben and pretty much said the same thing, that if your dearly departed Uncle Charlie walked through your living room one night to say hello that he's really a demonic imposter. Really?? I wasn't even aware the Church had such voluminous teachings on the matter, has Benedict given a recent statement? I'm aware of a few true-life ghost stories, some in the family and some I heard about involving friends and acquaintances. The tales are benign in nature and quite inspiring so Soc and Patriot's point would be what exactly, that some of these folks are actually in a rather bad place and the Devil is trying to hoodwink us?

I always liked that old TV series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir starring Edward Mulhare as the deceased sea captain and Hope Lange as the tenant of the house he's haunting. The ole Cap'n would appear constantly and converse with her and offer advice, take in and sympathize with her problems, he was a friendly spirit and took all the shock and dread out of death through his regular appearances, just a member of the family you could say. If only Real Life were this way instead of this eternal mystery, this perplexing and to many disturbing enigma that keeps us wondering and guessing right up 'til the bitter end, what's behind the curtain Monty? So anybody out there got any good ghost stories? I promise I won't tell Hben.

The wake scene

Another reason not to be good, you won't get an honest eulogy. Practically everybody gets good eulogies these days, the guy who cheats on his wife every chance he gets, your scumbag of a boss so where's the motivation to do the right thing? "Yeah, Bob was a selfish prick", imagine you're not part of the solution but part of the problem and you're sitting in back of the church and you hear that, might make you think twice. What's this "she lit up a room every time she entered it?" I mean it's nice to be nice after somebody's passing but let's cut the bullshit. I can only think of one person whom I came across in my life who this could possibly, possibly apply to. Had a neighbor once, crusty old woman who lived a hard life and had a bad husband and after he died she said "I don't know why everyone's sending me sympathy cards." I was never into cemeteries but Gate of Heaven in Valhalla is a good one, Babe Ruth and Sal Mineo are buried there.

Adult Hyperactivity Disorder or AHD

Worked in a deli way back and this guy would come in and I mean right after we opened and that was at 7 in the morning, thin and middle-agish, looked like he jogged and he saw me going to my department after I just clocked in and he'd stand right there in front of the counter at exactly two minutes after to order his cuts and I'm like "I have to wash the chicken juice off my hands first, give me a second" and he kind of got offended and stalked off all wired up, bouncing off the different food sections to pick up things and then came back a few later. I hate these early-risers, everyone else is still waking up and they're out there and the sun's not up yet and they're jogging against traffic. Same place, few years ago and I was told to close the deli at 4 since we were in the middle of a big blizzard. Already had over a foot of snow on the ground so I must have had a worried tense expression on my face and this young guy came over. Now I'm worried about how it'll be going home and I'm trying to cover the salads and he just stood there and said I just gave him a, get this, a nonverbal form of communication as in I don't want to help him. Yeah but why is he even out in a blizzard ordering cold cuts? I swear it's like the snow ionizes people. You'll get some frail elderly woman out in this stuff and she wants a 1/4 lb. of cole slaw, stay home and watch a court show. So that's it, I sass people with my eyes.

The incredibly obese

Here's the way I break it down. Now for the vast majority of us we won't go over a certain weight, most of us are probably overweight but within reasonable limits, a sensible paunch but it stops there and WHY you may ask? Has to do with one of the two strongest and most primal urges in human nature

EL SEXO,

the other being food of course. OK so now most of us enjoy both or at least hope to enjoy the fever of which Madonna sings about but the deal is we pretty much know that if it's too much going down the pike foodwise we ain't getting the other thing. Just trying to break things down here to their most elemental, most basic, most simplistic so the ones you occasionally see on Springer and in real life, those who are fat in an awesome way have pretty much made their decision in Life. They're going with the food and I can understand this. God gave you taste buds and as Gwyneth Paltrow said on one installment of Spain - On the Road Again "dieting is a horrible way to live" and I agree BUT...so at what crossroads point in your life's journey do you make the choice for food, that philosophical watershed of never going back to the other thing? Don't tell me it's metabolism because if you step out of the shower one night and you see you're 500 freakin' pounds you know you have to do something about it and do it now if you're ever gonna get that spoonful of lovin' going, the tub with the candles and the Barry White pumping in. It's all good though because it's all about choice, in this case FOOD VS. SEX, I just find it interesting is all.